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Shred City 2: Meme Boogaloo

As internet sensations go, 'Shredding' has been a bit of a slow burn. For years, wacky Finn Santeri Ojala had been making and posting parody videos of his favorite guitar players by over-dubbing their rock star fretwork and epic vocals with his own, purposefully off-kilter, musicianship. The effect can be hilarious, especially to the kind of person who knows the correct spelling of 'Yngwie.'

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Five Knives Participate in LAMVF 48-hour Music Video "Life's A Pitch" Project

LA Music Video Festival proudly presents it’s one of a kind “Life’s A Pitch” project featuring Red Bull Records’ own, Five Knives.  Hailing from Nashville, electronic punk rockers Five Knives’ are far from Music City’s signature sound.  To release their debut The Rising EP, Five Knives created a music video for each song, except the final piece for the title song, “The Rising.” 

Spectacle: An Interview With Music Video Museum Curator Jonathan Wells

I'm not one to get all historical, but since this interview is about a museum show dedicated to the art and history of music video, there's no reason not to indulge in nostalgia.

I first met Jonathan Wells when he was programming a San Francisco music video show dedicated to electronic music and creative videos — predating MTV's foray into similar forays with the short-lived show Amp.  And I remember getting the first issue of his magazine venture, Res — which was dedicated to the kind of DIY digital filmmaking that we all take for granted now, but was totally cutting edge back in 1997. That  spawned Resfest, a film festival dedicated to similar creative pursuits, and other ventures, many of which involved music videos on one level or another.

So, it feels like a good omen that Wells and his co-curator Meg Grey Wells have circled back to place a big bet on music videos with museum show Spectacle: The Music Video, now running at NYC's Museum Of The Moving Image through June 16.

Jonathan and I got to chatting about the show and more, covering the challenges of a broad field like music video which runs the gamut from high-art to pop trash and sometimes both at the same time.

The Essential Rules Of Music Videos

I've been in the music video industry long enough to have seen nearly every mistake that's ever been made. And that includes many videos which have never officially see the light of day. There are many essential rules for making a music video. These are just three, but it's a start. As with all creative endeavors: Feel free to break all of them, but only if the artist and director are really talented.

Remember the Time: Nine Five Plus Four Pennies "Flashback to 1999"

Over on Metafilter someone posted a ten-minute time machine to 1999. Sure, there's pop culture ephemera like wonky first person shooters, The West Wing and lots of Julia Roberts movies - but what struck me was how music videos are the backbone of how we (or at least this guy) still see the end of the millennium.

In short: 1999 was people in white clothes and Shania Twain, Or, #LouBega.

LA Music Video Festival Program Announced for May 1 - 4

The 3rd Annual Los Angeles Music Video Festival (LAMVF) will take place Wednesday, May 1st - Saturday, May 4th at the Downtown Independent Theater in downtown Los Angeles.  LAMVF strives to be the premier music video festival showcasing amazing, bleeding-edge work from a new generation of musicians and filmmakers.  Tickets are on sale now at www.lamvf.com.      

Diddy's Revolt TV Starts To Rev Up

Of course the first teaser for Diddy's Revolt TV begins with the hip-hop mogul declaring that "The Revolution Will Be Televised"...

Revolt TV is officially in prevolt mode, launching this teaser video and a Tumblr site hyping the 24/7 music video channel which looks to provide another music video options — both online and on TV — featuring rap, rock and pop. 

Look for the channel to officially launch this Summer...

Psy "Gentlman" Breaking YouTube Records - Approaching 100 Million Views

Screw the reviews. The early data says that Psy "Gentleman" is a record-breaking smash. 

"Gentleman" got 20 million views int he first 24 hours, more than doubling the previous record of 8 million that Justin Bieber held for "Boyfriend."

At the time I publish this, "Genteman" is now over 92 million views in approximately 72 hours.

That's staggering. In every sense...

YouTube Tape Mode Rules

YouTube's new tape mode is one of those fantastic Google experiments that exists for no other reason than some engineer thought it'd be fun and they were able to figure it out.

In celebration of the 57th anniversary of video tape, YouTube now has a tape mode — signified by a VHS tape icon in the bottom menu bar — letting you flashback to the awful artifacts and problems you would encounter all the time with VHS. 

There are a few caveats: