Mama Said were from Hamilton, fronted by Jarod Brown. He recently made it to the bootcamp round of The X Factor under the name Vegas Brown. His brother Shannon was the band’s original bassist, but by the time this video was made, he had left to play in Tadpole. The brothers later went on to form punk-pop group 48may, but we’ll come to them later.
“Point of View” was their only NZ On Air-funded video. It begins with a snippet of the group’s previous single, a cover of Che Fu and DLT’s “Chains”, with strangely soundalike vocals. We find Jarod strolling along Alma Street, one of the few streets in central Hamilton to have a bit of character – though the video is careful to keep the great big Novotel out of frame.
Jarod pulls out his cellphone, calls someone and begins singing the song into the phone. All around him other people are busy on their mobiles, but is he actually doing some sort of mass broadcast? Is his message about understanding others going to touch the lives of strangers?
This outdoor footage alternates with the band performing in a warehouse, but the phone call hasn’t ended. Jarod tapes the phone to the side of his mic and continues his sung phone call.
But here’s the weird thing. About halfway through the video, all the outdoor scenes suddenly stop. It doesn’t conclude in any way, we just never see the people with cellphones again, with the video focusing solely on the band performing.
It’s like there’s a conclusion missing from the video – who was on the other end of the phonecall? It makes me wonder if something else was intended but they couldn’t film it on the day. Or maybe they just ran out of time editing.
Best bit: the girl talking on the giant 1980s brick-style phone, apparently without irony.