December 2008: Arms Reach, Cobra Khan, Crashpolitic, Cut Off Your Hands, Doppler, False Start

Dance your cares away, the old colonel’s last feast, everyone else is having more fun, bring out the bedsheets, a totally mental hospital, and coming in like a wrecking yard.

Arms Reach “Stop Talking, Start Dancing”

“Stop Talking, Start Dancing” is a three-minute ode to going out and dancing. It’s no “Into the Groove”, and sometimes the lyrics (“I stretch my arms out to the ceiling”) sound more like something from a fun activity song for preschoolers than a sensual pop track. The video is set in a club that’s full of people dancing. And that’s it. Nothing happens other than the band playing and people dancing. This was the only funded video that Arms Reach had.

Director: Guy Tichborne

Cobra Khan “Liquid Separation”

I like what’s going on here. Lead singer Milon is dressed in a formal military uniform. He’s in a run-down looking room in an old house, and sits down for a formal dinner at table set for six. Lavish dishes are brought out by his fellow band members dressed as servants, serving a Victorian banquet with oysters, steak tartare, stargazy pie, marzipan fruits and other generally weird food items. Everything in the video is very still and slow and formal, a welcome contrast to the blazing metal wall of sound “Liquid Seperation” offers. The only direct connection between the two is the very restrained lip sync Milon does a couple of times. Otherwise it’s a strange military man sitting down for a birthday banquet all by himself.

Director: Dan Kircher
Nga Taonga Sound & Vision

Crashpolitic “Golden Dream”

This song is utterly loathsome. It slags off at beautiful people for no good reason, other than they can apparently be a bit arrogant. It gets even worse when the second half of the song moves in to bash “an ’80s kind of beauty queen”, whose crime appears to be being both good looking, a mother, a dog owner and a 4WD driver. And then the song adds, “She looks like she don’t give a shit about me or you,” but fails to give any evidence why this random Parnell housewife should care about a man who obviously holds her in such low regard. The video is an animated illustration of this world, where all the subjects of hate all seem to be living quite fun lives, all silently judged by the miserable indie rock dude who walks past, seething. But I should note, while the song is awful, the video itself is a well made animation that illustrates the naive drama of the lyrics. This was Crashpolitic’s only funded video.

Cut Off Your Hands “Turn Cold”

As YouTube commenters have noted, “Turn Cold” sounds strongly influenced by The Smiths’ “This Charming Man, which is nice. The video continues the band’s creative partnership with Joel Kefali. While it has a low-budget feel to it, there’s something enjoyable about un-ironed bedsheets being used as backdrops. The band themselves seem to feature more in this video than in previous ones, and they even feel like proper pop stars.

Director: Joel Kefali

Doppler “Oblivion”

The “Oblivion” video is set in an old hospital, full of peeling paint, banged-up walls and stacks of old pink chairs. It’s all going well, until the lead singer also appears as a psychiatric patient, giving us the hammiest “look at me, im crazy” acting ever. And of course, the hospital staff, they are the ones who are really crazy, etc. The mad doctor wants to blend up an old VHS tape an inject it into the patient (?), while the busty nurse wants to pash him because that what happens in old abandoned hospitals.

Director: Logan McMillan
Nga Taonga Sound & Vision

False Start “I Come From a Place”

2008-false-start-i-come-from-a-place

When an emo band wants to move away from their emo image, they have two choices: pop-rock (Goodnight Nurse) or metal (Bleeders). False Start have taken the metal route, but the video just feels like an emo band trying to be hard. The opening shot is pleasantly alarming, with the camera locked onto the buckle of lead singer Andrew’s belt, forcing the viewer to check out his crotch. He swaggers over to the rest of the band who are rocking out in a wrecking yard (so metal). And that’s the video – being very metal in a wrecking yard, smashing up cars cos it’s cool. The leather jackets and black denim and dyed hair feel more like a costume than a way of life.

To watch this video, head over to Flying Fish.

Director: James Solomon

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *