Well, remember the name Micheal Pollack, as this kid just might have a future. Check out the video above, where Pollack, a student in the crowd during a Q&A with Billy Joel, asks if he can accompany Joel on piano while Joel sings his favorite song – “New York State of Mind.” The result is pretty awesome.
We’re thrilled to be able to feature this sexy slideshow of the lovely Krista Ayne. This model and actress has been all over the place, and you’ve probably seen her in the Pittsburgh Slim video below for “Girls Kiss Girls.”
Krista began her career as a 19-year-old model for Redken and she branched out from there. She has hosted Fuse TV’s popular “Pants Off Dance Off” and “10 Great Reasons” and Spike TV’s “Bikini Pool Shark.” Krista has also appeared on “The Howard Stern Show,” “The Daily Show,” Fox Business News and MTV along with a number of independent films.
This Italian-American actress has also appeared in a ton of music videos for everyone from 50 Cent and Usher to Lady Gaga and Bon Jovi, and she has appeared on 13 magazine covers.
It was not along ago that there were only a couple paths to the director’s chair on a studio lot. Many went to film school and did time toiling for Roger Corman, while others jumped over from another profession within the industry. (Joel Schumacher, for example, began as a costume designer.) In the ’80s, there suddenly was a new way to get into the game – use a music video as your calling card.
Now, of course, we’re at the point where people receive job offers after posting a clip to YouTube (Lasse Gjertsen, who made the live stop-motion clips “Hyperactive” and “Amateur,” has received several offers of employment, but has turned them all down), and the music video path is now a well-worn road. Indeed, there are two movies coming out in the next few weeks (“Never Let Me Go” and “The Social Network”) that were helmed by men who got their start telling rock stars to act like rock stars, which inspired us to take a look at the more prominent directors of the music video world and track their success. The lesson we learned: even when someone has so many small successes, it only takes one big disappointment to kill them. (Big, big shoutout to the good people at the Music Video Database for helping to clear the cob webs, as well as opening our eyes on just how prolific some of these directors were.)
Julien Temple
You know it’s a Julien Temple video when: The entire piece looks like it was filmed in one giant tracking shot. (Look closer – the edits are there.) Breakout video: ABC’s “Poison Arrow,” and the short film “Mantrap” the band made in conjunction with their (spectacular) album The Lexicon of Love. Big screen debut: Temple is the only one on this list whose feature film debut came before his music video debut, though some would argue – and we wouldn’t disagree – that the movie in question, the Sex Pistols “documentary” “The Great Rock ‘n Roll Swindle,” is actually just a long-form music video. Best Temple video you never saw: Paul McCartney, “Beautiful Night,” from Macca’s Flaming Pie album. Gorgeous, and the tune is a good one, too.
Russell Mulcahy
You know it’s a Russell Mulcahy video when: Dozens of extras are wearing body paint, or when a prop nearly kills Simon Le Bon. In slow motion. Breakout video: Mulcahy was arguably the first “name” director of the music video world, helping clips for Ultravox, Kim Carnes and the Tubes – and, let us not forget, the Buggles’ “Video Killed the Radio Star,” the first video MTV ever played – but it was the clip for Duran Duran’s“Hungry Like the Wolf,” along with the other videos he shot for the songs from Rio, that made him a household name…with music geeks like us, anyway. Big screen debut: “Razorback,” a monster movie about, yep, a bloodthirsty Australian pig. Mulcahy’s luck on the big screen changed two years later when he made the cult classic “Highlander”…then lost some luster when he made “Highlander II: The Quickening.” Best Mulcahy video you never saw: “The Flame,” the overlooked third single from Duran Duran spinoff group Arcadia. Le Bon is in full Barry Bostwick mode as he attends a fancy dinner party and the hosts try to kill him Agatha Christie-style.
From the moment that Lord Gerardo proposed the idea of a Friday video feature on this here blog, I blurted out, “You realize that I’m going to feature ‘This Beat Goes On/Switchin’ to Glide’ by the Kings once a month, right?” And G was totally down with that, as he loves that song as much as I do. The band’s guitarist Mister Zero even made a fantastic video of the band playing the song, culling 20 years of concert footage and even their appearance on “American Bandstand” into one incredible video. It would be perfect.
There is just one small problem:
Yep, in another brilliant display of Finders vs. Keepers, that clip is not available for embedding, or even allowed to be viewed at all on YouTube. For now, anyway. Hopefully they’ll be able to sort this out, because we’re dying to show you that clip. Fortunately, we have another clip that’s just as good. Fans of early MTV – as in first-year MTV, which was unlike any other year in the network’s history – will recognize this one. Happy Memorial Day weekend, everyone.
Back in the 1970’s when AOR radio ruled the world of rock music, WMMS in Cleveland was one of the biggest and most influential radio stations in the country, led by DJ and program director Kid Leo. Every Friday afternoon at 5:00, the station kicked off the weekend by playing Bruce Springsteen’s “Born to Run,” a tradition started by Kid Leo. Outside of New Jersey, Cleveland was a second home for The Boss and Kid Leo was his biggest fan. I remember discovering Springsteen’s music several days before The River hit the stores. Kid Leo got his hands on a copy and played the entire double album front-to-back five times throughout the day! I caught it in the afternoon, and then made sure to come back and listen after dinner for two more sessions. I was hooked.
As we thought about our new Happy Hour feature for Friday afternoons, adding a great song in the form of an embedded music video to the drink recipes, beer and cigar reviews and other Happy Hour features seemed like an obvious idea, and kicking it off with “Born to Run” with Bruce Springsteen made perfect sense.
So, enjoy the video, which was released back in 1985 to promote Springsteen’s live album. Bruce looks younger and Clarence looks like a character from one of those bad 80’s movies starring Andrew McCarthy. It’s probably the best live version of “Born to Run” I’ve heard, and the video (particularly the second half) captures the energy and fun of a typical Springsteen concert.
