The one and only Rainbo Video

Mysterious yet unfailingly courteous and prompt, burgeoning yet completely professional, Chicago born and based Rainbo Video excels at exuding excellent beats and champions  tongue-in-cheek yet thoughtful film shorts. One such short, “Colors”, silences a crowd with a masterful and eye-popping take on the pesky colorful stripes a malfunctioning television displays. Playful text appears over a seizure-inducing background of strobing stripes, entrancing all who watch, while Rainbo mixes orgasmic beats, synced live to the videos. The entire Rainbo Video show is an audio/visual delight- intelligent, fun, and all around awesome. The music is dance-fresh, the video is eye-poppalicious - all he needs now is some lingering scent to complete the experience.  Genially, RV granted Annette from HPM an interview, which sheds light on frissons, footage, and random tidbits of the man behind RV…

HPM: You use a lot of samples - how do you decide which samples will work with a song?

RV: I’m really interested in moments of “pop bliss,” those tiny fragments in a song where the melody or harmony is so enjoyable that it induces a euphoric feeling, a frisson.  So when I’m sampling, I basically focus on extracting those moments and meditating on them through repetition or various transformations.  I typically start with fragments and then fit them into whatever rhythmic grid I’m interested in at the time.  ”Xenoglossy 44″ is good example of all that.

HPM: A “frisson,” how well put! Do you identify a moment like that immediately when you hear it?

RV: Definitely!  It’s not some sort of intellectualized value judgment; it’s an immediate gut reaction.  As soon as I hear something like that, I know I like it, and I want to hear it over and over and over again, both because it’s pleasurable, and because I want to figure out why it works so well.

HPM: Interesting, do you ever feel pressured to entertain the audience with more than just frissons? Is that pressure the impetus to creating video art or is it an independent desire that you’ve managed to sync with your music?

RV: My formal background is in filmmaking and film studies, specifically avant-garde cinema.  So I’ve been making films for awhile and have always been looking to find some sort of harmony between that and my music.  My music has always been pretty fun and irreverent, whereas my films, for the most part, have tended to be serious formalist work.

Over the past couple of years, though, the spirit of my music has started to influence my filmmaking, and for the better.  While I still like my early films for what they are, I think combining an “experimental” sensibility with a pop/humor sensibility is most effective.  It offers a much more rich experience for the viewer, so they’re neither enduring some overlong, impenetrable “study in ______,” nor just mindlessly laughing at YouTube videos.  Personally, I enjoy both extremes equally, but I think integrating the two is more engaging - it asks that you watch actively, while still offering up something pleasurable.

So in that way, I think I am interested in creating an entertaining experience.  And watching a film during my performance is much more entertaining than watching me stand behind a laptop and push buttons.

HPM: In your creative process, which do you begin with first, a song or a video? How do you pair them?

RV: My current live performance is really the first time I’ve integrated music + video on a large scale.  I did a preview “trailer” awhile back that had excerpts from several of my films edited to the track “Colors,” but it wasn’t really meant to stand on its own as a true integration.

I made this current performance by first performing a live set and recording the audio.  I then took that and edited brand new video material to precisely interact with the music.  What results is a locked, silent video, which serves as the master timeline. That’s what’s being projected during the performance.  Then, each show consists of me trying to perform the music in synch with the video.  It’s really a kind of test - I have to do a lot to make it work correctly. There’s still room for improvisation, though, so it’s possible to have a performance that’s better and more interesting than the original.

HPM: Do you shoot your own footage, or do you use found footage?  Where do you find footage?

RV: Both, though for the past couple of years I’ve mainly used found footage.  I usually gather it from VHS tapes I’ve collected over the years.  For me, the disparity between the sampled content is important.  I intentionally choose content that is unrelated, and then make a kind of game out of constructing the connections.  I’ll definitely be shooting more original material, though, with a focus on employing different methods of 3-D.

HPM: What would be your ideal venue at which to play a show and who would open for you?

RV: Someday I would love to play Pritzker Pavilion at night, with a massive, 50 foot projection.  With the direction I’m taking my shows, they’ll eventually seem as natural being performed there, for hundreds of people - even families - as in an art gallery or a microcinema for fifteen people.  That kind of universality sounds unreasonable, but it’s absolutely possible.

You can catch Rainbo Video on Tour from July 24th, for the latest information check out his myspace: http://www.myspace.com/rainbovideo

For more information on Rainbo Video check out his website: http://rainbovideo.com/ and his music blog: http://www.videopopmusic.com/

Download a zip file of 5 songs here: http://rainbovideo.com/music/Rainbo_Video_320kbps.zip

[or birthday, for those unbeeveducated among us]
to Kieran, co-founder of hpm.
i think that a good way to celebrate is for everyone who may read this to buy something from the hpm store.
good idea, no?

The One and Only Toad Cruise

Once upon a time there was a toad named Toad Cruise. He had medium-short, side/wind swept brown hair and wore aviator sunglasses. Toad was an actor but most importantly an approachable bro. He grew up in the country. Our country.

When he was just a youngster, with his tail still attached and everything, an evil farmer named Crik gigged his parents and fried them for breakfast in a cast iron skillet. Crik fried Toad’s parents in garlic butter until they were crisp and savoury. From that point on, Toad Cruises life would never be the same again.

Toad left Our Country and moved to the Big City where he pursued the Universal Dream of Success and Fame. When he moved to the Big City, he had goals of becoming a stud a la Midnight Cowboy, but much like Jon Voight, Toad’s naivete got the better of him and he was soon penniless and living in a sewer grate.

Toad got horribly ill with gout and flu, and as poor and penniless as his was, he decided that the only viable option was to cut his losses and off himself. He was about to hop in front of a car when he saw it…the puppet bike. If you have never seen a puppet bike before, feh on you. Toad Cruise gazed at the puppet bike with astonishment and his little froggy heart filled with joy. Up to the puppet bike he jumped, right onto the stage where the puppets were performing! Toad Cruise joined into the puppet performance with such animated gusto that a large crowd amassed in front of the puppet bike. From that point on, Toad’s success skyrocketed. He became known for his excellent dramatic performances and his hilariously on-point comic timing.

This is Crik. Toad's parents are among those dead frogs in the back of Crik's truck

A few years past and Toad, once kindly and approachable, became jaded. He would throw tantrums and dabble in cults and have extensive, Mariah Carey-like lists of demands. On a cross-country promo tour for his latest blockbuster hit, he verbally insulted his personal assistant so badly that she had a nervous breakdown and downed a bottle of pepto bismal and snorted 5 lines of talcum powder. In her chemical-induced rage, she threw poor Toad out of the RV window. Toad landed in the soft country grass and bounced away, completely shocked and discombobulated.

He hopped for what seemed like days but was actually hours. Usually, he would have a small snack of every half hour and would be misted with purified Tahitian geyser water every 15 minutes. Unmisted and slightly hungry, Toad Cruise bounced right into a Big Ole Beave.

This was no ordinary Beave, but the leader of a prestigious tribe of USDA certified Organic Angus Beaves. The Beave stomped her foot, almost squishing Toad. Blindly panicking and hopping frenetically, Toad tripped over a dandelion, landed flat on his little froggy butt, and passed out. When he came to, he was surrounded by a three large Beaves gazing curiously at him.

“What should we do with him?” said Sterf, the gingery Beave.

“Eat him, of course!” replied Qwerm, the large and twitchy eyed Beave.

“No, he is just a mere lost frog. We will help him return from whence he came. And besides, he lacks meatiness,” spoke the biggest and wisest Beave, the Beave Leader, Bovariana.

Thus was Toad’s fate decided. When he awoke the next morning, he was curled into the Bovariana’s nape.

Bovariana and Toad Cruise cuddling and giggling among the sweet grass.

Quivering slightly, Toad opened his mouth to begin barraging Bovariana with questions. But before he could start, Bovariana spoke reassuringly,

“Small frog, lost and scared you appeared amongst our flock of beaves. Your fate was sealed last night when I and the other elder beaves held council. We will help you return to your home.”

Toad was overjoyed! He and the beaves began a steady march towards the nearest city. On the way, however, the scent of the fresh Country air, filled with buzzing bees, pollinating flowers, raw manure, and the heaving scent of the beaves, revived and reinvigorated Toad’s senses better than all the Kombucha and Kabbalah he had been doing back in the Big City. As the bevy of Beave and Toad got nearer and nearer, the less inclined was Toad to return to his fame and fortune.

Upon the eve of his triumphant return to the city, Bovariana and Toad were sharing a mushroom for dinner when a red hatchback Saab zoomed past them. The Saab halted and backed up ferociously. Bovariana and Toad furtively gazed upon a young, quite disheveled and exhausted looking woman hopped out of the car and sprinted towards them.

“Oh my!” exclaimed Toad, “that’s my old personal assistant!”

Bovariana, who had heard stories of the girls madness, lumbered up to defend Toad.

“Toadie! Oh Toadie Baby! Am I relieved to see you! Ya see, I was just driving out to look for ya! I been lookin for ya ever since our little run in in the RV! Ya see, they, back there in the Big City, think I did you in! They think I was going to take your money and replace you with this frog I got at the pet store! Let’s get you back to the Manse de Cruise, I bet you haven’t been misted in days! Then you can tell those damn detectives that I didn’t kill ya!” did the girl breathily exclaim.

“I’ll take it from here, Bovariana,” said Toad, sauntering over to the girl. “You threw me out of a car, you dumb bitch! I’m not going anywhere with you! Definitely not back to the city. I’m staying here, in nature, where I belong. You see, I’m a just a simple-minded Cruise. I’m not meant for city life, it makes my skin break out into horrible warts. Cruises are meant to be here, in the beautiful meadows and friendly swamps, living with beaves. From this day forth, I pledge myself to this beautiful and benevolent Beave, Bovariana.”

The crazy assistant tried to lunge at the Toad, but Bovariana, so touched by Toad’s words and enraged that someone would try to harm such a sweet creature, took a bite out of the personal assistant. And then another one. And then another one. Then the other beaves came and ate the rest of the girl while Toad Cruise suckled upon Bovariana’s teet.

I have never seen Terminator or any of its incarnations, which is why I am the #1 best person to Review the latest box office sum-sum hit—Terminator::::Salvation:::Explosionz.

So there’s this guy, right? His name is Jon Conr or some shit like that and he gets cryogenically frozen a la Austin Powers in the the original or Fry from Futurama, except he gets frozed back up in the 80s so he’s all trendy looking and what not. Back in the 80s he was balls-out fighting this badass war against the secret machines [not the band] that were becoming/impersonating people (kind of like Blade Runner, minus the star power but plus a juiced-UP ahhhnold). OK so Jon Conr is fighting and ahhhnold makes a big explosion (aka BoomBoom) and Conr gets all burned so they (they=Sara Conr, has her own FOX show) put aloe on him but he’s all like “oww!!!” so they put him in a box of ice but the box is super cold and he accidently freezes, and their all like “eh he was kind of annoying.” And so they put the box in the root cellar of their grandma’s cabinet out in Nevada.

20 years later, JConr wakes up and he’s all disorientated, like what year are we in??Some industrious youth/grease monkey says “2018, of course. I love your 80s style, were you inspired by the Milan runway??” and then they have one of the money sex scenes. When they’re all done and pillow talking in bed, JConz discovers that the robotz are still running rampant so he decides to renew his 80s mission of destroying robots. Flash to the machines::: they are rounding up humans concentration camp style and destroying them. Flash back to JConz::: he sets out to destroy the robots with his crack time of young grease monkey who cleans up nice, fierce asian girl, tech guy, and the other one. Then he runs into his 80s arch nemesis, Some Dude, who is running from machines. Fighting words are exchanged but their bond of humanity unites them on a deeper level. Together they go and take down the robot powers that be, all badass like. Explosions! Explosions! Explosions! Our heroes come upon one of the robot factories, there’s a human concentration-type camp set up next door. They bust in trying to rescue the humans, only to discover that the robots make other robots out of LIVE [compressed] HUMANS!!!! Robots is people!!!!!!

Fin

-AR

picture being in a familiar room, a room you know and love, a room you often frequent. only one thing has the potentiality of destroying your nice, little room–not a stack of vintage pornos, not a big pile of shoes, not a life-size sculpture of Larry King–but a peculiar smell.

the stench of something askew throws the entire room askance.

the smell could be a slow, festering, low note that is almost indecipherable from the usual culprits of dirty laundry and cat litter box. it is there, however, because it proliferates your possessions and soon you take on this slight stench. your friends can smell it when they enter your hovel but they do not call attention because you stimulate them with your witty banter and generosity with gins. soon you carry the fetor to your car and your office. it becomes your most distinguishable characteristic.

or, the smell could be a sharp, piercing, foreign slap in the face that hits you when you open the refrigerator after leaving 4 lbs of beef hearts in a faulty tupperware and refrigerator water mingles with blood and colonies of green fuzz are established. pungent, easily allayed, and yet annoyingly lingering, like that girl you met on the bus who went home with you after seeing you adjust your sock garters.

the most annoying peculiar smells creep up on you suddenly–you come home after a long day of tapestry-weaving and your garbage can has turned into a nasty terrarium, spewing whiffs of gunk and yuck since you left for tapestry-weaving not more than 5 hours ago.

are these odors preventable? in short, no. but they can be somewhat rectified through this home remedy passed down through my family: take 3 oxtails and afix them to your tuckis. wearing nothing but oxtails, a fanny pack and three wise men flag down the nearest bear trap with your mind and then consume 5 tins of Fancy Feast. Problem will be solved in no less than 3 hours. Enjoy!

-AR

θxen. Þeebles. Σrma. ρantone color books. βurnish. πewsboy. κrill. ψanton. ©ryv. Γuckus. σrangina. Ξclaire.

-ÅΓ