I had the pleasure of watching an early cut of How’s Your News? at the ICA in London a few years back and was immediately hooked by the joyful, adventurous spirit of the folk from Camp Jabberwocky. Camp Jabberwocky is a summer camp for people with mental and physical disabilities and the How’s Your News? project grew out of a video class that Arthur Bradford taught at the camp. In How’s Your News? a group of the campers travel across the USA interviewing people along the way and the feature length film is a gem - funny, moving and totally entertaining. But the story did not end there.

The How’s Your News? team also started a band, the results of which can be heard in the film and on a CD they produced. They played SXSW in 2004 - at Stubbs right before the Polyphonic Spree. It was pretty incredible. I think the audience initially felt a bit uncomfortable, not sure how to react, but these guys ROCK through any hangups the rest of us may have about disability and everyone was totally into it by the end of the first song. They played again this year and I’m pleased to say they’re rocking better than ever, although it was sad that the marvelous Ronnie couldn’t be there on stage with them due to health problems.

Arthur and the team are currently working on a series for MTV so watch out for more from them. In the meantime you can buy the original DVD and plenty of other rather excellent goodies from their store.

Lightspeed Champion (ex-Test Icicle) joined them on stage for a song

Jeremy drummer extraordinaire with my friends Anna, Jacqui and Emily

Susan Harrington’s excellent shoes

This entry was posted on Friday, March 21st, 2008 at 9:15 pm and is filed under SXSW. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.