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Tonight: Houston Filmmaker Raymond Gayle's Electric Purgatory at Domy Books

Electric Purgatory screened almost two years ago at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, but Rocks Off still hasn't seen Houston director Raymond Gayle's film about the plight of the black rocker. We're gonna miss the next screening too - tonight at Domy Books - due to Thanksgiving travel, but we are excited that a Houston-based filmmaker is getting plenty of attention for trying to bring credit to musicians who don't get enough attention in the music industry.

The movie features everyone from Afro-punks Bad Brains to guitar legend Vernon Reid to the Roots' ?uestlove talking about the struggles black musicians encounter when they don't fit into the mold of R&B, rap, soul or blues that promoters and record labels want to put them into. It profiles everyone from Chuck Berry and Jimi Hendrix to Prince and Fishbone, and all artists in between.

MFAH's Web site has an extensive, 83-minute audio interview with Gayle, where he talks about the influence of previous rock documentaries on his motivation to make Electric Purgatory.

You can also screen the movie in its entirety via Youtube, but wouldn't it be more fun to see it on a large screen in the backyard of Domy? Right now the DVD is at the bottom of Rocks Off's 362-film-long Netflix queue.

Maybe we should move it to No. 1?

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Shey is an experienced blogger, social media expert and traveler. She studied journalism at Oklahoma State University before working as a full-time reporter for Houston Community Newspapers in 2005. She lived in South Korea for three years, where she worked as a freelancer.
Contact: Brittanie Shey