After watching the recently unearthed footage of Arcade Fire playing a house party in 2002 and a 17-year-old Robin Pecknold covering Radiohead and Simon & Garfunkel, I thought it would be fun to collect more early videos of our favorite bands from before we ever heard them. Well, fun for us, maybe not so much for them…
Ezra Koenig (Vampire Weekend) 2005
The band got its name from this low-budget horror film Ezra made after freshman year of college. His character’s name is Walcott and he hunts vampires. Look for Wes Miles of Ra Ra Riot in this too.
Robin Pecknold (Fleet Foxes) 2003
Watch the Fleet Foxes frontman at 17 covering Radiohead with his friend Aaron Mannino. (They do Simon & Garfunkel too.)
Alexis Krauss (Sleigh Bells) 1997
Check out 0m7s and 0m41s to see half of Sleigh Bells reading about Jonathan Taylor Thomas in a commercial for Nickelodeon Magazine.
Dan Rossen (Grizzly Bear) 1987
Before Grizzly Bear and Department Of Eagles, Daniel Rossen was a pretty great five-year-old Elvis impersonator. He probably still is, actually.
Ben Gibbard (Death Cab For Cutie) 1993
Ben’s high school band Oddfellows Local covered “God Save The Queen” at the Kitsap County Punk Show, kicking off a long career of unlikely Gibbard covers.
Joanna Newsom 2002
In the “New Obsession” video for her older brother’s band Pocket For Corduroy, Joanna gets a bloody nose at 1m21s.
Trent Reznor (Nine Inch Nails) 1985
Long before he won an Oscar, Trent played keyboards with Cleveland synthpoppers Exotic Birds. Here’s a local news interview with them.
Noah Lennox (Animal Collective) 1999
Panda Bear starred in this short film when he was a student at Boston University. (Thanks Stefan!)
MGMT 1998 & 2004
Two pre-MGMT clips for you. Andrew VanWyngarden’s high-school band Glitter Penis (with friend Dan Treharne) is up first.
Do they give out EGOTs for old MGMT YouTubes? Next, “The Management” (Andrew and Benjamin) cover Talking Heads in the Wesleyan courtyard in 2004. 4/20, in fact.
Bradford Cox (Deerhunter) 2004ish
Rare footage of Bradford performing with The Beach at Atlanta’s Drunken Unicorn. See if you can spot Colin Mee.
Tunde Adebimpe (TV On The Radio) 2001
You may have seen Tunde in the not even bad Rachel Getting Married, but few have seen his starring role in Jump Tomorrow, a film school project he completed a few years before the band formed.
Robyn 1989 & 1992
Eight years before “Show Me Love” made her last name superfluous, Robyn Carlsson voiced the character Miranda in a Swedish-Norwegian animated film The Journey To Melonia. (She also supplied the Swedish voice of Anne-Marie in All Dogs Go To Heaven.)
Soon after the future dancehall queen made her TV debut at 13, singing the theme “Nummer Ett” on Swedish kids sports show Lilla Sportspegeln. Stick around for the Q&A…
Feist 1999 & 2000
In ’99, Leslie Feist got a job in the burgeoning Electroclash industry, working backstage at her friend Peaches’ shows. Feist dubbed herself Bitch Lap Lap and began wearing a sock puppet. This is Peaches’ video for the song “Lovertits.” Feist is the one caressing the bike. The rest is herstory.
Feist also appears along with Broken Social Scener Brendan Canning in By Divine Right’s 1999 video for “Come For A Ride.”
Chantel Claret (Morningwood) 1991
Jessica reminded me I left off Chantal Claret’s hypnotizing OPRAH appearance. Back then she had excessively morbid thoughts, now she is the lead singer of Morningwood.
Amanda Brown (Pocahaunted) 2003
As if getting Pwn3d by Penn & Teller wasn’t enough, Bethany Cosentino took all their buzz when she quit.
Bethany Cosentino (Best Coast) Early ’90s
Speaking of Best Coast, as a child Bethany appeared in a number of commercials including this memorable one for Little Ceaser’s. Keep an eye out for the girl in the blue dress. (Via Amplified.)
Got more? Post ‘em in the comments.
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Bonus:
Jenny Lewis 1991 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cDLcleGtWN0
and your boyfriend Marilyn Manson 1992 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xUI4hcfqoFU
What about Fecal Matters? Noah Lennox ’99.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xB2hRH9WnQ8
Added.
you want some lobster? c’mon!
Metric in 2001:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FMr6lXUSsyo
Ha! This was brilliant.
I think you might mean 2002. Unless Win is a real old looking 11 year old in that video
Whoops. Fixed.
Fucking Vampire Weeked
Local Natives: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xY6NiIdMa_s #old
My personal favorite: Zooey Deschanel as the girl with issues in “She’s Got Issues” by the Offspring.
I totally recognize that first picture from the Nicholodeon magazine commercials from when I was young!
yeah man! i can’t believe that was her. i remember every second of that commercial
me as well! verbatim! crazy how you never know who will become familiar to you later in life
Man, youtube sure is amazing.
For more Exotic Birds, check out this dope clip from the film “Light of Day” starring Michael J. Fox and Joan Jet! Trent Reznor is in the background being awesome: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gM0MmNjy97s
(when I was a goth teenager I had to search every local pawn shop to find a freaking VHS of that movie…)
Are we not going to address the cameo by Wes Miles of Ra Ra Riot in that Vampire Weekend clip?
Re:”Lovertits” video–HOT.
Alexis had to know this one was coming :)…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2IyiHjRBsyw – How about Dee Dee from Dum Dum Girls old band Grand Ol’ Party? Playing on Fox Rox, in an alt-funk group? Maybe the most damning of all these…
Leslie Feist and Brandon Canning (of Broken Social Scene) were both in the Canadian band By Divine Right
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JTh1foOWi1M
Brendan Canning
If only there was a clip of Jared Leto watching the ‘Helena’ video and going ‘duuudes, we should totally copy this style of music!!’ :D (cough snort titter)
Animal Collective (sans Geo) back in high school…
[img]http://i223.photobucket.com/albums/dd120/hipsterrunoff/photographs/fc107269.jpg[/img]
And then here’s the band’s 1997 incarnation (as the Pavement-ripoff “Automine”)…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cf6eflDpxpA
And some early concert footage from 2001…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KGIsIlL07Kg
Peggy Wang from The Pains of Being Pure at Heart in a documentary about teenage girls in New Orleans called Desire
http://www.desiredocumentary.com/Welcome.html
I realize that parents often force their children into acting, but when I see a musician in a TV commercial before they were musicians, I can’t help but question their motivation. Is music just your next logical attempt at fame?
“TV didn’t make me famous, let’s try music”
I’m sure that isn’t always the thought process…..but with Cosentino/Krauss,….maybe
Hey, what about “Fecal Matters” star Rhett McConachie (aka Vincent LaRusso)?
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0489364/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dlxGUW2MQOo
I know he’s come a long way since “Fecal Matters,” but do you think Panda Bear ever had to face the moral dilemmas that ol’ Vincey did in “Mighty Ducks?” He stood up against a deranged coach, an overbearing father, and an ashamed pee-wee hockey league, only to get the chance to work with greats like Emilio Estevez, Keenan, and that dude from “The Skulls.”
holy shit 2 pizzas, 2 breadsticks, and 2 sodas for $8!!!
I’m not sure Lady Gaga counts as “indie,” but she appeared as a dancer in a video for Semi Precious Weapons in 2007.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4s3AR4cEdqE
She’s the brunette in the green glitter bikini. Things have gotten a little more bizarre since then.
And according to Wikipedia, Gaga was the executive producer on their second album, “You Love You.”
I knew chantal pre fame… she’s weird… deeply strange… then again… she would say worse things about me…
at the start of the ben gibbard video, the kid with the camera pans to the right. is that mike herrera from mxpx?
Someone already mentioned Jenny Lewis, but Blake Sennett (Soper at the time) as well.