Do It Again

We were lucky enough to have Janet Macoska at the premiere. Here’s a picture of Lila before the screening and of Rob, me and Jim Henke at the post-film panel.

We’re off to Cleveland tonight with screenings Friday evening and Saturday afternoon. I’m taking Lila who, in my opinion, should have probably gone to Rotterdam. I mean, the kid’s not only in the movie, she shot a few seconds on the FLIP cam.

Now, she gets to check out the US premiere and visit the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum Friday morning. Lila went shopping with Carlene to get a special dress for Friday night. She keeps asking me if I want to see it and then, when I say “yes,” she refuses, telling me it’s a surprise.

Rob and I will be on a post-screening panel led by Rock Hall resident genius Jim Henke, a guy I know best as the writer who discovered U2 and the Police.

But first, to get everything off on the right note, I present a fantastic review running on-line now and tomorrow in the Cleveland Plain Dealer.

It’s well written, overwhelmingly positive and contains some perfectly blurbable lines. Now can somebody please nominate John Soeder for a Pulitzer Prize?

What was nice about Bermuda, beyond it being Bermuda, was that this festival was manageable for an outsider. Unlike Rotterdam, where a stranger would walk into a crowded party and everyone would shout Miloslav! and I’d realize I didn’t know somebody I should know, the festival is small enough to allow for introductions and small talk. At a party tonight, I met writer/director Kathy Lindboe and actor Peter McCain of NoNAMES and we talked about our positive experiences with the Wisconsin Film Festival and our travel plans. Our hosts, a pair of longtime BIFF supporters, offered us wine, salmon, and cupcakes. I not only got a chance to chat with festival director Aideen Ratteray Pryse but she drove me back to the hotel.

The screening itself seemed to go well. The 162-seat theater wasn’t full, but I think the showing was strong considering what time of year it is and the fact that all touristy stuff is off. The audience members there stayed until the end and asked good questions. Then we were off, heading back home (Sunday morning) so we can take a deep breath before our US premiere in Cleveland, April 26.

As we hustled the streets of Hamilton to get people excited about tonight’s screening, we were lucky enough to find “Do It Again” reviewed on the front page of the arts section of The Royal Gazette. (Now that’s a name for a newspaper.)

It’s a positive review but I have to admit, I take special pleasure in this paragraph:

“Edgers is not entirely likeable — there’s a touch of the arrogant waster about him — but that only adds to the enjoyment of the film.”

Tomorrow, we’ll be the lead piece on “The Story,” a American Public Media show hosted by Dick Gordon. Please tune in to one of the show’s affiliates.

Way back when, I introduced myself to Mike Gent, a member of the Figgs who, people told me, was a massive Kinks fan. People were right. This guy could play “Out of the Wardrobe” off the top of his head. I knew I needed him to be part of “Do It Again.”

At a certain point, struggling to come up with enough cash to pay for all of the original master recordings I wanted, I asked Mike for a favor. I wanted to use “Victoria” in the film, but I wasn’t impressed by a cover version Cracker had recorded. Gent obliged. He went into Moontower and cranked out a smoking cover. Not only that, he played all of the instruments.

Then he did “Big Sky.” Scott Janovitz assisted on some backing vocals, but again, it was all Gent. “Big Sky” is not an easy song to cover. The other versions I’ve heard – by Matthew Sweet and Yo La Tengo, to name two – are passable but are too soft. They also fail to capture the almost sloppy crunch of Mick Avory’s drumming. Gent did. I’ve got proof.

Sadly, you won’t hear that proof in our festival version of “Do It Again.” A licensing challenge left me subbing out his covers of “Victoria” and “Big Sky.” It is genuinely one of my big regrets.

That’s why we’re looking to press a few promo 45s – that’s a record, boys and girls – of Gent’s versions. We’re not going to sell them. But we will give a few away if we can raise enough to press the records. And this won’t be just a slice of vinyl in a white sleeve. Dave Plunkert, the master artist responsible for the fantastic “Do It Again” poster, has agreed to design a custom sleeve. We’ll number the first 50 and Plunkert and Gent will sign ‘em before they go out. I’ll sign it as well, if you request that, though I’m not sure why you’d want my John Hancock on the record. After all, I can’t play the drums.

So that’s the Big Sky challenge. If 20 of you contribute $50 each, we’ll be able to pay for the record (Victoria/Big Sky) and sleeve and you’ll get a numbered, sonic piece of art. Send your payment to gedgers@mac.com at paypal.com or write me directly to make alternative arrangements.

And Alistair Harkness? I just may propose naming our expected boy after the paper’s film critic. Never mind that the moniker sounds cooler than a box of Brian Eno records. The dude loves our film. (It plays this weekend at the Glasgow Film Festival.)

There is one inaccuracy, of course. That I’m “a dead ringer for Jurassic Park-era Jeff Goldblum.” But we can let that slide when Mr. Harkness writes that what’s surprising about my musical interactions with Sting, Zooey, etc. is that “these potentially cringeworthy moments turn out to be some of the film’s sweetest, most insightful ones, capturing the way great music can form a common bond between disparate people.”

And finally: “I won’t ruin the film by telling you if Edgers is successful, but the film makes you care enough to want to follow him through to its conclusion.”

The full review can be read here.

I came back from lunch and found the red light on my phone signalling a message. It was a call from overseas. Peter Quaife, original Kinks bassist and all-around great guy, had today received the screener of the film that I’d sent. So he’d popped it in. “I wanted to let you know, I have seen the movie,” Pete Q. said into the machine. “It is brilliant.”

What can I say about Crutch? First, one of my big regrets in making this film is not scraping up a few thousand dollars and heading to Denmark to interview him. Because every time I called over the last two years, he was charming, full of humor and totally selfless in his commentary.

Here’s a good example. Sometime in 2008, a Kinks fan sent me a DVD showing what appeared to be Super 8 films taken by Quaife while touring in the ’60s. They were called “Pete Quaife’s Home Movies.” I wanted more information and called Crutch. He said something along the lines of “a ha” and told me the film had been “misplaced,” a euphemism for stolen or taken without his permission. He was glad to hear I had found them.

Most people in his position would probably get angry and demand they be returned. Not Crutch. He asked if I could send him a copy. And when it came to cutting our film, he agreed to license the material for a very reasonable fee. (I don’t want to say how much because, frankly, he should get more in the future.)

So that’s Crutch. I wish he were healthy enough to come to one of our screenings. But he did say he’ll be there if we’re able to score a festival close to his home, which to me says “Copenhagen.”

This festival process really is a lot like applying to college, except instead of pinpointing 5 or 8 schools, you go out and apply to 20, 25 or 30. And some of ‘em might be in Budapest. And there are no safety schools, only places less competitive than, say, Sundance or Toronto. That means every day can be filled with either rejections or acceptances. The key, psychologically, is to not get overly invested in either.

In that spirit, I share good news. We’ve been invited to show “Do It Again” at the Washington DC International Film Festival. The festival runs April 15-25. We still don’t know our screening date or whether we’ll be brought down to introduce the film. But we’re glad to be filling up the calendar with another respected festival.

When we started applying to film festivals, I was told it was a lot like applying to college. I’m not sure how the analogy holds at this point because, after Rotterdam – presumably our first school – we’re getting all sorts of invites without even applying. Beyond allowing us to avoid the application fee, it also provides positive re-enforcement to have festival programmers dig the film and want to show it in their own houses.

Today’s new announcements: The Taipei Film Festival in Taiwan and the Santiago International Film Festival in Chile.

It’s unlikely we’ll be going to these festivals, unless they offer to pay for air and lodging. (Usually, the hotel is covered but not the flight.) But it means that we’re filling up our year-long festival run with screenings and territory. It’s also cool to say we are huge in Taiwan.