So ahead of some new releases coming, I thought I’d get some previous stuff dusted off & uploaded for a bit of history & context n that! Bear with me..
This song’s called Jailbird, from the 07 album “The Scene & The Unseen”.
A bloke in London called Mike heard the song on the radio & got in touch to see if I wanted to make a video for it. I explained to Mike I only had a £237 budget. Astonishingly, Mike agreed anyway.
On the way to the shoot, I stumbled upon a backstreet hair salon in Chinatown & decided to give it a try. My hair was a thing of curiosity to the establishment staff who all came out to have a look. The lovely lady elected for the task told me she’d make me “look handsome, like David Beckham” & the result was the rather curious Bon Jovi-esque mullet you see here, complimented by guy-liner. I don’t regret it, we made it work.
I’d found a brown velvet suit in Oxfam for £5, which still smelled strongly of the guy who died in it. My guess from the aroma is that he was a Geography teacher called Graham.
To match my suit, I hired a couple of Monk outfits & filled them with bandmates Andy & Joe. With not much in the way of concept, we borrowed an upstairs room of a kindly local church, stuck a forest background on a wall & just dicked about really. I’d only had an hours sleep the night before & was pretty wired. We made inappropriate use of a communion chalice & other stuff we found lying around in the kitchen & creche.
Five Fun Facts:
1. This day was the first time I ever had an eyebrow hair plucked. I didn’t handle it well.
2. one point in the video I’m playing with scrabble letters & come up with STRAY MONK, which is an anagram of my name, minus the E. I then figure out that STAR MONKEY is a full anagram of my name, but by that point Mike’s had enough.
3. The “drummer monk” is none other than my pal & bandmate at the time @cleggdrums who went on to find fame with the likes of Ellie Goulding. I don’t know if he’ll thank me for revealing this.
4. I kept the Oxfam suit for a few years & the scent never left
5. I recently got back in touch with Mike to see if he’d help edit my new video, but turns out he doesn’t work for £237 anymore