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These New Puritans: Video vs Video vs Video

I actually had a dream about Saam, the director of These New Puritans' latest video for their latest single "Elvis," last night. I think it's because I saw the email about their new video just before I hit the sack. The dream wasn't so much about Saam, as it was a round-table discussion/debate about his video output in general, his video budgets and the matter of Simian Mobile Disco eventually ditching his original "Hustler" effort for whatever reason and doing another video for "Hustler" with director Ace Norton.

Anyway, it was really interesting. My idea/opinion of him/his work shifted through-out the dream and maybe even a little after I returned to the real world from 6 hours of slumber, an influence which is kinda weird given it was simply a dream. I wish I could remember everyone who shared their opinion about his output. There were a lot more girls than guys chiming in and everyone to my recollection was a card-carrying member in the London scene.

Anyways, here is his video for These New Puritans' "Elvis":

It reminds me of a cross between promo photos for the play Equus crossed with the Horrors' video for "Sheena is a Parasite."  It's a bit bizarre. At first there doesn't seem to be an actual narrative and I don't know if my brain is playing tricks on me, but by the time frontman Jack Barnett hits the " 0 800" part, I kinda saw the semblance of one. How much am I loving that symbol on his hand at the end? Reminds me a bit of Lost with the Dharma project and all. How bizarre was that polar bear collar in last week's episode?

Part of me wonders if they're gonna work with him on their next video and if it'll be tied to this and further develop a story-line or sort of act as the close of a to-be-continued much like the last couple of videos Saam did for Klaxons. I don't know. Something about this video isn't giving me the "stand alone" vibe.

What do we learn from video comments? Well, quite the sound-off rages on, currently to the tune of 177 comments.

Could this video be about chemtrails and its link to Morgellens disease as one commenter purports?

Are the band named after a Fall track?

How much does this video apparently remind everyone of Carpark's "Human" as seen below?

Which actually reminds me a bit of little kids doing their best re-envisioning of the Craft when the four girls are walking down the hall and reminds me even a little bit of Donnie Darko when the kid is holding the hose or whatever.

Moving on still, These New Puritans had a decidedly lower video budget when they originally filmed a promo for the original "Elvis."

Old Elvis:

And that video yields this comment left a week ago:

"I hope TNP won't become mainstream ..."

Will they? Angular and Domino are certainly making the effort.

"Elvis" These New Puritans MP3

Will Saam? Has he already? While Britney Houston has tackled Janet Jackson's Feedback with a budget I could only dream of if doing a parody, let it not go unmentioned that Saam helmed Janet's actual clip for the track. Janet freakin' Jackson! From the streets of London working with the arguably the best in the scene he is now but one degree away from the gloved one! Blows my mind! Holy Shit! His Soulwax documentary is soon to premiere this year...

Lightdreams

Lightspeed Champion Week Day 1

Last year I used to blog about dreams I had that involved musicians. Then I let the tradition lapse after a really rad dream about Turbo Fruits coming to Portland and never returned to the post topic. Of the few I did blog, those entries have kinda come back to haunt me hahahaha. This blog does mention "neurotic" in the sidebar.
Anyway - last night I had a dream where Lightspeed Champion, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club and The Gossip played a gig in a movie-theatre like auditorium. Could those three acts be anymore different? I'm pretty sure it was a movie theatre. I was still on tour with Dev and after his set we took seats and watched the show go on. Soon BRMC's Nick Jago came over with a detached flash head and started making it flash at us. Then he started talking about Dev's flickr stream and talking about them taking photos together. He said he was taking photos of us by just using his flash -- with no camera attached. Whaaaa? He was taking strobist to new levels - he'd modified the flash so that on slave mode it took polaroids - like inside the body of the 580ex, was a pack of polaroids and after each shot he'd have to manually adjust them - kinda like a pinhole camera.
He said he'd show me how to modify mine.
I went to take a shower backstage and the drain was clogged. Beth Ditto came by and said she knew how to fix it as she wanted to take a shower after another sweaty Gossip set. It took forever and we didn't get too far.
Back in the regular part of the auditorium the night had wound down so the only option if Nick Jago was going to demonstrate how to modify a flash into a polaroid camera was to spend the night at Dev's which happened to actually be Reverend Run's house in the dream. At this point Beth invited herself along because she still wanted to take a shower.
We all slept on the basketball court. So did two security guards - Ralph - gigantic in weight and height, bald head and handlebar mustache and Josh from my former job at a mall, not for security purposes, but just because they were there (?). They made me fetch them sleeping bags too.
The next day it was really sunny. Beth was up early and hanging around the joint tourbus outside in a mini-dress in LA like sunny conditions on the suburban street that near identical houses lined - we were at Reverend Run's house after all.
And at some point word came that Jimmy Kimmel had booked Naive New Beaters to play on his show. Yessss! That part of the dream had nothing to do with anything else. I wish of all parts that that would become reality.
That's kinda where the dream ended.

So where in reality did this come from? See above photo - as before falling asleep I'd just been looking at my Foals pictures from their Rough Trade instore on Brick lane for the first time and in many of my photos one dancing photog can be seen unleashing his inner strobist. When Yannis asked why I was in the UK afterwards I briefly mentioned Dev which got him talking about their joint upcoming Observer cover. Boy - did he go on about that. Then I took a polaroid of him. The polaroid/Nick Jago factor may have come from the polaroid I took of him at Bumbershoot with Greg's camera. Oh - and I just got to my mom's place and Seattle and her bathroom sink drain is clogged...

"Another Fight" (Theoretical Girl Cover) Lightspeed Champion MP3

Lightspeed Champion sure gets around

So immediately after watching this I had a dream where a supposed friend of mine planned a horrendous birthday party for me. Both in the dream and real life she is a supposed friend and in the dream she asked what I wanted. I gave a precise list and then she goes and arranges a slumber party in my former elementary school Edwards. That would be great, only it's her plan to show horror movies-which is the opposite of great. The second the guy comes out in the ski mask on screen I am screaming and screaming, so the party immediately switches to live entertainment. Only it's my least favorite band (I can't remember who, but it surprisingly wasn't Weezer).
Anyway, with enough protest, I get my way and Klaxons come out to close out my party at midnight. Mind you in my dream this is all occuring in Portland. Yeah. . . so close to reality.

So here is Dev, ex-Test Icicles as he's so frequently billed on every DJing flyer known to man in London (Nambucca, People Are Germs, Cyrille Regis, Spiel Club). He's performing above with Klaxons, in which resides one of his good friends Simon.

Here he is with Whirlwind Heat. They toured with Test Icicles earlier this year in the UK.

'How Do You Do' Lightspeed Heat MP3

Oh god-and Acid Slutz too. Best give up while ahead. I'd be here all day listing all his collaborations and projects, all of which sadly no longer includes Naked Babes.

Myspace: www.myspace.com/lightspeedchampion

Dreaming of a Yellow House

Photo Courtesy of Benny Post

The other night I had a dream about Grizzly Bear. While in reality their album steam was available for preview at many sites, my subconscious dreamt a whole new way to listen before it's release.
Influenced in part by their album cover, in my dream, Grizzly Bear all lived together in a house on Cannon Beach. Just before the release of their album Yellow House (named for their Cannon Beach retreat) they left the house unlocked and set their album up to play 24 hours a day for a full month and people could just walk in and stay there and listen to it and leave on their own accord. The thought behind it was to do something different and also since the house had such an impact on their recording if the album, it would bring listeners more in tune with their objective.
Well me being poor, I ended up staying there the whole month being the only one to do so and slept in the bedroom. Few people came in and the night I had a friend sleep over we got robbed. The burglar took all of my friends' expired film that he was using for a special project and we didn't mention my polaroid film because I couldn't afford for it to be taken.
Later came a call that I had to get all my belongings out of my former house mates basement, so I rode in a washed up refrigerator that I found on the beach all the way to Portland to collect it. After telling her about the ride, she joined me back to Cannon Beach in it, and then I used it to go back to Portland to go to a Scissor Sister's concert.
Only when I got there, each time I took a photo, it erased the last photo I had taken, so I came away with no photos of the show.
How this kinda relates to reality:
When I saw Grizzly Bear support TV on the Radio last week I was surprised by how few people knew them prior to the show. Like I am aware that not everyone in the world knows who they are, but I really expected the TVotR crowd to know them-similar audience, and very few people sang along to 'On a Spit, on a Neck' and after the show people were singing their praises and talking about how they had never heard of them. That kinda plays in with very few people visiting the house in my dream to listen to the album.
My friend in the dream was the guy from Goodbye Lenin, which I had just finished watching that night.
The polaroids because I am doing a polaroid project and I am too poor to replace any film after that.
Then last week I had one of my most horrendous concert going experiences attempting to see Scissor Sisters, and even though I was supposed to be able to take photos, I left with three away from none at all.

Anyway-it took along time, but here is the track:
'On a Neck, On a Spit' Grizzly Bear MP3
Chosen because while I'd LOVE to post 'Plans' this is the only track they've given away for free and I don't quite feel in the mood for redistributing Grizzly Bear's other music for free without consent. Them and Patrick Wolf.

More Cowbell: Scissor Sister's Throw Back Out (Serves them right)

Myspace: Grizzly Bear
Hint Hint: Listen to 'Plans'

Dreaming of P!atD is the most fun you can have without P!atD

Tens days and counting! This video has fully redeemed Panic! at the Disco.

Last night was bit prophetic. After watching it I made a joke (to myself) that now knowing their Portland concert date was only ten days away, I'd probably start dreaming about them and then I did. We were on a cruise ship ala Rosie's gay family cruise and it was for the release of their album with all their fans on board and them doing constant entertainment, because despite having enough fans to fill a cruise ship, none of them had actually ever heard P!atD, just heard of them and immediately became fans off the back of Pete Wentz's plugs (I know I first heard of the band last September when Pete's first/second Killers comments came out) And I was hired on as an assistant in production, though even without remembering the specifics I'm pretty sure I must have just shown up and told them that and got my way on the boat that way.
Then, amid the seas and the screams for Brendon Urie, the drummer decided to kick out the bassist. All drama ensued. Can you imagine doing that at sea? (I type and ask in a tone as if it really happened.) All this anger, sadness, betrayal, isolation, and back and forth quoting to MTV with all the other emotions you can imagine that come about with a split all having to be contained on one ship with no hope of getting off until it docks, which isn't scheduled for another three days?
Then me and my fake job got drafted in to attempt to mediate and the only other stuff I can remember is me running around frantically on deck with a clipboard hoping the bassist won't jump.

I probably dreamt this due to the role of water in the video that is almost too beautiful. At first it was just a little to weird, trying too hard to show that they aren't all just show girls, but upon seeing the ending shot everything came together; not the plot, as it was easy to deduce, but exactly what they were trying to achieve. Not trying too hard at all.
Can you imagine being that brilliant to come up with that treatment?
My excitement for Panic! at the Disco's Portland date had slightly cooled for two reasons-them axing Brent who is better looking than their drummer. If they were going to get rid of someone get rid of him because he makes me uncomfortable. And second, they upgraded the venue from the so cool it rubs off on even them and their garter-banded-forearms-that-are-already-cool-enough Crystal Ballroom to the soulless Exhibition Center. The traveling Smithsonian exhibit was held there when I was in elementary school.