FREE SCREENING: "What About Me: The Rise of the Nihilist Spasm Band".

[Neil Wiernik <neil@xxxxxxxxx>]

FREE SCREENING!!
Cinematheque Ontario,
Jackman Hall, Art Gallery of Ontario
April 25th 6:30 pm

Zev Asher's acclaimed documentary
"What About Me: The Rise of the Nihilist Spasm Band".

Official Selection:
Toronto International Film Festival
Vancouver International Film Festival
New York Underground Film Festival
Tromsų International Film Festival (Norway)
SF Docfest (San Francisco)
Local Heroes International Film Festival (Edmonton)
Victoria Independent Film & Video Festival
Moving Pictures: Canadian Films On Tour

"In noise music circles, The Nihilist Spasm Band are certified
international cult legends.  In fact, they pretty much gave birth to the
genre way back in the mid-sixties when they began meeting for regular
Monday night jam sessions. Years later, not much has changed: they're still
blowing and banging away on electric kazoos, homemade guitars and metal pots.

What About Me shines a spotlight on these Canadian iconoclasts, their
unique history and their never-ending devotion to loud sounds and freely
improvised lunacy. Asher's documentary traces the development of the group,
from its origins in 1965 as a response to ultra-conservative London,
Ontario, to the death of one of its founding members, artist Greg Curnoe,
to the band's recent tours of Japan, where they enjoy a rabid cult
following (including footage of a bizarre appearance on a Japanese variety
show).

The New York Times referred to the Nihilist Spasm bans as "a droll,
clattery ensemble (that) has maintained the sly humor and casual
provocation of 1960's art movements like Fluxus" and described their music
as sounding like "cracked hoe-downs, hyperactive barnyards, misfiring truck
engines or the magnified gnawing of beavers." In What About Me, the band
members are portrayed as the subversive, ear-splitting senior citizens that
they are, chaos-loving geezers with a need for noise!"

- NY Underground Film Festival

http://www.e.bell.ca/filmfest/cinematheque/nihilist_frames.htm