How the Yeah Yeah Yeahs turned Kansas City into ‘the edge of the world’

Now enjoying in Instances Sq. in New York Metropolis: the Yeah Yeah Yeahs video “Spitting off the Fringe of the World,” that includes Fragrance Genius.

The video was directed and produced by two Kansas Metropolis Artwork Institute graduates and filmed in Kansas Metropolis.

“The shoot in Kansas Metropolis was dream-like,” the Yeah Yeah Yeahs mentioned in an announcement, “the goals you’ve after consuming one thing actually greasy proper earlier than mattress; weird, poetic, and intense.”

Director and artist Cody Critcheloe, now primarily based in New York, and Megan Mantia, now a Los Angeles-based producer and artwork director, filmed in a stretch of land close to the Kansas Metropolis Worldwide Airport, a former Kansas Metropolis, Kansas, punk venue, and atop a downtown Kansas Metropolis constructing, amongst different areas.

Critcheloe and Mantia are longtime collaborators, beginning about 15 years in the past in Kansas Metropolis with the artwork efficiency band SSION.

“He did a movie that was funded by Grand Arts, and he satisfied me to be the coordinator of it earlier than I knew what a producer even was,” mentioned Mantia.

“And he was like, ‘I do know you are able to do it. I do know you’ve these abilities,’” she added. “And it type of led to the remainder of my life.”

The video, for a single from the Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ first new album in practically a decade (scheduled to be launched on Sept. 30), additionally continues a 20-year reference to Critcheloe and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs.

In 2002, Critcheloe was a KCAI pupil visiting New York Metropolis when he first met singer Karen Orzolek, often known as Karen O. As he advised DIY, he was “actually carrying round a backpack filled with VHS tapes with all my stop-motion animations to offer out to individuals.” And he handed her considered one of his tapes.

Critcheloe was tapped to design the art work for the band’s 2003 debut album, “Fever to Inform,” with a subway-inspired graffiti cowl.

Since then, he’s carried out his personal music with SSION and directed music movies for different artists similar to Kylie Minogue, Robyn, Peaches, and Gossip, and now, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs.

Mantia mentioned she returns to Kansas Metropolis at the least every year for initiatives with Critcheloe and Christopher Good (who served as one of many affiliate producers on the video).

“Cody and I do spend a variety of our time and effort bringing initiatives right here and dealing right here,” Mantia mentioned, “and championing how fantastic it’s to work in Kansas Metropolis.”

Kansas Metropolis, she mentioned, offers extra freedom than Los Angeles, with fewer permits and a supportive group.

“And, you already know, it permits us to do a variety of the magic that you simply see in our movies,” she mentioned. “We couldn’t pull them off in any respect in different cities.”

For instance, she mentioned, a farmer who was “thrilled to have an inventive challenge occurring on his farm” and didn’t thoughts the crew constructing a brief mud pit on his property.

“I am so pleased with them,” mentioned Succotash chef and proprietor Beth Barden, credited as one of many two caterers on the Yeah Yeah Yeahs video.

“I feel the world of each of them and simply actually needed to have the ability to make this as profitable for them as attainable with simply any small little bit of assist I might give,” Barden mentioned.

Critcheloe labored at Barden’s restaurant years in the past within the Metropolis Market (she moved in 2009 to her present location at 2601 Holmes). She’s accomplished manufacturing catering for bands and industrial shoots and a season’s value of catering for “Queer Eye.”

In March, when Barden pulled as much as cater an outside shoot, the crew was filming frontwoman Karen Orzolek standing on high of a limousine on the land close to the airport.

“So it was like pulling right into a aspect road in the course of nowhere that went from identical to rural idyllic to love this superb type of lovely like cinematic punk type of expertise,” she mentioned. “It was nice.”

One other little bit of film magic: recreating FOKL, a former DIY punk venue in a Kansas Metropolis, Kansas, basement. Ramos Upholstery is now housed on-site, and Mantia mentioned they opened up the basement for the shoot.

“And it was type of a return to what FOKL was, a number of the unique spray paint was on the partitions,” Mantia mentioned.

“And so a number of the individuals who used to stay there got here to the shoot and have been extras,” she mentioned. “After which their return to the basement was to see a non-public present by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs for like 40 individuals.”

That footage is on the finish of the video, she mentioned, “so that you simply see the enjoyment within the room. Like all of that was very actual and it’s actually particular.”

“We love this video a lot it hurts, thanks to the cream of the crop who labored on it,” the Yeah Yeah Yeahs posted on Instagram. “Watch, stream, repeat.”