Local band made good,
Walk the Moon, has had a pretty auspicious start to their summer after a not-too-bad spring which featured an interview segment on Late Night with Carson Daly and a successful showing at the venerable South by Southwest Music festival in Austin, Texas. A recent opening gig with indie rock icons Weezer, and slots at Bonnaroo and Lollapalooza in June and August flesh out what could easily be called a breakthrough year following the release last fall of their album "I Want! I Want!"
Ftting then that the video for the first single from that album, "Anna Sun," has been ordained by Esquire Magazine (the same Esquire that named Cincinnati one of "seven cities that rock" in 2005),
as their "official song of summer." The video posted by the band on Youtube has garned over a quarter of a million views and was directed & produced locally by Patrick Meier of
Contrast Productions, with choreography by Kim Popa of dance troupe
Pones Inc. It's as impossibly catchy as the single that inspires it, featuring local dancers and actors with the historic Mockbee building in Cincinnati's brewery district in Over-the-Rhine as it's backdrop.
Meier, a graduate of UC's DAAP program, combined his background in painting and art with his love of music to come up with the concept with the band and Popa. The video features one 2 1/2 minute continuous take with multiple dancers and scenes that Meier says teases the viewer to have a second look. "We wanted to get it out there and make a music video people could watch again and again."
Popa had never heard of the band before a phone call from WTM frontman Nicholas Petricca. She says that after meetings with the band, the creative team decided the vibe should be "the intangible feeling of being a kid...then maintaining that whimsy into adulthood." Popa says she pulled from multiple sources for her kinetic choreography including ceremonial African dance and Michael Jackson moves from her childhood. The project has spurred further collaboration between the band and Pones Inc., and Popa and Meier have worked together on another video as a result.
Walk the Moon will be dominating your record store momentarily, but until then check out their video while it's, well, hot.
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