Orphans Good, Drugs Bad

Some events have my name written all over them Let's see, 1) films 2) about music and 3) four blocks from home. Even the torrential rain wouldn't have made a good excuse not to go and of course I wasn't looking for an excuse.

So promptly at 7, I showed up at Gallery 5 and claimed the comfiest chair in the front row, a blue padded number with armrests. I've sat in G5's plastic folding chairs enough times to have the sense to grab something better when it's available. There were maybe ten other people there because, as it turned out, the starting time for the event had been wrong on the website and wrong in the paper. Bill Daniel, the guy putting on the show, came over to apologize for the mistake and told us the show wouldn't start until 8:30.

"Oh, so we have time to drink beforehand?" I asked. "Just be back by 8:30 sharp cause you don't want to miss the introduction," he said. I asked a friend if she wanted to join me, but she'd just bought a tallboy, so she wanted to stay and drink it. I told her I was walking over to 27 should she finish her PBR in a reasonable amount of time.

Bistro 27 was all kinds of busy when I arrived and people continued to come in, as if, according to Chef Carlos, "they're letting off the buses outside the door." I don't know if it was the rain or just a Thursday night, but the hordes kept streaming in the whole time I was there.

When Carlos first came over to greet me, the first thing he'd done was pull out his phone. "I need your number," he said. "A guy was in here the other night and he wanted me to call you and tell you to come over but I didn't have your number. What is it?" he asked, finger poised above the phone.

"What guy?" I wanted to know. "Who wanted me here?" It was a regular customer, somebody in the business, but I waited until he could tell me specifically whom before sharing my digits. "So!" he said in his characteristic way. "Next time we need you here, I have the number." Mission accomplished, I guess.

Unfortunately, I'd already eaten, so I just got wine, but we talked food. He's about to make some changes in the menu and thought I'd be interested. The blood sausage is coming off the menu because, "You and I are the only ones who eat it," he said. Well, that's a shame because I've enjoyed it both times I've had it there.

Instead he'll be doing rabbit sausage over a potato cake with Manchego, which sounds very promising. Also, he'll add deep-fried sweetbreads over a mushroom ragout and Rappahannock oyster gratine with a fennel and pineapple relish. He could tell by my reaction that I intend to try all three; as a regular there, I do like new options often.

Thankfully, the torrents of rain that had fallen while I was in 27 had stopped by the time I left to return to G5. Lots more people had shown up too. Bill Daniel, who refers to himself as a film tramp, had put together a program called "Sonic Orphans: An Evening of Lost and Found Music Films 1965-1987." The novelty was that these film odds and ends were truly discovered randomly, had never been edited and have never been put on youtube.

Part of the pleasure for me was watching actual film with the projector clacking away throughout. Many of the film reels had some sort of damage, some had missing sound, but it only added to the found quality of them. The show began with a 1966 clip of the Beatles by the Bay (San Francisco) discovered in a film lab by Daniel.

Although soundless, the clip began with thousands of hysterical and shrieking fans waiting to greet their arrival. It showed the Fab Four talking to reporters, looking young and handsome, and smoking cigarettes as they uneasily did their press duty.

So many in the audience giggled and laughed throughout this clip, making comments wondering why the kids were acting so crazy over a band and critiquing the tentative behavior of the band. I was a bit surprised at their cultural illiteracy; clearly they could not even conceive of how radical it must have been to experience a sound and phenomena so wholly new.

There was a clip of a band called Rocket Squad, very groovy in Nehru jackets and love beads and with go-go dancers in stylish overalls moving non-stop. Bill said he'd shown that clip for years with no idea who they were, when just last month an audience member in Pittsburgh had recognized the band. That is undoubtedly the beauty of these screenings: the shared collective knowledge and memory that can help put a name to some of these orphan films.

There was footage of Sonic Youth from 1986, shot by Bill himself. Texas punk/new wave band Boy Troubles looked like every New Wave band, but the lead singer oozed charisma. A clip of Butthole Surfers from 1987 was a crowd favorite. There was also a terrific clip of Johny Cash, all in black, doing "Big River" in 1957 and even smiling on occasion.

As an added bonus, local DJ Marty (of Ted Leo and the Pharmacists) provided the accompaniment for a clip of a 1973 band called Jazzloft. The members looked like every 1970s cliche: long hair, bad bangs, porno moustaches and Marlboro Reds. But the silent 11-minute clip was elevated by Marty's choice of music; even more impressive was that he'd never seen the clip before. His ability to create that perfect combination tonight (and tonight only) was the highlight of my night.

A close second, though, would have to be a couple of 1970s audio public service announcements he played throughout the evening. One was done by Steve Miller, telling kids not to do heroin and hard drugs; he even referred to the Space Cowboy as saying so. He also sounded like he was stoned out of his mind.

Another PSA was done by Porky Pig, of all characters, warning kids to stay away from smack and downers because many are just low-grade animal tranquilizers. "I hope that none of my friends think that being out of it is being in," Porky preached in those pre-Just Say No days. But at least he ended it on an upbeat note. "TH-th-that's all, folks!"

I thought they were hysterical, but Steve and Porky didn't get nearly the laughs that Beatle-mania did. Go figure.