December 2007: Bruce Conlon, Cassette, Charlie Ash, Cut Off Your Hands, Die! Die! Die!, Donald Reid

A wander in new Zeeland, indie weirdness, a fish guitar, Westland bush, cardboard boxes, and a band plays their song.

Continue reading December 2007: Bruce Conlon, Cassette, Charlie Ash, Cut Off Your Hands, Die! Die! Die!, Donald Reid

August 2006: Cassette, Che Fu, City Newton Bombers, dDub, Deceptikonz, Don McGlashan

A home invasion, the housing bubble, ECT on GI Joes, video games, a wander along K Road, and some South Auckland.
Continue reading August 2006: Cassette, Che Fu, City Newton Bombers, dDub, Deceptikonz, Don McGlashan

Cassette “Don’t Let Anyone”

2001-cassette-dont-let-anyone“Don’t Let Anyone” is a laid-back alt-country number, but the video takes the trio on a much wilder adventure. We meet the group as they’re each driving in identical brown cars. A handy map identifies that they’re travelling from separate parts of town, all headed for the centrally located Paydirt Studios.

The video uses a lot of animated backgrounds, and there’s plenty of CGI trickery, like when the band pulls up in their three identical cars (all played by the same car). The lads head into the pink palatial studio complex and each goes into an area with a different theme, involving costume, props and appropriate backgrounds. There’s a hunting lodge, a tropical beach and a winter wonderland. Hunting Lodge Tom gets to sing the song as part of his area.

It seems that Paydirt Studios are kindly making a music video for Cassette, but the Paydirt’s surreal production line is making a rather off video. Feeling somewhat uncomfortable in this strange “presentacion de los Cassettes”, the trio escape, sprinting through the sets as they flee the studios and pile into one of the brown cars as they made their getaway.

The video was directed by Jonny Kofoed, who’s since made a career out of doing delightful animations for the world of advertising. I like his dark take on the world of video production.

Best bit: Tom’s very long look in the rearview mirror.

Director: Jonny Kofoed
Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision

Next… wet, wet, wet.

Cassette “Nothing to Do”

Cassette (including Tom Watson of HLAH on guitar) were a Wellington band who described themselves as playing “country / folk / soft / hard / moderate / spritural mantra ROCK!” “Nothing to Do” was their first single, and it’s an laidback indie track.

The online version of the video seems to have been taken from an episode of “Squeeze” via a ’90s web upload. It’s very pixelly and the sound is washy. But it’s enough to give a good impression of the video.

It starts with the drone of a suburban lawn mower cut with the crack of urban static, kicking off what looks like a homemade video with footage shot around Auckland. There’s footage of the band performing at both dark clubs and outdoors at festivals, the band hanging out, urban Auckland streets and coastal landscapes.

The video takes the “nothing to do” lyric and removes it from its bitter context of “one of them has nothing to do with you”. Instead it’s the slacker kind of “nothing to do”, making the video a lazy journey around Auckland. It’s almost like the video equivalent of a contemporary Instagram account – “here are some photos of some cool things I saw around Auckland”.

Best bit: the Vegas Girl on K Road, looking out on everything.

Note: This video is no longer available online.

Next… poor cable handling skills.