8/13/2019 "Video Views" - "We Are the World," "Led Zeppelin - The Song Remains the Same," "Scorpions - First Sting," "Red

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i.ARE 7HE WORI.DIV|/DEO EYENT

by Tom Trbovich.casseffe. Beta & VHSmin. $14.95''t's hard to criticize a videocassettethe proceeds of which go to fighthunger. Not impossible, though.I'll feel freer to carp after first urg-everyone with bucks enough for ato buy this tape. That urged, Ifeel compelled to warn you thataccount of the landmark record-that rejsulted in the bene-single "We Are the World" suffersa sanctimoniousness asas it is forgivable.Host-narrator Jane Fonda does

of that quality, even in herI leathers. Fortunately,her reassuring presencefear of anotherfor Bangla Desh debacle.as she fills us in on the lm-and Generosity of the eventto see encapsulated, thegives us very few of the kindsfacts and specifics that would'vethis tape collectible. As it is,the vague talk about camaraderiewe're watching people hugother seems a bit pointless.So does all the talk about humani-when the program treats the per-the 21 soloists, anywaysdemigods. Now, we're talkinga session that began at threeand lasted 10 hourd,6nd eicepta couple of shots of Cyndi LauperDiaha Ross stretching,is virtually nothing here to sug:that these flesh-and-blood starshave eaten sand\iviches, drunkgotten a little cranky, askedDylan why it wasn't "Tangled UpFed"-whatever. There's certainlyof disagreements, or of coun-artists' complaints of underrepre-

human moment is when everybodycracks up at Lauper-who's some-thing of a courl jester anyway-afteiproducer Quincy Jones tells her herbracelets are jangling intothe microphone.Still, it may be this mythic qualityitself that manages to give me chillsat the end, during the finished (albeitill-synched)video clip. Most of us liketo believe in idealism, I think, and thethought that not only the performersbut the armies of managers, publi-cists el a/. surrounding them osten.sibly gave of themselves for free isan appealing one. Prince, after all,proved there are some yvho felt theeffort was beneath them even for thepublic relations value.

RED HOT ROCI(With Duran Euran (dir. by tan Emes),Peter Godwin (dir. by David Rose),l.lelix (dir. by Rob Quartley and byMark Rezyka), Q'Bryan (dir. by MarkRobinson and by Kenny Ortega),Queen (dir. by Mike Hodges), SSQ(dir. by Bradley Friedman), The Tubes(dir. by Russe// Mulcahy), and Dwigh,tTwilley (dir. by Mark Robinson).vestron cassette. Beta & vHs Hi-Fistereo. 46 min. No,suggested re.tait.F ock'n'roll, to many, is supposedltl to be outlaw music. That's an6xtreme position, but with elementsof great sense. lf you want relaxingmusic, ride an elevator; if you want

to nowhere until it's time to drag :your bones back to the shipyard foranother workday, then take yourchoice of "poison," be it Spiingsteenor Motley Crue.The dark side of rock video hasn'tmade much of a showing until now.Sure, you get your occasional danc-ing Nazi dominatrices, but that's anabominable kind of racist/sexist/anti-Semitic offensiveness that has noplace in the world, much less inrock'n'roll. The dark side of rock ismuch more psychological than that.And while some of these 11 "un-censored" clips are simply homagesto cheesecake, many of them aregenuinely daring, genuinely wittyand, most importantly, they use :nudity as non-gratuitously as wouldany good movie director.As you might suspect, this leavesus with a very mixed bag. On the onehand, there's the Porky's rip-off ofDwight Twilley's "Girls" cir'p, thetopless Egyptian handmaidens ofR&B performer O'Bryan's "Breakin' ..Together", and the caveman chain-gang girls of Helix's "Rock You".We're talking throwbacks toPlayboy's Girts ot Rock & Rolthere.On the other hand, we also do have ,some daring clips that are better 'than the music.

The most daring of these, handsdown, is the Tubes' "Sports Fans".Thanks to lead singer Fee Waybill,the clip contains something virtuallyunheard of in any straight medium:'male frontal nudity. Not that Fee'smuch to look at, but what with all thetopless girls running through these .clips and in movies, magazines, etc.jit's nice to see a guy-and not someunknown schmuck at that-willing todo himself what we've asked womento do for years. ln'the same vein isQueen's "Body Language" video,which paints abstract compositionsof body parts so shaded and inter. .lwined that you can't tell if the bodyparts you're looking at are male orfemale. Lel that stir around yourpsyche for awhile.A few of the remaining clips ,feature more traditional glamour/cheesecake nudes, with the nudityusually by nameless models. One ex-ception is the video for SSQ's awfulsyrittrpop tune "screaming in MyPillow",_which includes no less thanthe lead singer au natural. Thenthere's O'Bryan's "Lovelite" clip, .which is pretty sleazy but does fit the

8/13/2019 "Video Views" - "We Are the World," "Led Zeppelin - The Song Remains the Same," "Scorpions - First Sting," "Red

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tnbug{ is compromised: We seenude couples and white nudebut no interracidl ones.)Most of these clips, if you haven'tby now, are somewhat oldby mostly second-tier acts. Andcourse, this "darkside" collectionon the sexual. That's aThere's a lQt of stuff beingby rock video's avant-garde,lheYork and San Francisco schoolsthat are more daring anderotic than anything here.

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ZEPPEL|NTSONG REI,IA'NSSAME lts76iby Peter Ctifton & JoeWarner cassette. Beta &Hi-Fi stereo. tJ6 min..$39.93ith Jimmy Page's new Firmcommitment and Robert Plantall over the place, itappropriate to. reassess a rocklong-form they made togetherwhen people called these"concert movies."For such an old fogey, Led Zep-Song Remains fhe Sarne is inways ahead of its time. Mostvideos nowadays employfootage to help break the

of one stagebound songanother; no matter how good aact any band has, after all, see-it on video isn't the same. Film-a long, long time ago learnedcan't just put a movie cdmera inof a stage play and pass it offa movie-what works on stageoften work on film.video.Song, a two-hour-plus filmedof a '73 Led Zep concert atSquare Garden, shows anof this. Not bad for a timemost other concert movies fol-in the D.A. FennebhkerPop) and Maysles Brothers

i m m e Shelterl documentary school.fact, Song's conceptual portionsthe most revealing rock-vidbit I've ever seen. I'm notabout the sword-and-sOrcerymade for the.song.,,TheRemains the Same". t'm talkingthe "back-stage" bit where Ledmanager Peter Grant is brow-Madison Square staffers,self-righteous tantrums, andacting like yer basi6 rock-

manager asshole. Why is his soood? Because a disclaimer tackedon to the end of the closing creditsinforms us that, "Off-stage se-quences were not filmed at MadisonSquare Garden, nor are they dramati-zations of actual events which oc-curred at Madison Square Garden."Now what does that tell you aboutPeter Grant-and about Led Zeppelinfor letting this kind of stupidity outthe door?Fort.unately, the music itself isn'lat fault. Led Zeppelin, though, oftenreferred to as "the fathers of heavymetal" or somesuch, purveyedrhythmic and melodic complexitiesmost healy-metal bands today can,ttouch. I know that's a litile like say-ing "The Beailes wrote catchy popsongs," but people have come alongwho've built upon things the Beatlesinnovated. Except for cranking theamps up to 11 instead of 10, I don'tsee how any current metal band hasdone likewise with Led Zep. youknow where to address the hate mail.Led Zep fans, help me out.

SCORPIONSTF'RST ST'AIGDirected by Martin Kahan, DavidMallet, Hart Perry. Sony cassetfe.Beta & VHS Hi-Fi. 17 min. $16.95

espite the fact that here we havethree directors for four clips,this Scorpions compilation is asclose.as you can get to generic rockvideos. You wouldn't expect thatfrom a band with such a trademarksound, or from directors the callberof Kahan, Mallet and Pe-ry, and infact a couple of thede pieces are verygood. But so is generic apple juice.The only thing I can figure is thatwhen these videos came out original-ly, a lot of the images hadn't yetbecome cliches. As it is, let's saysome things age more gracefullythan others.Not that Perry.'s "No One LikeYou" clip isn't great. lt just looks alittle stale, what with the midgetsand the slow-motion guitar smashesand the masked executioner whoturns out to be The Girl, capital G.The video is still as likeable as alate-night detective movie, and it'sthe best of the bunch. The otherclips, however, are standard issue.tvthttet's "Rock You Like a Hur-

ricane", for instance, sticks the Scor-pions in some futuristic cage, wflerethings that must've wandered off theStar Wars alien-cantina set arepounding at the bars. ln Kahan,s ,,1'mLeaving You", we get a not-guiterealistic look at what happens to ourheroes when their tour bus breaksdown in a small town full of hornyyoung farm girls-and one mysticalGirl, again witha capital G. lis fun,

but we've seen it all before. Perry's"Still Loving You" is a languid con-cert clip, no more, no less.Why no definite video image onwhich the Scorps can hang theirstingers? You pick up a Tina Turneror a Duran Durin or a whoever com-pilaiion, and the images revolvearound a personality. The clips here,on the other hand, could belong toany band at all. Maybe the German-speaking Scorpions couldn't com-municate lheir wishes to the English-speaking directors very well. Maybethey're just too easy-going. Eitherway, what we've got here-visually,at least-are Scorpions without .,the sting. , . r 'FAGES 61 .:,i:.i:.:' 'l ,