There’s no other Milwaukee band like Scrimshaw. Hell, there may be no other band anywhere like Scrimshaw. The delightfully weirdo art-rock band has been kicking it for more than a decade now, releasing album after album of warped lo-fi sketches and full-blown funk-tastic blowouts. Kitchen-sink instrumentation, chipmunk vocals, surrealistic lyrics, and a concept album sung from the perspective of a concerned Jewish grandmother are the norm. Singer-guitarist Robert Thomas, singer-drummer Brock Gourlie, and bassist Anton Sieger are the masterminds behind the cracked project, along with songs like “Tiny Belt” and “Hoopula.” The recent addition of Jen Schattschneider-Roach on baritone sax, meanwhile, has only cemented Scrimshaw’s standing as one of Milwaukee’s most unique, most enjoyable bands.
So it should come as no surprise that the new video for “The Town Lazer”—from 2015’s Welcome To The Henry Herschel Commercial—is, well, really Scrimshaw-y. Created by fellow Milwaukee musician Jonathan Burks, the video pulls bizarre public domain footage from two main sources, 1958’s Gateways To The Mind, and 1967’s Consuming Women (Women As Consumers). It’s like those short films Mystery Science Theater 3000 used to rib before the features, except even funnier.