(le) poisson rouge

Garage band line-ups in varying degrees of post-punk musical destruction. Ericka Beckman's film matches the rawness, minimalism and radicalism of the music - a fitting document and visual statement of new forms created out of New York's anti-everything musical nihilism, circa 1979. 135 Grand Street, New York, 1979 is history. This is a film about bands made up of painters, filmmakers, actors - and occasionally musicians - thriving and thrashing in the pulsating, vibrant post-punk world of New York where high art met low culture. Ericka Beckman documented the cross-fertilizing art and music scene in New York in the mid-1970s. Her film captures the driving energy and posturing of early No Wave bands' performing in a sparse downtown loft. Featured bands include Theoretical Girls, UT, A Band, Rhys Chatham, Chinese Puzzle, The Static, Morales, Youth in Asia, Morales, Steven Piccolo and Jill Kroesen. The film has been shown throughout the world as part of Sonic Youth's Sensational Fix touring art exhibition as well as screening before Glenn Branca's shows in New York City (Sep 2009).