Picture from And of Other Things

A little while ago when I wrote this piece about Captain Dangerous, I went on YouTube to find the video I linked to, the one I filmed with them on a balcony overlooking the River Trent. In the related videos obviously some of mine came up, mostly Random Saturday Sessions, and a few things I had forgotten about such as Jake Morley performing in the beer garden at Bodega. Somewhere in my archive there is a video I made with a band from Southend called Redtrack when they appeared in Nottingham a few years ago that involved the lead singer singing in the toilets of the old Gatecrasher nightclub, so there is a theme. I have said before that these videos were an unknowing prototype for what I am doing now but it is by no means an original idea and I don't pretend it is.

Captain Dangerous filmed a series of videos for a filmmaker called Raj Pathak (uploaded in 2008 so I assume they were filmed then too) which I discovered a while ago and realised that Pathak was doing the same sort of thing, but my interest was peaked by his description stating that these were influenced by the original Take Away videos made by a guy called Vincent Moon. I had never heard of the guy until I looked up his name and found that he is the patron saint of this kind of thing.

Vincent Moon filmed the Take Away music videos between 2006 and 2009 using almost exactly the same techniques as I do, in other words just turn up and film it with the minimum amount of fuss. There's also the Addistock Sessions in which singers did one cover and one original, again in an unusual location. I don't want to declare myself the new king of this kind of thing, (that's for other people to say) because I think that these music videos are a great way to promote music and more and more people should just get out there and do it. We all carry video cameras in our pockets so with the greatest of ease anyone can make a one take music performance. It also brings music to people who might not otherwise get to hear it and could make a new fan for the singer, I doubt Paul Carbuncle was playing to his key demographic in a fruit shop but he went down really well for example.

PLUG: The Random Saturday Sessions returns to business as usual in January.

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 This week's edition of The Sunday Alternative is here. 

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