Robyn – Page 23 – 5000 Ways to Love You

Katchafire “Close Your Eyes”

The default Katchafire video has the band performing at a live venue, surrounded by fans, friends and whanau, with everyone having a great time. “Close Your Eyes” is one of those videos.

The band are found playing at the Junction Bar in Frankton, their local. The video follows them from setting up to performing. And everyone in the bar, from little kids to oldies, are all grooving to the band and having a good time. (Diabolical thought: wouldn’t it be amazing if a music video showed a real audience looking bored and talking during the band?)

The video is cut with still photos of the same event. The photos are a better quality than the video. And because the photographer has ventured out onto the streets of Frankton (the most interesting part of Hamilton), the photos tend to be more interesting than the video. Smiling kids playing in the fountain, biker dudes posing across from the iconic Forlong’s furniture shop and a boy enjoying a massive battered sausage – so Frankton.

It’s a really low-key video, but it’s Katchafire doing what they do best.

Best bit: the hongi – this is not America.

Nga Taonga Sound & Vision

Next… a lot of balls.

Greg Johnson “It’s Been So Long”

The video centres on a clown. We meet him alone at his house, before he sets off into the city. The futuristic looking Britomart station has been used a lot in music videos, so it’s really refreshing to see the clown take a train to Britomart and walk through it as a commuter, not as a cool dude in music video.

The clown entertains some kids in QEII Square, but sadly loses his colourful bunch of balloons. Seriously bummed out, he goes to drown his sorrows at a corner bar where Greg Johnson has also been drinking.

At this point I should also note that none of the geography in the video has been faked. It would be actually possible to replicate the clown’s journey from the train station to the bar.

The sad clown gets a drink and begins to remove his wig and makeup and – hey now – it’s comedic actor Jon Gadsby! It’s a really good piece of casting. Gadsby can properly act and does a decent job of both the clowning and the sadness.

It’s a really nicely shot video too. Every scene is pleasingly framed and the overall video has a dusky palette like the Brannan Instagram filter. In the end, when Greg joins the sad clown for a drink, it seems like the perfect way to spend an afternoon.

Best bit: sad clown popping up in the transparent lift.

Director: Tim Groenendaal

Next… one afternoon in Frankton.

Gramsci “Code”

A common theme is emerging with Gramsci’s videos: he doesn’t like to be seen. With the exception of his first video, “Complicated”, all subsequent videos have shown Paul McLaney but kept him obscured with shadowy lighting and/or computer graphics effects. “Code” follows this aesthetic, with McLaney and band placed in a murky back and white world of boulders and skeletal trees.

The song has a really epic chorus, which would suggest a perfect opportunity for the band to rock out. Instead when the chorus hits, the ground beneath them collapses and they fall down a rocky shaft. It’s only when the calmer verses return that they’re allowed to return to solid ground.

And this solid ground leads various band members to a strange forest, a fancy train tunnel, a really long bridge and, eventually, an iceberg. The graphics remind me of something from a basic video game. But if it was a video game, it would be totally rubbish because nothing much happens.

When there’s a kick-arse rock chorus, I want see something more thrilling than a guy running along a footbridge for a minute.

Best bit: the shoe-grabbing tree roots, like arboreal chewing gum.

Director: Ed Davis

Next… tears of a clown.

Goldenhorse “Out of the Moon”

Goldenhorse’s early videos were deliciously weird – the proto Twilight romantic vampire angst of “Golden Dawn” and the surreal sci-fi caravan of “Baby’s Been Bad”. Then the band went through a period of making very straight pop videos. But with “Out of the Moon”, the band have returned to their weird roots. Or have they?

Singer Kirsten is sitting inside a house, the epitome of quirky glamour in a corset top and fur stole. Outside, the suited men of Goldenhorse are working hard on a DIY project, which turns out to be a wooden moon which they hoist up into the sky.

It’s weird, but not weird enough. It’s like the band wanted to return to the surreal fun of their earlier videos, but also didn’t want to scare of their winery tour audiences by making something too strange.

Nah, it’s one or the other. Either go for a spooky romantic video like Evermore’s “It’s Too Late” or go for something really weird. But when it’s somewhere in between, it just ends up being dull.

Best bit: the DIY montage, stylish yet productive.

Director: Adam Jones

Next… take it to the bridge.

Gasoline Cowboy “Heading For The Ground”

The description on Amplifier was so alluring: “Gasoline Cowboy get urban and dirty”. Aw yeah, urban and dirty. After the Fast Crew’s recent journey into boring suburbia, it’s about time that a band brought things back to the bad city, etc.

So what does “urban and dirty” mean? It’s the lead singer of Gasoline Cowboy in an underground car park, slowly walking from the staircase to his car. He’s shot in profile, which is not a flattering angle on most people. And that’s cut together with footage of him in a bar playing pool with some others.

Early bar scenes show him striking out with a blonde woman at the bar. Later she’s shown to be playing pool with him, but it’s not clear what their relationship is. Is she some chick he’s just met that evening? Or his she is long-term girlfriend? Whatever their relationship, he’s going home alone. He lazily trudges over to his Ford Falcon and drives off.

The video doesn’t work for me. It seems there’s meant to be a story unfolding as the video progresses, but whatever it is, it’s just not clear enough to make sense. Frustratingly, the song is pretty good, with plenty of upbeat sass. It doesn’t need an “urban and dirty” treatment. Just something fun that isn’t mired in confusion.

Best bit: the lingering shots of the green 1978 Ford Falcon. Someone loves it.

Director: Duncan Cole
Nga Taonga Sound & Vision

Next… celestial DIY.

Fast Crew “Suburbia Streets”

“Suburbia Streets” is the Fast Crew being honest about their upbringing. They didn’t grow up on troubled inner-city neighbourhoods. No, they came from safe middle-class suburbs, where it’s “safe for child’s play, and there’s minimal homeless”.

The video is also an ode to this environment. We see the Crew rapping and singing around the suburbs, wandering the empty streets, inside an empty house and travelling on an empty bus. This is a fairly accurate portrayal of suburbs – during the day they do indeed empty out.

And that’s one of the big weaknesses with the video. For a song that is celebrating the depth and variety of the band’s suburban roots, the video isn’t doing such a great job of showing all that variety. In direct opposition to the lyrics promising that “suburbia is packed with all them cats you’d like to know” and talk of “street hustlers to band geeks, architects to police”, the only life seen in the empty suburbs is from Fast Crew, who are presumedly just there to shoot the video.

There are plenty of videos showing vibrant block parties in poorer neighbourhoods, but maybe this sort of carry-on just doesn’t happen in a nice middle-class area. Perhaps they’d find more suburban life down at the local Lone Star restaurant on a Thursday night.

Best bit: the very serious vocoder tube-singing bit – “suburbiaaaaaa”.

Director: Tim Groenendaal
Nga Taonga Sound & Vision

Next… urban and dirty.

Dave Dobbyn “Welcome Home”

I have a theory about this song. After Dave Dobbyn saw “Loyal”, a song about a relationship breakdown, used to foster national pride in a sports contest, he decided to write an actual proper song about pride in New Zealand. And so “Welcome Home” was born, and I imagine Dave has done quite well performing it at all those sports, military and civic ceremonies, all in honour of people who have “sacrificed much to be here”.

The video starts in black and white, with Dave walking down a busy street. He occasionally turns to wave and smile at people off camera, and you just know it’s people who are just shouting “DAVE DOBBYN!” because, hey, it’s Dave Dobbyn.

A bit of colour comes to the video via portraits of immigrants, all posing next to the flags of their former home country, and longer established New Zealanders. There’s a meat worker, schoolkids, dairy owners, a kebab shop couple, a taxi driver, and a forklift driver. There’s also refugee Ahmed Zaoui and a couple of brothers from the Dominican Priory where he lived at the time.

The oddest person to feature is a Westpac teller. She’s standing in front of a partition with “welcome” on it, and for a brief moment the video suddenly feels like an ad for Westpac. But New Zealanders work in banks as well as kebab shops, hardware stores and freezing works.

A lot of New Zealand music videos try to capture an essence of New Zealand, but trust Dave Dobbyn to just layer on the New Zealandness so deep that it goes beyond a cliche and actually becomes how New Zealanders happily see themselves. This is New Zealand.

Best bit: Dave’s thumbs up to one of the “DAVE DOBBYN” yellers.

Director: Tim Groenendaal
Nga Taonga Sound & Vision

Next… nothing ever happens in the suburbs.

Breaks Co-Op “The Otherside”

In between Breaks Co-Op’s first album Roofers and their second album The Sound Inside, group member Zane Lowe had moved to the UK and become a BBC Radio 1 DJ. But he had not forgotten about his music project back home. Along with Hamish Clark, the duo teamed up with singer Andy Lovegrove, who brought a rootier, folkier sound to the group with his newfangled lyrics.

The video goes for a standard New Zealand music video theme – the scenic road trip. Away from the city, the lads get into an old Kingswood (it’s always an old car) and head for the coast.

Much of the video is just them driving along 90 Mile Beach. I’m assuming it’s 90 Mile Beach because the sight of a Ratana church suggests they’re in the Far North. And New Zealand doesn’t have all that many epically long beaches.

Very pointedly, Hamish and Andy are in the front, with Zane slouching in the back. It seems like a deliberate choice to downplay his presence in the video, putting the emphasis on Andy’s vocals instead of the famous UK media star in the back. If you weren’t paying attention, you might not even notice he was in the video.

A lot of videos in this style play as porn for homesick expats, but there’s something a bit different about “The Otherside”. The lyrics deal with overcoming depression and the visuals of the beach landscape sometimes feel quite lonely and isolated. Maybe this is the first New Zealand video that uses majestic scenery as more than just a pretty backdrop.

Best bit: the chilly bin in the back with Zane.

Director: Tim Groenendaal
Nga Taonga Sound & Vision

Next… hey, Dave! Dave!

Blindspott “Yours Truly”

“Yours Truly” was the first single from Blindspott’s second album, End the Silence. The band had moved away from the nu metal stylings of the first album and had gone for a more traditional metal sound. And as drummer Shelton explained, “It doesn’t really fit into a genre, like the whole ’emo’ sound that’s around now.”

The non-emo “Yours Truly” opens and closes with an animated swoop around a city, where all the buildings are adorned with religious symbols: a star of David, a Dharma wheel, the star and crescent, and a cross. Completely separate from this, Blindspott are rocking out on a front lawn in front of an old villa at night.

The video is full of meaningful symbols. Inside the villa, a glass of milk bleeds, white lilies burn, and a statue of the Virgin Mary hangs out on a table. Shelton takes a nice hot bath, except he also has a mouthful of blood. Purity! Innocence! Ebola!

But that’s all basic music video stuff. Blindspott then bring out some classic Tool stylings from the ’90s. Damian finds himself with large tree branches sprouting from his back. And then there’s a bald-headed dude (dudes?) with two torsos and no legs. I’d like to see follow-up on this. What’s everyday life like when you have a tree growing out of your back? How does your girlfriend feel when you have another head instead genitals?

Blindspott have always paid a lot of attention to their music videos. “Yours Truly” isn’t anything amazing, but yet it’s still a quality Blindspott video and more ambitious than what most New Zealand metal bands of the era did.

Best bit: the two-headed dude manages to do a push-up.

Directors: Stephen Tolfrey, Marcus Ringrose
Nga Taonga Sound & Vision

Next… going for a drive along the beach.

Ben Novak “Love Breakdown”

Ben Novak is the singer-songwriter who had the curious fortune of writing the song “Turn Your Car Around” which scored well on a hit-determining computer algorithm, and later became a bona fide hit for ex Blue singer Lee Ryan. The algorithm also said that “Love Breakdown” would be a hit, but without a former boyband member matched with it, it’s just up to Ben Novak on his own.

The video takes inspiration from the opening line, “Today I heard a love break down in a supermarket line”. It uses footage from the 1950s (circa series one Mad Men), showing housewives and the fellows in their lives tackling supermarkets and domestic life. It’s like a first-year film student’s editing exercise.

Cut with that is Ben Novak performing with a band, complete with an anachronistic female bass player. Ben is not the most charismatic performer and comes across like a really bored Robert Palmer, so the video spends most of the time exploring the bright shiny world of the 1950s. It’s a strange situation when vintage film footage outshines the video’s star.

Best bit: cars with engines in the boot, leading to the curious sight of groceries being loaded into the space under the bonnet.

http://youtu.be/oFXw9IrNza4

Nga Taonga Sound & Vision

Next: what’s it really like to have a tree growing out of your back?