A Music Video You Saw Only ONCE And Never Again

(Open message to Al: just give in, and release With Sympathy. Arista can't possibly care for the rights anymore. Just wallow in it... if you're going to charge $35 a head to see your bad ass act in small clubs, releasing an early new wave phase of your career can't be worse.)

I first discovered Black Flag through seeing this video one time on a syndicated, amateur Friday night video show in the mid 80s. I was excited because it was filmed at Pacific Palisades High School (where I lived but didn't go to school.. ooooh), had hot babes in slo-mo right in front of the high school entrance, had some freak getting his clothes ripped off miming Henry's vocals, and -- the best part -- had a bunch of indifferent punk rockers sitting in a classroom half-assing their lip syncing of the chorus, pointing their pencils at the camera, but laughing their asses off at the same time.

as well as the only other pavement video i've ever seen, which was probably "rattled by the rush" though i don't remember for sure.

but i am sure i never saw either of 'em again. if i remember correctly, both appeared to have been made on budgets of three to five dollars (including catering).

Saw it on the same video show around the same time. All I remember was that it apparently had the same budget as your typical SST records video at the time. The video would just zoom in and out of each member of the Bar-Kays, with that cool pout (who at the time looked somewhere between P-Funk and the Jonzun Crew) each wearing shades, nodding his head to the left twice, then nodding his head to the right, each measure of the jam. This was the entire video. nothing but zooms in and out, and perpetually nodding members of the Bar-Kays... I was entranced.

This time seen on another local DAYTIME video show.. "Video One" which was hosted by Richard Blade (yes, the L.A. Dave Kendall before Dave Kendall). I remember seeing a psychologist doing the intro bit being terrorized by Thomas Dolby and those very 80s video effects a la The Cars' "You Might Think". There was one part where Dolby was "thinking of things", and at one point, OMG breasts showed up! naughty naughty. also, somewhere things devolved, and a ventriquolist dummy in Dolby's image figures in and starts miming the high pitched chorus. Man, those videos were *ahead of their time*! *COUGH COUGH*

I barely remember anything about it, except one very VERY memorable part. There was this one part of the video that featured an anonymous blonde model who was looking somewhere off to the side, presumably at her boyfriend. And while the song crooned and riffed, this model would be miming defending herself in some romantic dispute. She'd be saying stuff, but you couldn't hear it. I imagine she was saying stuff like "No no you don't understand but i.... I mean, it wasn't like that! It was more like... oh, please listen to me, I was... I swear I didn't... I mean, can we just be friends, so we can...?"

It was in the latter part of a 120 minutes show. It was just a guy running in the snow on fast forward the entire video. The end.

I woke up and turned on MTV around 4am. It seemed to capture perfectly a middle of the night mood. I think of that story every time I've heard it since.

Another video that I saw once, and only once, was the one for Dinosaur jr's cover of "Just Like Heaven" with all of the "Sesame Street" puppets.

I'm still waiting to see Billy Joel's "She's Right on Time" again. My step-brother told me about it one weekend that I was visiting my dad, describing the Harold Lloyd situations that Joel went through trying to get his pad ready for his Christmas date. I called bullshit on my bro, but he swore up and down that he had seen it. Sure enough, years later, I caught it on VH1 Classics. Haven't seen it since, though I wish I could apologize to my step-brother for having doubted him.

There were about three different versions of this video. I'm not certain that I've seen the version you mentioned!

For me, I saw Buster Poindexter's "Hot Hot Hot" once in the late 80's. It had guest appearances from Bill Murray and some other celebs.

Speaking of breasts, I saw the naked boob-laden version of "P.I.M.P." only once, and I had to go to Germany in order to discover it! :)

My friend saw "Kome Kome War" by Kome Kome Club (sp?) during MTV2's year 2000 thing where they played every video in their library in alphabetical order, which started on New Years Day and ended around the middle of May I think. And he was raving to me about how amazing he thought it was, but he's never seen it since, and I've never seen it either.

Once and ONLY Once.

But it was the video where this young Asian kid is sitting at a white table, and the camera very very slowly pans back as he reverse-eats hot dogs.. making it look like he's very neatly and succinctly undigesting the wieners.. at the very end, you see the two members of the band on either side holding their arms, with long hair, looking very smug.

God Lives Underwater - "From Your Mouth"

pretty classic.

Back when MTV would play anything. All I remember is they all had chain mail.

In fact, I haven't even seen the whole video, just a couple of extraordinaril tantalising clips.

Suffice it to say that I would be prepared to offer my warm and softly yielding young body; for just about any vile, debased, depraved, obscenely biological, and probably illegal sexual practices that you can possibly imagine; to anyone who would be able to give me a copy of that video.

Failing that, my usual rates apply (although I think they're pretty competitive and I offer substantial discounts for advanced group and out-of-season bookings).

Oh yes indeed! 1000 yesses. Saw it twice, three times tops, 20 years ago and have never forgotten it. Maybe my favourite video EVAH!

Alex, that Belfegore clip was just on VH1 Classic a couple of weeks ago.
-- Rickey Wright (

!!!
And I missed it. Fuck! Oh well, I don't think I even get VH1 anyhow...

What in G-d's name were all those people running alongside? A beach or some other body of water? Had to be SOMEWHERE near NYC - the WTC towers were visible.

This video was actually recorded at "Cavershams" Nightclub, in Caversham, Reading.

I was given a free ticket to go along / join in but couldn't be arsed because (a) I'd never heard of Belouis Some and (b) Cavershams was (as a rule) full of tedious poseurs and definitely not one somewhere I'd normally have expected to feel welcome.

When I subsequently saw the video, I wanted to kicked myself very, very hard.

it's "Sonne" : http://www.clipland.com/Summary/701002288/ (possible popup hell, it's also on their Lichtspielhaus DVD if you want to see it again and again)

Yutaka Ozaki, "Freeze Moon". Classic video - the song was just-okay retro rock sung, of course, in Japanese. MuchMusic occasionally aired it late at night. I can't believe I remember this shit.

Yeah, I know they at least occaissionally play it. I caught literally the last two seconds of it a few months ago.

Stewart Osbourne, again, there's a few Slits vids on Emule: New Town, Typical Girls, and something called Don Letts Punk Rock Movie 1978 - The Slits. I've queued them and can put them on SSK in a few days.

Classic!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CD9jUKBnJRY&search=norman%20bates

Christmas - "Stupid Kids"

Only saw this once, never forgot it. The band in loincloths covered in white body paint, scrunched together in a tight shot lipsynching while a text crawl described an extremely elaborate video for the song. Another one of those genius shot-for-$5 videos shown during the last segment of 120 Minutes. VH1 started showing it again recently but I haven't caught it...

£1 in "Everything's Profound". Never played it again.

I remember thinking this is what taking acid must be like. Terence was in his Neither Fish Nor Flesh phase, so I imagine he'd know. Sadly, it's not on YouTube.

then i realised it was me last year and i'd already posted the thing i was going to post. fuck.

i remember seeing the video for "martin scorsese" once and only once too. i was enormously stoned and for a short while it was the best thing ever.

Also "B" by Colin Newman. Saw this once on the Multicoloured Swap Shop -of all places- in 1980-81, and it blew my tiny mind. 2-and-a-half minutes of total unhinged madness (musical & visual). Then after the video, Noel says "my, haven't the Nolan Sisters changed" or somesuch.

It IS KLF, I downloaded it but stupidly erased it (could upload it to YouTube if I hadn't). I think it was an instrumental version of "What Time Is Love?", I'm not sure.

Haha, I saw them live on some talk show when they were supporting their first record. Had the album, too. Obscure synth pop, right?

I love this video. Light Blue Cop, Lonnie Hendrix, The Kid In The Commercial, The Original Black Elvis, and I forgot his other alter-ego but there was definitely a 5th one.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JOprLduaS4A&search=kool%20keith

Wasn't this a Spike Jonze video? It was all shot in one take, during which Lucas BROKE HIS LEG and one-leg-hopped from set-to-set for the duration.

Also...

Ween "Push th' Little Daisies" and Morphine "Honey White", both on Beavis and Butthead.