Lumpen Hippie Light Show

Mon, 11/18/2024 - 7:27pm

When: 2024

"A short digital video by Tom Carey featuring shadow puppet skits of 1960's Ann Arbor rock music history interspersed and superimposed on psychedelic light show elements. Inspired by the rock concert light shows of Trans-Love Energies at local music venues in the late nineteen-sixties and the experimental cinema presented in the early days of the Ann Arbor Film Festival.  

Five weirdos in the style of '60s hot rod artists like Ed Roth and Stanley Mouse represent the MC5 in their love of custom automobile culture and move from Detroit’s Cass Corridor to a commune on Hill Street in Ann Arbor. I also present MC5 manager John Sinclair’s legal troubles with the front cover of one of his early poetry chapbooks and caricatures of law enforcement officers. The Egyptian imagery in the second half of the video commemorates Sun Ra Arkestra’s Ann Arbor performances, including at the Ann Arbor Blues and Jazz Festival promoted by Sinclair.  After Ra’s Ark passes the Hill St home of the MC5, it moves on to Carpenter Road where Iggy Pop grew up in a trailer home which here doubles as an Egyptian sarcophagus.   Iggy's dance moves with the Stooges were based on Egyptian hieroglyphics he studied in cultural anthropology classes at the University of Michigan. My main source for this info is the section on Ann Arbor in the book Please Kill Me: the Uncensored Oral History of Punk, available at the AADL.

The original soundtrack was composed and performed by local musician Dan Tower, channeling Ann Arbor guitar gods like Fred Sonic Smith, Ron Asheton, and Gary Quackenbush." - Filmmaker Tom Carey

Note:  Some scenes have a strobing effect that may effect photosensitive viewers.