My music video of the moment is Audioslave's "Cochise," which Mark Romanek directs with the dry but welcome sense of humor that previously informed his video for Beck's "Devil's Haircut" — a Midnight Cowboy knock-off that makes me smile every time I see it. In "Cochise," the bandmembers (ex-Rage Against the Machine) arrive by pickup at a huge scaffold, already perched at the top of which is the singer (ex-Soundgarden) brooding behind a microphone. The band members take an elevator up and pick up their instruments as the intro to the song thunders away — the drummer actually smacks the first drum hit as he sits down — which is rather thrilling. But as the song begins, the fireworks start. Volley after volley of pyrotechnics launches into the sky behind the band as it tears into the Zep-influenced rave-up. I'm not talking about some garden-variety heavy metal light show, but rather an unstoppable, recklessly indulgent, self-parodic display. The show is also the literal presentation of the fireworks that the supergroup is obviously meant to ignite in your CD player. It may actually be too much muscle for the song, which I liked better when it was called "Whole Lotta Love," but it is a lot of fun. (Plus MTV2 plays it about 20 times every day, which makes it almost inescapable.)

There are a couple of videos I hadn't seen before archived in decent resolution (320x240, which is, what, Video CD?) at Romanek's Web site. The Bowie clip was a very minor effort, but the one for Johnny Cash's cover of Nine Inch Nails's "Hurt" is both bizarre and moving. I couldn't believe he recorded this, and now I can hardly believe he let Romanek make that video. But I'm glad he did.

There's more good news for music videohounds like me. Palm Pictures (whose 1 Giant Leap DVD includes a terrific Tim Hope video for "My Culture" by Maxi Jazz featuring Robbie Williams) is following up on its recent Hype Williams - The Videos, Vol. 1 DVD with releases compiling videos by directors Chris Cunningham (The Aphex Twin's amazing "Come to Daddy" and Bjork's beautiful and creepy "All Is Full of Love"), Michel Gondry (the mindbending "Let Forever Be" for The Chemical Brothers, the Lego-mad "Fell in Love With a Girl" for The White Stripes), and the one and only Spike Jonze (those terrific all-dancin' Fatboy Slim videos, Bjork's Dancer-in-the-Dark-prefiguring "It's Oh So Quiet"). I don't know what the final track line-ups will be, but I just can't wait. Fuck Chicago, man. These are the directors who are doing really exciting things with the combination of music and cinema. If only we could get collections from Romanek and David Fincher ...

Steve Erickson asks whether I've been clocking any downloads of Krzysztof's balls lately. The answer is, of course, "hell yeah." At this writing, they could be seen in this thread at the very popular Fark.com (scroll half of the way down the page; somebody had stolen the image from my review of Snatch, of all things). As I just said to my wife, "Fucking Farkers should know better, so fuck 'em."

Ralph Poole remains oblivious to the risks of not reading your own Weblog archives (scroll a third of the way down).

So does Hector Lima. (Scroll all the way down to the entry for April 19, or 18/04/02.)

Whup, Letterman's on. I'm gonna go watch me some TV and get me some sleep.

Comments

I particularly like the image of your cat's balls coming after the line about the great visuals of CITY OF LOST CHILDREN. That image in the middle of the Fark thread about rent is pure surrealism. In the weeks to come, I'm sure you will see even more bizarre uses,

Posted by: Steve Erickson at January 15, 2024 12:48 AM

When I posted the notes above, I thought the Johnny Cash video had been kicking around for a few years. Upon further research, I learned that it's essentially brand new — it was made in October 2002 and includes the first footage ever shot inside the Johnny Cash Museum ("CLOSED to the public"). That it may well wind up being the last filmed appearance by Cash gives it new significance in my mind; this is a pretty amazing cultural artifact, handled by Romanek with abundant grace and sensitivity. If I hadn't been researching Romanek because of the "Cochise" clip, I wouldn't have a clue that it exists.

Posted by: Bryant at January 15, 2024 10:21 AM

?
=)

Posted by: hector at April 8, 2024 12:44 PM

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