Best NZ music videos

Apologies if this has already been covered elsewhere (please point me in the right direction if it has...) but I'm curious to know what you think are the best NZ music videos of all time. Thinking in terms of great videos that suit the track and may have been groundbreaking (or just plain great) and also videos that best represent the era in which they came out.

Your thoughts?

Forums: NZ Music,

'Gaskrankinstation' by the Headless Chickens. Appearing deceptively normal at first, it goes on to become a relentless carousel of misery, despair and steadily encroaching insanity. It's mad. The Chickens at their finest.

I agree.....and also the "Nice day for an eathquake" one from Jakob....Simple but effective.

'Little Things' by Trinity Roots.

I think that is one of the most mind numbingly boring videos in history...for such a great song.
Maybe I'm missing the point?

It's probably a girl thing.

Hell yeah its an awesum Clip and song...

Skeptics - AFFCO

the music sounds like a slaughter house. quite possibly the most controversial nz music video ever.

The AFFCO vid deserves to be near the top of this list but I can't help recalling Alan Duff talking about the Booker award winning "the bone people", it's bloody awful.

Y'know, AFFCO is not the Skeptics best song and the video is good, but it's not a brilliant video. It deserves a place for historical merit, but it's not a great video.

anyone know who was the first to play it on the telly?

I first saw it on Max TV back in 95 or 96. If thats not the first then you can work backwards from there.

it wasn't played on Radio with Pictures (first generation) ... wasn't played while the band were still the band or David D'ath was still alive, but it was played on the 2nd generation Radio with Pictures, but consensus between my nzmusical gurus and i is that it was often digitized/censored. remember seeing Agitator video on CV, but never AFCO ... employing nostalgic braincells ... it's all gone a bit fuzzy ...

"nice day for an earthquake"

i don't know anyone one else who has seen this video but it was awesome. also eight's first one with the hitchhiker

I do feel it's the best NZ video...
Or at least the prettiest (Jakob)

that's the one....brilliantly sureal and simple, it fitted the song....the perfect kiwi vid!

i like the new black and white jakob video. can't remember what song its for...

//i like the new black and white jakob video. can't remember what song its for...

im on your side.. wow jakob was wicked on friday..

the live four camera take when the lads (jakob) finish their coffee's in the sun to step inside and jam deft tunes.
my personal favourite... coz itz all live bro'!!
i doubt many have seen much of it tho'.

//the live four camera take

'moment from different angles' - yip she's a rare one .. 'verstaerker' one of my all time favourites, heaps of sentiment in that one .. but gotta agree with the peeps above 'nice day for an earthquake' is me fav o all time too

http://www.jakob.co.nz/ ]

d'oh! that was MY comment just above... me ! ed...

cat nip is for cats edo .. meow

double oops - that was SAM not ed... i corrected wrong post

but anyways - "nice day" is dear to me...

my 1st steadicam experiment
feel proud when i see it on the telly - love watching a tv get smashed so majestically

arf arf - you gotta log-out next time foo ... maken me look like a DICK

you guyz (or is it one of yous??) are confusin' me man!?
hell...
and i been missin all the do's??
spates of bad timing why not. crud-assed. got to see some good shit tho'. all while some primo events were goin' down eh?? bet ya weren't lying in hotpools tho. (that was my wild card damn it.)

http://hope_it_was_choice.com ]

NOWAY!
i dont think that 'the skeptics' clip 'affco' is one of the best clips around its gross and sick!
mind you i cant say that the song is shit coz its quite good but come on what about the poor sheep
its grotesqe
i agree 'nice day for an earthquake ' is a really good clip and in the top 5

unless your vegetarian you eat sheep like that...
GROSS!!!

hey are you garry ryan?

that animated vid of the song National Park by Foto in the latest music video awards.....by golly it was a beauty. I can't believe it didn't win anything.

Shihad - My Minds Sedate
Shihad - La La Land
HLAH - Wet Rubber
8 Foot Sativa - Hate Made Me

I reckon Shihad's "Home Again" video. It's a cheerful, upbeat song and the vid matches that energy.

Not only that, but that video has influenced other videos from NZ bands. Most of Goodshirt's videos are direct descendants of "Home Again" and even Rubicon's "Rock Star" video has its roots in "Home Again".

i hat eight foot sativa but hate made me is an excellent vid

At the start of NZ Music Month, "Space" did their top 15 music videos. There were far too many that were the kind of videos that are hip right now, but that probably won't stand the test of time.

Fo' example, Rhombus' "Clav Dub" video was on the list. Ok, "Goodbye, Pork Pie," the film it parodies is a classic, but "Clav Dub" isn't. It's good that it adds something new to the GPP thing (unlike Shihad's "Pacifier" vid that just out and out copies "A Clockwork Orange"), but "Clav Dub" is still not a special video.

The two videos on Space's list that I think were really totally worthy of their places were the "Poi E" by the Patea Maori Club and Peking Man's "Room That Echoes". "Poi E" looks good and has this really cool momentum to it. It starts up with just the performers, but by the end of the video it's like the whole world's joined in. "Room That Echoes" has a perfect meld of computer graphics and Margaret Urlich's dancing. There's never been anything like it since.

Is Poi E the one with the fresh guy with the white gloves dancing onto of the marei (sp?)?

Marae

what i wanna know is what ever happened to theat white glove guy....i wanna meet him!

i think pacifier was worth it because it was such a great take off of clockwork orange...and it suited the track

I totally agree with Robyn re: Peking Man's "Room that Echoes", I remember it being No.1 on RTR for weeks and weeks (showing my age here!) I also loved most Supergroove vids especially the "Can't get enough" video. Che Fu has some good videos, the new one with King Kapisi is great-lots of fun, real kiwiana. I also like "Clay" by Ramekin for it's originality, leaves you trying to figure out the symbolism!

I remember the guy with the white gloves!!! Breakdancing? doing all kinds of jerky movements anyway.

haha .. i just put 'room that echoes on the 'worst kiwi videos of all time list'

it's just so kitschy - i'm all for kitsch computer graphics, but a low res dancing sillouette in a strange cube???

yeah i wonder if the vid for "u cant resist us" will stand up over time....i hope so

"u can't resist us" probably won't stand up against time but it's fun for now and the video is a crack up.
and re: "Room that Echoes"...back when it was released you probably would have thought the silhouette in a computer graphics cube was cutting edge, cool even. Times change and for it's time that was a funky vid.

it's still cheesy in a bad way, as opposed to a good way

// back when it was released you probably would have thought
// the silhouette in a computer graphics cube was cutting edge, cool even

ooo, don't know about that. I was a youngish whipper-snapper when I first saw that vid, and it seemed pretty lame even back then. There was a scene in the TV series Fame where one of the dancers did this routine in front of a camera that 'echoed' their movements in all these crazy colours as they moved about, so you ended up with a trail of fading psychedelic still silhouettes behind the dancer. I remember thinking at the time that *that* was cool, and the Peking Man vid was a poor imitation. Arghh, and when the walls all started flashing and *freaking out*. Ahaha. Kudos for trying, I s'pose.

Shihad - Wait and See

debs nite out

this might offend some of the pseuds, but it should be said the nz music video canon is particularly mediocre, and definitely a poor reflection of the depth of creativity in the music from the country.
One that stands above others is, and this title may be slightly wrong, 'Where You Been?', video of a song by Weta.

Steriogram - White Trash

The Front Lawn - 'The Lounge Bar'
Harry Sinclair's new movie looks like a piece o' SHIT (Dean O'Gorman's a smarmy little turd, and the last thing the world needs is another romantic comedy) but I'll always love Mister S for 'The Lounge Bar.'
Best short film ever made in this country, hands down. If you haven't seen it, you know NOTHING.

1. Straitjacket Fits - Cat Inna Can
Not the best Fits song in the canon, but the video had this great effect (still not sure how they did it), where the band members would be in the middle of the shot, spinning slowly, while the camera would swoop around them at a million miles an hour. It looked fucking cool. And Shayne was in full sneer mode, which also always looks good.

2. Shihad - I Only Said
Not sure if it was their first Reuben Sutherland-directed effort or not, but it was the first that introduced that jerky, hyper-contrasted black and white style they used for the next couple of years, and which spawned the equally good and disturbing imagery they used in My Mind's Sedate. This one wins me over 'cos it was just so 'new' when it came out: nothing made in NZ before this had ever looked this way (or sounded this way) before.

3. Cinematic - Hollow
Ahaha, yes, one of ours. Totally ripped off the New Order video (forget the song, actually - Bizarre Love Triangle?) where they had a dozen or so beautiful models and gave each of them 20 or so seconds to just sit there and pout. We didn't know a dozen beautiful models, so just got all our mates (and my dad) to come around to the flat, and take turns sitting in a chair with a cigarette which they had to manipulate in some way. One shot, a lovely chch day, a couple of clever cigarette party tricks pulled out of the bag, and it ended up looking great. Sent it off to Cry where they put it on hi-rotate for the duration of the station's existence, making minor celebs of everyone who'd appeared in the vid.

4. Head Like a Hole - Faster Hooves
Scratch animation over a dirty cowboy drama. Brilliant.

5. Gramsci - Complicated
Clever clever stuff by Mr Ed Davis, and featuring some nice scenes from around Wellington (and more particularly, Island Bay!)

// Straitjacket Fits - Cat Inna Can //

oh hell yes, love the quasi-mullet

i loooove faster hooves!! (head like a hole)
thats a classic with hidee charging around on a mule.
funkin funkii funnii stuff...