Great White, "Lady Red Light"

I'm in Love With a Working Girl  

THE VIDEO Great White, "Lady Red Light," Once Bitten..., 1987, Capitol 

SAMPLE LYRIC "Lady Red Light, rock me to-nigh-ight / baby's got a way-ay, to make me feel right / Lady Red Light, rock me to-nigh-ight / she really knows how to moo-oove meeeee!" 

THE VERDICT Oh, Great White. Of course, of course, of course you would write a song about the joys of hookers. I know that talking heads in any Vh-1 metal special-type thing will always talk about how Jack Russell got an inexplicable amount of ass for looking the way he does, but looking the way he does, I've got to imagine at least some amount of that ass was bought and paid for. 

Speculation about Jack's sexual proclivities aside, I have been thinking about Great White lately because I recently added a Great White t-shirt to my heavy metal t-shirt collection. Yes, I finally have gotten over the "Mista Bone" t-shirt that I turned down at (ironically enough) Red Light in Seattle like three years ago now and am proud owner of a 1987 "O-fish-al" tour tee. 

Will I actually wear it? Maybe. I don't think metal is enough on the radar screens of the people I'm generally around that they'll be like "oh my goodness, how are you supporting a band that killed all those people." (Which is not my goal, that was a horrific fire.) I'm rounding out my collection, a lot of which stays more or less on ice anyway. Depends on the value and condition of the shirt. (Though I'm wearing my Iron Maiden 1987 "Somewhere On Tour" shirt just to type this post, so it's not like I save them all for special occasions!)

 

Anyway, the "Lady Red Light" video. What goes on here? Well, it's basically your standard model Great White video. Though there is some variation in their video catalogue, Great White's default is as follows. One, the band standing in a huge, empty stage area that is lit by overhead spotlights. Two, a woman with straight blonde hair and bangs doing sexy things nowhere in the vicinity of the band. Three, repeat ad infinitum. 

The spotlights in this video are out of control, I guess 'cause it's a (slightly) faster song. It gives things almost a strobe-lit effect. Lorne Black tosses his hair furiously in front of a stack of amps, Mark Kendall makes constant guitar face, Michael Lardie as always looks a little awkward or nervous to be playing the keyboards. You have to own it bro, you have to own it. Even during the keyboard solo, he looks half asleep. 

Jack Russell is glowering up from under his pouffy bangs in like every shot. He also seems to have a fan on him. Oh, not like a music fan or anything — I mean like something is blowing his hair around the whole time. Per always, he's wearing like 800 pounds of turquoise jewelry. 

I should also give a special shout-out to Mark Kendall's guitar. I'm usually not a big fan of novelty guitars, but this one is just adorable. Can't help it. The body of the guitar is shaped like a slightly cartoonish great white shark, and then the neck is a leg clad in board shorts and a high-top sneaker. It's a shark eating a surfer! Okay, a surfer who's inexplicable wearing shoes. But still, it's a cute guitar, and I like that it's like themed to the band's name. 

I digress. As I was saying, this video features spotlights, Great White, and a blonde girl with bangs doing sexy stuff. What exactly does she do? Well, she stays the hell away from Jack Russell and company, that's for sure. We mostly see her posing near one of the most literal props in the history of heavy metal videos — various red lightbulbs. I'm not kidding. 

She starts off in the preferred outfit of all Great White girls — miniskirt, black semi-sheer stockings, and black leather jacket. We then see her in an 80s-girl-next-door outfit — white tee, Keds, and artfully ripped jeans. Of course, the fact that she's lasciviously arraying herself on a motorcycle makes her more of an 80s working-girl-next-door, but that's the point of the song, right?

 

The shots of her eating an ice cream cone are some of my favorites. They're just so Great White — it's like they said to themselves, "How can we make this whole girl-next-door thing sleazier?" Ah yes, close-ups of her mouth sensuously licking what looks to me like black raspberry ice cream. 

Then since that apparently wasn't sleazy enough, the camera pulls back and she makes eye contact with the viewer while continuing to go at it. Great White, you guys are too much. We also get her in a very girlish nightgown on a brown leather club couch — okay Great White, this one is a little too inappropriate in what it suggests. 

The weirdest one for me is when she's wearing an oversize white button-down and heels, lounging in a sort of big wooden chair that's next to... I don't even know what those things are. They look like giant sacks of potatoes. The girl looks really uncomfortable trying to pose all sexy in the obviously uncomfortable chair. 

She also does sort of a dominatrix look — black bustier, little black biker hat, fingerless gloves, and sheer stockings attached to a garter belt. Some shots they don't even bother really inventing just for this video. We've already seen a blonde girl with bangs lounging in a bed with satin sheets in "Save Your Love". 

They'll basically use the same convention again for the ...Twice Shy album cover. And so yes, they use it here, too — a round red bed with satin-y sheets (which was obviously the inspiration for the album cover, which came after). 

Side note: If I had to guess, I would also say it's the same girl in both of these videos, though I don't know that for a fact, and I don't know her name. I'm less sure though that it's the same girl as from the Once Bitten... album cover, though I've often assumed that she's the girl who's in "Rock Me." We'll have to wait 'til I get to that video though for a full investigation. 

Anyway. Did Great White save some dough by making pretty much the exact same video three times in a row? We're going to have to hope that yes, that's their excuse for this. Then again, many of their other videos also display their fondness for blondes with bangs, so who knows. 

What made straight blonde hair with bangs such a thing in the late 80s? Do we thank Christina Applegate? Bobbie Brown? Debbie Gibson? 

P.S.: I know, the song I named this post for is definitely not metal, and is technically more Working Girl than Pretty Woman.

Great White, "Stick It"

It's Shark Week Again

THE VIDEO Great White, "Stick It," Great White, 1984, EMI

Click here to watch this video NOW!

SAMPLE LYRIC "I'm out on the road, and I'm rockin'! / (Stick it, stick it) / I'm on out the road there's no stoppin' / (Stick it, stick it)"

THE VERDICT Don't let the fact that most Great White songs are either covers or pretty terrible ballads (not to mention the fact that at this point they are way more famous for causing considerable death and devastation than they are for even "Once Bitten, Twice Shy") keep you away from this gem. This is a great song. For serious. They managed a couple of genuinely great songs back in their day, and this is one of them ("On Your Knees" is the other one, if you're wondering.)

This video is no slouch either. Even more than I enjoy songs about the right to rock, I love metal videos that feel like they're from some lost 80s movie that desperately needs to be unearthed. "Stick It" is actually sort of a combination of that with like, a long lost ZZ Top video -- I mean fantasy, babes, a car? That's serious Top territory. And of course, bathing suits of the 80s, which always provide a fun trip down memory lane (or just like, to the ever-pornier American Apparel).

So the video takes us through the (increasingly surreal) misadventures of a youngish teen guy working at a greasy spoon diner that appears to exist well, literally nowhere -- it's surrounded by white space at all times. His boss is a big fat dude with glasses. The colors are very drab and washed out -- the entire diner is more or less gray with some tan and rust, and all the customers are dressed in neutral colors (lots of black).

Things start off pretty normal, with the kid and the fat dude serving the customers sitting at the counter. Slowly, the kid edges away, and heads over to a radio mounted on the wall to turn up the volume.

Doing so causes a sort of video-photo of Jack Russell to come flinging out of the radio, overtaking the screen until we are watching Great White perform. The band is in front of a small crowd of people, and they're lit by spotlights which we can completely see (we can even see the people operating them, always an extra touch of class). Great White are a skeezy band even at their best, and this video is no exception. Mark Kendall is absurdly perky, pursing his lips and waggling his guitar at the crowd. Not-long-for-this-band members Lorne Black (bass) and Gary Holland (drums) similarly telegraph overenthusiasm, and we also need to mention are way better looking than the core of the band, Russell and Kendall (Holland looks like a lighter-haired Tommy Lee, and Black looks about like Rick Savage did around this time, again with slightly different hair). Is it KISS syndrome? Sort of, except none of the various members of KISS have ever been even kind of good looking.



Jack Russell looks, of course, like a total skeezoid. I will forever be baffled by all the anecdotes about the revolving door of skanks that his tourbus was. Him? Really? He's got ratty, thinning hair, and is wearing a white leather vest and a gold chain with nothing else (at least that we can see, I'm sure he is wearing pants. Or at least satiny briefs, ew ew).

We jump back to the diner, where the kid's boss has noticed what he's doing, and yanked him away from the radio. He marches him around to the front of the counter, where the customers watch with blase expressions as he's thrown to the ground. As we see the kid lying on the ground looking up at them, one might notice the perfect fried eggs laying there next to him. Remember those.

We're back with the band for a second, then we return to the diner, where the kid is behind the counter again. Though the customers were eating normal food from plates at the beginning of the video, now there are just these pairs of fried eggs laying all over the place. The diner also apparently is using all its coffee pots to hold slightly blue-tinted water. Remember those, too.

The kid starts to refill one of the customer's water glasses, when suddenly he spots something. We get a close-up of his jaw dropping and his eyes going all wide. What could he possibly see? Come on, it's a metal video, you know darn well what he's seeing! Chicks. The camera zooms out the window, where suddenly we see four women in heels and one-piece bathing suits hanging around a large white sedan. One girl sits on the hood, one lounges on top of the car, while the other two sit partially hanging out the windows, tossing a beach ball back and forth over the top of the car. They all smile and throw the beach ball toward him as they notice his stare. Oh, did I mention the car exists in just empty, white space? It does.

We go back to a close-up of the boy's eyes, then we see that he is still pouring the water. The customer pulls the glass away, and the water continues to pour and pour, splashing all over the counter and getting everywhere. Apparently it really is a bottomless beverage deal at this diner. The kid finally runs out of water, and jerks his head around as if he has noticed something else. Two men we haven't seen before who are dressed I guess as cooks (they have aprons around their waists) are doing a complicated juggling act over the diner counter. Celery, baguettes, pans, and more are tossed back and forth.

The kid looks outside again, and sees all the women now sitting in a row, drinking soda through straws. His attention is quickly distracted though, as his fat boss is coming after him. He looks back outside, and one of the women is smiling as she pours blue water from a coffee pot all over herself.



The boss grabs the kid by the neck again, yanking him around the counter. He shoves a mop into his hand, then points -- the kid is supposed to clean the diner, which is suddenly absolutely filthy, with piles of garbage on every surface. He trudges slowly further into the room.

But then oh, we're back with the band, and Mark Kendall is working his way to a furious guitargasm. The crowd shake their fists, and I love that you can clearly see one guy turn and check whether he's on camera. Congrats dude, you are. I also like that someone else in the crowd keeps holding up a pair of sunglasses and trying to align them with the ones on Mark's face for no clear reason. They're sort of like, "well, as long as we're having to be part of this Great White video, we may as well make the best of it."

Following a long segment featuring pretty much just Mark's right hand, we see Lorne and Jack sort of thrusting away in unison. Jack is indeed wearing pants -- red leather. Could've been worse.

After much screaming and thrusting, we're back at the diner, which is still trashed. Dishes are everywhere, as are those baguettes that were being juggled before. The kid looks disgusted and confused as he walks around, while his boss looks on from the corner. For some reason, the patrons have TP'd the diner, and so now toilet paper is hanging from the lighting fixtures.

The kid looks out the window, and he sees the women getting into the car, which is now facing away from the diner. As they close the doors, we go back to the band, where Jack is encouraging the crowd to raise their fists in unison. We see some girls in the crowd chanting "stick it!" After some shots of Jack and Mark looking and acting lecherous, we see a ridiculous dude in the crowd (with a horrible mustache -- I mean, more horrible than most even) take off his sunglasses and attempt a scary face. I can just imagine some poor AD being like "Yeah! Now show me more metal, more metal, that's it!" Then Jack holds his mic out to Lorne so he can say "stick it!"

The camera zooms out from Great White, and then we're back at the diner. The boss appears to be lecturing the kid, who looks exasperated. Behind them, the diner appears to be on fire. The kid walks away from the fire, his boss, and the filth, and looks out one of the windows, bracing his arms against the windowpanes.

His boss continues to hector him, and he looks back at him before gazing out the window again. Suddenly, he pulls his arms back and punches through the window with both fists, shattering the glass. He jumps out the window, landing on all fours. The ladies open up the driver's side door, and the kid army crawls toward the car (which I'm thinking now is a Cadillac). They all gesture to him to come get in, although the one in the red suit seems underwhelmed at the prospect.



As he jumps in and slams the door, we go back to Great White. The video ends with everyone throwing their hands in the air, and Gary throwing a drumstick in the air. It fades out on a shot of just the drumstick flying through the air.

So given all that, I know there's one question on everybody's minds: Was it all a dream? Is Jack wearing a wig in later Great White videos? His hair looks pretty sparse and ratty here, but especially right up front -- his hairline looks pretty dicey, and I swear there are some shots where you can see right through the middle. And yet within just a couple of years, he's got a lush, full mane of blonde hair replete with thick, straight bangs. On the one hand, possibly he's not just a member, he's also a client or whatever, and he magically grew an incredible amount of thick, evenly textured hair completely unlike what he's working with here. But given that all through their later albums, he's got exactly the same haircut (and never moves his head around that much either, come to think of it), and it's not even a very metal haircut -- do you think it's a rug? I mean, years later, now with shorter hair, it doesn't like it did in the band's most successful years.

I don't know how they didn't manage to use this song in the gymnastics movie Stick It, which if you're wondering was pretty good (and did have some okay music since I do enjoy the occasional Jock Jam), even if the jokes were kind of off and the heroine was seriously the tallest gymnast in the history of elite gymnastics. Dang, now I am wishing I had cable so I could watch (among the zillion other things I'd watch if I had cable) that bitchy gymnasts show on ABC Family. That show looked pretty good.

The one movie alert cinema-going metalheads may have noticed that this was in was the Harold and Kumar sequel (Escape from Guantamano Bay). Good gracious it was horrible, way too topical, and nearly ruined my goodwill toward both the hilarious first movie and Beverly D'Angelo, BUT. In the scene where they are hanging out with George Bush in his little hunting-lodge-type house, you can hear this song playing quietly in the background. It darn near made me burst into spontaneous applause in the theater! Mainly because it was the high point of the film, but seriously, that was the case not just because the movie was awful, but because this song never gets the respect and credit it deserves. Hence, here I am now -- and here you are now. Go listen to it!

P.S.: Remember when I made that whole plan about how I was going to talk less about what happens in the videos and write shorter posts? Yeah, I remember it too. Sigh.

Great White, "Save Your Love"

Passing the Savings On to You

THE VIDEO Great White, "Save Your Love," Once Bitten..., 1987, Capitol

Click here to watch this video NOW!

SAMPLE LYRIC "Save all your love / save your love / for me! / when I'm aloooone at night / you're all / I see-eeee!"

THE VERDICTLet's face it: Ever since 2003, pretty much no one is going to think of Great White as anything but the band whose ill-advised indoor pyro resulted in the horrific deaths of a hundred people. But, if we can think back before then, we can recall Great White as a band that -- following a self-titled album that was a true masterpiece of sleazy rock -- decided to stake their claim in the kingdom of the power ballad. Much as I might like to ignore them, there's just no getting around Great White in the power ballad department. If nothing else, plumbing the depths of their faux sincerity may help us learn how it was that, from every anecdote I've ever heard, a guy as icky as Jack Russell could get so much ass.

I've chosen "Save Your Love" because of the numerous Great White ballads that are out there, this is the only one where I'm consistently like, "you know what? This is a pretty good song." Even though the sentiment is a little weird -- we're both dating other people, but hold out for me, which sounds like a good excuse for a guy to string along two women at once (or vice versa, I suppose) -- I really like the instrumentation, particularly the guitar at the beginning. The vocal is a bit underwhelming, but you feel like maybe a stronger vocalist could do this song justice. I also especially enjoy the bit at the end where the voice and guitar keep cutting themselves and each other off, giving it sort of a layered sound.



As for the video: Well, Great White may have been known for their power ballads, but they were never known for their videos. So what's going on here? Well, I guess to play up the sort of classical guitar sound in this song, the lads are playing it all sitting around in some kind of music storeroom, with all kinds of instruments -- pianos, cellos, drums, etc. -- for whatever reason suspended in the air around them. They're hanging from chains, so that makes it a little bit more metal, as does the fact that Audie Desbrow has a gong suspended behind him. But then you see Michael Lardie playing a guitar harp (a guitarp?) and it gets, you know, a little less metal.

Great White -- or maybe just Jack Russell -- must've had a thing for straight-haired blondes, because the girls in all their videos look like the same girl. With the exception of the girl in "Rock Me," who's also on the album cover of Once Bitten..., they aren't ever actually the same girl. Anyway, here we've got the usual sort of Bobbie Brown-looking gal (though for some reason she's giving me a Stacey from the Baby-sitters' Club vibe), wearing a hooded black cape, a black blouse, a high-waisted black leather skirt, sheer black tights, and I think strappy sandals.

Honestly, in a way she looks downright glamorous (even with wet hair!), particularly when compared to Jack Russell's ensemble. He's wearing a sleeveless denim jacket over a pouffy pirate shirt, and what may or may not be chaps. Definitely some sort of embellished black leather pant. As per usual, he's thrown on wayyy too much silver and turquoise jewelry. You know, I think actually he's the one dressed like a member of the Baby-sitters' Club. And he does sort of have Stacey's hair, so... you be the judge.



Oh goodness, as if we didn't get enough of this with Whitesnake, now this girl's face is being reflected in water too. Somehow this is one power ballad cliche the Crue missed! Anyway, she's walking around touching the instruments in the same space as the band, though we see she's not there at the same time as the band.

And things are getting more intense. The girl is standing behind a rainy window, it's raining indoors, and next thing you know Mark Kendall and Tony Montana are standing up and rocking out. In a truly bizarre turn of events, the girl's clothes magically change (into a sort of long white nightgown thing) as she walks past a brass bed strewn with red rose petals. We get an overhead shot of her jumping onto the bed. And oooh, it's a sensual time there on the bed. We get shots of the girl making sexy faces, rolling around and caressing the rose petals, juxtaposed with Mark just playing the sh-t out of his guitar. Yeah, that's sexy. Mm, I'm realizing belatedly it may be hard to hear a sarcastic tone of voice when I'm, you know, just typing. Crap.

Anyway, next thing you know, she's disappeared. Jack tries to reach for her, but it's just her reflection in water. And now she's back to her all-black outfit and walking away from the bed, which may or may not also be covered in barbed wire. Huh? Next thing we know, she's put the cloak back on and dissolved into thin air.

So long story short, is this love? Umm, not sure. But I think I'm going to have to save all my love (or at least the bulk of it) for the next video. I need to come up with something that puts the pow! back in power ballads.