This week at the Bedford + Bowery Newsroom: bang your head on the punk rock! These two screenings pair some of our favorite documentarians with the outré — and outrageous — musicians they’ve filmed over the years. As always, the events are free — just let us know you’re coming via the Facebook event links below.
WEDNESDAY, OCT. 2, 7 P.M.
How to Act Bad + a q&a with Dima Dubson and Adam Green
Last time we saw Adam Green, the singer-songwriter who co-founded of The Moldy Peaches, he was installing a giant cat sarcophagus in an East Village window and plotting a papier-mâché remake of “Aladdin” starring Macauly Culkin. If that made you wonder what makes the man tick, then you’ll definitely want to catch Wednesday’s screening of “How to Act Bad,” a documentary that follows Green over the course of two years, offering a candid and often comical look into his paintings and sculptures, drug experimentations, filmmaking and romantic dysfunctions. After the screening Green himself, along with filmmaker Dima Dubson, will be on hand to teach you how to act bad.
FRIDAY, OCT. 4, 7 P.M.
Nightclubbing + a discussion with the filmmakers and musicians
Consider this a killer warm-up to next week’s CBGB Festival. Pat Ivers and Emily Armstrong spent the late ‘70s filming performances at places like CBs, Mudd Club and Danceteria, and amassing an archive that’s currently being digitized for the NYU Fales Library’s Downtown Collection. Readers of Bedford + Bowery have seen clips from Richard Hell and the Voidoids, the NYC debut of the Dead Kennedys, and even Iggy Pop covering Sinatra. On Friday, you’ll see rare gems from the Nightclubbing archive like you’ve never seen ’em before — on the big screen, with the sound turned up. After the screening, Ivers and Armstrong will chat with Richard Boch, an artist and writer currently working on a memoir about his nearly two years working the door at Mudd Club, and Pat Irwin, a founding member of The Raybeats and Eight Eyed Spy who later joined The B-52s and currently scores TV shows and movies for Showtime, HBO, and others.
All events at the Bedford + Bowery Newsroom, 155 Grand, off of Bedford Ave.
Described by the Soho Weekly News as “New York’s best party band,” Strange Party was a witty, stylish group serving up a fizzy cocktail of performance art with a dash of Latin-infused new wave. They were a huge outfit with six backup musicians and four vocalists upfront. And what vocalists! Led by downtown art star Joey Arias, the quartet was rounded out by Tony Frere, Paige Wood, and Janus Budde. They were eccentric and compelling — their guitarist George Elliot once described the band as “a little like heavy metal Ricky Ricardo.” Joey suggested they were just trying to turn art into fun.
It is hard to overstate the giddy hedonism of the early ’80s. Riding the tide of the ’70s sexual revolution, when feminism and gay power met the “if it feels good do it” ethos of the era, it was a great time to be young and on the prowl.
