994 was Supergroove’s golden year. Average age 19 (still), they had a run of top ten hits and toured New Zealand in their stain-disguising black dress code.
“You Freak Me”, the sixth release from their debut album, is a tense eruption of young male energy. See, there’s a girl and, well, she freaks them. It’s four minutes of pent up sexual tension, with the band playing the song in a starkly lit, smoke filled environment.
The smoke seems to be fulfilling a symbolic purpose – it’s the only thing that gets any release around these parts, billowing quite clouds in quantities that seem excessive in a normal rock situation.
The band also smoke cigarettes, which again seems totally outrageous to see in a music video. Nearly the apex of a musical climax, Che Fu lights a cigarette which – if we’re going to get Freudian on it – manages to both represent a penis and a nipple.
Karl’s refined his image with a black suit jacket, showing signs of the John Waters look that he would grow in to. Supergroove feel like they’re slowly figuring out their own personal identities, the individuality beneath the dress code.
Best bit: the bad-ass Che Fu attitude explosion.
Next… a depressive contemplation of an urban landscape.