Yankee in a Chip Shop: the video that almost never was

Our story begins, as so many do, with a man who had a dream. A vision of something better. Sorry, is that too pretentious? Let's keep it simple. It begins with an artist and musician who had an idea. He wanted to make a music video for his band. That man is Shawn Harris, and the band is The Matches.

Harris already had experience directing his band's music videos, so he knew he could bring about the vision he had once more. Knowing the label had no budget to let him make this movie, he worked on side projects, saving the money to make the video himself. And when he had enough funds, the band began shooting the video. The video was shot right on the streets of London, which is fitting considering the song in question is called "Yankee in a Chip Shop".

The video was originally scheduled to release in March of this year, but was delayed for unknown reasons. Meanwhile, Epitaph, their label, showed full support for the band's decision to make a video on their own, working to gain the video some publicity.

This was all good and well, but further delays were in order. The last week of August, Harris announced in his blog that the video would debut sometime that week, sharing a brief clip of the making of the video. He later shared that the video would, in fact, be featured on myspace on Friday.

Unfortunately, the friday Myspace premier was not to be. As Harris shared with concerned fans, during the filming of the video, he and the band had inadvertently broken the law and been stopped by a British bobby. Thinking it was a rent-a-cop, Harris hadn't given the matter a second thought until the London authorities contacted him once more, contesting the band's right to release the music video.

With their manager unreachable and the law at their necks, Harris tried to release the video on his own, but was thwarted. After that came days of trying to convince the London Metro Police to permit them to share the video. To longtime fans who know of The Matches' cache of other unreleased music videos, the situation seemed dire.

To the fans' relief and great joy, Harris and The Matches' video and legal woes were resolved with the help of Buzznet. After months of delay and stress, the video finally debuted on the third of September, and it's already clear it was worth the wait. Check it out exclusively at Buzznet.

Brittany Holmgren