The Name-Drop Diaries #05
1999/2000 with Sean Dickson of The Soup Dragons / The High Fidelity / HiFi Sean
Back in 1999, I had founded my design agency based in Leith, Edinburgh. I called it The Federal Bureau of Design and there were usually 3 of us on board. Penny Dickson managed the office and clients, Big John Duncan (The Exploited/Nirvana/Blood Uncles) was our illustrator and designer for a few years before the extremely talented Lucy Reeves (RIP) joined us to take John’s place. She also features as the love interest in one of the videos we shot with Sean.
Now, a great friend of mine keeps popping up in these diaries … his name is Lloyd Jerome.
Lloyd had The Dental Practice and Gallery in Glasgow and I met him as I was asked by The Face magazine to go shoot his practice and gallery set up.
His dental nurse was a lovely woman called Catherine who was married to Sean at the time. One thing led to another and before I knew it, Sean & I were chatting about promo video ideas for his new band The High Fidelity who had just released their debut album Demonstration on Sean’s label Plastique Recordings.
The single Unsorry was released in 2000
For the video for Unsorry, we shot the band in a Glasgow rehearsal studio with instruments. Ross, Paul, Adrian & Sean. We then spent a fair bit of time editing clips of footage Sean had shot in Bangalore, India where he had worked with a Bollywood orchestra on the string arrangements and recording for this album.
See the video right/below
After this was released, we set out to make not one but two promo videos for the track A Change Is Gonna Come, also from the album Demonstration. Released in 2000 as an enhanced CD including the 2 videos.
I’m pretty sure the ideas for these came from a session in the pub, Pat’s Taps, across the road on Constitution Street.
The first and very simple idea was that Sean would eat bananas while trying to mime the words to the track. We did one take, made it black & white and that was it. We couldn’t stop laughing so it really had to be the one take! I have this on tape somewhere but can’t locate it right now!
For the second and main video for the track, we shot a pretend boy band made up of 4 skate lads that Lucy knew. We convinced Deep Sea World in North Queensferry to let us shoot in their aquarium and shot the other scenes in a local bar in Edinburgh. See the second video…
Working with Sean was such a pleasure and a top laugh. The man is pure talent… songwriter, vocalist, DJ & more… I cherish these memories of spending a bit of time with Sean and regret not making it to one of the recently reformed The Soup Dragon gigs. I was and still am… a fan.
Sean Dickson AKA Hifi Sean
Photo from Sean’s Facebook Profile
