7/28/2019 Video Views: David Bowie, Rock Stars '69 Studio Sessions, Rick Derringer Rock Spectacular

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DAVID BOWIEDirected by David Mallet("Let's Dance," "China Girl")and Jim Yukich ("ModernLove"). Sony cassette. BetaHi.Fi stereo, VHS stereo.14 minutes. $16.95.A stytisn chameleon,Bowie. ln the service of thesethree filmed clips, he goesthrough as many guises ashe has in his journey f romfey balladeer to glittery Mar-tian to funky Sinatra. Andwhat has carried him throughall along carries him throughhere: Beneath the style beatssubstance.Bowie was one of the firstrock artists to experimentsuccessf ully with video,drawing as freely fromclassical sources as he didfrom such neo-classicists asdirector Federico Fellini. Hispainterly visions, as in hisclip for "Ashes to Ashes"with its majestic clown, canstill mesmerize. Unfortunate-ly, Bowie's visions have hadless influence on the currentparade of video clips thanhave the sexism and lipsticUjeans-commercial f lash of,oh, Duran Duran's. For-tunately, however, Bowie'sflair is still apparent in hisown work, even with othersdirecting him.He first appears, in the"Let's Dance" clip, as an im-partial observer, playingguitar in, apparently, anAustralian outback bar, aspiritual kin to the communalTex-Mex or Appalachianwatering holes where parentsbring along their kids, whoeat chips and play aroundthe jukebox in the early eve-nings. This universality ex-tends itself with the introduc-tion of children, whostumble upon fashionable,civilized red shoes like theapes upon'Kubrick's mono-lith. Bowie's voice exhorts

Bowie changes to roman-tic mUSe in the (ready now?)uncuf version of "China Girl."Not wishing to upstageBowie for an assessment ofMTV's misgu ided arbitrationof public morality (MTV

would be likely to cover upMichelangelo's David eventhough it allows free rein tospike-heeled dominatrices -this is grist for an upcomingcolumn), I simply wish to re-assure you that the nakedposteriors in a From Here toEternity riff aren't obsceneby any demonstrated stan-dard of literature or cinema.The rest of the clip is alyrical, if not a.llogetherserious'reminder of theredemptive power lovecan have."Modern LovB" is a minimiracle: filmed concert foot-age that's visually exciting.Perhaps any director couldmake a single song work aswell as Jim Yukich doeshere, but his choice to usequick fades virtually through-out, rathe!' than transitionalcuts, produces a sort of time-less, old-movie quality thatBowie practical ly promul-gates lately. As in the con-ceptual clips that accom-pany it on this tape; "ModernLove"'s attention to pacing,texture, and detail producesa rich, repeatable enlertain-ment. Bowie's insights maynot be always original, butfhey're well-chosen and re:freshingly presented.

ROCK STARS '69sTuDlo sEsstoNsWith B.J. Thomas; Blood,Sweat and Tears; StevieWonder; Seals & Crofts;Martin Mull;Sha Na Na.Directo(s) uncredited.Media cassette.Mono Beta and VHS.50 minutes/30 minutesapprox. $44.95.rtlDweetheart, get me rewrite.Why? Because, despite whatit says both on the screentitles and on the package ofthis circa-1980 tape, JohnLennon, Yoko Ono, Dr. Hook,and Edgar Winter (listed as"Winters" here) do nofappear on it anymore. Theydid on an earlier release ofthis title, which I screenedabout a year ago. But now,Media informs me sketchily,the last several minutes havebeen deleted f rom the cur-rent run, and the title itself isno longer in production.Rights problems? Couldbe. Media is one of theoldest independents (e.9., nota movie studio arm) in video,beginning in the late 70s.Back then, only the mosthard-core hobbyists ownedVCRs, and virtually the onlyprogramming around (be-sides X-rated movies) were afew public-domain films and- an omen - music. Thereare vintage tapes of theStones and the Beatles andeven Streisand and Sinatrathat usually originated assome country's TV show andfor which, apparently, videorights were gotten from theTV rights-holders. (ln thosedays, lawyers thought videowas the Captain they used towatch take off for Mars everyafternoon.)

As video grew and peoplesaw there was money to bemade, the performers inquestion began to declare

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them to wear the shoes anddance in the fashionable,civilized, racist, sexist world.(A green credit-card in thevideo proves to be an ersatzsubstitution for the redshoes.) ln the end, the youthsreject the offer, but they can'twalk away from the big, badworld any more than youor I can.

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7/28/2019 Video Views: David Bowie, Rock Stars '69 Studio Sessions, Rick Derringer Rock Spectacular

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lhat they owned the videorights. lt'll probably take thecurrent Supreme Court caseto settle the matter, but forthe last three years or so, vir-tually all of these old musictapes have disappearedunder the pressure of veryexpensive lawyers. On theone hand, it's good to seeperformers with clout not let-ting royalties slip away fromthem (and all the little guyswho can't afford to buyjustice in this country). Onthe other hand, it's a shamethose same powerful per-formers are locking thesehistoric lreasures away intheir vaults. (ln at least onecase, they haven't. Media iscoming out with a tape com-bining lhe TAM|Show - astellar 60s rockumentary -and one other film. But thatdoes play the art-theater cir-cuit, so it's not exactly"lost.")

ln the case of Rock Sfars,which debuted on MedaHome Video (named for thedeparting founder's wife), acompany changeover andtime have obscured therights details. lt took my col-league, Bruce Pollack, to in-form Media that this collec-tion of staged, in-studio "ses-sions" comes not from 1969,but from a very short-lived,1973 show called Flipside.How these Flipside piecesever got to Meda/Media inthe first place - they seemclear enough to have beenfrom original masters, not60 FACES

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dubbings - would probably.make a good mystery story.What really matters now,though, is this: The original,50-minute version of RockStars has become a collec-tor's item. Besides contain-ing a treasurable, revealingfew minutes with Lennon be-moaning the fact that hissteamrolling ego was not giv-ing wife Ono a chance tobreathe, the deleted portionalso held some of the bestmaterial on the tape: Ono's"Winter Song" is pretty andunpretentious, and Winter's"Frankenstein" is amarvelous monster. For-tunately, the cassette nowavailable still has StevieWonder sparking through"Superstition," though eventhat will soon be lost whenthis current run of the cas-sette runs out.Unless you're a rock his-torian or can f ind a goodprice on this somewhat high-priced tape, this edited affairisn't much more than nostal-gia - not just for the musi-cians, but also for the direc-tional and videotaping tech-niques of camerapeople whowere unwitting rock-videopioneers. They were very like-ly old-hand, TV-show assem-bly liners, and their close-upsof guitar picks and pianokeys hold a certain clinicalfascination.RICK DERRINGERWith Deninger, Karla DeVito,Southside Johnny, CarmineAppice, Tim Bogert, TedNugent. Directed by TomLupo. Sony cassette. BetaHi.Fi stereo, VHS stereo.58 minutes. $29.95.Tnat tive shows translatewell to movie and video onlywith editing and directionthat melt away the inherentstaginess is self-evident.That rock "spectaculars" areas cohesive and show asmuch teamwork as all-starbasketball games is self-evident. And that video feelsmore immeidate than doesfilp is also self-evident.

lf all of this is self-evident,why a I bothering to repeatit? Because it is self-evidentthat video-music producersoften don't even understandthat last one, much less theothers. This lumbering "spec-tacular" is a virtual textbookof what can go wrong,Among the factors thatcontribute to an excitingvideo concert is pacing -this is as different from thecaptive-audience, movie-theater-like atmosphere of alive show as a movie is froma TV-movie. After the usualinterminable wait before arock concert starts, almostanything is exciting. That'sno accident. A video concert,which starts when you wantit to, needs to grab your at-tention just as quickly.Here, we start with themiddle of a high-energynumber, "Easy Action": Der-ringer is already soaked withsweat, as if he's been play-ing for an hour. That's con-fusing. What's gone on be-fore? And why have all theseperformers gathered, any-way? We're thrown into theshow head-first.The pacing isn't helped byRon Fiat's choppy editing.Granted, this concert was aonce-only show, not one ofseveral taped on a tour, andso if the camerapeoplemissed certain shdts, therewas no possible way to get itright tomorrow night. Butcrashing shots together un-harmoniously, with almost

no regard to sync with themusic, is inexcusable. Theold-fashioned, M id n ighiSpecra/-style special ef fects- psychedelic mirror-imagesand the like, using new tech-nology - further hinder theshow's f luidity since they'reso jarring.lf the performers werestrong enough, perhapsthese creative shortcomi ngscould have been overcome.But Rick Derringer, by all ac-counts a phenomenal guitar-ist, just hasn't the pipes lefttoward the end of the showfor his signature, "Rock andRoll Hoochie Koo." Evensuch formidable vocalists asSouthside Johnny and KarlaDeVito (who sang daily in thespotlight of a Broadway hit,no less) sound limited andhoarse. Maybe they'd justcome in to donate their timeafter their own shows else-where. Or maybe the audiowas mixed badly at the time.I'd hate to think they simplydidn't care. Whatever thereason, these three in parti-cular come off at less thantheir peaks. Ted Nugent isn'tany better, but at least he, ofall people, generates a littlespark amidst his head-thrown-back, rock-n-rol I per-formance cliches. Sessionbassist and ex-VanillaFudger Tim Bogert inex-plicably fronts the longestsong, and his old compatriot,Carmine Appice, does littleto change anyone's opinionsabout solo efforts fromdrummers.Somehow, though, thegroup - all but the missingSouthside - does tie every-thing together at the end.The all-star mush that windsup many other notable, often.charitable gatherings usuallydeserves charily from thelistener-viewer. But here, Der-ringer and his friends raisethe perennial "Hang On,Sloopy" to anthemic heights.The passion and punch ondisplay would make a greatvideo-clip of this song alone.The rest however, is asorry spectacular.- Frank Lovece