Videodrone: Johnny Marr • Bloc Party • Dinosaur Jnr

While we are snowed in and going stir crazy, Videodrone has been watching the following videos to stave off madness..

Johnny Marr, a mythical genius figure almost like a unicorn, if unicorn’s could finger a fretboard so pleasingly. At least he was until he stepped out from behind the various frontmen he hid behind for decades, to unveil his SOLO material.
Now you have to forgive me here but I expected a lot more from Johnny on his debut album.
Free from the shackles of any other band mates, Marr has been able to let his imagination run wild, he could have done anything at all, but no this sub standard Paul Weller fodder has turned him into the indie Elton John.
Marr’s latest single ‘Upstarts’ is too middle of the road, it’s video see’s Johnny & friends (who look like Oasis fan club members, still mourning the bands demise) performing in a well lit underground bunker of some sorts.
Johnny preens around in a red Christmas jumper with his ageing Mod haircut singing about upstarts and the underground. If you go into any live venue in Manchester you can see dozens of unsigned local bands sounding similar to this.
I expected more from Johnny, I actually wanted more from Marr. Being a Smiths fan – yes I am actually – I needed this song to sparkle & shine and it really doesn’t…

Bloc Party now and their video for ‘Truth’, it features the band members swathed in different coloured smoke effects. No seriously that is it. This video was quite possibly directed by a sixth form media studies student, who has just discovered that paused juddery effect button and deploys it throughout the WHOLE video.
Massive shame as ‘Truth’ is a good song, but the jarring video FX annoy, and may possibly send you into seizure…

90’s grunge band Dinosaur Jnr are BACK and have roped in two American actors plus Henry Rollins to appear in the video for ‘Pierce The Morning Rain’ a song that sounds exactly like the material the band churned out over 20 years ago!.
Whether this is good or bad is down to whether you were a fan in the first place I guess, but for the uninitiated expect fuzzy guitars & rhythmic drumming.
In this promo clip we get the ‘story’ of a bass obsessed geek in the quest for a perfect sound system for his car – seriously who comes up with the treatments for music videos these days? – a mission he takes to almost perverted levels.
His wife looks depressed that hubby would rather crack one off over a speaker than spend time with her, and then we get a dream sequence!. (oh you’re really spoiling us)
Henry Rollins appears now and beats up bass freak, for no other reason than he is listening to a Dinosaur Jnr track that doesn’t even have a prominent bassline. Still I suppose it’s good to see the band back in action, let’s hope it opens the flood gates for the Grunge revival.