Tag Archives: Marty Callner

Music Video Of The Day: City of Crime by Dan Aykroyd and Tom Hanks (1987, directed by Marty Callner)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

“They didn’t have enough confidence in the material that they had to try and hook kids in with some disco thing.”

— Gene Siskel on Dragnet (1987)

In 1987, Dragnet was released into theaters.  Based on the classic television series, Dragnet was a comedy that featured Dan Aykroyd as straight-laced Sgt. Joe Friday and Tom Hanks as his new partner, Det. Pep Streebeck.  Perhaps realizing that they had spent $20,000,000 making a movie about a show that most teenagers had never heard of, Universal Pictures decided to promote the film by having Aykroyd and Hanks rap about fighting crime.

The end result was City of Crime and this music video.  Collaborating with Aykroyd and Hanks on this song are former Deep Purple and Black Sabbath vocalist Glenn Hughes and famed guitarist Pat Thrall.  This video was directed by Marty Callner, who is best-known for doing videos for Aerosmith and Poison.

Enjoy!

 

Music Video of the Day: Sweet Emotion by Aerosmith (1991, directed by Marty Callner)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

Remember the old chat lines?

I don’t know if they’re even still around but back in the late 80s and the 90s, they were the only thing advertised on TV after midnight.  All you had to do was dial the number and then, for only three dollars a minute, you could get a custom psychic reading or hear Ice Cube’s thought of the day.

The most popular chat lines were the ones that were advertised as being used by “hot singles waiting to talk to you!”  The commercials all featured insanely hot girls in their underwear, usually lying in bed with a landline phone.  Common sense should have told everyone that anyone that hot wasn’t sitting at home on Friday night, waiting to hear from some teenager in Canton.  Still, 1-800 numbers were a big business back in the day.  They were the original chat rooms.

They weren’t cheap, either.  “3.99 for the first minute, 0.99 for each additional minute.”  Those minutes added up fast, especially when the operators had been trained to draw things out.  For some people, it was worth it for the chance to fantasize about the voice at the other end of the line.

The video for Aerosmith’s Sweet Emotion centers around that fantasy.  On one end, the teenager from Canton who says he’s an entertainment lawyer.  On the other end, his fantasy.  In the middle of it all is Aerosmith, performing at an old warehouse in the Charleston Navy Yards.

Sweet Emotion is one of Aerosmith’s most enduring songs.  Some fans think that the song was inspired by the band’s mutual dislike of Joe Perry’s then-wife but Steve Tyler has said that it was actually inspired by a feud between the wives of both Perry and bassist Tom Hamilton.  The song was a big hit when it was originally released in 1975 and then it was an even bigger hit when it was re-released in 1991.

Music Video of the Day: Gloria by Laura Branigan (1982, dir. Marty Callner)

Posted on by Valerie Troutman

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mdlyEC2wcQQ

I haven’t done a Laura Branigan video since last summer. That video was the one for Self Control that I will never stop referencing because of its edgy content. For some reason, in the last couple of months, a bunch of her music videos have gotten officially releases on YouTube. As a result, I thought I would spotlight one of her other big hits, Gloria.

It’s really just for the song because there isn’t anything especially interesting about the video. The only noteworthy thing for me is that a chunk of director Marty Callner’s early MTV music videos were for Laura Branigan even though he would go on to do a lot of work with Twisted Sister, Aerosmith, Poison, The Cult, and other bands you wouldn’t think of having any connection with Branigan. Then again, he also worked with Pat Benatar, Cher, and Belinda Carlisle. He even did a video for Tori Amos’ short-lived band called Y Kant Tori Read.

The Laura Branigan account appeared on YouTube last June. I’m not sure why exactly then, or if there was any special meaning to it. It isn’t the anniversary of her death or anything. That’s in August. Her birthdate is in July. It doesn’t coincide with her contributions to Flashdance (1983), Ghostbusters (1984), or Baywatch. Even 35 years from the release of her first album would mean you’d put the channel up this year since it came out in 1982.

The only thing I can find that changed concerning her in the last few months is her birthdate. I guess for showbiz purposes she would say it was 1957, but it turned out to be 1952. Even obituaries had it wrong, and some of been corrected. At the time of writing this, the one on Billboard magazine’s website still says 1957. Apparently this birthdate thing caused a furious debate on Wikipedia. If you go over to her brother Billy Branigan’s IMDb page, then you’ll find that his birthdate was thought to be 1961, but it was actually the year that Laura used as her birthdate.

The only guess I have that has any weight to it is that she was known for her connections to the gay community, and June happens to be LGBT Pride Month. It wouldn’t surprise me if the proper rights were obtained to put these videos up, and they went with June.

Whatever the reason, I’m glad they are up now. Hopefully they don’t fall victim to other officially released videos that get taken down later on.

Enjoy!

Music Video of the Day: I Wanna Rock by Twisted Sister (1984, dir. Marty Callner)

Posted on by Valerie Troutman

“Hello students.
School has begun.
The summer is over.
I am in command.”

According to my old high school’s calendar, it is the first day of school. If your teacher happens to look like the jilted husband/boyfriend from Chilly Scenes of Winter (1979), then…

Chilly Scenes of Winter (1979, dir. Joan Micklin Silver)

Chilly Scenes of Winter (1979, dir. Joan Micklin Silver)

be careful because the guy might be able to lift cars.

Chilly Scenes of Winter (1979, dir. Joan Micklin Silver)

Chilly Scenes of Winter (1979, dir. Joan Micklin Silver)

After We’re Not Gonna Take It worked out so well with actor Mark Metcalf, we got a repeat of his amazing performance. Also, with this and 1987’s Here We Go Again, director Marty Callner has directed at least two music videos that have become legends, not because of the band or the song, but because of someone else in the video.

I Wanna Rock is the riveting tale of Mark Metcalf trying to destroy fun by being funny himself while getting flung around a school through the power of rock. It’s also about choosing what you want to do in life, and not what somebody else tells you to do. The music video is not as good as We’re Not Gonna Take It largely because the song isn’t is as good. The music video is still fun though, and showcases Mark Metcalf’s talents as a comedian.

If you haven’t seen this music video, then it is essential. I’ll explain the story of how Metcalf wound up in these music videos when I get around to We’re Not Gonna Take It.

Enjoy!

Music Video of the Day: Here I Go Again by Whitesnake (1987, dir. Marty Callner)

Posted on by Valerie Troutman

Happy Birthday, Tawny Kitaen! You took what would have been a high-spirited, but quickly forgettable “put the band onstage and focus on the lead singer” video, and made it one of the most memorable music videos of the decade.

She didn’t have to do much either. The bits in the car are probably the least focused on, but I have always loved the part when she grabs lead singer David Coverdale and rips him over the front seat. I really love that because she doesn’t do it easily either. She grabs him and yanks him right over the seat. You can even see her reach to grab his leg to get him completely into the backseat just before it cuts away.

Lisa being our resident lover of dance, of course loves the hood dancing part. Who doesn’t? I remember last year when someone tweeted a screenshot of it and said something about her being their second biggest crush in the 1980s. I don’t recall if they even included her Twitter handle, but she responded asking basically: “My God! Who was #1?”

Thank you, Tawny Kitaen. Not only for the video, but insuring that no one would forget what is a really good song. A song that could have been forgotten if they hadn’t made this version, and only stuck with the 1982 music video. All it took was adding dancing a little on two car hoods, hanging out a car window, and ripping Coverdale over a carseat. We’ll talk about the 1982 version next month because Kitaen and Coverdale were kind enough to have birthdays in August and September respectively.