Still feeling a little trippy from Bay to Breakers? Good, me too. Check out Deerhoof’s new video for “This is God Speaking,” done completely in flash animation.
“This Is God Speaking” was made by Akiko Carver, an animator and audio producer based in Brooklyn and Seattle, who has done animation for other KRS/5RC videos and creates book trailers. Her work has been shown in the San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival and included in Sundance Film Festival.
Watch the video here.
Akiko had this to say about making the video for “This Is God Speaking”:
“This video was created entirely around Satomi’s lyrics. Her lyrics, which at first seemed playful, soon brought to mind questions about free will in the context of our societies and in human evolution. These images are an exploration of that subject. The somewhat creepy tone that ensued is my reaction to the idea of God giving directions to us as humans, which personally gives me the heeby-jeebies, and fills me with an anxiety and desperate need for escape. Book-ended by the staircase cel-based animation at the start and finish, the drawing and design process happened over the summer months while sitting in parks in Brooklyn, and consisted of hundreds of hand drawings before they were transferred to the digital realm. It took forever!”
Greg put up some songs from the New, Improved session they recorded a few weeks ago. You should definitely listen to them. They’re on the bands Myspace page. Some radio stations have started playing “Let’s Dance The Jet” already which is pretty cool! They’ve been playing cover songs from The Ramones, Canned Heat, Hound Dog Taylor, Mikis Theodorakis, and Liliput in their live sets lately. I’m curious to see which they’ll play when I see them next week at the Sasquatch Festival. I’m about to leave for a ten day vacation on the west coast and am very excited to be leaving my computer at home!
They’re practically touring the entire summer and are playing a lot of great festivals aside from Sasquatch. Roskilde Festival in Denmark is another great one they’re doing, not to mention the show with Blur in Hyde Park on July 3rd. That has to be a definite summer highlight for anyone who is going. But thankfully they have many other shows aside from festival dates this summer. I actually just found out about some new tour dates this morning…
may 25 – Quincy, Washington – Sasquatch Festival may 29 – Duedingen, Switzerland – Kilbi Festival may 30 – Nancy, France – L’Autre Canal may 31 – Paris, France – Villette Sonique jun 01 – Bordeaux, France – BT59 jun 02 – Montpellier, France – Rockstore jun 04 – St. Nazaire, France – Le VIP jun 05 – Orleans, France – L’Astrolabe jun 06 – Cherbourg, France – Terra Trema Festival jun 26 – Evreux, France – Le Rock Dans Tous Ses Etats Festival jun 28 – Leeds, UK – TJ’s Woodhouse Club jun 29 – Manchester, UK – The Deaf Institute jul 02 – Brighton, UK – Concorde 2 jul 03 – London, UK – Hyde Park (w/ Blur) jul 04 – Cergy, France – Furia Festival jul 05 – Roskilde, Denmark – Roskilde Festival jul 08 – Seville, Spain – Nocturama Festival jul 10 – Dublin, Ireland – Whelan’s jul 11 – Galway, Ireland – Roisin Dubh jul 12 – Cork, Ireland – The Pavilion jul 14 – Offenbach, Germany – Hafen 2 jul 15 – Stuttgart, Germany – Schocken jul 16 – Bochum, Germany – Bahnhof Langendreer jul 17 – Dour, Belgium – Dour Festival jul 18 – Nijmegen, Netherlands – Valkhofaffaire jul 19 – Utrecht, Netherlands – Tivoli/Helling jul 30 – Santa Barbara, CA – Velvet Jones jul 31 – Los Angeles, CA – Echoplex sep 13 – Monticello, NY – ATP Festival sep 14 – Cambridge, MA – Middle East
I’m hoping to make it to their ATP performance in September. They’ll be collaborating with artist Martha Colburn for that one. Martha made one of my favorite videos for their song “Wrong Time Capsule” when The Runners Four came out. It should be interesting to see how she collaborates with the band live. And speaking of collaborating, apparently John and Greg are on the new Busdriver album. Definitely looking forward to hearing that. There’s also a remix for Shugo Tokumaru that is out. I haven’t heard that yet either.
I’ve been listening to OneOne a lot when I’ve been working, which is Satomi’s band with her friend Saya, also of Tenniscoats. Satomi mentioned the other day that they’ll be playing in Europe too this summer with CanCan. She didn’t mention the dates but I saw that they’re listed on OneOne’s Myspace page.
Two weeks ago, on their return from Beijing, the Hoof played in Ohio and Illinois, and some of the best live shots of them that I’ve seen in a while came from their Chicago show. You’ve got to see these, they’re featured on The Milk Carton. They really capture their true personalities. The shot of the four of them towards the bottom of the page, where John and Ed are playing on top of a cabinet, Satomi is performing on a drum stool, and Greg’s drumming on his chair, is the best!
