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Down on Us | |
---|---|
Directed by | Larry Buchanan |
Written by | Larry Buchanan |
Produced by | Murray M. Kaplan Larry Buchanan |
Starring | Gregory Allen Chatman as Jimi Hendrix Riba Meryl as Janis Joplin Bryan Wolf as Jim Morrison |
Cinematography | Nicholas Josef von Sternberg |
Edited by | Larry Randolph |
Music by | Jeffrey Dann David Shorey |
Distributed by | Omni Leisure International |
Release date |
|
Running time | 117 minutes |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Down on Us is a low budget 1984 movie about a US government plot to assassinate 1960s rock stars Jim Morrison, Janis Joplin, and Jimi Hendrix, using an elite force of killers. It is sometimes known as Beyond the Doors.
The movie does not use any of the original songs of the artists portrayed due to high royalty fees.[ citation needed ] Instead, they used songs written to sound like the originals.
Author F. Paul Wilson used a similar premise in his 1987 short story "The Years the Music Died."
The story of Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison, and Janis Joplin, and how their message for their generation made them targets of a US government plot.
Variety's review was largely critical of the "campy" reproductions of concerts and other events. The review read, in part, "Pic's only revelation is the claim that Morrison faked his own death in order to regain his privacy". [1]
A review in Austin American-Statesman called it, "the Reefer Madness of conspiracy theory movies". [2]
A review in The Daily News read, "...the whole project is so out of it, it seems like the work of a Martian whose understanding of the counterculture comes entirely from reading old issues of Life magazine".
Janis Lyn Joplin was an American singer and songwriter. One of the most successful and widely known rock performers of her era, she was noted for her powerful mezzo-soprano vocals, as well as her "electric" stage presence.
The Monterey International Pop Festival was a three-day music festival held June 16 to 18, 1967, at the Monterey County Fairgrounds in Monterey, California. The festival is remembered for the first major American appearances by the Jimi Hendrix Experience, the Who and Ravi Shankar, the first large-scale public performance of Janis Joplin and the introduction of Otis Redding to a mass American audience.
Big Brother and the Holding Company is an American rock band that formed in San Francisco in 1965 as part of the same psychedelic music scene that produced the Grateful Dead, Quicksilver Messenger Service, and Jefferson Airplane. After some initial personnel changes, the band became well known with the lineup of vocalist Janis Joplin, guitarists Sam Andrew and James Gurley, bassist Peter Albin, and drummer Dave Getz. Their second album Cheap Thrills, released in 1968, is considered one of the masterpieces of the psychedelic sound of San Francisco; it reached number one on the Billboard charts, and was ranked number 338 in Rolling Stone's the 500 greatest albums of all time. The album is also listed in the book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die.
Woodstock is a 1970 American documentary film of the watershed counterculture Woodstock Festival which took place in August 1969 near Bethel, New York.
The Adventures of Ford Fairlane is a 1990 American action comedy film noir mystery film directed by Renny Harlin and written by David Arnott, James Cappe, and Daniel Waters based on a story by Arnott and Cappe. The film stars comedian Andrew Dice Clay as the title character, Ford Fairlane, a "Rock n' Roll Detective", whose beat is the music industry in Los Angeles. True to his name, Ford drives a 1957 Ford Fairlane 500 Skyliner in the film.
"You Know They Got a Hell of a Band" is a 1992 horror short story by American writer Stephen King. It was first published January 1992 in the horror anthology Shock Rock and later included in King's collection Nightmares & Dreamscapes. It concerns a young couple on a road trip in Oregon when they accidentally wander into a small town inhabited by dead rock and roll legends.
"Love Street" is a song performed by the American rock band the Doors. Sequenced as the second album track on Waiting for the Sun (1968), its lyrics were written by lead singer Jim Morrison and as with other songs, it was dedicated to his girlfriend Pamela Courson.
The 27 Club is an informal list consisting mostly of popular musicians, artists, actors, and other celebrities who died at age 27. Although the claim of a "statistical spike" for the death of musicians at that age has been refuted by scientific research, it remains a cultural phenomenon, with many celebrities who die at 27 noted for their high-risk lifestyles.
"Green Grass and High Tides" is a song by American Southern rock band Outlaws. It is the tenth and final track on the band's debut album, Outlaws. The song is one of their best known, and has received extensive play on album-oriented radio stations, although it was never released as a single. The song is notable for having two extended guitar solos that stretch the song to nearly 10 minutes.
James Douglas Morrison was an American singer, songwriter and poet who was the lead vocalist and lyricist of the rock band the Doors. Due to his energetic persona, poetic lyrics, distinctive voice, erratic and unpredictable performances, along with the dramatic circumstances surrounding his life and early death, Morrison is regarded by music critics and fans as one of the most influential frontmen in rock history. Since his death, his fame has endured as one of popular culture's top rebellious and oft-displayed icons, representing the generation gap and youth counterculture.
The Perfect Age of Rock 'n' Roll is a music-themed drama film starring Kevin Zegers and Jason Ritter and directed by Scott Rosenbaum. The screenplay was written by Scott Rosenbaum and Jasin Cadic. The film was released on-demand & in limited theatrical release on August 5, 2011.
The 27s: The Greatest Myth of Rock & Roll is a 2008 book about the 27 Club, authored by Eric Segalstad and illustrated by Josh Hunter. Structured as a non-fiction narrative, it tells the history of rock & roll as seen through the lives and legacies of 34 musicians who all died at the age of 27. It was independently published, and distributed by Random House.
Keep on Rockin', aka Little Richard: Keep on Rockin is a film of a 1969 Little Richard concert at the Toronto Rock and Roll Revival festival originally released in 1970. The film is in colour.
Stephen Neal Paul was an American talent manager and nightclub owner. Paul was the one-time manager of Johnny Winter, among other related performers, as well as being the owner of The Scene, a popular New York City club from 1964 to 1970, and the founder of Blue Sky Records.
"Rock and Roll Heaven" is a song written by Alan O'Day and Johnny Stevenson, popularized by The Righteous Brothers. It is a paean to several deceased singers such as Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, and Otis Redding, and has been rewritten a number of times to include other singers. The song was first recorded by the band Climax in 1973, but it failed to chart. It was then covered by The Righteous Brothers in 1974 and reached number three on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100.
For What It’s Worth is the tenth book for children by Janet Tashjian. It is a young adult novel published by Henry Holt and Company. The title is taken from the 1967 Buffalo Springfield song of the same name.
The white lighter curse or white lighter myth is an urban legend based on the 27 Club in which it is claimed several musicians and artists died while in possession of a white disposable cigarette lighter, leading such items to become associated with bad fortune. The myth is primarily based on the deaths of Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, and Kurt Cobain. The myth has been integrated with cannabis culture.
Janis: Little Girl Blue is a 2015 American documentary film directed by Amy J. Berg, about the American singer-songwriter Janis Joplin. It had its world premiere at the 2015 Venice Film Festival on September 5, 2015, and was released theatrically in the United States by FilmRise on November 27, 2015.
TeenSet was an American music and fan magazine published by Capitol Records. Beginning in 1964 as a free album insert for fans of the Beach Boys, the magazine was sold separately in 1965 and it grew in popularity. It was introduced as a vehicle to promote the Beach Boys and other Capitol artists, but in the hands of editor Judith Sims, the magazine broke new ground, rising above its fan club origin. Quickly establishing itself as the gateway to the inner circle of the Beatles at the height of Beatlemania, TeenSet parlayed this trust to introduce their readers to new artists, in the process greatly increasing the visibility of Buffalo Springfield, the Doors, Janis Joplin and the Mothers of Invention. The magazine benefited from articles by music critic Sue Cameron, London correspondent Carol Gold, psychedelic maverick Robert Shea, and photographs from Jim Marshall and Michael Ochs. It began as an early teen girls' magazine but by 1968 was shifting to focus on late teen girls and young women in their early twenties.
The Family Dog Denver was a concert dance hall located at 1601 West Evans Avenue in Denver, Colorado. Opened from September 1967 to July 1968, it is regarded as a seminal music venue that launched Denver on its trajectory to its current status as a major concert destination by introducing never-before-seen acts like The Doors, Van Morrison, Jimi Hendrix, Cream, Buffalo Springfield, Janis Joplin, Chuck Berry, and many others. Many acts, like The Doors and Van Morrison, for example, had yet to become famous when they played The Dog, evidenced by the poster artists having to stylize the names of their leading songs into the poster art for the shows. The Family Dog is also seen as a cultural turning point in Denver from the conservative, western-minded sensibility of the early and mid-20th century to the current, liberal-minded climate. The venue's history, surrounding drama and ultimate impact had been largely unknown and unrealized until it was unearthed and detailed for the first time in the 2021 documentary The Tale of the Dog, produced and directed by Dan Obarski & Scott Montgomery and distributed by Cinedigm. As there are no useful photos, no video and little written history remaining of the Family Dog Denver, the film's oral history format told in first person by the people who were there serves as a definitive reference for “The Dog.”