Rules of war By afton Wolfe: Protesting with the Elegant art of Tango

We had a blast making this video for Afton Wolfe’s important new song “Rules of War.” We asked Afton to share with us his experience collaborating with Little Hollywood Creative. WATCH VIDEO HERE

Tell us about the song and writing with Judy Blank:

Judy and I had discussed getting together with a directionless goal of maybe writing a song together. I don't usually do that, but I love a good hang, and a co-write can be a worthy pretext for that at least. And of course, I would consider myself lucky to discover a song with someone who I admire as much as her. So, when we were able to both have time on our schedules, we met up. I had just read a story of a Wisconsin farmer in the 60s who had an extraterrestrial encounter where aliens gave him pancakes and then left. I thought Judy and I could write a song about that, but that was all I was bringing, other than a 1984 Suzuki Omnichord I'd just purchased. Until that night, I was having a little buyer's remorse over how much it had set me back. 

When I got there, Judy was nostalgically excited about the Omnichord, and before even discussing concepts or ideas for writing, she started playing around on it. She initiated the "Tango" accompaniment and started playing this minor progression over it. About a half an hour later, the "A" and "B" parts were all but established, just based on her having fun on the Omnichord. But it was decidedly not going to be the trademark Judy Blank slacker pop song, and it was a little too sinister for the topic of alien pancakes. So, we (read: she) had a chord progression that we both dug, but we didn't really know where to go with it. 

I had brought an almost-new notebook over - a Moleskine rip-off kinda book that my wife Robin had gotten from a backstage gig she'd worked recently. It only contained one nascent scribbling idea for a poem I'd been kicking around in my head mostly until then. It was a somewhat sardonic idea, based on my disgust of a bunch of politicians and talking heads who'd been discussing "rules based world order" and "war crimes" and such, about various international conflicts that we seem to be encountering more and more. The notion that something as barbaric and inhumane could be governed by "fairness" was utterly absurd to me, and I started thinking about what the actual guidelines for war were. Who came up with these? Surely not those most devastated by this vestige of human evolution. 

So, when I opened the notebook to start dictating, doodling, or whatever would come next, I obviously saw that there. It was the only thing in there. But just cursorily reading over it, I noticed that the meter I'd scribbled of the first few lines fit precisely with the progression that Judy had encountered on the Omnichord. About an hour and a half later, the song was in 95% of the shape it finally was recorded in. When songs happen like that - which I've never experienced an exact analog of course, but I have had them come to me quickly and easily - they seem inevitable. And the Omnichord was an absolute steal in retrospect.

Why tango dancers?

I had hoped to find two competent-if-not-excellent Tango dancers who understood the complimentary art of dance that fit this music. I have to cop to the fact that I am not a student of Tango, but I find it mesmerizing. And the dancing, maybe more than any other style (other than the inverse: line dancing to shitty pop country music), fits the music perfectly. It's subtle and sexy, but it's also very serious. I found the ideal pair of dancers, after I reached out to the Vanderbilt Tango Club in Nashville, and someone there pointed me to Charles Yee and Zara Sahak - two of their most dedicated and technically-proficient dancers. I met them for drinks, and I learned that they were not only also very cool hangs, but both incredibly accomplished and impressive academics, professionals, philanthropists, intellectuals and humans. I think they sensed how serious I was about making this happen, and we began to try to arrange a time when everyone's schedule was open, which was difficult, as they are both frequent world travelers. Finding a date to film this that they were both in the states was hard enough. But they meticulously prepared an entire routine - utilizing some of their favorite moves and some of their hardest Tango techniques.

Why did you choose Little Hollywood Creative to make the video?

Well, I know what looks cool, but damned if I know how to make it so. Scot Sax and Sally Jaye and I had recently collaborated on several smaller projects - including a live recording of one of my new songs and an absolutely brilliant interpretation of the lyrics to "Stairway to Heaven" as a local newscast (**MUST SEE**) - and I very much enjoy working with them both. I'm also a big fan of each of their respective musical outputs, with Scot having a songwriting resume that rivals Charles Yee's LinkedIn page, and Sally Jaye's output, influence and collaborations are undeniable from her work with Cafe Rooster Records and their amazing artists and projects, including her recording artist project - Pink Birds, whose 2023 album All is Free and Better is by far one of my favorite records of recent memory. So the fact that they understand songs on such a level and are able to make things look cool is why I wanted to work with them. 

Also, working together, they compliment each other very much. Sally Jaye - out of natural talent and experience as a mother and running an independent record label - is great at wrangling creatives for a project together and seeing it through to completion while maintaining the vision and quality. Scot has a hundred ideas an hour, and a wildly disproportionate number of them are goddam brilliant. As an artist, I can sympathize that the most distracting thing to our species is a really cool idea. So, occasionally Scot can fall victim to his own brilliance, and that's where having Sally there to keep the project in front of him makes Little Hollywood Creative a rare and dynamic combination of two visionaries that both work well together and bring out the best in each other. 

It was also nice that they were in the United States at the same time as Charles and Zara. 

Tell us about the actors and dancers in the video:

Charles and Zara I've told you about. The others featured in the video are my beautiful wife, Robin Wolfe, who portrays the aloof and beautiful "Femme Noire" character, who we referred to on set as "the Dame." This was one of many great ideas that Sally Jaye brought to the table, and it improved the video AND my marriage. Then there's Daniel Seymour, who plays bass in both the video and on the recording. I don't have time to sing all the praises owed to Dan, but suffice it to say that being his friend, and the fact that he plays on so many of my songs both live and on recordings, are genuine sources of pride that I've relied upon mentally to overcome imposter syndrome more times than I can remember. 

Like Dan, CH McCoy also appears in the video performing the role he did on the recording of the song in the studio. While scheduling recording, I knew I wanted piano, and I happened to run into CH McCoy, and I simply asked him what he knew about Tango. Five minutes later, I was dizzied by his enthusiasm for the style and knowledge of the history of Tango. I surrendered quickly and asked if he would please be a part of the recording. Two weeks later, he sent me demos for several different variations of the chord progression with respectably unnecessary explanations of each. He's also just stunningly gorgeous. 

So is Giuseppe Spargo, who played drums on the record. But sadly, he was not in the country at the time, and there was just no workable time to get him and Charles and Zara in the same nation state. Thus, my dear friend Irakli, who is also very handsome, played "the drummer." I punctuate it thusly, because Irakli would be the first to admit that, especially for this video, he did not play drums. 

We shot the video at PopStart in East Nashville, where Irakli had previously filmed my music video with Jaimee Harris, on the duet of "Dead Flowers." We're a small community, but we make some pretty beautiful things.