MEN are New York based top knot JD Samson, the money Michael O’Neill and industrious mongolian shredder Ginger Brooks Takahashi. I met them at the Donaufestival in Krems on a warm afternoon in May. Coincidentally i drove there with a friend’s car, known as the penis mobile because of randomn drawings some kids had once left on the engine hood.
I was curious to see if MEN, a band not really pushed into the indie box or associated with performing the acoustic kind, could imagine themselves doing a oneshotsession with me. What would make them feel comfortable enough to go there? What did they expect of me? When asking the three if they'd be up for a playgrrround video shoot, they said yes pretty quickly. All they needed were two guitars and we arranged to meet outside the festival area.
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After hellos and shakehands we walk over to their tourbus. The three decide to use the cool box as sitting facility and leave the supermarket box where it was. They arranged their own stuff in and around the tourbus and provided that certain sense of tourlife. While Michael and Ginger tune the guitars, JD puts on the music, fixes the mic on her shirt and contemplates if she wants to let go of her pen for the sake of a whip. After some confusion about the traffic message channel appearing very loud and clear in my headphones and the question if the word Fuck is okay (yes, please! :), we were ready. After the shoot our nervousness was gone.
SHOT 05/09
Krems