MTV�s been the new kid on the block for such a long run now that it�s lost whatever diplomatic immunity it once possessed, and it�s become eminently fair game for potshots from us armchair cranks. I remain more than comfortable with the basic concept of video presentation of pop (as opposed to the �pure music� diehards), but on the other hand, MTV is beginning to take on some of the aspects of AOR radio that soured me on that medium way back when.

For one thing, MTV has betrayed its early promise of �nonstop music� (just as FM rock did), as the primetime evening hours I usually view MTV are crammed with more commercials all the time. It seems rare now to catch eveti two primetime videos in a row, without the interruption of some lite beer, acne medication, or pastel duds message. Yeah, they pay the bills, etc. , but if MTV ever sinks to AOR�s current level of allowing no-moneydown thought criminals access to shout about �flotation sleeping systems,� I�m reaching for my cable selecter box pronto.

Also questionable to me is MTV�s constant stream of logo-happy plugs of itself. Sure, most of these breaks are Very clever conceptually and graphically, but how come we have to be sold repeatedly on the utter desirability of watching MTV when we�re already watching it anyway? The break which irritates me the most is the one they use at the top of every hour, when the rocket takes off and the NASA employees unwittingly plant the MTV flag on the Moon. Call it latent insect paranoia if you like, but the frame where the beeping astronauts hop out of their capsule inevitably gives me the creepy mind picture of common ornery household roaches, their antennae waving and beeping, as they hop from the cupboards to perform search & destroy missions for toaster crumbs on the kitchen counter. Ugggh!

Still and all, that break always zips by quick enough that I remain tuned to MTV for (most of) another hour, as I just might get to see:

Tracey Ullman—�They Don�t Know�: Deja vu some 19 years back, when Donovan arrived on our shores as �the British Dylan.� Mr. Leitch blew that tag real quick, but for now Tracey Ullman looks like a real strong contender for �the British Cyndi Lauper� title. This song�s girlgroup-cute enough, but Ullman�s video portrayal of a magicmarkereyeliner/bouffant-hairdo/stretchpants mid-�60s �bird� (girls looked just like this for a couple years after the Beatles came, longhair & jeans myths to the contrary) is beautifully precise. Ditto for Tracey�s eye rolls and shoulder shrugs. And yeah, Paul McCartney hisself cameos in this video, on a dream date with Ullman�s cheeky mid-�60s image (via trick photography—the scale is a bit off); evidently only fellow megamegas like Michael Jackson and Mrs. McC. are allowed to touch Paulie�s immortal Beatle person.

Bob Dylan—�Sweetheart Like You�: Speaking of camera tricks, dollars to donuts that the charwoman Bob�s singing out his heart to is not his mom, even if she looks a bit like the real Mrs. Zimmerman might. Dylan�s much too compulsive a �private person� to expose his actual relatives to the larger vid audience. Undoubtedly he�s already petitioned CBS to permit actors to play him in his future videos, so that nothing of the flesh & blood Dylan will be revealed to the masses. This is a barebones �performance� video, as you might expect from somebody who came up with the folkie purists. I predict that it�ll be a hot day in Hibbing before the vid directors persuade Bob to do any stunts even as minimally photogenic as driving a convertible (a la the equally private Randy Newman).

Styx—�Music Time�: These bobos are trying so manfully to be hip, after so many years of irrelevant pomposity, that you�ve gotta give �em an �E� for effrontery. This one video may not be enough to redeem them permanently, but for now Dennis DeYoung looks like a new Sting (with a much-needed sense of slapstick), and the imagery�s flashy and colorful even if it doesn�t �say� too much. In fact, �Music Time� seems so lively in the context of all those intensely dour young gentlemen in the current British videos that I�ll grant Styx their wish; you guys are now AS HIP as the (equally slick) Tubes! (Not an inch more!)

Slade—�Run Runaway�: As attractively yobby as ever, Slade are scoring big with essentially the same act the Americans didn�t wanna hear about in �74, And they�ve got their revenge on us with the hokey Celtic sis-boom-bah overtones of Jim Lea�s fiddle (well, it worked for Dexy...). But the real stars of this video are Nod Holder�s rubbery face and spastic tongue (perferable alternatives to a bullshit beard if yer hairline�s receding, doncha know). Another boisterous rouser from Slade, it goes without saying.

Scorpions—�Rock You Like A Hurricane�: Which involves 1984�s fave lowbrow video theme (cf. Billy Idol), post-nuclear anarchy meets caveperson futurism, and the women get screwed one more time. Premise here is that the Scorpions are such irresistible studfaces that they have to �perform� in a cage so that the metalcrazed maidens can�t get at �em. Give the females who participated in this travesty union-scale-and-a-half for the method-acting job of the year!

Go-Go�s—�Head Over Heels�: Generic pastel straightahead goodygoody imagery from these ladies we�ve already loved (for just such simplicities) for a bunch of years now. A sweet and pleasant video, with nary a pretension in sight. The airliner landing behind Kathy Valentine doesn�t seem to fit in with all the splashy polychromatics, but I guess it was just a nice shot (nobody wanted to throw away).

Elton John—�I�m Still Standing�: Cripes! I had it all figured out when I first caught this video a few months ago—I was sure Elton�s promenade among all those muscleflexing Riviera lifeguards meant he was finally bringing his beefcake predilections all the Way out of the closet, and then he goes and marries a woman! Well, you just be bitchy on me, you nelly boy! (Though I�ve gotta admit you look good in that Straw boater; first logical covering for the failed transplants you�ve come up with.)

EIGHTEEN IS OVER THE HILL

READY STEADY GO!

(Thorn EMI Video)

JAMES BROWN: James Brown Live In Concert

(Music Media)

LOU REED: A Night With Lou Reed

(RCA/Columbia Pictures Video)

It is a well known fact of life that all of us who read this magazine will eventually grow old and die. This is either depressing or rewarding, depending on your outlook, but it is most definitely a certainty.

Unfortunately, such dreary thoughts cannot help but arise once you have witnessed the three videotape productions listed above. Though of varying quality, all three hit home in a big way if you re sentimental. worried about your encroaching senility, or just plain nervous. ,

Ready Steady Go! is great fun, the sort of thing video machines were invented for in the first place. The similarly-titled TV show was to �60s English kids what Shindig and Hullabaloo were to American kids of the same era—basically a bunch of rock �n� roll bigwigs putting in appearances every week, singing to those in the hinterlands who might want to part with some spare change and buy their record or something. Usually the bands didn�t care about the �something,� of course, but the hucksterism then was of a wholly different nature than today�s sophisticated (and much more blatant) MTV hardsell, and in retrospect actually seems endearing. Today the mind boggles at the concept of the Beatles hyping �Can�t Buy Me Love,� but Ready Steady Go! clearly depicts the boys rich but still hungry, lip-synching that tune and �You Can�t Do That� while cleancut Britkids dance, of all things. It seems unnatural.

In fact. Ready Steady Go! is mindboggling any way you cut it. See Them�s Van Morrison lip-howling �Baby Please Don�t Go,� alone all anyone could decently ask for. See a punky Eric Burdon tell the RSG host that he and his oddly-named Animals have just been together seven months and are hoping for at least small success. See Dusty Springfield. Cilia Black and Lulu. Vote for your favorite haircut. It is, in the vernacular of the decade, all too much.

There are some disappointments. The lip-synching still seems a cop-out at times (cf. Blue Cheer, �Just A Little Bit,� Upbeat, late �60s), but those whose exposure to onscreen rock �n� roll begins and ends with MTV probably won�t even notice. Anyway, it lets up toward the end of the tape. The performances? Well, if I had a vote I wouldn�t waste the Searchers on �What Have They Done To The Rain,� or Dusty Springfield on �Every Day I Have To Cry.� And while it�s historically interesting to view the comedy team of Peter Cook and Dudley Moore at least once, that�s all anyone normal will need before fast-forwarding to the Rolling Stones and the Who.

Did I say someting about growing old and dying? It�s one thing to see the Dave Clark Five run through �Glad All Over� (which they do even though�it wasn�t on RSG—Dave Clark bought the rights to these shows so he can stick his band anywhere he pleases), because that�s old stuff. That�s fun, that reminds me of when I was debating {Beatles vs. Dave Clark vs. Rolling Stones with my brother. But to see a very young, extremely inspired live performance by both the Stones (�Paint It Black,� �Under My Thumb�) and the Who (�Any Way, Any How, Any Where, pulled for The Kids Are Alright already) sinks it in all too dearly. These bands were great once; they aren�t now.

Ready Steady Go! is worthwhile •.not only for its value as nostalgia— which of course is all it�s intended to be—but for reminding those of us out there who once lived or died for this kind of music that there really was something significant about it. A blind and lasting loyalty toward the Stones, the Who or even the Beatles ultimately didn�t originate from any experience other than seeing and hearing these bands play magnificent music. If you�ve had your doubts— and being 30, I�m occasionally prone—that maybe, just maybe, the �60s experience had a little more to do with being-young-enough-tofuck-around-and-not-care-about-it than anything as substantial as an actual quantifiably better lifestyle or culture, RSG will at least convince you that it wasn�t the dope, those bands were great. And they were doing something unique: breaking rules because no one had ever thought of making them; playing too loud, sticking in marimbas because it sounded good, not because radio was playing marimbas that week. Sure there were exceptions, but—I swear to God—not as many as there are now.

And while we�re talking nostalgia, don�t be fooled by James Brown�s Live In Concert set, either. Not that it�s bad—it�s good, not great—but it�s deceptively packaged. The pictures on the cassette cover date back to the early �60s, the T.A.M.I. Show still a few years ahead, but this concert took place in 1979. From Toronto, of all places. As such, it�s a typical late-�70s James Brown nightclub show: the moves are there, the voice reaching harder than ever, the fancy dance steps, the original funk machine, etc. But in contrast to what the videotape�s cover depicts, he�s not exactly in his prime.

Ten minutes of the band playing �Boogie Wonderland�? Without Brown? Top that off with what must be the weirdest continuity device I�ve ever seen—after each song, �The Forum Presents James Brown� flashes onscreen, not unlike a �we�ll be right back� plug on the Tonight show—and you re wondering what the hell you�re watching in the first place. Mr. Excitement may be the King Of Soul, but the unsympathetic producers here have reduced him to incidental product. After his historic scenes in the original T.A.M.I. Show were snipped for �brevity�s sake� in the recent That Was Rock video, the Hardest Working Man In Show Biz is a prime candidate for a fully realized documentary based on his life. And this ain't it.

Lou Reed, on the other hand, seems to have had total control on his A Night With Lou Reed tape, evidenced by its purely no-bullshit approach. It�s 60 minutes with Lou and his Blue Mask/Legendary Hearts band (Reed, Robert Quine, Fernando Saunders, Fred Maher), taped last year at New York�s Bottom Line. Those I know who were there said you had to see it to believe it, and they might�ve been right.

In theory this should be one of the greatest videotapes ever made. Lou Reed. Live, with a good band. A great band. No arty MTV shots of women getting run over by cars and dragged off the street, no needles or unpeeling bananas. Just Lou Reed onstage, doing his thing. Unfortunately, his thing at this point in time consists of the umpteen-billionth rehashing of �Sweet Jane,� �I�m Waiting For My Man,� �Rock And Roll� and other vintage chestnuts that, may I suggest, should never be performed live by Reed again. Not that Robert Quine doesn�t sound a jillion times better playing the above tunes than any of the other clowns who�ve accompanied Reed through the years—it�s just that the songs are perfunctorily run through, as they are on his Live In Italy import album, and suggest a man resting on his laurels instead of confidently displaying his latest work.

It�s an extremely worthwhile tape, don�t get me wrong. Hearing the quartet run through newer stuff like �Martial Law,� �Don�t Talk To Me About Work� and �Waves Of Fear� alone is worth it. Hell, even �Kill Your Sons� is great. It�s new, it�s fresh, and it doesn�t make you wish for original Ready Steady Go! film clips of the Velvet Underground performing that other material— nonexistent clips, of course, but ones which I would pay many dollars for. And perhaps most of Lou Reed�s dwindling audience would as well.

Given the choice of Ready Steady Go!�s nostalgia rush, James Brown In Concert�s false promises and A Night With Lou Reed, I will tell myself that The Blue Mask was not th'e work of a man whose better days are behind him and admire the latter tape begrudgingly. We�re all of us getting old, and some of us do it better than others. Ready Steady Go! may be the name of an old TV show, but sometimes it seems like very sound advice indeed.

Dave DiMartino