Suicidal Tendencies, "Institutionalized"

I'M NOT CRAZY  

THE VIDEO Suicidal Tendencies, "Institutionalized," Suicidal Tendencies, 1983, Frontier 

SAMPLE LYRIC "I'm not crazy! / [Institutionalized!] / You're the one that's crazy! / [Institutionalized!] / You're driving me crazy! / [Institutionalized!]" 

THE VERDICT Suicidal Tendencies is one of those bands I was really on the fence about, not about whether they're a quality band (they are) but are they technically metal. In the end, I decided they're metal enough because a) there was a Headbangers Ball episode where Riki Rachtman had a barbecue with them (and if I remember correctly, inexplicably a pre-fame Mark McGrath was there — God bless the person who put this on Youtube, btw); b) they play the heck out of this video on Metal Mania; and c) Rob Trujillo is in Metallica now (even if he wasn't in ST yet when they did this one). Actually with their short hair and love of money, how metal Metallica are is something else we could debate. But we'll save it for later. 

I hadn't listened to this song in a while, and then it happened to come up while I was just shuffling all my music, and damn if it didn't fit with how I'm feeling right about now. I'm getting married in less than a month, and if you've never done it, I wouldn't advise it. Dude, it is a freakin' nightmare. Think the wedding is about you and your intended? It's not. It's about everyone else and their BS demands. And then there's school, which is a whole other thing, but a bit of the same story lately. All I do is play everybody's reindeer games, and still somehow I'm the one with the problem.

 

So something about Mike Muir and all the sort of "I've done everything you've ever asked me and yet you say I'm the one who's crazy" stuff in this song really resonated with me. I actually used to listen to this song a lot when I lived in New York. I had a lot of issues with my job, and I had a whole playlist I would listen to in the subway on my way to work to like, prepare myself mentally for dealing with my workday. 

I don't remember all of it, but it definitely had "Institutionalized," "No More Mr. Nice Guy," and "Peace Sells (But Who's Buying)". (I know, based on the title that last one sounds random, but think about the verses — "What do you mean I can't get to work on time? / Got nothin' better to do" etc.) Anyway it worked for me. By the time I got to work I had musically sublimated my full-tilt pissed-off-ness. Okay I'm making myself sound crazy now (you're the one that's crazy!). 

Calm yourselves, I was just quoting this song. Suicidal Tendencies are just a really cool LA band. I want to say I love their look, but we need to be realistic, this isn't a look for them, this is how they're dressing. But to the extent this video got airplay, I feel like this is probably the first exposure the rest of the country got to the Venice/LA-version of cholo style. I mean this video's got it all, from the bandannas to the plaid shirts to the skateboarders — you can watch it and see where all the junk you see for sale at PacSun and those kinds of stores got ripped off from. 

I mean seriously people. It's 1983. This is probably the earliest video there is that features a lowrider. We're almost ten years before "Nuthin' But a G Thang" (1992, for the record). The only other thing from the same era I've seen with a similar look to this is the first (I know, for once not talking about Part II) Decline of Western Civilization movie. Which is, obvs, about LA punk circa this time period. 

 

I've actually been having a correspondence with one of this site's most regular readers (thanks for reading!) about songs that infantilize metal fans — e.g. songs that talk about "kids", prompted by my "Crazy Babies" post but also loosely encompassing "Rock N Roll Children," "I Wanna Rock," and a whole host of others. This one does fit in with that somewhat, as the narrative mainly covers altercations with one's parents. That said though, I have to give it a pass, 'cause it's just too good a song. I don't even drink soda, and yet I feel like I want my epitaph to be "All I wanted was a Pepsi!" 

Okay okay okay, but what happens in the video. Well, a couple different things. The video starts off with Mike pretty much just talking to the camera and walking around while the rest of the band plays, and kids do skateboard tricks in a sort of abandoned warehouse. (Admittedly, this one looks way more like an actual abandoned warehouse than most ones in music videos do.) Also of note: Slayer's Tom Araya is in the video for two seconds — he shoves Mike as he walks past him. 

For most people though, the most memorable sequences of the video are those that take place at Mike's "home." The rest of the band (at this point in history, Grant Estes, Louiche Mayorga, and Amery Smith) drops Mike off, and he heads inside to avoid his crazy parents, who at first are out on the lawn but soon come in to harass him (and begin converting his bedroom into a padded cell). 

His dad is played by Jack Nance (known best for being in all things David Lynch), though I think he looks a little like an older Brian Doyle Murray, aka Noah from Noah's Arcade. His mom is played by Mary Woronov, who fascinatingly was part of the whole Andy Warhol Factory scene.

 

That said, I don't feel this part that much. Any sequence with parents ripping posters off walls always stresses me out — dude I would like those posters please! Damn. 

In any event, after being completely subdued by his parents, somehow or another Mike is suddenly out of his straitjacket. The rest of the band ties their lowrider to the bars on his windows and yanks the wall straight off the house, allowing him to escape and finish playing the song in concert with them. 

The concert sequences are also straight outta Decline Part I, albeit with the addition of a teacher, a priest, and some kind of creepy army officer. You know, the usual for metal videos that are complaining about school. 

Okay, now that for one week at least I've done a legit post focusing on the video, it's time for the tangents. One, how can we forget that Suicidal Tendencies have a cameo doing this song on Miami Vice! I mean yes, not in the best episode ever (it's in "Free Verse"), but still. They would have fit in more in "Nobody Lives Forever," I think. 

In a similar-ish vein, let us not forget that this song is also in Repo Man. I know, it's punk, not metal, but you can not deny Repo Man. 

And of course, if you read this regularly, you can guess that I think Beavis and Butt-head's viewing of this clip is amazing. I love Beavis' constant agreement with Mike's narrative. Butt-head just yells "Shut up!", but Beavis goes right along, sometimes following the song and sometimes improvising -- "and I get all frustrated, and start kicking, and like burning things." 

I also enjoy that Butt-head then mimics the kind of therapy-speak parodied in the song — he tells Beavis, "I feel your pain." Butt-head finally gets Beavis to clam up by saying "About once a year they play something cool, and you have to talk through it." Then they both headbang through the end of the song. 

Now if I can somehow just headbang through the rest of the summer....

 

Ozzy Osbourne, "Bark at the Moon"

Werewolf Ozzy, Spooky! Scary!  

THE VIDEO Ozzy Osbourne, "Bark at the Moon," Bark at the Moon, 1983, Epic 

SAMPLE LYRIC "Those that the beast is looking for / listen in awe and you'll he-ear him / bark at the moo-oon!" 

THE VERDICT Halloween is just days away, so obviously it's — well actually, it's probably well past time to start digging out some great Halloween-oriented videos. "Bark at the Moon" is fantastic because well, 

a) it's sort of a low-budget combo of the plots of many a classic horror movie in a 

b) sort of Scooby-Doo way, plus 

c) the song is meant to be spooky too even if 

d) it mostly just makes me think Jake E. Lee is a really talented guitarist. 

Personally I was tempted to do "So Tired", but that's just 'cause right now I am so tired. But this clip's a much better fit. I mean it kicks right off with some kind of weird Phantom of the Opera-ish dude (the low-budget metal video version that is, which is just putting some guy in a robe and painting his entire face white). 

"Bark at the Moon" also exploits camera effects as much as possible, starting with the quick-zooms of the different band members in funeral garb. And of course, what video would be complete without those old standbys, colored lighting and dry ice. Throughout the whole video, Jake E. Lee does his thing wearing a frilly shirt amidst some reddish fog. 

The plot? Well, let's see. Ozzy is sort of an old-timey mad scientist, with a cool-ass lab full of bubbling beakers and elaborate glass tubing. Though his wife looks alarmed, he is so happy with his latest concoction that he promptly drinks it. 

This seems honestly pretty accurate for the Ozzy of the time, if you've ever read his explanation for why exactly he bit the head off that bat. He's an ingest first, ask questions later kind of guy, though in video as in real life, his snap decisions come back to haunt him.

Horrified, his wife runs out of the room while Ozzy appears to choke to death on whatever he just drank. Next thing you know though, guess who's in the red fog with Jake E. Lee. Yup, it's Were-Ozzy, from the album cover. The way they've pasted all the hair on such that it looks like patchy, grown out body hair (especially on his chest) kind of gives an orangutan-type look to it.

 

His super-sympathetic video wife (a prim blonde who looks nothing like Sharon then or now) promptly has Ozzy put into a straitjacket and hauled off their gated property. The video quality is poor so I'm not 100% on this, but I think it's the other guys in the band who take him away. They toss him into a padded room, just like in a Quiet Riot video. 

Next we see Ozzy being tied into some kind of an electric chair. The lighting is very red, so it's hard to tell what's going on. At first he seems really out of it it, but just when all hope is lost, he makes eye contact with the camera and reveals some giant fangs. Uhoh, looks like we're gonna have Were-Ozzy on our hands pretty soon. 

And we do! There he is jumping around in the red fog again. We then jump to a foggy nighttime scene of horses pulling a hearse — wait, did I fail to mention that about half of this video appears to take place in Victorian England? 'Cause it does, hence all the frilly shirts. 

Anyway, we see the horses and the coffin, then we cut to an overhead shot of the wife — now the widow, I guess — and a vaguely Anderson Cooper-looking priest checking out the coffin. Dead Ozzy's inside, and Anderson points at him. The widow chucks some rose petals onto his body. 

One minute Dead Ozzy is looking peaceful, and then the next we've got some special effects straight out of the Greg Kihn Band's video for "Jeopardy." Yes, Dead Ozzy has morphed into a sort of melted-looking skeleton. Think after the Nazi drinks from the Holy Grail in the last Indiana Jones movie. Or when the ark gets opened in the first one. Your choice. Apparently the early 80s were a big time for melted-looking skeletons. 

Then we're at Dead Ozzy's very rainy funeral. Why does it always rain at heavy metal funerals? The widow, the Anderson Cooper priest, and his band members wearing top hats stand around while a bunch of fog floats by.

 

After some guitar face from Jake E. Lee and some serious drum face from Vinny Appice, suddenly we're back with regular old-timey Ozzy, who I guess is still alive. He's making crazy faces. It's hard to tell where he is, but he keeps opening a door and being blinded by the bright white light pouring through it. He tries other doors, but those are just full of red light. 

Is this supposed to be some kind of metaphor? On his like eighth try you think Ozzy's made it through, but he's just sort of standing there screaming and clutching at the door frame. Is he super afraid of Jake E. Lee? I mean it keeps cutting between Ozzy screaming and Jake E. playing in the red fog. The backlighting and the fuzziness of his hair are making Jake look a little like a Muppet, which though a bit unusual isn't that scary. As Ozzy's struggling around, I could swear they reuse the Vinny Appice drum face footage from like thirty seconds earlier in the video. 

Ozzy finally makes it away from all those lit-up doors, and stumbles into a weird candlelit area that appears to be where his coffin was earlier. Actually it kind of looks like that steam tunnel Paul Stanley's dancing around in in KISS' "Who Wants to Be Lonely?" video. And finally — here's the payoff — he is running from Were-Ozzy. 

So yes, all the lit-up doors stuff — that was just saving some money with special effects that weren't very special. We were meant to believe it was Were-Ozzy frightening regular old-timey Ozzy all that time. This is confusing because I thought earlier we were meant to believe that, a la Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, drinking that potion had transformed Ozzy into Were-Ozzy. But then what to make of Dead Ozzy or Melted-Skeleton Ozzy? 

Whatever, at least this video has finally gotten cool again. Even if you do get the impression that the actual tunnel they are in is about six feet long, as they appear to keep running through the same doorway past the exact same candelabra over and over again. 

Suddenly a cloaked figure appears at the end of the hallway. Another Ozzy? No, it's that weird white-face Phantom of the Opera dude from the opening shots of the video. Whatever he's doing there, it's not slowing down Were-Ozzy. Eventually regular Ozzy stumbles and falls, causing Were-Ozzy to make an extra-menacing face for the camera.

 

But then nothing really happens. It just cuts back and forth between Jake E. Lee and Were-Ozzy making faces and gesturing in the red fog. Oh no wait, here we go. Something's happening. 

We see Ozzy's wife standing next to the gates of I guess a sanitarium as the doctor leads Ozzy out. He unlocks the gates, shakes Ozzy's hand, and lets him out. (As a side note, I like that they apparently chose to release him very late at night.) Ozzy hugs his wife, then looks back at the building. And what do you know — up on one of the parapets, it's Were-Ozzy. 

His wife looks mildly alarmed, but Ozzy just laughs and turns away. He and his wife walk away, and then we get repeated quick-zooms back to Were-Ozzy making scary monster arms up on top of the building. 

So WTF happened in this video? Which Ozzy is which? Was it all just a dream — or a hallucination? I'm inclined toward the latter — that Ozzy drinks his potion, it makes him go all crazy, and he has an extended hallucination of being Were-Ozzy/Dead Ozzy/Melted-Skeleton Ozzy. Thus the reappearance of Were-Ozzy at the end of the video is less "was it a dream" and more "was he really cured in that asylum." 

The lyrics imply a different story though — that Were-Ozzy is an undead Dead Ozzy who is screaming for vengeance, if you'll allow me to mix my metal metaphors. Long story short though, I dunno. What do you think? 

One more fun fact about this video: So the guy who did Ozzy's makeup here and on the album cover is special-effects artist Greg Cannom, who has won a bunch of Oscars for this. He's the same dude who did "Thriller," as well as tons of movie work, from MST3K favorite The Incredible Melting Man to A Nightmare on Elm Street III ("we're the dream warriors!") to uhh... Big Momma's House. And Big Momma's House 2. But you know, also lots of other, better stuff that's less funny to mention. 

I read somewhere ages ago that Ozzy got the idea that he would throw on this makeup and wear it every night when he was on tour for this album. But then he realized a) how long it took for it to be applied (ever watch that "Making Of" thing about "Thriller"? They talk about this a lot there) and even more so b) how insanely much it cost to even do like, once. 

Anyway, Ozzy wised up on that one, so this video is the only place to see it in action. This also explains why aside from the beast makeup, most of what you see in this video looks unbelievably cheap! 

P.S.: I debated among several titles, including a bunch that were plays on The Onion's "One Man and One Wolfman" headline, but wound up going with the obvious.

Guns N Roses, "Estranged"

Too Big Not to Fail

THE VIDEO Guns N Roses, "Estranged," Use Your Illusion II, 1991, Geffen

Click here to watch this video NOW!

SAMPLE LYRIC "When you're talking to yourself / and nobody's home / you can't fool yourself / you came in this world aloh-one / alone" (Note this is nearly whispered over some tinkly piano. This song has no chorus, so if you don't recognize the intro, I probably can't help you.)

THE VERDICT If you thought the "Is Axl dead no wait is Stephanie Seymour dead" shenanigans of "Don't Cry" and "November Rain" were as over the top as Guns N Roses got, clearly you forgot the final video in that trilogy, the often-overlooked "Estranged." By way of comparison, those two video epics look downright understated next to this monstrosity.

Don't believe me? Okay then, ponder for just a moment what the budget for this video must have been like. I mean, look at what it includes, and tell me this doesn't read like a completely insane person's list of demands:

- Research expenses (looking up words in the dictionary)
- A giant mansion
- A SWAT team
- A rocking Tyrannosaurus Rex. This is like a rocking horse, only it's a dinosaur with handles and a saddle on it.
- Charles Manson tee
- A dozen or so all-white LAPD uniforms (for fantasy sequence; this is in addition to regular uniforms for reality sequence)
- A dozen or so racially diverse child actors to play around your mansion and look befuddled when they drag you off to the loony bin
- A white limo (fantasy sequence) and a black limo (to take you and your fake son to your concert)
- Custom dolphin hood ornament thing-y for the white limo
- Police and permits to facilitate stopping vehicle and pedestrian traffic for several blocks on the Sunset Strip
- Various equipment for Slash to stand on while he plays the guitar solos
- Oil tanker rental
- Helicopter plus Axl stunt double for shots with oil tanker
- Coast Guard helicopter and diver
- CGI dolphins
- Real dolphins
- Not 100% sure, but that one at the end looks like an animatronic dolphin



(Note that if you're really curious about this, and have at least $1.72 plus shipping and handling to burn and a VCR, you can actually purchase the "Making of 'Estranged'" which is apparently "Part 4 of the Trilogy" [shouldn't this tell you something?]. Amazon reviewers tell us parts of the video were filmed in a wave pool, as if this weren't abundantly clear already! To be honest, I'm very tempted, but I don't have anything that'll play VHS.)

It sort of reminds me of when I was in first or second grade, and every time it was someone's birthday, the teacher would have everyone draw pictures for that person of what they wished they could give them for their birthday. Being relatively young kids, and this being the 80s and thus six and seven-year-olds not being considered tweens, we were pretty nice about it -- everyone gave everyone more or less the same gifts, so it wasn't a popularity contest.

Anyway, the most popular gifts included rainbows, a money tree (this was not a check-cashing place but a tree that grew money), and exotic pets. Obviously, "Estranged" has got the last item checked off on the list, but honestly I wouldn't be surprised if they had had to tell Axl the rainbows and money tree were going to put them too far over budget.

I mean I remember around this same time I had a special issue of Life magazine that someone had given me because it was their music issue (I still have it, in horrible, tattered condition). It had an article about Guns N Roses in it -- the text is here, but what really made this article were the pictures, most of which showed GNR having one of their after-show parties at some arena catered as if it were a Roman feast, complete with togas and laurel wreaths, a roast pig carried on a tray, and some really ugly strippers. Compared to this video, that pictorial is downright quaint. (Though let me also mention, you know who else liked ridiculously lavish Roman-theme parties? Executives from Tyco. Though in GNR's case, they were one of the reasons Izzy left the band.)

Or let us remember back to their first video for "Sweet Child O' Mine." All that is is GNR playing the song on a set, with some b-roll of them with their actual girlfriends and a Rottweiler. They didn't need a Coast Guard helicopter or CGI dolphins to know how to rock!



Seriously, it took Guns N Roses barely four years to live out the entire life cycle of the major label rock band, a cycle that used to take bands nearly twenty years to complete! From the underbelly of the Sunset Strip to double albums and eight-minutes-plus songs, beating up supermodels, blowing off shows, and this song, which combined with "Don't Cry" and "November Rain" more or less constitutes a rock opera in my book. The second half (movement?) of this song (beginning with "when I find out all the reasons") is actually pretty good, but it's easy to forget what with how absurd this video is.

In case you've already forgotten (even with our handy list of expenses above), let me remind you of some of the things that happen in this nine minute, forty-one second opus:

- Axl evades an enormous SWAT team by sleeping on top of some kind of shelf above his closet.
- Guns N Roses fans storm an arena for a general admission seating concert. No one gets trampled and Axel doesn't cancel the show.
- During this concert, while the band is ostensibly playing "Estranged," a shot captures Axl's teleprompter displaying the lyrics to "Welcome to the Jungle."
- Taking a nap after the concert, Axl has an out-of-body experience in which he uhh... well, he curls up in the shower in a fetal position while fully clothed.
- Looong fantasy sequence with everyone wearing white, as per above. Between the erratic behavior, crazy mansion, and army of little kids who aren't his, Axl here is a bit reminiscent of Mr. Jefferson.
- Oh did I mention that last section is all shot with some kind of wiggly gel on the camera, while (present-tense) definitions of the (past-tense) word "estranged" show at the bottom of the screen?



And really, at this point, things are only getting started. We aren't even quite halfway through the song! It hits maximum ridiculousness -- well, for the first time anyway -- at five minutes, twenty-three seconds in, when the members of GNR walk up to a large cargo plane... and a humongous CGI dolphin swims out of it. Didn't anyone think to say to him, "Axl, this is kind of ... uh ... maybe not the best direction for the band?"

A bunch of hot women (and their kids) who had earlier been watching live footage of GNR now start watching dolphins on TV, and in an homage to the opening scenes of "Welcome to the Jungle," we see Axl leaning against a store's grate, with TV screens showing dolphins behind him. Yep, it's dolphins from here on out folks.

Axl walks along the sidewalk from the Roxy to the Rainbow Bar & Grill. Beside him, the street is full of water, which is full of giant dolphins swimming alongside him. Still more gigantic dolphins emerge from a billboard above the Rainbow, and then Slash emerges from its door. He appears to be riding on a people mover as he plays the first solo, since he sort of floats past everyone else on the sidewalk without having to walk himself.

Next thing we know, we're on a giant oil tanker (I know, this video just keeps going and going) that must be empty because it's riding really high in the water. We see Axl walking around on deck, and next thing we know, he's jumped off the dang ship. Not sure on this ID, but I think it's Gilby Clarke who inexplicably next appears and throws him a life preserver. Luckily by this time, Axl is thrashing around in what is obviously a tank of water on a set, so don't worry, he's safe. Still, that doesn't stop what appears to be a roadie in a rowboat from coming out to try to rescue him.



Throwing away the life preserver and ignoring his other potential saviors, Axl's drowning until suddenly he finds himself surrounded with what appear to be real dolphins. He grabs the fin on one of them and rides away. For some reason, this causes the water to turn red and the sky orange, and next thing you know a fully-clothed Slash has risen out of the ocean to play the second solo.

Keeping this video's ever-so-tenuous grip on reality vs. fantasy intact, we then see Axl again thrashing around in the ocean, but fear not -- here comes Matt Sorum in a Coast Guard helicopter. Okay really -- how did anyone come up for the ideas for what happens in this video?! Anyway, a diver jumps in and saves Axl, and pulls him up into the helicopter.

The video closes with one of Axl's customized kicks sinking beneath the surface of the water. It's no wonder that ship looked like it was riding high -- apparently the water Axl was just nearly drowning in was about six feet deep! It concludes with what we can only term a WTF moment: A wet Axl, bundled in a towel, sitting next to what we can only hope is an animatronic dolphin, wearing one of Axl's flannel shirts.

I mean really people -- where could GNR have gone from here? Practically every shot in this video involved a helicopter, a crane, underwater cameras, or CGI. I mean, I know metal is all about excess, but seriously, this is the video equivalent of that Enron guy's apartment that had the $6,000 shower curtain and the $15,000 umbrella stand. Sure, everyone needs a shower curtain -- just like any band needs a video -- but did it really have to be that shower curtain? Did it really need to be this video?