2013 – Page 9 – 5000 Ways to Love You

Cosa “Still Water”

Cosa (formerly Cosa Nostra) was a project by producer Trevor Reekie of Pagan Records. “Still Water” is an atmospheric track with a some trip hop and dub styles.

The video was directed by Mark Tierney and has a slight sci-fi flavour to it, a bit like the dream worlds of “Inception”. On a deserted grassy hill, Trevor is beckoned by a curious Asian man who takes him to a relaxing day spa. Though being a slightly weird music video, this ain’t no ordinary relaxing day spa.

Trevor lies down and is pampered by a number of Asian women. Their benevolent stroking seems to take him into a room where some cool people are partying. Is it real? Well, is the relaxing day spa real? Is the Asian man real? It’s all getting pretty Matrix.

Lava lamps blob, parasols spin, bubbles are blown, belly dancers shimmy, fire poi are twirled and the partygoers laze around in a haze. It’s like everyone in the room took too many Neurofen Plus, except for the one guy who’s dancing. Yeah, there’s always the one guy who’s dancing.

But obviously this bliss can’t last. The Asian man appears again, which seems to signal the end of this trip. Trevor wakes up, finding himself next to the reflecting pond at Savage Memorial. It could be considered inappropriate shoot a music video at a mausoleum, but the dreamlike location of the memorial somehow fits with the fantasy/reality theme of the music video. And, well, you wouldn’t get that sort of experience at the Massey Memorial.

Best bit: the partygoer with pixie/Spock ears.

Director: Mark Tierney
Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision

Next… a secret debut.

The Brainchilds “Thinking About You”

At first “Thinking About You” seems like a wistful song from someone getting in touch with a long-lost love. There’s a Front Lawn-style quirkiness to the song but it initially seems rather restrained.

We find the Brainchilds playing their song on a beach. It’s a rough New Zealand beach, but everyone seems quite cheerful, so yay. This is cut with footage of and elderly woman writing notes on pieces of paper cut from the margins of newspaper pages. She’s filling up an envelope with these notes, which seem to contain the song lyrics.

This is a very intriguing start, but when the chorus comes along, the video loses steam. The Brainchilds just seem really dull performing on the beach and even the old lady can’t spice things up.

But very slowly things get weird. The old lady isn’t just stuffing the envelope with the notes; there’s hair in there too. And she feeds her cat an entire can of budget jellymeat. Lucky cat?

Back on the beach, as the song intensifies and gets more manic, the Brainchilds are slowly being swallowed up by the sand. The old lady has a mad glint in her eye.

The video was directed by Grant Lahood, who at the time was riding high on a series of three popular short films full of a similar kind of offbeat humour. So it’s a pleasant surprise to discover that he also got to have a go with a music video.

Best bit: the old lady’s lawn water bottle, back when it was thought those scared off pooing dogs.

Director: Grant Lahood
Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision

Next… a massage with extras.

Matty J feat. Dei Hamo “Somewhere You’re There”

The first few seconds of this song seem quite sedate. There’s Marry J doing his soul crooning and it’s all very sweet when suddenly – bam! – here’s Dei Hamo with some rap to make things a lot more interesting.

Dei Hamo is filmed in black and white, with the lyrics of his rhymes jumping around behind him, like a YouTube lyric video. This tantalising and explosive intro is over quickly, and we return to Matty J, walking along a city street.

The camera always films him walking left to right, and we also see split screen shots of different angles of him. I know what’s trying to be achieved here (the spilt screen style was very cool in the mid-’90s) but it seems a bit awkward here. It has been done with some really horrible looking bevelling effects, like the sort of stuff that showed up in webpage design in the mid-’90s. Was there a point where this style was cool? Maybe.

Dei Hamo bursts in again, introduced by Matty J as “the Madd Coconut”. And then Matty J continues on his journey, walking through cityscapes in bold colours, particularly purples and blues. Finally Matty J’s journey ends with him walking right up to his sweetie, but the video abruptly ends before there can be any grand reunion. (This might just be the version that’s online.)

It feels like there are some really good ideas behind this video, but not everything manages to work.

Best bit: Matty J’s simultaneous look of loved-up and cool.

Director: Craig Jackson
Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision

Next… lying in the sand.

Strawpeople “Crying”

The Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision describes this video as “Elaborate split screens video monitors”, which isn’t quite accurate. It’s a collection of eight boxes that play footage. To me it looks more like a digital composite rather than eight actual video monitors (and flat screen technology wasn’t that advance back then).

The video is directed by Mark Tierney and Paul Casserly, and it was a style that both would later use in videos they directed for other artists – Casserly for Greg Johnson’s “If I Swagger” and Tierney for Jan Hellriegel’s “Pure Pleasure”. And Matt Palmer used a similar style in his 1994 video for Maree Sheehan’s “Kia Tu Mahua”.

But the “Crying” video throws in an extra element. One of the boxes features Fiona McDonald singing the song straight to the camera and it’s almost totally unedited. Just a few flash cuts along the way.

The other boxes show scenes of urban Auckland. The tank farm features, back in the days when the tanks had utilitarian numbers painted on them, rather than poetic murals. Numbers feature a lot, with mysterious dates flickering across the screen and appearing on a television set in an empty room. There’s also a young women who walks around taking photos, and generally looks cool with her matt lipstick.

I like this video. I like that it’s a bit mysterious and doesn’t try to explain everything. A bit like that song.

Best bit: the giant camera the woman uses.

Directors: Mark Tierney, Paul Casserly
Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision

Next… a loving walk.

The Brainchilds “Tomorrow Never Knows”

The Brainchilds was a pop outlet for musicians Steve Roche, David Donaldson and Janet Roddick (now working as mutli-purpose composers Plan 9). Their cover of the Beatles’ pop masterpiece strips away the more psychedelic elements of the fab four’s production. As a result, Janet’s lovely clear voice makes the song sound more like a hypnotherapy take. Turn off your phone, relax, and float downstream. You crave not ciggies. You crave not ciggies.

The video has relaxing, slightly trippy look, and it’s not a typical rock video. The only member of the band we see performing is Janet’s lip-synch of the song. The rest of the band are left to artfully wander around a forest of empty picture frames. But this all fits with the Brainchilds’ performance art background.

There are a lot of picture frames in the video. The action starts with a number of gilded frames in a dark space, floating around with footage of various outdoor scenes and Janet’s ghostly white face playing in them. The second half of the video puts the frames in a white space and sees the suited members of the group wander artfully amongst them.

There’s something quite pleasing about this. It’s using the latest innovations in digital video effects with some classic arty video tricks. And it doubles as a relaxation tape.

Best bit: man in a frame in a frame!

Director: Nigel Streeter
Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision

Next… lots of boxes.

David Parker “Love By Satellite”

David Parker had a lot of videos funded in the early years of NZOA funding, but they’re almost impossible to find online. So it’s very exciting to discover the space adventure of “Love By Satellite” is now available.

Directed by Jonathan King, the video takes its inspiration from 1950s sci-fi serial adventures, with David Parker playing a space hero, looking like a Thunderbird team member with snipped wires. Most of the video is shot in black and white, with period authentic papier mache planets and wobbly rocket ships. The few colours shot are David Parker outside of the space context, rocking with his guitar.

Our hero is marooned on a planet and is trying to broadcast a message to his space sweetie. The signal goes out over a good old-school style satellite (like Sputnik’s disco cousin), bounces of transmission towers and is picked up by the television at his girlfriend’s space house. Only she’s too wrapped up in reading a science fiction magazine and doesn’t notice his celestial greeting.

So what will happen? Will Astro Dave get the message through to his lady? Will she look up from her magazine? Well, as this is a serial, the video ends with the promise that the story will be “continued next week”. But that’s probably space weeks, much longer than earth weeks.

“Love By Satellite” is a sweet, country-tinged song and I like that the video has gone with a slightly unexpected treatment. But it seems to work really well, probably because both the song and the video have themes of Americana, and tales of love always have a place in science fiction.

Best bit: the quality range of model spacecraft.

Director: Jonathan King
Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision

Next… a frame-up.

Dave Dobbyn & The Stone People “Don’t Hold Your Breath”

So here’s the concept: Dave Dobbyn, with bleached blonde hair and wearing red and white striped pyjamas, wanders around the army training area at Waiouru with a tank in the background. Pretty awesome, right? And it’s Dave Dobbyn’s first NZ On Air-funded video.

“Don’t Hold Your Breath” is a stark song, mostly just Dave’s voice and guitar, with the occasional burst of drum thrown in. The lyrics are political, imagining an end to many of the world’s troubles, then adding “don’t hold your breath”. It’s not an obvious choice for a single, but it seems like no attempt was made to sweeten things up. The video is as stark as the song.

As well as Dobbyn’s military manoeuvres, the video quickly cuts in clips of important world events (the same sort of stuff Billy Joel sang about in “We Didn’t Start the Fire”). But all that is less interesting than Dave in the desert. He even has a knife that he occasionally stabs into the ground just because that’s the kind of thing he does.

I’m most intrigued by the utility belt that Dave’s wearing with his pyjamas. It’s like something woke him up in the middle of the night, leaving him to flee the house in his PJs with his prized possessions – guitar, stabby knife and utility belt. Well, that’s all you need for the apocalypse.

The video also has pretty quick editing, giving it a feeling of urgency. This isn’t just a lone man wandering around a barren landscape – he has a message for everyone.

Best bit: Dave’s funky strut along the top of a ridge.

Director: Kerry Brown
Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision

Next… a satellite transmission.

The Feelers “Fishing for Lisa”

Tell me what (oh!) ever happened to Lisa. It’s a summer of heartbreak and the Feelers have a theme song for it, a lament for the long-lost Lisa. The video sees the band enjoying a summer holiday. They have a Kombi van and have been joined by three model-like women, one of whom we can assume is Lisa. The six of them drive around, enjoying a stereotypical outdoorsy summer, partying like it’s 1969.

The footage varies between video and old film, giving it a grainy home movie look. There doesn’t seem to be any relation between the type of film and the scenes. Just whatever. We even see one of the models holding a camera on the beach. But that camera is filmed by another old camera. Things were so complicated before Instagram came along.

Much of the vintage camera footage involves the six mucking around at the beach. And there’s Lisa walking around with a surfboard, sitting with a surfboard but not actually surfing. We see a dude surfing, though. Perhaps Lisa was just minding his board.

The sextet also end up having a picnic by the beach, complete with a singalong. They also all end up crammed inside the Kombi, where the singalong continues (with Lisa tooting along on recorder). James Feelers doesn’t take his sunglasses off while he’s in the van, which makes him look more like a dad with Transitions lenses, rather than a cool rock dude.

Despite all these fun times, the video ends with Lisa cheerfully being dropped off on a deserted, bush-clad road. It seems like a dick move for the lads in the van. I mean, couldn’t they have at least driven her to the nearest town? But if she’s happy and the Feelers are happy, why is there such lament?

Best bit: James Feelers’ singalong lei, for that authentic tropical vibe.

Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision

Next… a scratchy drive.

The Black Seeds “Coming Back Home”

For a band that had such a strong live reputation, it’s curious that the Black Seeds started off by making music videos that didn’t show the band playing. The video for the chilled-out “Coming Back Home” starts with time-lapse footage of the band setting upon stage, but that’s the last we see of them. The rest of the video is animated. Perhaps they were too busy gigging to appear in a video.

The animation is based on simple line drawing, mainly white lines on a black background, with the occasional bit of colour for emphasis. Going with the theme of the song, the video shows different situations involving a journey home. There’s a prisoner counting off the days till his release, a homeless man and his dog and an ant on an epic adventure, among others. And trains, planes, boats, cars and shopping trolleys all feature as modes of transport.

Wellington features in the video, with a skydiver falling down onto the familiar outline of the inner city coast, and a scene of cars streaming along the motorway, towards the city of hills, the spiritual home of barbecue reggae.

The animation has a nice rhythm to it, but the video itself is really low-key. It feels like neither the song nor the video really want to stand out. It seems like a video that’s content to play in the background while other things are happening. But for a listener who’s feeling a bit homesick, maybe that’s the best way to portray a New Zealand homecoming – a chilled-out place with a freshly grilled veggie sausage just waiting for you.

Best bit: the Cook Strait ferry’s feet.

Next… vacation, meant to be spent alone.

Savant “Underground”

“Underground” is a serious rock song, but Savant go for a lighter treatment, with the video showing the fake making of a music video for the song. The group wake up and are shown in a four-way split, just like Betchadupa’s “Awake” video. But the early morning lie-in is interrupted by a phone call from the music video director, played by comedian Brendhan Lovegrove.

The boys quickly get up and, after initial car trouble, they get a ride from a slightly creepy guy with a van. (When you’re in a band and someone has a van, you don’t ask too many questions.) The van stops at an intersection where it is suddenly surrounded by a hoard of Asian fangirls. This is the third video with the “crazy Asian fans” trope. Was it not believable that a group of, say, Pakaha or Maori teen girls would go crazy over Savant?

At this point, the van driver (male, Pakeha) reveals himself to be the craziest Savant fan of them all, and encourages the band to ditch the video shoot. Instead they load up the van with boxes of beers and take off to a party at a flat. There they party hard, surrounded by lots of young women in short skirts in a slightly strange, Lynchian setting.

Rightly annoyed at this slack-arse band, director Brendhan ropes in actress Sara Wiseman and three guys to play the band. Later Savant sit down and are shocked to see their new music video, with an woman lip-syching the yarled man-lyrics. They have no one to blame but themselves.

There are some valuable showbiz lessons to be learned here:
1. No one likes boozers.
2. No one likes time-wasters.
3. No one likes divas.
4. No one is irreplaceable.

Best bit: the lame non sequitur running gag of the neighbourhood power-walker.

Next… a homecoming.