There are a lot of videos coming out of Austin these days, so we’ve decided to make life easier for you by compiling some of the most notable into a recurring feature called Out of Focus.
Holiday Mountain- “Get Really Freaky”
I watched that movie The Purge like two years too late but even if I saw it in theatres I’m pretty sure I would have thought the same thing: “this would be so much better if they didn’t try to force some awkward family drama narrative on top.” I know there’s a sequel, but let’s be real, it kind of (totally) sucks. So I’m going to pretend instead that Holiday Mountain’s new video “Get Really Freaky” is a reboot of The Purge where Laura Patino and her bandmates use Austin’s official Holiday Mountain Day not as an opportunity for shows and good times but to give Austinites a day to vent their frustrations with traffic and flakiness by wreaking havoc on their neighbors. Laura might use that to disrupt some ballet classes with a Pussy Riot-esque assemblage and to pop up and interrupt a night of domestic boringness but there’s also a dude who looks like Creed from The Office dancing in gasoline presumably in protest of Austin traffic or gas prices or ::shrugs:: Don’t worry, there is a whole lot of booty shaking going on to meet the quota of the other definition of freaky, too.
Pataphysics- “Bigtrash Island”
Looking like it might turn into a snuff film at any moment, Pataphysics’ “Bigtrash Island” is simple and crude but that only heightens the anxious tension of the track. Shot by Sean Downey of cable access aesthetic obsessives the Fabulous Downey Brothers, “Bigtrash Island” is self-admittedly a “video about audio,” so it spends all its time focused on trademark Pataphysics vocal goofiness and rows and rows of synths and drum machines. There is a mulleted dude in a tie dye shirt though.
Suicide Notes- “Kurt Cobain”
I’ll give you a minute to stop hyperventilating over the combination of Suicide Notes and “Kurt Cobain” before getting into the details of this short. Suicide Notes is a project pairing up Austin hip hop secret weapon HADES the Unscene and turntablist LROY, both adopting new personas while focusing on their emcee sides to some decidedly Prince Paul-esque production. The video itself looks like an artifact from the Prince Paul era, commentary on the non-Straight Outta Compton end of hip hop nostalgia, complete with scantily clad women shuffling around as HADES’ alter ego Frankie Donatello hawks pagers and burner phones. There’s a side story involving HADES’ attempts to kill LROY and stage it as a suicide. Director Ben Snyder nails the lo-fi quirkiness of golden age hip hop clips but Suicide Notes’ delivery is no joke, this is a crafty duo with heaps of promise.
Nick Hanover got his degree from Disneyland, but he’s the last of the secret agents and he’s your man. Which is to say you can find his particular style of espionage here at Ovrld as well as Loser City, where he mostly writes about comics. You can also flip through his archives at Comics Bulletin, which he is formerly the Co-Managing Editor of, and Spectrum Culture, where he contributed literally hundreds of pieces for a few years. Or if you feel particularly adventurous, you can always witness his odd .gif battles with his friends and enemies on twitter: @Nick_Hanover