Chris Berube in NYC!

Five Creepy Music Videos (accumulated while watching ‘The Wedge’...

Sun, 30 Oct 2011 12:26:31 -0400

Five Creepy Music Videos (accumulated while watching ‘The Wedge’ as a teenager)

When I was a teenager, I used to babysit a lot on Friday nights. I didn’t go out to a lot of parties, but the for the most part, I didn’t want to. Fridays were when ‘The Wedge’, (MuchMusic’s show for obscure/weird/upsetting videos) was on, first at 11pm, then midnight, then 2am (I stopped watching around then), and it was one of my favourite rituals of the week. I would finish some homework, make some popcorn, and watch the show with my brother, or better still, watch it alone after some kids I was looking after had fallen asleep.

‘The Wedge’ used to present videos in the creepiest way possible, which I think is largely because it didn’t have a host back then.There was something creepy in and of itself about seeing music videos with no context, no sense that a human had any say in their selection or presentation. They say that listening to radio, alone, at 1am is a nice way to remember there are people, and fellow-feeling, somewhere out in the world. I feel as though The Wedge always had the opposite effect, it made me feel utterly isolated, especially when I turned it on near the end of a long babysitting shift. It had this deeply estranging Omega Man effect.

The new ‘Wedge’ certainly does not do that (I wrote about it’s newly humanized form for The Walrus magazine over the summer), and I think it’s for the better. However, with Halloween approaching, I thought it would be nice to revisit those videos that triggered something deep and unsettling in my teenage self. Some have no aged super well - some have the same potency as ever. Remember to watch these with the lights down!

Honourable Mention - Ladytron - Seventeen

In hindsight, this video is not very creepy, and it’s much better lit than I remember it being. Ladytron was already pretty famous by the time I saw this video, which probably explains that. But at the time, this thing freaked me out like crazy.

#5 - Spiritualized - She Kissed MeThis one doesn’t hold...

Sun, 30 Oct 2011 12:25:13 -0400

#5 - Spiritualized - She Kissed Me

This one doesn’t hold up so well either - the song is too raucous to be conducive to something ‘creepy’, I now realize. However, watching it on a crappy TV, it looked a lot like the parts where his face blurs were errors on the set, which was kindof disturbing, right?

#4 - Bjork - All is Full of Love This one’s kind of...

Sun, 30 Oct 2011 12:24:22 -0400

#4 - Bjork - All is Full of Love

This one’s kind of cheating a bit, because they used to play this on daytime Much once in a while, when it was ok to play really upsetting videos during the day, apparently. (Or ‘the golden years’.) This is a video by Chris Cunningham, the grandmaster of terrifying music videos. He also made this trippy number for Leftfield’s ‘Afrikashox’, and another video which I will address at #1. For me, the female robots with Bjork’s face making out (yup) aren’t the creepy part - it’s all of the shots of water running droplets pooling in reverse, the fetishistic images of machinery, the obscuring shadows.

#3- Sigur Ros - Untitled (Vaka)This video is great for the ...

Sun, 30 Oct 2011 12:22:55 -0400

#3- Sigur Ros - Untitled (Vaka)

This video is great for the juxtaposition of Sigur Ros’s weird, made up language (creepy in and of itself), which in this case serves to actually make a kind of uplifting soundscape, with these abjectly despairing images with children. This one was directed by Floria Sigismondi, back when she was still an interesting art photographer.

#2 - Mogwai - Hunted by a Freak This video is maybe the ...

Sun, 30 Oct 2011 12:21:54 -0400

#2 - Mogwai - Hunted by a Freak

This video is maybe the creepiest use of animation I have ever seen. By rendering a really horrific idea - a sociopath throws animals off the top of a building - in blocky, unrealistic, ‘Money for Nothing’ style animated figures, the animators make the idea seem even more cruel somehow. The animation makes it watchable, which makes it creepy.

#1 - Aphex Twin, Windowlicker This is the creepiest, most...

Sun, 30 Oct 2011 12:21:24 -0400

#1 - Aphex Twin, Windowlicker

This is the creepiest, most singularly upsetting video ever made (when viewed at 1am on a Friday night, as a teenager, without context). Yes, I now recognize this as a (fairly clever) satire of the mores and excesses of stereotypical rap videos from the early 2000s, but I feel the same way about this video as I do about Lost Highway - this is a direct tap into the psyche of a man dealing with deeply conflicted sexual politics (made by Chris Cunningham! Who also did my #4!). And the depths that Aphex Twin distorts, twists, and loops his music on Windowlicker especially was unprecedented for me at the time. Even now this thing upsets me. Jesus Christ. Make it stop! Make it stop!!!

"That hipster cop."

Wed, 19 Oct 2011 02:49:41 -0400

"That hipster cop.":

I have been dutifully checking out Occupy Wall Street every couple of days, and the last visit was the most confusing.

Someone asked me if I was “that hipster cop.” At the time, I had no idea what he was talking about. And then I read the above article. Oh dear.

Seeing a radio voice in person.

Mon, 12 Sep 2011 01:03:00 -0400

As someone who does radio things, I have occasionally met people who have only heard my voice, and not seen it directly coming out of my mouth. I find these interactions usually disconcerting, because:

a) I think that my voice is much more impressive and assured than my body language (I never know what to do with my hands, and I used to wear a lot of clothes that didn’t fit)

and

b) People usually comment that I “look different from how I sound”, which usually means they are disappointed. (I went on a single date with someone who only knew me from the radio, which was disastrous - I do not wish to elaborate on this point)

More than anything, I am a huge consumer of radio. I used to listen to about 20 hours a week, though I will have to cut back now with grad school work. And I am almost always surprised to see a voice that I have mentally created a person around coming out of some other body I hadn’t visualized. (This last sentence makes sense, right?)

Today, I attended a panel hosted by Sam Tanenhaus, who also hosts the excellent New York Times Book Review podcast. I had deliberately not looked him up before now, for the reason that he might contradict the image of him I had built up in my mind. As it turns out, he is almost exactly how I had mentally pictured him. This has never happened before.

(For reference, here he is, appearing on Charlie Rose)

Here is my question - why do we create images of people we only know from hearing them? This is not just for radio listeners - I also develop images of people who I have only communicated with via email, or whose writing I have read in some other medium. This is common, right? I’m not alone on this one?

The Falling Man.

Sat, 10 Sep 2011 16:15:00 -0400

The Falling Man.:

In re: September 11th, I’ve been getting a number of emails from concerned parties on the topic. It’s strange to be in New York for the anniversary, given that everything I know about the event was mediated by the news in one form or another.

In that spirit, here’s an article we discussed in class this week from Esquire. It’s a fascinating look at the difference between reporting and rubber-necking, and how difficult it can be to separate the two during a crisis. Enjoy!

"You know, you have a great voice. You would be a great hypnotist."

Wed, 07 Sep 2011 23:41:00 -0400

“You know, you have a great voice. You would be a great hypnotist.”

- A new classmate of mine, saying perhaps the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me. This is also a neat variation on “you have a great voice, you should do radio.”

Hey, Canada! I know that.

Wed, 31 Aug 2011 02:29:07 -0400

Since moving here, I have spoken to quite a few people from other countries (in part because I’m in a program dominated by students from abroad, and in part because I live in a student apartment complex called ‘international house’).

Upon meeting them, many of my new friends have been excited to discover that I’m from Canada. I’m coming to realize that this is because people from outside the United States see Canada as some kind of tabula rasa onto which they can project their own national anxieties.

This is manifested by people saying ‘You know, Canada is a lot like my country, (X) because of (Y)’. Here are a few of those statements I have heard from other people so far:

Canada is like Australia because our relationship with England is like yours with the United States.
Canada is like New Zealand because our relationship with Australia is like yours with the United States.
Canada is like Belgium because we have two language solitudes too!
Canada is like Switzerland because everyone likes us internationally and we don’t really deserve it.
Canada is like Ireland/Wales/Scotland because we are always trying to identify ourselves in some way.
Canada is like India because of our relationship to Pakistan (I should have paid more attention during this explanation, but it was decidedly anti-Pakistan).
Canada is like Iraq (I stopped the speaker here, because no, it’s not).

Longshot Radio

Wed, 31 Aug 2011 01:57:00 -0400

Longshot Radio:

My second day in New York, I decided to wander down to the Gawker offices and participate in Longshot Magazine, a project done by media-type people to produce a full magazine (and radio component!) in 72 hours. Having worked a bit on magazines that produce at a normal pace, I appreciate how entirely crazy this idea is. While I was planning to just check it out, I ended up staying for about ten hours. Production night stress is intoxicating, apparently.

Because of my years of semi-professional radio experience, I was conscripted to help with their podcast project, which was put together by some people from the New York public radio world. I recorded a barely coherent story, and hey, apparently it was good enough to be an editors’ pick! You can listen at the link above, but I recommend checking out the full twenty-minute showreel they put out. Neat stuff!

Finally! A blog of some kind about Chris Berube.

Wed, 31 Aug 2011 01:52:09 -0400

Hey! I live and study in New York now, and it’s only taken me, what, three weeks to set up a blog about it? For the curious (or, better still, those incurious about actually interesting things) I will be posting updates of my goings on in NYC. We’ll see how long this lasts. (Photo by Will Sloan)