You’ll be surviving the week on leftovers from Thanksgiving. Memphis musician/filmmaker Katherine Dohan understands how you feel. Although she’s currently ensconced in Los Angeles, the co-director of What I Love About Concrete hasn’t forgotten about her hometown. “Time for Thanksgiving” is a funny, proggy meditation on coming home for the holiday.
Music Video Monday: Katherine Dohan and Fantastic Paths
“Time for Thanksgiving” opens with an ad from Fantastic Paths, everyone’s favorite, vaguely creepy mail order infomercial house turned band. As a bonus, here’s Dohan’s instant classic comedy short that launched Fantastic Paths, “Soda Chair”:
Music Video Monday: Katherine Dohan and Fantastic Paths (2)
As many of us prepare to go to grandma’s house for Thanksgiving, the video for Tony Maynard’s melancholy new song “Makes Us Blue” is all about the highs and lows of travel. “It’s about missing home,” says Maynard, who directed the video. “But also missing the road when you’re there. Its primarily iPhone footage from a train trip to Chicago and a road trip to Austin. There are also still images meant to appear as reflecting off the train window from my family, friends and folks I have traveled with or met on the road. The song is an original recorded by Harry Koniditsiotis and was recorded at his studio 5 and Dime. Tony Manard (Me) on guitar and vocals, my son Vincent on bass and electric piano, Joe Hopkins on 12 string guitar and the prolific Stephen Chopek on drums.”
Music Video Monday: Tony Maynard
If you would like to see your music video featured on music video monday, email cmccoy@memphisflyer.com
Tina Harris’ music career began in an unlikely way. She was a dancer in the music video for the 1990 single “The Power” by SNAP. Later, she had a monster hit of her own with “Everything’s Gonna Be Alright” by the German-based group Sweetbox. Now, she has a new album of her own material out on the Memphis-based label Archer Records. “Addicted” is a super-catchy ode to love. Harris co-directed this fun, animation-heavy video with Memphis director Laura Jean Hocking, which includes footage shot by Memphis cinematographer Ryan Earl Parker.
Music Video Monday: Tina Harris
If you would like to see your music video featured on Music Video Monday, email cmccoy@memphisflyer.com
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.
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.
Today’s Music Video Monday is here for your Halloween hangover.
Faith Evans Ruch’s new single “Cold Blooded Killer” comes with a bloody good video from director Edward Valibus. Ruch sings that she’s a “Big bad wolf all done up like a sheep” as she brandishes a knife and stalks the camera in stark duotones. It’s just the spooky postscript you need after Halloween weekend.
Music Video Monday: Faith Evans Ruch
If you would like to see your video on Music Video Monday, email cmccoy@memphisflyer.com
For the latest record by Vending Machine, Robby Grant commissioned several Memphis directors to make videos, several of which have been featured on Music Video Monday. The latest one, which makes its world premiere today, is for the album’s title track “Let The Little Things Go”. Director G.B. Shannon makes ingenious use of splitscreen and multiple images to tell a harrowing, and surprisingly complex, story of love gone wrong. Brandi Gist, Nathan Ross Murphy, Jamie Harmon, Leah Keys, and Drew Fleming star in one of the best music videos we’ve seen this year.
Music Video Monday: Vending Machine
If you would like to see your video featured on Music Video Monday, email cmccoy@memphisflyer.com
“Ocean” is the soulful first clip from Nick Black’s album Deep Blue. Director Destyn Patera used drones and Go Pros to create this fun video, which shows the singer’s search for some water in first person point of view.
Music Video Monday: Nick Black
If you would like to see your video featured on Music Video Monday, email cmccoy@memphisflyer.com
At last month’s Indie Memphis MicroCinema Club meeting, which was dedicated to music videos, New School Media’s Brad Ellis and Sean Faust recalled the meeting that led to Myla Smith‘s music video “Can’t Say No”. They ran several ideas past the artist, none of which met with her approval. Finally, Faust, digging a half-forgotten idea out of his brain, said “What about jookin’ in a Jack Pirtle’s Chicken?”
Boom. The artist loved the idea, Jack Pirtle’s agreed immediately, and an instant classic Memphis music video was born. Let this escapist pop ditty cheer up your Monday.
Music Video Monday: Myla Smith
If you would like to see your music video appear on Music Video Monday, email cmccoy@memphisflyer.com.
Happy Music Video Monday. Today, Al Kapone takes us to school.
In 2008, Memphis rap originator Al Kapone moved beyond the two-turntables-and-a-microphone, soundsystem formula started using a band for his live shows. His video for “The Music” came out of this fertile creative period for the Mid-South hip hop icon.
Music Video Monday: Al Kapone
If you would like to see your music video featured on Music Video Monday, email cmccoy@memphisflyer.com
Today’s Music Video Monday features gratuitous automotive destruction.
Back in 2012, hard-touring Memphians Lucero got a new van to replace their worn-out old one. They could have sold the old one for scrap, but instead they chose the rock and roll option: Trash the van, and make a music video out of it. Director Jonathan Pekar captured the celebratory destruction and created this raucous video for “Women & Work”.
Music Video Monday: Lucero
If you would like to see your video featured on Music Video Monday, email cmccoy@memphisflyer.com
