RockArt: Tom Scharpling Music Videos

I recently came across a reference to the work American comedian Tom Scharpling has done in directing music videos. All it said was that he’d pushed the boundaries a bit – so obviously he had to be checked out. Turns out he has worked with a number of bands, generally ones that he is friends with, with the common thread of strange story lines, celebrity cameos and a very low budget. Sounds good doesn’t it – what’s not to like?

Whether it’s spoofing Green Day’s American Idiot musical for Bottled In Cork by Ted Leo and featuring Paul F. Tompkins as a theater promoter and Julie Klausner as a dance instructor, creating a trailer for a fake biopic with well known comedians like Paul Rudd portraying the members of the band for The New Pornographers song Move as the band was on tour at the time, or getting Jon Hamm to play Scharpling himself talking about the making of Aimee Mann’s Labrador – with Mann very keen to point out how much she hates the project, Scharpling is obviously having a bunch of fun.

Once I’d started to down this path I figured they had to be shared simply because it’s great to see someone prepared to have some fun with the music video format, and also extra respect to the bands involved here for being creative in more ways than simply writing and performing a song. Watch and enjoy!

Ted Leo & The Pharmacists – Bottled In Cork

Aimee Mann – Labrador

The New Pornographers – Moves

RockArt is a series of posts that looks at the creative side of things: instruments, accessories, videos, photos, logos and artwork. You can find more here.