Ron Nameth archives?

[Mark]

Something that occurred to me after watching the new documentary... what became of the many hours of footage Ron Nameth shot of the band at Poor Richards in 1966?

This interview with Nameth details the process of making the film that most of us probably know - essentially he spent an entire week shooting what sounds like hundreds of successive 3-minute reels of the EPI performing at Poor Richards, which he then edited and repeatedly superimposed to create something that impressionistically captures the whole event - it's quite deliberate that you don't see much of the band onstage as that's not what he was primarily aiming to capture in the finished film.

In theory then, he shot a whole load of footage which would potentially be a really interesting document of those gigs. It probably wouldn't be the most coherent thing to watch, considering he was shooting for 3 minutes then it would take 6 minutes to change over to the next reel, plus he evidently wasn't pointing at the stage the whole time, but considering the sheer amount of it there must be more worthwhile stuff there than is seen in the released film.

The film stock was silent but recordings were evidently made at these shows, hence the well-circulated versions of Heroin and Venus.

Then there's this post from Warlock in 2008, stating "I met Ronald Nameth a month ago and he told me he had "hours of tapes" of the Poor Richards stand in Chicago! He shot the EPI film there every night for a week. He said there were lot's of great recordings on them and told me I could hear them some day." If that's true, all things considered it seems strange that Todd Haynes was able to get hold of it... Warlock are you out there, and can you elaborate at all?

[simonm]

there's a super long (and quite boring!) interview with Nameth here where he talks at length about the film

http://www.bauhaus-imaginista.org/artic ... 5f61e43b9a

Haynes' reseachers must have approached him for material - he's still alive, maybe he didn't want to license it?

[Mark]

That would be the interview I linked to in my post, yes!

[peppergomez]

That was a pretty interesting interview. Hopefully all his unused footage will be made available one day. Especially for the unheard audio of the shows. It's a shame Lou was absent for those concerts, even though I don't mind John's vocals at all.

[simonm]

That would be the interview I linked to in my post, yes!

doh!

[Mark]

Me being a smartass aside... I think Haynes must have made some arrangement with Nameth for the doc as there is a (previously seen) bit of his footage and audio of Heroin. As I said elsewhere, Heroin does sound like a fresh copy to me, it's far clearer than previous versions that have circulated. Maybe he just didn't receive a tempting enough offer to dive into his archives in earnest?