The theory of generational trauma posits that we inherit symptoms of trauma not only from first-hand experience but also from previous generations wherein inherited, submerged, unresolved trauma gets woven into one’s DNA and intimate relationships echoing patterns established generations ago rooted in loss, grief and/or outrage stemming from some foundational tramatic experience to paraphrase from Dr. Gitah Arian Black’s The Inheritors: Moving Forward from Generational Traumatized…
…with the week after Thanksgiving being a perfect time to address the topic of generational trauma what with it being a holiday dedicated to repressing the trauma of mass displacement and genocide upon which the nation was founded with a meet-cute story about a benevolent band of Pilgrims and subservient Native Americans breaking bread together in celebration of the “Indians” saving the Limey’s asses by showing them how to cultivate maize and how to wipe their own asses with the remains which that part is true at least…
…but which conveniently leaves out what happened subsequently with indigenous nations throughout America continually betrayed by European settlers with entire villages burned to the ground or otherwise killed by disease, germ warfare, hunted for bounties, sent overseas as slaves, and ultimately pushed out of their homelands and onto virtual prison camps…
…and while ‘Merica is hardly the only nation on earth founded on violence it doesn’t square very well with the whole shining city on a hill ideal which is maybe why the trauma’s never been properly processed but we’d need to consult Dr. Baack but if not sins of the may be revisited, echoing through time (i.e., old violence begets new violence) up to the present as we prepare to make things great again again by leaning into xenophobia and worst-case scenario maybe even Mad George-style violence-minded tyranny so yeah talk about them turkeys ‘n’ roosters maybe coming home to roost…
…which is why Unkle Skunk’s new music video for “Old Violence” (directed by Conor Callahan) should be required viewing for all North Americans in late 2024 (Canadians exempted) so consider this an official edict (note: all interpretations to follow are solely our own and have not been endorsed by the actual members of Uncle Skunk who we’re told all live underground C.H.U.D./T.M.N.T-style so they’re not that easy to contact) with an opening couplet observing how “Old violence comes around / and old violence tracks you down” later going on to note that “Old violence is stuck inside of you” so you see why we’d bring it up here…
…and in keeping with the typical psychological coping skills of generational trauma survivors Uncle Skunk couches this bitter-pill message in a sweet candy coating of psychedelifried good-time country-tinged psych-folkiness with a side helping of prog-poppiness that bands from the Flying Burrito Brothers to the Move to Wilco have similarly utilized to inpart their own messages to the masses…
…which isn’t to say that a distinct sense of uneasiness doesn’t perculate to the surface in much or Uncle Skunk’s music that is when it’s not simmering directly below the surface which you’ll hear plenty of if you give a close listen to their third extended-play record, the somewhat deceptively titled Unkle Skunk II (reviewed here!), with many of their otherwise upbeat songs suffused with an underlying sense of something stressful bubbling under their placid surfaces whether in nagging subliminal drones to outright squalls of dissonance…
…a sense which is very much expanded upon in the band’s music video for “Old Violence” which manages to be whimsical and hyperviolent all at once with a handmade, rough-hewn aesthetic (the vid was something like nine months in the making!) combining live-action footage of Uncle Skunk in action with painstaking stop-motion animation of band members’ exploits in an alternate “clay planet” universe formed from scraps of felt and wool and cotton and clay…
…which is kinda funny cuz the last time I wrote about Uncle Skunk I went on a long digression about the BBC animated series Monkey Dust for reasons that escape me now but for the “Old Violence” vid I’d say the more obvious anticedents are even older-school claymation mainstays like Davey and Goliath and the Gumby Show…
…and thankfully there’s no shortage of violence on hand with the inhabitants of the unknowingly wrecking havoc to their clay dopplegangers in the clay world like how the drummer decapitates his clay doppelgänger with a carelessly tossed away drumstick while the bassist brains his own clay self with an apple core dropped into a trash bin which all serves as a neat metaphor for not realizing the long-term and potentially far-removed consequences of our everyday thoughtless actions…
…with the singer in turn provoking a calamatous flood in the clay world after stopping up a bathroom sink’s drain with his beard trimmings and one of the guitarists electrocuting his claymation self thru the sheer ampage of his guitar amp which causes his own eyes to pop out of their clay sockets that is until the othet guitarists strikes a golf ball so off course that it bursts through the thin membrane separating the two worlds which hey maybe opens a portal to self-healing as the Uncle Skunk’s clay doppelgängers build a tin-foil rocket and blast their way into the “real world” perhaps in an effort to heal all that generational/interdimensional trauma but hey that’ll have to wait for the video’s sequel we suppose so stay tuned for the next installment with the band reportedly hard at work on their first full-on full-length…
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Skunk Wars: Revenge of the Clay
Directed by: Conor Callahan @conormcallahan
Director of Photography: Shamus Lobene @spoopell and Evan Wilkins @evanrwilkins
Production Design: Haddie Webster @hadd.ee
Assistant Director: Sofia Tardif @stardif
Electric: Austin Jessen @ajessen and Hannah Mayo @goosemayo
Grip: David Konge @davidkongii
Steadicam: Connor Hargreaves @connorhargreavescamera
1st. Assistant Camera: Conor Hibbler @conor_hibbler
G&E Swing: Sawyer Gaunt @sawyer_gaunt
Makeup: Ana Chang @8.14ana
Titles: Tyler Mancini @bingo.dingus
Puppet Tailor: Liza Engman @lizaengman
Animation editor: Aidan Stadler @aidanstadler
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Vocals, Acoustic Guitar, Monkey Demon Electric Guitar, Cybertronic Children’s Choir Operator, Forlorn Noises, Drum Machines – Otis Streeter
Gangster Electric Guitar, Piano, Synthetic Orchestra of Doom Conductor, Flaming Cigar Guitar – Henry Peason
Acoustic Guitar, Prankster Electric Guitar, Banjo, Accursed Viola, Grindrillatron – Sam Benezra
Robotron Bass – Robert Kim
Drums, Mystic Percussion of Old – Teddy Sidiropolous