>You _did_ do the video for Devo's "Are you Experienced" didn't you ?
>Utterly *Fucking* brilliant.
Thanks, but I didn't "do" that video in any creative way, only in an
administrative and technical way. I knew this Dallas rich kid who wanted to
be a music video producer. I knew the band, and that Warner Bros. wasn't
giving them much money for videos. I put the two together. Initially, we
were going to produce RU Experienced in Dallas. I wrote some ideas for how
the video might be done if directed by me, but Jerry Casale wanted to be
the director and had his own idea -- as seen in the final video. At the
last minute, schedule problems caused the production to be moved to L.A. I
went along because at that point, Casale and me were the only ones
who knew Jerry's "script" (a series of stick-figure type drawings). Graeme
Wiffler was the "director" although it became somewhat collaborative, with
either Jerry, Graeme or me directing things as the others became exhausted
during the incredibly grueling 3-day, $90,000 shoot (!!!) It was my first
experience as a filmmaker on a Hollywood sound stage and it was the
absolute worst experience of my professional life. I don't ever want to
work in the Hollywood system again. It is totally fucked. Half the people
there are the most depraved status-grabbers and Slack Vampires imaginable,
-- in a business and artistic sense, anyway. So that's the story. I was
standing next to the camera during every shot, but it was Jerry's concept
and Graeme's main direction. In some ways, my main job (not that anybody
else would recognize this) was to propitiate the ghost of Hendrix, of whom
I was definitely the biggest fan there besides Mark Mothersbaugh -- and
Mark had long sinced learned to let Jerry have his way with the videos.
(NOTE -- this may give some clue as to the demise of DEVO.)
It was fun watching Randy HAnsen, the hired World's Only Hendrix
Impersonator (tho a white guy in make-up) do his thang, and it was fun
gazing at the sea of LA high school girls in blonde hippie wigs.
Mark Mothersbaugh and I and his sweetie and various friends had many good
conversations and collaborations totally unconnected to the awful shoot.
Now you know.
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