WATCH YOUR PARKING METERS

WATCH YOUR PARKING METERS

VIDEO VIDEO

Billy Altman

We’ve been noticing something a bit curious lately, and that is that there seem to be fewer and fewer decent videos being done by bands these days, and more and more interesting, or at least watchable (wouldn’t want to appear irresponsibly optimistic, now would we?), videos being produced by and for solo artists. Now exactly what the reasons for this may be, weYe not too sure. It may that it is easier for the individual performer to achieve what we like to call the video POV, or Purity of Vision (somewhat akin to Sterling Hayden’s “Purity Of Essense” in Dr. Strangelove), necessary to make a semi-decent little film than it is for the multi-headed beast known as a group to do the same.

For instance: John Cougar Mellencamp thinks up the idea of having a parking meter sitting on a stage and then using it as a prop to lean on, dance with, or jump over. It’s his video, so he just goes ahead and does it. Fine and good. Now take that same parking meter and hand it over to say, Motley Crue. Mick Mars may want to try and demolish it using nothing but feedback, while Nikki Sixx may wish to mount it, missionary-style. Tommy may want to just open it up, spill out the change and prove to a skeptical world that at least some metal drummers can count past 21, and Vince, well, Vince might want to use it as a symbol of his close psychological ties to fellow vehicular risk Bob Dylan. But, by the time thing gets filmed—by a director who’s only doing this to pass the time between Baby Ruth/Butterfingers ads^the meter may come to represent, by some strange compromise of art and commerce, man’s pitiful dependence on material possessions and the insignificance of the human race in general.

Still, the point we’re trying to make is that we actually saw a few OK videos this month (two, to be exact), and, in each case, it’s been the work of a solo performer presented in a very defined, measured light. And, while we’d hardly put forth the proposition that Prince and the aforementioned Mr. Mellencamp have all that much in common, we do find it significant that they both put across what they want to without much clutter.

In “Kiss,” you’ve got a minimalist classic: Prince and a

companion doing a kind of Tango Minneapolo with little in the way of scenery (or clothing) to take one’s attention away from the dance. Surrounded by so many videos that are cut “fast on the eye,” so as to provide a false sense of excitement, “Kiss” is a refreshing piece of retrogressive entertainment, anchored simply on body, not camera, movement (Love those splits; JB should be proud). With nice touches of humor blended in with the video’s overriding sexual sparks, “Kiss” is one of the most perfectly realized visual complements to a song we’ve yet come across.

As simple as “Kiss” is, that’s how complicated Mellencamp’s “R.O.C.K. In The U.S.A.” is. A vivid re-creation of Shindig, Hullaballoo, and similar rock TV shows of the ’60s, this video was made in black and white on videotape and put through several re-tapings to give it an authentic “old” look. And the scrupulous care that obviously went into it (Mellencamp’s band even stands like the old Shindogs) brings the message of the song—that American rock, by

definition, is multi-racial and pancultural—into sharp focus indeed, with its celebratory invocation of a more innocent, freer rock age gone by.

Perhaps the coolest thing about “R.O.C.K. In The U.S.A.,” however, is that Mellencamp isn’t even really “in” the video. He appears, in an “interview” before and after the piece, speaking about his warm feelings for the music he grew up on. If only two of the video stars of tomorrow come across as

weird mid-’80s. Now if only a few groups would get their video act together... unassuming as Mellencamp and/or as multi-talented as Prince, then we’ll know that someone paid attention to the right stuff way back in those

SNAP SHOTS Detente, Where Is Thy Sting?

Sting, “Russians”—You know what I really like about this video? The shot where the old guy jumps up in the air with the camera turned sideways, just like the much-vaunted “pretty boys avec volleyball” sequence in Don Henley’s “Boys Of Summer.” Kinda reminds me of when producer Bob Ezrin used to stick screaming babies into all his albums. Know what else I like? The fact that that this entire video looks like a re-run of “Every Breath You Take.” The only thing missing is the ashtray.

And, speaking of deja view... Look, If I Can Keep Writing The Same Song Over and Over Again, Why Can’t I Do The Same Thing With My Videos? Stevie Nicks, “Talk To Me” —Really, now, this is just outtakes from “Gypsy” and “Stand Back” with some token new footage of Stevie showing off her latest schmate, right? Actually, I think I miss the ramp; every time I used to see her on it, flapping that shawl, I was half-expecting her to take off. And, speaking of taking off...Yes, But Does That Include A Wax Job? ZZ Top,

“Rough Boy”—Always on the beardbustin’ edge of video technology, Billy, Dusty, and Frank here show us the universe’s first intergalactic pit stop. Is it just me, or does that image of soap running down the ZZ Mobile grill seem a bit, er, risque? Danny Sullivan, eat your heart out! And, speaking of hemoglobin flow...

disease among white British rockers? Doesn’t anyone realize that Paul Young’s stuff works because the guy can sing? Who does Townshend think he is, anyway? Paul Weller?

WAITER, THERE’S A NOTHING ON MY TELEVISION

BRIAN ENO:

THURSDAY AFTERNOON (Sony)

WESTERN LIGHT (Windham Hill/Paramount)

Dave DiMartino

Not to claim extreme ■ hipness or anything, but I ■ was grooving on this idea of pf sonic environments as a 1 mere pup. Sonic environI ments, soundscapes, boring ■ random noises that simulate life itself, whatever—as a teen boy in ’70 or so, Hip City for me involved a couple of Terry Riley albums played nonstop in a dark bedroom while the physical act of breathing was being pondered. Early ’70s experiments involved picking up Steve Reich’s “Come Out’’ and “Violin Phase,” the Chatham Square Philip Glass LPs, some of the Soft Machine stuff—check out Hugh Hopper’s 1984 album of ’71—and actual music manipulation. As a drunken college DJ, I’d occasionally play Metal Machine Music and Glass’s Music In Similar Motion on both turntables simultaneously (sounds great!) before passing out on the air; for kicks at home I taped Tangerine Dream’s Zeit import at seven-and-a-half on the reel-to-reel and played it back at one-and-seven-eighths. It lasted over five hours, most of it bass drones, and I used to play it loud indeed.

Eno used to do stuff like that, too. I know that because once heard him on a hip Canadian radio station raving about cool bands like Can, Neu and Cluster (who he ended up playing with), and I heard the two Fripp & Eno albums, which were pretty much regurgitations of Terry Riley’s A Rainbow In Curved Air LP. I was not impressed. Not so much because he was getting the credit for lots of pther people’s pioneering—ain’t that always the way?—but because he seemed to be using all the proper “tools” and coming up empty.

Basically, the Bald Icon That Eno Be has always struck me as an “ideas” type of guy—whenever he comes up with an original idea (not very often, I gotta add), it’s the sort of thing that’s more impressive on paper than on vinyl. Remember Portsmouth Sinfonia? Take a few musicians who can play, add more who can’t, and let the latter group imitate the playing of the former. Result: bad music, but consistently bad music—and the badness itself, how it was manifested, was what was most intriguing. But the album sucked, and I only played it once.

Likewise most of the “ambient” stuff that Eno—or Een, as Jeffrey Morgan wisely nicknamed the ol’ biddy—has since produced. For all the guy’s talk about the minimalism of Erik Satie and “music for airports,” the bottom line was that Eno stopped creating and started conceptualizing—and the only winners were the Here Come The Warm Jets fans that would still buy the Bald One’s works religiously, no matter how blandin-the-name-o’-art they’d become, until they too lost interest. And the records got very bland.

But Eno perseveres. His transition from audio to video should’ve come as no surprise to anyone who had the patience to sit around and listen to all his ambient thingies and wait for this “transitional” period of his to end; it won’t, not when there’s this vast new field of visualsnoozing for Eno to embrace and explore. Which he will, believe me.

Thursday Afternoon is Eno’s first conceptual video that’s commercially available, and it’s supposed to be boring and it is, so I guess it’s a success. All I know is you’re supposed to turn your TV over on its side to watch the thing; I did, and when I turned the TV back the way it was supposed to be, there were color splotches on two corners of the screen that didn’t go away until the next day. And it’s a Trinitron. The “program” includes some just-dandy ambient tinkles that last 82 minutes and accompany “seven video paintings of Christine Alcino,” a pert, petite and charming lass who, by the way, should be tickled pink by the second painting, since in it she looks like the Goodyear Blimp, only fatter. That wacky Een!

What can you say about this stuff? Way back in the pup days, a few friends and I would watch Mr. Ed on late night TV, wait for the station to go off the air, then screw around with the snow on the screen. Try this: turn your set’s darkness control full-blast until you can only see a little snow, or even the suggestion of some snow. Turn your color control all the way up. Then play around with the darkness knob a little more. Turn the sound off and groove on the high-frequency noises the picture tube itself produces. Then see if you can find one of those Environments records that Atlantic used to distribute. Or that humpback whale thing. Heck, take drugs if you want—it’s all for the sake of art! Ask Eno!

And if you’ve ever seen Koyaanisqatsi, a nifty art film which Philip Glass did the music for in ’82, you might as well forget about staying awake for the Windham Hill videos. Western Light is just one of four of ’em, and they’re all the same: scenic landscapes, no humans, and pretty music. Lots of pretty music. Music so pretty you’ll be extremely hard-pressed to ever sing a note of it, because most of it doesn’t have any melody, doesn’t go anywhere, and is a tremendous help to those in the slide-show business who need pretty music that doesn’t go anywhere. I mention the Glass film because it’s similar in approach to these Windham Hill things but mind-blowing; these are half that.

My own ambient ambitions: I’ve got a 40-minute drive to work every day. I often drive from Detroit to Miami. I have every intention of picking up one of those new compact videocameras by the end of the year, plugging it into my car’s cigarette lighter, positioning it by the dashboard and actually taping all my favorite drives, with the tape deck blasting current faves, so I can watch hours upon hours of 1986, when life was good, in a few more years. If it gets boring, I can speed it up.