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.