Meet Derek Davidson, the man behind Movie Movie,
whose new album IN 4D! is out now!
Profile and Interview by James Kenney, October 15, 2024.
The Electric Mess were the band to go to for a 21st century take on classic garage band rock and roll, releasing five high quality albums and playing out to receptive audiences throughout this troubled new century. There was something brave, noble even, in their quest to Keep the Flame Alive. Sounding like a band comfortably fitting in on side two of Lenny Kaye’s Nuggets compilation was already a romantic notion in the 1980s, but by the 2010s it was positively quixotic, which is part of the not negligible charm the Mess records hold; as Joseph Neff wrote in a review for Tower Records upon the release of 2012’s Falling Off the Face of the Earth, “to my ears this bunch would sound fantastic playing three sets in a creaky three story house stuffed to the rafters with boisterous revelers while some lanky dude in a lawn chair takes it upon himself to guard the keg,” making clear that he wasn’t “damning” the Mess with “faint praise.” As he put it, “the best party bands are the ones too good for that status” and so it went with the Mess until their final collection, V, released in 2020.
But at least one Mess member, bass player Derek Davidson, hasn’t gone quietly into the night, forming a new band, Movie Movie. To achieve his goal, he recruited friends from two other local acclaimed New York City bands to be his literal mouthpieces: Andrea Sicco from the garage noir-tinged band Twin Guns, and Frank Caira from the ‘60s mod freakbeat band The Above. Both bands had played multiple shows with the Mess, sometimes all three on the same bill, dating as far back as 2009.
Electric Mess drummer Alan J. Camlet (who also engineers and mixes the band’s recordings in his personal studio) also has come along for the ride; it is their long history together as friends that has helped Davidson make such a smooth and productive transition from the Mess to Movie Movie, releasing an EP, two albums, and a holiday single, in a span of barely two years.
And for my weathered ears, Movie Movie is an even-more successfully realized project than the formidable Mess; Movie’s sound, which recalls everything from the classic 60s sounds of the Byrds to the power rock of the 70s Stones and Springsteen and the throwback power pop of the 80s such as Marshall Crenshaw, Peter Case and the Rain Parade, offers up consistent surprise and indelible energy eliciting grunts of pleasure from me throughout their discography, up to and including the excellent new album released this year, In 4-D!.
Recording as if they’re on an old-school schedule of an album a year with additional one-off singles and EPs, and shooting promo clips as if U68 was still pumping videos into New York homes before and after the Uncle Floyd show, Movie Movie will seemingly be creating power pop classics bathed in bittersweet lyrics and melodies until the dying of the light, if not after, simply for the pure joy of it.
Davidson, who in his daylight hours helps power Photofest, the go-to online resource for classic film and television images for books, print periodicals and websites, sat with me for an interview ahead of his coming October 24th gig at Berlin on Avenue A with Danny Laj and the Looks from Canada.
After the Electric Mess disbanded after a healthy run, what made you feel you had another band in you? What is the “origin story” of Movie Movie?
There was a period of about six months when the two bands overlapped, starting even before the Mess officially decided to break up after 15 years. Our debut show in Oct. 2022 was actually opening for the Mess, the first of their two “farewell shows.”
In Feb. 2022 I put together demos for a proposed EP and sent them to guitarist and singer Andrea Sicco, a friend I knew for a long time on the scene from his great band Twin Guns, who the Mess played with many times (he also starred in a short film I made!), and we had a good relationship.
I asked Alan Camlet from the Mess to play drums, and we recorded in his studio, Hoboken Studios, where the Mess had often recorded. While we were putting together some basic mixes, I asked Frank Caira, formerly of The Above, another band we gigged with a lot, to sing backup and add harmony vocals. He was the perfect complement to the sound, and his contributions would become even more pronounced on subsequent recordings.
Seeing what a pleasant experience it was, I felt inspired and quickly wrote another nine songs. Andrea contributed two, and before the EP was even finished, we hit the studio in July 2022 to record 11 more tracks, ten of which would become our first LP, Storyboards. We all felt that it could potentially be more than just a recording project, and maybe even play a few shows. We needed a name, and I came up with Movie Movie. I knew I wanted something cinematic. At that point we were officially a band!
You have taken on the songwriting load for Movie Movie after sharing songwriting duties for the Electric Mess, and you have proven prolific. How do songs come to you? Music first, then lyrics? Vice versa?
I was one of three main writers in the Mess, so there was only so much real estate on a Mess record, which was becoming frustrating. Being the sole songwriter has been very liberating, and I find it much easier to write for this band.
For the most part, I will just strum an acoustic guitar, experiment with various chord sequences, and see what comes to me vocally, both rhythmically or melody-wise, and from there I will find inspiration with a phrase in the chorus or title, whatever the chords say to me. It might be a “scrambled eggs” for “Yesterday” type situation to start, but I will record it on my phone and then just start filling in the blanks and refine it and flesh out the lyrics and structures.
Do you use your songwriting as a form of personal expression, or do you sit down and write songs from “character’s points of view”? I’m thinking right now of a song like “Working From Home” from “Storyboards” that I suspect may have had origins in being stuck at home during covid!
It’s both. Most of the time it will really come down to thinking I can’t have yet another song from the “I” first-person, so I will turn it around to be from another character’s point of view, even if I am injecting something personal into it. Also, just to make it more cinematic or flesh out a narrative story.
How did you learn your instrument? What gear do you use?
Like many 11-year-old Brooklyn kids circa 1980, I loved rock and roll, and after seeing a midnight show of The Who movie The Kids are Alright, I was ready to go. I took guitar lessons from a teacher many of the kids in the neighborhood used, an old Italian guy who reeked of (I hope) cigarettes, and that got me started. I didn’t take lessons long but got what I needed out of it. Eventually I got an electric guitar and started jamming with a drummer friend. When another friend got a better guitar and amp than me, we needed a bass player, so I switched to bass, around age 15, and have been playing it since. I am very grateful to still be doing it and musically in the best place I have ever been. Gear wise I grew up playing Rickenbacker basses, inspired by Geddy Lee, but have also played a Fender Jazz bass, also like Geddy and Zep’s John Paul Jones, which are just more versatile and require less maintenance. To be more specific, Now Playing and Storyboards are both Ricks, In 4-D! is my Fender showcase.
Some of my favorites on the new album are “You Never Learn,” “We Gotta Go!” and “Living Without You.” Any stories about the writing/creating of those songs?
With “You Never Learn,” I was going for a Rolling Stones Exile on Main Street vibe, with some elements of “Street Fighting Man” in the verses. “We Gotta Go!” has shades of “Ruby Tuesday” in the verses with its use of Mellotron, and one of the few social commentary songs on the record, very much a Covid lockdown-era song, when people were talking about leaving the city, and anti-mask people or socially irresponsible ones making things worse, the last verse dealing with people who make these grand announcements about getting off social media and Facebook, and then either don’t actually leave or come crawling back eventually. Hard-hitting stuff! “Living Without You” I saw as a big Bruce epic rocker with dynamics and sections, driven by piano and organ, and thought would make a good album closer.
Do you still think of albums in the old school “10-track sequencing matters” way?
I wasn’t raised on 45s or EPs growing up, and all the bands I liked put out well-sequenced full LPs, so that has always been my focus, and to make a more complete statement. Lengthwise, ten track LPs seem to be the sweet spot, as many of the songs are on the long side. That said, the Now Playing EP was a good quick way to initiate this project to make a quick introduction, before I even knew what we had, and I am currently preparing demos to do a four track EP in early 2025, just to keep things coming while inspiration strikes, and it is an easily digestible number of tracks to work on. Ten songs can be a lot.
What is the production process like for a Movie Movie project? Do you record together? Do you find mixing and production a chore or a joy?
The recording process for this band has been the best part of the experience and has been the same for all of our recordings, and how I want to continue working. It starts with me doing quite fleshed out demos in Garageband, and now Logic Pro, with the basic arrangements and feel already in place. I send them to the band. Andrea and Alan get a sense of them, make notes, and so on. Andrea will record all the tracks with him singing and playing guitar to become more familiar with the songs, and to decipher the melodies I barely croaked out in the demos! We do a couple rehearsals – I think for Storyboards we only had one rehearsal – starting a couple weeks before recording, and then we just hit the studio, recording the basic tracks and Andrea’s live guide vocals as a three piece.
Most of that remains in the end, though I might rerecord some bass parts at home, Andrea has been doing guitar overdubs from home, and I record all the keyboard parts at home. Eventually Frank will get all the rough mixes to work out his vocal ideas, and I will make notes about where I think he should be, and then he and Andrea will come in and record their vocals.
While my demos might have all the elements, and the arrangements are in place, these guys are all so talented and professional, and add so much to the songs, especially on the vocals. Alan also sings and that has really shaped the direction of the band. I can’t thank them enough for their dedication to the material, it has made it all a pleasure and a surprise, for what was just supposed to be a quick recording side project three years ago; now it’s a full-time concern.
I love seeing the mixes come together, though it can be frustrating and seem like a disaster at first until they start shaping up. Really scheduling the mixing is the worst part of it. If I had my way, I would work on it every day, but instead it can drag on for months, especially when there are many moving parts and tracks to add, like for In 4-D!
Can you look back on the first song you wrote? Any memories?
I wrote some songs in my high school band not worth mentioning, except for one Beastie Boys style song with my friend Mitch about partying with his grandma, called “Grandma.” In my adult life, the first song I wrote was for The Electric Mess called “You’ve Become a Witch,” which ended up being one of our biggest songs and I’d say help put us on the map. It was based on an old magazine ad from the Academy of Mystic Arts that had a woman with a black cat which said, “Become a Witch,” where you could send away for a book that would help the reader get her husband a big job promotion and stop worrying about life by learning the secrets of witchcraft. It caught my attention, so I based the title of the song on it, and it had lines like, “…you’ve got that voodoo itch”!
It appeared on the soundtrack of two low budget horror films, was heard at least a couple times on the Alice Cooper syndicated radio show, and it was on their playlist of songs in-between the sets at a Phish Halloween show in Vegas. It still turns up on the odd Halloween playlist here or there come October.
Movie Movie reminds me of a lot of other bands such as the Plimsouls, R.E.M., and the Byrds that could be defined as “power pop,” i.e. incredibly catchy songs that don’t necessarily sell! Are you a “power pop” fan? Who are some of your biggest musical influences?
I’m a fan of good, melodic songs, so I would say I am a power pop fan in that sense, and the bands you mentioned, and since it can be a much broader label, we do get grouped into that genre. The Who is and was one of my favorite bands, and their early singles certainly as power pop as anything. Also, I played bass for Paul Collins for three years, of The Nerves and The Beat, who you can count among the best power pop bands of all time.
For this band, some influences would be The Byrds, Bruce Springsteen, The Beatles, Bob Dylan, Tom Petty, Rolling Stones, some new wave and new romantic bands, and even Gordon Lightfoot. In my formative years, my favorite bands were Rush, The Who, Led Zeppelin, Steely Dan, and Zappa. Lots of 1960s rock, progressive rock and jazz fusion, early jazz, big band, etc. I was in the high school jazz band so discovered a lot of it early
The band’s name and album titles evince a love for cinema. Do you feel there are ways cinema, as opposed to music, have influenced Movie Movie?
Some songs have movie themes, like “Bright Lights,”, and others more cinematic narratives, like “Love Has Come and Gone.” The song “Born to Win” is based on the movie “Charly” with Cliff Robertson, and “Lone Warrior” is based on “Paris Texas.” “No Long Goodbyes” references Altman’s “The Long Goodbye” in the whole last verse. It’s a bit esoteric, but In 4-D! is sequenced as a flashback, with songs starting in the 1960s and building to sort of 1980s arena rock. The original title was going to be “Flashbacks.”
You also place photos for books and publications for Photofest, an interesting job for a film lover! Do you have any interesting/eccentric stories you could share about helping authors find images for their works from the millions of photos Photofest holds?
No big comic misadventures, and my job can be as academic and dry as it sounds. However, many authors and some celebs have been in the office, doing their own research for their autobiographies or film books or just doing research, such as Peter Falk and Julie Newmar, and directors Peter Bogdanovich, Spike Lee, and Radley Metzger. Scorsese and even Kubrick have used our photos. I have worked on hundreds of music books, so that is always fun. Music wise, I do remember a time when Mick Rock, famous for shooting David Bowie Ziggy-era photos, came to the office, basically to show us which photos he took that we couldn’t send out, including some Rocky Horror images. He was perfectly nice. I slipped him the first two Electric Mess CDs before he left. Never heard back!
We’ve had some unpleasant phone calls, like one from Vincent Gallo who was angry because we were sending out Brown Bunny photos. I won’t repeat what he said.
You actually toured Spain in 2023 with Movie Movie. How did that come together and any special memories, good or bad, of that tour?
The Electric Mess had toured Spain three times – it was supposed to be four, but then the pandemic happened, and we had to cancel the tour, another nail in the Mess coffin. Fortunately, the booker became a big fan of Movie Movie also, so he was happy to bring us over. We played eight shows. It’s always great there, clubs put the bands up and feed you, and the audiences are very responsive and buy records, and then ask you to autograph them. It’s just a great thing touring with the band and nice bonding experience, and the food is delicious, even at the gas stations. It was a bit cold in our north shows; I should have dressed warmer!
You’ll be playing in Manhattan on October 24th Do you enjoy performing live as opposed to studio work?
I like doing both, though it can be hard to enjoy shows in the moment since I am often concentrating on playing all the right notes and fighting any technical issues, which are usually minimal, but by the time you settle in it’s over! When we toured in Spain, playing multiple shows, and long sets, over an hour, you get more in the zone.
What’s in the future for Movie Movie?
Already readying four new songs to record in January that will be our next EP, and planning on going back to Spain in 2025. This time with a jacket!
Check out Movie Movie’s video for “Bright Lights”:
And here’s the video for “No Long Goodbyes”:
Movie Movie’s social media:
Tremble...Sigh...Wonder... 
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