SID LAVERENTS

From the Sid Laverents issue of Roctober:

"I am not alone in calling Multiple SIDosis one of the greatest amateur/underground films ever made. Since its release in 1970 (originally screened for the San Diego Amateur Moviemakers Club, but eventually distributed to amateur film societies internationally) the nine minute “technical comedy” has won a wallfull of awards and honors, climaxing in 2000 when the Library of Congress selected it as the only amateur film to be entered into the National Film Registry.

Opening with an regular-looking older couple relaxing at home on Christmas, the action is initiated when wife Adelaide gives husband Sid (film director Sid Laverents, playing himself) a two-track reel-to-reel tape recorder as a gift. Sid is soon experimenting with overdubbing and begins to layer tracks on a quirky song (an old tune named “Nola”) he is recording. Sid’s version features a hypnotizing metronome, an amazing whistling performance and some freaky falsetto backup harmonies reminiscent of both Brian Wilson’s best experiments and Lou Christie’s Tammys recordings...Sid brings to life a singular vision that would be unachievable if multiple musicians were playing together. More importantly, Sid also brings that vision to life visually. In a technical feat that has astounded filmmakers for years, the inventive Laverents figured out a way to use multiple exposures so that when he is performing two, three or eleven parts of the song at once, two, three or eleven Sids are seen performing. This was all done in-camera using techniques he created (involving special black mats and a lot of patience)...Suffice to say that it is one of the most joyful, hilarious, inspiring, humorous things you will ever see. Multiple SIDosis is a profoundly important individual achievement about individual achievement."

Roctober put out an entire issue on Sid Laverents- including biography, filmography, discography and a bonus CD of Sid's one-man-band music. Issues are most likely still available. These Mp3s are from the Roctober Multiple SIDosis CD.

Sid Laverents - Nola Mp3 Sid Laverents - Nobody Loves a Fat Man Mp3 Read More about Sid here : 1 - 2

If You Really Wanna Love Somebody!

HAPPY MOTHERS' DAY TO THE WORLD!

oh..it's not Mothers' Day yet? Well, plan ahead and make sure to give your mother this stunning Mothers' Day song "If You Really Wanna Love Somebody" sung by a musically gifted family who have honed the fine art of singing out of tune over smooth jams.

If You Really Wanna Love Somebody Mp3

CONSPIRACY!

I found this woman in Grant Park in downtown Chicago ten years ago. She was a brief fixture in the crazy ranting lunatic scene. I unfortunately don't have the master to this tape and had to dig this up from a shitty edit.

Conspiracy Lady with Fractured Neck Mp3

and while we are on the subject of lunatic conspiracy theories, we cannot leave out the esteemed Francis E. Dec, Esquire, of 29 Maple Ave, Hempstead, New York.

Little Murders

Perhaps one of my favorite movies, Little Murders is an underrated black comedy directed by Alan Arkin based on a play by Jules Fieffer. Starring Elliot Gould as a nihilist photographer and Marcia Rodd as his newfound love, Little Murders portrays a dystopic world which you have never seen before. The streets are crammed full of snipers on every rooftop, windows are barricaded with iron and brownouts frequently occur. The most unique aspect of the film is its refusal to wink at and nudge the viewer, there is no irony.

"Little Murders was conceived as an essay on what I perceived to be going on in America in the mid-1960s…'inspired,' if you will, by the assassination of JFK and the shooting of Oswald a week later. The post-assassination climate of urban violence made me realize this country was in the process of having an unstated and unacknowledged nervous breakdown. All forms of authority which had been previously honored and respected, on every level of society, were slowly losing their validity." —Jules Feiffer

The film is essentially composed of a series of brillliantly crazed monologues. Here is Donald Sutherland as the Minister.

Little Murders Mp3

Read more about Little Murders

Little Murders has recently been rereleased on DVD

I Am A Circus!

"I am a circus, a whole big circus! AND SO ARE YOU!" An unhinged children's 78 featuring Bouncer the clown..."What I do, you do too!" I Am A Circus Side 1 I Am A Circus Side 2