Video Free Silver Lake: Flytraps, Charles Bradley, Burroughs, PISCES, Pam Shaffer, Greenhorse, FM Belfast/Jóhann Helgason

By Jed

1) L.A.'s all-girl garage rock band the Flytraps are the newest addition to Tony and Gabe's archive of personalized live performances, this one filmed in the backyard gazebo of the house in Glassell Park at which the band lives.  As Tony and Gabe proclaim on their site, and as can be likely inferred from the video "these chicks are fucking cool. Here is "Sleep Tight". It starts off seeming like a beer commercial.

The Flytraps - Flytraps Theme / Sleep Tight from Tony and Gabe on Vimeo.

2) If you've followed at all soul singer Charles Bradley, you know his long sad story -- growing up poor in Brooklyn, working as a chef and later as a handyman, travelling around the country for decades attempting to start up a music career that never expanded much beyond James Brown cover-act, and the murder of his brother about 10 years ago.  The last year, however, has been a great year for Charles Bradley -- national TV appearances, a well regarded performance at South by Southwest, sold out shows, and now, a new, very moving video for "Heartaches and Pain".   

 

3)  Burroughs is an apparently upcoming post-punk band out of L.A., with a new video for "In the Rugal Folds."  They sound a lot like Interpol to me, but not in the bad She Wants Revenge way.  Interspersed in a video with an otherwise fairly dark feel (black clothes, black masks, spurting confetti blood, are short clips of what seem to be the band getting a broken down car started. I don't know what "rugal" means.

4) Pam Shaffer's song "Henry" has to do with/is about writer Henry Miller, and the new video (shot all on iPhone) is in what looks like roughly turn of the 19th/20th century period dress, and features ballroom dancing, tea drinking, tarot cards, and all sorts of old fashiony sorts of actions and facial expressions. 

5) PISCES is the latest side project by Happy Hollows lead singer Sarah Negahdari.  The feel and sound of the song is quite distinct from the HH, and reminds me somewhat of the somewhat more low key portion of the Throwing Muses repetoire.  Here is the newest cat themed video from PISCES: "Voodoo".

 

6) The video for "The Breathing Machine" by Greenhorse (based now in L.A., but originally met in an antique store in Wyoming, before beginning an online collaboration between London, L.A. and South Africa) is a montage of what seem to be horror movie clips. It's "haunting" enough for Halloween, but works just as well for the chilling days of early November.  They released their Happiness EP on October 4.

7) Following up on their collaboration with Prinspolo, Iceland's FM Belfast have now collaborated with Jóhann Helgason for "Feel So Fine."  I haven't been able to find much about Johann, besides that he's been involved in the Icelandic music scene for a long time, seemingly in the pop genre.  Wait for him to start singing in the video, because you'll be surprised by the voice that comes out.

Email me at RFSLJed at gmail dot com if there's something you want me to post next week.