Kung Fu Crimewave - “Forgot About Rock ‘N’ Roll” music video, 2012
Dipping my toe back into live action. Stay tuned…
Ladies Of Old Hat - Episode 2: Tarzan & Jane, 2012
In this second installment of The Ladies Of Old Hat, the band has a cross-cultural encounter. Also, they drink margaritas.
In case you missed the Ladies’ first adventure, Reverse Amnesia, you can check it out here.
Ching Ching - “Not White White” music video, 2012
I’ve wanted to make an animated music video for Ching Ching for a long time now. They are, simply put, one of the best, weirdest, funnest bands in New York City. Though the production time on this video was quite short, it was a years-long process regardless, because I was constantly afraid of starting it and then getting discouraged and never finishing (see previous entry).
By the way, their website is a thing of beauty.
Brook Pridemore - “Stockholm St. Syndrome” music video, 2012
Jeez Louise, it’s clearly been a weird last few years. Taking realistic steps in 2012 to be more productive has so far worked out, but the frustrating flipside of that is having to face projects that have been festering for years. Take this one, the initial production of which began in 2009. A wide, colorful array of distractions, self-abuse, and self-doubt intervened during that time, keeping me from finishing this, or much of anything else. But now, Year of the Dragon, blah blah blah, yakkety yakkety [fart sound effect].
It’s embarrassing too, because Brook is a guy whose music I’ve always been fond of (anthemic, reference-filled, acoustic punk, with hooks so sharp you could disembowel somebody with ‘em? Sign me up!), and whose work ethic dwarfs most people’s, mine included. Whatever. Just enjoy the fucking thing. People don’t join Tumblr to read shit.
Decided to post the Vimeo version. It’s on YouTube too. I have both. Ugh.
Fakesgiving Festimal GRAND FINALE! (Rochester, NY - 11/16/11)
On Saturday, November 16th, 2011, five musical acts - Ladies Of Old Hat, Amos Rose, Huggabroomstik, Toby Goodshank, and Seth Faergolzia & The 23 Psaegz - performed at Meddlesome Labs in Rochester, NY. The event, Fakesgiving Festimal, culminated with all five acts joining together, and performing one last song from each. They are, in order:
Ladies Of Old Hat - “Worm Salad”
Amos Rose - “Pay No Mind”
Seth Faergolzia & The 23 Psaegz - “Weird Old Toad”
Huggabroomstik - “Diamond Eyeballs”
Toby Goodshank - “The Death Of My Enemies”
All songs written by their respective bands/artists. Not sure who shot the video, but big thanks to him/her/them. Enjoy!
Ching Ching - “To Whom: I Am” music video, 2011
Directed by Stefanie Koscher, whom I love. Her Tumblrs are here and here. So get into it.
Kung Fu Crimewave - “What Do I Do?” music video, 2010
I have a deep, abiding love of found footage filmmaking. There’s so much cultural detritus out there, you know? And a lot of it is in video form - commercials, infomercials, PSAs, instructional videos, public access television, home movies, orphaned and/or public domain films, etc, etc. It’s so much fun collecting that stuff that has no inherent cinematic worth, and trying to turn it into something, if not beautiful, then at least interesting. Or hilarious. Hilarious is good too.
As with a lot of film school brats, Bruce Conner’s A Movie and Cosmic Ray were my first exposure to collage filmmaking. If you have not seen them, they are really worth a look. Annoyingly, A Movie does not seen to be on YouTube. Even more annoyingly, Cosmic Ray is up there, but the Ray Charles song that serves as the film’s soundtrack has been disabled, thus completely robbing Cosmic Ray of its impact. It’s a shame. Disappointingly, it’s not hard to find multiple examples of this sort of thing in our culture, where intellectual property law crosses the line from protecting individual creativity, into hindering overall creativity. That’s another reason found footage films are so much fun to make; knowing that you’re committing copyright violations in doing so adds some zest to the whole process.
But then, I guess that’s a lot of purple prose over a music video for a song that’s about drunkenly alienating one’s friends and vomiting on one’s own jacket. Kung Fu Crimewave is a good band. I thought it was a good band when I first started seeing them play. Now I am in the band. I like being in bands that I like.
Toby Goodshank - “Track 5” music video, 2010
Hoo boy, took a long, painful time to pinch this one off. Started work on this video over a year ago. This song is from Toby’s pretty fuckin’ perfect album, that until recently, I always knew to be titled “Johnny’s Democracy/Baked Naturals.” I was informed after the completion of this video, however, that it, like the songs it contains, is actually untitled. Regardless, get it if you ain’t got it. This video is for the fifth of those ten untitled songs.
In addition to his overwhelming musical talent, Toby also manipulates pens and markers onto surfaces. Visually! Check out his art blog and prepare to feel inadequate: http://tobygoodshank.blogspot.com/
Berth Control - “Blue Ski Mask” music video, 2010
Long time coming; pretty sure we shot the raw footage for this in February or something. It’s mostly shot directly onto VHS tape, but camera phones were used for the guerrilla-style part on the song’s bridge.
Berth Control members represented in this video include Cat Rockefeller, Brent “Strictly Beats” Cole, Toby Goodshank, and Doug Cote. Special guest appearances by Seth Faergolzia of Dufus and Vin Cacchione of Soft Black. If you dig this song (which hopefully you do, seeing as it is fucking raucous), download all of Berth Control’s albums and EPs from Bandcamp, for Christ’s sake (http://berthcontrol.bandcamp.com/).
[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]
The Last Great American Whale (Lou Reed cover) feat. Dibson T. Hoffweiler, 2008
Here, as alluded to yesterday, is part two: Dibs’ and my live cover of the song “The Last Great American Whale,” which directly follows “There is No Time” on Lou Reed’s New York album. Like the last track, instrumental duties are still arbitrarily switched, with me on guitar and him on keyboard .
“The Last Great American Whale” is dumb. It is a dumb song. Sorry I can’t articulate it any better than that. Maybe I’m dumb. But even if I am dumb, I’m not as dumb as the song “The Last Great American Whale.” Not that our cover is any big improvement; can’t polish a turd, as they say.
