*Can't run the video for you here. Sorry. It's got a lot of nudity, incendiary lingerie and toe-sucking in it, and probably some bluenose would appoint herself Soft-Porno Czar and run in here from Moonbatistan to complain about it at me. And lord knows we can't have any of that.
*These guys will help you out there, while waxing somewhat scoldy:
http://www.blackbookmag.com/article/devendra-banhart-has-an-eyewear-fetish/24463
"It's a known fact that the music industry's tanking, and the only way for bands to make money these days is by what people like Kurt Cobain used to call "selling out," meaning, endorsing products for big corporations. But the Seattle scene ended a long time ago, and a guy's gotta eat. In many ways, the myth of integrity ended – albeit hilariously – when Bob Dylan did a spot for Victoria's Secret. That said, this short softcore porn film featuring indie hippy darling Devendra Banhart hawking Oliver People's glasses while bathing, toe-licking, and making out with his current girlfriend, Rebecca Schwartz, is rather disturbing...."
*Well, yes, it's sort of like the archaic 60s notion of "selling out," but basically what you have here is modern media convergence at work. You see, this creative effort is just like that Karl Lagerfeld video for Chanel that I just posted, except that Devendra's a musician by trade, so he contributed vocals, a soundtrack and a musician's actress girlfriend. He just used the fashion biz to fund it.
*To tell the truth, Devendra's becoming more a "multiartist" than a "musician," because, rather like his Abravanista pal Cibelle, Devendra is way into the graphic arts.
http://alarmpress.com/1312/blog/art-news/devendra-banhart-displays-art-alongside-works-of-paul-klee/
(...)
"Banhart, a "freak-folk" musician known for his fanciful song lyrics, will present thirteen drawings along with Klee's creations. His art was created in collaboration with his September 2007 album release, Smokey Rolls Down Thunder Canyon (XL Recordings). The pieces come from a personal narrative evolved over a fictional main character named Smokey, who is a prototype of a person Banhart claims to experience while on tour. Smokey takes on traits from a multitude of mythological and ethnic references in the drawings.
"Banhart's imaginative work often involves eccentric characters that are comparable to the surrealist pieces of Klee. Both Banhart and Klee's passion for music is parallel to their visionary art talents.
"I sing what I can't draw and draw what I can't sing," explains Banhart. (((rather eloquently)))
"Banhart will hold a musical performance along with the Abstract Rhythms exhibition at the SFMOMA on January 17, 2008. Smokey Rolls Down Thunder Canyon, along with a booklet that includes duplicates of his drawings, are available at the SFMOMA Museum Store."
(((And that was three long years ago, because this Devendra Banhart guy is plenty with-it. So, was Devendra "selling out" to the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art when he agreed to perform music there (and presumably got some kind of revenue for that)? No, because the SFMOMA isn't a "big corporation" – yet the idea that a major metropolitan museum is somehow removed from the support of "big corporations" is ridiculously archaic. The guy is just multi-artisting. Of course he wants to be in the SF MOMA, instead of constricting himself to being some multinational, multilingual freakfolk hippie with a guitar. That's the story. And it was a good idea on his part, too.)))
(((Now, see, if Devendra was as cool as Cibelle, he would have gleefully confused the issue further by MAKING UP some sunglasses for this video. Like some Sao Paulo "Fresh Vision Anti-Skeptic Eyedrops" for his sunglasses, maybe. But nevertheless, despite its sad lack of design-fiction, this Banhart thing that I'm daintily refusing to post here is what an avant-garde vernacular music-video looks like today.)))
(((Never MIND an old-fashioned MTV video that sells a track of music, because nobody will buy the music anyway. You have to virally entice people into a social sensibility. If it's centered around a commercial product, that's just the "path-toward-free" talking. Not so much "sellout" as sell-sideways.)))
(((Devendra and Cibelle did a steampunk video together once. I blogged that, too. It must be gratifying to look that thing up on search engines, because you're just not gonna see a lot of tagword combos like "Devendra + Cibelle." Here, have a look, there's not a commercial plastic shoe or a pair of sunglasses in sight:)))
