I’m disappointed to inform you that the video for “Hellbound” by the Breeders, which I saw on 120 Minutes in the early 90s and therefore know exists, is unavailable on the internet. The closest I can get to a video from Pod, therefore, is this video for “Safari,” the title track from their follow-up EP, and final release to feature Tanya Donelly on guitar. In a way, this is a good thing, because the video for “Safari” is far more interesting than the video for “Hellbound” (scene from the latter in which blood drips onto Kim Deal’s face as she’s singing notwithstanding). For those in the know, “Safari” is an obvious tribute to Black Sabbath’s 1971 video for “Paranoid,” right down to Kim Deal’s brown leather jacket—identical to the one Ozzy’s wearing in the original video. Another fun thing to watch for—Kelley Deal’s almost complete inability to play guitar. At about 59 seconds into the video, there’s a clear shot of her staring vexedly at the neck of her guitar as she concentrates on getting the chord shapes right. I wouldn’t have noticed this, but when the Breeders were interviewed on 120 Minutes in 1993, around the time of Last Splash’s release, the video for “Safari” was played and she and Kim cracked jokes about how Kelley basically couldn’t play the song at the time they filmed the video. In a later interview that I read in some print magazine (Rolling Stone? Ray Gun? Who knows?), Kelley made a comment about playing lead guitar being easy, which Kim responded to by pointing out that she still only knew how to play about 20 songs, all of them by The Breeders. It seems pretty clear that nepotism was a key element in Kelley Deal’s becoming famous, because no one other than her sister would have hired her as a guitarist.
In an unrelated note, I’m almost entirely sure that the drummer you see in this video is not Britt Walford. I’ve seen Slint play, and Walford plays drums in the conventional cross-handed position. The drummer in this video, by contrast, plays open-handed. It could be that this is Jon Mattock, credited with playing drums on the song “Safari,” even though Walford played on the rest of the EP. Or maybe Walford, in his reticence to be officially identified with the Breeders, refused to appear in the video, and was replaced by some generic stand-in. It could be that more thorough Googling would locate the answer for me, but I haven’t found it so far.
You know, I love “Hellbound” and all, but I’m glad I was forced to post this video in its place. “Safari” is one of my top three Breeders songs ever. Its dark, foreboding feel and snarling distorted guitars make it their heaviest song ever, making the Sabbath tribute video doubly apt. And really, who can resist the sight of Kim Deal using syncopated gasps as part of a chorus vocal, and trying not to grin as she does so? This video is awesome. This song is awesome. Everything about this is awesome.
