Tuesday, May 12, 2015

"Night Surf" by Soundgarden

Rolling Stone is currently streaming the video played prior to Soundgarden's 1994 shows in support of Superunknown.  The song is available on Soundgarden's recent b-sides album, Echo of Miles.  
Soundgarden opened most of these gigs with "Jesus Christ Pose" and new single "Spoonman," but before taking the stage, they prepped audiences with a bizarre, semi-narrative short film. The clip opens with close-ups of a children's bicycle and a blue man with an hourglass, then follows the boy as he rides the two-wheeler away from a car, passes life-like scarecrows and enters a foggy forest. Watch this all unfold above.

The music is a song called "Night Surf" written by bassist Ben Shepherd, whose brother Henry directed the clip. Despite Shepherd's specialty, the track mixes in organ and percussion, most notably a crash cymbal that rattles across nearly every beat of the climax.