Around twenty seconds into the video for “Hardcore Vibes” by Lockbox, which he describes as a “simplistic” song “inspired by both the Serial Experiments Lain soundtrack Cyberia Mix and the writer Akutagawa,” someone stands at the top of what looks like a six-story parking structure and throws an electric scooter, made by the scooter-sharing company Bird, to the ground below. The first time I rode a Bird scooter was when I was visiting my family in Arizona a few months ago.
Before that, I had always kind of scoffed at them. I thought people looked stupid riding them, and in a car-dominated urban landscape like Phoenix, they didn’t seem safe. But I didn’t have a car, and in the course of a long walk to an old friend’s apartment, I found one that had been unceremoniously abandoned in the middle of a surburban street. As I moved it to the sidewalk, it occured to me that I lived in a city where electric scooters are not street legal, and that this was a rare opportunity to try one for myself. I downloaded the app, and as I submitted my payment information, the scooter awakened, jolting recklessly forward. It was scary, but after a few blocks, it also felt wonderful and new — the way that riding a skateboard or a Razor scooter had felt when I was a kid. Lockbox’s music takes advantage of the same kind of youthful abandon; it’s unsettling, humorous, and euphoric.
Lockbox made the “Hardcore Vibes” video with multimedia artist Sam Jorgensen over a snowed-in weekend during the biggest storm in Denver’s history, dubbed a “bomb cyclone.” TMT is premiering it in support of DJ Toonami Demon Presents: Ultraviolent Disneyland, his new mix for UNSEELIE, who, coincidentally, will be partying in NYC tonight with MHYSA, Yayoyanoh, and others.
More about: Lockbox
