On Monday June 23rd, Popdose premiered Life in a Blender’s first official video, “Frankenstein Cannot Be Stopped” from their new acclaimed album We Already Have Birds That Sing. The video was created and directed by award-winning art-horror filmmaker, Larry Fessenden (Wendigo, Habit, The Last Writer).
Watch premiere here.
Since the premiere, the video has been written about and shared on social media by fans and critics alike, including many excellent music and horror journalists and bloggers from NYC (Fangoria) to Massachusetts (Peter Chianca’s Wicked Local) to Nashville (MusicNewsNashville) to the Netherlands (Here Comes The Flood) to the UK (UKHORRORSCENE) and Japan.
Steve Barton/Dreadcentral.com describes the song and video as “a treat for you guys who love both Frankenstein’s monster and ghoulishly groovy tunes!” Wicked Local journalist Pete Chianca writes “Life in a Blender continues to promote their utterly original album “We Already Have Birds That Sing” with a suitably creepy video for the track “Frankenstein Cannot Be Stopped” . For anyone who thought the song might be a metaphor for man’s inhumanity to man, the video pretty much confirms that no, it’s about Frankenstein.”
“Frankenstein Cannot Be Stopped” written by Life in a Blender’s frontman, Don Rauf, is a song about a man watching the tragic film Frankenstein, hoping against hope for a different outcome. Rauf says, “It’s about that feeling you get when you watch all great tragedies. You think somehow Othello won’t murder Desdemona. Somehow Frankenstein won’t kill that little girl. Filmmaker Larry Fessenden did an amazing job capturing that feeling of the distraught theater-goer who can’t accept the inevitable–the horror will never change and yet he can’t stop himself from seeing it over and over… We were fortunate to film at Theatre 80, which has a great history as a film revival house. Throughout the 1980s, I saw many a great double bill there, including the original Frankenstein. Larry not only captured the magic of Theatre 80, he nailed the feeling of the original Frankenstein, replicating the pivotal monster-girl scene from the movie, and in some scenes, bringing life to a lifeless puppet.”
Fessenden says, “I have always loved the design of the classic flat-top Frankenstein Monster, and as I patched these images together I was amused to see how subtle differences in the performance of the puppet and of Mike Vincent in the mask would evoke specific cinematic incarnations of the monster, from the original Karloff portrayal to Glenn Strange to Fred Gwynne (The Munsters), and even the image on the Aurora Model Kit cover from the ’60. I leave it to aficionados to contemplate the distinctions. I really responded to Don’s song, and the pathos in it. In the 80’s I used to go to the movies at Theater 80 St Marks where we filmed this video and I’d yell at the screen, always wishing the monster would get away from that angry mob.”
LARRY FESSENDEN, winner of the 1997 Someone to Watch Spirit Award, and nominee for the 2010 Piaget Spirit Award for producing, is the writer, director and editor of the award-winning art-horror trilogy HABIT (Nominated for 2 Spirit Awards), WENDIGO and NO TELLING. His climate change themed horror film THE LAST WINTER (Nominated for a 2007 Gotham Award for best ensemble cast), premiered at the 2006 Toronto Film Festival and is distributed through IFC. Fessenden directed SKIN AND BONES for NBC TV’s horror anthology FEAR ITSELF and he directed the feature film BENEATH for Chiller Films. He has produced dozens of film in and out of the horror genre, including STAKE LAND, THE HOUSE OF THE DEVIL, WENDY AND LUCY and THE COMEDY. Fessenden was awarded the 2007 Sitges Film Festival Maria Award for his work as a producer, actor and director in genre film, and he won the 2009 Golden Hammer Award for “being such an inspiring force in the industry.” In 2011, Fessenden was inducted into the “Fangoria Hall of Fame” and was honored by the UK’s Total Film as an Icon of Horror during the Frightfest Film Festival. Fessenden has operated the production company Glass Eye Pix since 1985 (“one of the indie scene’s most productive and longest-running companies” — Filmmaker Magazine), with the mission of supporting individual voices in the arts.
Arts Brookfield presents Life in a Blender in NYC Wednesday July 30th. FREE. Lunchtime concert 12:30 p.m.-1:30 p.m.
LIFE IN A BLENDER outdoor concert
Don Rauf – vocals; Al Houghton – guitar; Mark Lerner – bass; Ken Meyer – drums; Dave Moody – cello, guitar; Rebecca Weiner Tompkins – violin
Wednesday, July 30, 2014
12:30 PM – 1:30 PM
One New York Plaza
New York, NY 10004
FREE (ALL AGES)
more info:
http://www.lifeinablender.net
http://www.glasseyepix.com
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