The reason we have the film footage of NOVEM recording their music is because Alan Levinly, a Hairy State film student in 1973, chose to document the sessions for his class project.

Ironically Ben Harris, a current film student at Hairy State, decided to basically do the same thing for his class project 31 years later.

Ben's project, which scheduled to be completed in June, will use some of the footage shot by Alan. Clips of the Alan's footage synced to the master music recordings are available here.

NOVEM's music and Alan's undeveloped 16mm film were in the bottom of the box Jordan purchased at the garage sale. He didn't know it at the time, but he purchased the music and film at the home of Mark Winstead's sister, who was selling stuff from her mother's home after she passed away. She had no idea what she was selling to Jordan.

NOVEM's music was on two 24-track recording reels. The labeling on the boxes read “NOVEM Songs, Reel 1, 5-17-73” and “NOVEM Songs, Reel 2, 5-19-73.”

Apparently everything the group recorded is on these reels. This includes all the tracking, vocal sessions and rough mixes of the songs that Dan Cook, the engineer was able to complete before they left that fateful night. In all, they worked on 11 songs. The group recorded nine songs, one from each of the nine song writers, and two additional songs, Wake Up the Moon written by Mark and Love, Love written by Jaslyn.

We owe a great deal to Scott Perry, film instructor at Harrison State, for sending the 24 track reels to a friend of his in Nashville. If he hadn't taken an interest in this story, NOVEM would have never been discovered and the reels would be in a landfill somewhere.

NOVEM's music was very rough when it was found. The master tracks you are hearing on this web site have been digitally mastered from the original tracking and vocal sessions on the reels. We can thank modern technology for making NOVEM sound so good!

The film in the box was undeveloped Kodak stock and here again we thank Scott Perry for sending to Chicago to be developed. In all (14) 400 ft. cans were found along with Alan's log sheets. His camera gear was not with the film. It probably perished with NOVEM in the van accident. Each of reels had “Dark Horse Recording Sessions”, and a reel number, written in marker on it.

Because the film was undeveloped and keep in a basement for 31 years is was in surprisingly good condition.