5000 Ways to Love You – Page 96 – Exploring the world of NZ On Air music video funding

Supergroove “You Freak Me”

994 was Supergroove’s golden year. Average age 19 (still), they had a run of top ten hits and toured New Zealand in their stain-disguising black dress code.

“You Freak Me”, the sixth release from their debut album, is a tense eruption of young male energy. See, there’s a girl and, well, she freaks them. It’s four minutes of pent up sexual tension, with the band playing the song in a starkly lit, smoke filled environment.

The smoke seems to be fulfilling a symbolic purpose – it’s the only thing that gets any release around these parts, billowing quite clouds in quantities that seem excessive in a normal rock situation.

The band also smoke cigarettes, which again seems totally outrageous to see in a music video. Nearly the apex of a musical climax, Che Fu lights a cigarette which – if we’re going to get Freudian on it – manages to both represent a penis and a nipple.

Karl’s refined his image with a black suit jacket, showing signs of the John Waters look that he would grow in to. Supergroove feel like they’re slowly figuring out their own personal identities, the individuality beneath the dress code.

Best bit: the bad-ass Che Fu attitude explosion.

Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision

Next… a depressive contemplation of an urban landscape.

Strawpeople “Sweet Disorder”

The vocal collaborator on this track was Leza Corban, who gives the group a rootier, jazzier feeling. I know this song inside out due to a flatmate who played it all the time. Yeah, not quite two minutes into it, a trumpet solo kicks in.

The video is clever. It’s a way of shooting in an exotic location on a low budget. The video starts by establishing that Leza’s in a busy, noisy Asian city – Hong Kong, as it happens. She puts earbuds in her ears and peace settles. This is how they get away with shooting a music video in a busy city without having to play the song out loud for miming.

The result is a holiday video transformed into an ultra cool video for an equally cool song.

Best bit: the low-passing aeroplane, coming in to land.

Directors: Mark Tierney, Paul Casserly
Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision

Next… suits, cigarettes, badassness.

Maree Sheehan “Past To The Present”

Maree gathers her friends and family to an inner city park (Emily Place, I think) to have a singalong (over and over to the same song, with the requirement to look lively and happy all the time).

I really like the video’s setting. They haven’t taken the easy route and gone for a beachside park. They’ve plonked the action right in the middle of Auckland, surrounded on all sides by tall buildings. And it’s not out of the question that a group of family and friends would actually have a picnic here. Though Albert Park would perhaps be a more logical choice.

Everyone looks like they’re actually having a good time, and it suggests that even after the music video taping had concluded, they probably would have kept on dancing. I wish I’d been invited.

Best bit: the little girls who turn the “under the bramble bushes” claping game into “under the Bambi bushes”.

Director: Jonathan Brough
Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision

Next… an exotic holiday.

Hello Sailor “New Tattoo”

tattHello Sailor made a comeback in the ’90s, with an album called “The Album” and a new single. “New Tattoo” sounded a bit like “Gutter Black” and a bit like “Blue Lady”, so they weren’t going off in a radical new direction.

“I’m as blue as a new tattoo,” Graham sings, and the video takes us into the world into the “state house back in Blockhouse Bay”, and the sign of a West Auckland youth.

This is not what popular music sounded like in the ’90s. There’s no attempt at picking up a younger audience. Hello Sailor are acting their age, and this is a song for other dudes like them.

Cruising around the suburban streets in a classic car, the video illustrates a man who is both revelling in the good times of his youth but also mourning what he’s lost. He’s never going to be 19 again.

Best bit: the glamorous woman in a studded leather bustier who doesn’t look like she’s just been thrown in for some sex appeal.

Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision

Next… Maree’s family fun day.

Headless Chickens “George”

When Fiona McDonald was announced as one of the judges on NZ Idol and hoardes of teens commented online that they’d never heard of her, this is what I pointed them to. The Headless Chicken’s only number one single, and indeed the first number one for a Flying Nun artist.

It’s a dark song, a reminder of how awful and self-destructive relationships can get. And when compared to the band’s more lively earlier videos, it’s a sign of how far the Fiona-era Chickens came in such a short period, and how the group didn’t have much further to go.

The video is equally dark. Fiona, never afraid to not be pretty in a video, is filmed with harsh uplighting, giving her a similar shawdow moustache to Che Fu in Supergroove’s “Can’t Get Enough” video.

A tattoed man creeps towards the camera, an old man offers a birthday cake iced with “George”, other band members stare at the camera, making it clear that they too know of the terrible thing that has happened.

I love that a song like this can make it to number one in New Zealand. Everything is OK.

Best bit: Old George holding his cake, standing by an open fridge door.

Directors: Marcus Ringrose, Gideon Keith
Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision

Next… the sailor boys return to their old neighbourhood.

Grace “Desert Moon”

Again Grace make a music video that is much more interesting than the song. That’s not to say the song is bad – it’s a poppy soul groove – but more that the music video is really interesting.

It’s set at an exotic nightclub, which Peter at Dub Dot Dash identifies as the Queen Street venue that became The Whitehouse. The club is full of sexy patrons in all manner of undress, including one fellow in studded leather undies, being led in on a leash.

The less pervy patrons are just enjoying themselves as Grace perform up on stage. And sometimes a young singer takes to the stage to add backing vocals – hey, it’s Bic Runga! She was, as Dub Dot Dash notes, part of Grace’s live band, but didn’t actually sing on the recorded version of this song.

With the previous two Grace videos having featured only the band, it’s nice to get a glimpse of their freaky friends. A lesser music video would have probably used a lady in a floaty dress dancing barefoot in the moonlight, which is far less interesting than a bar full of freaky friends.

Best bit: Mr Dog Leash, smoking a cigarette, too cool to pay attention to the band or the woman’s crotch in his face.

Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision

Next… a cake to farewell Fiona.

The Clean “Too Much Violence”

The Clean take Manhattan, performing in a grungy New York loft with a couple of dwarves. Hamish Kilgour appears to be wearing the blue and white polka shirt from his earlier “No No No” video. Either that or he’s really into polka dot shirts, which I actually think might be the case.

As the band play, some footage of the Kilgour brothers frollicking on a New Zealand hill is projected on a screen behind them. And they’re playing with “Tally Ho” brand playing cards, a nice Easter egg for fanboys.

There’s also some street footage with the bros looking dapper in 1940s-style suits, roaming the streets on bicycles. Hey, they’re 2010s hipsters and they don’t even know it.

It’s one of the better looking videos I’ve seen lately, and I think that’s due to the quality of both the filming and the YouTube clip. YouTube notes it was filmed on 8mm and 16mm and directed by Jeff Feuerzeig, who went to to make the superb documentary “The Devil and Daniel Johnston”.

Best bit: the miniature Beatles figurines in a shop window.

Director: Jeff Feuerzeig
Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision

Next… another night out with some freaky friends.

The Chills “Wet Blanket”

“Wet Blanket” was an album track on the Chills 1987 album “Brave Worlds”, but was rereleased as a single off the 1994 best-of album “Heavenly Pop Hits”.

The rest of the band (whoever they were at this stage) are absent from the video, but occasionally there’s a shot of a lone instrument, a reminder of the missing. It’s just Martin performing in front of a green screen, sometimes in black and white, other times with a golden red tint.

It’s a song of love, and the simple video gets the message across. Maybe it’s just the mood I’m in today, but I’m totally sold on it. If a Phillipps-esque fellow wrote this song for me, it would work.

Near the end, there’s a shot of Martin’s famous leather jacket, another reminder of the missing.

Best bit: the ’90s background textures, like an old-school webpage.

Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision

Next… the boys take Manhattan.

Shihad “Gimme Gimme”

gimmKeeping on with a general run of surreal themes in this funding round, Shihad go for a partially animated video with all sorts of crazy digital effects. Despite this, it’s a much simpler video – there are no goats or goth brides, just the band.

Jon’s mouth appears in strange places – usually taking the place of his bandmate’s eyes, but also replacing his own nipples. Yep, there’s shirtlessness in this video too. But mainly it’s a world of static, bubbling acetate, and Len Lye-like scratches.

But with the visuals based around just the band giving the camera smouldering looks (that is, when they have eyes to do that), the video allows the song to stand out, rather than be swamped by strong visuals. Those Shihad boys, they know how to write a good chorus.

Best bit: Nipplevision.

Director: Glenn Standring
Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision

Next… shift left for Lady J.

Semi Lemon Kola “Before Heaven”

I’ll say it again – the Red Hot Chili Peppers have so much to answer for. Anthony Kiedis and pals can take full responsibility for all the shirtless, long-haired dudes in music videos.

The video starts with lead singer Tosh strolling past some shipping containers, while a sunbather, businessmen, a goat and and vaccuming housewife play their music video part.

The chorus has some black and white live footage, then Tosh finds himself on a yellow ARA bus. He leaps off and runs through the old Britomart bus terminal. It’s strange seeing the familiar older buildings of Britomart but with the giant 1950s wet dream of a car-centric bus terminal plonked in the middle.

Tosh is running because he’s being chased by a carload of silver-wigged children, who eventually catch him and get up to no good in some public toilets. I really like these videos that try to be really really weird but years later the old bus terminal is more interesting than the deliberate collection of curiosities.

Best bit: the bus window decorated with names of Mt Eden streets and suburbs.

Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision

Next… the singing nipples.