Celluloid Bachelor #35: Islands "No You Don't"

If you were to base your understanding of indie rock music video making on the last two editions of Celluloid Bachelor, you would probably conclude that the key principles involve casting young independent film A-listers in traumatic yet giggle-inducing situations. From yesterday's Sea Wolf video featuring Shannyn Sossamon in a "scary" dream/nightmare sequence to today's Islands video starring Michael Cera suffering through a bad acid trip, the data for observation is there.

The Islands video, which could probably work as a film intro were in not for the speed cuts, is the film supplement to a track I've written about previously here. Quoting myself, a CB tradition, I wrote then: as a track, “No You Don’t” is a song of reasonably good advice, from the opening lyrics warning the listener not to buy dope from a man you don’t know through the very end of the song. Swirling between, around, and over the top of the lyrics is a churning beauty of a hook, adorned like a Christmas tree with quacking guitar licks, old school keyboard tones (perhaps on marimba setting?), and a delightfully off-kilter drum machine.

Re-reading it now, I say the original interpretation stands, though I'll add that I like the track even more now than I did in October when I wrote that original post on Citizen Dick. Add that to the fact that I think the person who edited the video did a great job of making it follow the film, rather than having it stand alone, and, well, we have a winner.