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JULY 2015 — Debut official music video released.
At that time, Mindless Greg The Media Consumer (the single) had been out for six months, and since launching it in Perth, I had toured across the UK and continental Europe, promoting the single along the way. It was after all, my first proper solo release, so I figured since I’d got that far, in recording and releasing it, then I might as well have a crack at making an Official Music Video.
I don’t recall having any preconceived idea about what the video might actually look like, but since I had spent a large amount of time busking over the previous two years in the UK, in particular, and especially since I had been very vocal in my support of the Keep Streets Live campaign, and other endeavours, it made sense that I would go busking.
I’m quite sure that was all Steve’s idea since he’d had plenty of experience busking himself and understood the game.
Either way, I am pleased to say that the results are all genuine – in that we never pre-arranged the GMO activists, or anybody else specifically involved in any of those scenes. The security guard is real – he arrived within moments of my setting up – and so is the Transperth transit guard who arrived within 45 seconds.
Those two dudes were golden. I still laugh out loud every time.
We could not have scripted it better.
The activists were great, too, and we had nice footage from throughout the day. But once we were back in the studio, Steve and I watched what we had and realised that wasn’t enough on its own to be a music video. It needed something more.
It needed some rock’n’roll. So, we called on a bunch of people we knew and spent a day in the studio in front of Steve’s green screen rocking out to this ridiculous song of mine. And that turned out to be exactly what it needed.
There is a theme to the video, in my opinion, which is Community.
The busking element of that speaks for itself – we never would have connected with those people if we had not gone out into the community and engaged with it – including in corporate/controlled spaces where it wasn’t tolerated.
And I guess the studio scenes speak for themselves too.
But what I could never have predicted myself was that six months later, when Steve and I started the Benny Mayhem band, many of those friends and acquaintances from that day continued to be involved.
That’s David Azmo on kazoo, for example, the talented multi-instrumentalist who became a founding member.
The Mindless Greg The Media Consumer video was published 18 July 2015.
