The music video. Part I. Background.
Back in 2012 I conceived and began developing the installation that will be pinkStardust. As I began researching for the project (beginning with Las Vegas renaming itself the Atomic city and what all was tangled into that), I realized that the installation was going to be quite complex and multi-layered.
Not a problem – except when one is planning to send out proposals for exhibiting the work. I wondered. Can I encapsulate, reduce down, in some way more than just a written outline? Something informative but much more interesting?
That’s when I wrote the song The pinkStardust Blues. An approximately 3 minute overview of who, what, when, where and why. It works.
My first challenge with the song however wasn’t lyrics, or even the melody and music. They came quite easily actually, which surprised me because I am not a song writer.
My first challenge was trying to flesh out the idea I had to make the song a lounge-like tune. Like something one would hear not in a high-end casino on the strip, but rather, a smaller, little intimate bar with a singer on a piano backed by a guitar, bass, drums. Shouldn’t be too hard eh?
I thought of the song Roly Poly, performed in “… a little place called the Hidden Door.” in the hit film from 1959’s Pillow Talk, with Doris Day and Rock Hudson.
The tune was perfect. The setting was perfect. But, even though the lyrics were not the same, the licensing company wanted thousands of dollars to use the tune.
Although Rock and Doris sing along to Roly Poly in the Hidden Door in NYC I’m sure a Hidden Door-like bar could very much be found on a street in The Atomic City in 1959.
Yes, I considered just enough variation to slide by, but when these kinds of obstacles show up during the development of a project, I take note and listen. Because It usually means there is a better solution. And there was. Sing the song to a basic blues riff because after all, it is about a time one would be singing the blues if one knew what was up (and coming down – can you say pink stardust?) when those atomic tests were blowing left and right just 60 miles away – and “spreading the love” with every weather pattern blowing the fallout east.
As the song says in the second verse “Time went by.” I continued researching, selecting major events from the timeline I was creating that forms the structure of the installation, selecting materials – and started making.
I also began developing what a music video of the song would look like. Assuming that I would have to make it myself, I chose to reference Bob Dylan’s Subterranean Homesick Blues for many reasons.
First of all, it is one of if not the first music video made.
Second, it was filmed in black and white in one long, uninterrupted, unedited shot – a look I thought I may have to emulate as I would have to have someone stand in an alley with their phone and record it.
Third, It was released in 1962 – right smack dab in the middle of the pinkStardust time line.
And bonus, turns out it was an anti-nuke song – although Bob makes no mention of this in the actual song. Chaz Chandler, the original bassist for the British band the Animals talked about it when he was interviewed, saying Dylan invited the Animals up to his apartment to hear his new song, and at that time told them that it was a disarmament/ anti nuke tune. Perfect!
Here’s a link to Bob’s video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MGxjIBEZvx0
Yes, many bands have used the look and format, tossing cards with bits of lyric hastily written across them. But that doesn’t bother me. Actually, moves the choice into a pop culture group of good company – and pinkStardust is all about the POP!
In my next post I will chat about the making of the pinkStardust Blues music video. It is in final editing and will be ready to include in that pinkStardust installation exhibition proposal I am ready to send to – guess who?
carlisle studio 