Tag Archives: music video

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E. Oks Releases Second Music Video

Evan Okun ’13, aka E. Oks, is killing it as usual. He just released the second video from his debut album, Back Up, Black Out (check it out here), for the song “All Relative.” The song was produced by Lucas Turner-Owens ’12, aka SANK0FA, and the video was shot by Taylor Harbison. Featuring a soulful Jack Johnson sample and some nice multiple perspective action, the track is solid, as is the video, capturing the essence of Washington Heights through intimate black-and-white views of bodegas and intersections. The video features Donat De La Cruz, a professional poet who has featured at Wes and met E. Oks at the first inter-collegiate poetry slam WeSLAM ever attended! The first video may have been in Hawaii, which is cool and all, but E. Oks wants you to know that, “Hawaii’s good, but Wash Heights’ gooder.” Check it out. Show some love.

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Grand Cousin Releases Music Video for “Camera”, Heems Retweets

Learn to “Hate People,” put a “Camera” in someone’s room, breathe in “Oxygen,” “Take” her “Out,” and feel that “Constant Improvement,” all with your friends at Grand Cousin.

Remember when Henry Hall ’14 poured a milkshake on his head in the last Grand Cousin music video? Well, the falsettos and smooth beats are back; Grand Cousin – consisting of Hall, Evan Low ’14, and Robby Caplan ’14 – have just put out a video for their song “Camera” with the help of music video mavens Jack Coyne ’13 and Sidney Schleiff ’14.

Shot in a cramped bedroom in black and white, the video at first appears as an amateur home video. But soon, it is made clear through the bands’ lyrics, especially those scrawled out on their T-shirts, that they are shooting on location at a girl’s house. This discovery is affirmed when the boys rush out of the room with all their equipment and the subject of the song walks in. Several times she approaches the camera as if she spotted it, yet she only grabs a few miscellaneous items from the surrounding area. The video certainly has the fun and candid feel conveyed by the song, which I’ve been listening to and singing since first hearing it.

And I’m not the only one’s excited about it. The video currently has 3,000+ views, 2,500 of which were obtained over the span of two days! What could be the cause of this? Oh, I don’t know, maybe the fact that Heems of Das Racist tweeted about it?!

Read after the jump for an interview with Grand Cousin and information about where to find them both online and in real life.

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Tonsil Hockey Drops Debut Video, Fails To Make It Onto Morning Show

Maybe you thought local funnyman and “College of Moving Image” expert Will Feinstein ’13 would finally give up on combining aural and visual stimuli to generate “lighthearted,” “viral” “content” after achieving his lifelong goal of becoming a WesCeleb. You thought wrong.

Nearly a year to the date after debuting viral sensation “Ain’t Tryna Say Goodnight,” Feinstein has directed the music video debut for Tonsil Hockey, a pop-punk band Jason Katzenstein ’13, Adrien DeFontaine ’13, and Zak Malik ’14 formed presumably after they got tired of playing Blink-182 songs to bleeding naked men. Please note that none of the aforementioned characters have had their work “viral” “content” promoted on this blog in any form previously.

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Music Video: Seniors Drop “Late Night F******” for Music History Class

Heads up: “F*****” is either not what you think it is, or exactly what you hope it is.

Who needs an established music career in order to come up with solid music and entertaining videos? Definitely not the group that calls itself the Foss Hill Five, whose catalog of music up to this point was… nonexistent. But in MUSC 108, that doesn’t matter.

You heard right: “Late Night F*****” was written, recorded, and produced for a class right here at Wesleyan, a class that I myself am in. The incomparable (and so very liberal-arts sounding) “History of Rock and R&B” has its students team up to create songs, music videos, and even a class magazine for both a midterm and final project. Well, in addition to a test, which I am procrastinating studying for by writing up this blog post.

Aside from us boring people who wrote essays or designed a publication, some students rapped, remixed, re-instrumented, or re-sung existing tunes. But the most creative students went original, composing their own music, lyrics, and performing it all themselves.

That was the route taken by the ensemble of Henry Molofsky ’13 (Keyboard, Bass Synth, Lyrics, Composition), Adam Brudnick ’13 (Guitar, Production), Camille Bordet-Sturla ’13 (Vocals), Michael Zazzaro ’13 (Guitar, Composition) and Alex Kuwada ’13 (Vocals, Lyrics), who devised “Late Night F*****” as an ode to “the ultimate Wesleyan weekend transition: from partying on Fountain to ordering Falafel Cart.”

Get your mind out of the gutter— “F*****” is just “Falafel.” Watch the video above, and then read more about this epic, school-mandated collaboration

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Wes Alums Concoct Music Video Extravaganza: “Peonies” by Sarah Dooley

Full of pop culture references, science experiments, and an upbeat indie-pop sound, the music video for Sarah Dooley’s first single, “Peonies,” definitely has Wesleyan written all over it.

Wes alums Conor Byrne ’11, Tyler Byrne ’09, and Robert Alvarez ’11 joined forces with the New York-based singer-songstress to create a “musical short film” that would both encompass the energy of Dooley’s music and tell a musical story. To accrue the funds for the project, the group started a kickstarter campaign, which met and exceeded their $5,000 goal—undoubtedly due to Sarah’s palpable charisma and sense of humor, as seen in the video she posted on the fundraising site.

After weeks of fleshing out the details, filming took place in the summer of 2012 in New York City with the help of even more Wesleyan alumni, including Aude Cuenod ’09, Andrew Gladstone ’11, Mat Larkin ’11, and senior Augustin Vita ’13. The video was inspired by a combination of studio-era Hollywood musicals, “weird science,” and the elusive concept of true love, culminating in a visually appealing and compelling end result, which was posted on Vimeo approximately a week ago.

For more about the video, Sarah Dooley, and the Byrne Brothers, read after the jump.

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WESU Makes Video, DJs for mtvU

Hai guyz, yet another Wesleyan musician has made it! This time, a group of scrappy WESU volunteers proves that they’ll be tastemakers of the future by introducing mtvU’s countdown of music videos, both on their Tumblr and on “a 24-hour television channel that is available on more than 750 college and university campuses across the United States” (check it out in a TV if you can find one!?).  Perhaps recognizing how accomplished the Wesleyan community has been in the way of music lately, mtvU allowed the creators to (mostly) go crazy over the course of a single afternoon, turning such prosaic things like nail-clipping and sticking your head under your friend’s shirt into cinematic gold. Unfortunately, corporate censorship prevailed.

Here’s a full “artist statement” via former WESU technical director Dan Nass ’13:

mtvU invited WESU to do a college radio countdown, where we put together a playlist of ten music videos along with a clip introducing the station to viewers. WESU’s board of directors brought in the almost terrifyingly ubiquitous Will Feinstein ’13 to work on the script, and he and I co-directed the video. We shot it in a single afternoon, thanks to the talent and cooperation of WESU’s awesome student volunteers and our program manager Rick, along with some DIY ingenuity (a couple of the shots are lit with iPhones!) We wanted to represent WESU’s independent spirit with a suitably offbeat clip, and we must have done a good job because the folks at mtvU cut a couple of our favorite shots—the original video featured a kidnapping and a book-burning. The video and playlist are airing four times a day for the next week on mtvU. Check it out if you have a television! mtvU’s tumblr is also featuring five online music videos selected by the board, including campus favorites Adrien feat. William.

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WesKid Does Camera Work on Music Video, Wants People to Watch It

Anyone remember Nujabes? The sorely missed jazz-hop producer collaborated with a variety of rappers throughout his lifetime; one of the most notable might be Shing02, without whom this captivating music video for Nujabes and Shing02’s track “Luv (sic) Pt. 2” might never have seen the light of day.

Shing0 works in multiple mediums, and when he wanted someone to handle cinematography for a short film he directed — set to the song “Out of Your Element” by Brooklyn-based indie/dream-pop outfit The Attic Ends — he went with Neo Sora ’14. Though Sora may not have received the director credit, the premise of the video (YouTube commenter: “technology causes people to be isolated from other people”) relies heavily on the shots themselves, so Sora’s involvement was central. Check out the video when you’ve got five minutes today, and you’ll have a great excuse to walk up to him at a party. I’d give you a picture to help further the endeavor, but the best I could find was this mysterious snapshot.

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MUSIC
Nakhla ’13 Releases New Music Video, Signs “Charlie Brown”

Mark Nakhla ’13, ASL music video superstar, released a beautiful new video to Coldplay’s “Charlie Brown” yesterday.

It is the latest addition to his growing repertoire of artistically-composed videos. You may remember his interpretations of Drake’s “Headlines” and Jay-Z and Kanye’s “No Church in the Wild,” both of which went viral and have over 20,000 and 40,000 plays respectively. His “No Church in the Wild” video was featured on the Huffington Post, which also covered the criticism it drew from other members of the ASL community. The new video clearly pushes in a different direction, most visibly featuring Nakhla in a solo performance.

Nakhla notes how the criticism surrounding his previous video influenced his newest one on YouTube: 

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MUSIC
Choi ’12 Dance-Off: “What Makes You Beautiful”

Esteemed Wesleying blogger emeritus sneakergaze sends word of yet another viral sensation clogging up the Wesleyan YouTube channels: a dance video to One Direction’s “What Makes You Beautiful,” starring Sam Choi ’12 and filmed by Brian Lau ’12. Fans of Mark Nakhla ’13’s sign language music videos will recall Choi’s intense spotlight in “No Church in the Wild,” where he merged dance with sign language against a series of Memorial Chapel settings. This time Choi takes the lead (without the sign language), bringing the routine from Foss to ST Lab to last Sunday’s Commencement ceremony(!). Choi writes:

This video is dedicated for my senior year class. Let’s go Wesleyan 2012! As we end a great chapter and start from scratch again, I hope this video will make you feel a bit nostalgic about Wesleyan and remind you of an once in a lifetime experience that we all shared. My four years here have changed me for the better, and I hope that it has changed you all for the better as well. Keep pursuing your dreams and become inspirations for the following generations. Love, Sam.

For previous Choi moves, hit up “No Church in the Wild.”

MUSIC
Now Playing at the Tent Party Pregame: Adrien & William’s “Ain’t Tryna Say Good Night”

“POP MUUUUSIC!” – Henry Molofsky ’13

“Ain’t Tryna Say Good Night” is a weirdly appropriate title for a music video released this weekend, both personally, since yesterday/today I stayed up all night (to make friends for life!), and for the campus community at large–seniors whose Commencement into the world at large is just one last drug-addled night away; underclassmen working Reunion & Commencement this weekend to experience all the Parties on Fountain and none of the parties in Olin; alumni visiting to remember and reconstruct olden times. Don’t say good night, Wesleyan. Eat, drink, and be merry tonight. Have some fun! Too much fun! Go for a last WeScam or three! Dance with a ’57 alum (Martin Benjamin)! Fucking live. Just… don’t be tryna say good night.

Like it? Download it. Like it a lot? See who was involved after the jump.

Here’re some details from Waka Flocka Feinstein ’13 (AKA William) in his idiosyncratic writing style:

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