Pixies "Head On" (David Wild, dir.)
The Pixies were never a music video band. Makes sense. After all this is a band whose best songs were never the proper singles, who had no interest in looking like a rock band, was happy to arrange a concert set in alphabetical order and hated lip-syncing.
For instance, their other best known video, "Here Comes You Man," had Black Francis and crew employing an open-gaping mouth style instead of lip-syncing, and they look happily uncomfortable (by which I mean: The cringeworthyness is on purpose). Probably not a surprise they're not in their new video for "Bag Boy" — which like all things Pixies is curiously timed, coming just when you think the band is officially, finally over.
The classic Pixies video is their cover of the Jesus & Mary Chain's "Head On," which was born out of the band's insistance that the only way they make a music was if they did it live. No lipsync, no playing along to a track, no nonsense. The band sets up, plays, and gets out.
So the idea was born: Twelve 16mm cameras arranged to capture the band from various distances with different focal points. The resulting footage was then displayed on a 4x3 grid, creating a sort of mix-and-match effect that has the band looking fantastically odd.
Awesome.
