In this edition of the Bulletin:
1. Simply Saucer / TV Freaks / Rocking Horses > Sat 4 June on the roof at NAC
2. The TCO Terrace: Music and Madness by Bart Gazzola
3. Get in Gear! June is membership month at NAC
4. Summer Media Camp
5. This week at the Film House
Simply Saucer / TV Freaks / The Rocking Horses
Thomas Craig Oliver Terrace at NAC
Saturday 4 June 2016
Doors at 8PM / Show at 9PM
$20 in advance // $22 at the door (+HST)
Tickets available at NAC or Mindbomb Records
Limited tickets!
Simply Saucer
“ Simply Saucer are a divine mix of early Pink Floyd (with Syd Barrett still mercifully intact) and The Velvet Underground (when Andy Warhol was at the helm and urging them towards the Exploding Plastic Inevitable). They are all this and more; a Suicide with a lust for life; Silver Apples that are running with electronic juice! Sheer, ecstatic, underground bliss.”
— Edwin Pouncey, New Musical Express (London)
TV Freaks
TV Freaks are a spastic garage punk band from Hamilton, ON. Check them out here: https://teeveefreakzz.bandcamp.com/
The Rocking Horses
The Rocking Horses add a bit of odd local flavour, an unpredictable player in this not quite summer Saturday night mix. Check them out here!
The TCO Terrace: Music + Madness
by Bart Gazzola
One of my favourite memories of the summer of 2015 was being on the Craig Oliver Terrace at NAC listening to – or being immersed in – an environment of audio / noise / performance and film / video projections. The musicians / performers created an audio experience that wafted over the rooftops and the architecture of the nearby buildings – like the church tower – seemed to be part of the environment and cinematic scenes illuminating the terrace.
Summer is nearly back: and this Saturday, Simply Saucer, TV Freaks and the lesser known (for now) but definitely unique Rocking Horses will be taking to the Terrace, with what’s alternately been described as “spastic punk” (TV Freaks – punk is not so much dead as angrier and more nihilistic, a failed steeltown rage) or calmer Syd Barrett infused tones (Saucer) that bring to mind how many people I know here and other parts of the Ontario Rust Belt listened to “Welcome to the Machine” by Floyd while staring out at the wastelands….This will be a CD release event for Simply Saucer, as they mark more than forty years of their unique music.
In talking about the The Rocking Horses, I’ll paraphrase one of the members: he plays the coconuts and doesn’t need a microphone. And I’ll even put out the warning that though many performance audio interventions can be painful to endure, any group that presents interpretations of commercial jingles intermixed and creatively combined is guaranteed to be entertaining. (I may actually appreciate the “Pizza Nova” ear worm radio ad, and my lord, my mother used to shop at “Fabricland”, so the Horses’ are another version of local histories through insistent familiar “songs”). The set will only be twenty minutes (this is apparently a singular rule of performance), but the singular nature of the instruments used (one of the group may be employing a “bucket of oats”) should ensure that you don’t want to miss it.
Past instruments have also included cereal boxes filled with beans, and the randomness of the tools is echoed in the randomness of past actions by The Rocking Horses: some of you may have experienced their impromptu liveliness / interventions / audio acts in Montebello Park.
An interesting phrase that came up was grooveyhooves: I like to use it as one word, like a compliment. It brings me back to the aforementioned performance where the back projection mixed flaming apocalyptic landscapes with a reproduction of Picasso’s Guernica, with its white horse looking gigantic…couldn’t tell you who was playing, but those images and that aural assault is etched in my head. The best thing about performance art interventionist noise music events is that they are indescribable but often unforgettable. Simply Saucer has been hailed internationally as being in the ouvre of Nico / Warhol era Velvet Underground, whereas TV Freaks are fellow denizens of the industrial wastes, hailing from Hamilton; The Rocking Horses add a bit of odd local flavour, an unpredictable player in this not quite summer Saturday night mix.
It all starts at 8 PM: tickets at NAC or Mindbomb records, $20 (+HST) ahead of time, and $22 (+HST) at the door.
Membership Month Assault Approaches Readiness
NAC’s elite administrative team is poised to pester the faithful and the uninitiated alike with a near incessant barrage of hounding in an effort to cajole every living soul our organization has ever encountered into signing up as a NAC member this June.
In our age of marauding capitalism, the pledge to stand as a fellow of Niagara’s storied Artist-run Centre can only be accomplished by a cracking of the personal purse and the evacuation of at least $40, plus HST.
Though today’s humidity may be owed in some part to the collective sighs this missive is prompting across Niagara, take heart! We have made a genuine effort to improve the ease of this exercise.
This membership drive will be fully equipped to accept major credit cards online. We’re now in the final stages of enabling this most convenient of payment methods. As well as a being a mindless means of transferring your hard-earned scratch, paying with credit also holds a seldom mentioned promise: Seeing as we teeter at the precipice of a global debt crash, there are real possibilities that before thirty days have transpired your obligations to NAC may be washed away in a unimaginable tidal flood of economic crisis. But, hey, you’ll be a NAC member in good-standing! Like the dinosaur dealmakers who still wander our world are fond of espousing, it’s a win-win!
Stay-tuned for more good news on that, in the meantime brace yourselves for Saturday night’s Rocking Horses / TV Freaks / Simply Saucer show on the Thomas Craig Oliver Terrace right here at NAC! There are about 15 tickets left.
SUMMER MEDIA CAMP
Niagara Artists Centre
We’re offering TWO opportunities sign on!
Mon 4 July – Fri 8 July OR
Mon 8 Aug – Fri 12 Aug
Classes run from 9AM-3PM
$300 for the week
Students ages 5-16
Learn the art of filmmaking through stop motion animation, music video and short film creations.
To register contact 905-736-2150 or email summermediacamp@gmail.com
ONLY FIFTEEN SPOTS AVAILABLE!
www.summermediacamp.com
THE FILM HOUSE
FirstOntario Performing Arts Centre
MILES AHEAD
Thursday 2 June 8PM > TONIGHT
USA 2015. Directed by Don Cheadle. 100 min. 18A
Come experience a wildly entertaining and moving exploration of one of 20th century music’s creative geniuses, Miles Davis, featuring a career-defining performance by Oscar nominee Don Cheadle in the title role.
SLEEPING GIANT
Friday 3 June 8PM
Canada 2015. Directed by Andrew Cividino. 89 min. 14A
This debut feature focuses on how three teens cope with boredom by testing the limits of their experience while spending the summer in cottage country on the shores of Lake Superior. The Globe and Mail calls it “a drama of honesty and sincerity, slimmed down to its most central, raw elements” while the Toronto Star calls it “the best Canadian film of the year.”
BABE
Saturday 4 June 1PM
Australia, USA. Directed by Chris Noonan. 91 min. G
Babe, a pig raised by sheepdogs, learns to herd sheep with a little help from Farmer Hoggett (James Cromwell). This heart-warming tale of overcoming the odds and succeeding will have you agreeing, “That’ll do, pig, that’ll do.”
RACING EXTINCTION
Saturday 4 June 7PM
USA, China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Mexico, UK, Japan 2015. Directed by Louie Psihoyos. 90 min. NR
From Academy Award-winning director, Louie Psihoyos and the team behind The Cove, this groundbreaking documentary examines biodiversity loss, its effect on humanity, and the solutions that inspire hope for a more sustainable future. Co-presented with Niagara VegFest. Niagara Veg Fest takes place on Sunday 5 June at Market Square in downtown St. Catharines.
THE BLOB
Saturday 4 June 9PM
USA 1958. Directed by Irvin S. Yeaworth Jr. 86 min. PG
Released as a double feature with I Married a Monster from Outer Space, the film stars a 27-year-old Steve McQueen in his debut leading role as a teenager as they fight against time and a threatening and growing corrosive alien amoeba that is about to envelop their town.
HAIL THE CONQUERING HERO
Sunday 5 June 1PM
USA 1944. Directed by Preston Sturges. 101 min. PG
Nominated for an Oscar for Best Screenplay and starring Eddie Bracken, this film has the normal hallmarks of Sturges’ best work: an extremely fast pace, overlapping dialogue, and rapid-fire punch lines. Monty Python’s Terry Jones called it “a wonderful piece of clockwork.”
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