In 1985, Swiss synthpop duo Yello's quirky dance track "Oh Yeah" became ubiquitous on US radio after being used in the classic high school film "Ferris Bueller's Day Off." Above, Great Big Story shares the story of Oh Yeah straight from the mouths of the musicians, Boris Blank and Dieter Meier. Hear the whole track below. Ch-ka ch-ka.
And for a little more Yello, here's "The Race" from 1988:
The Hood Internet cut up bits of 50+ music videos from 1988 and mashed them into a four minute video. It would make the perfect soundtrack to a montage of 80s movie montages.
(via Laughing Squid) Read the rest
The wonderful weird alt.folk noise pop band Thao & The Get Down Stay Down released a new music video today shot entirely using Zoom videoconferencing. It's a radically creative clip for an equally rad tune, "Phenom."
Thao & The Get Down Stay Down's new album Temple is out next month. Read the rest
My old pal Greg Dulli of The Afghan Whigs will release his first proper solo album, Random Desire, on February 21. Above is "Pantomima," the first single/video for the album, and it's a beaut. Directed by and starring Greg's longtime collaborator Philip Harder, this magnificent short film is a take on the "All That Jazz" tale of choreographer/dancer Bob Fosse.
Greg tours Europe and the US starting in March. Black out the windows, it's party time.
Dulli photo by Maciek Jasik Read the rest
Jimmy Fallon and Paul Rudd remade Dead or Alive's classic 1984 new wave club anthem "You Spin Me Round (Like a Record)." Original below. Pete Burns, RIP.
From Wikipedia:
According to Burns, the record company was unenthusiastic about "You Spin Me Round", to such an extent that Burns had to take out a £2,500 loan to record it, then once it had been recorded "the record company said it was awful. It was unanimous – it was awful, it was rubbish." Burns stated that the band had to fund production of the song's video themselves.
Punk legend and Boing Boing pal Bob Mould's new album Sunshine Rock is out this Friday, February 8. To tide you over, enjoy Bob's funny-'cause-it's-true music video for the track "Lost Faith."
"There's a hint of migration, a dash of border security and a whisper of government surveillance, climaxing across the multicolored canvas of an abandoned NSA listening station perched atop the highest hill in Berlin," Bob told NPR. "But at the end of the day, it's a high-end music video for a catchy, inspirational, uplifting pop song."
Directed and filmed by Philipp Virus; Filmed and edited by Mario Bergmann; Treatment by Bob Mould. Read the rest
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has some stiff competition when it comes to dance videos. Twitter user @katiemgould missed her flight in Atlanta and had to wait four hours for another plane. But rather than sit around in a bored stupor, she took advantage of the airport and made this MTV-worthy music video to "You Make My Dreams," by Hall & Oates.
I missed my flight and it was 4 hours until the next so this is what I did pic.twitter.com/BPHMU9q5km
— lil hunny (@katiemgould) January 10, 2019
DeVotchKa's latest album, This Night Falls Forever, has been on near constant rotation in our home since I picked it up a few weeks ago. As usual, the band's music is heartrendingly beautiful. Straight Shot is the first track on the album and the one that, for me at least, has been the band's biggest ear worm this time around. Read the rest
Please enjoy the premiere of this new Dawes music video "Living in the Future," the first single off the Indie roots rockers's forthcoming album Passwords, out June 22. Grant James directed the clip.
According to the band, Passwords is "for and about the modern age: the relationships that fill it, the politics that divide it, and the small victories and big losses that give it shape."
“We’re living in such a unique moment in history,” says Dawes lead singer Taylor Goldsmith. “Many of these songs are an attempt to come to terms with the modern world, while always trying to consider both sides of the story...
"Songs can be passwords because they're a means of giving access to someone else's perspective, thereby elaborating your own.”
Tour dates here.
Inspired by DEVO, Memphis musicians Tony Thomas, Sam Shoup, and Tom Lonardo took a break from the weirdo jazz fusion jams of their "real" trio create Dog Police. Dig the lyrics:
The boys in blue had my baby on the floor, They were asking her if she wanted some more. They pulled out a net, they pulled out a leash, They said they were the... Dog Police!
The resulting video was a big hit on MTV's "Basement Tapes" DIY music video contest and later on Night Flight:
In the spring of 1990, the video’s popularity also led to the creation of a TV sitcom pilot called “Dog Police,” about a trio of psychic doggy detectives from outer space who wear fedoras and beige trenchcoats and grumble their dialogue to each other like they’re all channeling Humphrey Bogart.
Comic actor Adam Sandler made a cameo appearance in the pilot (which possibly was never aired more than once), and the show was to also prominently feature Jeremy Piven as a beat cop. (Clip below.)
More at Night Flight (via r/ObscureMedia, thanks UPSO!)
The track is "Truth," by Lord Over, and the nightmarish AI video is the work of Artificial Nature. There's even a technical paper describing the techniques used: USING CONDITIONAL ADVERSARIAL NETWORKS TO CREATE A DIGITAL MASK. The man being cut up by computer is Fred Leuchter, I think, the death-chamber designer and holocaust denier.
More:
From a 1984 episode of the fantastic USA Network series Night Flight, an interview with pioneering digital video artists John Sanborn and Dean Winkler about their latest pieces, "Act III," with music by Philip Glass, and their music video for Adrian Belew's "Big Electric Cat." Watch them both below.
(r/ObscureMedia, thanks, UPSO!)
Jack Goldman stars in Ben Phillippo's music video for Gem Club's Speech of Foxes. The band's album, In Roses, is out now. Read the rest
Don't believe me? Just watch. Read the rest
