A/V Geeks at Hunt Library

this seems like as good a time as any to welcome you to the av geeks at the hunt library not at the hunt library i'm jason evans growth amongst media myself right now digital media librarian at nc state university libraries this is our 14th that's one and 14th semester of this series partnering nc state university folks with raleigh's av geeks to discuss vintage educational and classroom films as a reminder skip alzheimer who is the founder of av geeks is an nc state university alum he has been for the last few decades collecting films made throughout the last century mostly 16 millimeter educational training and other sorts of how-to movies he does an incredible job sharing them with the world currently housing over 36 000 such films at the av geeks archive here in raleigh north carolina and shares them as stock footage for films and exhibits as research material and during public events like this so today's theme is let's hear it for soundies and we're thrilled to welcome our guest aaron dial aaron is a phd candidate at north carolina state university in the communication rhetoric and digital media program with expertise in materialist and digital media studies digital humanities and cultural studies of technology and race these areas of expertise inform aaron's research and teaching interests which broadly sketched are black studies effective labor popular culture urban spaces and temporal flows and the nexus between sports and science and technology right now aaron's working on his dissertation entitled dead stock a philosophy of sneakers and materiality in the afterlife of black bodies which articulates the intimate and undiscussed connections between sneakers as material objects and black bodies he excavates sneakers from the strict confines of culture and fashion asserting their existence as an object wherein bodies act and that acts upon bodies and spaces the project hones the theoretical position that sneakers exist first and foremost as literal extensions of black bodies both sporting and cultural that is in sneakers racialized imaginations of productive bodies are enlivened both as representative cultural fantasies and a collective reverie constellating the athletic possibilities of human potential so with that a reminder that over 200 of av geeks compilations are available for checkout from right here in the dhl jr or the james b hunt junior libraries you can also visit avgeeks.com or search for av geeks in youtube or at our friends at archive.org skip allow me to hand things off to you um yeah this is very exciting because uh i get to show soundies and uh aaron i'm gonna i explained to you off camera but i'm gonna explain to the audiences in case you don't know what sound these are um i got a nice little graphic i found online thank you internet this is what's called a panoram machine and this is essentially was a visual jukebox you can tell it's huge and the idea was that if a club couldn't afford a band or didn't have the space for a band this was a way to provide musical entertainment um you'd put in a dime and uh it would play a 16 millimeter film that was rear projected and it would be some musical act and it could be someone famous it could be someone you kind of don't know singing something famous it could be a bunch of girls dancing it could be a variety of different things um you didn't get to choose what was you're gonna see it was basically on a on a loop and whatever was next on the loop is what you got to see um aaron made the point that uh we figured out that a dime back in 1940 when this was first introduced was almost two dollars so that's a lot of money you're pumping in hoping to get that song that you wanted to hear um so uh um yeah so they made these machines from 1940 to about the beginning of world war ii uh when there was a big demand for scrap metal for the war effort and so the mills uh novelty company which was based in chicago um they stopped making these machines but they continued to make film content with a variety of different acts up till around 1947 and this concept kind of went away and what erin and i were talking about was the idea that it was probably because they didn't couldn't keep up with popular music um and the teenagers so uh you know basically these places that had these machines probably ended up getting jukeboxes which had more opportunity to play newer and hipper stuff um but uh this concept came back again in the 60s with a company that made what a french company which made scopatones and the films were in color and you got to pick what film you could watch so that was you know more like a jukebox so uh what we're gonna do is uh i kind of ran past some ideas of some films and uh aaron uh picked this and this is a compilation that was released um kind of probably around the same time as the saudis probably after world war ii um and it was released for home use and so these films would show up in libraries homes um other places that had had films and the theme of this it's actually called jumping jive or uh jaz and jive so it's it's all uh performers of color which is not really the case for the vast majority of soundies um so um we're gonna get started with uh a hit song and those of you that are watching on uh youtube uh we might get slammed by the copyright hammer so i'm gonna put in um some other links that you can watch us on just in case because these are popular songs and they're lip-syncing to these songs so here we go let's get started let me switch everything over foreign [Music] oh [Music] hole up on sugar hill where everyone's having a solid ball you board that a train and then you ride till you dig this number 145 street where all the cats meet posing on the stroller pops are really in there [Music] that's the grip that the band's off play it's groovy the help cat's safe then you know that you're in harlem you got to get all that and you will get a thrill yeah if you're looking for a rhythm you'll find it on sugar here [Music] now that you know just how to get up that big up for [ __ ] man you got your bed if you want to go to happy harlem you take the eight train that goes up [Music] till you get your feet have you got your nickel in your hand then hurry don't you miss that train oh man yes [Music] you make it on time [Music] aaron did you want to comment on that yeah um first i want to thank you guys for uh am i still muted am i muted can you hear me oh no wait no you're not muted i'm sorry okay okay so yeah first i want to thank uh you guys for for having me here this is a a really really cool thing that you guys do so i'm honored to be here um second yeah uh one i i think the first thing i i thought about was um the work of joel dinnerstein uh he has a book called swinging the machine which is all about sort of uh the role of jazz and sort of uh translating sort of the more technical aspects of modern life of modernity to the masses right and jazz does that through train sounds right in this song by the delta rhythm boys ray is all about sort of taking the train to harlem right and you hear them saying the choo choo choo which which i thought was was was really really cool um but i think like more than that though the first thing i thought about is sort of how much like i love suits and i love sort of fashion of that day and like i miss wearing suits just because of covet like there's no reason i'm wearing a wearing a hoodie now but like like there's no real no real reason to wear the suit anymore and that's sort of sad to me um but yeah and then also i think uh and you get this idea of sort of black fashion when they talk about sort of going to quote-unquote the stroll right and and like there was like sort of strolls all over sort of uh urban centers this is sort of in the the latter parts of the great migration like chicago had a famous stroll harlow of course right and that's where sort of black people will go and like show off the new fit show off the new gear right and like you see that like with all the women are dressed to deny so are the men i mean even the the lead singer the conductor he looks fly right um everyone's suited and booted if you will and they're all sort of headed to harlem to go to go party right to go have a good time um so yeah no i i i think this was like a like a really really cool uh cool song a song i'd never heard of until today um yeah so yeah i guess those are my initial stuff the the next film we're going to watch um is fat's waller and um i noticed uh some people are noticing like the sink on the audio is a little off well um some of that is because of the internet and some of that uh with at least with fats waller is because the performers would get paid probably i don't know 20 bucks you know probably get an you know knights pay performance to to to film these things and uh they were supposed to lip sync along with recording and fatswaller couldn't be bothered um you know when he performed he he kind of put himself into it and so each performance was a little bit different he might change up the lyrics he might you know do whatever so um you might notice that he um his lips are moving to something that's not being played on the audio um and that's i think is the the wonder some of these performers is that it's capturing their performance even though they're not singing and playing uh necessarily or at least they're not being miked um you know they are performing and i think that's what this uh technology offered was a musical performance i mean in that last one not only did we have this wonderful uh you know ensemble singing we also had dancing girls and so you know you didn't have so the club didn't have to worry about like you know paying the performers or paying the dancing girls um you know and or have a stage for that so this is this the idea with this is that you would you know have your drink you'd be with your lady and uh or with your friends and you would um watch this entertainment and be entertained uh so here is uh fats waller who is one of my personal favorites actually um with your feet's too big mine too mine too [Music] way up in harlem at a table for two there was four of us me your big feet in you from your ankles up you show our knee yes but from that down exactly too much feet yes your feet's [Music] say i can't tolerate you cause your fees too big [Music] yo girl she loves you she thinks you're nice [Music] she claims you got everything to take you to paradise ain't that off your lawn she likes your loving she likes your ring [Music] to be i can't tolerate you mayday cause your feet's too big cedric on your feet and earn your salary son bro [Applause] [Music] oh play that dog house music i love it [Music] extremities are colossal but to me you ain't nothing but an old frost yes you got me walking talking and squawking cause you feel too big [Music] say i can't tolerate you i really hate you cause your feet stupid in fact your pedal extremities are a bit obnoxious where did you get them son where did you get them one never knows [Music] hey erin yeah yeah oh wow um first things first like the line your petal extremities are colossal maybe one of the best lines i've ever heard that is oh my gosh did somebody said that to me i would cry like that oh my gosh um fast waller with the jokes oh my god i feel like this song had to have come from like he was inspired by like someone he knew like like very like like and they knew that this song was about them he knew the song was about them and he's performing the song and him and his and his family have to live with this that so-and-so's pedal extremities are colossal and the world knows it for the rest of like eternity and that is i don't know that that is that is so funny to me um but yeah uh yes like yeah like that's the the one thing i thought of i also thought of i don't know if you remember the song uh was it randy randy newman short people like like this sort of made me think of of that song um by by randy newman just in uh and for those of you who haven't heard rainy doom and short people uh i would say give it a listen if you're short you will not be a fan um and that's the that's the that's the the long and short of it um but yeah no uh and and i i'm curious skip like where does this uh this song rake when you're sort of you said fast waller is one of your favorites i'm curious like what is the song right in your mind in his in his in his catalog well i like this the reason that i like this song is because you can actually see him perform it and so it makes it come alive in my mind um yeah and so um that's one of the things that so this this song is up there pretty high um and he's just such a character he's just the way he's i mean he knows how to play for the camera yeah yeah which is really you know just kind of the like you know making the faces and all that stuff and it just makes me realize like what a performer he was like that's what this is this is visually performative like he's certainly a wonderful musician and singer but the fact that he's visually interesting and he's playing in a way that engages you um you know that's that's pretty great um yeah yeah no yeah i i think to your point you definitely get the sort of uh star quality that i think was missing in the delta rhythm boys that sort of fat swallower sort of has has like he is like when you when he is sort of on screen he like he is like sort of like um a magnetic presence right you you can't take your eyes off of him and and and and i guess good i have another question for you and something i was thinking about sort of just thinking about the context of the song right do you think that's i guess i guess do you think i guess if we're assuming fat swallower is the sort of uh the subject of the of the of this on the person singing about this this person with these big feet right is he singing about the big feet because this guy's feet are too big and it's and it's just funny or is he singing about the big feet because he is jealous that that this uh guy has these big feet and he's with this sort of beautiful woman who loves him because like you have you have the guy come in with the big feet he has two ladies on his arm or whatever and then fast while i was talking about his his big piece i wonder if there is a sort of hint of hint of jealousy there i wonder what you think about that maybe and you know not to get too explicit but is this a euphemism oh yeah yeah no yeah yeah of course yeah no no i and and and that is something that crossed my mind too is like was this a euphemism because because there is like a sort of cheeky cheeky sort of moment like in his eyes or whatever and then you have the thing where the the woman gives him the shoes right um yeah so no no yeah and then yeah the dancing i i think i think could be it could be yeah no i i i i was thinking about that as well right and some and there are some soundies that are a little naughty like might have a little bit of nudity or will definitely have songs that um have you know innuendo and double entendres in them and so you know potentially this this is something you know this would be a crowd favorite in that regard you know it's a funny adult song yeah yeah um and something that we talked about before uh like before the the stream i guess became live is i think what what these soundies do right is sort of provide a sort of historical longevity to the medium of music video that i think most like the the common person maybe didn't realize right um because i mean these are like these are like music video because often in music videos artists are sort of not sort of they're performing their songs but the audio you hear is not sort of the audio of them actually singing live it's a sort of recorded audio like lip syncing or doing whatever to it right it's a sort of a sort of more like a distended sort of performance um which i think is is is really cool and also something that we talked about and i guess we could talk about this too is sort of like this all gives me sort of proto tiny desk vibes um and and and i i'm actually like i'm a big tiny desk fan uh and i've done this sort of thing where like i will sort of have tiny desks sort of playing on youtube in the background or i could i could just watch tiny desks for forever or whatever i think it's a sort of just a fascinating concept right that a lot of sort of i think like i guess more than npr sort of trying to replicate this sort of idea of the sort of intimate concert right the sort of this concert that you are sort of you feel privileged to see not because of the person but because of the space and the sort of interactions with the crowd or whatever but yeah but yeah so no i like like this is definitely giving me sort of sort of sort of tiny desk vibes in a in a sort of very sort of intimate way and that's the thing is to think about is the fact that it was shown on a screen that was smaller than most big big screen tvs nowadays um in a club uh and they're probably not a big club so you you know it would be kind of the smaller intimate type of setting it wouldn't be the bad stage and i think that the camera when they do camera work it it's rare that it goes to a big set a big stage it's all kind of confined and that could be because they just didn't have the budget for a big set or it could be that someone was thoughtful and said well the screen's going to be small so we want everything to kind of be more intimate yeah so are we ready to watch some count basie yes all right [Music] um [Music] take me back baby you all i'm craving for take me back baby please let me have once more the keys on my key ring that opens your front door take me back baby i'm kind of plump that's true take me back baby here's what i'm gonna do i'm gonna dive until my shape [Music] oh you take me back baby that makes my life complete i won't need these numbers of other girls on this stream all right aaron yeah uh so like the first thing i want to talk about sort of really has nothing to do with the count i guess it's i want to talk about like uh the black book that he had with with the numbers and it's just i'm not sure if anybody's ever sort of thought about like this but like like any in any and he has the line like like uh i don't need the numbers of all these other girls on the street like the black book became this sort of like sexual localized surveillance or whatever like he had like all the women on the book their numbers and then he had like a sort of like a rating system yeah yeah rating system hot like i mean because and and and and the one i know is i believe her name was for tens he had hot and cold it was very specific like like like he was not like like like this is a sort of organized regime or like regime of of surveilling women right um but yes and and so so so i think that's that's sort of like really really interesting it's almost like a a sort of i guess maybe a proto-tender profile like like i'm not i'm not sure how to thanks for making it contemporary man because i was like i don't because i haven't dated i'm way married so i haven't dated a long time so i don't know what yeah yeah yeah yeah i am i am happily married as well but yeah no i mean but i mean it it it is i mean like it feels like a like a 10 like he had all these women like some of them were cold but he had the number or whatever and he's like okay like i guess maybe like they'll end up swiping right or whatever eventually uh if there's no swiping rights that that's i guess the thing you want um but no but but also i think i think this song is sort of really fun um i i sort of got caught up in the sort of i think like body politics of sort of uh like just sort of being fat and black and being a man like he has his line like i'm kind of plump that's true i'll go on a diet just for you or whatever um yeah no and and and uh there is a book and i'm blanking on the author's name right now but it's called fearing the black body and it's all about sort of the sort of the uh it's all about sort of understanding race at the intersection of sort of like fat phobia or whatever and and often does a great job of sort of articulating how sort of our sort of understandings of fatness being bad right is is is one relatively new but two based on the sort of presence of blackness right like because in the like during the like the like the renaissance period we always saw in in in very sort of widely revered artistic paintings chubby bodies right and and round with round women were were sort of thought to be beautiful right and it wasn't until the sort of influx of the african slave and those round bodies start to come in particularly women um that that sort of started to sort of change right and then and women started okay i have to be sort of sort of skinny but yeah but no i i think it's i think it's i i i guess but like back to the song though i think it's really funny he has like the he does the if he knows this he does like when he when he finally gets in the house he like the woman goes in to hug him but he like belly bumps her it's like a weird like a weird moment i'm just like what is what is going on um yeah no yeah no like like like it's it's it's a it's a it's a cool song um yeah what are your thoughts i think they're playing some of this for laughs yeah yeah and um the uh and the thing is like with with other soundies um that i've seen they sometimes will have these little skits during this that kind of play out like aspects of the song um and you know they'll give either an opportunity for like a woman to be dancing or you know whatever um and so this is it's great to kind of see that same level of production with this um and also trying to be clever and try to be kind of funny and you know and chances are he he bumped her because they were like well you're a big guy um and so let's make fun of that let's let's make light of the big guy and you you know you want to hug this girl but your belly's too big and you're bumping her away i mean that's how a lot of the other soundies play it um yeah the visual humor and then going back i guess to the to the uh economics of this like for these past three videos they have to have been less than a minute like you're paying two dollars for like what is essentially like 45 seconds of content which is highway robbery like i mean i mean like i mean that i mean that is a lot right so that means i mean like but but like i feel like with each of these soundies right with the delta boys with fast wilder and with count basie right to your point you are getting like no performer uh is sort of half-assing it or mailing in they are giving you like theater they're giving you like drama they're giving you uh a full orchestra like like that you you are get you're getting a lot right like uh you're getting costumes you're getting uh uh dancing girls right so i mean so you are getting a lot for that two dollars right and and and i guess that makes sense right and and that seems to be i guess maybe a sort of more intentional choice that like okay ten cents is a lot of money right we can't just have these people just like standing up like singing their song it has to be has to be bigger than that nice all right so this next one is uh preacher and the bear uh featuring the i'm gonna mispronounce this the jubilee errors uh and they were a quartet awesome name [Music] yes just come on brothers if you want to hear a story about that preacher and the bear gather round boys that don't want you to miss none of this your story cause it goes like this a preacher he went out to hunt it was on one sunday morning though he was one christian young man but he took his gun along well the first thing he shot was a bunch of fine wheels and he shot him a nice fat hair then through the woods on his way back home he met a great big grizzly bear then the raven fell down upon his knees he sent up a great long prayer wise he cast one eye to the heaven on high but kept the other eye on the bell he said the lord liver daniel from the lion then jonah from the belly of the whale the three hebrew boys from the fiery furnace at a good book do declare now look here lord if you don't help me don't you go to helping that bear he needed [Music] yes then the bear walked out in the middle of the road up to the reverend walks he that revel laid his religion down he climbed up a tall pine tree yes he climbed way up to the top of that tree and climbed out on a limb whilst the bear sits down so endlessly and licked his mouth at him around about three o'clock the old limb broke reverend came tumbling down before he grabbed his knife he cut the bed ten times before he struck the ground he needed some only time they needed some older diaries and ladies are my only time with little john brothers [Music] like you would hug a long lost friend but o'reveren put on that disappearing act he went splitting through the wind old reverend went to running like an old hound dog trying to overtake her hair he went home at the bed and took six naps before his shadow got there he [Music] [Music] oh [Music] made a touchdown [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Laughter] [Music] go down [Music] [Music] and uh extra one there uh yeah so uh that the the one by what was it preacher and the bear yeah was it was that the first one that was a really weird one um one because like i like they were performing uh i guess with the backdrop of two american flags and a picture of abe lincoln and i i don't know why like i i don't know i don't know what that what who that was for and and i think we i think you asked this question maybe before the start but i think it's it's important to bring up now right is sort of who are are these videos for black audiences are they for white audiences right like like this is like between sort of 1940 and 1947 that is a sort of a very intentional choice with sort of uh uh material consequences right and and for i i think i think the first three sort of videos uh sort of fast waller the delta rhythm boys uh and uh um count basie orchestra right those seem to be uh i guess maybe sort of four black audiences right but this one like with with the the american flags and and the picture of abe lincoln like it just spoke to me as sort of a picture of like racial respectability politics propaganda almost like like like honestly i have i have never seen i've never seen like like it was weird it was it was just it was just it was striking right um and then sort of on the flip side you had the children's choir right and they seemed sort of like this picture of sort of uh maybe sort of blackness in days gone by like like they seem a little more destitute like yeah the the boy in the back with the open shirt or whatever they are not as put together as the as the uh the other four bands before them right and it gives you a sort of uh blackness sort of poverty while like destitution of sort of like reconstruction era blackness or whatever um and and i i i think one thing we should sort of i think highlight when it comes to like the sort of visual presentation of of of blackness through fashion right is that jazz i guess one of the sort of understung but really important thing about jazz right is that jazz became the way that a lot of americans especially white americans saw the black body in a suit right like and that can't be sort of understated like through sort of uh like magazine um advertisements do stuff like this like like that like seeing a black person in a suit was a novel consideration right and i think to have this sort of the the children's choir there and they are sort of obviously not in suits and obviously like sort of dressed to sort of present the sort of look of destitution uh as as i said earlier i think is is is is really really a sort of intentional and an important choice uh i guess important to think about um but yeah um i wonder what you thought of the two of the two videos good so i did a little bit of research on the uh jubilees because i was like wow they that voice that quartet sounds really familiar and i was like did they do uh them dry bones and they did not but they did do praise the lord and pass the ammunition and they were a gospel group and so a lot of their songs dealt with uh you know songs stories from the bible uh but they did cross over they were on for arthur godfrey's cbs radio show and uh in 1946 and that's you want to talk about a white audience yeah so they did kind of cross over uh two white audiences and then so i think it's very interesting that i wonder if this was for uh general audiences it's like oh well they are um you know they're singing something respectable there's kind of singing uh kind of a funny song about a preacher you know and not about picking up ladies like some of the other songs yeah so you know maybe this was uh for general audiences and the unfortunately i don't i can't find any information about the ring those bells song uh by the cabin kids there wasn't even a title for it yeah it wasn't yeah anything about it but it does kind of seem like um you know dressed in like yeah like post uh restoration like almost like depression era you know these kids live out in the country and you know we have these country kids coming out and singing a sweet tune for us i see similar things with soundies that were um for country performers like you know we have these little kids and they're from the country and they come out and they're dressed like they're hillbillies um and so uh but i don't know anything else about it and i was trying to do a little bit of what you know research while we were watching it um to the the name and we're not even sure if it really is the cabin kids but that's what it's attributed to um but um yeah and i kind of wonder is that you know would that that last song would that be for all audiences or would that be um you know specifically for audiences of color um and kind of them singing a song that's like oh that's like what we used to sing in church or that's what we used to do you know back in when i was in alabama before i came to the big city um you know i'm not sure if there's a nostalgia there or if it's you know kind of fulfilling stereotype um i'm not sure which one it is yeah yeah no and and actually sort of i guess thinking about the sort of audience as a sort of uh providing like sort of like like a material context to these uh performances right i i i think i maybe want to sort of recalibrate what i was thinking about the uh the jubilee years right is that sort of like because i so if this is sort of let's say that this sort of happened uh in in 1940 this is one of the first sort of uh saudis right the civil war ended what in 1860 is it it was like six is this is it's it's the six sixty four is that i mean that's what like i mean uh what 80 years i mean so i mean that is not that far removed from the civil war right and i think and i think sort of one we have to sort of realize that like america like i'm i mean obviously now like like we can think about sort of and not to get too political like america is has sort of deep sort of political divisions right um but then right like like this is like the south was still the south right so i imagine having a picture of abraham lincoln at your back right is like almost like a middle finger to like the sort of it could be read as a middle finger to sort of something audiences if this even got to seven audiences right um and and and i think that is sort of i guess maybe sort of providing a sort of maybe counter narrative to the sort of respectability of the i guess the the the the sort of sheen or veneer of respectability that's in that sort of performance right and then and then i guess to your point about them being church performers right it does feel like they are performing in front of a church they have to sort of uh very sort of church looking lectern they're standing behind right it feels like they're in front in a pulpit and there's a congregation right and everyone's dressed up so it does feel like i get dressed up in a way that sort of feels uh uh spiritual and not like how like count basie and and fast waller were sort of just so that feels sort of more flamboyant and and secular right all right so we got one more um and this is uh annisteen allen accompanied by the lucky millilander uh and his mililander and his orchestra 1943 i want a man [Music] me sweet chariot for the end of that trouble i see again [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] and i ain't going nowhere [Music] [Music] gives you something and judgment day is here your judgment day is [Music] oh [Music] oh [Music] [Music] so [Music] so [Music] so [Music] so [Music] foreign [Music] so [Music] [Music] all right so that obviously was not i want a man um and next on my track list said it was a heart a woman playing harp playing swanny river and that obviously was not swanny river so my track list went erin at some point but uh so the the old rocking chair that was the mills brothers i i figured that out um the harpist i have no idea who it is and i'm not sure what song she was playing but it was pretty awesome yeah so uh uh i want to start with the harpist um skip have you have you heard of something called the stink face no so that's when like you hear something so good it just makes you want to just make that that scrunch of your nose she was freaking that heart man she was killing it that was incredible well i mean like i mean like to see like the sort of decks i mean like and i think the sort of like the the camera was just good enough that you can really get a sense of like the finger dexterity the agility the timing or whatever and like i feel like obviously there are people who still play the harp but like that is a very rare thing and like if you if you can really play the harp that's like oh i can like you can sort of like like you i thought you could always make money playing hard like somebody's like somebody will pay to see you play the heart it i mean she was really really cool that one that one was the only one i think like a real sort of special effect that sort of colitis kaleidoscopic sort of effect which i thought was really really cool because i mean she was just killing that heart which uh like it was it was awesome and then two uh who who'd you say that the group was before that wasn't uh the mills brothers the nils brothers that was i think another sort of just from a sort of musical taste perspective that was one like a favorite song that we've heard of mine at least or whatever i thought the sort of back and forth between the father the son was sort of beautifully done um and and and i it was a little is touching because like the song seemed to be about a father realizing that he is at the end of his life and he cannot move from this rocking chair and there is something sort of as a person who has a who has who has an older dad right uh there's something sort of like uh immensely touching and then also sad about that or i guess melancholy is probably a better word that i thought sort of really really resonated through um i did not i will say in the video i did not understand the the girls rocking i like did not understand their purpose as a as like just as we just want to have pretty women rocking us yeah yeah so um yeah no i i thought i thought those were were really really cool nice yeah and um yeah so i have no idea who the um harpist was but yeah you made a good point as far as somebody thought you know what this is too static of an image you know even though she's getting into it uh we need to jazz it up a little for uh and so they they have a little kaleidoscope uh lens on it to make it a little bit more fancy yeah no and and i mean i i think even like maybe i mean like i guess maybe a sort of different perspective like maybe not making it more fancy but sort of like we have to do something to sort of because we are not going to like move from her right and we want people to sort of take in this sort of magical experience they they're sort of hearing which is which is which is really cool and and i'm curious right because sort of like like like we said like from the outfit of this like like this is not sort of uh uh like like we're not hearing her play right which i think is sort of also really really sort of interesting like like that she i guess she's playing the song and i guess do we know what the song was called uh no idea okay and and and and she's playing the song and i like i'm curious like what it sounded like live i mean i i just i have so many questions or whatever i mean because i mean like from the from the finger movies like she was playing the song like since she was playing that song but i don't know anything about the heart so i mean like like we would need to sort of harvest it or use the right notes or whatever but like i mean it was amazing to watch yeah yeah and so this is what passed for uh visual entertainment in the um early 40s you know before television there was basically radio going to a theater and seeing a movie or um watching a soundy in a bar somewhere so you were talking about you mentioned before we went on like the idea that do music videos are they obsolete did you want to expand on a little bit before we we go yeah yeah no like um i think it's interesting right so so i think sort of most of the audience sort of remembers in or in some ways sort of informed by mtv and then uh maybe depending on who on who you are and how you grew up uh bt right um and the sort of fixture they had on sort of the american teenage uh uh early adult sort of audience or as a sort of pop culture pop culture sort of like zeitgeist moment but you had this sort of afternoon countdown shows like everyone remember sort of trl with carson daly right i remember uh as well a 106 in park with several hosts but most famously aj and free right they had to sort of the countdown of the videos right they also just had videos right and now like the music video while there are still music videos right like so so so this is not saying that like the music video has gone away they are not on tv right and like you have to go on youtube to find music videos and that means that like just do this like i'm saying the apparatus of youtube right you're not like like you are actually sort of saying i i am looking for this particular artist's music video right it's not like a sort of like random sort of stream of music because oh that's new i never i never knew that before or or i never seen that before right um which i think is is is is really interesting right um and and then we also talked about sort of like if if if if we're sort of buying this idea that sort of music videos um or at least diminishing right that you have these sort of intense video stars to like beyonce right um beyonce uh most recently had the the thing on disney plus uh um uh the the blackest king thing which is and again and and as i was telling you guys i think music video for beyonce may be a sort of uh a label that sort of diminishes what that actually is right maybe they could think of like lemonade and all those other things right i'm not sure if music video is uh is is to scale for describing what she does but yeah like i mean like it it is very interesting like music videos are [Music] i think maybe more ubiquitous and easier to find than ever but at the same time they are sort of harder to find there like if you want to find a music video you kind of have to know you're looking for that music video right you're not just so it's not just sort of popping up like how like i remember watching like like like for example um like we had like uh like like b t and b team show like stuff online once a park then they have like regular programs didn't have like um uh uh like sort of like later like videos in the evenings or whatever and then like i remember like and this will date me some or whatever like i remember like saturdays at like two o'clock in the morning they had videos we had this show called oh god what was it called uh like bt uncut and they would show like underground like rap videos and also videos with sort of more scantily clad women right but i was like that was like like like me and my sort of male friends like we get together sometimes we oh and we're gonna watch bt and cut tonight right this is like 14 year old aaron right and his 14 year old friends right would would would would do that right and that sort of i remember that show sort of i guess most infamously started the sort of uh um uh controversy with nelly uh and his video tip drill uh and the sort of controversy with spelman college where they would not let him perform because that video was essentially a sort of cavalcade of fetishizing the african-american female body right um in ways that were sort of gross and would be sort of really really actually i'm not sure if it would be really really outlandish today but it was definitely outlandish then um but yeah so like i don't know i i i think that like this sort of this sort of exercise allows us to question sort of just what like what is the role of the purpose of the music video today like like like like what does it serve one as a sort of cultural sort of object but two i mean these are like music videos essentially are sort of uh commercials that drive sort of uh sales right like like like do music videos push the needle for sort of album for for album i guess maybe not maybe not sells but streams and song streams and and stuff like that i and this is something like i am i'm curious about i i guess i don't have answers to but it just because well i should say this that i just did research um and the top five most watched youtube videos are all musi are all music videos really what are they yeah well the first one you could argue is not but it is it's it's uh baby shark dance yeah it's a music video despacito yeah that's that's the seat of yeah johnny johnny yes papa uh shape of you i'm curious wait wait wait wait i was i was gonna say is the last one to see you again with wiz khalifa and i think charlie puth is it was is that the last one yeah the one the one uh that's that's the one sort of uh memorializing paul walker right yeah yeah okay you know if you think about it like the first video that ever hit a billion views was gangnam style yeah um so it seems like it has moved from cable television to um youtube yeah no and and i think i think i think from from from that perspective right i think you're right right but i think to me mtv and oh guys just those music video shows right was not necessarily about the sort of big huge star right it was about everything else it was about all the other stars right getting like like and so i'm curious sort of like like the uh like the point of the music videos for like maybe the mid the mid-tier singer the the lower tier scene or the independent art like like does that video do those videos sort of uh actually sort of result to sort of any sort of uptick in notoriety and sort of uh the the economics of their music right right so i mean i think i think i mean because all the stars you named um i mean all those music deals you named were at one point uh like big big like big stars like like like like uh wiz khalifa and charlie puth are are still very big stars assai the guy who got into gangnam style um he's still a big star in korea right um where he's where he's from i believe it's korea um and then baby shark is huge huge huge huge um who else did you name it was uh uh let me see let me click back to that that like again um so is ed sheeran shaping it very very big or whatever um the johnny johnny yes papa and uh luis fonsi uh yeah and yeah yeah and and luis monsieur is a big sort of uh um star in the sort of urban pop latino world or whatever um just curious i'm curious with the with the louis with the louise foxy is the version that's like the number one the the the the with all the views is that the version with justin bieber or is that just not sure i don't i don't know it looks like yeah i i can't tell i mean this is a video list so okay okay okay so and the reason why i asked is because justin bieber did a remix of that song that was i think maybe bigger in the states than sort of the the actual song was and gave the song sort of second legs i think and sort of and like really shot that song up into sort of like the stratosphere this is a this is a mega hit so i'm just crazy if it was that version well aaron this was great man um yeah thank you again maybe next semester we can uh we can watch the door uh and talk about uh some of these things uh just the idea of you writing the the book about um athletic shoes i could maybe pick up a bunch of athletic shoes commercials and we can type oh that would be oh that would be fantastic yeah that would be right up my alley yeah so uh no but uh skip uh thank you so much for having me this was a blast to do um yeah this was really fun all right jason you gonna you gonna um close this out yeah i guess the this is the the um goodbye that everyone's been waiting for uh first of all thanks again aaron for doing this um it was cool to see it was cool to hear skip thank you so much for the work you always do on these things a quick reminder to visit avgeeks.com for more info and to check out compilations uh the physical collections are open so you can borrow some dvds straight out of the libraries if you like um our next show is next month and uh i'm actually i'm just gonna leave it like that our next show is next month and we'll fix and post exactly what all those details are uh which is great so um those of you watching live pay attention because next month at some day someday next month we'll be having another show um and uh it'll you know october shows are always the best fall greatest season on earth so we'll make something cool for y'all um uh until then though uh you can watch previous videos you watch this one again at the uh through the library's website um so yeah watch av geeks as much as you can and then come see us here at the libraries too you