I guess I’m a bit of a backpacker. There was a time a few years back I was sick of the whole rock scene but found some solace in underground rap. I was digging Phrenology by The Roots & Quality Control by Jurassic 5 but the one album that opened my eyes wide open was Blazing Arrow by Blackalicious. A really amazing, otherworldly album. One of the standout songs on there was an interlude buried after “Aural Pleasure” called “Faith’s Fire.”

So, this song needs some more props. I mashed it up with a deleted scene from Trailer Park Boys with J-Roc playing with one of Bubbles’s cats. It’s all in good fun.

Who doesn’t like cheesy phone sex infomercials? They were usually on when they were most needed after yet another unsuccessful late night drunken prowl at the bar on a Friday and/or Saturday night. How could you not resist wanting to pick up the phone and talk seductively to some woman that was most likely twice your size vertically and horizontally? But these infomercials are a dying breed these days. I can’t remember the last time I’ve actually watched one. You can blame the evil, evil interwebs. You can blame the copout excuse that is the recession. You can blame Standards & Practices. Afterall, the blame works for the newspaper industry so why not here?

So I mashed up an old phone sex infomercial with one of my favourite songs at the moment, “Sweet Things” by Danny Michel in what could have been the greatest infomercial EVER. I think it’s a fitting song because of the current state of phone sex infomercials. And also I have to think about the well being of these girls. It’s been quite some time when this infomercial first aired. What happens to them after their youth and looks fade away? Despite what some of you may think, they are still people. I have a sinking feeling that most of the girls in the infomercial have let themselves go and lost their looks to the bottle.

Now, I just hope I don’t get hate mail from angry, prudish Danny Michel fans.

EDIT (Mar 18/09): I spoke too soon.

(via YouTube):
“While searching for videos on Danny Michel, I came across your video titled. ‘Danny Michel - Sweet Things’. I found this video to be very offensive and a completely inappropriate use of the song. This is bordering on pornography.”

My response:
“Danny Michel’s videos can be found at http://www.youtube.com/user/dannymichel . Please do not be offended that he has “Bill O’Reilly Flips Out” listed as a favourite on” his channel. Such vulgarity.”

This is SATIRE, motherfuckers. Yeesh.

EDIT (June 14/09): …what?

(via YouTube):

“This is Danny Michel…..I wrote this song, but not this video. WTF? who made this….and why?

I have nothing to do with this.”

*sigh* Are you fucking kidding me?

I’ll admit that there wasn’t too much thought inserted into this video. The video is obviously Feist’s “1234” played backwards, set to the song “4 3 2 1” by k-os. I managed to get some attention out of it.

Hey, whatever works. I’m just surprised nobody beat me to the punch.

I can’t explain it. I LOVE French pop. Maybe it’s that breezy, carefree feel. Or maybe it’s the melodic sensibility of the song itself. Perhaps there’s a big litter of Serge Gainsbourg’s bastard children that we don’t know about running around France. Whatever it is, I still can’t get enough of it. Case in point, Tahiti 80.

I freaking loved these guys when I first heard “Heartbeat.” And “1,000 Times” is still my favourite song EVER. When I came across a Motown remix of “All Around” on their website/tumblr, I decided to do a mashup for that. There’s something about vintage Soul Train that makes me yearn for those days even though that was way before my time. So, it seemed like a perfect fit to me. Imagine my surprise when I got a comment from Xavier Boyer on my Myspace profile saying he actually liked it and posted the video on tahiti80.com.

Once again, guys I don’t know in real life and may never meet but respect a great deal are willing to do this for me.

There’s gonna be more videos alright!

This was basically test footage for that HD tour diary that never happened. According to the staff, I had to remain in the back by the soundboard so I couldn’t wander around the venue getting the shots I wanted. Even when I was stuck there, I still got questioned by so many people. My clichéd response: “I’m with the band.”

This show itself was quite subpar. Colin James himself agreed and wanted to get the fuck out of there as soon as he could. The band was kept on a leash that night which was an excuse for their subdued sound. The audience didn’t seem to give a shit either. Corporate gigs may pay well but they usually suck for a reason. Anyways, I didn’t want to waste the footage so I made this for Vimeo’s 5x5 Vignette Channel. The videos like this are made up of five scenes with each scene lasting five seconds long. This was my result. I guess that night wasn’t a complete loss afterall.

I think I have cornered the market when it comes to sad, reflective videos. This video was entered as part of the Coldplay Lost? video competition on YouTube last fall. I didn’t really care if I won or not. All I wanted was a little more exposure. I also made it because I got sick of watching entries made by wedding photographers about little children, the recession or literal song interpretation. For some reason, the bad acting in them made me angry. And I did something about it.

The premise I had in mind was me thinking about the girl that got away with the camera taking my point of view during flashbacks. That was all & good but I needed a girl. I first met Dalia at a Halloween party last year and a few days afterwards I asked her if she wanted to be in a video. She finally agreed and we managed to shoot only a few scenes. I wanted more scenes at more locations but she had a jealous boyfriend preventing us from doing that. But given the circumstances, I think it came off well. I ultimately didn’t win, which is just as well because I wasn’t too fond of the winning video anyways. Also, trolls felt the need to lower my ratings, along with everyone else’s. I know for a fact that Dalia and her friends loved the video though. However, the boyfriend didn’t like it at all where he & Dalia would have big fights over it. You could say I was the homewrecker in that relationship.

So what if I was?

You’ve most likely seen a lot of commercials for Watchmen on TV lately. I’m kind of curious to see how it turns out myself. Although it may lay the 300 vibe on thick but we’ll see. I’m not ashamed to admit it, I was a HUGH comic book nerd back in the day (even though that probably surprised nobody). Believe me, the limited series is legendary for a reason. It was a good enough excuse for a band to name themselves after it too. The Watchmen are a semi-active band that had a string of hits here in Canada back in the 90s and are currently embarking on a reunion. Just like every other 90s band these days.

So, I did a little mashup combining the band with its namesake from the movie trailers. I hope other nerds like this.

EDIT (March 9/09): I managed to see the movie over the weekend. Even though it was like two and a half hours long, the fanboy in me thought it was still scratching the surface. But I could also see why some people would hate it. Overall, I liked it.

We’ll lighten up the mood today. What we have here is Frankmusik, a UK artist on the verge of breaking it huge, and his infectious song “Three Little Words.” I heard it first through a Facebook friend and liked it immediately. His official video has a happy tone with its vivid pastel colours and pretty, pretty dancing girls. It obviously references the famous piano scene from the classic Tom Hanks movie Big. So, I mashed up that scene to his song. I hardly did any promotion for the video. That’s because Frankmusik actually caught wind of it and did it for me. He dug it so much that he actually posted it on his bulletins on Myspace & Facebook with the tag “This is amazing.”

He even embedded it onto his website for awhile. Just think, a guy I had only heard of roughly three weeks prior was willing to do this for me (while “another band” outright refused). I think I may be onto something here.

EDIT (May 13/09): Fuck you Fox!

As you notice on some of my tweets on Twitter, it should come as no surprise that I’m not happy with the way my life is turning out. If you think I hate being screwed over by band politics, I hate working as an insurance broker even more. I’ve been doing it for almost seven years and I loathe every single minute of it. I ended up in it after I finished a B.A. I didn’t want to do in the first place. Every day, I’m stuck helping incompetent, unappreciative assholes that think they know more about insurance than me even though I have to deal with five different types of insurance and accuse me of being a communist since insurance somehow equates communism as I’m working hard at putting their sorry excuse for a life in order at the expense of my own. It is soul draining and degrading with Errors & Omissions constantly looming over your head. And now, I feel like I will be stuck doing this until the day I die. I went back to school at night right after work to take Web Site Development (which was what I wanted to take in the first place since it is my true passion but couldn’t because I was called a fool by “loved ones” after the dot-com bubble burst) and passed with Honours. And yet, no takers. I have to be honest here, I am frustrated. Why should I deny it and pretend everything is alright? Nothing is alright. Especially being in a shit town masquerading as one great city like this. Don’t let appearances deceive you. Although I may appear to be part of a model minority, I assure you I am NOT a robot. I’m always stuck playing nice and by the book yet I am the one that always gets fucked over in the end. Don’t even get me started at social hierarchy, self-righteous ex-roommates and relationships. Being in my thirties suck thus far. I’m trying not to lose hope but this is very discouraging for me.

I tried to get away from the bullshit for a little while. But like always, bullshit always catches up with me no matter where I am. So, this HD video is the byproduct of that exact bullshit with help from my friend Jessrawk. I applied the old Northey term “beautiful pain” into the video with the loneliness and disparity set against a beautiful cityscape and Aimee Mann’s wonderfully painful song “31 Today.” I recorded it a week before my birthday and finished editing it on my 31st birthday, by the way. Also, I have to rub it in that I out did Northey once again. As I have mentioned before, you can argue that this is a sequel to my “Always Breaking Heart” video or that I’m reclaiming my idea from Odds. You decide.