Category Archives: music video

Music Video of the Day: Only The Lonely by The Motels (1982, dir. Russell Mulcahy)

Posted on by Valerie Troutman

I don’t know how long, or how I did it, but for a long time I thought this song, and Only The Lonely by Roy Orbison were the same song. If that isn’t dumb enough for you, my parents also used to watch the movie Only The Lonely (1991) when I was a kid, which prominently featured the Orbison song. Also, my mom is a big Orbison fan, so I grew up listening to his music. I guess that means it shouldn’t come as any surprise that it took till high school before I realized that when people were saying “ultimatum”, they weren’t saying “old tomato”.

Still, I am surprised it took me this many Mulcahy videos before I started noticing things he likes using. We get several of them in Only The Lonely. First, the use of tables.

Hungry Like The Wolf by Duran Duran (1982)

Second, liquids used as metaphors.

The Reflex by Duran Duran (1984)

The Reflex by Duran Duran (1984)

The Reflex by Duran Duran (1984)

The Reflex by Duran Duran (1984)

Total Eclipse Of The Heart by Bonnie Tyler (1983)

She Loved Like Diamond by Spandau Ballet (1982)

She Loved Like Diamond by Spandau Ballet (1982)

The Thin Wall by Ultravox (1981)

He really seems to like liquids and tables. Finally, we get the most obvious–isolation. In Only The Lonely, it’s the person wandering around a place that may or may not be filled with people, but the person is alone regardless.

Total Eclipse Of The Heart by Bonnie Tyler (1983)

We also get a repeat of the ending of Bette Davis Eyes by Kim Carnes.

Bette Davis Eyes by Kim Carnes (1981)

Lead-singer Martha Davis won a Best Performance in a Music Video for this at the American Music Awards. The song also did well, but it looks like their biggest hit was Suddenly Last Summer, which also has its own music video. The band is still around today under the name of Martha Davis and The Motels.

The video was shot by Andrew Dintenfass, edited by Doug Dowdle, and produced by Jackie Adams. In other words, the usual crew you would expect on a Mulcahy video.

Enjoy!

Music Video of the Day: Words by Missing Persons (1982, dir. ???)

Posted on by Valerie Troutman

Coming off the Chrysta Bell & David Lynch stint, I thought I would knock off a couple female artists I haven’t gotten around to yet.

Before Lady Gaga was even born, we had…well…we had numerous artists. One of the most obvious is Missing Persons’ lead-singer Dale Bozzio. Much like David Lynch is nursing Chrysta Bell’s music career, Frank Zappa did that for Dale Bozzio. I can recall her coming to tears when discussing the passing of Zappa in an interview she gave for MTV and/or VH1.

I have to mention it since it is out there, so I’m just going to say that I am aware of the behind-the-scenes story concerning Bozzio and MTV. It’s in the book I Want My MTV. You can feel free to look it up. It just amounts to an example of how crazy it was at MTV headquarters in their first years.

According to Wikipedia, this particular music video was noteworthy for the visual effects it used. I’m assuming they’re referring to the use of the blurred white for framing the shots of the band. It creates an interesting look that would make the video stand out from the crowd.

Enjoy!

Music Video of the Day: Back Seat by Chrysta Bell & David Lynch (2016, dir. Sasha Samsonova)

Posted on by Valerie Troutman

This was directed by photographer Sasha Samsonova. She’s apparently well-known for her work with Kylie Jenner. I know I bitched and moaned, for lack of a better phrase, yesterday about the music videos that were being made for Chrysta Bell & David Lynch collaborations, but this one is different for me. The video doesn’t do a whole lot for me. The song does even less. However, I look at this video, and knowing that she is a photographer, I think of Killer Wolf by Danzig.

That video was made by Dutch director/photographer Anton Corbijn who got his start working with Joy Division, as the band’s photographer. He is best known in the field of music videos for his work with Depeche Mode, Echo & The Bunnymen, and Heart-Shaped Box by Nirvana. But it’s Killer Wolf by Danzig that I think of when I look at this video. Killer Wolf is a stripped down video that is a composition of short video segments that would be created by a photographer who leaves the video running for few seconds instead of shooting a still. I guess what I am saying, is that I see the same kind of raw talent that you can watch develop if you go from Corbijn’s earliest video and work forward.

Kylie Jenner appears to have jumpstarted her career. You can read a full interview with Samsonova on People magazine’s website. She seems to say that her ultimate goal is directing feature films. I say it that way since she differentiates film from music videos. That has me a little worried since the two mediums can be very different.

Regardless, this is the high point for me in going through these David Lynch related music videos. It also happens to be the last one I can find. It’s a good one to go out on, and I hope to see more from Samsonova.

Enjoy!

Music Video of the Day: Beat The Beat by Chrysta Bell & David Lynch (2017, dir. Sharif Nakhleh)

Posted on by Valerie Troutman

I think I would have preferred to hear more of the guy at the start. Not because Bell is bad. Not because Sharif Nakhleh did a bad job recreating the experience of watching a YouTube video of a VHS rip with hardcoded subtitles. Neither of those things are true. It’s just that it is yet another music video that visually screams David Lynch throughout–despite having been directed by yet another director. We’ve had Chrysta Bell reenacting a scene from Blue Velvet (1986). We’ve had her singing in a Lynch-room and a courtyard. We’ve had her singing while driving on the lost highway in order to have a sex scene. Now we have Bell singing in a nightclub. I guess I want some more variety. Maybe if this were a one-off video meant to remind us of One Eyed Jack’s from Twin Peaks with people living a ho-hum existence that Bell helps infuse with life that causes them to blink out of this bleak version of Fantasy by Aldo Nova, then I could enjoy it. But it’s not.

There’s a nice little description of the video over on IndieWire:

Directed by Sharif Nakhleh, “Beat the Beat” is a look into the cyclical nature of modern life and a “subdued anthem for Kafkaesque and mundane human existence.” The video is described as “a dirty dub VHS tape featuring a slice of Americana with Italian subtitles suggesting it could have been discovered in a second hand shop in Bologna.” The clip shows a grimy bar run by a bored looking bartender until Bell, wearing a black slip dress designed by Nima Shiraz, arrives and gets everyone moving with her hypnotizing voice.

Based on the YouTube comments, people love this stuff. More power to you! Also, if you haven’t watched those other videos, then you might enjoy this.

This one has a big listing of people who were involved:

Director/Editor – Sharif Nakhleh
Producer – Tasha Nesbitt
Cinematographer – Mike Epple
Assistant Director – Jason Halley
Assistant Camera – Lawrence Abad
Gaffer – Steve Griggs
Key Grip – Andy Hoffman
Swing – Sean Ly
Art Director – Garrett Lowe
Asst Art Dept – Aaron Pierce
Asst to the Producer – Spencer Collantes
CB Makeup/Hair Artist – Consuelo Lopez
Cast Makeup/Hair Artist – Nicole Kelleher
FX Supervisor – Ryan Bozajian
Additional FX – Joseph Skorman
Sound – Elliott Harris
Translation – Daniela Viezzer
Bar Fly 1 – Bettina Devin
Bar Fly 2 – Sherman Koltz
Bartender – William Rogue
Biker – Matthew Fuentes
Hillbilly 1 – Christina Meyers
Hillbilly 2 – Dominic Olivo
Punk Chick – Reneja’Net LaChapelle
Tourist 1 – Jessica Etheridge
Tourist 2 – Charles Parker
Drifter – Matt Patane
Bespoke Dress by Nima Shiraz

Enjoy!

Music Video of the Day: Night Ride by Chrysta Bell & David Lynch (2016, dir. Joseph Skorman)

Posted on by Valerie Troutman

It’s another driving music video for a David Lynch collaboration. I could understand if they were both done by the same director, but they’re not. I’m Waiting Here was done by Daniel Desure, and this one is by Joseph Skorman. By the way, Skorman is the guy in the trunk.

I found the CGI holes at the end to be humorous. It was also interesting to see a music video shot in my neck of the woods. I’m not sure exactly where in the East Bay the windmill part takes place. Given that they drove over the Bay Bridge, I’m going to assume that’s it’s the Altamont Pass Wind Farm near Livermore. It makes more sense to me than her driving around the Birds Landing/Collinsville area just north of Suisun Bay, off of Highway 12.

According to the description on YouTube, the following people worked on this video:

Jonathan Mindes – Producer
Mike Revolvalcke – Director of Photography
Juan del Rio – Second Unit Director & Aerial Cinematographer
Hillary Andujar – Production Designer
Sam Sarraf – Visual Effects Director
Tony Lew – Camera Operator
Joe Mullen – Gaffer
Connor Vickers – Best Boy
Louis Shah – Key Grip
Ally Grace Esparza – Art Director
Consuelo T. Lopez – Makeup Artist/Hair Stylist
Joseph Skorman – Editor/Concept/Graphics/Visual FX

IMDb has some more people who worked on it. It also has a summary of the video by producer Jonathan Mindes:

To accompany the newly released “Night Ride”, the driving and darkly sensual track by David Lynch and Chrysta Bell, director Joey Skorman has created a cinematic world reminiscent of a modernized 1950’s monster movie. The lustful “Black Widow Queen”(Chrysta Bell) has a nasty habit of taking night rides in the country during which she seduces young drifters into her car and proceeds to feed on them. Danger is dressed in red lips, lapel pins, a motorcycle jacket, and a blood-stained back patch. We are given a glimpse of somewhere in-between lust, smoke, exhaust, steamy breath, burning rubber and burning desire. What tangled web has been woven with one question remaining… what is it that you desire?

It even comes with its own tagline:

Buried desires and a buried love slave come out for a ride in this B-horror-style night journey through the web of a demonic Black Widow Queen.

For me, the summary and the tagline are more interesting than the video. What’s also interesting is it appears that the majority of Joseph Skorman’s work has been as a post-production engineer on TV Shows such as I (Almost) Got Away With It, My Strange Criminal Addiction, Sex Sent Me To The Slammer, and Wives With Knives. It’s almost like he tried making a music video based on the TV Shows he has worked on. I approve–even if I didn’t care for the video.

I have one last thing to mention. Just like he did on I’m Waiting Here, Tom Breihan over on Stereogum is still not happy that Lynch isn’t directing all the videos for his music:

Now that David Lynch is making music, it drives me absolutely fucking nuts that David Lynch is not directing his own music videos.

He does go on to say that he enjoyed the video regardless of the fact that Lynch didn’t direct it. I just love that he seems to be so passionate about it.

Enjoy!

Music Video of the Day: Always There For You by STRYPER (1988, dir. Jim Yukich)

Posted on by Valerie Troutman

Happy Easter!

For Easter, I bring you a bunch of guys dressed like bumblebees doing a stage performance on a hundred-dollar bill. In other words, I bring you the Christian metal band, STRYPER. It stands for salvation through redemption, yielding peace, encouragement, and righteousness. If that sounds contrived, it’s because it is. It’s a backronym for the name they already picked out. The name comes from Isaiah 53:5, which is why you see it prominently featured in the video. From that passage, springs the stripes.

There’s a nice little “Where Are They Now?” video below. It was made before the group reunited. In it, you find out that they used to toss bibles out to their audience during performances. That sounds dangerous. I am picturing someone wearing glasses getting hit in the face with a book. They also substituted 666 for 777. According to Wikipedia, that has to do with Christianity looking at the number “7” as divine perfection. I honestly didn’t know that. It’s also branding the band to make them stand out against all the other hair bands of the time.

As you might expect, STRYPER took a lot of crap back in the day. I don’t mean because the songs are cheesy and they look funny. I mean because they did what they did, but as a supposed Christian band. There’s definitely some controversial material like you would expect concerning any band. But other stuff is just plain ridiculous, such as people calling them Satanists and other things. One quote over on Wikipedia from their manager Daryn Hinton says, “It was just like if Ozzy Osbourne was there,” when concert-goers would show up to see them and there would be all kinds of protestors.

One quote over on their Wikipedia article rubs me the wrong way. It’s from the Los Angeles Times in 1985:

“The band gets sullen fans of Twisted Sister cheering and poking stubby ‘one way’ fingers heavenward—a refutation of the double-fingered ‘devil horns’ salute of many metal groups.”

Ghosts, Italian Style (1967, dir. Renato Castellani)

The Machine That Kills Bad People (1952, dir. Roberto Rossellini)

That second screenshot is an Italian explaining to an American the Italian tradition that Ronnie James Dio saw a family member do, them being Italian and all. He did it a few times onstage and it caught on like wildfire in the metal community. I wouldn’t bring this up were it not for the fact that you can see ignorance about this show up in religious movies as recent as 2010.

I had a long thing written out about religion and metal, but I’ll let Ronnie James Dio speak about it in the video below.

I have only listened to a few of their songs. I can’t find a music video for To Hell With The Devil. What a crime it is that there isn’t a video for this song. I’m not even a Christian, and I love that song. So, here it is anyways without a proper video.

The music video was directed by Jim Yukich who is extremely prolific. He directed about 200 music videos.

The music video was produced by Paul Flattery who has produced around 250 music videos.

The music video was shot by Toby Phillips who has shot around 65 music videos. He’s also worked as a Steadicam operator on films such as Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome (1985), Twins (1988), and Born On The Fourth Of July (1989).

Enjoy, and again, happy Easter!

Music Video of the Day: All The Things by Chrysta Bell & David Lynch (2014, dir. Nicolangelo Gelormini)

Posted on by Valerie Troutman

That was a music video. I can’t say it did anything for me. I like the classic Lynch dark interior. I also appreciate the contrast between that, and the outside part, which was shot at the Cloister in Naples, Italy. Also, the log is a tribute to Lynch. I can’t say I get it, beyond Lumberton and the Log Lady from Twin Peaks.

Here’s the complete description given on the YouTube video:

“‘All The Things’ music video was filmed primarily at an historic structure in Naples, Italy, called the Cloister.
The Fondazione Tramontano Arte mission is to transform this 16th century gem, an exceptionally rich symbol of
the Neapolitan Renaissance, from it’s current state to a thriving center for the arts.
The ‘Made in Cloister’ project will make of the Cloister a venue and a creative center for
implementing new ways of reviving ancient artisanal skills through the vision of contemporary
artists, musicians and designers.
Support Made in Cloister Project.”

I refuse to copy from it, so here is a link to a nice little interview concerning this video over on Oyster Magazine. I will mention the most humorous part of the interview. We find out that Chrysta Bell has a sense of humor. Lynch asks her, “why is it that everytime you see me, you leap on me and smother me with kisses?” The most important part of her response is that “the leaping part is just for fun.” If there isn’t a compilation video of Chrysta Bell leaping on David Lynch, then there should be.

Like most young directors, Nicolangelo Gelormini doesn’t have a large body of work I can point to.

The rest of the people who worked on the video are listed in the credits at the end of the video. Oddly, David Lynch is listed as a producer in the description of the video, but not in the credits. I don’t know what that is about.

Enjoy!

Music Video of the Day: Bird Of Flames by Chrysta Bell & David Lynch (2012, dir. Chel White)

Posted on by Valerie Troutman

This is the first 21st century music video I have come across where the director has already taken care of explaining it for me.

From IMDb:

“Driven by the music of David Lynch and Chrysta Bell, Bird of Flames is a meditation on the enigmatic nature of love. In a small nightclub, a magician coaxes a beautiful chanteuse to perform like a living doll. In the audience, a young man falls in love with her archetypal image of feminine beauty.”
-Chel White

Here’s what I see.

We begin by being introduced to the nightclub.

Inside, we see a master of ceremonies, or magician, dancing around an egg-shaped wedding veil.

Eventually Chrysta Bell emerges and goes up to the microphone to do her best Kate Bush.

In the audience we can see a guy looking at her.

Meanwhile, in the background we can see another woman who is watching, and having none of this. It’s probably because she stands in contrast to the ideal beauty on stage that this guy seems to be fascinated by, while she blends into the bar.

Then clouds move in, and the credits roll.

This looks awfully familiar to me. Let’s see here.

We begin by being introduced to the nightclub.

Inside, we see a master of ceremonies who comes out onstage to introduce us to “The Blue Lady”.

Eventually Isabella Rossellini emerges and goes up to the microphone to do her best film noir nightclub singer routine.

In the audience, we can see Kyle MacLachlan looking at her.

Meanwhile, next to MacLachlan, we can see Laura Dern watching and she is clearly uncomfortable. She stands in contrast to the ideal beauty on stage that MacLachlan seems to be fascinated with, and we only see Dern in the occasional shot.

Then the darkness envelops Rossellini…

and MacLachlan is now locked into an obsession with her.

Okay, so the music video is kind of an homage to that particular scene from Blue Velvet (1986). I have no complaints. I love that film, and I think that scene is used well here.

You can see all the people who worked on this in the credits on the video. They are too numerous to list here.

There’s one thing I want to mention since I am doing David Lynch videos because of the upcoming new Twin Peaks. According to IMDb, Chrysta Bell will be playing Special Agent Tamara Preston in the first episode.

Enjoy!

Music Video of the Day: Angel In Blue by J. Geils Band (1982, dir. Paul Justman)

Posted on by Valerie Troutman

Seeing as we lost J. Geils himself a couple of days ago, I thought it was appropriate to do one of their music videos. If you want a history of the band, and about the recent passing of J. Geils, then I point you to Gary’s article.

The music video is a far cry visually from Centerfold and Freeze Frame. It’s a simple stage performance that uses overlays of famous women, such as Marilyn Monroe and Louise Brooks. Monroe was already gone by the time this was released and Brooks would pass away three years after the release of this music video. Brooks had moved into isolation long before this video, and her last film was in the low-budget pre-Stagecoach John Wayne film, Overland Stage Raiders in 1938.

It’s a nice companion piece to Centerfold. That one was fun and nostalgic about a woman you knew in childhood that had grown up to be a centerfold, and you felt your fantasy about her had been “sold”. This one is a sad follow-up to that song that takes off the nostalgia goggles. I don’t see her in the video, but I have to imagine that they picked out the title based on the Marlene Dietrich movie, The Blue Angel (1930).

Director Paul Justman did only a handful of music videos. He appears to have directed all but two of them that the J. Geils Band made.

Enjoy!

Music Video of the Day: I’m Waiting Here by David Lynch & Lykke Li (2013, dir. Daniel Desure)

Posted on by Valerie Troutman

Ever go driving out in the middle of nowhere–especially at night? I have. Ever felt the need to drive down the middle of the road? I hope not. I guess this video is putting its focus on highway hypnosis seeing as there isn’t anything interesting to look at, and the car keeps drifting in and out of its lane. I think it fits the song well.

I love this quote from Tom Breihan on Stereogum about this video:

“It’s a very pretty piece of work, and the night-time parts recall Lynch’s Lost Highway. Still, call me crazy, but maybe David Lynch should be the guy responsible for all of David Lynch’s videos.”

If any of them are going to be like Came Back Haunted by Nine Inch Nails with its seizure inducing flashing, then maybe it’s for the best. I don’t care if seizures were often mistaken for demonic possession, which would fit the title of the song.

I put down that Daniel Desure directed this video even though it doesn’t list a director on the video. On the video it lists the crew as the following:

Concept by Lykke Li and Daniel Desure
Edited by Jesse Fleming and Sadie Strangio
DP – Nicholas Trikonis
Designer – Michelle Park

Based on that, I guess Fleming and Strangio are more the directors than Desure, since it appears as if someone just drove down the highway with a dashboard cam from one place to another, and they edited that footage down to the desired runtime. Personally, I would take it farther and list Lykke Li, Daniel Desure, Jesse Fleming, Sadie Strangio, Nicholas Trikonis, and Michelle Park all as directors of the video. I put down Desure because that’s how it is listed on IMVDb.

You can find some information on the people who worked on this video, but they all seem to be relatively new, so there isn’t a large body of work to bring up.

Enjoy!