Music Features

Tim O’Keefe and James Franco are back as Daddy

Father figures

By CHRIS CONTI | January 30, 2013

ARE YOU MY DADDY? The off-the-grid duo.

Resident godfather of the electronic music scene Tim O'Keefe and RISD Class of '12 alum (and actor/director/artist/author) James Franco comprise Daddy, back with a little help from some local friends on the PVD Remixes EP, which follows the duo's 2012 debut MotorCity. O'Keefe enlists producers Ted James, Mike Hoska, and the Kolour Kult to rework Daddy's "Love In the Old Days."

Franco and O'Keefe first teamed up in 2011 when Tim provided the score to James's 12-hour Endless Idaho art installation, incorporating outtakes and unused images from Gus Van Zant's My Own Private Idaho. And what started out as two art school buddies conceptualizing musical and visual ideas led to the Motown-inspired MotorCity EP (written and recorded while Franco was in Detroit filming Oz The Great and Powerful), and just happened to land Smokey Robinson for the single "Crime" after Franco bumped into Robinson at the airport.

The official mission statement reads: "The motivation behind Daddy is to push beyond the sonic space of music into the surrounding ecology. Daddy investigates the territories of film/video, installation, and performance while simultaneously exploring the connections that form between them."

Franco directed the three videos released from the MotorCity EP as well as the new clip for the Kolour Kult's version of "Love In the Old Days," with the "electro-croon" duo's chilled-out take playing against the blood-soaked female vampires and trippy, occult shenanigans. Acclaimed beat composers Ted James and Mike Hoska pick up the pace and dial up the dancefloor on their renditions, and O'Keefe revives his tfo persona on an alternate cover of "Crime."

"Providence has some hidden, off-the-grid talent, which is part of the inspiration for our PVD Remixes EP," O'Keefe told Vice magazine, which debuted the "Love In the Old Days" video last week on its website.

The PVD Remixes EP is available free (in exchange for a Tweet) for a limited time at tfomusic.com, and check in with facebook.com/wearedaddy for updates.

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