Wired Mag 6/17/08

Video: The Dirty Hearts Fete Music Theft
By Scott Thill June 17, 2008 | 2:44:45 PMCategories: Music News, Videos

..Austin, TX garage thrashers The Dirty Hearts would love to make money making art. But they not only understand why fans would steal it, they made a music video about it for their Stooges-like single "Record Store," from their forthcoming July 22 effort Pigs.
"The concept was not only to pay tribute to the record stores of the world, but also to poke fun at the idea of stealing music," explains Dirty Hearts front man Frankie Medina. "In this particular case, the character is not downloading illegally but instead wants the highest quality so bad he is willing to go on a high speed chase to get it."
The video was directed by Jose Jones -- no relation, at last report, to the Pixies' Jose Jones from "Crackity Jones" -- and shot inside and outside Austin's Friends of Sounds Records. "As sinful as it sounds," Medina adds, "we even destroyed some vinyl for a scene that didn't make it."
While the video doesn't directly address illegal downloading, it does address the real-time version, following a music thief who pockets a disc of Pigs -- no relation, at last report, to the hyperpolitical 1977 Pink Floyd album of the same name -- and outruns a cop in a Raising Arizona-like foot chase. The fact that the thief gets away shows that while The Dirty Hearts consider their product valuable, they consider its production to be more important.
"Even though it would be nice to be rich," Medina says, "some of us do this foremost for the love of music."