THE VIDEO LA Guns, "Bitch is Back," LA Guns, 1988, Polydor
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SAMPLE LYRIC "Please! Don't save me / don't tell me when it's time to go / It! Could not faze me / I only wanta let you know / bitch is back / right on track / bitch is back / I likeit like that"
EXCESSIVELY DETAILED DESCRIPTION This video had a budget of approximately $2. While that is what makes it awesome, it also makes it somewhat illegible. Coupled with the fact that nearly everyone in LA Guns looks like he could be everyone else in LA Guns' brother, it makes many of the people shown in the different shots if not unidentifiable then at least very, very difficult to positively ID. Needless to say, don't kill me if I screw it up.
The video opens with some scribbly, motion-filled shots of city lights at night as seen from behind the windshield of a car. We see the lights of buildings, cars, highway signs, and so on. This cuts to a pan of a bunch of skyscrapers at sunset, then back to more squiggly lights, then a neon sign ("BUY SELL TRADE") which makes me think pawn shop but then we go inside for a b&w fast pan of guitars racked on a wall and a second neon sign ("USED & VINTAGE GUITARS") followed by neon signs for guitar company logos. Okay, so I jumped to conclusions.
Next we see singer Phil Lewis coming towards us on his motorcycle, and then a shot of Tracii Guns headbanging as he plunges into a riff. Phil gets as close as he can before leaving the frame, then we see a strange, purpley black and white shot (like they mimeographed the film) of two sort of goth looking ladies uhh... possibly wrestling in a bathtub. Okay scratch that, make that one goth looking lady scratching her stomach and then sitting up. I was correct on the bathtub though. Then we see Phil parking his chopper. Next we have Mick Cripps thrashing away. There's a quick pan up a blonde's leg as she sits on a motorcycle, then we see a woman's mostly shadowed face (p.s., she's wearing a blindfold). Light flashes and reveals I think that her wrists are bound as well, then we see Phil leaning against a pole by the side of the street.
Okay, a really weird shot with possibly nude people who are possibly women (but far from definitely). There's a guitar involved. Then the camera swings past some city lights and a woman sitting on top of a car before we see Tracii again. Next there's that perennial b-roll favorite, film the band during a photo shoot. Honestly though, I can't tell who's who. I'm pretty sure Phil's in the middle and Steve's on his right, but that's it. We see Tracii (?) doing something with a guitar, then we're finally in a normal shot again: Phil sort of trotting along the street while singing. The camera tries to follow him around while he spins and mimes different words from the song's lyrics. We see quick shots of Tracii playing and a quick photo shoot still of ...Mick? And a woman sharing an intimate moment with a guitar.
Now Phil's waving his hands around while walking backward down the street. He seems to have put on more scarves. Then we see Kelly, but quickly cut back to Phil, who's walking down the street sans scarves. He's managed to take off those plus a leather jacket, and now he's got quite the crowd around him. Throughout this video it would appear that they didn't exactly get a permit to shut down a block. Instead, they had a couple of p.a.'s get everyone to stand about two feet away from Phil. The effect is somewhat like U2's "Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For," only a lot, lot cheesier. Also, I don't remember the people in that video laughing at Bono. But that's another story (plus it doesn't involve metal).
We see a little bit of Kelly (?) then we're back with Phil for a long time as he stumbles down the street past a bunch of closed stores. In between, a couple of models look bored, and Steve Riley shows slightly more enthusiasm for being in LA Guns than he did for W.A.S.P. Woops, Phil has his jacket on again for a moment, then he's back to normal. Turns out he's walking along the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
Anyway, Phil stumbles around more, then we see Tracii and Kelly really quickly. Phil keeps getting really, really close to the camera, then backing up a bit. At one point, we see a creepy shot of two quite androgynous people, one lying face down on top of the other one. The bottom one, who may be Phil, sort of screams. Phil's stopped walking and has been leaning against the grill pulled down over the front of a closed shop for a while now. He's interspersed with brief shots of the whole group having their photo taken and um... looks like someone wearing cowboy boots' feet standing in shallow, running water, and Tracii spinning around. Phil then briefly has his leather jacket and scarves again as he stumbles across a street, gesturing for the camera to follow. But mixed in with some shots of city lights, he's back in front of that same store again, shoving his hands in his ears (he does this a lot throughout the video).
Phil backs down the street, dressed again, and Tracii swings his guitar around and makes faces like a working man's Nikki Sixx while Kelly Nickels just looks hot. We see a bunch more weird shots of models (bored and in bondage). Anyway, Tracii's tearing it up as we go into the hottest part of the video, as Phil rapidly removes his jacket and saunters up to a blonde leaning against a pole.
They just start going at it, which is interesting mainly because you rarely see anyone but David Coverdale or later, Axl Rose, actually touch any of the women in any of these videos. And he was married to Tawny Kitaen and Axl was well, in some sort of relationship with Stephanie Seymour, so that's different. Or maybe it's not, for all I know she's Mrs. Phil Lewis. Tracii and Mick make guitar faces and Kelly finishes his cigarette as the solo continues. Even Steve shows some zeal.
Finally, Phil smiles in a totally hot, sort of shy way (I don't normally find him appealing at all, but then again, this is the one video where he has this kind of messy, spiky hair and doesn't look like a working man's Taime Downe -- rough stuff) and unlocks lips with said blonde. He then stumbles around with his hand over his mouth while the rest of the band rocks out (he takes it off to make that "whoa" sound effect). As the camera swings back to Phil, you can almost read the name on one of the stars on the sidewalk, but not quite. As Phil sings and grabs at his head, we see much more of Tracii than we've seen in the rest of the video. We quickly cut away thought to more weird models, first blindfolded girls flinching, than an expressionless woman standing in a swimming pool.
Phil, jacket and scarves back on (we also see a brief shot of him looking at himself in a mirror), elects to sit down on the sidewalk, and sing the rest of the song sitting there. Scratch that, now he's lying down on his side. We see Kelly, Mick, and Tracii briefly, and then Phil is writhing around and practically rolling into all of the people hanging around on the sidewalk like 2" away from him. Steve almost rocks out, models grope guitars, then Phil approaches a bike with a blonde already sitting on it and gets on, though this action is cut up by shots of him (in jacket again) singing on the sidewalk as someone grabs him) and (not in jacket) leaning against a phone pole or something like it. He and the blonde drive off, Tracii thrusts his guitar, and the video ends with the LA Guns logo.
THE VERDICT Again, I absolutely love how raw this video is, but they could have watched the continuity a little bit more (the whole thing where Phil's clothes keep changing is kind of annoying). But on the whole this is just badass. LA Guns often get a bad rap, but they're a damn good band. I mean, come on, if you'd never heard this song before, you were probably expecting a cover of that stupid Elton John song. Instead, you get this totally kick ass rock song.
I also like it because it feels a little bit like a time capsule. You definitely get the sense of being there even moreso than you get in videos like Dokken's "It's Not Love," which has a somewhat similar premise (actually, it has a very similar premise to another classic U2 video, "Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For") but is much more staged. I mean, the people who are rooting Dokken on are mainly good looking women and dudes in KNAC shirts. None of the women in "Bitch is Back" are good looking, with the exception of the blonde Phil locks lips with, and the men are all kind of fat and dodgy looking. Clearly, in this case it is whoever was hanging out outside this closed store or whatever at night. It is a little weird that the rest of the band never makes it out of the studio (or that Phil's never there), but that I can deal with.