THE VIDEO Bang Tango, "Someone Like You," Psycho Café, 1989, Mechanic
SAMPLE LYRIC "With someone / sommmmmme-one / well there's someone just like youuuuuuuuuuuu / oh-ohhhhhh I nee-eed some-wuh-un / to take away the bluuuuuuuuuuuue"
THE VERDICT Bang Tango are one of those bands that create a lot of contention. People who want to claim them as glam point out that they're a SoCal band (LA by way of San Diego) and I mean come on, got discovered at Gazzari's.
People who want to say that they're not glam and got unfairly lumped in with glam (unscrupulous and money-hungry A&R men and blabla, whine-whine, we've heard that old chestnut a million times) point to the fact that they don't sound much like other glam acts.
But come on guys, let's think about it? Who do they sound like? Well to me, Bang Tango sound a heck of a lot like the Cult! Sure, Joe Lesté doesn't have as deep of a voice or as obvious of a Jim Morrison fetish as Ian Astbury does, but honestly, he doesn't really fall outside this vein either. (And do both of them sort of look/sound like Glenn Danzig? Yup, they do.)
I feel like both the singles on Psycho Café more or less sound to me like tighter, slightly poppier Cult songs. I don't mean this in a pejorative way at all, by the way — this is, by all evidence, a pretty good way to sound.
(While I'm semi-on-the-subject, can I mention that Psycho Café is an incredibly lame album title, and probably not helping anything? Though I do wonder if it is at such a cafe that one could be served a Psychotic Supper.)
But oh yeah, as I was saying, or at least implying anyway, this song rocks. Yes, Lesté gets a little screechy sometimes, but this is a really good, straightforward gritty-LA-pop-metal song. It's no surprise that Lesté later does vocal duties for LA Guns for a while — other than the Cult connection (which also likely comes in because all the dudes in Bang Tango are really pale and goth-looking), this song in particular I could totally hear the LA Guns doing.
All that said, of course our purpose here is to look at the video. And in this case — congratulations are in order for Bang Tango. This video is really showing how it's done, in terms of having a low-budget video that's still really visually appealing.
They didn't waste their money on swaths of fabric (which face it, always looks cheap), and they didn't rely on shooting it in black and white (which only sometimes makes a video seem artistic, and more often just makes it look like they're trying too hard).
No. Instead, all that we really see in this video is the various members of Bang Tango standing around playing the song amidst a whole bunch of different neon lights. And it totally, totally works. The high contrast between the neon and the dark background, and between the neon and these dudes' extreme paleness, makes the visuals really pop.
It also calls to mind all the shots of LA at night that you often see in Sunset Strip metal videos. You know, like shots of pawn shops and bodegas and strip clubs with neon signs. Even the sillier things in this video, like swinging the camera around in a rapid circle, totally work. It makes the video feel hectic and intense, rather than the usual "these special effects aren't very special."
I also like that the neon sort of stripes make this feel very 80s, even though this is the end of the 80s. Let's face it though, the beginning of any decade is really more or less still the one before it. I can make a good argument for the 90s not really beginning until like 1993, and similarly for the 70s not really ending until 1982 or so.
But yeah, all the neon feels very Miami Vice (arguably my favorite way to feel!), and sort of bridges the gap between colorful 80s aesthetics and the more toned down, late 80s/early 90s look Bang Tango are going for. They've got a style that's somewhere in between the Cult and like, Faster Pussycat — lots of black, lots of layering, and lots of crosses, but with the occasional dandaical touch (bassist Kyle Kyle's Manic Panic hair).
I know it was too late at this point for all those videos that came before. But really, this video had to show those other guys that if they could turn back time, they should've probably skipped all the like, weird modifications to late-model sedans, and foam rubber dragons, and walls made out of tin-foil, and just invested in some neon lights. Turns out that's all it takes to make a darn fine video.