Category: video

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Video: The Rest, Hey! is for Horses [NSFW]

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There is really nothing that gets my attention like an email encouraging me to watch a video containing puppet fornication. That kind of thing is my Kryptonite.

The video is the first of nine which the band intends to make and features puppets and set design by Kori Pop and horses by Amber Edgar. It mixes puppetry with delicately lovely animation and is truly a work of art. It’s also not safe for work OR small children.

The song is Hey! is For Horses, and it is from SEESAW, by The Rest. SEESAW is the Record That Almost Wasn’t – everything that could go wrong, did – but happily for all of us, it is also The Little Record That Could, and has made it to the light of day.

The last time I wrote about The Rest, I described one of their songs as a “bubblebath of noise” which is still the best description I can give you for their sound.

The only thing I would add is that they have the ability to be bouncy and poppy, and also to roar and soar within the same song, like a great dragon opening his wings and lungs to express his love to his beloved.

 

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Video: World’s End, Army Navy

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Today in the category of Songs I Have Been Listening To Somewhat Obsessively, I present World’s End, by Army Navy.

It is the first single from their third record, which is scheduled to released into the wild early next year. I am hoping that by “early next year” they mean “January 1” (it is a Tuesday!) because I am pants-afire to hear the rest of the songs.

The video below is directed by Mark Schoenecker, and stars Martin Starr (Freaks and Geeks, Party Down) as the creeptastic Chester Felt and Camille Cregan (The Trivial Pursuits of Arthur Banks) as the object of his affections:
 


 

And for the b-side, they did a cover of Yaz’s Only You, which is pretty great too:
 
Only You (Yaz Cover) by Army Navy
 

Finally, their fall tour starts tonight (9/26) in Los Angeles, at the Troubador. Check their listings and get out to see them if you can!

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Video: Silicon Ballet, Sunglasses

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Silicon Ballet, I thought. Hmm. Perhaps there will be dancing robots! In tutus!

So I clicked on the link.

There were no dancing robots or tutus on the other end. Instead I was rewarded with some charming dreamy pop, plus adorable children in sunglasses and multiple varieties of super-hero costumes. Check it:

 

 

Silicon Ballet is Anne-Claude Dejasse (Violin), Aurélie Potty (Cello), Katia Raffay (Violin), Didier Soufnenguel (Electronics), Christophe Danthinne (Lead vocals), Antoni Severino (Bass guitar, vocals), David Diederen (Guitars, vocals) and Didier Dauvrin (Drums), they are from Belgium, and Sunglasses is from their debut EP Utopia, released in February 2012.

There is new music on the way; their second EP, to be called Slowly Slowly, is expected in early November.

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August Video Challenge: Dan Keyes, Untitled

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While we’re on the subject of unGoogleable songs, here’s one more. The video doesn’t give a title, but I’d name it Find You Lost, Leave You Found essentially to distinguish it from all of the other songs that are called Who’s Going to Walk You Home?

The person singing is Dan Keyes, formerly of Young Love (dance-pop) and Recover (post-hardcore), now a songwriter/producer, and the performance is part 2 of a two part interview he did with Alexi Wasser from I’m Boy Crazy. I have watched both parts and all I’m going to say he is both extraordinarily patient and a very good sport about approximately everything.

I picked this video because I initially watched it out of morbid curiosity and then spent the half second between him hitting the last note and Wasser’s final comment feeling kind of stunned and lost. I don’t know what I was expecting but this song – this bright beautiful stiletto of a tune – was not it.

So I watched it again. And again. Every time I watch the video I have to watch it four times in a row. I am hoping someday it is actually released properly, just as it is, acoustic-style, because I think adding anything to it would ruin it.

I want to be able to take it to all of my favorite quiet, lonely places and spaces and times, like Coney Island when the air is cold and the beach is empty and the High Line in the snow.
 

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August Video Challenge: Oh Ginger, And So It Goes

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Oh Ginger is Lindsay Holler (Charleston SC) and Michael Hanf (New York NY), and together they sing sweet delicate beautiful songs. They have two EPs out so far, Oh! Ginger and [oh ginger] and a third one coming soon.

Here they are with And So It Goes, from Oh! Ginger:

 

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August Video Challenge: Didier Wampas, Eternellement

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Here is Didier Wampas singing Eternellement, one of my favorites from Taisez Moi, while dressed as a vampire and playing a very special guitar.
 

 

PS/ETA: If you listen very carefully to the chorus, you can also hear Ryan Ross (The Young Veins, Panic[!] at the Disco] singing back-up!!

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August Video Challenge: Melody Gardot, Baby I’m A Fool

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Another one I found while looking for something else: Melody Gardot, with Baby I’m a Fool from My One and Only Thrill (2009).

While I am not usually into jazz, Gardot has a stunning voice and I always love handsome men dancing in top hats and tails. The internet informs me she has just put a new record out, so if you listen to this and like it, be sure to follow up on that news.

 

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August Video Challenge: Mykki Blanco & the Mutant Angels, Head is a Stone

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A little something to get your blood moving on Monday morning: Head is a Stone by Mykki Blanco & the Mutant Angels, the creation/alter ego of poet and multi-media peformance artist Michael David Quattlebaum Jr. In addition to his musical endeavors he’s also just put out a book of poetry: From The Silence of Duchamp to the Noise of Boys.

I like this video / song because: those drums are relentless and there’s some excellent use of the rooftops of New York.

 

 
Director: Nick Hooker
Director of Photography: H. Spencer Young
Editor: Sloane Klevin
Additional Photography: Nelson Hancock

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August Video Challenge: Marianne Faithfull, Ballad of Lucy Jordan

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The Ballad of Lucy Jordan, by Marianne Faithfull, brought to you, in a roundabout way, by a labeled but track-list-less mixtape I found in my tape box this weekend. I had to listen to it to find out what was on it, and this song was both the end of Side A and, then, because it got cut off, the start of Side B.

The mixtape was made in the fall of 1996 by one of my professors, as part of a class project. The first time I listened to it was probably the first time I heard this song. I was 21, and 37 seemed very far away. I read it as a cautionary tale. A warning, left by others: watch out, danger, here be quicksand.

Now I am 37, and, while Lucy Jordan’s despair is definitely not mine, the weight of it feels different. Heavier, I think; more real. When the path diverged in the yellow wood, I took a different one, but I can see hers through the trees.