Aerosmith and music video director Marty Callner were always a good combination, as seen in today’s music video of the day.
Enjoy!
Tag Archives: Marty Callner
Music Video of the Day: Something To Believe In by Poison (1987, directed by Marty Callner)
This song was written about James Kimo Maano, a security guard and a good friend of Bret Michaels. Maano’s death inspired the song and, during the making of the video, footage of James Kimo Maano appeared on the screen behind Michaels in order to get a response from him. Michaels became so upset that he had to stop singing and it would be several hours before Michaels could return to the set and continue filming.
The director who so upset Bret Michaels was Marty Callner, who has directed videos for everyone from Aerosmith to Justin Timberlake. He directed several videos for Poison, both before and after the video for Something To Believe In.
Enjoy!
Music Video of the Day: (Flesh & Blood) Sacrifice by Poison (1991, directed by Marty Callner)
There some videos that you pick for video of the day because you really like the song or the band or even the director. There are other videos that you pick because it’s midnight and you suddenly realize that you still haven’t picked one yet. The videos that fall into the latter category usually feature competent bands in relatively simple performance clips.
(Flesh & Blood) Sacrifice was one of the singles come off of Poison’s third studio album, Flesh & Blood. This album was the first part of Poison’s attempt to move away from their hair metal image and embrace more serious themes. It turned out to be one of their best-selling albums, even though the band itself still found itself soon replaced on MTV by groups like Nirvana and Pearl Jam.
This music video was directed by Marty Callner, who was one of those directors who worked with just about everyone. If you were famous, you worked with Marty Callner.
Enjoy!
Music Video of the Day: We’re Not Gonna Take It by Twisted Sister (1984, directed by Marty Callner)
The anthem for dissatisfied 80s kids everywhere, We’re Not Gonna Take It has been co-opted by so many products and campaigns and political candidates that it might be easier to try to keep track of who hasn’t used it at some point. Dee Snider has always come out against anyone trying to claim the song’s message as their own.
The kid in the video is played by Dax Callner, the son of the video’s director. The kid’s father is played by Mark Metcalf, best-known for playing Douglas C. Neidermeyer in National Lampoon’s Animal House.
Enjoy!
Music Video of the Day: Love In An Elevator (1988, directed by Marty Callner)
Lovin’ it up when I’m goin’ down
I don’t think anyone has ever accused Aerosmith of being a particularly subtle band when it comes to the subject matter of their songs. That’s one reason why their fans love them. Love In An Elevator is one of their least subtle songs and, not coincidentally, it’s also one of their most popular.
The elevator operator is played by Brandi Brandt, who was Playboy’s playmate of the month for October of 1987. She had a brief acting career, one that largely consisted of this video and an appearance on Married With Children. Many years later, in 2014, she pleaded guilty to smuggling cocaine into Sydney and she did some time in prison in Australia. Fortunately, she received an early parole and is now safely back in California.
The video was directed by Marty Callner, who directed several videos for not only Aerosmith but almost every other popular band of the period as well.
Enjoy!
Music Video of the Day: Dream On by Aerosmith (1993, directed by Marty Callner)
Dream On has been one of Aerosmith’s signature tunes since the band’s early days in the 70s but it didn’t get its own music video until 1993, when it was included on the soundtrack for Last Action Hero.
You may remember Last Action Hero as being the notorious box office disappointment that forced Arnold Schwarzenegger to start thinking about what he might be interested in doing if his film career ever came to an end (like entering politics, perhaps). It was also one of the first films to show Hollywood that Aerosmith’s music can literally be plugged into almost any scene in any movie. Despite its reputation, Last Action Hero is not that bad. The F. Murray Abraham cameo alone is worth the price of admission.
This video is made up of footage that was shot for MTV’s 10-year anniversary celebration in 1991. It was directed by Marty Callner, who directed music videos for everyone in the 90s.
Enjoy!
Music Video of the Day: Every Rose Has Its Thorn by Poison (1988, directed by Marty Callner)
Every 80s hair band had to have at least one song that showed that, underneath all the debauchery and the partying, they were actually sensitive poets. Motley Crue had Home Sweet Home. Def Leppard had Two Steps Behind. And Poison had Every Rose Has Its Thorn.
This song was inspired by Bret Michaels’s relationship with his then girlfriend, Tracy Lewis. After playing a show in Dallas, Michaels called Lewis in Los Angeles and, in a scene reminiscent of Pink Floyd’s The Wall, he was shocked when another man answered the phone. Michaels wrote the song the next day while sitting in a laundromat.
(Presumably, the death of the landline phone has all but eliminated the risk of getting caught cheating as a result of the wrong person answering phone.)
The concert scenes in this video were filmed at a show in Green Bay, Wisconsin while the scenes of Bret Michaels and his girlfriend (his Rose?) were filmed in a warehouse. The video’s director, Marty Callner, was one of the top music video directors of the 80s and 90s. He worked with just about everyone.
Incidentally, Poison is a band that I always used to make fun of but then I saw them interviewed in Penelope Spheeris’s The Decline of Western Civilization Part II and they came across as being surprisingly well-adjusted, especially when compared to W.A.S.P’s Chris Holmes, who was famously interviewed while floating in a pool and pouring a bottle of vodka over himself.
Enjoy!
Music Video of the Day: Livin’ On The Edge by Aerosmith (1993, directed by Marty Callner)
Written during the 1992 Los Angeles riots, Livin’ On The Edge was the first single off of Aerosmith’s 11th studio album, Get A Grip. It’s still one of their most commercially successful songs to date, spending nine weeks at the number one spot on the Billboard Album Rock Tracks chart.
The video features Edward Furlong, living a life almost as dangerous as the life lived by the delinquents in the video for Skid Row’s 18 and Life. Furlong, fortunately, manages to survive his time living on the edge. Furlong did this video shortly after starring in Terminator 2: Judgment Day.
The video also features Joe Perry playing a guitar solo in front of an incoming train. This scene was filmed on Lake Britton Bridge in Shasta County, California. The same bridge also appears in Stand By Me. If I remember correctly, at the same time that this video came out, there was also a PSA about the dangers of walking on railroad tracks that used to show up on television constantly. The spot featured two kids walking across a bridge, much like the one featured in this video when a train starts bearing down on them. At the end of the PSA, one of the kids manages to get off the bridge and then has to watch as the train runs over his slower friend. Whenever I see this video or hear this song, that’s what I think of.
This video was directed by Marty Callner, who directed the majority of Aerosmith’s videos.
Enjoy!
Music Video of the Day: Leader of the Pack by Twisted Sister (1985, directed by Marty Callner)
Since today is Dee Snider’s 65th birthday, it makes sense that today’s music video of the day would come to us from Twisted Sister. It might not make as much sense for that video to be for their cover of Leader of the Pack, which is widely considered to be one of the worst covers of the 80s. Personally, I think both the cover and the video are a good example of Snider’s sense of humor. Watching this, it’s hard to believe that Snider and the band were once considered to be a threat to young minds. I may be picking Leader of the Pack because I think its underrated or I might be picking it because Valerie already did the video for I Wanna Rock. Take your pick.
The Leader Of The Pack video is from the 80s and it features something that I always love to see in videos from that era: bad green screen special effects. The anti-Twisted Sister notes from Mom and Dad float through the video like a weatherman superimposed in front of a map of the continental United States.
The video is about a girl who apparently only has room in her heart for Twisted Sister and Leonard Nimoy. Just check out that giant poster of Spock that she’s got in her bedroom. Her parents are probably alright with her love of Spock but they can’t stand the thought of their daughter liking Twisted Sister, probably because they think that Tipper Gore has a point about labeling music. As for the girl, she may be in love with the leader of the pack (Dee, of course) but that doesn’t make her a good driver. Not only does she wreck that bulky car but she barely survives. Was it all worth it?
Just ask Bobcat Goldthwait, who plays her boss for some reason. Goldthwait is instantly recognizable. I haven’t been able to find the name of the girl in the video, though she looks familiar to me.
This video was directed by Marty Callner, who directed videos for everyone.
Enjoy!
Music Video Of The Day: Always by Bon Jovi (1994, directed by Marty Callner)
In 1993, Jon Bon Jovi wrote a song called Always for the soundtrack of a movie called Romeo is Bleeding. However, after Bon Jovi saw a rough cut of the film, he decided that the film was not worthy of his music so he declined to allow Always to be played over scenes of Lena Olin and Gary Oldman shooting guns at each other.
Instead, Bon Jovi recorded and released the song on their next album, Cross Road. And rather than allowing the song to appear in a bad feature film, they instead decided to feature it an even worse music video.
The video features Jack Noseworthy (who was very briefly a semi-big deal in the 90s) as a young man who is so stupid that he can’t just be happy having the amazingly sexy Carla Gugino as his girlfriend. He also decided to cheat on her with Keri Russell, who is either Carla’s roommate or maybe her kid sister. Either way, it was a pretty stupid move on Jack Noseworthy’s part. Carla runs out of the apartment and meets Jason Wiles, an artist who paints a terrible portrait of her. For some reason, Carla then calls up Jack and invites him to the the apartment. When Jack starts to look at the painting, Carla tries to stop him. (So why did you call him in the first place, Carla?) Jack sees the painting, gets upset, stabs the canvas, and then somehow makes the apartment explode. Later, Jack thinks that he sees Carla standing in his bedroom but it turns out that it’s just his imagination. Questions abound like, How did Jack blow up that apartment? Why would two incredibly attractive women settle for Jack Noseworthy? Where did the painter disappear to? Those questions go forever unanswered.
In the United Kingdom, Always was the very first number-one single on the UK Rock and Metal Singles Chart, which just goes to show you the sad state of metal in 1994.
Enjoy!
Through the Shattered Lens 