“I Wanna Go Down To The Basement”
by James & the Giants

Background:
Life is a series of connections, and death is a fate awaiting us all.

I was first introduced to James Toth (the James in James and the Giants) after completing the video for Jim White’s Playing Guitars. The owner of the record label People in a Place to Know thanked me for making Jim White’s video and sent along a stack of Wooden Wand albums with a note saying that the man behind the moniker Wooden Wand (aka James Toth) was moving to Green Bay, Wisconsin. I immediately fell in love with Wooden Wand. I also wondered how James Toth’s prolific music career, in all its various names, had remained on the periphery of my music listening habits for so long.

Being quite the introvert, it took some time for James Toth and me to “connect.” We first talked at a One Eleven Heavy show. One Eleven Heavy is just another of James’ many sonic outfits. I wanted to buy a record and a t-shirt to support the band, but I was a few bucks short. James spotted me the three bucks I was lacking for the shirt. A series of correspondences between James and I carried across the pandemic, each of us sharing how music is an obsession, even if I can’t play a chord to save my life. Then, sometime in mid-2022, James said he’d be putting out a new album and looking for people to shoot videos of their dogs going for a walk. I enlisted my son to help film a clip of us walking our dog, Tuggy Muffins. Sadly, I was only one of the few who responded to James’ request for dog videos.

Feeling a bit of debt to James (he did cop me the extra money for a shirt) and knowing that I live in a dog-friendly neighborhood, I offered to gather more clips of dogs being walked. This blossomed to me being asked to produce and edit the entire music video. You don’t have to twist my arm to get me to spend days filming and editing clips of happy doggos.

The sad underside to this story is that while we were making this film, the specter of death loomed over the entire production. James and his wife Leah were watching as their dog, Virgil, was coming to the end of his rich life. Meanwhile, I was encamped in Florida, visiting my mother as she went through the final stages of pancreatic cancer. My mother’s passing, along with the death of Virgil, added gravity to the edit and breathed new meaning into the repeated phrase, “I wanna go down to the basement.”

This song is as much a rumination on facing death as it reminds us to enjoy life, make friends, and pat as many dogs as possible before we all head to that big dog park on the other side.

Released in 2023

Producer, Camera, Director, and Editor: Ryan Sarnowski
with additional footage from friends.

Music Artist: James & the Giants
Album: James & the Giants
Record label: Kill Rock Stars