We were met with great luck at the Rapture and in the days following as well. The first big surprise was at Irv’s, seeing a tall, lanky fellow that could only be Jan Gregor, former frontman for Sweet Madness and Next Exit. As a big supporter of original music, Jan was the Godfather of the 80′s music scene in a Spokane. He had a lot to say about the formative years from the late 70′s to the early 80′s. We will be meeting with him again soon for an in-depth accounting of the early Spokane underground scene.
Another original we located by asking the right people was and is Spokane fashion icon Jack Kendall, who enthralled us with stories and photos from from his history as Style Council. Great to see Jack hanging out on his Peaceful Valley porch shirtless in shortalls – a look we weren’t exactly expecting, but which he pulled off well nonetheless. Perhaps it’s ironic then that Jack procuded an early photo of the Makers that they might wish had never seen the light of day. We’re talking sweat socks and gym shorts people. Worth the price of admission alone.
Great weekend. Huge compliments to the organizers of the Rapture, the bands who played Saturday, and everyone who turned out for the events.
From the “Let’s Make a Movie” perspective, it went really, really well from the first location production meeting Friday morning at the Satellite to the last location production meeting Sunday night at the mouth of Josie’s Grandma’s attic. Some of the stuff we planned to try out worked perfectly, some worked imperfectly, and some was a total bust. Stuff we didn’t plan happened and turned out great. Anyone who’s ever plunged into a creative project knows that feeling, I’m sure.
It’s going to be a bit slow for the next couple weeks as a few of us take some planned slack time. Then we’ll be back into it full swing. Off the top of my head, I don’t know how many hours of footage we have, but it’s an enormous amount and we’re going to still be collecting for quite a while. Logging what we’ve got is a huge task that we’ll be starting in on very soon. Without it, editing would be impossible, and getting this story told is going to be all about the editing.
So, the rapture/reunion/reunification/rejuvenilifacation is happening in just a few hours. This morning, the core group of filmmakers plus bonus creative consultants had a production meeting at the Satellite Diner, next door to Irv’s where the main event is going to go down. We figured out the answers to some questions and figured some questions have no answers. We read the newspaper story Jennifer LaRue wrote for the Spokesman Review, which I can’t link to because it’s not online. We ate breakfast. We were given nicknames.
I dunno, what do you see?
Then we went next door and met the owner and manager of Irv’s. We scoped out the place and made plans: “The confessional booth goes here, Erik Phillips pole dances over there…”
It’s for real folks. Not just the reunion, but this movie inspired by the heartwarming true story of a group of misunderstood misfits, struggling to beat the odds. We could be talking about Spokane Punk in the 80′s, or we could be talking about The Bad News Bears. The main difference is the lack of Walter Matthau in our story.
Enough talk. Time to head downtown and get stuff set up.
Michael Jackson may be gone to the Beulah land but we are pleased to report that the Haraldson brothers, Francois and Roberto, are still among the breathing and living in Los Angeles (if you can call that breathing). On a Hollywood rooftop with the namesake sign looming overhead, we captured their charismatic recounting of the early days of the Spokane punk scene and what’s happened since. Francois even favored us with a Clash number on his beat up accordion. It doesn’t look like either will make the reunion so we are thrilled to get something for the documentary from these influential scenesters.
Down in Long Beach, another OG, Erich Thaler, shared some poignant reflections on the halcyon days of drunkenness and anarchy in Spokane, but also the innocence and lack of pretense that made our scene unique. In true DIY spirit, Erich ditched work to join in as camera operator and script supervisor (in addition to couch concierge).
We were also fortunate enough to receive a visit from Club RUReD entrepreneur Eugene Baylon Jaceldo who now teaches music north of LA. Eugene waxed profound about the influence the Spokane scene had on his later endeavors.
Geez, who knew the old crew could be so soulful? Perhaps it’s appropriate then that Erich capped off the visit with a bluesy acoustic rendering of “Blitzkrieg Bop” from the aforementioned couch.
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