This video for Baby Likes to Rock It by The Tractors was directed by Michael Salomon and was the CMA Video of the Year in 1995. Not that I knew that at the time, because I didn’t often watch CMT; nearly 100% of my interactions with the world of country music happened via my car stereo.
This song was part of the soundtrack of many a hot afternoon spent navigating traffic jams and never, ever failed to lift my spirits.
Because I love Reba McEntire, and I love this song. It’s another one I used to turn up every time it came on the car radio.
If someone had played this song for me and told me it was a lost Johnny Cash track, I would totally have believed it. It’s not, though, it’s RT N’ the 44s. They’re from Los Angeles, California, and they play some sweet country blues. They have three records out, all of which you can listen to at (and more importantly, buy from) their bandcamp.
Plus they are playing a bunch of shows in Los Angeles this month. If you’re already there or passing through, check their listings and get down to see them.
And now without further chatter: Lost My Way, from March of the Fools (July 2011):
I was, once again, noodling around YouTube looking for something else and got distracted by something shiny. By which I mean I was watching Revolting Cocks videos – they’ve apparently renamed themselves and are now RevCo – and happened to glance to the right, saw what YouTube offered as related videos, thought oooooooh! Ministry! and now here we are.
This song is called Jesus Built My Hotrod and is from Psalm 69: The Way to Succeed and the Way to Suck Eggs (1992); Gibby Haynes of the Butthole Surfers joins them on vocals.
The Wild Yaks are from Brooklyn, and they are awesome. The video below is for River May Come from 10 Ships (Don’t Die Yet) (2009). And there will be new music in the fall!
Reason I like this video: because I have lately made it my tradition to plunge myself into the ocean on New Years Day, and in doing so, found I never feel more alive than when I can’t quite feel my toes. I have to be more careful of the undertow than hidden rocks, but I feel like the spirit of the thing is the same.
Special Signal Boost: They are in need of a guitarist for September!
Danielle Dax was a member of Lemon Kittens from 1979 until 1982, when they went on hiatus and she started her solo career. Bad Miss M is a song about Margaret Thatcher (spoiler: Dax is not a fan) and is from her third solo record, Inky Bloaters (1987).
In addition to being a singer, Dax is also an accomplished artist, interior designer – she’s appeared on the BBC show Homefront and was named their Designer of the Year in 1997 – and garden designer.
I am particularly fond of this song because it’s the kind of thing that will get one moving on a sluggish day.
So here is what happened: I heard some mutterings in the ether about something called “witch house” which sounded intriguing, not least because I thought it might be related to what we elderly goths used to call “swirly girly gothy voice of doom.” It certainly seemed that way from the descriptions I was reading, and you have to admit “witch house” is a much more efficient genre term.
My starting point was Aural Sects‘ bandcamp page. They’re a label who have a lot of electronic artists on their roster, and if you’re into ambient noise, dark electronica, experimental noise, etc etc, get yourself over there and start clicking because you are bound to find something you like. They update frequently, so check back often.
The artists I chose to listen to I picked somewhat at random. Sometimes I liked their album art, other times I thought their name was promising and/or compelling. Witchboy was the latter. And, while I did like the songs – which incidentally sound nothing like “swirly girly gothy voice of doom” – and I find the cover art for Hollymode aesthetically pleasing, it was the first video that I watched, for a song called Heartbreaker, that really got my attention, in a what the blithering hell is going on here? kind of way.
I love that feeling, by the way. The sense of being dropped into the deep end of someone else’s deeply weird and sometimes unsettling artistic creation and having to get up to speed on the visual references on the fly. And, while I liked the tune, what I thought was really interesting was the medium. The video was made using either The Sims or animations made to look Sims-like, while also looking a Disney /Japanese horror movie mashup. And by that I mean I spotted references to both Ringu and The Little Mermaid; I’m sure there are more that have gone flying right over my head.
And then as I was getting ready to post the video, because this kind of thing HAS to be shared, I did some more clicking around and discovered that . . . Hollymode was a parody.
What I’ve found is the Spinal Tap of witch house. And like regular Spinal Tap, it’s awesome. So here, for your entertainment / amusement / possibly enlightenment, is the video in question:
It was a Friday night, hot, muggy and still. The buses to the show – now reinstated, THANK YOU, NASSAU COUNTY – were jam packed with music fans and people coming up off the sand. Mostly I was hoping it wouldn’t rain. The Jones Beach Ampitheater doesn’t have a roof and unless there’s lightening, the show goes on.
By the time we finally got there, Lita Ford was already on the stage, though I don’t think I missed more than a song and a half. This is one of my favorite pictures from the evening. Look at that grin!
He gets up there and glitters big, does his thing for people who love him, and he clearly loves them back. And the songs he’s singing are just as much fun today as they were the first time I heard them. I still get a tremendous charge out of listening to C.C. DeVille’s solos soaring upwards.
Towards the middle of the show they came out and sat on the stage where it extends out into the pit, and became a tidy little Def Leppard-pod. I took a bunch of pictures of it, but this one is my favorite:
They closed down the main set with Pour Some Sugar On Me with the crowd singing along at the top of their lungs and dancing on every available free patch of ground; the encore was Rock of Ages. It was a fabulous show.
The tour resumes tomorrow, in Florida, and continues through mid-September.
The Wild Eyes are: Len Cockraft, Gareth Dawson, and Nikhil Singh, and they are from Cape Town, South Africa. I found out about them when I was looking for something else, specifically, more information about Nikhil Singh’s alter ego / side project Witchboy, which I had in turn stumbled over when trying to find out what “witch house” was when it was at home.
I’m going to write about that whole strange journey tomorrow. Meanwhile, this tune is pretty catchy and I’m enjoying the visual effects here. Check it:
Directed by Jenna Bass
Shot by Caleb Heymann
Edited by Jacques de Villiers
Timelapse Footage by www.openfootage.net
Another artist from my Chill Out Drown Out mix, A Winged Victory for the Sullen is Stars Of The Lid founder Adam Wiltzie and classical composer Dustin O’Halloran. Their partnership is the result of a chance meeting backstage at a Sparklehorse concert in Italy in 2007.
The music they have produced together is a fusion of their genres, with traditional orchestral forms wrapped delicately around cores of ambient tones, and it is lovely.
The first video I’ve picked for today is lovely too, but, well, it is very unusual and possibly not safe for work. Note: do not adjust your screens, the first minute or so is blurry on purpose.
Featuring Ruby Pester, Jekaterina Petrova and Antje Taiga Jandrig.
Camera and Edit: robinthomson.tv
And if it’s too early in the morning for you to take a trip to bizarro land, here is an alternate version: A Winged Victory for the Sullen performing the song with Kraków’s royal orchestra Sinfonietta Cracovia at Tempel Synagogue in Kraków on October 16, 2011 as part of Unsound Festival 2011:
Directed by ZFCL.
