Jack Penate - 'Second Minute Or Hour'
There's something about Jack Penate that really reminds me of a comic book hero. It's not anyone massively rippling and muscley, like Superman, or grotesque and deformed, like the Thing. No, the cartoon character who Jack most resembles is the Billy Whizz, out of the Beano. This is not because he's got the same haircut, or because he wears a jumper with all lightening down it, but because he never, ever, ever, ever, EVAH keeps still.
Go to a Jack Penate concert, and you'll come away convinced that someone had made the band perform on a hotplate, or that Jack wears an actual hot plate down the back of his pants. Watch a Jack Penate video and you will see a man whose every tiny strum of the guitar is matched with a physical jerk or twitch across his entire body. Look at 'Spit At Stars', if you don't believe me, his lower leg seems to have about nine ankles.
So, to get around this, the very clever people who've remade the video for Jack's first single - which is being re-released - have made him run and run and run and run all the way down a seafront promenade, all the while singing along with his own song, and he's wearing a shirt (top button undone for once) AND a hoody-jacket. Sweaty!
When these are the kind of lengths you have to go to just to keep your star from vibrating like a ping-pong ball on a washing machine in his own promotional video, it's surely time to consider asking the star to maybe cut down on the caffiene? Maybe drink a few less sugary drinks, or keep the quadruple espressos down to one a week?
I'm not telling anyone how to live their lives, just saying there are always options BEFORE you go down the route of creating a video just to try and wear down a singer's endless reserves of natural energy.
Golly, can you imagine the kind of songs a tired-out Jack Penate would come up with? I mean this already sounds like the Kooks at double-tempo, but would a half-speed Jack song just be the Kooks? Well, if they had just filmed him singing this song AFTER the run, not during, we'd know wouldn't we?
Thanks a lot, video-people!
Download: Out now
CD Released: September 24th
(Fraser McAlpine)
Comments
He reminds me of Ricky Wilson - WAY too much energy! Love the song.
And I'm sure I've been to that seaside...