MUSIC VIDEO

Rip It Up, Issue 185, 1 December 1992, Page 32

MUSIC VIDEO

GUNS *N* ROSES Use Your llusion 1 &2 (Geffen Video) Not videos-of-the-albums but the arguably EVEN MORE EXCITING format of two 90-min slabs of live-in-Japan action, of which #2 is the more obviously, dispensible by virtue of protracted and tedious instrumental showcasing . . . A few features worth grooving on tho’ — Axl’s five or six costume changes per song!!! Duff making it thru the whole thing without realising his pants are undone!!! etc. But you’ve got all this and more in #1 anyway, so forget it. More instro-wank too, but of a more arousing nature than in the other volume — Santana-type fla-menco-jam passage (with quotes from Hendrix’s ‘Machine Gun’) linking ‘Double Talking Jive’ with ‘Civil War’, more pseudoHispanicism in a mostly instrumental Wild Horses’ (the new gtrist’s show-off piece) (and the old gtrist’s ditto too), and right up there at the end — didja know Axl Rose can play piano? Well, he can and he does, and as far as that type of thing goes he could probably . smoke Richard Clayderman any day. Songs — lots and lots of 'em, and if yr a fan you already know em all ‘cept maybe the Misfits cover (which ain’t much of anything anyway),

they generally differ, from the record versions in the area of gtr solos (longer) and vocals (worse) and that you get to see Axl’s barenekkid legs a heckuva lot, running, jumping, standing still and playing the piano. Hubba hubba! DUANE ZARAKOV U2 Achtung, Baby (Island Video) "Zoo TV" comes to your living room in this collection of visual collage ("interference") and videos of only five songs: 'Even Better Than The Real Thing', 'Mystrious Ways', 'One", 'The Fly' and 'Until the End of the World'. Actually there are three different videos for 'One' and two each for 'Mysterious Ways' and 'The Real Thing'. Twenty five minutes later you're suffering from deja-vu, but the whole thing is a compendium of video making technique — especially in the three "interference" segments: a kaleidoscope of photographic styles, shifting colour values, antique news footage, interview bites, word flashes, city scapes, technicolour dreamscapes — basically a dictionary of every fancy video trick of the past ten years. DONNA YUZWALK

YARDBIRDS Retrospective (Warner Music) ERIC BURDEN & THE ANIMALS Finally... Retrospective (Warner Music) CREAM Strange Brew ... Retrospective (Warner Music) These three excellent 60min docos were released earlier this year and document the 60s UK scene superbly. Making themselves available for interviews for this series are the reclusive Jimmy Page, Jeff Beck and Eric Clapton plus Eric Burden, Peter Grant, Alan Price and founding members of the Yardbirds and the Animals. The Yardbirds doco directed by Martin Baker has early TV appearances with Clapton on guitar, excellent live material featuring Jeff Beck from a Jazz Festival and a NME Winners' Poll Concert and Page's 'Dazed & Confused' from French TV 1967. Peter Grant, Led Zeppelin manager, notes that he first met Page when Grant was producer Mickie Most's business partner and Page was a session player on hits by Donovan and Herman's Hermits. Though Beck is a man of few words, everything he says is frank and insightful. The focus on the UK scene

in the 60s is too often confined to the Beatles and the Rolling Stones or the Who, but the stories of the R&B bands, Yardbirds and the Animals are equally as riveting.

After five years on the road (1963-68), the founding Yardbirds, tired of endless routine of singles and tours, quit, while their new, young guitarist Jimmy Page founded Led Zeppelin a month later and an album era that the older Yardbirds would have relished but didn't forsee, replaced the focus on the hit single. The story of the Animals is a timeless story of management hassles and hustles, while the Cream doco, includes great interviews with Jack Bruce and Ginger Baker plus Jimi Hendrix doing 'Sunshine of Your Love'. Somehow all of Clapton's former collaborators (from the Yardbirds and Cream) offer more insight than he does, maybe they've spent more time thinking about the past. A highly recommended series. MURRAY CAMMICK THE KINKS Shindig Presents (ABC/Festival) BRITISH INVASION Vol.l Shindig Presents (ABC/Festival)

This 1960 s Los Angeles TV pop show has some excellent releases with USA singers such as Jackie Wilson, Jerry Lee Lewis, soul stars and the Righteous Brothers, usually performing live over backing tracks. Somehow the standards are not as high on the appearances by these British artists — many mime and many of those performing live can't. Gerry & the Pacemakers, who I always considered to be lightweights, shine besides the dire Billy J.Kramer, wimpy Peter & Gordon, the lacklustre Manfred Mann, the so bad he's good lan Whitcomb (is 'You Turn Me On' it a joke?) and the hilarious Lreddy & the Dreamers. Besides Gerry singing well (I wish I'd seen him when he played the pubs here a few years back), there's only a good mime from Honeycombs (fab song 'Have I the Right' and a woman drummer) and okay appearances by the Nashville Teens and the Searchers. However I'll treasure until the day I die the choreography of Freddy & the Dreamers 'l'm Telling You Now'. It makes Sid Vicious look like Des O'Connor. Was Freddy a master of lateral thinking or was he incapable of thinking? How the Kinks could appear on Shindig so many times with no apparent interest in being there is beyond me. Those crazy Davies brothers walk through mimesand live versions of their

classics including 'You Really Got Me' and 'All Day and All of the Night'. Biographies have already documented that offstage life was more exciting for the constantly bickering Kinks. MURRAY CAMMICK