Following the reissue of his previously obscured initial record Was Dead, King Tuff has given the record’s most popular track “Sun Medallion” the royal treatment with a video of its own. And why shouldn’t he? This is the record that essentially put Kyle Thomas on the map as a solo artist, and its subsequent underground appreciation and cult following mark the album as the perfect candidate for a reissue.
Goofy video effects and weird lenses give the clip a psychedelic feel as Thomas cavorts throughout a graveyard—at one point even turns into a witch—and plays his guitar across splashes of rainbow graphics. The video premiered on Rolling Stone, and Thomas had several things to say about the visuals.
“Sun Medallion is a song that came out of my dreams and it’s about this little charm I picked up years ago,” he told the magazine. “I worked at a hospice clothing store and that’s where the actual sun medallion fell into my hands. It had power.
I wanted to film the video in my hometown of Brattleboro, Vermont, where the song loosely takes place, so early this summer my friend and director/cartooonist/Magic Man Mike Wartella took the train up from New York City with his homemade teleidoscope and we shot the whole thing in a day. My favorite part is when I turn into a witch, played by my BFF Ruthie.”
Watch above and buy the re-release of Was Dead via Burger Records.
