Skip to content
News

Of Course Rick Rubin’s #IceBucketChallenge Is an Avant-Garde Short Film

Rick Rubin ALS Ice Bucket Challenge Video

We’ve finally reached the avant-garde stage of the Ice Bucket Challenge. As the charity fad rolls on, celebrities are less and less content to merely dump buckets of ice on their heads. But rather than go for big-budget parody like Dave Grohl, super-producer Rick Rubin aimed for something a little more strange.

Backed by Steve Reich’s tape loop classic “It’s Gonna Rain,” the Yeezus architect dumps a bunch of buckets of ice into a tub before submerging himself into the freezing bath. It’s pretty much the reverse of what everyone else is doing, but it’s that sort of thinking that’s made him such an in-demand producer to start with right? At the end, he worldlessly nominates fellow weirdos Vincent Gallo (Buffalo ’66) and Owen Wilson (Wedding Crashers), as well as alt-R&B superstar Frank Ocean. It’s possible though, that the highlight of the video’s existence is the fact that it got Eminem to tweet the name of the generously proportioned dude who got actually blown by Chloë Sevigny in The Brown Bunny.

For more musicians dumping water on themselves, check out SPIN’s recent round up of all the best Ice Bucket Challenge GIFs. And be sure remember not to lose sight of the fact that this is all to bring awareness to ALS, a degenerative nerve disease.