Over the years, my brother Damon has left a long list of projects behind him — many completed, some not so much. Sometimes, the strain of trying to hold all the pieces together is just too great to sustain for any length of time. People lose focus of his quixotic vision, or he gets fed up with cajoling them into following his lead. Sometimes, there are feuds. It’s always gratifying, though, when you see people committed enough to see it through to the end, especially when you can’t pay them.
I don’t know if all the players in these clips remain in Damon’s good graces or not, but he managed to coax terrific performances from all of them. Michael Block’s droll commentary in “The American Eating Show,” is charming to the extreme, but I confess I have no idea what’s going on with the hallucinatory visual effects Damon has added. The two gentlemen in “About Five Minutes” do an acceptable job with Damon’s convoluted script, though they sound like they could have used more rehearsal time. Regardless, if nothing else, this piece succeeds in making my wife very nervous.
My brother has created a lot of music in his life. He started and disbanded more groups than I’ll ever be able to remember. He’s even produced music for the City of Tucson as well as a couple of churches. Just this last weekend, he joined the Unitarian Church Choir for a performance of a couple of his pieces at a service commemorating the installation of their new minister. And while everyone was very proud of him (especially his parents), in my heart, it will never supplant “About Five Minutes.”
Back the late sixties, any time you’d see the likes of a Fonda, Nicholson, Sutherland or Redford up on the screen, chances are you’d also be hearing such “exciting” new artists as the Association, the Sandpipers, Simon & Garfunkel or B.J. Thomas on the accompanying soundtrack. This no doubt helped fuel interest in other members of the “now generation,” such as Neil Diamond, Glen Campbell, Three Dog Night or Blood Sweat & Tears. In fact, it’s probably safe to say that a whole generation was first exposed to the “now sound” at the movies.