WHAT ABOUT ME: THE RISE oF THE NIHILIST SPASM BAND
Zev Asher, 2000, 75 min.

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 subversively funny, ear-splitting senior citizens that they are -- chaos-loving geezers with a need for noise!

Contact Zev Asher zev@sub-versivemedia.com

WITH:

HI, YOUVE REACHED DAVES APARTMENT, in which David, a 41 year-old schizophrenic, spends the day setting up his new answering machine. (Barbara Green, 15min.)

contact Barbara Green Greeniefilms@aol.com