Rock and Video. Now, more than ever, the two art forms enjoy a symbiotic relationship. Video has become an integral part of the ambience of most of the new and some of the older clubs in town. Whether it's the bare minimum (at Max's) or the ultra maximum (the huge screen at the Ritz) video has arrived and, in all likelihood, is here to stay. Video, like rock has immediacy. It's familiar. We all grew up on the tube, though to many it's still some form of magic. Most of us have no idea how it works. So the following is strictly a layman's view of some of the fare being offered up at the local clubs.

Danceteria: The Video Lounge at Danceteria is certainly the homiest in town. You feel like you're in someone's (very crowded) livingroom. And indeed, that's just what Pat Ivers and Emily Armstrong had in mind when they designed it. Says Pat, "We made the lounge to be like a person's livingroom. We like people to feel at home. Go to the refrigerator (the bar) for a drink or sit around and smoke a joint if they want to. I'm not so egotistical as to want to lock people into an environment." There's seven monitors (four 24" and three 19") around and, if it's not too packed, you can sit in front of one screen and, as you turn your head, see the same image on the others around the room. This gives the image an all-encompassing effect which can lock you into it.

The programming here is the best for uninterrupted Rock. Pat and Emily are the brains behind Nightclubbing, Channel 10's first rock show. Pat's been taping bands since 1975 at CBGB. She joined forces with Emily in ‘77, when Emily headed the public access department at Manhattan Cable. They formed their own production company, Advanced Television, and continued taping bands.

There wasn't much money in it so they supported themselves by making tapes for corporations. "We did a lot of industrial stuff," says Emily, "taping corporate people yakking. Also feminist stuff like for Ms. and NOW. Pat still shoots and directs. I'm a producer. I deal with the business end, with the bands, setting things up..." Early this year they showed Nightclubbing at the Anthology Film Archives in Soho. “But Soho is like a dirty word on the Rock scene," says Emily, "It's too arty. We were looking for an ideal setting to show our tapes. We wanted to reach a rock audience rather than an art audience, and then Jim (Fouratt) approached us. We took one look at the lounge and we were just thrilled."

They've got a collection of vintage punk tapes like nobody else. From the Heartbreakers, Blondie and Talking Heads in '75 through the Dead Boys in '77, right up to the band you saw here last week, you can see it upstairs at Danceteria. It's a good way to catch up on missed action. Is there a good band playing downstairs? Is it too crowded there? Go up to the video lounge and watch them in relative comfort on the screen. 

Besides their own material, Pat and Emily show some independent tapes (like the SVT tape), some record company promotional material (like the Sire tapes of the Pretenders and Madness) and some excerpts from horror films (their murder sequence tape includes the best moments from Psycho, The Birds, Willard and others). They also show a great tape of clips of Leni Reifenstahl's Truimph of the Will, (put together by Brad Friedman) embellished by spacey colors and accompanied by the Pistols' "Anarchy in the Uk." Future plans include showing video-artists' work. 

The Ritz: Video at the Ritz falls at the opposite end of the spectrum. Rather than a small, semi-intimate affair, like Danceteria's video lounge, here it dominates everything. That has to do with the different concepts of the two clubs. The entire emphasis at the Ritz is on entertainment and if you go there you'd better be ready for it. Creative director Jerry Brandt (whose past achievements include the old Electric Circus on St. Marks Place) says, with a little hyperbole, “This is the first real night club in this city in 15 years. We're the only club that gives its customers respect." Be that as it may (or may not), he has a point in the fact that the admission policy is not selective. Anyone can go to the Ritz. After all, the bridge and tunnel crowd have just as much right to a good time as the slum and loft people. Also they have to be commended on their one dollar-admission (oops, two dollars) on Monday and Tuesday nights' "Rock and Roll Against Depression." 

Dominating the huge club is a giant screen (15'x30'! - the only club in the country that has one) projected by an Eidophor, run by Lee Erdman who along with Brandt got the whole video project rolling at the Ritz. The Eidophor gives a crisp picture - much clearer than what you get on those 7' Advents. The people at the Ritz are justifiably proud of their equipment. Says Erdman, "The Ritz has video. The other clubs have television." This monster is the brainchild of Brandt. It was installed by psychedelic lighting pioneer Josh White (remember Joshua Light Shows at the Filimore?). Whether you're dancing, talking or just standing around, you can't get away from it. It's always there - just like Big Brother. It's so overwhelming you're drawn into it whether they're showing old Max Fleischer cartoons, Pepsi commercials, monster movie clips, tapes of rock bands or photographic images in distortions of color. And if you're narcissistic enough to want to see yourself blown up to fifteen feet you might want to shake a leg at the front of the dancefloor when they're taping the dancers live. 

 
Most of the old rock tapes are from the archives of James Karnbach and Ron Furmanek. Karnbach began collecting in the 60s and his library is amazing. "I began as a film collector." says Karnbach and he was showing his films at Max's'before they went to video. "Back in the fifties and sixties no body thought videotapes were of any value and a lot of great ones were never preserved. A lot of my things are kinescopes (video transferred to film) of old bands. My primary interest is 60s English groups. Ron's is Elvis." Most of these gems were shown on various teenage shows of the sixties – Beatles, Stones, Badfinger, Gene Vincent, Little Richard, Jerry Lee, Pretty Things, Hullabulloos, Yardbirds, Who, Kinks, - you name it and they've got it. (They've also got some real treasures that I was asked not to mention). You can usually find Karnbach working his magic at the 32-track control board at the Ritz with Lee Erdman, who also supplies much of the club's software. Lee acquires the more modern: tapes like Bowie's "Boys," M's "Pop Music" and the Flying Lizards' "Money." "That stuff's not mine." says James.” If it's new it's not mine. But the things from the 50s and 60s are. And this is the only place you can see them. The only way you'd see them at another club is if I brought them there." In the near future The Ritz plans to offer a video production service to bands. 

Hurrah: Up at Hurrah, they've already launched their own production company, Hurrah Video Music, headed by resident video-artist, Charles Libin. Bands can contract with Hurrah to have performance and/or concept tapes made under Libin's supervision. The Cure, the Gang of Four, 2 Yous, and Suicide have all recently used his services. And his "The Plastics Live at Hurrah" is due to be shown on Japanese television soon. Like most video artists, Charles began in film. His first project was the now-classic B-52s film which he transferred to video. It was this piece that brought him to the attention of the people at Hurrah. Libin downplays his role in the works he helps create. He doesn't see video as the ultimate art form. "I'm just collaborating with the band," he says. "A piece of me still hates the concept of video art. I prefer the challenge of film and see video as more a playback medium. It's the music that's important. That's why you see so many of the older video artists, who used to be a really elitist group of people, jumping on the pop music bandwagon after producing their self-indulgent bullshit for so many years. With video, you can get so caught up in the electronics of it. It's refreshing to see people restrain themselves from getting carried away with all the gimmickry. A live performance should be presented in its purest form. I don't try to mask it with electronic processes - that's distracting and self-indulgent. All my live tapes are clean straight-forward presentations." 

Hurrah has been showing videotapes longer than any club except Max's and under Charles' direction they have attained a high level of sophistication. Although he describes himself as "pretty much of a minimalist" his taste runs the whole gamut from European and Japanese commercials to clips from TV shows. One of his favorites is Public Image on American Bandstand - John Lydon doesn't even bother to lip-synch as he drags the entire audience on stage. Libin has a real knack for synchronizing the music to the image. One of the most successful of his non-performance tapes is the Slits' "In the Beginning There Was Rhythm,” accompanied by African tribal dancers on the screen. If you didn't know better you'd think they were actually dancing to that song. Another is “Killing an Arab" by the Cure synched with a Capri commercial showing a man lost in the desert..... 

The problem with video at Hurrah used to be the size and location of the monitors. They were tiny compared to the other clubs and located above the dance floor so you had to crane your neck to watch them. There was virtually no comfortable perch to view some of these fine tapes from, except in the bar area and even there, if it was crowded, you couldn't get close enough. But now they've installed additional and larger screens in more accessible locations and it's much better. In closing Charles Libin said, "The ultimate in video collaboration is going to be when an artist can collaborate with a filmmaker or video artist so that the finished piece will fuse and both the music and the visuals will be of equal merit."

Max's Kansas City: This is where the whole club-video phenomena began, sometime last year. "Yes," says Peter Crowley, "about three weeks before Hurrah, much to their consternation. But really Reno Sweeney was first but that had nothing to do with rock." Tommy Dean of Max's was responsible for installing the video system. Paul Tschinkel had been trying unsuccessfully to sell other clubs on the idea of video. As he recalls it: “Then one day I talked to Tommy Dean and showed him some of my tapes. The next day he went out and bought the system." 

Video at Max's is shown mostly on weekends. They have only two small monitors (both up stairs), which doesn't make for easy viewing. DJ Crazy Eddie K says, "We can't compete with a place like the Ritz as far as Video goes but then, they don't have Cheetah Chrome." It's true that Max's collection is pretty extensive - old Ed Sullivan clips (Elvis, Beatles, Stones), the TAMI show, last year's Rock Against Racism concert in Central Park; but best of all, a lot of Tschinkel's tapes. 

Paul Tschinkel's been into video since the early '70s - longer than most people on the scene. He's done everything from art-pieces to documentaries. "One of my earliest shows was ‘Video Portraits' at the 55 Mercer Gallery in 1972. But after '74 I decided, no more galleries. After all the most effective way to use video is to show it on TV." So that same year Paul Tschinkel's Inner Tube debuted on public access television. He began with bluegrass and C&W presentations, and in February '79, he went over to a rock format. (He also had a show on Channel J, Paul Tschinkel's Rock and Country, which he plans to resume soon). Although his main concern is television he likes his tapes to be shown at Max's. "Video in clubs is extending the repertoire of the club. But it's not my objective to show tapes as background entertainment because: 1) it doesn't give credence to video as a communication experience; and 2) it doesn't give credence to the performers. I'm not interested in a muzak-type video. I'm a video-journalist, exploring personalities on the scene. But I don't like interviews. A musician expresses him self or herself best through their music and that's how they should be presented. One shouldn't strip them of this magic." Tschinkel's tapes, like most of the good live ones, have a raw quality to them. Among his best are tapes of Levi & the Rockats, Deadboys, Cheetah Chrome and Elda Stiletto in Situation, and the only tape known to exist of the original Contortions. 

So of the four clubs discussed, which is best? An impossible question. It all depends on numerous variables; your mood, your energy, how much money you've got, who's appearing where to night, where your friends are going, etc. And if you can't find your friends don't be surprised if you see them on the video screen anyway.