Synopsis

Featuring a score by Roddy Bottum of Faith No More, appearances by Viggo Mortensen, John Fleck, Phranc, Luis Alfaro, Bob Forrest, Summer Caprice, Exene Cervenka, The Ringling Sisters, Glue, Glen Meadmore, plus music by Beck, Peggy Lee, Celebrity Skin, The Lullabies and more….

The PIKME-UP utilizes an amazing wealth of source materials - more than 5,000 photographs, over 200 video hours of performances, hundreds of print elements and intimate interviews with the patrons, owners, employees and performers who made up this unique establishment. An original approach with the source materials, as well as segments on the fashions, music, and art of the period, coupled with how our culture has changed in life is represented in our film.

The PIKME-UP not only captures and brings alive this L.A. subculture in the 1980s, it explores how our society has changed since the masses now use the internet and cell phones to find their communities, stay in touch and get news, information and entertainment - not to mention a Starbucks on every corner. The PIKME-UP was a necessary gathering place for the GBLT communities, celebrities, club kids, hipsters, musicians and artists.

In the mid-1980s the coffeehouse movement in Los Angeles was beginning with wild promise. A tattered Mid-Wilshire storefront that was the PIKME-UP cafe became the prototype for the coffeehouse subculture that started as an unruly rebellion and exploded into a national phenomenon. The PIKME-UP was a Bohemian revolution: a happening of ideas poetry, music, art and performance where a motley group of outcasts formed an unusual community and an enduring family.

Go for a ride with us on this wild, eye-candy tour of a legendary coffeehouse and the aftermath of a culture without intimate meeting places.

71 minutes