Tonight we feature an embedded playlist of videos from our friend, Scott Helland, also known as Guitarmy of One (and also known as “The Punk” from Frenchy and The Punk).  Scott has been cranking out really cool videos for his latest album, The Spy Detective Collective, since its release a bit over  year ago. The latest one, “Detectives and Dragonets,” debuted just a few days ago, and it’s the first video you’ll see up above this text.

Quoting liberally from Scott’s website here…

On the latest album, The Spy Detective Collective, Guitarmy of One looks to the crime and intrigue shows of the ‘60s and ‘70s for inspiration as well as for dashes of melodic and cultural source material. Guitarist Scott Helland traces his love of instrumental music all the way back to his childhood immersion in The Rockford Files, The Man from Uncle, I Spy, and others. In the tight-lipped, complex, and solitary characters celebrated in those shows, Helland finds an analog for his own go-it-alone forays into stylish post-punk guitar composition.

In a bit of coded intrigue, Guitarmy of One’s song titles all contain the word ‘one’ buried in them. Some songs are dedicated to singular heroes of the genre: the ominous riffage of “Perry Mason Exoneration” and the moody, Eastern-Euro tinged spy rock of “Emma Bella Citronella,” an homage to Emma Peel of The Avengers. Other songs conflate multiple titles and characters, leaving a referential riddle for the listener: the shimmering, tuneful “Overtones of Hercule and Holmes,” the brash and driving album opener, “I Spy the Prisoner.”

I’ve been playing tracks from The Spy Detective Collective on Radio Free Charleston since its release, but I thought it’d be cool to take a look at the exquistely nifty videos that accompany some of those wild surf-inflected spy tunes.  There are seven videos in all, and I’ve set them to play one after the other here in this post. You’ll even get to spy Frenchy in a few, hiding beneath some impressive wigs.

To get your own copy of The Spy Detective Collective, plus cool Guitarmy of One merchandise, visit his website, HERE.