Night Flight - "Take Off" to The Doors
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The Doors Are Open is a 1968 black-and-white documentary first aired in the United Kingdom on 4 October 1968 and shown regularly on Night Flight. Combing footage of the Doors playing live at London's Roundhouse venue, interviews with the band members and contemporary news snippets of world current affairs. Watch Night Flight's original broadcast tonight!
Night Flight - "Take Off" to Elvis
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Welcome to Night Flight! Tonight, we “Take Off” to Elvis. Ever since his 1956 debut, Elvis Aaron Presley has provoked more passion, more controversy and more adoration than anyone else in the history of Rock. Literally, the King. Fine Young Cannibal's Roland Gift sits down with Night Flight to discuss the sacredness of Elvis and the riskiness of their cover "Suspicious Minds."
Night Flight - "Take Off" to New British Invasion
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“Here’s a look at the second British Invasion of America…” says Pat Prescott ahead of this brand new arrival from the vault featuring music videos from Adam Ant, Heaven 17, and Eurythmics. The first British music invasion was of course lead by The Beatles in 1964, so we start the show tonight with a rare performance from a 1982 documentary called The Compleat Beatles.
Night Flight - Harlem Variety Review
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This Night Flight segment from one of our early seasons ('81-83 era) features a 1955 episode of "Showtime at the Apollo," featuring an ensemble of African American performers live from the the landmark Apollo Theater in Harlem. The show is hosted by "Mayor of Harlem" Willie Bryant and features incredible performances from Bill Bailey, Ruth Brown ("Have a Good Time"), Cab Calloway and his Orchestra ("Minnie the Moocher"), Lionel Hampton ("Cobb's Idea"), Leonard Reed, "Big" Joe Turner ("Oke-She-Moka-She-Pop") and Sarah Vaughan ("Perfidio").
Night Flight - "Take Off" to Video Violence
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Tonight we "Take Off" to Violence in Music Videos in this 1984 original episode of Night Flight; perfect for triggering your local PMRC chapter. “The following program contains controversial material…” Pat Prescott warns before contrasting the "psychological violence" of the Ramones against the "comic book violence" of Iggy Pop in this '80s time capsule that also features music videos from Golden Earring, and a piercing scream from the infernal beyond courtesy of Alcatrazz.
Night Flight - "Take Off" to Comedy in Music Videos
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“What do you do when a guy puts Mayonnaise on your shoulder?... Do the Watusi!" — Howie Mandel circa 1986.  And so goes 3 minutes of towering cringe (even by '80s standards) in tonight’s "Take Off" episode to Comedy in Music Videos from 1988 that also features the legendary Max Headroom, Father Guido Sarducci, Bette Midler, Will Smith and more!
Night Flight - "Take Off" to Art in Music Videos
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"One of the sturdiest trends in rock videos," Pat Prescott says, "is the use of 'high art' to elevate down and dirty Rock 'n' Roll." Tonight's original episode of Night Flight from the archives is a "Take off" to Art in Music Videos! The episode highlights art and music collaborations like New Order and William Wegman (and the dog supermodel Fay Ray), Grace Jones's cadre of counter-culture luminaries in "I'm Not Perfect," Warhol's video for The Car's "Hello Again," and Roberto Longo's for The Golden Palominos (feat. Michael Stipe).
Night Flight - "Take Off" to Drag
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“Female impersonator Divine portrays women from the sleazy to the sublime,” Pat Prescott says at the start of Night Flight’s “Take Off to Drag.” The episode is another timeless Night Flight classic that also features Joey Arias, David Bowie and more. It begins with scenes from 80s Canadian Drag star Craig Russell in clips from the film Too Outrageous! (1987), also featuring impersonations of Mae West and Barbara Streisand.
Night Flight - "Take Off" to Heavy Metal Comedy
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"Boy isn't heavy metal a lot of fun!" says Mr. Bill at the start of Night FLight's special "Take Off" to Heavy Metal Comedy, (before an untimely death by anvil.) And Mr. Bill is right: Heavy Metal is a reliably comedic genre, intentional or not. This episode kicks off with Alcatrazz's "God Blessed," a satire of MTV that doomed its chances of airplay on that channel, (but of course got play on Night Flight), Keel's "Right to Rock", Accept's kaleidoscopic video for "Midnight Mover," Japanese rockers Loudness and Ireland's Mama's Boys.
Night Flight - "Take Off" to Music Video Directors (1983)
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“Millions have seen their work,” host Pat Prescott says, “but only a handful of people know who they are.” Tonight, we “Take Off” to Music Video Directors circa 1983 on Night Flight. The episode covers the music video work of two prolific leaders of the art form: American Bob Giraldi (Michael Jackson, Diana Ross) and British David Mallett (David Bowie, Joan Jett).
Night Flight - "Take Off" to Rock Around America
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Welcome to Night Flight’s “Take Off” to Rock Around America, with songs and videos that celebrate American life, it’s people, the land, and its musical history. Born out of a revolt against society, and nurtured by a rebellious of the ‘60s, Rock has often carried the banner of Revolution. Featuring Matthew Wilder’s “The Kid’s American,” Randy Newman, Frank Sinatra’s smooth jazz cut “L.A. Is My Lady” (from his final solo album), western-tinged new wave act Rubber Rodeo, and nu-pop crooners Randyandy.
Night Flight - "Take Off" to Duets
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This '90s syndication episode of Night Flight is dedicated exclusively to duets featuring a match made in art-pop heaven: Peter Gabriel and Kate Bush, KLF and Tammy Wynette's idiosyncratic country/dance-pop hybrid of pedal steel guitar & drum machines "Justified & Ancient," UB40 & Chrissie Hynde, and finally, Cher hits on Butthead in "I Got You Babe," the mega-crossover event of music television history we all needed. It's a bonafide hit-parade and a perfect specimen of our unique "Take Off" format, indeed.
Night Flight - "Take Off" to Day-Glo Rock
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“They’re the flashiest bands in Rock ’n’ Roll” Pat Prescott says at the start of tonight’s new ‘Take Off’ arrival from the archives, “Musicians who express themselves as much through packaging as playing.” What follows is a high chroma, technicolor video mix featuring Fishbone’s “Modern Industry,” We've Got a Fuzzbox and We're Gonna Use It!, Kid Creole and The Coconuta, and more.
Night Flight - "Take Off" to Reggae (1983)
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Night Flight covers the origins and politics of reggae music, featuring interviews and performances from artists such as Jimmy Cliff and Bob Marley. English musicians influenced by reggae such as UB40 and The Police are also featured.
Night Flight - "Take Off" to Heavy Metal (1983)
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This 1983 episode of Night Flight marks an early iteration of the now-iconic Take Off format. Night Flight’s genre-focus programming block stood apart from anything else on music TV at the time, a true to form, "Take Off" to Heavy Metal delivers an exhaustive, decade-spanning survey of the genre’s evolution! “Heavy Metal is a musical reaction to the mellow love generation,” host Pat Prescott explains, taking us through a hard-driving journey through two decades of heavy metal mainstays. Featuring exclusive Night Flight interviews with Blue Öyster Cult, Creatures-era Kiss, and more.
Night Flight - "Take Off" to Afrobeat
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This new Night Flight Video Profile arrival from the vault traces the Afrobeat sound as a revolutionary sound and a political force, linking African rhythm to global pop and protest.  “I have death in my pouch… I can't die, you can’t kill me,” says Nigerian artist and social dissident Fela Aníkúlápó Kuti at the start of this episode. The profile also features Senegalese group Touré Kunda, juju pioneer King Sunny Adé & His African Beats, and sounds from the wider Pan-African musical movement.
Night Flight - "Take Off" to Heavy Metal (1987)
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Fresh from the Night Flight vault: a white hot half hour of heavy metal madness featuring Europe, Great White, Rough Cutt, and more. From arena-sized bangers like “The Final Countdown” to the Sunset Strip’s signature swagger, this episode captures ’80s metal at its loud, unapologetic peak.
Night Flight - "Take Off" to Animation VII
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“Take Off” to Animation is one of the most beloved original Night Flight formats, as true today as it was in the 1980s. Like our other animation specials, this 1987 arrival from the vault is a one-of-a-kind time capsule from an era when music videos and animation technologies were evolving side by side. Featuring Grace Jones’ multi-media visual spectacle, vibrant cel animation for Wally Badarou’s “Highlife,” and David Bowie’s rotoscoped video for “Underground” from Labyrinth (also streaming on Night Flight Plus), the episode highlights hybrid formats and emerging tools like early 3D computer animation at the height of the cultural zeitgeist.
Night Flight - John Waters Interview
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In this essential Night Flight interview, John Waters reflects on the transgressive ethos that defines his filmmaking. He recounts his humble beginnings touring prints from the trunk of his car, the neighborhood Baltimore crew of collaborators including Divine (“I don't trust anybody that hasn't been arrested at least once”), and a career built on offending multiple generations. A timeless snapshot of a Night Flight icon, and the perfect way to celebrate ten years of the streaming channel!
Night Flight - "Take Off" to Politics 4
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“Rock music continues to have a close connection with contemporary politics,” host Pat Prescott says at the top of this newly restored "Take Off" episode. From Bob Dylan’s political symbolism to Nena’s apocalyptic pop, this 1984 episode traces the music and politics across a rapidly shifting global landscape.
Bangkok, Date with Death
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A taut and twisty '80s crime drama from writer/director Jess Franco? The second of his two filmed-in-Spain-but-with-Bangkok-exteriors productions is seriously fun and full of surprises: When a teenage heiress is kidnapped from her boyfriend's yacht, it will pull the trigger on a lethal spree of evil playboys, kung fu killers, beauty salon torture devices, the hard-boiled private eye known only as Panama Joe and a deliciously ferocious Lina Romay as the ruthless mastermind behind it all.
Night Flight - OMNI Video Profile
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Atlanta, Georgia post-punk trio Omni. Featuring 2019's "Skeleton Key" and more.
Night Flight - "Take Off" to Drag City 1
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“Take Off” to Chicago-based independent label Drag City featuring music videos from Bill Callahan, Ty and Denée Segall, Circuit des Yeux and Smog.
Night Flight - Choir Boy Video Profile
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A potent blend of nostalgia-laced romantic pop from Choir Boy on Dais Records.
Night Flight - "Take Off" to RVNG Intl.
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Formed in 2013, RVNG Intl. has consistently released compelling sounds in the form of extravagant reissues, daring new signings and rising avant-garde stars.
Night Flight - Purple Mountains Video Profile
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Purple Mountains, the last project of late Silver Jews singer David Berman, released after a decade of absence from the music industry and a month prior to his tragic passing, was a clever, occasionally somber tribute to the country-rock traditions that had guided much of Berman’s career.
Night Flight - Marching Church Video Profile
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Danish rock band Marching Church began as a side project of solo musical experiments for Elias Bender Rønnenfelt of Iceage. After the success of the band’s debut album on Sacred Bones, This World is Not Enough Rønnenfelt brought in Iceage bandmate Johan Weith and trumpeter Jakob Emil Lamdahl.
Night Flight - Death Bells Video Profile II
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Death Bells is the longtime musical collaboration of Will Canning and Remy Veselis, two Australians who moved to Los Angeles in 2018. Their music blurs the lines between post-punk and grunge, and their latest EP “Take My Spirit Now” explores “love, paranoia and destiny.”
Night Flight - High Vis Video Profile
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High Vis, led by enigmatic front person Graham Sayle, play “aggressive, gripping, and artful punk” that is sonically beyond the parameters of any single genre or scene. On their second album Blending, they bring a more introspective focus to their political lyrics.
Night Flight - Sub Pop Video Profile II
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Tonight we profile the Sub Pop roster, including music videos from Tunde Adebimpe and Pissed Jeans.
Night Flight - Mudhoney Video Profile
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Seattle-based grunge foursome Mudhoney. Featuring 1991's "Good Enough" and more.
Night Flight - Sub Pop Video Profile
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Tonight we take off to Sub Pop, one of the most legendary names in alternative music, with songs by Bully, J. Mascis, and Washed Out.
Night Flight - Zola Jesus Video Profile
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Zola Jesus is the decade-long solo project of Nika Roza Danilova, featuring dark, haunting lyrics and mesmerizing and ever changing electronic production. Danilova’s earliest output was characterized by noisy, lofi percussion and synths paired with her airy, ascendant vocal. She would quickly begin moving away from this sound, instead opting to create her own interpretations of pop music, progressively experimenting with cleaner production and working with artists like M83 and Prefuse 73. A longtime friend of Sacred Bones, her most recent release for the label, Okovi, arrived in 2017.
Night Flight - Father John Misty Video Profile II
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Father John Misty, the alter ego of songwriter Josh Tillman, embarks on his sixth album with a more rock-influenced edge.
Night Flight - "Take Off" to Sacred Bones 7
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Tonight’s video profile shines a light on Brooklyn’s Sacred Bones Records, and artists such as SQÜRL and Xmal Deutschland.
Night Flight - Caleb Landry Jones Video Profile II
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Texas-born musician and actor Caleb Landry Jones makes psychedelic music that “reaches into the cosmic realm of imagination.”
Night Flight - Satomimagae Video Profile
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Tokyo-based artist Satomimagae weaves subtle songs for guitar, voice and noise, propagating variant folk strains that flicker between organic and mechanistic, personal and environmental, warm and cool. Satomi’s latest offering, Hanazono, is a work of both simplicity and intricacy, a veritable biosphere of unfiltered artistry.
Night Flight - Blanck Mass Video Profile
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Blanck Mass uses fast paced beats, clipped vocal samples and mesmerising synths to create music that is emotionally and sonically intense. Dumb Flesh, his first album with Sacred Bones, saw Power’s incorporate more danceable beats around the chopped-up vocals and drones which were built upon in subsequent releases like 2017’s political World Eater and 2019’s melodic Animated Violence Mild.
Night Flight - High-Functioning Flesh
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Los Angeles, CA-based Electro-punk act on Dais Records.
Night Flight - Blondes Video Profile
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"Syrupy, space-case dance music” from electronic duo Blondes.
Night Flight - Jessica Pratt Video Profile
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After a collection of demos and early studio recordings earned her a dedicated audience, songwriter Jessica Pratt moved from San Francisco to Los Angeles and recorded her first intentional album in her bedroom. That album, On Your Own Love Again (released by Night Flight indie label partner Drag City in 2015), would bring her around the world many times, leading many to fall under the spell of Jessica Pratt the performer, the songwriter, the singer with the heavy-lidded voice that feels alien and familiar at the same time. Quiet Signs, the artist’s debut record for Mexican Summer, finds Pratt's songwriting and accompanying guitar work refined -- more distinct and direct.
Night Flight - Uniform Video Profile
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Noise-rock group Uniform pull from a range of discordant influences including industrial, thrash metal and power electronics. Their debut album, Perfect World, released in 2015 pushed this minimalist setup to its limit, followed later that year by the EP Ghosthouse which appeared on Sacred Bones. On their sophomore effort, Wake In Fright, the group focused on sampling and programming sounds of violence from movies and field recordings, including using gunshots and explosions as percussion. In 2020 the group released their first album with drummer Mike Sharp, Shame.
Night Flight - Drew McDowall Video Profile
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Drew McDowall's work mines the hallucinatory spaces that exist between reality and celestial otherness.
Ilian - Love Me Crazy (Anthology Editions)
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“The best songs in the world come from a feeling” says the artist known as Ilian, whose life and career is documented in this short film created by Mexican Summer's Anthology records for the their reissue of artist's long lost 70’s album, Love Me Crazy.
Night Flight - Stephen Mallinder
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Stephen Mallinder, co-founder and frontman of the iconic Cabaret Voltaire, returned with his first solo album in over 35 years: Um Dada, for Dais Records. Laced with leftfield house and cut-up sound collages, Um Dada is a melding of energies that are an exercise in simplicity and motion.
Night Flight - Ernest Hood Video Profile
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The late Portland, Oregon composer Ernest Hood is known for his landmark 1975 album Neighborhoods, which combines field recordings with Hood’s synthesizer and zither playing.
Night Flight - Cursive Video Profile
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Cursive’s core trio of Tim Kasher, Matt Maginn, and Ted Stevens formed in 1995 and has since developed into one of the most consistent and ambitious bands in post-hardcore. Their latest album Devourer, the first for stalwart indie label Run for Cover, explores new territory within their iconic sound and features a suite of horror-themed music videos including the one for “Bloodbather” directed by Chelsea Stardust and starring Stranger Things’ Shannon Purser and Westworld’s Aurora Perrineau.
Night Flight - Photay Video Profile
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Evan Shornstein, known as Photay, has a talent for melody, but rhythm is at the heart of everything he does. He’s been playing the drums since elementary school, and the name Photay actually stems from an eye- opening trip to Guinea with his drum teachers. As a producer, he combines digital and analog, blurring the lines between “real” and electronic instrumentation.
Night Flight - "Take Off" to Drag City 3
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“Take Off” to Chicago-based independent label Drag City featuring music videos from Joanna Newsom, Palace, Silver Jews and White Fence.
Cory Hanson - Limited Hangout Episode 3
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Wand’s Cory Hanson rides into the high desert on a glossy melody through lustrous mists of instrumentation: acoustic, wah-electric and steel guitars, acoustic and electric drums. Pale Horse Rider explores myths and truths of a country on the way down, viewed through a deep-focus lens trained on the city from the deserts on the east; a terminus of unoccupied residential parks and streets fading into craggy footpaths to nowhere, where our passage is seen as diligent, ephemeral and grotesque by turns, forgiven and made beautiful again by the sound. Directed by The Coconut Brothers Liquid Light Projections by The Mad Alchemist Liquid Light Show Music & Sound FX by Dr. Coconut Filmed by Casey Hanson, Asal Shahindoust, Dr. Coconut and Keith Ballard Live Sound Engineered by Zac Hernandez
Night Flight - Hayden Pedigo Video Profile
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The son of a truck stop preacher, raised and home-schooled in a “super religious family” (his own words), the acoustic guitarist and soundscape composer from Amarillo, Texas, first record for Mexican Summer arrived in 2021.
Ether Antenna
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Inspired by Buddhist tales and set to the tune of Pauline Anna Strom’s astral electronic soundscapes; Ether Antenna is a short film following the journey of some 10 robot characters through Nepal. Fusing spirituality with robotics this cybernetic tale exploits humanity’s fascination with technology and religion. Designed and built on residency at RAN (the Robotics Association of Nepal), all robot characters were developed to act specifically as puppets and carry out precise interactions through different scenes and scenarios. The film begins as robots are birthed from a sacred tree into the pure streams of water at Muktinath and follows their journey toward the polluted rivers of Kathmandu.
Night Flight - Black Marble Video Profile
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Black Marble, Chris Stewart’s 80s influenced synth-pop group, began releasing music in 2012 with the EP The Weight Against the Door and later the gloomy full length A Different Arrangement. This moody atmosphere, created by an arsenal of analog synths, would later give way to lighter and warmer sounds on Stewart’s successive releases, including 2019’s Bigger Than Life and 2021’s Fast Idol, both on Sacred Bones.
Night Flight - Matt Sweeney and Bonnie "Prince" Billy Video Profile
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What world, REALLY are Matt Sweeney and Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy from? A place of all-music, knowing no borders, no morals other than natural tribal lines to be violated in the name of love and light, for all together.
Night Flight - Pissed Jeans Video Profile
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Pennsylvania post-hardcore band Pissed Jeans on Sub Pop Records. Featuring Lydia Lunch produced "The Bar Is Low" and more.
Night Flight - Silver Jews Video Profile
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Silver Jews was an American rock band formed in Hoboken by David Berman and Pavement members Stephen Malkmus and Bob Nastanovich. Inspired by the conceptual art at the Whitney Museum where Berman worked as a security guard, they would record their earliest tracks on the answering machines of friends.
Night Flight - Philippe Krootchey Video Profile
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Born in 1954 in Versailles, France, Philippe Krootchey was a musician, DJ, radio and television host at the forefront of the gay liberation movement in France.
Night Flight - SRSQ Video Profile II
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SRSQ is the moniker of Oakland singer and musician Kennedy Ashlyn, who has steadily honed her songcraft to create a “music of tumult and triumph.” Her 2022 LP “Ever Crashing” is an “aching, reverent” dream-pop creation.
Night Flight - Craig Leon Video Profile
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Producer on The Ramones and Suicide’s debut albums during the downtown NY zeitgeist of the late 1970.
Night Flight - Meg Baird Video Profile
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Folk artist Meg Baird comes from a long family tradition of Appalachian folk roots, her great-great uncle was folk-singer and regional historian Isaac Garfield Greer. Her solo work features soft, airy vocals that float above otherworldly folk arrangements and her band Espers draws upon the baroque pop/chamber folk sound of the late 1960s, creating an intoxicating psychedelic sound.
The Sword and The Sorcerer
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The 1982 sword-and-sorcery adventure film co-written and directed by cult director Albert Pyun arrives on Night Flight Plus! Meet Talon, a daring mercenary who conquers castles and dungeons alike with his lethal three-bladed sword. But when Talon becomes the prince of a kingdom controlled by an evil sorcerer, he is thrust into the wildest fight of his life. Can Talon rescue the beautiful princess and slay the warlock!?

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