Recently I saw Two Hours Traffic play for a park full of (mostly) old people who knew not who Two Hours Traffic were, or how they were a band from PEI with faces that all look vaguely familiar, like I've seen them all before. They played as the sun set, golden. At one point, they came on and declared, "Here's a song by our favourite band, The Magnetic Fields." And I whooped (the only one amongst a sea of silence) -- and onstage, the one with the dark eyes said, "Whoo indeed."
This is a video about life and death and sun and grass and trees and climbing upwards. It's also about marking the places you've been, your territory, saying I was here. I stood. I saw. This is my footprint; this is proof. I made this short film without Sunset Rubdown in mind, and it was only when a friend suggested its suitability during the editing process that I found it worked just perfect for everything I wanted to say. So many moments are strangely synched -- "helicopters overhead", "the sun on my shoes". Some were offended by the urination. In my defense I can only say: Hunt's dead. He does not care. I had to pee very badly. His gravestone felt somehow important. I had the familiar urge to take hold of that moment, to chronicle it, to put it to film with colour and sound and show it to the world.
What induces shivers about Sunset Rubdown is the sudden staccato strumming, that fretful voice, its pained urgency, and lyrics like tales from a storybook. There's this whimsical quality to all the heartbreak.
The following is from the Black Cab sessions, where they kidnap musicians and force them to play music in the back of a cab.
And if there are two eyes in my head there are four seasons in a year And reflections on the water from a burning yellow sphere And the days add up to weeks add up to months And add up... And add up... And add up... And add up... And add up... And add up... (X infinity)
