by Jane Lambert

Video Voyager: Best Not Broken’s “I Don’t Belong”

Boston’s Best Not Broken has built a reputation for high energy shows and catchy, power pop/rock original songs. Drawing from Brit Pop, Alternative Rock, New Wave, and their own unique brand of singer-songwriter sensibility, the band crafts soundscapes that appeal to fans of artists ranging from The Killers to Ed Sheeran.

Their thoughtful and, at times amusing, lyrics match the upbeat nature of the instrumentation, creating a fresh musical odyssey that is infectiously fun. Their live performances showcase the band’s contagious energy and often evolve into interactive dance parties where the onstage antics compel fans to rock out and let loose.

Their new song “I Don’t Belong,” and the video, explores adolescence and finding where you belong. It’s a tribute to those that never quite fit in in high school, but ultimately find their way. It’s also tribute to the many aspiring rock stars that never quite make it but have a treasure trove of memories to look back on.

We got the chance to speak with Best Not Broken about their fun and relatable video for “I Don’t Belong”:

Tell us the story of this song, why did you choose to visualize this song specifically in this way? 

The song “I Don’t Belong” is a satire of a boy who graduates in the 90s, doesn’t align fully with any particular clique, dreams of being a rock star, but turns out to be just an average guy – which ultimately isn’t that bad! The song is intended to shine a spotlight on our inevitable silly high school regrets. The lyrics inspired the light-hearted, nostalgic video… which kind of wrote itself!

What was the inspiration behind this video (visuals, storyline, etc.)?

This song was dripping nostalgic references to the 80s and 90s and we felt compelled to bring them to life in the video. There was no shortage of visuals to choose from – from the Rubiks cube to the mullets… sadly they all felt to natural!

What was the process of making this video?

We knew we wanted the video to be shot in a high school. So the first challenge was finding a high school that would actually let us do it. We had the good fortune of getting access to Souhegan High School in Amherst, New Hampshire, which really was designed perfectly for our intended scenes. We hired 106 Studios to handle the video production and collectively brought in our actors and built out the drama. We pre-ordered a bung of 80s and 90s paraphernalia, and after two days of camera work, we had enough footage to tell our little story. We were so lucky to find all the awesome actors and contributors. If you haven’t yet tried to shoot an era-specific nostalgia video, we highly recommend it.. ha!

Connect with Best Not Broken via:

Website / Instagram / Facebook / Twitter / YouTube / Spotify / Soundcloud / Apple Music

07.14.23

by Jane Lambert

Video Voyager: Stephen Jaymes’ “Chief Inspector”

Singer-songwriter Stephen Jaymes might be best described as Charles Bukowski ditching whiskey for psychedelic mushrooms while feverishly ingesting Rumi poetry and Phil Ochs records. The LA-based artist is a punk poet; a wounded-romantic; a sonic noir auteur and a post-apocalyptic hippie. He is a gifted multi-instrumentalist, songwriter, singer, and producer. His music exudes the stylish playfulness of Prince with clever turns of phrases and occasional funk flashes, but it also conjures the stateliness and mystique of Leonard Cohen. Film and television editor Christal Khatib (Scandal, Transparent) hears “both of those ghosts and Johnny Cash too – all visiting the same body.”

His newest song “Chief Inspector,” and the accompanying video, is a noir inspired Jungian tale of a man who once locked up his shadow and is now hunted by it.The video reaches back in time to say a little something about the present moment. Wanting to evoke the LA noir imagery used in the song’s lyrics, the singer and the video’s producer Ross Kolton, were drawn to the iconic 1973 Robert Altman classic “The Long Goodbye” for its visually unique take on noir in the sunshine.

Easter eggs and direct references include a shot of Jaymes leaving the same tower apartment complex where Elliott Gould’s Philip Marlowe eked out a living. The film classic is noteworthy for looking back to the 40s to shine a light on the (then) current 70s culture. Similarly, Kolton and Jaymes look back to the 70s to indirectly reflect a modern Instagramed world, where a noir thriller of dark realities continues to unfold, now through millions of sunny lenses.

We spoke with Stephen Jaymes about the new video for “Chief Inspector,” which you can watch below:

Tell us the story of this song, why did you choose to visualize this song specifically in this way?

In a nutshell, this is what happens when you start digging deeper into Jung while watching the Inspector Morse series. The song is about the choice we make to lock up a part of ourselves to achieve our (often stupid) objectives, and how that shadow part always escapes and hunts us down later. Morse is a hero of mine, the original “true detective” of modern television who is chased as much by his own ghosts as he is by the flesh and blood criminals. It was a rare instance where the lyrics all pretty much fell out in one go. I’d pay to have that experience every time. And what fell out was a “Cape Fear” scenario: Robert Mitchum is not happy; and he’s out to get you; and he’s you. In my case, I later realized, my shadow was hunting me down to demand I start writing and playing more music.

What was the inspiration behind this video (visuals, storyline, etc.)?

The video is the result of my collaboration with LA-based filmmaker and music video producer Ross Kolton. We both have a deep love of noir, so we were looking for a reference point that we could use. We wanted to literalize the song’s dark noir imagery and psychological tension, but also reflect how noir films frequently juxtapose that darkness against sunny LA. Our eureka moment came in the form of Ross’s idea to use the location from Robert Altman’s 1973 “The Long Goodbye” in the video. From that seed of an idea we found our story, and the video ended up being an homage to that film in many ways (toxic suitcase MacGuffin notwithstanding).

What was the process of making this video?

The goal was to make a tight doppelgänger drama that reaches back to “The Long Goodbye” to illustrate the tension between today’s dark realities and their sunny, Instagrammed exterior. Ross is super organized, so many of the shots were his ideas that we basically tested in the field. He has an approach to film that really synchronizes with my approach to songwriting: both of us leave a ton of room to capture the magical accidents in our creative process. On shoot day we started in the Hollywood hills where we paired a condo interior with the actual exterior of Elliott Gould’s apartment complex. We had a location waiting on the Westside for the “arrival” part of the story, so we literally worked our way east to west through Hollywood, stopping at some planned places and others that jumped out at us as we drove around. By the time we had finished with all the exterior “story” shots, we were exhausted. After he put together the first cut, Ross decided that the lip sync performance shots reflected that exhaustion. So we reshot the performance, weeks later, after I’d buzzed my head. This resulted not only in a treatment that better reflected our “sunny noir” aesthetic, but also emphasized better the doppelgänger theme because I look so different. Just another example of staying loose and allowing experimentation (and some director perfectionism) to work its magic. Thankfully I had no deadline as we hadn’t set a release date for the song yet.

06.02.23

by Jane Lambert

Video Voyager: Tadgh Billy King’s “sit and wait”

Irish alt-rocker Tadgh Billy King (pronounced like “Tiger” without the “er”) is a multi-faceted an actor, writer, director, a composer for theatre, and an award-winning classical singer. He didn’t set out to re-create the sound of frustrated punk rock in his song “sit and wait,” instead he’s unapologetically adding to the conversation through a modern lens with this new release. The result is a blistering, blunt and rousing ride through noisy hardcore, math-y punk and gazy walls of sound. At times brash, at times sublimely ethereal.

Tadgh’s immersive artistry speaks to its conception during times of deep introspection. His cathartic musicality spans post-punk, goth, noisy hardcore, and math-y punk, and is inspired by such artists as Bauhaus, Drive Like Jehu, Fugazi, Joy Division, Nirvana, Radiohead, and contemporary Irish bands such as Fontaines D.C., The Murder Capital, Gilla Band and Just Mustard.

The video for “sit and wait” depicts Tadgh’s blunt outlook on the world that surrounds with us bright colors and moving images over stagnant objects that reveals the subtle undertones of confusion and frustration that sits with a lot of younger people today.

We got the chance to speak with Tadgh about a more in depth look into his music video. Watch and read below:

Tell us the story of this song, why did you choose to visualize this song specifically in this way?

The song is trying to encapsulate a feeling, which seems to be pretty rampant among late-teen to early-to-mid twenty year olds. It’s a sort’ve existential dread that is hard to articulate. I think it comes from a recognition that there’s a lot of problems in the world today and there doesn’t seem to be a whole lot of clear, viable ways to fix them. So it can feel like people can find themselves sitting and waiting for something catastrophic to happen. While, at the same time, they’re just trying to figure out their own lives. The song is about that frustration. We are left discussing the things that disappoint us, but some of these things are completely out of our control. And then, sometimes, these discussions we have with each other can cause internal rifts within friendships and relationships.

With this video, I wanted to try and capture these feelings. I felt that by filming people in their late teens and early twenties moving through their own emotions and navigating relationships, while also projecting some weird, beautiful and disturbing imagery that falls within the themes I’m talking about in the song onto them, I could capture and convey this strange feeling we all have for our collective future.

What was the inspiration behind this video (visuals, storyline, etc.)?

I always thought that projection onto a body was really cool. There’s a really interesting theatre/dance company in Australia called Chunky Move and I remember watching a video for this piece they did called Mortal Engine and just being completely enamoured by it. My video is very different to that piece, but it sparked my interest in using projection onto people. I got a hold of a little projector and thought “this is perfect.”

I also really enjoy art that on the surface is really colourful, vibrant, attractive and interesting to watch, but if someone was to look deeper or read into it more they could start discovering multiple layers or narratives to the piece. In this video, try following the couples and seeing what narratives you put onto them from just the emotion you see on screen. What overall narrative or storyline jumps out at you when all the elements (the couples interacting, the emotional expressions from the performers, the lyrics and music, the images being projected) are combined? I know what I was trying to say with the song and video, but that doesn’t matter anymore. What’s really interesting to me is how my intention with the art isn’t important after a certain point. What really matters is what the audience or the viewers pick up and what they project (haha get it) onto the video.

Late in the process came the idea of adding the first scene of me coming into my room and the last scene of me waking up. This is part of a larger narrative that will unfold across my music, but you’ll just have to follow along to see where it goes.

What was the process of making this video?

When I decided that I wanted a lot of people for the video I just started asking my friends. Everyone you see in the video (all credited in the video description) are artists themselves who are either studying or working (or both) in Dublin and Ireland, creating work that helps to make the city and country more vibrant every day.

For the background video that was projected onto the performers I compiled footage of anything that was interesting to me and fit the vibe of the song. Then I messed around with the colours to make them more vibrant and built the video around the song.

I wrangled as many people as I could together and did a few takes with them in front of the camera and projection, trying out different things that I, or they, thought could be interesting. I directed them through different emotions, asked them to just stare deadpan into the camera, asked them to debate a few different things with each other (nothing incredibly serious), took them to extremes and just kinda had fun with it. Once everyone else was recorded I filmed myself singing the song. Ultimately, I wanted to let the imagery and people in my video do the talking. Editing it took a little bit of time, just because there was so much footage, but it was a very fruitful experience that allowed me to create something interesting to watch.

The lasting message I want this video to have is that despite life’s challenges, building a positive community and creating art that inspires you is the way forward. The making of this video itself is an example of that. I hope this inspires others to make cool art with the people around them.

Connect with Tadgh Billy King via:
Website // Instagram // Facebook // Twitter // YouTube // TikTok // Spotify

03.08.23

by Jane Lambert

Video Voyager: Kristen Rae Bowden’s Video for “Hard to Love”

Kristen Rae Bowden’s work is a penchant for clever metaphorical turns of phrases, raw emotionality, and imaginative musical arrangements. Her musicality stretches through adventurous journeys with a dramatic flair, melding classic rock and prog-rock melodies to highly personal emotional explorations. She counts as inspiration such diverse artists as Led Zeppelin, Fleetwood Mac, Primus, Radiohead, Joni Mitchell, John Prine, and legendary musical theater composer Stephen Sondheim.

Her new single “Hard to Love” was actually written with an unanswered question in mind: Can you restart a heart? Kristen didn’t have the answer at the time of writing this which is why the song never answers the question definitively.

The video visually pulses alongside the music. When the chorus arrives, there’s a depiction a woman forming in the lines of the beating heart. She breaks out, shattering the heart and finds freedom. Set in a magenta hue, Kristen is seen singing the verses, almost like she trying to find the answer to her question.

We spoke with Kristen about her video, what it means, and how she came up with the idea of the video:

Tell us the story of this song, why did you choose to visualize this song specifically in this way?

When I wrote “Hard to Love” I was grappling with what you might call “post-broken-heart syndrome”. Just like a physical wound scars over with harder, less flexible skin, I felt my broken heart had healed in many ways, but I felt numb, hardened, and incapable of intimacy. I thought, is this my new normal? Feeling so much less alive than I used to? And I realized I was hiding, dimming my light on purpose, so I couldn’t get hurt again.

The story of “Hard to Love” is all about that feeling: hardening your heart after a breakup like it’s a fortress, not letting anyone all the way in. And at the same time missing how it felt when your heart was open and you were vulnerable, but free. You can’t have both. You can’t shore up your defenses so you don’t get hurt and live life to it’s fullest simultaneously.

The song is centered around a metaphorical question: “Can you restart a heart?” Given its inspiration, when I wrote the song I knew I wanted it to be centered sonically around a heartbeat. And then when it came to the video, I was excited to get to see that heart beating. So I knew I wanted animation to be the vehicle.

I also wanted the world of the video to be different from the real world, to express how alien, fake, and two dimensional the world can feel when you’re anxious and hiding yourself.

What was the inspiration behind this video (visuals, storyline, etc.)?

I wanted to metaphorically express the way “post-broken-heart syndrome” feels, and I knew the heart would be the central image. So I came up with the idea of a girl hiding inside of her heart, which she’s turned into a fortress of protection. No one is allowed in, but no one is allowed out either, so she has essentially imprisoned herself for her own safety. Veins turn to vines and wrap around her wrists and ankles like shackles.

She grows weary of her self-imposed cage and breaks the heart in order to be free, but even then she finds herself on a cliff, alone. All of this imagery, to me, really works to express the feelings of a fear of intimacy.

I also thought the video should have a human aspect. I’m there singing the song in this pink x-ray landscape where a human is out of place and shouldn’t really exist. That’s how I felt when I wrote the song, lost in uncharted territory.

The storyline shifts in the bridge of the song, and I love that you can see my human frustration in that “I can’t go on this way” moment.

The lyrics of the song never offer any hope or assurance that yes, you can “restart a heart”, but the musical section after the bridge has the feeling of hope and triumph. I wanted the video imagery to push that feeling into a certainty. So I went with the idea of growth and blooming to represent that hope, and I love watching the glowing heart grow into a garden.

What was the process of making this video?

I had been playing with the FlipaClip app (flip-book style animation) while dreaming up the conceptual images for this video, so I learned a little bit about how time consuming animation can be and what an awesome skill it is. I knew I wanted the finished video to look more artistically advanced than anything I was going to be able to do.

Through a mutual friend I was very lucky to find Pat Bradley, award-winning animator and illustrator at Spring Shoe Animation. I was thrilled when he signed on for the animated portions, and to edit the video into the imaginary pink x-ray world. I sent him the storyboard I’d made with pieces of amateur animation and drawings of the girl in the heart, and we set up the video shoot together through more mutual friends, Sanjay Suchak and Stephen Thomas.

The video shoot itself was a lot of fun. I sang along with the song in front of a green screen, and though it took me a couple hours to loosen up, eventually I was able to let go of my inhibitions and really express some of that frustration and movement you see in the final product.

Pat did an incredible job taking my crudely drawn ideas and putting them into cohesive, flowing lines that tell the story of the song. He also integrated me into the animated world in a way that I hadn’t imagined.

Connect with Kristen Rae Bowden via:

Website // Instagram // Facebook // Twitter // YouTube // TikTok // Spotity // Soundcloud

03.07.23

by Jane Lambert

Video Voyager: Low Tide Levee’s Video for “Dang Diggy”

Low Tide Levee is the newly emerging band of seasoned musicians featuring singer/songwriter, composer, drummer, pianist, and former marine biologist Amy Brookes as the primary creative force. She writes the songs, sings lead vocals and harmonies, and plays drums, percussion, and keyboard. Her husband, Sasha Ames, is the band’s bassist and, sometimes, studio guitarist, and the trio is rounded out by a guitarist.

The band just released their new single “Dang Diggy” and it’s accompanying video. The 60’s pop and progressive rock song was written during one of Amy’s jaunts to a local tea shop she used to frequent to get the creative juices flowing. She came up with this tune, not really expecting much from it, but it ended up being a band favorite.

The fun Claymation video depicts the character of Dang Diggy as an almost divine entity, throwing pies down onto the man below. This man is in a boat with nowhere to run from the pies, his only options are to jump out and swim or sit and take it. It’s a clear depiction of life through whatever it has down on you, good and bad.

We spoke to Amy about the video and what her ideas were:

Tell us the story of this song. Why did you choose to visualize this song specifically in this way?

Dang Diggy came to me during one of my jaunts to my local tea shop that I used to frequent, a unique kind of place to gather and chat with random strangers, while enjoying the subtleties and meditation of gongfu tea ceremony. I often used my walks there and my time sipping tea to invite in the creative process, and many a gem came and was captured with my voice memo or note app on my phone.

The words just came into my head, and I thought it was a fun, silly, trippy song that could be a camp song. Little did I know that my band would love it and we would turn it into a rock anthem. Each pie is a ridiculous stoner dream of an over- the-top kind of dessert that exceeds all reason and just sounds like heaven, even if it would in reality be too much. Eventually, I realized that this incredible mask we found for our music studio (aka the “Funk Palace”) *was* Dang Diggy, and that Dang Diggy was absolutely this non-gendered deity that hung about in the sky throwing down pies to whomever might be fortunate enough to receive them.

What was the inspiration behind this video (visuals, storyline, etc.)?

It was my dream to have a Claymation video showing the story of this character Dang Diggy, a deity-like being who hangs about in the sky throwing down all the different pies. I found someone on Fiverr (Aleksej Pezzi) who did really cool Claymation music videos, and we worked together on filling out the rest of the story and visuals. He proposed a number of different characters for the little creature receiving the pies, and I fell in love with one of them that was sort of Gumby-like with this big heart on its chest. I liked the idea of the creature being in a boat since our band is very inspired by the ocean.

What was the process of making this video?

I wrote to Aleksej about the Dang Diggy mask (and sent photos) and the idea of a Claymation version of it throwing down pies, and we went through a process of sketches and proposals for each character’s look – starting with a sketch and progressing to a clay version. He sent me a mock-up for each scene and we ironed out the details. I wasn’t exactly keen on having Dang Diggy’s pie come out of its nose bathed in snot in one verse, but he kept it in and I just went with it (lol!!). In the end, I wound up loving the whole little movie, it was beyond the sum of its parts and I was so delighted with the expression Aleksej created in each character as the story progresses. No matter how many times I’ve viewed it now, it still cracks me up!

Connect with Low Tide Levee via:

Website / Instagram / Facebook / TikTok / YouTube / Spotify / Soundcloud

01.04.23

by Jane Lambert

Video Voyager: “Let the Healing Begin” by Sahffi Lynne

Sahffi Lynne is an international medicine musician and vocal coach, offering their music, meditations, ceremonies, and teachings as medicine to illuminate our connection as human beings.

They just released their music video for their moving single “Let the Healing Begin,” an acoustic folk-like song about using creative processes to heal from grief and pain. The video depicts this kind of healing by way of 3 separate forms of art. Sahffi is depicted writing a song, a woman is depicted painting, and a man is depicted dancing.

The video is a beautiful piece that complements the single perfectly. Everything about it, from the people to the setting to the action is stunning. Even as we watched it, it provided catharsis as a viewer, almost like we felt seen.

“My own experiences have shown me that with a combination of meditation, creativity, plant medicines, and professional support, one can truly heal trauma and reclaim their birthright of living in love. I am honored to carry the medicine of music to teach and guide those interested in doing the necessary work to connect with their true voice and purpose,” shares Sahffi.

We got a chance to speak with Sahffi about their song and video and dove into the specific artistic choices:

Tell us the story of this song, why did you choose to visualize this song specifically in this way?

Actually, the interesting thing about this song is that it was completely channeled! I often hear music in the wind or hear melodies in the woods, yet this is the only time (so far!) that I watched my hand write the lyrics without a clue of what I was writing! I then picked up my guitar, and as I read the lyrics, the song just poured out of me. The message, “you can let the darkness win, or you can let the healing begin,” was so profound for me at that specific moment of my life. I was struggling to move forward after a bitter breakup, an illness that temporarily kept me from singing and working, and a subsequent move out of my home because of income lost. This song was a beautiful reminder for me that I had the choice to continue on in life or give up. The song gave me strength and truly helped to heal my heart!

I was talking with a friend after the album, “Pulse of Evolution,” came out in 2021. (“Let the Healing Begin” was released on that album.) I told her I’d love for more people to hear the song, as I hoped it would touch others as it did me. She reminded me that many people “consume with their eyes” these days (as she put it!), and her words planted a seed that a beautiful video needed to be created for this powerful song!

I am grateful so many others resonate with this song’s message of hope and strength, and I am proud the video represents and reflects the message of this song so beautifully.

What was the inspiration behind this video (visuals, storyline, etc.)?

The video originally was going to be an animation, yet the plans for that fell through. I didn’t know how I was going to make a video, yet a Facebook friend, Maranda Kosten, reached out saying she felt called to talk with me about how we could work together. I thought perhaps she would be interested in voice lessons, (which she did end up taking!), yet she mentioned she worked for Do Good Video Productions. Within a couple of weeks we were meeting with the team at Do Good, along with my director, Lucas de Britto, talking about making a video! I couldn’t believe how easy it was to have found such an amazing team of people as excited about this song and project as I was!

My last hurdle was funding, yet I was grateful that over 150+ of my community supporters donated to my birthday campaign to make it happen!

The storyline follows three artists (a dancer, a painter, and me, a musician), from their lowest point, through creation, and ultimately to their reconnection of their spirit. Throughout it all, they each have elders watching over them, encouraging them with their silent wisdom and strength. I love how the video shows the process of healing includes the movement of creation!

One fun fact: the video starts out in muted colors and becomes more vibrant by the end. The inspiration for that effect was “The Wizard of Oz!”

What was the process of making this video?

This project was a year in the making! It started with a seed of an idea, then quickly jumped to a crowd sourcing campaign. The IndieGoGo campaign was a huge success, with over 150+ of my supporters making contributions, and one angel investor matching the total! I am so grateful for the support I receive for my music!

With my community’s support, we started site visits to the location of the video, my dear friend’s private land in Pennsylvania lovingly called “Hawk’s Ridge.” Magically, the dates for the shoot in May worked for everyone involved, and we were grateful for beautiful weather that weekend!

Do Good Productions was wonderful to work with, offering a fantastic production and creative team, and the shoot went off without a hitch. In fact, we all mentioned how unusual it is to have everything fall into place so easily! My director, Lucas de Britto, was also the editor, and I am grateful for his sweet temperament and amazing talent.

Everything came together for a holiday 2023 release, and I am super proud of this community-supported project! I hope everyone will be touched by the song and story line of the video as I have been.