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9 LIVES OF TYMON DOGG
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9 LIVES OF TYMON DOGG (2008)
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Multi-award winning filmmaker Merrill Aldighieri has now completed work on her 2008 Tymon Dogg documentary feature, 9 Lives of Tymon Dogg (Merrill Aldighieri, Copyright © 2008). This new documentary feature includes: Interviews, special solo performances and vintage footage of Tymon Dogg, his new band "The Quikening", and other surprises. This 1 hr. 6 minutes (including 20 min. of bonus clips) feature film is now available in a broadcast quality Widescreen stereo version for TV and DVD, so if any programmers or distributors are interested, please contact either Merrill for info on availability and materials via her website at http://artclips.free.fr/ - or just send me an email via this fan site. Merrill's films by the way are totally self-produced and self-financed, so if anyone you would like to contribute a donation to a specific project, please visit the following link for further information: http://artclips.free.fr/NewProjects.htm - any help towards these projects would be very much appreciated by Merrill.
Below you will find the film's official trailer, past updates and several "screen grabs" from the finished film...
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January 5th, 2008
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Merrill Aldighieri: "Just one more precision, for the film… A large part of the film is of Tymon playing some of his new songs in various interesting locations especially for the film. There is also very interesting interview material interwoven with the location performances and vintage performances. Susan was very influential in the choice of several beautiful locations and also did some camerawork with me."
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December 28th, 2007
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Merrill Aldighieri: "Susan, Tymon, my husband and I hope to get together shortly after New Years when the Eurostar prices climb back down to normal. A fireman who organised a video shooting of the Acton Hall concert has offered several camera angles to supplement mine, and I was afraid to have the footage sent to me during the Christmas rush. I am anxious to finish the editing and this is all that awaits to finish. I will include some live performance from both the Acton Hall concert and the Mindsweeper benefit concert, as well as the private performance Tymon gave of his Tetraharp. I did show my rough cut to family over the holidays, and my cousin, session guitarist Hugh McCracken, was fascinated by Tymon's technique and use of unusual ancient harmonies in some of his chords. I am very eager to finish the film and have the fun of more reactions as this opens up new worlds to me too."
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November 20th, 2007
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An update from Merrill Aldighieri: "My 2 film projects are going great. The Acton Town Hall had a 3 camera film crew already there who were organised by one of the firemen who is also a film director. We are planning to share footage so this should be a mountain of footage to edit, but loads of great choices. There were a lot of interesting things that happened backstage which I will include in the film. Tymon opened both nights' performances with a rare showcase of his musical invention, the TETRAHARP. Tymon also made a special demonstration and interview for my film. It is really a beautiful instrument to hear and to watch. My Video Jockey Memoirs from Hurrah gained a lot of good new footage from my recent trip to New York too. I found back one of the guys I worked with at this club who was also a drummer. Thanks to MySpace I found he was playing in a gig the day I arrived in New York. Even though I had not been in touch with him since the 1980ies, I located his gig and surprised him. I got some great footage. It was his bachelor party in fact, he was getting married the next day. While I was in New York there was also a performance by a band from Philadelphia, The BUNNYDRUMS. They are an avant garde gothic rockabilly band... if I may coin my own description which perhaps nobody would agree with. Suffice it to say it's original and I was very happy to delay my return to France so I could film one of their rare gigs. So, I am now snowed under with great footage and must get editing!"
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October 27th, 2007
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Today I received the following email from Merrill with new information regarding her forthcoming Tymon Dogg film: “Just a quick note as I am on a borrowed laptop in New York. The editing of the Tymon Dogg film so far is 44 minutes. After the following 2 concerts I will shoot in November I hope to have a 60-minute program. The title of the film is "9 Lives of Tymon Dogg". It is looking very good so far and has been a delight to edit and shoot. I am currently staying in Spanish Harlem where Tymon Dogg lived during his time in New York, but much has changed! I will try to send you some pictures of the Tymon Dogg shoot when I get back to France shortly.”
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September 24th, 2007
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Today I received the following email from Tymon’s friend Susan de Muth with news of the film: “While Merrill was over here they filmed a boat called the Mindsweeper, which had been on fire the night before. The Mindsweeper was a great underground venue on the Thames in London and we were going to put on a secret gig with Tymon there for Merrill to film. Unfortunately it had been burnt out so it was quite surreal to see Tymon sitting at the piano there doing “Velvet Stella” with all the charred and fallen beams behind him where once there was a sweet little stage with red velvet curtains (that footage will be in the film about him). Then Merrill thought well why not make a quick film about the fire and the boat to try to get some funding for the repairs and while we were doing that the 'river gypsy' came in and started playing the guitar and Tymon picked up his violin and there's a little bit of that at the end of the film. Anyway it would be great if it is on your site and what we would really like is for people to come up with suggestions for, or organize, benefit events to raise money for the restoration of the Mindsweeper - Camden (the boat's owner) reckons about £10,000 should do it. However the boat was/is a great venue and deserves to be restored to its former glory so if you can help in any way please get in touch with Camden (the one with the smokey face!) whose email address is at the end of this email or me, Susan... we are thinking of doing benefit gigs etc so any performance/venue ideas, admin, promotional help etc would be gladly received.”
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I also received this following message from Merrill on September 24th: “I just returned from London where I spent a wonderfully productive time with Tymon Dogg and his mate Susan de Muth. We did lots of shooting for my video projects, one about the club where I met Tymon back in 1980, and another program dedicated to Tymon's music. A friend of his invited us to film a sequence on his houseboat which then caught fire. Quite dramatic. The piano survived the flames and Tymon played some of his new songs. The firemen thought the fire may have started from a faulty generator. Nobody was on board when the fire happened. Some river gypsies joined in and Tymon vowed to organise a benefit gig in the near future to help rebuild the "MINDSWEEPER". I will include a lot of the early Hurrah concert footage in the DVD of Tymon. I hope it will be ready in a couple of months, but the schedule is a bit hazy…”
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ABOUT THE FILMMAKER - MERRILL ALDIGHEIRI
Multi-award winning Independent filmmaker/artist/producer-director Merrill Aldighieri has been involved in many different aspects of film, music and television for over 30 years, directing and producing the following films: Terriens à go-go! (2001), Motel Blue 19 (1993), Metaphoria (1991), Borders (1989) (TV), The Gun Is Loaded – A Lydia Lunch Documentary (1989), and The Kissing Booth (1988). Noted actors such as Steve Buscemi, Joe Morton, Mark Boone Junior, and Tim Blake Nelson have all appeared in her films.
Merrill was also one of the world’s first video jockeys of the early 80’s. She was the person MTV studied to create their first “VJ”. She filmed over 100 different bands and singers that played at New York’s HURRAH club from 1980 to 1981, including artists such as: Bauhaus, Dexys Midnight Runners, The Fleshtones, Gang of Four, Richard Hell, Magazine, The Mekons, New Order, Psychedelic Furs, The Raincoats, Sun Ra and Tymon Dogg, among many others.
Prior to working as a ‘VJ’ at Hurrah’s, Merrill spent two years working directly with Jim Henson and Frank Oz on the Muppet Show. Various anecdotes from this era involve her finding and saving the original Kermit the Frog puppet from being thrown out, and another involving her on 5th Avenue on Easter Sunday to interview old men for research that Oz was doing to create a voice for the character of Yoda in 1977’s “Star Wars”. Also during her time with the Muppet Show, she documented the development of a feature film project called "The Dark Crystal", and shot hundreds of hours of the process of design and construction with Brian Froud, Dick Smith, and dozens of other talented artists. Her finished film was used to raise money to do the feature.
After the Hurrah Club closed, Merrill went on to develop an innovative music video series called "DANSPAK" (now on DVD as “Danspak 1-2-3”) for SONY HOME VIDEO. Danspak featured music clips from the New York underground, and even some major label artists, including: Jim Carroll Band (with guest Lou Reed), Man Parrish, Shox Lumania, Richard Bone, Lenny Kaye Connection, Michael Musto, Strange Party, and The Ordinaires.
Throughout the following years, Merrill has also won various awards and honours for her work, including: The CinéPause Award for ‘Best Short Documentary’ (1998), Emmy Award for ‘Best Documentary of Cultural Significance’ – (Metaphoria) (1992), Emmy Award for ‘Best Animation in a Children’s Program’ (Sesame Street), Montbelliard Video Art Festival Finalist (1992), Rolling Stone's Top 10 Music Video Directors Worldwide (1990), Montreal International Film & Video Festival.
Recent projects Merrill has worked on include her 2003/2004 “Seismic Riffs” documentary of experimental avant-garde post-punk New Wave Californian group Tuxedomoon, a 2002 digital feature titled "Vampire of Notre Dame", various animated pieces for shows such as MTV and Beavis & Butthead, and also the creation of digital press kits on DVD and CD for theatre companies and independent producers and directors, among other projects. For more information about Merrill’s career, visit her website at: http://artclips.free.fr/ - or myspace.com page at: www.myspace.com/eyefull_tower - The information for this brief overview of Merrill’s impressive career was in part referenced from her own must-read self-written 2004 article detailing her career in film, music, television and art titled “Confessions of a Pixil-Picker” via the following link: http://www.experimentaltvcenter.org/history/people/ptext.php3?id=1&page=1
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