Rock My Religion (Dan Graham, 1982)

Rock My Religion is a thesis on the relation between religion and rock music in contemporary culture. Graham develops a history that begins with the Shakers, an early religious community who practiced self-denial and ecstatic trance dances. With the "reeling and rocking" of religious revivals as his point of departure, Graham then analyzes the emergence of rock music as religion with the teenage chumps in the isolated suburban atmosphere of the 1950s, locating rock n' roll's sexual and ideological framework in post-World War II America. The music and philosophies of Patti Smith, who made the turn of expression absolute that rock is religion, are his focus. This intricate collage of text, film footage and performance forms a compelling abstract essay on the ideological codes and historical contexts that inform the cultural phenomenon of rock n' roll music.

... Happy Christmas to all

ink.

Stable Will... unstable Caveh. Awkward. . awkward.

New World Pictures picked it up in the States. There's one graphic scene where a baby is thrown out a window, making it very difficult to advertise to the public, so the only place the film was advertised was on a porn page. They spent no money on promotion. It was a complete disaster. The movie got trashed and Warhol lost about $400,000. He never made another movie. Bad was confiscated in Germany, the first film to be confiscated in years: it was physically taken out of the theaters because of excessive violence. Mainly from the scene where the baby is thrown out of the window and a finger that was cut off by a Volkswagen. 

"It was banned in Germany and it was a ciminal case. So we said, Andy's not going to Germany for a couple of months till we figure out if it's OK. Later we cut out certain sections and it was shown but we had lost all momentum."  - Vincent Fremont

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Found this in a bathroom stall Friday night