GoNightclubbing
| GoNightclubbing | |
|---|---|
| Known for | Video artists |
| Movement | Punk rock |
| Website | http://www.gonightclubbing.com |
GoNightclubbing is a collaboration between video artists Pat Ivers and Emily Armstrong, who worked together to document the New York punk rock scene beginning in 1977. Ivers had previously worked with Metropolis Video from 1975 until their dissolution in 1977. Originally, Ivers and Armstrong were known as Advanced TV, but they incorporated as GoNightclubbing in 2001.
Ivers and Armstrong videotaped hundreds of bands between 1977 and 1981 at venues like CBGB’s, Max’s Kansas City, Mudd Club and Hurrah’s. Described as “the Lewis and Clark of rock video,” they used hand held cameras and audio from the sound board of the clubs to make their Gonightclubbing archive. The use of this equipment created a visual style that fit the scene that it documented—Michael Shore of Rolling Stone called their "visual fidelity" "perfect." Their archive was arguably the premiere video record of the Downtown punk scene.
In 1979, their music series Nightclubbing debuted on Manhattan Cable TV’s Channel 10. It was a weekly half-hour program, showcasing live performances of bands they had documented from their vast archive.
Nightclubbing was nominated for a Cable Ace award for best variety series in 1980. It was shown at Anthology Film Archives as a late night weekly screening between January and March,1980.
In May, 1980, they worked at the original incarnation of the nightclub, Danceteria, pioneering the concept of the VJ (Video Jockey) and designing the first stand alone Video Lounge. Originally designed as a one night only art installation, it proved so successful that it became a regular nightly feature of the club. With multiple TV sets arranged as living room groupings, Ivers and Armstrong showed a mix of found footage, music videos, artists work and selections from their own archive and also documented bands live, feeding the video up to the Lounge in real time. After the club was closed by the State Liquor Authority, a robbery occurred, costing them a third of their video archive. The tapes were never recovered.
In 1981, Ivers and Armstrong toured the country with their GoNightclubing video programs, showing at museums and nightclubs in Atlanta, Chicago, Los Angeles, Minneapolis and San Francisco.
In 2000, GoNightclubbing resurfaced at the opening of the Pioneer Theater, an independent cinema in the East Village, with a five-week series of programs. Ivers and Armstrong resumed shooting with a series of interviews of veterans of the punk scene, including Lenny Kaye and Jay Dee Daugherty of the Patti Smith group, Richard Lloyd of Television, Cheetah Chrome and Jeff Magnum of the Dead Boys. The same year, they were invited to the Institute of Contemporary Art in London to host a series of screenings. The Guardian applauded it as “five priceless programs… capturing the raw visceral energy of bands unhindered by MTV self-consciousness."
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