DAVID (O) AND CONQUER

DAVID (O) AND CONQUER

Richard Riegel

No sooner had I finished my last monthly curse of MTV for its lack of video variety, than those same clever market researchers tossed me and all the metal fans a crumb of sorts. MTV’s Metal Mania show was a whole hour of nothing but metal vids, hosted by Twisted Sister’s Dee Snider, one of the champion electronic fish callers of our time.

Big Dee slung out one metal vid after another, in an energy rotation heavier than the usual entire evening of MTV programming. Some of the videos were fairly recent items—Def Leppard, Black Sabbath with Ian Gillan, etc.—which nevertheless seemed like “oldies” because they’d been absent from the tube for so long. And then there were some truly classic moments of metal videodromeing, from Motorhead’s “Iron Fist,” a Lemmy/Fast Eddie/Philthy Animal Taylor performance speedier than an acne chain on meth to a 1972 video of Alice Cooper’s anthemic “I’m Eighteen,” gorgeously antique in its psychedelic greens and purples.

In between the vids, Snider made plenty of threatening gestures at the teleprompter, and took time to interview Klaus Meine and Matthias Jabs of the Scorpions. The three metal pros told each other regular-guy jokes about the rottenness of the “press,” which was fine with me—I’ll take that to Mark Goodman’s totally unironic tidbits about Duran Duran any night of the week. All too soon the Metal Mania hour was over with, and HM has remained a fairly scarce animal on MTV, even if they continue to sneak metal vids on at odd times when Dick Clark’s not watching. And now the commercials promise that another Dee Snider Metal Mania hour will run later this week. Get it while you can, as the feller said.

Another good time I had with MTV in the past month was the evening Weird Al Yankovic was the guest veejay. Besides being an all-around nice guy and full-blooded Yugoslav (a champeen ethnic group as these things go), Weird Al exhibited real good taste in his programming selections. He hauled out and dusted off some great videos MTV used to show (and hadn’t for a long time), like Tracey Ullman’s “Breakaway,” as ’60s-ish casually erotic as this stuff gets, and the beloved Captain Sensible’s beloved “Wot.” (I said “Wot!?!”) Yankovic also spun the hardcore vid thrashout of Suicidal Tendencies’ “Institutionalized, complete with Mary Woronov as Mom, and a full line of generic delicacies in the refrigerator. I bet Martha Quinn wouldn’t touch that one with a 10-foot Go-Bot. Like Metal Mania, the evening of “Al TV” was over much too soon, and then it was back to MTV’s soft bubble gum business as usual. They’re trying their darnedest to get Phil Collins elevated to saint-hood at least a couple weeks before Ed McMahon suffers his first stroke, as far as I can make out.

Anyway, it seems that MTV is prepared to “cater” to “minority” tastes like metal, punk, etc., but only in carefully roped-off token segments that won’t tarnish their general mainstreaming—i.e., “His name’s ‘Weird Al’ after all, you’d expect him to play wackos like Captain Sensible!” Oh well, what can ya do when the whole corporate world’s off on a frenzy of Dewit-to-it! mania, with your wallet the ultimate victim?

Well, what we can do as usual is pick out the better videos among those the ultimate-minnow programmers allow us to see. My favorite metal vid this week is the Scorpions’ “Big City Nights,” a fast-paced rockumentary of their last world tour. As both metal-mongers and Germans, the Scorps have a double dose of fatal heaviness to overcome, with a bit of lighten-up humor, and this video shows that these guys can still laugh at themselves in several tongues. (At this very moment Klaus Meine is somewhere telling that Kraut wowser about his forehead seeking Lebensraum among his hair follicles.) The beauty of this vid is that it’s made up of dozens of quick cuts, from the boys autographing their fans’ stomachs, to the spotlightstabbed haze of a big arena. Jeez, these Jerries almost make big-rock concerts look like fun again.

I’ll have to admit that I’m also partial to Prince & The Revolution’s “Raspberry Beret” video. It revives the best, most multi-colored gestures of ’67 psychedelia, without the sappiness that often accompanies mass-market revivals of that era. But then I’m a sucker for almost anything in bright blue, and both Prince’s suit and the vid horizon are nothing but cloud-dappled azure. Computer-assisted graphix blah-blah assist the choreography of the many dancers, and the song itself is as nifty as the popular conception that Mama & Papa clouds give birth to baby rolls of toilet tissue. Memo to Prince: Revise your notorious comment to “Reagan has balls but no colon,’’ and all the critics will love U in New York again.

Speaking of potential apocalypses, I’d like a show of hands out there from anybody who’s seen Grim Reaper’s “Fear No Evil” video. This is the old (as in “Dark Ages”) squeal & burn approach to metal with a bunch of Britishers tweaking out all the Viking racial unconsciousness buried (not all that deep) in their Anglo-Saxon souls. (Face it, if these type Limeys didn’t have metal as an outlet, they might become the dreaded “soccer hooligans” instead.) Anyway, the “Fear No Evil” video celebrates shamanistic headbangers of an earlier day, with plenty of the usual murk, doom, lords of darkness, allterrain vehicles (all-terrain vehicles?!?). Sure, hardtouring bands like Grim Reaper always enjoy a few knights off the road...

Don’t groan too loud, or you’ll wake me while I quickcut a few videos that neither excite nor offend me—they’re just there, like dip in your chips. The Firm’s “Satisfaction Guaranteed” is the story video I demanded from these geezers a few months ago, and I’ll grant that the backwoods Louisiana nite club does look authentic, but do you really think you’d find that many uniformly long-haired and damp-camisoled ladies among any given sample of peckerwood citizenry? Yeh, since at least one of you is a former Led Zep, you probably would. In any case, this is undoubtedly the steamiest side o’ life old Page and Rodgers have seen since the Hyatt House discovered the miracle of air conditioning.

Another couple of sue_ cessful British rockers out to reconquer the rural Americana that first pointed ’em toward their eventual fame & fortune are Jeff Beck and Rod Stewart, in their “People Get Ready” video. Shot in black and yellow docuvid style, this one has many creakyboxcar and dusty-mesquite reminders of a faded hobo myth of the American Southwest. As such, this video should feature at least one (phallic) cactus, but can’t say that I’ve spotted one yet. Close, but no saguaro, Rod!

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On a sadder note, the video of Heart's “What About Love” features the Wilson sisters play-acting the heavy-rock stars they haven’t been since at least 1979. They’re trying a last-ditch resuscitation as metalleers, in ironic emulation of Madam X, the coremetal parodies of what Heart always should’ve been. I mean, Ann Wilson’s always been more than OK in the tuff-woman visual sweepstakes. There were once many album-coverstudying nights I was ready to go after Ann W. like a common groupie, but then she went and queered herself for good with me when she did that duet with Mike Reno. Jeez, Ann, cuckold my fantasies with anybody but that headbandrestrained hydrocephalic! And now, in “What About Love,” little-sis Nancy has dropped the wounded-butterfly persona for more of a leather lass image, and I just can’t buy any of it. Better go through the costumes in your well-stocked closets one more time.

Speaking of buying, the video of Dire Straits’ “Money For Nothing” employs the brash commercial gimmick (already successfully used by the Rolling Stones) of showing off the MTV logo several times, which of course guarantees airplay on the network. Of course, since the song is more or less “about” MTV anyway, or about some stockboy proles watching MTV, the logo is a rather inevitable visual touch. “Money For Nothing” includes Mark Knopfler’s familiar disapproving-puritan outlook on the pop life, as well as those inescapable, if nifty, “computer-assisted graphics.” And the vid kids MTV too, with authentic-looking parody videos by artistes like “First Floor” and the “Ian Pearson Band.”

Would you buy a used video from Mark Knopfler? (Sure would, but on the other hand, I’ll have the new fall models for you next month.)