This Music Video Monday promotes itself.
Two summers ago, El Dorado Del Ray, Joey Killingsworth, and John Pickle asked me to play heavy metal with them in a band called Super Witch. I hadn’t had a band to play with in a while, and while I had played jangle pop, indie, punk, noise, and all kinds of guitar rock since I first took up the bass when I was 15 years old, I had never actually played heavy metal before. So I said yes, and I’ve been glad I did. I’ve learned a lot from these guys, made some new friends, and become a better bass player for it. We’ve been slowly recording an album with Dik LeDoux’s Au Poots studio and Rocket Science Audio’s Kyle Johnson, and now it’s finally ready for public consumption. Along the way, we also made some music videos.
John Pickle is not just a great drummer, but he’s also a Memphis filmmaking pioneer. For years in the 1990s, he created the legendary public access TV show Pickle TV, which brought gonzo insanity to unsuspecting cable subscribers all over the land. He’s made two Super Witch music videos. The latest is “The Need”, in which he used some footage of us recording the song in the studio to demonstrate what a great editor he is.
Music Video Monday: Super Witch (2)
The first Super Witch music video was “Army Of Werewolves”, where Pickle took the opportunity to create a video based on a simple concept he had been tossing around for a long time. All four members of the band shot our segments separately for this one, but one thing I can tell you is that if you detune your bass so the strings flop around enough to capture on camera, you’ll probably break your nut. Thanks to John Lobow for fixing it for me afterwards.
Music Video Monday: Super Witch
And finally, here’s a Super Witch video I directed. Last year, we played an awesome show at Black Lodge Video that was captured on film by Christopher Woodsy Smith. Around the same time, the Maiden protests in Kiev, Ukraine were going on, and I noticed that some videos I was seeing from the street riots had a very similar color pallette as the Black Lodge footage. So my wife and editor Laura Jean Hocking and I cut together scenes from the two sources into this video for “House Of Warlocks”. I’m very proud of it, and I hope you like it, too.
Music Video Monday: Super Witch (3)
You can download our album Super Witch Has Risen over at Bandcamp on a pay-what-you-can basis.
Thank you for indulging my conflict of interest. If you would like to see your music video in this space next week, please email me at cmccoy@memphisflyer.com.
