The Mild Revolution

My brother’s band. Backstage at the Sad Cafe 16 January 2010. Dig it.

Some Band Named Purple Planet Manages To Fuck Up A Maru Video

We all know about Maru, right? The cat that jumps in and out of stuff? Well, there is a NEW COMPILATION MARU VIDEO OUT, which is exciting, except it has lame garage band rock music blaring in the background, but it’s more like the foreground, because this music is so intrusive on my cat watching. Watch this video on mute. But then watch it with sound for a minute so you know what I’m complaining about.

Part of the greatness of the original Maru videos is the appalling silence that accompanies the cat-antics. (Is CATANTICS a word yet? IT IS NOW, BITCH!) You kind of felt like the cat lived by itself, jumping into boxes for eternity in a parallel universe where cats lived alone in box-filled unspecified-Asian apartments. There was almost no human presence. And the weird thuds of Maru falling on the ground were icing on the cake of weird hilarity.

The point is, this band Purple Planet will never be forgiven. If there is an opposite version of the Heroes List (Edith Zimmerman, Allison Schulnik) this band is going on it. The Villians List, I guess.

Grizzly Bear Takes Me To Animation School, Again

So first of all, someone needs to tell Grizzly Bear that it is not 1996 anymore, and you don’t need to release singles every few weeks! That said, it is a pleasingly retro thing to do. I feel like a fifth grader, impatiently waiting for the new single off of the Puff Daddy and The Family album!

First we got “Two Weeks,” the second best song on the album (Veckatimest), followed shortly by the best song (and contender for song of the year) “While You Wait For The Others.” That video made me feel very small, as it was like a highly advanced version of a video I once made for Ivana XL.

Now they go and do it again! DAMMIT!

Now before RSR I spent a lot of time experimenting with various forms of animation, and most of those experiments are not online, but these videos below have a few of them. The faces expanding and contracting was something I tried to do in a way that was nowhere near as cool as the Grizzly Bear video. This is the animation equivalent of reading Edith Zimmerman. I am humbled. I bow down before this music video. Allison Schulnik is getting added to the heroes list. Her website is here, and I am off to explore it!

Update: OH DUH THIS VIDEO WAS ON YOUTUBE ALL ALONG. Sorry for screwing with you with that Facebook embed.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Ivana XL claims the Grizzly Bear video reminded her of a more expensive version of this. Her estimate: $20,000 dollars more. I’d say maybe $300 more? That’s a lot of hard work you are seeing in that Grizzly Bear video– hard work that I am not willing to do, hard work that you can’t put a price on. So you are left with pricing materials. And my videos cost about $5, because that’s about as much as I would be willing to pay for clay. Robot is made out of a box I found in my basement. I already owned that sock. And I had to risk my life to find the perfect rock for Rock– I actually called my dad as I was climbing on rocks along Boston Harbor and told him I wanted someone to be aware if I fell to my death. TRADE SECRETS!