Raymond Pettibon Video Night #1

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Raymond Pettibon: Sir Drone (1989. 55 min, colour, sound) Writes Mike Kelley: Raymond Pettibon's intelligent drawings have long been favorites of mine. In 1988 he shot a number of feature-length tapes on home-video equipment. All of them concern American radical subjects: the Manson family, the Patty Hearst kidnapping by the S.L.A., the Weather Underground and the beginnings of the American punk movement. This last one is the theme of Sir Drone. In this tape, Mike Watt (of the Minutemen and fIREHOSE fame) and I play two teenage punks trying to start a band in the 1970s. We struggle with various ethical and aesthetic questions raised by this endeavor. The tape was shot in two days. All of the dialogue was read off cue cards. Despite their crudeness, Raymond's tapes are strangely moving: he is a brilliant script writer."