Robert N. Zagone
The performances featured on this DVD were filmed at the studios of KQED TV in April 1967, just weeks before Big Brother & The Holding Company shot to international fame following their blinding set at the Monterey Pop Festival in June 1967 (which featured Joplin's show-stopping performance of 'Ball And Chain', a highlight also of D.A. Pennebaker's famous movie documenting the festival). For many fans this was the period when Janis Joplin was at her best, before the pressure of fame and the ravages of drugs took over. This is the first DVD to release these KQED TV tracks. The songs are interspersed with short interviews with Janis and other band members, all in excellent sound and picture quality for the era. In addition to 'Ball And Chain', which was to appear on the group's second album in the following year, the set features two of the group's hit singles, 'Down On Me' and 'Coo Coo'. This package also includes a bonus audio CD of the tracks.
A magical book transforms all who come into contact with it. Meet Dante, a bookstore manager with a crippling secret; Gina, a customer, who knows everything but love; Zoe, and among others, Dante's former lover who's life is falling apart.
The legendary press conference in San Fransisco at KQED studios on Dec. 3rd 1965. This was a pivotal year in Bob Dylan's career. In the early part of the year he released "Bringing It All Back Home", the first album that saw him move distinctly away from his folk music origins. In the summer he followed it with "Highway 61 Revisited", an out and out rock 'n' roll album, and the single "Like A Rolling Stone" hit No.2 on the US charts. His appearance at that year's Newport Folk Festival saw him use an electric guitar on stage, a hugely controversial move at the time that saw him booed by much of the audience. Against this background, Dylan went into the studios of TV station KQED in San Francisco for a broadcast press conference hosted by Ralph J. Gleason, his only one from this era ever to be filmed.
"The brilliant Danny Glover stars as Apples Finnerty, a low budget film producer whose life is crumbling. Finnerty can't get work, he's been evicted, and his wife is unfaithful. As he drives into the hills, he gets a flat. A "helpful" stranger turns out to be an armed robber. Apples kills his assailant in self defense and switches identities with him, escaping his own disastrous past. Unfortunately, his new identity is in hot water with the mob. Despite a bright new love interest, Apple looks like a two-time loser until a crime boss creates a surprise ending! Made possible by grants from the American Film Institute and the Rockefeller Foundation."
Dr. Wilmer continued his group therapy work in the late 1960's through the University of California at San Francisco, eventually establishing the Youth Drug Ward at the Langely Porter Neuropsychiatric Institute. The Youth drug ward served young hippies from the Haight-Ashbury district who had experienced adverse affects from drug use. The therapy included "creativity seminars" which featured such artists as Joan Baez and Rod Steiger. Also during the 1960s, Wilmer worked extensively with inmates from the San Quentin prison and their families.
Drugs in the Tenderloin is a documentary shot guerilla style by Robert Zagone in 1966; It captures the Tenderloin as it transformed into a center for young queers and drug users.
