IN HEAVEN EVERYTHING IS FINE
The Unsolved Life of Peter Ivers and the Lost History of New Wave Theatre
C Josh Frank 2008 By Josh Frank with Charlie Buckholtz
Free Press a division of Simon and Shuster publishers
page 171
"Peter had always been the one to discover, throw himself into, and turn his friends on to the coolest, most interesting music scenes. In the two years since Animal House had prompted a mass migration of unruly New York comics to LA, a new scene had begun to bubble up for the LA music underground. The early stages of punk rock, which in the early to mid - '70's had stormed New York and London, had in large part passed Hollywood by. While bands like the Germs, the Weirdos, Black Flag, the Circle Jerks, and X sparked varying degrees of cult devotion in Southern CA, the sound as a whole, and the attitude and aesthetic that came with it, did not really begin to catch on until the later '70's , when the tectonic rumblings of two of punk's most potent second-wave manifestations began to crack the town's placid facade..."
Showing posts with label Charlie Buckholtz. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Charlie Buckholtz. Show all posts
8/21/09
EXCERPT from IN HEAVEN EVERYTHING IS FINE
IN HEAVEN EVERYTHING IS FINE
The Unsolved Life of Peter Ivers and the Lost History of New Wave Theatre
C Josh Frank 2008 By Josh Frank with Charlie Buckholtz
Free Press a division of Simon and Shuster publishers
page XVIII "... in many ways he (Peter) exemplified the cross-pollination of punks and comics...
page XIX "He made a lot of decisions in his life, and many of them seemed to lead away from the success he so vitally desired. Some called him Peter Pan, the boy who refused to grow up and face facts, while others rooted for him till his last days. By choosing to live the artistic dreams that they themselves (often admittedly) had given up on, he exuded a fulfillment they could never quite achieve. With a bank account perpetually in the red, he became an unlikely role model - an icon of authenticity and a bottomless source of inspiration, emulation, and adoration - for a generation of pop culture heavyweights..."
(Peter is said to have disrobed freely since childhood.)
page 112 "It was a bad boy stage persona Peter had begun to cultivate only recently. Even his band mates were at a loss.... It all seemed a little too Hollywood. Peter had pulled a similar stunt recently at the Palladium in Hollywood, opening for the New York Dolls. He'd come out in a diaper, with a squirt gun inside it filled with milk, covered with a rubber penis He squirted milk onto the audience, which promptly booed him off the stage. At least with the Dolls crowd, Peter could be excused for expecting some punk-rock enthusiasm for his wild stage antics....
The Unsolved Life of Peter Ivers and the Lost History of New Wave Theatre
C Josh Frank 2008 By Josh Frank with Charlie Buckholtz
Free Press a division of Simon and Shuster publishers
page XVIII "... in many ways he (Peter) exemplified the cross-pollination of punks and comics...
page XIX "He made a lot of decisions in his life, and many of them seemed to lead away from the success he so vitally desired. Some called him Peter Pan, the boy who refused to grow up and face facts, while others rooted for him till his last days. By choosing to live the artistic dreams that they themselves (often admittedly) had given up on, he exuded a fulfillment they could never quite achieve. With a bank account perpetually in the red, he became an unlikely role model - an icon of authenticity and a bottomless source of inspiration, emulation, and adoration - for a generation of pop culture heavyweights..."
(Peter is said to have disrobed freely since childhood.)
page 112 "It was a bad boy stage persona Peter had begun to cultivate only recently. Even his band mates were at a loss.... It all seemed a little too Hollywood. Peter had pulled a similar stunt recently at the Palladium in Hollywood, opening for the New York Dolls. He'd come out in a diaper, with a squirt gun inside it filled with milk, covered with a rubber penis He squirted milk onto the audience, which promptly booed him off the stage. At least with the Dolls crowd, Peter could be excused for expecting some punk-rock enthusiasm for his wild stage antics....
8/13/09
EXCERPT from IN HEAVEN EVERYTHING IS FINE
IN HEAVEN EVERYTHING IS FINE
The Unsolved Life of Peter Ivers and the Lost History of New Wave Theatre
C Josh Frank 2008 By Josh Frank with Charlie Buckholtz
Free Press a division of Simon and Shuster publishers
page 232
"Helm got the sense that Peter was in search of another alternative community to be a part of. Downtown was the LA art scene's Wild West, a seedy no-man's-land with a tight sense of belonging among its artist pioneers. The social infrastructure was exclusively grassroots, which reinforced the sense of community.There were loft parties, bands playing on loading docks, and one-night-a -week clubs where people packed obscure dead venues just by word of mouth.'
"Some of Peter's friends thought he was searching for something more than a new group of collaborators and friends. Peter was still Peter - upbeat and focused on his work - but something had changed. His friends sensed that the separation from Lucy affected him more deeply than perhaps even he knew. He seemed lost. His woman friends in particular .... could tell that Peter was sad, that he didn't understand why things hadn't worked out, that he was feeling a sense of failure...'
Page 257
"Meanwhile, many of his friends had chosen instead to focus on the one or two things they did best, had leveraged their talents, and hit it big, achieving the kind of success that always eluded Peter. The wear and tear of constant struggle was beginning to show.... Peter sensed he was being left behind... And there was money. Having mortgaged everything on his dream, Peter was essentially destitute. The minor celebrity he was attaining on new Wave Theatre could not pay for dinner. With increasing frequency he started showing up at friends' houses around mealtime, partially for the company and partially for a free hot meal...'
Pages 256-257
In the last decade before his death he (Peter Ivers) had recorded four original records and a demo for a fifth, Nirvana Cuba, which was intended as not only an album but also as a musical performance to be staged and filmed. He had created videos for a number of the Nirvana Cuba songs and secured a National Endowment of the Arts grant for his video work. He had written an iconic song for an iconic movie and a handful of other highly regarded songs and scores for theatre, television, and film. He had countless other original songs in various stages of completion...
7/22/09
CHRISTINE TRZYNA BOOK REVIEW of IN HEAVEN EVERYTHING IS FINE by JOSH FRANK with CHARLIE BUCKHOLTZ
IN HEAVEN EVERYTHING IS FINE
The Unsolved Life of Peter Ivers and the Lost History of New Wave Theatre
C Josh Frank 2008 By Josh Frank with Charlie Buckholtz
Free Press a division of Simon and Shuster publishers
... AN UNSOLVED MURDER MYSTERY on the PUNKIEST NEW WAVE SCENE in Los Angeles; Peter Ivers was found bludgeoned to death on March 3, 1983 in his downtown artist's loft, just when he'd picked up a hefty check for a screen play and was quitting his gig as the host of the New Wave Theatre show. The cable television show featured local bands and sketch comedies inspired perhaps by the mad world of National Lampoon Magazine or Saturday Night Live TV.
... Ivers was a hyperactive, we believe heterosexual, character with a zany showman's antics (wearing diapers on stage), a child of privileged back-east class, wealth, and edu, who no doubt had much more to do. He'd just used his big screen play check to pay back friends who had believed in him, his talent and energy, to keep him in that loft for quite some time. He was destitute. Still, Ivers had succeeded beyond most of his Go-West-Young-Man peers. His girlfriend, Lucy, had become a rare executive woman in movie production - a suit, while he held perhaps a bit too long to his own vision. They had recently lived a bit of a retro homespun life in musical Laurel Canyon, with all it implied.
...While the book has caused LAPD to reopen the case and no doubt the authors presented a comprehensive take on the scenesters around Peter, many who speak a few lines, it fails with too much respect to Peter Ivers. Unaddressed is the menace of the real PUNKS versus the POSERS, the competition for material success among Punk bands which most would deny. If anyone had any motivation to kill Peter, he's too beloved for that to be believed anyway, and what really spoiled this read is that the authors failed to get me even a little angry about his murder. It's as if it were reported in the La Weekly's LA DEE DA COLUMN (la dee da as in BORING, get it?), a column where generations of those desperate enough to be famous for being famous bared and glared for a little photo op.
Review by Christine Trzyna C 2009 All Rights including Internet and International Rights Reserved
The Unsolved Life of Peter Ivers and the Lost History of New Wave Theatre
C Josh Frank 2008 By Josh Frank with Charlie Buckholtz
Free Press a division of Simon and Shuster publishers
... AN UNSOLVED MURDER MYSTERY on the PUNKIEST NEW WAVE SCENE in Los Angeles; Peter Ivers was found bludgeoned to death on March 3, 1983 in his downtown artist's loft, just when he'd picked up a hefty check for a screen play and was quitting his gig as the host of the New Wave Theatre show. The cable television show featured local bands and sketch comedies inspired perhaps by the mad world of National Lampoon Magazine or Saturday Night Live TV.
... Ivers was a hyperactive, we believe heterosexual, character with a zany showman's antics (wearing diapers on stage), a child of privileged back-east class, wealth, and edu, who no doubt had much more to do. He'd just used his big screen play check to pay back friends who had believed in him, his talent and energy, to keep him in that loft for quite some time. He was destitute. Still, Ivers had succeeded beyond most of his Go-West-Young-Man peers. His girlfriend, Lucy, had become a rare executive woman in movie production - a suit, while he held perhaps a bit too long to his own vision. They had recently lived a bit of a retro homespun life in musical Laurel Canyon, with all it implied.
...While the book has caused LAPD to reopen the case and no doubt the authors presented a comprehensive take on the scenesters around Peter, many who speak a few lines, it fails with too much respect to Peter Ivers. Unaddressed is the menace of the real PUNKS versus the POSERS, the competition for material success among Punk bands which most would deny. If anyone had any motivation to kill Peter, he's too beloved for that to be believed anyway, and what really spoiled this read is that the authors failed to get me even a little angry about his murder. It's as if it were reported in the La Weekly's LA DEE DA COLUMN (la dee da as in BORING, get it?), a column where generations of those desperate enough to be famous for being famous bared and glared for a little photo op.
Review by Christine Trzyna C 2009 All Rights including Internet and International Rights Reserved
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