Carrie Brownstein Brings the Pain in New Sleater-Kinney Video
What if Glow took a page from Pleasantville, you ask? Ask no more!
In the brand-new video for Sleater-Kinney’s “Can I Go On,” living room teatime collapses into plate-smashing, mud-wrestling revelry. It’s a simple idea perfectly executed: Carrie Brownstein, who shares guitar and vocals duties with bandmate Corin Tucker, takes the tension in the song’s opening lines (“Everyone I know is tired / Everyone I know is wired”), and the buttoned-up heroines run wild with it, going from tired to wired in gorgeous black and white.
We get windblown lip-syncs, fuzzed-out guitar licks, and plenty of shattered porcelain in the four-minute clip, shot last month in New York and directed by Ashley Connor, who has also worked with the likes of Jenny Lewis and Angel Olsen. Brownstein is credited with the video’s conception, and it’s far from her first screen work: the Portlandia cocreator also recently directed an episode of the Portland-filmed series Shrill.
“Can I Go On” is the second single from the Portland band’s latest LP, The Center Won’t Hold, released August 16 and produced by guitar goddess/David-Bowie-torch-carrier St. Vincent (who, for the gossip-prone, once dated Brownstein). The band—down drummer Janet Weiss, who plays on the record but left the group in July—will play a two-night stint at the Crystal Ballroom on November 19–20. (Tickets for the first night are already sold out.)
No word on the venue’s rules re: plate smashing and mud wrestling, but we’re staying optimistic.