When you make a groovy movie, what elements should it include? I had to think about this when we made the first Desert Soap film, and I continue to think about it now that we’ve begun the second. In terms of influence, I referred to five of the classic existential road movies from the 1969-1973 period:
Easy Rider
Zabriskie Point
Two-Lane Blacktop
Vanishing Point
Electra Glide In Blue
So, in terms of elements I found that most of those films include most of these:
hippies hitchhiking cool vehicles the desert drugs naked women police
I indeed tried to put as much Grooviness as I could into our first film. That is, as much Grooviness as possible for a band living in Chicago in 2011 with a small budget. I am, in fact, very happy with the way things turned out. The next one will be along the same far-out lines, just more expansive and technically advanced if things work out …
I reckon I haven’t really written anything about us in ages. OK then, we played our last gig at - well, for a variety of reasons, I will pass on discussing that. Earlier this month, our psychedelic band film We’ve Gotta Fly made its public premiere at Cole’s Bar in Logan Square. Unfortunately, the screening was marred by technical problems (the DVD player was basically broken). The host decided to end it about 3/4 of the way through, right at the part where our friend Nora was laying on her bed, reading a book about Laurel Canyon … oh well. I am looking forward to what will be happening next month. We go into the studio to record on the 13th, and we play a show at the Hungry Brain on the 23rd I am extra-excited about, because we’ve been wanting to play with the guitarist and drummer who’ll be accompanying us for quite a while. We’ll certainly have the film and video cameras there. Also, i’ve come up with a groovy idea. I really dig that 8-page Bread promo booklet from 1972 that I got off eBay this past spring. I think we should make our own groovy Desert Soap promo booklet and give it away to those who would be interested
Still from our movie. I filmed it on Super 8 whilst I was flying too
With all this freakin’ hot weather lately I can’t help but reblog many photos of naked women in and around the water. I feel a little guilty about that, so i’ve decided to personally make up for it some via a screenshot from our groovy psychedelic film We’ve Gotta Fly
scene from our film We’ve Gotta Fly
screenshot from our film
This is a still from our film featuring two of my beautiful friends. I call them “my rainbo flowers”
This is my other most favorite part of the film because this was only our second live performance of this song and we did it really well, and because the visuals are very happy and groovy
This song climaxed the sort of way-out, mildly confused part of our film
