Words by Jason Lee. Film still from video directed by Lola Daehler & Yuri Bong.
Note to TV execs: Give Homade their own TV show!
Here are a band of four charismatic young women, each with their own look and vibe in the classic rock ’n’ roll combo mold, who know how to address a camera and charm the hell out of it—whether hanging out at the beach or on a fire escape or in an airy New York City apartment after ringing enough buzzers at random and finding someone who’ll let them in to play an impromptu set of their original tunes.
So stop dragging your feet “TV execs” cuz to help further drive sales and engagement Homade have great potential for cross-platform marketing opportunities (once the show is a hit, that is!) such as a series of Topps™ Trading Cards featuring individual band members posing as nurses¹, mermaids², and lady construction workers³; a set of collectible Happy Meal action figures (the next Beanie Babies!) all leading to a highly lucrative promo spot for high-end Italian scooters featuring a fantasy sequence improbably involving hot peppers, cryogenic chambers, and a foursome of hunky Prince Charmings for the ladies…
…and as a bonus Homade write and record their own songs so there’s no need to dig up Brill Building vets like Gerry Goffin and Carole King [editor’s note: the latter is still quite alive and well] not to mention that lead singer/bass guitarist Lola Daehler is already an accomplished director of film shorts and music videos in her own right so all production costs will be handled in-house for both musical and visual components…
…speaking of which Lola and Homade have just released a new music video (surprisingly, their first!) for the song “Blue Fish” that was filmed in downtown Manhattan and Far Rockaway, Queens probably without film permits (more cost savings!) that sees the band frolicking in the aforementioned locations (fire escape, city sidewalk, beach, apartment) whilst playing/singing along to a song with a strong aquatic energy (perfect for summer!) what with all the watery guitar leads (copious use of slide!) and a rhythm section locking into a groove that’s as slinky as a Moray eel…
…with the video likewise calling to mind an underwater wonderland vibe what with it’s blue hues and heavy use of fish-eye lens (clever!) and the overriding “playful romp” energy which Homade excel at so well cuz whether it’s due to SpongeBob or Esther Williams or Sebastian the Crab we admittedly tend to associate deep sea settings with frolicsome fun with a wink and a nod to thalassic sensuality (according to Sebastian: “darling, its better / down where it’s wetter”) given that bodies of water and exposed bodies tend to go hand in hand, nevermind baths and showers…
…which brings us back to our TV show pitch cuz it’s been way too long since someone made a show in the Monkees/Banana Splits/Munch Bunch/Archies/Partridge Family vein whose flimsy plots are interrupted on the regular for montage-style romps and/or chase scenes that’re the raison de être for the shows to begin with, a model stolen by Scooby Doo and a bunch of other cartoons back in the day, and while Nickelodeon had a decent go of it with Big Time Rush we think a Big Time Homade show would be far superior and go over totally gangbusters as the video for “Blue Fish” amply makes clear…
…cuz this foursome of New York City natives and long-time friends have a natural chemistry that comes across ultra vividly on camera and we’ve been subjected to far too many music videos by indie bands where the frolicking is obviously forced and truly there’s nothing much more painful that watching a bunch of musicians try to act especially when It involves being “endearingly goofy” cuz seriously just look at Madonna’s acting career (the less said about Shanghai Surprise the better!) with Susan Seidelman’s Desperately Seeking Susan being her only good movie (a great movie in fact!) cuz Madonna essentially plays herself in it and that’s the vibe we get from this Homade video too…
…and here it outghta be noted how the vitality of the “Blue Fish” music clip is helped along substantially by Lola’s dynamic camera work (the video is co-directed by Yuri Bong, who also serves as cinematographer) with the camera in motion more often than not, pushed around by Homade themselves at one point like an invisible fifth member of the band, and between the occasional use of over-speeding and the playful pile-ups on the beach, the clip is practically A Hard Day’s Homade circa 2024…
…but with a better point of comparison being the Lunachicks, the New York all-girl punk band who are to this day one of the most underrated groups of the ‘90s and early aughts, cuz when we asked M. Daehler to share a statement about the making of the video she explained how the recent Lunachicks documentary served as a major source of inspiration in terms of the band’s manic energy, DGAF gross-out humor, and endearing girl-gang camaraderie where at any given moment you know you’re missing about a hundred inside jokes shared between the bandmates (ok, we’re interpolating a bit but sounds plausible!) and here’s the full quote…
“Hey, the video was inspired by the Lunachicks. We went to see their documentary and I loved their rowdy ass attitude and the juxtaposition of them being Performative and costumy on stage and then being nasty and smelly and loud on the tour busses and stuff. Also the blood down the leg was a nod to the luna chicks too cuz they did that on stage. Nobody seems to get what the song is about tho and id like to leave it like that hehe. I think the music video is a more in your face This Is Who We Are than it is the story of the song its more just Homade.“
…with one of the great things about the Lunachicks being how in prototypical long-time-or-better-yet-native-New-Yorker form anything they’re feeling at any given moment seems to be registered right there on the surface and if they like you, the Lunachicks and maybe Homade too, they’d probably take you to Gem Spa and buy you egg cream, but if you cross them and get on their band side they’re gonna mess you up good, but then the next day they’d probably buy you another egg cream except that Gem Spa is closed aarghhh!…
…with the “mess you up” part coming across in the many shots in the “Blue Fish” video where the foursome hover around the fish-eye lens in closeup which can’t help but make us think of certain indelible (a word that has “deli” in it!)) shots from George Ramero’s classic Dead film series where you bear witness to the POV of one of the zombies’ victims just as the undead swarm toward you and rip your intestines out like a gaggle of bluefish…
…with bluefish being a native species to our parts (no relation to the Coney Island whitefish!) that according to the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) “exhibit feeding behavior called the ‘bluefish blitz,’ where large schools of bluefish, with razor-sharp teeth and shearing jaws, attack near the surface, churning the water like a washing machine as they feed voraciously on their prey, eating almost anything they can catch and swallow”…
File under: Seapunk. Homade are Lola Daehler (bass, vocals), Maya Ruth and Suzie “Snoozie” Q (guitars) and Koko Mokes (drums). Their latest single (rel: 5.31.24) is “Fun House”…
FOOTNOTES:
¹ The nurse outfit worn by Lola Daehler in the “Blue Fish” video appears to be on loan from Pretty Sick’s Sabrina Fuentes as witnessed in the latter’s clip for “Bet My Blood”
² We’re perfectly willing to accept anyone wearing a Cerulean blue bra with black nettling and a bondage skirt as a mermaid
³ https://dol.ny.gov/news/new-york-state-department-labor-celebrates-women-construction-week
TONIGHT!!! (7.22.24):
