So the second day of Everything Is Festival was an evening event, leaving me free during the day, so I did one of my all time favourite things – going to the cinema. I headed down to the Searchlight to catch two new releases: As Above So Below and The November Man. Sad to report that they’re both average, As Above does have some good ideas, but didn’t grab me, while November Man just seemed to be made up of lots of  SHOUTING! Top marks though the Arclight for having an introduction from a member of staff and asking everyone to keep their phone etc off and not to talk.

Then I took the massive walk from the Arclight to Cinefamily, it wasn’t as hot today but I’m still having to drink so much water, plus now my arms have gone very brown.

This being my second night at Cinefamily I now know the deal on how things work and could take the time to look around and enjoy the place. First up of the two shows tonight was Most Outrageous Video Games 2014, which I’d really been looking forwards to, though you could actually say that about everything happening this weekend. But before that started I was given a seat upgrade by one of the super helpful and friend staff in the screen, man sitting in the sofas is so good! 

The show was great, I knew some of the things that showed, but there was a lot I’d never seen before including some horrific looking Atari Porn games from the 1980s. Also loved the conversational presenting, more like hanging out with people and sharing things. There was a really funny collection of game glitches, a look at rip off games, including a very similar Pac Man rip off called Munchy. 

Then is was back into the patio area out back for more drinks and chat, this time around I spent a while talking with the great Commodore Gilgamesh, who proved to be totally cool and gave me some great advice about something very important, which if it comes off will benefit all of you Duke Warriors out there! 

Then back in for show two, Beyond The Mind’s Eye, which is a 1990s CGI music trip video, here given a brand new score by three current electronic artists, all of which performed live tonight at the show. Now I know I’d not seen this before, but I have a sneaky suspicion that I might have sold loads of copies of this in the video store back in the 1990s, if it wasn’t this then it was something with a very similar cover.

This was a fairly short show which meant the main activity ended earlier than I expected, so I hung out for a bit afterwards and then headed home for what I thought might be an earlier night. But when I got back we ended up listing to a load of the seven inch singles I’d picked up in Amoeba yesterday, so once again I’m writing this at 2AM! Tomorrow is a super busy day, with the first show starting at 11.45AM and going through until probably 2AM, I can’t wait for it all! 

 

 

I’ll come straight out and say that the opening night of Everything Is Festival was simply amazing! There’s no other way to put it. 

But let’s skip back to the start of the day and I decided to try and get to grips with the area I’m staying in, so I spent from 11AM until 5PM wondering around the Hollywood area and actually figuring out how everything connected. Though on a scolding hot sunny day maybe that wasn’t the best idea!

Then is was time to head to the Cinefamily for the reason I’d actually come here – Everything Is Festival! Now the opening event, Memory Hole, was free to get into and first come first served and there was no way I wasn’t going to get in. So I’d decided to get there early and just see what was happening, of course it turns out I got there way too early, but the couple of other people in the queue already were super friendly and I got chatting to them quickly and the queue built up steadily behind us. I also got to say Hi to EIT main man Dimitri, who proved to be a total 100% gentleman all the way through the evening and was just so great to chat to. 

Now bear in mind that Memory Hole is made up of so of the strangest found footage I’ve ever seen and it’s scored to make it all seem even weirder, so I had no idea what to actually expect from the show tonight. So when the doors opened and we we’re let in I had no idea what to expect in there, what we actually found was totally genius work from EIT, the entire cinema was pitch black as soon as people walked in, the only light came from two roving video cameras that we’re filming the audience coming in and then projecting it onto the screen, which in turn was being manipulated and scored by some very disturbing ambient sounds. What a great idea, we became the entertainment for the start of the night! 

Then after about 30-minutes of this, the stage came to life with a 6 foot tall slice of talking nightmare pizza, which introduced us to the Memory Hold screening. Now I’m not going to tell you anything about what we saw, it’s so amazingly odd and out there that you’ll just need to see it for yourself. Which you might well actually be able to do as I picked up one of the limited edition VHS releases of it that they had for sale straight after the show! So we’ll all have to have a get together soon so you can all experience it first hand, only probably with out the 6-foot tall talking nightmare pizza.

More super cool stuff happened, but I don’t want these blogs to get too long and for me right now it’s 2.20AM and I’m flagging badly, so here’s a look at the Memory Hole VHS:

So straight after that it was the special Samurai Cop screening with cast & crew reunion. Samurai Cop never let’s you down and the Cinefamily crowd ate this up, so great to hear so many people having a good time watching this. The cast & crew Q&A was great fun and everyone had great stories to tell about how the film came about and what happened while they filmed. 

Now the party was still going on, but I’m exhausted, the jet lag is still kicking me, really hope I get a proper sleep this time. But I have to say that the Cinefamily staff and volunteers we’re all so amazingly friendly and helpful tonight, they made me feel so welcome and so at home, they even called a taxi for me as there’s now wifi there, which means no Uber can for me. I can’t wait to get back there tomorrow now! 

 

So I’ve made it to LA! That’s my view for the next 10-days, wish you we’re all here to share it with me. 

I’m writing this at 10PM local time, which I think means it’s now 6AM UK time, which means I’ve officially been awake for over 24-hours. How was today then? Real easy actually, the flight was good, only half full so I got an entire row of seats to myself. I’d seen every decent film playing and couldn’t bring myself to watch The Other Wonan, so settled for working my way through the TV show section, I ended up watching a random episode of Games Of Thrones, which still doesn’t do anything for me.

The best thing about the flight was the crazy cab driver that picked me up, I’d always wanted to have a guy waiting for me at an airport with my name on a card and he came really close, from now on you can refer to me as Ales Kidd if you want! Wish I’d got a picture of that. But he had the wildest stories and didn’t stop talking once all through the drive, telling me about how he’d been a mercenary for the Russian army, how he’d been to every country and broken every speeding law they had, funny and odd at the same time.

Then as I’m staying on my own tonight until my friends get here tomorrow I found myself at a lose end, so on everyone’s LA advice I fixed myself up with the amazing Uber app, typed up a taxi and headed for the one place I wanted to go to first: Ameoba Records! 

It was so good to be back there, if you’ve never been it’s such a brilliantly old school record store and so huge. But the best thing is that it stocks new and 2nd hand stuff, so you never know what’s going to be in there. I headed straight for the DVD section, which also still carries VHS and LaserDisc! Then it was back down to the 7inch single section to find two amazing boxes, one marked SPACE the other Odder & Odder, or something like that. Space was all singles about outer space and aliens! I couldn’t stop myself, I had to get a handful from both boxes, here’s just one to give you an idea of what I picked up tonight:

And believe me there’s plenty more where that came from! So now I’m going to try and stay up until past midnight, just to see how long I can stay awake. I have a breakfast date set up tomorrow morning and then it’s supply shopping to cover the rest of the week! Now I just can’t wait until Everything Is Festival starts on Thursday evening!