August 2012 – 5000 Ways to Love You

Salmonella Dub “For the Love of It”

By 1999 Salmonella had taken a form that would lead them on to many successes. They’d acquired a new singer Tiki Taane, a charismatic, handsome and cool dude to front the less remarkable band. But most importantly, they’d stumbled across their sound, what Wikipedia terms “a unique Pacific style of dub/drum ‘n’ bass/reggae/hip hop and groove-based rock” and what others may unflatteringly call barbecue reggae.

The “For the Love of It” video is like a manifesto of what the new Salmonella Dub is all about. The opening shot in the video is a wide panorama of a pristine lakeside area, empty of people. It’s the way New Zealand has been portrayed in tourism propaganda for over a hundred years.

We soon meet the band as they travel through rural New Zealand, hanging out at the beach and by waterfalls. They finally arrive at their destination – music festival the Gathering. This lets the band engage in the very modern, very manmade act of performing amplified music, but keeping it in a natural setting.

There’s lots of random footage of the Gathering, which is a nice record of that period of the late ’90s. And with that context, it seems obvious why Salmonella Dub would have appealed to a field full of loved-up festival-goers.

But the live performance almost takes a backseat to the footage of the band enjoying the great outdoors. There’s a game of beach cricket, skateboarding, fishing, riding an inner tub in a river and, yes, even a barbecue. “Stripping it back to the roots,” declares Tiki in the lyrics, and that’s exactly what this video it all about.

Occasionally there’ll be a glimpse of the band indoors, recording stuff in dark rooms. But that never lasts for long. This is a sunny, summery video to remind people of the real wicked-as time they had on their holidays.

Best bit: the stilt-walker performance artist at the Gathering.

Director: Rongotai Lomas
Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision

Next… eat your greens.

Fur Patrol “Beautiful”

“Beautiful” is a sweet love song with a dark edge and delightful lyrics like “you are the best thing that’s happened to me / since I fell on my face on Tuesday”. But Fur Patrol being Fur Patrol, they’re not going to make a cute, quirky video. No, they’re going to get a little weird.

Lead singer Julia plays a truck who’s singing the song in ode to her driver. To this effect, she’s strapped to the front of the truck, wearing a sort of black body suit, with bright red hair and matching eye make-up. And oddly it works, in a Thomas the Tank Engine way. It’s Julia the truck!

Her other half is a tattooed truckie who finished up his cup of tea then gets inside his truck, whereon a look of bliss appears on her face. She likes it when he’s all up inside her.

Also in the truck are the rest of the band. They’re in the trailer, suspended from the ceiling, swinging from side to side as the truck travels along. And that’s cool, but it’s not as cool as Julia the truck. When the truck starts moving, it genuinely looks like it’s her on the truck, not a stunt double.

The “Beautiful” video has a splendid sense of humour but it makes a much more compelling companion to the song than a straighter, more typical music video would have achieved. I just hope that the truck driver take his truck out more often.

Best bit: the truck driver’s diner is played by the much missed Kenny’s on Courtenay Place.

Director: Greg Page
Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision

Next… barbecue, reggae.

Dimmer “Evolution”

Finally, Shayne Carter has figured out how to use ProTools and has turned Dimmer into a fully fledged musical project, if not a band. The video takes its inspiration from Elvis’ ’68 Comeback Special. There’s a black background with red light spelling out DIMMER and Mr Carter wears a white suit with a brilliant crimson tie.

But Shayne is not alone. The video starts with a boy version of Shayne, later coming a teen Shayne, and later Shayne as an old man (played by his dad). It’s a bit like the end of “2001: A Space Odyssey” – a film about evolution – where astronaut Dave ends up in the weird white room and keeps seeing and becoming as older versions of himself.

So does this mean Shayne is going to evolve into a star child (or even more alarmingly, a Star Boy)? Nah, the video ends with Shayne shuffling off into the blackness, like he’s retiring back into his den to make some more tunes.

It’s a very simple video but is perfectly lit and has great performances from all the Shaynes. While there’s a lot of technical skill behind this video (directed by Darryl Ward), it’s a reminder that videos don’t need to be fancy and epic, that a single location with a great performance can work just as well.

Best bit: the swagger of youngest Shayne.

Directors: Darryl Ward, Shayne Carter
Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision

Next… keep on truckin’.

Baitercell “Prototype”

YouTube uploader HeisW140 notes that the video came off a Baitercell CD-ROM, the first released by label Kog Transmissions. And it seems fitting that at least one music video from the ’90s should have had the CD-ROM treatment, blocky low-res image and all.

The video starts with images of static and burst of electric crackle before emerging into the streets of Auckland. Hey, there’s the block of Symonds Street after all the old buildings had been pulled down but before all the dull apartments were erected in their place. Circuit boards are given the same treatment, neatly suggesting the artist is at home with the computer as he is in the city.

The images are very strongly related to the music. It’s not just cutting to the beat, but it’s almost the feeling that the stuff we see is dancing to the music. In a way, it’s like an accidental predecessor of the Chemical Brothers “Star Guitar” video.

A lot of attention is put on a microscopic creature and the efforts of a pair of pliers and a piece of wire that seem to want to poke the creature. I feel a little sorry for the creature and I wish the wire would stop bothering it. The video is full of contrasts – the microscopic world of bugs versus wide open city spaces. Computer generated graphics versus a club full of sweaty people dancing.

And it’s those contrasts that make up the world of electronica – digital and analogue. A pixelly music video from a late ’90s CD-ROM given new life on a website of the ’10s.

Best bit: the lone hand reaching for itself in the reflective tunnel.

Next… the ages of man.

Weta “Where Have You Been”

Weta! It’s nice to see them. Sadly only 56 seconds of this video is available online and it’s a pretty lowres version, but good on Pandanya for uploading it to YouTube.

I haven’t seen the video before and the excerpt starts right in the middle, so I’m left trying to make sense of what’s happened previously. There are shirtless, muscly men with pink hoods on their head, young women gleefully tossing their hair about, a bank of TVs and the pink-hooded heavies terrorising the band.

Weta were a great band with some great songs. It seemed like they were going to take over the world, but for whatever reason, things just didn’t work out (famously inspiring Shihad to write “Pacifier” about Aaron) and by 2001 Weta had broken up.

This video offers a glimpse into the early days of Weta, making a crazy music video that manages to capture their energy (at least 56 seconds worth of it). But the best thing about the video excerpt is that includes Aaron Tokona’s fierce guitar solo. It’s thick with sonic energy, and a fine reminder of Weta at their peak.

Best bit: the hair tossing, the likes of which have not been seen since Ngaire’s “So Divine” video.

http://youtu.be/Aeeidnrl7L0

Director: Adam Larkin
Film Festival

Next… the pretty people.

The Feelers “Pull the Strings”

What happens when a band is too busy touring to make a new music video? They make a music video cobbled together from footage of life on the road. But somehow the Feelers’ version of this ends up being kind of crazy.

The video starts with The Feelers having a Backstreet Boys moment, disembarking a small aeroplane. Only it’s not a Learjet. It’s an Air New Zealand Link. There’s a lot of footage of the band on stage, but it’s the off-stage antics that are more fun.

The boys sit in a DeLorean, squirt each other with water guns, hoon around rural Canterbury, through the Mt Victoria tunnel and they sign autographs. Autographs! Remember when the Feelers were teen idols? When young women would thrust their t-shirt-clad bosoms at the Feelers and demand a signature?

We’re also treated to the sight of a young man with a theatrical circular saw slicing into a Feelers’ guitar. And then we see a newspaper article about the incident (which includees the phrase “capital hard rockers Shihad), proof that the incident wasn’t just extreme but it was also notorious.

The most revealing vignette is where James Feelers puts on a superhero eyemask. He wears it for few moments, smiles, then shakes his head and takes it off. Because wearing a superhero mask is silly.

But despite all the shenanigans, at the heart of the video is the Feelers playing to a stadium of people who love them. There’s real joy and excitement on the faces of the fans, and that’s something worth capturing in a music video.

Best bit: the grid of cops.

Director: Duncan Cole
Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision

Next… hair, heavies and huh?!

Slim “Bullet in my Hand”

Shihad’s labelmates Slim came from the remains of Pumpkinhead. “Bullet in my Hand” is a satisfactory short and punky tune that looks to have been directed by guitarist/singer Aaron Hogg.

It’s obviously a low-budget job. Most of the video is static shots of the band playing in a bare studio, almost as if they set up the camera on a tripod, hit record and went for it. The shots aren’t always framed with much artistry. A lot of the video involves the lead singer’s head right up close to the camera. That’s fine, but some contrast would be good.

The unremarkable studio footage is spiced up a little with digital graphic flashing in quick succession. It’s a reminder that effects like this were becoming cheaper and more accessible.

And things get even more exciting when the lights go out, Aaron loses his shirt and the video becomes a rapid kaleidoscope of darkness, colour, skin and scowls. These bits are more effective than the main studio shots, but for a DIY effort without a major label behind them, it’s not a bad effort.

Best bit: the power leap, an injection of rock showmanship.

Director: Marc Swadel
Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision

Next… feelin’ it on the road.

Shihad “My Mind’s Sedate”

At the time this song was released, I felt very energised by the sarcastic opening line: “Well, I trust the police and the government!” Whereas now it seems like boilerplate angry young man. But I like what Shihad have done with the video. Directed by Reuben Sutherland, it’s taking a fairly standard video treatment – the mad scientist – and giving it a really dark, icky edge. This is not a musical performance video, but Shihad have never been afraid to take themselves out of traditional rock settings.

Jon spends most of the video wearing a lab coat, curled up in the corner of a lab, with the rest of the band lurking in the background, like three other scientists who are watching their colleague descend into madness.

Dr Jon’s hair is wet with sweat. It’s a filthy lab and strange things slither in the corners. The line “you don’t have a brain” is complemented with an selection of brains, arranged like chess pieces on the lino tiles.

The video keeps looking like an ordinary mad scientist sci-fi, but suddenly really weird things, ugly things will pop up, making Jon’s character seems like a run-of-the-mill mad scientist in the midst of severe meth psychosis. Poor chap. He probably just wanted to create a bride.

Director Reuben Sutherland won Best Video at the 2000 New Zealand Music Awards. It was his second consecutive win, and the third win in a row for a Shihad video.

Best bit: the weird insecty thing on the shelf.

Director: Reuben Sutherland
Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision

Next… bullet boys.

Peter Stuyvesant Hitlist “Ode to K Road”

The Peter Stuyvesant Hitlist were known for their comedy loungey live styles, but they tone it right down for their second single, “Ode To K Road”. The video, made by Andrew Moore, Steve Sinkovich and Stuart Page, consists of sped-up footage of K Road, mostly with members of the band just standing around.

I lived on K Road around this time, so the video is a nice bit of nostalgia. When Karangahape Road appears in music videos, it’s normally at night, but “Ode to K Road” also happens at day time, with the very ordinary sunlit goings-on of the street.

It’s a reminder of K Road of the late ’90s, before Starbucks came, Rendalls closed and the adult shops disappeared. Back when it was all a bit shabby and the street was full of more weird shops than cool shops. (My favourite weird shop was the plastics shop that never every depreciated their prices, so there was a crappy old spice rack full of a long discontinued spice brand still selling for $39.95. As if.) Back when K Road has multiple second-hand record shops that wanted to eat all my money.

The song has a bittersweet tone and that feeling seeps through to the footage. It’s a reminder that K Road never really feels like it’s radically changed until the past is compared with the present. While there are plenty of familiar businesses (Rasoi, Leo O’Malley and, er, Dick Smith), the video is packed full of the ghosts of K Road past.

Best bit: the glistening metal facade of Al’s Diner.

Director: Andrew Moore
Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision

Next… a scientific experiment gone wrong.

King Kapisi “Reverse Resistance”

The video opens with the ruins of an old church. One wall has what were once a series of three crosses moulded in the concrete, but the right-handed cross has broken away to a giant hole. “I’m an atheist,” King Kapisi asserts. “Glad to meet ya!” Well, nice to meet you too.

The video is shot in Samoa and manages to make the place look like a tropical paradise with a slightly uneasy undertone. Mr Cabbage spends a lot of time with no shirt on, but rather than just being the standard music video “aw yeah, check me out”, there’s also a practical side. Most other men and boys in the video are just wearing lavalava, so it’s not especially out of the ordinary.

The tone of the video makes the ordinary scenes of island life seem kind of sinister. The ordinary scenes of little boys playing, men fishing and people harvesting bananas somehow seem a little edgy. (This in turn has given me the idea for cosy murder mystery set in Samoa.)

But the video also has a travelogue quality, with perfect scenes of island life. Hey, there’s King Kapisi walking past with a surf board emblazoned with the Samoan flag. This in turn is a reminder of what’s missing – urban life. The song is straight outta Auckland but the video has taken it from its predictable city context and moved it to a highly religious South Pacific island nation.

And it works. The contrast between the music and the setting help underscore the message of the song. And it lets an artist use a tropical island location without it ever feeling like a Duran Duran video.

Best bit: the older women combing her long white hair.

Director: Sima Urale
Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision

Next… inner city love.