Femme Fatale, "Waiting for the Big One"

Waiting for the Big One-One  

THE VIDEO Femme Fatale, "Waiting for the Big One," Femme Fatale, 1988, MCA 

SAMPLE LYRIC "I'm waiting for the big one / not just anyone / I'm waiting for the big one / it's gotta be a big one" 

THE VERDICT Can you believe it's already the last post of 2010? I can't, that's for sure. Anyway, rather than trying to do some kind of climactic New Year's post, I decided to go with something a lot less, well, special. 

Why? Well, one, because I didn't want to bust out of December's forgotten videos theme. But two, because what is New Year's Eve and the beginning of a new year if not anticlimactic at best, and totally depressing at worst? Exactly. So this week it's another forgotten clip from the deepest, darkest recesses of the vault. 

I briefly mentioned Femme Fatale in a post a little while back, and I noticed that doing that appears to have made me dangerously close to being the source for Femme Fatale information on the internet. So I figured, why not go all in? And while I'm at it, why not pick the less well-known of their two already not-very-well-known songs? 

"Waiting for the Big One" is sort of like the "Hot Stuff" of metal. Ooh, or like that "Manhunt" song from Flashdance! I wish Femme Fatale whoever wrote their songs had been more gifted with metaphor. This song is already absurdly un-subtle, but in the right hands this could have become the heterosexual woman version of Spinal Tap's "Big Bottom." I mean the whole song is about "looking for a big one." But it doesn't feel like we mean the one. We don't need Mr. Right. We are seeking Mr. Well-Endowed. 

What this track lacks in lyrical specificity though is made up for by this video. It's basically the same video as "Falling In and Out of Love," just with slightly different spotlights and some new costumes. Camera spinning around, band wildly pantomiming, colored lights turning on and off — check, check, and check. 

Most of the action here comes from Lorraine Lewis' different outfits. She keeps changing. We've got a sort of striped minidress thing that appears to be made of multiple different pieces that are somehow strapped together. That 80s favorite combo of cropped bustier, high-waisted cutoff jeans, boots, and jacket. My fave, a very Tawny Kitaen-esque white minidress with a black sash. At one point she appears to have on high-waisted spandex bike shorts with what looks like a black coconut bra — very Bobby Brown back-up dancer.

 

In case the outfits and the lyrics haven't done enough to make this video every young hetero male metalhead's wet dream, let's talk about how Lorraine interprets the song. She starts out fairly upright — jumping around the guitarist and bassist. Quickly though, this becomes too much for her. She winds up sitting on the stage, wiggling around on her butt. She kneels down in the minidress, alternating putting her hands between her legs or over her chest to cover herself — it's not very much fabric to work with. 

Soon even that's too much though — yup, she's crawling around face-down on the stage. I would say it's at that point that I feel I can comfortably say to myself Lorraine, you will never be taken seriously as a musician. You are acting like an extra in "Girls, Girls, Girls." 

But truly, the crescendo comes at the end of the video, when unsatisfied with their ability to thus far convey the song's meaning, Lorraine crawls underneath the different guitarists and sings between their legs. She sings between a man's legs. 

Is that not enough for you? Still? Really? Well, it wasn't enough for Femme Fatale either. Because Lorraine is now smiling at his crotch and pointing to it with her thumb. For real, people, I can't make this stuff up. It's the kind of thing where I want to be charitable and be like "well they were just joking around with that stuff," but realistically I'm like nope. I guess that's The Big One. Ew, ew, ew. 

They should have had Steve Vai be the guitarist for this band. What?! Ew, no! I don't know anything about him in that way. I just mean because his constant guitar-humping and tongue-wagging seems like the perfect counterpoint to Lorraine Lewis' unquenchable lust for the stage. 

It makes you realize in retrospect how hard a band like Vixen was working to be taken seriously — say what you will about those ladies, but they stayed upright in their videos. I mean, every single other thing on the internet that you can read about Femme Fatale is the sort of usual — great look, bad timing, one hit had decent exposure, blablabla. And of course everything is like "Oh Lorraine Lewis is really quite talented, blablabla." 

But I dunno, listening to this song I have to say to myself, really? I mean sure, put 'em in the soundtrack to Don't Tell Mom the Baby-sitter's Dead. But otherwise I mean really, Femme Fatale. Really. I just don't think it was in the cards. 

Oh man, now I feel like I'm ending the year on a down note! Really, I should be ending it on an up-note — I just made it through 52 solid weeks of heavy metal blogging. That should count for something, right? 

I mean, it's not like every week is going to be "Looks That Kill." Some weeks are going to be "Waiting for the Big One." And you know what, I'm kind of okay with that. We take the good, we take the bad, we take the thrash, we take the glam — we explore every part of 80s metal! And we're going to keep rocking in 2011!

Guns N Roses, "The Making of 'Estranged'"

Too Big For One Post  

THE DOCUMENTARY Guns N Roses, The Making of 'Estranged:' Part IV of the Trilogy!!!, 1994, Dir: Andrew Morahan 

THE VERDICT What, what, what?! A post that's not on a Thursday?! A post that's not about a music video, but about a documentary about the making of a music video?!?! What can I say, people. It's the holiday season, and even though Christmas is over I'm still all about giving. 

"Estranged" is one of the most-viewed posts on this site, so clearly people are curious about it. At least, the people who aren't busy searching for bizarre David Lee Roth quotes are. Okay, technically I wrote the following post (as attentive readers may be able to tell) almost a year ago, not long at all after I wrote the original post about "Estranged." But then I was wayyy too lazy to deal with images and links and such, so I just dropped it until now. 

Plus I didn't really know what to do with it — it's not a music video, and I'm always all "I don't think I really have time to get all into documentaries and Vh-1 countdowns and such." Anyway, here it is — my holiday gift to you — how your "Estranged" sausage got made: 

Okay before I begin though, full disclosure: Ever since my post on "Estranged," I have become obsessed with the Use Your Illusion albums, and particularly with listening to the trilogy of "Don't Cry," "November Rain," and "Estranged." I can't explain it, except that I am just continuing to try to wrap my head around these videos, and particularly "Estranged." 

So what luck when my boyfriend tracked down The Making of 'Estranged:' Part IV of the Trilogy!!! (sic) on what appears to be maybe some kind of Korean version of YouTube. It was cut into three parts, but otherwise fully intact — no dubbing, subtitles, or anything like that. It had approximately the same resolution as one would have on an old VHS tape, so I feel I got the real experience. 

And let me tell you, what an experience. You will not believe the words that come out of Axl's mouth. And for everything that I had maybe slightly overestimated the cost of, there were like three other things that I had apparently greatly underestimated the cost of. Who knew they needed to travel to like eight places to shoot all this stuff, which looks like it's all just in Southern California? 

Well, this is why we have these "Making of" videos. I can only hope they have them for the other parts of the trilogy. But enough of my introductory remarks — this is already the second post on this one (admittedly 8-minutes-plus) video! So without further ado, here's what we can learn from The Making of 'Estranged:' Part IV of the Trilogy!!!(sic).

 

- Axl describes the song as about the ending of his relationship with Erin Everly (at the time he wrote it), but also says it applies to his relationships with Stephanie Seymour, Steven Adler, and various family members. He gives Slash credit for the guitar parts, but otherwise it's pretty clear the whole thing is his baby (and even more so when people other than Axl talk about it). Throughout, Axl keeps talking about the dissolutions of his relationships like NONE of it involved him being in any way part of the problem. 

- The mansion is Axl's effing house in Malibu. Of course he decorates with giant crucifixes. The room he is sleeping in at the beginning, with the rocking T Rex, is Stephanie Seymour's son's room. Axl says this whole long thing about how much he misses the little boy and how he actually fell asleep up on that shelf while they were shooting, and felt refreshed and at peace. He felt he communed with her son during the shoot. 

- Side notes about the interview footage: Slash's voice is higher than I remembered, Axl's is much lower. Why the heck did he sing like that? You wonder what he'd sound like if he just sang instead of making the trademark Axl howl. Another weird reversal: This video is the one hour where Duff is fat and Gilby Clarke is thin. Duff is honestly kind of hard to recognize, and it's easy to convince yourself Gilby is really Izzy Stradlin (who has obviously gotten the heck out of there by this point). 

- The long shots of concert footage (stage from afar, overhead shots) and the stuff of fans was all shot at an actual live show in Munich, Germany. All of the close-up shots that appear to be live are actually shot on a recreated set of that live show, somewhere near LA. 

- They all talk about what a pain in the butt "Estranged" is to perform live, and how they find the starting and stopping annoying. Dizzy has to have all the music in front of him to play the piano solo in the middle. Axl claims the piano parts came to him in a dream, and that that was the first part of the song he wrote. He woke up and immediately started trying to play all the piano stuff himself, and somehow this led to the lyrics. All the parts of the “Making Of” where you get a window into Axl’s life are extra weird. 

- The women and children shown watching those TVs in the room with all the candles do appear to all be real-life GNR wives, girlfriends, and hangers-on. The only one who's clearly associated with a specific band member is the girl with chin-length blonde hair, who manages to get in on most of the interviews with Matt Sorum. We only hear her talk to complain about how Matt's never around because it's taking them freakin' forever to shoot the video. I'm not 100% sure on this ID, but I think it may be his longtime paramour Ace Harper.

 

- They don't in any way explain the dream sequence in the middle, or where Axl got all those extra children from. Seriously, they don't even touch any of that stuff. Are those his dogs? We'll never know. 

- The band shutting down the Sunset Strip did make the local news in L.A. — side note, I always love seeing news footage of stuff like this! 

- Apparently some hapless assistant director or PA who was crawling biker bars looking for extras for the Sunset Strip scenes attempted to cast Gilby Clarke as an extra. See, I told you he's unrecognizable here! 

- For the first guitar solo, Slash appears to "float" past the people on the Strip because he is strapped into ski boots that have been attached to a little dolly. They just kind of crank him down the street past everyone. Slash talks about how it's weird to be back there, the Strip has changed, and he doesn't hang out there anymore. 

- The dolphins are meant to symbolize "grace," but mostly just became a motif in the video because the sound of the music in the middle of the song reminded them of whales. CGI whales must have been too large or something. 

- The actual footage of the super tanker and Axl jumping off was shot about 30 miles off Corpus Christi, Texas — because there aren't super tankers around LA or San Diego? Who knows. Probably because the water in the Gulf of Mexico is warmer. Also how could I forget to mention the steadicam operators for all these helicopter shots in my list of expenses in my first post? Not just the stuff with the boat, but also overhead shots of the concert, mansion, etc. 

- Axl apparently did his own stunt of jumping off the boat, which is identified as a super tanker. This I'm not 100% sure about — I feel like they may have just tried to make it seem like he didn't have a stunt double. They make it sound like Axl just did one perfect take and that they didn't have to shoot the jump multiple times (slightly plausible, since either way it appears they shot it with multiple cameras). Heck of a long way to jump, so who knows. 

- It turns out it was Duff in the rowboat trying to save Axl! I had misidentified him as a roadie. Duff said the shoot was very stressful for him and that sometimes he felt like Axl was really drowning and he actually needed to save him. Based on his phrasing in the interviews, you can tell he's already out of the band, so it's kind of surprising he doesn't say it was easy to let Axl drown. 

- For whatever reason, Axl with the live dolphins was shot on or around Treasure Island in the Bahamas, as far as I can tell at one of those tourist-y "swim with the dolphins" places. Really, they couldn't have just shot this at Sea World?

 

- They do reveal that for the second guitar solo where Slash rises up out of the ocean, he indeed had a stunt double (there's a cute part where he encounters the stunt double). Slash had to wear a wetsuit under his clothes for the parts of this shot that are really him. 

- On a similar note, whenever they have to shoot anything in water, all the band members complain about how cold the water is. Whenever the director describes the water, he refers to it as a hot tub. 

- All of the close shots of Matt Sorum inside the helicopter, Axl drowning, and Axl being saved by the Coast Guard helicopter were shot on a giant soundstage in San Diego. They set up a mock helicopter over a giant wave pool. Axl bitches a ton about how stressful it was being in the water, while Matt Sorum seems to think it's kind of funny that he got to be in the video. 

- The video was meant to conclude the trilogy, but as everyone talks around in the documentary, since Axl had broken up with Stephanie Seymour, that couldn't happen. Whatever the original concept was, it involved explaining how and why she died in "November Rain." Del James, the guy who wrote the story the "November Rain" video is purportedly based on, talks about how his book is coming out, and you can read it to find out how the story really ends. He is also one of the main interviewers in the Making Of. 

- Speaking of "November Rain," everyone but Axl (who doesn't really talk about it) mentions how much they hated shooting that video, too. Axl also mentions having considered buying "November Rain" from the band so it would never air, then realizing this was not financially feasible. This means timeline-wise he and Stephanie Seymour had split up before that video premiered. Hmm.

- They do all this hemming and hawing about how you're supposed to be able to make your own interpretation of the video. They also make a lot of the significance of attempting to save Axl three times (Gilby and life preserver, Duff in rowboat, Matt and helicopter) and Axl ignoring it three times, but call me old-fashioned, doesn't he wind up getting pulled into the helicopter? Why wouldn't that count as being saved? Eh, whatever. 

- They don't even touch the animatronic dolphin at the end of the video. They just don't even mention that thing. Instead, everyone keeps talking about what a classic the song is, and how meaningful and emotional the video will be (mostly the director and Axl make the latter point, but everyone claims they think it is a great song). 

Just, you know, a great song they hate to play that has underscored for the zillionth time what a control freak their lead singer is. 

P.S.: Again, just in case you missed it, click here to read my original post on “Estranged.”

Danger Danger, "Naughty Naughty"

Definitely on Santa's Naughty List  

THE VIDEO Danger Danger, "Naughty Naughty," Danger Danger, 1989, Epic 

SAMPLE LYRIC "Let's get naughty naughty! / Dirrrty, dirrrrrtayyy / Naughty naughty! / I like it that way-ay" 

THE VERDICT It is always a stretch for me to find metal songs that are in any way related to Christmas but are not terrible '00s metal covers of Christmas carols (yes, Dee Snider, I'm looking at you). By next year I'll probably be doing "Hall of the Mountain King" just because the video features a dude with a big white beard. 

This year though, with my December theme of forgotten metal, with many forays into the extremes of both sleaze and cheese, it made sense to skip Santa's nice list and go straight to naughty. Or in this case, to "Naughty Naughty." 

Danger Danger are one of those bands that I perennially make fun of on this blog, and blame for the demise of metal — that old chestnut of "everything was working out just fine, but then too many people piled on at the last minute, and everyone got sick of it." Danger Danger are like the last ones into the party that was really cool and exclusive at first but now is minutes away from getting a visit from the fire marshal (in this case, Kurt Cobain) that means the party's over for everybody. 

Do Danger Danger deserve it? I mean they aren't unbelievably horrible, as are, say, other bands I malign a lot like Babylon A.D. and Pretty Boy Floyd. "Naughty Naughty" isn't that bad of a song. That said, I think there are some mistakes here, for the band and for the video. Let's review and discuss. 

Mistake #1a: Overly elaborate logo and album art Remember back in the early 80s, when metal bands had really basic, like one-color logos? I'm thinking like Poison even back before they brought in all the acid green, and they had that little doodle of Felix the Cat with a bomb. (I can't find any images of this for some reason but I swear I am not making it up!) Album art was simpler back then too. You pretty much just put on all your best makeup and glittery scarves and had Neil Zlozower take some photos of you. Simple. 

As the 90s near though, album art and band logos get way more complicated. Instead of a simple symbol you could easily carve into a desk in a matter of minutes, we get these elaborate full-color logos. 

Similarly, instead of simple band mascots we get these weird paintings. Now I know, this is something that for example, Iron Maiden had been doing for years with Eddie. But the thing with Eddie is, you can draw him a zillion different ways and put him into whatever situation you need, whether it's being a WWII fighter pilot or a sphinx or some kind of futuristic cyborg/warrior-type thing. Not so with, for example, Warrant's ultra-creepy Cashly Guido Bucksley, seen in the "flesh" in "Big Talk". 

Danger Danger take both of these trends to the extreme with their logo — each "Danger" given its own full-color graphic text treatment — and with their cover art, featuring a cityscape, a pervy Dick Tracy sort of guy, and a woman who bears a distinct resemblance to Jessica Rabbit. They have a giant-ass mural of this behind them in the video, which would be okay if it weren't for...

 

Mistake #1b: Album art concept taken way too far in video Yes, we get to see the album cover come to life in this incredibly weird addition to what is otherwise more or less a staged performance video. 

The video kicks off with a woman talking on the phone silhouetted in a window. Off to the side, in an alley, we see the silhouette of pervy Dick Tracy. Despite the fact that she is clearly already on the phone (at minimum, her phone is off the hook), he calls her using a digital voice disguiser and suggests they get "naughty naughty." 

Per the way things work in metal videos — do not, I repeat, do not try this at home, no matter what "Bathroom Wall" leads you to believe — she of course finds this a delightful suggestion. The rest of the video, we see sequences of their two silhouettes dancing, and of the woman at various times putting on or removing articles of clothing. 

This is okay I guess, except for one big misstep: The minute pervy Dick Tracy guy takes off his trench coat, in silhouette he looks just like Freddy Krueger. I mean hat, pointy nose, sweater — all he's missing is the claw hand. It's creepy and distracting. 

And why does he keep the hat on? The whole thing is weird. Especially because it reminds me of Madonna's "Justify My Love" video, or at least the Wayne's World parody of it. ("Wow, look at the unit on that guy!") 

Mistake #2: Too much keyboard Now admittedly, I do like when a band is honest with themselves about the fact that they have a lot of keyboard in their songs, and allow their keyboard player to appear with them as a legit member of the band (yes, Cinderella, I'm looking at you). That said, this song has way too much keyboard. When it was recorded, was there some version of the SNL "More Cowbell" sketch happening involving putting in more keyboard? 

Like I said before, I actually think this is a pretty competent song, but the pre-chorus ("but I know what I want / and I know how to get it") where it sounds like Kasey Smith is just jabbing the keys mercilessly is genuinely unpleasant. The keyboard starts to sound like the shower scene music from Psycho.

Mistake #3: Ted Poley is no Bret Michaels To me, Danger Danger's lead singer looks like a poor man's Jaime St. James. But I think what they were hoping for was a poor man's Bret Michaels. I mean let's do an inventory. 

Alternating facial expressions smiley and slutty? Check. Goofy custom-painted jacket? Check. Wiggly hip movements? Check. Leers at camera while delivering most reprehensible lines in song? Check. Yes, Ted's got a lot of the necessary Bret Michaels ingredients. 

That said, it's just not happening. This man is at the Jaime St. James level of hotness. Possibly, if we could see some abs, he might be approaching Jani Lane. (And remember, we are discussing hotness levels at the time here, people! Gawd, airbrushed abs or no, Jani and Bret today look like the frog people in Hell Comes to Frogtown.) 

Mistake #4: Steve West is no Blas Elias Now I know this sounds crazy, since basically everyone except for Dana Strum hates Blas Elias. But whatever. Blas is basically my stand-in for the type of drummer that suddenly every metal band had in the late 80s. 

I think this type is technically based on Tommy Lee, with a dash of Rikki Rockett thrown in. The sort of poutiness mixed with goofiness is all Tommy, but the skate or surf-related tees are more Rikki. In any event, I feel like in this video, the second you see the drummer at the beginning (and he's pretty much the first member of Danger Danger you see clearly) you know what's up. 

As Beavis might say, ohhh no, not this again. Or as Butt-head actually does say (after initially mistaking Danger Danger for Bon Jovi), "Hey Beavis, I thought you called the cable company and told them to quit playing this crap."

 

Mistake #5: The video makes the band look uncool I know this might be obvious from everything I've already said, but this video's concept works overtime to make the band seem lame to pretty much every viewing demographic. 

In addition to all the weird stuff with the dancing silhouettes, Danger Danger also have a telescope on stage with them via which it is implied they are viewing all this silhouetted window-dancing action. This makes them two steps removed from the action. 

I mean, pervy Dick Tracy managed to, a la Faster Pussycat, actually call the woman and get a response. Danger Danger are just watching that through a freakin' telescope. Now there are other metal bands who are frequently visually and/or spatially separated from women in their videos (Ratt is a really good example of this), and I could make a longer argument about including women in metal videos only to stop homosociality from appearing as potential homosexuality, but I won't. 

Suffice it to say though that this video concept makes Danger Danger unpalatable to heterosexual men. If all the keyboard wasn't emasculating enough, these guys are in a band and the closest they can get to a woman involves a telescope. 

That same telescope makes them totally unappealing to heterosexual women — between that and the phone call, Danger Danger seem like total pervs. And not in a Kip Winger, I actually get with women, albeit underage ones, way. No, these guys are just your run-of-the-mill grope-in-a-crowd or let-me-pretend-I've-dropped-something perverts according to this video. Ew. 

Danger Danger have basically eliminated their entire audience except for one group: Pervy guys who can relate to it. Yup, you guessed it — Beavis and Butt-head. They may not like the band or the song, but it seems they can appreciate some aspects of this video: 

Butt-head: [spotting woman's dancing silhouette] "Whoa!" 

Beavis: "Yeah! Her back's all bent out of shape! What's wrong?" 

Butt-head: "Beavis, you butthole. When you see a chick in a window like that, and she's got her back all bent out of shape, that means she's hot." 

Beavis: "I don't know, Butt-head. I think she was like, injured." 

Butt-head: "Well, whatever it was, it gave me a stiffy." 

Long story short, Danger Danger are definitely on the naughty naughty list. It's too bad in a way, as this song is really almost good. That said, being in their position — the whole late to the party thing — there was almost no way for them to succeed. 

I mean from Slaughter to Tesla, any metal band that didn't get their start until the late 80s kind of never had a chance at getting an honest shot at the kind of fame had by bands like Poison or Mötley Crüe, or by bands whose roots went back to the 70s like the Scorpions or Whitesnake. 

But you know what? That's why we're here. I'll give them that chance, now, on this blog. I know it's not the same kind of recognition as like gold records, or cases of Jack Daniels, or arenas full of fans, or getting mobbed by groupies at Gazzarri's or the Rainbow, but it's all I've got. My year-round gift to them, and to you, if you're reading this! 

P.S.: After writing this, I found out that Danger Danger themselves have a Christmas song — "Naughty Naughty Christmas." It was featured in — wait for it — The Santa Clause 2. I don't even know what to do with this information.

McAuley-Schenker Group, "Love is Not a Game"

Somebody Turn On the Damn Lights!  

THE VIDEO McAuley-Schenker Group, "Love is Not a Game," Perfect Timing, 1987, Capitol

SAMPLE LYRIC "Love is not a game / the stakes are high / you're playin' with fire / love is not a game / knock over the pieces / and start it again" 

THE VERDICT Ah, roller derby. It's the swing dancing of sports — it's unclear when it ever really was that popular, but people remember it with tremendous nostalgia. 

Magazines like Spin and Rolling Stone write a few articles about how it's being re-adopted by people with dyed black hair and ironic tattoos, suddenly there's a movie capitalizing on the new 'craze' (viz. Whip It), and next thing you know, whoosh, it's gone again, swept back into the great dustbin that is pop culture. 

But was anyone you ever knew actually into it? Who were these swing dancers and roller, uh, derby-ers? Well, this video doesn't provide the answers, and it has nothing to do with swing dancing. It kind of has nothing to do with anything, really, except sort of roller derby. What? Well, next time you try writing an intro to a video featuring roller derby! Not so easy, is it? 

The McAuley-Schenker Group is one of those bands where I will go through long periods of completely forgetting they exist, then suddenly it all comes back to me when I stumble upon a WTF-fest of a video like this. In general, I never really enjoy bands built around a virtuoso guitarist (e.g. Yngwie Malmsteen). 

Like others of this ilk, the Michael Schenker Group/McAuley-Schenker Group features a revolving door of minor players, focusing mainly on that Teutonic terror, the Edgar Winter of metal, Michael Schenker. 

Seriously guys. If I could ask Rudy Schenker from the Scorpions one thing, it would be dude, what is the deal with your brother. I mean Michael Schenker has the hair they always describe Dawn Schafer as having in the Baby-sitters' Club books — nearly waist-length, almost white blonde, super-fine hair. Isn't this a little suspish, given that his bro Rudy is a balding brunette whose hair never even reaches his shoulders? 

Likewise, while Rudy always seems like a fun guy, Michael has one facial expression: Brooding. A virtuoso guitarist who doesn't make guitar face? It doesn't sound possible, and yet here he is. 

If I could ask Michael Schenker one thing, though, it might well be dude, what is the deal with this video. MSG are never really ones for videos that make sense, but this video pushes this tendency well past its limits. It's impossible to find anywhere in any kind of decent quality, but even in HD this video would still be totally confounding. 

It's horribly lit, with the lights turning on and off all the time, and everything bathed in sort of this Yves Klein blue. As if that weren't enough, most of this video is shot on an extreme angle, like the cameraperson was either drunk or really tired (possibly both) and is leaning on something. 

As far as I can tell though, MSG are playing the song in the middle of a roller derby track. Yes, that's right. MSG live, in concert, with a bunch of hardcore girls on roller skates hurtling around them. The gals are doing it up, pushing each other over, falling into the stacks of Marshall amps, toppling over the railing. 

Are they hot? I can't tell. You can't tell. The McAuley-Schenker Group can't tell. It's totally dark in there, and every time one of the spotlights turns on, it's frickin' blinding. Seriously, why don't they just start some fog machines, too? Or just turn off the camera? Oh wait, I'm not even sure this is women's roller derby — I think I just spotted a guy, but really I can't be sure.

 

Most of what little we can see in any level of detail is just close-ups of Robin McAuley's face. He looks kind of like an ugly Adam Lambert, or maybe Michael Sweet dressed up as Adam Lambert. Or maybe Pat Benatar's husband/guitarist what's-his-name. Regardless, it's a weird look. 

We only really see Michael Schenker clearly during the guitar solo. He mostly just stares at his guitar. 

Seriously, this video could be used to induce motion sickness in experimental situations. It's completely disorienting! Between the tilted camera, the lack of lighting, the weird colors, and then the fuzzy footage of roller derby crashes, it's making me feel a little ill (then again, could be all the doughnuts I ate today — nah, who ever heard of anything bad happening as a result of doughnuts?!). 

I don't even know if I can handle doing the images for this video, because I don't know if any of them will be clear enough for anyone to be able to tell what was going on. Could the people in this video tell what was going on? 

On the one hand, I'm thoroughly nauseated. On the other hand, if this video doesn't fit this month's theme of forgotten or simply never remembered videos, then I don't know what does! 

I mean seriously... can you imagine the record company meeting where they developed the concept for this video? Allow me to take some creative license and stage a dramatic reenactment. Okay, okay, a dramatic imagining. 

Exec 1: "Hmm, if love is not a game, what is a game?" 

Exec 2: "Well, they talk about knocking over pieces and then picking them up — what about Jenga?"

Exec 1: "We'll have the band play the song on top of a giant Jenga tower! Shirley, get me Robin McAuley on line one! [on phone] What? Michael doesn't like it? If the Jenga tower falls over he may be forced to make facial expressions? I see. All right. Back to the drawing board." 

Exec 2: "Hmm." 

Exec 1: "Hmmmmm." 

Exec 2: "What about roller derby? People loved Rollerball." 

Exec 1: "I think you're onto something, Johnson! But we can't afford that level of special effects." 

Exec 2: "I know, we'll just turn out all the lights!" 

Exec 1: "Johnson, you're a genius! We begin filming tomorrow at 8 am, sharp!" 

Exec 2: "We end filming tomorrow at 12 noon, sharp!" 

In my mind, it then turns into them getting drunk to celebrate coming up with such a high-concept video, then explaining the concept to the band and crew the next day while still half-drunk, hence explaining the tilted camera. 

I don't know if it did happen, and probably it didn't, but it's the most plausible explanation I can come up with. 

P.S.: I know, I know, I skimped on the photos for this one. But seriously, it's darn near impossible to make out anything in this video, and I figured fewer, better images was better than more, blurrier ones.

 

Fiona feat. Kip Winger, "Everything You Do (You're Sexing Me)"

Nasty As They Wanna Be  

THE VIDEO Fiona featuring Kip Winger, "Everything You Do (You're Sexing Me)", Heart Like a Gun, 1988, Atlantic 

SAMPLE LYRIC "Oooooooooh you're sexin' me-eeeeeeeee / everything you do just turns me on / oooooooooh you're sexin' me-eeeeeeeeeeee / bay-bay-bay-bay-bay-bay come onnnnnnnn" 

THE VERDICT Anyone else remember this amazing trainwreck of a video? Seriously people, it's the holidays, and this power ballad-ish duet is the gift that keeps on giving. You think it can't get more ridiculous, and it does. Oh, it does. 

Now if you aren't familiar with this one, you might be asking yourself, "Who the (bleep) is Fiona?" Excellent question. Fiona is sort of like the Tiffany of heavy metal. If we're going to be generous, we might even call her the Debbie Gibson of metal, since if I'm remembering right she had some kind of classical background and wrote a surprising amount of her own songs. 

Young, hyped, likely to be found signing autographs in malls. A big difference though is that though Fiona looks pretty underage in this video, she's actually almost 30. Well, what do you know? She's just kind of a tiny lady. 

Anyway, if you were to know Fiona from anything non-musical it would likely be her star-turn opposite Bob Dylan (!?!) in 1987's Hearts of Fire. But if you're like me (and since you're reading this we will assume you are), that pales enormously in comparison to her star-turn as a murderous teen prostitute on Miami Vice. 

Now I could go into a lengthy rant about how much Miami Vice rules, but instead I will limit myself to just discussing the episode featuring Fiona: Season 2's "Little Miss Dangerous". Though I am generally a fan of the episodes about prostitution — not because I endorse sex work, but because it's the 80s so these have particularly awesome costumes — this is actually one of my least favorite episodes because it is freakin' terrifying.

 

To her credit, Fiona is creepy as hell as a young hooker who murders her johns as retribution for a lifetime of abuse. I made it just partway into this episode before it became a turn-on-all-the-lights-in-the-house type of affair. 

It wasn't much longer before I was screaming at the TV trying to save Tubbs. Fiona, if you must kill again, take Crockett! And omg, stop making those freaky-ass crayon drawings. Dang those things gave me nightmares. 

Anyway, one of the many reasons Miami Vice is amazing is the endless onslaught of cameos (just season two also features Gene Simmons and Ted Nugent — the Nuge also performs Fiona's episode's eponymous song). It's not entirely unsurprising that Fiona turned up, since they appear to have a minimum of one ingenue per episode. 

But okay, what of her performance in this video? Spoiler alert: Nothing really happens in this video. It's pretty much just Fiona and Winger in an empty warehouse/loft-type space, singing straight into each other's faces. 

This is often amusing, as they look ridiculously alike — even without the lighting washing them out, it's usually like okay, well she's shorter and has longer hair. But for reals, I think they share not just the same hairstylist, but also the same clothing stylist. 

Here are the outfits featured in this video: 1) Blousy colorful shirt with ruffled collar, paired with leather pants that lace up the sides. 2) Low-cut graphic shirt, black leather jacket, and leather pants that lace up the crotch. 3) Sheer black halter dress. 4) Cropped leather vest, black shirt, and leather pants. Okay, class — three of these outfits are worn by Fiona. Which of these does Kip Winger wear?

 

All Kip and Fiona have in there to entertain themselves with is a modern-looking white couch and each other. While Fiona spends some time posing on the couch, she spends most of her time posing on Kip Winger. Kip flashes his astonishingly white teeth while Fiona tilts her neck back for some vampire-style action. (I like that when you Google "Kip Winger", one of the related searches it suggests is "Kip Winger teeth".) Kip tosses his hair around while Fiona crouches down in front of him. Fiona tosses her hair around while Kip crouches down in front of her. 

Somehow, we are meant to believe that by screaming the lyrics to this sludge-fest into each other's faces, sexual tension is being built up between Fiona and Kip. Ummm, no. There are a few near misses, and at one point he appears to have fully stuck his face into her chest, but don't get excited — there's no sexing here. Unless you're into the David Coverdale/Tawny Kitaen-type stuff where he looks like he's choking her. In that case, ew, you pervert. 

Possibly it's that, but more likely it's the choice of words that make this for me one of the un-sexiest songs in the history of metal. "You're sexing me"? Seriously? Hearing "sex" as a verb just makes me think of biology. And not like, reproductive type stuff. 

More just like how usually when you hear "sex" as a verb, they are talking about the practice of determining whether an animal is male or female. E.g., "birds are difficult to sex." "It takes a practiced eye to accurately sex the crawfish." Next thing you know, it's "oooh, you're dissectin' mee-eeee"! 

Seriously though, even my sometime-nemeses over at allmusic kind of have my back on this one: "Like anything with intensity, it's tempting to laugh; when Fiona and Kip Winger moan, 'you're sexing me,' at each other, someone with farm experience could imagine them sedately side by side, determining the maleness or femaleness of newly hatched chicks." For real! I could imagine an alternate version of this video with just pictures of like, crabs and lizards and turkeys and stuff.

 

I think the most amazing part of this video is at the end, when there's just a smidgen of plot. A blonde woman comes up to Kip and Fiona's empty warehouse in an industrial elevator, and sort of signals to them. Then Winger and Fiona ride down in the elevator, and go outside where a long-haired man greets them. We're meant to understand that this is Fiona's real man, just as the blonde is Winger's actual girlfriend. As the two couples split apart, Fiona (now wearing a goofy hat) looks back at Kip all wistfully. Ew. 

Also uhh, okay. This still doesn't explain WTF Fiona and Winger were doing up in that warehouse. What, they just get together to like arrange themselves against columns in dramatic lighting, and yell in each other's faces, and almost kiss, like, on the regular? 

There's no implication in this video that a video is being filmed — we're meant to believe Kip's girlfriend is just like, "Oh, hey honey, did you have a nice time telling Fiona she was sexing you and having her rub her hands all over your stubble again today?" So bizarre. 

Kip has claimed no sexing ever actually occurred, and based on the astonishing lack of sexual tension I'm going to believe him. I know, I know — both Winger and Fiona are making furious porno faces through this entire video. 

But come on, watch any Winger video. Kip makes those faces at the camera. He makes those faces at all the women who are meant to be his love interest. Hell, he makes those faces at Reb Beach. Quite frankly, I think this is just sort of the natural range of Kip's facial expressions. 

Long story short, if you're looking for sexy, this video is more like a cold shower than a hot bubble bath. And if you want a great metal duet, just listen to "Close My Eyes Forever." 

But if you want to revel in awkward sexuality, Kip Winger's whiter-than-white smile, and Fiona's amorousness toward a whiter-than-white couch, by all means, watch this video! 

I may have called Fiona the Robin Sparkles of metal, but this song is really the "I Wanna Sex You Up" of metal. I know, I know, this predates Color Me Badd by a couple of years. But seriously, couldn't we have just left this kind of drecch for groups like, well, Color Me Badd?

Quiet Riot, "Party All Night"

I Hope No Bad People Show Up  

THE VIDEO Quiet Riot, "Party All Night," Condition Critical, 1984, Pasha 

SAMPLE LYRIC "Let's party all night, oh-oh! / let's party all night, oh-oh-oh!" [Repeat ad nauseam]

THE VERDICT This December, I've decided to get a jump on the holidays — no, I'm not going to do a month of Christmas videos. As I discussed last year, there aren't really any metal Christmas videos that are actually from the 80s, and I'm just not going to deal with a bunch of not-so-great covers. 

So sorry — this is the probably the one place you can turn to right now where you will not be accosted with holiday spirit. Instead, my gift to you this month is a treasure trove of some of the forgotten... mm, I'm not sure if we can call them gems. Let's just call them the metal songs you forgot. Quite possibly, some of these were so buried that you might not even have been aware of them at the time. 

If this were a hip-hop site, I'd call this digging in the crates month. But since this is a metal site... hmm. Digging in the vault? The videos that time forgot? I'm not sure. 

Anyway, on to this week's video! I've decided to kick things off with a Quiet Riot video for a song that's not especially well known. Believe it or not, Quiet Riot do have songs that aren't Slade songs! Besides "Bang Your Head (Metal Health)" even. 

"Party All Night" works on more than one level for this month's theme, as it feels like a song that was made for a movie that never existed, and the video likewise feels like part of a movie that never existed! In fact, this video is almost Y&T-like in its long-lost 80s movie that never actually existed-ness, and yet at the same time, not at all like a Y&T video in that there are no transformations. 

I mean yeah, there's no robot, but more to the point, no one gets a makeover, even temporarily, which as we'll see in a minute is kind of surprising.

 

The video starts with an older man in a tuxedo admiring himself in a mirror. In his reflection, we can see his wife from the back. As crickets chirp, she says, "Are you sure you'll be all right, dear? You know we hate leaving you home alone." 

We then see the mom from behind — she's in a fairly awesome 60s-looking cocktail dress (like something Samantha would have worn on Bewitched) and her hair is up in a twist. She's talking to her daughter, who sits on the floor in their large living room, which is decorated almost entirely in whites and pastels. The daughter says, in a squeaky voice, "Don't worry, mom, everything'll be okay. I'm a big girl now." As if to emphasize this point, she pouts and attempts to close her cardigan over her prodigious bust. 

They have dressed this woman up as a nerd in Sally Jesse Raphael glasses, a ponytail, a high-waisted full skirt, and a cardigan with one of those little chains holding it closed, but trust. This woman is not an actual nerd. She is exactly the type of gal who is always in heavy metal videos. 

And yet — spoiler alert! — not once in this video does she toss aside her glasses, take down her hair, and/or rip off her clothes to reveal some kind of leather bustier. Given that in any other metal video — including a Y&T one! — that 100% would have happened, I have no idea what's happened here. I mean why not just cast an actually nerdy-looking girl? Go figure. 

Anyway, her mom is all, "Well, now take care dear, look after the house, and don't make a mess." Remember how I said the whole living room was done in whites and pastels? White wall-to-wall carpeting. Remember that later. 

The girl replies, "everything'll be fine, mom, don't worry." Her mom abruptly says "bye" and turns to leave with the dad, who says "bye-bye!" and leaves. The girl cranes her neck to watch them leave, and then we get an exterior shot of the house to confirm yes, they are on their way out. (This video trusts us to make not even the smallest mental leap on our own.) 

Then we're back inside. The girl runs to the window and says "Goody!" then runs to the door. Outside, we see three more nerds — two guys and a girl — pop up from behind the hedges out front. She lets them in the front door and they all shriek hellos to each other.

 

They all run to sit down at the coffee table. The main girl says, "I'll get rid of my homework, ew, yuck!", moving some books aside to the couch. One of the boys pulls out some board games and says "Which one do you want to play first?" The girl yells "Oh boy!" 

Okay can I mention another weird thing. So one of the nerds — the main one who gets all the dialogue and is featured most prominently — appears actually nerdy. Skinny, balding, nervous-looking guy. 

The other one though has a thick head of hair, a square jaw, and a tan — he's the male equivalent of the main girl. I mean he's like basically the 'after' from a Y&T video dressed as the 'before.' Did they plan some whole other plot for this video and then bag it? It makes no sense. Both the guys are dressed basically the same, in button-down shirts and big geeky glasses. 

Anyway. The real nerd says, "Hey, I have an idea," and the main girl excitedly replies, "What?" He replies, "Let's have a real party — let's send out for pizza!" "PIZZA! Great!" cries the main girl, looking sort of like a Fast Times-era Jennifer Jason Leigh on speed. As he dials, she changes her tune a bit, complaining, "but don't get any anchovies, okay? I don't like 'em. Or mushrooms." 

We finally hear some Quiet Riot, but it's "Bang Your Head (Metal Health)" being played over the radio at Sandy's Cafe, which appears to be a drive-in (it's surrounded by cars and motorcycles) but apparently also offers pizza delivery. Sure, whatever.

An old guy picks up the phone and says, "Sandy's Cafe. You're having a party? Okay." A grizzled biker dude with giant hair and a punk with a mohawk stand at the order window listening in. The camera then pans over to some punk-ish looking people sitting on another part of the counter. 

We hear the nerd over the phone saying, "and we want a pizza. No anchovies. Medium. With tunafish and meatballs!" As he makes this last disgusting statement, we briefly see the nerd talking on the phone before going back to the guy at the pizza window, who says, "Okay. 424 Mayflower. It'll be there soon!"

 

As soon as he hangs up, we hear a cry of "PARTY!", and the punk rocker and the biker run off, as do the other people sitting on the counter, and the song actually finally starts. 

Given the party call to arms, the entire customer base of Sandy's Cafe mobilizes, and given that this video trusts us not at all, we get establishing shots to take us through every single part of it. We see people on the phone. We see people dialing phones. There is a long sequence not just of people getting into cars, but of people getting into cars, turning the key in the ignition, headlights coming on, and the wheels starting to turn. Hell, they could have showed us just the two guys running off and I think I would have gotten the idea! 

While the unsuspecting nerds are playing Trivial Pursuit, a whole menagerie of 80s stereotypes are parking cars on their lawn and making their way to the door. We've got surfers (complete with zinc oxide on their noses), punk rockers with elaborate mohawks, heavy metal chicks in the aforementioned leather bustiers, fat hairy bikers, women wearing bikinis for no reason — you want it, this video's got it. Was David Lee Roth directing? 

The main girl goes to answer the door — suspecting the pizza delivery, natch — and, as per every teen party movie ever, is pushed aside by the incoming onslaught of uninvited house guests. They all begin dancing around the living room immediately in spite of the fact that there is no indication that there is music on or that they have brought music with them (though they did bring a keg). 

Quiet Riot roll up once the party is pretty full. The nerds are hugging each other and trying desperately to keep control while the band sets up at one side of the living room. It's not 'til nearly three minutes into the video that we actually see the band playing music at all. The music horrifies the nerds, though everyone else seems to be into it. 

We see a woman's hand changing the TV channel knob — wow, remember doing that? Actually going up to the television to change the channel? — and she puts on, what else, a Quiet Riot video. We cut back and forth between Carlos Cavazo performing the solo in the living room and him doing it on TV. 

For their part, the people at the party seem to be much more interested in seeing it on TV. They keep turning up the TV volume, and a bunch of the metal women appear to be playing pattycake in front of the screen (you know, pattycake, pattycake, baker's man). Eventually, Carlos comes over and smashes the neck of his guitar through the TV screen.

 

The main nerdy girl fails at trying to offer her guests hors d'oeuvres (this is the point where in most teen movies, she'd give up and begin drinking heavily). This begins a long sequence of destruction. Everything these people have that can get smashed, thrown, and/or spilled does so. 

Extra sketchy bikers show up, and a motorcycle gets driven in slow-mo through the picture window. The keg gets thrown through the coffee table, the main biker guy passes out, and we keep seeing an outlet overloaded with plugs give off sparks. Things are not looking good. 

Then suddenly, the camera pulls back from Kevin DuBrow, and we realize his image is actually on TV. As it pulls back further, we see its on the nerds' TV, and they are all sitting on the couch in the unharmed living room watching it. The girl runs to answer the doorbell, and oh goody! The pizza's here! Tunafish and meatballs for everyone! 

But then the pizza delivery guy turns around and — surprise! — he's wearing the Quiet Riot metal health guy mask. OMG! Was it all a dream? Or was it just something they saw on TV? 

And wait — were they watching "(You Gotta) Fight for Your Right (to Party)"? Because that is literally almost the exact same video. Hmm, except this one came out three years earlier. 

If it weren't that both of them are borrowing from tropes used in, I don't know, about a zillion cheesy teen movies, I think the Beastie Boys could've had a lawsuit from Quiet Riot on their hands. (Imagine that trial!) 

So long story short, possibly Ad-Rock was watching Quiet Riot videos. Either way, I've got Quiet Riot's back — I stole the title for this post from the Beastie Boys' video.