Music Video of the Day: Holy Diver by Dio (1983, dir. Arthur Ellis)

Posted on October 17, 2016 by Valerie Troutman

Yeah, that certainly is Ronnie James Dio showing us why he was a fantastic singer, but had a bit of a rough start in music videos. As much as I still love this one, it is largely to see him trying to look like someone who is taking their job seriously, but coming across as stiff as Alan Bagh in Birdemic: Shock and Terror (2010).

I never really thought about this song or music video much until recently. To me it’s Dio once again drawing on his upbringing that famously turned the Italian evil-eye hand gesture into the favorite of faux-Christians as something Satanic. I thought of it as Ronnie going in to vanquish the Devil that has taken seat in the Church. Maybe that’s the thought process that was going on in Clear Channel’s mind when they included this song on their list of songs they sent to the stations they owned as songs they might not want to play shortly after 9/11. It wasn’t a blacklist, but just a suggestion. I understand that. You wouldn’t want to be playing It’s the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine) by R.E.M. in the days immediately following the attacks. But I find it hilarious that while AC/DC has the most songs on the list–Thunderstruck is not one of them (there are numerous military montages set to that song on YouTube). Yet, Peace Train by Cat Stevens is on the list.

This time Quora came to my rescue as to an interpretation of the song and music video. Basically, it’s about Jesus Christ–the Holy Diver–coming to Earth, delivering the New Testament, being crucified, and then rising back to Heaven having fooled the Devil and redeemed humanity. It fits with the music video. Dio takes the sword that represents the Word of God as the ultimate weapon to deal with the Devil that had taken foot in humanity between the Old and New Testaments as represented by the decaying church. I would say that in the music video, when he gets the newly forged sword, he is tossing aside the Old Testament for the New Testament. The analysis on Quora is more detailed if you are interested.

One of the best things about the music video for Holy Diver is that someone took Pat Boone’s cover version and combined it with the music video. I know this kind of thing bothers some people, but I find it priceless to hear Pat Boone essentially cheering on Ronnie’s character as he goes on his mission.

I have a feeling that director/editor Arthur Ellis would probably approve seeing as he did make the short film Stanley Kubrick Goes Shopping (2001) where you see Kubrick buy the same item 193 times to make sure he has shopped perfectly. He seems to have only done a few music videos, and primarily worked on TV Shows.

Adam Whittaker was the producer of this music video. He and Ellis teamed up to also do Rainbow in the Dark for Dio. He only has a few credits in music videos, but like producers and video commissioners, I’m sure there are plenty more that are undocumented.

Enjoy!

Music Video of the Day: Round And Round by Ratt (1984, dir. Marshall Berle)

Posted on October 16, 2016 by Valerie Troutman

First things first here. Yes, that is Milton Berle in the music video both as the husband and wife. He agreed to be in the music video because his nephew Marshall Berle was the manager of the band at the time. It’s interesting to note that while Wikipedia says he is his nephew, mvdbase says that he is Milton’s grandson. Thankfully the Wikipedia article on Milton Berle also states he is his nephew, so I think we can safely say that’s the case. The Google Knowledge Graph also says that Milton Berle’s only grandchild is Tyler Roe via his son William Berle.

The second thing is about who the woman is in this that is drawn to the attic where Ratt is apparently playing for the convienent brittle floor that makes for a great guitar solo scene when guitarist Warren DeMartini crashes through it. That woman is Lisa Dean. She would go on to play Diana in the music video for Michael Jackson’s Dirty Diana. She died of colon cancer in December of 2009 at the age of 50.

I guess the last thing to bring up about this video is that it doesn’t matter how many times I watch it, the butler is still the real star of the show. The information I provided above is all over the Internet, but I can’t find who played the butler. I can find that apparently the song is about a girl who initially pushes a guy away, but ends up coming back to him. I guess that’s the reason they play in that attic a la John Cusack in Say Anything… (1989) till she turns into a rat (???), and comes to them. I can find a person that thinks this is sexist and refuses to show it to their kid, but still loves it regardless. As somebody who is transgender, I could find that it’s transphobic, but whatever, it’s Round and Round by Ratt. I don’t care. Yet, the most simple thing, like who is the awesome butler, is lost to the sands of time. This is particularly sad when he is not just the real star, but the music video is arranged like a mystery about who let the band in the house, and it of course turns out to be the butler.

Anyways, I was able to find out that Ken Barrows was the 1st assistant camera on the music video. He worked on music videos such as Hold On by Wilson Phillips and Burning Up by Madonna. It looks like he is still working in music videos today as I can find a credit as recent as 2015. Outside of music videos, he has also worked on movies such as The Master (2012) and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze (1991).

So, enjoy this ridiculous music video for a band that would have probably been long forgotten without it, and don’t take it seriously.

Music Video of the Day: Werewolves Of London by Warren Zevon (1978, dir. ???)

Posted on October 15, 2016 by Valerie Troutman

Years before John Landis exposed the American werewolf invasion of London, Warren Zevon was already warning us that native London werewolves were taking over the city.

There! That’s the requisite joke that anyone who talks about this undocumented music video from the 1970s has to make. It also has actual ties to An American Werewolf in London (1981). On the DVD Commentary for the film, David Naughton and Griffen Dunne say they didn’t know why Landis didn’t obtain the rights to use this song since they felt it would have been appropriate for the movie. Then again, what made him or Michael Jackson think that ridiculous quote at the beginning of Thriller would keep people from making accusations that Michael Jackson was involved in the occult.

I’m not sure what else to say that wouldn’t be just delving into the history of Warren Zevon himself except for one thing. If you thought the werewolf from Ozzy Osbourne’s Bark at the Moon was ridiculous, then let me tell you that Zevon can top that.

I highly recommend taking at look at this otherwise unremarkable music video that is made priceless by cutaways to the werewolf just walking around like a normal werewolf on the town looking for a bite to eat.

Music Video of the Day: Bark At The Moon by Ozzy Osbourne (1983, dir. Mike Mansfield)

Posted on October 14, 2016 by Valerie Troutman

I am not going to talk about the background of the song or album. There’s a reason I usually stay away from behind-the-scenes stuff, and stick with the finished product. It’s a great song–end of story for me on that matter.

The music video is cheesy fun. It’s Ozzy Osbourne going around like he’s Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Wolf with the occasional cutaway to band members. It was partially filmed at an actual sanatorium. That sanatorium being Holloway Sanatorium.

My favorite thing I found on this music video was that in at least two places online they bring up that this was early on for music videos, which is why it looks the way it does. Not true. They had been around for a lot longer prior to 1983 in the modern form. Abba did a music video for Waterloo in 1974 and many more throughout the 1970s. You can go back even further to the 1960’s music video for Strawberry Fields Forever by The Beatles. The same year as Bark At The Moon, we had stuff like Shooting Shark and Love Is A Battlefield that are a far cry from this music video.

I think it looks the way it does because it was directed by Mike Mansfield who also brought us Goody Two Shoes by Adam Ant. If you look at several of the music videos that he did for Adam Ant around the time, then you’ll notice they have this stagey/theatrical look about them. I’m willing to bet they hired him because the people involved liked the style Mansfield was using in the Adam Ant/Adam & The Ants music videos that not only look the same as this one, but were mostly made in the years right before 1983. The best example to look at is Stand And Deliver that was done in 1981. In fact, you can look several other artists he did music videos for at the time such as Charlotte Sometimes by The Cure and Love Blonde by Kim Wilde to see the same kind of style.

Enjoy!

Music Video of the Day: Red Right Hand by Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds (1994, dir. Jesse Dylan)

Posted on October 13, 2016 by Valerie Troutman

I know I can’t speak for everyone, but I first became aware of and fell in love with this song when it became The Smoking Man’s theme from The X-Files. It was also used in the Scream films. I don’t really watch TV of any kind these days, but from what I have read, the song has also been used on the show Peaky Blinders. In addition, it has become the inspiration for a Dr. Seuss Book in Australia.

The title of song comes from the phrase “red right hand” in John Milton’s poem Paradise Lost referring to the vengeful hand of God. Songfacts says the song itself is a “semi-comically melodramatic take on Stephen King’s novel The Stand [depicting] a nightmarish figure emerging on ‘the edge of town.'” Thank you once again, Songfacts!

It has been a couple of years since I read the book, but it’s difficult to forget the character of Trashcan Man. As I recall, he was largely left out of mini-series, but he has an interesting storyline that runs parallel with the main plot. He really is the most important character because it is him that brings the WMD to Las Vegas that allows God to reach down in order to destroy the den of sin that Randall Flagg has created there. The “Red Right Hand”. The lyrics of the song, and the music video itself are what come to your mind when you are reading the Trashcan Man sections. He is a deeply troubled person who has a rather horrifying journey, but one that pulls him eventually to Las Vegas as if he has been called on high to be the enabler of the hand of God on Earth. The evil figure spoken of and portrayed as a serial killer in the music video could be Randall Flagg (essentially the Anti-Christ) and/or the murderous The Kid who was left out of the original printing of the book.

It is always interesting to see them using black and white past the 80s in music videos. Otherwise it is a simple music video that follows the dark narrative that–much like Jace Everett’s Bad Things–could be placed over any scenes with characters that are evil in some fashion, and it wouldn’t seem out of place. I can see why YouTube recommends a video of Psycho Killer by Talking Heads when I finish watching the music video. I can also see why it has been used so many times in film and television since its’ release.

Director Jesse Dylan has done 30+ music videos. You might also know him as the director of American Wedding (2003) and Kicking & Screaming (2005).

Enjoy!

Music Video of the Day: Bad Things by Jace Everett (2005, dir. Kristin Barlowe)

Posted on October 12, 2016 by Valerie Troutman

Much to my surprise, this song was released three years prior to being selected as the theme song of the TV Show True Blood. In fact, the song didn’t even chart at the time. I was going to say here that Jace Everett seems to have picked up where Chris Isaak left off, but the Wikipedia article already did that for me. According to Stephen Thomas Erlewine’s review for Allmusic, he compared it to Isaak’s song Baby Did a Bad, Bad Thing, only “less menacing and a little rowdier.” He’s right. The songs do share a lot in common. I would say that they both also share that thing with the song Little Red Riding Hood where it seems innocent enough till you play it over dark images and/or video. That certainly explains the multitude of fan-made videos that do just that with Bad Things.

Sadly, the music video for the song is pretty generic. The only artistic touch I can see is when the tint changes from something bright to a darkness when the song lyrics call for it. Otherwise, it is pretty much there to put the primary focus on Everett with the woman he is singing about thrown in while barely playing a role in it. I took a look at another Jace Everett music video, and this tint shift seems to be a thing they repeated at least twice.

Director Kristin Barlowe directed the music video. I can find only 15 credits for sure that she did in the area of music videos, but based on her IMDb page, she has done far more, and continues to work in this field today.

I was able to find an interesting little interview with Jace Everett over on People Magazine’s website. There isn’t a whole lot there, but it is interesting to hear some of the backstory on the song from Everett himself. The most interesting thing he mentions is that country radio really didn’t agree that the song could have been a hit when it was released. That doesn’t surprise me since country radio has been under very tight control for many decades.

Enjoy!

Music Video of the Day: Run To The Hills by Iron Maiden (1982, dir. David Mallet)

Posted on October 10, 2016 by Valerie Troutman

Happy Columbus Day! Or if I was still living in Berkeley, CA; then the parking meters would be telling me this was Indigenous People’s Day. I couldn’t think of a better time to do my first Iron Maiden music video. Sadly, there isn’t much to say.

The song tells us the story of Europeans coming to America and brutally taking the land from the Native Americans. They tell the story from two different points of view. The first is from the Native Americans. The second one is from the European point of view. The second one takes up the majority of the song. This makes sense since it mirrors how the story of the New World is often dominated by the European side of things. So much so that we got plenty of Westerns like the one they intercut with the band performing the song on a stage.

There is one issue with writing about this music video. There are two different versions of this listed on mvdbase. There is the version above, and one from 1985 that was directed by Jim Yukich. To make matters even more confusing is that there is a version called the Camp Chaos version.

That version is even marked as unlisted on YouTube. I stumbled upon it because it is the version that IMVDb has embedded into their entry for this music video.

All things considered, I’d say that the first and second ones are the same one directed by David Mallet. The only difference being that they took out the old movie and replaced it with some animation instead. You can still see people in the comments on this music video that think the song is racist, so it’s no surprise that they made a different version of the same video. Also, people called the band Satanic back then because of the name of the title track for the album this song is on. In addition, people thought that this cover…

of a Native American in Hell fighting a demon was equating Europeans with devils, and got angry about it. You think? The song isn’t exactly subtle, and neither is the music video.

David Mallet appears to have worked on around 130 music videos in his career

I couldn’t find a music video that they did, so here is just the song We Live from the Native American band XIT.

Music Video of the Day: Madhouse by Anthrax (1986, dir. Amos Poe)

Posted on October 9, 2016 by Valerie Troutman

Madhouse was banned from MTV because of its’ portrayal of the mentally ill. I didn’t think I was going to get to a music video that was actually banned from MTV till I got around to doing Smack My Bitch Up by The Prodigy.

I’m bipolar, major depressive, get migraines, have been on more psychiatric meds than I can count, have been a cutter, and have been a patient in a mental hospital (inpatient and outpatient) to only name a few things in this area that I have had some experience with in my life. The person holding a fake baby makes me think of a woman I knew while in a mental hospital that had postpartum depression so bad that they gave her shock treatment (it helped her significantly). The people that appear mentally handicapped bother me because one of my lifelong friends has a younger sister who is mentally handicapped. I grew up around her, and have known others in my life who are in the same situation, but for different reasons. The nurse at the beginning reminds me of what we nicknamed “vampires” at the mental hospital that would come to take blood samples from us early in the morning in our beds. The person who accidentally lets one of the patients fall out of the wheelchair and the doctors smoking reminds me of people I’ve dealt with that treat the mentally and physically ill like they are nothing but a burden to them and/or even as if they are criminals. The whole music video and song reminds me of late 2014 and early 2015 when my brain completely turned against me, leaving me actually thinking I was trapped inside of something like The Matrix. To quote the song:

“Trapped, in this nightmare
I wish I’d wake
As my whole life begins to shake
Four walls surround me
An empty gaze
I can’t find my way out of this maze”

There were other things that accompanied that experience, and no doctor can tell me why it happened. I was just lucky I came out of it eventually.

The point is that I completely understand why some people would find this offensive. However, what I see when I watch this music video is a controversial short film that is drawing a parallel between the internal state of the mind of the mentally ill–we all are to some degree–with the apparent chaos of heavy metal and the actual chaotic relief of a mosh pit. I think Ben Kingsley in Shutter Island (2010) said it best when he described a migraine like having razor blades being shaken around in your head. Personally, I don’t find this offensive, but frighteningly accurate.

All that said, I can see why this would get banned from MTV, and probably should have been. It’s one thing for me to stupidly seek out Still Alice (2014) when I clearly should have known it would remind me of my brain turning to tapioca, but I did, and couldn’t finish it even with several anti-anxiety pills in my system. It’s another thing to be simply watching one of the most popular networks of the era, then have this music video suddenly show up on your TV. Despite being banned, it was still very successful and pushed the boundaries of what could and couldn’t be done in music videos.

This is one of those music videos where we apparently only know the director. That would be Amos Poe who only appears to have directed five music videos, including the one for Animotion’s Obsession. He has done other work in film that includes the documentary The Blank Generation (1976) that was filmed at CBGB during the birth of punk rock.

Music Video of the Day: Feed My Frankenstein by Alice Cooper (1992, dir. Penelope Spheeris)

Posted on October 8, 2016 by Valerie Troutman

I thought this would be simple. It’s October, so of course Feed My Frankenstein by Alice Cooper would fit. Also, I find that I get more hits on artists and songs that people know. It was in Wayne’s World (1992). A perfect storm to feature as a music video of the day. I had no idea it would be so difficult to find out who directed it when it should have been obvious.

You would immediately think that Penelope Spheeris directed the music video. I went to the two major databases on music videos–IMVDb and mvdbase–but neither of them had a director listed.

At first glance, it looked like what I remembered from the movie. I pulled out my copy of Wayne’s World and played that sequence side-by-side with the music video. It certainly is the same set, but they actually look quite different.

The next thing that came to mind was that it made sense that she would shoot a little extra material for Alice Cooper so he would have a music video for his song. After all, she directed The Decline of Western Civilization movies and has a personal quote on IMDb that says:

[on why she does documentaries about metal and punk music] “I mean, look, you don’t see me making documentaries on Britney Spears, you know what I mean? Sweetheart of a little girl, you know. Or Madonna. That’s not my thing. I just like this harder edge stuff. That’s just me.”

My next step was to look up whether she did have any credits for directing music videos, and up came some results. She shot at least three music videos for Megadeth. However, that was only a tease because she actually directed the music video for Megadeth’s cover of Alice Cooper’s No More Mr. Nice Guy.

Luckily, the website Songfacts came to my rescue, and said exactly what I thought to begin with when I went in to writing this post. She shot some more footage to create an extended version of that scene from the movie.

I don’t know how that wasn’t in the two biggest music video databases, but there’s the series of steps I went through to find out that piece of information.

Sadly, that’s pretty much all I have on this music video. The difference between the music video and the film, is that you get the full song with all its’ sexual metaphors. The only other thing to mention is that Alice Cooper was originally going to perform School’s Out, but two weeks before filming, Mike Myers was told by the band’s manager Shep Gordon that he would be performing their new song, Feed My Frankenstein. Again, thank you Songfacts for that information too.

Enjoy!

Music Video of the Day: Hell by Squirrel Nut Zippers (1997, dir. Norwood Cheek, Grady Cooper, & Tom Maxwell)

Posted on October 7, 2016 by Valerie Troutman

We had the Rapture yesterday courtesy of Blondie, so today we go to Hell. I probably shared this story at some point, but I’ll do it again. I remember back during this time when my mom used to watch Regis & Kathie Lee. On one episode they had Squirrel Nut Zippers on there to perform. I don’t remember if it was this, Prince Nez, or Blue Angel. Shortly after, I went to Tower Records looking for their album. The people there had no idea who I was talking about. Eventually I did find the album. It’s one of the most unusual albums I own. It didn’t come in a regular plastic case, but half paper and half plastic. According to the cover, I was supposed to light it on fire because it says “do not hold in hand after lighting.”

It has some pictures of Satan in it. One is in the hole where you press to release the CD.

The disc was even one of those enhanced albums that came with content for your computer. It won’t work with my modern Mac, but the readme file still opens and has some backstory on the album:

When I first heard Katharine, Jimbo and Tom singing their hot songs off the “Inevitable” album on the radio last year I was taken back and amazed by the tremendous diversity and quality of the Squirrel Nut Zippers’ music. I felt like they were the “missing link” in the lost imagination of contemporary music and were successfully bringing together all that is old and all that is new and making it their own. I rushed out and bought “The Inevitable” album and immediately began trying to think up some way of doing something creative with the group. I wrote to Jimbo and Katharine asking them if there was anything that I could do for them in the way of a film or video project.

Luckily they were going to perform here in Atlanta just a few days after I sent them my letter. I went early to “The Point” that evening hoping to talk with someone from the group before the show. I had memorized their names from the album and thought I could easily recognize any of them. However, when I arrived, there were people dressed in ’20’s attire everywhere I looked and I didn’t have a clue as to who was actually in the band and who wasn’t. It wasn’t until Don made a move for the stage that I was able to distinguish a Zipper from the rest of the crowd. I talked to Don for a few moments and he introduced me to Jimbo. That is when this all began.

We didn’t exactly know whether this project would turn out to be a documentary film, video or enhanced CD-ROM but the important thing was to get started in documenting their shows while they were touring extensively last year. Last July, my wife, Leah and our daughter, Sydney, went with me up to Charlotte and Asheville where I began shooting the Zippers’ shows and becoming a permanent fixture in their crowds. Everywhere I went with the Zippers from North Carolina to California, I would overhear people in the audience and even the club owners commenting that it was the largest turnout they had ever for a music performance at their place. The Zippers were starting a glorious craze that I feel will intensify even more with the release of the “Hot” album.

I have always known while I have been making this project that I have been a part of something very special. This has always been the motivation that has kept me burning the midnight oil for days on end to get this project finished in time to make it onto the “Hot” album. I can only hope that what I have done captures at least a fraction of the wonderful experience of seeing the Squirrel Nut Zippers perform live and the diverse and comical personality, brilliant talent and dedication that makes up the band.

I cannot thank everyone in the Zippers enough for their extreme amount of cooperation, patience, openness and trust that they have shown Leah and myself. I also want to thank Lane Wurster and Mammoth Records for taking a chance with my project and Lane’s tireless effort in helping to get it completed.

And of course, this project would never have been what it is without the never-ending support of the one and only Shorty Brown.

Clay Walker
April 28, 1996

I don’t really have anything to say about the music video itself beyond mentioning that it was inspired by Twin Peaks. It does capture that throwback to the swing dance days that bands like Squirrel Nut Zippers were part of in the mid-90s. Out of the bands I remember from the time, they were the ones that really tried to sound like bands from that time period rather than having a more modern take on it.

There seems to be a little bit of disagreement between two sources about the directors of the music video. No one disagrees that Norwood Cheek and Grady Cooper directed it. Cheek directed a few music videos as well as working in other capacities in film. Cooper has done many things over the years including directing 67 episodes of Survivor. According to IMDb, Cooper also appeared in the music video. Cooper edited it as well. Both Cheek and Cooper produced it. I think we can even thank Grady Cooper himself since he appears to have been the one to make a high quality version of this music video available on YouTube.

John Leuba shot the music video and has the usual handful of credits on IMDb.

The part that there is conflicting information about is whether Tom Maxwell had anything to do with directing the music video. Whether he did, or he didn’t, he did write the song. More recently in 2014 he published a book called Hell: My Life in the Squirrel Nut Zippers about the history of the band. He also wrote a post over on Medium about why he wouldn’t be joining the band on their 20th anniversary tour in honor of this album.

Enjoy this throwback to a throwback!