Known about this for a long while but finally got a flyer etc: Bootie London! A one-off, with The Kleptones, A&D, the Bootie Berlin Mashia and DJ Payroll DJing at Cargo on the 9th April…I’ll be there, definitely. And am planning to meet up with A&D beforehand too. It’s interesting cos last time they were here I asked them if there would ever be a Bootie London – and got a coy response…and now they indeed return with a special Bootie London.
And it looks like most, if not all of the UK Mashuperati will be there…
The fourth in the Videotones series is from Brad Mackey of Crappy Logo Productions and he gives us his music video version of The Kleptones MVK Da HVN. Using music video footage from Munk, Nas, The Pixies and Rage Against The Machine, this video mashup creates a 1960’s psychedelic rock video feel before unleashing a full on rock assault thanks to “Killing in the Name.”.
I love the psychedelic old-film feel of this, reverse of the usual super-clean modern HD ‘look’ and harking back to a previous, more radical time? As always, on YouTube also.
My second video for The Videotones project takes a more ambient, slower turn with a widescreen video (I really recommend watching it at Vimeo or YouTube or fullscreen for full effect) for ‘Stay’ off the Downtime album, which includes the Yeah Yeah Yeah’s ‘Maps’ to great effect.
The thinking behind this video (yes I do have a reason for all I do, it’s not all just random, random, random!) is from the intro speech ‘Though I mean the world to you, your world won’t always be this new’ taking that as more of a ecological message (coupled with the ending speech There’s this stuff going down, I don’t think I can deal with it’). A contrast of destruction and beauty, tempus fugit and the futility of man, of how small the earth is in the scheme of things and how important it is to care for it.
Also a thematic one of clouds – from water to explosions to clouds of gases and stars – I was going to include part of this quote from Carl Sagan but decided not to break up the visual narrative with words-
Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.
The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.
It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we’ve ever known.
The song worked really well with Koyaaniqatsi, a film I’ve loved since I saw it as an art student in the early 90’s, and another film I love ‘Powers of Ten’ and various more recent updates to it. I wanted to contrast how badly people treat the Earth (Wait they don’t love you) and how beautiful the world is (like I love you), a fragile blue marble speck of light in a massive cosmos (maps). A universe where we are searching and actively exploring for other worlds (Pack up, I’m a stray) whilst not caring for our own (stay…).
Yes installment #2* in the VideoTones saga is BorisB’s excellent video for Kleptones ‘This Song Smells’, which takes Nirvana’s ‘Smell Like Teen Spirit’ and Blur’s ‘Song 2′ and mashes them together – so blindingly obvious so of course no-one has done it before A veritable variety of vivacious video vernacular, especially where it builds up more violently at the end, Channel of Broken (TV) Songs, style. Of course it’s also available at the Videotones YouTube channel.
And you will get some D(e)J(a)-vu about the videos used, or will because those videos apart from Welcome Back haven’t been finished yet *yup we’re crafty* And Boris did a little video for ‘The Final Word’ which sums up the Uptime album…yes what’s next? Well that’ll be telling, but there is a change of pace with a more ambient video from me which is nearing completion so that’ll be ready very soon, and I hear that others are slaving away on more videos so this is far from a flash in the pan
Oh and for those wondering where the intro is from, it’s from the film ‘Little Murders’.
*well #3 correctly since DJ Tripp’s excellent ‘Voodoo Sabotage video was the first although pre this project it will definitely be included in ahem future stuff *looks cryptic*
and DJ Payroll DJing at Cargo on the 9th April…I’ll be there, definitely. And am planning to meet up with A&D beforehand too. It’s interesting cos last time they were here I asked them if there would ever be a Bootie London – and got a coy response…and now they indeed return with a special Bootie London.
A veritable variety of vivacious video vernacular, especially where it builds up more violently at the end, Channel of Broken (TV) Songs, style. Of course it’s also available at the 
