Nick Drake

Heath Ledger's Video For Nick Drake Song: Eerie Postscript To Actor's Death

22 Jan 2008 22:15:00 EST

Actor said he was 'obsessed' with long-dead singer.
By Jim Fraenkel, with additional reporting by Rodrigo Perez

Appearing at a news conference at the Venice Film Festival in September to promote the Bob Dylan biopic "I'm Not There," Heath Ledger, who died on Tuesday, spoke of his "obsession with an artist by the name of Nick Drake," an English-born singer/songwriter whom he characterized as a "very mysterious figure."

"I was obsessed with his story and his music and I pursued it for a while and still have hopes to kind of tell his story one day," a soft-spoken and fidgety Ledger told the assembled media, though he also said that any such aspirations had "faded away."

But in an eerie postscript to the actor's own death on Tuesday, MTV News has learned that Ledger recently shot and edited a music video for a Drake song called "Black Eyed Dog," so titled because of a Winston Churchill quote describing depression as such. It is also reportedly the last song Drake recorded before overdosing on antidepression medication in 1974 at the age of 26.

A representative for Drake's estate described the "gorgeous" and "extremely moving" clip as a stark black-and-white composition, consisting mainly of the director turning the camera on himself. In the end, Ledger is seen drowning himself in a bathtub.

The video, which has not been released commercially and has apparently not yet leaked to the Web, has been screened just twice, once last Labor Day weekend at the Bumbershoot festival in Seattle and a second time in October at "A Place to Be," an event honoring Drake held in Los Angeles.

Ledger also directed Ben Harper's video for "Morning Yearning" and announced plans to start a label with the singer called Masses Music Co. last year. The label's first signing was a singer from Ledger's hometown of Perth, Australia, named Grace Woodroofe; Ledger also directed a video for her cover of David Bowie's "Quicksand."

While Drake garnered just a cult following during his life, his music has enjoyed a renaissance in recent years. In 2000, Volkswagen scored a ubiquitous television ad with the title track from his 1972 album, Pink Moon, after which Drake's albums reportedly sold more in one month than they had in the previous 30 years. This past November, fans were treated to a limited-edition box set that included not only the three albums Drake recorded in his short career, but also a book and a DVD documentary about his life.

(Watch Heath Ledger talk about his evolution as an actor in a 2005 interview.)

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Nick Drake

Commercial Hits Collected On As Seen On TV

22 May 2001 18:11:00 EDT

Compilation will include songs by Nick Drake, Badly Drawn Boy, Trio, others.
By Brian Hiatt

The original idea was for companies like Mitsubishi and the Gap to use artists like Groove Armada and Badly Drawn Boy to sell cars and clothes. But in the end, it may be that Groove Armada and Badly Drawn Boy were simply using cars and clothes to sell their music.

Exhibit A: As Seen on TV: Songs From Commercials, due June 5 from the people behind the chart-topping Now That's I What Call Music compilations. As Seen on TV includes some of the more memorable TV ad songs of recent months, from late singer/songwriter Nick Drake's "Pink Moon" — featured in a much-remarked-upon Volkswagen ad — to Badly Drawn Boy's equally delicate "The Shining," which the Gap used in a winter-themed ad.

The 20-song album also includes Trio's new-wave nugget "Da Da Da I Don't Love You You Don't Love Me Aha Aha Aha," used in a Volkswagen ad, the Propellerheads and Shirley Bassey's "History Repeating," used in a Jaguar ad, and Groove Armada's "I See You Baby," used in a Mitsubishi commercial.

Fittingly, As Seen on TV's makers plan to promote the TV-commercial comp with TV spots of its own.

Adam Starr, the UTV Records product manager who dreamed up As Seen on TV, said he hopes the compilation will give more exposure to acts like Drake and Badly Drawn Boy, whose sales hardly match their critical acclaim.

"When the Nick Drake commercial first happened, people were half disgusted by it and half, like, 'Great, he's getting attention.' And that's kind of the gist of what this is about," Starr said Tuesday (May 22).

Other tracks on the album, which UTV A&R Vice President Jeff Moskow described as "either cool or kitschy," include Handsome Boy Modeling School's "Rock n' Roll (Could Never Hip Hop Like This)," the Orb's "Little Fluffy Clouds," the Buzzcocks' "What Do I Get?" and, of course, Styx's "Mr. Roboto." UTV isn't the first company to see potential profit in the boom of hip commercial soundtracks — Volkswagen itself recently released the collection Street Mix — Music From VW Commercials Volume 1, which includes the same Trio, Drake and Styx tracks (see "Volkswagen Rolls Out Mix CD With Styx, Trio, Other Commercial Hits").

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Volkswagen Rolls Out Mix CD With Styx, Trio, Other Commercial Hits

03 Apr 2001 18:52:00 EDT

VW Street Mix, Volume 1 to be sold via RadioVW web site, dealerships.
By Corey Moss

For several years Volkswagen has been relaunching musical careers as successfully as it has its own discontinued models. Thanks to Volkswagen's music-friendly commercials, the popularity of Trio, Styx and others has soared since the clips began airing during the mid-'90s — and you can bet they're grateful.

Now the car company that ignited the hip-commercial-music craze and created a new outlet for Moby and Sting is releasing VW Street Mix, Volume 1, a compilation CD featuring music from Volkswagen's first commercials.

Nick Drake's "Pink Moon," Trio's "Da Da Da" and Styx's "Mr. Roboto" are included, along with tracks from Hooverphonic, Spiritualized and Pitchshifter.

"We've been putting this together for a couple of years now," said Alan Pafenbach, whose Arnold Worldwide advertising firm creates the commercials for Volkswagen. "It doesn't have all of the songs we have used, but hopefully we will keep releasing CDs and getting them out there." Music fans have already demonstrated they will buy a song they like from a commercial. U.S. sales of Nick Drake's Pink Moon album rose from 6,000 copies, prior to the song's use in a Cabrio commercial, to 74,000 copies in 2000, according to Palm, which distributes Drake's music through Hannibal Records.

Volkswagen have pressed some 30,000 copies of VW Street Mix, Volume 1 and plan to sell them through the company's Internet radio station, RadioVW (www.radiovw.com), by the end of April. Local VW dealers will also eventually sell the CDs, Pafenbach said.

Track listing for VW Street Mix, Volume 1, according to Arnold Worldwide:

Nick Drake, "Pink Moon"
Hooverphonic, "Renaissance Affair"
Charles Mingus, "II BS"
Styx, "Mr. Roboto"
Master Cylinder, "Jung At Heart"
Ben Neill, "Turbonium X"
Pitchshifter, "Subject To Status"
Fluke, "Absurd"
Spiritualized, "Ladies And Gentlemen, We Are Floating In Space"
Trio, "Da Da Da"
Velocity Girl, "Sorry Again"
Psychic TV, "Roman P"

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