Step right up then, because he's the life of the Greenskeepers' very popular party.
The Chicago-based rock/house/funk act has a bona fide internet phenomenonon its hands with "Lotion," the first single from its sophomore album Pleetch, which Classic Recordings/Om Records plans to release Jan. 25, said publicist Gunnar Hissam on Monday.
"Lotion," a guitar-heavy ode to the unforeseeably lovable Buffalo Bill, is built around one of the character's trademark lines in The Silence of the Lambs. Vocalist Nick Maurer chants "It puts the lotion on its skin/Or else it gets the hose again" at the chorus.
Creepy perhaps, but the real notoriety comes from the "Lotion" video, which is comprised exclusively of footage from the film re-edited to the track. In the video, which can be downloaded at the Greenskeepers' Web site, Bill stands over a well he keeps his victims in before he kills them. He lowers a bottle of lotion in a bucket to his captive and appears to sing the song's chorus. Other scenes show the killer, played by Ted Levine, in drag and appearing to dance to the music.
The video's popularity led the band-Maurer, James Curd, Mark Share and Coban Rudish-to create a second video remix for "Filipino Phil," another Pleetch track. That video, which can also be seen at the band's site, reconstitutes footage from the 1980s cult science fiction classic Forbidden Zone, with famed dwarf actor Hervé Villechaize (Fantasy Island) portraying Phil.
Both "Lotion" and "Filipino Phil" have become buzzed-about online hits, Hissam said.
"[The] videos have been downloaded, as of my last check, over 250,000 times," said Hissam. He adds that the innovative promotional material is only one of several facets of the campaign behind Pleetch, which features Chicago house hero Diz, as well as femmes fatales Colette and DJ Heather.
The band is planning a world tour that will kick off in January, with stops at the Winter Music Conference in Miami and South by Southwest in Austin, Tex. both expected in March, Hissam said.
"We'll [also] be hitting the rock/alternative scene a bit," Hissam said. That is a move Om, whose catalog is mainly deep house, lounge and underground hip-hop, is not normally known for.
Clubs will be kept in the loop, with the Colette-fronted "Keep It Down" a possible future single. The band also continues to release a variety of 12" singles on its three labels: Greenskeepers Music, Igloo and G-swing. The latest, according to the band's Web site, is remixes of "Go" on Greenskeepers Music, which features remixes by Honey Dijon, Joshua, Troydon and Face, and the Greenskeepers themselves.
In other Greenskeepers news, the act has contributed a remix to the EP supporting the Disney/Pixar smash film The Incredibles. The band's house mix of Michael Giacchino's score composition "Is That Incredible?" is available exclusively online at Apple's iTunes store as part of a three-remix package that also features UNKLE and Diplo. The remix EP reached the top five of the store's daily sales rankings in late October.
Stay tuned to dancemusic.about.com for a full Greenskeepers interview as the release of Pleetch nears.
