Downtown Autodidacticism, or What We Talk About When We Talk About Love
Tuesday, August 12th, 2008We are the music makers. We are the dreamers of dreams. We are the creatures who do bumps in the night. But let’s be honest: for the most part, the crew sort of blows these days: the extras are obnoxious and self-important; the key grip is too busy doing key hits to grip shit; the open bar is closed cash; and the No Shitty Kids Act of 2005 has become a document corrupted by douchebaggery of the highest nepotistic order. But hey, we roll with the punches, drink the punch and get on the bus anyway, right? And why? Because not everybody’s a twat-like-me. For example: Dima Dubson, a class-act kid with an accent of indeterminable origin, who’s always emerging-with-a-smile from the dark recesses of NYC’s nightlife holes for the gritty elite. Dubson, who is often accredited with having the best attitude in the room— which basically means that, unlike everyone else, he’s not a total dickhead but rather a gen-u-ine pleasure to see—is a filmmaker, and then something else he told me about the internet (I was really drunk; sorry brah (see what I mean about me being a twat?)).
The other night, at a certain West Village treehouse that needs not mentioning, a downtrodden and downright darling (not to mention a featured fret-strummer in our on-stands-now new issue, Growing Pains (see link above: The New American Protesters)) Lissy Trullie DJ’d doo-wop and dream rock cocktails, delivering the bunch of drunks a local/social anesthetic as if to prep them for back-alley dialysis. As she and I chatted it up in attempts to distract ourselves from our respective ennui, Dima arose from the smoke clouds that were blinding the bored to brighten up our dank surroundings. “I just made a short film using Lissy’s music,” he said. “Oh nice. I’ll blog the shit out of it.” Which brings us aqui, naturally. Here’s “Self-Taught Learner”:
If Dima is not overtly referencing Reese Witherspoon getting first-time fingered by Mark Wahlberg on a rollercoaster in Fear, it at least presents some fortuitous, arguably-accurate math: The Sundays + The Rolling Stones = Lissy Trullie. Regardless, this unofficial music video is simple and excellent, and Dima’s take on Gen W(e document ourselves)— see: his video for Scott Matthew’s “Little Bird”—has the lovely little spin of Lissy coming out of nowhere, appearing more cameo than cause, which is a testament to the power of Lissy’s lovesong itself, and a refreshing break from videos whose focus are entirely on performer and rarely on plot. The video for “Self-Taught Learner” is a 21st century love letter; a time capsule in as much our technology still allows them; it’s Michael Winterbottom’s 9 Songs, only it makes sense and doesn’t blow (no pun).
To see more of Lissy (and her bassist Harley), check out the video below of the girls on set for the FLAUNT shoot.
FLAUNT PHOTO SHOOT BEHIND THE SCENES WITH LISSY TRULLIE from Barakaat Livan on Vimeo.
And to bring it all home, here are the girls playing their own instrumental cover of “Wild Horses” in Tokyo, where they’re massive megacelebrity fun gods.
