something kind of cool going on monthly in Bisbee
Dear KBRP Supporter:
I hope this finds you well. It is not quite time for our monthly membership email yet, but you can expect that at the beginning of next week. It will feature all sorts of exciting information including the arrival fund drive premiums, a new studio for KBRP Youth Radio, and the dedication of our emergency alert system. However, we did want to alert you to the beginning of the 2012 Telescopic Audio Film Series curated by KBRP's Station Director Ryan J. Bruce. After a great 2011, we have decided to organize the series more in advance so that you can reserve the dates for any film that might sound interesting. These films are outside of the mainstream and often have no wide theatrical release so your opportunity to see them is a rare treat! it starts this weekend with The Black Power Mixtape, which is a rare look into the Black Power movement through the lens of Swedish television from the 60s and 70s. See below for more information...
TELESCOPIC AUDIO FILM SERIES PRESENTS THE BLACK POWER MIXTAPE AND 4 MORE FILMS
KBRP is proud to present an examination of various forms and personalities in music in our film series Telescopic Audio. On the second Saturday of each month, KBRP presents unique, rare, and unreleased films and documentaries about some of the most talented and inspiring musical artists. These films will be screened at Central School Project’s theater at 7 PM on the second Saturday of each month. Light refreshments and food will be served.
As a member you get in free. If someone would like to become a member, new memberships begin at $25.00. This will even out to less than 3 dollars per showing as well as the other KBRP member benefits.
Schedule as follows:
February's Showing: The Black Power Mixtape
During the rise of the Black Power Movement in the 60s and 70s, Swedish Television journalists documented the unfolding cultural revolution for their audience back home, having been granted unprecedented access to prominent leaders such as Angela Davis, Stokley Carmichael, and Black Panther Party founders Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale. Now, after more than 30 years in storage, this rarely seen footage spanning nearly a decade of Black Power is finally available. Director Goran Hugo Olsson presents this mixtape, highlighting the key figures and events in the movement, as seen in a light completely different fomr the narrative of the American media at the time. Talib Kweli, Erykah Badu, Abiodun Oyewole, John Forte, and Robin Kelley are among the many important voices providing commentary, adding modern perspective to this essential time capsule of African-American history.
In March: How To Eat Your Watermelon in White Company (and enjoy it): A Documentary about Melvin Van Peebles
Melvin Van Peebles created a new style of African-American filmmaking in 1971, when on a shoestring budget he made Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song, a violent action picture about a sex-show stud on the run from the police that below the surface served as a call for revolution in the black community. But Sweet Sweetback was hardly Van Peebles' first or only bold achievement in the arts. After brief careers piloting cable cars in San Francisco and flying fighter planes in the Korean War, Van Peebles moved to Paris, where he wrote five novels, became a regular contributor to an anarchist journal, and directed his first feature film, The Story of a Three-Day Pass. On the strength of its critical acclaim, Van Peebles returned to America and made his first (and only) major studio film, Watermelon Man, which helped him gather the money and connections it took to make Sweet Sweetback.
Alongside these cinematic triumphs, Van Peebles launched a recording career in the late '60s, making literate but streetwise albums that paved the way for rap and hip-hop, and staged a series of hit Broadway plays including Don't Play Us Cheap and Ain't Supposed to Die a Natural Death. In the 1980s, Van Peebles switched careers and became a successful Wall Street options trader, and watched his son Mario Van Peebles become a star. (Mario would also go on to make a film about his dad's adventures making Sweet Sweetback, entitled Baadasssss!) How to Eat Your Watermelon in White Company (and Enjoy It) is a documentary made with Van Peebles' participation that looks back at his multi-faceted career and the brilliant, uncompromising man behind it all. The film includes interviews with a number of Van Peebles' colleagues and admirers, including Spike Lee, Gil Scott-Heron, Gordon Parks, and Elvis Mitchell.
In April: Wheedle’s Groove – Seattle’s Forgotten Soul and Funk of the 1960s and 70s
During the late 1960s and early 1970s, and decades before Nirvana, Microsoft and Starbucks put Seattle on the map, Seattle’s African American neighborhood known as the Central District was buzzing. The soul sounds of groups like Black on White Affair, Cookin’ Bag, and Cold Bold & Together filled local airwaves and packed clubs seven nights a week.
Flash forward thirty years later, local crate digger DJ Mr. Supreme unearthed Seattle’s soulful past by finding a dusty 45 single by Black On White Affair in a .99 cent bin at a Seattle record show. By 2003, he had carved out an impression of a once thriving scene with a pile of Seattle soul 45s, some of which were featching upwards of $5,000 on the collector circuit.
DJ Mr. Supreme approached local label Light In The Attic with this idea of releasing an album compilation of his discoveries, and the result was entitled Wheedle’s Groove.
Narrated by Seattle’ own Sir Mix-A-Lot and featuring interviews with local soul musicians of the era, as well as commentary from Seattle native and legendary producer Quincy Jones, jazz pop satr Kenny G (himself a vetern of the 1970s regional scene), and fresh perspectives from members of Soundgarden, Death Cab For Cutie, and Mudhoney, Wheedle’s Groove proves that The Emerald City’s got soul!
In May: Let Your Feet Do The Talkin’ – A Father, His Family, and a Little Ole Country Dance
A documentary about buckdancing legend Thomas Maupin, who, at the age of 70, remains one of the greatest old time dancers in America. Framed between Thomas’ recovery from cancer and his acceptance of a nationally recognized award, this film presents a deeply personally look at a folk icon. Let Your Feeet Do The Talkin’ asks the question, what drives us to perform? It examines art’s ability to form and to strengthen relationship and to lift us above our circumstances. The DVD also contains the additional documentary “To Hear Your Banjo Play” shot in 1947 and narrated by Pete Seeger with Woody Guthrie and Sonny Terry.
In June: Unknown Passage – The Dead Moon Story
Undisputedly written into the annuals of rock history and dedicated to the most sincere methods of the DIY ethos, Northwest musicians Dead Moon (Andrew Loomis and husband and wife Fred and Toody Cole) have intentionally cut out the BS, and left the major labels and “commercial success” behind. Cutting their record masters at home, in a house they built from the ground up, Dead Moon run their own “frontier mini-mall”, record label, and instrument store. In their spare time they “keep one gig ahead of a day job” with relentless touring across the US and Europe, legendary sweat-soaked live performances – and the occasional 15 hour penny-slots casino pitstop.
Beginning in 1964 with the 14 year old Deep Soul Cole, Unknown Passage offers an intimate documentary portrait of the compelling history and personality behind these rebel rock icons.
In July: The Devil and Daniel Johnston
It’s a fine line between art and madness – few artists would know that better than cult singer/songwriter Daniel Johnston, whose odyssey through the valleys of darkness and peaks of achievement form the core of this documentary by Jeff Feuerzeig. It’s a moving and involving portrait of creativity. Utilizing a veritable mountain of audio and videotapes, along with newly filmed interviews, Feuerzeig reconstructs Johnston’s life to date, charting his astonishing rise and precipitous fall from grace. For obvious reasons, Johnston is unable to sit for an extended interview, but his presence is felt throughout the film in what emerges to be a raw, uncomfortably honest portrait of an artist consumed by his craft and held hostage by his muse. The DVD features a boatload of extras including three of Johnston’s short films, 3 of his audio diaries, and the legendary WFMU broadcast.
We hope to see you there!
Ryan
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Ryan J. Bruce, Station Director
KBRP Community Radio - 96.1 FM
43 Howell Ave. / P.O. Box 1501
Bisbee, AZ 85603