Sunday, September 1, 2013

"WILD STYLE" 30th Anniversary Screening Rocks East River Amphitheater-Where It All Began!

Earlier this week, Charlie Ahern, Director of 1982's "Wild Style" documentary along with Summer Stage & Imagination Cinema hosted the 30th Anniversary movie celebration.  Everyone in the scene from "back in the day" came out to the East River Amphitheater on the L.E.S. for one of the best parties of the summer.  Anyone with any type of ties to street art, graffiti or the early days of "real hip-hop" are quite fluent with the legendary film.  If you (for some crazy reason), are not, it's captures the hard core South Bronx scene with hip hop and painting pioneers; Grand Master Flash, the Cold Crush Brothers, The Chief Rocker Busy Bee, The Rock Steady Crew and more.  It tells the story of Zoro (graffiti legend Lee Quinones), in his subway art romances with another graft legend, Lady Pink.)   The crew jumps from train yards to the clubs to a mega outdoor jam - creating the most famous hip-hop party ever. To this day it is still considered the best hip-hop movie, ever.
Last week's screening and pre-screening party was one of the best events of the summer ending where the film ended at this Lower East Side venue, 30 years later.   See a few of the photos below of the guests, the crew from the actual movie and of course, the performers.   (You know it was an amazing event when you have a "withdrawal" for days to come because you simply still want to be there.) 
Have a look at the legends....   
The man himself, Director Charile Ahern and Lady Pink
Fun Gallery founder, Patti Astor (one of the very first to show works from Keith Haring and Basquait among many others)
Lady Pink and Patti Astor
Futura2000 left
Futura and Scratch
Let the break dancing and show begin....
Fab 5 Freddie
AK47 and Carol
Martha Cooper

Shiro
These guys promoted what true hip-hop was/is; peace, love and unity!  Stressing it what is NOT, --like what's going on these days with the hate, violence and killings and just plain craziness.  It was a seriously nice reality check for the younger people in the crowd from the masters who created the real scene - back in the day!
The cast on stage, everyone from the movie,  center; Fab 5, Lee, entire gang!
Charlie Ahern, above/below
My signed print/poster gets it's own seat on the train home. 
"Wild Style" will be at a select New York City theaters for re-release on approx. Sept. 27th - stay tuned for details, and you can always grab the DVD, book and soundtrack on Amazon.com.