Sometimes certain elements come together so well and so powerfully that you can’t believe they’re only now falling into place. Take the new video for Resurrectionists‘ “Ditch Gospel,” for instance…
The band is the stellar end-times-psych/folk project of singer-songwriter Joe Cannon and his merry band of doomsayers (Gian Pogliano, Jeff Brueggeman, Josh Barto). The song is a tightly wound tale of cheap salvation that jitters and shakes before it explodes. The video itself is directed by Milwaukee legend (and Now! More! Yes! documentary subject) TW Hansen, which means A. it’s gonna be great, and B. it’s gonna have a car. And wouldn’t you know it, that car is a dead ringer for the hate-plastered beater the city’s real-life doomsayer, “Brother Ron,” used to drive all over town. (Dude’s still alive, apparently.) That’s not just any combo—that’s a Milwaukee molotov cocktail.
“I think the two of us came up with the general idea of the video together,” Cannon tells us. “Me watching TV preachers and getting agitated, becoming a street preacher and then a TV preacher myself, and then closing the circle by showing Gian watching me as a TV preacher and getting similarly upset. But TW was all about the Brother Ron parody, in part because of that sweet station wagon he found for it.
“Then instead of Ron’s (horrific) message, we just festooned the car with lyrics from the song and a bunch of other songs and some of TW’s own godless ideas,” Cannon adds.
Actually, the talents of Resurrectionists and Hansen have fallen into place before. The director previously realized two videos from the band’s 2023 Now That We Are All Ghosts LP: “The Ghost This Time” and “Blue Henry.” (The making of the latter figures heavily into Now! More! Yes!) “Ditch Gospel,” meanwhile, comes from 2025’s Any Time You Make A Place For Them EP, later collected on 2026’s Double EP.
Want to see Resurrectionists live? They’ll be at MKeUltra on Saturday, August 1, supporting Indianapolis psych band Cairo Jag. Mark Adams Son Of Bill and Stoneyard will also be there. A street-preacher station wagon covered in cryptic lyrics (probably) will not.
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