Overground above and beyond

Multimedia narratives and experiences link Tulsa’s creative past and emerging future

Todd Lincoln and Jeremy Lamberton’s local legacy, Tulsa Overground Film & Music Festival, is back with an eclectic weekend of film, music, video art, and cutting-edge virtual reality technology Friday and Saturday, May 5 – 6. 

Overground 2017 appears leaner, meaner, and better than ever. What’s weird is how they still feel like they are trying to earn it. 

“We’re overextending ourselves, because we always want strong additions and the best stuff … which is a good problem to have. But every year we’re learning how to be more efficient,” Lamberton said. 

That’s apparent in the two-day schedule, halved from last year, which still packs an equally concentrated punch.

Forty bands, including BRONCHO, The Bourgeois, The Daddyo’s, and Chainmail mixing it up with visiting acts ADULT., Terminal A, The Koreatown Oddity, and Mope Grooves, will be playing all night both Friday and Saturday at The Vanguard, Soundpony, and Chimera. If you wanted to make a weekend out of just the music, you easily could. 

Along with the band lineup, the virtual reality component has evolved. This year features the festival’s first Tulsa VR/360 Forum, exhibiting the latest tech for VR films and immersive games. The forum will also offer four panel speakers from the field, including Dylan Roberts of Freelance Society, a VR filmmaker based here in Tulsa.

Those elements are symbiotic with the indelible roster of short and feature films—a reliably rude, yet affectionately weird and vital lineup that, thanks to the efforts of Lincoln and Lamberton, you (quite literally) won’t see anywhere else.  

Plus, there will be DJs and food trucks galore.   

Holdenville-native, legendary actor, and stalwart gentleman Clu Gulager will hold acting workshops and exhibit a personal selection of directorial works, including his avant-garde, 1969 debut “A Day with The Boys,” as well as the latest iterations of his rock opera “John and Norma Novak,” and the infamous 1992 horror film “Fucking Tulsa.”

Mark Borchardt, of “American Movie” fame, brings his new documentary “The Dundee Project” and his cornerstone film “Coven,” among other selections, and what promises to be a lively Q&A.

Meanwhile, festival feature films “Tony Conrad: Completely in the Present,” has its Oklahoma premiere, the lauded indie sci-fi horror love story “Sequence Break” has its Midwest premiere, and “Haunters,” a documentary about haunted houses, has its world premiere. (See below for more on the features.)

Though perhaps the reason to really be psyched is the ultra-rare appearance from Larry Clark, whose infamous photography book “Tulsa” defined the seedy underground of T-Town of the late ‘60s, and whose films “Kids” and “Ken Park” controversially elucidate the lives of outsider teens with a moral and sexual frankness that tends to make basic people super uncomfortable. 

“It’s such a huge honor,” Lincoln said of Clark. “This guy does not do this stuff.” 

“More than that,” Lamberton added, “he’s not coming here to screen his newest feature. It’s a specific program of short films he’s never screened anywhere before. We haven’t even seen them. It’s going to be a surprise to us as it is to you.”

By bringing Gulager and Clark, Lamberton and Lincoln highlight the city’s rich film history for a new generation of local artists—and with a badass lineup of musicians, current films, and growing emphasis on VR technology, Overground carves a path into Tulsa’s creative future.

Tulsa Overground Film & Music Festival runs May 5 – 6.  See page 34 for a full schedule. Tickets will be available at each venue’s door, but to purchase online or for more information, visit tulsaoverground.com.

Overground’s Premiere Showcase

All feature films will be shown at Fly Loft, 117 N. Boston Ave. Admission is $10.

Tony Conrad: Completely in the Present

Fri., May 5, 10:00 p.m. – 11:40

Written and directed by Tyler Hubby, this compelling documentary about the most iconoclastic avant-garde artist, musician, filmmaker, and teacher you’ve never heard of, “Tony Conrad: Completely in the Present,” makes its Oklahoma premiere at Tulsa Overground.

Conrad, who died last April at the age of 76, shot experimental films like “The Flicker” and “Straight and Narrow,” avant-garde curiosities of minimalist cinema, as well as music. His philosophy was dedicated to getting beyond the edge of outsider art in esoteric and challenging ways that would later become a pivotal influence on better-known artists. Conrad was a legend.

He recorded soundtracks to other filmmakers’ movies, introduced the concept of “just intonation” to the music world, collaborated with minimalist composer La Monte Young, taught on college campuses, and was also inadvertently responsible for starting The Velvet Underground. Oops.        

Utilizing new and archival interviews with the likes of Moby, Lou Reed, John Cale, Sonic Youth (with whom he toured in the ‘90s), and artists like Tony Oursler, we learn how they were inspired by Conrad’s obsession with deconstruction to build things totally new.
 

Sequence Break

Sat., May 6, 10:15 p.m. – 11:35

In video gaming terms, sequence breaking means “performing actions or obtaining items out of their intended order.” In “Sequence Break”—Graham Skipper’s directorial debut that is also making it’s Midwest premiere at Overground—that idea is applied to a sentient video game and a reclusive repair man. It’s a Cronenbergian love story that, if influence and history are any guide, incongruously rearranges technology and flesh.

Known primarily as an actor in horror circles for originating the role of Dr. Herbert West in Stuart Gordon’s musical iteration of his gore classic, “Re-Animator,” Skipper has also starred in the indie creepfests “The Minds Eye,” “Almost Human,” and “Beyond the Gates.”

Inspired by the body-horror of cinematic-gore masters David Cronenberg and Brian Yuzna, Skipper writes and directs the story of Oz (Chase Williamson, “John Dies at the End”), a withdrawn arcade game tech who meets and falls for the lovely Tess (Fabianne Therese, “Starry Eyes”). When a mysterious new machine appears in his shop out of nowhere, the act of playing it not only begins to splinter his perception of reality, but also that of his newfound lover, melding them together in ever more gruesome ways.
 

Haunters

Sat., May 6, 11:50 p.m. – 1:20 a.m.

Halloween may be six months away but there’s no reason why you can’t embrace the spirit of the season in the cockles of your cold, black heart all year round. 

Making its world premiere at the Tulsa Overground Film & Music Festival, one-man band, writer/director/producer/editor Jon Schnitzer’s feature documentary debut, “Haunters,” is a deceptively light-hearted look at the obsessive folks who stage haunted houses each year. Known among themselves as “haunters,” they aim to top each other at creating frightening worlds where the screams of the attendees are considered the accolades.

At one end of the spectrum there are the traditional fright-fests—jump scares, corn syrup blood, people in scary monster masks, wielding buzzing-but-disabled chainsaws as the kids shriek in delighted fear. You can spook, but you can’t touch.

On the other end we are full-contact “extreme haunts.” Simulated murder, rape, kidnapping, drowning, and torture—experiences not meant to scare you as much as scar you—push beyond the realm of the consensual, mining genuine fear and helplessness with the tacit acquiescence of their victims. 

“Haunters” examines not only the novelty and fun behind the holiday’s well-loved pastime, but also very real danger when things go too far.

Single channel art

By Liz Blood

Ben Dowell, artist, curator, and Tulsa native is this year’s video art curator at Overground. Showing the works of five artists on separate monitors throughout Fly Loft, Dowell selected the videos based on the formal situation—hallways and lobbies—of their screening environment. 

“I chose purposely intimate works that were short in duration … mainly single channel documentation of performances. They are basically straightforward records of events. Shown on [flat-screen] monitors, they become a personal experience that is familiar in format and pace, but the content varies greatly between them.”

Three of the five videos include: “55TVsOFF 2012 - 2016 (acciones públicas en contra de la TV)” by Andrés Felipe Uribe Cárdenas—documentation of Cárdenas shutting off televisions in public places; “The Masters Carpet” by Clinton King—a performance of martial arts and a space blanket; and a piece by Nicola Kuperus, from the band ADULT., which is playing in the music portion of Overground, as well. The other two works are to be announced.

“Jeremy and Todd have been obsessive in their search to connect Tulsa audiences to larger ideas and examples of film, music, and art,” Dowell said. “I’m always excited to help with their project and to be back in Tulsa.”

Overground sound

We’ve seen CGI tigers vaporwave through gunky parades. We’ve seen Biker Fox front flip into a Scandinavian celebrity. We’ve seen a singing vagina. We’ve seen all these things at Overground—and if the music lineup compares to the festival’s past installments, you can expect to hear acts who share the on-screen outlaw spirit. 

As is Overground tradition, the local lead-ups to the top slots will be a kaleidoscope of genres: garage rock, psych-pop, heavy metal, nu-wop, shoegaze, party pop, dance punk, indie freak, hip-hop, hot licks—take your pick. This year’s lineup of 40 bands aims to please (mostly) everyone, or at least freak you out. 

Standouts include the now-you-see-it-now-you-don’t psychedelipop epics of Cucumber and the Suntans, the power-slop (their description, and an Air Heads reference) of Queenager, and the itchy post-future-punk of OKC’s Sex Snobs. Chainmail will defend the faith with thunder-quaking true heavy metal, and Reigns will brrrap a stolen Harley right into a roll of blotter paper. 

Tulsa hip-hop stalwarts Mike Dee, Steph Simon, and Mr. Burns will prep crowds for the aloof and wolf-masked stream-of-consciousness raps of The Koreatown Oddity. The LA producer/rapper made a name for himself through whipsmart EP’s and impromptu sets at West Coast Wendy’s restaurants. 

BRONCHO’s new/no/now-wave rock will buttress performances by the cold and synth-drenched Terminal A and ADULT. The latter group boasts an inner circle that includes the likes of The Knife collaborator Shannon Funchess and Swans’s Michael Gira.

Of their most recent album release, “Detroit House Guests,” headliner ADULT. says, “If the ‘avant-garde’ is thought to be un-domestic then what impact does this domestic situation have on the shape and sound of our project? Can the radical even exist inside the domestic? … Can we become out of order?” 

Tulsa Overground directors Todd Lincoln and Jeremy Lamberton might have asked themselves the same question. Oklahoma’s current domestic situation is dystopian. When your governor is gunning for a goal of five-day school weeks, how radical can you get? 

The fest’s music selection goes just as far toward answering that question as its titular filmography. In a city that often feels like a big small town, Tulsans are lucky to have a festival that encourages pushing the envelope of what’s possible in Oklahoma. 

For more of our coverage on Tulsa Overground, see our interviews with Larry Clark, Clu Gulager, and Mark Borchardt, and Kathryn Parkman’s piece on Overground’s virtual reality programming.