April 29, 1997
Back Door Music
(Keif Henley)
Keif: This was one of the first shows that we did at Back Door Music. I was trying to find a place that would be suitable and appropriate. I did have some awareness that as nice and great as Harwood was, that it would be kind of more fitting to show in a different space that had a different audience, a different atmosphere. I don’t know why we decided to do it at nine o’clock, on a Tuesday. I think that might’ve been the only time, and back then it wasn’t always a deterrent because there wasn’t a whole lot of this kind of thing going on. We didn’t have our small screens fighting for our attention.
Bryan: So Keif, could you talk briefly about, um, Basement Film’s decision to not have a permanent screening home and to do shows that in some cases site-specific, but at different venues around town,
Keif: I wanted us to be distinguished from any other operation in town. I wanted to be more mobile makeshift, guerrilla style, punk rock. I wanted all of those values in there. I felt like it could be a different contribution to the art scene here. It could stick out, it could be fun and lively. That’s something I got from Craig; a little bit of noise is good, a little bit of friction can be good. Craig was about liveliness, about being vocal – he didn’t want a passive audience. So I kind of went for that. I was like, yeah, this is not gonna be perfect. There’’s going to be some interference or some ambient light, but it’s live, you’re gonna have to work at it a little bit maybe to see the screen. I wanted to hit that sweet spot of being accommodating and not uncomfortable, not terribly uncomfortable as with our metal chairs, but also not too ultra pacifying, you know?
I remember Russ telling me about this – “it’s not so much that I want to make you into 8 track collectors. It’s more just the appreciation of things around us”. The specialty and the coveted beauty. He talked about people who collect bread ties, the little plastic clip of the things that you put around them, people would collect.
