A screenshot from “20 Years in The Crypt: Embedded With Dead Moon”.
Dead Moon is a revered name in Australia. They also had a firm following in Europe and across the underbelly of the USA. Now, a new documentary on Dead Moon will have exclusive screenings in Australia in March and April.
“20 Years in The Crypt: Embedded With Dead Moon” delivers two-hours of live footage and candid off-stage vision, shot in 2001 and edited down from 180 hours of footage.
It’s the work of US filmmakers Jason Axel Summers and Kate Fix, who also brought you the “Unknown Passage” documentary about Dead Moon and, more recently, “I Should Have Been Dead Years Ago”“I Should Have Been Dead Years Ago”, the doco about Australian underground rock'n'roller Stuart Gray (aka Stu Spasm, of Lubricated Goat).
In-Tense Touring and Magic Umbrella Films are presenting the premiere Australian screenings:
Sunday March 23 - The Piccadilly Cinema, Adelaide
(w/ live solo acoustic performance by Sunee Holland before the film)
Tix
Friday March 28 - Pink Flamingo Cinema, Sydney
(w/ live solo acoustic performance by Blackie - Hard-Ons - before the film)
Tix
Sunday April 13 - Cinema Nova, Melbourne
(w/ live solo acoustic performance by Joel Silbersher - God, Hoss, Tendrils, Fancy Weapon - before the film)
Tix
From their formation in 1987 to their demise in 2006, Dead Moon were true DIY artists. They had their own record label (Tombstone Records), their own musical instrument store, their own studio and even their own vinyl cutting lathe (the same one on which The Kingsmen's "Louie Louie" had been cut).
Championed by the likes of Pearl Jam and Mudhoney, and they famously turned town a US tour with Nirvana in '92 because they were already committed to a 20-date run in New Zealand.
Dead Moon were led by singer/guitarist/songwriter Fred Cole, whose roots went back to the '60s Los Angeles Sunset Strip scene and his band the Lollipop Shoppe, whose classic 1968 single "You Must Be A Witch" subsequently appeared on various "Pebbles" and "Nuggets" compilations (and was later covered by the likes of the Lime Spiders and Stiv Bators).
Fred's acquaintances back in the day were the likes of Neil Young, then of Buffalo Springfield, Arthur Lee of Love and Sky Saxon of The Seeds. By the early '70s he'd turned his back on the music industry, married and moved to the wilds of Oregon, where, some local bands later, he eventually formed Dead Moon with wife Toody Cole on bass.
They were the only band in terms of actual shared personnel to bridge the '60s American garage era and the late 20th century punk/garage/early grunge scenes, Dead Moon released more than 10 albums and toured the world non-stop for the best part of two decades.
The passing of drummer Andrew Loomis in 2016 and Fred Cole himself in 2017 has done nothing to dim Dead Moon's shining light.
