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.

Krokus, "Our Love"

Spring Has Sprung, And So Has Marc Storace

THE VIDEO Krokus, "Our Love," The Blitz, 1984, Spitfire Records

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SAMPLE LYRIC "Owww-owwww-our / our love will never die / (nev-errrr die) / don't know why-yyyyyy-yyyyyy / it's a feelin' / in-siiiiiii-iiiiide"

THE VERDICT I was originally thinking hey, it's spring -- trees are budding, flowers are blooming -- and what better symbol of spring than the humble crocus? Or in this case, the hubris-filled Krokus. But in retrospect, what was I thinking? Good god is this a horrible video. Honestly, I feel like I need to go use one of those eyewash stations that they put in labs every time I watch it. The song is actually probably one of Krokus' better ones -- or okay, at least it's not a cover -- and still it's pretty brutal. But it's really the video's constant barrage of things I never wanted or needed to see that gets me every time.

It's a pretty narrative-heavy video -- and not just because Marc Storace literally sings almost every single lyric straight into the face of the woman in the video, as if this were a musical and he was singing dialogue. The video begins with Krokus' tour bus (bedecked in Christmas lights), a few vague concert shots, and a woman peeking out from behind some blinds. She looks pretty smug about the return of the Krokus bus.

Next comes a bizarre shot that's repeated a bunch of times, makes no sense, and never needed to happen: Storace and the woman are lying in bed, with the woman closer to us and the camera very close, almost from the point of view of her shoulder. She either starts laughing, crying, or gets very suddenly aroused, arching her back and making a weird face, and this causes Storace to sit up in concern. What the heck is going on there? They show it like three times in the video, so you'd think it'd be clearer.

The whole beginning actually is mostly these weird atmospheric shots foreshadowing crap we'll have to sit through in full later -- Storace walking in a dark alley, Storace and the woman in a red convertible, blurry concert footage, etc.



Once Storace has unlocked the door, it gets a lot more straightforward, as he starts singing all the lyrics at the woman as if they're having a conversation. Ugh this dude is lame. Cut the lectures already! Since she doesn't have any "lines" in the song, all she gets to do is blow smoke at him. It keeps cutting to shots of them in bed, and of him kissing her neck, which are making me -- let's just say I should have made a reaction video of me watching this video, and that I hope my face doesn't get stuck that way.

Now their argument has moved to in front of what appears to be some kind of neon shelving housing tons of VCRs and cassette decks. Honestly, who knows what it is except for something a set designer on a music video in 1984 would have thought looked super rad.

Speaking of things that seemed like a cool idea in the 80s, different frames keep being cut into what's being shown on the screen in stripes. I'll take whatever as long as it gets Storace off my screen for even a second! More than a minute in and all it is is him singing at the camera. How is it even possible that he simultaneously has a mullet and a rat tail?! It's like someone shaved down John Oates and the lead singer from REO Speedwagon, and made some kind of weird curly Davy Crockett hat out of the results.

Oh god, now they're rolling around in bed together. Thank god she's on top so we don't have to see Storace. Why the camera appears to be filming them through a chain link fence (on their ceiling?) is a total mystery. Gahhh now he's rolling onto the top! Please let this scene end soon.

Nooo!! No!! The last scene ended, but now it has cut to Storace SHAVING. This is far atop my list of things in this video I never needed to see. He spots something behind him -- it's the woman in the shower. And damn, for a music video, she looks pretty naked. Storace seems super surprised by this. Ughh, and then we get an eyeful of his gross hair.

Somehow a shot of a hand gripping a bed sheet transitions us to the woman in the same bathroom, putting on lipstick. Over her shoulder, we see what appears to be Storace and the woman together in the shower, but when we see a shot of just the shower, he's on his own. And thank heaven for small mercies -- he is wearing briefs in the shower.



Then more boring sexy time stuff -- she's smoking while they're lying in bed, she's putting her hand over his while he works the gearshift in the car (ew). Storace seems super-frustrated all of the sudden, and boom, next thing you know he's singing at her again, this time in the car. And then it turns into a montage of all their arguments thus far. Snoozeville.

No! No! Nooo!! They're going at it again. Oh god, and she's running her hands through his carpet of chest hair. Ew, ew, ew. All I can say for this sequence is because they keep fading and layering the shots on top of each other, it's not super-easy to tell what's going on. A shot of her butt fades into that weird shot from the beginning -- are we meant to believe she's having an orgasm just from laying in bed next to Storace?! I can't even begin on what's wrong with that picture.

With the guitar solo, someone involved with this video suddenly remembers -- Krokus is a band. So not only do we get to see them in fake-concert, we get to see other band members. Well, really we only get to see Fernando Von Arb. Everyone else pops up, if they do at all, in still images layered in stripes across the screen.

But before we know it, we're back in the car. Images of just the woman's face keep flashing on the screen for like a single frame, breaking up most of what we're seeing, which is just Storace and the woman sitting in the convertible. Then we're with Krokus in concert, but again really only showing Storace and Von Arb.

The video ends back in the car, with the woman popping her head up suddenly, and Storace breaking the fourth wall to make a shocked face at the camera. Seriously, a blowjob joke? You put me through that entire horrible video, and that's the payoff? Oooh-weee Krokus. You needed to think before you made these horrible, horrible videos. Bokay?

Krokus, "Screaming in the Night"

The Stuff of Nightmares

THE VIDEO Krokus, "Screaming in the Night," Headhunter, 1983, Arista

Click here to watch this video NOW!

SAMPLE LYRIC "Screamin' in the night / fightin' for my life / I di-iiied for you / I knew it all along / headed for the sun / our loooo-ooove was true"

EXCESSIVELY DETAILED DESCRIPTION The video opens with a head-on shot of some bizarrely dressed women doing a high-kicking dance with some kind of strange structure in the background. Because the film has some kind of weird effect going on in order to make the sky all black, it's hard to tell exactly what's happening. Anyway, they do slo-mo jumps and kicks while carrying giant staffs and wearing outfits made of various leather scraps tied to their bodies sort of randomly.

This shot fades into one of a number of plainly dressed people wearing metal masks or helmets who are all pulling a large wagon. We quickly see the band, then see a woman in a black leotard waving something around. Then we see the band again -- the guitarists are standing up on some sort of platform, while the lead singer is clad in nothing but a loincloth (and what the hell is that giant thing between his legs! Who are they kidding! If that thing were real, it would mean the guy from Black Oak Arkansas was hung like a toddler, if you see what I'm saying). He's sort of semi-crucified on a wooden thing.

The camera then pans past a strange open-air structure decorated by mannequin legs. It enables us to see that the Krokus dude is being pulled forward on the back of a wagon (probably the wagon we saw the front of before). Behind him are coming a punch of people in blue-gray coveralls and black hoods or masks carrying a wooden casket on their shoulders while more women do goofy modern dance moves alongside them. Other people walk behind them carrying staffs and such, most of whom are festively dressed in sort of a pseudo-Renaissance fashion.

Next we see more hapless masked men, these ones are using rope to drag along an old car that has had its windows painted over (what the hell was the point of this? I know I could say that for anything I've described so far, but this detail really begs the question). As the song finally starts, we get a close-up of the singer getting all growly as he sings whilst chained to that post thing. Next we jump back to the beginning of the procession, and the lady in the black leotard (who appears to be layering it over loose gray sweatpants tucked into knee-high black boots). She's carrying a helmet, too, and for no reason, the sky has turned red.

Now Mr. Krokus is not on the cross and he has been given his shirt back. He's walking along face-to-face with a Pat Benatar-ish girl in a silvery corset thing, both appear to have their hands tied behind their backs. The leotard lady leads the group up to that big cage from "Rock You Like a Hurricane," only now it's outside in a sort of post-apocalyptic courtyard. We can see pinkish-red clouds in the distance and people (guards?) standing on top of buildings. Along with a ton of masked men, she throws the whole band into the cage, and at the last minute pulls out the girl. The Krokus dude runs over to the fence, and the girl calls out as the lady drags her away toward some stairs.



A bunch more masked folk turn a giant contraption, and fake lightning flickers in the sky as the leotard lady drags the girl through a crowded marketplace full of futuristic weirdos. The lady shoves people aside while dragging the girl. They finally make it up to the same set they use in Krokus' "Eat the Rich" video, which is some statues beside several tiers of stairs leading up to a throne with a giant spire coming out of it. Tons of the masked guys are standing guard all over it, and there are people doing fruity partner dances too.

The lady pulls the girl to the top of all the stairs, where she gives her over to a heavy bald bearded dude who is sitting in the throne. He's dressed sort of like a futuristic biker dude, with an army helmet and vest on but also a big cape. He nods approval and then grabs the girl, who struggles with him. He cackles as they forcibly embrace.

A shot of a fake sunset fades to black to establish that it is now night. A hand reaches out to the face of the Krokus dude, who is sleeping on the floor of the cage. He startles, but then realizes it's the girl. He of course gets up right away to make out with her, but then the evil bald dude runs in and grabs her away. We see the Krokus dude's insanely lame reaction shot as the bald guy pulls out a knife and stabs her. He laughs all crazily as her body slumps to the ground with a line of blood above her right breast.

The scene fades out, and we again see the masked coverall guys carrying a wooden coffin with some dancers cavorting about behind them. They are followed by more of the same guys carrying the Krokus dude (shirtless yet again) chained to a platform thing. The sky is artificial black again, and they carry the whole kit and caboodle into a smallish striped pyramid thing with some statuary outside of it. They load it all in, and the bald dude waves his arm around, and they seal off the entrance.

Fake lightning strikes the point of the pyramid, and the assembled crowd scatters. Lightning then strikes the door of bricks that they just propped up, and it falls over. Lastly, lightning strikes inside the pyramid, causing the chains binding the Krokus dude to disappear, and he sits up and rubs his wrists. There is a small explosion behind him, causing a burst of light from a box. He goes over to the box and finds sneakers, jeans, and a lame, pirate-esque shirt, which he puts on. A trap door opens in the floor, and he looks over and then heads over to it. As he runs he peeks out the main door again, and sees the masked guards approaching, so he hauls ass through that trap door.

Coming out the other side, he finds himself climbing down a ladder into a diner. He looks around the whole room -- yes, typical urban diner -- and is rubbing a hand through his curly locks when he realizes the waitress is the leotard lady. And then, the cook is the bearded dude! And then, there on the TV hanging above the counter, there's him and his band playing on the futuristic set!



He makes a disgusted face, and as that ends the TV changes over to a blue screen that says "Rock + Roll" on it in white and the VJ is none other than the love interest from the future. In his shock, openmouthed, he climbs up onto the counter and walks across it, stepping into everyone's food and knocking over cups and plates along the way. The last four people at the counter (who are especially disheveled and not really eating) are the other band members, and they all look up at him, as does the chef dude from his little window.

The Krokus dude grabs the sides of the TV and sings the final chorus to it, giving it all he's got. The leotard lady/sassy waitress nods her approval. Two of the band members look up at him, one holding a coffee cup and the other gesturing while holding half a sandwich in his mouth. The girl on TV just goes on talking, oblivious to his remonstrations, and he makes many, many wussy faces. The last shot we see is of one of his bandmates looking up at him while pouring the entire sugar container out onto his plate.

THE VERDICT It's been a while since I've done a video that's pretty ridiculous and requires truly excessive description, but whatever, I'm worth it. But is Krokus? Though not pretty boys by any stretch of the imagination, these five Swiss lads are considered by many to be the lowest of the low. The All Music Guide, which normally can find something good to say about practically anybody (at the very least, they find in favor of the bands via their having been "underappreciated," "underrated," etc.), dishes out nothing but bile for Krokus. Ok, wait -- at least I thought they did. Reading this again, it is sounding not so harsh. Jeez, did they retract their previous statements about the band being musically inept opportunists looking to make a quick buck? I'm confused. Oh man, it seems that Headhunter has even been made an album pick.

A-ha! Here's what I'm remembering -- not the band bio, but the album review. Here's but a taste to whet your palate: "Shameless bandwagon hoppers that they were... singer generally makes a nuisance of himself with his grating speech... guitarist Fernando Von Arb's incessant pouting remains an especially horrifying image...." Okay, so it's not actually quite as bad as I remembered. But still.

Do they deserve it? Well, maybe. Much of the criticism involves their having been a crappy prog rock band who spotted a quick buck when they switched to metal (this fad was a precursor to the numerous glam metal bands who switched to heavier stuff, not all of whom are necessarily bad -- viz. Pantera). I'm not sure if the name was a leftover from their trippier days or if in Switzerland crocuses are considered more badass than they are over here (they are, after all, very hardy flowers), though simply changing the C's to K's doesn't make it that badass. It reminds me of that Danish band D:A:D (a/k/a "Disneyland After Dark") -- could no English speaker at their record label tell them that that acronym was not so badass across the pond?



I digress. To me, Krokus' weak point is neither their name nor their willingness to change genres. Their wussiness stems from two things. First, for every single they put out that was actually an original song, they also put out one that was an abominably crappy cover (e.g., "Ballroom Blitz," "School's Out"). Their original songs are no picnic either (particularly "Midnight Maniac," which is kind of unbelievably bad), but at least on those you feel like they're sort of trying.

The second thing is the tendency of their non-performance videos to hinge upon a relationship between the toad-like lead singer (who's also got to be what, like 5'6" max?) and an 80s babe. Like David Coverdale, this dude is no stranger to the open-mouthed kiss on camera. But compared to this guy, David Coverdale is a total fox. Apparently they didn't think the rest of the band was even worth showing off stateside, as they tend to figure into their videos very, very little. Now sure, those dudes are not good looking, but they really believed the lead singer was so good looking that he needed to be shirtless practically at all times? This I find hard to believe.

Also, what the hell happened in this video? (Besides that the record company was like "We built this set, and you need to use it at least twice" -- and apparently later it was lent out for Babylon A.D.'s craptastic "Hammer Swings Down.") I'm guessing it was like, he had this whole persecuted in the future nightmare, and then he woke up.... Uh okay, maybe it's like, he works in the diner, or he lives upstairs from it, and he had this nightmare that he was in the future and his evil coworkers were running everything and he had this hot girlfriend from TV but like, they were unjustly persecuted? And then he woke up and came back down to work, and couldn't believe that like, it was such a coincidence that that girl was on TV? So he decided to make a big mess on the counter? Or something?

Note: To give credit where credit (or perhaps blame) is due, the members of Krokus are vocalist Marc Storace, guitarist Fernando Von Arb, guitarist Mark Kohler, drummer Freddy Steady, and bassist Chris Von Rohr.

Another note: Yes, I'll fix these murky-ass photos as soon as I can -- I am in the process of upgrading my computer to OSX four years too late, so it may be a while before I can actually get anything done.

A last note: It took me fully five years to actually get around to updating these images (9/6/10). What can I say -- while my personal technology has advanced by leaps and bounds, the quality of the copies of Krokus videos floating around out there has remained static.