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Shai Hulud - Misanthropy Pure (music video clip)

Anyone interested in a new video by hardcore/metal noisemongers Shai Hulud? We thought so!!! Read what guitarist Matt Fox has to say about the clip for "Misanthropy Pure" and don't forget to check out the clip after you get through Fox's verbose text.

A Shai Hulud video!? Who'd've thunk it? Certainly not Adam Curry or Ricki Rachtman, that's for sure. And lucky for today's Headbanging Ballers, no one has to sit through 17 hours of Bullet Boys videos to see it. That what my friends and I had to do every Saturday night just to get to Nuclear Assault's "Brainwashed" or Testament's "Trial By Fire." If we were really lucky, and I mean really lucky, we would catch "We Gotta Know" by Cro-Mags or "Anthem" by Agnostic Front, but sitting through all those damned Bang Tango, Britny Fox, and Faster Pussycat videos... sheer torture. At least they could have buffered it with Flotsam And Jetsam or Powermad, or something for crying out loud - which they did every once in a while, just not quite enough. Ah, but I'm carping...

So we packed up some gear, stickered up our guitars (I made sure to add a highly visible Descendents sticker to my already stickered guitar, and Matt Fletcher broke his no stickers on his guitars rule for Suicidal Tendencies), and drove an hour and a half down some windy roads to film our first video in what was as close to a ghost town as any of us have ever seen. I forget the town's name, but it was somewhere in upstate New York, and "owned" by a friendly woman who taught marshal arts. No shit. To whom, we weren't sure. Ghosts? Anyway, we filmed our video in what used to be some sort of hot spot celebrity nightclub, if I'm not mistaken. The only thing that remotely indicated that this was ever such a place was the snazzy stained glass window sporting the brazen image of a fool / jester which we played under and in front of. Go figure, the great king of fools and his band of halfwits, Shai Hulud.

David Brodsky, our humble narrator and director, put us through the ringer, making good on his promise of a long and physically painful day. The slave driver. Responding to his cracking whip of friendly and truthful barbs, we did our best to convey the passion and intensity of the song without ever actually playing it (that's how videos are made -- just like a Milli Vanilli live show). It only felt awkward for a few minutes. Then it just hurt (for the next 3 weeks, in fact).

The song "Misanthropy Pure" has lyrical points it means to get across. Having no narrative for the video, mainly due to time and logistics constraints, we needed some vehicle (or MacGuffin as Alfred Hitchcock might say) to help illustrate the messages of the song. It was David who offered up the idea of incorporating some of the song's key lyrics, which not only created a cool and visually engaging video, but also gave it depth and meaning, ensuring more than just a boring, uninspired marketing tool. No, we didn't get to go all out with our original Flash Gordon idea, and the last minute Westworld themed video was far too daunting to pull together twenty minutes before shooting (next time, perhaps?). All that acknowledged, our first video is now being shown on "Headbangers Ball," where twenty years earlier some teenage, pimply-faced metal lovers sat watching hours of horseshit to get to that one gem that would speak to them directly and offer some inspiration. I wouldn't be so bold as to say we are that gem in 2008, but we sure have Bang Tango licked. With all due respect, of course.

Up the irons.

Death to Ming!

-Matt Fox

(BTW This account is NOT ran by Matt Fox nor any members of Shai Hulud)
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