BONUS EPISODE: "WE WERE THERE TO BE THERE"/THE CRAMPS AND THE MUTANTS AT NAPA STATE w/ Jason Willis & Mike Plante

Welcome to an emergency BONUS episode of Revolutions Per Movie! Last week, while I was talking to Jackie and Jill from Target Video, they mentioned the doc We Were There To Be There, which focuses on Target filming The Cramps & The Mutants playing a show at Napa State, a psychiatric hospital in Northern California. So today, here is my conversation with Jason Willis & Mike Plante, who directed We Were There To Be There!!!

We discuss how we each discovered Target Video VHS tapes and how it made us feel we weren't alone in our weirdness, the Flipside Video series, how goofy Black Flag was in their videos with Target, Repo Man, fanzines, Greg Turkington (Neil Hamburger) in the crowd of a Target Video shoot for the Meat Puppets, how the film changed its focus during the research phase, tracking down Target Video head Joe Rees in the wilderness, the legal and ethical concerns that arise while making a documentary, the surprising conservatism of San Francisco in this era, the doc’s explanation of how The Cramps ended up playing Napa State and the history of the hospital, how Reagan destroyed the inner works of Napa State, the NEA, the footage of The Mutants playing The School For The Deaf, Flipper, Desolation Center, the importance of LSD in the early days of the punk music scene, how the lines between the audience and the bands performing at Napa State were completely shattered, Bryan Gregory’s performance, the lost Mutants footage discovered after 40 years and where they found it, The Punk Media Research Collection Archive, Scopitones, Eerie publications, straight edge punk and so much more!

Watch WE WERE THERE TO BE THERE: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KwwRQVgW-0g

BLU-RAY with additional Mutants doc and Napa State performance: https://grasshopperfilm.myshopify.com/collections/new-releases/products/the-cramps-and-the-mutants-the-napa-state-tapes-blu-ray

REVOLUTIONS PER MOVIE: Host Chris Slusarenko (Eyelids, Guided By Voices, owner of Clinton Street Video rental store) is joined by actors, musicians, comedians, writers & directors who each week pick out their favorite music documentary, musical, music-themed fiction film or music videos to discuss. Fun, weird, and insightful, Revolutions Per Movie is your deep dive into our life-long obsessions where music and film collide.

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THEME by Eyelids 'My Caved In Mind' www.musicofeyelids.bandcamp.com

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