RETURN TO COMBOLAND

A personal look at North Carolina's most influential (and secret) music legacy.

Proposed Documentary - Seeking Co-Production Partner

 

©2006 SkidMedia, Inc.

Registered Writers Guild of America: 1172947

 

It is called the Golden Age of North Carolina rock music. 1981 thru 1984 culled a nexus of extraordinary music and recording artists that reverberated around the world and beyond their time. North Carolina artists such as Arrogance, The dB's, the Fabulous Knobs, Glass Moon, The Spongetones and others would directly influence the multi million-dollar sales of R.E.M., Hootie and the Blowfish, the Georgia Satellites and others.

Shot in High Definition, Emmy award winning producer / director Steve Boyle takes us on a two-hour personal journey back to this Golden Age, showcasing some remarkable archival footage as well as updated interviews and current performances from some of these Comboland pioneers.

Steve Boyle, fresh from the 1975 - 1978 New York Punk scene, arrived in Raleigh in 1978. He recognized the budding scene for what it was and began documenting the music around him with a cache of music videos and live performances that he produced, directed, shot, edited and occasionally funded. Christened "Comboland" by Mitch Easter due to the area's many British Invasion influenced groups, the Comboland timeline of 1981 - 1984 was the richest period of songwriting, performing and record producing of the North Carolina New Wave era. Steve Boyle has amassed a video catalog of this corner of rock and roll history and will share this rare and exclusive television reflective with the public. From Arrogance came Don Dixon, who would co-produce R.E.M. and other late 80's New Wave luminaries. The dB's would spearhead the New York Punk / New Wave scene and become the darlings of music critcs around the world. Glass Moon would have a national Top 40 hit with "On A Carousel." The Fabulous Knobs would birth Terry Anderson as "Battleship Chains" hit-making songwriter for the Georgia Satellites. The era itself offered a hotbed of clubs and an avid promotional sustenance from newspapers, radio and television stations statewide, and national and international recognition by record labels as well as a documentary by BBC television.

They never transitioned from smoky clubs to crowded stadiums - but their influence did. Return To Comboland will take viewers on a rock and roll discovery through historical events that Steve Boyle has chronicled with a personally produced archive of vintage music videos and live performances from The Accelerators, Arrogance, The dB's, Doc Holliday, The Fabulous Knobs, Glass Moon, Luky Owens & Revolver, PKM, The Spongetones and the X-Teens.

Return To Comboland will be an entertaining and enlightening look at an explosive era of North Carolina music. With a wealth of unique archival footage and an intimate update of interviews and performances, this High Definition documentary will deliver a permanent document of an extraordinary period of the North Carolina Arts.