30: Frontier Psychiatrist - The Avalanches

It's fine, Ireland is going to be a nice once again after whatever the fuck are they doing with the Black Friday Agreement.

Good Friday Agreement, sorry.

Black Friday Agreement.

Agreement to get all your packages delivered on time.

Thank God we got that, so I guess.

That'll be a first.

The Agreement to sell your soul to capitalism.

hello and welcome to we can't rewind we've gone too far a podcast where we discuss the worst

c-list and weirdest as fuck music videos and uh they fire you okay i need a hug do you need therapy

i can give you a number don't worry it's purely psychosomatic we haven't said hello

Oh, shit.

Hiya.

Hi, I'm Neil.

Hi, I'm Dave.

Hi, I'm Neil.

Besides my need for therapy, today we'll be discussing the video for Frontier Psychiatrist

by the Australian band The Avalanches.

You know how we always say the link in the videos are in the show notes?

This is one you should watch before listening.

There is no real way to summarise a video.

There's no plot.

Things just happen on screen that vaguely mimic the lyrics, we think.

It's definitely more of an atmosphere video than a plot video.

Vine.

It's Dexter.

It's Dexter.

It's Dexter.

Ill, ill, ill, ill.

Mr. Kirk.

Dexter's in school. I'm afraid he's not,

Mr. Spishmore. Dexter's truancy

problem is way out of hand.

The Baltimore County School Board have decided

to expel Dexter from the entire public

school system. Mr. Kirk, I'm

not fair as you to learn Dexter's truancy,

but certainly expulsion is not the answer.

I'm afraid expulsion is the only answer.

It is the opinion of the entire staff

that Dexter is criminally insane.

Frontier Psychiatrist was

released in the year 2000.

It was directed by Tom Kunst.

It was directed by Tom the Cunt.

I never noticed that way.

It was directed by Tommy Cunt.

No, Cuntz.

I was going to say Cuntz.

He must be German.

No, he's American.

How is he?

We don't call him Cuntz.

He might have German ancestry.

Who knows?

It was directed by Tom Cuntz and Mike McGuire.

It included a smorgasbord of visual references,

sample tracks,

and also featured the Canadian comedy duo

Wayne and Schuster.

These two had a sketch named Frontier Psychiatrist.

The Plot Thickens.

The video was released to critical acclaim,

winning a bunch of awards and a few wanky sounding quotes

from people who know more about music than us.

But also, it was the beginning of the new millennium,

and that was a very simple time.

Everyone was distracted by the millennium bug

and entertained by arguably the best music decade in history.

Eh, don't.

I know, don't worry, we can discuss that at the end.

Snuck that in.

Did I ever tell you the story about...

Cowboys!

Mid-bidgets.

The Indians.

What frontiers are tired?

I was in another world.

The world of 20,000 girls.

And rectangle.

Storn optometrist.

A man with the golden eyeball.

And tie in your buttocks.

Or juice on your chin.

I promise my girlfriend I could put the violin.

Okay, everyone.

So, Dave, do you want to sit on this lounge chair?

Yep.

Tell us your initial thoughts.

Well, I think it all started when I was a teenager.

I remember seeing this video a lot.

It's always stuck in my head.

It just popped randomly into my head the other day.

I'm like, we should do this on a podcast.

I've got a theory about this video, which is the spectrum of video.

You've got your literal interpretation of the song video,

and you've got your complete and utter stream of nonsense video,

which has no relation to the song whatsoever.

And I'm thinking this one's kind of halfway,

because it's trying to interpret the song,

but the song is just a bunch of random samples that have no actual connection.

So this is what happens when you try to turn that into video form.

It reminded me of something, which I'm sorry, I'm going to talk about my childhood.

No childhood, sorry.

Early 20s.

That's fine.

This is therapy after all, so please do.

Tell us about your childhood, Nelly.

This is a safe space.

Oh, God.

Apart from the fact just getting broadcast in there, but don't worry about that.

It's a safe space.

My arse.

There are hundreds of people who are going to listen to us.

Hi, Daisy.

How are you?

I love my sister.

Hi, that one guy in Italy.

There was like one Italian guy according to the stats.

Hi. Hi, Steve.

Ciao.

Regazzi.

Yeah, so my point was that Jeannie,

I was part of a filmmaking network slash society.

Once we did a thing where we recorded like a VJing set

where we had a selection of songs

and anyone who wanted to do something,

select one song and create a video for it.

And we just had a night where we're playing those

and getting drunk and all this.

It was quite fun.

And several people created things,

including our own Richard Mitty, who created our intro and ultra song.

He created a video for that as well.

So whenever I watch this video, I just kind of keep on reminding myself of the videos that we watched there

because they were kind of the same vibe of electro tunes and visuals that work with them.

It's quite interesting and I don't hate it, but I'm not too sure what I think about it.

Because it's not traditional.

It is. It's sort of a genre of music I know nothing about and don't really, you know, listen to.

And I couldn't really tell you anything.

Couldn't even tell you who is famous in that, you know, in that area, that genre.

But yeah, initial thoughts.

I'm not too sure I need to let it sit with me.

I feel a little upset and I don't know why, but maybe that's the therapy side of it.

Everything that features, like all the people, I haven't done a count, but I think there's over 30 people.

Does that include the ghosts or no?

Well, I included the ghosts and the mariachi band as one.

So you're probably, yeah, you're probably talking close to 40 then.

Nice.

But yeah, it features quite a lot of people who have their own segments.

Any in particular that jumped out at you.

I laughed a lot at the Dangerous skit.

That was quite funny.

And also the ghosts.

I don't know, it just made me very cheery.

It's kind of like semi-opaque ghosts.

And the lady occasionally lifting the sheet to release this action.

Old lady there.

It's very funny.

It doesn't make sense unless you see it, guys.

Yeah.

Well, any of us listening, you have to watch the video

because otherwise it does not make sense.

Yeah, for reference for people at home,

Neil's made a, I think it was Neil,

made a list of stuff that happens in the video.

We've got germs, the horns, ghosts, granny, drummer,

therapist, man, turtle with a man's head,

crazy coconut, cowboys, horse whipping,

women, snake charmer, Native American,

DJ Skelly? Skeleton DJ.

Benjamin Franklin.

Where is Benjamin Franklin in all this?

You got a scroll at one point.

I think I just, I just, yeah, I just, it looked like one of those Benjamin Franklin people.

A sailor, a man dressed like a baby, rectangle woman, golden eye skeleton, flexible lady,

windmill blender, drunk writer, mini orchestra, monkey drummer, magician, clock cat, Egyptian

dancer, school teacher, little girl, big fucking bird, DJ in the sky, marriage, hey, band.

If you listeners can picture this, everything Dave's just said, picture that on a stage,

someone black and white, what comes to mind?

And tell me your feelings and thoughts in your own time.

But we have an hour otherwise a charge of time.

I think I was wondering about the first couple of people that pop up.

And they're in black and white, but everything behind them is sort of in colour.

And I'm wondering how they did that.

I don't know if it's like sort of digital effect or if they've literally just painted them grey.

I don't know.

I presume they just, you know, when they were editing, they just marked out the people and it just saturated it.

Because eventually when everyone comes on stage, they come back in colour, so it was shot in colour.

You know how, if it's done a bit easily, when you do shitty green screen, sometimes you can see the green aura.

You don't quite see anything like this, so I presume there was no green screen.

I would say, yeah, that's why at first I was like, have they painted them grey?

It would have been really good if they painted them grey, but I think you're right, I don't think...

Because I know in, what was that famous film, Wizard of Oz, that one.

At the start of that, everything in the sets, including the actor, they were all painted in sort of monochrome colours, like makeup and the sets were all grey.

No, they weren't.

Yeah, they were.

I thought it was just turned into black and white.

Sorry, shot in black and white.

This is the thing.

So it was shot in colour.

So that was all shot in colour film, but all the setting made the look black and white.

So whenever Dorothy opened the door, that was actually like a colour set.

So that was the sort of magical transition between the two.

That's why it always looks so seamless.

Cool.

Yeah, I can't remember.

I've seen that.

But yeah, you should watch that, even just the start of it.

And it's quite, yeah, it's quite cool.

It's almost like the video is like a piss take on American culture and Americana style context.

Context is, what's the verb?

I don't know.

I think it takes the piss out of itself, but everything in there is American if you think about it.

And cowboys are very American.

Circuses are very American.

Sailors are very American.

Ghosts, notorious sound in America.

Ghosts, yes.

Yeah, ghosts are only found in America.

I'm always hilarious because

Wayne and Schuster, Canadian.

Can you think of anything that talks

other than a person?

A bird?

Yeah.

Sometimes a parrot talks.

What even would you call this genre of music, Frontier Psychiatrist?

Sample, smorgasbord?

Sorry, on Wikipedia they were called turntablism?

Turntablism, I've never heard that one.

Yeah, it's very interesting.

Yeah, that was a new word.

Because I think everything in this song is sampled.

I think Neil was saying he recognised one of the tunes,

I'm like, yeah, everything is sampled.

Well, here's a question.

Is stuff like this where everything is sampled,

is that a legitimate form of artistic expression?

yeah of course i think so i think in this context yes in other ones it's it's debatable in what

context it wouldn't be i think well the only thing i can kind of relate it to is images i can't remember

the name of the artist or photographer but they took people's instagram their like their own instagram

images including the caption and you know pretty much a screenshot of their profile and then stuck

it in a fancy gallery made a fortune from that that in that context it's a bit it's a bit wrong

but in music i don't know it feels a little bit more forgiving wouldn't it the direct uh comparison

to this kind of music be more akin to collages as opposed to straight out yeah because it's kind

of a combination rather than just one thing my personal opinion is that art is there's really

nothing new like everything absolutely everything is told from somewhere sometimes it's a bit more

blatant. I have an issue with people like Damien Hirst who directly steals stuff and makes a lot

of money on it while claiming superiority and originality and authenticity and blah blah blah

all this. I'm really sorry I'm gonna geek out for a second so there was a case maybe a decade ago

maybe a bit earlier than that a high school kid if I remember correctly who used the image of Damien

Hirst's a diamond skull for some collage that he did. I don't know if he did for school or forever

wasn't like a big thing and Damien Hirst found out and sued the kid because they used a like

of his image and there was the whole thing with a lot of artists coming out and saying

Damien Hirst is a fucking cunt and Damien Hirst is a fucking cunt I completely agree with that.

For a back context for the Phil Stints among us is Damien Hirst does he go around nicking

other people's artwork or what's the deal? I understand fully that art is very personal

and people don't like you know there's different tastes and different things that you like that's

fair enough and i don't hate uh post-modern art and don't hate contemporary art like i can see why

a single square on a white wall is art i can understand context in his case his ideas they

were few original like just the ideas themselves are just not very like what exactly he's showing

with that like the golden skull golden sorry diamond it was a skull of someone some dead guy

he covered in uh diamonds and he was like look at this it's the something of death or whatever

but it's just the golden skull that he made however many thousands of millions on it and also

the reason and that's don't quote me on this because i don't have the actual references but

from what i read is true the reason why he's at sales for so as much as he does is because he's um

like official art dealer person buys them off for that much basically it's um money laundering in

sense right he like artificially increases the price of his own heart it's like i've seen a lot

of that kind of chat with the whole nft thing that's going on where a lot of people are literally

literally just taking like photos of other people's art and and selling it as a nft and saying oh this

is a one of one of a kind thing even though it's a thing you can copy and paste but there's an idea

for the NFT is not inherently bad because it allows for artists to directly sell their

art without any need for extra commissions and they're getting cutthroat ever. But, you

know, I did have massive joy of all the NFT dude bros getting fucking scams. Fuck, it

was hilarious.

In theory, it's a good idea, but I don't think the theory has worked out because humans have

ruined it like they do everything.

Humans are always running for everyone, don't they?

Neil, do you have any opinion on Damien Hirst?

and the nfts do you mean her no i kind of like it stuff really really yeah it's you know it's a bit

out there it's a bit mad which you know it's good to be different but um who's not nfts i feel like i

need to understand that but i just don't understand that just don't don't get the point of it yeah

i'm more i mean i've only sort of briefly read into the the environmental impact on it which

doesn't really make sense the way things are currently so no this is a bit confusing though

i have three board apes that you're going to retire i'm joking i don't have any i'll be stupid

just because i'm a nerd i've looked into the nft shit i think the most offensive thing about them

is just a lot of the art is just shit if people were selling the actual good art and i think there

are people selling good art with it but there's literally ones where they sort of generate with

ai variations like say the board ape thing it's like it's like they've generated variations of the

same thing. It's not really unique then

you've just fucking tweaked a parameter

is that art?

Maybe, maybe not, probably not. Definitely not worth

shittles of money. No.

We should do an NFT of the ghost choir.

Each one of these ghosts is

completely unique, even though it's all

just the same person with a shit over their head.

That was a nice tangent.

Let's have a cheese.

How would I count three?

That boy needs therapy.

He was white as a sheep.

And he also made false teeth.

This is such nonsense of a video.

It's pure joy to watch.

The music is fun.

And while you can't quite tell if the band had fun filming it,

mostly because you don't know which of all these are the band,

the directors definitely had film making shit up.

The video is joy to the eye.

And it's been nice to watch a video on YouTube

that it's not a potato scone quality.

Scone, scone, quality.

I'm hungry now.

This is an incredibly random song and video.

I did find it almost nightmarish, but honestly, it wasn't too bad.

I found it interesting that the track was made using lots of source samples from other tracks.

I know nothing about music apart from just the finished product.

So it was it was quite cool to see how it was kind of mashed together,

which actually made me appreciate it a bit more because it's a very cleverly constructed piece in that regard.

The video, I think, is quite solid and pretty damn entertaining.

So I think they did a pretty good job.

I think this would be a cracking song to put on.

Not the video, just, you know, background music with friends over just to kind of watch the reactions.

What, with the video or just the song?

Well, I think, you know, I would like to think people would go like, what the fuck is this?

And then you'd be like, oh, do you want to see the video?

Yeah, it only gets weird.

Exactly.

I've always really enjoyed this video.

I'm thinking about it a bit further.

I think it's quite a good interpretation of what the style of music is.

There's not particularly a plot that we can really solidly pick out, but it's just fun to watch.

And it clearly has a lot of production value for us.

I think my favourite part, I've got it's hard to pick, is that the monkey is chasing the bird around.

A person in a monkey suit and there's a person in a bird suit.

And they're running around and they're chasing each other around during a little sort of breakdown in the song.

And then after a few seconds of them chasing them around, they sort of come together and then they just start dancing with each other.

so it's hard not to be slightly delighted by that.

Worst part, it's not really bad,

but I think it's the only bit that doesn't really fit

the style of everything else is when the DJ guy comes down.

I feel like he's dressed like a character

from the TV version of Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy,

which I'm a big fan of,

but it seems like it's the only part that doesn't kind of fit

the kind of theme of the rest of the video for me.

Does this video have a theme?

I mean, I've just noticed there's a snake charmer.

I've never noticed him before.

Yes.

It's got everything, I'm telling you.

Best bit, the talking head turtle man.

I just can't get over the fact that he just looks so concerned,

like he doesn't know he's a turtle.

But also, I think, yeah, the entire vibe of this,

I don't know if he's ever played Jet Set Radio or Jet Set Radio Future.

I've heard, I've not played it.

Yeah, the soundtrack is pretty similar with, you know,

scratchy techno whatever beats.

Not that this is techno,

but this song reminded me of that.

Well, the worst is kind of like,

I don't know,

it's more of a critical opinion.

I think the song has grown on me,

but this isn't really my cup of tea.

I don't hate it.

I just probably wouldn't choose

to ever listen to it.

I think if I heard it come on

on a like a random playlist,

I would probably skip it

before giving it a chance.

My favorite part is the Ghost Chorus.

Ghost Choir.

Ghost Choir.

Yes.

What was I thinking last night

when I was putting this?

Could be either.

I think you can legitimately say it's a chorus of ghosts.

Can you?

I think so.

I may be wrong.

English is hard.

English is hard.

Potatoes.

The ghost choir brought me joy for some reason.

I have no explanation why.

It was fun to watch.

It just made me happy.

The way they kind of bob around with their sheets on their heads.

And I'm not sure there was something to hate specifically for me.

There was so many visuals.

And if you were not a fan of one of them,

the next one that was going to pop in any second now

are probably going to you will probably going to enjoy and if you don't like this type of video i'm

not sure what kind of type of video you like because that video is just everything in one

amalgamation of every video ever created a smorgasbord of every single video that existed a very big big

big smorgasbordy eye for me same love the word smorgasbord smorgasbord why is a smorgasbord it's

a board with like cheese and cheese on it right okay no like everything i think it's like

fish and cheese and you both i don't know you we both would take care of it yeah i think it's like

it's a random spread of food yeah you would uh you would you would know it as the term party food

a very big party food eye for me you sort of get them um i don't know where you get them actually

smorgasbord shop that's the one yes yes um yeah i will give this an eye just a normal eye not

no no stability to it just an eye uh well yeah i would i mean it'll probably grow on me i'll maybe

listen to um to other stuff see other music videos just to see how they get on but yeah it's

an eye for me it's worth checking out and um it is quite good fun

take a look at the show notes for links for today's video links to instagram etc also email us at

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Say goodbye everyone.

Bye. Bye all.

Bye.

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Thank you.