MAD Cinema Series Documents Rise of NYC's 1975-80 Punk Music Scene, Beg. Tonight

This spring, the Museum of Arts and Design presents its latest cinema series, Go Nightclubbing Archive, featuring selections from a historic video archive of the burgeoning New York punk scene from 1975 to 1980. In partnership with NYU's Fales Library, which recently acquired the archive, MAD will premiere ten individual screenings that draw from over 200 hours of remastered footage by Emily Armstrong and Pat Ivers.

As young filmmakers, Armstrong and Ivers documented performances by 82 bands in downtown New York, such as the Dead Boys, Iggy Pop, the Heartbreakers, John Cale, the Cramps, DNA, the Lounge Lizards, Bush Tetras, Sun Ra, the Go-Go's, Teenage Jesus and the Jerks, James Chance and the Contortions, and many others.

Running from tonight, April 18 through June 6, 2014, the program is the first in a series examining the role of local documentary cinema in New York. Go Nightclubbing Archive showcases how documentary practices not only capture and shape our understanding of history, but also are a formative voice within that historic moment.

Filmmakers Armstrong and Ivers met in the mid-1970s, when both were making experimental film and video art during the explosive and innovative movement that would become the punk rock music and art scene. Soon after meeting, they began filming live performances of bands at clubs like CBGB, Mudd Club, and Danceteria. At the time, Armstrong was the head of the Public Access Department at Manhattan Cable TV, and the two presented their work on a weekly television show, Nightclubbing, as well as at regular screenings at the Anthology Film Archives in the East Village. They also exhibited landmark video installations at the opening of PS1 in 1979, and the nightclub Danceteria, in 1980, where they pioneered the video DJ concept. In the pre-MTV era, Armstrong and Ivers's use of prototype video projectors and lightweight video cameras, which they used to capture an intimate close-up style, was a precursor to the music videos that were to come in the 1980s.

Armstrong and Ivers's video work has been exhibited internationally at venues such as the Art Institute of Chicago; Centre Pompidou, Paris; Institute of Contemporary Arts, London; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh; Long Beach Museum of Art; Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago; and the Experience Music Project Museum, Seattle.

ABOUT THE SERIES: Go Nightclubbing Archive is organized by Jake Yuzna, Director of Public Programs. Movie tickets are free of charge with Pay-What-You-Wish admission. All screenings will take place at the MAD Theater, located on the below-street level of the museum at 2 Columbus Circle at 59th Street.

For more information about the series, visit http://madmuseum.org/events/go-nightclubbing-archive-0.

SCHEDULE

Thursdays, April 24, May 1, May 8, May 29, June 5, 2014
Fridays, April 18 and 25, May 2 and May 23, June 6, 2014
6pm-9pm
Run time is 60 minutes. Programs will repeat on the hour.
Free with Pay-What-You-Wish Admission
Theater at MAD

Friday, April 18
New Wave

In 1980, punk music was shifting to New Wave style with its poppy, electronic, and arty sound. This is epitomized by bands featured in this program, including Ballistic Kisses, Bush Tetras, the Go-Go's, Human Sexual Response, Kid Creole and the Coconuts, the Offs, Our Daughter's Wedding, Plastics, Pylon, the Raybeats, Strange Party, and the Suburbs.

Thursday, April 24
Live Girls and Rockabilly Boys

Acclaimed female musicians in bands such as Bush Tetras, Destroy All Monsters, Erasers, Desire, the Go-Go's, Helen Wheels Band, Pylon, and Tish and Snooky are featured in the first half of this program. The second half highlights the rockabilly style of bands like Buzz and the Flyers, the Cramps, Joe "King" Carrasco, Levi and the Rockats, the Senders, and Stiletto Fads.

Friday, April 25
Interviews

Go Nightclubbing Archive filmmakers Emily Armstrong and Pat Ivers share highlights from twenty-five interviews shot between 2000 and 2003, looking back on the lives of some of the most important musicians, writers, club owners, and scene makers of the punk era, including James Chance, Richard Hell, Lenny Kaye, Lydia Lunch, Alan Vega.

Thursday, May 1
Greatest Hits

Go Nightclubbing Archive filmmakers Emily Armstrong and Pat Ivers present a collection of their favorite selections from the archive, including performances by Ballistic Kisses, Max Blagg, Buzz and the Flyers, John Cale, Joe "King" Carrasco, the Cramps, Richard Hell and the Voidoids, Levi and the Rockats, Outsets, Iggy Pop, and Strange Party. The performances were filmed on location at Mudd Club, CBGB, Hurrah, and Danceteria, among others.

Friday, May 2
Night of the Living Dead Boys

This program features a single legendary Dead Boys concert filmed at CBGB in 1977, when the band was at the height of their power-American punk rock at its most raw, honest, and urgent. The Dead Boys' live album, Night of the Living Dead Boys, was recorded at this show.

Thursday, May 8
CBGB

For all its fame and notoriety, CBGB was at its core a classic local bar. Filmed at the iconic venue, featured performances in this program include favorite "house bands" Colors, Cuban Heels, Desire, Erasers, Foolish Virgins, Richard Hell and the Voidoids, the Only Ones, the Revelons, Son, and the Student Teachers.

Friday, May 23
Modern Music I

Downtown New York's most cutting-edge artists are represented in this selection from the archive, from Velvet Underground veteran John Cale to "no wave" legends the Contortions. Highlights include rare footage of Teenage Jesus and the Jerks at the Paradise Garage in 1977, and a film noir-style performance by the Lounge Lizards at CBGB in 1977. Also included are performances by Bush Tetras, DNA, the Futants, Raybeats, and Suicide.

Friday, May 29
Modern Music II

Following the program More Modern Music I, the filmmakers present a selection of performances by "no wave" bands such as the downtown innovators DNA, the Lounge Lizards, Richard Strange, Suicide, and Z'EV, and avant-garde jazz by Sun Ra and James Blood Ulmer.

Thursday, June 5
Punk

Hardcore punk evolved in the '70s from pioneers like Iggy Pop and the Dead Boys. These seminal figures are featured in this program, along with Bad Brains, the Casualties, Destroy All Monsters, and rare footage of the Dead Kennedys' first New York appearance. Also presented is footage of performances by notorious punk bad boys the Heartbreakers, in shows spanning 1978 to 1980.

Friday, June 6
A Night At the Video Lounge

In 1980, the Go Nightclubbing Archive filmmakers Emily Armstrong and Pat Ivers created the Danceteria Video Lounge, an installation at the famed New York nightclub that incorporated an eclectic mix of found footage, video art, early music videos, vintage commercials, movie trailers, and musical performances. For this program, the filmmakers have selected clips of video art by downtown artists such as Keith Haring, John Sex, and Robin Schanzenbach, along with found footage that deconstructs accepted media iconography.

ABOUT THE MUSEUM OF ARTS AND DESIGN

The Museum of Arts and Design (MAD) champions contemporary makers across creative fields-presenting artists, designers, and artisans who apply the highest level of ingenuity and skill to their work. Since the Museum's founding in 1956 by philanthropist and visionary Aileen Osborn Webb, MAD has celebrated all facets of making and the creative processes by which materials are transformed, from traditional techniques to cutting-edge technologies. Today, the Museum's curatorial program builds upon a rich history of exhibitions that emphasize a cross-disciplinary approach to art and design, and reveals the workmanship behind the objects and environments that shape our everyday lives. MAD provides an international platform for practitioners who are influencing the direction of cultural production and driving 21st-century innovation, fostering a participatory setting for visitors to have direct encounters with skilled making and compelling works of art and design.