Tonight, for one night only, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts will be featuring two sneak previews of Dirty Country, a highly entertaining documentary about the underground world of raunchy music, directed by Joe Pickett and Nick Prueher, founders and hosts of the Found Footage Festival, which sold out four shows at the Red Vic last month. Dirty Country, which won the Audience Award at this year's South By Southwest, is part of Yerba Buena's Red State Cinema: Rural Auteurs series.
We just screened the 70-minute flick today, and we were happy to discover that the documentary's main character, Larry Pierce (NSFW), lives just about an hour or so away from our home town, Indianapolis. (We hope he might be performing in the area when we're home for Christmas.) Pierce is a very endearing small-town, family man who loves performing his bawdy tunes for friends in his garage, while selling his tapes and CDs at truck stops and local record stores.
During the filming, Pierce was forced into early retirement after 30 years at his company, and his future seemed pretty bleak. But it turns out that in addition to being a favorite among truckers, Pierce has been considered a cult-classic among his peers. He now tours with bawdy-rock band -Itis and was featured on Howard Stern in January (he'll also be back on again next Wednesday, Nov. 14), and according to his MySpace page (NSFW), his next gig will be in New York City this month. Right on, Larry!
In Dirty Country, you'll also meet other awesome bawdy performers: Doug Clark and the Hot Nuts (the original party band), John Valby (our personal fave), and Blowfly, aka Clarence Reed, who's been providing quality dirty rap since 1960 (ok, they're all our faves).
Pictured above is Larry Pierce at the Nashville Film Festival. Check out the trailer! (NSFW)
Dirty Country | Yerba Buena Center for the Arts | 701 Mission St, SF | Sneak Preview Friday, November 9 at 7 and 9 p.m. | Call for ticket availability: (415) 978-ARTS (2787)