Back in Miami's bass music heyday, music video director Dario L. Jaramillo was making a killing creating, producing, directing and editing music videos for Joey Boy Records and Warner Bros. artists. I found his 90's Miami Bass music video reel on youtube, tracked him down through the powers of whois, called him up at 7am Los Angeles time and conducted an interview, here's what he had to say....
I had been a Miami director and producer for many years, doin a ton of commercials. One day Joey Boy Records called me about doin a music video, I pitched an idea, they liked the way I shoot, and basically they started giving me a ton of work.
My background is filmmaking and music, it was perfect for them
They were all very cool people, very nice people, everybody was very young, this was 20 or so years ago. We had a good time, I would rent out these big houses on Key Biscayne, or warehouses, and we'd go in and shoot
New Times: There's a scene in one of the videos where this girl is like wrapped up in a curtain just fuckin booty dancing her ass off, in a curtain
Dario: I had just finished with a Japanese client, over there they do so much with the veils, I said hey let's try all these veils, they would just wrap up and do whatever they want, it was great.
I was doin it (Miami Bass videos) 4 or 5 years.Click Here For Darios Website, RavenFilm.com
It was big, it was really big, Luke was doin a lot of stuff, Luke Skywalker, he had the biggest Bass band, then they got into trouble. I never had anything to do with em', they would say (the label I was working with) don't shoot videos for these guys, they were like the competition for Joey Boy. Miami was wild, it was crazy, totally free form. Bass is very very Miami music, it was a lot of fun.
Some of the artists were Sexy C, Em+Em, not the white guy now, he was like the first. Joey Boy Records, the guy's partner was a promoter, I can't remember his name now, they were doin' stuff all over Miami, up in Atlanta. I'd say 1989 to 1993 or 94' it was just huge parties, everybody was partying
Miami was comin' out of the 80's, it was going through yet another international phase. The 80's it was the South Americans, the 90's it was the Europeans and the models and all that, it was a good place to be young.
Everything was film based, it was all shot on film, there was no HD back then, broadcast video was ok, but we shot everything on 35mm film and 16mm film back in those days. Our shooting budget for the average video was like, $50,000 to $150,000. For Miami that's a lot, MC Hammer was spending around $2 million for a video, but LA and Miami are 2 different animals.
I was the creator, director, producer, and editor, so I was seeing a good payday. Back in those days I would transfer the film to 1" video, big old tapes, and we would splice it electronically, but even in the 80's I was splicing actual film.
Those videos by Disco Rick And The Dogs were on BET and MTV and they were top ten.
Disco Rick and The Dogs, those guys were pretty big.
I did up to a certain point with Joey Boy and then they didn't wanna pay anymore. I had these big Fortune 500 companies knocking on my door so I went with them. I've always drifted from advertising to music videos.
Now, I'm doing this Digital TV project, I'm doing internet based experimental stuff. I'll go anywhere. Have camera will travel man, hah. I have to. I been doin this since I was a teenager.
I was 26 or 27 when I was doin the Bass stuff. You gotta go for it, I haven't lived in Miami for about 12 years now, I've been in LA, but that was a great place at that time to do it. There's so many different cultures.
I'm also doin this music project now Psychos For Sanity, it's rock oriented, I wrote all the music and played allthe instruments. Jus tryin' to have some fun man, that's the name of the game,
have a good time while you're alive
.
