A funny thing happened the other night while I was watching MTV. They were inaugurating a new feature (one hesitates to give this station credit for coming up with anything that might be remotely classified as a “show”; after all, their idea of creative programming is Monkees re-runs twice a day—or is it up to three by now?) apparently geared towards squashing all those accusations about how they hardly ever air anything that isn’t “formatconducive” in the form of a twohour block of so-called “alternative” and “avant garde” videos. The segment, entitled “120 Minutes” (like I said, creativity certainly does seem to run rampant around MTV), is supposed to provide the adventurous viewer with a glimpse of what host J.J. Jackson’s cue card calls “tomorrow’s videos today.” And, outside of the fact that they’ve deliberately stuck this program in that most coveted of time slots—Sunday at midnight—the thing does expose, however minutely, some worthwhile videos.

That’s not what struck me as funny, however. What got me was that while I was watching some of these videos, I started to sense some rummaging going on in the basement of my aesthetic sub-conscious. So, while my eyes were focused on Jane Siberry’s “One More Colour”—a delightfully outre clip featuring Siberry walking a cow (right, as in moo) down a country road while a family of very strange looking people sit staring at a screen showing a molecule getting all charged up in a house whose roof gets lifted off by a crane, thus “freeing” them to see the sky that Siberry believes could use "one more colour”—my brain starts telling me that there’s something very familiar about all the the imagery here. The juxtaposition of “real” and un-real (girl with cow, girl with cow hand puppet, nuclear family watching nuclear fission, etc.), the weird, happy-time look on everybody’s face, as if they’ve just been lobotomized, the same serious art/common nonsense atmospherics. Why it’s just like, just like...just like a Devo video, that’s it! The clip ends, and it’s announced that Jerry Casale directed it. Jerry Casale—from Devo! Interesting,

I say to myself.

Later, Peter Gabriel’s “Sledgehammer” is screened. Lots of single-framed DaveyAnd Goliath clay animation. Lots of frame on frame shots of Gabriel’s face contorting into a million weird shapes. Armies of marching fruit. High-speed clothes changing. Swirling furniture. Many split-second visual gags. The whole thing is kinda like Talking Heads’ “Road To Nowhere” taken to the nth power. Which, it turns out, is exactly what it is! “That was ‘Sledgehammer,’ says J.J., “directed by Stephen Johnson, who worked on Talking Heads’ ‘Road To Nowh...” Oh, no! Not again! You know what this means, don’t you? It means the “auteur” school of filmmaking has come to rock video! We’re in for it now, folks—stylistic quirks, allusions to previous opuses, form dictating content— there may be no turning back. I mean, I don’t mind videos as entertainment. But an art form as well? The mind boggles.

SNAP SHOTS Not The Beatles...And Not An Incredible Simulation, Either: Julian Lennon, “Foolin’ Around”—It’s funny, but all through the lifespan of his first album, I tried very hard to make sure I wasn’t pre-judging this kid. I mean, everyone has to start somewhere, and there sure are worse places to start than trying to follow in a great father’s footsteps. But now here’s the first video from his second album and it finds him not only musically still doing the same vocal imitations but also visually copying facial mannerisms left and right in such an obvious manner that your only reaction is to think that someone should tell him he should be ashamed of himself. Which, I guess, I just did. And while we’re on the subject of family relations...C’mon, Tito, Michael’s Got So Many Make-Up Kits, He’ll Never Even Know One’s Missing: Janet Jackson, “What Have You Done For Me Lately”—Yes, she sure does look a lot like her brother, but since Michael looks the way he does because of cosmetic surgery, what kind of family resemblance are we talking about here, anyway? Weird, folks, weird...

Yeah, Like Henry Mancini Really Needs The Royalty Check: The Art Of Noise, “Peter Gunn”—This video has a great vibe; kinda like Mike Hammer caught in the middle of Martin Scorcese’s Afterhours. Plus, these guys deserve bonus points for digging up the ol’ rebel rouser himself, Duane Eddy, to bequeath a few cameo twangs to the record. If dissonance be the food of wacky videos, boys, grate on...Yeah, Like Alice Cooper Really Needs The Aggravation: Krokus, “School’s Out”—And those of you who know Brownsville Station’s “Smokin’ In The Boys’ Room” thought Motley Crue’s cover of that song was terrible. Alright Krokus, on with the duncecaps and up to the blackboard—“I will not defame classic rock ’n’ roll songs ever again”—500 times. And report to principal D.L. Roth’s office when you’re finished...Say No More. I Can Say No More: Mike And The Mechanics, “Ail I Need is a Miracle”—Seeing Victor Spinetti and Roy Kinnear in a video 21 years after their antics in Help\ (remember the evil scientist and his stooge?) is enough to restore my faith in the medium. Keep this kind of stuff up, Rutherford, and I’ll be a Genesis fan yet... Great Britain’s Sugar Problem— And Yours: Style Council, “Have You Ever Had It Blue”— Just what I always wanted to see—endless close-ups of Paul Weller’s bad teeth. Which reminds me, where’s that Pogues video?

MAKES NO SENSE!

VARIOUS ARTISTS Best of Bandstand Volume One (Vestron videocassette)

by Dave DiMartino

If, as a twerp in the 1960s, 1 you enjoyed rock ’n’ roll and I wanted to see it live, you had I three choices. You could I have your parents drive you I to a nearby concert, where I they would either sit with you uncomfortably or pick you up when it. was over. You could take hallucinogenic drugs, put on a record, and rub your eyes a lot. Or you could watch TV.

Why not? There was Shindig, Hullaballoo, a bunch of variety shows, Lloyd Thaxton, Upbeat, and maybe, if you were lucky, your own local program. In Miami, where I twerped, there was WQAM DJ Rick Shaw’s two shows, Saturday Hop and The Rick Shaw Show. Yawn if you must, but somebody somewhere was feeding the guy live footage of the Spencer Davis Group and Dave, Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Titch, among others, and you’d better believe I saw “Gimme Some Loving” before I ever heard it on the radio. And I haven’t heard “Bend It” on the airwaves to this day.

■That this show even existed was due in large part to Dick Clark, whose own American Bandstand was and is a legend in TV programming. It featured: a bunch of kids dancing; cliches like “it’s got a good beat and you can dance to it”; bands, lots of bands, on TV and in your house whenever you turned on the tube. How many bands? There are 10,000 or so appearances of renowned rock ’n’ roll acts either here, on Clark’s Where The Action Is series or elsewhere in his vaults, they tell me. What they don’t tell me is that Clark might as well have bought 50 percent of IBM the day shares went on the market—the guy pretty much owns all the rock ’n’ roll ever

televised. Or will someday.

Best Of Bandstand is thus nifty not only in and of itself, but also for what it promises: the vaults are being opened. The vaults are commercially available. At 30 bucks a pop. Per hour.

SKREEEEEEEEEEEEUU!

But who in his or her right ‘ mind would complain? This, Volume One of a potential set of 1,000, features famed rockers like Buddy Holly, Jerry Lee Lewis, Paul Anka, The Big Bopper, Fabian, Dion & The Belmonts, Chubby Checker, the Fleetwoods, Sam Cooke, Bill Haley & The Comets, the Everly Brothers and more. I would gladly pay $30 for this tape—and so would 999 of my friends!

Figure it out. That means Clark’II gross an easy 30 grand bare minimum for this alone! Multiply that by a thousand and then assume that more than 999 of my buddies would be interested. Go ahead!

You got it—more than $30,000,000 in 1986 dollars!

Figure that in 20 years or so he’ll be slipping in Bangles and Julian Lennon footage for nostalgia’s sake, too. And since he’s got 10,000 clips in the can after 30 years, simple math tells us he’ll have 6,664 more in that same 20-year period! And remember—we’re talking just 1,000 people buying each tape!

Consider also that the $30-per-tape figure should zoom by a factor of 18 by 2006, if inflation—admittedly declining, but not by a significant enough percentage—follows true to form. I don’t have a calculator with me right now, but logic dictates that Clark’s profits will be so incredibly staggering that, quite simply, he will own everything.

Sound unbelievable? It isn’t!

Dick Clark does not age. Ever notice? That’s part of his image, an image that he’s carefully cultivated in these 30-plus years he’s been on our television screens. He makes jokes about it! But consider this: a recent

Harvard study (Dunn and McGee, 1984) published in the Journal Of Teleography: Bypassed Or Inventive showed that Clark’s face was the third most recognized in a sub-group of 147 “famous” faces. That President Reagan and actor Larry Hagman were more recognizable is not altogether surprising, true— remember / Dream Of Jeannie?—but most stunning, as Dunn and McGee noted in amazement, is that a full 140 of those other faces belonged to the most influential politicians, businessmen and brokers of our time! Even Boy George, at the height of his fame at the time of the study, scored a mild 42! Meaningless? I don’t think so. Clark, obviously, is an astute businessman. He is personable, friendly, highly recognizable, and very clearly headed for political office. Not just any political office, mind you, but the highest in the land. The world. He can afford it, he can buy it, he can buy me, he can buy you, he has already bought or will buy everything that we hold dear.

My point? Dick Clark, man, myth or beast, is Satan himself, pleasing to the eye but so wicked, so dangerous, so vastly evil and all-consuming SKREEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

Then there was the time the Monkees came to town. Jimi Hendrix and the Buffalo Springfield were opening; it was at the Convention Center and my mom was goin SKREEEEEEEEEEEEE! my eyes hurt and I want to turn the record over SKREEEEEEEEEEEEE!

I, for one, highly recommend SKREEEEEEEEEEEEE! it’s got a gre SKREEEEEEEEEEEEE! superb Hi-Fi soundtrack wi SKREEEEEEEEEEEEE!

300 trillion dolla SKREEEEEEEEEEEEE! annoying handclaps that intr SKREEEEEEEEEEEEE! syndicated Pat Boone show with H.P. Lovecraft and Pink FI SKREEEEEEEEEEEEE!

An excellent tape. I’m looking forward to the remaining 999, hypotheti

SKREEEEEEEEEEEEE!