The Beatles said they were bigger than Jesus. MC Hammer said that he made Jackson Pollack look like Norman Rockwell. Samuel Adams said he was the white Paul Revere. Fastball stayed humble. They didn’t make the mistakes of those artists whose careers were ultimately ruined by hubris.

“I don’t want to be president, Superman, or Clark Kent.” That is the first line of this song. While the line is entirely nonsensical, it does imply some sort of modesty. Fastball just want to be themselves; they just want to personify the rain that comes down, impregnates Danae, and looks through your window from your fire escape.

What Fastball wants, though, is irrelevant. They weren’t defeated by hubris, but the opposite. They were too down to earth. So down to earth that fans had direct access to them and their bodies.

Fire Escape by Fastball:

This video was shot in my house using much of my homemade Fastball paraphernalia. It depicts a women/Fastball super fan who surrounds herself with Fastball stuff and is so obsessed with them that she kills them and keeps their corpses around the house. [Yesterday](/posts/new-format-all-fastball- all-time-out-of/) I talked about how Fastball is dead and is making music videos in memoriam. I had a few ideas of how they died, but now we know.

The video opens with this super fan/serial killer getting ready for her day.

She is wearing a Fastball shirt and drinking out of a Fastball mug.

Fastball is on her TV ostensibly playing the “real” video for Fire Escape.

Wait, is the guitar player singing? What about the bass player’s ego? Maybe the bass player hired this woman to kill the whole band, he was so mad.

The super fan’s friend messages her asking what happened to Fastball. She is using some sort of instant messaging program that people used to use in the ancient days of the internet before everyone used gchat. Wait a second, is that a chat room?

Looking at this, maybe Fastball did perish of hubris. I have a strong feeling that nothing having to do with Fastball was ever “all over the news.” Also, ALL CAPS is very early internet.

The super fan ruins any surprise that might be in the video by revealing that they are all dead in her house. Maybe she’s joking, though. That would be a funny joke, right?

No. [There is nothing funny about Fastball being dead](/posts/new-format-all- fastball-all-time-out-of/).

I think the super fan might be a bit of a sociopath. Yeah, anyone might kill their favorite band and leave their bodies around her house, but look at this face she is making:

And she’s making it while working out and looking at this picture:

This picture features the drummer way too prominently. Who gives a shit about that guy? Do you know his name? I don’t. I’m not 100% positive that Fastball even bothered to give him a name. Why would you ever need to refer to him?

We see that the super fan had access to Fastball.

She is so excited. And Fastball is so excited that she is excited.

Too bad things didn’t work out. Here is the bass players body.

So peaceful.

I have no idea whose body this is:

Wait, were Fastball zombies and that why she killed them? In that case she is a hero, not a killer. Unfortunately, many heroes who kill zombie hoards are prosecuted as killers because society is not willing to accept that zombies exist and walk among us.

Now the director of the video decided to show off that he went to college for this shit. He turns the camera upside down!

WHOOOOOOAAAAAA! I don’t get it.

We get a clear shot of the bottom of the super fan’s shoes next. Things are getting a little bit weird.

Wait a second, are those taps on her shoes? This woman is crazy!

Now there is a shot of that dude from Entertainment Tonight (I believe his name is Glasses McMustache) talking about how Fastball is missing. He makes a joke about their song The Way. Haha! Puns.

They stop the song for this hilarious joke. [I hate this](/posts/roar-roar- roar-roar-at-devil-roar-by/). Just keep the song going! We care about the song!

We see the guitar player is dead, too.

That means that one guy who was dead earlier must have been the drummer. This is the power of deductive reasoning. We should be teaching our children deductive reasoning.

The super fan opens her closet door and chickens run out. She must keep them in their for Danzig-style rituals.

Danzig:

Super fan:

She also has a little shrine to Fastball set up in there, which is really weird when her whole house is like a shrine. This part is a little weird. Shouldn’t she be using their bodies in the rituals and not just their pictures? (Note to self: learn more about voodoo.)

Her ablutions and morning routines finished, she goes out to start her car/day. But the car won’t start!

At this point Fastball decides to ruin the whole video by breaking the fourth wall.

Why would they do this? Are they worried that we might think they are actually dead? If that is the case, why would they make that video for Out of My Head that clearly states that they died? Do they think that is funny? Haha! Hahahahaha. Ha. Wait, maybe they heard the term “post modern” and are trying to implement it in their lives. No matter what the reason, I wish the video ended with the super fan getting into her car and driving away to a normal day at her job. Then I’d be happy.

As it is, I’m so mad about this that I’m done with Fastball. I declare that starting tomorrow we will scrap this new format and return to writing about non-Fastball bands who can get through a video without ruining it. RUINERS!

-PTD

Remember when you were a senior in high school? I don’t. We probably didn’t even know each other then, so how could I remember you as a senior? Get it together people.

Anyways, at some point you had to watch a slideshow with pictures of everyone from your school (or at least the cool kids). Starting in 1997 this slideshow was always accompanied by “Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)” (remember to whisper the part in parentheses) by Green Day. Now, “Good Riddance Time of Your Life” is wildly inappropriate for these slideshows. The title is extremely creepy and the song is generally a downer. It makes you think that everyone in those pictures is probably dead.

Fastball looked at this situation and said, “We want our song to play to pictures of dead high school kids.” So they wrote a sad song and made a music video that strongly implies that the members of the band are dead. Take a look at the music video for “You Know You’re Right” by Nirvana. That is a song that is not very good so Nirvana didn’t release it during Kurt Cobain’s lifetime. Much after his death people decided that it doesn’t matter whether the stuff is good or not and they make money either way. So it was released. They needed to make a music video for it, though, so they cut together a bunch of old footage of the band. This seems to be exactly what Fastball did for their video.

Here it is, posthumous video for Fastball’s “Out Of My Head”:

My heart goes out to their families.

What we have here is some live performance footage from various different shows plus what appear to be home movies. Towards the beginning we see some kids and a woman in front of some American flags.

That image strongly reminds me of this:

Those brave little kids.

We see two of the members of the band standing in front of a different American flag, staring off into the distance.

The third member of the band is conspicuously absent. He must have died first. The first line of the song is, “Sometimes I feel like I am drunk behind the wheel.” This gives us a clue of how he died.

Next we get some home movies of the singer.

See how young and vibrant he was? How could he have known that his time would be cut short? How could he have known that jumping into a fireplace was less fun and more dangerous than it looks?

Ah, that’s how. It looks like his older sister told him, “Don’t jump in the fireplace.” Good advice. He didn’t take it to heart, however.

The drummer, who naturally barely appears in the video at all, died a less violent death. He ate ice cream too fast and then immediately went swimming and died. He should have known about the dangers of ice cream.

Look at the pain in that child’s face. Have you ever seen a child with less joy holding an ice cream cone? He can’t fit it into his mouth and his head is splitting. The drummer forgot this precious childhood moment, which led to his doom.

Because the performance footage is from different shows we get to see different hairstyles, which is fun. Here is a long-haired singer, playing bass.

Here is a short-haired singer, playing keyboards.

No matter what his haircut, he was a wonderful person. It’s too bad, really.

R.I.P.

-PTD

Are you thinking about Fastball right now? Probably not, which is ridiculous. Fastball is an excellent band. Time magazine rated them the greatest musicians of the second millenium and The New York Times wrote, “[Fastball makes Mozart look like Milli Vanilli](http://static.guim.co.uk/sys- images/Music/Pix/pictures/2011/7/7/1310035408157/Milli-Vanilli- in-1990-006.jpg).” I’ve spent some time today thinking about Fastball and as a result I am changing the format of this blog. I will still discuss music videos, but only those by Fastball. Discussing a video by another band would be like seeing a play by David Mamet instead of Shakespeare. Everyone says Shakespeare is the best, don’t waste your time (check out my theater review blog when you get a chance!).

Fastball’s first (and best?) hit is “The Way”. It is about escape. What if you could be someone else, somewhere else? What if that someone and -where is totally awesome, literally all of the time? I’d say go for it.

Give it a shot. Watch “The Way” by Fastball:

You might notice a few things right away: 1. The song is so good that it is hard to concentrate on the visuals in the video the first 30 times you watch it. Go ahead and watch it 31 times, it’s worth it. 2. There are apparently only 3 people in Fastball. How do they get such a fat sound? 3. Stupid sideburns. I feel like 2 out of 3 of the members had a bet about who could have the worst possible sideburns. The bet was never settled so they were stuck with them. 4. The singer has an enormous ego. He did write what has been called “the greatest piece of music since Bach wrote Beethoven’s fifth symphony” so I guess I can understand.

The video opens with the three band members standing on the street watching TV.

Did people ever really do this? I feel like it is part of our cultural zeitgeist, but I don’t really know why. I don’t think I’ve ever seen people just standing on the sidewalk watching TV for more than a moment. Maybe we are supposed to assume that Fastball is homeless?

They are watching an exercise show.

In the show the woman is doing an exercise that is said to be great for strengthening your core muscles. Likely, though, the band is not picking up fitness tips but is intrigued by the way this exercise looks like sexual thrusting.

He looks hungry. For sex. Fastball has hit rock bottom at this point. They are so bored with their lives that they are lusting after TV women in the street. I think that’s what you do once your cardboard box is foreclosed on and restaurants have made it clear that you are no longer welcome to eat banana peels out of their dumpster.

He sees a flash of himself on TV, though.

He is confused. Did he really just see that? No he did not. He is suffering from rotting-banana-peel-related brain damage.

He starts to hallucinate and fully loses touch with reality. Just like in The Wizard From Oz, everything is suddenly in full color. This nicely coordinates with the second verse which is the same as the first but has a more open sound with more instruments and less sound filtering. This is a cool connection.

The band is driving around and singing. The guitar player plays guitar in the front seat while the drummer is stuck driving.

They come across some foxy babes in a trailer.

Note to younger readers: All the foxiest women are in trailers in the middle of the road.

The band breaks out their instruments and everyone gets funky.

The women don’t seem to even notice the singer’s terrible sideburns.

We get some special effects, too.

In this shot the camera pulls back a bit. The singer is still in the shot singing, but it’s hard to get a great view of him because the other people are a little distracting. Don’t worry, though! There is a solution. We get a little frame-in-frame here so we still have a close-up of the singer. I can’t believe the band didn’t break up the second they saw this video. I would have at least punched the singer in the face.

Now the scene switches to a different fantasy. They’ve filled up on trailer women and decided to upgrade to classier surroundings.

They are in some weird lounge. Everything is still very colorful.

Whilst there the guitar player decides to play a solo. The singer is not pleased.

“I can’t believe he is trying to hog the spotlight like this!” the singer thinks. “I better still be in this shot, or I swear I will eat my own sideburns. I don’t even care about the contest anymore.”

The final fantasy location is a rooftop. Man, that is awesome! I always wanted to go on a rooftop.

For reasons that are not explained, the guitar player spends most of his time on the rooftop running away. He’s probably worried about what the singer will do to him after he pulled that guitar solo stunt.

At the end of the video, the guitar player is so frightened he jumps off the rooftop.

They coordinate this slow-motion shot with a cool musical effect that also simulates slow motion. This is pretty sweet.

So this video doesn’t add too much to the song. You don’t learn anything new. The visuals heighten the musical effect, though, and make you notice musical things you might not normally notice. That’s pretty cool, but that’s what you expect from geniuses.

-PTD