New York Avant-Garde

In 1978, two revolutionary trends emerged in New York City, public access cable TV and punk rock. These two phenomena came together spectacularly in Glenn O'Brien's TV Party. Hipsters tuned in to follow the antics of the TV Party gang and such guests as Iggy Pop, David Bowie, P-Funk's George Clinton, The Clash's Mick Jones, Kid Creole, Klaus Nomi were featured; also...Read More

"Andy Warhol's Factory People" tells the story of the 60's Silver Factory that Andy founded in 1964 in an abandoned hat factory on East 47th Street in New York City. The Silver Factory lasted until 1968 when Andy gave up the lease and moved to the White Factory on Union Square. Shortly after moving in the Spring of '68, Andy was shot by Valerie Solanas, and this eve...Read More

"Ghosts of the Chelsea Hotel (and Other Rock & Roll Stories)" explores the rich history, cultural significance and otherworldly occurrences of the famous Hotel Chelsea in New York City. The hotel gets its due in this smart and creative film as a place where anything could happen, where creativity thrived and where people from all walks of life came together in a cha...Read More

In his short career, Jean-Michel Basquiat was a phenomenon. His dense, bebop-influenced neoexpressionist work emerged in the 1980s while minimalist art was the fad and as a successful black artist, he was constantly confronted by racism and misconceptions.  In this documentary portrait of the renowned artist, Basquiat's friend and filmmaker Tamra Davis shines the sp...Read More

Beautiful Darling chronicles the short but influential life of Candy Darling, who was a major part of Andy Warhol's entourage and was one of the inspirations for the Lou Reed song "Walk on the Wild Side." Born James Slattery in a Long Island suburb in 1944 before transforming into a gorgeous, blonde actress and well-known downtown New York figure. Candy's career too...Read More

A Night with Lou Reed is an intimate visual record of Reed's legendary 1983 sold-out engagement at The Bottom Line in New York City. Fronting the most musically articulate band he had ever assembled--Reed and Robert Quine on guitar, Fernando Saunders on bass and Fred Maher on drums--Reed performs a treasure trove of his best hits. The energy and interplay on stage i...Read More

WILD COMBINATION is director Matt Wolf’s visually absorbing portrait of the seminal avant-garde composer, singer-songwriter, cellist, and disco producer Arthur Russell. Before his untimely death from AIDS in 1992, Arthur prolifically created music that spanned both pop and the transcendent possibilities of abstract art. Now, over fifteen years since his passing, Art...Read More

Made when she was just 18 years old, Barbara Rubin's art-porn masterpiece Christmas On Earth (1963-65) shocked NYC's experimental film scene and inspired NYC's thriving underground. For the next four years her filmmaking and irrepressible energy helped shatter artistic and sexist boundaries. A mythical "Zelig" of the sixties, she introduced Andy Warhol to the Velvet...Read More

Seventies glam rock musician Jobriath was known as “The American Bowie,” “The True Fairy of Rock & Roll,” and “Hype of the Year.” The first openly gay rock star, Jobriath’s reign was brief, lasting less than two years and two albums. Done in by a over‐hyped publicity machine, shunned by the gay community, and dismissed by critics as all flash and no substance, Jobri...Read More

In the 1980s, Richard Hambleton was the Shadowman, a specter in the night who painted hundreds of startling silhouettes on the walls of lower Manhattan and, along with Keith Haring and Jean-Michel Basquiat, sparked the street art movement. After drug addiction and homelessness sent him spinning out of the art scene for 20 years, the Shadowman gets a second chance…bu...Read More

Nightclubbing is the first ever documentary about the renowned New York City nightclub Max's Kansas City (1965-1981) which had an indelible impact on the world of music, fashion, art, culture and the creation of the New York City Punk Rock scene.

A Night with Lou Reed is an intimate visual record of Reed's legendary 1983 sold-out engagement at The Bottom Line in New York City. Fronting the most musically articulate band he had ever assembled--Reed and Robert Quine on guitar, Fernando Saunders on bass and Fred Maher on drums--Reed performs a treasure trove of his best hits. The energy and interplay on stage i...Read More

Velvet Underground - Under Review is a 75 minute film reviewing the music and career of one of rock music's most influential collectives; a band which esteemed music journalist Lester Bangs claims 'started modern music'. It features rare musical performances never available before as well as obscure footage, rare interviews and private photographs of and with Lou Re...Read More

This DVD includes a rare performance from the always intriguing Lene Lovich, with Thomas Dolby on synthesizer, at Studio 54 in NYC on December 4, 1981. On this night, Lovich projected her strong soprano with brilliance and explored the limitations of her voice in a way other New Wave experimental singers of the time could only dream about. Of this show, Stephen Hold...Read More

Classic punk rock movie from 1980 starring Richard Hell, illustrating the end of the first wave of New York City punk rock better than other films. Nada (Carole Bouquet), a beautiful French journalist on assignment in New York, records the life and work of up and coming punk rock star, Billy (Richard Hell). Featuring members of the Voidoids and the Ramones. A time c...Read More

This episode plays with ideas of time and space, ("time is money" and "dead air") alternating between aggressive boredom and quick wit. The TV Party Orchestra (Walter Steding on violin, Lenny Ferrari on the New Yorker magazine, and Tim Wright on guitar) jams while host O'Brien performs the sublime feat of rolling a joint blindfolded while smoking a joint.

WARNING: This film contains graphic violence. Viewer discretion advised. From Night Flight creator Stuart S. Shapiro. Restored and remastered from a brand new transfer (from the original camera negative), Mondo New York is a cult classic celebration and perversely compelling tribute to the mutant artists and anti-stars of the Naked City circa 1980's Berlin cabaret i...Read More

The first 10% of this show sums up what we don't get on TV anymore. Technical difficulties. TV Party was live and improvised, and this meant casual disaster. This early episode gets off to an artistically agonizing start--the sound person is late, overdosing on drugs or both. Or it was the broken down equipment. Once the sound kicks in the show gets lively. Compton ...Read More

See Debbie Harry in this 1976 drama from "No Wave" filmmaker Amos Poe. This is the story of Rico in New York City, who imagines he lives in Paris during the time of "New Wave" filmmaking. He's a photographer who thinks he's an outsider, so he uses his camera like a gun, loading it with bullets of film. He seeks reality to fulfill his fantasy. but, he's also a romant...Read More

In 1965, as leader of the NY Band: The Velvet Underground, Lou Reed became Rock's first leather-clad social outcast. At the age of 20, Reed took violence, drugs, sadomasochism, and sang about them in a rock context creating music as painful as it was compelling. He set the stage for the punk revolution. Night Flight tells the story of Reed with music videos, live f...Read More

There were two TV Party Heavy Metal Shows: one taped at the Mudd Club, now lost, and this live studio sequel featuring a "Mock Penis Envy" backdrop by Jean-Michel Basquiat, and a guitar line up of Chris Stein, Lenny Ferrari, Patrick Geoffrois of the Contortions, plus Glenn, Basquiat, Snuky Tate and Walter Steding on guitar and vocals, and Bradley Field on electronic...Read More

A Portrait of Sam Wagstaff and Robert Mapplethorpe. Yale-educated and born with a silver spoon in his mouth, Sam Wagstaff transformed himself from innovative museum curator to Robert Mapplethorpe's lover and patron. During the heady years of the 1970s and 1980s, the New York City art scene was abuzz with a new spirit, and Mapplethorpe would be at the center of it. W...Read More

February 17, 1981. Reagan was the new President. Iran had just released its American hostages, and Israel and the PLO had rejected Egypt's peace plan. It was a grim moment and TV Party decided to do something about it. The TV Party Orchestra, featuring Chris Stein, Lenny Ferrari on flute, sorcerer Patrick Geoffrois slide guitar and Walter Steding, performed punk medieval music.

This documentary film traces the entire history of New York's punk movement; the VU years, the Warhol influence, the Dolls reign. Performance footage, rare archive, exclusive interviews and some of the most exciting music ever recorded, Features new interviews with Richard Hell, Suicide's Alan Vega, Blondie's Gary Valentine and many more.

Before Charlie Ahearn shot his seminal hip-hop film "Wild Style" in 1982, he was directly exposed to the bourgeoning hip-hop, break-dancing and graffiti movement, while shooting his super-8 martial arts epic "The Deadly Art of Survival" around the projects (next door to his apartment) in the Lower East Side in 1979. It stars Nathan Ingram, a true to life martial art...Read More

TV Party's final season was broadcast live in color on Channel J, a public access "commercial station." TV Party tried to pay the extra expense of going to color by selling ads to downtown clubs and underground record companies. "Everything here is for sale," Glenn announces. Desperation is in the air. Glenn is missing a tooth and needs a haircut. The party is spunk...Read More

Tonight we’re going to turn your living room into the after hours club of your dreams. Not only are you on the A list, you’ve got a ringside seat to the hottest talent The Big Apple has to offer. That’s right, tonight we “Take Off” to New York City Rock, featuring Lou Reed, The Ramones, Blondie, Grandmaster Flash, Yoko Ono, Run DMC and more. From the Velvet Under...Read More