Black Metal Movie at The Roxie

Our pal Aaron (from the band Iran) is the co-director of the grim, cold, Norwegian black metal documentary Until The Light Takes Us that recently showed at the Yerba Buena Center For The Arts. He just called to let us know that since those screenings did so well (completely sold out, all 5 of 'em!), it has been arranged for the film to play for a week at the Roxie Theater here in the Mission! That's starting this Friday, July 31st every day at 9:10pm through Thursday, August 6th, with Saturday and Sunday matinees as well at 4:40pm. The Roxie is at 3117 16th Street, near Valencia. More details here.

So, if you missed it at Yerba Buena, you've got another chance to see it. Or go see it again. We definitely recommend it, it's certainly interesting... and a bit funny... and quite disturbing. Those already well versed in the whole Lords Of Chaos saga of church burning and murder will be fascinated by the jailhouse interviews with Varg Vikernes from Burzum, in particular (who is to be played by Twilight's Jackson Rathbone in the upcoming fictionalized Hollywood adaptation of the LoC book!). Newbies might be a bit puzzled at certain points, but doubtless intrigued as well. And Fenriz of Darkthrone, who also gets a lot of screen time, is quite entertaining, regardless of how familiar you may be with his music. We also like how arty the film is, in fact, there's probably just as much ambient electronica on the soundtrack as actual black metal, and there's plenty of gorgeous grim Norwegian scenery to look at too.

Lee Perry doc, free tix!

We're curious to see this, a Lee Perry documentary playing the weekend after next at the Yerba Buena Center For The Arts down at 3rd and Mission:

THE UPSETTER: THE LIFE AND MUSIC OF LEE SCRATCH PERRY
by Ethan Higbee & Adam Bhala Lough
Fri, Apr 24 & Sat, Apr 25, 7:30 pm

Agitator. Innovator. Genius. Bear witness to the legend that is Lee “Scratch” Perry. From his early days as a mentor to the young Bob Marley, to his peak music making period of the mid to late 70s, known as the Black Ark Studio years (the studio he built out of a shack, and subsequently burned down during a drug-fuelled frenzy), this film is an intoxicating interview, reggae and dub filled extravaganza, venerating the life and times of a man once called “the Salvador Dali of reggae.” (2008, 90 min, digital video)

Here's the trailer, looks cool:



The nice folks at YBCA have asked us to give away 2 free pairs of tickets, one for each night. So, if you're interested in a chance to win 'em, please send email to store@aquariusrecords.org by Tuesday, April 21st, with either "upsetter tix friday" or "upsetter tix saturday" in the subject line. Be sure to include your full name so that if we randomly select you to win tickets, we'll be able to tell the YBCA who to put on the list! Good luck.

Anvil Easter

We mentioned this before when we did a ticket giveaway on our list, but just a reminder (especially if you don't get VH-1, who are sponsoring it). The documentary Anvil: The Story Of Anvil is playing this Sunday, April 12th at Slim's in San Francisco - followed by a performance from the band Anvil themselves! That's right, it's a package deal billed as "The Anvil Experience". A clever idea, 'cause an audience that has just watched the hilarious, sad, depressing, touching documentary will be the most adoring (or at least sympathetic) audience that the veteran '80s Canadian speed metal act could ever hope for.

The movie we've already seen - more than once - and we really, really recommend it. It was just reviewed in today's New York Times, and they liked it too. And actually some of us have seen Anvil before too, years ago, and they were great.

Seriously, when we first heard about there being an Anvil documentary, even those of us who were Anvil vans wondered if it would be all that interesting. Turned out to be one of the best films we'd seen in a long time, about dreaming dreams and (foolishly?) never, ever letting go. Even when you're in your 50's. It's about friendship and love and family (all kinds of family). Oh and metal. 

Imagine a cross between This Is Spinal Tap, The Wrestler, and Some Kind Of Monster.

It's really really funny. They're a real life Spinal Tap - with enough inadvertent references to said band/movie to confuse the heck out of some folks who weren't paying attention to metal in the '80s when Anvil was briefly popular, like the fact that Anvil's drummer is named Robb Reiner and that Anvil is shown visiting the actual Stonehenge whilst in England... plus it IS a movie about a heavy metal band, so there's bound to be similarities. Except, again, it's REAL, not a mockumentary.

Being real, it also can be - and is - really really depressing. But ultimately... well we won't spoil it. Go see it. God we hope people go see it, and them.

Anvil, with Anvil: The Story Of Anvil

Sunday April 12th @ Slim's

Doors at 6:30, movie at 7:30, followed by live performance

$18

Here's the movie preview from YouTube:

Toniiiiiight!

Circle documentary screening 2/9/09

Hey local folks, especially those of you into the Finnish freakiness! We're inviting you to attend a special, FREE pre-release screening of a NEW CIRCLE DVD!!

On Monday February 9th 2009, please join us at the Knockout on Mission Street for an exclusive West Coast pre-release party and screening of an arty new sort-of-documentary film entitled Saturnus Reality (60 min, Finnish dialogue, English subtitles), directed by Esko Lönnberg, featuring live performances (musical and otherwise) by our favorite Finnish prog-psych-spacerock band of weirdos, Circle! With popcorn, krautrock, and cheap beers!

Aquarius is co-sponsoring this screening with the No Quarter label (who will be releasing the film on dvd on March 10th), in conjunction with Klaus To The Edge on WestAddRadio 93.7FM SF and PROJEKTOR Party.

More info on the movie, from Circle's website:

Saturnus Reality (2007) is the Finnegan’s Wake of Finnish rock documentaries, and a fabulous cul-de-sac in a stream of consciousness. The film’s subject is Circle, the prolific Finnish experimentalists hailing from Pori, but it is a self-ironic vicious circle of a film that focuses on the curious world of the band and its musicians, shot on a home video camera. Jussi Lehtisalo, Mika Rättö, Janne Westerlund, Tomi Leppänen and Tuomas Laurila appear in the film as if they were acting out themselves.

The film is nominally centred on the recording sessions of Miljard, one of the latest albums by this extremely productive band, whose output includes 28 albums in 16 years. Starting out as a traditional rock documentary, the film soon runs loose on various sidetracks: to the depths of a forest, onto a frozen lake, into the darkness of night. The band’s primeval music becomes the soundtrack for magic rites performed in nature. The musicians meet the mysterious Oracle of the Reed Sea, a strange meteorite has landed in a snowy landscape, and so forth. What matters in Circle’s fantastic world is totality of vision, while details are treated somewhat generously. The new genre the band has coined, NWOFHM (The New Wave of Finnish Heavy Metal), may just as well mean fragile atonal piano improvisation or catatonic one-note walls of sound. Inspired by the ritualistic films of Stan Brakhage and Kenneth Anger, the film moves to the beat of double and triple exposures, the atmosphere balancing in the timeless opening between childish horseplay and reckless pathos. Enthusiastic live commentary can be heard beside the camera by the director/cinematographer, Pori’s multi-talented craftsman of the psychedelic, Esko Lönnberg. His earlier works include the splendid concert film with Doktor Kettu (also from Pori), shot through a distorting lens.

- Mika Taanila

The screening will start at 11pm and AQ's Allan, AC and Black Fjord will DJ kraut, prog and heavy psych before and after.

At The Knockout - 3223 Mission Street at Valencia. 10pm - 2am, screening starts at 11pm. FREE!

We're in the movies, sort of...

Here at AQ, we're often writing things about Harvey Milk. But, being AQ, it's always stuff about the band Harvey Milk, and not the man for whom the band was named.

So, we encourage everyone to go see the new the new movie, Milk, which opened in theaters today. Directed by Gus Van Sant and starring Sean Penn, Milk is about the life and times (and tragic assassination) of '70s San Francisco supervisor and gay rights leader, Harvey Milk, the nation's first openly gay elected official. We're looking forward to seeing it, and plan on doing so at the Castro Theatre, naturally, where it'll be playing all month.

And not only do we know a few fellas who were extras in the film (including one of Allan's housemates, and one of the guys from Sic Alps) but Aquarius itself gets some screen time! Well, not our actual store here on Valencia Street, but a Hollywood re-creation of our storefront exactly where it used to be back in the day on Castro Street, where we started off, right next door to Harvey Milk's camera shop. That's what's pictured above.

When the film was shooting, someone from the Milk production team actually called here to see if we had an old sign they could use... we didn't, so they made their own. It's supposed to be very '70s psychedelic, though it looks kinda rave-y to us. If you look closely at the posters in the window, they're all for made-up bands.

We asked old AQ owner Butch if the Milk version of Aquarius looked at all authentic. He said, nope. But it's still cool they tried!

The Milk folks did their best to give the whole Castro area a retro makeover for the filming. Our pal Matt Wobensmith blogged a bit about it here when it was happening. (That's where the picture above came from, thanks Matt).

And on the New York Times website today, there's a photo essay slide show thing about Milk that includes a shot of the "fake" old AQ.

So, on a related note: does anyone have any old photos of Aquarius on Castro St. they'd like to share? We'd be curious, we've never seen what either of AQ's early incarnations on Castro St. looked like (we were in two different locations there in the '70s before moving to Noe Valley in the '80s and then over to where we are now in the Mission in 1996).

Dead Channels is baaaaack

AQ is co-sponsoring this rad film fest:

2nd Annual
DEAD CHANNELS: THE SAN FRANCISCO FESTIVAL OF FANTASTIC FILM
October 2 - 10, 2008

Last year's fest featured tons of new and vintage sci-fi, fantasy, horror, action, exploitation and beyond including the U.S. premiere of UWE BOLL's Postal, TAKESHI MIIKE's Big Bang Love: Juvenile A, and a live soundtrack performed by Spoonbender 1.1.1 (featuring our own Cup!) to DAVID CRONENBERG's Crimes Of The Future.

This year, don't miss the U.S. theatrical premiere of Puffball (an adaptation of FAY WELDON's book of the same title) by NICHOLAS ROEG (The Man Who Fell To Earth, Performance, Don't Look Now, Walkabout, and more), Surveillance by JENNIFER CHAMBERS LYNCH (aka DAVID LYNCH's daughter), the amazing sexy, psychedelic thriller The 10th Victim from 1965 starring URSULA ANDRESS and MARCELLO MASTROIANNI, an early '70s super-computer flick Colossus: The Forbin Project, a rare early '70s ultra-violent western from Spain titled Cut-throats Nine (La Decima Vittima), and more!
Psst, share your popcorn with Andee at the 10pm showing of Tokyo Gore Police on Saturday!
Oh, and the opening night party will feature Toomorrow, a 1970 musical confectionery starring OLIVIA NEWTON JOHN (no, it's definitely no Xanadu or Grease, but it's pretty remarkable unto itself). Plus Cup and her IAS comrade Dustin will be DJing the closing festivities!
Don't miss!

The fest will be taking place at The Vortex Room (SF), The Roxie Film Center (SF), and Parkway Speakasy (Oakland).

For a complete schedule and more info...
http://www.deadchannels.com