Helix Work On Video For “Make ‘Em Dance” Single
Helix Work On Video For “Make ‘Em Dance” Single
January 17, 2010
Helix frontman Brian Vollmer has issued the following update at www.planethelix.com:
“Last weekend was the first video shoot we’ve all filmed together since 1989’s Dream On. We decided to try and shoot two videos at the same time, seeing as we had the gear there. The trick was to get a totally different look for the second video. Brent initiated the whole idea of making more videos in the first place. He had already done a homemade video for the song “Vagabond Bones” (which to date has over 6,000 hits on Youtube) and was chomping at the bit to try another. He enlisted the help of the Conestoga College video department and director Francis Coral Mellon. The last piece of the puzzle was finding a film location. Jay Wetlaufer – Helix fan extraordinaire – to the rescue! Jay found us a location in Woodstock at the home of Bonnie and Lionel Simard. Thanks so much to Bonnie and Lionel for all their generosity and help.
Unlike the 80’s, where there was an obscene amount of money spent on videos, nowadays a lot of artists are getting exposure through homemade films launched on Youtube. Helix is no exception, and we’ve done it with several releases now. John Hockley put together one for “Fill Your Head With Rock” and over the Christmas season Thane Silliker put a couple together for “Jingle Bells” and “Silent Night”. All of these videos have helped to bring traffic to the Planet Helix website and attention to new releases. Brent has taken Helix videos to a new level by organizing this latest shoot and also taking control over the editing of the footage for “Monday Morning Meltdown”. “Make ’em Dance” is being edited over the next couple of weeks by Francis Mellon at Conestoga College.
So you have to use your brains instead of your wallet to get a good product. The back of the new CD has a skeleton on it, so we used that theme a little bit in these two videos. I bought a life-sized skeleton at a costume shop (along with renting a prisoner’s uniform for Monday Morning Meltdown) which we named “Jimmy Bones”. He appears in the jail scene and in “Make ’em Dance” he’s simply sitting by the bass drum. A happy accident was when we used experimental lights in Monday Morning Meltdown and they turned out looking like the bars on a cell.
The plan is to have the “Make ’em Dance” video launched on Youtube to coincide with the song’s release to Canadian radio by DMDS the last week of January. Ironically this is also the same week that we’ll be playing Norma Jeans here in London, Ontario. We expect nothing less than a sold out crowd for this show.
A COUPLE OF OTHER THINGS
The other day I received a phone call from Connie Garrisson, formally Connie Hackman, Paul Hackman’s widow. She said she had an idea to bounce off me, and wanted to know my opinion. She said she still had the guitar that Paul wrote all those great Helix songs on, and what would I think of the idea of bringing it to our Norma Jeans gig on January 30th and have Brent play a couple of songs on it during the set? I said, “I think that’s a great idea!” and when I phoned Brent and discussed it with him he agreed. The guitar is a pre-CBS Fender Strat, a fact that in itself makes it very valuable, not to mention the history behind it.
Speaking of guitars, we now have a second B.C. Rich Warlock guitar being given away on Dee Snider’s HOH. We’d like to thank Dee and the site for all their support – its been overwhelming and we appreciate it much.
Courtesy of www.sleazeroxx.com and www.planethelix.com