Edie Sedgwick famously said she wanted "to turn the world on just for a moment." Ciao! Manhattan, the 1973 film written and directed by Warhol Factory associates John Palmer and David Weisman, might be the closest she ever came to that ambition.
It's a complicated film, a semi-fictionalized account of Edie as Susan Superstar, who travels from the Warhol's New York to a drained swimming pool in Santa Barbara. In some ways, it serves as an elegy for the Sixties itself, and more literally so for Edie, who passed away from an overdose in 1971, just after the film was finished.
On Record Store Day, April 22, Light in the Attic Records/Cinewax will release the film's soundtrack for the first time. Featuring counter culture stars like Richie Havens, John Phillips, and Skip Battin (Flying Burrito Brothers/The Byrds), the soundtrack also features rare recordings by Kim Milford, whose song "Justice" is a highlight, the synthesizer soundscapes of Factory "star" and model Gino Piserchio, and dialogue from the film. The LP is limited to 2,000 copies on "Angel Shock" color vinyl, features audio and film clips remastered from the original transfers, and includes a 20-page book with archival photos and an interview with writer/director David Weisman by Aquarium Drunkard writer Jason P. Woodbury.
Presented here, an excerpt from those notes, an attempt to capture both the psychedelic spirit of the era and also the sadness and tragedy that defined Sedgwick's life.
Ciao! Manhattan is, first and foremost, about Edie.
Edie Sedgwick, socialite and heiress, the most dazzling of Andy Warhol’s Superstars. The true “It Girl” of the Pop Art age. Warhol projected his showbiz dreams on Edie. It’s speculated that Bob Dylan wrote “Just Like a Woman” and “Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat” with her in mind; it’s certain Lou Reed wrote The Velvet Underground’s “Femme Fatale” about her. Edie inspired a particular kind of devotion.
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