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Sound Tracks: “Lazy Susan” by Sweet Thing
Believe it or not, music videos still exist. Sound Tracks trolls the internet to find the best and the worst of local artists’ new singles and the good, bad, or otherwise noteworthy visuals that accompany them.
While we’ve written before about Sweet Thing guitarist Nick Rose’s solo album, we’ve yet to make mention of the band itself. No real reason. We like them. We liked them especially when we were anticipating their debut full-length album. The expectation set up by of one of the most charismatic and composure-relinquishing live performances in the city (one that pretty quickly got them scooped up by major label EMI) was likely too unrealistic to be met and, well, yeah. It was good—we just should have maybe seen the Maroon 5 flawlessness coming from a mile away.
Sweet Thing does wear the shiny pop well, though, and in their latest video, “Lazy Susan,” they play to that with the same easy, harmless goofing we saw in their second video for “Change of Season.” Directed by bassist Morgan Waters (who’s no stranger to either side of the camera: he’s a co-creator/lead actor in the Gemini-winning rockumentary series Cock’d Gunns, among other television writing and acting credits), it’s got a girl (Susan!) being lazy on a couch, on-screen text that narrates the performance (“Hit Band,” “Tambourine,” “Piano,”) as well as some non-sequitur bits like “Turtle on a Truck” and “Practical Jokes.” It’s a real turtle, by the way, riding on the back of a plastic toy truck, and in the most controversial moment of the video, it looks like the little guy almost falls off. Hopefully that wasn’t the tenth take.
The song itself is a total ear worm that, in the chorus especially, hints at the moody Motown influence that makes Sweet Thing’s harder, more upbeat tracks so deeply contagious. It’s cute! They’re cute. They’re…going on tour with Down With Webster. Let’s hope Waters puts some of his hidden-camera show experience to use on that tour.