A Meeting of the Strange Minds: Peter Ivers, David Lynch and Devo

History is made at midnight: Excerpt from Josh Frank's In Heaven Everything Is Fine: The Unsolved Life of Peter Ivers and the Lost History of New Wave Theatre

Comments (0) By Josh Frank Wednesday, Aug 6 2008

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Steve, who had watched the movie through the projector window up in his booth, was hit perhaps hardest of all. The movie haunted him. Its strange musical set piece was particularly evocative: A character known only as “The Lady in the Radiator” — a platinum blonde in a shiny ’50s-era dress, with strange, mufflery protrusions emanating from her cheeks — sings a song consisting mainly of five words repeated slowly and sweetly, to beautiful and incredibly unsettling effect.

In Heaven, everything is fine

Devo

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In Heaven, everything is fine

You’ve got your good things, and

I’ve got mine.

In Heaven, everything is fine

Steve watched the film every Friday night for months, and once the general, pervasive creepiness of the Lady in the Radiator began to pass, he realized that something else about the song was nagging at him. The voice sounded so familiar, and it didn’t belong to the actress with the shiny dress and fuzzy cheeks. Scanning the credits, he saw Peter Ivers’ name, and it finally clicked into place. Doug had been given Ivers’ album Terminal Love as a present a couple of years back, and when the brothers listened to it together their reaction was similar to Doug’s walking onto the Eraserhead patio at AFI: Wow, this is very weird. It was quirky, smart, literate and funny.

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Steve had been sure to buy Peter’s self-titled follow-up album as soon as it came out. He was one of only a handful of people to make that purchase. Despite a guest appearance by Carly Simon and critical support (“Ivers’s irony,” quoth Rolling Stone, “bitter and unpredictable, is vicious but worth watching”), the album died on the table. Warner Bros. dropped Peter from the label. Had WB’s marketing department figured out a way to reach the few thousand others who shared the Martin brothers’ taste for independent-sounding music, Peter may have had a chance at achieving with his record what Lynch did with his film. Lynch himself, after all, believed enough in their shared sensibility to charge Peter with writing and singing the number that would become the film’s centerpiece.

In 1977, though, America had spent much of the preceding decade in an explosive renaissance of artistic filmmaking and was far more primed to accept something strange and offbeat emanating from movie projectors than from their record players or eight-track cassettes. Still, unlike Pink Flamingos and many of the other midnight films, Eraserhead was not an instant smash. Nor was it a flop; each week, a few more curious souls filled the seats. But for the Martin brothers, for whom the film had become something equivalent to a new religion, the buildup was painstakingly slow. Cornfeld drummed up buzz with a convert’s zeal, dragging as many of his Hollywood exec comrades as he could to make the midnight pilgrimage. And Doug corralled his friends, week in, week out, to be ringers and start up the chant he hoped and prayed would catch on. But now, a little over a month into the film’s run, his friends had found other things to do.

Tonight he was going to have to start a chant of one, a demoralizing task. At five minutes to midnight, Doug sat in the theater, anxiously brainstorming other ways to get the word out.

Out on the sidewalk in front of the theater, Steve paced and waited for last-minute patrons. He checked his watch one more time, then turned and walked back into the lobby. He was anxious to get the night moving and not particularly looking forward to another 2:30 a.m. closing time.

Then, through the glass doors, he noticed some guys hanging out in front of the theater, wearing what looked like matching homemade T-shirts. Handstitched into each shirt was the word “DEVO” — not like a fan shirt, Steve observed. Like a costume. He stuck his head out the door and asked the obvious question. “Are you in Devo?”

“I am Devo,” was the answer he received.

Steve knew about Devo, and the guys outside the Nuart were just strange enough to be telling the truth. They were also intelligent, unpretentious and friendly in a Midwestern kind of way, definitely not from L.A. They had seen Eraserhead and walked over thinking maybe they would come see it again. Steve invited them in.

The screen lit up, the projector started cranking the reel. Henry, the antihero played by the actor Jack Nance, made his entrance onscreen. Doug took a deep breath. But before he could utter a sound, he was overwhelmed by a collective rumble. Unprompted by him, the rest of the audience had begun to chant.

“Eraserhead, Eraserhead, Eraserhead... ” He looked around and began to recognize some of the faces, people who had been there for previous showings. They knew the chant, and they knew the cue. Lynch’s AFI art film had officially become a midnight movie.