Handsome Furs - Cannot Get Started

MAY 22 2007 · 12:00

Handsome Furs - Cannot Get Started (2007) Director: Matt Moroz Era: Mid-2000s Indie Blogosphere Era (2007) - Peak Sub Pop indie rock wave; lo-fi aesthetic meets early YouTube distribution; Canadian post-punk DIY ethos at height of critical blogosphere attention High archival value as a documented artifact of the Montreal indie post-punk scene at its 2007 peak, with a confirmed director attribution sourced from primary band interviews. The video's siting in a real Montreal ethnic restaurant, its disinterested-audience conceit, and its fast-cut realism encapsulate the Sub Pop DIY ethos of the blogosphere era. Represents a distinct pre-HD visual grammar that contrasts sharply with the band's later more polished work. Context: Released in summer 2007 as the second video from Plague Park, 'Cannot Get Started' arrived during the peak of the indie music blogosphere era, when Stereogum, BrooklynVegan, and Pitchfork served as primary gatekeepers. Handsome Furs, a husband-and-wife duo from Montreal on Sub Pop, occupied a unique niche, blending Dan Boeckner's Wolf Parade pedigree with Alexei Perry's literary sensibility and drum-machine minimalism. The video's choice of a Montreal Uzbeki restaurant as its performance venue reflects the band's Eastern European lyrical preoccupations and the Montreal scene's embrace of eclectic, unglamorous spaces. The deliberate staging, a band performing to disinterested patrons, engages sardonic commentary on indie obscurity and authentic performance culture. Director notes: Confirmed by Dan Boeckner and Alexei Perry in a 2007 BrooklynVegan interview. The video was shot in a Montreal Uzbeki restaurant chosen during a location-scouting session with the band. The concept centered on the band performing to a crowd of disinterested patrons. Alexei Perry noted an entire narrative storyline was developed by Moroz around the performance-to-indifferent-audience premise. An early cut was posted on Moroz's MySpace page before being taken down for re-editing. The Stereogum post announcing the video is dated August 14, 2007, bracketing the production to mid-2007.