Krokus, "School's Out"

Another School Year Bites the Dust  

THE VIDEO Krokus, "School's Out," Change of Address, 1985, Arista 

SAMPLE LYRIC "Schooooool's out! For! Summah! / Schoooooool's out! For! Evahhh!" 

THE VERDICT Ohhh Alice Cooper. Why couldn't you have made a video for this song? Sure, probably not back in the day, but why not even something more recent? I'd take anything to make me avoid Krokus. 

Oh Krokus. Why do you torture me so, with your refusal to write your own songs, and your dogged determination to make mediocre singles out of great ones? Sigh. But whatever, I'll take it, because indeed, school's (nearly) out for summer! Yes, I've still got grading to do, but I taught my last class of the year on Tuesday and people, I am stoked. I love teaching, but I am so ready for some time off from it. 

This song (well, the Alice Cooper version) is always on my mind this time of year. My one year-ending tradition is every year on the last day I go to campus I wear an ultra-cheesy Juicy Couture tee that says "School's Out for Summer" in giant, flocked navy blue letters (and yeah, the tee itself is like coral pink). And that concludes more detailed personal information than I've given you all about me in probably a year or so. 

Anyway! So Alice never made a video for this song, but of course Krokus made an abominably cheesy one. Luckily though, this video's actually pretty light on the Krokus, and heavier on everything else. Possibly 'cause they didn't want us to notice that the band appears to only own like one set of rock star clothing, and Marc Storace's fugly red unitard from "Burning Up the Night" is pretty distinctive. 

So anyway, we get way more plot (or well, "plot") in this video than we do footage of the band performing on a fake stage. Krokus basically take us to visit classrooms of many lands. We start off in an empty classroom, which becomes what I think of as the U.S. public school classroom in this video. Bored looking, mostly white teenagers dressed in the uniforms of various 80s subcultures (e.g. metal kids, valley girls), being lectured to by a youngish male teacher.

 

We also get what I assume is meant to be an Arab classroom — it's all male (teacher and students), and the students are all wearing robes and, in some cases, Muslim-style headdresses. Our other international classroom is I believe meant to be either China or Japan. My guess is China though, due to the very Communist Russia-looking outfits everyone has on and the spartan classroom. 

The last place we go is the one I think of as the prep school, which could be meant to be the U.S. again or, going with their international flavor, England. I call this one the prep school because these mostly white kids, in contrast to the first group, are in uniform — white shirts with little neckties. They're being taught by an old woman who waves a ruler at them while she speaks. I have to say here, I'm really surprised Krokus didn't go with a Catholic school for this one, and a full-on nun. It just seems like their style. 

Anyway, each classroom features one student who is wearing headphones and rocking out to Krokus — a metal guy in the public school, a boy air-drumming with rulers in the Arab school, a girl with two braids in the Asian school, and a blonde girl with one braid in the prep school. It takes a thought bubble over the head of a stoner-ish looking guy rocking indoor sunglasses in the public school though to transition us into seeing Krokus perform. 

As mentioned, Krokus are basically in their usual empty stage space. Bunch of lights, implied crowd at front, not a lot going on. They're all wearing their best white pleather, save for Storace's red polyester and Fernando Von Arb, who's wearing sort of lilac purple. They do lots of synchronized guitar waving while the different kids wearing headphones sing along with the verses. 

Oh yeah, the stoner kid also gives us the weirdest moment of the video. At one point, he's staring into space, looking at a supply closet-type thing on one side of the classroom. Suddenly, a woman in a black bikini appears lounging on top of it. She smiles and winks at him, and he pulls his sunglasses down, making a shocked face. Just as quickly, she disappears, and he breaks the fourth wall, giving the camera a "Did you just see that?!" face. So random.

 

The plot of the video, such as it is, is school letting out in each of these different classrooms. Every time this happens, chaos immediately ensues, and everyone throws their papers into the air (and sometimes even pushes their desks over). In the public school classroom, they even go so far as to grab the teacher and drag him out of there. 

Is this really what school letting out is like for anyone? It definitely wasn't for me. Sometimes I think I remember it happening, but I'm really just remembering the beginning of Dazed and Confused. I dunno, maybe it's 'cause I went to private school from seventh grade on, but I don't remember people being that excited when I was in public school either. 

For the first chorus, the public school and the Asian school let out. A trio of the public school girls (one wearing a Wham! "Choose Life" shirt) walking down some stairs sing the first round of "No more pencils, no more boo-ooks." They're followed by some of their rowdier classmates, carrying their struggling teacher. 

We then cut to fans watching Krokus perform — I believe we're meant to get that the kids from these different school scenes are then there watching Krokus, though I can only pick out kids from the public school and the prep school in the crowd sequences. Guess they didn't want people to think Krokus were too down with Arabs or (assuming it's China) communists. 

Ugh, Marc Storace. He barely gets out the line "we can't even think of a word that rhymes." And this red get-up is making him look even shorter. I almost feel bad for him when he does air guitar. He's sort of like the Michael Scott of heavy metal. Well, minus the likeability. But if it ever comes up, I could totally see him being played by Steve Carell. 

Okay, for the second chorus the Arab school and the prep school let out, and for the "No more pencils" bit, we get three prep school girls. As they leave the school, they remove their little neckties, causing Von Arb to blow a kiss. Ewww. 

The other students behind them seem much more orderly. No more teacher-kidnapping. We then go to some wide shots meant to imply it's a huge crowd watching Krokus perform. Krokus, I'm unconvinced. 

In short, Krokus, you are no Y&T when it comes to making funny high school videos. This gives me the idea though — I wish I were good at this kind of thing, but I know nothing about video editing. But it would be amazing to edit together all the nonexistent 80s teen movie bits from metal videos into some kind of amazing trailer for a metal 80s teen mega-movie. Dang, that would rule. 

Like I said, I don't have the editing chops to do it myself, but if anyone's up to the challenge, I'd be happy to consult.

Loudness, "Crazy Nights"

Tonight They're Gonna Rock You (Tonight)  

THE VIDEO Loudness, "Crazy Nights", Thunder in the East, 1985, Atco 

SAMPLE LYRIC "Rock n' roll crazy ni-iii-iiights / You are the heroes tonight! / Rock n' roll crazy ni-iii-iiights / You are the her-oooooooooooooo!" 

THE VERDICT Loudness are pretty amazing. They are in many ways like Japan's answer to Spinal Tap, which makes sense in a way since Tap find their pot of gold at the end of the rainbow touring the far east. 

But seriously, this video features so many Tap-esque cliches it's hard to even keep them all straight. Let's try. 

The clothing! I know, I always talk about what people are wearing. But I can't help it here. Loudness look like they got these outfits from one of those ads they used to have in Circus and Hit Parader that say like "Rock Star Clothes." I'm not making this up, these things used to exist! These companies sold like spandex, sleeveless Union Jack tees, and all manner of studded accessories. Let's review Loudness' apparel here. 

Vocalist Minoru Niihara is wearing a white leather vest over a sleeveless "rising sun" t-shirt — they totally sold those alongside the Union Jack tees! He also has on black pants. Most amazing though is that he has on basically white leather legwarmers that are turning his white sneakers into knee-high boots. You know who else rocked this look? Barbie, of Barbie and the Rockers. Yes, I totally had that doll (I think I've even talked about this before), and she had white faux-leather legwarmer things that you could put on her to transform her normal white Barbie heels into Rockers-esque boots. 

Guitarist Akira Takasaki has on a full-body suit of red spandex, with a large number of zippers, chains, etc. criss-crossing it. I think he was going for kind of a Nikki Sixx look, or maybe early Dokken. It's got shoulder pads, and separate arm bands — uhoh, I feel a digression about wrestling attire of the 1980s coming on! Don't worry, I'll fight it. This time. 

We don't see as much of bassist Masayoshi Yamashita, but he's got on a similar thing in black-and-white tiger stripes. I debated whether this was meant to be zebra or tiger stripes for a minute, but comparing it in my mind to the team-related apparel owned by a friend of mine who is a huge Bengals fan, I've come up with tiger.

 

We can really barely see the drummer, Munetaka Higuchi. It's kind of amazing — watch the whole video. He's in a zillion shots, yet they have almost always managed to line up the camera such that a cymbal is obscuring more or less his entire face. Munetaka doesn't once get to like make a pouty face for the camera, or wink, or point a drumstick at it, though he does get in some dramatic arm raises. In any event, I think he's wearing a black vest over a sleeveless tee, and maybe some kind of scarf, but it's a bit hard to tell. 

The lyrics "Crazy Nights" is astonishing in its sincerity and its focus on rocking. It seriously is like a love letter to nerdy metal fans: Come to our concert, here's what's going to happen, you will feel awesome. Shoot, they should have the Y&T robot get out on stage with them while they're at it! 

I think for me the best part of the lyrics is when Loudness proclaim "we're gonna do our best." Oh gosh, the sincerity is almost too much. 

Long story short, "Crazy Nights" is basically the Loudness version of "Tonight I'm Gonna Rock You (Tonight)." I mean yes, "Crazy Nights" is in no way sexual as "Tonight...," but it's a similar message: "Tonight I'm gonna rock ya, tonight I'm gonna rock ya, tonight." 

Wait, no: This is like the Loudness version of KISS' "Crazy, Crazy Nights." But oh snap. Loudness did it first! I know it kind of doesn't matter because "Crazy, Crazy Nights" is literally the worst song KISS ever made (I would rather listen to any other KISS song), but still. It's like come to our show, it's going to rock, you can let it all hang out here, etc., etc. KISS, I can't believe it. Did you seriously rip off Loudness? (I know, I know, probably not — but what is the internet for if not reckless speculations?)

Wall o' amps + guitar face Akira is seriously channeling Nigel Tufnel in this video. Loudness have set up gigantic walls of Marshall amps on either side of the stage which they use to good effect here, since besides some colored lights (and let's not forget the gong) they don't really have much happening onstage. In any event, Akira uses them the most, doing total rock star poses and making all kinds of guitar face in front of them. 

The gong! Who started the whole gong thing? Was it Neil Peart? I don't know the answer to this. But I remember reading a thing in Spin magazine years ago — I think it was in some kind of list issue — the gist of which was you can tell what kind of show you're in for just by looking at the drum kit. A gong behind the drummer meant it was about to rawk. 

This video doesn't disappoint in this regard, with a whole sequence of Munetaka banging the hell out of that gong. Yes, we can't actually hear it, but it looks cool. Even if writing about it is making me get the awful Power Station cover of "Get It On (Bang a Gong)" stuck in my head. Ughh.

 

It's Tap-tastic, right? Then again, there are aspects of this video that aren't as relevant to Spinal Tap that are still worth mentioning. The following aren't Tap-related, but I would be remiss to talk about this video without mentioning... 

The fans Do the people in this video even know they are in this video? And I don't mean the people doing the chanting (we'll get to them below). I mean the couple of throwaway shots they have of metal fans to try to convince us that Loudness are performing in front of an audience — this despite the fact that it could not be more obvious that they're not. 

There are a couple of versions of this video floating around — the performance parts remain the same, but the fan footage (and the chanters) change. In most though, you get to see a blurry, red-tinged shot of what appear to be a group of pre-teen-ish white boys with short hair sort of bopping along to the music. 

In others, you'll get to see a bunch of Japanese fans leaning over a railing. Trust that in either case these people are not watching Loudness perform as we see them during this video. But again, the bigger question — were the people in this footage ever watching Loudness anywhere? 

The chanting! For most people, this song's nonsensical chant of "M! Z! A!" is the most memorable bit. For years I assumed that this was an abbreviation that meant something in Japanese. No. What I have since heard is that "M! Z! A!" was initially put in as a placeholder — they knew they wanted to have a chant, but didn't know what. In the end though, they just kept its kind of nonsense chant. 

I just tried to substantiate this version of events and succeeded: In an interview with Metallian.com, Minoru says, "It is like shouting 'hey hey hey' or 'wow wow wow' or whatever. Except M, Z and A came out of me. I have been asked this question and I used to tell people it stands for 'My Zebra Ass.' Of course, that's nonsense." 

Also apparently they wrote all the music for this song before writing lyrics, which may explain some things, like why the guitar's so badass, but the lyrics are so, well, see above! In any event, in addition to being sonically memorable, this video also makes the chant visually memorable, as we see all different people doing the chant. 

We first see the band members do it. But we also get to see Japanese policemen, school children, even a woman dressed as a geisha. Depending on what version of the video you watch, you'll see different people doing the chant. 

They also do collages of the letters a couple of times, using letters from signs, a varsity jacket, etc., to get the message across. It's not Tap-esque, but you've still got to love the chant. Plus it allows them to do a couple of quick "meet the band" sequences — win-win.

Mötley Crüe, "Too Young to Fall in Love"

What Up Ninjas

THE VIDEO Mötley Crüe, "Too Young to Fall In Love," Shout at the Devil, 1983, Elektra

Click here to watch this video NOW!

SAMPLE LYRIC "Well you're killin' me / your love's a guillotine / why won't you just set me freeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee-ah / too young to fall in love / (I'm too young!) / too young to fall in love / (much too young!) / too young to fall in loooo-ooooove"

EXCESSIVELY DETAILED DESCRIPTION Drunken sailors paw at a stumbling hooker while extras from a high school production of Les Miserables cavort in Mötley Crüe's creepy 80s meets Mad Max version of China (or possibly Chinatown). A little kid, and then a guy dressed possibly like a monk (or at least in a long robe) encounter one of them, an especially derelict-looking young girl sitting in the gutter.

While an unidentified person eats an unidentified food in a poorly lit room, the kid runs to go tell Nikki Sixx, who is with the rest of the crüe preening in front of wooden blinds. As the mötley lads stand up, ready to take action, we see that the person eating the whatever was actually the girl from the first scene, as the monk-style-dude abruptly announces that dinner's over, pulling her up from the table.

Meanwhile, the crüe's on the move, with Vince Neil (sorry Vince, but this story was priceless -- and it was the #2 link on Google) leading the others down the street from the opening shot in the best 80s meets West Side Story style I've seen since 'Love is a Battlefield.' They are possibly already too late though, as the monk dude is already leading her into much, much fancier rooms, where the doors open automatically to display an array of charming concubines. A fat dude in sunglasses comes out, briefly inspects the goods, then beckons her inward as the automatic doors close, leaving the monk dude outside (and not even paying him a commission!).

Mötley Crüe seem to have given up, as the guys have now taken a break to set up all of their equipment in the same street, and Vince is still crazy gyrating, though he's got nothing on Tommy Lee, who appears to be trying out for the part of Dr. Frank N. Furter as he drums. People talk all the time about guitar face, but seriously, Tommy takes top prize over anybody when it comes to uh, drum face.



As we go into the guitar solo, we're back in the fancy rooms, and at the center of all the concentric doors (sorry, I know I'm not describing these well, but since I don't know the proper architectural term nor do I want to fall back on catch-all terms like "Chinese style," I'm kind of at a loss here), we see the fellow hookers cleaning the main girl up by dumping a bucket of water on her, in a scene reminiscent of both Flashdance and, strangely, Coming to America. (Note that there's no actual parallel scene in the second movie visually, just the idea of exotically clad people err, washing each other).

But okay, the crüe's done messing around, as the little kid shows them into the kitchen. Tommy tries to pause to taste the unidentified food, but Vince is like, "dude, come on," so they keep going. As we reprise the song's opening, we finally get a good view of the old sunglasses dude as he sees the crüe appear in one of the rounded doorways. The girl comes out, now all cleaned up and brandishing a fan. With typical "Yaaaa!" "Hiyaaa!" sound effects, rather androgynous ninjas appear.

The crüe scatter, and as Vince dodges one's blows with his dance moves, Mick Mars dispatches his with a truly half-hearted kick (I know the guy's got a bad hip but come on, please! Okay, seriously though, even if he's a rat-looking bastard and all the stuff about ghost aliens or whatever in The Dirt was crazy, Mick's a total sweetie). Vince gets rid of his ninja foe by kind of shoving the guy's sword back toward him, and Nikki utilizes a similar move. Tommy, however, opts for the classic bitch slap (replete with sound effects).

Their job here apparently done, the boys reunite in the doorway, and for whatever reason it is revealed to us that both the old man and the young girl have on the little two strokes of cheek war paint so often favored by the crüe members, particularly Tommy (as well as Adam Ant). As each bit of face art is revealed, a gong is struck (why?). Nikki makes a "pff, whatever" face and waves like he totally doesn't care, Mick shakes his head and walks off, Vince kind of shrugs and walks away, while Tommy poses for significantly longer (internal monologue: "Dude, I'm the hottest member of this band! I mean I'm married to Heather friggin' Locklear").



The band members move briskly back through the kitchen, brushing themselves off, and at last Tommy gets to try the mystery dish -- or so he thinks. A knife-brandishing ninja (possibly the monk dude from the beginning, but this video has barely any light in it so its hard to tell) takes a swing at him from behind, but Tommy takes him out by swinging a sack of something and hitting him right in the gut. As he finally tastes said mystery food, he makes a face ("Eew!") and spits it out (and yeah, we get to hear him spit), then leaves. The video ends with another gong sound, as the crüe make devil horns and throw gang signs, safely stationed once again before their backlit window shade.

THE VERDICT Okay. So we've got a street urchin recruited for a life of prostitution, and a little boy who tells the band to come rescue her (or something). Because then yeah, the rescue just involves fighting some ninjas, comparing makeup, and then leaving -- they totally don't rescue her. And thought they're "too young to fall in love," they don't seem to be in love with her. And if she's "too young" to be forced into pseudo-sexual slavery, then why don't they save her? Even though the little kid is standing with them again at the end, you can imagine Nikki sort of punching him in the arm like, "dude, that was so not worth it!"

It's kind of the same thing with the song (and in actuality yes, this is one of my favorite Mötley Crüe songs -- if you're going to love this stuff in the first place, you can't be too picky about whose lyrics are more or less misogynistic than others). The lyrics involve a lot of weird, pointless comparisons ("you say our love is like dynamite / open your eyes, it's like fire and ice"). Vince says this unnamed person's love is killing him, her "love's a [metaphorical] guillotine" from which he implores her to set him free, but then by the next verse, it's no longer a metaphor (or a simile -- sorry, I'm not so hot on these things now that I'm out of school). "Now I'm killing you / watch your face turn blue" -- uh, whoa! When did that happen? Weird, if you ask me (and also much more explicit than these things usually get, no matter what the PMRC may have claimed back in the day).

So yeah, in the end, this is a tough call. The video (like the song itself) almost has a narrative, but it doesn't quite work out. This does definitively place it in between older, essentially non-narrative videos ("Live Wire") and later, more explicitly narrative videos ("Dr Feelgood") -- somewhat of a reversal of the trend we see with most other bands, who go from heavily scripted to (what at least are made to look like) more unscripted videos. All I can say is CRRüüüüüüüüüüüüüüüüüüüüE!