1994 – Page 7 – 5000 Ways to Love You

Grace “Confessions”

This is the first single for the group based around the three Ioasa brothers, but you know what? The video is better than the song. This is for one simple reason: ~~Anthony~~ Jason Ioasa’s fabulous cheekbones. The video, directed by Jonathan King, takes full advantage of this, with dramatic lighting to emphasise his features.

But, ok, it’s not all bone structure. While the video does linger on the singer, the rest of the band can be seen working away in the background, even with wide shots that reveal more of the studio set-up of the video shoot.

It seems like a low-budget video, but one done with skill and technique so it doesn’t look low-budget. As well as the moody lighting, it’s shot in black and white with an olive tint. Pretty stylish for a first video. The Ioasa bros were obviously going to have to raise the stakes for their next.

Best bit: Jason Ioasa’s cheekbones, ok?

Director: Jonathan King
Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision

Next… over-the-counter pain relief.

Crash “Red Velvet”

Crash is another mysterious band that managed to show up in the ’90s, release some songs, then vanish without really leaving much of an impact. Yet this video remains as a reminder of what once was.

“Red Velvet” – which appears to actually be an ode to a couch, or possibly a woman who is like a couch – is a poppy but slightly gothy Britpopesque song. That is, a perfectly respectable ’90s song.

The band’s frontwoman spends the verses lounging on a – wait for it – red velvet sofa, in the style of classical tableaux. In these tableaux, she’s joined by a couple of other women who look like they’d live in the Hutt and do medieval reenactments on the weekend.

When the chorus comes around, the action switches to the band. The drummer is steadily playing along, the guitarist is doing a full-on rock face, and the bassist is nervously jigging about, as if someone’s mum has said, “Come on, you’ve got to look a bit more lively than that!”

Best bit: the wind machine owns the dreamy chorus.

http://youtu.be/mVoC9IC7oKE

Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision

Next… fabulous cheekbones.

Bailter Space “X”

I listened to a lot of Bailter Space in the ’90s, but I don’t remember many of their videos. “X” is a great song in that the vocals are obviously the lowest priority sound behind the guitars and drums. Yeah, Bailter Space were a guitary band; a dude band (though now they’re a cool-dad band).

The video sees the trio playing their song in an old warehouse, probably in America judging from a “police department” sign proclaiming “no guns beyond this point”. The video is filmed in black and white, with lots of scratchy, grainy layers, as if the film was retrieved from the bottom of the Hudson River, still encrusted with city sludge.

The vid also includes a remnant of the past: a cigarette. As the video begins, Alister casually lights up. This used to happen in music videos. Cigarettes were a visual shorthand for cool. Then parents got angry about the effect that cigarettes in videos would have on their children, and all the ciggies vanished. Now the only smoking you’re likely to see is a blinged-up cigar, if that.

Bailter Space, the smoking gentlemen of New York, get to hold on to that memory.

Best bit: the brief road trip, with doggy-style head out the window.

Director: David Kleiler
Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision

Next… an ode to home decor.

Missing videos from 1994

There’s a Rockquest winner, some more bogan rock, a bit of hip hop, and some reggae.
Continue reading Missing videos from 1994

The Mutton Birds “In My Room”

Two Mutton Birds videos in one funding round! This is outrageous! “Heater” was released in February, the same month as this funding round, where as “In My Room” wasn’t released until a couple of months later.

“In My Room” didn’t chart as well as “Heater” (only reaching 14, compared to the number-one spot for “Heater”) and its video isn’t as much fun. In the lyrics, the protagonist of the song seems to live a similar shut-in life to that of Frank from “Heater”, though the “In My Room” guy seems to have better luck with the ladies.

It’s very performance based, with the band playing the song in a room, sometimes joined by cardboard cutouts of the themselves. The video is shot in black and white with colour tints, and it’s just a bit boring.

It seems like the video is too much about the band and not enough about the song. Yeah, they’ve set it in a room, literally, but that’s not really want the song is about. Maybe Virgin blew their budget on “Heater” and only had the $5000 left for “In My Room”.

Best bit: the window frame that, when it’s out of focus, looks like the as-yet-unbuilt Sky Tower.

Director: Leon Narbey
Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision

Next… Tim’s Irish roots.

Head Like a Hole “Spanish Goat Dancer”

More high-jinks from the HLAH lads. This time they are under the influence of a goat (presumedly a Spanish goat, that is also a dancer) which is making strange things happen.

First a pack of dogs roam the streets, leading an unsuspecting cyclist to the goat. The action then turns to a suburban house where the band are subverting the kitchen with a crossdressing housewife and 1960s-style cheesy ad salesman.

Then the goat is on the street where a demonic preacher sternly preachers to a crowd gathered below. What further chaos could the goat cause? Well, he finds HLAH’s rehearsal space and gets all Batman on them – DOOF!

One thing’s to be said for HLAH – they make visually exciting videos.

Best bit: the dinosaur kitchen cleaning spray.

Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision

Next… adventures in a room.

Halucian “Good Morning Mrs Earth”

Winners of the 1993 smokefreerockquest, Halucian got themselves a music video directed by Stuart Page. It incorporates lots of old footage of things like nuclear explosions, floods, volcanos, hurricanes, and Galloping Gertie, the ill-fated Tacoma Narrows bridge.

The band plays in front of an old scrapheap, suggesting they live in a post-apocalyptic world with no girls, leaving them to personify the earth as “Mrs Earth”. I reckon she is a benevolent mother who looks after them as the last humans on earth, soothing her with their Faith No More-inspired anti-lullabies.

But the most exciting thing about this video is discovering that Halucian’s long-haired lead singer is young Mr Sean Clarke, who went on to front Augustino with shorter hair but no less presence or voice. Some people, they’ve just got it.

Director: Stuart Page
Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision

Next… bitchin’ in the kitchen.

David Kilgour “Beached”

Halfway through watching the “Beached” video, I realised that this video would have looked so much better on a cathode ray television – the format it was created for.

“Beached” set in a dystopian future or maybe even another planet. D. Kilgour plays an alien or an astronaut who wanders around a beach, all along. He then ends up at a house, makes his way though a technological room, crawls through a pipe and is back on the beach.

It’s like an episode of “The Twilight Zone”, both plotwise and with production values. All that’s needed is for the lone adventurer to shocking be revealed as actually being a New Zealand indie star escaping from the pressing demands of promoting his new album by escaping into a fantasy world.

Best bit: the DIY astronaut headgear.

Director: Stuart Page
Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision

Next… a world without girls.

Able Tasmans “The Big Bang Theory”

It’s full of stars. The Abel Tasmans get all metaphysical with a journey through space.

Explosions, chemical equations, planets, sun spots, a singing moon, constellations, rocky terrain and and the shadowy silhouette of a band that doesn’t want to be in their video. Or, you know, the awesome visuals speak for the music far more than a band performance would.

I’m stuck. It’s a “System Virtue” situation. The song sounds good, but I don’t know what the lyrics are so it doesn’t quite come together. I’m just going to literally assume it’s about astrophysics and enjoy its spacy graphics effects.

Best bit: the disembodied clapping hands.

Director: Ronald Young
Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision

Next… beached as, bro.

Sisters Underground “In The Neighbourhood”

I just listened to this song for the first time in years and a lyric stood out:

It’s a cruel June morning on the edge of the city.
It’s so damn hot, and my neck is feeling gritty.

An unpleasantly hot day in June? This is not a New Zealand lyric. And I don’t think you’d find many “brothers talkin’ ’bout their damn MAC-10” around these parts.

It makes more sense to discover that Hassanah, Sisters Underground’s MC, is from Nigeria by way of New York, so I figure she’s allowed to write about her experience of stinking hot June days and guns in other cities in other hemispheres.

The “In The Neighbourhood” video is very cool, with footage of Hassanah and singer Brenda mooching around the streets of South Auckland wearing different combos of baggy jeans and buttoned-up shirts. Even though they both look like sweet teenage girls, they also have a toughness to them. Hey, they’re Sisters Underground. You do not mess with them.

And the video captures bits of ordinary South Auckland life. South Auckland has to be the most filmed area as far as music videos go. No videographers ever film people down at the Bucklands Beach shops.

This video rightly deserves its place as a landmark New Zealand music video. While it’s not the first music video to feature South Auckland life, with photographer Greg Semu behind the camera, it was the first to do it with beauty.

Best bit: the Sisters chillin’ in the golden afternoon sun. So cool.

Director: Greg Semu
Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision

Next… too much is never enough.