In early May 2002, I went to Africa to film a music video for one of my songs, Set Me Free. I took out a huge bank loan and entrusted my friend, Director Jurgen Alan, to direct and shoot a music video over a two week period (he’d rung me to say he had that time to spare, he was calling in his favours from film crew and would do the video I had been pestering him for over two years to do for me – these were the dates and I needed to be there a week before for preparation).
Jurgen and the producer, Richard Kellond, had sourced a car collecting enthusiast out in a little place called, Prince Albert (around 5 hours drive from Cape Town) – Jason Lucas was the chap’s name! We got to this little town and checked out a whole lot of his cars in his collection (there was an Appleberry Red ’53 Chevvy which I was quite taken with and many wondrous vehicles) and Jurgen Alan chose a blue Corvair. I felt a little miffed at this car which I felt was “plain”. It was pretty difficult to drive, ultra powerful and the steering wheel was on the left hand side of the car. Only when I saw the car polished and primed did I realise that she was one of the most beautiful cars I’d ever seen, the light seemed to “bounce” off her and the colouring of the clothing and surrounding area all “worked” in harmony.
We shot the video over a few days out in the Swartberg Mountains, it was a crazy experience – the local constabulary helped halt traffic on the road heading into and out of the town and they were on “set” without having been asked to help out – the children from the local school were queuing up outside the petrol station (in one of our scenes) and asking for my autograph. It was all pretty surreal.
The video was shot, I returned home to England (I’m half Scottish and half Austrian, raised in South Africa but now a permanent resident in England for over 11 years) only to discover I had lost everything at home. My business partners had changed the locks on my recording studio and the entire contents of my home had been removed by my husband – it rocked my world to the very core and I considered packing it all in and giving up. When the edited music video was couriered to my home two months later, I didn’t know what to do with it. I went up to my friends in Baldock (Exposure TV) and Jon Harwood made me some copies to VHS and I just handed these out to my friends. My self confidence was at an all time low and I got myself a full time “day” job. Singing in pubs and clubs here and there on weekends – wondering what on earth I would do with my life.
Something weird happened a few months after my return, the ceiling above my stairwell collapsed (there had been a pretty serious rain storm which had somehow leaked through the roof and the wood had been damaged and gave way), I had to get up into the loft to examine the damage. I found a black bin liner with some of my old demos of the tracks I’d been recording over the past 6 years. When my husband left me, he'd forgotten the demos in the loft. I went up to Jon at Exposure and he said to just choose the “best” of the songs from those demos and even though they were almost incomplete recordings, to put them into an order and create a CD Rom with the music video as an EXTRA. I did, this is now my first album, Infinity.
We placed it onto CDBaby and I forgot about it, then out of the blue a few months later I received an email from Dave Leonard in the US, asking me about the CAR!!! (I’ve attached below his short “story” as to how he “found” the Infinity album and, well, the rest – as they say – has it’s own history.
How Dave Leonard “found me and the Corvair” on CDBaby a little over two years ago. I sent him an email asking him to help me fill in the blank spots and here’s his reply….
I'm not sure I ever told you the ENTIRE story...):
I have long had an interest in the Autoharp, and have always been fascinated by it's full and rich sound, primarily due to listening to an outstanding folk artist named Harvey Reid, from Portland Maine. This led to me finally picking up a nice instrument, and searching out some information on beginning techniques.
One evening in the fall of 2004, I was traveling by train to Princeton NJ from Washington DC, returning from a business trip. I was on the AMTRAK high-speed train, the Acela. In Havre De Grace Md, just before a long bridge over the Chesapeake bay, the train struck and instantly killed a homeless person. Needless to say, the train made a full emergency stop, and ended up sitting in the middle of the bay on the two-track railroad bridge. It was a perfectly clear night, full moon, and, I have to say, somewhat a strange feeling to be riding on a train that had just killed someone. Lots of thoughts, and time for thoughts, as we sat there for over an hour, in the middle of the bridge, waiting for the Police and Amtrak investigators. My thoughts were mostly with the engineer of the train and the crew, who have to live with the accident, knowing full well that there was absolutely nothing they could have done to prevent it... I will give the crew credit for keeping us informed of exactly what had happened, and doing their best in a stressful situation.
Well after about 90 minutes, the police permitted the train to move about 2 miles up the track to Perryville Md. At that point, they were required to take the accident train out of service, so they pulled another train up along side of us, and made us all board what was effectively the next train heading north. I took a seat next to a pleasant middle-aged woman, and we began to talk about what had happened. After a bit, conversation slowed down, and I pulled out my Autoharp Owner's Manual and picked up reading where I had left off just before the accident.
This is where it gets strange! The woman turns to me and asks about my interest in Autoharp. Turns out she has several, was a long-time player, and is quite active in the Philadelphia Folk Song Society. Now the Autoharp is a bit of an odd instrument to start with, and the probability that anyone would be actually reading a book on Autoharps on a commuter train from Washington DC has to be fairly low. The probability of that person (me) sitting down next to another Autoharp player active in the music scene is just too weird to contemplate, especially as it was precipitated by a very strange series of events... I know, it sounds like something Douglas Adams would come up with, eh?
So.... we start talking about music, and everything under the sun. She tells me I really need to find the CD's and instruction books from Bryan Bowers. We continue to have a delightful conversation for the rest of the train ride.
OK - here is probably what you were looking for...
I return home, about midnight. My wife and daughter are both asleep, I'm exhausted and sort of feel a bit strange about the events of the evening. I bring up my computer and google "Bryan Bowers". Turns out many of Bryan's CD's are not available through "normal" sources, and in poking around, I find CDBaby listed as a source for somewhat "out of the mainstream" CD's.
I surf on over to CDBaby, and punch-up Bryan Bowers. Nothing. I then punch-up Autoharp. Up comes a list of CDs, with pictures of the covers. Wow, that's neat. Much better than just a text listing... and... wait, what the heck!, is that a CORVAIR on the cover of that CD??? Check it out! ...it was the Infinity CD. A click or two and later and I had linked over to your web site, found the incredible video, and jumped back to CDBaby to order the CD.
Shortly afterward, my curiosity got the best of me and I dropped you an email asking about it:
> My question may be a bit strange, but being an collector and driver of
> Chevrolet Corvairs for many years here in the US, I have to ask about the
> very nice one used in the video and on the CD cover. Why a Corvair?
> Certainly a very unusual and distinctive choice. Is it yours? Where was
> the video shot? Anything else you could share about the car and the
> experience with it? As far as I know, it's the first time one has been used
> in a major "supporting role" in a video - perhaps only of interest to
> Corvair nuts like me however.
The bottom line is that you produced a very well-done video, an excellent tune, one shot with very unique scenery and a very unique car.
Hope this helps - not sure what if anything you can use, but I'm more than happy to help in any way I can.
Best regards,
Dave
The story didn’t end there! I had started recording a new album, Show Me How in 2003, with a few cover versions and a few of my own original songs. One of those cover songs is “Fools Rush In (I can’t help falling in love with you)” – originally performed by Elvis Presley. At my second Midem – a Malaysian distribution company asked that I give them a music video with that cover song so that they could release this as the first single off this album. I had to source the footage which was shot for Set Me Free (I couldn’t afford the cost of filming a new video and figured I could use the footage and edit out a totally “new” video). When I called up the production company in Cape Town, they informed me that Jurgen Alan and Richard Kellond were no longer with them and they could not locate my footage with the Corvair – it was “lost”.
I called up Videolab in Cape Town and spoke to a really kind lady, I knew the footage had been edited there and was hoping against hope that somehow it may just have ended up in their storage rooms. She phoned up the production company and told them that if they didn’t “find” my footage, they were legally bound to film a totally new music video as the terms of their contract were to “store” my original footage. The production company biked over my original video footage within 15 minutes of her making that call. She then advised that she’d arrange to copy the footage onto Digibeta and it would be couriered to a producer I was working with in Germany as he said he had someone who would edit it for me.
Three months passed and the producer in Germany eventually got back to me and said he’d “lost” the footage. I had a gig in Dubai, got back to London and caught the next day’s flight to Frankfurt (there was nobody at the airport to collect me as they were unawares of my “visit” and I caught a train to the little town where the producer lived – Seligenstadt), I recalled how to get to his house from a route I had walked to the pretty old town and knocked on his door. I got my footage and returned back to England three days later (the producer felt so humbled by my strong will that he recorded two more songs with me whilst I was in Germany). By some strange twist of fate, I stopped off at my best friend’s home en route from Heathrow airport and took the videos into her home to show her the strange looking tapes. My vehicle was broken into outside her home and the entire contents removed (once again, the footage had a lucky escape and was kept safe).
I took the footage up to Jon at Exposure TV (now in Hitchin) and he suggested he place it onto DVD and give it to some kids I knew who said they would do the editing for me. Sam Daniels and Mark Monseratt worked into the early hours of the mornings (moonlighting) and the footage was edited to create a music video for Fools Rush In. They kept to the brief and maintained the original storyboard for Set Me Free but used footage where I wasn’t singing the original song for which the video was made.
Out of the blue, my friend, Alex, offered to finance the making of the Never music video.
In March of 2006, I uploaded the three music videos to Google Videos. Within two weeks, more than 35,000 people had viewed the videos. The format is pretty low resolution though as I used a 50 meg Quicktime to do this. I then received so many emails asking for the videos as DVD’s, the result is the DVD (which contains all three music videos – Set Me Free, Never and Fools Rush In) in high quality NTSC (American Format).
It’s been a long road with so many twists and turns in between that I am actually amazed that it has even reached this point. If it weren’t for the persistence of the Corvair Club in America, these videos would never have seen the light of day.
I hope you like them and I’m sure you’ll agree with me – the Corvair and the Harley are both magnificent, they are the true “stars” of the video!
Big Hugs and Blue Skies to you all.
Mel Vondrau.
www.myspace.com/vondrau
Read more...