The place for great and not-so-great nearly forgotten videos from the decade of Miami Vice, mullets, and acid wash jeans. All praise to the bands, YouTube, and the original posters of these videos.
Showing posts with label Supernatural Guitars. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Supernatural Guitars. Show all posts
Our long time reader(s) will know that we love this time of year - to the point that we have an All Hallows Even celebration every year (since 2011!) This year, we start off with a pitch perfect video - Walter Egan's "Fool Moon Fire."
Egan kicked around the music industry for years, and never quite broke through - with one exception. His 1978 song "Magnet and Steel" (written about Stevie Nicks), hit #8 on the charts, making him an official one hit wonder.
Of course, this is an eighties blog, and we are taking Halloween, so we went with 1983's "Fool Moon Fire" instead. The song did chart (#46). although the Wild Exhibitions LP did not. The video hearkens back to the days when artists spent five grand to make a video - though we find the homemade elements charming.
And we would be remiss if we didn't point out the candy apple red vintage Mustang ... and one of the best wolf man playing guitar scenes ever (around 3:23).
How prevalent were rock guitarists in the 1980s? So much so that even Michael Jackson inserted a blistering solo into "Beat It" (with Eddie Van Halen, no less).
However, even among guitar heroes Joe Satriani stood out as a king among kings. His effortless technical prowess, use of multiple styles and abilities as a teacher made him a living legend in the hard rock scene of the 1980s. Surprisingly, a combination of great musicianship, good timing, and a bit of good luck led to some commercial success, in spite of the fact that his work was entirely instrumental.
Satriani was born on Long Island and gained local notoriety as a player and teacher. In the late 1970s he moved to California to pursue a career in music, which eventually led to a gig in the Greg Kihn Band (seriously!) After former student Steve Vai joined David Lee Roth's solo band, Satriani became better-known, and he eventually released his second solo LP in 1987.
Surfing With the Alien became a surprise hit that same year, reaching #29 on the charts, and the title cut and "Satch Boogie" both hit the Mainstream Rock Charts, due to FM radio play. The video for "Satch Boogie" is relatively basic, but this is definitely a 'let the music do the talking' sort of song.
Joe Satriani's commercial success faded somewhat in the 1990s, be he remains a working musician, and seems to enjoy performing with other guitarists. (For example, G3, a working group that originally comprised Satriani, Steve Vai, and Eric Johnson has continued in various versions to the present day).
Cool trivia fact: Satch is Joe Satriani's nickname.
"Romancing the Stone" wasn't Eddy Grant's biggest U.S. hit, but we love to feature rare videos at ERV, and there is a method to our madness. Anyhow, that's out story and we're sticking to it. Grant, who was born in Guyana (perhaps the only artist on ERV from that country) has had a long and interesting career performing music that combined traditional Caribbean music (calypso, reggae and soca, in particular) with R&B, funk and rock. The result eventually became called ringbang and is closely associated with Grant.
Of course, in addition to his diverse music, Eddy Grant also floated in and out of the charts, particularly in Britain (his family moved to London when he was a child). He had 7 top 40 hits in the U.K. as a solo artist, plus 6 more as the main songwriter of The Equals, who were successful in the U.K. in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Grant is also known for his political lyrics, especially on the topic of apartheid.
American audiences will mostly know Grant for his 1982 hit "Electric Avenue," which went to #2 on the charts. "Romancing the Stone" (written for the movie of the same title) was also a top 40 hit in the U.S., as it reached #26 in 1984. Unfortunately, there seems to have been a dispute with the movie's producers, as the song was not included in the movie (except for the guitar solo) and did not appear on the soundtrack.
As an interesting aside, we would recommend Romancing the Stone (the movie). It is a funny action adventure movie that does not take itself too seriously, and is well cast (Kathleen Turner in her prime, for instance). The backstory to the movie is quite sad, as screenwriter Diane Thomas worked as a waitress for years while developing the script. Her big break came when she pitched the story to a customer (Michael Douglas), which led to major success. Sadly, she was killed in a car accident the following year, and never wrote another screenplay.
Eddy Grant made two videos for the song, as a result of the dispute with the producers. The first video features clips from the movie (and supernatural guitars, as Grant's guitar can apparently transform from a machete and change the weather if a suitcase is thrown at him):
The second video is just Eddy and a corpse (I think). Not sure where this idea came from, but probably not the best.
Along with Joan Jett, Lita Ford built a successful solo career after the collapse of The Runaways. However, Ford's style was more pop/metal (as contrasted with the punk sensibilities of Jett) and in fact, it was this musical divergence that was the main cause of The Runaways breakup.
In the aftermath of the breakup, Ford took vocal lessons and worked a variety of odd jobs, including gas station attendant, perfume salesperson, fitness instructor and hairdresser (!) before she landed a recording contract. While her first solo LP, Out for Blood (1983), did not chart, her second album, 1984's Dancin' on the Edge, hit #66. We remember seeing "Gotta Let Go" on MTV at the time, but it did not chart in the U.S. (it did break the top 100 in the UK, though).
Of course, Ford is best-known for her 1988 LP, Lita, which yielded two top 20 hits ("Kiss Me Deadly" and "Close My Eyes Forever.") That album broke the top 30 and went platinum in the U.S. While Ford has only had modest success since then, she remains musically active; her last album as of this writing (Living Like a Runaway) was released in May 2012.
"Gotta Let Go" is a fun video that features Ford as a suburban housewife who can magically transform into a leather-clad heavy metal super-heroine with her trusty guitar. Unfortunately, aside from hitting and choking bad guys (who look a lot like The Stray Cats), the guitar has limited special abilities -- no shattering glass or laser beams here. Still, the video gets a solid from us -- good song, fun story and reasonably rare.
While Cinderella's image was hair-metal, their sound was more bluesy, hard rock. "Shake Me" fits right in with this, and is a spiritual successor to "You Shook Me" (covered by Led Zeppelin) or "You Shook Me All Night Long" (AC/DC). Now that we think of it, there should be more hard rock songs using the verb 'to shake' -- we propose the ultimate song could just be called "Shake" or "Shaken" or "Shaky."
Moving right along, "Shake Me" was the first song from Cinderella's first album, 1986's Night Songs. The video does feature another fine example of a supernatural guitar -- it falls from the poster and then magically teleports the attractive young woman right on to the stage at the local Cinderella concert. Though this is not as impressive as laser beams (or ill-tempered bass, for that matter), it still is pretty cool. And no, apparently not all Les Pauls can magically teleport young women.
"Shake Me" did not chart, but Night Songs hit #3 on the charts in early 1987, spawned two other singles that did chart, and sold three million units. The band went on to sell more than twenty million units in the 80s and early 90s, before the shift to grunge (and problems with lead singer Tom Keifer's vocal chords) ended the bands' run of platinum records.
Cool trivia fact: Cinderella was discovered by Jon Bon Jovi, who saw them in 1985 at the old Empire Rock Club in Philly. He told his A&R rep about them and soon after they were signed to Mercury/Polygram.
Cinderella's "Gypsy Road" was posted on ERV in June, 2015.
Another wonderfully ridiculous video featuring supernatural guitars (see Breaking the Law for an earlier example). Set in the future (or at least a 1981 version of the future), Aldo Nova portrays a mystical guitar player with bodyguards, and the geekiest guitar tech known to man. Nova uses his guitar laser to break into a warehouse in order to ... play guitar with his band?
In fact, Aldo Nova's 1981 self-titled debut was moderately successful. The album quickly went gold (it has since gone on to be certified double platinum!!) and peaked at #8 on the album charts. The single, "Fantasy," no doubt helped by the video, hit #23 on the singles chart. However, Nova's subsequent work did not do very well, and while he has remained in the business, it is not pretty. He has written songs for Jon Bon Jovi, Faith Hill, Clay Aiken and ... Celine Dion (man, say it ain't so Aldo).
Cool trivia fact: Aldo Nova played George Harrison in Beatlemania.
Wonderfully ridiculous video, but based on a true story (no, not really). We particularly like the intro, with the pigeon-feeding, guitar-carrying pilgrim/bank robbers chilling on a park bench. The video was directed by Julien Temple, who became a mainstay on MTV in the 1980s; if he's smart he might consider leaving this one off of his CV. The guitars here are so powerful that they can shatter glass, even without amplifiers. (There is some metal bar bending too, but that is clearly due to the brute strength of Rob Halford.) Spectacularly cheesey video of a great song. From 1980's British Steel -- a classic heavy metal album.
Priests' "Hot Rockin'" was posted on ERV in December 2014.
