Chad VanGaalen - Clinically Dead

What this video is

Released during the mid-2000s flourishing of Canadian indie rock on Sub Pop Records, 'Clinically Dead' represents a rare fully artist-authored audio-visual artifact: the same individual wrote, performed, recorded, and animated the entire work. VanGaalen's approach — rooted in Calgary's independent arts ecosystem and distributed through MTV2's Subterranean program — predates YouTube's democratization of music video…

Why it matters

A landmark in DIY animated music video form within the Sub Pop / Canadian indie ecosystem. VanGaalen's self-animated videos for tracks from Infiniheart established a template for musician-as-total-artist that informed subsequent animator-musicians. The video's placement on MTV2 Subterranean…

The director

Chad VanGaalen (born 1977) is a Canadian musician, animator, and visual artist from Calgary, Alberta. He released his debut album Infiniheart (2004) on Flemish Eye Records, subsequently picked up by Sub Pop in 2005. A self-taught animator and illustrator, he…