Jon Hamm Picks Up A Hitchhiking Yeti in This Week’s Holy Hunter of SXSW Music Videos

If you’re like me and have the sort of outer layer that calls to mind a see-through common house gecko, you belong indoors with the rest of the pasty cinephiles. For this reason SXSW Music Videos are precisely the best of both worlds, culling the choicest from a vast landscape of genres and visual styles. Only a handful were featured here previously -- worthy of multiple viewings, of course. Here are the undisputed showcase favorites according to audible audience response:

 

In the Toben Seymour-directed video for folk rock French duo Herman Dune’s “Tell Me Something I Don’t Know,” we hop into Jon Hamm’s convertible Impala (second time for me) alongside a kindly, on-the-run yeti puppet. However unlikely the pair, they set off on a precious buddy-adventure incapable of inspiring anything less than one giant goddamned grin.

Marieke Verbiesen shows off some sensational animation chops in a recent collaboration with heavy-electro Dutch duo Baskerville. In their stop-motion monster video for the track “Reloaded,” a bevy of nightmare-inspired clay critters take to the streets after a four-eyed scientist’s butterfingers result in a complete lab meltdown. Sidenote: the tampon torpedoes spark additional fear for women who spent an undisclosed number of adolescent years horrified by the possibility of contracting toxic shock syndrome.

West London-based Jack of all trades, Son of Kick’s video for “Playing the Villian” is quickly climbing my list of unexpected favorites. Respected Australian creative collective The Glue Society directs as we follow a trio of pubescent Grand Theft Auto junkies in a foiled attempt to steal a Beemer. To their surprise the car is effectively armed with hemorrhaging-, pants peeing- and vomit-inducing bass. I’d say we’ve finally rendered Viper car alarms and Club brakes useless.

Scandinavian genre-bending outfit Whomadewho need much more than a Kleenex in the William Stahl directed video for "Every Minute Alone." After a brief introduction to the leading, mewling men attending a self-help seminar called “Coping with Existence,” we unearth the root of each individual’s tears. Whether it’s trouble hanging a Wes Anderson poster, assembling Ikea furniture, or simply spilling milk, it’s all just very, very unbearably sad. And an Amelia Bedelia-like response to the rhetorical, “Why don’t you cry about it?” results in much laughter.

Dishonorable mention goes to the showcase opener, an entirely NSFW video for The Good The Bad’s “030” in which a randy lady has no qualms getting freaky-naughty (and very objectum sexual) with a guitar. Just as I thought, “Hey, you’re doing it wrong,” some pubes made their big-screen debut in time with the arrival of my chosen theater snack. The innocent Drafthouse waiter chirped, “Here are your gummies!”