Living


For Living's "Boat Talk", I collaborated with Terry Strecker, who chose the locations and choreographed much of the movement, as well as created the costumes. I am very sorry to say, Terry passed away recently (2006) after a long illness.
      Here is a foto-gallery
      from my video
Here is a nice link (the website of the music producer of LIVING) with some music and pictures

Jim Carrol:

This music video of SWEET JANE was chosen by a Harvard graduate project to teach reading in prisons!
I wanted to do a different song than "Sweet Jane" but Jim thought it would be great to have Lou Reed lend some star power, and it was indeed exciting to work with Lou.

All through the production I wondered what a Stutz Bearcat was, finally I found a picture a few decades later...

There is a scene with "play money" which is the actual money for making the film. Rosemary Carrol is one of the players who rolls a pair of dice made with sculpy. The metaphor of games and game boards is an influence from the Phillip K. Dick stories of Perky Pat.
After making this clip, I started a project with Jim called "The Video Diaries". We shot on several locations of Jim reading, a very good appearance at the YMCA and also a poetry reading in my bedroom. There are excerpts of this and some "making of" footage on the DVD.

 

Michael Musto

Michael had some outrageous ideas which got me interested to produce the clip in the first place....promises of shocking revelations on-screen never seen before in a music-video.... but then he chickened out, thinking he would scare his audience. I came up with a substitute theme, a wierd hommage to Jimmy Cliff (who shot the sherrif? who shot the sherrif's hairdresser?)

Strange Party

Everyone participated in the concept, it was the most collaborative of all the clips.
Ann Magnuson & Joey Arias reincarnated their Dali & Gala characters which were first performed on stage in, "Hello Dali". Another member, Page Wood, contributed funny graphics of fake teeth and " sweet n low".

 

    Carl Anderson



I was contacted by Carl's manager, Michael Caplan, with an urgent request to do this clip ASAP. There was no time to get the recording, so Carl sang it to me over the phone. I told him I thought he sang like Stevie Wonder, and he replied rather sternly, "You mean he sounds like me!". Artist Oliver Sanchez loaned a piece of his sculpture-furniture. Carl borrowed a beautiful yellow silk suit from his friend, designer
Willie Smith. Michael ran around during the shoot, begging Carl "Please don't sweat, I can't afford to buy that suit!"
This was not an easy request, we were shooting on tar beach, the rooftop where Joe and I lived, and the sun was blazing hot. I called a  new friend of mine, Robin Lynch, who lived in Washington DC., and offered to fly her to NY if she could act in this clip.

Robin was the most beautiful girl I knew who was Carl's height and I thought they would look good together. I had no idea that Carl had played opposite Robin's sister in
"The Color Purple". Strange coincidence !
                       
             

 

Jason Harvey

For Jason Harvey's first clip, "Easy Street", there were some images he had in his head from the start and we brought them to life. For his second clip, "In Hollywood" I was invited to go wild as long as I could incorporate a custom made chest-plate he had commissioned. The sculptor had a great eye for form, but his choice of materials was unusual. He made the chestplate out of cement. Jason could hardly stand up, and it was made to fit but not to take off, so his energy was seriously reduced. That was a blessing in disguise though, because Jason was usually hyper, running me ragged !

As I have recently assembled all 3 DANSPAKS on one DVD, I put Jason's 2 clips together for the first time....something he always wanted.

Cinqué Lee, Spike Lee's brother, made a cameo appearance, and he was also my production assistant during the shoot.

 

Prince Charles

This was an ambitious production shot in 35mm with a guest choreographer and a big cast. We shot on location at a real record factory who were pressing Prince Charle's records.
Charles Alexander is now a music production & engineering professor at Berklee School of Music in Boston, and from the long list of Grammy awards and gold and platinum albums, he is far from finished.

cover design Adolfo Sanchez

Man Parrish:
Man Parrish "making of" pix

Shot in his studio, hand held timelapse on 16mm film. When I showed this clip at a Billboard convention in LA, one of the inventors of DOLBY sound told me he thought this was the best use of Dolby Stereo HiFi he had ever heard! When I sent Manny his first royalty check for about $50 apologizing that Sony had big packageing costs, he told me, 'cheer up, that's the biggest royalty check I ever made on this song!' Joey Arias was responsible for pulling together the look with original make-up, hair, and some fantastic clothes, notably some pop art raincoats by Kansai Yamamoto.
Man Parrish "making of" pix
See CLIP on the ManParrish site

Shox Lumania:
pix, anecdotes, PLAY CLIP

Lari SHOX in "Falling"

Pointy Headgear: This clip was made in pixilation during the make up preparation backstage before a live performance  at Hurrah. The 16mm film was also exposed multiple times to make some effects.

Anton Sanko backstage at Hurrah

Richard Bone:

The Alien Girl is played by Tessie Chua, a downtown comic who was known for her comic performances at the Mudd Club. I eventually made 2 long form concept videos with Richard Bone's music, the first in a series of ambient videos. Here are some of Richard's own music video projects on this link... Richard Bone on MySpace >

 

THE ORDINAIRES

In this clip I tried to make the notes of the music dance. A grant from the Experimental Television Center in Owego allowed plenty of ways to develope effects with hand made machines by Nam June Paik. During a live performance, one of the violins fell apart while I was shooting and this drama became imortalised. Their ambitious orchestrations were inspiring to work with.

 

cover design Oliver Sanchez