We hardcore fans of David Lynch's signature blend of West Coast decay and psychedelic phantasmagoria will lap up just about anything the man brews, so long as it's a moving picture. His “Signature Cup Coffee”? That got mypulse racing! Cooking quinoa? Why the hell not? Amateur meteorology? Bit dull, though granted this is LA weather. Now Lynch ups the ante with a batshit music video for “Crazy Clown Time,” the title track from his 2011 solo album (explored by our own Kayla Blatchley last November).

Clocking in at seven minutes (the approximate length of his classic Rabbitsepisodes), “Crazy Clown Time” is described by Lynch as “intense psychotic backyard craziness, fueled by beer.” No Mystery Man nor Frank Booth, though there's plenty of classic Lynchian imagery to enthrall and confuse us. I invite you to cue up the video and join me as I plunge deep into aMulholland Drive-style puzzle box:

0:01 Lost Highway-like onscreen static (also like Rammstein's “Rammstein” music video, directed by Lynch for the Lost Highway soundtrack)
0:04 engulfing flames, uh Twin Peaks...? (and, by title, Fire Walk With Me)
0:07 distant horizontal shot, used in Blue Velvet's drug den (the Roy Orbison “In Dreams” scene)
0:14 Lynch in profile resembling Eraserhead's Man in the Planet
0:32 woman sprawled on the grass looks vaguely like Masuimi Max, who cameoed in Inland Empire
0:40 from this angle, Bobby (with the “red shirt”) resembles Justin Theroux from Mulholland Drive

Pausing to transcribe a choice lyric verbatim: “Danny poured the beer. Danny poured beer all over Sally. Dannyyyy poured the beer. Danny poured the beer. Danny poured the beeeeeeer all over Sally.”

1:57 Sally starts kicking Danny's ass, a la Inland Empire: that part where Laura Dern and Julia Ormond get in a tussle on Hollywood Boulevard
2:10 choreographed jamming to the beat, ditto a cathartic Inland Empire(plus that red-dress blonde recalls Mulholland Drive's Laura Harring “in disguise”)
2:45 choice lyric: “It was crazy clown time. Crazy clowwwn tiiime. It was real fun.”
3:16 Petey (the '80s punk) lights his hair on fire. Taking a cue from Lynch's description of a painting in his exhibition at Jack Tilton Gallery: “It's our world, and all it is is a boy lighting a fire. And here is his neighbor, the neighborhood girl whom he likes a lot.” As in, quit reading so damn much into it.
4:00 echoes, noises, tape effects, jarring camera movement, i.e. all signature Lynchian elements: Eraserhead on down the line, conjuring strobe-lit frights from previous films (Inland Empire: Nikki confronts The Phantom; Lost Highway's videotape; Mulholland Drive's Club Silencio)

If you've listened to the Crazy Clown Time album track, then Lynch's video is incredibly literal. Lines like: “Bobby, he had a red shirt. Susie, she had hers off completely” become just that, the sorta-Justin Theroux-looking dude pounding back two beers, the blonde woman grinding against a Blue Velvet suburban lawn. This leaves the inclusion of a football player (recalling album track “Football Game”?) and the mustachioed guy on the lawn total mysteries. (Perhaps Twin Peaks kingpin Jean Renault?)

But no matter how bewildering it gets, I am heartened by Lynch's own words in an interview about his artwork:

"You are interpreting it very well yourself. It strikes you a certain way, gives you a certain feeling. And that's it. If there was meant to be more, there would be a whole text for it. It is what it is."

Image: two still frames from Youtube, photo-chopped by the author

As one who listened to the Twin Peaks soundtrack in her automobile on a regular basis, I can assure you that Crazy Clown Time is an appropriate name for a David Lynch album. I listened to the Twin Peaks soundtrack because it made driving that much more frightening and surreal. It added an air of danger, an air of very real threat to my well-being. Why would you want to feel safe in a car? Especially safe from your own mind? That’s for the unadventurous.

Crazy Clown Time is far less dangerous. Why did he make it? Because why wouldn't he. Also, have you listened to his films? David Lynch has been responsible for putting out a fair amount of awesome in the ear department. Just take a minute to listen to "Pink Room" by Badalamenti (Lynch’s composer for most everything). It's actually very similar to the style and tone of Crazy Clown Time.

I am not a music critic, by the way. For an actual legitimate "review," I suggest going here. I do, however, very much like the sexy drawl, strutting drums, and honky tonkish guitar thing happening throughout a lot of the album. Some of the songs are more upbeat, some more slow, but there’s always a little strut—a little sly smooth sexiness.

But then the vocals. Okay okay, the first track with Karen O is pretty damn awesome. I support that track one hundred percent. What I don’t understand—and where I think the true Lynch comes in to poke me, saying, "Hey, this is a David Lynch album. Not another kind of album but a David Lynch album. Beduh."—is the distortion on the vocals. Sometimes it’s like a whisper, other times it’s like a hyperactive computer child? Then it’s monotone and droney? And the effect, for me, is just goofy as all hell. On the other hand, if it weren’t for the bizarre vocals, the tracks would just be kind of okay, enjoyable songs. And I doubt David Lynch wants to make okay, enjoyable songs.

Also, to be hugely unfair, I’ve become obsessed with the soundtrack to Drive. And the main song I listen to on repeat, "Nightcall" by Kavinsky (featuring CSS's Lovefoxxx), has excellent distortion on vocals! So good. The distortion is perfect and the lyrics are just creepy and ambiguous enough. Listen.

It’s not fair of me, in the midst of my lovefest with the Drive soundtrack, to then listen to poor David—alone, without a film to sing for, without a room to furnish with sound. At least I’m keeping it in the family: Johnny Jewel, the man responsible for the Drive soundtrack, pays homage to Badalamenti in this interview.

As they say in "Nightcall," "I'm going to show you where it's dark, but have no fear."

Photo: sabotagetimes.com