From Quixotronic Past: Video Vanguards - Starring The Electric Mess

 

NOTE: This Q&A originally appeared on the defunct Quixotronic site in June 2020.

Since forming in 2007, New York City garage rockers The Electric Mess have stood out in the genre through a combination of effortless cool, clever, playful songwriting, wild-eyed openness to other pop, rock, and punk sounds, and a marvelous and mighty lineup. Another thing that has made the band distinct: deliciously fun, often star-studded, music videos that have helped boost the group’s fanbase and open new opportunities.

Bassist Derek Davidson, a film school graduate, movie photo archivist, and all-around film fanatic, is responsible for bringing the videos – including most recently a 17-minute video EP (“Beneath the Yellow Moon”) – to life. 

We talked to Derek recently about his movie background, favorite music videos, creative process, and much more:

I know a few things about your background, but can you explain how some of your creative and work experiences and your love of movies played into your being the band’s “video director?”

Well, one of the main things that helped lead me to take the role and gave me the edge was that I graduated from film school and had production experience. Once we started making music videos, I was more than happy to be able to put those skills to use again. In my college years, and then all through the 90s, I worked in a couple of excellent video stores, one for about 10 years. It was still all VHS then; DVD was just getting popular when we closed. Between the free rentals and watching movies basically all day in the store, I got to see all kinds of films. The owner was French and a cinephile and took pride in the store, so we had a great collection. I learned a lot working there, memorizing director names and filmographies, and genres. Being it was New York City, on the Upper West Side, we had many regular celebrity customers, like Joel Coen, Paul Schrader, Nora Ephron, Bob Balaban, Eli Wallach, Stiller and Meara... Alan Arkin, I could go on! It was a great place to work, as the video store was quite the popular and sociable place back in the day. I still have recurring dreams working there, and it’s been over twenty years, so it must have had some effect on me. I also met my wife working there.

After that I started working in a movie photo archive, called Photofest, which has also been a fun and inspiring place to work. We also have lots of music photos, TV, and general performing arts. We’ve contributed to thousands of film books over the years, like Easy Riders, Raging Bulls, comes to mind. Many, many more. Also documentaries, film calendars for revival houses, like Film Forum in NYC, TCM channel, some late night TV shows, Criterion Collection, Hollywood Reporter, things like that. I’ve only been there twenty years! It can be helpful to turn to the stills for reference sometimes. For “The Girl With the Exploding Dress” video, for example, which has girls sort of posing in colorful dresses and has a mod feel, I looked at photos from Antonioni’s Blow-Up to see how they posed the models and brought copies to the set as storyboards. For the “Mystery Girl” video I looked at film noir stills. Our video for “Better To Be Lucky Than Good” was even shot there.

These days I consider myself the band’s “technical director,” because unless I also wrote the song, it has generally been a collaborative effort with other members of the band, depending on whose song it is. This is especially true with “Beneath the Yellow Moon,” our 4 song video EP, where each songwriter had a strong vision for their particular song’s video going in. Very early on we worked with some outside people, like "You've Become a Witch" was made by David Horowitz of The Above, and "She Has a Funny Walk" and "He Looks Like a Psycho," where Jeff Lewonczyk had the concepts and designs, and I shot and edited them. But since then, I have also handled all the technical stuff, including shooting it and editing, lighting, knowing where to point the camera, now green screen wrangling, etc. So I’m physically directing it, but the songwriter has the final say and the answers to the big questions, and tells the actors what they want. It can be a lot of responsibility dealing with all of the technical issues, and editing a ton of work, especially four videos at once, but I still enjoy it. Also, the band saves a ton of money by not having to hire and pay outside people to produce our videos, or rely on others. And another reason I think we’ve been able to be so productive over the years.

From your viewpoint, what makes a music video worth watching? What are some of your favorite music videos or influences? 

I probably tend to favor videos with either a story or loose plot, rather than just purely visual. And humor always helps! I like the Beastie Boys videos a lot, Van Halen, Duran Duran, “Subdivisions” by Rush is a classic to me. I love The Rolling Stones “Waiting on a Friend.” I do prefer to incorporate some story elements into our videos, as it gives me a chance to shoot coverage and edit it like I’m making short narrative film, which is what interests me as a frustrated filmmaker, ha, and I feel more comfortable. Though with “City Sun,” which had more thematic elements than actual story, I feel I got to stretch out a bit more visually, with Esther’s encouragement. She had her own clear video references for it, like 80s Simple Minds and Bow Wow Wow videos, which helped.

Obviously, there are people whose first experience with the Electric Mess is through finding your video on YouTube or somewhere else online. What reaction have you gotten from fans and non-fans? How do you think the videos work to frame what the band is about? 

I don’t think it’s an understatement to say our videos put the band on the map, starting with “You’ve Become a Witch” in 2010, which set the template. From that video, a UK label called Rowed Out Records released a 7” of “Witch,” and Groovie Records out of Portugal released our 2nd record, “Falling Off the Face of the Earth” (2012). It’s not like we ever played there up to that point, though we did get to play Portugal after the record came out, but that video is what got their attention, far away from NYC. And our videos are definitely what got us on our current label, Soundflat Records. One day, end of 2013, I received a random email from Marco Traxel, who runs Soundlfat, just to say how much he enjoyed our videos, particularly “She Has a Funny Walk,” I believe. The timing was right as we were just about to start recording our 3rd record and he said he’d be interested in putting it out. And now it’s four records later with them, including the vinyl reissue of our debut record. Without YouTube and the videos we would never have been able to extend our reach like we have, especially with a European fan base. I think the videos do a good job of showing that we have a sense of humor and don’t take ourselves too seriously, and hopefully they have been showing some growth, from the quality of songs themselves, to more ambitious visuals. It’s definitely gratifying to see our videos pop up or get shared and liked by random people, people not our friends. Sometimes someone will tweet one of our videos and say they’re digging it or something. It’s a simple gesture, but of course good to see.

Many members of the New York City music scene (Suke from the Candy Snatchers and Born Loose, Andrea Sicco from Twin Guns, Eric Davidson, Jonny Couch, Lisa Lush, and others) have appeared in your videos, and it’s fun to spot them as you view the videos. Are you hoping to document the scene in some way by using them? Has it been difficult to bring them in to participate or to explain the concept of your video? 

Again, it started with “Witch” which had many of our friends in it. It’s definitely easier and more fun to cast amongst our pool of friends, many of whom are all naturals anyway. And yes, to me it has become a way to document the scene and our friends, some, as you said, over multiple videos. I think they will be something special to have one day to look back on when we’re all old and gray! Most of them are into it when we ask, and it helps we have a good track record. Most aren’t professional enough to be method actors or divas on the set, or ask too many questions, and just go with the flow. Often they just need to look cool, and that isn’t hard for most of them! We try to turn it into a fun experience. For example, with “Speed of Light,” which was all green screen, we had a small party at Esther and Dan’s one Saturday night and shot a few scenes for it. One part of the apartment was party central, while in the living room I set up the green screen and lights and took people one or two at a time to shoot their stuff, including the pool scene on the spaceship, and people were mostly cool enough with it to change from their party clothes into their bathing suits and cabana wear. It was a really fun way to work.

What was your most difficult video to shoot? Conversely, have you had any specific ideas you had to scrap because they proved too hard to pull off? 

The EP no question, both from a technical standpoint, lots of green screen stuff, which I was basically still learning as we went along, and also scheduling wise, as we decided to shoot five videos at the same time. It was a lot to bang out, but we mostly succeeded. There was a bit of a time issue as we had outdoor shooting to do along with the indoor green screen scenes, and it would have been really unpleasant to shoot outside in colder winter weather, so we did need to set some dates to get it done. We shot them all basically over two long weekends in Oct. and early Nov. The EP was originally going to be five videos, including a video for “Laserbrain,” but as we did bite off a little more than we could chew, we decided to cut it as it was not going to be up to snuff with the other four. It was for the best anyway, as the EP would have topped twenty minutes, I think too long for even our most dedicated fan.

What prompted you to release a series of videos before releasing your most recent album, The Electric Mess V? 

Early on in the songwriting process we considered just releasing a video EP, and a 10” EP to go along with it, but then the new songs started coming rather quickly, so we abandoned that idea and decided to just do another full record, and again Soundflat was interested in releasing it. But we still liked the video EP concept and had enough ideas for it to move ahead, and we also wanted it to be a bigger statement than just individual videos. Originally the plan was to have a big video release party ahead of the record release. We were actually scheduled to pick up the LPs in Germany while on tour in Europe a week later, but with the pandemic the tour of course was cancelled, and also our video party. So we just had a premiere on YouTube for it, which wasn’t nearly as much fun as a party would have been, but couldn’t be helped.

Finally, how does it feel to have completed 14 videos and a video EP? That’s impressive! Do you have a favorite one? 

Thanks, it’s very satisfying. Both as a member of a band with a body of work now, with songs and videos from five records, and also personally, with work I can be proud of. Of course I did have ambitions at one point to do feature films, and I’ve done some shorts, also with our friends, but the videos have been a nice way to still be creative and do production work, and learn new skills. One of my favorite videos, that’s not my own song, is “Better to Be Lucky Than Good,” since it gave me a chance to tell a whole story, no band shots in it, and just make it like a little film noir. Dan, whose song it is, pretty much gave me free rein, and it also had lots of friends in it, still maybe the most. There are some things I would do differently now, but I’m happy with the scope of it. Of my own songs, I’d say “Speed of Light” is my favorite now, since I feel I pulled off all the technical challenges with the green screen and was upbeat and fun. It serves the song well, has lots of humor, and really feels like we’re all on a spaceship. And the band looks cool rocking out! I’m proud of the whole EP, actually.

https://theelectricmess.bandcamp.com/

A Journey Into the Thunderous Fireball Jungle

NOTE: This article originally appeared in print in the April 2020 edition of Drive-In Asylum.

Fireball Jungle is like one of the once popular annual localized coupon books that offered an abundance of “entertainment” options that you never knew existed and wondered if you dare take – even for buy one, get one half-off margaritas. But the Jungle’s Throne Room has bar stools that are actual toilets, they have a singing poodle act, and the bartender looks like Cat Woman, so why the hell not try it out?

And I’m way underselling all the action at the ‘ol Throne Room, which is but one of many entertainment options to be found in 1968’s Fireball Jungle.

The movie immerses us in the action (“in thundering color”) around a couple of South Florida racetracks and the deadly relationship between a gangster, a junk man, and a group of young adults who live to race, love, and kill. “Cat Eye” Meares (Alan Mixon) is the wild-eyed bad boy who’s tearing up the local tracks, but his recklessness is suspected of causing accidents and even two deaths. Racing officials are worried that “senseless track accidents are increasing alarmingly,” so they bring in Cat Eye and make him say his full name (Ronald Elwood Meares) but administer no additional punishment.

We soon learn of Cat Eye’s connection with “Uncle Nero,” aka Nero Solitarius (John Russell), a local gangster who is betting on the races and wants to expand his criminal activities around the track. We also meet new driver Steve Miller, really Steve Cullen (Randy Kirby), the brother of slain racer Buzzy Cullen, one of Cat Eye’s victims. Steve’s going undercover because Buzzy hinted about speedway shenanigans to him before his fiery death. Cat Eye introduces himself to “the new guy who wants to be a smart guy” by slapping him around, putting his cigarette out on his neck, and nearly drowning him.

Steve recovers quickly – motivated equally by avenging his brother’s death and courting the dreamy Ann Tracey (Nancy Donohue) – and gets back on the track and the case to uncover corruption. Steve breaks briefly to heal and take in the groovy sounds of Mercy, who perform their real life hit “Love (Can Make You Happy)” under the moniker the LSD Lunch Bunch at a place called the Have a Joint Café. Cat Eye, meanwhile, is up to no good at a local junkyard run by Sammy (Lon Chaney Jr.), who has trained his dog to bring him beers.

Cat Eye is causing trouble for Uncle Nero, who gives him a taste of his own medicine by nearly drowning Cat Eye in his swimming pool and then drying off calmly with a towel from one of his honeys and thanking him for the workout. Cat Eye hatches a plan while stewing in the previously mentioned Throne Room as a lady with fake eyes painted on her real eyelids looks on. Hoping to get back to winning on the track and wanting to show Uncle Nero that he’s more than a rotten kid, as well as looking to soothe his Ann ache, Cat Eye tricks Steve into attempting to steal a car for Uncle Nero, but it’s really a set up.

Steve slips the heat, but a junkyard showdown ensues that lands him in the hospital and leaves Sammy dead despite just moments earlier pledging to turn his life around thanks to a passionate speech from Steve. Cat Eye finds himself on the run from the cops, and after a ridiculously lengthy fistfight with a local convenience store owner, a bloody Cat Eye returns to where it all started for the young lad – the racetrack – and I bet you can guess what the last word of the movie is.

Since its release, there has been confusion about who directed Fireball Jungle (Americana Productions). In the main titles, Joseph P. Mawra is credited as director and José Prieto is listed as an assistant director, but Prieto was soon after given credit by producers as director. There was speculation over the years that Prieto and Mawra were perhaps the same person. In a 2016 interview with the Rialto Report, Mawra, who seemed to have disappeared in the 1970s, explained that producers of the movie took his name off Fireball Jungle and added Prieto and also made unwanted changes to the movie by inserting stock footage and newsreel of stock car races. Mawra gives them “credit” also for the singing poodle. Most famous for the Olga movies set in New York City, Mawra also directed Shanty Tramp and Savages From Hell during the same period in Florida. He depicts the gritty action and violence in Fireball Jungle with fun and sleaze.

With a Carl Perkins meets Eddie Haskell take on Cat Eye, Mixon is a blast. He struts around, smirks, refers to himself in the third person, pours motor oil on a would-be wooer, and threatens violence by promising to “think of something fancy.” Mixon, who died in 1997, went on to appear in a handful of television roles and turned up as Paulina Porizkova’s father in Her Alibi. Kirby, who came to Fireball Jungle after having a recurring role on The Girl From U.N.C.L.E., is quite good as the clean-cut Steve, less so while being slapped around and more so during his tender scene with Chaney. Chaney handles pitiful well as Sammy, a man who looks to his dog to affirm facts during his conversations with people. The other big name, John “Lawman” Russell, seems to have fun in his role as Nero, who “gets rich by being smart” and says, “It’s still my time, punk, and don’t you forget it.”

A 1993 article in Ecco describes the work of make-up artist Doug Hobart on Fireball Jungle and the friendship that bloomed between Hobart and Chaney. It was Hobart who came up with the idea of painting a nude woman’s body and face with checkerboard paint during the Throne Room scene, and he also devised the simulation of the memorable scene where Chaney’s character is burned to death in his junkyard shack. Hobart also worked on The Gila Man, The Hooked Generation, The Weird World of LSD and other noted exploitation movies of lore.

Mercy went to No. 2 on the Billboard Top 40 in 1969 with “Love (Can Make You Happy).” Their appearance in Fireball Jungle had no effect on success for either them or the movie. In addition to “Love,” Mercy’s instrumental B-side “Fire Ball” is heard during a memorable beach party scene where the loser of a fight between two girls is tied to a motorcycle and dragged behind it. R&B singer Tiny Kennedy sings the title track and performs in the movie. Both Mercy and Tiny Kennedy would go on to appear in Fireball producer George Morgan’s 1978 movie The Amazing Mr. No Legs with Richard Jaeckel and John Agar.

Interestingly, in the Billboard Book of One-Hit Wonders, in the entry about Mercy’s big hit, Fireball Jungle is mentioned, but the book says incorrectly that the movie was never released, which was repeated in other publications. Its non-existence would likely come as a surprise to any still living attendees of the Judy Drive-In in Walton, Kentucky on July 4, 1971, where Fireball Jungle was part of a quadruple-feature “from dusk to wee hours” with I Walk The Line (with Gregory Peck and Tuesday Weld), Take a Girl Like You, and The Vampire Lovers.

From Quixotronic Past: ... All the Marbles

Over the summer, I'm hoping to move some of the stories I wrote at the now defunct Quixotronic. The blog, which featured the various talents of my movie club, The Brew City Psychotronic Society, went strong for a couple of years before kicking the bucket in 2022. Here's my one of my favorites, a look at Robert Aldrich's underseen ... All The Marbles. More old stories, and hopefully some new ones, to come!

Sadly, 1981’s … All the Marbles was the last movie director Robert Aldrich lived to make. The renegade filmmaker – the man behind movies as diverse and bold as Kiss Me Deadly, Whatever Happened to Baby Jane, The Dirty Dozen, and The Longest Yard – died at his home in 1983 at age 65.

The failure of the movie, which depicts the journey to redemption for two women’s wrestling tag team partners (The California Dolls - Vicki Frederick and Laurene Landon) and their cheap and grumpy but ultimately good-hearted manager (Peter Falk), “sealed Aldrich’s fate in Hollywood,” according to The Films and Career of Robert Aldrich by Edwin T. Arnold and Eugene L. Miller.

Aldrich worked on several projects in the final years of his life as he battled serious health issues, but … All the Marbles would mark the end of an incredibly productive but often turbulent career that began in 1941 as a production clerk for RKO.

“Aldrich agonized over its failures for months, reviewing it, rethinking it,” Arnold and Miller write. “It had been, to him, a heartfelt and ultimately positive film. If he tempered its warmth with a dose of irony and cynicism, it was still a testament to his sense of humanity, although one buffeted by the realties and cruelties of a hard world.”

This look at … All the Marbles marks the debut of The Society Pages, a section of the website dedicated to the movies, actors, directors, and others behind the flicks that the cheap and grumpy but ultimately good-hearted members of the cult movie group known as the Brew City Psychotronic Society have watched together; that number currently stands at 238.

Here are a few tidbits about … All the Marbles:

Why not start with something I have already mentioned: The Films and Career of Robert Aldrich, a 1986 book that offers fascinating insight into … All the Marbles and the rest of Aldrich’s often incredible output. The title of the chapter in which they discuss … All the Marbles plays on the name of one of his most famous movies, but it also gives you an idea of how Aldrich’s career was going at the time: “What Ever Happened to Robert Aldrich?” As he headed into the movie, “he knew he had lost much of the bargaining power which had enabled him to make so many of his best works.” With … All the Marbles, Aldrich initially aimed at a more commercially focused movie with straight comedic appeal. “It's purely, totally commercial,” he told a Boston Globe reporter who came to the set during filming. “It fits in with my philosophy, which is that the process is at best a craft, not art.” But Arnold and Miller describe how the movie became less comic as filming progressed. Location shooting in Akron and Youngstown, Ohio, provoked a sense of the devastation that the then current recession had inflicted on Middle America. This sense of downbeat realism is very much evident, but the movie is still quite funny, both in the interplay of Falk and Frederick and Landon as they drive from gig to gig, as well as the depiction of the politics of wrestling. “In its own sneaky way, … All the Marbles becomes a parody of the other come-from-behind, spiritually-invigorating films which feed our national mythos,” they write. “Once again, Aldrich undermines the very genre he seems to employ at least to a degree.”

Another book about Aldrich, Body and Soul: The Cinematic Vision of Robert Aldrich, by Tony Williams, compares … All the Marbles to “old Warner Bros. musicals about putting on a show and beating the depression, with Iris (Frederick) and Molly (Landon) as working showgirls and Harry Sears (Falk) as a cynical, streetwise Aldrich version of those early producers played by Warner Baxter in 42nd Street (1933) and James Cagney in Gold Diggers of 1933 (1933). For those of a more exploitation mindset, 1972’s great Unholy Rollers about the wild world of roller derby, starring the one-and-only Claudia Jennings, also might make a damn good double feature with … All the Marbles.

This interview from a Canadian sports website with Landon from 2006 is full of great information about … All the Marbles and her career. Landon explains how she and Frederick were chosen from an initial casting call that brought in 2,000 women. Before their roles were secured, they had to attend a wrestling school run by Mildred Burke, the legendary female wrestler, and undergo weeks of training. They continued to go to the gym to learn wrestling after the Screen Actors’ Guild went on strike during their training. Landon even broke her foot during the training, but she kept going. It all paid off obviously; they not only got the roles, but their work in the ring was consistently praised in reviews of the movie. In the interview, Landon also talks about some of the ups and downs she and Frederick had with Aldrich (e.g., naked mud wrestling), turning down a role on GLOW out of fear of being typecast, and body slamming Dudley Moore on the Tonight Show while promoting the movie.

The late New York Times writer Judy Klemesrud (who also apparently wrote the first Trump profile) asked Aldrich in 1981 why he picked such “slim and gorgeous” women for the roles of Iris and Molly, considering most female wrestlers were “squat, muscular and unattractive.” “I think the public likes to see attractive people. I know I like to see attractive people,” he said. “So if you’re going to have two women wrestlers, why not have them attractive?” The attractiveness of Frederick and Landon seemed to be too much for Gene Seiskel, who trashed the movie as “mindless fluff” during Sneak Previews. He believed it was wholly unbelievable that two women as beautiful as the California Dollls would have any trouble being wrestling stars immediately. Seiskel seemed to be offended that a movie about what the Christian Science Monitor called the “sordid milieu of female professional wrestling” was even made.

More on women’s wrestling and on the aforementioned Mildred Burke can be found in her autobiography by Jeff Lenn, The Queen of the Ring: Sex, Muscles, Diamonds and the Making of an American Legend.” Lenn discusses Burke’s experience working on … All the Marbles: “It was the most serious and expensive film treatment ever given to women’s wrestling and Burke worked on it for months. She trained the actresses in her gym – she worked with the Dolls alone for more than two months – putting them through their paces with her own wrestlers and teaching them the crooked-leg head scissor and other holds.” MGM paid her $3,000 a week for her work during the film, which brought renewed attention to Burke, then 65.

… All the Marbles can be found on Amazon.