Video: Grizzly Bear, “Ready, Able”
- story Matthew Schnipper
Five years, countless months and a loan/ Hope I’m ready, able to make my own good home totally makes us think of rainbow Play-Doh monsters. We actually directed this, Alison Schulnick is our pen name. We had the interns take turns melting.
Video Premiere: Bobby Birdman, “Weighty Weight”
If you’re the kinda person who smokes a J like once every six to eight months, do it now and watch this slo-mo skate vid with Bobby Birdman multiplying and flickering on and off like a ghost or Donnie Darko. What’s crazy is like, you’re watching the TV, but also Bobby is INSIDE the TV. Mega meta-mind-warp. Or don’t smoke, and just get lost in his sludgy dreaminess, cozy with all the waves-crashing glory of his voice, cause it’s the kinda song that makes you sad you’re not in love.
Video: Tanlines, “Game Two”
- story Sam Hockley-Smith
Wave of the future! Tanlines just released a song that was recorded on an iPhone accompanied by a video made with Google Earth. We just watched it three times trying to figure out how they made what sounds like Gregorian chants in the middle of an all night Euro-rave at a Polish club into exactly what we want to hear at any given moment during the day.
Video: Gucci Mane f. Usher, “Spotlight”
- story Peter Macia
People (us and everyone else) have been wondering why anyone in his or her right mind would assemble this song, let alone make it the lead single for Gucci’s new album. BUT, having now watched this video twice through, it is clearly just a means to this hilarious visual end. It’s like, look how not bummed Gucci is when Eddie Murphy’s daughter busts him in the club partying with Nicki Minaj. Look how not bummed Gucci is when he’s dancing with Usher. Look how extremely not bummed Gucci is wearing a chain that is a claw from one of those stupid toy vending machines that are impossible. Gucci is so not bummed with all of it that we’re just going to call him Doctor Not Bummed from now on. Paging Doctor Not Bummed, there is a record label hemorrhaging money, please report to the ATM stat.
Video: Bot’ox, “Blue Steel”
- story Matthew Schnipper
A friend was telling us about this foot fetish video him and a bunch of friends watched once, either on vacation or in a rental car with a DVD player. He said they just kept watching and it was the weirdest thing, kind of gross, kind of odd, kind of tantalizing, naked woman smoking cigarettes with her feet. It’s crazy to think about what happened to a person that they are like “Feet! That’s it for me! Bunions on the big toe all day!” Like, did your mom not have hands and swaddle you with her arches? But dude, more power if you know what you like, get yours. This video, for French duo Bot’ox’s new single, “Blue Steel,” continues their car crash fetish. Peep their video for “Crashed Cadillac.” “Blue Steel” tones it down, lowers the BPM and makes the impacts a lot softer. No doubt someone has made out to this song. Dudes must have lost their virginity watching “Bullet” or some shit. Also, is that a Ford Taurus because if so that is weird. Dudes jamming minimal techno driving their kids to suburban schools in their Ford Taurus then making crash fetish videos in it. Kinda fucked up, just saying.
Video: Freddie Gibbs f. Pill, “Womb 2 the Tomb”
- story Sam Hockley-Smith
There have been some excellent arguments for a full-on collab album between two of our favorite working rappers Freddie Gibbs and Pill, and this video for “Womb 2 the Tomb” (which comes from Gibbs’ most recent mixtape), is just another reason to lock them in a studio together. They could be rapping about the phone book, and as long as it was delivered with Gibbs’ ominous control and Pill’s completely off the rails rasp, we’d be into it.
Video: Young Dro f. Yung LA, “I Don’t Know Y’all”
- story Peter Macia
Sadly, it still says on Young Dro’s MySpace that his P.O.L.O. album, which we wrote about in our Summer Music Issue a few months ago, is coming in August 2009. It’s November 2009. But they’re still giving him and Yung LA money to make videos so that has to be a good sign right? Even if the videos have a crazy filter on the camera and a weird Black Sheep interlude in which an old man steals a dollar from a child? That might actually be a sign of great confidence from a label at this point, who can tell? We’re definitely rooting for Dro either way.
Video: Jay-Z f. Alicia Keys, “Empire State of Mind” (FADER Version)
- story Peter Macia
Apparently the snitches we rely on to pass our ideas to rich and powerful weren’t listening when we pitched our treatment of this video, so here goes. Hype, feel free to redo, so long as we get a cut.
FADER IN: VERSE ONE:
As the first notes of “Empire” ring through the speakers, the camera focuses on the front door of Jay’s old building in Marcy. A few current young residents stand near. As Jay’s verse begins, he emerges from the door and the camera dollies with him. He walks east through Marcy, gathering followers behind him with every step until the first chorus.
Video: No Age, “Losing Feeling”
- story Sam Hockley-Smith
Not to blow this video’s spot, but it ends with the revelation that the stop motion mouse who hides in the No Age shoe (nice) is actually drummer Dean Spunt and also gives us serious early-’90s music television vibes. Needless to say, we’re pretty bummed that we won’t be catching this video on late night MTV following an episode of The Head and a bunch of Sonic Youth videos, but we’ll take what we can get. Reality bites! (via P4K)
Video: Freddie Gibbs, “Boxframe Cadillac”
- story Sam Hockley-Smith
Watching this video is just further proof that Freddie Gibbs can do alright without the major label record machine. He’s already got an outlet for his music, and between these Yourstru.ly videos and the one we shot in a hotel room, Gibbs has plenty to look at as well. They’re all pretty simple performance-based pieces, but that’s kind of what Gibbs is all about. Dude likes to rap—on stage, on record, in hotel rooms, in really dark studios, wherever. Up above watch as Gibbs performs “Boxframe Cadillac,” a song that both celebrates and makes us feel kind of sad about weed.
