DON'T Set Off Roman Candles on Your Video Set

DIIV, one of the most buzz-generating new Brooklyn bands of the past year, talks Do's and Don'ts about makeing your first music video:

--- DO have a great concept that is really you, as Cole did in devising a mad scientist-with-a-blender idea, tossing items ranging from a toaster coil to a Nirvana tape into a concoction that gets transformed into a pill (you'll see it here).
--- DO call in as many favors from friends, and make some new ones if possible, as DIIV did with LA-based filmmaker Grant Singer, who directed the clip, and artist and musician Liza Thorn, who art directed the thing.
--- DON'T set off Roman candles on your video set. Or at least if you're going to, take it outside and don't shoot the fireballs into a blender, and know how to extinguish it.

Dudes almost set the studio where they shot "How Long Have You Known?" on fire -- fortunately only one scary moment in what has otherwise been a pretty sweet ride for Smith and his band of swirling, motorik-meets-post-punk-meets-neo-grunge pop purveyors. Starting with songs conceived in a Bushwick loft a year ago, he assembled Colby Hewitt, West Coast drummer of some renown thanks to stints in several bands including Smith Westerns; Devin Ruben Perez, a Brooklyn fixture who's long played guitar but never wanted to join a band, until DIIV, and that was only after doing Smith's astrological chart; and Andrew Bailey, a longtime friend from Connecticut's St. Luke's - a prep school that Smith was kicked out of after only a year and change.

So there is life after expulsion after all! Particularly for Z. Cole Smith, whose band is about to release its debut Oshin June 26th on favorite Brooklyn label Captured Tracks. It's a keeper. And so is this week's Face Time, featuring music and conversation with DIIV.

More episodes can be found here: www.noisevox.org/content/face-time.