Memphis Get All Lemony Snickety

With the final installment of his Series Of Unfortunate Events books arriving this October, Lemony Snicket (a.k.a. Daniel Handler) may be looking to toy with the lives of indie rockers instead of orphans. The children's author will direct a video for Canadian dream-pop duo, Memphis.

According to Memphis frontman (and erstwhile member of Stars and Broken Social Scene) Torquil Campbell, the band bumped into Handler at a Death Cab For Cutie show in San Francisco.

"He's a big pop music fan and we met and he told me he had written a lot of Lemony Snicket books listening to Memphis — which I thought was really odd. But it was great, and I was happy to hear that. I thought it would be fun to do something creative together. He had been influenced by stuff I'd done, and I'd read his books and enjoyed his books, so I thought it would be fun."

The video will be for "I'll Do Whatever You Want," the lead single from Memphis' sophomore release, A Little Place In The Wilderness. Campbell says filming should start in Vancouver by September, with the clip hopefully making it to air soon thereafter.

Campbell is keeping hush-hush about the treatment, although he promises a twist ending and the same dark sense of humour found in Handler's Lemony Snicket stories.

"I'm not going to give it away, but it involves coffins and boats — and alcohol," he says. "That's pretty much the centrepiece."

Handler has played accordion and keyboards for Magnetic Fields, so there's a chance that he could make a musical cameo in the video.

"I would love him to play," says Campbell."That would be fantastic. That would be awesome. I'll probably pay him more, then."

Until the video airs, catch Memphis — without coffins, boats or Snicket — at these shows:

Aug. 24 Vancouver, BC @ Richard's On Richards
Aug. 25 Victoria, BC @ Logan's
Oct. 5 Montreal, QC@ Le Lion D'Or