Mightyscoop are a curious band. At their core were Dave and Sebastian, a Kiwi and an Aussie who met on their OE in England, formed a band and ended up back in New Zealand as Mightyscoop.
“Sunny Daze” is an infectious pop number, with some of that ’80s keyboard that Goodshirt were also having fun with. It didn’t chart, but I believe it had some luck with radio play. And who – apart from the KLF – could get away with a lyrics that go “I like driving my ice cream van! I like driving my ice cream van!”?
The video sees the group making a music video. Ah yes, it’s a bit meta. They’re in a studio performing in front of a rippling silver backdrop. Dave has Lance Bass-style frosted hair, while Sebastian is just wearing a scarf instead of a shirt. A short, angry director frequently yells at them.
When the chorus comes along, a couple of dancers show up, wearing the same combo of shiny bikini tops and hot pants that K’Lee’s dancers wore. Only in this video, the camera goes full-on male gaze, with many close-ups of gyrations and Sebastian’s leering face. Let’s just think back to 1991, to the lycra ladies of James Gaylyn’s “Body Fine” video. Oh, how far we’ve come in just 10 years.
The shoot is going well until Sebastian makes an inappropriate remark to one of the dancers. She storms off, which makes the director even angrier. He yells at Sebastian, who sasses back with the song lyrics, “It doesn’t really matter what you say!” Who wants to work with a dick like that? The director also storms off, leaving the band to play the rest of the song in the dark.
In real life, a new band who acted like this on a music video shoot wouldn’t get far in their career. Mightyscoop didn’t get very far either, but let’s give them the benefit of the doubt. As it happens, this video was nominated for Best Independent Video at the Juice TV Awards.
Good equipment is everything, as Lucid 3 demonstrate in the “Smooth Machine” video. It’s all about Victoria’s epic journey to get a microphone.
Cooped up with the band in a rehearsal room in the wilderness, Victoria suddenly realises her microphone is inadequate. She grabs her Discman and runs through the bush. A magical tunnel transports her to downtown Auckland, where she keeps on running until she reaches the Rock Shop on K Road. She she grabs a microphone and resumes her epic jog.
That leads her through another tunnel, over some sand dunes and back to the other two band members setting up in their rehearsal space. She puts her new microphone in place, straps on her guitar and suddenly she’s all glammed up and the cabin in the bush is aglow with rock lighting.
“Smooth Machine” has a bit more fun than previous Lucid 3 videos, even when it’s playing on the themes of performance anxiety in the lyrics (“I’m shy about opening my throat/A song might not fall out”). The rapid shifts between the idyllic coastal location and the busy city seem like a perfect match for Lucid 3 – a bit urban, a bit hippy. And all a result of that magic mic that makes everything ok.
This is a magnificent track. First, the Matty J-penned lyrics. These are the top five lines from the song:
“These ain’t my panties and that ain’t my skanky bra!”
“While you’re getting your sex education, I’ll be smashing your new PlayStation!”
“Treating our love like some twisted menage a trois!”
“Playtime is over and your ass is history!”
“Clean out your locker!”
The video of this angry tirade against an unfaithful lover focuses on K’Lee and her posse of six backing dancers. They go through different looks in different settings – there’s edgy street K’Lee, fun K’Lee, blonde Britney-style K’Lee and a J-Lo-style DJ K’Lee.
The backing dancers do a lot of formation dancing behind K’Lee. They’re good, but seem to be in need of a few more rehearsals to get to world-class music-video-dancer quality. But then, K’Lee’s dance moves are retricted to the waist up, which makes me think she wasn’t skilled enough to join in with the formation dancing. Instead she gets a few arm movements and some clever editing and camera angles.
Directed by fancy Australian director Mark Hartley, it’s comes across like an attempt at a modern pop video, but it doesn’t quite get there. There’s not an obvious point of failure, it’s just a bit weak all over. But if you tone down your expectations, the video ends up being highly enjoyable camp fun. The wardrobe changes are entertaining, particularly the frequent bra-as-a-top aesthetic. And it’s strangely refreshing to see bra-wearing women in a music video that doesn’t also involve male performers asserting their desirabilty.
K’Lee ends up as a master of disguise, predating Britney’s wigtastic “Toxic” video. And even though K’Lee’s different looks are done more minimally than Britney, somehow K’Lee ends up looking quite different with each look. Her sassy DJ seems staunch and mature, while the blonde fedora character is too cool for any relationship drama.
This is the most unashamedly pop video I’ve come across so far. It has set its sights high, hasn’t quite got there, but is still a wonderfully entertaining video.
I don’t know if I can accurately describe how weird Elemeno P seemed when this video came out. Suddenly there’s this punk-pop group with a bit of a Weezer sound. The band was a couple of big hairy dudes, a really good looking frontman who did the Sprechgesang sing-speaking thing with a mix of American and New Zealand accents, and the other guy who was soon to be replaced by bassist Lani from Foamy Ed. And they had this song about having relation issues while on holiday at an American ski resort. They weren’t quite serious but they definitely weren’t a comedy band either. They were… Elemeno P. I think they invented their own genre.
“Fast Times at Tahoe” had the backing of Universal Records behind it, which means it looks a bit slicker than your average punk-pop video. The video opens with a Rolls Royce rolling through the guilded gates of the “Elemeno P Country Club”. We meet the band members dressed preppy style, strolling around the green grounds, each with an attractive young lady at their side.
The group have a round of golf, then retire to the country club lounge where the boys entertain the girls with a singsong, accompanied by an acoustic guitar and a tambourine. The girls are charmed by these talented young men, suggesting the fast times will keep going into the night.
It’s an interesting choice of style for a debut video. Listening to the music, this is clearly a band who are capable of rocking out (and that’s something that was featured in a lot of their subsequent videos), but for this one they’re doing preppie realness – about as opposite as you can get from the actual Elemeno P.
Best bit: Gibbo takes a phone call on a giant brick-style cellphone.
Eight were a five-piece band that had a big rocky sound, with rather emo-style lyrics. Their first video “Whale” intrigues me.
On a remote rural road, a young man walks up to an intersection. YouTube uploader NZboi says it was filmed on location at Waitakaruru/Pipiroa – the flat, swampy farmland by the Firth of Thames.
The guy looks like a traveller, someone who’s out to walk the earth and find himself. But the intersection might as well be a roadblock as he seems completely unable to decide whether to turn left or right. Kids, this is what life was like before Google Maps.
A tractor passes from the left; a car containing the rock band Eight passes from the right. But that doesn’t simplify the choice to merely agriculture vs rock. The traveller seems even more confused. OMG, he could turn left OR he could turn right. This is worse than an old lady in Starbucks who just wants “a coffee”.
Finally the dithering backpacker pulls out a coin – one of the giant old 50c pieces – and flips it. After a dramatic slowmo spin, the coin ends up wedged on its side in the tarseal, neither left nor right.
Still unable to choose a side, the dude follows the direction the coin is pointing in. He sprints forward and dives in a muddy ditch across the road. Up to this point, I was getting pretty fed up with the indecisiveness, seeing the traveller suddenly sprint off into the dirty water was a brilliant twist and I was cheering him on. But what happens when he clambers out of the water?
Best bit: the guy’s t-shirt, advertising “Peter and Vicki Plummer’s Union Hotel, Barcaldine, Queensland”
“Sleepy News” was the first single off Betchadupa’s second album “The Alphabetchadupa”. It’s also notable as being the first appearance of Liam Finn’s beard, Che Guevara-style wisps that gave little hint of the bushy Department-of-Conversation-worker-style facial hair he was to sport in later years.
Director Greg Page has fun with the old “torture the band” format. Shot in bold black and white, the video begins with Liam alone in a grimy room, playing his guitar while standing on tiptoes. It turns out Liam is attached to a wire harness which is slightly pulling him off the ground. And it surely means we’re going to get some Peter Pan antics later.
We also see Liam and the rest of the band in the same room, only this time they’re being drenched in water. And interestingly enough, all the guitars are shown as being plugged in. When Liam sings, “I’m dead and you killed me,” perhaps he’s refering to a mass electricution. Everyone knows that electricty and water don’t mix.
Solo Liam also gets to go for a bit of a twirl on his harness. The room is dimly lit and other members of the band wander over in ghostly layers and muck around while Liam spins.
“Sleepy News” is a fierce song – tense and grungy. The video adds to that and captures their performance energy. And who doesn’t love a good wet hair flick?
Best bit: Liam’s hat, boringly obeying the laws of gravity.
According to an Augustino fan forum from 2001, “Overblown” was a radio-only release for Augustino. The forum is amazing. It’s so full of energy and enthusiasm for this cool band everyone loves, there’s bonding and hugs when September 11 happens, then the forum regulars suddenly peter out just as the band release their debut album. And if a band’s fan base can’t stick around, there’s not much hope for the band.
BJ White “Uptown”
The only thing I can find out about “Uptown” by BJ White is that it was included on a sampler CD from Festival Mushroom Records, in between tracks from Lash and Kylie.
Canvas “Tina”
Canvas were an enthusiastic trio of young men from Wellington by way of Christchurch. “Tina” was a good pop track and the video got decent airplay on music video shows.
So, an artist called Flipside received funding for a track called “Movin'”. It’s almost impossible to google (and it doesn’t help that there are two other artists called Flipside with tracks that involve “Movin'” in the title) so I can’t find anything on this track.
Nurture “Beautiful”
Nurture was a poptastic collaboration between Deep Obsession producer Christopher Banks and singer Phil Madsen. “Beautiful” was their first single and it reached #13 in the charts.
Sumix “Jump House”
Sumix was a hip hip duo consisting of friends Craig Mckenzie and Aidan Richards. Their single “Jump House” is an upbeat number with a insanely cheerful chorus that instantly reveals Craig’s roots in Christian pop. (Seriously, it has such a Christian chorus). The video was involved the duo going down the slides at Wairewa hot pools. The video evidently made so little impact that director Joe Lonie could safely later recycle the video concept Falter’s “Falling to Pieces” video in 2003.
It sounds like the name of a yuletide horror film, but Jester‘s “Eyes 4 Xmas” is actually a sweet guitar-pop tune. The video seems to have taken inspiration from Popstars. Nga Taonga describes it as “An amusing take on a reality TV talent show. We are privy to auditions for the band (“day 12″), recording the single, shooting the video, creating an image and – Jester’s first show.”
Sheelahroc were an all-girl hip hop trio from Christchurch, comprising of Ladi6, Voodoo Child and Tyra Hammond, a powerhouse of talent. The cool and cautionary “If I Gave You Th’ Mic” was their only NZ On Air funded video. My vague memory of it was an overhead shot of Ladi6 in a space like the train station foyer. The video needs to be online! In this documentary, the group talk about the video shoot being a bit of a mess, and the end video not really making much sense.
June 2001
Canvas “Sunday”
Canvas had their second funded video “Sunday”. From memory, it was the band playing the song in a house, going for a lazy-Sunday vibe.
Carmen Steele “Believe In Me”
Kiwihits noted that Carmen Steele‘s song “Believe In Me” was a “reaction to media coverage of the tragic incidence of child abuse in New Zealand” and that the production make it “one of the year’s most evocative songs”. It was Carmen’s only NZOA funding.
Garageland “Highway”
Garageland‘s “Highway” is a cheerful ode to road-tripping, and other pleasures. Nga Taonga describe the video as, “Footage from the road – including the Capitol Records – and on stage on a US tour by Garageland.”
GST, the early incarnation of Opshop, have the song “Put Up A Fight”. Most significantly, it was the making of this video that inspired Jason Kerrison to build his apocalypse shelter. As Jason told Salient, the video was filmed at his landlord’s “monolithic dome structure”, which inspired him to build his own.
PA Styles “Summer Breeze”
PA Styles were twins Naomi and Sharlene Sadlier. “Crowds are drawn to P.A Styles like moths to a flame,” claimed a Southgate Entertainment press release, creating an image of crowds of people madly running around PA Styles. “Summer Breeze” was their only funded video.
Director: Rongotai Lomas
Purrr “Oxygen”
Purrr‘s final funded video was “Oxygen”, but I’m not entirely sure if a video was actually made. Oh well, it was nice knowing you, three-piece girlband.
August 2001
D-Super “The Moths”
D-Super go for a janglier, poppier sound for “The Moths”. It was their third and final NZ On Air-funded music video.
Meno Panteboy “Any Kinda Weather”
Meno Panteboy were an Auckland group made up of musicians who’d previously worked with artists such as Che Fu, Greg Johnson, Nathan Haines and John Rowles. “Any Kinda Weather” was a bFM hit. (In case you’re wondering, panteboy is the Greek transliteration of rendezvous and is another name for a coffee house.)
Slim “Crumbling”
Slim have their final NZOA-funded video “Crumbling”, an upbeat song about someone who is struggling with drink and drugs.
I’m disappointed that Aaria‘s “Cry No More” video isn’t online. The slick bilingual pop vocal group had a top 10 hit with this single, but it was to be their last. From memory, the video had a similar vibe to the Spice Girls’ “2 Become 1” – all city-at-night cool.
The Relaxomatic Project “At The Onset”
There’s no sign of the final video “At the Onset” from Auckland groovsters the Relaxomatic Project.
December 2001
Garageland “Crazy”
I’m not sure if Garageland actually made a video for “Crazy”, but it’s worth celebrating as it was their last lot of video funding. They had a total of 15 videos funded over seven years, which is an impressive rate. From the low-budget fun of the early years to the more sophisticated vids of later years, Garageland made good use of the medium of music video.
Lavina Williams “So I Cry”
The “V” in Ma-V-Elle, Lavina Williams went solo with “So I Cry”. In 2006 Lavina made it to the final 12 of Australian Idol, following younger sister Emily who placed second in the 2005 series.
According to the bio on Amplifier, Michelle Kazor‘s debut single “In This Life” was the “highest charting song from an unsigned act ever on radio” – but that’s referring to a radio plays chart, not the singles chart. I’m not totally sure if this video ended up having NZ On Air funding, but it’s in the Nga Taonga archive, nonetheless.
There were two non-funded videos that made a significant impact in 2001. One was the Deceptikonz‘s “Fallen Angels”, the other was Blindspott‘s debut “Nil By Mouth”. It was self-funded and made with a budget of a mere $800. With a solid song behind it and a great scream-along chorus, it proved a popular hit and won Breakthrough Video Artist at the Juice TV awards and launched Blindspott as alternative metal heroes. (There’s a slightly-higher-budget alternative version, but it’s not as much fun as the original.)
Mightyscoop are a curious band. At their core were Dave and Sebastian, a Kiwi and an Aussie who met on their OE in England, formed a band and ended up back in New Zealand as Mightyscoop.
Good equipment is everything, as Lucid 3 demonstrate in the “Smooth Machine” video. It’s all about Victoria’s epic journey to get a microphone.
This is a magnificent track. First, the Matty J-penned lyrics. These are the top five lines from the song:
I don’t know if I can accurately describe how weird Elemeno P seemed when this video came out. Suddenly there’s this punk-pop group with a bit of a Weezer sound. The band was a couple of big hairy dudes, a really good looking frontman who did the Sprechgesang sing-speaking thing with a mix of American and New Zealand accents, and the other guy who was soon to be replaced by bassist Lani from Foamy Ed. And they had this song about having relation issues while on holiday at an American ski resort. They weren’t quite serious but they definitely weren’t a comedy band either. They were… Elemeno P. I think they invented their own genre.
Eight were a five-piece band that had a big rocky sound, with rather emo-style lyrics. Their first video “Whale” intrigues me.
“Sleepy News” was the first single off Betchadupa’s second album “The Alphabetchadupa”. It’s also notable as being the first appearance of Liam Finn’s beard, Che Guevara-style wisps that gave little hint of the bushy Department-of-Conversation-worker-style facial hair he was to sport in later years.