In which the music gets a horn section
Jul. 17th, 2005 07:12 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
eilonwyhasemuDavid Cook: I'm always stoked for a late lunch at a dive bar, but what's with the fourteen dancing unicorns in vintage band t-shirts? And why the hush-hush with my fans?
Michel Gondry: Alors, Davide! We're here to shoot your new music video. It will take the magic of your wide post-Idol appeal and broaden your reach to the hippest of the hip-hop!
Cook: I'm pretty sure there are no unicorns on my current album. It's a dream sequence, sure--
Gondry: But look-you at the name of the bar! Is the significance not visible?
Cook: It's The Rainbow. We're here to visually connect me with the great bands of history whose photos are all over the walls. That's genius.
Gondry: Not precisely. I mean, that, too. But not precisely or entirely that.
Cook: What, then?
Gondry: You were not told of the sponsorship deal?
Cook: Saving money is rad, but wouldn't it make more sense to have the video for Circadian sponsored by something like Sleep America?
Gondry: You misapprehend--
Cook: Or what's the mattress company with the sheep? Serta? We could have dancing sheep. They torment me as I try to get to sleep, and then we segue into an ocean sequence with mermaids. That's a Bette Midler reference--
Unicorn in t-shirt with lyrics about moving to Wisconsin and never coming back: I like cows. They have skinny feet.
Cook: [to Wisconsin unicorn]: Justin Vernon? Justin Vernon of Bon Iver?
Justin Vernon: This is the place I'm in now, but I'm not sure it's a place I can be happy.
Cook: Your new album is amazing. The textural layering of the audio--
Vernon: Ever since I was featured on that Kanye West album, my falsetto has to be everywhere.
Gondry: It is the current. It is the hip. It is the hop--
Unicorn in "me so horny" t-shirt: Stop with that pop. Hipsters sneer at hip-hop. That's why I get the drop when you raise your hands up. Will the real Bon Iver please stand up?
Cook: Eminem?
Eminem [moving his head so his horn jerks in rhythm]: Eminem, Marshall Mathers, what's in the name that you blather? Is it real or is it Memorex? Put another tape on, that's the sound you jape on--
Cook: Would it be rude to suggest you're picking up a Doctor Seuss quality to your rapping?
Enimen: You try laying down serious rhymes while dressed like a giant unicorn. If it's a break we're taking from our equine shaking, mind if I check my email?
Cook: I was thinking it was time to check Twitter. I like to keep my finger on the pulse of the fandom.
[Gondry chooses this moment to visit the pissoir.]
Eminem: Press too hard on the pulse, all reactions get the opposite. Pulse, compulse, and repulse happens as you stay on top of it.
Cook: Nah, this is a lot easier than when I had to try to find useful fan feedback on the message boards of my official site. There were so many violent opinions on my hair that for a while I didn't recognize my face in the mirror.
Vernon: How many highly engaged fans do you think you have? The kind who will buy anything you put out?
Cook: 3,572, based on unique pre-orders of the ultimate fan pack for my new album. RCA gave me the number last week.
Vernon: Sh*t, man, that's an order of magnitude beyond what I had when my For Emma EP launched. Why isn't your album all over the music blogs? Where's your buzz?
Cook: It's on my site--
Vernon: That's the place where they are, but is it a place where they can be happy?
Eminem [getting some real horn action going]: It's a sputter not a buzz when it's confined to just us. Gotta have your street team push your rhyme and your beat meme. Face the music! Use it or lose it!
Vernon: With over 3,000 fans, your people could cover every music blog and message board in the world a dozen times over. Once they're talking about music with people who love music, they can say, "yeah, we both love this band X, so maybe you'll like David Cook as much as I do." It's cheaper than ad dollars.
Eminem: We know you do covers, those bands have their lovers. Variety convinces, too much attention smothers. I've been through Recovery, I've made the discovery, we're all part of the music, so use it or lose it.
Cook: I couldn't ask that of my fans. They already do enough. They request my songs on the radio. They vote on VH-1. It's plenty.
Vernon: Don't you enjoy discussing music?
Cook: Of course. I mean, I talk about my influences and my favorite bands all the time. I'm amazed my Brazilian fans haven't found my old handles on some of those fan sites. They usually know more about my schedule than my management does.
Eminem: So it's fun for you, but for them, it's a boo. If that attitude's unbending, it's a little condescending.
Cook: It's just too much--
Vernon: Challenge each of them to make three friends on a music site that's not devoted to you or to that pop idol show.
Cook: No. It's too much.
Eminem: Take them out of their locus, the way we've planned it, then you're not the focus. Sounds like you can't stand it. Let go of your ego, let them face the music: gifts return to you tripled. Use it or lose it!
Cook: I can't believe I'm letting some dude in a unicorn costume accuse me of being egotistical just because I won't arm-twist my fans to work harder for me. Talking about me is their happy place. I'm not robbing them of their source of relaxation.
Gondry [returning]: It seems I go for the pissoir break and the rock stars have the pissing contest.
Cook: All I ask is that fans enjoy my music. That's it. That's what it's there for. That's why it's a thrill to make it. If they want to do things to promote it, that's great... but I'm not going to demand anything as if I'm somehow entitled to it. That's how it is. Take it or leave it.
Gondry: Gentlehommes! Let us get the unicorns back in the line and see the choreography. Time, it marches.
Eminem and Justin Vernon shuffle themselves back into the unicorn line.
Cook: Actually, time marches on. So that's the video we're shooting? Rad. And Justin Vernon's doing the falsetto? Awesomesauce.
Gondry: It is not exactly that song planned, no.
Cook: Well, it can't be Fade Into Me, 'cause that's in 3/4 and the unicorns... I'd swear the unicorns are doing the Cupid Shuffle. Isn't Cupid kinda 2007?
Gondry: Great music knows no time or taste.
Cook: So it's to be Circadian? My fans will be thrilled. But I don't quite see how the unicorns--
Gondry: Do you not have the clue? We are shooting the updated video for Time of My Life!
Cook: What the f*ck?
Gondry: It is to be a special bonus on the new even more deluxe version of your album.
Cook: Mayday!
Gondry: You sing the verse, see, the part about giving in to love...
Cook [muttering]: Watched all the bitterness burn, now I'm coming alive, body and soul, feeling my world start to turn.
Gondry: And the horny unicorn, he steps forward and so--
Eminem [rapping]: I used to say I never met a girl like you before. Still ain't got a f*ckin' clue who you really are. Can't believe I almost flew the coop for some stupid whore. You used to say all you wanted was for me to be yours. All I ever wanted from you was a few booty calls. If you recall I used to treat you as a groupie broad. When we f*cked I refused to even take my jewelry off.
Gondry: And this is the intertextuality, see? The message about the hopes of stardom and the price of stardom, and then the unicorns at the magical rainbow where all the rock stars have drunk themselves stupid--
Cook: Who's to say you're never wrong? Who's to say I'm not already gone?
Gondry: And then you sing the chorus, and here is the Wisconsin unicorn with the haunting falsetto--
Justin Vernon [sings]: I've been so many places in my life and time, and I've sung a lot of songs, I've made some bad rhymes. I've acted out my life in stages, ten thousand people watching.
Cook: Mayday! Somebody save me now. And I'm closing my eyes cause once the sun rises, it's out of my hands.
Justin Vernon [singing]: Tell you what, darling. Turn down the light. Turn down the bed. Go on, turn down these voices. They're inside my head.
Eminem [rapping]: Spend some time with me, say that you'll be mine. I never thought I'd find someone to be mine. Lord knows I was right cuz you just crossed the line. Spend some time with me, say that you'll be mine.
Cook: It's all coming undone and falling apart somehow--
Neal Tiemann: Who's to say this history isn't only just some winner's distant memory?
Cook: The Doctor? Where--
Tiemann: Wake up, Dave. The pizza and hot wing delivery's been here for twenty minutes, and it's getting cold.
Cook: Wake... wake... what the f*ck? Where am I?
Tiemann: Minneapolis. We have an acoustic radio gig in 45 minutes, after which I'm personally going to explain the concept of "hot" to Minnesotans. I'd swear there's mayo on these wings.
Michel Gondry: Alors, Davide! We're here to shoot your new music video. It will take the magic of your wide post-Idol appeal and broaden your reach to the hippest of the hip-hop!
Cook: I'm pretty sure there are no unicorns on my current album. It's a dream sequence, sure--
Gondry: But look-you at the name of the bar! Is the significance not visible?
Cook: It's The Rainbow. We're here to visually connect me with the great bands of history whose photos are all over the walls. That's genius.
Gondry: Not precisely. I mean, that, too. But not precisely or entirely that.
Cook: What, then?
Gondry: You were not told of the sponsorship deal?
Cook: Saving money is rad, but wouldn't it make more sense to have the video for Circadian sponsored by something like Sleep America?
Gondry: You misapprehend--
Cook: Or what's the mattress company with the sheep? Serta? We could have dancing sheep. They torment me as I try to get to sleep, and then we segue into an ocean sequence with mermaids. That's a Bette Midler reference--
Unicorn in t-shirt with lyrics about moving to Wisconsin and never coming back: I like cows. They have skinny feet.
Cook: [to Wisconsin unicorn]: Justin Vernon? Justin Vernon of Bon Iver?
Justin Vernon: This is the place I'm in now, but I'm not sure it's a place I can be happy.
Cook: Your new album is amazing. The textural layering of the audio--
Vernon: Ever since I was featured on that Kanye West album, my falsetto has to be everywhere.
Gondry: It is the current. It is the hip. It is the hop--
Unicorn in "me so horny" t-shirt: Stop with that pop. Hipsters sneer at hip-hop. That's why I get the drop when you raise your hands up. Will the real Bon Iver please stand up?
Cook: Eminem?
Eminem [moving his head so his horn jerks in rhythm]: Eminem, Marshall Mathers, what's in the name that you blather? Is it real or is it Memorex? Put another tape on, that's the sound you jape on--
Cook: Would it be rude to suggest you're picking up a Doctor Seuss quality to your rapping?
Enimen: You try laying down serious rhymes while dressed like a giant unicorn. If it's a break we're taking from our equine shaking, mind if I check my email?
Cook: I was thinking it was time to check Twitter. I like to keep my finger on the pulse of the fandom.
[Gondry chooses this moment to visit the pissoir.]
Eminem: Press too hard on the pulse, all reactions get the opposite. Pulse, compulse, and repulse happens as you stay on top of it.
Cook: Nah, this is a lot easier than when I had to try to find useful fan feedback on the message boards of my official site. There were so many violent opinions on my hair that for a while I didn't recognize my face in the mirror.
Vernon: How many highly engaged fans do you think you have? The kind who will buy anything you put out?
Cook: 3,572, based on unique pre-orders of the ultimate fan pack for my new album. RCA gave me the number last week.
Vernon: Sh*t, man, that's an order of magnitude beyond what I had when my For Emma EP launched. Why isn't your album all over the music blogs? Where's your buzz?
Cook: It's on my site--
Vernon: That's the place where they are, but is it a place where they can be happy?
Eminem [getting some real horn action going]: It's a sputter not a buzz when it's confined to just us. Gotta have your street team push your rhyme and your beat meme. Face the music! Use it or lose it!
Vernon: With over 3,000 fans, your people could cover every music blog and message board in the world a dozen times over. Once they're talking about music with people who love music, they can say, "yeah, we both love this band X, so maybe you'll like David Cook as much as I do." It's cheaper than ad dollars.
Eminem: We know you do covers, those bands have their lovers. Variety convinces, too much attention smothers. I've been through Recovery, I've made the discovery, we're all part of the music, so use it or lose it.
Cook: I couldn't ask that of my fans. They already do enough. They request my songs on the radio. They vote on VH-1. It's plenty.
Vernon: Don't you enjoy discussing music?
Cook: Of course. I mean, I talk about my influences and my favorite bands all the time. I'm amazed my Brazilian fans haven't found my old handles on some of those fan sites. They usually know more about my schedule than my management does.
Eminem: So it's fun for you, but for them, it's a boo. If that attitude's unbending, it's a little condescending.
Cook: It's just too much--
Vernon: Challenge each of them to make three friends on a music site that's not devoted to you or to that pop idol show.
Cook: No. It's too much.
Eminem: Take them out of their locus, the way we've planned it, then you're not the focus. Sounds like you can't stand it. Let go of your ego, let them face the music: gifts return to you tripled. Use it or lose it!
Cook: I can't believe I'm letting some dude in a unicorn costume accuse me of being egotistical just because I won't arm-twist my fans to work harder for me. Talking about me is their happy place. I'm not robbing them of their source of relaxation.
Gondry [returning]: It seems I go for the pissoir break and the rock stars have the pissing contest.
Cook: All I ask is that fans enjoy my music. That's it. That's what it's there for. That's why it's a thrill to make it. If they want to do things to promote it, that's great... but I'm not going to demand anything as if I'm somehow entitled to it. That's how it is. Take it or leave it.
Gondry: Gentlehommes! Let us get the unicorns back in the line and see the choreography. Time, it marches.
Eminem and Justin Vernon shuffle themselves back into the unicorn line.
Cook: Actually, time marches on. So that's the video we're shooting? Rad. And Justin Vernon's doing the falsetto? Awesomesauce.
Gondry: It is not exactly that song planned, no.
Cook: Well, it can't be Fade Into Me, 'cause that's in 3/4 and the unicorns... I'd swear the unicorns are doing the Cupid Shuffle. Isn't Cupid kinda 2007?
Gondry: Great music knows no time or taste.
Cook: So it's to be Circadian? My fans will be thrilled. But I don't quite see how the unicorns--
Gondry: Do you not have the clue? We are shooting the updated video for Time of My Life!
Cook: What the f*ck?
Gondry: It is to be a special bonus on the new even more deluxe version of your album.
Cook: Mayday!
Gondry: You sing the verse, see, the part about giving in to love...
Cook [muttering]: Watched all the bitterness burn, now I'm coming alive, body and soul, feeling my world start to turn.
Gondry: And the horny unicorn, he steps forward and so--
Eminem [rapping]: I used to say I never met a girl like you before. Still ain't got a f*ckin' clue who you really are. Can't believe I almost flew the coop for some stupid whore. You used to say all you wanted was for me to be yours. All I ever wanted from you was a few booty calls. If you recall I used to treat you as a groupie broad. When we f*cked I refused to even take my jewelry off.
Gondry: And this is the intertextuality, see? The message about the hopes of stardom and the price of stardom, and then the unicorns at the magical rainbow where all the rock stars have drunk themselves stupid--
Cook: Who's to say you're never wrong? Who's to say I'm not already gone?
Gondry: And then you sing the chorus, and here is the Wisconsin unicorn with the haunting falsetto--
Justin Vernon [sings]: I've been so many places in my life and time, and I've sung a lot of songs, I've made some bad rhymes. I've acted out my life in stages, ten thousand people watching.
Cook: Mayday! Somebody save me now. And I'm closing my eyes cause once the sun rises, it's out of my hands.
Justin Vernon [singing]: Tell you what, darling. Turn down the light. Turn down the bed. Go on, turn down these voices. They're inside my head.
Eminem [rapping]: Spend some time with me, say that you'll be mine. I never thought I'd find someone to be mine. Lord knows I was right cuz you just crossed the line. Spend some time with me, say that you'll be mine.
Cook: It's all coming undone and falling apart somehow--
Neal Tiemann: Who's to say this history isn't only just some winner's distant memory?
Cook: The Doctor? Where--
Tiemann: Wake up, Dave. The pizza and hot wing delivery's been here for twenty minutes, and it's getting cold.
Cook: Wake... wake... what the f*ck? Where am I?
Tiemann: Minneapolis. We have an acoustic radio gig in 45 minutes, after which I'm personally going to explain the concept of "hot" to Minnesotans. I'd swear there's mayo on these wings.
