It's not often that highbrow art and lowbrow schlock combine, but I'm happy to say I've belatedly discovered the Bullet Boys managed to pull it off back in 1991. Thanks to YouTube, I've been able to watch uncut '80s videos that I had long forgotten about or never saw in the first place. One of my recent discoveries has been the Bullet Boys' video for "THC Groove," a cut off their sophomore album, Freakshow. Frontman Marq Torien & Co. open the video with a tribute to the famed 1925 silent film The Battleship Potemkin by Russian auteur Sergei Eisenstein (shown above). The most famous sequence from Eisenstein's film depicts an advancing army marching down a flight of steps and exterminating civilians. In the midst of the onslaught, the camera follows a runaway baby carriage down the stairs.
The Bullet Boys -- in their infinite knowledge of Russian silent cinema -- begin the "THC Groove" clip with grainy, black & white footage of a carriage tumbling down a set of stairs -- an obvious tribute to The Battleship Potemkin scene. When the carriage comes crashing down at the bottom, there's a sense of drama and breathless anticipation -- you simply must know if the baby survived the perilous descent. But instead of seeing a baby, the camera zooms in on Torien as he pops his head out of the carriage and announces "Teatime!" as the tune's nasty groove kicks in. What a moment! The band is then seen (now in living color) performing the song on the steps. Of course the Eisenstein homage was likely the idea of the clip's director, but kudos nonetheless to the Bullet Boys for this clever video.
Click here to watch now.
3 comments:
I liked the debut and Freakshow, but didn't hear anything past that. I think they are hitting the road with LA Guns this fall.
Metal Sludge has an interview with Marq Torien that was done a few weeks ago. The version of BB thats on the road is Torien with a backing band of no-names.
I enjoyed their first album, but never picked up anything else. I still crank Smooth Up whenever I hear it.
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