8/28/2006

Fuck tornadoes—let's watch some creepy music vids!

So we here in Columbus are under a tornado warning as I write this, and the local weather asses are currently interrupting my shows to jack off about the inclement weather. Right now they are showing a picture of *a* tornado, but not *the* tornado that allegedly just touched down (!) and "inflicted damage" on a barn in the middle of a field south of the city. Whatevs. I'd rather discuss old music vids again, 'cause that's more interesting. Fuck this weather shit. Where the hell am I gonna go anyway? There's no basement in this place! So basically, I'm a goner. I might as well try to get one more good post out before all hell breaks loose.

My (potentially last) topic: creepy videos! And I'm going to kick it off with an Official RockitQueen Embarrassing Confession™. Remember Herbie Hancock's video for "Rockit" back in the '80s, the one with all the mannequins and the robot bird eating cereal? (If not, you can see it right here.) OK, it's awesome and it was all innovative for the time and everyone was always talking about it when it came out, but I HATE HEADLESS MANNEQUINS. Let alone torsoless mannequins that are walking around and jumping out of closets. And then there are the disembodied heads on sticks that are still talking. TERRIFYING! Yet mesmerizing.

So I thought it would be kind of fun to torture myself by uncovering the creepiest videos ever. And by fun, I mean "fun." Let me know what you think. Oh, yeah, and most of these are totally NSFW.

"Come To Daddy", Aphex Twin
Let's kick it off with what I believe to be the ultimate creepy video. It starts off with a cute little grandma walking a large dog and all of a sudden a bunch of little girls come running out of nowhere and scare the shit out of her. Only these aren't just any little girls. They are little girls ALL WITH THE FACE OF THE APHEX TWIN GUY! And then they start running. And chasing. And fighting. And smashing things. And throwing rocks at some guy. All the time with shit-eating grins on their eerie little faces. And then, in what is probably the creepiest moment in video history, one of them smashes up against the guy's car window as he's trying to get the keys in the ignition. For the love of all that's holy, guy, GUN IT! Luckily, he gets away, but then it gets worse: a big-headed alien with fucked up teeth shows up and screams and spits all over the little old lady! The disturbing little girls gather around the alien (which reminds you of Michael Jackson crotch-deep in a crowd of kids), a few scenes of the sickeningly thin alien are thrown in and—guess what!—the alien now also has the face of the Aphex Twin guy. And then when you connect the title of the song to the imagry, you immediately crawl into a corner and curl up in the fetal postion. (If you enjoyed that and wanna see another unsettling Aphex Twin vid, you're totally sick and you could check out this fucked-up shit—"Windowlicker". You're going to want to take a shower after this one.)

"Stinkfist (Track 1)", Tool
This is a video that's cool in theory. The song kicks ass and the staging is unlike anything else you've ever seen (except maybe other Tool videos). But christ almighty, what is going on here?? It's so fucking bizarre! It's a bunch of fuzzy people with pulsating tumors who are swallowing nails and crawling out of cocoons and breathing into these freakishly large dental apparatii. And then there is the eyeball touch. Oh god, the eyeball touch! The twitching and the arm that falls off and even the squirming larvae-esque tube worm at the end don't bother me as much as that fucking eyeball touch.

"Rock DJ", Robbie Williams
Here we have another variation on the "Stinkfist" video, only this one is supposed to be funny. Sadly, you have to wade through to the very end—past Robbie's horrible dancing and the excruciatingly bad song—when Robbie begins ripping hunks of his own flesh off and hurling it at the video skanks who then proceed to seductively rub this ROTTING MEAT all over themselves. Robbie literally strips himself down to the bone and the video ends with the skanks humping his skeleton, which is still busting out the embarrassingly bad dance moves. Again with the dancing dead! Anyway, I nominate this one because not only is the content creepy, but when you hear this cornball pop song playing over it...well, the whole thing is just surreal.

"Owner Of A Lonely Heart", Yes
Bear with me on this one. Yes, it starts off with the typical '80s band-in-the-studio gimmick with the band wearing the worst outfits ever (and what the living holy fuck is the drummer wearing anyway?). But THEN, the song pauses and the singer stares menacingly into the camera and suddenly we are plunged into some kind of bizarre '80s dream sequence where one of the band members morphs into a snake while sitting in what looks like an Edsel. Unfortunately, the song then starts over, only this time it's a WHOLE NEW video in edgy black and white, and a guy gets snatched out of a crowd by the secret service or something, is dragged to a warehouse and then ganged up on by the band and proceeds to jump off of a building. This is all interspersed with scenes of reptiles and amphibians. And then a guy washes his face with maggots. Warhol gone Reagan-era, I guess.

"Scrape", Unsane
This is another one that probably fits more appropriately under the header of "completely unsettling", rather than simply "creepy". Basically, it's three minutes and 15 seconds of the most hellishly brutal skateboarding wipeouts you've ever witnessed, including anything you've ever seen on Jackass. Anyone who has seen this will remember it forever, but they'll never be able to tell you the name of the song, or the band. So I don't know what that means for Unsane, but there you go.

"Happiness In Slavery", Nine Inch Nails OK, I'm completely warning you on this one. We all know how much I covet Trent, and in fact the devilishly brilliant clip for "Closer" is my favorite video of all time (you can see the uncut version here, you big perv!), but this is one motherfucking fucked up video. In fact, it was universally banned for featuring performance artist Bob Flanigan buck naked and torturing himself (including some truly unique sack yanking) to the death and then getting sent through a meat grinder. Bear in mind that, except for the death at the end, it's all REAL. Shudder. "Hostel" looks like "House Party" compared to this.

"Parabol/Parabola", Tool
Tool again. Fat guy. Flat head. Levitation. Black puke. Falling rocks. Amphibious guy who may or may not be Tricky. Robot with human teeth. Animatronic character who may or may not be Jack Skellington. Skellington dissection. See-through human body from your high school health class. Yet another mindfuck from Tool.

"Like A Pimp", David Banner
Unfortunately, I might have imagined this during one of my "spells", but I swear I didn't make this up and I can't find a clip of it anywhere that I don't have to pay, and I'm cheap. Anyway, this run-of-the-mill, gin-n-juice-style rhyme is played over "Blair Witch"-style hand-held camera scenes of Dave and some other rapper running through a scary cemetery at night while being chased by hooded Klansmen. While it bothered the shit out of me, I applaud any rap video that doesn't feature skanks in hot tubs pouring Cristal over their asses.

Well, after all that excitement, our tornado warning has passed with nary a raindrop nor errant gust of wind. In fact, the sun actually came out for the first time this whole day. I am officially declaring the voodoo science that is meteorology the creepiest thing that's I've witnessed this entire evening.

1 comment:

Lola said...

Sistah...tornados? Are you shitting me? Are you safe? Should we send Ville and Eric to help?

Ohmuhgawd sis, I hate all those vids, too. I LOVE Tool, but totally refuse to watch anything they put out, because each concoction is worse than the last.

Some of my least fave vids: anything with the Scorpions, whom I despise, and that song by Vanity, "You Made Such a Prety Mess of My Dress". Also hate virtually all rap videos. Sorry, Snoop!