Ugly Casanova - Things I Don't Remember

MAY 21 2002 · 12:00

Ugly Casanova - Things I Don't Remember (2002) Era: Post-Millennial Indie Emergence (2002–2006) - Shot circa 2002 for Sub Pop's Ugly Casanova side project but shelved and not publicly released until ~2006, bridging early-digital lo-fi aesthetics with the Pacific Northwest indie underground at the height of Sub Pop's second cultural wave. High curatorial value as a documented case of a shelved music video from a critically acclaimed indie project whose cultural visibility grew retroactively. The video encapsulates early-2000s Sub Pop underground aesthetics, the Pacific Northwest indie supergroup moment, and the DIY music video tradition. Its delayed public release also makes it a useful case study in how catalog artifacts gain new meaning through an artist's subsequent mainstream success. Context: Ugly Casanova was a side project of Modest Mouse frontman Isaac Brock, whose single album 'Sharpen Your Teeth' was released on Sub Pop on May 21, 2002. The project drew on a Pacific Northwest indie supergroup, including Brian Deck, Tim Rutili (Califone/Red Red Meat), Pall Jenkins (The Black Heart Procession), and John Orth (Holopaw), and was initially shrouded in an elaborate fictional mythology around a character named Edgar Graham. The video for 'Things I Don't Remember' was produced during the album cycle but went unreleased for several years, finally surfacing around 2006 when Modest Mouse's mainstream success cast new light on Brock's back catalog. Its belated release positions it as a cultural artifact doubly displaced in time, aesthetically rooted in early 2000s indie DIY filmmaking while circulating during the mid-2000s indie blog era. Director notes: The video was produced in association with the 2002 Sub Pop release of 'Sharpen Your Teeth' but was not publicly released at the time. SPIN reported in 2006 that Ugly Casanova was 'finally releasing their video for Things I Don't Remember off 2002's Sharpen Your Teeth,' characterizing it as a shelved or lost video belatedly surfacing following increased attention on Isaac Brock due to Modest Mouse's mainstream breakthrough. The video's visual qualities, warm toning, fast montage, low-motion camera work, and surrealist imagery, are consistent with low-budget indie video production of the early 2000s Sub Pop era. No production company, cinematographer, or director credit has been located in any verified source.