With my recent posts looking back on The Clash I’m reminded of all the ways that punk rock influenced the scenes that followed it. Even if the aesthetics we associate with punk music come and go, many of the ethical ideas that punk celebrated and the DIY productivity it inspired have fueled “independent” movements in all of the arts ever since the 1970′s. In my own productivity I haven’t recorded music that I’d call “punk,” but the shoestring budgets, sweat equity trades, and music for music’s sake consciousness that’s shared by all of my collaborators comes right out of CBGB or Warhol’s Factory or a warehouse in London where a band called The Clash recorded an album called London Calling: we’re all clipped-together with those same spikes and safety pins.

One concept I’ve fueled with specifically punk, anti-capitalist ideas is my ongoing war with music videos as advertisements for artists and songs. Since the beginning of music videos it was clear that it was important to treat the medium more like a short film than like an infomercial. With that in mind I’ve been lucky to have most of my videos made by new media artists.

Antonia Oakes showed a collection of art videos that feature my songs as their soundtracks as part of her Future Shock installation at Nashville’s Modular Art Pods event in June. Here’s her breakdown on that otherworldly installation…

FUTURE SHOCK

DREAM IN THE DOORWAY
Dream in the Doorway
A fuzzy dream/memory of a house being built in Detroit c. 1940s.

Here’s the video collection…

Stay Awake!

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