A home invasion, the housing bubble, ECT on GI Joes, video games, a wander along K Road, and some South Auckland.
Cassette “Not Home”
This video is inspired by One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, using stop-motion dolls to tell the tale of ECT gone wrong. The set is meticulously detailed, looking just like a bleak 20th century mental hospital, and the GI Joes never stop moving. It looks great, but plot is a little “Yeah, and?”. Like Shihad’s “Pacifier” video, it takes the style from the original film but doesn’t build on it.
Director: Derek Sonic Thunders
Che Fu featuring P-Money & Savage “Chains Reloaded”
The original “Chains” was a staunch anti-nuclear protest song, but the “reloaded” version drops the international politics, gets a hard-edged P-Money remix, a few rhymes from Savage and new lyrics about Che’s role as hip hop performer in Aotearoa. Or as he says, “It started out as Chains, now it’s something different”. The video is green screen, putting Che in a world of glowing TVs, gloomy basements, a video game, but best of all, there’s even a shot of Surrey Crescent in Grey Lynn.
Director: Luke Sharpe
Nga Taonga Sound & Vision
City Newton Bombers “Into The Night”
It’s a quiet night and the City Newton Bombers are relaxing at home when Slave shows up. He’s not happy and a gunfight ensues. Literally the best part of this video is when Slave yells out “Matt!” in such a friendly but furious tone. If it were 2006 I would make that bit my cellphone ringtone. The video is at its weakest when it’s literally acting out the lyrics of the song, but it still manages to capture the Aotearoa gothic creepy feeling of a very dramatic home invasion.
dDub “Hesitate”
This love song was used on Outrageous Fortune and was included on the second soundtrack album of the series. The video is basically the band playing the song, and also Mr DW himself wandering around K Road and a coastal landscape. The song is a lot more lively than the video, not helped by the vintage low-res version on YouTube.
Director: Sam Buys
Nga Taonga Sound & Vision
Deceptikonz featuring Adeaze “Listen to the Music”
“Listen to the Music” was a track from the Deceptikonz’ second album, Heavy Rotation, and was produced by Misfits of Science. It’s a mellower Deceptikonz, but a lot of that comes from the tight harmonies of Adeaze. The video alternates between gloomy green screen shots of the performers in a fake recording studio and much livelier footage of them out and about in South Auckland.
Don McGlashan “I Will Not Let You Down”
This video is set in an empty street of a suburban housing development that’s missing houses. It features Don and a dancer and things get quite artful. She skilfully dances along the empty road occasionally does a few gravity-defying moves. It’s beautiful, eerie and so New Zealand. The song was written and co-produced by SJD.
That Don McG song is one of my all time favourites. I think the video was filmed in the subdivision wasteland around North Shore Stadium and the Albany mega mall.