Howie Klein

IT CAME FROM AQUARIUS RECORDS tells the story about the San Francisco based independent record store, Aquarius Records. Having closed in 2016 after 47 years, this small apartment-sized store championed local, underground, independent, and challenging music to the masses - most memorably with their infamous bi-weekly, college essay-length, new-release lists. Six years in the making, interviewing collectors, musicians, and store owners, the film has a very personal angle, with lots of behind-the-scenes footage (and drama) that shows both the joy and excruciating stress that comes with running — and closing — a store like this, helped in no part by the changing city around them.

On June 13, 1978, the punk bands the Cramps and the Mutants played a free show for psychiatric patients at the Napa State Hospital in California. We Were There to Be There chronicles the people, politics, and cultural currents that led to the show and its live recording.

It all started with a carton at an auction... In 2007, a collector of rock memorabilia bought a carton of vintage records, posters, concert ephemera, and an old film reel at an auction in Europe. When he got home, he examined the contents and saw the 8mm film labeled "Black Man". He borrowed a projector and discovered the unbelievable truth: The man was Jimi Hendrix. After authenticating the image as best he could, the collector found Vivid, and a vast investigation was launched. A group of Hendrix experts and historians directed Vivid to two girls who knew the artist intimately: Cynthia "Plaster Caster", who personally cast Jimi's penis in plaster, along with Pamela Des Barres, the world famous "supergroupie".