Tag: John Pickle

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The Return of Russell: Cinematic Panic Brings Different Kind of Film Festival to Black Lodge

This weekend, the second Cinematic Panic film festival unspools on the big screens at Black Lodge. “Like last year, the big idea is, half of the submissions are from Memphis; the rest from all across the country and from other countries,” says Matt Martin, proprietor of the recently revived video store and hangout spot. 

In total, filmmakers from 25 different countries submitted entries to the Panic, which includes dozens of short films and features in and out of competition. “Our only criteria is, whatever you make, it’s gotta be weird.” says Martin.

The festival competition begins on Thursday, December 5 with Flesh City, a gonzo horror fantasy from Berlin director Thorsten Fleisch. This is a film whose own trailer proclaims “It will make your eyes bleed”.

The Return of Russell: Cinematic Panic Brings Different Kind of Film Festival to Black Lodge

Cinematic Panic also features weird and shocking classics, such as Thursday’s second film, the infamous J-horror nightmare Ichi The Killer. 

The Return of Russell: Cinematic Panic Brings Different Kind of Film Festival to Black Lodge (2)

Friday night sees the return of a Memphis classic. The Importance of Being Russell was a big hit at the 2006 Indie Memphis Film Festival. Directed by Sean Plemmons, the film stars one of the Bluff City’s independent film pioneers John Pickle as the titular Russell, a self-proclaimed redneck who finds himself drawn into a plot of world domination via mind control, also known as “getting city-fied”.

Pickle says the film grew from a character he created for Pickle TV, which weirded up cable in Memphis for the better part of a decade. “I used to do multiple characters on the cable access show, and Russell was one that I came up with one night out of necessity,” says Pickle. “That particular character seems to resonate with with people more than 80 characters that I had done previously. So I just started writing more skits with Russell.”

The Return of Russell: Cinematic Panic Brings Different Kind of Film Festival to Black Lodge (3)

While filming his horror feature, The Last Man on Earth, Pickle and his collaborators, which included Jimmy Ross, had the idea to give Russell his own film. “We all just kind of giggled at it, but the more we thought about it the more just kind of evolved. And so we started getting together like every Sunday night for almost a year, and hashing out the story of what it would it could be and what it should be. … It just evolved over time, because when we first started digging around with it the the Russell character wasn’t like he ended up being in the movie. He was he was a lot more offensive and brash and pretty much just a kind of person you wouldn’t really want to be around. I didn’t necessarily agree with that at the time, but I’m glad we got we went with it because the Russell character turned out to be very likable.”

The Importance of Being Russell is a marvel of DIY filmmaking that includes a special-effect-heavy finale visually inspired by Forbidden Planet courtesy of special effects artist Greg Stanford and makeup artist Maddie Singer.

The Return of Russell: Cinematic Panic Brings Different Kind of Film Festival to Black Lodge (4)

After Russell is the 1985 Lovecraftian classic, Re-Animator, which was a major influence on Pickle’s short film “Cannibal Records”.

The Return of Russell: Cinematic Panic Brings Different Kind of Film Festival to Black Lodge (6)

Saturday includes sci-fi shorts and the David Cronenberg adaptation of William Burrough’s Naked Lunch.

The Return of Russell: Cinematic Panic Brings Different Kind of Film Festival to Black Lodge (7)

Then, Brad Ellis and Allen Gardner of Memphis’ Old School Pictures present their latest feature, Cold Feet. The horror comedy, which puts a bachelor party in a haunted house with a ghost who has motives of her own, sold out at Indie Memphis 2019 and won a screenplay award at the New Orleans Horror Film Festival.

The Return of Russell: Cinematic Panic Brings Different Kind of Film Festival to Black Lodge (5)

Sunday features a full day of films, including the competition horror comedy The Curse of Valburga from Slovenia.

The Return of Russell: Cinematic Panic Brings Different Kind of Film Festival to Black Lodge (8)

Tickets are $20 for the weekend, and you can see the full schedule here. 

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Cinematic Panic Film Festival Brings The Weird

When you think of “film festival fare,” what usually comes to mind are sincere indie dramas, light language comedies, and earnest documentaries about social issues. But that’s not what’s on the marquee for Memphis’ newest festival, Cinematic Panic.

Black Lodge Video was a Cooper-Young institution for 15 years. As anyone who frequented the place can recall, there was always a few film freaks hanging around in the store watching selections from its vast video catalogue. You never knew what you were going to see on the vintage big-screen projection TV.

Since the Lodge shut down its original location four years ago, co-owner Matt Martin has been on a frustrating and seemingly quixotic quest to bring it back to life. Last year, it was announced that they had finally found a new home. The bigger and better Black Lodge would relocate in a storefront at 405 N. Cleveland. The completely new space will include not only the legendarily huge video collection for rent, but also an arcade with new and vintage video games, and a combination movie theater and music venue in the back.

Evil Dead

Once the new Black Lodge was in operation, Martin says he envisioned a weekly event called Cinematic Panic that would be in the spirit of the old days of cinephiles daring each other to watch the unwatchable. “The idea was to show the most weird, off-putting, bizarre, uncategorizable movies I could find.”

But while he was helping Memphis filmmaker Chad Allen Barton with the Piano Man Pictures Roadshow, a touring retrospective of films created by the collective, Martin says Barton suggested changing the concept. “He said something that struck me: If you do it every week, the shock loses its power.”

Barton and Martin set out to try something new: a film festival dedicated to outré cinema. They scheduled the first Cinematic Panic festival for October, when the new Black Lodge was scheduled to be completed, and called for submissions. “We wanted to see what we can find here locally, and as far as our reach can muster,” says Martin. “That turned out to be global.”

From Beyond

Barton says they were unprepared for the more than 300 submissions they got from all over the world. It was an avalanche of the kind of movies that rarely get screenings in conventional festivals outside of midnight slots. “Everybody wants to be Sundance,” says Lodge co-owner Danny Grubbs.

“We’re underneath Sundance,” says James Blair, Lodge partner and chef who is designing the menu for the new kitchen. “We’re in the sewers of Sundance. That’s where you’ll find us.”

Last House On The Left

Martin says movies intended to unsettle have been around the beginning of cinema. “What does Edison first shoot for? A version of Frankenstein. Shock and horror has been a staple of fiction since drawings on the cave. We look back at the Edison stuff, or look at Nosferatu, or “Un Chien Andalou” by Dali and Buñuel. These are all films that were trying to explore the newly created concept of cinema, and asking, how far can this go? Can we shock and terrify with just images and sound? The answer, of course, was a resounding yes.”

But the Black Lodge team was dealt setback after setback as they tried to create the new space. “We’ve been panicking for a year and a half at this point,” says Blair.

‘Return of the Flesh Eating Film Reels’

Grubbs says the construction is “80% done.” The 6,000-square-foot space lacks internal walls, but the floors, plumbing, bathrooms, and other critical systems are already complete. When it became apparent that the store would not be complete in time for the scheduled film festival, the team did some soul searching and decided to stage it as a pop up event in the cavernous space as a thank you to the Black Lodge faithful. “People have waited a long time, patiently, for the new Lodge to be built,” says Martin. “We don’t get to be public about its development very often. We knew everybody was anxious, so we decided to give them a glimpse. Come inside the space and watch movies on this massive screen. Get a feel for what the Lodge is going to do.”

Running five days starting Wednesday, October 24th, Cinematic Panic is jam-packed with classic weirdness and new strangeness. To set the tone, the first night will feature Videodrome, David Cronenberg’s landmark mashup of body horror and mass media theory, as well as David Lynch’s little seen 2002 “sitcom” Rabbits which stars Naomi Watts as a humanoid rabbit.

Cinematic Panic Film Festival Brings The Weird

Other werid classics screening include Todd Solondz’s 1998 black comedy Happiness, Peter Jackson’s perverse puppet show Meet The Feebles, the 1986 H.P. Lovecraft adaptation From Beyond, Sam Rami’s groundbreaking comedy horror Evil Dead, and a pairing of Last House On The Left and Audition. “[Last House On The Left] is a brutal film by anyone’s standards,” says Martin. “It’s a difficult watch. But it’s 40 years old, and as relevant as ever with its comments on assault and sexual trauma. It’s one of the films that changed horror from the old school world of monsters and castles to the monsters next door to you. Then we chose Audition because of the role reversal of female as tormentor.”

Memphis made movies include two features: Barton’s satire Lights, Camera, Bullshit and Jim Weter’s 2012 At Stake: Vampire Solutions. Among the 101 short films are John Pickle’s “Return of the Flesh Eating Film Reels,” and works by several Memphis filmmakers, including Ben Siler and Laura Jean Hocking.

Joe Finds Grace

Eight features will screen in competition, including Joe Finds Grace, a film Barton describes as “The Hunchback of Notre Dame goes on a road trip of self-discovery.”
There’s no jury, so winners of the short and feature competition will be determined purely by audience reaction.

The snacks Blair has prepared fit with the festival’s “I dare you” theme, such as chocolate covered grasshoppers and fermented Japanese string beans. There will be musical performances scattered in with the films, and Saturday night after Evil Dead, the festival will transform into the popular Black Lodge Halloween show, headlined by Negro Terror.

Grubbs says after the festival is over, they plan to finish construction and hope the new Black Lodge will be fully operational by the end of the year. This will be the first of many Cinematic Panic festivals. “We’ve got eight projectors, so we could do multiple screens in the future if we wanted to,” says Grubbs.

“No. No.” says Barton. “Please. No.”

Cinematic Panic runs from Wednesday, October 24 to Sunday, October 28 at 405 N. Cleveland. Schedule available here.

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Gonzo Auteur John Pickle’s “Return of the Flesh Eating Film Reels” Brings Classic Special Effects to Indie Memphis

Halloween’s over, but there’s no bad time for good monster movies. With a running time of just over 8-minutes, and a creature that’s part Blob, part deconstructed mummy, “Return of the Flesh Eating Film Reels”, director John Pickle’s fun, funny homage to a 1975 student film by Tremors director S.S. Wilson, pushes all the right buttons.

Director John Pickle

HBO was a weirder place in the 1980’s when the spaces between films were filled with music videos, and “HBO Short Takes,” a showcase for micro-movies and curiosities. That’s where Pickle first encountered Wilson’s silly, but still somehow creepy short about a man who’s invited to a spooky old house where he’s  attacked, chased, cornered, ensnared, and finally eaten by an enormous tangle of animated celluloid. The image stuck and 47 years later Pickle made a loving homage, mixing modern technology, timeless camera tricks, and plenty of cheap theatrics. Though it’s a talkie, the bouncy piano score, oversized acting, and handwritten signs infuse Wilson’s original, and Pickle’s master-copy with qualities of a comedy from the silent film era—think Mack Sennett meets MTV’s Liquid Television.

Aside from the handcrafted, in-camera special effects, there’s not a lot of complexity here. What you see is what you get, and that’s not a complaint. “Return of the Flesh Eating Film Reels” is a storyboard lesson in economy, visually-driven narrative, and the unbridled joys of stop-motion and wrapping somebody up in a whole wad of video tape.

“Return of the Flesh Eating Film Reels” screens at Studio on the Square on Saturday, November 4 at 11:15 PM. The short film proceeds the 40th anniversary screening of Dario Argento’s 1977 horror classic Suspiria, which has been remastered in 4K digital video. For tickets and more information, visit the Indie Memphis website.

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Indie Memphis’ Greatest Hits 3: Cannibals, Pies, and Love In Action

The polls are closed, and our list of Indie Memphis classics is coming at you. Here’s part 1 and part 2 if you need to catch up.

Bunnyland (2008)

Bret Hannover was doing investigative documentary thrillers long before Gone Girl and the “Serial” podcast made them fashionable. Bunnyland foreshadowed many of the now-familiar tricks of the genre with a slightly less serious subject: An East Tennessee man with a pocket full of grudges and a loose relationship with the truth.

“The film is such an interesting portrait of a complex man who MAY HAVE murdered hundreds of bunny rabbits at the golf course he was fired from days earlier. A man who MAY HAVE caused a fire that left a tenant dead on his teepee-graced land. A man who claimed to hold the largest pre-historic rock collection in the world. A man who claimed to be “the last Indian on the trail of tears.” In classic Brett Hanover fashion, the film is composed of strange angles and is filled with pragmatic figures who readily spout elusive prevarications that Brett just allows to talk, and talk.” -Morgan Jon Fox

“And He Just Comes Around And Dances With You?” (2008)

Towards the end of the 00s, a new subgenre of indie film emerged when a group of Chicago filmmakers made a big splash at South by Southwest. It was (unfortunately) called “mumblecore”, for the quiet, thoughtful, sometimes improvised dialog in the films. But Memphis filmmakers had been doing the same thing since the turn of the century. Kentucker Audley emerged from the Memphis scene in 2008 with a pair of short films: “Bright Sunny South” and “And He Just Comes Around and Dances With You?” The latter is a slow burn story of fiercely controlled emotion. The audience gets half of a phone conversation between a rootless young man and his girlfriend, who has met a new guy while on vacation. It’s a front row seat to the dissolution of a relationship, and you can see it at this link.

“This was an Andrew Nenninger film, before he became Kentucker Audley. Going thru the years of programs I realized how many of his early films have been big influences on me. I think about this one a lot.” -Laura Jean Hocking

“Bohater Pies” (2009)

Corduroy Wednesday, a film collective consisting of Edward Valibus, Ben Rednour, and Erik Morrison, made their Indie Memphis debut in 2006 with Grim Sweeper, a comedy about guys who clean up murder scenes for a living. “Bohater Pies” is a fan favorite of the raft of comedy shorts they produced in the 00s on the buildup to their magnum opus The Conversion. This five minutes of cinematic chaos takes no prisoners as it takes you back to an inscrutable Cold War Eastern European setting. Look for not only the usual Wednesdays, but also cameos by experimental auteur Ben Siler and comedian Jessica “Juice” Morgan. YOU MUST OBEY.

“I’m thinking there are a lot of people who saw this and thought, “WTF are these guys (Corduroy Wednesday) smoking?”; I saw it and thought, “Oh cool! WTF are these guys smoking?” -Laura Jean Hocking

Bohater Pies from Corduroy Wednesday on Vimeo.

Indie Memphis’ Greatest Hits 3: Cannibals, Pies, and Love In Action (2)

Open Five (2010) and Open Five Two (2012)

Kentucker Audley’s second and third features took the mumblecore genre on an extended road trip to and from Memphis. It’s an unfailingly intimate peek into the desperate but free the lives of young millennials trying to make sense out of the world. Both films won Best Hometowner Feature at Indie Memphis and kickstarted Audley’s career as an actor and director.

“Even though we often butted heads back in the day, Kentucker Audley and I also always bonded over one thing…many people (ok, maybe only about 5?) loved to accuse us both of somehow rigging Indie Memphis. Our films both sucked, we both didn’t deserve awards, and jurors gave us accolades because it would benefit them! Ok. I’ll never forget the first time I saw Team Picture. I was both in awe, and sorta jealous, and I sorta hated it. I was in awe because I knew I was witnessing something cool, I was jealous because I knew now I would have someone else who would also be able to rig the juries!!!! But mostly, I just liked knowing another prolific filmmaker who I knew was about to take off and connect with a world outside of Memphis, as he is currently doing. Love that guy.” -Morgan Jon Fox

It was just nice to see Memphis in a mumblecore film. -Anonymous

“There was a moment when I was watching [Open Five Two], the scene in the van at night, that I thought, ‘Damn, he looks like a movie star.'” -Laura Jean Hocking

Indie Memphis’ Greatest Hits 3: Cannibals, Pies, and Love In Action (3)

“Cannibal Records” (2010)

John Pickle started making short comedy films in the 1990s, when he became a legend for his out of control cable access show Pickle TV. Former Indie Memphis executive director Les Edwards once described Indie Memphis’s 1999 lineup as “mostly John Pickle movies.” He starred in the 2006 feature The Importance of Being Russell as the titular redneck character he created for his cable access show who travels back in time. “Cannibal Records” was the short film he created for Indie Memphis 2010, which he not only wrote and directed, but also wrote and performed all of the music. Think Little Shop Of Horrors meets Reanimator, and you get a sense of where this genius comedy short is coming from. Pickle is still active as a musician, animator, and music video director. This year, he breaks a long Indie Memphis hiatus with “Return of the Flesh Eating Film Reels”.

Indie Memphis’ Greatest Hits 3: Cannibals, Pies, and Love In Action

This Is What Love In Action Looks Like (2011)

In June, 2005, Collierville teenager Zach Stark came out to his parents as gay. They forced him to enroll in a gay reparative therapy facility called Love In Action. The night before he left home, he posted a long, tearful message about his plight on the early social media network MySpace. A grassroots protest movement sprang up in response to the injustice, and director Morgan Jon Fox was there with his camera. At Indie Memphis 2005, he screened a rough cut of the documentary that was as moving as it was raw and angry. “The movie evolved over time. I’m not used to spending so much time on a film, so I put out a prelim cut of it that was a whole ‘nother feature film on its own that doesn’t even exist any more. I literally do not have a cut of it. it’s gone. It’s just an entry in a program now,” says Fox.

That could have been the end of it, but Fox continued to work on the project on and off for the next five years. By the time the final documentary was ready for Indie Memphis 2011, Love In Action had closed and its director John Smid had come out as gay and reputed his former actions. The film transformed from a vitriolic tirade into a testament to the power of compassion and acceptance. “That protest embodied that. I felt like the process of making a film for six years, it’s easy to get lost and angry and upset. But once I finally got to edit it, with the help of Live From Memphis—Sarah Fleming and Christopher Reyes were such huge elements in bringing that film over the finish line. I just wanted to embody what made the protests so successful: We love you for who you are. To quote Natural Born Killers, only love kills the demon.”

This Is What Love In Action Looks Likes is a landmark in LBGT cinema and helped kick off a national movement against so-called “ex-gay” treatments. In a world where political protests are regularly organized via social media, it’s more prophetic and relevant than ever. “I think documentary get people involved. It’s an uplifting story that touches on something that is still very current. It was my favorite Indie Memphis premiere of one of my films, because I got engaged. I was nervous as hell, because I had a secret. I was going to propose to my now-husband, Declan Michael Dealy Fox. Looking up at the totally sold out audience at Playhouse On The Square was an incredible way to premiere a film that was six years in the making.”

Indie Memphis’ Greatest Hits 3: Cannibals, Pies, and Love In Action (4)

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Never Seen It: Watching Zardoz with Filmmaker John Pickle

I’m starting a new, semi-regular feature for the Film/TV/Etc. blog. With Never Seen It, I’ll be showing interesting people a classic movie they’ve never seen before, and share their reactions in Q & A form. For the initial Never Seen It, I talked Memphis underground film pioneer John Pickle into watching Zardoz, the not-so-classic 1974 science fiction film starring Sean Connery. The film was directed by John Boorman, who was riding high on the success of Deliverance, the backwoods thriller which launched Burt Reynolds’ career. But Zardoz, an insane sci fi film which defies easy description, is today an infamous flop, probably most famous for Sean Connery’s outfit.

Sean Connery as Zed in Zardoz, because this is how genetically superior future men dress.

BEFORE ZARDOZ

Chris McCoy: What do you know about Zardoz?

John Pickle: I know it’s got Sean Connery in it, and he’s dressed like a who the fuck knows what. There’s a giant floating head vomiting rifles and pistols and ammunition all over this tundra of apocalypse. It’s telling the people that the penis is evil. It spawns life, and the gun takes it away. The gun is good, the penis is evil.

CM: So you have no idea where this is heading?

JP: None at all.

The giant head which dispenses assault rifles also flies.

Two hours later…

CM: You are now someone who has seen Zardoz. How has your life changed?

JP: It’s changed in that I can now stop seeking to watch that shitty movie. It’s not at all what I thought it was going to be. I thought it was going to be an hour and a half of the opening scene. Not that it wasn’t weird…it was definitely fucking weird. I thought it was going to be more of a Holy Mountain weird.

CM: It’s big think science fiction, but it’s all kinda half baked.

JP: The purpose is so covered up by other…stuff, there’s no following the movie. Not at first watch, anyway. You might start figuring shit out by the tenth time you watch it, but that’s never going to happen with me.

CSM: There’s not going to a tenth time watching Zardoz for anybody.

JP: I thought this would be one of those movies, but it’s not.

CSM: That stuff with the projection was really cool. Boorman seemed to be more interested in just doing that kind of stuff than telling a story.

JP: He should have just made a music video.

CSM: So you liked Deliverance, right?

JP: Oh yeah! I’ve always loved that movie.

CSM: How do you go from Deliverance to this?

JP: How do you go from 007 to this?

Zardoz features many questionable sartorial choices.

CSM: It’s like they said, let’s rent an estate in Ireland and all trip acid, and we’ll make a movie while we’re doing that.

JP: Hmm… I’ve got an idea…

CSM: But there was a lot of cool stuff in there, like the kaleidoscope effects. Stuff that I’ve never seen before went on in this movie.

JP: And it’s the year 2239, right?

CSM: Exactly! The immortals have only had a couple of hundred years to get suicidally bored. I’m not an immortal, but I think could last a couple hundred years. Especially if I had a spaceship shaped like an English manor house with giant inflatable condoms growing out the back. There were so many little weird things like that. The “touch teaching” scene was the most visually coherent thing in the whole movie. It was a serious attempt to convey a concept. Here’s all this data that they’re learning projected onto people. But most of the time it was just like, “Let’s put 007 in the kaleidoscope again!”

JP: What was the bit with the guy walking into the room and talking gibberish?

CSM: I don’t know. He was just suddenly speaking backward. But I did like the bit where they unsmashed all the statues and jumped backwards…Would you recommend Zardoz to a friend?

JP: Certain things about it I would. The first five minutes is the best part of the movie. That’s the only thing that I saw, and I thought it would another hour and forty six minutes of crap like that.

CSM: So if it were more like Mad Max…

JP: I think it makes me want to go watch Deliverance again. Now, I’m a fan of horrible cinema. But this just wasn’t it.

CSM: It didn’t turn the so-bad-it’s-good movie corner for you.

JP: No.

Never Seen It: Watching Zardoz with Filmmaker John Pickle

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Music Video Monday: Alyssa Moore

Today’s Music Video Monday brings you a message from space.

This is the world premiere of “Not Of This Earth”, the solo debut from former Strengths frontwoman Alyssa Moore, who wrote, recorded and produced the chewy chunk of space prog. She was joined by Strengths shredder Will Forrest. Legendary Memphis underground filmmaker John PIckle played drums on the track and directed this mind-pounding video. Call it Close Encounters of the Metal Kind.

Music Video Monday: Alyssa Moore

If you would like to see your music video featured on Music Video Monday, email cmccoy@memphisflyer.com

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Music Video Monday: Mung

Don’t call today’s Music Video Monday a comeback! 

Actually, you can call it a comeback. Long before Dethklok ruled the basic cable mindspace, there was another band known as the Four Horsemen of the Metal Apocalypse. Mung was a tongue-in-cheek group of metalheads consisting of Joey “Joecephus” Killingsworth, Josey Van HellSing (Wade Long), Zim (John Pickle), Varmint (Mike Matthews), and Suzy Savage (Rhiannon Smith). Under the direction of Memphis underground video pioneer John PIckle, the band shot a pilot intended to sell to network TV. “We did a VH1 Behind The Music sort of thing about Mung,” Pickle recalls.

The pilot effort was not successful, and much of the raw footage was lost for years, until Pickle accidentally uncovered it and edited this video together out of some of the recovered material. “I saw this old footage and thought, there’s no sense in letting all this stuff go to waste.”

The director says the video for The Spell Song—Mung’s theme song—was shot in his living room. “We put a bunch of garbage bags up over the walls and windows and just went at it,” he says. 

This Wednesday night, Mung will return after an eight year hiatus to open for Mac Sabbath, the McDonald’s themed Black Sabbath cover band, for one can’t miss night of metal and comedy at the Hi-Tone. “We picked up right where we left off eight years ago,” Pickle says. 

Music Video Monday: Mung

If you would like to see your video featured on Music Video Monday, email cmccoy@memphisflyer.com

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Music Video Monday: Super Witch

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.