I feel bad that I don't make it to more live shows here in the city, but try very hard to make up for it with my lightning focus on the art of the music video. Houston produces extremely high-quality music videos, and if 2014 didn't compare to last year in terms of quantity, it did so in quality. So here's the cream of that particular crop.
5. BLSHS, "Gave It Away" BLSHS did some really great videos around the beginning of 2014, but they were largely mash-ups of old commercial or science-fiction footage. Very entertaining, but not really original. Then finally they put out "Gave It Away," a narrative-driven work that also features a huge number of local scenesters on top of everything else.
It's a slightly disturbing video that I am 90 percent certain is about date rape, but directors Kyle Lamar and Alister Auguste never quite take Michelle Miears quite that far. We mostly see her at a party, ghostlike as ever and clearly haunted but you never get a handle on by exactly what. It's a beautiful creation, and I hope to see more from my favorite synth act.
4. The Wheel Workers, "Yodel" Directed by David Nguyen, "Yodel" is a hella creative techno-western that awesomely shows off the Wheel Workers' strengths. It's the triumphant story of a drunken sheriff who comes to the aid of a woman about to be sexually assaulted and ends up in a chase and gunfight. Probably the most interesting aspect of the video is the weird way that blood has been replaced with flowers, up to and including a sunflower sprouting from a bullet wound in a bandit's forehead.
3. Wild Moccasins, "Eye Makeup" This one almost flew under my radar, but last month the Moccasins crafted a spectacular video directed by Otis Ike and Ivete Lucas. It follows singer Zahira Gutierrez as she works up the nerve to try and perform in a drag-queen show while trying to get the attention of an uninterested suitor. It's kind of a strange video, sort of the exact opposite of Matt Nathanson's "Kinks Shirt," but Gutierrez plays it well.
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