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March 24, 2008

New WHY? Video - "Song Of The Assassin"

thumbnail icon: New WHY? Video - "Song Of The Assassin"

"Song Of The Assassin" is such a great choice for first video from Yoni Wolf's label-resisting WHY? outfit's Alopecia LP, just because it captures the album's best elements in four-and-a-half minute form. The track's lyrics start with an extraordinary scene (a la "The Hollows" -- there it was spying on two men fucking on a basketball court to the jingle of pocket change; here it's finding a dead body in the water, dressing its wound with a bra as a token post-postmortem measure). They're then fleshed and meshed with Yoni's laid-back melodies and spoken-word syncopations ("Billy the kid, did what he did and he died, Billy the kid, did what he did and he died"). The vid has all of that married to animation from Mike L. Mayfield (the pen behind King Of The Hill and, yeah, American Dad), who gives life to the piano lines by making piano hammers out of a ribcage, and adds poetry to Wolf's prose by melting Yoni's face off so he looks, just for a second, like the dead body in the water.

Very nice work, Mike. Impressive and beautiful. Now, please stop doing American Dad. It hurts. This soothes:

WHY? - "The Hollows" (MP3)

Alopecia is out via Anticon.

Posted at 12:10 PM in ,
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7 Comments

Better than I was expecting when I heard who did the animation. On a side note, the WHY? show in NYC Saturday night was oh so good. Here's a review and some photos if anyone's interested:

http://fordhamobserver.wordpress.com/2008/03/23/why-knitting-factory/

Posted by: Adam at 03/24/08 1:46 PM  | Reply
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What? American Dad isn't the best comedian out there, not at all but so much better then Family Guy. At least each episode is somewhat solid not like Family Guy which is just 20 minutes of the same little sketches.

Posted by: wha... at 03/24/08 2:20 PM  | Reply
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why? is amazing
that's all i came here to say

Posted by: brody at 03/24/08 10:22 PM  | Reply
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Hey, thanks for the kind words... A minor correction -- I've worked on "King of the Hill" and "American Dad!", although both were just jobs to pay the bills. Don't blame or credit me for your opinions of those shows, neither of which I work for these days... It was just a job. Check my website for work I'm actually proud of, which would include this video... And thanks again!

Posted by: Mike L. Mayfield at 03/25/08 7:21 AM  | Reply
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our bad! fixed and thanks, mike l. mayfield.

Posted by: amrit profile link  in reply to Mike L. Mayfield's comment at 03/25/08 9:38 AM  | Reply
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Hey, thanks for the kind words... A minor correction -- I've worked on "King of the Hill" and "American Dad!", although both were just jobs to pay the bills. Don't blame or credit me for your opinions of those shows, neither of which I work for these days... It was just a job. Check my website for work I'm actually proud of, which would include this video... And thanks again!

Posted by: Mike L. Mayfield at 03/25/08 7:21 AM  | Reply
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Apologies for the double-post. Here's the aforementioned website:
www.CitizensAgainstSafetyGoggles.com
or
www.youtube.com/MikeLMayfield

Posted by: Mike L. Mayfield at 03/25/08 7:40 AM  | Reply
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