Tag Archives: Gavin Bowden

Music Video of the Day: Anthem For The Year 2000 (1999, directed by Gavin Bowden)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

Does anyone remember Silverchair?

They were the band from Australia who got a lot of attention because they were all teenagers who weren’t even old enough to drink when they were big in America.  From the minute that Silverchair showed up on MTV in the 90s, it has been fashionable to dismiss them as being overly derivative of the other bands that were popular at the time.  That’s a valid complaint and the lead singer always tried too hard to be angsty but Silverchair did get better towards the end of their run and, if they were derivative, they were never as cynically blatant about it as band like Bush was.

Anthem For The Year 2000 is one of their better songs.  To understand both the song and the video, you have to think back to what the world was like in 1999, when everyone was worried that Y2K would lead to computer systems shutting down across the world.  It was also a time when people were very worried about “the new world order,” as seen by the video’s robot politician.  Actually, I guess 1999 isn’t that different from 2022.

Enjoy!

 

Music Video of the Day: Aeroplane by Red Hot Chili Peppers (1996, directed by Gavin Bowden)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

A song about drug abuse that features a children’s chorus?

Not creepy at all!

Aeroplane makes a lot more sense if you know that it’s based on a traditional blues song called Jesus is my Areoplane.  In their version of the song, the Chili Peppers are saying that music has saved them and taken them to a higher plane of existence.  Whenever Anthony Kiedis struggled with his addictions and was tempted to turn to dust in his kitchen, it was music that kept him from destroying himself.  The original song was about people flying away with Jesus.  The Chili Peppers are flying away with songs like this one.  The Chili Peppers might be going to Hell but at least they got to make some music and shoot his video with a group of smoking hot models and synchronized swimmers.

The children’s chorus, which shows up at the end and changes the entire feel of the video, were reportedly all friends of Flea’s daughter.  Flea’s daughter is among the children singing.  At the end of the song, when you hear one girl outsinging all the rest with “You’re my areoplane!,” that’s her.

Enjoy!

Music Video of the Day: My Own Worst Enemy by Lit (1999, dir. Gavin Bowden)

Posted on by Valerie Troutman

This music video totally has to with Labor Day. It’s not just something I came up with at the last minute because I watched the 2016 American film called Split that was supposed to have to do with bowling.

Yes, I did have to be that specific. There are not only three films with the title Split that came out in 2016, but another one, from Korea, also has to do with bowling. The one I watched is a terrible film that you shouldn’t have to sit through. This video on the other hand, is one that everyone should be made to sit through.

I remember when this song hit the radio and TV. It was catchy the first time, and annoying from then on. I couldn’t get the chorus out of my mind. The one kind thing I can say is that it can be fun to swap different things in for the actual lyrics:

Please tell me why my brain is on the front lawn?
And I’m pissing with my clothes on?
I fell down chimney last night.

It was 1999, I was sick and out of school on permanent independent study. I had to make my own fun. It was easy to do so with its lyrics and it being played all the time.

As for the video, its people obsessed with Kingpin and The Big Lebowski making a video so that we think of them more like Blink-182 than their previous videos that made them look like Soundgarden and pseudo-STP.

Based on their Wikipedia page, they’re exactly what I thought at the time: a flash in the pan. I lump them right in with groups like Eve 6. Incidentally, director Gavin Bowden made a video for Eve 6. He also worked with similar groups such as Silverchair and Lifehouse. He’s done around 30 videos.

Jed Hathaway did construction on the video. I think that’s the first time I have come across that credit.

The person with the most credits is editor Nabil Mechi. Mechi has edited about 100 videos ranging from The Roots to Paris Hilton.

Enjoy these repressed memories of the late-90s whether you were there or not.

Music Video of the Day: Pepper by Butthole Surfers (1996, dir. Gavin Bowden)

Posted on by Valerie Troutman

Just like with Alanis Morissette’s You Oughta Know, Pepper by Butthole Surfers was one of those songs that came at an odd time. That brief little window between the musical renaissance of the early-90s and the musical plague of the late-90s. In between we got interesting transitional groups like Butthole Surfers and PUSA.

The music video is simultaneously dark with it’s lyrics and crime scene presentation, but then we suddenly switch gears to something that looks like a variety show and/or old commercials. Even the cops from the dark part come over to act as backup dancers for the band. On the dark side, Erik Estrada shows up as a kidnapping victim who is being rescued from the lead singer of the band. For people who are older than me, the name means the show CHiPs, which I’m sure is why he is in this music video. However, to people of my generation, he will always be Marco Rodrigo Diaz de Vivar Diego Garcia Marquez from Sealab 2021.

I honestly don’t really get it all too much. To me it’s all about contrast in how songs tend to switch gears from the verses to the chorus and back. Much like the video switches from the police scenes during the verses, then goes to the colorful portions during the chorus and back again. Sometimes it intermixes them a bit, but by and large, they are divided. That’s about all I’ve got other than that I like this song, and the video reminds me of the one for Frontier Psychiatrist by The Avalanches.

However, Wikipedia adds a little more to the story. It tells me that the reason the police and Estrada are shown eating corn from a can is a reference to how music videos are made. Apparently music video directors are told to “have this shot and that shot – how they’re spoon-feeding images to the audience.” Sounds like he is describing making any film. Except maybe Derek Jarman’s Blue (1993), which is just a blue screen while audio plays over it. There had to be more to the quote. Some context that makes the statement make more sense like that he is talking about being given direction by producers and people from the band’s record company about things they have to include.

Lisa has since added even more to the story in the comments.

Enjoy!