Guster’s Guide to Getting Great Music Videos for Free

Bands embracing online video is nothing new. Since OK Go’s treadmill ballet went into seven-figure view counts, any group of individuals trying to make it in music have understood the importance, power, and prevalence of the medium. But what is new are the different ways bands embrace online video. Take, for instance, Guster.

It’s been almost a decade since I’ve listened to Barrel of a Gun, but the band from Boston that built its name on hand percussion recently showed up on my radar. To help promote the upcoming October 5 release of their sixth studio album, Easy to Wonderful, Guster is premiering a dozen music videos, one for each track. The catch? All were created by friends, fans, or artists the band loves, and “everyone was given absolute free reign to create whatever they felt.”

Currently, music videos for two of the 12 songs are live. Chad Carlberg‘s stop-motion rendition of Guster as a high-school band in a performance art piece singing Do You Love Me, and One Degree Off‘s cardboard cutout and shadow puppet theatre interpretation of Stay With Me Jesus. Both are great. Sure, they’re no Telephone, but if Guster every got airtime on MTV2 and you caught one of these music videos, you wouldn’t question why they were there. They’re professional and look pretty from a production standpoint, engaging from a community point of view, and with a $0 price tag, incredibly cost effective according to Guster’s balance sheet.

If you’re a fan of Guster or just like making things the filmmaking community on Vimeo would adore, you’re in luck. Turns out the band fell one director short and needs a video for Bad Bad World. Instructions on how to make Guster your muse, and a music video for their song your masterpiece, can be viewed on the Easy Wonderful website. Check out all the other music videos for the album there, too. Happy listening, filming, and viewing.