WHAT: Satan MacNuggit Video-Music Roadshow
WHERE: The Boot Pub
WHEN: Sunday, July 22
No, Satan MacNuggit is not a new demonic treat at McDonald’s. But it is a feast for the senses and food for thought.
The video-music roadshow is a nomadic showcase of do-it-yourself (DIY) video, a new art form gaining popularity across the country.
"DIY infuses both the production and distribution of these videos," explains Satan MacNuggit host and co-ordinator, Jonathan Culp. "Canadian filmmakers have been wringing their hands for decades over how to get films out there. The philosophy of what I’m doing is just to subvert the whole multi-plex theatre system and try to do for video what was done for music years ago, try to bring it into public places and liberate it from the present channels of control, simply to give more people greater access."
The three hour show is a collage of topics and formats. Pieces range from 30 seconds to 22 minutes, requiring a short attention span and making for a friendly format in a bar setting.
The Short Subjects are inspired by the punk subculture, featuring everything from music videos, to masked wrestlers to a documentary about a group of kids trying to start a scene in rural Missouri. Newsreels focus on activist movements in Seattle, Quebec and Toronto. The Collective Videos are particularly interesting, made up of old footage of educational films and television which have been cut up and put back together to make something entirely new.
The subject matter of Satan MacNuggit is bound to raise eyebrows and perhaps even offend a few. However, by showing in venues such as galleries, barns, bars and gymnasiums, Culp is hoping to reach a wide audience and simply provide an outlet for alternative entertainment and alternative thought. He recalls one of his favourite shows and the unexpected reactions in Picton, the heart of small-town Ontario cottage country. On a drunken Sunday afternoon, a gathering of primarily older gentlemen in a pub became increasingly vocal and involved in the video, shouting at the screen, cheering on punks and protestors.
But not all receptions have been so favorable. Even the name, Satan MacNuggit, seems to start controversy.
"It really just came out of a frantic brainstorm when we were trying to name a label for my band before I shifted my focus to video," laughs Culp. "Approaching it from an activist perspective, it’s a bit of an ironic commentary on the capitalist aspect of what I’m doing, asking people to pay money to see my videos and to function within that system. So it’s a commentary on my uneasiness with that, the evil corporation, the Satan MacNuggit.
"I have caught a bit of heat for the name in a few smaller towns. The organizers of the show in St. John, New Brunswick got banned from the high school where we put it on. I had some people in McDonald’s corners in Ontario telling me that I was advocating eating babies or something. You never know how people are going to react."
