Music

7 awesome past and present videos you might've missed, with Alvvays, Chrome and more

by Jesse Locke

Living On Video is a weekly column that unearths forgotten VHS gems, Vimeo obscurities, and YouTube oddities from the musical ether—all obsessively curated by Weird Canada music editor Jesse Locke. 

When I launched this column last week I made a point not to draw any genre lines. This edition might be even more varied, and you’ll see everything from sad-guy drone to happy-people jangle, ‘70s proto-scuzz, glitched electronics and comedy dad-rock. It’s basically a fantasy free-form music video channel, and I’m Tarzan Dan. You’re jamming in the jungle!

 

Black Walls – “Communion” (Teaser)

Toronto’s Ken Reaume a.k.a. Black Walls released one of my favourite albums of 2012 with the desolate one-man wilderness of Acedia. Pleasence Records is now gearing up for its follow-up, Communion, and has issued this short but skin-crawling teaser. In 51 seconds, the ominous images from director Oliver Banyard provide the perfect backdrop to Black Walls’ scorched-earth drone hovering from beyond. He who feeds on this bread will live forever…

 

Alvvays – “Adult Diversion”

On a brighter note, this tune from Alvvays is a three-minute hit of slacker-pop sunshine. Photographer Colin Medley has a grip of great clips (and has contributed to AUX in the past), but this may be his best match of music to visuals with home-video style shots of the band in and around Sappyfest. Chad VanGaalen was the man on the boards for these recordings, so it makes sense that his sheepish grin gets a cameo too.

 

Simply Saucer – “Bullet Proof Nothing”

Mammoth Cave Recording Co. have announced the next release in their ‘Classics’ series with a crucial 7-inch reissue of Simply Saucer’s should-have-been-a-single “Bullet Proof Nothing.” The sci-fried Hamilton proto-punks laid down this recording in the early ’70s alongside the rest of a session that was finally exhumed with the 1989 release of their Cyborgs Revisited LP (one of this writer’s dead or alive desert island top five). Footage of the band in their heyday is scarcer than scarce, so these vintage clips intermingled with images of Steeltown are as a serious treat.

 

Chrome – “Meet You In The Subway”

SF spazzoids Chrome could be considered U.S. counterparts to Simply Saucer, yet the primary difference is a discography sprawling across decades. The trilogy of Alien Soundtracks (1978), Half Machine Lip Moves (1979) and Red Exposure (1980) is the freaky deeky peak of drummer-singer Damon Edge and guitarist Helios Creed’s collaboration, so the successful crowdsourcing campaign for an album of unreleased cuts from this era is Christmas day in the Chrome zone. For the uninitiated, check out the murky motorik of “Meet You In The Subway” and get the first taste of Half Machine from the Sun with the caveman downer jam “Something Rhythmic (I Can’t Wait).”

 

Seth Graham – “Heirloom Sunday”

For fans of battling seizure robots, here’s another cortex-rattling blast of digital glitch. In a cool act of cassette label crossover, the sounds by Seth Graham (owner of Orange Milk) get visuals from Charles Barabé (CEO of La Cohu) for a tape on Los Discos Enfantasmes. Simple enough, right?

 

Ramzi – “Ashiko”

Montreal’s Phoebé Guillemot a.k.a. Ramzi also has a cassette in the latest batch from Los Discos, and her electronic dispatch is no less disorienting. This video from Jane L Kasowicz matches the song’s stuttered beats with jarring edits of Guillemot running wild on a soccer field and bending brains like Beckham.

 

Heidecker & Wood – “Getaway Man”

Let’s end things off this week with the hot new single from Heidecker & Wood. Channeling Boston, Chicago and the Boss in this studio jam sesh, the band carves off a prime cut from their latest album, Some Things Never Stay The Same. Raise a Corona, sing along and get down with your dad self.