Spending an Evening with Feist and Martin de Thurah

Last night Wonder Boy and I had an impromptu evening, along with a couple hundred other people, with Leslie Feist and Martin de Thurah. Both were in town to talk about music videos, in conjunction with a new exhibit at the Cincinnati Contemporary Arts Center (CAC) called Spectacle: The Music Video.

We’ve been to a few events at the CAC now and what I love about them is the intimacy. I think the thing last night was sold out, but once everyone was seated, it just felt nice and cozy. Not overly crowded. And I was about 30 feet away from Feist!

I haven’t seen Spectacle: The Music Video, yet, though I intend to. What intrigued me about last night’s talk was the opportunity to explore the evolution of the music video. Music started as a live art form. Then just an audio one. With video, it became visual and glossy and expensive. Since everything went digital and things have been uploaded to YouTube… Well, I’m curious how that’s changed things. I’m not sure I had that entirely answered last night. Feist expressed how she loved when her songs got a life of their own. She creates something and releases it out into the world. People find it the videos on YouTube and the songs wherever, and can recreate it, remix it, do whatever. And then this thing she created gets even bigger. I would imagine her responses hasn’t always been so zen.

Here’s a little bit about what I learned last night:

Feist, Bittersweet Memories: We got to watch the Bittersweet Memories video, which was just released yesterday. Wonder Boy and I felt so cool. A few months ago we had a party where you had to come dressed like some picture from your past, a la the Back to the Future project from Irena Werning. Feist’s new video is basically the Back to the Future project set to music!

Feist, I Feel It All: While Feist and I have very little in common, her story of the I Feel It All video had a few familiar parts for me. She was planning the video while living in Paris with her roommate, Mary Rozzi. As in Rozzi Fireworks from Loveland, Ohio, where I grew up. She mentioned how cool it would be to have explosions going off in her video in time to the music and Mary was all, “My uncles can totally do that.”And so she went to Lawrenceburg, Indiana, and filmed the video for I Feel It All. They had four tries to get it right, but after an accident with some fireworks, had to select from two takes. Two takes! But the video turned out pretty cool. And I thought it was pretty cool to hear her describe the fireworks testing field in Loveland, because thats where I played so many soccer games growing up…

Feist, The Bad in Each Other: Martin de Thurah is a video director and he and Feist collaborated on the video for The Bad in Each Other. The video is terribly sad (burying the dog!) but also really quirky and weird, in a good way. De Thurah came across like that – quirky and weird, in a good way. He had people laughing but also did a wonderful job of trying to explain how he translates abstract ideas onto film.

Car Park North, Human: This was one of the first (the first?) music videos that Martin de Thurah ever created. It doesn’t feature the musicians at all but still tells such a story. De Thurah said he was inspired from day dreams he used to have as a kid.

Fever Ray, When I Grow Up: I’ve already established that Martin de Thurah presented himself as a quirky individual. Apparently he’s been that way for quite some time. As a kid, he was intimidated by physics. Before a big exam, he stripped down to his underwear, painted his upper body in watercolors and mowed his lawn running very quickly. It was part of a ritual to help him prepare for the exam. Imagine! When he heard When I Grow Up by Fever Ray, he remembered this ritual and wanted to work that idea into the music video.

Royksopp, What Else Is There: The music video for What Else Is There seems very big budget to me. But according to Martin de Thurah, it was anything but. In the middle of the night, they hooked up the singer to the ladder of a firetruck and let her dangle in the middle of the street. Then they drove the truck up and down the street very quietly so as not to attract any attention. Because of money, they hadn’t been able to hire police and shut down the street properly, so they just crossed their fingers that no one would question the girl hanging in the middle of the street.

James Blake, Lindisfarne: I cannot pretend to like James Blake. I just can’t. But hearing Martin de Thurah explain how he came up with the idea for this video was fascinating. The end result is beautiful and twisted.