Does anyone else have mixed feelings about over-achievers? On the one hand you’ve gotta love them because they have the ability to put out high volumes of entertaining content for your enjoyment; but on the other hand, they make you feel like a lazy, sluggish half-human, incapable of more than one thought process at a time. Okay maybe this is taking it too far, but this is what I thought when I saw another email from Quang Dinh saying he had another project and wanted to premiere a new video for it.
For those who don’t know, Quang was once in a wee Melbourne band called Little Red, who unfortunately called it quits not long ago after achieving many accolades with their brand of 50s inspired rock and roll. Not one to rest on his laurels, Quang soon formed Naked Bodies featuring ragtime stylings a little like a lighter incarnation of Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds. When Naked Bodies decided to take a little time off touring Quang thought “Fuck it, I’m gonna do some solo stuff for a little while.”And so it’s with great pleasure we introduce you to QD, the solo moniker of the over-achieving Quang Dinh, and his brilliant video for Oedipus Rex.
Quang Dinh is a busy man, constantly writing and creating (and maturating). QD is his solo project and Oedipus Rex is his debut single; a cautionary tale of chronic masturbation.
The track, of course, is a frolicking rock ‘n’ roll brawl. Featuring chimey guitars and rather haunting Beach Boys harmonies, Oedipus Rex is exactly what we’ve come to expect from Dinh. The lyrics are slathered in sleaze, dictating a cautionary tale of chronic masturbation and its effect on the mind of the masturbator; “Distracted by a masturbating sloth / It sits in the corner and it can’t get off,” drawls Dinh through a fuzzy blanket of 50s-inspired production.
The video, directed by Courtney Constantinou, features our main man dressed in destitute, prancing around out front of the Victoria State Library. He prays to the godly figures of Leonard Cohen and Nina Simone, shoeless, crowned by leaves and carrying a staff. Of course, people get involved with it all (who wouldn’t) as he makes tourists uncomfortable with his manic dance moves. Things get weirder when the lipstick comes out and he begins defacing the images of his heroes Cohen and Simone, along with his own face. It’s hard not to imagine a Little Red fan walking past and making a wide birth from this barefoot manic. The thought makes the whole thing hugely entertaining. You go, Quang, do your thing.
Oedipus Rex features on an EP due out very soon. Accompanying it will be a 16 page zine including “Lyrics, Poetry, Mystery seeds (For Spring), Dead flower for you, Your horoscope, An ego testicle, A space to deface, The meaning of life” – all created by Dinh.
“I’ve decided to release it like this because the Zine is just as important as the EP,” he says. “It contains my soul and I’d prefer to lose my soul in a toilet cubicle in the real world than lose it on some data server in Silicon Valley.” Get it here!
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