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David Ferguson
Born (1947-03-11) March 11, 1947 (age 77)
Ware, Massachusetts
NationalityUnited States
Occupation(s)outsider-culture impresario, iconoclast
WebsiteInstitute For Unpopular Culture

David Ferguson (born March 11, 1947) is an international outsider-culture impresario, activist and iconoclast. For both having spent his career in California (mostly in San Francisco) and for long supporting and promoting creative talent dedicated to challenging mainstream sensibilities, Ferguson has been referred to as “the Andy Warhol of the west coast."[1] His contribution to the international punk music scene of the late 1970s and 1980s — first, as a successful renegade concert promoter, then as founder of the independent punk and alternative music label, CD Presents — earned him the nickname "The Godfather of Punk.[2][3]In addition to recording and promoting underground music artists, Ferguson played a major role in creating and sustaining a music distribution system independent of that operated by major music labels.[3]Starting in 2004, he began restoring the extensive archives of his CD Presents label at George Lucas' Skywalker Ranch under the guidance of Grammy Award-winning recording engineer Leslie Ann Jones and engineer Dann Thompson at the mixing board.[3] The restoration was completed in early 2008. The CD Presents recordings will be released in all media in 2009.

Ferguson founded and presently heads Institute For Unpopular Culture (IFUC), a San Francisco-based alternative arts organization which embodies his 'New Philanthropy',[4] a volunteer-grounded approach to business and non-profit management that has guided Ferguson's efforts to discover and nurture artists whose work frequently resists commercial categorization. Recognizing his inclination for embracing the underdog and the over-the-top, the San Francisco Chronicle anointed Ferguson the "godfather of the unorthodox", adding that Ferguson "...not only thinks outside the box — he crushes it, dances on top of it, reinvents it and calls it whatever he likes. He has spent his life making trouble.”[2] The East Bay Express commented, "David Ferguson's life story reads like an encyclopedia of the underground."[5] Recent projects of note undertaken by IFUC included promoting and exhibiting the art of William Noguera, a San Quentin-Death Row inmate.[6][7] Ferguson also oversees Big Sound, a film restoration and live event company which commissions silent film restoration projects with newly recorded orchestral scores, the first of which — the legendary German silent film classic, Pandora's Box — has been scheduled for debut in 2009.

In a career spanning more than four decades, Ferguson has worked with an array of cultural visionaries and influential underground artists, among them Warhol,[1][6] John Lydon (a.k.a. Johnny Rotten),[8][9][2] Iggy Pop,[2] the psychedelic drag queen group, The Cockettes,[2][6] underground cartoonist Vaughn Bodé, and painter, Jean Michel Basquiat.[1]

As an activist, Ferguson has organized and led anti-war protests dating back to the 1960s. He also has supported Shambala Preserve, the California desert wild animal sanctuary established by American actress Tippi Hedren.

Early career

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Student

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Andy Warhol & Viva, University of Miami, 1968.

In 1965, Ferguson enrolled at the University of Miami. Identified as a 'hellraiser' by the university paper, The Hurricane,[10] Ferguson organized numerous anti-war activities. He formed and led the Union of Students to End the War in Vietnam, one of the first student organizations in the Deep South to publicly question U.S. military action in Southeast Asia.[11] His leadership role in these on-campus protests eventually led to his expulsion from the university,[12] but he did score his first public relations coup by bringing Andy Warhol to speak at the campus in 1968.[1] Warhol's largely unknown status outside New York worked to Ferguson's advantage: "The jock students at his college weren’t too hip to who Warhol was, so Ferguson had time to strike up a friendship. The relationship must have meant something, because some have called Ferguson the Andy Warhol of the West Coast."[1]

The Cockettes

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Main article: The Cockettes

Following his dismissal from the University of Miami, Ferguson relocated to the hotbed of 1960s counterculture, San Francisco. In 1969, Ferguson met the notorious performance troupe, The Cockettes, dressed in full sequined drag queen regalia, on a beach north of San Francisco.[2] Ferguson struck up a relationship with the group which asked him to produce a number of shows over the next three years. During that time, he also assisted The Cockettes with their worldwide public relations campaign.

Even against the tolerant backdrop of San Francisco, The Cockettes' bawdy performance antics presented thorny PR issues. Anecdotes made the rounds of the tactics Ferguson used to sneak the troupe and its outrageous stage behavior by wary club owners:

"For nearly 20 years, Mr. Bimbo [Agostino Giuntoli, owner of Bimbo's] had presided over his lavish and busy supper club five nights a week, and he was nervous about renting the place out...In fact, he was so nervous about that prospect that he asked David Ferguson to sign an affidavit of sorts—on the back on an envelope—swearing that he would allow no naked women to perform onstage. It was only after seeing the show that Mr. Bimbo got the joke and realized how funny his prohibition was. 'David,' he said, as he approached the table, laughing. 'I can see that I have to be careful with you. You promised me no naked women, but you said nothing about naked men.'"

[13]

Critic Rex Reed helped burn the Cockettes into the national consciousness with his syndicated review of a San Francisco performance (a show and review made even more memorable by the presence of literary star Truman Capote, who accompanied Reed to the event).[14] An ensuing Rolling Stone cover and feature article of the Cockettes completed the group's transformation from local cult heroes into international phenomena (the Cockettes' roster included disco star, Sylvester, and Divine, who would go on to star in director John Waters' early films).[15] The Cockettes augured the arrival of glam rock, helped advance the worldwide gay pride movement and, with their in-your-face performance and audience participation antics, the group anticipated the emergence of punk music.[16]

Lecture agency

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During his tenure as a Cockette's impresario, Ferguson partnered with literary-world muse and former Gram Parsons confidant Margaret Fisher to form the David Ferguson Agency, a lecture and appearance scheduling enterprise.[17] This new business challenge gave Ferguson the forum to further pursue the anti-establishment politics that consumed his time as a university student. Through the agency, Ferguson established and maintained relations with the Black Panther Party,[2][5] scheduling speeches for Elaine Brown, then chairperson of the radical group. In addition to his association with the Black Panthers, Ferguson arranged college speaking tours for a number of luminaries in progressive politics and the counter-culture movement. His clients included Jerry Mander (Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television), Ernest Callenbach (Ecotopia), Malvina Reynolds, JoAnn Little, Paul Krassner (The Realist), Stewart Brand (Whole Earth Catalog), Michael McClure (Beat Generation poet), Dr. Tod H. Mikuriya MD (the worlds foremost authority on the uses of medical cannabis), Carlo Prescott (who worked with Philip Zimbardo, on the Stanford prison experiment), and Trina Robbins (cartoonist). Ferguson also scheduled performances for the influential underground artist and cartoonist Vaughn Bodé. Bodé would have an immense impact on the growth of the graffiti art movement. His stature among graffiti artists and his fans was so elevated that High Times magazine wrote upon his death in 1976, “If Vaughn were resurrected, it might come as no surprise to hundreds of thousands of his fans. They revered him as a god; hell, they worshiped him like a rock star, if you get right down to it.”[18]

In addition to working with Bodé on the lecture circuit, Ferguson also managed the cartoonist's career for a time, representing him in negotiations for the animated movie, Wizards, which was inspired in large part by Cheech Wizard, perhaps Bodé's best-known illustrated character. The visual design of the movie also borrowed liberally from Bodé's work and generated claims of plagiarism aimed at Wizards director, Ralph Bakshi. Ferguson, himself, was represented in his client's cartoons as Rumplebucks, Cheech Wizard's manager, a lizard with an ever-present dollar sign above his head. Bodé dedicated his final cartoon, which appeared in National Lampoon, to Ferguson.[19]

Ferguson stopped working in the lecture business in 1976. He sought a new direction for his professional ambitions, something that would recapture the off-kilter, helter-skelter, performance-based swirl that characterized his stint with The Cockettes.

Prelude to punk

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Main article: Punk rock

That new thing turned out to be punk rock. During the second half of the 1970s, San Francisco was a focal point in a burgeoning underground music scene often thought of as the precursor to punk and the hardcore offshoot that would later rage across North America. Crossing paths with the music before the word ‘punk’ had even entered the cultural lexicon, Ferguson found the DIY tangibles of the music and its live performance thrilling, as he did the ethos of defiance that permeated the whole of the punk community.[20]

From a practical standpoint, Ferguson's discovery of this new musical genre provided opportunities to hone the concert production skills he once practiced. But a philosophical awakening also occurred for Ferguson when, in 1976, he moved to Los Angeles and befriended legendary producer, engineer and The Record Plant founder, Gary Kellgren. Revered as a titan in the recording arts field, Kellgren revolutionized recording techniques throughout the 1960s and 1970s. He also is credited with creating the prototype of the modern studio, transforming the typical utilitarian recording setting into the luxurious, amenity-stocked quasi-living rooms found today. Kellgren was Ferguson's mentor until his death in 1977 and, more than anyone, encouraged Ferguson to devote his energies to exploring music as an art form. Kellgren's mentorship imbued his protégé with an understanding of music's potential to galvanize sweeping cultural change — a revelation that buttressed Ferguson's natural inclination to upset the status quo but also broadened that perspective to consider expressions of discontent beyond that of conventional political protest.

In the mid-to-late 1970s, Ferguson produced and promoted shows for Sylvester, The Tubes and Holly Woodlawn ("Holly" of Lou Reed's Walk on the Wild Side fame and one of Andy Warhol's Superstars). Iggy Pop's 1975 San Francisco appearance at Bimbo's, produced by Ferguson and the Iggy Pop Fan Club, was both Iggy Pop's comeback and one of the first ever punk concerts.[2] Ferguson would later manage underground music groups, including the The Avengers, which opened for the Sex Pistols during their infamous final concert at San Francisco's Winterland in 1978. Both as a manager and producer, Ferguson reaped dividends from his heavy personal investment in the relationships he established with his artists, a mentor-protégé model that drew inspiration from the generosity that Ferguson credits Gary Kellgren with once bestowing upon him. It was also while managing, producing shows and, later, recordings that Ferguson came to understand first hand the stranglehold major record labels held on both recording opportunities and record distribution.[21] Confronting that domination head on held for Ferguson a quixotic, David-vs.-Goliath allure which resonated with the anti-authoritarian crusading that powered his Vietnam-era protests. Ferguson decided to start his own label.

CD Presents

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Public Image Ltd. Concerts

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CD Presents poster for Public Image Ltd. concert, Los Angeles, 1980
Main article: Public Image Ltd.

In 1979, Ferguson founded CD Presents, which was the name for his concert promotion division and later for his studio and record label. Ferguson's concert promotion career reached its zenith when he was asked to produce West Coast shows for Public Image Ltd. during PiL's first two American tours. The 1980 PiL show at Los Angeles' Olympic Auditorium is remembered for its confrontations between PiL frontman John Lydon (Johnny Rotten) and the audience, as Rolling Stone observed, "thirty percent . . . [of whom] were umitigated swine: misfits, outsiders . . . These human dregs coagulated into a swarming, sweaty mass and lent the proceedings the air of a sour, phantasmagoric nightmare. . . And what a show it was. The music was immense and primitive, the crowd was horrifying, and Lydon was staggeringly in control every second."[22]Such histrionics aside, the Olympic Auditorium show proved not only a watershed in U.S. punk annals, but it also marked the first notable appearance of Los Lobos, a then-struggling wedding band that Ferguson welcomed as a last minute addition to the bill.[21][23]

The L.A. appearance publicly showcased punk music in all its physical alarm; the back room political tensions that strafed the San Francisco leg of the 1980 PiL tour were no less dramatic. In keeping with their iconoclastic posturing, the members of PiL balked at major label promotion to back their tour, insisting instead on working with smaller, independent promoters. This led to the band's association with Ferguson and, with a handshake between the two parties, a deal was struck to allow CD Presents to stage the L.A. and San Francisco shows. But this informal partnership put PiL and Ferguson on a collision course with a formidable set of music industry powers, including Premier Talent, (a top tour agency), Warner Bros. Records, (PiL's U.S. label) and Bill Graham, head of the San Francisco-based Bill Graham Presents and the music industry's most powerful promoter.

Unable to chase Ferguson off his claim to the PiL West Coast shows, both Premier and Warner Brothers eventually backed off. Graham, however, held a virtual monopoly on concert promotion and — even though he openly detested punk music — he was not about to let an independent promoter best him on a high profile show in his home territory. From Ferguson's perspective, the San Francisco showdown was a crucible in which his convictions of independent promotion operations would be tested against a ruthless, uncompromising corporate system and the legal and financial resources at its disposal — an "organized ferociousness of opposition," that one journalist covering the events judged, "was convincing proof for many that PiL was more than a rock and roll band."[8] The high stakes of this power play were not lost on Lydon, whose own reputation as an anti-corporate hell raiser balanced on its outcome: "We've got to play this gig," [Lydon] exclaimed. "It's everything we came here to do on this tour. We gave them six gigs for these two, and we'll see which ones come off the most successful. That's what they're really afraid of."[8]

Graham stepped in on a number of occasions, using exclusionary rights he held with some Bay Area venues to deny CD Presents / PiL of a concert location. Such interference resulted in the show twice being cancelled. Ferguson held firm, and as the final date of the concert approached, Graham maneuvered again, this time trying to persuade San Francisco Mayor Dianne Feinstein and the city's Chief of Police to terminate the show. Fearing riots if the show was cancelled, city officials authorized CD Presents to proceed with the concert — an outcome that Ferguson considered a significant victory for independent music promotion.[8][9]

Other CD Presents concerts

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In addition to PiL, Ferguson would work with many of the most influential bands of the U.S. punk music movement. Through 1982, CD Presents arranged shows in L.A. and San Francisco for the The Weirdos, The Dils, The Avengers, The Go-Go's and D.O.A. Two other seminal bands, The Germs and X, gained prominence thanks to Penelope Spheeris's, The Decline of Western Civilization, a landmark concert documentary filmed in part at CD Presents-sponsored shows in Los Angeles. Ferguson and CD Presents also orchestrated and promoted New Wave 1980, the first ever punk music extravaganza that brought together punk and alternative music acts from all over the West Coast, as far away as Vancouver. “Ferguson. You stick with this punk rock thing," advised friend and New Wave 1980 attendee, Tom Waits. “It's gonna be big someday.”

Studio

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In 1980, Ferguson returned to San Francisco with the express purpose of building a recording studio. He opened the 3,000 square-foot CD Presents studio in 1981 which quickly garnered a reputation for generating outstanding sound quality in its recordings. The studio also became a training ground for aspiring engineers. Veteran engineer and record producer Sylvia Massy (she would later record, among others, Johnny Cash, Tom Petty and Tool's Undertow), got her start at CD Presents, engineering and mixing Rat Music for Rat People, Vol. 3, the last in a series of punk and alternative music compilation albums produced by the CD Presents studio and released by the CD Presents label.

Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, CD Presents recorded a range of musical artists: NOFX (White Trash, Two Heebs and a Bean), electronic music pioneers, Moev, and Gospel artists associated with broadcaster and founder of the Gospel Elites, Emmit Powell. Even independent artists who projected a more conventional rock sound cut their teeth at the San Francisco studio, such as R.E.M. and Chris Isaak, who recorded their first demos there.

The studio also diversified into audio-for-video post-production. Director David Fincher (Se7en, Fight Club, Zodiac) used CD Presents studio in the early 1980s for some of his first projects, including an early MTV video for The Motels, an HBO concert of Rick Springfield, and a controversial public service TV spot for the American Cancer Society.

Label

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Main article: CD Presents
Logo of CD Presents, the record label founded and managed by David Ferguson.

The alternative culture-led backlash against the corporate-dominated entertainment of the Reagan era helped position Ferguson and CD Presents at the forefront of an especially prolific period of punk and alternative music. CD Presents' emerging profile as a label that embraced riskier, anti-commercial music, appealed to an ever-growing cadre of alternative musicians and punk music artists. Eventually, the list of bands either recorded or distributed by CD Presents through Ferguson's Buried Treasure division numbered close to 3,300 artists. At any given time, the CD Presents label recorded either in studio or in concert, The Avengers,[24] Dead Kennedys, Black Flag w/ Henry Rollins, Bad Brains, Circle Jerks, Flipper, The Subhumans, D.O.A., Butthole Surfers, Tales of Terror, NOFX, T.S.O.L., Minutemen, MDC, Dirty Rotten Imbeciles (D.R.I.), Corrosion of Conformity, Naked Raygun, Mojo Nixon, The Adolescents, and The Dwarves. Once considered by Andy Warhol's Interview Magazine as "America's greatest unknown band,"[25] the San Francisco group The Offs recorded its First Record (1984) album under the CD Presents banner. For that record, Ferguson commissioned Jean-Michel Basquiat to design what is now recognized as one of the iconic album covers of the punk rock era.[1] Photographer Louis Mattarelli created an equally powerful image for the back cover of the album.

Throughout the '80s, Ferguson would periodically cluster a number of singles of CD Presents' bands and release them as Rat Music for Rat People compilations, Vol. 1 (1982), Vol. 2 (1984) and Vol. 3 (1987). The first volume was a collection of songs recorded at CD Presents-sponsored concert shows. Needing a facility to fix these live recordings moved Ferguson toward building his own studio, thus marking his transition from live concert promotion and production to studio recording and the founding of a label to release the tracks.

As a whole, the Rat Music compilations would help steer a generation of disaffected American youth toward various alternative music scenes. One such young musician was Kurt Cobain: “In 1984 a friend of mine named Buzz Osborne (Melvins’ singer/guitarist) gave me a couple of compilation tapes (Rat Music for Rat People Vol. I & II) with Black Flag and Flipper, everything, all the most popular punk rock bands, and I was completely blown away," remembered Cobain, in a 1993 interview published posthumously. "I’d finally found my calling. That very same day, I cut my hair short. I would lip sync to those tapes—I played them every day—and it was the greatest thing.”[26]

At the same time that the definitions of punk and alternative music began to loosen, CD Presents signed and promoted an ever broader range of songwriters and bands. The label signed Billy Bragg in 1984, helping the UK songwriter gain an American audience by releasing his first two albums (Life's a Riot with Spy Vs Spy and Brewing Up with Billy Bragg) in the U.S. In 1987, CD Presents released Hysterie, 1976-1986, a compilation of songs by the avant-garde musician, poet and actress, Lydia Lunch. Pioneering electronic music artists and post-punk, avant-garde acts also recorded under Ferguson's label, such as Tuxedo Moon, Minimal Man, and Moev.

Distribution

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As with CD Presents, Ferguson built his distribution company Buried Treasure Inc. from the ground up, calling upon the promotion talents and network of contacts he cultivated in his previous incarnations in the arts and entertainment industry. Many such contacts headed independent record labels themselves. When, in the mid-1980s, major record labels began clamping down on illegal importing and squeezing out legal independent distribution channels, the overall indie record industry fell into crisis. Ferguson moved in to assist in 1986. Under his Buried Treasure division, he distributed the record catalogs of nearly 100 labels. Newer labels, too, such as Wax Trax! Records (Ministry), first gained traction in the industry by turning to Buried Treasure, which became Wax Trax!'s first distributor west of the Rockies. Buried Treasure also distributed various singles from pre-Nevermind Nirvana, delivered records for the labels TVT Records (Nine Inch Nails) and Sub Pop (Pearl Jam, Everclear), and distributed product for Epitaph Records, culminating with The Offspring's 1994 breakout album Smash, which sold 16 million copies (the highest-selling independent album of all-time) and, for the first time, established independent distribution as a commercially lucrative business.

Institute For Unpopular Culture (IFUC)

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In 1989 Ferguson founded the Institute For Unpopular Culture, which carries on in a nonprofit model the same goals Ferguson championed in the more business-oriented framework of CD Presents. It is through the IFUC that Ferguson most forcefully advanced what he deemed a 'New Philanthropy.'[4] Relying solely on volunteers to for its administration, IFUC is defined by a management style unencumbered by the bureaucratic paralysis that, Ferguson contends, afflicts many nonprofit organizations. This 'New Philanthropy' also refocuses the purpose of donor contributions by directing the money toward the cause rather than diverting it toward stock-market investment or administrative overhead. IFUC has long been highly regarded both nationally and within the San Francisco arts community for its commitment to alternative arts and its ability to mobilize financial and network support for non-profit artistic expression.[27][28][29]

Ferguson's and IFUC's stated mission is to discover and mentor outsider artists and creative people by assisting with public relations, business, counseling, opportunities, access to equipment, sponsoring with grants and funding for their projects.[2][30] Since its founding the Institute has supported and been associated with a number of prominent artists, including Obie-award winning performance artist Holly Hughes,[28][31] environmental activist Julia Butterfly Hill, and graffiti superstar Barry McGee (a.k.a. "Twist"). From 2001 to 2004, Juliana Sloane was David Ferguson's deputy at IFUC who ably assisted on all of its projects.

IFUC launched The Punk Rock Orchestra, a 50-plus member collaboration which recasts punk songs (some composed by punk groups which recorded years before on Ferguson's CD Presents label) in an orchestral format.[32][33] The Punk Rock Orchestra embodied Ferguson's dedication to balancing the artistic and the flippant: “One shouldn’t take David Ferguson too seriously. His Institute For Unpopular Culture and its requisite Punk Rock Orchestra practically legitimize all that is absurdly-and ironically-postmodern.”[34] The orchestra has been featured on NPR and CBS Radio's The Osgood File. It was voted San Francisco's Best Local Band in 2005 by readers of both the SF Weekly and San Francisco Bay Guardian weekly newspapers.[35]

IFUC's sponsorship of William Noguera, an artist who painstakingly crafts photorealistic paintings with thousands of ink dots with a rapidograph pen (a process Noguera refers to as "stippling"), has garnered public attention and triggered controversy given that Noguera has since 1983 been on death row at California's San Quentin State Prison.[6] Former board member and chief financial officer, Cassandra Richardson, ran IFUC with Ferguson for 5 years. She left the Institute in 2007 to assume the role of selling Noguera's paintings and arranging his exhibitions.

IFUC has also worked closely with Creativity Explored, the groundbreaking San Francisco non-profit visual arts studio and gallery that teaches and exhibits artists with disabilities. IFUC sponsored the feature film about the school.[36]

In 2002, Ferguson was invited by prominent activists Medea Benjamin and Andrea Buffa, of Code Pink and Global Exchange, to participate in the founding of United for Peace and Justice, a coalition of U.S. anti-war organizations. Through his media coordination efforts, Ferguson helped initiate the first public demonstrations against the Iraq War.As he did with his anti-Vietnam war campus protest group, Ferguson jumped on the Iraq issue early as UPJ staged the first series of protests a full six months prior to the official start of the conflict. Ferguson made a personal commitment to fulfill the organizational responsibilities of IFUC and this meant utilizing art as a catalyst for stoking social awareness and political action. To both protest the eventual invasion of Iraq and commemorate the first anniversary of the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington D.C., United Peace for Justice commissioned IFUC-sponsored installation artist Joe Mangrum who designed and installed a mandala at San Francisco's Justin Herman Plaza.

Mentor/protégé

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As with that of Andy Warhol's The Factory, the histories of Ferguson's enterprises have been checkered with creative personalities who proceeded on to notoriety in one creative endeavor or another: Courtney Love (Hole) and both Roddy Bottum and Billy Gould of Faith No More worked at CD Presents while pursuing musical stardom. Fat Mike of NOFX fame also worked under Ferguson's tutelage in the Buried Treasure division. Upon starting his own label, Fat Wreck Chords, Fat Mike fashioned his business model after that of CD Presents, even paying homage to his former boss when he released the CD compilation, Fat Music for Fat People, a play on the Rat Music records released by CD Presents.

IFUC is the latest forum of Ferguson's that is sustained by this same informal mentor-protégé dynamic. Acclaimed New York poet, Kate Colby, worked for several years at IFUC as a volunteer. One of Ferguson's first assistants was Ann Armstrong, who gained unwelcome notoriety by being forced to testify against her one-time boss, Martha Stewart, in the stock scandal that resulted in Stewart's imprisonment. He also mentored, and has been mentored by, noted Bay Area artist, political activist and radio personality, Dorka Keehn. IFUC also sponsored the Language of the Birds, a sculptural installation in San Francisco's North Beach-Chinatown area, that was designed and is being unveiled on November 23rd 2008 by Keehn and sculptor Brian Goggin.

Big Sound

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Ferguson formed Big Sound in 2006 as a means of realizing his ambitions to preserve and present classic silent films in a live setting. Through a series of film restoration projects, Big Sound aims to recreate for modern audiences the experience of seeing these movies as they would have been presented during the silent film era: in ornate, Art-Deco metropolitan movie houses draped in the aesthetics of a typical 1920s gala movie opening — floodlights, red carpets, vintage cars and clothing, and an orchestra providing live accompaniment. For each movie in the restoration series, Big Sound will commission a different acclaimed composer to create a new film score. Once a movie in the series has completed its run of major city appearances, Big Sound will release a DVD of that movie and license it for television viewing.

The German classic Pandora's Box — based on the restoration of the original film funded by Hugh M. Hefner and produced by Big Sound— which starred the American actress and Jazz Age icon, Louise Brooks is the first of Big Sound's restoration efforts. Spearheaded by Ferguson and Big Sound's Vice President of Production Angela Holm, the project also enlisted the George Eastman House, a leader in film restoration, as its archival sponsor. The Eastman House's connection to Pandora's Box is especially significant since it was GEH's long-time curator James Card who rescued both the film and Louise Brooks from obscurity back in the late 1950s.

Big Sound plans to tap into Eastman House's archival support and restoration expertise for future projects in the silent film series. It is a relationship that Eastman House officials regard as vital to the preservation of film culture:

"Big Sound is motivated by a genuinely altruistic desire to restore silent films and bring them back to theatrical venues, so modern audiences can fully appreciate their enduring artistry.” – Dr. Patrick Loughney, Director of Motion Picture Department, George Eastman House.

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Notes

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  1. ^ a b c d e f Rediscovered Punk Art at Art Basel, Miami NY Arts, March-April, 2008. Retrieved on April 16, 2008.
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i Martine, Lord. Ferguson finds unconventional fits him just right San Francisco Chronicle, March 29, 2002.
  3. ^ a b c David Ferguson Joins Subculture Books Bear Valley News, March 28, 2008. Retrieved on April 3, 2008.
  4. ^ a b Beck, Daniel A. "The New Philanthropy." The Nob Hill Gazette. July 2001.
  5. ^ a b Kalem, Stefanie. Chamber Punk East Bay Express, April 16, 2003.
  6. ^ a b c d Lawrence, Ella. In Pen and Ink SF Weekly, December 27, 2006. Retrieved on April 3, 2008.
  7. ^ Visual Arts San Francisco Chronicle, March 23, 2006. Retrieved on April 2, 2008.
  8. ^ a b c d Wechsler, Shoshana. "Emperor's New Clothes: Public Image in San Francisco, Part 1." Damage, Vol. 1, No. 7. July 1980. pp. 8-10
  9. ^ a b Wechsler, Shoshana. "Emperor's New Clothes: Public Image in San Francisco, Part 2." Damage, Vol. 1, No. 8, August 1980. pp. 26-28
  10. ^ The Hurricane, August 9, 1968. p. 25.
  11. ^ University Of Miami Yearbook, IBIS. 1968.
  12. ^ Jednak, Robert. "Ferguson Disciplinary Decision Expected Today." The Miami Hurricane. December 19, 1967.
  13. ^ Tent, Pam. Midnight at the Palace. 2004. pp. 110 - 112.
  14. ^ Reed, Rex. "The Cockettes: Better a Tinsel Queen than a Golden Toad". Chicago Tribune, September 19, 1971.
  15. ^ Zane, Maitland. "Les Cockettes De San Francisco", Rolling Stone, October 14, 1971. pp. 32 - 35.
  16. ^ Tent, Pam. Midnight at the Palace. 2004.
  17. ^ Tudor, Silke. House of Tudor. SF Weekly, May 19, 2004
  18. ^ O'Neil, Denny. "Vaughn Bodé: Death of the Cartoon Guru." High Times, October 1976, pp. 61 - 63, 88 - 89, 92 - 94.
  19. ^ National Lampoon, February 1975, p. 92.
  20. ^ Tent, Pam. Midnight at the Palace. 2004.
  21. ^ a b Jarrell, Joe. Putting Punk in Place -- Among the Classics. San Francisco Chronicle, September 26, 2004.
  22. ^ McKenna, Kristine. "Public Image vs. a rotten crowd." Rolling Stone. June 25, 1980
  23. ^ Munoz, Matt. Leaders of the Pack. Bakotopia.com / Mas Magazine, September 23, 2007.
  24. ^ Avengers Summary. mp3.com
  25. ^ O'Brien, Glen. "Glen O'Briens Beat (Ahem)." Andy Warhol's Interview Magazine, May 1985.
  26. ^ Savage, Jon. Kurt Cobain: The Lost Interview 1993 Guitar World interview, published posthumously, October 1996.
  27. ^ Voted Best Organization to Support Your Art. San Francisco Bay Guardian, July 29, 1998 [1]
  28. ^ a b Feinstein, Julie. Think SF Weekly, August 16, 2000. Retrieved April 4, 2008.
  29. ^ 2007 Masterminds SF Weekly,
  30. ^ Institute For Unpopular Culture (IFUC).
  31. ^ Iorio, Paul. E-merging Arts. San Francisco Chronicle, August 19, 2000. Retrieved April 3, 2008.
  32. ^ Kalem, Stefanie. Chamber Punk.East Bay Express, April 16, 2003. Retrieved on April 3,2008.
  33. ^ Swan, Rachel. Outcast Orchestras. East Bay Express, June 11, 2003. Retrieved April 3, 2008
  34. ^ Flavorpill SF, May 18, 2004
  35. ^ Punk Rock Orchestra
  36. ^ Martine, Lord [2] San Francisco Chronicle, Oct. 5, 2001

Discography

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CD Presents Discography

See also

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Category:1947 births Category:American businesspeople Category:American music industry executives Category:American record producers Category:Anti-Vietnam War activists Category:Anti-Iraq War activists Category:Anarcho-punk Category:Film preservation Category:Impresarios Category:Living people Category:Music promoters Category:Philanthropists Category:Punk Category:Punk rock

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