The great story of the avant garde
(NYC May 1965 to…)

 “Andrella” is the story of the seminal music, art, and underground cinema that was born in downtown New York City during the heyday of The Velvet Underground, Andy Warhol’s Factory, Fluxus, Jonas Mekas and many others along with related art, music, politics, cinema, sexual revolution, and social political upheaval beginning in NYC from May 1965 through the early days of the AIDS crisis. The historical fiction arc of the opera and all of the characters take place across an arc of time but are not clearly cemented in it.

The story elements are specific to this time and places in downtown NYC (the various locations of Andy Warhol’s Factory, Max’s Kansas City, 56 Ludlow Street, the Meat Packing District, the Chelsea Hotel, and so on). But its themes address broad themes of the nature and subjectivity of art history reaching back to the readymade and through minimalism and pop art. Most centrally, it tells the stories of the evolution of early rock & doo-wop music, folk music, psychedelic rock, hard rock, drone, noise, and the interplay with the avant garde musicians on whose shoulders all well-known popular underground and alternative rock bands stand to this day.

There is a reason for the current resurgence of popularity of this seminal music, art, and film, and I am attempting to illuminate what it is that ties them all together and what it may imply for the future of art and music in New York. Even further, this work seeks to decode the underground, punk, and disruptive works of art. This is the story of the musician, painter, sculptor, film maker, or any artist working away in unknown territory of the avant garde alone in any artistic moment that has yet to be named.