We’ve mentioned Justin Kelly here quite a lot already, for good reasons: he’s a filmmaker from San Francisco and responsible for a whole bunch of great music videos of queer artists from the Bay area such as Gossip, Hunx And His Punks, the Younger Lovers, Hey Willpower and Alexis Blair Penney (check out his website Den Of Hearts for more about his work as a director). For Catch Fire he has put together a list of his five favourite YouTube moments, which have in common that they make you smile and feel awkward at the same time, although the qualities of awkwardness differ. Thanks Mr. Kelly!
1. “I Gorilla Press 100 lbs while ‘Strange Currencies’ Plays in the Background”
“I can’t remember who sent this to me but… I’m obsessed. This man ‘coordinated his movements with the music somewhat in a way that is somewhat pleasing to him.’ Um, okay, cool. I feel you. Note to self: check hair immediately after a workout.”
2. “Dancing with Bears”
“This video should make you feel good. To be young again, free, without responsibility… but for some reason it makes me want to cry. I plan to watch it over and over and over ’till a tear at last forms in the corner of at least one eye. And drops.”
Alexis Blair Penney is a drag artist from San Francisco, where he is especially know as the host of “High Fantasy”, a weekly party at the legendary drag bar Aunt Charlie’s Lounge. He also runs a blog called SORE I featured here a while ago, on which he regularly posts pictures of his live and of drunk folks performing and having a good time at his party. (One of the contributers of the blog used to be Penney’s friend Seth Bogart). After I already stumbled over a couple of rather crappy, but artistically promising YouTube videos of a live performance of Penney in a club in Los Angeles a while ago, I’m happy to annouce that he now his first official single out: “Lonely Sea” is a beautiful housey tune with a Chrystal Waters beat produced by Nick Weiss (Teengirl Fantasy, H.U.N.X) and just got a gorgeous video by Justin Kelly. Here it is:
Last year singer Seth Bogart (aka Hunx) completely reinvented his band Hunx and his Punx and turned it into a pretty glamorous four-girls-one-fag-group. In autumn the new “girl group”, consisting of Bogard, Shannon Shaw (bass / vocals), Michelle Santamaria (guitar), Erin Emslie (drums) and Amy Blaustein (guitar/organ), released a new single called “Too Young To Be In Love” (see video below). Now the band has finished the production of a new album with the same title, which will be released on March 29 via Hardly Art. The release is followed by an extensive tour throughout the US and Canada in April and May.
Most of the these gigs are are an opportunity to see Shannon Shaw’s band Shannon and the Clams live. The trio, which seems to have the same passion for the wall of sound sound of the 50ies and the garage sound of the 60ies as Bogart releases its second album “Sleep Talk” in April 5 on 1-2-3-4-Go! Records.
Check out “Lover’s Lane”, the opener of the new H&HP album (featuring additional voices by Shannon) and “Sleep Talk”, the title track of the new S&TC album right here, both songs can be downloaded as Free-MP3s. I also posted the pretty trashy / campy clip to S&TCs “Hunk Hunt” and Justin Kelly‘s clip to H&HP’s “Too Young To Be In Love” below the jump.
Justin Kelly is an independent film maker who has directed a lot of great music videos for great bands and projects from the queer music scene of the San Francisco Bay Area such as Hunx And His Punks (“Cruising, You Don’t Like Rock’n Roll”), Hey Willpower (“Double Fantasy II”) and the Younger Lovers (“Danny”). I really like the way Kelly manages to put together videos that are so full of good ideas and that are visually so well done that although you see that they where shot without a big budget they just don’t really feel like low-budget-videos. What I didn’t know is that he also made a bunch of short films, I hope that I’ll get the possibility to see them some time. Here are some of his current pices of work works, you find more stuff on his website, his YouTube page, or his Vimeo page (That’s where I found the picture on top). I also added a new Tag called “Justin Kelly” to the Category funcion because I’m pretty sure this is not going to be the last posting showing his work.
Still great: “Cruising” by Hunx And His Punx. Learn more about them here.
I’m totally obsessed with this video and the band, that’s why this is the second time I’m posting it here. Learn more about the Younger Lovers here,here and here.
Garage Rock/ early Punk kind of music usually really bores me, but this is weirder, trashier, funnier and also queer. Hunx And His Punx is the band project of Gravy Train!!!-member Seth Bogart. They have alredy released several single records on which Seth sings with his nasally voice, posing slutty and cute on the covers. Their current song “Cruising” which was released in February is about cruising for guys but not really knowing which of them are straight and which are gay. The video is fun I think. And here’s the only article I could find about the band.
