BILLY JOELI LII/EFROT LOilGISLAilDDirected by Jay Dubin.CBS/FOX. BEIA Hi.Fi, VHSstereo cassettes ,529.95lr,

CED disc (S 19.98); laserdisc {S29.98f . 80 minutes.

Dr"r."o suburban-bohe-mian in suit, tie, and sneakers,Billy Joel does not create anoverwhelming visual pres-

ence. His songs, however, do.Maybe I'm a sucker for bal-lads, but Joel, for all his Top 40compromises, is a master ofobservation and compression.As a result, his pro-rock tunescreate pictures even when hedoesn't. Joel does have somecompensating charisma, atleast. So does his band, espe-cially manic drummer LibertyDeVitto, who demonstrateshere, as he's done for years,

that he can bash as well as anyheavy-metal ham-hand.

This videotaped concert (anextended version of the hour-long cable showing) in Joel'snative Long lsland is the workof Jay Dubin, who directed theexcellent "Tell Her About lt"and "Goodnight Saigon" clips.The same cinematic sensibilityhas been put to use here,neatly complementing the

The opening, for instance, ismore in the style of a fictionalmovie than a documentary:teaser, shot of star, establishingshot of crowd and stadium,and then a close-up of the starto signal the real start of theshow. After that and for therest of the concert, the camerasimply looks around, wan-dering to wherever the most in-

teresting sound is comingfrom. This leisurely approachwouldn't work with mostbands, but with Joel, Dubinand editor Gerry Doughertymake the right choices.

The concert is not at all laid-

back; it's energetic without be-ing frenetic. Once Joel warmsup, he runs around the stageas if trying to find a hole in thefront line. He starts to get tiredtoward the end-"Sometimesa Fantasy" is flaccid; "You Maybe Right," a wretched attemptto cash in on the power-popexplosion of a few years back,lacks the Jaggeresque vocalshe used on the record-butuntil this point, he's obviouslyputting on a younger man'sshow for the local crowd.

The tone here is mostly up-beat, anyway. " New York Stateof Mind," one of his bestsongs, isn't repr:esented, andneither are most of the languid,jazz-inspired tunes of 52ndStreet (The cable versiondidn't even include his signa-

ture tune, "Piano Man"; "You

May Be Right " "Movin' Out "

and have also been addedto this video.) Even so, of all

the songs he could have cho-sen to open the show, Joelpicked "Allentown." A push forthe then-current single, sure,but in these times of constric-tive conservatism, any voicethat speaks for humanism sureas hell isn't doing it to befashionable. Bravo, Billy.

PICTURE TIUSICWith Kim Carnes, StrangeAdvance, Naked Eyes,America, J. Geils Band,Kim Wilde, Red RidetTalk Talk, Thomas Dolby,George Thorogood, EddieJobson, Billy Squiet Burn-ing Sensations, Steve Mil-ler, Various directors. Ves-tron cassette. Beta Hi-fi,VHS Stereo (S29.95); RCACED disc (S 19.98); PioneerArtists laser disc 't524.951.

56 minutes.

lifn", K-Tet has done foraudio LPs, Vestron has donefor video-not just in the com-pilation format of Plcf ure Mu-sic, but in the content, which is

MOR pablum for the mostpart. Billy Squier and EddieJobson are producer PeterBlachley's idea of rock'n' roiltokens, and Thomas Dolby his

new-music one, but the three-year-old Kim Carnes clip("Bette Davis Eyes") as thelead-off is the tip-off.

lf the mix (garnered from thenot-i nconsiderable collectionof Picture Music lnternational,formerly EMI Music Video) is

questionable; it's also eclectic:Talk Talk ("Talk Talk"), StrangeAdvance ("She Controls Me"),and Burning Sensations("Belly of thqWhale") are not,MTV aside, cdhrmon namesoutside the big city. Vestronisalso congratulated for beingthe first music videocassetteprogrammer with the sense topack liner notes, even credit-ing the notes writer. Nice tosee someone realize thatwatching TV doesn't causeilliteracy.

Most of the 15 videos by the14 artists (Red Rider has two)are actually on film, which hasa more timeless quality than vi-

deo-just right for a collectivetape. Unfortunately, most ofthe clips suffer from a paucityof visual and narrative ideas.Regardless of whether or notthe clips are effective individu-ally, seeing one formulaic vi-

deo after another undercutsthe cumulative effect.

M usic videos being-let'sface it-commercials to helpsell records, it's understand-able, but still unforgivable, that

56 FACES

BYFRAilKLOVECEdirectors and record compa-nies force-feed diverse per-

formers through the wringersof homogenity. lt's somethinglike the unspoken rule of mostdebut albums' covers: Showthe people-what the bandlooks like and save the con-ceptual stuff for later. DirectorTom Buckholtz's Strange Ad-vance clip is primarily an ex-cuse to show close-ups of theband members. Same withBrian Grant',s Kim Wilde ("Kidsin America") video; the songgot more evocative treatmentin the awful movie Reckless.

ln fact, the "name" direc-tors-Grant, Russell M ulcahy,and, l'd say, Derek Burbidge-are here the least inventiveand interesting. Simon Milne'sNaked Eyes ("Always Some-thing There to Remind Me")vi-sion of Brit paparazzi elevatesa piece of AM drivel. Mark Ro-

binson's George Thorogood("Bad to the Bone") pool-hus-tler epic (featuring Bo Diddleyand Willy Moscone, who has,

ironically, a pool how-to cas-sette on another label) is de-lightfully told and cleverlywrapped-up. Paul J ustman'sJ. Geils ("Freeze Frame") vi-

deo and Dolby's self-directed"She Blinded Me WiihScience" filmed clip mostlysputter, but they do sPark.Then again, Michael Jacksonimpersonator Burt Simon's bitin Yukich's " Belly of the Whale"clip is the highlight of an

otherwise self-consciouslYhumorous effort.

Still, spotlighting such lesser-

known directors might be oneway of overcoming the mostglaring shortcoming of this an-

thology: its lack of a theme.How about: "New Directors"or "State-of{he-Art Video Ef-

fects" or "The Funniest CliPs"

or "The Best of RussellM ulcahy," Something-anY-thing-should make a comPi-lation gel by giving each piece

something in common with thecompany it must keeP.

OUIET NIOTDirected byJim Safran,Lunar Photos cassette.Mono. l3 minutes. 539.95

R"oor,"o,, video pioneerJim Safran has been gettingundue pressure from QuietRiot's management-whoseem more concerned with theband's image than withfreedom of speech-eventhough he taped the youngOuiet Riot in 1978 as a favor tothe band.

These three songs-"SlickBlack Cadillac," "One in a Mil-lion," and "Pick Up thePieces"-feature the lateRandy Rhoads on some abso-lutely ripsaw guitar, with voca-list Kevin Dubrow, bassistRudy Sarzo, and drummer

Drew Forsythe charging forthwith a sound more like a faster,

harder Rush than present-day

Ouiet Riot. The video was shotwith an industrial Hitachi3000and a JVC 3/+-inch VCR, butthe primitive equipment pro-

vided a better picture than youmight expect for the darkenedconfines of The Whiskey in Los

Angeles, though the sound is

predibtably muffled.The tape is grossly over-

priced, but for Quiet Riot andRandy Rhoads afficionados,this is an important piece of

history. (Available only throughmail-order: Lunar Photos, PO.Box 2186, Van Nuys, Calif.91404.)

LIVE WIRELESSWith Thomas Dolby, LeneLovich. Directed by Dolby.Thorn EMlcassene. BetaHi-Fi stereo, VHS stereo.58 minutes. 529.95

lif,,^ a name tike Dotby,you'd almost expect this Britsynthesizerist to come acrosswith tech nical i nnovations.Though not related to the guywho developed the noise-re-duction system, Dolby doesn'tdisappoint. Despite the fact hismusic seems flat and re-

markably undynamic, and hisvoice distressingly limited, hehas here a concept that's acoup: Dolby has transferred aconcert to video with thenearest equivalent yet devisedfor the act of letting your mindwander during a live show.

The immensity of this ac-complishment is shocking- ltalso dovetails with the well-placed criticism that rock vi-

deos tend to concretize music,providing but a single "cor-rect" interpretation, WithDolby's concert tape, we seethe same kind oi strict visual in-

terpretations applied to the in-

strumental breaks, the spacebetween songs, and all thoseother times when, during a live

show, we might daydream mo-mentarily.

Dolby's framework for this in-

novation involves two things: amovie projectionist-f i lmedmostly i n black-and-white-who's screening the Dolbyconcert in a movie theater;and, in the color, filmed con-cert portions, upstage screenson which Dolby music clips arerun. At apropos morQ.ents, theon-screen (our screen) actionswitches back and forthamong the possibilities. lnge-niously, there are even mo-

ments when Dolby freezes amoment of the concert whilethe projectionist is changingreels. The ghosts of Max Fleis-

cher and Winsor McCay musthaunt this man's mind.

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/A':ri t it\\aA\ i1()t.8:i

a

' I l V l::. lV l{<t.:.l ?: t:;\ "

Just as those animated-car-toon greats loved to do, writer-

director Dolby throws in aparadox: The projectionistchances upon a TV broadcastof the movie/concert just ashe's projecting it. ls he "real"and the concert a fantasy? lsthe world in his TV set thesame "real" world as his-andif the concert is real, is he afantasy? And if we're watchinga movie within a movie (or vi-

deo show), like a dream withinadream. . . andsoon. . . tothe cosmic navel. Keeps theplot moving.

That's important in itself

since Dolby and band, for all

their stagecraft, are nearly asmechanical as Devo, and onlya few of the dozen songs-such as "One of Our Sub-marrnes" and Dolby's hit (from

The Golden Age of WirelessLP), "She Blinded Me With

Science"-really seem heart-felt. Detroit-via-Jupiter chan-teuse Lene Lovich has an in-

teresting, if screechier thanusual, guest shot with the bandon her "New Toy," a Dolbycomposition in her repertoire.I ronically, technocrat Dol by

himself covers humanist JoniMitchell's "Jungleline."

The framework and day-dream snippets make this alandmark video program, aconceptual concert. M usically,

Dolby may have to break awayfrom the sameness of his mate-rial. Visually, though, he mayalready have broken things sowell that all the king's hacksmay not be able to put con-cert-videos cliches back to-gether again without some-body saying, "Look at this."

THE TUBES: LIVEAT THE GREEKTHEATREDirected by Jerry Kramer.Monterey cassette. BetaHi-Fi stereo, VHS stereo.60 minutes approx.s39.95.

I ,n,nn it was Mark Twain whosaid, "Television is like asteak-a medium rarely well-done." Maybe it wasn't him. Somany people claim to havesaid it first, it doesn't matteranymore.

A lot of televisron criticism islike that. No matter who caststhe critical eye, new observa-tions are as rare as a side ofmeat that screams when

cut it. Vocalist Fee Waybill (nee

John Waldo) and the rest of thehighly theatriqal Tubes aren'tbeing highly original when

58 FACES

they celebrate that "TV lsKing" or when they commit"Telecide." And TV the focusof the Tubes' 1979 RemoteControl lour, is an easy target.But it's still heartening to seethese Phoenix eclectics fireaway Strangely-and appro-priately-this concert video-taped at Los Angeles' GreekTheatre seems as intentionallywell-meaning and as uninten-

tionally banal as the worst tele-vision sitcom.

Remote Control was the al-

bum just prior to The Comple-tion Backrrard Principle,which, with "Talk to You Later,"

finally brought the band to the

mass audience which the earlier "White Punks on Dope"had only hinted existed. The

album manages to kick outnicely, as do the Tubes here,

with drummer Pratrie Princesupplying a lot of the kick. Un-

fortunately, neither the con-cert's original audio mix northe tape's video qualitY-mYcopy had severe drop-outs at

a few points and picturebreakup at the beginning-dothe band more than comPetentservice. The five-camera Pro-duction tends to get a little

claustrophobic at times, whichI suspect comes from trYing tomake the Greek look biggerthan it is-by croPPing the au-

dience depth, a sort of infinitY

black stretches beyond the

first several rows.Waybill stalks and dazedly

bounces through a set that, atdifferent times, spits out danc-i ng Quaal udes, TV-headedcreatures, game-showparaphernalia (in a dated bitabout a lovely Three-Milelsland vacation), and a paro-dic, high{ashion leatherette ona motorcycle. More TV setsseem to come and go than in aPlasmatics show. The pacingis a bit sluggish only a very fewtimes, as when Waybill, as glit.terstar Quay Lewd (anotherdated notion), leads an enthu-siastic sing-along on "White

Punks"-what looks as if itwere lots of fun to participate in

isn't necessarily lotsof fun towatch. Same with the toojaith-ful bows, the goodnights, andthe wait-wait-wait for the en-core.

Encore covers of the lsley's"Shout" and the Who's "TheKids Are Alright" and "BabaO' Reilly"-both, incredibly,mispelled on the package-are raucous, eminently likablebits of garage-band histrionicsthat should leave RogerDaltrey little room to worry.

The 1980 cassette (recentlyreissued in stereo-a stickeron the spine distinguishes it

f rom earlier.mono copied)'doesn't contain the filmed ver-sion of "Prime Time," nowmaking the W rounds. A trailer

at tape's end, incidentally, pre-views a handful of Montereyreleases, i ncl uding Sand ah I

Bergman's Body: A Celebra-flon; this concert(!); and Oh, Al-fle, featuring a cheese-cakeyJoan Collinsfrom 1975.

tnoil ilAtDEt"Run to the Hills," "Num-ber of the Beast," "TheTrooper" directed byDavid Mallet; "Flight oflcarus" directed by JimYukich. Sony cassette. BetaHi-fi, VHS stereo.l8 minutes. S 16.95

Btacx Sabbath created astronger legacy for the 80sthan anyone would've imag-ined, as demonstrated by lronMaiden, among other new-heavy-wave bands. Sabbath'ssatanic themes were never all

that convincing-rea/ satanistswould scare the hell tnfo the re-

cord-buying public-but it wasstraighlfaced. This old girl's

themes are identical, if lesswell-performed, but she doeshave a saving grace, andthat's her whimsy. lron Maidenmay sing a song of Satan, butyou can't take the band anymore seriously than you canan EC comic book.

The problem with thesecreepshows, however, isn'tone evidenced so much by EC

as by that celebrated line's im-itators: stultifying sameness.Each of the David Mallet vi-deos consists of filmed concertfootage intercut with or shad-owed by old-movie clips-IheWolfman, Godzilla, even silentsand serials. lt may be Mallet'sown whimsy at work, usingsameness to point up thesongs in an unsubtle way. Onthe other hand, it couid be alack of imagination. Most likely,

though, the director's directrvecame straight from the band.

Jim Yukich's clip is only a bitmore conceptual, with record-ing-studio shots mixed withheavily chroma-keyed land-and seascapes. The directorplays with geometric specialeffects-standard and diago-nal split-screens being his fa-vorites-but the effects aren'tthat special. The occasionalpretty image is blown away im-

mediatley by such cliches asyet another Seventh Sealin-spired Death figure hangingaround waiting, I guess, for thenext lngmar Bergman double-feature. Woody Allen parodiedthe image well in Love andDeafh; the'makers of a

60 FAGES

screamingly f unny sati ricalshort called The Dove did like-

wise. But Yukich should'vetaken better care of himself, sowe wouldn't have to see hisDeath.

THE TIEil Iil THEBLUE SUITS,Vol. l, ilo. IDirected byJohn Robsonand Cory James, Edited byChaz Shukat. With variousartists. lnstant Replay cas-sette. Mono. 60 minutes.s29.95

On" ni"" thing about anymagazine is that you can readwhat you want to and ignorethe rest. That's the strength ofthis premiere rock "videozine"from lnstant Replay, the Miamicompany that pioneered themagazi ne-on-videotape for-mat. These "articles" aren'tdesigned to appeal to somemythical M idwestern audienceacross{he-board; probably,

any one viewer will like only afew of the 1 1 segments.

Most of the stuff here is forthe rock'n' roll avant-garde,

with heavy emphasis onemerging, Third World music.There's a rambling, though notparticularly evocative articleon 1983's Jamaica WorldMusic Festival, with severaltoo-brief interview snippets ofAretha Franklin, Rick James,Rita Marley, and the Clash'sPaul Simonon, among manyothers (with no one, not eventhe obscure promoter-types,identified by subtitles). On themainstream side, there's an ar-ticle on and interview with Kan-sas, as well as an opening"Shorts" section covering theRamones, the Romantics, theregrouped lron Butterfly("once thought an extinct spe-cies"), and others.

Not everything works, unfor-tunately. A piece called"Searching for Truth in LasVegas" tries to draw an anal-ogy between desert life andelectronics and comes off asganja-babble, and the follow-ing article, on a Chicago DJ'spublicity stunt, is pointless,Real People fodder. A featureon the Consumer ElectronicsShow-that massive, semi-an-nual trade-show/ci rcus whereall the world s latest electronicwonders are unveiled-is fartoo short, not at all newsy, andvisually unimaginative.

What does work are some of

the most stunning video illus-trations that have ever ap-peared on a TV screen. Twosegments in particular inspirethis awe. One is a video of"Overtown," by Florida's Char-lie Pickett and the Eggs, asong that laments the racial in-justice so rampant in the Sun-shine State. Sometime after thesong was written, rioters andpolice clashed in the Miami in-ner-city of Overtown, and thistragic coincidence serves as ajumping-off point for explicit,dangerously obtained riotfootage.

Even more astonishing is thesegment pf Pat Travers'"Crash and Burn," set to thetune of the war in El SalvadorThis nearly unbelievable seg-ment was put together withnews footage and outtakesfrom ABC, NBC, BBC, andother networks by three video-graphers: Larry Young, TimRoss, and, principally, JoeCantu. Not only is the day-to-day life and death portrayedelegantly and eloquently, but atthe end, we hear an assailanttelling a Brazilian cameraman,'Adlos, " just before shootingand killing him. The video cam-era is running throughout themurder, so we see-almostfeel-it in the first person. Thishorrendous moment ends thesegment with a newsperson'sepitaph more fitting than anytombstone inscription. Thisand the earlier scenes of exe-cuted children and burningfarmlands are so emotion-packed they serve to remindusthat, while war may be po-litical, it's still a horror that af-fects people far more than itdoes politicians.

lncredibly The Men in the8/ue Suits ends with an upbeatpiece on Fort Lauderdale thatshowcases plenty of cheapcheesecake. Even so, thislapse in taste doesn't negatethe gutsiness, vision, andmoral commitment already dis-played.