By Sean Moeller

Shooting a music video, for a band that is just starting to make an impression on the greater public, is typically done with some friends (the handier with a camera, the better) and a modest budget that barely covers the film it’s shot on. There are no grips, no helicopters and no girls, not that you need any of them for an indie rock video, but if you were looking for them, you’d be wasting your time. These are low-key affairs, fit into some off-time afternoon. The Coen Brothers probably aren’t going to be involved. Ron Howard’s probably too busy molting about the sad demise of his riotously funny sitcom “Arrested Development.” But that says nothing of “The Silence of the Lambs” director Jonathan Demme. He might be able to do it. Let him check…yes indeed, it looks like Mr. Demme has some time he can spare while he’s in home in New York for a short reprieve from the “Neil Young: Heart of Gold” press junket he’s doing to promote the documentary/concert film. He’ll pencil you in, M’s.

It wasn’t such a fantastical or off-the-handle process as that sounds, but Chicago pop band The M’s fell into a friendship with the accomplished film man and it grew into an opportunity that had Demme lending his services to the group in March, at the Bowery Ballroom, to shoot a video for “Future Women,” the title track from this year’s dynamite sophomore album, out on Polyvinyl Records. Demme saw the band open for Wilco last year in New York and fired off an e-mail to the band’s general address shortly thereafter telling them that he wanted to buy a stack of their albums. He sent the band a DVD of a couple of the videos he’s done in the past and M’s lead singer Josh Chicoine told him that should he ever feel the desire to shoot another music video to keep them in mind. It worked out just under two months ago.

“It was a nice thing to do with my new friend Jonathan Demme,” Chicoine said with a chuckle. “He has a really good eye and we sort of relied on that. We just sort of let him do what he wanted.”

Chicoine said that Demme is one of the band’s biggest fans, but working and mingling with the legend wasn’t any kind of unbelievable overload.

“It is kind of strange, but I’m not starstruck by it because of the relationship that we had,” he said. “Neil Young came to one of our shows in Austin and you think, ‘Yeah, this is great,’ but the more you hang around, the more things like that can happen to you.”

What likely attracted Demme to the band was its habit of writing delightful melodies that frolic with some scruffy and fuzzy guitars to form what Homer Simpson would qualify as in the same level of reverence as the gummi Venus De Milo. It plays in such a dignified and ragtag fashion (yes, it’s entirely possible I’m willing to propose) as to reinforce the very foundation upon which the band was built on: completely garage-ing it, drinking beers in the spare room and recording songs in hazy circumstances. Chicoine’s lyrics are smart and intriguing, joining the new tide of indie rockers that traffic in shambles and experiment the hell out of every supposed form of song structure. They’ve toured with some of these groups, taking to the road with kindred spirits Dr. Dog, The Deathray Davies and Of Montreal this spring in an unending tour that hasn’t rested since February.

“We just become friends with these folks and it’s easy,” Chicoinse said. “We played some dates with Archer Prewitt and he ended up playing more of a rock set because he was playing with us. We’re out with the Deathray Davies now and I think we’re playing more of a rock set because of them. These are bands that we like. We like their music. We’re just getting shit-faced together and going on to the next city.”

www.the-ms.com