Last Days Here premieres in Los Angeles to Sell-out Crowd as Geof O’Keefe and Bobby Liebling Reunite On-stage During Q&A Session; View the YouTube Clip!
This past Friday March 23rd, 2012 saw the West Coast premiere of the documentary Last Days Here (originally titled The Fall and Rise of Bobby Liebling). The film is an often brutal, unflinching look at Liebling and the chaos that he brings to those around him, from his parents to many of the members of the various PENTAGRAM line-ups to his current and former managers. Presented in a somewhat Behind the Music-style approach, it chronicles his downward spiral into drugs and borderline psychosis before finally getting his life back on track with the help of friends, current manager Sean “Pellet” Pelletier and girlfriend/now his wife Hallie. A number of classic PENTAGRAM songs are featured in the film, as well as a BEDEMON classic from the 70s, Mike Matthews’ own “Last Call” from the Child of Darkness album. A recent comment from someone who viewed the movie was, “It is possibly the most disturbing film I’ve ever seen.” High praise indeed!
Last Days Here had prior successful openings earlier in March in New York and Philadelphia, and the L.A. event was no exception. The show was totally sold out, with additional chairs needed to accommodate the crowd. The film was warmly received and following the conclusion, an on-stage Q&A session took place, hosted by Cinefamily’s John Wyatt and Last Days Here co-director Don Argott and producer Sheena Joyce. They then subsequently introduced a very lucid and healthy-looking Bobby Liebling and his beautiful wife Hallie, and engaged in a discussion about the movie, PENTAGRAM’s current and future plans and so on.
At about fifteen minutes into the thirty-one minute session, an audience member asked if they were aware a former drummer was in the house, and Geof O’Keefe was unexpectedly introduced to thunderous applause, with Bobby and the director asking him to join them for the remainder of the Q&A. While on stage, an audience member asked Geof about the status of the BEDEMON album and a rumored PENTAGRAM book. O’Keefe confirmed that BEDEMON’s Symphony of Shadows is being released by the Finnish label Svart in the U.S. and Europe with a tentative late May/early June target date. Additionally Geof is in the early planning stages with longtime friend and PENTAGRAM photographer Cameron Davidson to release a coffee-table style book of Davidson’s 70s era photographs of the band with O’Keefe supplying the text of chronology and history, along with anecdotes from those days.
Following the interviews was a fantastic after-party held on the patio behind the theater, with drinks, music, autographs and hundreds of photos taken.
Last Days Here is currently showing on cable on the Independent Film Channel’s IFC OnDemand channel. An eventual DVD with bonus footage is also in the works.
This coming Friday, March 23rd, 2012 will see the West Coast premiere of the documentary Last Days Here (originally titled The Fall and Rise of Bobby Liebling). Taking an often brutal, unflinching look at Bobby and the chaos that he brings to those around him, from his parents to many of the members of the various PENTAGRAM line-ups to his managers, it’s presented in a somewhat Behind the Music-style approach in chronicling his downward spiral into drugs and borderline psychosis before finally getting his life back on track with the help of friends, current manager Sean “Pellet” Pelletier and now-current wife Hallie. A number of classic PENTAGRAM songs are featured in the film, as well as a BEDEMON classic from the 70s, Mike Matthews’ own “Last Call” from the Child of Darkness album. A recent comment from someone who viewed the movie was, “It is possibly the most disturbing film I’ve ever seen.” High praise indeed.
Last Days Here has already had openings earlier in March in New York and Philadelphia, and the West Coast will finally get to see it during an exclusive one-week run 3/23 thru 3/29 courtesy of The Cinefamily At the Silent Movie Theatre – and no, this film isn’t silent! – located at 611 N. Fairfax in LosAngeles. The opening night 3/23 showing will start at 8PM, followed by an Opening Night party, with special guest Bobby Liebling and the directors of the film. Geof O’Keefe will be attending as well, along with other people featured in the film. Tickets are only $12, so order soon as this will sell out. You can read more about it, see a trailer for the film and get directions/ticket info at www.cinefamily.org/films/last-days-here-one-week-run/ and for those not in the area, the documentary is also showing on cable on the Independent Film Channel’s IFC OnDemand channel.
It’s been a long time coming – almost ten years since the original recording sessions in May 2002 – but 2012 will finally see the release of Symphony of Shadows, the first “official” BEDEMON release of new material ever. Consisting of nine original songs and clocking in at just shy of an hour with a number of tracks in the seven-to-ten-minute range, SoS will delight fans of classic vintage metal. Those lucky few who have heard it – and who then mysteriously “disappeared” – have remarked words to the effect of, “This sounds like it came out in the 70s!”.
The exact spring release date is not determined as of yet and the European label will remain undisclosed for the time being, but the contract has been signed and the label has all the liner notes, photos and music.
It has been a ridiculously lengthy and pain-staking process to get this project finished but we are confident this will be one to blow the speakers out to. More details as they become finalized.
Yes… yes, we know: it was supposed to be out in 2010. So what happened? To be perfectly blunt, getting a decent deal has turned out to be a lot harder than expected. ‘The biz’ isn’t what it was even just 3-4 years ago; labels have folded or been absorbed by larger ones. Production and sales of physical product have been diminishing in favor of downloads, and the labels that are still around are getting tighter with their budgets. Being that this is a studio project and not a release by a current, touring, functioning band, there’s less profit for the labels in terms of tour merchandise etc. Some labels expressed interest and said they’d work up an offer… and then never got back to us, and then ignored repeated e-mails and phone messages. Go figure. Virtually everyone that has heard the album, or even parts of it, has said it is a killer 70s-style heavy monster, so it isn’t a problem with the material. It is both baffling and extremely frustrating! We want this out for the fans to finally hear. Randy’s memory and music deserves a bit more respect and interest than we’ve gotten so far…
Having said that, we are currently in discussions – as in, literally within the past week – with labels and can say with 99.9% certainty that this long-in-the-works project will finally see the dark of night in the first half of 2011 on both CD and vinyl, and probably downloads as well.
You’ll read about it here when we have some definite news…
