Whenever the official video for “Beach” out of Mew’s new superbrilliant album comes out (should one ever come out but considering it’s one of the most singlesque tracks on the album…), it has to be bloody brilliant to live up to the amazing fan video that’s circulating the net right now. Youtube user xluisgu took the song and clips of a French comedy film called Rumba and created a video that captures the song’s sunshiney, upbeat cuteness perfectly.
So apparently, there is a new movie featuring everyone’s favorite Showtime Pizza animatronic band, making it’s big comeback. I’m totally a sucker for weird stuff like this, so, I’m very excited that they are showing this documentary in a local theatre.
With the closing of Showbiz Pizza Place in the early nineties, and the subsequent removal of the Rock-afire Explosion, a small but determined group of fans persisted with the hopes of reviving their fallen obsession. It wasn’t until 2007, with the resurgence of the Rock-afire Explosion on YouTube with songs like “Miss New Booty,” “Hey There Delilah,” and “Love in This Club,” that the animatronic band found its way back into the public consciousness. Chris Thrash, a car salesman from Phenix City, Alabama who recently purchased a Rock-afire Explosion, has led the charge with his inventive programming and clever song choice. Aaron Fechter, creator of the Rock-afire Explosion and sole employee of Creative Engineering Inc., has worked closely with his fans with the hopes of revitalizing what was once a 300 employee, 20 million dollar per-year industry.
“The Rock-afire Explosion” is the story of a small-town disc jockey, a struggling inventor, and an animatronic rock band, that quickly becomes an eccentric portrait of childhood memories, broken dreams, and the resilience of the human spirit.
While attending a conference outside Chicago last November, three of us broke away from the con hotel to dine at Chaihanna, a family-run Uzbek restaurant. The cuisine of Uzbekistan is difficult to come by in Northern California, where most of us graze on refreshing alfalfa and flaxseed oil instead. But, when in Chicago, one must do as the Chicagoans, putting aside sustainable locavore diets in favor of piled-on dogs, deep pizza, and all that is hearty and filling. Food from most formerly Soviet republics fit the bill perfectly.
As we ate, we caught occasional glimpses of the televisions showing Russian music videos. At least I assume they were Russian — I have little grasp of any Cyrillic language, beyond knowing the phonetic Russian for “yes”, “no”, “thank you”, and “that is not a cat, it’s a store”*.
The videos all looked and sounded more or less like 1990s-era Mariah Carey with a generic house beat on top. As we didn’t understand a word, the music faded into the background. At least until DJ Smash’s “Volna” came on:
Generic Guy on Beach was easily overlooked, but his fall through the fishes [0:51] hooked our eyes in curiosity just prior to things actually getting weird.
It bears noting at this point that I’m an enthusiastic foodie, always actively ferreting out interesting foods to stimulate the senses. On this chilly evening, our hosts guided us Uzbek-food neophytes through their cuisine: Piping hot fresh breads, puffy bagel-like lepeshkis and meat-filled samsas. Chicken and rice soup, rich enough to make the entree almost seem unnecessary. Savory rabbit, lamb shank, assorted kebabs, glorious potatoes, even a few obligatory traces of vegetables. The meal thawed past generations of cold war chill to warm our insides, and we were enjoying it immensely.
Even so, we had to pause our joyous feasting to yield to the dancing women in the video, who obviously had a far deeper epicurean enjoyment. By [1:20], it seems inevitable that in her skillful hands, that mustard-drizzled hot dog would plump and then burst at any moment. To say nothing of the ice cream cone’s dribbling salaciousness, for to do so may border on the suggestive.
One can never be certain if the director of the video knew of the possible second interpretation of the images therein. Perhaps it’s simply considered rude to consume one’s chow mein sans fellatio.
Okay, of course it was deliberate. Just trying to give them plausible deniability, but we’re all friends here.
As if the sexual objectification of comestibles wasn’t sufficient reason to cause beverages to rapidly traverse our sinuses, the distinctly furry turn things took at [2:07] very nearly did cause me to snarf my tea. Lusty women teasing with sweets not enough? DJ Smash delivers all that AND an anthro cat as well. No objections here! And the cat looks nothing like a store.
By the time my trio had grown transfixed by the video, the Cossack dancers well underway, a wedding party had taken over the restaurant. The huge empty center table we spotted on arrival hinted at what was to come, and we were fortunate that our servers were so gracious to our wayward selves when they’d clearly had to focus most of their attention on the large party that had reserved far in advance.
I can only wonder if the parents in the party had sighted the scantily clad dancers on the monitors doing their lollipop-enhanced nanoskirt cancan, and if they’d felt traces of objection to the atmospheric mismatch with the dignity of the newlyweds’ celebration.
More likely, Volna’s presence properly reminded them to feel every morsel of varenyky sexily dancing across their tongue as they shamelessly deep-throat it. That’s just how things are done in Tashkent.
I know they’re not the most fashionable band, especially in a blog that holds that ‘indie’ word in its title, but even if Coldplay is one of the biggest bands on the planet right now and a lot of you can’t stand even the thought of listening to Chris Martin and co’s material, their latest video for Strawberry Swing (the thousandth-or-so single released from last year’s brilliant Viva La Vida or Death and All His Friends or some co-release of it) still deserves a viewing. The soothing, calm and wonderfully tranquil journey of sweet melodies gets an impressively well-made video, all stop motion and detailed chalk drawings on a gigantic blackboard. It’s just wonderful how in the era of CGI some people still like using alternative animation methods that look amazing.
Babelgum has the exclusive for the video so click here to view it.
I’ve been watching a fair amount of videos and other media from those Blur reunion gigs out of general interest – I was never the largest fan of the band but they’ve definitely got some fine albums and excellent songs in their hit-and-miss-like back catalogue. One thing that I noticed from the setlists is the omission of songs from Think Tank; you know, the album whose creation process was partly the reason Graham Coxon left in the first place. Not terribly surprising in that case, but there’s no justice in the world if they never ever roll out what is possibly the band’s best song live ever again.
Ambulance (live from 2003 or s0)
The gorgeous, thundering growth that all then collapses into an orgy of sound, Albarn’s deadpan singing at first clashing with the hair-raising music before finally submitting itself into the drive, the gorgeously mechanic rhythm section… brilliance.
But then again, I’ve always preferred Think Tank over their other works in the first place.
It also creeps me out somewhat. Maybe it’s the bald bat dudes who fly right at you (would be pretty freaky in 3D) or the random skulls shouting backing vocals or the general utter Alice in Wonderland madness that oozes through the video.
Doves continue on their tradition of down-to-earth yet very effective videos as the music video for the lead single of the new album, both titled Kingdom of Rust, has hit the e-waves. The song itself is a more traditional Doves composition after the electronic flight trip of “Jetstream” offered free on the band’s website (which has grown from a great song into a pure brilliant one) – not that there’s anything wrong with that, considering that Kingdom of Rust is a damn wonderful song and I can’t wait to hear it with clear sounds instead of the slightly fuzzy-ish-uncleary-thingy of the video stream. So much wonderful musical moments happening in this one, I especially love the choiry string texture that kicks off for the first time during the second verse. Can’t wait for the full album, I really really can’t.
The video fits the music perfectly as well, and I personally really loved what went on visually during those snow landscape scenes. Of course, that’s only my fondness for snowy landscapes talking…
Kingdom of Rust, the album, will hit the shelves on early April.
Lately whenever I haven’t been mooding out to Portishead’s Third, I’ve been listening to Pet Shop Boys quite often. All thanks to the leak of the new single getting me a bit excited about the new album. I’m also somewhat excited about seeing the music video for Love Etc: PSB has a rather great music video history (though there are some right clunkers there too, hello “It’s Alright” and “I Get Along”) and here’s some of the past classics, old and new.
And if you are a fan and haven’t yet got the PopArt DVD, get it now. Not only does it compile nearly all of the band’s up until 2003 but you also get some absolutely amazing commentary about each video from the Boys themselves.
So last time when we checked up on 2008 in full, we were on a pretty downbeat note. 2008 was full of small and minor disappointments and it showed. That doesn’t however mean that there wasn’t any greatness in the year. Granted, there was very little superb greatness compared to many of the years before, but there were good things. A lot of flawed, but good things. And now it’s the time to round them up.
If you be a regular to this here iPaws website, I’m sure you’re by now familiar with the name Grammatics. If not, this would be a great place to start getting into this funawesome band. They’ve just released the video to ‘The Vague Archive’, an upcoming single from their currently untitled debut album release. It’s actually a re-recording of an older song from their Japan EP thing, but it’s had some updates in vocals, instrumentals and whatnot. It starts off like your average frolicking-in-the-meadow pop video, but once the rain starts and the slow motion cameras come out, it gets rather pretty. Oh and when the drum stick hits the cymbal and all the water splashes off it… mmm yeah baby, that’s the spot.
Also congratulations to me for making the 3,000th Grammatics post on iPaws! Shrimp and white wine will be available momentarily.
