The desert-rock documentary Desert Age: A Rock and Roll Scene History is getting a 10th anniversary re-release on November 20th, with a special premiere screening and Q&A set for this Saturday, November 7th, in Palm Springs, California.
The film was originally released in 2016 after being funded through an IndieGogo campaign. Desert Age features performance footage and interviews with Josh Homme, Dave Grohl, Brant Bjork, Nick Oliveri, Jesse Hughes, Mario Lalli, Kyuss, Queens of the Stone Age, Fu Manchu, Eagles of Death Metal, Target 13, Mutual Hatred, Dead Issue, and Across the River.
The 10th anniversary re-release adds material centered around Black Flag’s historic 1981 Palm Springs show, with new audio and photographs not seen in the original film.
The film’s director, Jason Georgiades, has offered Consequence an exclusive sneak peek, with a gallery of photos featuring Black Flag, Kyuss (including a young Josh Homme), and other artists featured in the documentary.
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Georgiades tells us:
“My grandmother passed away the same evening Gary Arce called me on the phone. I didn’t have the heart to tell him what was happening. I don’t know why. Maybe I was in shock. Maybe I was shy. Probably both, mixed with a little bit of nerves. Gary is the lead guitarist and a founding member of Yawning Man, a highly influential band that helped pave the way for bands like Kyuss and Queens of the Stone Age in the California desert. I had been trying to get in touch with him for weeks to make a documentary about the music scene that emerged from that region. That phone call would eventually lead to Desert Age, a feature-length documentary about the desert rock scene. Almost ten years later, I’m humbled to call many of the people I met while making the film my friends. Looking back, I’m reminded that the day I lost one of my best friends was also the day I began making new ones. I like to think my grandmother had something to do with that. And no matter what anyone tells me, I still believe she did.
From that moment on, I started making friends all over the world who shared the same passion for desert rock and roll. They trusted me to tell their stories and share them with the world. Along the way, I was able to assemble what I believe to be the most extensive digital archive of desert rock and roll artifacts from that era, spanning roughly the mid-1970s to the early 1990s. I scanned band flyers that were disintegrating as I held them. I uncovered photographs of bands that had been tucked away in dusty photo albums, waiting to be exhumed and brought back to life. At times, the project felt like an act of rescue, an attempt to save these artifacts from being forgotten. Memories, fragments of time, records, and traces of people’s lives. Creative testimonials of their time here on earth, now placed before me to capture, preserve, and assemble into some kind of coherent narrative through the art of storytelling and editing. What you see here are more than just memories. They are creative testimonials of a movement. A moment in time when the people, places, and music served something greater than any one band could claim. A movement that championed creativity at its rawest and most primitive core, reminding us that the spirit of the desert is neither vapid nor dry, but dripping wet and soaked with unbelievable creativity, ferocity, and original vision. These photographs are a record of that spirit, and the film is the celebration.”
The 10th anniversary special edition of Desert Age will premiere this Saturday at Festival Theaters in Palm Springs, followed by a Q&A hosted by writer and anthropologist Natasha Berenek and featuring Mario Lalli, Brant Bjork, Sean Wheeler, Sophia Possidon, director Jason Georgiades, and producer Trevar Cushing, with tickets available here.
Following the Palm Springs premiere, the re-release will be available via Jgeorgiades.com beginning November 20th.
See a gallery of exclusive archival photos from the 10th anniversary re-release of Desert Age: A Rock and Roll Scene History, as well as the film’s trailer, below.