artistpro

This year is the 50th anniversary of Dallas Pop aka Texas International Pop Festival.  I'd like to talk with attendees who might

consent to a video interview regarding their time there.  I shot 16mm film of the festival ...which Has Never Been Released.

Contact me directly...without delay.

sprokethead@comcast

Are you looking for rare photos of hippie vans?  I had a customized  '66 G-10 Chevy van back in the seventies....stand up...geodesic roof...livable.  I'd have to send the photo to you e-mail.  Hollar if you wanna see+ post. 

Does anyone remember an evening at Liberty Hall that showcased a jazz dance routine performed by about 6 local girls? This happened in summer, 1973.  I'd like to know more details about that show.   Also in Early December of '71, there was a film festival of local filmmakers works.  I teamed up with two filmmakers from KPRC; we set up three 16mm projectors in the balcony and showed among many other short/underground movies, footage I had shot two days earlier of The Who when they did the coliseum.  I left around midnight but  my friends kept showing movies til around 3.

Other shows I remember catching were Kinkey Friedman & Velvet Underground. 

I was there once, if I am thinking of the right place, but I can not say where it was. I went with 2 friends on a summer night in 1964 or 65. I have a better memory of going to La Maison when it was in a former grocery store, in 1965. I think these places were popular with kids from all over Houston. My cousin from the East End spent a lot time at both places as well as friends from SW Houston. There was a small, very short lived, 'teen club' on Bissonett in Bellaire near the Bellaire bowling alley. It was called Mad Daddy's Inferno. That name jumping out of my memory is too bizarre, a true flash from the past.

Mad Daddy's Inferno!...Thanks for the post...first time I've ever herd anyone mention MDI in almost fifty years.  I knew the owner's son and I think his name was Porvechio..plus, my band played there one night.  Seems I remember we set up in an elevated loft area near the back...we did 'You Really Got Me' et al. 

Deuce is Wild Shot at the Catacombs Club with cut-away shot at Love Street-1968

Anyone got a picture or postcard of our skyline when the giant Gulf sign was up? (Subdude?)

Here's a day's worth of the Houston Skyline compressed into 2.5 min. 1971

Drag Races Houston International Speedway 1961

Tommy Ivo vs Green Monster -1968

Wonder if any others here may have any photos or memories of this event? I hope long time citizens of Houston can remember.

I have film of that event..and will post it as soon as I figure out how. The 16mm film is being digitized and as soon as it's back, I'll edit it and upload. Any suggestions for a server?

thanks

Anyone got a picture or postcard of our skyline when the giant Gulf sign was up? (Subdude?)

I'm trying to figure out how to post video: I have a video of the skyline with the GULF sign spinning around. THe video is one full day...static shot... in timelapse...lasts about 2.5 min. (color)

Any suggestions?

Looking forward to it...thanks!

The digitized footage arrived today (late) and it's going to take a bit of work. I'm searching high and low for free drag race sounds to fill out what I have for the '62 portion. That year I shot the Burris Huett fuel dragster and I'd really like to track all of what I have before uploading. The 1968 Ivo-Jet car race has sound I recorded while filming; no problem there...but I'm a struggling video editor. Any suggestions or links for sound would be appreciated.

Gulf sign that used to be on the Gulf building. Amazingly, the company is still in business and doing stuff that you would recognize every day like the Metro bus shelters and the Dynegy sign.

Maybe they'll appreciate a film I'll be uploading soon; it's an entire day of the Houston skyline shot in time-lapse 1971. That Gulf Oil sign is just a spinnin! Look for it in late May 2011.

Deuce is Wild

Before, before, before!!! The original CATACOMBS over in what's now the Galleria area... WOW. Who all did I see there? Mothers of Invention.... Ultimate Spinach.... Country Joe & the Fish.... Grateful Dead??? Can you believe???? There was always good music there. Who ran it: Bob Cope is the name that comes to mind.

It was like a cave inside, with several dark rooms. What I'm remembering is about 1968??? & All the music I heard there, I swore I'd never forget the who & when of it. Forty years later? pffft.

Okay...do you remember the Deuce is Wild band? I shot film of them in concert at the Catacombs (and elsewhere). Been trying to contact the band members for ages. I still have the film....took 2nd place with it at one of the first Film Festivals (Rice University-1968).

Coming by the end of this month (May 2011) rare film shot at Houston Drag Raceway circa 1961 which includes Huett's Chrysler powered dragster...plus the 1968 race between the Green Monster and Tommy Ivo color w/sound.

MEMORIES !!! I was one of those 'caged' go-go girls at Lu's Rickshaw for quite awhile.

Evelyn...I think we knew each other. Do you remember Jerry Carr? I dated her.

Might you be up for a private chat?

Oh man... I remember Valian's, across the street from the Shamrock Hotel. Ate there many, many times. Definitely was the best pizza in the world.

Well, people...you all have superb taste in Pizza. Vallian's was undoubtedly the very best! I am bias...it was also the first Pizza Pie I ever tasted...I can remember asking my mom when she surprised me with Itallian food, what all that stuff was.. One bite into an anchovie on a Vallian's Pizza and I was hooked. One other fellow I remember well who could make great Pizza was Mr. Leonard Pearlman (Leonardo's) I had tasted his recipe from the only other location he had. It was in Pasadena and had a bright neon sign. I think it was all take out there in Pasadena...then he opened up on So. Post Oak...liked his Pizza so much I went to work for him. When I asked my boss about Vallian's pizza, he just growled "crap!" I laughed...Leonardo's pizza was really great...but I have never tasted anything to compare with a Vallian's deluxe w/anchovies in about 40 years now :-(

Vallian's was also the perfect dinner date...then head on downtown to the theaters. They made a dish called veal scallopine a la` pizza...also had cozy partitioned seating...candle light. Darla!! are you out there?? Where's my blue-jean baby queen, Darla from Nov.6, 1963?...oh...'scuse me..flashback....

I remember Vallian's having an un-adorned, exterior side right up to the sidewalk along Main St. starting just a few steps south of Holcomb...with their sign spelling out VALLIAN'S in large 4-5' lettering set at almost ground level...running across a large length of the facade.

Sure would like to see a photo of Vallian's

"]What was the scene at "The Hill"? Hippies hanging out smoking weed?

Practically all of my film was 16mm shot on either a Bolex Rex4, a Pathe`PR16AT. or (lastly) a Beaulieu R16PZ. There are several 'interesting' shots in the "Hill" reel. Cinema Bomar is handling screening at Domy Books....as I can make the finished reels available.

I read that one poster retold her story of sliding down the Herman Pk hill on a big cube of ice. Well, I didn't film that, but I definitely have a few 35mm stills of it. I'm searching for those shots for release later.

I could some help here in 'producing ' this stuff into digital form. If anyone knows what a xenon short-arc lamp or a telecine is, please make generous contact :-) I would also appreciate some help with transparency scanning. Maybe the people from Houston Arts & Media will respond to my inquiry.

Anderson Fair - The Peanut Gallery - Tortilla Flat

Pacifica also covered the block party held outside Anderson-Fair

Restaurant on Grant Street last October. That event drew several

hundred people who listened to rock bands and local liberal

politicians touting the candidacy of George McGovern. This was the

latest in a series of outdoor fiestas over the last several years:

they've featured tap beer, street dancing and flea market booths

hawking crafts, cakes and underground comics.

I have the film (16mm) from one of those block parties at Anderson Fair/Tortilla Flats.

I grew up listening to my dad's "Johnny Rivers" album...one of JR's songs is "Secret Agent Man".

I wonder what Johnny "Rivers" real name is?

Okay, I have been around a long time. On our 9th grade, Sr. Skip Day from Pershing, in 1956, a group of us hung out at Howard Johnson's there on Bellaire. During that era they had an all you could eat seafood fry every Friday night, good stuff.

Good grief...I was treated to Howard Johnson's on Bellaire long about that same time...it was a terrific outing to be taken there. I spent one strange year at Pershing in 1958 (7th grade) It was my fist exposure to lots of odd people.

Another great restaurant from the 50s & 60s was Vallian's ... Holcomb @ S. Main. Undeniably the best pizza on earth :-)

Did that one make the pages here?

It has gone hip-hop last time my wife and I tried to go there. About two years ago.

We were the only whities there.

I sat in one night in November 1969 with Bill Ande's band..did Johnny B. Goode

Cody's, Top of the Mark, The Pallace...that place sure has had a lot of names

Now this was drag racing!

I have 16mm color film that I shot at the Houston Drag Raceway (Dickinson) circa 1962...and later caught Tommy Ivo race the Green Monster there long about '68...I let Ch13 use the clip

Where was this? The only official drag races I attended were at Hitchcock on Sunday afternoons in the 1955 era. Otherwise, our favorite, cop-defying, highly crazy "drag strip" was right on Main Street from the light at Sunset to the light at University, right in front of Rice Institute. Zero to 60 in how many seconds?

holy smoke...I was at the Hitchcock (abandoned airstrip) drags in 1955..was 9 years old

There are a lot of stories about the beginning of the Catacombs, but all good things come to an end. The club was making a gazillion dollars and one day Bob Cope arrived and took it over. I went to the Army and the Catacombs was gone by the time I got out. Gone, not changed, gone, and that is the real truth.

Am I the only person alive who shot (and still has) film made in the Catacombs? It's a short clip of a band called Deuce is Wild which was part of a promo film I made (1968) Neither the band members or Bob Cope (who struck me as a pompous JERK) were cooperative in my efforts. The film eventually took second place at Rice U Film Fest the same year. Hollar at me if anyone knows any of the members of Duece is Wild...the frontman was Clark Clem..whereabouts unknown.