From Detour

DECEMBER 1994

Headquartered in a squalid walk-up on Melrose Avenue, but far from the retail district, the duo labors diligently amidst a ratty collection of throwaway furniture and with some of the finest technical equipment that can be bought, borrowed, or donated to produce what is undoubtedly the most accomplished programming ever seen on public access, usually noted for its penny-pinching paucity and Warholesque production values. Guttervision's bracing inventiveness and sophisticated zaniness can hold its own with the best of network or mainstream cable, but its menu may be too dangerous for the mainstream, and public access allows the pair to put out their product completely undiluted.

A typical segment opens with a doctored sample from the broadcasts of Robert Tilton, a recently indicted televangelist who serves unwittingly or not as the Guttervision mascot. "The farting preacher," Cameron cracks. "Evangelical gas," Frank adds. Then follows a segue into a music video or band interview, segments on local art happenings, alternative magazines, provocations from the increasingly popular pain scene, or even, occasionally, a string quartet.

Record companies happily download controversial music videos too raw or MTV ("The 'M' stands for 'money,' or 'mindless,'" Frank sneers). Danzig, Nine Inch Nails, Pitchshifter, and My Life With the Thrill Kill Kult fill the musical bill of fare; segments on local pain

"FREEDOM OF CHOICE

IS WHAT YOU WANT,

FREEDOM FROM CHOICE IS WHAT

YOU'VE GOT."

mavens Ron Athey, Duchess De Sade, or Bob Flanagan add some spice; coverage of skin-art photographer Todd Friedman or downtown eccentric Dean Karr stirs the brew; and a cartoon, anything from a Roadrunner sample to Sick and Twisted's "Bulimiator" provide the garnish. Always interesting, often annoying, and never indifferent, the show has a fervent following in markets across the county, and the distinction of having been banned, not in Boston, but in New Jersey.

FRANK CZAJKA: We're not anarchists. We may be revolutionaries, but we're also realists. We document segments of society--call it subcultures if you like, but flourishing subcultures--that are influencing mainstream culture. ABC, NBC, CBS are the real anarchists, subverting the public's intelligence with their version of reality.

CAMERON C. SMITH: We're liberators; to free the mind and awaken the brain-dead is our mission.

FRANK CZAJKA: "Great spirits have always encountered opposition from 'mediocre minds'--Albert Einstein.

Viva la revoluccion! Viva Guttervision!

PO. Box 16343

North Hollywood, CA

91615-6343