NYC Scene Report – The Rad Trads, Record Heat, & Rare DM

This week’s NYC Scene Report features The Rad Trads working “Overtime,” Record Heat with a song about A&Rs, and Rare DM biking through abandoned city streets.

* When The Rad Trads were putting together the video for their latest single, “Overtime,” they were looking for a cast that would work for bare bones, and they found some high quality actors who would appear in the clip for just that … in fact, these actors would work for any bones, because they’re all dogs.

“Overtime” is off The Rad Trads’ album, See You Again, and … and you aren’t even paying attention to what I’m writing anymore, are you? As soon as you found out there are dogs in the video you clicked play. Hey, I can’t blame ya.

* Bands often get saddled with labels wanting every song to be a hit. The truth of the matter is, many times the people expecting this of them also have their own livelihoods on the line. This was the inspiration for Brooklyn-based band Record Heat’s latest song, “Just Hits.”

“We wrote ‘Just Hits’ about A&Rs,” the band said in a statement, “We were fortunate to have a couple great ones, but not everyone is so lucky, and truthfully, the A&R is like the artist of the music executive class. They’re rarely allowed to be as creative, or adventurous, as they’d like, and their careers often go up in smoke overnight. We wanted to capture both how artists fear them, and how they fear for their lives.”

You could say that with “Just Hits,” everyone is feeling the (Record) Heat.

* The latest single from Rare DM is a phrase all too familiar to those dating in the digital age – “Send Nudes.” The video, however, features imagery that is decidedly less familiar, as Rare DM bikes through an abandoned NYC in scenes that were filmed at the beginning of the pandemic.

“The video started as all GoPro shot on my bike, because I could do it myself without seeing anyone,” she explains, “I would ride my bike from Bushwick to Times Square to the Oculus and back. I wouldn’t get off my bike at all because the city was in lockdown. No bodega, no restroom stops, just bike somewhere with the right spooky aesthetic, and ride home.”

Rare DM would become a cardio queen while getting all the shots she wanted, as she notes, “I would go out a few times a week to get a variety of sky backgrounds, and after filming over eight hours of footage myself, Jordan Fuller and friends filmed me in Manhattan in full PVC attire.”

In an odd twist of fate, Rare DM received some fame from all this filming, but wasn’t credited for it. “Somewhere along the way, some dude caught me on his phone in the wild,” she says, “and two days after, my Mom in Michigan sends me a TikTok of me on Canal Street, already at 480k views – no tag of course – which has now passed 1.6 million views, and has comments from around the world asking if I’m Lady Gaga, or Keanu Reeves’ girlfriend.”

Of course, she’s neither of those things. She’s Rare DM, and she’s make a heck of a video for a heck of a song.

For more of the best of NYC’s indie music scene, come back next Wednesday, and check out the archives for previous columns.