Briscoe - Day Job

I got to participate in another Briscoe video. 'Day Job' is a brilliant, catchy pop song. Here is the video clip:

My role was to wear a yellow pillowcase over my head and sit slumped in an office chair, as though dead. My screen time was around 0.5 seconds, but I came to this task with a lifetime's interest in corpse-acting. If there is a mortuary scene in a police procedural show, I am often unable to follow dialogue due to the overriding attention I pay to the corpse, trying to perceive signs of life. If it is a murder scene with an open-eyed body, I am intent on spotting involuntary dilation of the pupil. a fluttering nerve, the shadow of a pulse. How many takes due to the corpse appearing alive? Do the actors sit about and have a laugh in their corpse make-up between takes? Do they need to have the room particularly warm to prevent the corpse getting goose-pimples?

Despite the brevity of my screen time, it was necessary to sit motionless under the yellow pillowcase for the song's duration, unaware of when the camera would be on me. In attempting to remain motionless, I was aware of every involuntary motion of my unruly body. The sensory deprivation brought about by wearing a pillowcase over my head amplified an extreme self-consciousness of my chest heaving when I breathed, the pillowcase ballooning and contracting with every breath, my heart palpitating within my chest, my limbs twitching wildly with uncontrolled muscular spasms.

Of course, none of this was apparent. Bart also filmed me riding my skateboard around, wearing a suit and with a yellow pillowcase over my head, but this will probably never be used until Briscoe record a song called 'Ben Is A Fucking Show-Off'.

Briscoe.

It is a new(ish) year, and I have decided to start a new blog under a new name, which is Big Wow. There were a few other blogs called Terminal Moraine (the name of my previous blog), so I opted to remove myself from that crowded marketplace, and Big Wow reflects the diminished expectations I have about creating and sustaining a readership."Big Wow" was a sarcastic phrase used to shatter enthusiasm in the playgrounds of my youth, and it may articulate the sentiment that forms in the mind of the reader as they alight upon another fucking blog.

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My friend Bart Denaro has a band. They are called Briscoe, and they are great. They have recorded an album, which is not yet released, but my wife's in the band so I have heard it, and I will let you in on a secret - it's brilliant. I love them so much I wrote their name on the griptape of my new board.

Briscoe played their first gig at the Lansdowne Hotel in January, and they smashed it. I was all a-tingle with goosebumps. My objectivity is out of the window with this band, and I can't help but feel excited about them. Early reviews on Triple J Unearthed and some blogs have been very positive, which reassures me that my critical faculties have not been entirely clouded by the affection I have for these guys.

My impartiality is further compromised by my involvement with the music video clip for Briscoe's debut single, Animal. Bart directed Dee, who is the star, and me, who held the camera, and the result should be playable below:

I think it turned out well, and we had a good time making it. Here is an outtake featuring Briscoe bass boss Dave Anderson and Bonnie, who is a dog and a very good girl.

Briscoe are playing Sydney, Canberra and Newcastle to launch the single - the details are here.

The Smiths

There is a receptor in my brain whose sole business is to appreciate The Smiths and Morrissey.

One of the many things to love about The Smiths is the amazing cover art. I have been trying to recreate the style of Smiths record covers using Photoscape photo editing freeware.