Ohmpark’s Top 10 Music Videos of 2009

ohmparktop102009

Before I begin awarding the sounds of 2009, I wanted to give a little props to the best eye-candy I’ve seen. These ten videos clearly stood out to me above the rest of this year’s offerings. They are definitely all a million times better than that garbage from Beyonce and Taylor Swift. So, enjoy:


10. Of Montreal: “An Eluardian Instance”

This video has just got a really nice, fun vibe to it. The special effects are utilized just right and the whole thing matches up with the music beautifully.




9. Untied States: “Unsilvered Mirrors”

There are so many neat little video tricks in this one and the whole thing captures the mood of the song expertly. I love when it snaps into the end section with the band playing.




8. St. Vincent: “The Strangers” Lake Fever Session

This video wins solely on the rarity of capturing St. Vincent playing an acoustic, stripped down version of one of the year’s best songs. Totally gorgeous.




7. The Flaming Lips: “Watching the Planets”

Yeasayer tried their best to up the ante on nudity with their recent experimental video, but having a clothing-less mob feeding a naked Wayne Coyne to a vagina monster pretty much trumps anything. Warning, it’s very NSFW.




6. Mastodon: “Divinations”

I loved Mastodon‘s science fiction video for “Oblivion” too, but this one got the edge due to how brutal Brent Hinds is as a caveman.




5. Clues: “You Have My Eyes Now”

This one is just simply hilarious.




4. Grizzly Bear: “Ready, Able”

Grizzly Bear have a ton of amazing videos this year, both official and fan made. But this weird claymation vid is easily my favourite.




3. Here We Go Magic: “Fangela” Black Cab Session

Taking bands and having them perform stripped down versions of their songs in various settings is all the rage these days, and one of the best in the business right now are the Black Cab Sessions. This version of “Fangela” is just pure magic.

Here we go magic from Black Cab Sessions on Vimeo.




2. Bibio: “Top Soil”

Bibio has such a distinct sound, and this video matches his audio style with the perfect visual enhancements.




1. Thy Mighty Contract: “Conjugal Freelance”

I laugh my ass off every time I watch this. I absolutely love everything about this video and it was an easy choice for my best of the year.

VIdeo: Bradford Cox vs Wayne Coyne @ ATP NY 2009

This is seriously hilarious. Wayne Coyne (The Flaming Lips) and Bradford Cox (Deerhunter, Atlas Sound) apparently had some beef with each other at the recent All Tomorrow’s Parties New York. This isn’t the first time Coyne has dissed fellow indie rockers. The Colbert Report has all the details:

The Colbert Report Mon – Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Exclusive – Backstage with The Flaming Lips and Deerhunter
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor Health Care Protests

Film Review: Christmas On Mars (By The Flaming Lips)

Yesterday we headed down to the East Village to catch one of the many screenings of The Flaming Lips long-awaited sci-fi movie Christmas On Mars. The theater was quite small, and there seemed to be only about 15 other people at this showing. Before the film started, they showed an interview with Wayne Coyne about the movie. It was a little too long and gave away a little too much about the movie, but Coyne is always an interesting person to hear talking. The opening scene audio-visual assault of the senses was right in line with their over-the-top psychedelic live shows and at first I thought the whole film would be nonsensical imagery, but the film then quickly gave way to dialogue between characters and a real plot. Without giving too much away, the movie takes place on new colony on Mars on Christmas Eve (hence the name) where the crew is dealing with essential equipment failures and facing questions about whether a baby about to be born from some artificial womb will survive.

Much of the film felt like a Kubrick throwback, but almost the entire thing came off like a spoof of sci-fi movies as a whole while trying to take itself seriously at the same time. This is a delicate balance to achieve, and I enjoyed it mostly for its comedic aspects where the film excelled. The sets were put together with almost no budget, and it was neat to see what they used to put them together, again adding to the laughs. And while there were many moments you were laughing at the film, there were also plenty of times you were laughing with the film. The boss of the colony or captain or whatever he was did an extremely entertaining comedic relief role, a type of role I typically hate. In fact, it seemed like every single character had its own distinct brand of humour it brought to the movie and most were great.

The other strong suit of this film was the audio/video sync ups and effects. Their mastery of freaking out the human senses comes as no surprise to anyone familiar with their spectacular live shows, but they used Christmas On Mars as an opportunity to be even more meticulously mindblowing to your eyes and ears. I think it was particularly striking to me because they’re tools were much more nuanced than what they employ live. Most of the film is black and white, yet they still had plenty of eye candy going on, and all of the tricks felt much more purposeful here than the random ridiculousness of The Flaming Lips on stage.

The film won’t change your life or anything and maybe the 7 year hype that has surrounded this thing probably created big expectations that it could never have lived up to, but overall I thought it was a very fun, interesting movie that I will probably watch a few more times and still enjoy. As far as Christmas movies go, this one is hard to beat.

SXSW, Here We Come!

Me and Biggie C just purchased our South By Southwest passes, so expect Ohmpark coverage of the big daddy music conference in Austin, TX. Austinist has gathered a list of bands that should be there here. Notables I am excited about include Black Moth Super Rainbow, The Breeders, Bun B of UGK, Holy Fuck, Jandek, Jens Lekman, Nada Surf, Plants And Animals, and Vampire Weekend to name a few. ATL will be repping all over this town, like this:

If you are also going to be at SXSW, holla at us.

Here’s a little Flaming Lips from there 2 years ago:

Flaming Lips
SXSW Festival
Eternal
Austin,Texas,USA
03/16/2006

Source: Digital Broadcast
Lineage: Digital Radio (BBC Radio1 @ 192kbps) > VHS > Stand-Alone CDR Burner > CD > Wav > Flac Level 8

01. Bohemian Rhapsody (Queen Cover)
02. Free Radicals
03. Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots
04. “Duck And Cow Sounds”
05. The Yeah Yeah Yeah Song
06. The W.A.N.D.

Download Lossless Torrent Here

Live Review: The Echo Project

The newest fest to spring up in this golden age of weekend festivals was right here in Atlanta last weekend. My crew ran 5 cars deep last Thursday afternoon in very little traffic or delays (just me making a few wrong turns) on the way to The Echo Project. We arrived around 5pm to find a very empty field:

We setup camp and commenced drinking at our campsites. Thursday night Dubconcious performed about 50 feet from our camp, which was almost at the entrance of stage area. One very nice thing about a small festival as opposed to, say, Bonnaroo, is most everyone is a short walk to all the action. Friday we went to the stages before noon and were rewarded with a Flaming Lips sound check. They performed at least 2 full songs and treated it as a mini-performance:

We then checked out Elevado next, and now that I know their new album well, it was very enjoyable. They seemed to be having some issues with the sound equipment, and were not very happy about. Frontman Justin Sias was hilariously crazy jumping down in the audience to dance around, crawling under the stage and disappearing for a while and then for the finale laying motionless in the audience clutching a ghetto trombone. Between how good this band is and all they do with ISP, i definitely put them in the high echelons of Atlanta’s kickass music scene. The Echo Project security tried to stop me from taking pictures with my cellphone because i didn’t have a photo pass, but since no one will give me a photo pass, we gotta go guerrilla:

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