Yay! Kedr Livanskiy is back!
This video appears to be a nicely twisted take on Sleeping Beauty. Admittedly, I do seem to ascribe a supernatural theme to every Kedr Livanskiy film that I see. Usually, I’m assume that the videos are about vampires, just because Kedr Livanskiy’s surreal music often puts me in the mood for a Jean Rollin film. This time, however, I’m pretty sure that there aren’t any vampires in this video. Instead, there’s just a lot of sleeping, dreaming, and running.
Enjoy!
This classic song from the early 1980s was inspired by a great deal of emotional trauma.
At the start of 1982, The Pretenders consisted of vocalist and rhythm guitarist Chrissie Hynde, lead guitarist and vocalist James Honeyman-Scott, bassist and vocalist Pete Farndon, and drummer and vocalist Martin Chambers. On June 14th, 1982, Farndon was fired from the band as a result of his drug problems. Two days later, Honeyman-Scott would die of a cocaine-induced heart attack while at his girlfriend’s apartment.
At the time of Honeyman-Scott’s death, he and Hynde were working on the song that would eventually become Back on the Chain Gang. At the time, the song was envisioned as being about Hynde’s turbulent relationship with Ray Davies of the Kinks. After Honeyman-Scott’s death, the song took on a different meaning and, instead, became about Hynde’s struggle to keep the band going even after losing two of her best friends. (Farndon, himself, would die of a drug overdose in 1983.) Hynde, who was three months pregnant when the song was first recorded, dedicated Back on the Chain Gang to Honeyman-Scott’s memory. Back on the Chain Gang went on to become The Pretenders’s biggest hit in the United States, where it was adapted as an anthem by people who probably did not know the emotional story behind the song’s composition.
The video, which was put into heavy rotation during the early days of MTV, features the two surviving original members of The Pretenders. Chrisse Hynde sings while Martin Chambers plays one of many office workers who, upon arriving at work, are briefly transformed into slaves using pickaxes to excavate ruins in the desert.
Enjoy!
I always enjoy a good car video.
Enjoy!
I like this video. It has kind of a desolate feel to it but there’s also a very snarky sense of humor lurking underneath all of the loneliness. This video reminds me of when I would visit my cousins in Arkansas over the summer and we’d inevitably end up hanging out around an abandoned house. There’s a surprisingly large amount of abandoned houses in Arkansas, for some reason.
(Seriously, if you’re not even thinking about shooting your amateur horror film in Arkansas, you’re missing out on some very creepy scenery!)
Enjoy!
I don’t have a lot to say about this video. I just like it. It’s a good video. Stewart Moncure shared it during Saturday’s #ILikeToWatch live tweet and I was reminded of how much I’ve always liked this song and this video. Watching it, I’m reminded of when I briefly wanted to be a teacher. I wouldn’t have taught music, though. I can’t carry a tune to save my life. Instead, I would have taught …. well, Drama is kind of the obvious choice but if I could teach anything, I’d probably teach history. I mean, we could solve so many of our problems today if people actually knew more about history than what they see on twitter or read on Wikipedia. Oh well.
Anyway, enjoy!
I cannot begin to put into words how much I love this video.
I mean — haven’t we all known (or, at the very least, known of) a weird boy next door?
Enjoy!
I’ve had dreams like this.
(And, yes, in my dreams, I can usually play the piano.)
Enjoy!
I like today’s music video of the day because it’s simple but atmospheric. This video really is the dream of being an artist. Spend your afternoon creating and editing and making your imagination come to life. And, in between creating, watch a movie. That was what I always dreamed my life would be like when I became an adult and …. well, I don’t really feel like an adult but still, I’ve got a nice little building in the back yard that I use as a personal office, I spend a lot of time writing, and I’ve always got a movie playing in the background. It’s a good life.
Enjoy!
From the director of the video for the Ramones’s I Wanna Be Sedated comes a down home, country wedding. In this video, the groom is lead singer Dan Baird, who goes to his wedding on a flatbed truck and marries his bride while her father points a shotgun at his back. The video doesn’t make it clear whether Baird was expecting to get married when he and the band first rode up in that truck but at least everyone appears to be having a good time.
This immortal work of Southern rock was the George Satellites’s only hit. The band still exists, though only one founding member remains, guitarist Rick Richards. Dan Baird, who left the band in 1990 to pursue a solo career, currently tours with Homemade Sin, a band that features two former members of the Georgia Satellites.
Enjoy!
“I think I finally figured out my new song, ‘Los Angeles’, this morning. They got one in South Patagonia, they got another Los Angeles in Mexico, they got so many Los Angeleses. Bangkok has a Los Angeles, I read recently. I imagine there’s a lot of places in the world named City Of Angels. I wrote about a futuristic one too: ‘They got one in 2525, where it’s just like a beehive.’ I mean that kind of Los Angeles you might see in a film like Blade Runner.”
— Frank Black in VOX, Issue 30, March 1993
In 1993, after the Pixies broke up for the first time, lead singer Black Francis renamed himself Frank Black and embarked on a solo career. Los Angeles was the first single to be released off of Black’s first solo album, Frank Black. According to Black, the song was meant to take place in a futuristic version of Los Angeles, much like the one seen in Blade Runner. The first time I ever heard the song, I misheard nearly every lyric and I thought it was about a man who Black met, a good man who worked as an insurance agent. (For some reason, my mind always heard “sailing and shoring” as “selling insurance.”)
The video makes it clear that Los Angeles is meant to take place in some sort of future, with Black riding a hovercraft through the desert and looking like an extra from a Mad Max movie. I’m not sure who directed this video. Some sources hint that the video was directed by Black himself but I haven’t been able to find any definite confirmation.
After releasing two solo albums, Black went on to front Frank Black and The Catholics before reuniting with the Pixies and eventually changing his name back to Black Francis.
Black Francis’s real name? Charles Thompson IV.
Enjoy!
Through the Shattered Lens 