(Remarks by Joshua von Brown, director, to colleagues at the Conference on the Apocalypse of Irony in Rock and Roll, Düsseldorf, Germany)

JOSHUA von BROWN (director)
In mid-January 2009, I was busy working on another project when I heard a knock on my edit room door. A man limped in – taller, older African-American, with horn-rimmed glasses. With every step he took he seemed to wince in pain.

In his right hand was a single videotape. He placed it in front of me, said he was a journalist named Mark Clark, and told me he had been working on a film concerning The Incident at Big Rock Springs.

I was stunned.

Since the early 1990’s, I had heard rumors. Pretty much any indie rock show you go to… maybe at some unlicensed loft space… at the end of the night, after the bands have finished… if you listen closely, you’ll hear someone fleetingly whisper something about an old friend who had disappeared at “The Incident.” Maybe you heard it wrong?

Here’s what I had gathered about over the years… Indie rock legend and counter culture hero Richard Havoc (who had strangely gone missing in 1998) had been holed up with some of his followers inside an abandoned nuclear missile silo near Big Rock Springs, CA all through 1999.

Through his propagandist, Richard had been broadcasting his treatises on youth rebellion via local public access television. He was slowly but surely laying the groundwork for a rock and roll revolution.

In December 1999, on the 30th anniversary of the Rolling Stones’ infamously disastrous concert at Altamont, Richard Havoc put out The Call to his youthful followers. Something about a concert, or a gathering, or a meeting… No one was sure.

Thousands of kids descended on his headquarters, looking to get closer to their indie rock hero.

But something happened.

And that’s where all information abruptly stopped. The government cordoned off the entire area. High security barbed wire fence and everything. Area residents talk of many square miles being off limits for a century.

The authorities scrubbed clean all records of what might have occurred. Took the entire Big Rock Springs public access channel off the air. Permanently removed all traces of “The Call” and “The Incident” off the Internet.

Sure you might find a mention in a forum discussion thread or in an anonymous comment on a blog… but I can assure you that it will quickly disappear.

That’s why the concrete materiality of that videotape brought to me by journalist Mark Clark was so shocking.

I watched his work in progress. Afterwards, Mr. Clark told me he was too ill to continue working on the film, and asked me to finish. I eagerly nodded my head in agreement. The Incident must be brought to light.

My mysterious visitor slowly got up and limped back out of my edit room and closed the door.

I never saw or heard from journalist Mark Clark again. Months later, I read in the newspaper that he had passed away quietly in his sleep.

I now present Mark Clark’s cut of ALTAMONT NOW, with only minor changes, to the public for the first time.