Boulders Magic Music Cw Song Live Like an Animal

For well-nigh of his professional career, writer/manager Lee Aronsohn was most known as a veteran sitcom writer working on well-nigh notable shows equally The Big Bang Theory, Ii and a Half Men, Irish potato Brown, and even The Love Boat. Just earlier becoming a writer, Aronsohn was a college pupil hoping to avoid the draft at the tail end of the Viet Nam war. The remnants of the hippie generation were coming down off its high of Woodstock and migrated to Boulder, Colorado. While attending Boulder University, Aronsohn became seduced by the magic of the campus folk band Magic Music. Hugely popular in Colorado and destined for greatness. A greatness that never came.

Thirty-six years after and on the retirement end of writing, Aronsohn did what well-nigh showtime fourth dimension documentarians do, which is answer the simple question: What happened to Magic Music? Film Threat spoke to Aronsohn near 40 Years in the Making: The Magic Music Movie , which is in theaters in New York and Los Angeles before a wide national release.

Could you requite me the basic logline of your moving picture, 40 Years in the Making: The Magic Music Picture?
Lee Aronsohn: It's about a corking ring, Magic Music, that never made a record, broke upwards in 1976 and disappeared. I was a fan of Magic Music when I was in college, and I decided to find out whatever happened to them.

The Magic Music was an active band from 1970 to 1976. And and then they started at the tail end, Boulder, Colorado is kind of where the Woodstock generation went later on Woodstock. And so Magic Music was part of that, and they butted up against the disco, heavy metal era, which fabricated them obsolete.

"…the generation afterward Woodstock and Magic Music was part of that, and they butted up against the disco, heavy metal…"

Is this a story of nostalgia also equally posterity?
There'south some nostalgia. It's amazing that we've reached the point where it'due south possible to experience nostalgia for the Nixon era and Watergate. But, at that place'southward a lot of parallels betwixt what was going on then, and what nosotros face up at present. I think the motion-picture show tells a story of a band and some individuals, but it's also a lot virtually our generation, and how did we get from there to here. Equally the Grateful Expressionless said, it'south a long strange trip.

What was the spark that got this project moving forwards?
Well, I'd always thought nearly them, because they never made a record. I remembered their music; I remembered their songs. So, I would say them to myself, or I'd sing them to my kids when they were babies, at least a couple of them that I remembered, or the parts that I remembered.

In the dorsum of my caput, I wondered whatever happened to these guys. And after I retired from television, and I was looking for something else to put my energy into, something that would have some significant for me. It occurred to me that this is a story nobody else is going to tell because nobody else has ever heard of them.

A lot of documentaries are beingness fabricated more for posterity'southward sake, to keep that retentivity, or to lock their identify in history.
Certainly I wasn't doing information technology because I thought I was going to brand whatsoever money off of it. I did information technology for their posterity and for mine as well. I won't mind if I get hit by a bus tomorrow. I wouldn't listen at all if this is the last thing that I fabricated.

"…this is a story nobody else is going to tell because nobody else has ever heard of them."

I guess the 2 things I've picked upwardly from your film. I is, Boulder is a very cute metropolis. The other is, just how amazing Magic Music is. Information technology dawned on me while watching it that there's some actually good music in the background, and of course, it has to be this band. This is one of those bands that should have, they should have been famous. They should've been popular. They should have had a record deal. What do you call up was it that kept them from finding stardom?
Yes, it does. I think part of information technology was; they're very protective of their music. They believed in the ethics of the era that they were living. They didn't trust record people. They thought information technology was more important to make their music than it was to become famous. At least the majority of them. So the moment passed.

I remember they always felt like; nosotros're going to concord out until nosotros can do it our way. We're going to agree out and get a better deal, we're going to concord out … and they held that then long that the moment passed and the civilisation.

It as well seemed similar, this is a band that just met each other on the campus quad and started jamming together. It as well felt like that maybe they had dissimilar ideas of what their destiny would be, and they never could get it together.
I think that'due south true. If you expect at their individual lives after Magic Music, almost all of them tried one or two other bands, but only one of them stuck and stayed in the music business. One of them became a carpenter, and ane of them is a messenger, and one of them is simply retired. They've taken lots of different journeys because they all still agree the music love to their hearts. It was never about business for them.

Let's talk about the film as a outset-time documentarian at this bespeak. What did you accept to do to get the project started, to accept an obscure band and to devote an entire film to it?
I kind of stumbled my way through information technology. I ordered a couple of books on Amazon about documentaries. But basically, it was really a matter of but getting cameras and pointing them and so trying to figure out how to cut all the footage together.

"…they're very protective of their music. They believed in the ideals of the era that they were living."

Non but that, you're using these moving images to bring life to these archival photos. I mean, was that a hard thing to get financed, to become washed?
Well, I wasn't dealing with outside financing, and then that was not an outcome for me. I'm fortunate enough that I had the means to exist able to do something similar this for once. But the fact was I was working with a limitation that there was no archival video, no archival film with the band. So either information technology was going to be only a movie of talking heads, or I had to do something else to make information technology interesting, and that'due south when he decided on the illustrations and animative some of the old photos.

And I found this guy in Russia who takes these former photos and animates them, makes them look almost similar, old film footage. I had him exercise a few of those, and then took the illustrations that we had fabricated and got them digitally blithe a picayune bit. I mean, it was pretty limited blitheness, to bring the movie alive.

So now that you're getting stuff together, and in that location's a point at which you attempt to get everyone together for a reunion concert, as well every bit even earlier then rails everyone downwards and try to rebuild some connections. Were you gambling a lot at that point?
Well, I was just going along, going with the flow. When I started, I had three of them. I had three of the band members who were involved in the 2013 album. If you lot've seen the film, tell the story about the anthology they made with studio musicians, and they dropped both original bass players, who have resentments about it. So they were in LA working on the anthology, and that's where I started with the interviews with them. And so getting Poonah the bass thespian, to come with them in Boulder to Eldorado Canyon in Allen's park and to play with them on campus similar they used to. And then to figure out what happened to CW, and if in that location was whatsoever mode to get him back into the fold. And once I realized that information technology was possible, that's when we knew nosotros could practice a concert.

Was that, I guess if those things didn't happen, what do you think would have happened with your documentary?
It would have been a shorter picture, and it would have been a less expensive film, and it probably would have gone straight to digital. I yet would have made it, because I think the story needed to be, it didn't need to be told, just I wanted to tell the story, and I wanted the music to exist heard.

They had all these tracks that they recorded in the '70s, they never released, and they're cute. So one of the great things about this whole projection is, The Orchard is as well releasing a soundtrack album, and it'southward all vintage tracks that nobody has ever heard.

How'd y'all notice those?
The band. Das i of the bass players had only hidden them over the years.

"…all vintage tracks that nobody has e'er heard…the bass players had just hidden them…"

They were hiding in the closet somewhere in the back.
But I recollect all of them knew that the music had some value. If not commercial value, certainly just intrinsic value. So they took intendance of information technology. They've always been protective of their legacy, fifty-fifty though it's been a very express legacy. Simply within the Boulder community, within the customs of the people who heard them dorsum and so, people came out, and we sold out that reunion concert in Boulder. People came out of the mountains; people came out of the woodwork to encounter them once more.

I mean, I can't stress how amazing this music is. I mean, I just become these documentaries and many music ones, and to kind of ran off the bat, just kind of start off stiff and say, folk music is only, I'm only a trivial bit likewise old for folk music, just it's that rediscovering especially when Mighty Current of air came out.
I loved the Mighty Wind .

I mean that was a parody this is the real thing.
That'south true. I remember they're kind of that they have folk roots, but they likewise have, I call them Crosby, Stills, and Tull because they've got, the harmonies and melodies of Crosby, Stills and Nash, and but that stone and flute, Tode's flute, information technology's simply amazing. And information technology's like zippo else.

You kind of recall if they went the CCR route, they'd probably wouldn't be as happy today, if they had gotten sucked into the record business scam.
I recollect that'due south the way they look at information technology is that things turned out the mode they were supposed to turn out. And, they probably, a lot of them wouldn't be alive today if they had taken a record bargain and come to Los Angeles and continue that road.

Then what theme in the documentary are y'all most proud to accept pulled out?
Theme of connection. How connections endure over the years. Even when you're physically separated, and even when you're separated past time. These guys, and the people around them, they share a connection that hasn't gone away. That'due south very special. And I call back that'due south what everybody yearns for. The lyric of Colorado Rockies that opens the motion-picture show is, they're just looking to be found. And I think we all are; we're all just looking to exist plant.

"These guys, and the people around them, they share a connection that hasn't gone away…"

And it was CW that had the greatest rift with the ring, and there is a redemption story in that location too.
Right. CW was the 1 who was probably at the time; the most focused on the ring'southward commercial success. He always thought in that location was going to be a large break for him, and he ended up in the almost precarious position in life. Simply when you sentinel him sing in the concert, when he hits that concluding note, you encounter such joy on his face up that I don't think information technology's been in that location in years.

Forgiveness and redemption. What is the biggest lesson you learned specifically almost this film that you could pass on?
Don't shoot 100 hours.

You had style besides much stuff.
Well, what I learned is that, if yous can have a plan, it's amend to have a plan. Information technology would've been so much easier if I'd known what the structure was going to be of the film when I was shooting it, but I didn't considering some of the stuff hadn't happened yet. So sometimes you have to trust your gut. And that'due south what I did. I mean, in that location were times during the shooting when I'd say, if you've got this is swell, I'm glad nosotros got this, but I have no idea what this picture is going to exist withal.

And it panicked me sometimes, and I just chose to have faith that eventually likes the sculpture that looks at a block of granite and just starts chipping abroad everything that doesn't look like the beautiful woman, that I would find something in at that place, and I believe I did.

So, practice y'all think that'south a lesson, or do you lot think maybe you practice demand to have all that access footage to see where the story takes yous?
I think I could've planned better. I practice know that in hindsight because I didn't know the first thing about what I was doing. I shot the get-go set of interviews I was asking a lot of the wrong questions. I had to find out the story as I was interviewing. I was piecing that story together, as opposed to knowing in my head what I wanted to hitting in the interview. Because as information technology turned out, I did know four, five, six interviews with each one of these guys over the course of filming, and at the terminate which was, nigh a yr and a one-half later we began, and I already did some editing. I had to go back, and I had to get them to say certain lines to plug holes that I knew was there.

"…what I learned is that…it's ameliorate to accept a plan. It would've been so much easier…"

Filling gaps basically.
Yes, and that's why I'chiliad in it likewise, because at that place are merely gaps that I didn't really want to be in the movie, but it needed a connective tissue, and it'south because information technology wasn't until later that I figured out, what structure I wanted. When I started, I didn't know CW was even a possibility. I didn't know he was alive.