I’ve made music videos for estocar since way back, but never really had the time to help out anyone else. One time though I did make a video for a band called the Horse Thieves when they were recording at Earwig back in the Georgetown days. Don had liked the estocar video I had made for Catch My Drift and asked if I would do something. Now come way down the road and Don’s old band Suitcase were about to create new music after a long hiatus. Don asked if I would try another video if I could do my thing and sort out a visual idea or approach that would interest me and sent along track for Come Back.
I thought the tune sounded great and right away the idea of being under water came to me. At first it was the idea of a toy airplane floating to the bottom of a tank. Then another and another, but I kinda knew that was too literal for merely one piece of the song. I eventually came to the idea of having them under water facing at the camera because I wanted the bubbles to float away from their faces. I knew they had to be singing and to have the whole band I decided layering them might be cool.
We came up with a DIY approach to the lighting and the rigging and shot at Earwig where the band rehearses. Had some fun and everyone brought it. It’s a lot less comfortable singing underwater with your eyes open then you might think 🙂 Fortunately I had done some testing and knew it took a little effort to get use to. Ed stepped up and showed everybody how it was done and from there each person gave their unique take. It was a blast to share in the camaraderie of the band and get to hang with Don, Ed, Joe, and Cling.
I knew right away even from seeing the footage on the back of the camera there was gonna be something cool and that we had sort of hit the nail on the head concept wise. When I went to post and started layering the video it was even better than I had hoped. The hand made vibe that was achieved because we pulled it off with almost no budget and just went for it flaws and all without over thinking it and doing just a couple takes. That really kind of captured the tunes frequency and message. The tune sounds so good that just a simple visual idea that doesn’t get in the way of the cool sounds.
This piece got me thinking it might be fun to start doing more music videos again. Keep some projects really low to the ground. Handle most all of the planning, resourcing, shooting, and editing myself, but pursue creative ideas that I believe would be interesting and a fun challenge to do technically. Create an approach where a simple idea is executed visually that matches the vibe of the music. A little bit of eye candy while the music carries the visuals along and vice versa. Give indie bands in the local community that I’ve been a part an opportunity to get sweet visuals to go with their tunes. Enjoy collaborating and meeting other musicians in the different contexts than playing shows and going to shows.
Come Back set the bar up there out the gate for coming up with something simple that works well with the song’s aural experience and vibe. It felt good to have something you could see worked visually without detracting from the song. In some ways it felt like shooting fish in a barrel because the song already had this really cool sound and vibe to start with. It had got me excited to come up with and idea to do it justice and interpret it visually. The way it wound up turning out got me excited to try and do more. That inspiration is one of the reasons why I wanted to share this piece here. Keep the cool tunes coming Suitcase.
