Grass Is Green – “Vacation 2.0” Video (Stereogum Premiere)
Of all the roles in his lengthy career, Conrad Veidt is best remembered for three movies, in all of which he played the villain. He’s famous for playing the Nazi officer in Casablanca, though his best role is still in the Thousand Nights-inspired Thief Of Bagdad (basically the Avatar of 1940) where his performance as Jaffar was so intense they didn’t even need special effects for when he used magic, just a close up on those steely eyes.
But none of that tells you too much about Grass Is Green, the Boston experimental rock band who just dropped their excellent debut album, teased with singles like “Sammy So-Sick” and “Big Dog Tee Shirt Birthday Weekend“. What it does get across however is just how cool it is to see the music video for album closer “Vacation 2.0” turn into a soundtrack to Veidt’s breakout role as the Cesare, the murderous somnambulist, in the 1920 silent film The Cabinet Of Dr. Caligari. That iconic bit of German Expressionism set the standard for horror movies and taught filmgoers the pleasure in the words “twist ending,” and it meshes nicely with a song over 90 years its junior. This captures all the fun of turning the audio down on a movie you love and synching up music to it, it always did work best with silent ones. Watch below.
Vacation Vinny is out now via Exploding In Sound. Buy/stream via Bandcamp.