Tuesday, January 16, 2007

VAN HALEN - sort of like a midnight movie


This video is posted because it is sort of rare. It was rare when it was "popular". In fact, MTV rarely showed it. They were too busy hawking Thomas Dolby and Dexys Midnight Runners. If you wanted to see A REAL rock video with a heavy sound you had to sit in front of MTV for a full 12 hours. Maybe then... in 1981... you may see one.... but then again... maybe not. In most cases not.

Seeing this clip gave us kids a real glimpse at what a big "Rock Show" looked like. It was like looking into a crystal ball. Most of the kids in my neighborhood were bullshit. They never went to a real rock and roll show in their entire lives including me. Hell, I was 13 years old and couldn't get near a car. In fact, none of the kids in my hood drove. So seeing this video was about as real as it was going to get for quite some time.

And it had to make do.... for the time being.

I finally saw these guys in Maryland during the famous 1984 tour. I was in the tenth row and this song came on -- as it was the first song they played for the night. Someone threw a t shirt at Eddie and it landed on his fret board screwing up his riffs.... he threw it on the floor and kept playing. It was incredible to get that close to all of them.

As far as I can tell, this video was shot live. Aside from this clip MTV had one for, "Pretty Woman" which was banned for some reason. The only glimpse we got of that was on the inside sleeve for, "Diver Down" when it was on vinyl.

This video had a midnight movie feel to it. It was rare. They don't even have midnight movies anymore -- real ones -- hodge podge pulp culture ones --- in this video --900 cable chanel internet age. Look at what you kids are missing out on.
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Ted Cantu is the creator of
http://www.beautyloungestore.com he has contributed to several blogs and podcasts such as…..http://911copywriters.podomatic.com. He served as a top rated art director for Interactive Web Marketing groups in Chicago and
New York City.

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