METAL VIDEO: All The Latest Doggerel & Suds!

METAL VIDEO: All The Latest Doggerel & Suds!

Richard Riegel

Some wags call the tail end of summer the “dog days,” but your faithful reporter has managed to avoid making any messes on the floor of his family-room media center so far this month. Instead, he’s found the TV music video scene inexplicably easier to take, possibly because some changes are taking place, even at the long-dominant MTV.

I don’t have any hard statistics on this trend, but it seems to me that MTV is showing more metal videos these days, and not just in their specialized Metal Shop and Metal Mania segments. Metal videos are popping up on the average of once or twice an hour on MTV now, even during the evening prime time, and that’s up from zilch a few months ago.

Their subtle shift back into •metal programming could be part of the network’s current youth movement. As you may or may not have noticed, the two more “elderly” MTV veejays, J.J. Jackson and Nina Blackwood, have quietly disappeared from your TV screen in the past month or so. Meanwhile, MTV’s been rather blatant about installing raw youth in place of these veterans. The first new permanent veejay is Judi Brown, a young black woman with a “kicky” British accent, and MTV has also made quite a fetish of employing rockstars’ children—e.g., China Slick, Moon and Dweezil Zappa—in extended guest-veejay slots. Not only that, but the prime earlyevening hours of MTV have been dominated of late by those eternal ingenues Alan Hunter and Martha Quinn, the latter of whom was still “on” Maypo when Nina Blackwood was already hanging out on that strobelit rock scene.

Ah youth! Nina and J.J. (and your reporter) don’t seem to have it anymore, at least not the brand of youth MTV requires to keep on peddling pastel-flavored bubble gum to the weenyboppers. Interestingly enough, MTV hasn’t seen fit to shift Blackwood and Jackson “upstairs” to their own channel for seniors, VH-1, possibly because VH-1 has a full quota of hairspray-armored veejays already. But I’m confident that at least J.J. Jackson will work in television again; I know that I’ll click on the ol’ goob toob some evening soon and J.J. Jackson will be on there urging “everyone 50 to 80 in the room to get pencil and paper” so he can tell ’em about some life insurance designed just for their weary bones. (No joke, only about 11 more years to go and I’ll have to run and fetch that pencil and paper myself when Bro J.J. gives the command.)

Guess I’ll have to break down now and express my appreciation to MTV for showing the Ramones' “Something To Believe In” video in fairly frequent rotation. I watched Martha Qainn announce the release of the video on “Rock ’n’ Roll News” one evening, and I thought cynically, “Oh yeah, MTV’s always glad to mention the activities of our more modern bands, when are they gonna back ’em up with true music & video exposure?” But, surprisingly enough, MTV’s shown “Something To Believe In” repeatedly already, which is more astounding in that the video satirizes the recent benefit performance efforts of MTV golden goodygoody types like Springsteen and Stevie Wonder.

"Ramones Aid” is the cause of the day. and tons of celebs, everybody from Toni Basil to Ted Nugent, from Exene Cervenka to Weird Al VankoviC: have lent their starry presences to the “Something To Believe In” video, to draw in those as yet uncommitted fans. After all. 1986 marks the 10th anniversary of the Ramones’ recording career, and studies have shown that the American rock public tends to “discover” and embrace “new” bands when said bands’ve already paid a whole decade of dues (e.g., REO Speedwagon, Scorpions). So the Ramones are the new band of the hour at long last! I’ll gladly send a donation to Ramones Aid if it means Lionel Richie has to link hands with a scaly alien right across the Empire State Building!

So what’s happening in metal video this month? Well, my favorite is Run-D.M.C.'s “Walk This Way.” No, now just waitaminute, this is an Aerosmith song, partially performed by Aerosmith mainstays Steve Tyler and Joe Perry (or “Steve Perry and Joe Tyler,” as that bubbly Martha Quinn called 'em last night), even if the whole package is a showcase for the rappers in Run-D.M.C. “Walk This Way” just happens to contain one of the Top 10 killer hooks of all time, and Run-D.M.C.’s staccato attack makes it even more exciting than it already was. Don’t groan now, kids, but this video also contains a highly symbolic “message.” Note well how, when Tyler finally smashes down that wall separating the musical styles and races, everybody finds out what an artifical barrier to ultimate riffhood it really was.

Even as Aerosmith are breaking down the barriers, Quiet Riot are still feeling the paranoias brought on by last year’s witchhunt directed against metal. Quiet Riot’s “The Wild And The Young” video features a familiar but probably still timely enemiesof-rock theme, with the local fascists putting all the electric guitars through a crusher, stripping kids of their bad duds, and most threateningly of all, shaving that rock ’n’ roll hair right down to the skull. Ouch! I bet you felt that last indignity all the way to the roots of your new “growth,” Kevin! This vid includes a Wink Martindale cameo even more forgettable than the blurb he contributed to the back of the Knickerbockers’ Lies album in 1966.

Speaking of shaggy locks, check out Judas Priest's

“Turbo Lover” video, as Rob Halford has finally gone with the metal flow and grown his blond ringlets long, after years of that short clone look designed to facilitate the wearing of leather caps. Besides Halford’s new look, “Turbo Lover” features the usual Priestly formation of motorcycles, shooting through bright 2001 A.D. acid flash colors as skeletons cavort beneath black leather.

Jon Bon Jovi the new David Lee Roth? Not an impossible concept, judging by Bon Jovi’s ‘‘You Give Love A Bad Name” video, a performance clip with dozens of quick-cut shots of Jon and the boys mugging, twirling mikes, hopping along the stage, etc., much in the style of Van Halen in the days when the Dutch Boys were still chummy enough to allow Diamond Dave to borrow their record albums without inspecting his needle first. Bon Jovi the new Van Halen? Well, somebody’s gotta do it, and besides Jon’s mighty well-equipped in that essential loose-lips department.

If B.J. move on up into the V.H. league, then their old place can be filled by Cinderella, who’ve just come onto the video scene with ‘‘Shake Me.” Lend your orbs to this well-loved plot of li’l gals getting exposed to the beeg metal concert, a la Ozzy, etc. A pair of wicked stepsisters in twin white-framed shades and polkadot gloves (caricatures of punkjunk femmes?) attempt to foil a night on the town with Cinderella, but rock justice triumphs in the arm-waving finale.

But even if you’re a strict metal-first-last-and-always dog soldier, don’t pass on John Cougar Mellencamp’s “Rumbleseat” video, as the song itself has all the fire and boom of the best metal anthems. And the video may be Mellencamp’s best yet in its utter simplicity: I get a kick every time I watch John and the guys do that bluejean hopstep march in front of that gloriously fake gas station & R.R. crossing painted backdrop. Watch this video carefully for Mellencamp’s longer, more backcombed hair, and for his wonderful, wonderful portrayal of John Hoosier Mellencamp when his blonde-honey missus turns over the wheel of that ’58 Impala convertible to him. In these vignettes, we’re getting our first glimpses of the absolutely gigantic COUNTRY & WESTERN STAR John M. will become by the year 1996. You heard it here first, but I didn’t, I stole the whole concept of Mr. Mellencamp’s once & future country stardom from my own brunette-honey missus.

Don’t say this column didn’t warn you, Just keep you metal shiny and stay tuned for further bulletins.