Subject to Change

In early 1969, inspired by the raw energy of their Woodstock tapes, a CBS television executive named Don West commissioned the nascent Videofreex collective to produce a new kind of TV program with "contemporary relevancy" to be aimed at the youth market.  Armed with the latest portable video equipment, and with their travel costs funded by the TV company, the Freex travelled America taping the alternative cultural events and happenings that took place along the way. 

Eventually these clips were edited together to form part of a pilot TV show.  The show was taped live before a studio audience at the Freex half-finished studio loft in New York's Prince Street on December 17th 1969, witnessed by CBS TV executives who watched from a nearby bedroom.  Deeming the program "at least five years ahead of its time", the executives declined to broadcast it.  However, the equipment that had been purchased for the pilot went on to underpin the Freex activities for the next ten years as they became a pioneering video collective broadcasting from their own pirate TV station.

Featured in the original TV pilot are clips from various Videofreex tapes, including Circo dell'Arte (Circus Arts), Chicago Travelogue: Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin and the Yippies, and Building Dome in Riverbi Earth People's Park.  Also shown are clips of psychedelic happenings, demonstrations, the building of a community school, and performance art.  Everything is broadcast to a live studio audience who are also taped, and clips are interspersed with live music performed by a number of bands.