White Fence goes to jail in first ever music video for “Like That”

“Clean and full and never hungry/want to live like that” goes the song, and the point is clear – the singer (us) wants a life that he (we) cannot have, and until something better comes along, he (and 99% of mankind) are consigned instead to dream of crossing class lines that WE WILL NEVER CROSS and experiencing the best things in life THAT WE WILL NEVER EXPERIENCE. For our lives are comprised of certain inevitabilities, as solid and inflexible as statues; as inert as our desires to be better, make more, feel less oppressed, give generously.

It doesn’t always turn out that way – but the dream still is a giddy one, and White Fence’s version of the dream skips happily, sings at the very top of it’s range, harmonizes ghostly, disembodied notes, unleashes guitar-thoughts of great power and ingenuity. “Like That” is a pop classic that recalls the candy-hued visions of The Who and The Move and their halcyon yore, while subtly upgrading the sounds and visions for maximum traction in our endlessly up-complicated contemporary milieu. For those old singers and their songs would never have conceived of the couplet of frustrated poverty and subsequent healthlessness: “What I can afford is like a plastic orange/nutritional Sprite.” And that’s just the song!

Today, “Like That” debuts as a video too – and when paired with The Forest City Rockers’ visual adaptation, “Like That” is doubled-down-upon, with White Fence lead singer Tim Presley starring as Fresh Meat, the new kid, caught between the savagery of the screws and the seething, segregated divides of the micro-societies within the lock-up. Fear and anger fuel the rush toward the inexorable finish, bouncing through the verse-chorus structure in neat-and-clean black and white (with one transcendent exception). The tempo of the video matches the song with gleeful awe at how dissipated men can become – and just “Like That,” the end is reached in a swift-and-nifty 2:41; a perfection of foreordained destiny, the escape we all eventually deserve. Directed by Jim Dirschberger, Forest City Rockers production of White Fence’s “Like That” is Video of The Year, hands down (and up against the wall).  Also important to note that this is the first official White Fence music video in the history of the band!

WHITE FENCE