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.