Here’s the final installment in the Polyphonic Spree‘s “13 Days of Polyphonic Xmas” 2012 Advent calendar: a “Christmas galactic adventure” that follows the interstellar voyage of two wide-eyed alien children named Ooh & Aah, directed by Josh David Jordan. Perfect visuals to accompany the Spree’s lofty psychedelic version of “Silver Bells” — taken from the band’s Holidaydream — a spacey, decidedly Tripping Daisy-esque take on the holiday classic, which makes sense given School of Seven Bells‘ TD connection. The Polyphonic Spree’s Holiday Extravaganza returns home to Dallas’ historic Lakewood Theater this Saturday evening.
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http://vimeo.com/groups/silverbells
Josh Jordan won the Vimeo contest? He’s a member of the band (check wikipedia).
That’s so low, glad I never donated to their kickstarter.
I actually entered the competition, pretty sad the band would do that.
i didn’t realize it was a competition until you linked those entries, and i don’t know if he is/was part of the band, but be real, his video is by far the best of those, and it’s not even close
Josh is an actor, creative director and an all around pretty amazing talented human. ( I suspect thats why he won) You may like to get familiar with him. By the way, he has never been in the band.
No doubt it is a good video. I feel you would have to be in the band though be able to make a video to work with this song. It was just too long and foot dragging to get any sort of imagination/ creativity to make a sweet video. If all the videos were uninteresting and blah, then I guess that’s what this song reflects and that’s what they should have been able to choose from. Shouldn’t be able to make a competition and dismiss the actual people who participated.
like the previous commenter said, the guy was never in the band
The guy has obvious links to the band, married to a singer and he directed their winterwonderland video as well. To be honest I don’t think any of the videos I’ve seen are particularly amazing (including the one above).
But like you said, they should have picked a winner fairly instead of doing this. If I had spent time on an entry for them all just to be completely ignored I’d be unhappy, wouldn’t you?
You realize I had nothing to do with any competition right? Contact the band and let them know how you feel
What the hell? This wasn’t even in the Vimeo group!
Rigged contest. My son entered, he’s not too happy.
I wonder if we’ll get the signed artwork we were all promised…
Hey guys,
In the middle of prepping for our Dallas Xmas show but wanted to take the time to address your concerns regarding the “Silver Bells” video contest.
First off, thanks to all of the entrants. We watched them all before making our decision. We have seen the comments on our vimeo, gvsb, forum, etc. Let me take the time to clear up any questions/comments I have seen so there is no confusion.
We announced the video contest since we did not have a commissioned director to finish the “13 Days of Polyphonic”/advent calendar concept which is to present a video to each song on “Holidaydream: Sounds of the Holidays Vol. One.”
We made the contest open to whoever wished to enter. We did stipulate in the rules that the video needed to be uploaded to the group but a few entries did not abide by that but were uploaded prior to the deadline. Here is a video that was uploaded just straight to Vimeo https://vimeo.com/54724666 They had initially cut it to the “fast” version of Silver Bells but re-edited it to the “slow” version. Here is the link to Josh Jordan’s original upload of his video which he uploaded directly to vimeo not the group https://vimeo.com/55505414
We did not feel the need to be stringent-hard fast on the rules as we also had a couple of entrants that were having trouble uploading that we allowed to do past the deadline. They had done the work and wanted them to have the opportunity to enter.
Josh directed one clip “Winter Wonderland” and another clip where he documented our photo shoot set to “Chestnuts” from “Holidaydream.” Josh is married to Jessica Jordan who in in the choir. You may remember him as the sick band member from the episode of Scrubs we were featured in. He has never been a member of the band. His main gig is acting and he also makes films. He and Jason Whitbeck entered our “Hold Me Now” video contest back in the day, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2MS8ZY678ps They did not win. His work has obviously progressed since then.
We were aware he was making a video for the contest. We did let him know that he ran the risk if there was a better video then he would obviously not be compensated. We did not give any feedback, help on the video, or fund its production. We all viewed the videos and came to the consensus separately that Josh’s video was the best of the bunch. We do realize that art is subjective but our tastes all leaned to the aliens on a quest for more xmas.
I hope that this clears up questions and concerns. Again thanks to all the entrants. We plan to share the other entrants via our facebook page the days leading up to Christmas but other than that they will not be used for any other purposes.
Happy Holidays and to a Happy New Year,
The Polyphonic Spree