French director Vincent Moon's music video series The Take-Away Shows—which feature guerrilla-style recordings of artists like Sufjan Stevens and Arcade Fire performing on a city's streets or other unorthodox locations—have been hugely popular since debuting on the European site La Blogotheque in 2006. And now, Moon is taking his Shows to America for Sony's video website Crackle.com. Starting today, Crackle will host the first season of Moon's shows, which will feature taped performances of Pigeon John, the Rosebuds, Bowderbirds and more. Three more seasons will debut over the course of the year, and will feature artists such as the Blow, Why? and Joseph Arthur taped at various locations including CMJ Music Marathon and several of America's bustling sidewalks. "It's a bit different," says Moon of the US version of the series. "I really wanted to create something very current. For example, at CMJ Music Festival...I shot all the videos in one area only, trying to sort of document... the Lower East Side. So I was trying to map it, you know? It's like when you look on a map, you'll get all the different videos shot at all the different corners of the Lower East Side. This was really fun for me to do, to try to think about it like that." Moon has become an in-demand director, having recently worked with R.E.M. to film their video for "Supernatural Superserious" as well as a series of online vignettes about the making of the video and their recent album Accelerate. He also helmed the recent documentary on New York indie rockers the National, titled A Skin, A Night, and is currently working on creating videos for his site, Temporary Areas, for which he hopes to document every country in the world. "All of my new projects are part of it," says Moon. "The R.E.M. project is going to be on Temporary Areas. All those things to me are like a general idea of how the world is today and how I want to film it, and what I want to create with people all around the world." For more with Moon, check out an extended interview with him here. Until then, enjoy the video he created for Pigeon John's "Cheerleader." Artists Featured On The Take-Away Shows, Season One, Beginning June 9: 01. Bowerbirds 02. Rock Plaza Central 03. Effie Briest 04. The Rosebuds 05. Picastro - "Pig Sucker" 06. Alamo Race Track 07. Arrington DeDionyso 08. Pattern is Movement 09. Pigeon John Artists Featured On The Take-Away Shows, Season Two, Beginning August 4: 01. The Rodeo 02. Why? 03. The Blow 04. Augustana 05. Los Campesinos! 06. Kelley Stoltz 07. Joseph Arthur Artists Featured On The Take-Away Shows, Season Three, Beginning October 13: 01. Golden Animals 02. The Dodos 03. Here Here 04. The Blakes 05. Sholi 06. Mini Pop 07. Bodies Of Water 08. Color Music 09. Honey Moon Tree 10. The Walkmen Artists Featured On The Take-Away Shows, Season Four, Beginning December 22: 01. The Rodeo 02. Why? 03. The Blow 04. Los Campesinos! 05. Joseph Arthur 06. Slaraffenland 07. Akron Family www.vincentmoon.com
