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2009: A Recession Odyssey

From the fjords of Helsinki strode the trio of LAPKO, alt-rock national treasures of Finland.
"You will make our next music video," they bellowed.
"No problem," was our polite reply, "What are you into?"
"David Lynch meets Lars von Trier."
Thus...

LAPKO - I Shot The Sheriff from LAPKO OFFICIAL on Vimeo.
Produced, Directed, & Edited by Sam Winter & Bryan Parker
Photography by Gregg Conde
Effects Makeup by Meagan Hester

The shoot was a journey from Times Square to Chinatown to "The Location", an oasis of post-industrial wilderness situated on the banks of the Gowanus Canal.

During pre-production we used the following 3 music vids to describe to the band the look and feel we were after.

White Denim - Shake Shake Shake


Blind Melon - No Rain

Blind Melon |MTV Music

Motel Motel - Coffee

Everyday I'm Hustlin, Every-Everyday I'm Hustlin

"In a decade when institutions failed us one after the other—Bush was arguably the worst president in history; Wall Street was revealed (again) largely as a semi-legal cabal—opportunities went to the self-reliant, the self-starters, the hustlers."
Michael Hirschorn on Why This Was the Decade Without Authority - New York Magazine

Fuck it. Sharpen a stick and go find your own food.

But beware, the man be lurking......

Fads can be fun.

why am I sorta taken in by all this neo-garage-surf?

Are these bands capitalizing on a fascination with a classicly American ethos on the part of Europe and places that absorb their culture from everywhere else like North Brooklyn? Is that what's happening?

What is all this irresistible nonsense actually being referred to anyway?


I actually think i like like Beach Fossils.

This Week In Lo-Fi Vol. 1: Overmodulated Bass

Reminds me of riding around Topeka in a friend's $3,000 mazda with a $600 "system" that included a box made in shop class, bassing the shit out of Sonic Drive-In as we cruised through the parking lot.

here's what Sleigh Bells look like live (any similarity to The Kills is purely coincidental).

This video was produced and uploaded to Youtube by ABCNews during CMJ. There are already butt loads of sources for live music on the web in a myriad of different formats that range in quality from Shitty to Clever. If mainstream media starts putting this kind of music content out there, in a few years will live music be to the internet what Dunkin Donuts is to Boston? Would there be any downside to this instance of oversaturation? There's probably some fluky explanation for this particular video but it's great to see ABC just setting the content free: barely branding the video, and not trying to assign some newsy authority to the coverage....just a video of a rock band. I support.

It's Interactive

Partnering with CurrentTV, Common solicited viewer created music vid's for this collaboration with Cee-Lo. If you don't care about the web 2.0-ness, it's still a good song.

Lady Gaga meets Annie Leibovitz

some behind the scenes action I edited for Vogue. Anything with Lady Gaga is sort of interesting to me right now. She's cagey, i am trying to know more. digging through this footage provided a taste of some unguarded moments but also betrayed somewhat a hyper media awareness/flirtatiousness.

The footage was shot by Annie Leibovitz's sister, Barbara, who is a documentary film maker in her own right.

History's Greatest Feats of Strength vol. I

You got miles of hipster cred, totally.

saddy boy, girl music that everybody likes.

MozBurgers

The Dan Ryan gang do a funny video


another Mike O'Gorman vehicle, this time for old pals Black20

Inspiration is the mother of Biting Steez

Scandanavians pretending to be Americans from the 1970s...or is that the 1980s? (check out this myspace photo*). But I'm so down with the multiple split screens that I'm going to be spending all day tomorrow playing with that steez.

The Sweet Serenades - Mona Lee from Leon Records on Vimeo.

*

Balance, balance.

Are you obsessed with observing your online self, sort of in the same way an omnipotent being might view your non-Matrix waking life? Well, it takes one to know one, J. Tillman (Fleet Foxes drummer, going solo)!

Watch how a real man does it.

Leave it to a satirical newspaper to figure out how to successfully translate the voice of a print brand to an online video experience that actually enhances the presence of said brand.

Ominous Music Heard Throughout U.S. Sends Nation Into Panic
Most everyone else in the sickly, bed-ridden print world "attempting" to do the same is pretty much just showing up, and rightly having their asses handed to them.

Don't be a Halloweanie

Yes, dress up for halloween. No, don't go dressed as someone who comments, EVEN ONCE, about girls and their excuses to wear slutty costumes. That one's in the books, you might as well say dirt is dirty.

go as Joe Jackson in this video.

Pretty soon now
You know I'm gonna make a comeback
And like the birds and the bees in the trees
It's a sure-fire smash
I'll speak
To the masses through the media
And if you got anything to say to me
You can say it with cash
'Cause I've got the trash and you got the cash
So baby we should get along fine
So give me all your money 'cause I know you think I'm funny
Can't you hear me laughing
Can't you see me smile

I'm the man (I'm the man, I'm the man, I'm the man)
I'm the man that gave you the hula-hoop
I'm the man (I'm the man, I'm the man, I'm the man)
I'm the man that gave you the yo-yo

Kung fu
That was one of my good ones
Well what's a few broken bones
When we all know it's good clean fun
Skateboards
I've almost made them respectable
You see I can't always get through to you
So I go for your son
I had a giant rubber shark and it really made a mark
Did ya lookit lookit lookit all the blood
So give me all your money 'cause I know you think I'm funny
Can't you hear me laughing
Can't you see me smile

I'm the man (I'm the man, I'm the man, I'm the man)
I'm the man that gave you the hula-hoop
I'm the man (I'm the man, I'm the man, I'm the man)
I'm the man that gave you the yo-yo

Right now
I think I'm gonna plan a new trend
Because the line on the graph's getting low
And we can't have that
And you think you're immune
But I can sell you anything
Anything from a thin safety pin
To a pork pie hat
'Cause I got the trash and you got the cash
So baby we should get along fine
Why don't you give me all your money
'Cause I know you think I'm funny
Can't you hear me laughing
Can't you see me smile

not all bands are from Brooklyn

Some indie rock artists are from other, Smaller Urban Metropolis Areas (SUMAs) like Philadelphia. Even some good ones.

"Free Energy" from Free Energy on Vimeo.

Not soooooo different in tone and aesthetics and theme-ology and sound and attitude from Girls, eh? Is this a coincidence? Is this a movement? What is Newsweek©* saying?



*blogger not affiliated with Newsweek©

YouTubes!

Basketball is about to start up again....

Multiple announcers in this video make the dated reference to posters, as in the defender got dunked on so bad he will appear in a poster looking foolish. The term "poster-ize" came about sometime in the early 90s and has remained a stale part of the lexicon like a petrified pizza crust hidden in the back of a refrigerator. As much as I love thinking about Michael Cooper and his knee high white socks helplessly watching Michael Jordan fly through the air, the fact remains: Michael Cooper is now 50 years old. "Poster-ize" needs retiring, especially considering the NBA is obsessed with being hip and street. When are these fucks gonna start saying "Youtubes!" whenever someone gets dunked on. You don't have to come from the streets to make this shit up. It's Youtube.

...things commenced to go awry in earnest.

A Spike Jonze directed short starring Kanye West. thanks bpark for this (editor's note: they took this vid down. I'm sure it will surface again somewhere's else. oh well check out the next one.)

Spike Jonze / We Were Once A Fairytale from background on Vimeo.

Was snooping these same guys' vimeo page and saw this crazy promo for British TV show I keep hearing about called Skins.

Halfway Home from background on Vimeo.

Mind Burning

Age Old Question: Is MTV's current programming a response to consumer demand or are the tastes and interests of viewers guided by the content itself?

In other words, do youths just watch whatever you tell 'em to?

I don't know anyone who watches Current TV - online or on the couch - but they are sort of doing what MTV used to do with this youth-driven socially/politically conscious documentary show Vanguard.

Anyway, the idea of Cuba undergoing a second revolution sounds zany. But if something like that were to happen, I suppose it would have to some extent be the result of Cuba's proximity to America and the contaminant vapor of air-borne gray matter pouring from the smoke stacks of our mind burning media and entertainment industry.

This shit is moving, Ruth.

since i threw out some carlin, youtube is suggesting more. I found this bit I'd never seen or heard before. Incredibly esoteric stuff about TIME. It's as much TED lecture as stand up. Not positive, but I think this is what carlin refers to as his coke years.

"More shit from the bogus captain..."*

At least amongst the New Yorkers I'm connected to online, people were really geeked about this Chicago 6 Hipster Anti-Olympics Revolutionaries thing.

First of all, those crusties were agro-hippie anarchists. Second, obviously "hipster" has become like the term "cougar"; a buzzword that media feel is potent because - for all intents and purposes - mainstream fuddy duddies find it a humorous, with-it reference they are totally up on.

This fact begets another fact: the aesthetics and attitudes associated with whatever the public consensus decides constitutes hipster is about the be represented in a bad TV show sometime soon. I don't think Cougartown is very good.

*this is an intrajoke punchline from an old George Carlin act i used to listen to so often that such phrases pop into my head to explain phenomena I'm experiencing in realtime. What does your brain work like?

I like Girls

Girls are right there at that spot that feels right right now. But are they trying to rub me the wrong way by flaunting how cool they and all their cool friends are? first it was this...


then this, a song that haunted me all summer now put to film...

and their feature in Fader is all about them nonchalantly doing drugs and partying with a circulating bevy of painfully hip friends. I guess what this all means is they are having a blast. And I'm happy for them, but I'm scratching my head. Do they want people to start resenting them for being so cool? Cuz that's what's about to happen.

New Discovery

Eating two consecutive bags of potently flavored Utz potato chips (in this case Carolina BBQ and Salt'n Vinegar) makes your mouth itch. If this happens to you, remain calm. Drink milk. Watch something soothing*.

Coincidentally, if you drink out of Brooklyn's potently toxic Gowanus Canal your mouth will begin to itch as well. Whole Foods planned to build a new store right on the Gowanus Canal but rumor has it the construction is stalled because of the toxicity level and, ya know, proximity to groceries. Instead, the site remains an unfortified diorama of post-industrial urban squalor reclaimed by what passes for nature in that part of town; much to the benefit of vagabond hobos and roaming gangs of filmmakers. Visual proof of the land being put to good use is coming soon to this very webspace. woop.

*that's how you do the live acoustic one take. This was made by Sam Fleischner who directed Wah Dem Do which stars that Sean Bones guy up there and Norah Jones who teamed up to record the original of that song up there for the film's soundtrack. no links, google.

You got miles of hipster cred, totally.

saddy boy, girl music that everybody likes.

This ain't no R&B dick. This hood.

Ghostface Killah has a song about having sex.


completely unrelated but fucking cool, though long, is this video I found on style.com, the online home of Vogue.

dick cheez, no E.

This is real cheezy stuff from LMFAO, the cheeziest thing going right about now. I get that that's sorta the point but that's what makes it so cheezy. Or wait a minute, are they doing that Tupac thing about living your art in order to represent all the people out there in The Struggle, if only The Struggle were L.A.? I just read on their Wikipedia that they produced a song for Pitbull that samples Fergie, well that says it all. With a name like LMFAO, Pepsi doesn't need to see charts and graphs to know that these guys are HUGE in the young, internet-savvy demo. Who says Major Labels can't adapt to the Internet....?

The Future!!! Er, I mean, The Present!!!!

advertisers know they have to go digital. and they all "love" music because it already has an industry in place that filters/curates what is cool. The equation seems simple: content (this video) + advertiser (Southern Comfort) + distribution (Fader.tv and youtube, essentially) = ROI (Return On Investment).

An awesome print mag makes a web video featuring an awesome cover of an awesome song by an awesome band, yet only has 784 views in 2 weeks, and only 3 comments. How do you get more people to care about this kind of content?

For starters don't send one fucking shooter and have him stick a second, unmanned camera on a tripod. that is a shitty look, even for web. Why is this acceptable? How does this represent your brand that is otherwise known for incredible still photography? Especially to viewers who don't know Fader?

Either...
A) sack up and shoot 1 take, no cuts like La Blogoteque, even though it's already being done and is shorthand for "this is artsy". Understandably, this could be hard to pull off if left in the hands of a "videographer" and not someone empowered as a "filmmaker"; which is exactly how magazines conceptualize these things.
Or...
B) spend slightly more money on a second shooter or find a producer that shoots. I'd bet 5 bucks Fader is wasting SoCo's money by sending a print editor or producer on those shoots to not hold a camera. Magazines.

This is way more like it. But, no sponsor.

Sooooooo.....half-ass the production on your sponsored weekly series with a somewhat novel concept to the extent that it looks decidedly crappier than video shot by some guy on mushrooms at a party in the woods. Even Fader is fucking it up.

Healthy Dose of Wow

Health - DieSlow

Kicking Ask, Taking Napes

The kid with the Prince Valium haircut is right. If a monster enters your room you kick his ask.

Everyday People

All this Socialism talk in reference to Health Care Reform is dastardly, yet seems to be so easily effective that The Right would be stupid not to throw a couple mentions of Russia into the mix every now and then. It's easy because (though I thought I'd stopped really believing this (because I'm not so cynical and pessimistic as I once was, but maybe I've just begun to ignore things)) people are stupid. And there seems to be coalescing on a broad cultural scale such a thing as American Stupid which isn't reserved for naysaying conservative nincompoops at all, so wipe that smirk off your face. It has more to do with aggressive arrogance, inflated self-importance, and laziness I think.

The above vid was made by Chris Pappas, lead singer of The Everyday Visuals .


No stranger to rabble rousing, those guys ran around in the freezing cold with me to make this for Black20 Live times ago.

Peoples' Lives

Solid mash of doc and music vid on no budget. I dig your style whoever made this.

and the song is full of sentiments that people have in real life, and it's sort of related to this next thing, which by all accounts is going to be the best movie ever, and win every award ever.

Up In The Air starring George Clooney directed by Jason Reitman

Why Do People Like Music?

Some things just suit your fancy.

There it is, something I like, something I'm interested in. Satisfying, good to know, pleasing, fleeting and worthwhile. Also, I feel like the video jacked my subconscious for everything I wanted to see associated with that song right down to the old gas station downtown of some dying midwestern hamlet where there are no jobs left and they have to drive 35 minutes to Wal-Mart to buy groceries.

Worst Speeches of All Time - Ashton Kutcher Fan Fiction

www.comedycentral.com

Joke of the Day Stand-Up Comedy Free Online Games

...Speaking 0f Detroit

...I haven't been watching much VBS.tv lately but this INTV with Detroit newspaper journalist Charlie LeDuff has me thinking of reinvesting some energy in what they're doing over there.



Oh the progression through stages of drunk on display is exquisite if you're in the mood to appreciate that kind of thing.

Advocacy

those jerks The Gay Blades released a concert DVD featuring a live set filmed at Asbury Lanes in Jersey...
TGB - Why Winter In Detroit

...the DVD also includes selections from their growing video catalog including this behind the scenes featurette we made for O Shot. Fun.

TGB BTS: The Making Of O Shot from Sam Winter on Vimeo.

I might as well provide my liner notes about the manhole...basically all the manhole covers in NYC are sealed and impossible to lift without special equipment. I didn't know this until I started tugging on them to see if we could actually pull off this manhole shot. Then one day, as I was leaving work in an industrial part of Long Island City, I checked a few nearby manholes and found an older, smaller manhole cover that I could lift off by myself. Inside was caked in soot and grime, apparently from years of disuse. Perfect! When it came time to shoot, we were cleaning the native manhole ladder with a broom and the steps just disintegrated into tetanus dust. We lowered a step ladder into the manhole so Clark and Puppy could climb out. At the other end of the street I was intermittently slowing traffic with the makeup artist's Mitsubishi, pretending to be an idiot who doesn't know how to park. Dozens of cars passed by that manhole while we got the shot, but no one seemed to mind what we were doing. Zero police involvement, zero tetanus. Success!

Funny cuz it's true

Wayfarers are hip....

...but the thing about wayfarers is that everyone understands this to be the case, but no one seems to mind. There has been no backlash against wayfarers despite their saturation. At this point, people wear wayfarers in spite of the fact that they are a cliche, right? Folks are just glad to have something classic and unassailable on their face.

Am I giving people too much credit? Maybe wearing wayfarers is attractive solely because they are on trend and no one has yet come up with a safer alternative (sorry Kanye shades). Wayfarers seem to be going the way of Chuck Taylors; just the right mix of ubiquitous social subgroup indicator and classic to coast along as an old safey for years to come.

related:
why are gladiator sandals "bad trendy" and wayfarers "good trendy"? Is it because gladiator sandals look stupid and wayfarers look good? Is this only relevant to mofos in nyc?

related: when fall hits will we see more keffiyahs than last season or less? Will they become strictly the domain of black and latino teenagers from Brooklyn or will sorority girls in the midwest be buttressing with the keffiyah like they once did the trucker hat? I'm rivited.

web 2.0 jokes

this is clever.

Covers That Are Better Than The Original

Hot Chip's "Ready For The Floor" is challenging. It's so annoying at first, then the chorus sounds great. Obviously Hot Chip is attempting some commentary on the complicated nature of life, alternately shitty and pleasant as it is.


Lissy Trullie's version is easier; like goofing off all weekend knowing you have to go back to work on Monday.

Gracias Will Smith

"outside of getting enormously successful…to watch the kids grow is the greatest pleasure." - keith richards
footnote gabe who footnoted someone else in his facebook post of the same GQ interview. Information Age.


Based on my research (reading that Keith Richards interview), the queen was watching this video and shitting herself, fearful that her subjects would eventually come to worship rock and roll more than the divine authority of the royal family. Just like suburban moms and Hip Hop. Thanks Will Smith for smoothing that one over.

Sugarland

I'd never heard of Sugarland until I turned on my TV and saw their concert special on ABC, which is airing as I type. i was so impressed by what I saw I had to find out more.

abc.com says "Sugarland: Live on the Inside airs MONDAY, AUGUST 3 (8:00-9:00 p.m., ET) on the ABC Television Network. Filmed at Rupp Arena in Lexington, Kentucky by director Shaun Silva, the duo's artistic and innovative live show comes to life with 20 cameras in a spectacular, unforgettable night featuring some of their biggest hits ("Settlin,'" "Stay," "All I Want to Do" and "Something More"), as well as never before televised performance footage."

I'm not really a fan of Country Pop duos but kudos to ABC for making an awesome looking concert for TV.

of course all their music videos have the embedding disabled because they are on a major label which thinks its a good idea to keep their music from disseminating. in the age of twitter-of-mouth marketing being a corporate no-brainer, how fucking stupid is this?

playlist (stuff i've been listening to a lot that i could find vids for)

a long video playlist with no overlaying thesis is like using way too many words in a blog post to describe something boring (kinda jerky) but that's what this is.

Ida Maria - Oh My God


Coconut Records - Microphone (had no idea this band involved jason schwartzman until just now when I youtubed that mess)


Cut Off Your Hands - Turn Cold


James Yuill - No Surprise


Jason Lytle - It's The Weekend


Alaska In Winter - Berlin


Fanfarlo - Luna


Crystal Antlers - Andrew


Papercuts - Future Primitive


Woods - To Clean


The Maccabees - Love You Better

Holy EVERYTHING!

flabbergasted and impressed by this weirdness.

there's more, what the what? Can't they at least add some elevator music or Switchfoot to make this less unsettling?

this has got to be for some stage show right? Zoobilee Zoo on Russian Broadway? Then I see this next one and i begin to think they are just the eye candy at some discotech. Bikini clad dancers are so passe.

I'm definitely imagining things and need to go to bed.

fuck I can't take this. it's all too Matthew Barney for me to sleep well.

So Many Canals!

Oh this makes me nostalgic. It's been so long since I've run around Europe with my lady lover in tow; deep kissing at Basilique du Sacré-Cœur, La Sagrada Familia, all those obelisks. So many canals! It sucks though when you get to Rome and start drifting apart. But the journey's the thing am I right?

I've never done any of that, :(. Get me out of here.

that's the Jam

this new PJ is pretty good. I want to keep listening to it over and over, feel free to do just that right here, right below these words, keep clicking, don't bother me none, it tickles a little but I like it, keep clicking, yeah that's it, oooh, just like that, mmmm.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

I don't necessarily agree with either viewpoint. Pat Buchanan is occasionally goofy, but his logic here is sound. The raw calculus behind affirmative action in 2009 America is questionable. Maddow's point that this is good for America because it makes us happy about our progress is specious, I think. But taking the historical long view, Sotomayor on the Supreme Court is good. 100 years from now things might start to make sense because of controversial/progressive steps like this.

weird, wild stuff in our nation's capitol

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

kinda like Reverand Wright but way weirder....I don't know, is this liberal paranoia or something deeply scary?

"til I gotta a buzz like that nigga Chris Mullin"

If you were iffy on either Wale or Lady Gaga, this might make you believe at least a little bit (sure we're late to the game, but enthusiasm counters).

first of all, saying nigger to indicate a white dude is way more prevalent than most whities are privy to, so I like when that happens. Second of all, Chris Mullin really rocked a hard core buzz cut for most of his professional career. This was after he sported a shag 'do during his alchohic St. Johns years. He's a Brooklyn mofo to boot. Lots to love.

3rd of all, the Larry Bird comparisons in the above piece are egregious. This was still back in the day when white players (who were inevitably slower and good shooters) inevitably got compared to other white players, inevitably Larry Bird. Come mid to late '90s, (around the time Keith Van Horn (who dunked frequently but was still inevitably white and slower) compared himself to Derrick McKey (black)) there began a movement to end the racial profiling of tall white forwards with perimeter skills. Who cares, right? Somebody, I say.

Autotune is a joke.

some youtube sensations are too good to ignore...Autotune The News

tons of boob

This one's for the ladies (who love tons of boob).

Drake "Best I Ever Had" from kwest on Vimeo.

Dirty Projectors - Stillness Is The Move

Try to imagine a music video by indie darlings that all at once evokes Willow, SWV, and just a bit of Blaze Of Glory. How does it look in your mind's eye? Like this?



here's what I'm talking about...the constituent parts.

US Air Guitar NYC Regional

This is a little ESPN style coverage I did for US Air Guitar at their New York City Regional. If fucking poker, bass fishing, and the AND1 Mixtape Tour are competitive sports worthy of ESPN, then Air Guitar surely will be someday.

Clearly my favorite part is when some guy who calls himself Fat People uses the phrase "Steven Guttenburg style". I wish I was better at making graphics.

Iran: "Getting funky on the weak side"

Incredible images of Iran's Election protests.

Little Boots: quality

This gets so naughty at the end. fun.

Tell me if this is good or if it sucks

...I don't think I can tell anymore.

I think I like it just fine but I'm on the edge of being open to an argument as to why it sucks.

Act As If

a new doc about Harvard hoops, ladies hoop coach Kathy Delaney-Smith to be exact.

The Gay Blades - N.H.D.N.

The Gay Blades' Clark Westfield had a nightmare and emailed me the details, to which I applied my best Freudian interpretation. The result is the above video. Special thanks to Gregg Conde and Bryan Parker who helped give this thing the sheen of a medium budget French horror film. Shot on location in New Jersey. This was my first official foray into directing music videos, and wouldn't have been possible without the the dramatic chops of David Price, the superb photography of Gregg and Bryan, and of course the snacks that the Blades themselves provided.

The Power Of One

Dancing. Is. Viral.

Remember Breakin'?

it gets a little too David Blaine on me at the end there, but overall a winner.


.....go ahead and scroll ahead to about 3:30 and wait for the thumbs up....Oh man I want to feel like that at least once everyday!

touching all bases with Metric

This clip combines every technique I'm gay for in a music video and nothing more. Static symmetrical frame, check. Harsh spotlight, check. Uncut nat sound, check. Improvised performance, check. Using outtakes, check. Hassle free location, check. Glam look on the cheap, check. I'll never be able to make anything that doesn't refer to this in some way.

More evidence of evolution, less dying.

I love that NYMag.com is featuring short films from time to time. Print media + TV + "a series of tubes" = Digital Media = Survival of the Fittest. Smart magazines will continue to do more with this equation.

New Favorite Words: Vol. 1

bromide

Fair Usage: "It was Memorial Day weekend and youngish adults got together to have BBQs, get lightly smashed, describe themselves to each other, and debate items of pop culture. Lots of bromides flying around."

Unfair Usage: "Whattup bro-mide?"

The Harder They Come

The Harder They Come starring Jimmy Cliff....You can watch (almost) the entire movie on Google Video. Amazing! When I first heard of this movie I thought it was a documentary, and then I started watching and figured it was something semi-autobiographical like Purple Rain or 8-Mile. It's actually way more like Scarface mixed with Hustle And Flow mixed with a Bruce Lee movie mixed with Young Guns (1 and 2) mixed with City Of God mixed with The Wire mixed with Juice, in descending order of potency added to the mix.


Or if you aren't into watching something like that give a little of your time to the soundtrack, which is classic and great in all kinds of ways.

keep consuming music videos on the web and everything will work out fine

i love the French Kicks and i love this video.

French Kicks "Abandon" from THE FEAR on Vimeo.

also good. spookier.
Bat For Lashes - Daniel

People from the Midwest make the best New Yorkers anyway...

White Rabbits - Percussion Gun.

rad vid, rad song (with rad song title) from Bushwick via Columbia, Missouri folk White Rabbits.

compare that video with this cheapness
and you understand that White Rabbits have made The Jump! on their second album which not so coincidentally was produced by Spoon's Britt Daniel.

And this.

Asher Roth

"What's with Asher Roth blowing up so huge?" you ask. Why do white rappers like Eminem and Asher Roth appeal to such a big crossover audience while so many talented black rappers toil in relatively less slobbery popularity?

My thesis: While there are a number of accomplished white rappers in the land, it is definitely harder for a white guy to be taken seriously as a rapper than it is for a black guy. It's hard to argue against that truth. Additionally, no matter how good a white rapper is, he's usually going no further than the indie/backpack rap and hip hop head crowds. So it stands to argue that for a white rapper to go MAINstream at all, he's got to be pretty good. He's got to demonstrate something akin to white exceptionalism in hip hop. It's like a black guy being elected president of the USA. He's got to be one sharp dude. So, maybe Asher Roth is just that good. Maybe Asher Roth is the best rapper alive!!!
I'm kinda liking this shit here.

Asher Roth |MTV Music

But a new point worth making is that Asher Roth doesn't have to be all thuggish and from the Pennsylvania version of 8-Mile to make it work. Nowadays the most popular (read: crossover) rappers dress like Kanye, borrowing from whiteys.

Relationship Comedy

Relationship Comedy from Sam Winter on Vimeo.

Jessie Cantrell and Mike O'Gorman are hilarious improv comedians. One time we all had an idea, then got together to have a couple beers and shoot this vignette. It was fun and funny.

They are also a musical duo, called Searider Falcon

Wear what you dig.

Bright Lights, Big City

NYTimes.com you are quite a guy. Thanks for the INTV with Jay McInerney.


I recently finished Bright Lights, Big City. Jay will be glad to know it worked. I had to consider the story and its characters in relation to my life. As someone who chose NYC as the place to achieve my definition of status, I look at where I am and what I have and wonder what it's supposed to add up to. Toward what purpose am I angling to exploit the opportunities that NYC is meant to represent? Would I be better off chilling in Kansas, glorifying the family name by shepherding my genetic material into Little League and tending the tomato garden with my mother on weekends? Is all this New Yorky competitive striving just a narcissistic gang bang starring me as the aspirant record breaker, lubricating the proceedings with a steady flow of nightlife and brunches to smooth out all that annoying humping? "This is my New York Dream!!!"

something cool

biting from Chell's blog but this here....I don't know if it truly is the "coolest" thing I've seen in a while, but it feels like the "coolest". there's something (pardon my language) zeitgeist-y going on there.

A.R.E. Weapons "F What You Like" from THE FEAR on Vimeo.

It reminds me a little of this.

dead horses, but was tooling around and found myself face to face with a blatant example of something I've mentioned in this space before...read on, reader. beware the lengthy backstory.

twas back in the day and we were trying to book MGMT for an online music show. It wasn't me that had their manager's number but nonetheless they ask us, "why should we be on your show? you're not that big." and right they were. Soon after they were playing Letterman, and I remember seeing it thinking "there's no way we're getting MGMT." it feels like a long time before "Kids" was being played in clubs alongside "Day And Night and "Just Dance". Anyway compare the Letterman performance to the one from Later with Jules Allison.



I was trying to watch intently and got bored. And I like the song. And this is way better.

Simulacra

I heard this song, instantly liked it and assumed it was recorded in the early 90s by a day glo leotard wearing sex-machine R&B singer (black of course) who managed to fly under my radar all these years. I thought he and some sassy Puerto Rican chica from the block made a song in the vain of I Got A Man, Excuse Me Miss, and Knockin Boots. Should I be impressed or dismayed that it was actually made by two Danish dudes (white of course) in 2006?

Junior Senior - Can I Get Get Get


I guess I should be thankful they like aping good shit. (note: I couldn't find "Excuse me miss"..."No I'm not havin it"..."Well excuse me miss"..."no I'm not havin it" anywhere on the internet. What??? Who's that damn song by? Anybody? It's even referenced by Positive K, an homage to precursor.)

Positive K - I Got A Man


Candyman - Knockin Boots

Posterity.

It's a Band-laden visual summary of my 2009 SXSW.


SXSW 2009: Rawful Montage from Sam Winter on Vimeo.

I had this detailed (for me) itenerary of who I wanted to see and shoot. If I were Michael Keaton from Multiplicity I could have seen 3.5 times as many bands, while maintaining regular eating and sleeping habits.

Simple pleasures, but my favorite part is when dude pours beer into the Team Robespierre snare drum, creating the percussion-spritz a la the g.d. Blue Man Group.

Levels

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Sadly it's been 2 weeks and I'm just getting around to posting from my trip to SXSW '09. Instead of knocking out videos I been training for super marathons and visualizing swimming the English Channel round the clock.....but recently, in a borderline obsessive fit of editing I chewed up and spit out this live perf by The Thermals. The almost-not-sloppy result is my effort to make my one camera look like 4 or 5 cameras.

The Thermals - Pillar Of Salt (live @ SXSW 2009) from Sam Winter on Vimeo.

The Slasher

I laughed so hard at this. It's brilliant, mashup perfection.

Director Tom Seymour, nice.

"If you've ever seen a bald Corey Feldman you've seen me."

What's with all that racket?!?!

You want to sell a lot of perfume, make a perfume that smells like you just squirted fresh orange juice on your leg at work.

But until you become a chemist, the name of the game is outreach. You need to publicize your shit. For some it's a press release. For others it's a twitter account or a blurg. For some it's making lots of appearances on TV or web video. Chromeo does a good deal of that, as do a lot of other successful people not necessarily involved in music.

Chromeo on Yo Gabba Gabba


Not that I would describe Chromeo in this way (they are very legit), but being a medium to low level internet non-celebrity is a decent racket to be in.

Chromeo Fights HAAA

Dig this promo I did with Chromeo for Playboy's Rock The Rabbit

The concept for HAAA came from the vestigial psychology learnin' I have leftover from college. I'm not sure if the technically correct terminology would be Hyper Auditory Aesthetic Aphasia (because the aphasia is so pronounced) or Hypo Auditory Aesthetic Aphasia (because the ability to discern quality music is deficient). Either way, it sounds official and I hope the concpet of HAAA catches on in a meaningful way. It can be used in conversation thusly:

Dave: Why are we listening to this crappy music?
P: Don't you know? Diane has HAAA.
Dave: That explains it.

The vid is also available at Playboy's ROCK THE RABBIT where you'll also find silly awesome T-Shirts for sale designed by Chromeo...all proceeds going to charity. Other RTR artists hocking T-shirts for charity include Pharell, Q-Tip, MGMT, The Gay Blades, Jay Reatard, The Morning Benders, and more and more.