NZ On Screen – Page 18 – 5000 Ways to Love You

D-Faction “Down In The Boondocks”

Ok, so D-Faction have taken a folky pop song about the romantic troubles of a country boy and reworked it into a South Pacific reggae song. And that works – small islands can have grotty rural areas just as much as continental countries.

But something weird happens with the video. This cheery song about a boy from the wrong side of the tracks looking for love is illustrated with the band performing the song in a bleak, futuristic industrial setting.

Vent pipes dangle, sparks literally fly and the band are surrounded by ominous-looking grates. And it’s all tinted gold, so it feels like there’s a giant furnace blazing away. Rather than evoking, say, rural East Coast or Northland, instead it’s like they’re prisoners on a slave spaceship, being forced to labour under the cruel eye of an evil overlord.

But despite the video treatment, the song was the highest charting track for D-Faction, enjoying the #10 spot. But just think – if the video had been better, it might have made it to #1.

Best bits: The flames; the fiery flames of fire.

Director: Jonathan King
Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision

Next… the kings of dadrock.

Bic Runga “Drive”

Finally Sony was ready for Bic. “Drive” was the song chosen to launch Bic Runga to the world – or at least New Zealand. It’s all Bic, with just her voice, acoustic guitar playing and a stark emotional song.

The video places Bic in a cool old flat – one of the Courtville apartments in Auckland. The apartment has a bit of shabby chic going on, matched by the video alternating between colour and degraded black and white footage.

Bic hangs out in her apartment, evidently waiting for the boy of her dreams to come and take her for a drive. She simultaenously seems like a teenager, impatiently mooching about (and she was only 19 at the time), and a much older, world-weary woman.

We don’t meet the object of Bic’s yearning. She waits outside her building but the driver never shows up. As a result, the combination of the song and the video create a very melancholic tone. Poor Bic. I want to hug her and tell her that everything is going to be ok.

Best bit: the bright red Body Shop soap, a sign of the ’90s.

Director: Justin Pemberton
Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision

Next… bros with a megaphone.

Teremoana “Four Women”

Teremoana covers Nina Simone’s “Four Women”. Unlike the original, Teremoana omits the final lines of each verse which would name the woman being sung about. Instead of the song closing with the killer line “My name is Peaches!”, it meanders off with Teremoana murmuring “What do they call me?”

Teremoana’s vocals are laiden with trilling, which has the strange effect of making the lyrics hard to understand in places, as if she’s trying to disguise the fact that it’s actually quite an angry, political song.

The video sees Teremoana dressing as the four women. There’s Aunt Sarah with big hair and a floral dress, Saffronia with smooth hair and a stylish waistcoat, Sweet Thing with a 1960s updo, and tomboy Peaches with her hair in Bjork-style mini buns. All four women have long, talonous fingernails.

It’s filmed in black and white in a stylish cabaret setting with dramatic lighting. Teremoana performs with four quite distinct characters – Aunt Sarah is stressed and shy, Saffronia is confident, Sweet Thing is seductive, and Peaches is bold and twitchy.

The YouTube uploader notes that the song suffered from lack of radio airplay due to its lyrical themes, but says, “Thank goodness a dope ass music video was created which gave it longer television air play.” And indeed the dope assness continues online.

Best bit: Teremoana’s loooong fingernails.

Director: Ross Cunningham
Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision

Next… a dirty old game of cards.

Dam Native “Behold My Kool Style”

This video could be described as a bunch of guys sitting around a table, playing poker, smoking and drinking. And it would sound like a typical mid-’90s Tarantino-inspired music video. But no. “Behold My Kool Style” is far beyond that. It is confident, stylish and kool.

It’s not just any old guys sitting around that table; it’s Dam Native in Edwardian suits. The poker table scene alternates with shots of the group posing like early 20th century well dressed Maori gents having their portrait taken at the town photographer. Teremoana Rapley isn’t dressed from the same era, instead she’s wearing a slinky gown. It’s this little touch that firmly keeps the video routed at the other end of the 20th century.

The Jonathan King-directed and NZ Music Award-winning video is shot with sepia tone and scratchy old film ~~effects~~. This makes it feel suggestive of lost footage from an alternate history, a different route the 20th century could have taken.

It takes skill to not only make a video that perfectly works with a song all about cool style, but for that video to still hold up over 15 years later. Behold its cool style.

Best bit: the group portrait. So cool.

Director: Jonathan King
Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision

Next… a day at the airport.

The Bats “Afternoon In Bed”

For the first time since reading the phrase “creamy legato slides” in Rolling Stone magazine in the mid ’90s, I have a situation in which I can use it. Because indeed creamy legato slides are at the heart of this most chilled out song.

I’m really happy that the video does not at any stage involve a person in bed. The video does, however, open with a mysterious fellow wearing pyjamas. But rather than being in be, he’s atop an oceanside cliff, digging a hole.

We also see the band playing the song in an old warehouse. Even when the song revs up a little they remain seated, as if they’re too chilled out to bother with any rock antics.

I like this video because it just works really nicely with the song. It’s not bold or ambitious. It just nicely does the job of illustrating the song.

Best bit: the brief shot of a cat.

Director: John Chrisstoffels
Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision

Next… a cool style.

The Exponents “La La Lulu”

The influence of Quentin Tarantino slowly works its way into the mid-’90s. The last time we saw Jordan and the lads they were relaxing on a beach. This time around, they’re all Reservoir Dogged up in fancy suits.

The action initially takes place in a small steel room. The walls are made of non-slip steel plates but the floor is smooth. It’s a health and safety disaster just waiting to happen.

Occasionally the image freezes in black and white, and a tabloid-style headline flashes up – “criminal sex appeal”, “online erotic” and the titular Lulu. Is this an attempt to brainwash an entire generation who will forever associate “online erotic” with an image of Jordan Luck, and thereby ruining internet porn forever?

Next the action moves to an old quarry with the lads going for a hoon in an old car. They then get out and graffiti the car, but it’s very awkward graffiti. Here’s the thing – the idea of graffiti in a music video seems quite cool, but in the hands of a non-artist, it just ends up looking like the stuff Telecom workers do on the footpath before digging it up.

The car is then smashed up, but it’s good to see the Exponents are wearing protective eyewear as they do it. But because the health and safety compliant graffiting and smashing is a bit lacklustre, the car is finally blown up. Mr Tarantino would have done it better.

Best bit: “Online erotic”, a niche activity in the mid-’90s.

Director: Mark Tierney
Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision

Next… getting out of bed.

Bailter Space “Splat”

New York, just like I pictured it: backwards. Bailter Space are in the Big Apple again, this time in a reversed, slowed-down, one-take video. So this means they would have learnt to play the song backwards and sped-up. Spike Jonez’s video for The Pharcyde’s song “Drop” packs in more amazing stuff, but “Splat” is a visual extravaganza.

Like most backwards videos, it is a bit gimmicky, but the laidback, meandering style of the video suits the song, complete with the grungy slacker kids hanging out.

Other highlights include a man un-eating an apple, and a laughing couple who appear to throw a bucket of paint at a wall, but the camera doesn’t manage to capture the splat itself.

Best bit: John Halvorsen actually backwards-playing his bass notes in perfect time with the music. Whoa.

Director: Julie Hermelin
Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision

Shihad “Deb’s Night Out”

And what a night out it is. Jon Shihad starts out sitting in the back of a car with a middle-aged couple. Those two are having a jolly old time, laughing and getting pissed on wine, while Jon sulks like a teen who’s being forced to attend his dumb uncle’s dumb 50th birthday. He doesn’t want to go; there’ll only be old people there.

The car drives around the streets of what I think is Wellington. It’s dark and I can’t quite pick any familiar landmarks, but it feels like Wellington. And if it is the capital, there was a lot more neon and less street lighting back in the ’90s.

Finally the car arrives at a hall in the suburbs where a party is in progress. “And I pray for a rain to wash you far away,” Jon sings. Steady on, Jon! It’s just some oldies having a knees-up.

At the hall, everyone is having a good time. The oldies are enjoying tasty wedges, and young ‘uns are rock-and-roll dancing. Finally old misery guts gets up on the dance floor and has a good old kanikani, with the rest of Shihad enjoying themselves.

This is the first Shihad video that features Shihad not playing as a band. It suits the mellower, more atmospheric song. I’m sure the suburban shindig setting was used to be edgy and ironic, but 16 years on, it’s a lot easier to believe Shihad enjoying themselves at such an event.

Best bit: the platecam capturing the look of glee as the oldies grab the wedges.

Director: Chris Mauger
Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision

Greg Johnson “Don’t Wait Another Day”

Finally the video clouds have come, the online content rains have fallen, the Greg Johnson drought has broken! NZ On Screen have a sparkling copy of sweet “Don’t Wait Another Day”. Greg Johnson describes this video as the most beautiful clip he’s made, giving credit to director James Holt and it being shot on 35mm film.

Boh Runga returns on backing vocals – perhaps her crunchy, grungy vocals in Stellar were a direct attempt to not sound like Greg Johnson’s backing singer.

Greg, Boh and the other members of the Johnson musical whanau are scattered in a large room, bathed in a golden light. This is also the first appearance of Greg’s hairline-obscuring beret, a hep toupee.

Enacting the lyrical story, a young woman packs her bags, leaves her lover, and drives off in a vintage car. What awaits her at the end of her drive? She seems to crouch down in a ball, perhaps wondering if her lover will listen to to his Greg Johnson CD and come after her.

After waiting so long for a Greg Johnson video, it’s nice to finally have such a visually lush one.

Best bit: the artistic fruit bowl, on which a monarch butterfly lands.

Director:James Holt
Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision

Grace “Cool World”

You know, Grace have a very pleasing oeuvre of videos. “Cool World” is directed by Mark Tierney (otherwise of the Strawpeople) and the video captures the media moodiness of his other band.

Bookended by snippets of a bald-headed person and alarming messages like “They are stealing the time”, the video launches into the group playing to their strengths – dramatic lighting, smouldering stares, cheekbones.

This is interspersed with a troubled young woman taking out her frustrations on a punching bag. However, she also takes the time to look fabulous in giant sunglasses.

I like that Grace kept their music videos consistently stylish, suggesting that someone with an overall vision cracked the whip no matter who directed their videos.

Best bit: the model posing with old white-painted TV sets.

Director: Mark Tierney
Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision