PREMIERE BENEFIT SCREEING WHEN THINGS GO WRONG: ROBIN LANE’S STORY—NEW FILM DIRECTED BY TIM JACKSON

Apr 03, 2014

[Arlington, Mass. – March 19, 2014] Filmaker and musician Tim Jackson announces the premiere benefit screening of his new film WHEN THINGS GO WRONG: ROBIN LANE’S STORY including a special performance by Boston favorites Robin Lane & The Chartbusters (and friends). The premiere screening, post-screening Q&A, and performance takes place Friday, April 4 at 7pm at The Regent Theatre, 7 Medford Street, in Arlington, MA. Tickets are $22 in advance and $27 day of and are available at https://regenttheatre.com/ or by calling

Robin Lane began as an artist singing with Neil Young in California’s Laurel Canyon music scene of the late 1960’s. A decade later, in the Boston punk scene, she achieved high critical praise with her own band, The Chartbusters, which became the 11th band on to be broadcast on MTV. After the birth of a daughter she was rejected by the music business and after decades of struggle and ups and downs, she began songwriting workshops for women who have survived trauma and abuse. The film is a feminist perspective on the difficulties of sustaining a career as an independent woman in male dominated business.

Directed by filmmaker and musician Tim Jackson who has played drums with Robin Lane for 35 years. The soundtrack features 21 songs by Robin Lane, many heard for the first time, with additional music by John Kusiak.

The film will be followed by a Q&A with both Tim Jackson and Robin Lane as well as live performances by Robin, The Chartbusters, Barrence Whitfield, Ramona Silver, and others.

For more details on the film, visit http://www.whenthingsgowrongmovie.com/.
781-646-4TIX. Proceeds raised will help secure publishing rights to the Robin Lane songs featured in the film.

About The Film – A Synopsis by Tim Jackson
The film begins in 1950’s Los Angeles where Robin Lane, daughter of Dean Martin’s accompanist, Ken Lane, was born. Neglected as a child, in and out of trouble, she would later discover the deeper issues that would affect her adult life, but inevitably contribute to her creativity.

Her adolescence was spent in Topanga Canyon in the 1960’s, where bands like the Byrds, the Doors, and Buffalo Springfield ruled the Sunset Strip and where they wrote the soundtrack to the riots and protest movements of the counter culture. Her musical talent was nurtured in this richly creative, but chauvinistic folk/rock revolution. Her peers were impressed with the talents of this “girl” singer, but the peace, love, drugs, and freedom of the age had a downside.

In her 20’s, Robin moved to the east coast and eventually to Boston, where she was seized with the energy and passion of punk rock. She changed her writing style and vocal approach and carefully assembled a band. Asa Brebner and Leroy Radcliff were plucked from Jonathon Richmond’s Modern Lovers. She added Scott Baerenwald on bass, and myself on drums. Robin called band The Chartbusters.

In 1979, after considerable local success and national recognition she and the band were signed to Warner Brothers Records. The group had the 11th video played on MTV, did several national tours, and was voted one of Rolling Stone Magazine’s Top 10 New Bands of 1980. Despite their success the band dissolved after 3 years. Soon after, when Robin announced her pregnancy, she was told “Once a woman has a baby in this business, she’s over.” As an artist and now a mother, years of struggle to maintain a musical identity intensified. Eventually, after coming to terms with her own past, her gift for music and melody have found their way to a remarkable series of songwriting workshops.

Robin’s journey, from Hollywood wild child to her success as an influential singer and songwriter, through her conflicts with managers, marriages, and money and finally developing and leading songwriting/healing workshops for abused woman, elders, and teens, engages a remarkable cast of characters and range of issues about abuse, survival, creativity, re-invention, and being female. The film unfolds through interviews, concert and archival footage, news clips, and photographs.

For 40 years, Robin Lane has demonstrated a natural gift for music and melody. Her songs, music, lyrics, and the lyrics of the women with whom she works provide the soundtrack. They offer a range of moods, thoughts, and obsessions. Her successes, failures, determination to create, to sing, to touch other lives are universal experiences. WHEN THINGS GO WRONG makes us reconsider the power and importance of music in a culture where the forgotten voices often sing the most powerful songs.

About Director Tim Jackson
Tim Jackson is an assistant professor at the New England Institute of Art in Boston. He has played drums in some 20 groups, on recordings, national and international tours, and film soundtracks. He has worked helter-skelter as an actor and has directed three documentaries: Chaos and Order: Making American Theater about the American Repertory Theater; Radical Jesters, profiling 11 interventionist artists and agit-prop performance groups, and When Things Go Wrong: The Robin Lane Story. He is currently finishing American Gurner, a documentary short about his participation in the British ‘gurning’ competition. He is a senior writer for The Arts Fuse, an on-line arts magazine.

About Robin Lane & The Chartbusters
In 1978, Lane formed the Chartbusters with Asa Brebner and Leroy Radcliffe (of The Modern Lovers), Scott Baerenwald and Tim Jackson. She had signed
with Private Stock Records, which shortly afterward went out of business. After Jerry Wexler saw a Chartbusters show, however, he signed the band to Warner Brothers. Their first album, Robin Lane & the Chartbusters (1980) featured the singles “When Things Go Wrong” and “Why Do You Tell Lies?”, earned favorable reviews, and received widespread airplay; the music video for “When Things Go Wrong” was the 11th song shown on MTV’s first American broadcast day, August 1, 1981. The band had two more releases on Warner, the EP “5 Live” (1980) and “Imitation Life” (1981). The limited commercial success of these records, combined with business disputes and Lane’s desire to have a child, led to the breakup of the Chartbusters in 1983. Lane continued writing and recording music, and released the independent EP “Heart Connection” (1984), the self-produced cassette In Concert (1989), and the full- length Catbird Seat (1995). She co-wrote the song “Wishing On Telstar” for the 1991 Susanna Hoffs album When You’re a Boy. In 2001, Lane and several of the Chartbusters regrouped for two reunion concerts, and decided to continue recording and performing; they released “Piece of Mind” in 2003. Since then, Lane has moved to western Massachusetts, where she works with the Turners Falls, Massachusetts Women’s Resource Center, using music therapy to aid survivors of abuse.

About The Regent Theatre
Built in 1916, the historic Regent Theatre remains true to its roots as a vibrant vaudeville house. An intimate 500-seat performing arts center with superior acoustics and comfortable seating, “Arlington’s Show Place of Entertainment” features live music concerts, theatre, dance events, family entertainment, comedy, film specials, and more.

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For interviews, high resolution images, and more information, please contact Ami Bennitt, Ashmont Media, .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).


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