Ed Masley

The Republic | azcentral.com

The Phoenix music scene produced its usual array of highly recommended music videos in 2016, from the manic intensity of the Haymarket Squares’ portrayal of an office worker setting fire to his desk to Injury Reserve, whose "All This Money" is nearing 150,000 YouTube views in just three months. And for the second time in three years, Captain Squeegee tops our look back at the Valley's best and brightest contributions to the art of music video. But these are all worth taking time away from whatever it is you’re supposed to be doing right now. Enjoy.

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1. Captain Squeegee, "Dually Noted"

Director Freddie Paull has put the focus where it should be – on lead singer Danny Torgersen, who makes his way from the set of a TV reality show audition to the depths of hell and back in the course of a wildly entertaining series of unfortunate events.

Torgersen’s larger-than-life persona and considerable acting chops are both in full effect from the time he steps out of a broken elevator singing, “I am not a weed, I’m just an unloved flower.” Setting off to explore his surroundings, he’s chased through the halls by security guards in ski masks who knock him unconscious with a night stick. It gets trippier from there, through a brilliantly staged audition scene that makes the most of Torgersen’s ridiculously entertaining willingness to give the camera everything he’s got to that previously mentioned visit with the devil, which required filming in an Arizona mine shaft.

Paull tells us, "Danny is every bit as effervescent in real life as he is on screen. So working with him is kinda like trying to control a ball of raw energy, but that just made the whole experience more fun. He’s a fantastic actor, and honestly his theatrics really make the video for me. If anything, the whole creation of the video was a battle just to try to match the same level of energy and vibrancy as Danny and his writing.”

2. Injury Reserve, "All This Money"

This is the second track these local hip-hop heroes dropped from "Floss," the much-anticipated followup to their acclaimed debut, "Live from the Dentist Office." And director Parker Corey has taken a novel approach to bringing their lyrical tribute to the spending power of cold hard cash to life with a gender reversal, enlisting a trio of female actors to mime the guys' lyrics with requisite swagger and surrounding them with stacks of cash and male strippers who love working hard for the money in little white briefs and matching angel wings. But first, an establishing shot of the girls in a luxury SUV, the wipers dragging cash across the windshield.

The premise itself – a classic role reversal on 21st-century hip-hop videos – is strong enough to make the list. The execution takes that concept to the bank, from the cinematography of Jackson Spilsbury to the women acting – Rees Young, Rayne Simmonds and Caitlin Andelora. But what really stands the hip-hop/stripper cliche on its head is that the women aren't objectified at all, dressing down in an Oakland baseball jersey and a polo shirt for a night on the town ogling strippers, as though they know It doesn't matter how you're dressed when you're waving that cash around.

As one YouTube viewer summed it up, "If only the gender swap in 'Ghostbusters' was as good as this.﻿" I haven't seen that movie, but I know I funny comment when I see one.

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3. Haymarket Squares, “Let’s Start a Riot”

Marc Oxborrow’s performance here puts the “insane” in “just insanely brilliant” – an unhinged portrait of a disaffected office worker who takes a lighter to his desk and sits there laughing as the flames engulf his work, a crazed expression on his face. There’s also a scene of him smashing a printer with a baseball bat. There are plenty of other people in the video but Matty Steinkamp, the director, wisely keeps returning to that office with the burning desk.

As Oxborrow explains: “The video extends the song’s theme of worker alienation across a whole slew of industries. We started with grand ideas of showing entire workplaces rising up and taking to the streets, but decided to leave the ‘cast of thousands’ stuff to Captain Squeegee and go with a simpler approach that focuses on disaffected individuals.”

Good call. And those flames are as real as they look. They had friends standing by with water buckets and blankets, just in case. “The flames were fueled by rubber cement, suggested by our former fiddle player who, in another life, was a stuntman,” Oxborrow says. “We had to repeatedly open the rolling doors of the Tempe studio to let the toxic black fumes escape.”

4. Fairy Bones, “Notes From Wonderland”

These local rockers take a trip through Lewis Carroll’s looking glass with Chelsey Louise as the Red Queen, Robert Ciuca as the Cheshire Cat, Ben Foos as the Hatter, Matthew Foos as the Caterpillar and Seth Powers as Alice. Louise co-directed with Brandon McGill, with whom she’s done a brilliant job of filtering the psychedelic essence of the song through Carroll’s characters. The costuming and makeup are amazing, which may have played a huge role in their picking up "Best Music Video" at Phoenix Comicon.

Louise explains: “We know the Alice theme had been overplayed, especially with the latest movies, so we wanted to go an unconventional route. Brandon McGill, co-director and the body painter, had recently completed an 'Alice in Wonderland' series that Robert played the Cheshire Cat in, so his role easily fell into place. We didn't gender bend Alice on purpose; we just knew we wanted to use Seth because he's extremely talented and brings a great creative energy.”

As that was all coming together, they decide to weave in an alternate story based more on the lyrics, written by Louise about a former lover.

“Alice gets thrown into a weird world where the end destination is finally confronting his former love, the Red Queen. Along the way, he deals with all of the reasons they didn't work out in the first place (Caterpillar’s infidelity, Mad Hatter’s substance abuse) led by the Cheshire Cat – Red Queen’s henchman of sorts. In the end they both realize it will never work even if there was love still, because love doesn't necessarily conquer all. Love is just madness.”

The video ends by paraphrasing Carroll, Alice answering “Have I gone mad?” with “I’m afraid so. But I’ll tell you a secret. All the best people are.”

5. No Volcano, "Blackout"

Director Jason Willis arrived at what he calls "a look vaguely inspired by the late 70's style of rotoscoping animation employed by Ralph Bakshi." And if, like me, you weren't quite sure what rotoscoping was when you first read that quote, Wikipedia calls it a "technique used by animators to trace over motion picture footage, frame by frame, when realistic action is required."

And the action here is definitely realistic, capturing the energy of No Volcano live while turning the members into drawings – like a-ha with cooler taste in music. As singer Jim Andreas recalls the making of those animated close-ups: "I remember Jason asking me to make a video of me singing along to the song with my phone to send to him. I told him Im probably gonna hate it and he told me not to worry that it will look cool. He was right I love the way it turned out."

There's also a subplot involving what Willis describes as "an animated confrontation between a mirror-covered mannequin head and an extraterrestrial plant-based menace."

6. AJJ, “Goodbye, Oh Goodbye”

Did YouTube really call this thing "the greatest music video ever made?" Or is that one more punchline in their spot-on parody of music videos taking themselves a bit too seriously. It starts with an announcement printed on the screen: “The following music video was shot in a single take in a warehouse in downtown Los Angeles.” Then it cuts to the members of AJJ bobbing their heads to the beat while standing in a line, each member in a different colored shirt. If you happen to find yourself wondering if they may be making fun of OK Go, you’re not alone.

The choreography is bad. There’s a dude in a chicken suit for no apparent reason. A stage hand rolls a tire back and forth in front of them. They march around a ladder. The camera pans in and pans out. And as the song is ending,the stage hand dumps a bag of brightly colored balls at their feet. Then, it’s over, and they celebrate a job well done as though they’ve just accomplished something difficult. This, in turn, is followed by a mini-mockumentary on the making of the video in which the actor in the chicken suit says, “Yeah, you know, it’s like a part-time gig. I mean, the video’s cool and everything but normally I don’t do, like, chicken stuff.”

My favorite part, though, is reading the comments from people who don’t know they’re kidding. Or are they?

7. Sam Means, “The Other Side of You”

As Means himself explains the premise, “My 6-year-old daughter and I had a few hours to kill the other day, so I presented her with the idea of writing and shooting a music video for me. Surprisingly, she not only agreed, but completely embraced it, and within an hour we had a story, some really shaky footage and, most importantly, tons of fun.”

It helps that the kid is adorable. After setting the scene with a "creative meeting" at the kitchen table, they move on to the plot Lola Birdie came up with, involving a sock monkey stalking her father as he goes about his day. At one point, his phone rings, so he picks it up and the message read, “Your Stalker! Would like FaceTime.” It’s all very quirky and cute. In fact, one YouTube comment went so far as to declare it “cuteness overload.” I’m pretty sure that person meant it in a good way, in which case I agree. It’s adorable.

8. Kongos, “Take It From Me”

The Paradise Valley brothers directed this video, which has earned more than 3 million views on YouTube. It starts as a performance clip interspersed with footage of the brothers on their tour bus. Then, as they sit on a sofa, they’re approached by four attractive women, who stick tubes in the back of their necks and pump up their heads until they look like they stepped out of that “NBA Jam” game. And I get that it’s a metaphor, but the sight of them dancing around with those oversized heads is just ridiculously entertaining. Beef Vegan of TMI Radio also appears as a chef, just one more trapping of the rock star life that’s given them such big heads.

As Jesse Kongos explains: "With an album title like 'Egomaniac' and a chorus lyric of 'Nothing can stop me,' we wanted to make sure the tongue-in-cheek aspect came across in the video. We all remembered big-head mode in those '90s video games like NBA Jam and thought it’d be a good way to portray the ridiculous nature of the modern rock life. We really wanted there to be a feeling of excess and exaggeration in the video while walking the line of cool and silly." Mission accomplished.

9. The Haymarket Squares, “Heaven”

How much mileage can you get out of dressing the members of Haymarket Squares as angels – with big fluffy wings – and then turning them loose of the streets of downtown Phoenix? A surprising amount, if this infectious video is any indication. It starts with the angels in church, but as soon as the service is over, they’re out the door, ditching their halos to ride skateboards, play arcade games, drink some beer and visit an adult establishment.

Oxborrow says, “After making the dark (black background throughout!) and angry (smash things!) clip for ‘Let’s Start A Riot,’ we were looking for something a little lighter and funnier for ‘Heaven.’ The core idea came from a single phrase — ‘angels on their day off’ — that bubbled up early on when we were brainstorming video ideas. When we met with director Cory Davis to flesh out the concept, we quickly came up with a long list of earthly pleasures that heavenly beings might sample on their down-time.”

From there, they simply made their way through a list of locations where they could engage in spontaneous hi-jinks, which definitely adds to the appeal. As Oxborrow says, “You can’t script moments like John taking a skateboard to the privates.” I mean, I guess you could if you were something of a sadist.

10. Red Tank!, “Obelisk”

There’s really not much to this music video. And yet it so perfectly captures the reckless abandon and forward momentum of the track itself, I can’t stop watching it. It’s maybe five photos of Red Tank! in action (as taken by Annabelle Klick at the In-Ko-Pah Festival outside San Diego) flying by in a dizzying loop with glitchy overlays. Clipper Arnold of Red Tank! says, “The song is a frenetic anthem of challenging institutions of hegemony and authority. As far as the premise goes, I suppose it's meant to enhance the dynamism and urgency of the song.” That is exactly what it does. To a ridiculous degree.

“When you're in a DIY band," Arnold says, "you play all of these different roles of music video coordinator, graphic designer, publicist, booking agent, etc. A lot of times it's hard to collaborate to make something auxiliary to the sound if you don't have the proper skills, time, money and resources. I think this is why we favor simpler concepts or image-driven rather than narrative-centric videos go – it takes some of the edge off of us and restores the focus to the sound we produce.”

11. Genre, “Speak Now”

Genre’s Trevor Denton and Zac Markey made this animated video,casting themselves in a video game that’s set in central Phoenix, where they stomp on Sheriff Joe Arpaio and get high on their way to Markey’s girlfriend’s wedding, rolling in too late to “speak now or forever hold their peace.” As Markey recalls, “It was Trevor's idea for a music video that looked like a NES video game, and I thought people would love seeing real landmarks and people from Phoenix.” The video also features Markey’s cat, Aleister Meowley. “I found him at the Circle K on 24th Street and Indian School (Road),” Markey says. “And he rules.”

Not everything that happens in the video is reality-based. They’re more afraid of Sheriff Joe than this suggests, for instance. And Bud’s Glass Joint isn’t right next door to Crescent Ballroom. But Markey really did take on Doug Ducey (in a New Times article to try and prevent him from becoming governor). “And UFOs and chemtrails are totally real,” he adds. Especially the UFO part.

12. Sundressed, "Autopilot"

When we first see Sundressed singer Trevor Hedges, he's seated with two bandmates on a sofa, singing "For the next 30 minutes, I will be OK / Even though I spent the last hour over your grave." And for the next three minutes, Hedges never budges, staring down the camera as one day fades into another. Kids dump candy on his lap on Halloween. There's a birthday party. Friends surround him, dancing on the sofa. One guy wears a big rubber unicorn head. And through it all, Hedges just sits there, looking like he couldn't have a good time if he tried. As he sings in the chorus, he "spent this last year on autopilot." And this is the visual representation of that line.

"We wanted to very accurately depict what it's like to be on autopilot," Hedges says. "So the idea was to have a year pass by me while I was sitting on the couch. The '90s attire was just a fun way to bring a little lightheartedness to a kind of heavy song, which is kind of the theme of most of our music."

Was it hard to keep a straight face while his friends were being total goofs?

"Yes it was super difficult," he says. "For most of it we had a best of the 90s playlist going instead of the actual song."

Cory Davis of Yellow Box Films, who also did "Heaven" for Haymarket Squares" and "Spoils of War" for Wyves, directs.

13. Taylor Upsahl, “Follow Me”

This was shot by Matty Steinkamp, who’s directed any number of the most intriguing local videos in recent memory, from Captain Squeegee’s madcap “Factory” to decker.’s chilling “Patsy” and the video at No. 1 on this list. “Follow Me” follows the more cinematic approach the director took on “Patsy.” The result is a slow-burning five-minute thriller that features the videogenic Upsahl stalking her prey as a cold-blooded killer. The rest of the cast is filled with Upsahl’s classmates from Arizona School for the Arts, a Phoenix high school.

“We wanted to do a somewhat fictional drama,” Steinkamp says, “where Taylor is playing an assassin that is going after corruption in politics. She hunts down the man that killed someone close to her.”

14. Dadadoh, “Do It”

It starts with the rapper (real name Bryan Preston) agreeing to go into witness protection and ends with him leading a crew of dancers through a central Phoenix alley like a guy who’s clearly seen his share of Michael Jackson videos. As Preston, who directed “Do It,” recalls of that scene in the alley, “I wanted to show that everyone could come together for the love of music, no matter if you're Black or Irish, male or female, a hip-hop artist or in a spacey jam band. Those people were represented in my video doing a dance I made up in my living room because it was fun and they believed in me. In between the shots we'd be dancing and then stop and turn around and there would be a crowd at the end of the alleyway clapping. To see my friends come out for me like that and let me live out my little Michael Jackson's ‘Bad’ fantasy was a dream come true for real.”

The inspiration for the video, he says, was “the idea of re-inventing oneself and exactly how far you would have to go to commit to something like that. I knew that the song spoke on a few adult topics so I wanted the video to be as fun as possible. I had all these ideas that were supposed to be funny but a lot of those ideas fell through.”

One funny idea that didn’t fall through was an epilogue with Preston playing “master thespian” Triston Davis, who tells us, in a proper British accent that makes him sound like he’s guesting on “Masterpiece Theatre,” that “playing the part of Dadadoh in his brand new video, ‘Do It,’ was a complete pleasure.”

15. There Is No Us, “In Violence We Trust”

This is clearly meant to be intense and, believe me, it is, with lots of close-ups of lead singer Jim Louvau shouting the lyrics with a scowl. There are obvious echoes of Marilyn Manson in the scenes of Louvau shouting into a microphone at a podium, as broadcast on a TV set. And the overall vibe of the video would definitely speak to anyone who’s into Manson’s brand of confrontational performance art (as will the fact that bassist Andy Gerold is a Manson veteran). There’s a scene of Louvau standing on top of a car surrounded by people in sheep masks lit by trashcan fires and a violent climax involving sledgehammers and the destruction of a car, all interspersed with really nice performance shots.

“We really didn't want to make a performance video initially because typically those type of videos aren't very interesting past the 30-second point,” Louvau says. “But since this was our first video I felt that it was important for people to a attach faces to the material. The concept of the song and the video is people standing up and demanding change to make our existence as humans better. Our elected officials and government don't always have our best interest at heart and we shouldn't stand for that. We become one-dimensional as a race and sheep. In the video I eventually become so disgusted by the propaganda I'm seeing on television that I take my frustrations out what I'm being subjected to.”

The video was shot the day after terrorists attacked the Bataclan in Paris while Eagles of Death Metal were playing. “We had two friends in that venue when it happened,” Louvau says. “It hit close to home.”

16. Treasure MammaL, “Missed Connections”

Abelardo Gil’s dramatic recitations of missed connections ads are brought to life in a black-and-white video where everyone is dressed as goth as possible, including one guy in a Bauhaus T-shirt. (Gil’s shirt is Edward from “Twilight”). It’s all very striking and beautifully filmed. There’s a great scene of Gil and guest vocalist Lonna Kelley throwing themselves back and forth to the beat while singing with the camera pulled in really tight and an even better scene of the entire cast falling backwards into a pool and then immediately falling back out of the pool through the magic of running it backwards. And for those who may be wondering just how seriously you were meant to take this thing, the credits roll over an a cappella recording of Extreme’s “More Than Words.”

Kelley directed and says she's "so secretly happy that I got to dress up goth because I've always wanted to be a goth girl." There wasn't much planning involved in the shoot, Kelley says. "A few days before we shot, Abe decided we should dress goth for it. There was a massive heat wave on the day we filmed. It was pretty ridiculous walking around in full goth gear in 115+ degree weather. The white make-up was dripping off our faces. We went through a lot of face paint and tons of baby powder. There were no planned out scenes, everyone just pitched it their ideas on the spot. It was completely chaotic. I guess it was a total s--t show. But we laughed a lot. And we didn't think too much about anything, which was a relief. Thinking too much, planning concepts, it's exhausting."

17. Wyves, “Spoils of War”

In which these local rockers go from merely echoing the unkempt swagger of the Faces or the Rolling Stones’ Mick Taylor years to consorting with lingerie models in a video that effortlessly taps into the essence of that era, a time when rock stars were expected to conduct themselves like proper rock stars. These guys have quality in spades, especially singer Corey Gloden, whose magnetic presence has the added benefit of coming with the soulful rasp of a young Rod Stewart.

Gloden says, "Instead of doing a linear, glossy video that acts out each line lyric by lyric, we wanted something a little darker, more abstract. The model poses were heavily influenced by Sas Christian paintings I had come across while visiting Miami years ago, as well as a few French Romantic Period paintings. I was seeing red when I wrote this one, so Cory Davis and I incorporated that with a nod to Mick Rock videos and early 60's stag films."

See? That's exactly what I mean when I say "effortlessly taps into the essence of that era." He just referenced French Romantic paintings and '60s stag films in the same breath.

18. Fathers Day, “Disney World”

For those who may be unfamiliar with Fathers Day, their songs are all performed in character – the character being a truly awful dad. The oft-repeated chorus of this cocktail jazz-punk treasure, for example, is “I’m never gonna take my kids / I’m never gonna take my kids / I’m never gonna take my kids to Disney World.” There are no other words. And why would you need other words? That kind of says it all.

This video is set inside a bowling alley, at an event called the Lucky Lanes Lunar Luau, where the singer’s daughter wins an all-expenses-paid trip to Disney World in a raffle, thereby setting up the song – unhinged performance art that leaves little kids in the audience holding their ears when Douglas Patton ends each chorus with a tortured howl. It isn’t long before the kids retaliate by throwing stuff at the musicians.

Naturally, it ends in chaos, nearly causing Patton to lose his fake mustache while guitarist Andrew Jemsek squeezes out a brilliant racket while writhing around on the floor. They trash the drum kit, set off fireworks (inside a bowling alley) and otherwise wreak total havoc.

Preston credits director Troy Farah, saying it was really all his vision. “We told him we wanted an 8-minute-long music video of us beating a bunch of little kids,” Preston. “He wasn't quite on the same page as us but we still enjoy the way it turned out.” It’s actually 9 minutes long. But who's counting?

19. Harper and the Moths, “Walking Through Fire”

I’ve already told you about two videos involving actual fire. The fire here is just a visual effect, but it’s a striking one, projecting flames on Harper and the Moths as they perform against a plain white backdrop, looking every bit as stylish as expected

Harper Lines says, “The idea was to try and capture the live vibe of our performances on video - the energy, the feel of our live shows - to give people who haven't seen us a chance to dig in. We wanted to play with projectors/lights/and a big room and knew we had to have clips of friends dancing and expressing themselves to the music. All the band members had to do three individual/separate solo performance shots as well as three or four group performance shots. We kicked back with some refreshers and watched our friends cut loose - it was a hell of a fun day and we're lucky to have worked with such a great crew and facility.”

And having friends come by to shake it definitely suits the joyous funk groove of the song itself, which still sounds like it should be one of this year's biggest pop hits.

20. Okilly Dokilly, "White Wine Spritzer"

This darkly comic video is everything the Okilly Dokilly premise promised. And what exactly is that premise? A roomful of metalheads rocking the Ned Flanders look from "The Simpsons." These headbanging locals were Internet famous before they'd even hit the studio, and this is their first video, which has earned more than 1.5 million YouTube views in less than three months. It starts with a shot of a frothy white wine spritzer held aloft by an arm in a telltale green sweater. Then, the camera pulls back to reveal the men of Okilly Dokilly in matching pink polo shirts and green sweater rocking with feral intensity in a room strewn with bottles and empty champagne flutes.

The tone gets darker when one member of the group declines a white wine spritzer and the others form an angry mob, beating the traitor in their midst while Head Ned repeats his tortured howls of "Ah hell, give me a white wine spritzer." Suffice it to say, he winds up in a shallow grave.

It's all brilliantly realized, right down to the way the bright pink backdrop complements their polo shirts, as directed by Justin Humbert and filmed by Plastic Monsters .

21. Aesthetically Sound, “In My Feelings”

This is a beautifully soulful recording with a video to match. Director Rachael Smith makes brilliant use of impossibly tight shots, zooming in on faces, lips and eyes and just letting the camera linger for a sense of intimacy that rivals the singing itself. She does great things with lighting and whatever effect it took to make it look like it was shot many decades ago was a brilliant touch.

Smith says, "Originally, Aesthetically Sound (Gabby Washington) just wanted it to be abstract to the point where you didn't see her face, but you saw very close intimate shots of hands and eyes things that initially make you feel secure. But on the flip side they're the same things that can make you feel insecure and that's what's the whole song is about-- vulnerability. When I first heard the song, I knew I wanted to work with Aesthetically Sound so it was my pleasure to be able to put visuals to her amazing music. We couldn't find a location for the shoot so Chelsey from Fairy Bones offered her place and then our model cancelled the day of so Chelsey also stepped in as our female lead. As for the aesthetic of the video, I was given permission to get 'trippy' with the editing so I experimented with a few things which I think turned out well in the end. I'm proud of the result given the circumstances we had to work with."

22. Decker., “The Holy Ghost”

Brandon Decker and director Matty Steinkamp gave their darkest impulses the wheel on this this one. There’s a stalker on the loose, a couple aggressively work out their kinks in a seedy hotel room, the air is thick with desperation everywhere you turn and the title character is a ghost. The visuals are as stunning as expected, with an incredibly videogenic star turn from Camille Sledge of Phoenix Afrobeat Orchestra in the title role, who makes a good unhappy ghost. As decker., explained the concept to PopMatters: "The video is this frenetic glimpse of people in desperate moments. They’re all being witnessed by this ethereal ghostly, goddess figure who can’t stand what she’s seeing."

23. Orangubang feat. Kalen Lander of Snailmate, “ifeltitmove”

These guys are really funny, which helps when you’re hanging a chorus hook on the promise “We’re hella irrelevant / Hella lazy.” The two rappers spend part of the video lounging around on a sofa, which certainly seems like their natural state, the other part milling around an alley rapping while the sky behind them changes color. There’s an offhand charm that comes from having thrown it all together on the fly.

As Orangubang explains it, “All I knew was Kalen was leaving for months and we needed to get a video beforehand. Scheduled the shoot to be the week before he left. Day came and I still had no idea what we were gonna shoot. At work that morning I came to the epiphany that we needed Kalen to be pooping during the line about being on the crapper. Kind of built the whole thing around that. The kids pictured early in the video were standing off in the distance for a while scared to come past while we threw each other around. And the drawings representing the irrelevant things in life were being wrapped up at the last minute of editing. Literally scanning them mere hours before publishing the video on YouTube. Hella lazy.”

As for the sky coloration, that's the handiwork of Hotrock Supajoint. “He edited the whole thing,” Orangubang says. “I asked for a dream-like effect for the energetic stuff in the alley and that's what we settled on.”

24. Emby Alexander, "In Your Doorstep Bleeding"

Who knew running a van through a car wash could yield enough interesting footage hold your attention for almost the entirety of a nearly four-minute clip? Emby Alexander, that's who. This was written and directed by the members of the band with Shannon Alexander acting as director of photography. And it's a mesmerizing journey, as shot from inside and outside the van as a couple makes out under blankets (or a sleeping bag) in back and Alexander sits over them, looking distraught while a mysterious masked when lurks behind him. What does it all mean? I don't know. But it's haunting and it definitely underscores the pathos of the lyrics. "You can't ignore me now," goes the chorus, "I'm in your doorstep bleeding." The back of the van just gets more and more crowded as it goes along, including two women with faces painted on the side of their actual faces to striking effect and another mysterious figure whose body is covered in flower stickers.

Alexander explains, "Without giving too much away, the video was conceived on many of the long, long drives while on tour on the west coast or Canada or somewhere. My mind really wanders while driving. Everybody in the band drives but I drive the most. I spend so much time in the van sometimes and it becomes the stage for the play perhaps. I wanted to kind of plant the idea that you can get away with anything while you're in a carwash. A subversive sanctuary. Bring your lovers or do drugs or what ever. You paid, now you have three and a half minutes to yourselves."

In the event that you were wondering how many times that van went through that car wash, Alexander says, "We probably went through 30 or 40 times. It was a rainy day so there was no line and the guys running the car wash thought we were crazy getting multiple car washes in the rain. They could see the writhing people and scary flower boy and blood dripping down the van and were very skeptical but we paid them so they didn't bug us too much."

25. Playboy Manbaby, "I'd Like to Meet Your Parents"

This stands as a truly ridiculous testament to the unbridled genius of one of the 21st Century’s greatest gifts to rock and roll, set in a swanky Italian restaurant with the members of Playboy Manbaby as mimes. Why? That’s like asking “Why does Robbie Pfeffer dump a bowl of ketchup-laden pasta on his head?” If you have to ask, you can’t afford it. But that didn’t stop me from messaging Pfeffer to see if he could shed some light on what the hell is going on. “I just wanted to make it the strangest date possible in the worst restaurant,” Pfeffer says. “I also wanted to make a video of us where the band was playing but wasn't the actual focus of the video. I thought it would be funny to have us be a background element. The dressing like mimes was influenced by how the Cardiacs dressed.” And as long as he has our attention, Pfeffer adds, “Also, no prop in the video costs more than a dollar, I bought all the clothes on a dollar day at a thrift store and everything at the dollar store.”

26. MRCH, "Glitter McQueen"

Frank Thomas definitely made the Mickey Pagburn’s videogenic possibilities as she and drummer Jesse Pagburn perform the song at a house party before cutting to footage of Mickey alone in her bedroom rocking a Mickey Mouse T-shirt while working on music surrounded by vinyl (Talking Heads, “Footloose” soundtrack, “Some Girls”). This is all before she's transformed into Glitter McQueen.

“It's pretty straightforward really," the singer explains. "We worked with Frank Thomas to convey a pretty obvious message complete with ‘perfection’ manifesting as a literal mannequin. The chorus hearkens to the overall concept - that we just ‘can't seem to get it together.’ It can be incredibly difficult to live up to others’ ideals of how you should be, but in the end it's all Glitter McQueen - a fabrication of what's beautiful, or cool, a facade. It's a shallowness. The video kinda shows the artist process we go through. The alone-in-a-room-scratching-out-some-chords phase... to creating something... to sharing that something (aka the party scene) which can really be one of the most fun parts. Followed by the glamorized photoshoot scene -- which was meant to show that aspect of trying to fit a particular mold or be liked and accepted. Often to be ‘good enough,’ we fight the compulsion to change everything about ourselves. That's why the character in that scene looks so strikingly different than the others. To show a false image. Art makes us vulnerable, but our hope is to not let that hold us back from being sincere.”

27. The Lonesome Wilderness, “Tropicana”

Director Roland Wakefield lined his living room with shimmering blue Mylar to reflect the breezy beach vibe of this understated highlight of the Lonesome Wilderness’ first EP, which begins with the sound of waves rolling in. There are beach toys and fans blowing pinwheels, shots of the ocean and a message in a bottle as singer Joe Golfen completes the picture with “So now you’re gone, movin’ on, yeah, and what’s left for me? / Just the crush of the waves and the smell of the sea.”

Golfen credits Wakefield with the concept. “He laid out the basic structure of the video, saying he wanted it to have a Michel Gondry aesthetic, which we were fully on-board with,” he says. “He sent us a rough cut a while later and we were very impressed with it. The most amazing thing to me was that he crafted that whole thing in his living room. We went to shoot our parts and we just shot it behind the sofa, but the way he set everything up, it's like he created a whole other world. The washed out beach vibe really fits the song, even when things get a little dark and stormy.”

Wakefield says, "I'm just glad the band was patient enough to let me play around for the best shots. And most of the video is the bands fault for being awesome enough to show up at my apt, watch horror movies and flail like they are playing instruments and not think that I'm crazy. Or at least not say out loud to me that I’m crazy.”

28. Supa Joint, “Chakra Kahn”

This is epic, a nearly 25-minute dose of animated stoner wisdom – or, as the subtitle puts it, “A Stoner's Guided Meditation fo like Cleanin Up ya Chakras an S—t” – from the cult of personality that is Hotrock Supa Joint. And yet, it somehow doesn’t make you wish he’d edited it down to a more reasonable length. He’s good at rambling, backed by trippy, trance-inducing soundscapes and beats from Beemaster J. Supa Joint himself appears in animated form, inviting you to “close yo eyes and buckle up, homies, ‘cause Hotrock got the keys to the spaceship, yo, and we blastin’ off into that universe.” It would hard to overstate how cool the animation is. And Supa Joint did it himself, which only makes it that much more impressive when he does achieve “the realization, yo… the fulcrum, the manifestation of the awesomeness, yo.”

Why Chakra Kahn? He sent a note to Chaka Khan, through her website, to explain the inspiration. "See," he wrote, "I be all like sittin on my porch, gettin high on that weed, IMin wit some my yoga homiez, an I think that bud I be smokin be like space-weed or some s--t, cuz as I be gettin high, I had this vision yo, an Ms. Kahn be in the s--t, an I be all like "Yo Ms. Kahn. I be totes feelin all the heaviness a the emotions a all the peeps on the Earf yo, an they be screamin out to find that help homie." An then Ms. Kahn, who be all done up like that Virgin Mary de Guadelupe from the candles, cept I cud see all her chakras, an they be all charged up an lit the f--k up, she took me by the hand an be all like "HotRock. I feel fo you."

29. Confetti Club, "Clutches of Emotion"

Sometimes it really does come down to personality and whether yours will translate well to video. These two definitely have that going for them. Their deadpan expressions are juxtaposed against the drama of their classic synth-pop poses in a way that makes it pretty obvious they’re not playing it straight before the valet in the dog mask even pops up with a little keyboard for Alex Benson to play while swiveling his hips and retaining that deadpan expression. By the next scene, Benson and his dog-faced friend are facing each other and dancing as he plays the keyboard riff while across the fake-grass carpet, Michelle Vilavanh relaxes with a drink in an inflatable pool chair. There are plastic pink flamingos in the shot. And what’s great is that no matter how absurd the action gets, the bandmates stay in character, occasionally smiling but never enough to ruin the effect. They’re in the clutches of emotion, after all.

30. The Thin Bloods, "Talk Talk Talk"

Sometimes all you need to make an entertaining video is a band full of odd-looking puppets to bash out the song on their instruments. The puppets were designed by Eric Smith, with Ryan Lee Caldwell directing. There's also an actual human being on guitar who seems like he'd be really entertaining live. But he's no puppet. This one topped the year-end list at Yabyumwest, so thanks to them for bringing it to my attention.

31. Decker., “Speak in Tongues + Cellars Chain Gang”

The man is something of a natural on stage, and Matty Steinkamp is a great director. This was captured at Last Exit Live with Taylor Upsahl and members of Phoenix Afrobeat Orchestra joining in. You do the math. It’s all beautifully shot, as expected. And it definitely tells you everything you need to know about why you should see the live show.

32. RPM Orchestra, “Song of Sheba”

Shot at the Phoenix Trolley Museum, this video opens with a haunting toy-piano melody complemented by archival footage of a trolley shot by Phoenix businessman Bob Miller in 1948. It’s when Jocelyn Ruiz starts singing that the action shifts to footage shot inside a street car housed at the museum. The passengers go about their business as a woman in white (long-time collaborator, choreographer/dancer Debra Minghi, with whom they’ve done live multi-disciplinary performances in the past) makes her way down the aisle.

As Pete Petrisko, who supplies the shortwave radio effects on the recording and directs the video explains, "We knew we wanted a location that fit the era of the slang heard in the lyrics. At the same time, news broke that the Phoenix Trolley Museum would have to find a new location. That's when we decided to make the restored trolley itself the star of our video. It's a creative way to raise public awareness about the museum, and its pending relocation, by showing this downtown treasure to a wider audience."

33. Luna Aura, “The Next One”

The greatest music video I’ve seen in years featured Courtney Barnett as the saddest clown you’d ever care to meet. This PJ Szabo video finds Aura exploring a much fuller range of emotions, setting the scene with a wistful bus-stop shot, her clown face mirroring the tone of the lyrics as she sings “Got a little messed up last night / I woke up late and I missed my flight to L.A.” It’s a brilliant, contagious performance including moments of pure joy as she wanders a California beach and interacts with costumed street performers on Hollywood Boulevard before removing her clown-wear and makeup in the middle of the street and winking at the camera. It feels like a star being born and where better to capture that feeling than Hollywood Boulevard.

34. Harrison Fjord, “Viewmaster (Live at the Falcon Bungalow)”

These guys went semi-viral last year when director Freddie Paull caught them live on the edge of the Mogollon Rim and let the majesty of that breathtaking natural backdrop work its magic on his own creative vision. It was flawless, really.

The question then becomes, can a video shot in a dimly-lit bungalow hope to recapture the magic of their previous collaboration? Maybe not, but this is also really nice, another live performance, this time captured all in one shot. As the camera makes it way from one room to another, the musicians play and someone makes what looks to be a pot of chili in the kitchen.

35. Sugar Skull Explosion, “I Don't Want To”

Casting Eli Kluger as an ineffectual therapist at Dr. Eli’s Discount Family Therapy was a brilliant first move on the part of Plastic Monsters, the directing duo of Alex Benson and Justin Humbert. His peculiar brand of comic acting is a perfect fit. And the father-daughter duoknown as Sugar Skull Explosion, who introduce themselves to Dr. Eli as “the best band in the world,” are ridiculously entertaining – E-Skull answering her dad’s demands with high-pitched shouts of “I Don’t Want You!,” ending with a shriek of “Go away!,” the song bashed out with primal punk intensity. Dr. Eli’s response? He quits his job, taking his pictures of Dr. Phil with him.