Many things have changed in the music biz in the past couple of decades, and the role of the music video is no exception.

Just as home mixing technology has brought the technology to record bands into every garage and bedroom in the country, so now the increasing availability of digital video cameras and PC-based editing equipment has made the music video available to every up and coming musician.
The music video is, of course, not new.
The earliest real music video is often cited as Bob Dylan's clip for 'Subterranean Homesick Blues”, filmed very much on the fly during his 1966 tour of Britain. But this was probably only the first video clip of the 'modern era”. There were things such as video jukeboxes existing decades before that, showing clips of Fats Waller, Duke Ellington and numerous others.
Perhaps the very earliest true video clip was actually Bessie Smith, a famous 1930's short film of her singing 'St Louis Blues” in a grimy Southern bar (or at least a set made to look like a grimy Southern bar).
But the true growth of music videos came in the late seventies and blossomed during the eighties. It was at this point that an unfortunate format battle ended up doing a great disservice to New Zealand bands.
I'm talking here of the war for the home video market between Beta and VHS.
Even at the time it was clear that Beta was the better format, not only smaller but higher quality. In fact Beta was considered broadcast quality and, had it been adopted internationally, would have given musicians the chance to make their own music videos relatively cheaply. Unfortunately VHS was not regarded as such, meaning that the technology to be broadcast (which at its lowest was known as SuperVHS) remained in the hands of specialists with the considerably more expensive equipment required.
In those days there was still talk that a music video could be considered a work of art and many people making them would be mortally offended by the thought that it was just a glorified ad for a song.
That's how I regard (and have always regarded) music videos. However pretty, however eye-popping, no matter how much integrity they are made with, a music video is never more than an attractive afterthought. A song may be a work of art but putting pictures to the music, however artistic, is – in my eyes anyway – not.
But now music videos have reached a level of ubiquity that, rather than being a final luxury item for a band that can afford them or manages to get a NZ On Air grant, they are actually the single most cost-effective piece of marketing available. There are numerous video shows on various TV channels and, failing that, there is always YouTube, where any video with enough imagination can make a splash.
A couple of weeks ago I wrote about two competing Leonard Cohen concert DVDs and expressed my preference for the cheap bootleg one-camera production. So it is with music videos.
I had a couple of emails after that from Dan Rubock, local musician and filmmaker. Dan agrees totally that lack of money is not an impediment and has made several 'rough edged” videos of local bands. His company Aeroshot, specialising in aerial filming, has a number of these videos on its website, aeroshot.com, including a wild clip for local metallers Take The Willing, Aaron Saxon at the most recent Jazz Festival and a terrific vid for Dan's own band Stardrunk, which as he told me 'cost us about $150 to make, the only expenses were hiring some lights, some pizzas and some beer.” Dan says to get in touch if you're a band wanting to make a video.
It's all about using your imagination. One good idea is worth more than money. Witness the YouTube success of OK GO (youtube.com/watch?v=pv5zWaTEVkI) with 47 million viewers and counting!
And it's true, going right back to that Bob Dylan clip. In it a young Dylan stands in an alley holding a pile of cue cards with various lyrics on them. As the song plays he simply turns over the cards and drops them. It's simple and brilliant. See it at youtube.com/watch?v=2-xIulyVsG8.