Weirdhouse Cinema: Music Videos with Seth of Record Store Society

In this special episode of Weirdhouse Cinema, Robert and Joe are visited by producer and host of the Record Store Society podcast Seth Nicholas Johnson to discuss everyone’s favorite weird music videos.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.

Speaker 2 (00:12):
Hey, welcome to Weird House Cinema.

Speaker 3 (00:15):
I'm Rob Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and we've got
a special treat for you today because we are being
joined on Mike by our cherished and always dependable excellent
producer Seth Nicholas Johnson to give you a little taste
of a new podcast that Seth himself is a host of.

Speaker 4 (00:34):
Hello everyone, it's excellent to see you all here on
this side of the microphone. And yeah, it's a show
I do called Record Store Society, and Robert and Joe
have been very kind enough to want to do a
nice little crossover episode where we break down some music
videos in both these shows. So I'm grateful and I'm
happy to be here. It's gonna be fun.

Speaker 2 (00:54):
Now, before we get go in here, first of all,
we said it's a new podcast, but you've been out
for a little bit, so you have a number of
eppisodes under the belt. So that's important to drive home.
So if anybody goes to the feed, they're not just
going to find one or two episodes to choose from.
There's going to be a wider selection. Can you go
ahead and tell everyone out there how they can find
record store society?

Speaker 5 (01:13):
Yeah?

Speaker 4 (01:13):
Absolutely, I guess. First of all, the premise of the
show is very straightforward. It's basically just a talk show,
but amongst music nerds. Like the show quote unquote takes
place inside a record store where myself and my co
host Tara Davies, we work at the record store and
then quote unquote customers come into the store and we

(01:34):
talk about music. So it's a glorified talk show, but
we talk about music and we're very nerdy about it.
We do a lot of top five countdown lists, We
do a lot of like album of the Month club,
let's really deep dive into this album. We'll play certain
games where like we'll play a record backwards you have
to identify it, you know, just like the kind of
goofy stuff you would do if you were a clerk

(01:55):
in a record store killing time by just talking to
your customers and you know, being real nerdy specifically about music.
An iHeart radio podcast on the same network as you guys,
and if you just go to any of the podcast
catchers such as Spotify, iHeart, Stitcher, all those apple just

(02:16):
type in record store society.

Speaker 5 (02:17):
You'll find it right.

Speaker 3 (02:18):
Away, now, Seth, I should have asked you this before.
Does this come from personal experience? Did you ever actually
work in a record store?

Speaker 4 (02:25):
I did, but I have to say it was a
very uncool way of having that job. When I was
in my very early college years and actually, oh and
late high school years, late high school, early college, I
worked in the music department of a best Buy. So
I will say, in all fairness to myself, it was

(02:47):
an enormous music section because this was in Portland, Oregon,
and for some reason, I would say half of our
store was just our CD department. And I don't know
if that was special because of its location or or what,
but at least for me, it was a wonderful experience
inside this best Buy.

Speaker 3 (03:06):
So now, what half of a best Buy today has
got to be just like iPhone screen covers?

Speaker 4 (03:12):
Right, yeah, Yeah, last time I was at a best Buy,
I think I saw like, what maybe one rack of
CDs tops like it's shrunk enormously, But at least when
I worked there in the I guess this would have
been the late nineties, early two thousands, it was an
enormous section of the store was the CD and DVD section,
which is where I worked.

Speaker 3 (03:30):
I can't say I ever did much CD shopping at
best Buy. I think I got my copy of Elton
John Madman Across the Water at a best Buy. Yeah.

Speaker 4 (03:40):
Well, the thing I'll never know, because obviously I only
worked at the one best Buy. There were some extremely
deep cut choices there, Like you could get some moldy peaches,
you could get some Danny Cohen, you could get some
Coco Rosie at this best Buy in Portland, Oregon. And
I presume we just happened to have, like I don't know,
a supplier that was catering to our audience.

Speaker 5 (04:00):
But I don't know.

Speaker 4 (04:01):
It was a really good best Buy for some reason.

Speaker 3 (04:04):
But so you didn't like hang around with your best
Buy colleagues talking about bad brains and stiff little fingers
and stuff.

Speaker 4 (04:09):
We actually kind of did, oh wow, I know, all right, Yeah, yeah,
it was a nice experience. However, it was at a
best Buy, so not really that cool. You had the
blue shirts, yes, most definitely.

Speaker 3 (04:22):
That is the uniform of the gods.

Speaker 2 (04:24):
All right. Well, basically the idea for this episode then
is we want to talk a bit about weird music videos.
Normally on Weird House Cinema we talk about weird films
and what is a music video to some degree, but
a short weird film or a short film. Anyway, Seth,
you and I were talking about this a little bit off, Mike,
I guess yesterday we're chatting back and forth about how

(04:48):
you kind of have this. There's this, there's a wavelength,
there are the varying degrees between just footage like like
live footage of a performance or concert footag, and then
you can go all the way into actual short film
territory where what you have created is no longer really
a music video, like I guess a lot of us,

(05:10):
or at least for my part, I think of music videos.
I think of those those those video packages that were
put out to promote the album, and so you would
see it, you'd hear it, and then you would go
to say Camelot Music and you would have to PLoP
down what twenty bucks on this album and this would
be for in my case, it would be my album
for the month.

Speaker 4 (05:30):
I completely agree. But here's my question to you, Robert,
what would you say thriller is? And I'm talking the
full length thriller with the you know all the narrative.
Is that a short film or is that a music video?

Speaker 2 (05:42):
I'd say it's still a music video, but it's certainly
approaching that gray area. You know.

Speaker 5 (05:49):
Yeah, for sure.

Speaker 3 (05:50):
Did either of you guys ever buy a video single?
This was a thing that was briefly a sort of
media product that you could pay money for. I once
bought a v HS tape that was the video cassette
single of Ninja Rap by Vanilla Ice, which was so
it was the video for Ninja Rap from I guess
it was Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles two. Yeah, but then

(06:16):
also it had interviews with Vanilla Ice on the on
the you know, the behind the scenes details for Ninja Rap.

Speaker 4 (06:23):
I definitely owned some of these, and I actually really
really enjoyed it. I'm going to say maybe like five
years after the cassette video single was when they started
basically putting out like the collected music videos of such
and such artist on a DVD. Do you remember those
those years?

Speaker 2 (06:38):
Yeah, there were some really nice ones like we we
used to have the one ones for like Michelle Gandry
and yeah, I think Spike Jones.

Speaker 4 (06:45):
Yes, yes, those were the Director's label series of DVDs
and I had the complete collection.

Speaker 5 (06:50):
I loved those so good.

Speaker 3 (06:51):
A lot of those Michelle Gandry videos are so good
that like the one for b York hyper Ballad is
that always sticks in my brains.

Speaker 2 (06:59):
Even if you're not that in the tracks themselves, like
you know, they're just such nice pieces of a filmmaking
for sure. And I think that's the ultimate thing, like
when a music video is really good, like it makes
you like a song you wouldn't otherwise be into. You know,
it could actually successfully shape and mold your musical interests

(07:20):
based on the visuals associated with the sound. And I
think one of the most like I remember like watching
rap videos and like the weirder rap videos were very
interesting in that it felt like they they almost gave
a wider audience, you know, permission to get into rap
in an interesting way. I think of stuff like, you know,

(07:41):
like some of the ones like Dean Carr directly, he
directed one music video for this track puppet Masters by
DJ Muggs, and it had Doctor dre and be Real
in it, you know, and it's like super weird video
with like a demonic pope and it's raining mun and
be Real as a Golden Demon. You know, stuff like

(08:03):
that would just really set me in.

Speaker 3 (08:04):
Yeah, you can really tell the difference between music videos
that are themselves a sort of you know, a fully
realized artistic or at least entertainment product and those that
are just kind of an afterthought. I think a lot
of those came later on in the history of music videos,
where it's like, we need a video for the single,
and so it would just be like footage of the

(08:27):
band playing the song, cutting back and forth between that
and weird things just like oh, you know, here's like
a head going mat mat maw or something.

Speaker 2 (08:37):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (08:38):
Well, the nineties were full of these.

Speaker 2 (08:39):
Yeah, but you know, some of those were great, that
could be well done. But I think when I think
of like a proto music video, like one example that
instantly comes to mind is Black Sabbaths iron Man m. Yeah, well,
it's basically like a staged concert performance with like some
you know, kind of psychedelic graphics in the background.

Speaker 3 (08:59):
You all know the music video for Kansas dust in
the Wind.

Speaker 5 (09:02):
Yes, yes, I do.

Speaker 3 (09:04):
I would say that's an early example of a category
that I'm going to talk about in this episode called
normy weird, which is a music video that is weirder
than it meant to be because it just has the
members of Kansas standing around looking like they're ready to
go to prom. They're dressed in like frilly shirt tuxedos,
and they're playing this very cheesy song about time passing

(09:25):
and mortality, but the way it pans over their expressionless
faces is really alienating.

Speaker 4 (09:32):
Well, I think with what both of you just said,
there is a very real bell curve when it comes
to the quality of music videos and whether or not
MTV is actively playing music videos because the proto music
video they were low budget and just no one really
knew what they were doing. No one was really trying
to do anything. And then post MTV playing music videos,

(09:54):
suddenly it dips down again and they're made for YouTube now,
which is fine, but the budget is clearly not there anymore.
Like almost no one is putting the same monetary, you know,
investment into a music video now as they did in
like let's say two thousand and three. You know, like
it's it's a completely different world. And here's here's an
example of I guess where the money is going now.

(10:15):
If someone wants a really good music video, there's an
amazing I guess I'll call this a short film for Anima,
the Tom York music video directed by Paul Thomas Anderson.
It went direct to Netflix. So that's how they still
got that money. That's how they That's how you know,
Paul Thomas Anderson still got his paycheck. Was Netflix had
had to write the right, right, right, the right the

(10:37):
check for him instead of it just going to YouTube.

Speaker 2 (10:40):
You know, I guess it's kind of like what was
once what would could once be? Uh, you know, you
could you could say there's an expense in promoting the material.
Now it's just an expense in part of the artistic
expression itself.

Speaker 3 (10:52):
Right, Yeah, yeah, Rob, you want to jump right in
with the Wild Boys?

Speaker 2 (10:57):
Yeah? My my pick, my first pick here for a
favorite weird music video and probably probably just my favorite
music video in general. It's hard to distinguish between the
two classifications. It is the nineteen eighty four music video
for Wild Boys by Duran Duran, directed by Russell McKay.

(11:30):
Russell McKay, some of you might remember the director of Highlander, Highlander,
two various other films, but also just a ton of
music video work. He did total eclips of the heart,
often just you know, really visually interesting, often high energy
or just you know, just multiple things going on at

(11:52):
once in the music video, and this is a prime
example of it.

Speaker 3 (11:56):
He directed a nineteen eighty four horror movie that I
just watched earlier this year called Razorback, which is absolutely
disgusting but is also peak Russell mulkayhy. It really needs
to be seen. It is. It's a cross between an
Australian Texas chainsaw massacre and Jaws, but with a pig
instead of a shark.

Speaker 5 (12:17):
Huh. Now how big is that pig?

Speaker 3 (12:20):
It's a very large pig. I mean, I would say
at least two horses size pig.

Speaker 2 (12:25):
Yeah, it's a monster movie, so you gotta have a
monster pig.

Speaker 3 (12:28):
Right right, And so part of it's a vendetta you know,
you got you gotta quint type character who's on the
hunt for this pig that killed his wife I think,
and so the pig must pay. But also it's set
in Australia, and it's full of the Australian you know,
the outback equivalent of the Sawyer family.

Speaker 2 (12:47):
Yeah. So I haven't seen that one yet, but I
really need to. There there are several key films on
his filmography that I haven't gotten to yet, but I didn't. Likewise,
I haven't seen anywhere near all of his music videos,
some of which I think are lower budget affairs. But this,
this is a big budget music video, and in my opinion,
this is music video perfection. Molkay takes us on a rich,

(13:10):
sort of thunderdomey subterranean, post apocalyptic journey through a world
that has cyborg worship, windmill based torture of lead singer
Simon Labon, automotive, crucifixion, hang gliding, It has mutant monsters
living in like the sewer water. There's primal dance. It's

(13:31):
like it's essentially like a big circus, so let kind
of number as well. But there's this loose narrative structure
that isn't completely apparent, And this is what I love
about a good music video, where you're not completely sure
what the story is, but there's a sense of the
story there. You know, you have to sort of you
pull the narrative out, you kind of meet the music
video halfway.

Speaker 3 (13:52):
Yeah, this is this is such a great video and
it strikes me, as you said, Thunderdome, and I guess
that could be true. But I'd say by the timing,
the thing that really struck me here would be The
Road Warrior as an influence. Like, so the Duran Duran
guys are dressed like Mad Max, with leather jackets and
asymmetrical gloves, and the wild Boys, the titular wild Boys

(14:13):
are dressed like the soldiers of Lord Humongous. They're all
sort of that Vernon Wells character, you know, be still
my Dog of War, and they really prefigure the war
Boys from Fury Road. Now, of course that movie wouldn't
come until many, you know, decades later, but they're so similar.
I almost wonder if the war Boys in George Miller's

(14:34):
movie were inspired by the people dancing in this Wild
Boy's video, which was probably inspired by George Miller's The
Road Warrior.

Speaker 2 (14:44):
Yeah, I mean, I love George Miller, but imagine if
Russell McKay he had gotten to make his own post
apocalyptic film. I mean, he did do some films later
on that I think you can classify as post apocalyptic,
but apparently with this. The genesis of this video is
that Malka was interested in directing an adaptation of william S.

(15:04):
Burrows The Wild Boys, a book of the Dead, which
I have not read, but I have read that it's
supposed to be like an apocalyptic tale of a homosexual
youth rebellion against Western civilization. I'm not sure, I say,
I haven't read it, so I don't know exactly how
all that pans out, or you know, given the work

(15:24):
of Burrows, like how much that needs to be then
recreated to take on anything like a narrative form. But
it would seem that much of this music video reflects,
you know, some of the esthetic ideas and maybe some
of the plot elements associated with that never realized project.

Speaker 4 (15:41):
This actually kind of ties into my impressions of this
music video as a child when I first saw it,
which was if I'm sure you'll remember in anyone listening remembers,
there were often a lot of movie tie in music
videos where they would show clips from the movie he
kind of embedded into the music video. When I saw
this as a kid, I was convinced it was some
sort of movie tie in for a film that I

(16:02):
had never heard of. And watching the full length version,
because like there's like the MTV version, which is what
maybe four minutes or so, and then the full length
version which Rob shared with us, which is at least
twice as long.

Speaker 2 (16:15):
Wow.

Speaker 4 (16:17):
So many elements feel like just chunks out of a movie.
And it's astonishing how much money they spent on this
with no actual narrative or actual I guess through line
or tie in. It just seems like money for money's
sake and a big pile, and I think it's beautiful
for that.

Speaker 2 (16:35):
You know, this was a great waste of money.

Speaker 3 (16:38):
I yeah. So the version that we were looking at
this like longer than just I guess what would you
call it?

Speaker 2 (16:47):
I don't know.

Speaker 3 (16:47):
The video edit the long version is known as the
Long Arena version now on YouTube, and it has all
this stuff in it. It has this Pat Benatar looking woman
in a water world cage being menaced by a robot
that looks like one of those Boston Dynamics four legged robots,
but up on stilts. And it's got Yeah, it's got

(17:07):
the the leather masochistic windmill water torture device, which is great.

Speaker 2 (17:12):
Which I understand almost drowned Simon Labon like it was
Oh no, Yeah, he's in interviews he's talked about that
where or I don't know, it depends. I think he's
also kind of downplayed the idea that he almost drowned,
but it sounds like it was. It was not pleasant
to film, right.

Speaker 3 (17:27):
So they've got him on one of the what would
you call the thing, one of the flags, one of
the wings of a windmill going around, and every time
he goes to the bottom of it, his head goes
under the water.

Speaker 2 (17:37):
Yeah, and he's still got to sing too.

Speaker 3 (17:41):
Yeah, but he's actually he's getting tortured a lot. In
the extended version of the music video. You already mentioned
that there's automotive crucifixion that you met that literally like
at one point he's being crucified on the roof of
an upturned car.

Speaker 2 (17:53):
Yep. Yeah, it has a lot of I guess ultimately
there's some there's some some BDS elements to this one.
There's a's a very erotic video in many respects, but
also with you know, with just all this beautiful weirdness.
It's it's Yeah, it's quite a video to have watched
when you were young. I watched it as a kid

(18:15):
and I was I just remember not really knowing what
all was going on here, but I was in I
loved it. I loved the weirdness, the darkness, the erotic
charge of the whole thing, and it's a precursor to
Highlander two because Joe, I know you probably noticed that
we have these feathered, leather bound, hang gliding guys in this.

(18:36):
That really reminded me a lot of the immortal assassins
Coorda and Reno who pop up in the future of
Highlander two.

Speaker 3 (18:43):
Now, when you call them immortal assassins, I think you
may be somewhat coowtowing to the later cuts of Highlander two,
because what you should say is the assassins from the
planet Zeist. That is what they are in the original cut.

Speaker 2 (18:57):
Right, But once they're on Earth, they're immortal, right, isn't
that how it?

Speaker 3 (19:00):
Oh well maybe it is, okay, I can see that point.
I'm sorry.

Speaker 2 (19:03):
Then he cuts their heads off and he gets the quickening, right.

Speaker 3 (19:05):
That's true. Yes, so, Seth, you've seen Highland or two
the quickening? Oh of course, yes, the original cut, right,
not any of that redone crap.

Speaker 4 (19:14):
I have to presume it's the original cut, but I
would have to, like, you know, really investigate to make sure.

Speaker 3 (19:20):
The original cut is the one where they're on the
planet Zeist, and that is where the immortals originally come from.

Speaker 5 (19:25):
That is the version I've seen.

Speaker 3 (19:26):
Yes, okay, yes, that's the only one worth seeing. Okay.
So the situation in Highland or two, the quickening is
that Connor McLeod, the survivor of the first Highlander movie,
the winner of the prize, you know, he's growing old.
I guess in the future he's become a scientist. And
the world is now very blade runnery that they've like
clouded over the atmosphere with some kind of thing that

(19:48):
they had to put up there because the ozone layer
was gone, and so Earth is just crap now. It
just sucks to be here. And for some reason, Michael
Ironside on the planet Zeist decides, well, I'm sick of
waiting around for Connor MacLeod to get killed on Earth
since he was banished there millions of years ago. I'm
going to send assassins to get him now, like he

(20:09):
got tired of waiting for millions of years. And the
assassins show up and they're these flying bird men who
have this horrible clown laughing, and one of their heads
gets chopped off when Connor MacLeod knocks them under a
train and the train wheel rolls over their neck.

Speaker 2 (20:28):
It's a great set piece and a great, great action sequence.

Speaker 3 (20:33):
But then you get to see Christopher Lambert in old
man makeup turn back into young, vigorous, healthy, thirty Somethingter Lambert,
and it's a sight to see. Sorry, I went on
a Highland or two tangent.

Speaker 2 (20:46):
No, No, it is to be expected when we're talking
about Russell McKay's work, especially again since this music video
there are there is some connective tissue between this and
Islander too, and even with Highlander, because I was reading
like some of the people behind this film. Not all
music videos have that robust of an IMDb profile, but
this one lists Nick Malley as one of the makeup

(21:09):
artists on it. And Nick worked on a ton of
films and including Like The Man with the Golden Gun,
the first two Star Wars films, The Shining Clash of
the Titans, Life Force Krall, and then his final film
was Highlander. One.

Speaker 3 (21:22):
Ah yeah, I can absolutely see that. I mean, I
just will say again, this is a movie.

Speaker 2 (21:26):
Movie.

Speaker 3 (21:27):
It's not a movie. This music video looks great. It
has like, you know, top top shelf movie level costumes
and special effects. There's one part where the people get
attacked by a worm with teeth that comes out of
the sewer water, and it's like this big, kind of bizarre,
phallic creature that latches onto your face and buites your

(21:48):
face off. That would have been at home in any
a list sci fi horror movie of the eighties.

Speaker 2 (21:54):
Yeah, it looks good. It still holds up today, I mean,
and also, I mean, how many music videos can you
think of that have a great monster in them?

Speaker 5 (22:00):
Yeah, fair point, I would say.

Speaker 4 (22:01):
The only part to me that did not hold up
that well, mostly just because like it was very obvious
how it was happening. I'm sure you guys noticed this too,
the animated segment where suddenly their tongues are coming out
and their tails are growing on the dancers, it no
longer quite matched up. And that was fine. Yeah, I
like it in the context of the music video. But
I think their practical effects were a little bit better

(22:21):
than their special effects.

Speaker 2 (22:23):
Yeah. I was a little surprised to catch that on
a on a reviewing of it, to notice the the
digital effects on this, because I did not really expect
there to be any digital effects.

Speaker 4 (22:33):
They were very cartoony, like literally like hand drawn cells cartoony,
and it was just wasn't necessary. They had so much
good practical effect work happening they didn't need it. They
would have been fine without it.

Speaker 3 (22:45):
They were in post and they were like, Man, I
wish I'd put some prehensile tails on these, on these
wild boys.

Speaker 2 (22:51):
We still have some money, we still have time.

Speaker 3 (22:56):
Okay. I wonder if either of you guys have thoughts
on the following question. Why are so many music videos
of the nineteen eighties set inside industrial spaces? I'm sure
you know exactly what I'm talking about, you know, just
some random rock song that lyrically thematically has nothing to
do with oil refineries or steel manufacturing, and yet that's

(23:19):
where they are for the video. Is there a reason
that so many of these videos had the rockers singing
amidst pipes and chains and sparks.

Speaker 4 (23:28):
I have a theory, which would be in the early days. Again,
we're discussing the Bell curve of production value for music videos.
Early in the Bell curve, before people really knew that
MTV was worth putting all this money and energy into.
Someone quote unquote shot the Rodeo where they went, hey,
what do we have? We have access to this strange

(23:48):
steel mill instant production value. We'll have the band hang
out in there, throw on a fog machine. Perfect, We're
good to go. But here's where I bet it gets
really funny. This is all speculation, but I would bet
that not that long after that, someone would see that
original you know, steel mill video and go that's the
place all music videos got to take place in a

(24:09):
steel mill.

Speaker 5 (24:09):
So they then built a fake steel mill and then completely.

Speaker 4 (24:14):
You know, negated the the the entire production saving you know,
value of being in a steel mill. So I'm just
guessing that's my guess.

Speaker 2 (24:23):
And then maybe like lines up the decline of American
factories and the rise of the music video, Like everything
was just in the right place at the right time.

Speaker 5 (24:32):
Video killed the steel industry.

Speaker 3 (24:34):
Yeah, a lot of abandoned industrial spaces and factories. It's like,
what can we do with them now? While you can
at least, you know, like rent them out to a
film crew.

Speaker 2 (24:43):
Yeah, it's still pretty much the case. All right, Joe,
I think you have a selection here for us, and
basically it's a great way to get into this because
we talked in this previous selection about what happens when

(25:04):
a few little digital effects.

Speaker 3 (25:06):
Yeah, okay, Okay, So for this selection, first of all,
I feel like I need to preface this by saying
I often get the impression I've seen far fewer music
videos than a lot of people my age. Like a
lot of people my age bring up some video they
saw when they were a kid, and I'm like, oh,
I never saw that. I guess I was just not
a big MTV or VH one viewer as a child.

(25:27):
And most of the music videos I know I saw
as an adult like later, you know, looking them up
on YouTube and stuff. I mean, I remember a few things,
but so it's not as deep in my brain as
it is for many other people. But for my first
choice here, I do want to admit I never saw
this when I was younger. I only discovered it as
an adult.

Speaker 2 (25:47):
But what a.

Speaker 3 (25:47):
Discovery it was. So there are lots of music videos
that are explicitly intentionally weird.

Speaker 2 (25:55):
You know.

Speaker 3 (25:55):
We're going to talk about many more as we go
on today. But for my first selection of the two,
I would like to start with a category that I
would call normy weird, and this is videos for extremely mundane,
middle of the road mainstream music that clearly we're not
supposed to be exceedingly strange, and yet they are.

Speaker 2 (26:17):
This is an interesting category, and yeah, I see where
you're going at this, because I think a lot of great,
great or at least weird music videos come out of this.

Speaker 3 (26:25):
Yes, and so my prime example here. The year is
nineteen eighty five. The artist is Mick Jagger, the song
hard Woman from the album She's the Boss, She's a

(26:47):
I think this was directed by a guy named John
Whitney Junior. This video actually has very little easily accessible
online information about it, but I'm pretty sure this guy
was the director. I'MDB contends that he was a producer
on the movie The Last Starfighter, which I had a
tape of as a kid and greatly enjoyed, has a

(27:08):
lot of good aliens in it. That he got special
thanks for working on Tron. I'm not sure what he did,
or maybe maybe he was just a friend of Tron,
and that he did some visual effects for Westworld, the
old one, not the new one, and that he worked
on something called The Jupiter Menace, which I had to
look up and it appears to be some kind of

(27:29):
doomsday documentary predicting the imminent end of the world on
the basis of a passage in the Bible and what
some psychics say and expert talking heads just like saying
things about cataclysm and nuclear war and all.

Speaker 2 (27:44):
That involving Jupiter. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (27:47):
So I haven't watched the whole movie. I just skipped
around in it a bit, but it looks like a
lot of fun.

Speaker 5 (27:51):
You know.

Speaker 3 (27:51):
So this in the seventies and eighties people often forget,
like a hugely, hugely popular genre of books and films
like this were about the coming apocalypse. I mean, I
think this was really one of the best selling books
in the world, was that the Late Great Planet Earth book,
which was like an evangelical Christian you know, the world

(28:12):
is going to end in the year nineteen eighty something
or nineteen seventy something, like a hugely, hugely popular genre,
and I think this fit into that at least partially.

Speaker 2 (28:23):
Yeah, because they were turning on the TV. They were
looking at MTV music videos and they said, surely the
Second Coming is at hand.

Speaker 3 (28:29):
Right they saw Wild Boys and they were like, oh, no,
Jupiter is coming to smash the Earth. And I got
so this movie hosted by George Kennedy, George.

Speaker 2 (28:39):
Kennedy, woh, George Kennedy got to eat. I was looking
up this video as well on IMDb and did a
little bit more digging it. Seeah, it seems like John
Whitney Junior and this guy named Gary Dimos that they
had a company called Digital Productions, And I guess they
were like the go to people at the time if

(28:59):
you want to some sort of a digital effect in
your film or music video, or in this case, if
you just wanted to build the entire thing out of
digital effects.

Speaker 3 (29:08):
Yeah, and that's clearly the the the orientation here. This
was a technology first music video production. Now, as for
the song itself, I love Mick Jagger, but this is
this is not good. The song is a crooning, slow
jam rock lament about a breakup with a hard hearted
gold digging woman who unsentimentally leaves Mick Jagger alone with

(29:32):
his tears and his regrets. And I believe that the
song and the video are also supposed to be kind
of steamy. But this is deeply undercut by everything about it.
As I said, you know, I do love the Rolling Stones.
I'm not trying to be mean, but yeah, this is
this is not Mick Jagger's finest hour.

Speaker 2 (29:50):
Yeah, this is not a good song. Like I prefer
Keeddy Bear from The Last Weird House.

Speaker 3 (29:55):
To the Janet Agrn, Yeah, which I've not listened to
many times.

Speaker 4 (30:00):
That's uh, it's something, it's something specific.

Speaker 3 (30:03):
Yeah, but this song is just like slow, you know,
oh I gave her laughter, she wanted diamonds and he
and it's just one of those complaining songs, right.

Speaker 2 (30:16):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (30:17):
The problem is he was really good to her, but
she didn't love him enough and and then she went
on went on her way and that was so mean
and uh so like but.

Speaker 2 (30:27):
He's writing and dancing the whole time, right Yeah, It's
like it's hard to really buy it his complaining because
he's like I'm unhappy, I'm I'm having a bad to know.
I mean, you look, you look really pleased with yourself.

Speaker 3 (30:38):
Yeah he does. He's like he's really like got the
strutting posture when they showed the actual Mick Jagger. Like
so at some points in this music video he's animated
and other points it's just him in this brand new
pink collared shirt that's like they just took it out
of the wrapper. The caller is really starchy, and he's

(30:59):
like he's doing that thing where like the neck is
really stiff. He's holding his head super high up while
he's singing, and so I guess they were encountering the problem. Okay,
how do we animate a video for this song? It's
just a standard sort of break up lament that woman
was mean to me, And what they decided to do
was set it in a nineteen eighty five computer animated

(31:21):
polygon village of Adobe architecture, where the titular hard Woman
appears to be a kind of psychic modular robot made
out of neon gas just discharge tubes, and she does
acts of telekinesis on bowls and kitchen wear. And then
there is also a neon tube version of Mick Jagger,

(31:41):
who for some reason is wearing a basketball jersey and
at one point decapitates himself, juggles his own head, and
then immediately grows the antlers of a stag out of
his head. And I was trying to understand that. I
don't think it's supposed to be a Windigo type thing.
I think maybe it's supposed to be that now that
she has left him, he is single, meaning he's going stag.

Speaker 2 (32:04):
Oh, I thought maybe, because this was probably the best
part of the whole thing for me, and I thought
maybe it was like a green man thing and then
he becomes this primal chaos god of the hunt or something,
But I think your interpretation is probably correct.

Speaker 3 (32:18):
Yeah, No, that would have been better, like the antlers
come out and he's like, I am now lord of
the forest, and aren't you sad you left me because
I could have given you endless mushrooms and mosses in
the dark. But this video seth. I'm very interested in
your point of view on this, because of course you
have experience with film production and animation. But this video

(32:38):
seems to me very much like the kind of obscene
weirdness that can result from technology first filmmaking. And I'm
open to being told I'm wrong here, but it seems
like the kind of thing where a lot of the
animation in it is not because it fit their artistic
vision for what the video should be, but because here

(33:00):
are some animations we know how to do, or that
we've already put together and we can just sort of
slot them in here, which could explain things like the
hard woman doing telekinesis on bowls.

Speaker 4 (33:14):
Yes, no, I fully agree with you, and I think
it also it also explains some of his wardrobe choices. So,
for example, a tank top is much easier to animate
because you don't need to show the cloth of the
shoulder of an arm actually interacting with the cloth of
like the body of like the jacket or whatever. Oh
my god, it's much easier, much easier, And in fact,

(33:35):
I think that explains why he's also kind of a
wireframe as opposed to a full blown three D figure, because, like,
especially when digital animation, when an arm, leg, head, neck,
whatever is moving, one of the hardest parts is disguising
the clipping of the arm, you know, physical three D
form going inside of the actual shoulder blade or or

(33:56):
you know whatever. You don't want it to look like
there's a bunch of poly gun interacting and splicing into
one another. You want to you want to hide it.
So if they just have this, you know, neon stick
man with with a with a basketball jersey, they don't
have to hide any of that. It can be just
that is what's happening. And almost like in do you
guys remember that video game ray Man? Do you guys

(34:17):
remember that guy? Remember he has no arms and no legs,
but he has hands and feet, And that's for the
same purpose. So you can just animate those hands gesticulating
everything that's happening, full of life, full of energy. But
you don't have to worry about that arm accidentally clipping
into the body and ruining the illusion of life.

Speaker 2 (34:36):
You know.

Speaker 3 (34:38):
Now, I'm so glad we have you here for this insights.

Speaker 2 (34:40):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (34:41):
And then in addition to that, I would presume that
this Adobe village was already on some animator's hard drive,
that they had built it either as like a test
of the capabilities their software, or perhaps they had another
production in mind. I can say from my own personal experience,
there was a forest scene that I was animating for

(35:02):
a music video, and to draw something from scratch obviously
takes a lot of time of forest. This was a
pine forest, so lots of little, you know, crackly edges
of course, to every single tree, et cetera, et cetera.
By the time I finished with it, around the same time,
I also needed an album cover that I was working on,
and there was a tattoo that I was designing, and
I thought, hey, this is all three now, and one

(35:25):
thing I drew became elements of all three of those projects.
Because I had it on hand, it fits and I
had already done the work, and I think a lot
of animators do that, and I would bet that that's
what happened in this video too.

Speaker 3 (35:40):
So the video for hard Woman is sort of like
a cleaning out of the drafts folder in the animation process.

Speaker 5 (35:48):
I would think.

Speaker 3 (35:48):
So, yeah, well, I don't know how clear we were
about this already, but this is absolutely computer animation, and
that's very pivotal. Because this is nineteen eighty five. Computer
animation was not very advanced at this point. This video
is roughly contemporary with the also computer animated video for

(36:09):
Dire Straits Money for Nothing, which also looks terrible, and
on a strict technical level, I would say that the
animation for hard Woman is actually better, but I think
the result somehow is an even stranger video experience.

Speaker 2 (36:25):
Yeah, the I mean Money for Nothing. I mean, I
think you can easily make a case for it being
a better song, even if, oh yeah, some of the
lyrics are gross, but it's it's it's one of those
videos that that if you grew up watching MTV and
VH one, Money for Nothing was always like put out

(36:46):
there next to Video Killed the Radio Star as being
an example of like the look at the treasures in
our vault, like, look at look at this fabulous video.
So you you kind of like, I don't even think
of that being bad animation in Money for nothing, not
that I've watched it in a very long time, but
I was kind of programmed by the channels to believe

(37:09):
in it, you know.

Speaker 4 (37:11):
Robert, will you be sharing links to these videos on
somemmutomusic dot com.

Speaker 2 (37:16):
Yes, I will, and make sure I have them all
embedded on a post there at semuta music dot com.

Speaker 4 (37:22):
I would highly recommend people check out this video. In fact,
both these videos we've talked about so far, I had
only seen the shortened version of the Duran Durand video.
Seeing the full length version really is special. It's it's
a it's a treat, it's an epic. And then this
video too. I felt like I understood what this video was,

(37:43):
but until Joe shared it, It's.

Speaker 5 (37:47):
It's wild.

Speaker 3 (37:48):
Yeah, can I read a brief? So I was trying
to find something about the production of this video, and
I found a short write up in PC mag by
k Thor Jensen that talks a little bit about the
processing power that went into making this gym. Jensen writes quote.
CBS Records was eager to get the first ever solo
album from Rolling Stones frontman Mick Jagger, and part of

(38:10):
the deal was a sizeable budget for music videos to
promote She's the Boss Again. That was the album. The
clip for the single hard Woman was in nineteen eighty five,
one of the most expensive music videos ever produced, in
part because of its advanced technology. Animators John Whitney Junior
and Gary Dimos, along with ex Disney animator Bill Kroyer,

(38:33):
used a kray x MP supercomputer. At the time, there
were only six units in operation, with five being permanently
in the employe of the US government and the defence industry.
They used this computer to create a Southwestern Adobe house
for a pair of Pastel line CGI figures to dance

(38:53):
through with Jagger's visage composited into a flying diamond. Is
it in the diamond? I think I thought it was
in the vase? Like that, his face shows up on
a vase and then expands, Yeah, it looks unbelievably bad.
And I do want to make clear I'm not just
here to rag on really bad music videos today. My
next piece is going to be on a music video

(39:15):
that I really love but but I guess that's it
for me and for Hard Woman, unless you guys have
anything else to add.

Speaker 2 (39:22):
My only question is, Joe, do you think all this
could have been fixed if they released an arena edition?

Speaker 3 (39:27):
Yeah, Hard Woman, it had some more automotive crucifixion in it.

Speaker 2 (39:32):
Yeah. Well, if we just had like five more minutes
of this, it would all make sense.

Speaker 3 (39:35):
Yeah. But I think, especially now with Seth's insights, I
feel like I really understand this one. This video is
just a calamity that must be witnessed.

Speaker 5 (39:46):
Now.

Speaker 2 (39:46):
The thing is with with your selection, Joe. I can
understand why I never saw it because of the problems
inherent in it, but I'm really surprised that I have
never seen Seth's selection, not even like a like Beavis
and butt Head. It seems like that would have been
prime TERRITORYD because they watched a lot of weird music videos.
But Seth, go ahead and tell everybody about this one,

(40:07):
because this this suckers weird.

Speaker 4 (40:09):
I was so so happy that when we first started
talking about this that you two had told me you
had never seen this before, because I think everyone who
loves this video feels like a sort of like a
personal kind of like debt that must be paid by
sharing it with everyone else in the world because it
does feel so incredibly special to me. So the video

(40:32):
itself is called Possibly in Michigan, but the song is
called Animal Cannibal by Karen Sklatteny.

Speaker 1 (40:39):
How do I Meet the strangest men?

Speaker 3 (40:42):
They always seem to find me?

Speaker 5 (40:45):
Remember that time way back when I.

Speaker 4 (40:48):
Kid and the year was nineteen eighty three. So the
director of this video was actually the person who kind
of like put it all together. Her name was Cecilia Condit,
and more or less, she is artist. She makes video art,
visual art, et cetera, et cetera. In fact, she used
to be the director of graduate Studies in the Department

(41:08):
of Film, Video Animation and New Genres at the University
of Wisconsin, Milwaukee and also a professor at the school.
So I mean she knows exactly what she's doing, and
in fact, if you go into her filmography, she's made
many videos along the same lines of this video. But
I guess I should kind of explain what it is

(41:30):
before we get to too much deeper. Here's a description
of the video from Electronic Arts Intermix, which is a
host of a lot of her video works on the Internet.

Speaker 2 (41:41):
Okay.

Speaker 4 (41:42):
Possibly in Michigan is an operatic fairy tale of cannibalism, desire,
and dread in Middle America. A densely collaged narrative in
which beauty meets the beast in the surreal landscape of
shopping mall suburbia, two women with a pension for violence
and perfume take revenge on their animal mass male persecutor.
In this contemporary rendering of Gothic enchantment, victim becomes aggressor

(42:06):
and the familiar becomes the fantastic Condit reworks popular narrative conventions,
using black humor, singsong, dialogue, and ironically gruesome images, constructing
a comically grim fairy tale of dreamlike pursuit and sexual violence.
She inverts traditional Freudian metaphors to impart a subversive voice
to her transgressive heroines. Quote I bite at the hand

(42:29):
that feeds me end quote. Possibly in Michigan is a
classic tale of psychosexual horror, retold as an irreverent fantasy
of the other.

Speaker 3 (42:38):
I think you could look at this as a short
subversive slasher film set to music.

Speaker 4 (42:44):
Yeah, yeah, but the music is so odd. In such
an appealing way. Oh yeah, it's so good because this
was nineteen eighty three. It's got a very synth heavy
soundtrack to this. The artist we mentioned before, Karen Sclatteny.
She is the writer of the song. She also is
one of the stars inside this music video. Basically, there

(43:09):
are two women, Jill Sands and Karen Sclattiny, and then
they are being followed by an odd man in a
very strange mask played by Bill Bloom. And here's how
I was introduced to this video, which I think helps
explain it. Someone sent this to me and said, hey,
do you like tim and Eric And I said yes,

(43:29):
and they said, then you should like this, and they
sent it to me and that was all I knew
to begin with. And it has that feel. It has
the feel of a timineric sketch, except for the fact
that it's real. You know that this is an actual
thing that was put out into the world, made for enjoyment.
And let's see, Joe, you and I were talking about

(43:50):
basically the difference between something made intentionally bad versus something
that is just kind of bad. Sure, I feel like
because she has executed this version of creepy and strange
and so many of her other videos, which I highly
suggest that people should go check them out. I think
she knows exactly what she's doing. I think she is, perhaps,

(44:10):
oh yeah, leaning into the creepier aspects of her limited
budget and limited perhaps technological you know, tools at her availability,
and so she's leaning into those things. So like when
they're telling the story of a poodle being microwaved and
then they cut to like a woman tearing apart a chicken,

(44:34):
It's like, I see what you're doing, and your it works.
You're You're making me feel creeped out to this entire time.
And I'd like to hear your guys' opinions. What did
you think seeing this for the first time, I.

Speaker 3 (44:47):
Thought this video is a home run. I thought it
was fantastic. Yeah, I see exactly what you're saying with
the Tim and Eric type sensibility that a humor based
on awkwardness and very limited commitment to the reality of
the premise, but executed with an infectiously enjoyable style. So yeah,

(45:08):
I would call this a home run.

Speaker 2 (45:10):
I see, I see what you're saying with the Tim
and Eric comparison, and I do enjoy some of the
humor of Tim and Eric, But it's like with with
with Tim and Eric, like they're going to throw the
cabbages into the audience, you know, and and this film
keeps the cabbages on stage, if that makes sense. So
this feels a little more to me like Self Contained
is a piece that you can find humor in but

(45:32):
also has an inherent seriousness to it, you know. So
I really liked it, and it has it does have
a lot of disturbing imagery in it in a way
that I think a lot of people would not expect
from a music video because I you know, you know,
it's having done most of my music videos in the nineties,

(45:52):
I think of stuff like Dean Carr when I think
of disturbing moments in music videos, which is very has
a different energy. It's a little more throwing cabbages into
the audience versus this. But yeah, this is great. Like
I say, I'm kind of surprised this did this ever
air on MTV.

Speaker 4 (46:10):
I can't imagine it did. Here here's a brief history
of this kind of making it into the world. So
I'm sure in nineteen eighty three it probably like played
the art house scene, played the gallery scene, you know,
like it stayed to the art world. But in nineteen
eighty five, suddenly this was put on The seven hundred Club.

(46:30):
Do you guys, you guys more or less know what
that is, right, It's like, yeah.

Speaker 3 (46:33):
Chris pat robertson, right, Yes.

Speaker 4 (46:35):
Chris Christian centric talk show, you know, giving out news
and advice and all that stuff.

Speaker 3 (46:38):
Complaining about culture.

Speaker 2 (46:40):
Yeah, oh okay. They didn't do like a music video
section where they're like this music videos today, here's here's no.

Speaker 3 (46:46):
I think a standard part of that type of media
is complaining about other media, saying like, can you imagine
how you can look at how depraved this music video
or TV show is?

Speaker 2 (46:56):
Oh? I see.

Speaker 4 (46:56):
So the first time that this, this this short film,
this music made it on television was on The seven
hundred Club. As they were doing exactly what Jojo said.
They were particularly upset by the fact that this used
funds from the National Endowment for the Arts and the
Ohio Arts Council because she was living in Cleveland at
the time, and the director, Cecilia Condit and so they

(47:21):
played it and they like freeze framed on that part
in the credit it's like, look at this government spending.
You know, this was during that moral panic Reagan era,
you know, where anything that was provocative with art, in
particular government funded art was just unheard of and needed
to be tisked, tisked and all that kind of stuff.

(47:41):
So I think that's where it first got attention, was
as a, oh, we need to ban this.

Speaker 5 (47:47):
You know.

Speaker 3 (47:48):
I find it hard to imagine that the pat Robert
Synkroud also would really sort of like would really get
this video right.

Speaker 4 (47:56):
Yes, because caause I mean, like you said too, it
is very similar to just a standard horror film in structure,
you know, and not too dissimilar from the standard like
DIY kind of bootleg cassette kind of thing that you
would get and just be fascinated with in a pure
cinematic sense too. The story continues. So that was when

(48:18):
it first kind of broke into the world, was in
nineteen eighty five on the seven hundred Club, and then
you know, it went away, as all things do, and
then on Reddit in around the early twenty tens, suddenly
you started being passed around again, and it was kind
of I'm not sure I entirely understand when the youth,
when the young culture gen z refers to things as

(48:41):
cursed you guys have heard this and seen this around before.

Speaker 2 (48:45):
Yeah, I've seen it on Reddit before.

Speaker 4 (48:47):
I can't say I entirely understand the meaning behind when
someone says that something is cursed. Perhaps they mean that
it like it sticks with you, or that like it
now has become a part of you, whether you want
it to or not, and it's inside of you.

Speaker 2 (49:00):
But anyway, that's what I always think. I always imagine
like a different ring video, right that would have this
in it. Instead of like strange wells and people with
towels pointing at things, it would be clips from stuff
like this.

Speaker 3 (49:14):
I could be wrong, but my impression of the meaning
of cursed is that it is a stimulus which provokes
a strong negative response, but one that is difficult to
explain the reasoning behind. So you can't just say, like,
you know, oh, strong negative response because it's violent or
because you know the standard things. It's a kind of

(49:34):
difficult to define revulsion.

Speaker 4 (49:37):
I like all these definitions. But that's how it first
started making its rounds on reddits, was as a quote
unquote cursed video that the folks would pass around and
show to each other, and it got a lot of
popularity on there, and then very recently. I'm talking about
twenty nineteen. Part of this video, specifically, part of the
audio soundtrack for it, became extremely popular on TikTok And

(50:01):
do you know the part where okay, so the video begins,
you see the stalker man following the two women as
the song is playing, you know, and then at a
certain point whenever they have a lot of just kind
of like in between dialogue in this music video, they
often sing it.

Speaker 5 (50:15):
In a very strange way.

Speaker 3 (50:17):
Oh yeah, my favorite parts.

Speaker 5 (50:18):
Yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 4 (50:19):
So one of the first instances of that, they're standing
at a perfume calendar and they're like, it's like here
it is.

Speaker 5 (50:25):
That's my favorite perfume.

Speaker 4 (50:28):
Like all those parts that audio has been clipped out
and reused as these like reoccurring trends and challenges on
TikTok so. Currently as of now, at least, the hashtag
possibly in Michigan has over twelve million views on TikTok
Oh wow, And I've watched some of these. They're fascinating. So, Like,

(50:51):
for example, a big reoccurring theme I saw was discussing shoplifting.
So while they're saying like it's like I'll wait for
you buy the door now it's my favorite perfume. And
like the children will like lip sync these words as
they're like kind of miming stealing something from Sephora, Like

(51:11):
that's that's something very strange. And then if you have
like an unconventional favorite scent, like let's say you're, oh,
I don't know at like a car wash and like
that hot wax smell is coming while you're washing your car,
and then they'll mime it's going, that's.

Speaker 5 (51:27):
My favorite perfume.

Speaker 4 (51:30):
Like that's that becomes a reoccurring theme, like in that
standard TikTok and social media of videos. It has become
like mutated again and again and again to have all
these different meanings in different uses, all from this very
strange video. And I saw in an interview with the
director Cecilia kndit and she's ecstatic about this. She loves it.

(51:53):
She's like, this is this is great. It's like I'm
I'm very happy that the kids are having a good time.
I love this video too good automn.

Speaker 3 (52:01):
Well, it makes me want to check out her other work.

Speaker 4 (52:03):
You'll enjoy anyone who looks up any Cecilia Conda. It
all has this same vibe and in fact, she has
been and was doing. She may be retired now I
read something that said she was retired, so I don't know.
But she's been making videos for I'm going to say
thirty years at least. The most modern ones, the ones
made in like the two thousands, still feel like this video,

(52:25):
which is astonishing, like all brand new technology, brand new
subject matter, but has this same vibe to it. So
I couldn't recommend to hire.

Speaker 3 (52:34):
I demand that we devote at least thirty percent of
the federal budget to Cecilia Condit videos. Take that seven
hundred club? All right, is it time for our second round?

Speaker 2 (52:52):
All right? The second video I chose. So basically, I'd
be kidding myself if I didn't include a Tool video
in my picks, because I'm a longtime Tool fan, and
the visual artistry associated with the band, you know, has
always been essential to the entire enterprise, you know, certainly

(53:12):
in promoting the early material and helping it find an audience,
and then it has continued to be part of just
sort of the artistic expression of the band, particularly as
as far as Adam Jones is concerned. He's the guitar
player of Tool, has always been a member of Tool,
and he's really the driving force behind music videos, visuals,

(53:33):
in anything visual associated with the band, and so I
had to choose one of them. So I went with
Parabola from two thousand and five. Yeah. Yeah, it's a

(53:56):
Tool song directed by Adam Jones of the band. Though
it's interesting in that, as is typical with most Tool videos,
the band is not seen in the video at all.
Not only is the band not in this video, but
someone from another band is in the video instead, Tricky,
the UK trip hop artist.

Speaker 3 (54:17):
That's interesting. Yeah, usually aren't there. Video is just mostly
populated by kind of non human like stop motion critters.

Speaker 2 (54:24):
Yeah, yeah, especially like the first two were directed by
a guy named Fred Sturr, and they have a very distinctive,
you know, dark stop motion animation style. It's familiar if
anyone's familiar with like the Brothers, K and so forth.
It's very much in that, in that style.

Speaker 3 (54:42):
I was always thinking it would be funny if they
were trying to sell that Tool wine and they had
a commercial for the vineyard, but it was in that
animation style, so I had like little bandage creatures harvesting
the grapes and all that.

Speaker 2 (54:54):
Well, you have to remember, Maynard is the wine guy,
and he has very little to do with the actual
visual presentation of the band.

Speaker 3 (55:03):
So okay, yeah, sorry, I've been tool schooled.

Speaker 2 (55:06):
Yeah, but yeah. Adam Jones very interesting guy because he's
a great musician but also a visual artist in a
former special effects guy who worked with Stan Winston on
a number of films. So all told, his credits include
The Return of the Living Dead, Nightmares on Elm Street,
four and five, Pet Cemetery, Ghostbuster two, Predator two, Terminator two,

(55:27):
Batman Returns, Edward Scissorhan's Jurassic Park, and he did makeup
on two films. I know, I've seen one of these
and you've seen the other. Nineteen eighty nine's Doctor Caligari
virtually nothing to do with the original Doctor Calgary. This
is a kind of a weird, erotic art film. And
then nineteen nineties Demon Wind.

Speaker 3 (55:46):
Ooh, Demon Wind. That is not a good movie, but
it does have some good demon fight scenes in it.

Speaker 2 (55:51):
Ood.

Speaker 3 (55:52):
It has some martial arts where people are kicking the devil.

Speaker 2 (55:55):
Nice. So this film, I'm this well music video. Rather,
it has a number of wonderful weird elements in it.
Starts off with some like electron microscope weirdness, like something's
going on at a micro level. And then you have
this strange altar tended by a group of weird humanoids

(56:15):
and suits who first slice open a gray apple with
a sacred knife to reveal occult secrets within it, and
then they ignite flames from their fingertips, levitate and regurd
to heate a black circle on the table. And this
is probably my favorite sequence in pretty much any music
video because it's just so weird and divorced from anything

(56:35):
of the natural world.

Speaker 3 (56:37):
Yeah, they're just like vomiting this black slime out of
their mouths that makes geometric shapes. I guess it's a
circle at first, but then we get more geometry. I
was thinking in this video. It reminded me of like
something like art that would be created by the cult
of the Pythagoreans, you know, the kind of weird sacred geometry.

Speaker 2 (56:55):
Yeah, I think there's a lot of that in tools Work,
the sacred geometry stuff. I guess they're kind of summoning
these weird spheres that are a part of the plot
in this because basically, you know, with Tricky playing an
alien humanoid with eyeball antennas who's menaced by these gray
floating balls. And he has a little homunculous friend in

(57:16):
a pulsating iron mask, and this is stop motion animated,
and it looks looks awesome, but it's trying to help him,
but then it gets eaten by the balls or killed
by the balls, and then Tricky has to bisect the
little homunculus. And then eventually Tricky grabs a leaf in
a like a sacred forest and he like elevates to
a higher human form and has this psychedelic awakening that

(57:39):
defeats the gray spheres forever. And that's pretty much the
sort of plot of the film, but it does have
kind of like a narrative art flow to it.

Speaker 3 (57:47):
I really enjoyed the part where it explores what if
my eyelids had tentacles?

Speaker 2 (57:52):
Yeah, that's it's essential.

Speaker 3 (57:57):
So I think you guys both know that I always
I'm I'm a real sucker for stop motion animation. I
love the Ray Harry Howsen monsters and all that. And
I'm pretty sure that most of Adam Jones' video work
is heavy unstop motion effects, unless I'm wrong.

Speaker 2 (58:14):
Maybe the more the very recent videos have relied less
on that and more on digital effects, but certainly, like
all the stuff in the nineties and then and into
the current millennium a little bit as well, have had
some sort of stop motion element. Yeah, because it makes
sense because his roots are in the practical effects world,

(58:36):
you know. Oh and I should also point out that
the ending sequence in this utilizes the artwork of Alex Gray.
So it's yeah, it's wonderful. This is a I think
I have this one on DVD. All right, Joe, what
do you have for us?

Speaker 3 (58:50):
Okay? So I wanted to stick to the nineteen eighties
because that just feels right for some reason. But I
wanted to go in the opposite direction from Hard Woman
that was very much a failure. I love you, Mick Jagger,
but that horrible and normy weird. Now I want to
go like straight hard weird with a classic, well known

(59:11):
but still supremely bizarre music video for an excellent hit
song that is clearly straining with all of its might
to be as weird as it possibly can and succeeding
to the max. And so the artist Herbie Hancock the
year nineteen eighty three, the classic video for the song
Rocket I see the directing credit usually seems to go

(59:44):
to Kevin Godley, but I think maybe it was Kevin
Godley together with Lol Cream, who had both been members
of they'd been part of a rock duo together, and
they had both been members of ten CC. But if
you've never watched the video for Rocket, I mean, I
think a lot of people who grew up in the
in the eighties are familiar with they saw it at

(01:00:05):
some point, But if you've never seen it, you should
check this one out. This is just tops for me.

Speaker 2 (01:00:11):
It is.

Speaker 3 (01:00:12):
It's a great song to begin with. It's an instrumental
track by Herbie Hancock, but it is. The video is
a house. I think it's one of these these you
know British houses that were common in the eighties, full
of mutilated, throbbing department store mannequins having like seizures and
these kind of suicidal dance moves where they're slamming their

(01:00:33):
body parts against things in various stages of dress. They've
all got some kind of weird underwear on, and Herbie
Hancock only appearing on a TV screen within the video,
like Professor Bryan Oblivion from Videodrome.

Speaker 2 (01:00:49):
It also reminds me of the failed cyborgs and RoboCop two.
Yes you see, like tearing their own heads off stuff.

Speaker 3 (01:00:54):
Yes, yeah, yeah, suicide robots all throughout. It just like
slamming into things and I don't know. This video is
absolute madness, but it's so good. It's a great song.
It's a great video, at least in my point of view.
Of course, I'll hear your guys thoughts. But apparently it
was inspired when Kevin Gottley and lol Cream saw an

(01:01:15):
art gallery exhibit of pneumatic robots by an artist named
Jim Whiting, and they were like, huh, I wonder if
we can put these in a video. And so you
end up with like legs without a body, just doing
these chorus line kicks, and you get, you know, head
slamming into things like this sort of mannequin body in
a bed doing like the Exorcist flops, and then legs

(01:01:37):
walking through a room without a body. I know, I'm
forgetting things. This bizarre bird creature sort of pecking through
a window.

Speaker 2 (01:01:45):
Oh yeah, and the lady with the weird goggle eyes.

Speaker 3 (01:01:49):
Oh my god. It's so good and it just like
doesn't stop. Like every moment of this video is too
the max weird and I feel like has not been superseded.
I mean, people have tried to make really weirdos in
the decade since, and this one still is like King
in the Mountain for me.

Speaker 4 (01:02:05):
Another thing that I find very fascinating about this video
is that, to my memory and to my knowledge, this
is a very popular video.

Speaker 3 (01:02:12):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:02:13):
When people discuss like the best music videos of all time,
favorite music videos, this one comes up often, and I'm
with you, Joe. I think it's absolutely beautiful and really
strange and fascinating, and like there's always something new to discover,
Like just by like staring at a different corner of
the screen on your next viewing, you're gonna see like, oh,
are those some like you know, odd robot lungs up there?

Speaker 5 (01:02:33):
What's happening? And I'm always.

Speaker 4 (01:02:37):
Very pleased when something very very strange sneaks into mainstream
popular culture and just gets beloved. I think it's rare
but wonderful.

Speaker 3 (01:02:46):
I think it won all kinds of like MTV awards,
MTV Video Awards. I don't know what those things are,
but you know, like popular, it was it was considered
popular entertainment, not like stuff for weirdos.

Speaker 4 (01:02:58):
But also, but on paper, it's an instrumental track. Herbie
Hancock is an electronic you know, I guess I'll call
him a jazz musician, but I'm sure he's much more
complex in his own description.

Speaker 3 (01:03:09):
Of himself transcends genres.

Speaker 4 (01:03:11):
Yeah, but like, on paper, that doesn't make any sense
that there's a supremely weird, pneumadic robot music video of
this instrumental electronic jazz song and it's beloved and it's
the greatest, and it's everywhere and it wins awards.

Speaker 5 (01:03:28):
That's fantastic.

Speaker 2 (01:03:29):
It's so rare.

Speaker 3 (01:03:30):
Yeah, yeah, totally. I was actually watching an interview with
Herbie Hancock where he talks about this video, and he
pointed out something that I didn't notice the first time.
But he's absolutely right, he says, you know, beyond just
all the weirdness and the throbbing robots, there are these
interesting video effects choices that actually synchronize with the audio
and heighten the impact of the song. Like Hancock himself

(01:03:52):
points out that at the parts of the song where
there are record scratches in the track, the video actually
does a synchronized tape rey one in de fact with
the record scratches that sort of like, I don't know,
redoubles the effect of the music.

Speaker 4 (01:04:06):
Yeah, I think I noticed this too. I think it's
very noticeable in a spot where you said, there's the
legs without a body walking through a room, and the
do do like the legs kind of start moving forward
and start moving backward because the tape. Oh kind of
like in the the Star Wars Holiday special when the
repair Robots is kind of glitching, but much much better.

Speaker 3 (01:04:31):
Oh, Harvey Korman, Oh no.

Speaker 2 (01:04:34):
I think one of the really interesting things about this
music video is that, like I mean, I'm not super
versed in Herbie Hancock, but I don't think of Herbie
Hancocks a weird artist. So this music video, you know,
a very accomplished artist and one that one whose work
again transcends genres. But like this, this music video at
once feels appropriate but also far weirder than it needs

(01:04:55):
to be in a way that reminds me a little
bit of the music videos of Peter Gabriel, where you know,
Peter Gabriel, I mean, is definitely a weirder guy and
has definitely has roots and more performance artists type stuff.
But a lot of times I feel like his music
videos were far weirder than the sonic material that they grew.

Speaker 4 (01:05:13):
Out of, right Land of Confusion being chief among them.
That guys, remember that one with all the Puppets?

Speaker 2 (01:05:19):
Is that a Genesis? One that might have been Phil
Collins era, but it definitely is a great example, yes,
of a music video that's far weirder than it needed
to be for the song.

Speaker 4 (01:05:28):
You're right right, that was Phil Collins eara Genesis, You're
absolutely right.

Speaker 3 (01:05:33):
Before we move on, I know we were gonna mention
a few runners up. Do you guys mind if I
just mentioned a couple real.

Speaker 5 (01:05:39):
Quick, please go for it?

Speaker 3 (01:05:40):
Okay. So one category that I'd like to go for
is what I would call minimalist weird, and that is,
can a can a music video be supremely weird without
being crammed with all kinds of stuff going on, all
kinds of like wild animations and robots going berserk and
all that. Can a music video be extremely weird with

(01:06:02):
not much more than a straightforward performance? And I think
the answer is yes. I Mean, one example of this
I was thinking about is that there's some PJ. Harvey
video from the nineties that's just her singing into the camera,
but it has like profoundly bizarre image, right, I think
it's the video for Man's Size. But then there's another
one that I was just watching the other day, which

(01:06:23):
is Grace Jones music video for I've Seen That Face
Before Libertango, which is a fantastic song to begin with,
you know, a great creepy song with sort of like
a French musical influences, and the video is not cluttered
with all kinds of stuff going on. It's actually mostly
just a very straightforward performance into the camera. It does

(01:06:44):
have some cool sort of costume props, I'm not sure
what you'd call them. At the beginning of the video,
Grace Jones has these huge, brightly colored pyramids attached to
her face, forming like facial features, so like one is
like a beard and one as a nose and one
at And yet this music video manages to have this fantastic,

(01:07:05):
transcendently weird energy just through the music. In Jones' performance,
Grace Jones is one of the greatest. I mean, she
is definitely a still living David Bowie.

Speaker 5 (01:07:17):
You know.

Speaker 2 (01:07:17):
Yeah, she's electric.

Speaker 3 (01:07:19):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:07:19):
Actually, to make reference to Record Store Society, the episode
that published last week, the week Before this episode, Grace
Jones was in my co host Tara's top five concerts
she ever seen and she had ever seen, and the
description of that concert sounds absolutely amazing, and uh yeah

(01:07:40):
Grace Jones.

Speaker 3 (01:07:41):
Wow, yeah, I bet seeing her live would be awesome
because yeah, she has transfixing like wizard power in her
eyes in this video, like otherworldly, very very cool, and
so that's worth checking out. But the other one I
would tie in so so that that's minimalist weird. The
last one I would say is movie tie in weird,

(01:08:02):
weird by the presence of elements from a movie. That's
that the song is tying in with. There, I gotta
go with Prince bat Dance. I know this is not
among Prince's greatest musical output. Of course I love Prince,
but this song, you know, the Batman soundtrack, I think
is pretty widely considered maybe the nadir of the Prince arc.

(01:08:22):
But nevertheless, this video is just bananas, and the video
really elevates the song.

Speaker 2 (01:08:30):
This is where he's half Batman, half Joker.

Speaker 3 (01:08:32):
Yes, right, he's like Joker but simultaneously Joker and two
Face because he's divided down the middle. Even though two
Face is not in the Batman movie that was being
promoted here, and and he's also sort of Batman like
he's doing his music, but he appears to be doing
it at like the console in the bat Cave, so
he's also sort of Bruce Wayne in the bat Cave.

(01:08:52):
And then there are dancers dressed up as bats and
dancers dressed up as Kim Basinger from the movie. And
it is very, very very odd and weirdly erotic in
a way that Batman is not. It's I mean, I
guess even the worst print song is better than most
other music, but it takes some of Prince's lesser musical

(01:09:13):
work and really takes it to a level that's highly entertaining.

Speaker 2 (01:09:17):
He had some great music videos, for sure. Yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:09:19):
I feel the need to interject though, in that two
Face was in a very small way in that movie
because we had Billy d Williams playing Harvey's right.

Speaker 2 (01:09:28):
Yes, that's right.

Speaker 3 (01:09:29):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:09:30):
I was actually really looking forward to that version of
two Face, and we eventually got it in the Lego
Batman movie, but it was just a.

Speaker 2 (01:09:36):
Brief Oh that's right, we did.

Speaker 4 (01:09:38):
It was a very brief element. But still I was glad.
I was glad that Billy D Williams finally got to
play two face.

Speaker 2 (01:09:45):
Finally some payoff for that. Yeah, well, I already mentioned
my runners up, I think because one of them was
that puppet Master's video DJ Muggs directed by Dean Carr.
Another one I had was a Peter Gabriel video Shock
the Monkey and a the other one was Rockwell's Somebody's
Watching Me directed by Francis Dahlia. But we have one

(01:10:05):
more full fledged selection to go here, and that's your
second selection set.

Speaker 4 (01:10:10):
This one feels to me like it's the most obvious
selection if someone were to say to me, hey, what's
a strange music video?

Speaker 2 (01:10:17):
Like?

Speaker 4 (01:10:17):
To me, this is like when it comes to quality, execution, timelessness,
the quality of the song too. I have to go
with Come to Daddy by AFX twin. This was a

(01:10:41):
Chris Cunningham video. Chris Cunningham was another one of those
directors that had a DVD in the director's label DVD
box Sets, and it's so good if you've never seen it.
Here here's a quick version of the story. So there's
an elderly woman and she's walking her dog in a
rundown industrial setting. Because of course it's a music video,

(01:11:02):
as we discussed, must be industrial. Her dog urinates on
a television and then suddenly you see Richard D. James
AKAAFX Twin in the television screen. The screen then kind
of changes and mutates, and then a very pale, very tall,
very thin being crawls out of the screen. He summons

(01:11:25):
a gang of children, all with Richard D. James's face,
and they all just kind of wreck havoc, running around,
hitting things with sticks, yelling in the old lady's face.
Just very very strange. Things just happen back to back
to back, and yet it doesn't feel random, and it
doesn't feel cheap. It feels very well planned, very well executed.

(01:11:47):
Like the production values on this are extremely high, and
you don't really see the gaps anywhere. Even this many
years later. I believe this was a nineteen ninety seven
music video, and I think it's just like little rubber
masks on the children and little people wearing the Richard D.
James face, you know, the very iconic APHX twin face.

Speaker 3 (01:12:08):
Yeah, even if you haven't listened to APHX Twin and
don't know who Richard D. James is, you may very
well have seen his face as a meme on the internet.
If you've seen like a guy with redhair doing a
super creepy huge grin.

Speaker 4 (01:12:20):
Yes, I think I actually knew that face before I
ever knew what AFX twin sounded like, because that face
is on the cover of at least two or three
of the album covers for AFX twin. And actually I
found an explanation from James about that, and I thought
it was actually really interesting.

Speaker 5 (01:12:35):
Here's a quote from him. Quote.

Speaker 4 (01:12:37):
I did it because the thing in techno you weren't
supposed to do was to be recognized and stuff. The
sort of unwritten rule was that you can't put your
face on the sleeve. It has to be like a
circuit board or something. Therefore, I put my face on
the sleeve. That's why I originally did it, but then
I got carried away.

Speaker 2 (01:12:54):
That basically sums up a lot in Richard D. James's career,
and it's fitting that his this big face of his.
I think it predates the troll face that you see
on the internet now because a lot, but a lot
of his stuff was kind of a troll move, like
even this track. I'm to understand he kind of did
it as a troll move. He's just kind of like,

(01:13:15):
what have I made, you know, a popular song? What
if I made something that was kind of you know,
in a different genre and then he made it? And
you know a lot of a lot of his work
is like that, where he's he is producing just phenomenal,
especially his ambient work. Selected ambient work albums are especially incredible.
But then he'll have tracks like these that are you know,

(01:13:37):
getting into different genres and and the video here is
also capturing that same energy of essentially messing with people.

Speaker 3 (01:13:45):
Yeah, I mean this video is pretty effective as a
short horror film, and it is just the it's clearly
intentionally alienating, an intentionally creepy song, an intentionally creepy video
full of monsters, and a million copies of Richard James's face,
And it made me think about how it's kind of
like being John Malkovich world, except it's Richard D. James.

Speaker 2 (01:14:08):
Yeah, it's very well directed. You know, this and other
videos that Chris Cunningham did for AFX twin they really
make me wish we could have seen the film adaptation
of William Gibson's Neuromancer that the Cunningham was apparently attached
to for a number of years and never came to fruition.

Speaker 4 (01:14:30):
I'm sure it would have been great. And also speaking
of Richard D. James slipping his face into weird places,
have you guys ever seen the spectrogram art that IFx
Twin did.

Speaker 5 (01:14:42):
It's so wonderful.

Speaker 4 (01:14:44):
Basically what he did a spectrogram If people don't know,
it's sort of a visualization of audio. It's like looking
at the waves in like usually most audio editing software.
If there's any a place in an APHX twin album
where it sounds particularly strayed, if you pop that into
a spectrogram reader, just then kind of audio software that

(01:15:05):
that shows you those things, it's probably Richard D. James's
face that he inserted into the audio, and okay, they're beautiful.
If you google spectrogram aphex twin, you will see his
face in his music. Like literally his face is in
his music. And what a great trick.

Speaker 3 (01:15:24):
You know, this reminds me of I guess what would
come much later is like the comedian mashup musician Neil
Ciserrega putting Shrek and stuff and his spectrograms.

Speaker 5 (01:15:35):
Oh oh, I haven't seen that. I should look into that.

Speaker 4 (01:15:38):
Yeah, and then I guess a couple that I really
wanted to sneak in here. But man, obviously we can
talk about this all day. Speaking of which, if you
guys do want to hear us continue talking about this,
I have good news for you. This is part one
of a crossover episode. Right on the same day that
this episode is publishing, Robert and Joe are going to

(01:15:59):
be guests on my podcast, Record Store Society, and we're
gonna be discussing the top five music videos of all time.
So they're gonna be joining me over there. So if
you've enjoyed hearing us talk about music videos, you're going
down memory lane and want to hear more, please go
find Record Store Society on your podcatcher of choice and
we're going to continue this conversation. It's gonna be a
lot of fun with my co host Tara. But anyway,

(01:16:20):
so I really wanted to mention and I'll just say
m quickly because're running out of time. Ballad of Buckehead
by Buckethead, wonderful music video. Rabbit in Your Headlights by
Uncle Love.

Speaker 2 (01:16:31):
That one's terrific, very good.

Speaker 4 (01:16:33):
Black Hole Sun by Soundgarden was a lot of fun,
and Arcie Bates right, yes, yes, And where's your head
at by Basement Jacks. That's when we were talking about
just music videos with monkeys in general before this. And
I suppose I'll throw one more in there. Weapon of
Choice by fat Boy Slim. That's the one where you
have so good Yeah, the one where you have Christopher

(01:16:53):
walk In doing the best soft shoe anyone could ever do,
and just being utterly surprised how good of a dancer
that Christopher Walking is.

Speaker 2 (01:17:03):
All right, well, this has been fun. Seth promote record
store one more time the record to tell us where
they can find your podcast.

Speaker 4 (01:17:10):
Absolutely, it's a weekly show every Friday. Just go and
go to iTunes, Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, any of those places.
Type in record Store Society or visit recordstore Society dot com.
Like I said, it's basically just a music talk show.
Myself and my co host Tara quote unquote work at
a record store and then our customers aka our guests

(01:17:33):
come in and we talk music for a long long time.
If you're real nerdy about music and you just like
music conversation, we're making this show exactly and specifically for you.
And like I said, Robert and Joe are going to
be our guests on today's episode. The day you're hearing
this podcast, this conversation is going to continue right over
there on Record Store Society, So come listen to me

(01:17:55):
and Tara talk to Robert and Joe some more. And
oh and actually, in fact, this Sunday, we will be
re airing that episode, the Record Store Society episode in
this feed. So if you're feeling lazy, you don't want
to go hunt down a new podcast, that's fine. Check
out the stuff to blow your mind feed this Sunday,
and that second part of this episode will be airing,

(01:18:15):
so you don't have to move around too much if
you don't want to. Oh but anyway, I'm running late
for my record store job wink, So I'm going to
run out the door now. Add a little sound effect
walk walk walk door slam sh and I'm gone.

Speaker 5 (01:18:30):
Goodbye.

Speaker 3 (01:18:31):
Wow. I can't wait to put on our Richard d
James Masks and Rob Seth's Record Store.

Speaker 2 (01:18:38):
All right, Yeah, I'm looking forward to to appear in
on the podcast. This is this is a fun chat again.
I'll put all these I'll put embedded versions of these
on the blog for anyone to check out or you
know or certainly look them out yourself. They're all like
officially hosted on YouTube, and if you want to check
out other episodes of Weird House Cinema, you can find
this every Friday in the Stuff to Blow Your Mind

(01:19:01):
feed wherever you get this podcast wherever you find the
Stuff to Blow your Mind podcast feed. We just asked
that you rate, review, and subscribe.

Speaker 3 (01:19:07):
Huge thanks to Seth for not just producing this episode
but for appearing on it. If you would like to
get in touch with us with feedback on this episode,
to suggest a topic for the future, or just to
say hello, you can email us at contact at stuff
to Blow your Mind dot com.

Speaker 1 (01:19:30):
Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. For
more podcasts from my Heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.