The Benshi

My buddy and long time collaborator Jason Ensler just directed a music video for Vintage Trouble (currently on tour with The Who), featuring our long time buddy Ty Taylor and with hilarious moments from Groundlings and fellow workshop instructor Jeremy Rowley. Enjoy!

TY TAYLOR AND VINTAGE TROUBLE. Rockin’ the gymnasium.

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VINTAGE TROUBLING

In the late 90’s my film school classmates Jason Ensler, Jay Lowi and I met Ty Taylor who was in a great band in Hollywood called, Dakota Moon. But they had the bad fortune of launching their second and biggest album within days of September 11, 2001 and (honest to goodness) the centerpiece song that had all the pop energy to it of an immediate #1 sensation was titled, “Lookin’ for a Place to Land,” with the lyrics about your heart being like a plane that’s looking for a safe place to land. Well … that didn’t really work too well given the events that occurred with 9/11. The album “crashed” (so to speak) and the band broke up.

Ty is enormously talented and never suffered any shortages of opportunities. He ended up on a network competition show where they were looking for a replacement for the lead singer of the band INXS after Michael Hutchence killed himself. Ty was a finalist, sporting a mohawk at the time.

Then he was in Vegas for a while. And then … he finally found his place to land when he reinvented himself (as skillfully as Madonna ever did) with a sort of sixties retro look and style of a soulman along with his band, Vintage Trouble.

The rest is a rocket ship to stardom over the past three years as they’ve hit the charts (especially in Europe), toured with the biggest bands (currently touring with The Who), and been on Letterman and Leno repeatedly. They’re now huge.

So my longtime buddy and USC film school classmate Jason Ensler just released this music video for them which features among the many characters, Jeremy Rowley (#19 in the music video) who is incredibly funny (still love his brilliant dating video), a longtime Groundling and co-teaches workshops with me. Yay Ty!