Tag: video

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Video: Mike Doughty, Super Bon Bon (2013)

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Last year, Mike Doughty of Soul Coughing published a memoir called The Book Of Drugs, because he took a lot of them, and had a lot of drug stories, many of which he told in the book. He also told a lot of stories about screwing and being screwed in both the biblical and music industry sense. I think I read it in one sitting, wincing and laughing by turns. Favorite revelation: He was the author of the New York Press’s Dirty Sanchez column, which I used to read every week.

And then, of course, he had to go on a book tour, and read his stories out loud. That, in turn, led to him first revisiting the songs at the center of the narrative – the work he did with Soul Coughing – and then, eventually, to him completely reworking and re-imagining some of the tunes.

He has just released the product of that work as a record entitled Circles Super Bon Bon Sleepless How Many Cans? True Dreams of Wichita Monster Man Mr. Bitterness Maybe I’ll Come Down St. Louise Is Listening I Miss the Girl Unmarked Helicopters The Idiot Kings So Far I Have Not Found the Science.

He’s also made a new video for Super Bon Bon, which originally appeared on Irresistible Bliss (1996) and I’m pretty sure was played at every single frat party I attended for at least a year afterwards. This is the original official video, made at a time when raves were a big thing, and people wore goggles when they to a rave, to protect their eyes from whatever was in the smoke and/or foam.
 

U-MV157 - Soul Coughing - Super Bon Bon

 
This is the new video. Saying “it is very strange” is both true and does not even begin to do it justice. I think it might be a visual representation of what would happen if the Internet went to a rave. There are a lot of cookies, multiple inexplicable hams, guest stars (MC Frontalot!) and also some small dogs. All I could manage after I watched it the first time was a flat what. I’ve watched it a few more times, and while I’m still confused, I’m also entertained.
 
Mike Doughty - Super Bon Bon

 
Want more? Check out the music and videos at Doughty’s website.

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Video: death., the HARTEBEEST

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The HARTEBEEST are duo from the island of Guernsey, and they have made the most cheerful sounding song about death that you are going to listen to today.

I decided to share it in video form because the video both illustrates and clarifies the song. “Death” doesn’t necessarily mean actual death; it could just be a reference to some of the more soul-killing aspects of modern life, and how different people have different escape valves. Places to go to feel alive, even if that place is in their head, or a track, before dawn.

 

H A R T E B E E S T - death. (official video)

 

In non-musical news, the HARTEBEEST also post amazing pictures to their Instagram; check it out if you like dramatic views of island coasts and/or graveyards in the snow and don’t mind the occasional dead mouse.

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Gary Numan, Splinter (Songs From A Broken Mind)

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gnsplinter

There are times when I wish I could transmit the experience of listening to body of music for the first time whole and complete and unfiltered, so that y’all could experience it just as I did.

Because if I could, all of you would be able to stand with me on the subway platform on a crisp cold sunny morning, half-asleep and surrounded by other commuters, while the initial notes of I Am Dust, the first song from Splinter (Songs from a Broken Mind) by Gary Numan rolled over us like a grimy tide coming in. They’re darkly seductive and a little bit intoxicating, like heavy sweet aural smoke.

And perhaps, as I did, you all would smile into your scarves and let the dark tide pull you under.
 

 

Here’s what I think about Splinter, now that I’ve listened to it a few times: it is a dark, dense, contemplative record, rigorously constructed and at times a little chilly. A candle-lit cathedral with broken windows. It is gloomy, but pleasingly so.

And while the slower songs – and there are several – are lovely, the places where the lights that shine most brightly through the gloom are the club bangers, like Love Hurt Bleed:
 

Gary Numan - Love Hurt Bleed

 

Note: there is a remix competition going on for Love Hurt Bleed through November 25, 2013. Get on that, producers in the audience!

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Video: Natti Vogel, Cannibal

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Here is the video for Cannibal by Natti Vogel, directed by Rebecca Rojer, and starring Vogel and porn star Colby Keller.

The song is a cabaret-pop gem about wanting to be consumed by a lover.

The video plays with and explores the definitions and conventions of “food”, “porn”, and “food porn” by simultaneously mashing them together and flipping them inside out. “Boy in a cage” is mixed with “boy about to be dinner” in one scene, while “one partner washes the other” is presented in the context of “human washes his next meal” in another. “Sensual eating” and “food photographed to look luscious” are twined together and exaggerated to the point of grossness as part of a “fattening the kill” montage.

There was also one particular sequence that made me squawk with glee, which comes at 2:40 and I’m not telling you what it is, because that will ruin the surprise.

Meanwhile, while I may never look at pomegranates or savory danishes the same way again, as soon as I recovered from the initial shock of watching this, I had a list of people I wanted to share it with right away.

 

Natti Vogel - Cannibal (Official Video)

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A Good Read A Good Listen and a Good Drink, Chris Jones, Ghost Twins

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It’s a simple yet sublime pleasure, and just thinking about it can make you feel a little calmer, a little more content. Imagine: You bring out one of the good rocks glasses (or your favorite mug or a special occasion tea cup) and pour a couple fingers of amber liquid (or something dark and strong or just some whole milk). You drop the needle on the jazz platter (or pull up a blues album on your mp3 player or dig out that mixtape from college). Ensconcing yourself in the coziest seat in the house, you crack the spine on a classic (or find your place in that sci-fi paperback or pull up a biography on your e-book reader). And then, you go away for a while. Ah, bliss.

In this series, some of NTSIB’s friends share beloved albums, books and drinks to recommend or inspire.

The last time I shared a Ghost Twins song, it was Dream On/Dream Off, which is a zippy up-tempo number. Today I bring you Unknown Animal, which starts off at the other end of the “dream noise pop” spectrum – it’s slower, and a little more unearthly – and then suddenly kicks into gear.

And I’m sharing it in video format because, you guys, this video is kind of dream-like itself. In the sense that it starts off with a “behind the scenes” vibe, detours through trippy and weird and then becomes a concert video.

 

Ghost Twins - Unknown Animal

 
After listening to the tracks, I was curious about the two gentlemen who created them. So joining us today is Chris Jones (vocals/guitar), to share a favorite read, record and drink:

A Good Read: Charles Bukowski – Come On In!

The poem This Machine is a Fountain is stuck up on my desk at work. It’s a great poem to refer back to whenever creating any type of art.

A Good Listen: The Velvet Underground and Nico
This record manages to travel across many, many genres but still retain its focus. Pop, folk, punk, rock n’ roll and avant-garde noise perfectly sit next to each other. Nobody else could have achieved it.
 
http://youtu.be/iLQzaLr1enE
 
A Good Drink: BrewDog Punk IPA.

The name and label drew me to it at first. And even if a lot of Brew Dog drinks are un-drinkable (Tactical Nuclear Penguin for example) the balance of the punk beer is pretty spot on. It also helps that I can get it from Sainsbury’s rather than having to order it from Scotland.

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Video: Fé, Time

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Good morning, NTSIBbers. Here is the video for Time, the first single from Fé, aka Ben Moorhouse and Leo Duncan, of London.

They first started writing together in a meat container under the Westway (elevated highway) that Duncan was living in at the time; he moved there after the houseboat he was living in on the Thames started taking on water.

You’d never know all of that from this song, though. It’s a mellow tune, and the video is sweet casual-stroll-through-a-lush-sunny-cider-farm moment of zen – with a little surprise at the end.
 

Fé - Time (Official Video)

 

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A Good Read A Good Listen and a Good Drink, ALX, Love Crushed Velvet

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It’s a simple yet sublime pleasure, and just thinking about it can make you feel a little calmer, a little more content. Imagine: You bring out one of the good rocks glasses (or your favorite mug or a special occasion tea cup) and pour a couple fingers of amber liquid (or something dark and strong or just some whole milk). You drop the needle on the jazz platter (or pull up a blues album on your mp3 player or dig out that mixtape from college). Ensconcing yourself in the coziest seat in the house, you crack the spine on a classic (or find your place in that sci-fi paperback or pull up a biography on your e-book reader). And then, you go away for a while. Ah, bliss.

In this series, some of NTSIB’s friends share beloved albums, books and drinks to recommend or inspire.

I first encountered Love Crushed Velvet a couple of year ago when they were part of a Beatles on the Ukelele production in Brooklyn. One of the songs they covered was Back in the U.S.S.R.; afterwards lead singer ALX and I bonded over being among the few people in the room old enough to remember the U.S.S.R., and then I found out their original work was pretty great, too.

On a related change-of-world-order note, here is the video for Revolution Time, inspired by the Arab Spring of 2011, from their recently released EP Delusions.

"REVOLUTION TIME" - Love Crushed Velvet [Official Music Video]

 

When I asked ALX to be part of this series, I decided to, if not start a revolution, at least shake up the status quo a little bit, and gave him this picture of pumpkins on 34th Street as a prompt:
 

IMG_4222

Here is what he sent back:

Autumn. The shortening days, the crispness in the air whispering that summer has passed. T-shirts surrender to light sweaters, leather jackets replace denim. Sneakers are put away and boots—and the attitude that they convey—give us an added bit of swagger as they shape our strut from block to New York City block. While autumn changes how we dress and feel, it also reshapes our sensibilities…in music, in drink, in literature.

Music. The day I am writing this is the day that Lou Reed passed away. The quintessential embodiment of New York rock n roll attitude, his music never felt like a part of summertime—it was the sounds of October and November that came out of the stereo when his records were being played. And today, it’s impossible not to play Transformer, arguably his finest solo album. Walk on the Wild Side is most famous song, but Satellite of Love and Perfect Day are perhaps his finest—it’s hard not to choke up when you listen to them, especially today . . .
 

Lou Reed - Perfect Day - Later... with Jools Holland (2003) - BBC Two

 

October also makes us want to start enjoying heavier drinks again. Thicker beers, and . . . whiskey. When listening to Transformer, I couldn’t resist the urge to whip up my own version of a Sazerac, a great potion based on rye whiskey. Just seemed like the right thing to drink today.

It’s also the “perfect day” to re-read Jonathan Franzen’s Freedom, a brilliant book that explores the challenges of managing relationships between complex, unfulfilled characters. I’d originally read it while writing some of the songs on our new EP, Delusions, and it felt appropriate to bring it around again on this late October evening. The emotional temperature of the book is pure autumn—and it’s infused with some rock ‘n roll characters that remind me of some of the individuals that I’ve encountered in my own life. Great read.

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Introducing: Willie Dick

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Every once in a while, I get emails from artists, review their work, and then sit at my desk blinking rapidly and thinking What the actual hell did I just watch?

Sometimes I dig deeper and it doesn’t go well; other times I’m seduced by raw charisma and want to share my joyful bafflement with everyone I know.

Willie Dick, of Glasgow, Scotland, falls firmly into the latter category. His work will turn your brain sidewise and you will like it.

This is Deeper Darker, a truly unsettling tale from his Halloween special album Halloween Horror (download it for free at bandcamp!):

WILLIE DICK - Deeper Darker

 
And then there is My House My Rules, created while he was squatting in an abandoned nursing college and morgue (!), which includes Deeper Darker, but also infectious bangers like I Will Be Your Juliet:
 

WILLIE DICK – I Will Be Your Juliet from Billy Campbell on Vimeo.

 
Merry Gothic Christmas, y’all. Have fun, be safe, we’ll see you back here tomorrow.

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Video: The Dirty Nil, Nicotine

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Okay so this video for Nicotine by The Dirty Nil isn’t scary, but it does explore extraterrestrial themes.

To properly enjoy it, first consider the following:

What if –
1) We made contact with aliens
2) Some of them were human-shaped
3) They would consent to get romantically involved with humans
4) One of those alien-human relationships went horrendously wrong
5) What would it look like if they ended up on a future equivalent of the Jerry Springer show?

Ok. Ready? Turn your speakers up and press play.

 

The Dirty Nil - Nicotine (Official Video)

 

Nicotine is from Smite, due in January 2014.