WAS1 Productions

Here’s a couple of music videos which make use of anthropomorphic animals and also show the genre as artform is still alive.

Ramona Falls – “I Say Fever” is trippy with some nice stylish animation and makes an interesting metaphor for exposing people’s baser animal behaviors. Plus, a gun that shoots birds is just cool.

Menomena – “Evil Bee” is an older video which is attributed to the same director and is another wonderful piece It’s a dystopian world and a view on life, relationships and the birds and the bees that’s darkly beautiful.

Originally Written 09/08/09

Johhny Cash covers “Hurt” by Nine Inch Nails.

I remember this song from the last album he did in 2002, and I loved the video on the DVD included with it. I ran across a link for it and it’s nice to see it’s on YouTube. It’s a wonderful cover, faithful to the source material without a hint of irony, but also making the song his own. There’s a lot of emotion in this one; it’s both a moving song and a beautiful video.

I have a lot of respect for Johnny Cash. He’s one of the few country musicians who I like and I like how he was a man of the people, acknowledging his own mistakes and troubled past. I like that he wore his faith on his sleeve, but it a very humble and human way. He was concerned with the plight of the disenfranchised, not preaching from an ivory tower. His song “Man in Black” is a good example of that.

Originally Written 10/29/08, Revised 04/19/10

The Boing Boing blog had this odd music video which people might like.

It’s Tuvan Throat-Singing Rap by Ondar, with the voice of Richard Feynman. It’s got a fun stream-of-consciousness vibe to it. Tuvan throat singing is hella cool and it’s just a fun video. The mix of Western and Eastern cultures is fun and anything which refernces the physicist Richard Feynman is worth mentioning.

Originally Written 04/04/08, Revised 04/19/10

Moby is an artist I need to check out more of. I’ve liked a lot of what I’ve heard of his music. It’s usually very catchy with some interesting themes. The guy has some great concepts for his music videos too

Beautiful is a wonderfully twisted skewering of the party crowd, done at a key party with a bunch of people in animal mascot suits. It’s like a furpile on the set of Boogie Nights. The poor rabbit guy in this reminds me of William H. Macey’s character in that film.

I remember the cries of “fursecution” when it came out, how everyone thought he was making fun of furries. In truth it looks pretty obvious that it doesn’t have anything to do with the fandom. Instead it’s using the suits to create a cartoonish scene and an interesting take on anthropomorphism.  I love how they used the costumes to good effect here, both playing on the lack of good facial expressions, and how bad most of the fursuits look.

Stars isn’t as interesting, but I dig the song, plus it gets random points for giving Ron Jeremy a cameo in it. It is a fun video for all of the other celebrity shots they get in there too, including the Toxic Avenger and other Troma characters. I do like the theme of an astronaut watching America and our fascination with celebrity in a detached manner.

Written 10/25/08

My friend Chris and I went to see Great Big Sea, the Newfoundland folk rock group, in concert tonight. They play a nice mix of traditional folk songs and harder rock originals. I was impressed with the various instruments they were playing and how they swapped out guitars, a mandolin, a fiddle a flute and a hand drum between songs. They’re quite energetic with their stage banter and got lots of audience participation. They were quite entertaining both in their humor and with their music and it was a great show.

I’d bought four of their albums and had been listening to them, so I recognized most of the songs and they played several which I really liked. They also played “Helmet Head” which I’d been hoping for, as it was the first song of theirs I’d heard and it’s a lot of fun.

The show was in the Orpheum theater. It’s an old theater which has seen better days, but is still holding together okay. It’s small, but it has some character and I like the ornate decorative moldings it has on the walls. I saw Dark Star Orchestra with Matt there a few years ago, so it was neat to get back there.