Kevin Bronson on December 12th, 2020

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Catching up with new videos from Mike Viola (new album just out), Burning Pools and Wayne Everett …

MIKE VIOLA, “Ordinary Girl”

After teasing with such singles as “Drug Rug” and “Creeper,” Grammy-nominated producer and songwriter Mike Viola released his new album “Godmuffin” on Friday. Inspired in part by the death in April of close friend Adam Schlesinger, the album is yet another volume of Viola’s masterful songwriting, which dates to the ’90s beginnings of the Candy Butchers, continued with an array of collaborative work and included film work such as “That Thing You Do!” Friday also brought the arrival of the video for “Ordinary Girl,” which nods to Viola’s affection for the horror movie genre (although here, he’s not a vampire, as he was in the “Drug Rug” video that co-starred Mandy Moore). Starring Vanessa Barros Andrade, directed by sisters Kelsey and Rémy Bennett and filmed by Silvia Grav, “Ordinary Girl” follows a horror-obsessed suburbanite to a ghoulish finish. “It’s a girl-power song,” Viola says. “We all have superpowers. For me, the scariest thing out there in the world is blending in, disappearing into the status quo. This is like a John Hughes version of that concept.”

BURNING POOLS, “Woman”

Following lead single “Bang Bang” and “White,” the bold “Woman” is an empowerment song from the trio of Ginger and Kristopher Pooley and Max Bernstein. The video stars the Pooleys’ daughter, Talula; the song was inspired by Ginger’s own trauma. Hours after giving birth to her daughter, she was tasked with the responsibility of planning the funeral of her mother, who had died while Ginger was in labor. As the song proclaims, “I am strong. I am powerful. I can do anything. Don’t mess with me. I am Woman.”

WAYNE EVERETT, “Goner”

Wayne Everett (The Lassie Foundation, The Prayer Chain, Starflyer 59) in April released his first solo album in 18 years, “Two Ghosts” (and followed up by capturing his performance at the Virtual Desert Stars Festival and committing it to EP. Ben Golomb of L.A. shoegazers Modern Time Machines directs the video for the melancholy dream-pop track about lacking a sense of place. From a nondescript office, Everett sings “Going home is overrated / when you’re gone.”

(From the archives, if you need a holiday feel-good, here’s the cover Everett did in 2013 with his former Lassie Foundation bandmate (now Smashing Pumpkins guitarist) Jeff Schroeder.)