Today I was delighted to receive two videos. Two very different videos, mind you, but two nonetheless. Both powerful, both simply produced, single-camera-shot videos created for two very different reasons for two very different purposes.
If you’ve ever seen a Juliana Murphy show, you may have caught her a capella, Bessie Smith inspired version of “Sugar In My Bowl.” Well, John Jordan did and was taken with Juliana’s rendition enough to invite her to work-up a rendition with musical backing courtesy of him and The Miracle Waters‘ guitarist, Chris Moseley. They shot this video to capture the vibe of what they worked up.
Then there’s the other video. It’s not available yet, but it’s one helluva powerful bit of footage. If you’ve caught a Scorpio Rising show and/or a Retarted Elf show back in the day, you know Madame Scorpio. And if you don’t know yet, she was diagnosed with breast cancer.
Well, she’s fighting and doing a solid job of kicking its ass. But the side effect of chemo that can’t be stopped is hair loss. Well, she didn’t stop it but she beat it to the punch, with a beauty and artistic panache that is all her own. When it’s released, you’ll see, set to Scorpio Rising’s “Crash N Burn,” Madame Scorpio + her beautiful, long tresses + a hair clipper. The stark, brightly lit close-up video is a daring, straight-ahead counterattack on the cancer that surprised us all with its presence a few months ago.
Eerily, “Crash N Burn” was written before the diagnosis but its lyrics refer precisely to this sort of dramatic turn in life that “hits you like a lightning bolt.” The video will be released prior to Scorpio Rising’s SXSW date, which Madame Scorpio has vowed to keep on the band’s schedule.
