{"id":970,"date":"2010-01-30T14:58:14","date_gmt":"2010-01-30T20:58:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.micro-film-magazine.com\/cublog\/?p=970"},"modified":"2014-09-06T14:56:28","modified_gmt":"2014-09-06T20:56:28","slug":"belatedly-hitting-a-burnt-beat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.micro-film-magazine.com\/cublog\/?p=970","title":{"rendered":"Belatedly hitting a BURNT beat"},"content":{"rendered":"

In our typically finite wisdom, we\u2019ve decided to wrap up some unfinished business on C-U Blogfidential<\/strong> before it becomes lost in the dusty trail left by 2009 A.D. \u201cFinite,\u201d as in this effort will run concurrent with our continuing work on the C-U Confidential<\/strong> twofer as well as our advisory role in next week\u2019s IMC Film Festival<\/strong> in Urbana<\/strong>. As long-time readers know, once past the Ides of March<\/strong> we tend to slow down with on-line activity as we heap last-minute love on the print opus right before press time, so please bear with our backtracking quest if it seems to fall off the proverbial cliff.<\/p>\n

That said, we keep finding good reason to mention the following music video to help illustrate how busy Matt HarsH<\/strong> and Sam Ambler<\/strong> have been with cranking out local-pop promos. However, we also keep forgetting to give dedicated props \u2013 such as, embedding it here for your viewing pleasure. A prior attempt to file a report fizzled due to bad timing, so we apologize to Megan Johns<\/a><\/strong> and present the train-bound accompaniment to her sinewy track, \u201cThe Beat was Burnt<\/strong>,\u201d right now:<\/p>\n

<\/embed><\/object><\/p>\n

Taped early last summer at the Monticello Railway Museum<\/strong> in Monticello, IL<\/strong>, THE BEAT WAS BURNT<\/strong> finds a pouty Johns following the lady friend (Rachael Johns<\/strong>) of a lovesick beau (Remy Tipei<\/strong>) on board the next train out of town. Considering the deliciously sharp key of the song and the dominance of shadows, it\u2019s a foregone conclusion that friendly small talk will not take place once Johns makes her way back to the sleeping car where her target has retired. Look quickly for familiar faces behind the Forties fatigues, including Morgan Orion<\/strong> as a passenger and Mark Rubel<\/strong> as a clerk in the train station.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

It would be proper for CUBlog <\/strong>to draw the obvious parallel. Just a little more than a decade ago, local session musician Kristen Johns<\/strong> (yes, Megan\u2019s mother) and her friends in the Champaign Underground<\/strong> collective convinced Jay Rosenstein<\/strong> to help them shoot and edit a music video for the song, \u201cDelta Queen<\/strong>.\u201d Through props, lighting, and a bit of sleight of hand, they turned Vriner\u2019s Confectionery<\/strong> (now Memphis on Main<\/strong>) in downtown Champaign <\/strong>into a riverboat gambler\u2019s haven. Nearly every cast member \u2013 Grizz Stevens, Leila Ramagopal, Matt Stewart, Lisa Boucher<\/strong>, Mark and Nancy Rubel<\/strong>, et al.<\/em> \u2013 boasted music credentials, reflecting the all-star vibe of the Underground\u2019s three albums.<\/p>\n

You can read about that epic in MICRO-FILM 2<\/strong>, assuming you\u2019ve lucked into a copy since it hit the shelves almost 10 years ago. (If not, who better than CUBlog <\/strong>to hook you up?<\/a>) Back in the present, we will hopefully see additional Megan Johns tunes transmogrified into creative visuals by the HarsH\/Ambler tandem in the near future. As with last week\u2019s Elsinore <\/strong>treat<\/a>, BEAT <\/strong>was directed by HarsH and photographed by Ambler, while \u201cThe Beat was Burnt\u201d is a new, stripped-down version of a song Johns first recorded with her former band, The Greytones<\/strong>, for the 2007 album Penumbra<\/strong><\/em>. Fellow Greytones Mike Arnold, Dave Cohen<\/strong>, and Garrick Nelson<\/strong> were planning to appear in the clip above but schedules ultimately didn’t jive, Johns tells CUBlog<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

~ Jason Pankoke<\/p>\n

[Updated 3\/22\/10, 1:15 a.m. CST]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Better late than never, Megan Johns pulls into the C-U Blogfidential station with her music video “The Beat was Burnt,” produced by Matt HarsH and Sam Ambler.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29,20],"tags":[202,226,201,364,227],"class_list":["post-970","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-music-video","category-videos-du-c-u","tag-matt-harsh","tag-megan-johns","tag-sam-ambler","tag-the-beat-was-burnt","tag-the-greytones"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.micro-film-magazine.com\/cublog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/970","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.micro-film-magazine.com\/cublog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.micro-film-magazine.com\/cublog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.micro-film-magazine.com\/cublog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.micro-film-magazine.com\/cublog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=970"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.micro-film-magazine.com\/cublog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/970\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.micro-film-magazine.com\/cublog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=970"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.micro-film-magazine.com\/cublog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=970"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.micro-film-magazine.com\/cublog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=970"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}