NZ On Screen – Page 21 – 5000 Ways to Love You

The Mutton Birds “Heater”

This is the genius of the Mutton Birds – their lone number one single was a song about a heater. Not in a “baby, my love will keep u warm like a heater”, but literally about a heater, an electric heater (the elements were made of wire and clay).

The video perfectly captures the sinister tone of the lyrics, with Don McGlashan playing the heater-buyer Frank, and stop motion used to bring life to the sentient heater.

Frank takes his newly purchased heater home, where his concerned parents (including Marge from “Shortland Street” as his mum) furrow their brows with concern.

The band’s performance takes second place to the adventures of Frank, perhaps indicative of the larger budget the Mutton Birds had after signing with Virgin for their second album.

Would anyone write a song like this about an energy efficient heat pump?

Best bit: Mum is concerned when Frank doesn’t want an egg.

Director: Fane Flaws
Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision

Next… pop through rose-tinted specs.

Maree Sheehan “Kia Tu Mahea (To Be Free)”

“Kia Tu Mahea” is positive, bilingual HI-NRG dance track, though it’s just hitting the end of this particular musical style’s life in the pop charts.

The video is great – bold, colourful and sometimes split into Mondrianesque segments. Maree is joined by kapa haka performers, children, an African man, dudes in fresh urban threads, and fly girls.

Maree Sheehan always comes across with great confidence in her videos. She’s never taken the traditional video babe route (no rolling around with/in silver spandex for her), but the early ’90s feels like a kinder, gentler time when no one with NZ On Air funding was doing the hard-sell sexy video. At least not yet.

Best bit: Maree and pals in casual shorts, doing casual dancing.

Director: Matt Palmer
Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision

Next… the bleak, urban wasteland that represents the soul.

David Kilgour “No No No”

This is the David Kilgour video with a clear storyline. I like that. The “No No No” video images David Kilgour as an indie superstar, living like a rap star with his entourage of ageing boho friends.

Dave starts at his bohemian den, wearing his famous spotted shirt. Then he and a couple of pals get into a limousine where another boho fellow meets them. The three are driven around, drinking champagne and making phone calls on one of those giant old brick cellphones, only back in 1994 it wouldn’t quite have been hilarious old technology, but what a cellphone actually was.

All this action cuts between David playing at some sort of student gig. He’s also wearing his famous spotted shirt, so presumedly the gig is on the same night as the boho adventures.

Then it’s back to the boho den, where his boho posse is in full effect, drinking lots of wine and getting crazy. Why, one boho lady even takes off her shirt and dances around in her bra. Crazy!

Then Dave is out on the the street with all the unwanted attention of the paparazzi trying to get all up in his face because he is famous.

Best bit: David reading “L5 News”, the newsletter of the L5 Society, which promotes space colonies. Seriously.

Director: Stuart Page
Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision

Next… Jordan takes his shirt off in a tiny house.

3 The Hard Way “Hip Hop Holiday”

Every time you play this song, 10CC’s giant swimming pool of money gets a few more gold doubloons. Remember, kids: always clear samples.

Directed by Clinton Phillips and filmed in lovely warm sepia tones, “Hip Hop Holiday” evokes a hot city summer. This is not the New Zealand of going to the beach. It’s the New Zealand of inviting all your friends around to hang out in your backyard.

The lads cruise Aucklandtown in a convertible before arriving at their slightly less urban destination – a suburban house (but it’s a proper New Zealand state house bungalow). Bobbylon from the Hallelujah Piccasos shows up for some guest MCing, and the suburbs erupt into a game of touch rugby and hip-hop-loving.

Fun and charming, “Hip Hop Holiday” is a perfect slice of the early ’90s Auckland hip hop sound. It was the first single with an NZ On Air-funded video to reach No.1, where it happily remained for three weeks in early 1994.

Best best: cruising down that cinematic stretch of Queen Street between Wellesley Street and Mayoral Drive.

Director: Clinton Phillips
Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision

Next… a forbidden dance of desire in seaside Auckland.

Strawpeople “Trick with a Knife”

When Fiona wasn’t being Fiona From The Headless Chickens, she was bringing the gift of songcraft to the Strawpeople. “Trick with a Knife” is a dark and moody song, and Fiona lets her voice get really high.

The video is a crazy noir, where a smoking man in a chair awaits the arrival of a woman who transforms her boyish looks with the help of a sequinned catsuit and a boofy blonde wig. There are many meaningful glances between them, including an incredible slow zoom into the man’s crotch.

Mark and Paul from the Strawpeople make cameos in flashes of grainy film, and I don’t think Fiona even appears in it, making things even more mysterious.

Best bit: a close up of a 50 cent coin (the old giant chunky one), with which the man nervously plays.

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

Next… exile in videoville

Shihad “Derail”

In the mid ’90s, I remember video maker Greg Page saying he’d made his own version of a video for “Derail”, which the band had declined in favour of this one with roller coasters in it that was not cut to the beat.

The “Derail” video is fairly arty. It’s black and white and features footage of: a horse racetrack and punters, cathedrals, a cow in a field, a man playing golf, amusements at Rainbow’s End, and various sights along State Highway One, particularly around Huntly.

It’s a bleak vision of Kiwiana, the sort of thing that would end up in an exhibition at the Dowse Art Museum. Is this video better than Mr Page’s more traditional video based on live footage? Maybe, but I while the visuals are great, I can’t help feeling there’s a disconnect between that and the song.

Best bit: the Rainbow’s End bird mascot shakes its tailfeather.

Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision

Next… flip of the coin, flick of the hair.

Supergroove “Scorpio Girls”

When an 18-year-old dude sings about “Scorpio Girls”, those “bad bitchin’ babes [who] get my guitar strumming”, you know it’s not realistically based on a reality of a man tormented by a never-ending influx of devilwomen messing up his life. It’s more likely about being an 18-year-old who wants to have sex but all the girls say no.

This “Scorpio Girls” video takes place in three locations – a live concert, a dark spooky room (via the Northhead tunnels), and the chamber of Scorpio Girls. The chamber is a white room where girls in black jeans and sweatshirts shove the band. It looks exactly like a bunch of girls who’ve been instructed to shove a band around for a music video, and most of them are obviously really enjoying themselves, looking more like “Whee-hee! I’m in a Supergroove music video!” than “Grrr! I’m a Scorpio Girl! Hide ur penis!”

This all goes to prove that the Scorpio Girls concept is a purely fictional construct. There are no Scorpio Girls, just fans who dig Supergroove. But it is good the song exists, because it has the great chant-along “Oooooh! Ah-ha!” bit.

Best bit: DIY lighting effects – waving torches while running through the dark tunnels.

Director: Kerry Brown
Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision

Next… region rock whippersnappers.

Straitjacket Fits “If I Were You”

After years of this video only being available on weird European websites, finally NZ On Screen have stepped up and are hosting it. Hooray!

It helps that the “If I Were You” video looks a bit like the opening titles of a Bond film, but instead of naked ladies, it’s the Straitjacket Fits that are presented in overlapping colourful images, complete with water shimmers and fireworks.

“If I Were You” was the Straitjacket Fits final NZ On Air-funded video, and indeed their final single. It’s not such a great swansong – all angry and paranoid (though with some lovely guitar), but the video manages to take the edge of the anger.

Best bit: Fireworks!

Director: Andrew Dominik
Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision

Next… bad bitchin’ babes.

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?