So it’s been just about a month to the day of my last post.  What have I been doing in that time? Anxiously awaiting my life to start (you will all be spared of  the gory details) among other things, but mostly working a dead end job.  I will say that my enthusiasm to post and write about music got nicely pulverized after I attended the Tally Hall, Malbec and Crocodiles show at Mr. Small’s last month for the sole reason of seeing Jesus and the Mary Chain torchbearers Crocodiles unleash some heavy drone into the sleepy May evening from their latest hype-infested album Summer of Hate. Alas, the band had car troubles in fucking Cleveland and had to slip the bill, taking out the majority of wind from my metaphorical sails.

Since that fateful night, I have been meaning to get back on the horse and write something significant, luckily Annie Clark from St. Vincent gave me a little nudge in the right direction.  I already claimed my allegiance to Clark’s “Actor Out of Work” from her latest Actor sometime in early May, but this clever little acoustic version snagged at my heart strings once again.  Not only does Clark triumphantly claim she doesn’t even own an acoustic guitar, but she plays the formerly devestating rock song in the vein of a jaunty, bossa nova charmer.  Add some microphone echo that is truly cavernous and all of the sudden the track becomes even stranger than it once was.  I am keeping the rhapsodizing short this time around, the video speaks for itself.

I couldn’t help but post this video after seeing it during a mid morning malaise, half way through a deathly banal bowl of Special K.  St. Vincent, the pious stage moniker of Annie Clark, presents this searing video for “Actor Out of Work” off her latest, Actor, released earlier this month.  In the video, Ms. Clark interviews, err, interrogates…err politely states the facts of life to a string of “actors” lined up in a sparse, sprawling warehouse for the better part of the entire song.  She pulls this off like a guidance counselor from hell amidst a storming rock backdrop, patiently explaining the vauge motivations (“you’re a bandage, pull it off”) and glaring flaws of her subjects with a candor and disconnection Kubrick would have envied.

It’s a provocatively simple video that pulls out pretty decent performances from the insecure drones getting reamed to high heaven by Clarke’s disturbingly serene persona.  “You’re a liar and that’s the truth/you’re an extra, lost in the scene” she states with a quiet assertiveness, only to follow up with a gorgeously oblivious humming harmony that’s like wrapping a pink bow on a field dressing.  Why are these people subjecting themselves to this? Is this an audition?  Witnessing the last man interviewed by Ms. Clarke easily snap out of his crying fit, I can’t help but wonder if these “actors” enjoy this, or if these people are actually actors at all.