Hear ye, hear ye, Dublab brings back some “Good Times” from Silent Movie Theater. Almost two years ago, Dublab screened videos from its VisionVersion series on a warm summer night—the series in which they take awesome bands to sweet spots around town and tape them singing their song. That night capped with Hecuba performing live to capture its “Good Times.” We were there, too, and it makes us nostalgic sort of like that LCD Soundsystem song but with different words—”I was there when people threw streamers at Hecuba and Iz still had hair…”—in our own version of history as its being written.

The Hecuba VisionVersion was directed by Trevin Matcek and Saul Levitz. Trevin also directed the Excepter and Baby Dee VisionVersions, and Saul directed VisionVersions for Peter Walker and Health. All of which we remember fondly as strangeness captured by unique strangers.

The song “Good Times” made its way onto Hecuba’s Paradise last year. “Good Times” falls into a deep mantra in which “vibes” and “times” become interchangeable over a steamy repetitive beat. The song’s about music, a force which comforts and releases us when we crawl into its dark void and bounce our bodies around inside. What else is cool about this jam? It picks up the “Good Times” torch ignited by Chic in the ’70s to describe the need and effect of letting loose to the groove—but in Hecuba’s deadpan delivery of joyful revelry.

The idea is basic and essential. Why do I go to the club? What do the club do for me? I am having a good time now. I need to have a good time. What does time mean to you people?! And just like Plato wondered—what is good?—we can ponder philosophy in da club. Maybe moving our hips gets the brain juices flowin’.

Here’s Chic:

It just so happens Hecuba recently emerged from a three month seclusion in Malibu, writing and recording new songs for their second album to be. They’ve got new hairdos, but we’ll probably wear the same clothes we wore two years ago next time we see them.

—Daiana Feuer

—Nolan Knight

The Cinefamily brings you Satan! On Sunday, August 23, participate in a Sabbath Assembly ritual and learn all there is to know about the Process Church through a multimedia presentation by an expert, while The Sabbath Assembly band sings hymns…

From the Silent Movie Theater:

Was The Process Church truly “one of the most dangerous Satanic cults in America”? Or were they an intensely creative apocalyptic shadow side to the flower-powered ’60s and New Age ’70s. Scores of black-cloaked devotees swept the streets of New York, San Francisco, London, Paris, and other cities selling magazines with titles like “Sex”, “Fear”, “Love” and “Death”, and a theology proposing the reconciliation of Christ and Satan through love. Marianne Faithfull, George Clinton and Mick Jagger participated in Process publications, and Funkadelic reproduced Process material in two of their albums. The inside story of this controversial group has at last emerged with Feral House’s LOVE SEX FEAR DEATH by Timothy Wyllie and other former members. Tonight, Feral House and Process Books present a re-creation of an actual Process Church “Sabbath Assembly” ritual. Author Wyllie (Father Micah) will follow to discuss the cult and his time within it in a multimedia presentation. The Sabbath Assembly band, comprised of Jex Thoth (Profound Lore Records), Imaad Wasif (Tee Pee Records), and David Christian (of No-Neck Blues Band) will perform Process hymns and songs throughout.

Tickets – $15
Service begins at 6pm
Co-presented by Feral House and Process Media

“Let Us Sit Upon the Ground and Tell Sad Stories of the Death of Kings”: I hadn’t been back in L.A. more than a couple of days when the King of Pop exceeded all expectations of his upcoming tour by dying in advance of it. The Vine Street star of the Other Michael Jackson, legendary local DJ (now on KGIL), was the scene of a tastefully-done spillover memorial I viewed mid-afternoon Thursday, a few hours after the K of P keeled over. Leaflets reading “STOOPID! His star is in front of Graumann’s! Do you think the real Michael Jackson would have such a shitty location?” added just the right soupcon of ratwit Boulevard irony. A onetime rock hater, the (still-living) OMJ graciously gave the gaffe his blessing, adding “[I]f it would bring him back, he can have it. He was a real star. Sinatra, Presley, The Beatles and Michael Jackson.” The LAPD chopper buzzing overhead mooted any other directions and the propwash echoing off buildings gave a nice tension as I walked hillbilly-slow down the Avenue of the Stars toward Highland. It was like Day of the Locust as performed by C.W. McCall- a sullen mob scene presided over by more cops than Dog Day Afternoon. Swamped amid this flashmob of mourners was detritus from some upcoming TV-op for Bruno, a new comedy which may well go down in history as Sacha Baron Cohen’s karmic blowback. A disheveled, starveling street preacher climbed up on some rigging near me and set to bellowing about death, damnation and Jesus. It was a poorly-done crackhead busker’s version of a tune I know very well indeed, so, at his peroration, I loudly offered “O death, where is thy sting?” The fellow blinked in surprise, peering owlishly down at me as a distant voice intoned, “Grave, where is thy victory?” There was laughter and the brother went back into his spiel, plainly a broken man.

EDC = TKO: A miss-the-memo blunder of the kind fatigue inevitably brings got me no closer to the Saturday night closing of Electric Daisy Carnival than nearly the entire circumference of the Coliseum. Shunted in a left-landed circle around the place in search of a presslist event staff swore was at just the next gate got me a jogger’s-eye view of another overpoliced pop-clusterfuck. The atmosphere was much more alluring, as acres of friendly girls in boy-shorts and angel wings crammed every egress, even the mid-evening shuttle management graciously offered to take me to Staples Center (some miles away) to get accredited. A sightly mother-daughter kitty-kat team made the ride diverting and I was beginning to feel the event when I learned the presslist had already departed. Bloodied by fortune, I bowed to the ladies and padded downtown in my velvet clothes (past the spot on Sixth Street where, about twenty-four hours before, I nearly had to pepper-spray some strapping asshole trying to muscle a woman in a minidress) and caught the 18 Metro to the Warehouse District. Walking into the monthly Plump party on S. Santa Fe was like attaining the very bower of Underground Paradise. DJs Patrico, Jacques the Ripper, Todd Spero and FatFinger vied for beaty honors as a delightful lady of mystic bent drew the big-city pizen from me, one nuzzle at a time. Sweet home L.A., at last.

“Will The Real Jerry Lewis Please Sit Down?”: By three the next afternoon, I was slumped exhausted in the back row of the Silent Movie Theater, as the last night of L.A.’s first-ever Jerry Lewis retrospective flickered to giddy life. The three hours of clips shown before the main feature were like a curated tour through a vast and quirky comic universe roughly the scope of those of James Joyce or Flann O’Brien, and (in America at least), about as little understood. The last living heir to the great line of Buster Keaton and Stan Laurel, Lewis remains problematic to American critics and I think I know why. Those clips showed he has the founding shuck of American masculinity down cold, with his smooth ciggie-chuffing characters pointing up the fraud even as his geeky dolts tear it down one squeal and triple-take at a time. This is caricature the Roger Eberts and Rex Reeds of filmchat might find more than a little discomfiting. Even Cracking Up (Jerry’s 1983 directorial swansong, which had trouble getting released in the U.S.) shows lightning flashes of surreal brilliance, as Lewis does his own Brechtian variation on theAirplane! movies. The result is a W.C. Fields-peculiar opus at once too vulgar and too highbrow-brilliant for anyone outside his (gigantic) fanbase to get. The crowd was overwhelmingly young film buffs roaring in unironic glee at the temporary shrine of a neglected master. A few questions from the audience about Lewis’ unreleased The Day the Clown Cried made me keen to actually see it, instead of relying on the oft-cited displeasure of some few who actually have. These include the screenwriter –a breed of artist familiar with discontent- and Spinal Tap’s own Harry Shearer, whose last comedy album ought to disqualify him from criticism, even helpful hints.

Choke Point: The Women is housed at an elegant old house on Crenshaw and kicks up the occasional stylish indie-rock rumpus right under the snouts of the LAPD. The last Monday in June was yet another installment of Sean Carnage’s traveling rock medicine show and NYC punks the Choke were about to wreak fury in the front parlor when I walked in. Fronted by blonde whirlwind Cameron Eve, this quartet claims inspiration from the Kinks, the Buzzcocks and the Shangri-Las, but none of these worthies ever flung their pretty selves into a houseparty moshpit, at least not at me. The Choke’s set is tight and lithe, with most of the power held pragmatically in reserve, as a contrast to the sloe-eyed dreaminess of Dalmachio Von Diamond & the Enochian Keys, a six-man karass of Echo Park aesthetes with a moody streak. Von D.’s vocals come on like one of those mood-drenched charisma-rock acts Elektra signed in the wake of the Doors. Imagine a whimsical Scott Walker fronting the Electric Prunes and you get the general idea. I left as the house began to fill with seemingly every rocker south of Hancock Park and east of Koreatown, with most arriving on foot. While it lasts, this is a cozy and first-rate quasi-underground encampment without a MySpace page and without a lot of hassles either.

L.A. RECORD is happy to team up with Cinefamily, dublab, L.A. FilmForum and the Indian Film Festival of Los Angeles to present A Throw Of Dice with a live score by world-class sitar player Nishat Khan and Tom Verlaine/Mick Jagger collaborator Jimmy Rip! Via Cinefamily:

Nishat Khan, one of the world’s greatest living sitar virtuosos, accompanied by consummate guitarist and bandleader Jimmy Rip (returning to the Cinefamily stage after his triumphant night with Tom Verlaine), provides a live score for this recently restored 1929 silent classic. A Throw of Dice (Prapancha Pash) is the third film in a pioneering trilogy of silent films made through a unique partnership between German director Franz Osten and Indian actor-producer Himansu Rai, whose films combined documentary techniques with narratives derived from Indian myths and legends. Based upon a section of the epic poem The Mahabharata, A Throw of Dice follows royal cousins Sohat and Rajit, neighboring rulers who have in common a love of gambling, tiger hunting….and same damsel Sunita. Soon they’re friendship turns to rivalry. Shot on location in Rajasthan with an extravagance that could only be matched by Cecil B. Demille, the film features over ten thousand extras and an impressive array of horses, elephants and tigers. Its star actors all had major careers in Indian cinema and remain legendary and much-loved figures. A Throw Of Dice is both a sumptuous epic and an intimate romantic drama, and Nishat Khan’s new score for the film will transplant you to lush, faraway kingdoms of the imagination.

Starts at 8 pm at Cinefamily (611 N. Fairfax!) and is all ages! Tickets $15 and available here or at the door!