April 2014 – Page 2 – 5000 Ways to Love You

Sommerset “Inside”

Auckland punk-arse punks Sommerset return with “Inside”, a rage against the claustrophobic lifestyle. The adventure begins with a loved-up young couple on a couch. This leads to footage of sperm swimming, and the next thing there’s a baby on the scene.

The mother lays the baby to sleep in his bedroom, and from there we see him grow up, never leaving the room. “I get so sick of being inside!” shouts lead singer Ryan. It suggests this kid is never actually allowed to leave his room, like his parents are some weird extreme home-schoolers. Well, at least they give him a sweet guitar for his birthday.

The kid grows up watching his favourite hair metal band on TV. They bear a suspicious resemblance to Sommerset, hanging out in the back of a limo, pouting to the camera. We also see the band rocking out in a studio, complete with some truly outrageous guitar licking.

Now, I think the idea is that the kid grows up to be Ryan from Sommerset. The next thing we see is Ryan driving in a car. Is he on the road to freedom? No, he’s off to play with his band, in a basement.

The implication seems to be that life is all about being stuck inside, with no option of being outdoors. It’s a curious idea, especially considering how many New Zealand music videos are set in the great outdoors. Is this the first video that’s honestly acknowledging the life of a musician – spending hours inside, rehearsing, creating, gigging?

Best bit: the glam metal limo party zone.

Director: Andrew Morton
Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision

Next… bad medicine.

Soane featuring Tha Feelstyle & Boh Runga “All I Need”

Soane mixes up some freshness featuring Tha Feelstyle on the verses and Boh Runga delivering a killer chorus. The video is a blue screen job, with Tha Feelstyle, Soane and various cool kids dancing in front of a urban themed background.

One of the cool kids is a girl with a broken arm. That’s not something you normally see in a music video. Usually people are healthy and intact, but here’s a girl (looking about 15) doing a slightly awkward dance with her right arm plastered right up to her elbow.

The style of the video doesn’t change. It’s just people – or silhouettes – moving in front of interesting backgrounds. But here’s a curious thing. The chorus of the song is a lot stronger than the versus, so much so that the mood of the video seems to lift when the chorus comes along.

Soane only makes an appearance at the end of the video, shown at work with his decks. And then the video ends with a wide shot reveals Soane hard at word in front of the blue screen, surrounded by film equipment that had previously been digitally removed.

That’s something that isn’t normally seen in New Zealand music videos – the final show of “Oh, none of it’s real!” But in this case, I don’t think anyone would have previously been under the impression that Soane and pals were grooving in front of a purple sky with giant red and white butterflies flapping about. So what does the shot signify? Hey, here’s the busy modern hip hop producer, hard at work having just finished his latest music video.

Best bit: the breakdancing on turntable top.

Director: Miki Magasiva
Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision

Next… cabin fever.

Salmonella Dub “Slide”

Salmonella Dub’s three previous videos have all been animations, which I always assume is the result of a band too busy touring to shoot a video in person. The other way of handling that dilemma is to shoot the video on the road, and that seems to be what the Dub has done for “Slide”.

The video is shot in Sydney, as part of the band’s 12-date tour of Australia in August 2003. Much of the video is shot at a gig at the Metro Theatre. It’s a relaxed song, an ode to letting the worries of the world just pass you by.

We see the various members of the band up on stage, but there’s no sense that they’re performing to the cameras. It’s more like the camera is an audience member, just passively checking out the band as they perform.

But just in case things were getting a little claustrophobic in the club, the action moves outside. There we meet a skateboarder who is blissfully hooning down a hilly suburban street. You know you’re not in New Zealand when the footpath is smooth enough to confidently race down on a skateboard.

He then moves to the CBD, skating through a grey pedestrian mall past guys in suits (take that, guys in suits!), then it’s around a few corners and in the front door of the Metro and into the gig. Just in time for the song to end.

The video feels like a quickie, and more effort seems to have gone to filming the skateboarding scenes than the live footage. But I think Salmonella Dub have always been an album band and a live band more than they’ve ever been a singles or music videos band.

Best bit: the quality moves from the skateboarder.

Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision

Next… a broken arm.

Pluto “Dance Stamina”

Here’s Pluto sounding very cool, with hints of the Stone Roses and early U2. Far removed from the comedy world of “Bananas in the Mist”, “Dance Stamina” gets very moody and sexy. Oh yeah.

The video opens with Pluto silhouetted in red light against a screen. When we meet the band, they’re bathed in red and blue lights, with lead singer Milan looking all hot and bothered. Also – fabulous cheekbones.

The video is directed by Kezia Barnett, who has previously proven her talent for using quality choreography in music video with “Buck It Up” and “Cement” for Goodshirt. But rather than the extravagant formation styles of the Goodshirt videos, “Dance Stamina” just uses one dancer, who is dressed very similarly to the disco goth vamps of “Cement”. Only this time there’s no ironing board. She dances in a separate space to the band. Are they even aware of her existence?

As the band are playing it so very straight and so cool, the dancer – with her black wig, pale make up and bloody mouth – is a lively contrast. But how much dance stamina does the dancer have? Three and a half minutes into the video, she collapses, but then rises again in silhouette form.

What if she’s an immortal vampire who can dance for a long time? Things would have been good with the dance marathons on the 1930s, but it’s slim pickings in the 2000s when indie bands would only record songs that are a measly four minutes long.

“Dance Stamina” doesn’t seem like it had the larger budget of Goodshirt’s videos, but the simple set, dramatic lighting, fab performances from the band, and of course the dancer all come together to make something very slick.

This video was a finalist at both the Kodak Music Clip Awards and the Juice TV Music Awards.

Best bit: the dancer’s layers and layers of faux pearl necklaces.

Director: Kezia Barnett
Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision

Next… Sydney skate.

Opshop “Saturated”

Most enticingly, the YouTube description says this song was “featured on the hit TV series The Hills“. But “Saturated wasn’t listed on MTV’s official list of all the songs used on the popular scripted reality show, so I’ll never know if it was the Speidi love theme. Actually, given the that the main refrain is “let’s stay up all night”, the song was probably used for a scene where some characters – Speidi, perhaps – stayed up all night.

I did discover a couple of songs from other New Zealand artists that had been played on The Hills. Greg Johnson had “Save Yourself” on ep 208, and two years later Savage was there with “Swing”. And if you count Natasha Bedingfield as New Zealandish, well, she did the series theme song.

My searching also revealed that Opshop had another song on another MTV show. “One Day” was on episode 213 of 16 and Pregnant, where “Emily faces the pressure of starting over in a new school and new town” among other things.

Anyway. Back to the lecture at hand. The “Saturated” video is Jason walking along a beach, and that’s basically it. It’s shot in several continuous bits, with edits to show the passing of time or to change the action happening on the sandy ground behind him. There’s no sign of the rest of the band, letting Jason be the face of Opshop.

It’s just all regular beach activity – a dude hooning on a dune buggy, a couple strolling, a dog playing (Jason throws him a stick), a couple of surfers and a bit of beach cricket.

Sometimes the lighting makes it look like Jason has been superimposed on a beachy background, but as he replied to an accuser on YouTube, “I was definitely at the beach. true story.” And when you think about it, filming it in a studio would be a lot trickier than doing it for real.

It turns out all the walking has a purpose. Right at the end, as the sun is setting, he walks up and there’s a lady. His body language is all “Sorry I’m late. Do I still get a shag?” Oh, so that’s why all those people on NZ Dating put “long walks on beaches” in their profile.

Best bit: the impressive one-handed dive catch from a beach cricket player.

Next… can’t stop, won’t stop.

Katchafire “Bounce”

The video starts with Katchafire in a shed, performing a song about marijuana. I feel like this is the group’s default mode, and if you were to pay them a surprise visit at any time of day or night, they’d be in a shed performing a song about marijuana.

“What do you say we do ‘Bounce’ then get up out of here?” asks Logan. It’s an agreeable suggestion and the band start playing the song. And that’s basically the video – shot in black and white, Katchafire in a shed, performing a song.

The implication that it’s a sound check, setting up for a later evening show in the shed. It actually looks like it would be a great venue at night, complete with the “No Patches” sign and chickens scratching around the front.

And maybe that’s the problem. It’s a funky tune, but the video is like sitting in on basic soundcheck but being denied the band in full force at the main event in the evening. I suspect this is the eternal problem of Katchafire’s music videos – how do you capture the magic of their live shows without being able to replicate that smoky vibe?

Best bit: the chicken pecking at a cob of corn.

Director: Ivan Slavov
Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision

Next… long walks on beaches.

Goodshirt “Cement”

Kezia Barnett, the director of Goodshirt’s previous video “Buck It Up”, is back for another adventure inside her gothic world of dance.

Like “Buck It Up”, the “Cement” video is set inside an eerie old building – this time it’s a spooky looking house on a moonlit night. The band are playing outside the house which comes to the attention of a Rapunzel-like resident, who flips down her long blonde braid for singer Gareth to climb.

They curl up in bed together, but then Rapunzel mysteriously vanishes, leaving Gareth alone in the bedroom to face five dancing 1940s housewives who menacingly iron a tea towel with his face printed on it. And just to make things odder for poor Gareth, the women then begin to dance with their ironing boards, and then turn into 1980s disco goth vamps. Chaos ensues.

While all this is going on, the rest of the band are still playing away, chipping in backing vocals. But we only see them via a photo on the wall of the house, suggesting they’ve been magically transported inside the photo.

I’m slightly confused by the video’s ending. Gareth finds a dark-haired woman drowning in a bath and rescues her. Is she the Rapunzel lady with her blonde utility wig removed? Well, whoever she is, she’s the girl of Gareth’s dreams. They embrace, and we discover the rest of the band frozen in the framed photo.

I like the style of this video. It’s a lot more ambitious than your typical New Zealand music video. It’s always good to see dancing in a music video – especially when it’s not done as a parody of dancing in music videos. This video almost inspires me to drag out my ironing board and rhythmically flail about with it.

Best bit: the fierce dance of the irons.

Director: Kezia Barnett
Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision

Next… the chook look.

Goodnight Nurse “Loner”

If I’d come to this video a year ago, I’d have noted that the band split up in 2010, with the guitarist forming electro-pop group Kids of 88 and the lead singer co-writing and producing the Kids’ first album.

But now the skinny-arse lead singer is best known for being Lorde’s songwriting partner and producer. The young dude who sangs lyrics like “I shit myself whenever I see you!” is now the man with the richly earned Silver Scroll and Grammy for Song of the Year.

It’s fun to revisit Goodnight Nurse. The “Loner” video is a simple performance video, with the band on stage in front of a small group of enthusiastic fans, carefully shot to look bigger than reality. The video is bookended by a couple of stereotypical sexy nurses (it’s always classic nurse tunics, never modern scrubs) opening and closing the doors on an ambulance full of smoke.

The band’s sound is almost cookie-cutter pop-punk, but despite the shitty lyrics, there’s something infectious about the song’s chorus. There’s potential there, but there’s potential in a lot of New Zealand bands that never end up getting Silver Scrolls. In this video profile, Joel talks about his work with Lorde, and the importance of hard work. Is that the secret? He just keep working, from pop-punk to electro-pop and eventually to the top of the Billboard charts.

Best bit: the amazing fireballs, oh so casually whooshing up the back of the stage.

Director: Ivan Slavov
Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision

Next… domestic terrors.

Goldenhorse “Northern Lights”

The video that’s been uploaded to YouTube is very dark. I don’t know if this is deliberate or whether something has gone wrong somewhere, but combined with the vintage scratchy styles of the film, the end result is like an old film that’s been rescued from a sunken ship.

Goldenhorse seem to make two types of videos – weird ones and winery tour ones. “Northern Lights” takes the same sort of winery tour approach that “Maybe Tomorrow” did. There’s the band performing and enjoying the great outdoors on their tour.

But the difference is the aforementioned vintage styles. It seems to have been shot on film and then hand-coloured, Len-Lye-style with all sorts of layers. And this is where the video seems to run into trouble with darkness. I looks like there are too many layers and when the song is reaching its peak, there’s a murky shot of Kirsten. Maybe it’s a comment on the song’s title. We’re in the south – ain’t no light here?

“Northern Lights” was the group’s last single from their debut album. The song and the video capture them in peak pleasantness, but I wonder if the literal darkness of the video is their weirder, darker side trying to come through.

Best bit: the layering that combines a live performance with scenic New Zealand.

Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision

Next… a medical immergency.