MORE INFO AT WWW.DAYFORNIGHT.IO

Directed / Cut by Mark Armes

While here, Cammisano helped produce a video featuring members of our trans community and their feelings about HERO being defeated. They wanted to share their message that “It’s not about the bathroom, it’s about…”

“It’s about being able to not be afraid of your landlord  evicting you for being trans.”

“It’s about the fact that I got harassed after coming out as transgendered at my job.”

“It’s about knowing that you’ll get the medical care that you’ll need without your information being shared.”

“It’s about the ability for us to live our lives safely and without fear.”

“It’s about realizing that we all deserve respect.”

FPSF was a wild ride this year but we found a way to make it happen. Thanks to all of the artists, staff, and attendees for coming together this year and doing it like we can only do it in H-Town. We love you Houston. Stay sweet over the summer and see you in 2024!

MUSIC: ‘VIOLENT SHIVER’ BY BENJAMIN BOOKER http://www.benjaminbookermusic.com/

GET THIS SONG: http://smarturl.it/bookeritunes

VIDEO BY WORK-ORDER: http://www.work-order.co/

Kina Grannis, “Oh Father”

I have a love/hate relationship with Kina Grannis because I love her music but it rarely translates into good music videos. It’s not that they’re bad, mind you; just that they’re very small in scope compared to the vast emotional landscape that is her songs on the audio level.

“Oh Father” is probably the best video she’s done since she exploded onto the internet music scene with a stop-motion jelly bean creation. Teamed with director Erica Dasher we get a really touching interpretative dance piece that is beautifully shot. It’s like if Freneticore tackled the surreal art of René Magritte right down to the bowler hats and umbrellas. Grannis is a marvel in the vid, displaying a sweetness and a vulnerability amidst the oddly cold environment around her. You just want to buy her an oversized stuffed bear, which I’m sure was the point. It’s a little repetitive and long, but still harkens back to the glory days of killer Mark Romanek vids.

Oh, and musicians? Keep up the new wave of interpretative dance stuff. That Sia performance on Saturday Night Live kicked all the ass.

KNTRLR, “XXX”

You know what I love? People who think big. Even if they don’t really pull it off I would rather watch someone aim for the stars and hit the moon than just stay on the planet and call space travel “gey” or something.

Witness exhibit “XXX”, a video epic in length and scope directed by Dan Bowhers. It follows two humans played by Josh Olkowski and Lizzy Mulkey living in a robot dystopia. They are captured, tortured, and attemped Cybermanned only to escape and make love on the roof under the swirling night sky.

Now, it’s cheesy as hell. I mean that. It’s Syfy cheesy, but it’s also beautiful. There is such joy and energy and attention to meticulous detail that you can’t help but love it. Music videos are supposed to be a song come to cinematic life and by God “XXX” did not screw around with that. It wouldn’t win an Oscar, but you’re welcome to a Jefy for Best Special Effects and Best Post-Torture Sex Scene.

Tony Lucca, “Delilah (When The Lights Go Out)”

Tony Lucca’s got a voice that could sell hot sauce to people in Hell. He’s got this combination of Jace Everett down home dirt and Nick Cave evil thoughts that just feels like you should be put on a list for listening to it. If you’re planning on committing a crime in the near future and want a cool soundtrack he’s my suggestion to you.

“Delilah”, directed by Oden Roberts, is sexy and dark. Lucca plays the accomplice of a woman that seduces and blackmails men with illicit sexual encounters, playing off his inner insanity for his situation and the total beguilement of his partner. The uncredited actress sure does play it up well as a sensuous heartbreaker, but she more metaphor than real woman. I wouldn’t be surprised if she existed only in Lucca’s head a symbol. A really hot symbol, but a symbol nonetheless.

Zaz, “Sous le ciel de Paris”

Yes, the song is in French but it has English subtitles, which is again a reason my music videos are the best way to explore music. “Sous le ciel de Paris” wanders among the streets of the famous French city watching posters and graffiti coming to life all around. The art dances and sings as it exposes the life of one of the great metropolises.

Directors Christian Volckman & Raphaël Thierry have a deft hand with the simple animated tricks. It turns a fairly old school music video technique into a commentary on how the art we leave behind us on the walls defines who we are or were in many ways. We are the images that we choose to stare back at us, if you’ll allow a little philosophizing.

Quintino, “Winner”

Last on the column this week is something truly marvelous and fairly mainstream to boot. It’s so rare that I get to feature a popular artist that actually gives a damn about his or her music videos. Quintino is definitely one of them,

“Winner” is a pulp art explosion. It’s such a mad combination of adventure tropes that is sort of reminds me of Muse’s “Knights of Cydonia”, but filtered with an animated grit that has that old awesome Liquid Television touch. Director Shane Muller really out did himself, crafting an engaging and unforgettable tale of jungle women and gladiators and God knows what else. I lost count of all the awesome things that were hanging out in “Winner”.

Jef has a new story, a tale of mad robot nurses and a man of miracles called “Sleepers, Wake!” available now. You can also connect with him on Facebook.

Mount Eerie, “This”

It’s cold, it’s wet, and it’s depressing as hell outside even for a cave troll like myself. If you could take all the genetic memory of the dread of winter and shove it into a three-minute music video “This” would be it.

Directed by Peter J. Brant it’s largely a collage of cold, unsettling images. There are gourds shattered on rocky hills and samurai swords being cleaned in icy-looking streams. Underneath that is the sinister and unnerving music of Mount Eerie. I was looking forward to picking up their new album, Sauna, but I’m not sure I can take an hour of scarab beetles clawing out my soul like this video does. Beautiful, brilliant stuff, but it’s not comfortable art.

Rebekka Karijord, “Use My Body While It’s Still Young”

There’s a Rodin statue called She Who Was Once the Helmet-Maker’s Beautiful Wife (Celle qui fut la belle heaulmière) that is a nude of a very old woman. It’s breathtakingly beautiful because it shows us that no matter how battered and bruised and broken our bodies get in life somewhere inside is youth and perfection and a frightful fire. If that statue could be sung into life then Rebekka Karijord’s new video would be that existence.

“Use My Body While It’s Still Young” features an aged dancer played by Siv Ander. Though wrinkled, she’s still strong and graceful, losing herself to a primal dance as Karijord furiously plays her organ behind her. Karijord, who also directed the video, has a tremendous eye for shooting human flesh, lingering on shots of the iron muscles of Ander’s exposed back and the soft, unmarked skin of Karijord’s own. The result is a maenad frenzy that feels like you’ve just had a stiff drink. It’s early to say, but “Use My Body While It’s Still Young” is already my favorite music video of 2024.

Mike Mictlan, “so so Straynge”

In 1987 unknown persons managed to crash television signals in Chicago and deliver a famously unhinged and bizarre broadcast dressed as Max Headroom. It’s one of the better know mind fucks in broadcast history, but if you’ve ever actually sat down and watched the footage it feels less like a prank and more like an insane cry for help from someone clearly going mad.

Mictlan’s “so so Straynge” is a lot like that. He and director Adam J. Dunn expertly use cuts and effects to filter Mictlan’s impressive rap skills through a terrifying collage of chopped shots and death images. It’s creepy as hell, and feels more like a terrorist manifesto than a song, which makes it unique and daring as a video.

Baby Alpaca, “Roller Coaster”

Baby Alpaca always puts out great work, but “Roller Coaster” might be their finest ever. It’s a pretty basic setup. A young man gets picked up after being stranded by his car on the road and ends up being brought into a strange cultish family dedicated to nature rituals and sex.

You can probably guess the ending just from that description, but Aaron Maurer and Zach MacMillan have a great knack for capturing heat and blood. The key to a great video like this one is the little things that seem out of the ordinary; inconsequential props and oddities scattered around that slowly build an ever bigger picture of the surreal. “Roller Coaster” pulls it off magnificently, and is the best music video of this type since Ulver’s “Magic Hollow”.

Dead Cold Inside, “Not Really Living”

I don’t usually do this, but every once in a while a video comes along that is so bad it actually breaks my brain. Coming out of Dayton, Ohio is one of those videos courtesy of Mssrs. Rob Scot and Vincent Nightbane. Dead Cold Inside describes themselves as “nu metal-core industrial experimental metal rapcore”, a description as accurate as calling a drone strike a long-range freedom delivery courier.

“Not Really Living” is filmed at night in a field and apparently edited there as well. Occasionally it takes the daring choice of wildly thrashing around the camera for an effect that is special in the other meaning of the term. On the one hand it’s adorable. Nightbane awkwardly waiting for his cue in the beginning to make rap hands and then utterly failing to sync his flow with the lyrics. There’s also Scot rocking back and forth playing the same riff again and again in a weirdly hypnotic way that feels like time travel because surely no one would just keep doing the exact same thing over and over again for that long.

I freely admit to be a rabid music video hipster. I sneer at the mainstream and applaud the folks with less than 5,000 views as the true geniuses. But you know what? Sometimes I am wrong.

Jef has a new story, a tale of mad robot nurses and a man of miracles called “Sleepers, Wake!” available now. You can also connect with him on Facebook.

Enter Shikari, “Anaesthetist”

Enter Shikari has been on a roll over the last month putting out two incredible looking music videos in two very different styles and genres. Last time they showed us their funny side, but now it’s back to the highly political and dark brand of exposure they’re better known for.

“Anaesthetist” is a very classic video, feeling something like a Mark Romanek video on crank. Director Mike Tyler has a twisted visual style that warps the screen like you’re under the influence of either heavy drugs or heavy sickness. The hospital setting is just naturally creepy, but teamed with Rou Reynolds’ typically sharp deconstruction of social matters it becomes a temple to entropy. Every second is desperate and uncomfortable, which makes it perfect for the larger issues of public access to healthcare that it highlights.

Phyno, “Yayo”

It’s rare for rap or hip hop videos to go screaming off the cliff of sanity, but by God Phyno and director Clarence Peters went full on Thelma & Louise with all middle fingers pointed right into the air. We see Phyno as king holding court in a junkyard on a throne made of machetes. All around him young men battle and freeze on his command, a scantily clad twerking woman and a little person brandishing a four-way tire iron the only figures immune to his rule.

Then out of nowhere the whole thing becomes a slow crawling religious painting that culminates with Phyno as the Archangel Michael striking down Satan with a sword while the apocalypse rages in the distant heavens above. All of it is strange and violent and wonderful and I refuse to believe it was crafted by human hands alone.

Lindsey, “Out the Magazine”

If I live to three times the age I am now I’m willing to bet I’ll not see anything more adorable and life-affirming than “Out the Magazine”. Directed by Kemi Adetiba it’s an honest-to-God adult morality play portrayed with the same sort of happy minimalist as an elementary school dance recital. We watch Lindsey leave home and travel to a new city only to have her trusting heart repeatedly broken by the people all around her. Eventually she meets a guy, but rejects the happy heart being held up behind her in favor of a simple sign saying that she and her new man are just getting to know each other. It’s like Yo Gabba Gabba for grown-ups, and something like that is long overdue.

HamsandwicH, “Apollo”

One of the weirdest music videos I have ever covered comes to us this week from HamsandwicH. “Apollo” is way, way, way out there in a way that is damn near indescribable. Nominally it’s a one of those great “crashed on an alien planet” videos similar to Shearwater’s “I Luv the Valley Oh”, but the differences end there.

The video stars two characters, both played by Peter McGlynn. One is a nomadic wanderer in a suit that is a cross between a Tusken Raider and Kabal from Mortal Kombat. The other os a broken and dying cyborg. Bobby McFlynn really pulls out all the stops on the robotic prosthetics. It’s a symphony of gore and circuitry that will basically ruin all CGI for you forever. It’s impossible to look at and also impossible to look away from.

Eventually the two meet and things get both very Flashdance as well as very “Mary Jane’s Last Dance”. The juxtaposition of hideous ruin and happy dancing nakes for some very uncomfortable laughing, but also makes “Apollo” completely memorable and unique.

Atmosphere, “January on Lake Street”

Sorry to do this to you but we’re going to close with a punch to the freakin’ head. When it comes to “January on Lake Street” just the song alone is a serrated blade against your wrist. Atmosphere lays out a litany of depression and despair that would probably freeze the heart of a My Little Pony. The delivery so poetic, so perfect that it almost makes you forget that you want to die after listening to it.

Then there’s the video by Braden Lee. It’s essentially a series of vignettes about people in the moment where their personal worlds are ending as seen by a lone skateboarder. We pass person after person on the brink of giving up and committing suicide intercut with footage of a planet slowly crashing into another. It’s a powerful metaphor, that even the world has an end of its rope. How did that Shelley poem go? “Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair! Nothing beside remains.”

Jef has a new story, a tale of mad robot nurses and a man of miracles called “Sleepers, Wake!” available now. You can also connect with him on Facebook.