Ivan Slavov – Page 8 – 5000 Ways to Love You

The WBC “Sick of It”

The WBC return for their second and final video “Sick of It”, a kiss off to a person who is a “waste of energy”. Like the WBC’s previous video, “Sick of It” also doesn’t capture the live energy of the band. In fact, if I saw them play this live, it would be my toilet-break song.

The video begins in a bar. We follow a dude (played by the group’s sound guy) as he staggers around, looking rather unwell, as frenetic drum n bass music plays. He stumbles into the toilets to have a spew, but is distracted by a small white cube on the floor. As it happens, this cube contains a seven-piece ska-punk-pop group.

Into the cube we go, and much of the video is just the WBC playing the song in the cube. If the idea of a band playing in a square white room with really flat lighting sounds a bit boring, it is. The band take turns at facing all four walls, but the video struggles to get much entertainment out of the situation.

Things get slightly more interesting when a dark green light brings some moody gothic styles to the box, but that’s also limited. Suddenly the band kick down one wall and wahey – there’s an enthusiastic audience outside!

But this makes me wonder – if the cube still on the toilet floor? Is the drunk guy now looking at a tiny ska-punk-pop group rocking out to a tiny audience? Is he thinking maybe it’s time he seriously cut back on his drinking? Or is he wondering if he could make one of the little ladies be his mini wife?

Annoyingly, the video does not answer these questions. We’re left with the ska septet in the mysterious white cube. Hey, maybe that’s it – maybe they’re just sick of living inside a cube.

Best bit: the crumpled Red Bull can, for that authentic club bitch detail.

Director: Ivan Slavov
Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision

Next… crack open a cold one, or six.

Katchafire “Bounce”

The video starts with Katchafire in a shed, performing a song about marijuana. I feel like this is the group’s default mode, and if you were to pay them a surprise visit at any time of day or night, they’d be in a shed performing a song about marijuana.

“What do you say we do ‘Bounce’ then get up out of here?” asks Logan. It’s an agreeable suggestion and the band start playing the song. And that’s basically the video – shot in black and white, Katchafire in a shed, performing a song.

The implication that it’s a sound check, setting up for a later evening show in the shed. It actually looks like it would be a great venue at night, complete with the “No Patches” sign and chickens scratching around the front.

And maybe that’s the problem. It’s a funky tune, but the video is like sitting in on basic soundcheck but being denied the band in full force at the main event in the evening. I suspect this is the eternal problem of Katchafire’s music videos – how do you capture the magic of their live shows without being able to replicate that smoky vibe?

Best bit: the chicken pecking at a cob of corn.

Director: Ivan Slavov
Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision

Next… long walks on beaches.

Goodnight Nurse “Loner”

If I’d come to this video a year ago, I’d have noted that the band split up in 2010, with the guitarist forming electro-pop group Kids of 88 and the lead singer co-writing and producing the Kids’ first album.

But now the skinny-arse lead singer is best known for being Lorde’s songwriting partner and producer. The young dude who sangs lyrics like “I shit myself whenever I see you!” is now the man with the richly earned Silver Scroll and Grammy for Song of the Year.

It’s fun to revisit Goodnight Nurse. The “Loner” video is a simple performance video, with the band on stage in front of a small group of enthusiastic fans, carefully shot to look bigger than reality. The video is bookended by a couple of stereotypical sexy nurses (it’s always classic nurse tunics, never modern scrubs) opening and closing the doors on an ambulance full of smoke.

The band’s sound is almost cookie-cutter pop-punk, but despite the shitty lyrics, there’s something infectious about the song’s chorus. There’s potential there, but there’s potential in a lot of New Zealand bands that never end up getting Silver Scrolls. In this video profile, Joel talks about his work with Lorde, and the importance of hard work. Is that the secret? He just keep working, from pop-punk to electro-pop and eventually to the top of the Billboard charts.

Best bit: the amazing fireballs, oh so casually whooshing up the back of the stage.

Director: Ivan Slavov
Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision

Next… domestic terrors.

Deep Obsession featuring Kantuta “I Am”

If there’s one thing to remember about Deep Obsession it’s this: their first three singles went to number one, and they are one of three New Zealand artists to have three number-one singles (the other two being Mr Lee Grant and John Rowles in the 1960s and ’70s).

But their glory days were in the late ’90s. By the early 2000s the group was in a state of flux. This song sees only one of the Deep Obsession singers, Zara Clarke, and she’s teamed up with Latin-Pacific entertainers Kantuta.

“I Am” was the final Deep Obsession song to be funded. It didn’t chart. It’s a pretty average dance-pop song that sounds like it hadn’t dealt with the new millennium and is still living in the ’90s.

The video is set in a dark night club where Zara and Kantuta are performing on stage. It’s a dark and stormy night outside and a young couple take refuge in the bar. People dance to the song, the couple canoodles and that’s about it.

It’s all very… ordinary. I miss the madness of the earlier Deep Obsession videos. The ice princesses of “Cold”, the futuristic fishtanks in “One and Only”, the parallel party universe of “You Got the Feeling”, even the hospital drama of “Miracles”. Instead Deep Obsession go out with the very unremarkable world of “I Am”.

Best bit: the way the editing makes it look like everyone on stage is smiling benevolently at the canoodling couple.

Director: Ivan Slavov
Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision

Next… walking the line.

48May “Come Back Down”

This video starts with something I haven’t seen since the ’90s – a customised NZ On Air logo. This time it’s the standard graffiti style logo, but some aerosol paint can sound effects have been added.

The video takes place in a wooden frame of a building. It doesn’t quite look like an active building site, maybe more like the construction was halted halfway through. Well, whatever happened it has provided an officially interesting setting for a punk-pop music video shoot.

And that’s about all that happens. There’s 48May performing in front of a bunch of unlined rooms.

I’m intrigued by this building. It’s by the sea, it appears to have a rooftop deck (the drummer is found up there, surrounded by a “CAUTION” tape fence) and one room has a (hole for a) large picture window overlooking the beach. I like to think of this as being a Bond villain’s lair under construction.

At the end of the video, the group get out of the house and play closer to the beach. But this isn’t anywhere near as interesting as performing inside a strange half-built house.

Update: Stu says, “If memory serves, [lead singer] Jon’s family were building that house out at Raglan.”

Best bit: the lone curtain, tacked up on a window hole.

Note: It looks like the only way to view this video is via Apple Music (subscription needed). But you can watch the first 30 seconds for free.

Director: Ivan Slavov

Katchafire “Colour Me Life”

How’s this for a story set-up? A hedgehog is minding its business in the woods. A stoned-as Rastaman drives up in a BMW and throws a guitar case of of his car. The hedgehog investigates the case, crawls inside it and entered a trippy-as rainbow world (i.e. the hedgehog is now also stoned-as). Well, it’s a much better then the hedgehog getting squashed.

This magical rainbow world is animated, with a sandy beach, Rangitoto across the water, some singing palm trees and flowers, as well as a cheerful Rasta snail. Katchafire also appear in the video, superimposed on top of the colourful world, but not actually part of it.

Things are just really nice and chilled out in this rainbow world, in that very Katchafire way. When the song’s sax solo is played, a stream of rainbow-coloured musical notes come floating out of the sax, then Rangitoto erupts with similar rainbow juice.

Eventually the hedgehog returns to reality, where he crawls out of the guitar case, still powered up with the magical rainbow vibes. Along comes another car. This time it looks like Katchafire’s wheels. They pick up the guitar case and head off, no doubt for another magical rainbow experience.

By this stage Katchafire had settled nicely into their sound, becoming a well liked summer festival act. A video like this is pretty goofy, but it feels like an authentic Katchafire experience.

Best bit: the real hedgehog – superb animal acting.

Director: Ivan Slavov
Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision

Next… overtime is quality time.

Augustino “Going Downtown”

It’s another Augustino song that’s an ode to the high life. “I’m going downtown! I wanna get high,” sneers Sean on the chorus. But being a music video, there’s no graphic depiction of drugs. Instead the video opens with series of empty shot glasses, with the drinkers signalling for more. They never feature again in the video. Oh, so with all those unfilled glasses, maybe the band is just high on life.

“Going Downtown” is bright, energetic rock song with never a quiet moment. The video goes with this, depicting the band performing outside in Auckland at night, with the illuminated shaft of Sky Tower popping up in the distance. It’s all looking very sexy, with great lighting. The camera work does much to capture the energy of the song. It runs around the band as they’re playing, with good rock video editing getting the rhythm.

Sean is a fantastic frontman and works the camera with his great rock swagger. In fact, The rest of the band are looking cool, but there’s also a vibe like a bunch of guys who work in advertising who’ve decided to form a band. There’s a lot of coolness, but it always seems to feel like it’s being done because that’s what you’re supposed to do in a rock video.

Best bit: the “I wanna get high” sweep up the Sky Tower.

Director: Ivan Slavov

Next… chubby rain.

The WBC “Ease Ya Mind”

So, a friend of mine was in the WBC and I’d go to see them play live quite a lot. They were a really choice live band – full of the well-rehearsed slickness and energy that a good ska band needs – and really good to dance to.

But “Ease Ya Mind” wasn’t even close to being one of their strongest singles and I was really annoyed when I heard it was going to be the subject of their first video. It was like they’d turned completely on what made them so good live and gone for the one easy-listening number in their repertoire. WTF, guys.

And then came the video. It starts with the band stumbling across a dusty old barn filled with – quelle coincidence – enough musical equipment for a six-piece ska band to play. And they play.

Outside we discover the old barn is in a vineyard. An old man strolls the rows of grapes and tastes a glass of wine in the middle of the grape plants. And two farm girls (who looks more like promo girls) tread some grapes with their feet. I grew up on a vineyard and I can confirm that neither of these things actually happen in real life. (Nor was there a ska band in the garage.)

The band then gather around a table and enjoy a delicious meal, served by the promo girls. The old guy is pretty drunk by this stage and has a dance by himself. He is probably remembering the old days, before the ska bands came.

It’s not a bad song or a bad video, but it could all have been so much better. But, oh well. It still reminds me of happy times, and that’s a good thing.

Best bit: the saxophonist’s lonely walk out in the vineyard to play his solo.

Director: Ivan Slavov
Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision

Next… high school musical.

D2S “All Day”

With D2S’s previous video “Ride With Me”, my complaint was that they came across as too ordinary to be pop stars. Well, “All Day” takes care of that, with the Ivan Slavov-directed video fully embracing the bling culture of the 2000s.

The video opens with one of the crew getting tattooed while chilling in a lush penthouse apartment. He gets a phone call on, er, an ’80s brick-style mobile phone covered with gold smiley-face Duraseal. Yeah, bling!

The group show up on lowrider bicycles and go for a green-screen ride around Auckland, ending up in front of a mural depicting an 1950s American diner. Then they go to a place where a group of young women who aren’t wearing any bras under their tops are washing some lowrider cars. If it were me – if I were going to wash a lot of cars – I would want to wear a good sports bra.

They learned how to bling out their phone from a Good Morning craft segment

On the YouTube comments, director Ivan Slavov reckons this was New Zealand’s first lowrider video. And there was a bit of trouble on the day of the video shoot: “There was only a handful of Low Riders in New Zealand, on the way to the shoot the COPS pulled them over and only two cars managed to get away and make it to the shoot! ( one I had to pay a TOW truck to bring”.

The song is pretty average, like an attempt to capture some of the magic of Ja Rule and the Murder Inc Records sound. But then it throws up mundane raps lyrics like, “Wait a minute cos I gots to know your name / Since you walked into my life things have never been the same”. The rain in Spain falls mainly on the rhyming dictionary.

One of the cars in the video has the licence plate PIMPIN. Of course it does. But just when the video is at the point of turning into self-parody, something delightfully weird happens. In a long-shot of the band, suddenly there’s a CGI bike breakdancing on the ground in front of them. No one in the video reacts to it. It’s just there.

But that’s not the weirdest thing. The video ends with a parody of the iconic moon silhouette shot from ET. Only instead of tandoming with an alien, the four D2S guys each have a lady-shaped passenger on their handlebars.

Best bit: the one car-washer who is boldly wearing rollerblades.

Director: Ivan Slavov

Next… fun at the summit.

Missing videos from 2003

February 2003

Dead End Beat “Nervous Bag”

Dead End Beat were basically a slightly older and wiser Breathe with a new drummer. “Nervous Bag” was their debut single.

Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision

Donald Reid “The Return”

Donald Reid is the brother of James from the Feelers. “The Return” was his debut single, though I can’t find any evidence of there having been a video made for it, though Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision has an entry for the album track “No Ordinary Day”, which isn’t on the NZOA funding list.

Evermore “Pick Yourself Up”

“Pick Yourself Up” was another track from Evermore’s “Oil & Water” EP. I’m not sure if there was actually a video made, but it’s on the list.

Hendrix Warren “Empty”

I wasn’t sure if the video for Hendrix Warren’s song “Empty” existed, but I found the online CV of a camera operator, who lists the video production amongst his work history. Well, that’s good.

Director: Ivan Slavov

Pluto “On Your Own”

Pluto have “On Your Own”, another track from their album “Pipeline Under The Ocean”.

Director: Wade Shotter
Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision

Soda “Falling Faster Now”

According to the band’s description on Amplifier, Soda’s “Falling Faster Now” video “explores the depths of Karaoke booth kitsch”. More than Rufus Wainwright’s “California” video?

The Brunettes “Boy Racer”

A few months ago The Brunettes’ “Boy Racer” video was on YouTube, but it’s since been taken down. I watched it once back then and I remember it involved the band performing at an empty theatre, as well as their backstage preparations. I mourn the loss.

Director: Daniel Monaghan
Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision

April 2003

50Hz “Smooth Rhodes”

More relaxing beats from 50Hz. “Smooth Rhodes” has guest vocals from Miss La.

P-Money “Go With The Flow”

There’s a P-Money track listed called “Go with the Flow”, but I can’t find any other mention of a song by that name. As far as I can tell, there were no more videos made for tracks from P-Money’s debut album Big Things.

June 2003

Brett Sawyer “Save Me Now”

“Save Me Now” was the sixth funded video that Brett Sawyer had and – surprise, surprise – it’s also the sixth of his videos to not be online. I’m very intrigued by him now. I’d love to see just one of his videos.

Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision

Carly Binding “This Is It”

Carly Binding’s single “This Is It” reached No.12 in the charts. It’s not online, but you can see her performing the song live with Donald Reid in 2006.

Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision

Dead End Beat “Tonite We Ride”

Dead End Beat have “Tonight We Ride” – not to be confused with “We Ride Tonight” by D-Super. It’s a fairly ordinary early 2000s rock ‘n’ roll number.

Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision

Emcee Lucia “All This Time”

Emcee Lucia was the first New Zealand female MC to release a solo album. “All This Time” was the first track. She’s one of those artists who had a lot of buzz at the time, but I haven’t been able to figure out if she’s done anything lately.

Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision

August 2003

The Bads “Don’t Go Losing”

In one database this track was listed as being by Diane Swann, one half of the Bads. “Don’t Go Losing” was the duo’s first single. I’m not actually sure if a video was made for this track. In 2003, Radio New Zealand broadcast a retrospective of Diane Swann’s music career to date. At that stage, “Don’t Go Losing” was due to be the first single released by The Bads. A profile at NZ Musician mentions that The Bads parted ways with their record company “after several videos had been shot and were poised for release”, so that might explain it.

Evermore “Hold On”

“Hold On” was a track from Evermore’s EP “My Own Way”, their last release before their debut album “Dreams” kicked off their success in Australia.

Taisha “I’ll Go”

After appearing in OMC’s video for”Land of Plenty”, R&B songstress Taisha had the country-tinged “I’ll Go”. She’s now part of the all-star cover band the Lady Killers.

Director: Ivan Slavov

October 2003

Brooke Fraser “Lifeline”

The original version of Brooke Fraser’s “Lifeline” video is not online. From memory, it involved Brooke and her band, dressed in overalls, playing a board game called Lifeline that administered electric shocks for losing moves – like a low-budget version of the Domination game from “Never Say Never Again”. And I have this idea that it ended up Brooke winning the game and her opponents being reduced to a smouldering pile of overalls.

The video was a bit darker and yet goofier than the song required, so director Joe Lonie filmed a new video, this time with Brooke walking through scenic landscapes (with a typical Lonie twist).

Director: Joe Lonie
Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision – New Zealand version
Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision – international version

Paselode “C’Mon Hallelujah”

Paselode were a rock band from Wellington. I saw them live few times in 2003 and they were always entertaining. Their songs were always about a minute too long and had one person too many playing on the track (they were a five-piece band but felt like an unwieldy ska band). “C’Mon Hallelujah” was their lone NZ On Air funded single. The band broke up shortly after, but not before the Simmonds Brothers told the band’s tumultuous story in the animated short film “The Paselode Story”.

Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision

December 2003

There are no missing videos from December 2003!

Instead…

This month’s consolation video is the super chill “Dawnskate-88” by The Video Kid, a side project by Black Seeds and Flight of the Conchords dude Bret McKenzie. This non-NZOA-funded video shows Bret and pals having a skate down the streets of Mt Victoria, then along a deserted Lambton Quay. It’s so Wellington.