Monday, August 22nd 2011

News:  The Decemberists

Decemberists Debut Bachmann-Free Vid For ‘Calamity Song’

By Johnny Firecloud

Love ‘em or hate ‘em, you’ve gotta give credit to our favorite Portlanders The Decemberists for having a sense of humor about their music. While known for writing about everything from love affairs within evil monarchies to labor disputes in early 19th century Butte, Montana (no, for reals), frontman Colin Meloy and friends have openly offered one of their songs to batshit presidential candidate Michele Bachmann, in the spirit of the total  chaos she would bring to the highest public office: Calamity Song.

And now there’s an official video for the track, though in slightly disappointing fashion it’s not a short-form sequel to Idiocracy featuring a Bachmann lookalike gunning down nonbelievers and spraying gatorade on the crops. Instead, it’s a tribute to influential late author David Foster Wallace, a writer who had a profound impact on the songwriter.

Meloy explained the following to NPR:

“I wrote Calamity Song shortly after I’d finished reading David Foster Wallace’s epic Infinite Jest. The book didn’t so much inspire the song itself, but Wallace’s irreverent and brilliant humor definitely wound its way into the thing. And I had this funny idea that a good video for the song would be a re-creation of the Enfield Tennis Academy’s round of Eschaton — basically, a global thermonuclear crisis re-created on a tennis court — that’s played about a third of the way into the book. Thankfully, after having a good many people balk at the idea, I found a kindred spirit in Michael Schur, a man with an even greater enthusiasm for Wallace’s work than my own. With much adoration and respect to this seminal, genius book, this is what we’ve come up with. I can only hope DFW would be proud.”

Check out the video for Calamity Song:

If the video doesn’t play, check it out over at NPR.

Michael Schur (co-creator of Parks And Recreation, former writer for SNL and The Office), knows the material well; he wrote his undergraduate thesis about Infinite Jest, specifically how it bookended an era of postmodern literature that began with Thomas Pynchon’s V. “I tried to read it like a year ago,” Mr. Schur said of the thesis, “and I didn’t understand a word I had written.”

Schur had the following to say about the video:

“The band’s manager, Jason, contacted me through his brother Michael (with whom I went to college) and asked me to direct a video they were planning that referenced a section of the book Infinite Jest. The Decemberists are my favorite band, and Infinite Jest is my favorite book. This was tantamount to telling me I had just won two simultaneous Powerball lottery jackpots, on my birthday, which was also Christmas. Thus, my response to him was that, although I was pretty sure this was an elaborate dream I was having, if it were in fact real, then yes, I would be interested. The production team on Parks And Recreation, many of whom are also big fans, volunteered their time and energy, and we shot the whole thing in one day in Portland. Infinite Jest geeks will hopefully enjoy all of the specific references and small details, but we tried to design it so that those with no knowledge of the book at all would be able to understand and enjoy it, as well.”