Pat Ivers

In 1969, Pat Ivers was a teenager working on an assembly line in a factory in Philadelphia making catalogues for an auto parts company. Stealing out to the back stairs on breaks, she would listen to her transistor radio, tuned to the underground radio station and dream of an escape. And escape she did, to New York City one year later. After a couple of years at the NYU film school, she dropped out, lived on a commune and then traveled to Afghanistan and Nepal, photographing everything. Returning in 1973, she got a job at Manhattan Cable's Public Access Department and began experimenting with the new lightweight video equipment she found there.

Then, one night in 1974, she saw Patti Smith and Television at Max's Kansas City and everything changed. Plunging head long into the downtown scene, she went to CBGB's most nights, worked with video artists like Nam Juin Paik and finally in 1975 began to document the scene, first with a loose video collective, Metropolis Video and then with Emily Armstrong. Together, they shot everywhere and everyone. In 1980, they designed the Video Lounge at Danceteria, showing a mix of horror film clips, Kung Fu movies and their own video archives of bands while shooting the musicians who played there nightly, as well.

In the 80s, Pat was instrumental in starting a Video Program at CUNY and traveled extensively. In the 90's she worked for ABC Sports, including twelve years with Monday Night Football. She is currently an Emmy Award winning Producer/Editor at WPIX News at 10, most recently nominated for Best Spot News for coverage of the Steam Pipe Explosion in 2007. She still lives on the Lower East Side.

Emily Armstrong

In the mid-60's Emily Armstrong had musical experiences that shaped her adult life. She saw the Beatles and Rolling Stone's first American performances, watched in horror as Bob Dylan was booed off the stage for playing electrified guitar, and caught Jimmy James (later to become Jimi Hendrix) playing guitar with his teeth at the Cafe Wha? She spent her weekends at the Fillmore East, and in 1971, moved to the East Village. As commercial rock and roll reached an overproduced nadir, she found her way to CBGB's and the burgeoning NYC punk rock scene.

In the mid 70’s, the early days of cable television, Emily Armstrong ran the Public Access Department at Manhattan Cable TV. She assisted astrologers, pornographers, churches, witches, Boy Scout troops, gay rights groups, and wanna-be celebrities in the scheduling, production and promotion of their Cable TV programs.

At MCTV Emily met Pat Ivers and joined forces with her to videotape bands at CBGB's. Pat and Emily documented the full spectrum of music that was at the time lumped under the label "punk rock" and presented those live performances to NYC on their weekly TV show NIGHTCLUBBING, at weekly screenings at the Anthology Film Archives and at museums in the USA and Europe.

During the 1980's Emily designed and ran the Professional Video Training Program (PROVIT), which retrained thousands of NYC trade union media professionals in new digital technologies. She also worked as a NY Foundation for the Arts Video Artist-In-Residence in the public school system.

Emily still lives on the Lower East side with her husband and two children. Always active in her community, she was co-founder of the East Third Street Community Garden and the founding PTA President of the Neighborhood School and NEST+m school.