San Diego is probably the mellowest city in Southern California. Home to a world-famous zoo and to Anchorman’s Ron Burgundy, it’s the kind of place where you feel like you can retire at 25 because the mild weather and year-round sunshine seeps right into your bones. Yet all of that laid-backedness has also long fed into young peoples’ frustrations and restlessness, providing a great incubator for indie-rock and hardcore punk mutations.
Just consider the new song from San Diego surf-punks Mrs. Magician. “Eyes All Over Town,” off of their forthcoming album, Bermuda—out May 20 via Swami Records—finds the five-piece taking off into a psychedelic wormhole of catchy riffs and whirling organs while frontman Jacob Turnbloom sneers about making a desperate escape, forgetting his “mistakes and regrets.”
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The song alone is dope, but then there’s the video. Directed by Nerdist producer/head writer Ben Mekler, it’s a quirky homage to Friday the 13th in which a Jason Voorhees-style subhuman serial killer gets his homicidal groove back by getting a gym membership and doing bench-presses and rope exercises with a group of personal trainers.
Mekler and Turnbloom are both horror movie buffs, and fans of flicks like The Fog and Night of the Creeps may notice a cameo from famed 80s horror star Tom Atkins.
Watch the video premiere of “Eyes All Over Town” on this fine Friday the 13th and check out Mrs. Magician’s Bermuda here.
Peter Holslin is more of a Nightmare on Elm Street guy. He’s on Twitter.