Northside Festival
Multiple venues in Greenpoint and Williamsburg
June 16-19
www.thelmagazine.com/blogs/NorthsideFestivalNews
After a terrific opening year in 2010, the Northside Festival is back June 16-19 with an even more impressive lineup of bands, including Guided by Voices, Beirut, Wavves, Surfer Blood, Sharon van Etten, Theophilus London, DOM, Takka Takka, Grooms, the Black Hollies, Pillow Theory, and dozens more, with tickets on sale now for some of the more higher profile shows (as well as festival badges [$60-$200] that will get you in to just about everything). But another component of the festival involves art and film. In fact, today (May 1) is the deadline to enter ($10 fee) the Northside DIY Film Festival, comprising shorts and feature-length works that will be screening at UnionDocs in Williamsburg and will be judged by such panelists as Rosie Perez, Ted Hope, and Todd P; features must be between 50 and 130 minutes and have a budget of $100,000 or less, while shorts must be less than 30 minutes and cost $20,000 or less, with all films having been made after January 1, 2008. The grand prize is $250, a Rooftop Films screening, and a camera rental package. In addition, Williamsburg and Greenpoint artists can register ($20 fee) through May 15 to be part of Northside Open Studios. Don’t hesitate to become part of one of Brooklyn’s most highly anticipated and growing new festivals.
After the breakout success of Born to Run in 1975, Bruce Springsteen became embroiled in a lawsuit over control of his music that prevented him from going into the studio to make the highly anticipated follow-up. Springsteen found himself at a crossroads; “You didn’t know if this would be the last record you’d ever make,” he says in the revealing behind-the-scenes documentary The Promise: The Making of Darkness on the Edge of Town. Combining archival footage of the Darkness sessions shot by Barry Rebo with new interviews with all the members of the E Street Band in addition to producers Jimmy Iovine, Jon Landau, and others, editor and director Thom Zimny melds Bruce’s past with the present, delving deep into Springsteen’s complex, infuriating, and fiercely dedicated creative process. “I had to disregard my own mutation,” Springsteen says at one point, regarding his battle to avoid getting caught up in the hype that came with Born to Run, so he decided that his next album would be “a meditation on where are you going to stand.” Rebo captures Springsteen and the E Street Band — from a bare-chested Bruce to a bandanna-less Steve Van Zandt — rehearsing and recording alternate takes of familiar songs as well as tunes that would later wind up on such albums as The River and Tracks, opening up Bruce’s famous notebooks and examining his intense creative process, which included throwing away dozens and dozens of songs that he believed just didn’t fit within his vision of what Darkness should be. Two of the most fascinating parts of the The Promise involve Patti Smith discussing “Because the Night,” which is about her waiting for her boyfriend at the time, Fred “Sonic” Smith, to call her, and Toby Scott talking about mixing the Darkness record to get the sound pictures in Bruce’s head onto vinyl. The Promise: The Making of Darkness on the Edge of Town is screening April 25 at 8:00 at City Winery as a benefit for the American Red Cross, with all proceeds going to Japanese tsunami and earthquake relief; the screening is just one of many being held around the country over the coming week, all of which will include special giveaways.