can't stop crediting
before i get into my bullshit about the 2003 music video for red hot chili peppers' single "can't stop", a disclaimer: my childhood doesn't come with many positive experiences, but one of the few was how my dad (unserious, cultured, immature king) would call me into the house from playing outside because there was a music video on vh1 that he needed me to watch. the one time i didn't want to come inside to watch 'billy jean' for the 100th time is probably the most disappointed he's ever been with me. even though his second wife (demon, cultureless, fake red head) banned mtv from the entire house, he'd sneak in episodes of beavis and butthead and let me watch. when i got a place of my own, i paid for premium cable just for mtv classic. this is all to explain why i believe that the most important art form that my generation made mainstream is the music video. i don't want any of you ghouls questioning me writing about music videos in my little art blog.
one of my endeavors this year is to learn video editing and, while i'm not making them yet, music videos are my biggest inspirations for editing short form content. "can't stop" played at the gym the other day and it reminded me of the quick-cutting performance art pieces the band did.
it was the scenes with the band altogether playing that especially made me feel something, because it seemed like they were all having fun. this is an important thing to convey if you're going to capture my heart, it's the same reason van halen's jump is one of my all time favorite music videos. another one of my top 5 favorite music videos is michael and janet jackson's "scream". now, would you believe me if i told you that scream was directed by mark romanek, the director of "can't stop"? weeweewowow.
i had an edible tonight so here are the distinct scenes from the music video in order of when i noticed it.
- anthony's head inside the end of a yellow tube, from different points of view
- band, dressed alike, pacing in a queue through hallway with fluorescent light tube fixtures on like backpacks
- band playing in front of an orange back drop
- flea manipulating a scene using a bunch of empty water bottles and anthony standing up
- chad moving around with a box large enough to fit him over him, sometimes with his legs out
- john playing on and surrounded by cerulean blue plastic chairs
- chad twirling a yellow garbage bin on his finger
- flea doing feats of balance with a red bucket and yellow ball
- anthony in what looks like a tent with a hood for his head to go in (which it did)
- anthony playing with a bucket in a room on a blue plastic chair
- flea posing with an orange bass guitar in front of an unpainted wall
- anthony hanging a pink button-up-shirt onto the mouth of chad by its hanger
- three johns in three grey garbage bins next to each other
- john playing an orange guitar and wearing a purple mascot head of some sort, it looks like a purple hippo to me but i may be way off there. i'm sure one of you heathens will tell me xoxo
- anthony behind ferns
- anthony standing in an anthony-shaped hole in a gray brick wall, like the kool-aid man
- flea, with bass guitar, hanging in the air from a harness above a floor with four yellow cones set up in a square
- john standing in two buckets, with two buckets over his hands (and sometimes one on his head) as flea moves around and manipulates the scene
- anthony putting office supplies into flea's eyes, ears and nose (didn't like this one)
- john playing guitar in a dark room with many vintage lamps almost oscillating together as they turn on and off
- anthony holding two orange ground control flashlights initially outside some wooden deck-like structure (i'm a computer scientist not a construction scientist) which he ducks a little to get under and into. the inside is mirrored and dark but his flashlights are then on.
- anthony in a plastic-like gray tank that's revealed in a wider shot to be a giant, surreal garbage bag of a dress or onesie (hard to tell)
- john does guitar solo as anthony, on a ladder, dispenses packing peanuts from tube above him
- a closing shot of a sign that says "inspired by the 'one-minute sculptures' of erwin wurm"
erwin wurm is not just the son of a detective who did not like artists, he is an artist who is still making one-minute sculptures decades after they inspired mark romanek to have members of the red hot chili peppers do headstands in buckets and sing in tubes. because it is often when i see something that inspires me that i come to find that the artist has long left this bitch of a planet (earth), it was very nice to see that erwin wurm is still around and challenging the meaning of sculpture. it was also very nice to read that he was properly compensated and credited being the inspiration of the video.
from katya horvat's interview of erwin wurm in autre. and this is another interview where he talks about getting that call.
what a bummer that i simply assumed that wurm had no involvement in the video - that's just how used to seeing ideas stolen i've become over my time on the internet. i've had ideas and credit stolen a lot over my career and the worst part about it is the frustration that ferments as i play through the moments when i had to decide if it's worth calling out or not. writing this is making me play through them again and i don't like that! anyway, i don't know if this move was straight out of mark romanek's values framework or if someone else told him he had to do the right thing, but regardless this was a cool thing to learn about.
so, that was my "can't stop" post. if this was a nice thing for you to learn about and you learned about it from me by reading these words that i wrote with my own brain, i appreciate your support by sharing this, following me elsewhere and maybe throwing a few bucks in my purple hippo (?) mascot head-shaped bank.
