THE STORY OF "LONG LASHES"

(Writing taken from my LiveJournal circa October, 2005)

Too-tight clothes? Check.
Alcohol and weed? Double check.
One rock song? Check.
No filming permits? Check.

We've got ourselves my very first music video shoot.

I arrived in LA on Saturday, and was met at the Greyhound station by the director/cinematographer, Steve Hanft. We headed down to Olvera Street, where I purchased a cheap black bullwhip at the first shop I saw, and after stopping at a bar for a couple of drinks we went to a downtown stairwell to shoot the first scene.

We forgot to bum a cigarette from a passer-by, and didn't feel like spending money on an entire pack, so we'd have to do without the smoking scene. Oh well, MTV probably wouldn't air that bit, anyway.

Steve had me doing take after take of me whipping the camera, instead. It was my first time wielding a bullwhip, so I accidentally hit him a few times, but he insisted on doing more takes until it was right.

Then we took it to the downtown streets, where we'd be dodging traffic and almost getting run over every 2 minutes in order to capture me singing the song out in the middle of the road.

The absolute highlight of this was when I was trying to lip-sync and stay in character while a chubby Black teenaged boy was selling crack on the sidewalk. I watched the transactions and started laughing. Steve knew about the crack deals going on behind his back, and started laughing, too.

From here we went to an alleyway covered in paint and graffiti; it was hard to breathe from the bum piss, but the walls were too beautiful not to stand next to. I had to be careful not to lean directly against it, though, cos you could see the baked-on splashes of urine all over. It turned out that this alley was behind an all-ages punk club called The Smell (named for the ever-present stink).

After the lowly ghetto scenes, we classed it up a bit. I got into a blood-red version of Marilyn's 7 Year Itch dress (cos I want to name my record Gentlemen Prefer Blood), and sat on a bench at Echo Park "singing" into a microphone, then sat at a booth at a restaurant built in the 1920s for a verse part.

Once the video was done, Steve sent me several copies on DVD to hand out like a video demo. A similar tactic had worked for our friend Roxy Saint.

He helped me make a bio flyer to use as the cover of the demo, too. I'm not at all outgoing, and totally hate "networking", so I still have every copy of the DVD he sent.

The flyer says:

In her first music video "Longer Lashes", Diana Death is followed through the streets of Los Angeles by the video camera of Steve Hanft. They take us on a psychedelic trip into urine-stained alleys and posh hotels, and Diana appears equally at home in both.

Ms. Death is the lyricist and composer of "Longer Lashes", a new wave/punk rock song that sounds as classy and trashy as it looks. She explains: "I started writing it as a loving parody of 'Oh Bondage, Up Yours' by X-Ray Spex, and it evolved into something else. I thought of a friend who decided she didn't want to be a dominatrix, anymore, but also of how important it is to be beautiful, especially in Los Angeles."

Why "Death"? I had a stint in the funeral industry, but I also like the fact that death is universal; nothing and no one can escape it. Whether celebrity or celestially, EVEN STARS DIE.

Born the year Elvis died, Diana Death is a self-taught guitarist and composer since age 12. Her religion is Rock N Roll, she gives praise with an SG plugged into a Fender Twin Reverb amp.

Steve Hanft has been giving the world trippy rock music videos ever since his directorial debut, Beck's "Loser". He can be found illegally skateboarding on the concrete surfaces of greater LA.

On Friday, October 7, 2005, 5:39 PM, Steve Hanft wrote: We need a strobe light, a whip, batteries for the boom box I borrowed.  I have an amp too, and a mic we'll need your guitar and the latest CD of the tune.

NERD-LEVEL CONTENT:

I played bass, guitar, and melodica on the recording. Saxophonist: Liam Philpot.