Emma Paki “System Virtue”

Watching this video is a little bittersweet, knowing that Emma hit a rough patch soon after and left the music industry for over a decade. In the video she’s young and seems to be singing a message of hope. If only.

The video is lovely, with slow black and white footage of Maori in small towns around New Zealand, including plenty of staunch-as bros looking real hard, eh. Meanwhile, Emma busks on the streets of Auckland, with passersby passing her by, though the infamous Queen Street busker stops for a look.

“System Virtue” feels like it has a positive and uplifting message, but Emma seems to have been studying the Shayne Carter style of singing, leaving the verses sounding like they might just be make up of interesting sounds, rather than meaningful sentences. And “system virtue” – what does that even mean? But does it need to have a meaning?

By the way, if you love this song, stay away from the album version on Oxygen of Love. The distinct jangly guitar and meandering bass is gone, with distracting backing vocals inserted. The general appeal and emotion of the song has been smothered with full-on pop production style, more suited to a Feelers track. But thankfully the one-two punch of the original recording and its video are how the song is best known.

Directed by Josh Frizzell, the “System Virtue” video won Best Video at the 1994 New Zealand Music Awards.

Best bit: the lady enjoying a cup of tea in an Arcoroc mug.

Director: Josh Frizzell
Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision

Next… man on the verge of a popstastic breakthrough.

JPS Experience “Into You”

The song is underpinned by some nice nice nice crunchy guitar, with lovely pop melody over the top. The video doesn’t try to fight this, and the camera swooshes around the band performing the song with red and green stage lighting along with bits of blue and white. There’s also swirly lava lamp-like stuff, because lava lamps were cool in the 90s.

Also a relic of the 90s – Dave’s striped top, making him a perfect 90s indie pinup. The JPS lads have perfected the lingering camera glance. It’s as if to say, “Hey, girl. U know I’m in an indie band, but I always got time 4 u”.

The JPS Experience have previously gone for bigger concepts in their videos, but I think this simpler video is one of their strongest. When you have a great song, you don’t need to spice things up with exotic locations, lol props or bleeding edge digital effects.

Best bit: The sneer and the pout.



Director: Jonathan Ogilvie
Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision

Next… is it you or is it me?

Headless Chickens “Mr Moon”

This is probably the most hard-sell, down-the-barrel-of-the-camera the Headless Chickens have made yet. Chris and Fiona take turns at singing the song in close up, with the rest of the band in the background. They both look utterly beautiful, in that dark sexy Headless Chickens way.

The song is bookended with sampled dialogue, and this is represented by various Chickens miming the words, as well as a reel-to-reel recorder being played like an instrument. The massive influence of street fashion in the early ’90s is also apparent, with Fiona wearing a Stüssy cap. Stüssy was so very cool.

The video is in black and white, with floating, overlapping circles (moons?) of pink, purple and a third which a overlaps to turn the monochrome into colour. Like the song, the visuals manage to be dark with tiny uplifting moments that only serve to make the dark even darker.

Best bit: The lone appearance of a person wearing a chicken head.

Director: Jonathan Ogilvie
Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision

P.S. Owen reminds me that this song uses the chorus melody of “The Sleepwalker” by This Kind of Punishment, perhaps best known for being covered by Cat Power.

Next… the perfect indie guy lover man.

Moana and the Moahunters “Tahi”

Moana’s all gothed up in black clothes and black lipstick, but the song is anything but goth. It’s a really uplifting dance track, that feels more like something from the mid-’80s crossed with some bangin’ house keyboards.

There is some green screen, but it’s done with much more style than we’ve seen over the past two years. As well as the Moahunters’ girl-group styles, there are kapa haka performers and some black and white footage of little kids in a suburban backyard.

The best thing about this song is the Moahunters lovely harmonies. In a way, I’d much rather see the trio singing their silky “Aue! Aue!” part against a green screen than any of the other stuff.

Best bit: the splendid bone and greenstone jewellery of the Moahunters.

Director: Kerry Brown
Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision

Next… the floating circles of sexy hard-sell.

Hallelujah Picassos “Rewind”

A song about relaxing and taking it easy, which seems to be the national genre of New Zealand. The “Rewind” video is a cruisy collection of a lively studio performance and scenes from New Zealand.

It’s a fun video that nicely captures the spirit of the song, with green screen used quite thoughtfully. The background images, scenes of both rural and urban New Zealand, are contrasted with the laid-back band.

The video also features the nice bright, highly saturated colour palette that was cool in the ’90s, and I think this kind of colour use has come back around. Now all we need is for chunky green screen to become cool again.

Best bit: the green-screened turntable.

Directors: Clinton Phillips, Peter McLennan
Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision

Bonus: Peter McLennan of the Hallelujah Picassos has again been kind enough to share his experience of the video:

We worked with Stratford Productions on this video, as we did for the previous video Lovers Plus. The latter video was directed by Bruce Sheridan, and for this one we worked with Clinton Phillips. I co-directed the video with Clinton, which was very generous of him, as he did a lot of the work, really. We shot Rewind at the Powerstation, using the stage for the band footage, and shooting from the balcony for the verses, looking down on Bobbylon, singing. We bounced round the stage Roland and myself wearing turntables strapped on like guitars, and Johnnie playing his korg synth, nicknamed the Hog.

The black and white footage in the verses was shot on super 8 film by me, while we were on tour. I gave it to Clinton to send off for telecine transfer over in Sydney and never saw it again, which was a bit sad. There’s also footage shot on video of us clowning round on the roof of Civic House, next to DKD, which also makes a brief appearance in the video. The only green screen is on the record on the turntable, which also serves up my fave shot in the video, at 2.09 – Roland doing his best Michael Jackson tippy-toes dance move.

This song will be included on the forthcoming collection of Hallelujah Picassos tunes, remastered for CD/digital. Out before the end of the year.

Next… do the wildebeast

Straitjacket Fits “Cat Inna Can”

This time Shayne Carter keeps his shirt on. “Cat Inna Can” is filmed in a warehouse, and there’s something funny going on with the colours. The warehouse is blue and the band’s skintone is a golden colour. It’s easy to do stuff like that with modern colour grading software, but how did that happen in the early ’90s? Witchcraft?

About halfway through there’s a thrilling dolly zoom – that’s when the camera physically moves in while at the same time the lens zooms out. So the band largely stays the same size in the picture, but the background warps and looks vertiginous.

The video is a bit of a grab bag of fun film tricks, with its central effect being the camera swirling around the band members. It feels almost out of control, as if Shayne Carter’s animal magnetism is having an effect on the cameras too.

Meow.

Best bit: the really strict cutting to the beat on the verses.



Director: Andrew Dominik
Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision

Next… the New Zealand national genre.

Shona Laing “Mercy of Love”

My introduction to Shona Laing was her angry phase in the ’80s, with US college radio hit “Soviet Snow” and “Glad I’m Not a Kennedy”. So when Shona grew out her punky mullet and returned to her barefoot folk singer roots, it was a bit of a shock to me.

“Mercy of Love” is a pretty song about how love comes along and changes your direction, makes you do stuff you can’t control, and there’s nothing you can do to stop it.

It’s a bit of a cafe song, and the video is a simple performance of Shona singing the song, with some symbols drawn on her face. At other times, the kinder, gentler Shona shrinks into a tiny box in the middle of the screen – about one-third of the screen size – and performs in front of green-screen superimposed static and some more symbols.

Best bit: chilled out Shona, relaxing in a chair.

Director: Karyn Hay
Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision

Next… oh, meow.

Shihad “I Only Said”

Another music video that has a creative debt to the videos of bands like Nine Inch Nails and Tool.

“I Only Said” is a messed up world of strange medical contraptions, blood flowing through tubes, mice, and housewives wearing paperbags on their head.

It probably seemed really cutting edge at the time, but looking back at it now, it all seems pretty dated, and just a little naive. It’s all a bit, “Look! We’re being alternative and subverting the mass media.”

Or was the fact that this was being done by a New Zealand band worth celebrating?

Best bit: the adventures of the lab rat.

Director: Nigel Streeter
Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision

Next… Shona gets symbolic.

The Mutton Birds “Your Window”

“Your Window” starts off sounding like a pleasant slice of suburban New Zealand, but then the chorus comes along and – ahoy! – it’s about sex. It’s about sneaking in to root your sweetie.

The Mutton Birds switch between two universes. Dressed in tapa-print shirts, they perform the song outside a bungalow. It’s the same sort of cosy Kiwiana that flows through all Mutton Birds songs. The other universe is a ’60s pop performance. Dressed in matching black suits and white skivvies, the band perform in front of a stylised window set.

What do these two realities say? One is the present, in a definite place, with acknowledgment of multicultural contemporary New Zealand. The other is in the past, with only a symbolic connection to the lyrical content of the song. The Mutton Birds are caught in the middle, struggling to find a connection between these two worlds. Struggling to find an open window?

Maybe the song is about former children of the ’60s struggling with ageing. Maybe it’s not actually about sex.

Best bit: the backwards guitar solo

Director: Josh Frizzell
Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision

Next… a bunch of tools.

Herbs “Till We Kissed”

Despite Ray Columbus and the Invaders being generally held in high esteem in the world of New Zealand music, their back catalogue hasn’t fared too well when being covered by other artists. There was Double J and Twice the T’s “She’s a Mod/Mod Rap”, a Fat Boys-style reworking of “She’s a Mod”, and then came Herbs with a cover of “Till We Kissed”. Not that either songs were originals for Ray and the ‘Vaders. But that’s just how the world of pop worked back in the ’60s.

So, Herbs teamed up with old Ray and gave the song Herbs’ trademark Aotearoa reggae sounds, with lashing of cheese.

The video alternates between three situations – people kissing (usually parental pecks), Herbs playing on a porch in the golden sunshine, and Herbs and Ray playing in a studio, dressed in tuxedos.

The studio performance is a little odd. The band looks like they’ve put on suits for their niece’s wedding, and have been joined by old Uncle Ray on the bride’s side for a bit of a singalong. It doesn’t help that Ray is wearing giant 90s spectacles – the sort that hipsters wear nowadays.

But, hey, it’s uncles who have the most fun at weddings.

Best bit: Charlie from Herbs’ “Wow!” face after getting a double peck on the cheek.

NB:Sadly Warners have made this video private so it’s no longer available to watch. Le sigh. Instead here’s Ray Columbus and the Invaders performing their original version.

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