If you happen to be in Los Angeles on the evening of June 10, the underground cinema appreciation group Cinefamily is hosting an evening of weird, mutant fun that is quintessential Boing Boing. “Michael Winslow, Man of 1000 Noises,” who you may recall from Police Academy (see clip above), will perform a live “score” for an assortment of silent films…
You know him best as Officer Larvell Jones, the irrepressible burbling, beep-borping human Foley machine that was a mainstay character in the Police Academy repertory company. Be it helicopters, electric guitars, cop sirens, the inner workings of robots, barking dogs, squishing soggy sneakers, roaring jets, spine-tingling scratches on a chalkboard, screaming guitars, cell phones, kung fu dubbing–he is truly the man of a thousand noises, at the very least. He captured the juvenile fascinations of a generation with his uncanny talent for imitation, and tonight, Winslow takes the Cinefamily stage to embark on a new venture: a never-before attempted challenge that only he could possibly fulfill. Yes, Winslow will be providing a live music-and-effects track to a varied sampling of classic and not-so-classic shorts from the silent era. Not so silent anymore.
I know only a small portion of Boing Boing readers are in Los Angeles, but this event was so cool, I had to post. And — hey, if you can’t make it, there’s the YouTube video, above, for a sampling of Winslow’s insane skillz. Link to Event Info on Cinefamily site, here’s the official Michael Winslow site, and here’s his Wikipedia entry. (Thanks, Hadrian!).