Both these vids are great montages of archival video and super-8 film. They would appear to be made by the same person, but according to YouTube, Let’s Build a Car was compiled by Karth Granger, and Midget Submarines by Nik Coleman. Hmmm, a doppelganger, perhaps?? Both clips, it is also noted, are included in Secretly Canadian’s reissue on CD of “A Trip To Marineville.” Anyway, I got into a Nikki Sudden mood recently after recalling an eerily dead show of his I saw a few tours before the one at Knitting Factory in 2006 hours after the gig. And then I got sad and thought about how amazing – and sad! – so much of his music is, and decided to go back to the beginning, and voila! I came across these little gems! If you don’t know The Swell Maps, who’re billed as a postpunk band, here’s an interesting Pitchfork review of “A Trip To Marineville”, and Brooklyn Vegan‘s obit on Nikki Sudden. Here’s Sudden in one of his diary entries: “The other day I came across a description of me on Ebay, “NIKKI SUDDEN ~ JACOBITES ~ INDIE PUNK GLAM”. I’ve always hated being described as ‘Indie’ – I can’t think of a worse insult… I wouldn’t ever claim to have been a punk either. Swell Maps missed that particular epithet by a year. Our first single, Read About Seymour, was released in December 1977 but we were never punks. I’m not sure what we were but I know better than any of those who have tried to pigeonhole us over the years. The descriptions that have been applied to me sometimes beggar description. A week or so back Tip, which is a kind of Time Out for Berlin, and who, seeing they’ve been writing about me for years, should know better, described me as Alternative Folk. Alternative Folk! I’ve had all kinds of epithets thrown at me from Glam Rock Legend to Underground Superstar. The worst, well the most inaccurate ever, was ‘dark wave poet’. The best – the most accurate – is still waiting to find itself. Glam Rock Superstar? I prefer English Rock’n Roll myself…” Maybe one day we’ll get to read the autobiography that seems only to have been printed in Italian?! Here’s a recent WFMU archive of his live show there also in 2006…ENJOY!
