Metropolis Video was a group of filmmakers and video makers who documented on

video Video is an electronic medium for the recording, copying, playback, broadcasting, and display of moving visual media. Video was first developed for mechanical television systems, which were quickly replaced by cathode-ray tube (CRT) syst ...

the early years of the punk rock music scene in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

, from 1975 to 1977. They shot footage of numerous punk rock and new wave bands at

CBGB CBGB was a New York City music club opened in 1973 by Hilly Kristal in Manhattan's East Village. The club was previously a biker bar and before that was a dive bar. The letters ''CBGB'' were for '' Country'', '' BlueGrass'', and '' Blues'', Kr ...

, the downtown music club, which in 1975 had been open only two years. Much of Metropolis Video's work was shown on public access cable television. In October 1977 there was a two-day show of their work at

The Kitchen The Kitchen is a non-profit, multi-disciplinary avant-garde performance and experimental art institution located at 512 West 19th Street, between Tenth and Eleventh Avenues in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City. It was foun ...

, New York’s premiere avant-garde and experimental arts center, which was located in

SoHo Soho is an area of the City of Westminster, part of the West End of London. Originally a fashionable district for the aristocracy, it has been one of the main entertainment districts in the capital since the 19th century. The area was develo ...

at that time. ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

'' music critic

John Rockwell John Sargent Rockwell (born September 16, 1940) is an American music critic, dance critic and arts administrator. According to '' Grove Music Online'', "Rockwell brings two signal attributes to his critical work: a genuine admiration for all ...

wrote that because of Metropolis Video's work and their cable TV series, "th
efflorescence
of the New York underground rock scene at the CBGB club will live on past the present moment.

History

In 1975, seven film and videomakers who were then in their early 20s, Paul Dougherty, John Hazard, Jeff Hodges, Pat Ivers, Steven Lawrence, Michael Owen and Tom Zafian, came together to document the early punk rock scene at

, which in 1975 was a relatively new music club on The

Bowery The Bowery () is a street and neighborhood in Lower Manhattan in New York City. The street runs from Chatham Square at Park Row, Worth Street, and Mott Street in the south to Cooper Square at 4th Street in the north.Jackson, Kenneth L. ...

, in

Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...

, New York City. The members of Metropolitan Video met while they were working at Manhattan Cable TV's

public access television Public-access television is traditionally a form of non-commercial mass media where the general public can create content television programming which is narrowcast through cable television specialty channels. Public-access television was creat ...

(MCTV) department, where community members could get free training in

video production Video production is the process of producing video content for video. It is the equivalent of filmmaking, but with video recorded either as analog signals on videotape, digitally in video tape or as computer files stored on optical discs, hard dri ...

, borrow equipment and schedule their programs for broadcast. In 1972 the

Federal Communications Commission The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is an independent agency of the United States federal government that regulates communications by radio, television, wire, satellite, and cable across the United States. The FCC maintains jurisdicti ...

(FCC) had mandated that cable TV systems in the top 100 markets must provide public access, and by 1975, MCTV had become a major distribution hub for video experimentation, the

YouTube YouTube is a global online video sharing and social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by Google, and is the second mo ...

of its day. In August 1975, Metropolis Video members convinced CBGB's owner

Hilly Kristal Hillel Kristal (September 23, 1931August 28, 2007) was an American club owner, manager and musician who was the owner of the iconic New York City club CBGB, which opened in 1973 and closed in 2006 over a rent dispute. Early years Kristal was bo ...

to let them shoot performances. The group descended into the then little-known club with a multi-camera, live-switched, live-mixed audio/video system and despite the limitations of their set up, produced some of the most complete documentation of the early New York punk rock music scene in existence. The collection of videos is now represented by Historic Films. After the dissolution of Metropolis Video in 1977, filmmaker Pat Ivers continued to film the New York punk scene together with Emily Armstrong in a project called Advanced TV, later dubbed GoNightclubbing.

Programs

Metropolis Video’s first project, the ''CBGB Festival of Unrecorded Bands'', in August 1975, captured Blondie, Joe and Blake,

The Heartbreakers The Heartbreakers, sometimes referred to as Johnny Thunders' Heartbreakers, were an American punk rock band formed in New York City in 1975. The band spearheaded the first wave of punk rock. History Johnny Thunders (vocals/guitar) and Jerry ...

with

Richard Hell Richard Lester Meyers (born October 2, 1949), better known by his stage name Richard Hell, is an American singer, songwriter, bass guitarist and writer. Hell was in several important early punk rock bands, including Neon Boys, Television and ...

(their third live performance), and the

Talking Heads Talking Heads were an American rock band formed in 1975 in New York City and active until 1991.Talki ...

(as a trio). Metropolis Video shot the Talking Heads on two other occasions, in October and December 1975. The December concert is excerpted in the 2011 film produced by

Eagle Rock Entertainment Eagle Rock Entertainment is an international producer and distributor of music films and programming. It operates two record labels (Eagle Records and Armoury Records), a full-service production company (Eagle Rock Productions) and a music publis ...

, '' Talking Heads: Chronology''. Other bands recorded by Metropolis Video at CBGBs were The Shirts, the

Tuff Darts Tuff Darts was an American punk rock band. They were one of the first bands to establish an audience at CBGB. They reached their greatest fame in the mid-late 1970s with such songs as "Slash", "(Your Love Is Like) Nuclear Waste" and their bigge ...

(featuring Robert Gordon),

Ruby and the Rednecks Ruby and the Rednecks is an American Rock and roll band from New York City, inspired by New York Dolls, created by the singer, songwriter, playwright and actress Ruby Lynn Reyner with collaborating musical artists in 1970 and active until toda ...

, and Orchestra Luna.

Elephant's Memory Elephant's Memory (also billed as Elephants Memory, without the apostrophe) was an American rock band formed in New York City in the late 1960s, known primarily for backing John Lennon and Yoko Ono from late 1971 to 1973. For live performance ...

was also documented in a show in

New Haven New Haven is a city in the U.S. state of Connecticut. It is located on New Haven Harbor on the northern shore of Long Island Sound in New Haven County, Connecticut and is part of the New York City metropolitan area. With a population of 134,023 ...

in 1976; this was Metropolis Video’s last project as a group.

Cable television

''Rock from CBGB's'' was a three-part series that aired on Manhattan Cable's Public Access Channel D in 1975, showing excerpts from the collection of band performances.

Public screenings

Metropolis Video's work was shown, in a multi-monitor format, in two sold-out shows called ''Rock from CBGB's by Metropolis Video'' at The Kitchen, an art and performance space in Lower Manhattan, on October 6 and 8, 1977. The hour-long event featured performances by Talking Heads, Tuff Darts, Heartbreakers and Orchestra Luna.

References

External links

* * {{official website, http://www.metropolisvideo.net/, Metropolis Video Website Culture of New York City Punk rock Underground culture New wave music Cultural history of New York City