BEHIND THE MUSIC EPISODE GUIDE
Part 2
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LEIF GARRETT (1/10/99) This is by far the greatest episode ever
of this seductive documentary series. A
marginally talented teen pop star who had trouble dealing with life when the
applause died, Leif Garrett’s story is interesting but familiar. But out of nowhere this tale takes a crazy
turn when we meet Leif’s buddy Roland Winkler, who we are told was a dancer – a
kid defined by the use of his legs. It
seems eighteen year-old Leif and young Roland were partying hard one night when
a drugged-up Garrett crashed his Porsche, crippling Winkler for life. As modern day Leif tells this sad story VH1
lets him know that they have arranged for a reunion with Winkler. Though Winkler is odd-looking, stringy-haired
and wheelchair-bound it becomes obvious instantly that he’s a winner (he’s a
together, mentally stable dude) and Mr. Garett is, in fact, the invalid. While this teary, intensely melodramatic
reunion is unbelievable TV what really makes this episode special is VH1’s
shameless dishonesty. At every turn the
show lets Leif explain how his drugged days are behind him and how he has
learned from his mistakes, but at least half of these statements are made with
slurred words and glassy eyes. For the Behind The Music story arc function he
has to be back on his feet and rising as the story ends, but the viewers (and
the producers) know that his new band wasn’t going to make it, that he still is
partying pretty hard and that he’s learned little from his past. But the TV audience has definitely learned
something from this program: If you want to make a riveting documentary all you
need to do is find a subject who severely injured his best friend twenty years
ago and hasn’t seen him since. (JA)
HEART (1/24/99) This is a wonderful
episode, because through stylistic changes, personnel changes, love life drama,
record label shenanigans and full compliance with the absurdities of changing
eras (they give in to MTV image makeovers without a flinch) and through thick
and thin (sorry) Ann and Nancy remain loyal, loving sisters. Through all the nuttiness they never broke up
as a duo and their chemistry not only is demonstrated by their actions but by
their music, and when they aren’t getting too musically schmaltzy (which is too
often) they kick ass! This story starts
off with the girls very young (thanks to great home movies and lots of photos)
and as they become more musical Nancy joins a pre-existing band called Heart
and falls in love with the guitarist’s crazy-eyebrowed, draft-dodging “Magic
Man” brother. They get signed to a label
and jump ship when the press material playfully implies that the sisters have
an incestuous sexual relationship.
However, years later when they become a power-ballad MTV band (as
opposed to the breathtaking rock band they were early on) they comply to pose
in suggestively sexual poses together.
They also go along with all these compromises to hide Ann’s weight gain
(one video just keeps showing her beautiful eyes and nothing else). BTM seems really concerned with dealing with
her weight gain, and I guess the fact that she happened to be a perfect,
amazing beauty at the time in the 70s when they were making their best songs
may be a reason that Heart fans might be jarred by the weight gain. However, they were selling more records than
ever in the 80s and the way their label treated them seemed more abusive than a
joking sex photo in a print ad. Luckily for their souls the hits stop coming
and they get to regain their integrity again.
Ultimately their love of each other is what this episode is about. But for fans of funny rock excess don’t miss
a scene where a guitarist/lover takes out his frustrations with his Wilson
woman on stage by destroying his guitar like a two year old having a tantrum in
an incident the band calls “The Great Kabong.” (JA)
DAY THE MUSIC DIED (2/3/99) I have to give credit to VH1
at how tasteful this episode is. This BTM focuses on the 1959 plane crash
that claimed the lives of Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and the Big Bopper; no
scandal, no dirty laundry, total respect. Even the more somber BTMs, like the
Mamas & Papas, walk to the very edge of being a video National Enquirer, but here they left their gossip detector at the
door. This was apparently done with the full cooperation of the artists'
families, as we're treated to rare candids and home movies. There's one odd
shot of the Big Bopper with Bob Hope, and the color home movies of Buddy Holly
with the Crickets are clearer than the fuzzy black-and-white clip of the same
band on Ed Sullivan's show. Featuring exclusive interviews with most of
those who were there: Waylon Jennings (at the time Holly's bassist who
gave up his seat to the Big Bopper on the plane), the "Donna" that
Ritchie Valens wrote the same-name song about, Tommy Allsup from the Crickets,
and various others. Naturally, they had to interview Don McLean, who authored
"American Pie" as a Holly tribute (as tired as I am of this
song, McLean's comments are on target). They also
get some surprisingly relevant quotes from actors Lou Diamond Phillips (who
played Valens in the movie La Bamba)
and Gary Busey (who played the title role in The Buddy Holly Story. It's
not like this 90's Motown documentary I once saw, where they interviewed
these modern soul performers who evidently had no clue why that label was so
influential. Phillips and (especially) Busey weren't just actors playing roles,
they knew the impact of what Valens and Holly brought to the table. Add the Big
Bopper to that lineup (and his lookalike son) and you have a BTM that does its
subjects full justice. (JP)
DEPECHE MODE (2/28/99)
If it weren’t for the pathetic antics of lead singer Dave Gahan, then it’s
unlikely Depeche Mode would ever have made it into BTM’s hall of shame. Recruited by geeky classmates Vince Clark,
Martin Gore, and Andrew Fletcher to lend their synthesizer band a bit of his
prettyboy cool, Gahan’s ego soon edged founder Clark out of the group (though
Vince doesn’t seem the least bit upset about it today, having enjoyed
mega-success with Yaz and Erasure).
Between Gore’s songwriting, Gahan’s fey charisma, and Anton Corbin’s
distinctive videos (which provide some very stylish source material for BTM’s
editors), the group conquered the British charts and eventually overcame America’s aversion to a quartet of un-macho men in bondage
gear playing synthesizers. Their
triumphant 1988 concert for an arm-waving crowd at a sold-out Pasadena Rose
Bowl (well documented onstage and backstage by D.A Pennebaker) provides both
the narrative turning point and visual centerpiece of the episode. Whereas the
rest of the band chose to lead quiet, respectable English lives with steady
girlfriends, wives, and children (and are thereby relegated to bit players in
BTM’s version of events), Gahan felt compelled to back up the group’s platinum
sales with some bona-fide rock star depravity.
Leaving his wife and kid (never interviewed) in the UK to marry a bad-news junkie groupie in LA (also not
interviewed), Gahan quickly becomes a standard-issue rock n’ roll waste
case. Lucky for him, he survived to
lament his days of scuzzy, long-haired slumming in a series of sober, clean-cut
interviews. Montages of needles and
hotel rooms lead to the squirm-inducing revelation that, at one point in the
late 90s, Gahan actually died (clinically) for somewhere between two and five
minutes. Upon his resuscitation, Dave
decides it’s time to clean up, divorces his addict second wife, and climbs
aboard the rehab wagon. Two albums
later, DM remains commercially and creatively viable, and upbeat about their
future as a group (though their best rock n’ roll stories are probably behind
them). Though Depeche Mode’s sleek, minimal synthpop makes for a refreshing
change from BTM’s usual soundtrack of rock and hip-hop, and its artsy videos
are easier on the eyes than still pictures of Led Zeppelin’s ugly mugs, the
band’s story doesn’t make for compelling rock drama. The fact that Gahan led a normal, well-adjusted
life and didn’t do anything naughty until already at the height of his fame
just makes him appear spoiled, selfish, and stupid. Even his suicide attempts are made pitiful by
his admission that none of them were serious (“I always made sure there’d be
someone around to pick me up off the floor”).
Call me callous, but watching some rich bastard ditch his family to
dabble in drugs, slit his wrists for attention (as if the adulation of millions
weren’t attention enough), then get clean at some posh rehab center just
doesn’t resonate with me. But at least
there was plenty of eye and ear candy to make up for the lack of emotional
weight. (EH)
TEMPTATIONS – This episode was announced but never aired.
GRAND FUNK RAILROAD (3/99) This is one
of my favorite bands ever and this episode celebrates dumb, working class guys
making stupid, fun rock as well as any BTM.
It also has the evil rock businessman villain who rips the band off
mercilessly cast perfectly with Terry Knight packing his wallet with all of
Grand’s grands. A ridiculous lawsuit
ends with Knight owning their entire back catalogue, but unlike Steppenwolf’s
episode (which has one band member finagle the back catalogue from the others)
this has a happy ending as the Railroadsters have their biggest hit after
getting their publishing back. That actually was a happy middle, because the
real happy ending has GFR reuniting in the late 90s and playing to packed
houses. More importantly, they actually
sound awesome! Mark may be born again,
and the drummer may look like your uncle who has been through hard times, but
when the beer goggles clear there they stand, An American Band triumphant! (JA)
IGGY POP (3/14/99) All the sordid
details, from his humble beginnings in a trailer park, to becoming an ace
student in high school, to eventually dropping out after one semester of
College to become a Blues drummer in Chicago (Bob Koester of Delmark Records,
who once housed young James/Iggy in The Jazz Record Mart basement, wasn’t
quoted), and eventually form the musical mutation known as The Stooges, whose
saga comprises most of this program. It's all here; drug addiction, self
mutilation, vomiting, taking a dump on stage, prodigious sexual indulgences and
other delights. Of course, most of this is dumbed down for the sake of more
sensitive viewers, or so we're led to believe, but the lack of
over-sensationalism is actually admirable. The documentary states that it is
what it is, and doesn’t pass judgment when discussing Iggy's
"indiscretions.” Iggy, however, takes great relish in talking about what a
bad boy he's been, accentuating each naughty story with a good, hearty laugh.
There's another side to Iggy, however, as we see with his relationship with his
son, Eric. We learn quickly that, though he tried, Iggy proved an incompetent
parent at the height of his drinkin' and druggin' days. This will surprise
absolutely no one, but we get a better understanding of how, in the course of
several years of hanging out, traveling together, and (unfortunately), sharing some
bad habits, Iggy and Eric start to bond, and become both friends and the Father
and Son they hadn’t really been earlier. Today, Eric is drug-free, and works
with his dad on the road. The Stooges'
segment is littered with glorious early footage and rare photos, commentary by
(Stooges guitarist and drummer) Ron and Scott Asheton plus the elusive later
guitarist, James Williamson. They all look remarkably well, Williamson's
straight appearance being the REAL shocker here. Basically, the three are open and honest
about the difficulties of working with Iggy and being in a band that seemingly
nobody wanted, without running Iggy OR The Stooges down. Dave Alexander's life
and death is barely eluded to, and others who served - Steven MacKay, Jimmy Recca, Scott Thurston, Billy Cheatham and the late
Zeke Zettner - aren’t even mentioned, though a couple of them turn up in group
photos. Inevitably, The Stooges bottom out. Iggy is hit the hardest, though
Scott and James also had heroin habits. After several abortive comeback
attempts (including an association with Ray Manzarek which sparked rumors of a
revamped Doors lineup with Iggy filling Jim Morrison's leather trousers), David
Bowie (also interviewed here) makes yet another attempt to salvage Iggy's
career, woodshedding with him in Berlin, producing two solo Iggy albums with a
cold, frequently depressing, though still danceable, mood about them, and
stepping out of the spotlight to join Iggy's live band on keyboards. Iggy
doesn’t completely kick the drugs and alcohol, and his records run the gamut
from New Wave friendly Rock n’ Roll (particularly on "New Values,” his
brief reconciliation with James Williamson), to flirtations with Pop material
(The Tommy Boyce produced "Party " LP) to the downright
self-indulgent ("Zombie Birdhouse" and it's subsequent, often
disastrous, tour invited rumors of retirement and speculations of impending
death). Eventually, The Ig lands back on his feet, scores a hit with David
Bowie's version of their collaborative effort, "China Girl,” as well as an
American hit single, a first for Iggy, with Aussie Johnny O'Keefe's Rockabilly
classic (which The Crickets and Jerry Lee Lewis had previously covered),
"Real Wild One" (a.k.a "Real Wild Child"), which didn’t
rock nearly as hard as it should have, but it put him back on the map in a big
way. Iggy's real strength has always been his live show, and in the last
fifteen-plus years, he's never failed to deliver high-energy sets that evoke
the spirit (and a sizeable chunk of the songbook) of The Stooges, without
falling into a nostalgia trap. He's been remarried (his first, however brief,
marriage isn’t touched upon, here), divorced, and managed to stay clean. He was
nearly reunited with The Stooges in 1996 (something also not eluded to by BTM),
continues to make fine records, and, of course, there was the surprisingly low
key invasion in 2003 by the surviving classic Stooges lineup, which hit even
the most jaded scenesters in the head like Thor's hammer. I, for one, still have to pick my jaw up off
the floor when asked to bear witness to The Stooges' recent hometown
onslaught. Reportedly, more tours, and
even a new Stooges LP (They recorded four great tracks for Iggy's latest
release, "Skull Ring") are in the works. As Ron Asheton himself says
during the end credits, "You gotta respect the man (Iggy), he keeps on
keepin' on!”(JB)
VANILLA ICE (3/28/99) This is a great episode because, to start with, Ice is more handsome
and charismatic now than when he was a huge star. Contrasted with episodes featuring old,
wrinkled, doughy versions of stars this is pretty striking. It also is interesting because it involves a
huge fall from #1 in the world to nowhere without any actual wrongdoing. Sure, he made up some backstory, but so what?
One element of Ice’s story that always really irks me is that he gets destroyed
because his silly stories of Miami street life as a teen get
debunked. Anyone who followed Vanilla
Ice knows that he is a bold braggart who is loose with tall tales and
ridiculous boasts, but these aren’t lies about important, real things. Someone like the New York Times journalist Jayson Blair, who fabricated and
plagiarized information about major crimes and then presented them as facts in
“the paper of record” is a heinous, dangerous liar who must be stopped. Discovering whether or nor Rob Van Winkle
ever won a motocross trophy or went to high school with the 2 Live Crew doesn’t
seem like valuable investigative journalism.
I fact it seems to go against the entire braggadocio nature of Hip Hop. On the other hand, the fact that Ice is a
tall tale teller, and that he can tell conflicting stories and sound convincing
both times (accounts of his run in with Suge Knight over royalties is the
perfect example) is a little problematic for a documentary that is supposed to
be telling the “real” story. But I think
what makes Ice interesting is that he obviously was damaged from the get-go
despite his big ego. Suffering from some
chemical imbalances, having a poor relationship with his father and being
thrust to far greater heights than he expected or deserved set him up for a
fall. But his fall wasn’t Hammer’s,
because Ice amazingly kept his money.
But he did get depressed, use drugs and attempt suicide at a party. Ice emerged a stronger dude, getting into
Rap-Rock, taking extreme sports to the extreme, and getting married and having
a kid (he also became Christian, which doesn’t get the mention here it
deserves). I guess the final word goes
to Lenny Kravitz, who concludes, “What can I say. He’s a cool cat.” Timeless sentiment worthy of a Vanilla Ice
lyric. (JA)
JACKIE
WILSON – This episode never aired but
I think it was made. For about a year it
was listed in the VH1 upcoming schedule every time there was a hole (maybe an
episode wasn’t done on time or something) and then always pulled at the last
minute. (JA)
DURAN DURAN (4/4/99) After selling 60 million records Duran
Duran has been through some wild times, and it has taken a toll on their
faces. Cutting from an early 80s
appearance on MTV with Andy Warhol to contemporary interviews shows that how
Andy looked then, they look now. But, oh
the life they led that earned those wrinkles!
The stage banter that Simon LeBon uttered when he first took the big
stage rings true even today, “This is our party…THIS IS YOUR PARTY!” Though there is ebbing fame and though all
three members named Taylor
eventually quit, this isn’t really a rock & roll tale of devastation and
sorrow. Their adventures as music video
pioneers include wacky stories about runaway elephants and windmills gone amok,
which certainly don’t count as tragedy.
There are mentions of drugs, and a leisurely boating accident, but
basically everyone comes out of this story in good shape with a lot of good
times behind them. Despite little sorrow
in it, this is still a good BTM, if only because the Durans are proud divas
happy to tell their grand tale. (JA)
CHER (4/11/99) Haven’t we seen pretty much all of Cher’s
life through television? The small
screen has shown us Cher’s love, split, mourning, and
acceptance, and that’s just for the asspants!
Of course, her initial ambition wasn’t for singing but for the silver
screen. “I Got You Babe” goes to the top
of the pops and the British press eats it up when Sonny & Cher’s attire
gets them kicked out of the London Hilton in ’65. By 1967, irrelevance forces them to consider
other options, and interestingly, their daughter is named after the film
failure that bankrupted them in 1968.
The lounge circuit follows and in 1971, CBS’s Fred Silverman enjoys the
show at the Americana in New
York. A
chapter in television history follows.
The weeklong show tapings and weekend tours wear her down, and the Comedy Hour is only starting its second
season when Cher considers leaving the man and the show. The façade can only go for so long before the
cancellation, separation and divorce.
Solo Sonny’s show bombs, while careerist Cher
goes to the top in Bob Mackie’s outrageous costumes. With hubby Greg Allman’s drug problems
overwhelming her, Cher calls in Sonny for a televisual
comeback. Cher’s second divorce and trip
around the lounge circuit follow, but stage, movies, an Oscar and well
paparazzi’d relationships follow. Even though
Gene Simmons is in the picture, I’ll take Elijah Blue Allman’s picture of Mom’s
boyfriends: “I probably got along best with Val. He gave me a human scalp for my birthday, and
from then on, I just loved him.” She’s
found someone, and you know it’s a moment of media catharsis when even Cher’s
mom throws guilt at the cameras for hating on “bagel boy” Rob Cavaletti. Chastity coming out of the closet and plastic
surgery make the tabloids. Regains
momentum in 1989 with “Turn Back Time” video and the resulting tour, but
crashes due to fatigue. Really sells out
when she does a haircare infomercial for a friend. David Letterman reunites Palm
Springs mayoral candidate Sonny with big hair Cher. Unbeknownst to her, CNN televises her tearful
eulogy at Sonny’s funeral, and BTM treats this as one of Cher’s
most important performances ever. The
triumphant story ends with Cher, ever the survivor,
coming back with “Believe,” topping charts worldwide and inspiring the Rapture.
(EB)
TLC (4/18/1999)
Made before there was an actual tragic death in the band this show is super
famous for one sequence: “Left Eye” Lopes breaks down record company economics
to explain how a multi-million selling artist can be broke. Lisa was the woman that made TLC
interesting: she was cocky, bold and crazy, and not in a crazysexycool way but
in a loose cannon way where she could go buck wild at any second. Her involvement in the band assured that they
would have a crazy ride, and they did.
This episode opens with some great stuff, as we see former pop singer
Pebbles assemble a group of teens to be a wacky hip hop act. One of the most popular parts of a BTM is
meeting the member who quit or was kicked out just before the band made it and
this episode definitely features that girl.
There is also drama with T-Boz’s health and there is even a super
memorable family drama that involves one of those sleazy talk show
“reunions.” But what this really comes
down to is the little bit where Lopes, sitting alone on a couch (it is clear
that she is kind of hated by and kind of hates her band mates so she is alone
for her interviews) explains how record companies charge bands for videos,
tours, recording, transportation, etc. etc. etc., doing simple arithmetic until
millions of dollars is reduced to a deficit.
She doesn’t mention that part of the band’s debt involved losses of a
mansion she burned down on purpose because she was mad at her man (she calmly
describes the incident…apparently you can’t burn your husband’s clothes in an
expensive tub). Also, many industry people believe that the TLC bankruptcy was
cooked to break their contract with Pebbles.
Regardless, Lopes’ personality made this one of the most compelling
BTM’s, and her death in an auto accident a few years later was tragic but not
shocking; she clearly was too much for this world. (JA)
JULIAN
LENNON (4/25/99) You’d think your father dying was enough to provide
the tragedy and story arc for a BTM but this is a chilling episode about
profound bitterness and unhappiness.
Lennon’s father abandoned him and his mom for Yoko and (subsequently)
Sean (his son with Yoko) and that messed
Julian’s head up. Couple that with
sharing his father’s face but having much different talents musically and you
have a life filled with uncomfortable moments and unfair comparisons. Julian,
to say the least, did not take any of this in stride. While this BTM is light on huge, important
moments it is heavy on vividly portraying Julian’s attitude and it is pretty
chilling. This is a thought-provoking
portrait of a fucked up guy. (JA)
ALICE COOPER (5/2/99) This episode
satisfies on all levels, dealing with The Coop's unlikely teenage beginnings as
both a Mad magazine-fueled wiseass
and a letterman in track, not to mention one of the most popular kids at Cortez
High School in Phoenix ("I RAN that school,” he says), and going into
detail about the very early beginnings of The Alice Cooper Group, the
metamorphoses they underwent, and their eventual downfall. We're treated to
amazing photos of The Earwigs, basically a talent show Beatle parody, The
Spiders, a snarling Teen- Punk band influenced heavily by The Yardbirds (whom
they once shared a stage with. A photo of the marquee from that show - with The
Spiders' name at the top! - awaits your
drooling perusal), on to The Nazz, which quickly became "Alice
Cooper" after Todd Rundgren (who'd later flirt with Glam Rock trappings,
but with a much more sedate brand of Rock music) laid legal claim to the name
for his seminal late-60's Powerpop/Psych outfit. Coincidentally, David Bowie,
the only recognized contender for Alice's
Shock-Rock crown (even though the two were actually good friends, and didn’t
see themselves as competitors), called his own band, what else.....? The
Spiders. Bowie and Marc Bolan even
formed a short-lived "Supergroup” in 1970 called Dib Cochran and THE
EARWIGS. The footage of Alice Cooper
circa '68/'69 lip-synching to "Reflected,” from their first LP, and clips
from The 1969 Toronto Rock n’ Roll Revival (many other performances from this
festival have been officially released,. but when is Alice Cooper's set, AND
Gene Vincent's, backed by The Alice Cooper Group, going to be made
available?!), are nothing short of staggering....and, oh, yes, you get to see
Alice inadvertently throw a chicken to it's death, believing it to be capable
of flight. Band mentor, Frank Zappa, urged Alice
not to dump all the free publicity by admitting it wasn’t intentional. The incident inspired numerous
"Gross-Out Contest" stories, involving Alice and/or Zappa, that have
become some of Rock's most popular "Urban Legends.” The REAL Alice Cooper
story is conveyed by the original surviving members of The Alice Group, all of
whom are careful to get their points across without ragging on each other. As
luck would have it, this program was completed shortly before the original
group, barring the late Glen Buxton, did a one-off performance at Cooperstown,
Alice's Phoenix-based, now-nationally franchised restaurant and bar (the recent
opening in Cleveland of a Cooperstown has sparked rumors of a Chicago franchise
in the works, but you didn’t hear that from me). This program drops the ball on
the problems other band members had with drink and drugs (though The Coopers
were ostensibly drug-free, this WAS the early 70s, fer chrissake), particularly
Buxton's tragic battle with the same demons, which is barely alluded to, though
it's quite possible that it was a mutual decision to focus on Alice, the public
figure (Public Animal #9 to you), and his own (long since cured)
alcoholism. Through it all, we witness
the mutation of what one underground paper called a "Five - headed
woman-child,” Alice Cooper, from their 1971 commercial breakthrough to several
consistently strong, chartbreaking LPs and singles, the phenomenally successful
tours that accompanied them, and their breakup at the height of their
popularity. Alice
was keen to bring in even more theatrics, which the others protested. Alice,
in turn, scoffed at the band's suggestion that they should take a break, work
on solo albums, and regroup at a later date.
By late 1974, it was all over for The Alice Cooper Group. The solo
albums, while now sought-after collectors' items, died on the vine. Alice
obtained the legal rights to his famous stage name, and resurfaced with the
wildly successful "Welcome To My Nightmare" LP, tour, TV special and
feature film. For all of "Nightmare's" campy pleasures, Riff without
The Jets just wasn’t the same. The remaining group members (Glen Buxton
excluded) would later emerge as The Billion Dollar Babies, with an ignored
(though quite good) album and an aborted U.S. tour. Still, as we move into the next phase of The
Strange Case of Alice Cooper, we see a gradual downslide further into
alcoholism, a general apathy about his singing, and an inability to profitably
reinvent himself for the new Rock audiences, BUT, we also see something
extraordinary happen. Alice
falls in love. His (still!) beautiful wife, Cheryl, proves to be a June Carter
to his Johnny Cash, loving him through the roughest times, but refusing to let
him give up on himself. His admission to a mental facility in the late 70s
(Alice later stated that he thought he was in a proto-Betty Ford dryout center,
but found himself surrounded by real, live murderers and sundry other
criminally insane types) is covered here, as is his falling off the wagon after
many years of sobriety, almost losing his life, then pulling the ultimate
Lazarus trick - not only making a full recovery and cleaning up for good, but
getting his career back on track. Eventually, Alice
would become a popular live attraction once more, and his records began to
chart again, and he became a more powerful singer than anyone had a right to
expect. Alice reinvented himself by
pulling from past strengths in a manner comparable to his old pal and rival,
Iggy Pop. His is a story that has a happy end, even though it's far from over.
His marriage is one of the rare success stories in Rock, and his
ever-supportive parents have lived to see him turn his life around. Alice
Cooper is putting on one of the greatest shows of his life, somewhere, right
now, as you read this, and if that don't suit ya, that's a drag. (JB)
BLACK CROWES (5/9/1999)
You know how when you talk to a total pothead he thinks you are having a super
interesting conversation but it is actually really boring. This hazy, smoke filled episode is like that,
with the only fire not lighting a joint coming from some good old fashioned
brotherly hate between the Robinsons.
The best part is the description of a series of recording sessions where
totally stoned Chris records all day and his brother comes in at night and
erases everything he did. Also sweet is
that their dad was a goofy pop singer and they show him doing a novelty song on
a 50s Dick Clark show. (JA)
TOM PETTY (5/16/99)
I found this episode pretty unmemorable.
I like Petty and his music but I think he is a “music speaks for itself”
guy and he does himself no favors being his own spokesman. He’s not unpleasant or unintelligent, he’s
just a little dull. This is one of those
BTM’s where all the tragedy and ugliness involves crooked record company
economics and bankruptcy. Which isn’t
boring in itself, but he’s no Hammer or Willie Nelson, his going broke compared
to them is like your bike getting a flat compared to the Skynard crash. (JA)
MARIANNE FAITHFULL (5/23/99) An odd choice for a profile,
Faithfull is most “notorious” to Americans for an incident involving less
nudity and drugs than the Superbowl, and in America
she’s known less as a musical figure than as a drugged out Mick Jagger
associate. However, this show was
interesting because older, wiser Marianne Faithfull is a remarkably dignified,
eloquent figure, recalling events and mistakes with style and strength rarely
seen on this series. While it didn’t
make me run out and buy her torch song albums I would say this program made me
a fan. (JA)
RED HOT
CHILI PEPPERS (5/30/99) This episode works for an unexpected reason. There was a drug overdose death of the
original guitarist and that clearly should be the big moment, but it doesn’t
work out like that. This band is made up
of characters that are incredibly charismatic and self-destructive but also
very intelligent and articulate, so that should be what makes this work, but it
kind of doesn’t. There was a lot of sex
and nudity, and that should be the key to this, but no dice. Instead what shines through this episode is
the fascinating story of the truly unique, eccentric, gentle, odd genius
guitarist John Frusciante who joins the band twice and is such a weird guy that
the bandmates and the documentarians never seem fully sure what to make of
him. He certainly deserved an entire
episode to himself, because he is as magnetic and enigmatic as they come. Comedian Neil Hamburger does an entire set of
RHCP heroin jokes, and I expected this show to be one long heroin joke. But this episode ends up being less about
the ugly savage damage of horse and more about the way chemicals and the world
damaged, yet left oddly preserved, this special musician who inexplicably gets
to do his thing in a stadium rock band. (JA)
ERIC BURDON AND THE ANIMALS (6/13/99) While Burdon was a willing
interview, and while his days from the Animals to WAR and beyond were sort of
interesting, this seemed a bit half-hearted as the show never really found its
focus or footing. You get a good sense
of Burdon’s arrogance and attitude but never really get swept into a Behind The Music story arc. (JA)
DONNA SUMMER (6/20/99) Donna used this episode to relaunch her
career and become the grande dame of
Disco, and it worked. She certainly
earned it, by surviving an odd career that began with a disturbing cocktail of
musical theater, weird white Euro-boyfriends and creepy German producers. Not to be hard on Giorgio Morodor, he is one
of my heroes, and seeing mature, less hairy Giorgio talk soberly today is my
favorite part of this show. But I in no
way believe that the adult that calmly discusses those days has anything to do
with the man who was living large in the decadent days of Disco. Donna defends allegations of her denouncing
AIDS sufferers, is let off the hook by not being made to defend her recurring
role as Urkel’s nerdy cousin, and seems to be very comfortable today as a
mother and family person. (JA)
LENNY
KRAVITZ (6/27/99) This episode is kind of bunk, but like Lenny
himself, despite not being great it is still fun if you let yourself be a
sucker. Kravitz has had a successful
career by not actually making music that sounds good but rather by making music
that sounds like it sounds good. It’s
the same thing when he talks in his pseudo-spiritual, new age-ish jargon - it makes sense unless you think about it
(he is topped only by ex-wife/true love Lisa Bonet’s who is so spiritual she
almost isn’t speaking English). While
there are a few good moments in this episode about a Hollywood kid whose dad
bought him a rock career, the best way to watch this episode is to just
appreciate how pretty Lenny is and leave it at that. The real reason I consider
this episode a winner, however, is because it ends with perhaps the greatest
quote in the history of BTM. Jeff Ayeroff,
a former Virgin Records executive, who pontificate, “Ultimately, bottomline,
after everything – after all the fashion is gone, after all the good looks,
after all the muscles in his stomach and all the nipple rings…of life, Lenny
Kravitz is a brilliant musician.” I’m
pretty sure Lenny went on to name his next album “The Nipple Rings of Life.”
(JA)
“WEIRD AL” YANKOVIC (7/4/99)
For a man who admits he has no major vices - no costly cocaine habits or love
affairs with his bass player's wife (or
husband) - they still managed
to make this an engrossing episode. VH1 knows how musical parodist Weird Al
fits into the music continuum, tracing his lineage back to Spike Jones and
featuring Stan Freberg and radio host Dr. Demento as interviewees. The closest
thing to real muckraking is the flap with Coolio, who complained that Weird Al
dared to lampoon something as serious as “Gangsta's Paradise"
as "Amish Paradise" - without his permission. (Coolio: "This
isn't 'Beat It!'") Weird Al is incredibly apologetic about the mistake,
although Stevie Wonder obviously didn't mind. What BTM didn't tell you is that
Coolio nicked his song from Stevie's "Pastime Paradise." Watch for the scene where
comedian Emo Phillips proudly displays his thirty-cent residual check from his role
in Al's movie UHF - while the camera
zooms in close, Emo is censoring his home address with his thumb... (JP)
POISON (7/11/99) Poison’s Behind
the Music is just as forgettable as their radio hits. These guys truly give glam a bad name. VH1’s motives in making Poison’s BTM episode are pretty transparent: the
episode obviously makes fun of the band, as evidenced by the parade of music
writers, critics and DJs who ruthlessly disparage Poison’s music on
camera. It’s unclear, however, whether
the band is in on the joke—they actually seem to take themselves somewhat
seriously. The best part of the show—and
the band—is unquestionably guitarist C.C. DeVille. It appears that C.C. had been working on his
punk rock posturing long before Poison even turned up on his radar—his
scratchy, nasal, Krusty the Clown-soundalike voice, affected swagger, Johnny
Rotten hairdo and carefully chosen wardrobe all suggest that he might have fit
in just as well in an actual L.A. rock band from the same era. He’s either slightly more authentic than his
bandmates or a whole lot more affected, it’s hard to say which (not that it
matters). The episode loses all meaning
when C.C. quits Poison, though it recovers slightly upon his return from his
self-proclaimed “drugs sex bachelor fuck-pad.”
Regrettably, watching this episode will entail sitting through “Every
Rose has its Thorn.” (EF)
QUIET RIOT (7/18/99)
This episode shouldn’t be good, but it is.
Even though QR didn’t do much other than have some really big selling
hits at the dawn of Hair Metal they did do something that makes the story
work. They had a lead singer, Kevin
Dubrow, who was into making everyone in Metal hate him for his obnoxious
arrogance. What a great story element;
the asshole who was too much of an asshole for the world of assholes! But what
really makes this episode crazy is not what is in Dubrow’s head but what is on
it. One of the boldest things about
Quiet Riot was that in the “Hair” metal era he was boldly prematurely bald and
it didn’t reduce his power at all.
However, in the BTM contemporary interviews he has a head of bizarre,
thick, black curly hair that looks like it came out of a soft-serve ice cream
machine. It resembles sleeping
snakes. He is the Medusa of the 80s
Metal revival! In addition to his
curious coils, there is something else great about this and similar BTMs. When the show begins to cover the 80s rock
band guys they are different from the 70s rock band guys because they don’t
come from the 60s in the same way. You
start to see working class, ethnic white regular dudes who rarely get a voice
on TV. I really like “meeting’ these
guys and they say a lot about what Rock and its fans are about. (JA)
NATALIE COLE (7/25/99)
While Cole mostly made MOR R&B, and later inoffensive adult contemporary
pop, she actually may be the hardest drugging BTM subject of them all. While you would love her father’s
inattentiveness to be the root of all problems, because you want to have his
famous self be a major character, in fact it seems that it is her proper,
bourgeois, arrogant, and seemingly downright insane mother who is the villain
here. We also learn that her rock star
drug habits may indicate which way her music might have went. She went to college to become a psychologist
but started taking LSD and singing professionally and soon quit her doctor
plans as she was way into rock music.
She gets no label interest for her rock band, but when she hooks up with
soulful songwriters she gets a contract.
And the drugs keep coming. She
recalls thinking (as she contemplated horse use) “I can just see the headline
now, ‘Nat King Cole’s daughter overdoses from heroin.’” At one point when the
drugs got her in trouble she hid coke in a police car seat and tried to
memorize the car number to go back and get it later. She also, with a bit of pride, declares that
she was a genuine expert at
freebasing. Though making nice, mature
Black pop (written by her husband at the time, Marvin Yancey, whom she has a
son with) she kept her rock star vibe going with outfits that made KISS look
tame and would make Janet Jackson blush.
A crazy magenta jump suit with huge sleeves, a bizarre rainbow dress,
and about ten other get ups that all feature no bra and plenty of skin make for
an amusing journey through 70s fashion. After a supposedly successful 80s rehab she
recovers her career with a hit (an awful cover of Springsteen’s “Pink
Cadillac”) and then is positioned for her big move, her ghostly duet with her
father’s disembodied vocal tracks.
Actually, their voices do sound nice together on the record, and it sold
zillions (flip flopping with Metallica for #1 on the charts). Even her crazy, mentally abusive mother
seemed to like the record. But later we
learn (as she states in the same passionless, bitchy, high-falutin’ voice she
uses throughout to subtly put down Natalie) that she is suing her children for
a larger part of Nat’s estate. This is a
profoundly old woman, who I assume will leave her estate to her kids when she
dies (which will be soon) and she is suing them to get the money now! That is nuts.
Unfortunately, one theme here is that Natalie had a bad mother and
became (because of being an absentee addict mom) a bad mother. But her musician son is loyal and loving to
his mom and it seems there is hope for their future. (JA)
MELISSA
ETHERIDGE (8/1/99) I didn’t know that much about Etheridge so there was
some juicy stuff here. Sure I knew that
she and her partner had David Crosby donate sperm for their insemination (and
though they express admiration for his talent I still can’t believe a drug
addict would be the healthiest DNA provider) but what I never knew was that
Melissa made a cuckold out of La Bamba
star Lou Diamond Phillips by stealing his woman. Juicy gossip aside this is a pretty tame BTM,
as Etheridge seems to have just been a very hard worker who made it because
people admired her talent (Island Records’ honcho Chris Blackwell says he
thought he was signing the next Bruce Springsteen). The BTM shows some class and dignity in
regards to treating Ms. Etheridge as a singer who is gay rather than some gay
who sings. (JA)
WOODSTOCK (8/8/99)
What is interesting here is that obviously there is no need for a documentary
to document Woodstock – Woodstock was perhaps the most famous music documentary/concert
film ever. So this is the story of the
corporate wranglings of the Woodstock
business people, not of the artists or musicians or fans. One of the very interesting things here is
the concert finally turns a profit decades later with all the “branding” of the
Woodstock idea and logo.
This goes up to the Woodstock II concert but not the nightmarish
Woodstock 99. (JA)
BAY CITY ROLLERS (8/15/99) The first "Behind The Music " I ever saw was the
very best episode (in my estimation), and has been the standard by which I
measure all others. It was the one with
the BAY CITY ROLLERS. Let me be clear: I
have no love for the Bay City Rollers. I think they're actually kind of
horrible. But their story is so twisted in the most quintessential rock n' roll
fashion, that I simply haven't been able to forget it. In truth, the exact
facts about the band's history are a little hazy to me now, but the chronology
goes something like this: In the early 1970s, a neophyte Scottish pop band
seeks to hit it big by naming themselves after something American. They stick a
pin in a map of the U.S.; it lands on Bay City, MI. For whatever reason, they
agree this is a good name for their band: the Bay City Rollers. Having never
been to America, they have no idea Michigan is a shithole. -- Because
they are Scottish and have little else to draw upon culturally, they wear an
abundance of tartan plaids in hideous colors, like green and yellow. They sport
Sean Cassidy haircuts, which, to this writer's deepest regret, would make a
comeback in 2004 among annoying art-school snots. -- They sing irresistible
pop: surefire Top of the Pops ear candy. Predictably, adolescent girls go crazy
for the clean image and easy-to-hum songs, and the Bay City Rollers are sudden
teen idols. (To use the British street lingo: the "birds"
"fancy" these "lads.") -- The overbearing manager who
helped shape the band refuses to allow the members to have girlfriends. Despite
their public pledges of abstinence from alcohol and drugs, it seems the poor
Bay City Rollers receive no female affection during this time -- a period of
their lives in which they could've
had unholy three-ways
with any girls of their choosing every night of the week. A terrible shame. --
Despite sell-out concerts, alarmingly frenzied street scenes and rabid fan
devotion not seen since the Beatles, the Rollers seem to find little of their
records' earned profits in their wallets. -- By 1977, punk and disco are the
New Sound. There is no place in modern ears for the Bay City Rollers. -- In an
effort to boost sales, the Rollers co-host a Sid & Marty Krofft children's
show (with, I believe, H.R. Pufnstuf), and would later admit to being greatly
humiliated by the experience. (Note: this footage in the "BTM"
episode was particularly great -- you could just see how much the Bay City
Rollers hated it. And the puppets were totally creepy.) -- From this point
forward, everything goes to shit. Bitter infighting splits the band. They
attempt suing their record company for unearned wages (having sold more than 100
million records), without success. The Rollers' fan club closes its doors. The
founding member drives his car into a 75-year-old widow, killing her. Two other
members attempt suicide. Their former manager is, naturally, later jailed for
"committing indecent acts with underaged teenagers." One of them dies
of AIDS, another stars in a porn movie. Another member becomes a nurse, but is
later indicted for downloading 6,000 images of child pornography. Soon, the Bay
City Rollers are all but forgotten, though big dreams of a comeback are
fostered among surviving members. -- Epilogue (i.e., the kicker): Middle-aged
housewives presently host annual "Remember the Bay City Rollers"
parties, complete with embroidered tartan scarves and singalongs of "Shang-A-Lang,"
to reminisce upon the band's (and the ladies') glory years. Or something like that. It's the most
beautifully tawdry, pathetic conclusion to the story of one of the most
despicably wholesome bands in history. (to remaining Bay City Roller people:
don't sue me if I fucked up the particulars of your weird-ass lives here. This
is how I remembered the episode; go sue VH1.) It seemed every other Behind The Music I saw thereafter
featured bloated, tired buttpickers like Badfinger or Foreigner or some other
band that, in my estimation, was best left forgotten even when they were
around. Their stories simply didn't match the breathtakingly pitiful saga that
was the Bay City Rollers. I saw that episode only once. Nothing has lived up to
it since. (JR)
DONNY & MARIE (8/22/99) Unlike many other child stars who are met with indifference
from once-adoring fans as they transition into adulthood, Donny Osmond avoided
the perils of drinking, drugging and kinky sex through his involvement with a
bizarre Utah-based cult called Mormons. His sister Marie became a County and
Western singer. I don’t know if I liked this episode or not because I really
don’t think I was allowed “behind the music” on this one. I was shocked by the
glaring omission of The Osmonds’ Mormon-inspired heavy metal concept album “The
Plan”. Donny Osmond’s interviews were
too polished and contrived and both he and Marie came off like a couple of
unlikable freak shows, which they probably are. The problem here is that the
producers let the Osmond’s run the show too much, and what should have been
startling revelation felt as staged as a TV movie. On the positive side, the
pictures of Donny on stage in the title role of Joseph and the Amazing
Technicolor Dreamcoat are hilarious! And I do have a favorite quote from Donny:
“I pray every day. He is in charge. There’s a plan. It can be taken away just
like that, like it was given to us…. In fact, ha ha, it was taken away. But um…
that’s what keeps me grounded.” This one gets a C+. (BC)
PETER TOSH (8/29/99)
While Tosh in theory is a good BTM subject this episode fails as they can’t
really catch a groove or get the show to fully identify with Tosh. Being very dead he can’t be interviewed and
his archival interviews don’t provide intimacy.
They also seem concerned with making Tosh relevant to VH1 fans, so his
connections to the Rolling Stones are overemphasized. When he is murdered it doesn’t feel real or
important, more like some cheap recreation on an episode of Unsolved Mysteries that you’re half paying attention to. BTM rarely struck out when covering an
interesting subject, but this is a big whiff (as opposed to a big spliff). (JA)
GOO GOO DOLLS (9/5/99)
Though they’re probably the only Metal Blade artists ever to cross over into
adult contemporary, Goo Goo Dolls still make for a pretty uneventful and
un-engaging episode. Johnny Rzeznik, the
orphaned punk-turned-heartthrob singer-guitarist, is a drama queen, and Robbie
Takac plays his dorky, if somewhat likeable, sidekick. They sound like the Replacements and gun for
a contract. Metal Blade signs them, and
Johnny throws a tantrum and makes Robbie fire the drummer (and replace him with
a guy who’d been in Minor Threat!). They
get a hit with a ballad, then sue to get out of their Metal Blade
contract. They sign to Warner Bros.,
take a break while Johnny gets highlights and suffers from writer’s block, then
make a triumphal return with “Iris” and three or four other singles, all of
them obviously modeled very closely on their breakthrough hit, “Name”. Throughout, Johnny gives Scott Stapp a run
for his money as the least remarkable personality ever featured on Behind the Music, and Robbie’s enduring
love for Johnnie is sort of touching.
(TA)
BAD COMPANY (9/12/99) I had a friend who for some reason HATED
Bad Company, thought they were the lowest of the low. I never had much of an opinion. Then a girl I knew cringed whenever she heard
Paul Rodgers’ voice, based on bad experiences in college with “All Right
Now.” So I expected this episode to
inspire some kind of wild emotion in me, or to light my ire against or for the B-Co.
But it didn’t happen. There were
a lot of interesting things I didn’t know (including how Bonham’s death messed
up the band) but the best thing here is the mundane, workmanlike existence the
band had for a decade when they toured and recorded with a revamped
lineup. Then in the mid 90s they reunite
with the original crew and light up the summer oldies classic rock concert tour
circuit! Not exactly the most compelling
story, and the best tragedy stuff here is second hand, but hey, that’s Bad
Company – you can’t deny! (JA)
GLEN CAMPBELL (9/19/99)
This writer vividly recalls Glen Campbell’s early 90s appearance on NBC’s Later with Bob Costas. During the course
of a sincere and informative interview, the Arkansas-born singer/guitar player
mentioned that he came from a family so big that, “It wasn’t until I was
married that I knew what it was like to sleep alone.” Suddenly, there is an
abrupt cut to a close-up of Costas who exclaims with puckish solemnity, “Heavy!” Think about for a second. The
talk-show host had to have gone back after the show was over, stage the comment
and ask that it be edited into the program for the express purpose of humiliating Glen Campbell. That’s how bad his
career had gotten. (And yes, that makes the much respected Costas something of
an ass.) This Behind the Music episode tackles that type of ridicule head on with
unflinching depth. Tantalizing early pre-fame TV clips circulate around
genuinely important talking heads - his brothers, oldest daughter, manager Stan
Schneider, producer Al DeLory, Mike Love, Tommy Smothers included. The result
is remarkably candid, yet sympathetic portrayal. The hard scrabble life as one of L.A.’s
most prolific studio musicians, the dizzying rise and fall from the pop charts,
the drugs, the alcohol, the divorces, the marriage to Mac Davis’ ex-wife and
the torrid affair with Tanya Tucker are all dealt with by the star. Naturally,
there is redemption at the end of this hour-long documentary. Campbell
finds a new wife who inspires him to sober up. (Yes, I know, he hit the
headlines by falling off the wagon briefly in 2003.) Together they recommit to
God and the singer once again delights in his rather substantial guitar
talents, and even forges a fresh emotional connection with his eldest
daughter. The documentary made a point
of plugging the artist’s equally revealing 1994 autobiography, Rhinestone
Cowboy - a book whose tone Campbell
no longer likes. However, he and his PR firm, the Brokaw Company, still think
highly enough of this video biography to include it with their promotional
kits. (KB)
STING (9/26/99) Sting’s Behind the
Music is just one big advertisement for Sting, but at least VH1 had the honest
decency here to call the episode Sting:
Behind the Music rather than deceptively titling it after the Police (see
Genesis’ episode). The Sting BTM doesn’t give me the impression that
Sting was ever any less boring than he is today and confirms my suspicion that,
with his Britishness, dramatic and highly visible departure from his band on
the brink of dinosaurdom and world-music leanings, he might be characterized as
the poor (boring, unimaginative) man’s Peter Gabriel. Yes, the Tantric sex thing does come up, but
it’s so tired at this point that it seems to be vainly employed as an
inside-jokey device to try to make Sting seem even a little interesting. If VH1 was trying to confer a kind of
fairy-tale status onto Sting through the making of this episode, the endeavor
is successful, portraying Sting as the working-class boy who became the goodly
and handsome prince of adult contemporary music (who ends up in a British
castle). However, the analogy seems a
little forced when BTM hurriedly
glosses over Sting’s dubious method of procuring his beautiful princess by
cheating on his wife with his next-door neighbor. (EF)
ALAN FREED (10/3/99) I never saw this
one and I would say it never aired except that someone told me they saw it, but
all they really remembered was that Little Richard appeared and he was not only
wild and awesome, but also very reverent and warm discussing Freed. Of course Freed is a perfect BTM subject; he
started humble, made it to the top by being a rock & roll pioneer and then
had everything tumble down because of the payola scandals. The only thing missing is an uplifting last
act, as he died alone and poor. (JA)
THIN LIZZY (10/17/99) This is one of
the better episodes, I think, and not just because of Thin Lizzy's stature as
one of Ireland's most important bands, second only to THEM (And if you feel I'm
slighting someone, all I can say is,
" U - WHO?"). In a
move that should surprise absolutely no one, this documentary centers
largely around Lizzy bassist and frontman, the late, great,
Phil Lynott. Several of Phil's surviving bandmates are featured in revealing
interviews, and the talk turns inevitably to Phil, his triumphs,
disappointments, and sad, slow, decline. A smaller portion of the program is
dedicated to the other band members' "indiscretions.” Original guitarist Eric Bell had trouble with
excessive drinking and later guitarist Brian Robertson blew a major U.S.
tour by injuring his hand severely in a pub brawl, leading to their respective
dismissals. Longtime guitarist, Scott
Gorham, along with Lynott, developed a heroin habit as the band fell out of
favor. But it is Phil's troubled, though
compelling, personal journey that makes up the bulk of this episode, and I
can't picture anyone finding fault with that. Born in the Forties of Irish and
Jamaican parents, Phil had to live with the (frequently unwelcome) distinction
of being a Black man in Ireland, and not knowing who his father was (the two
did meet in the eighties, perhaps bringing Phil a sense of closure in what he
felt, sadly, was destined to be a short lifetime), and the depression and
descent into alcohol and drugs that followed grabbing the brass ring, then
dropping it, not once, but twice. The breakthrough success (in Europe) of Thin
Lizzy's Rock adaptation of the Irish standard, "Whisky In The Jar,” in
1973, saved them from literally starving, but good fortune would not repeat
itself until 1976's "The Boys Are Back In Town,” a summer smash-hit in The
U.S.A., and a victory well-earned, but one never to be repeated. Thin Lizzy and
other Hard Rock groups were being bumped off the singles market, to be replaced
by mellower, more mature Rock bands like a totally revamped (though not for the
better) Fleetwood Mac, Wimpy Pop, Disco, and, in The U.K., Punk. Something not
touched upon in this documentary, though, is that Phil Lynott, along with Marc
Bolan, would prove to be an early champion of the Punk scene, and began
recording with ex- Pistols, Steve Jones and Paul Cook, as "The
Greedies" (a.k.a "The Greedy
Bastards"), which also featured Scott Gorham and Brian Campbell of Thin
Lizzy. Lynott, Cook and Jones also
formed the core of the studio band for Johnny Thunders' first, great, solo LP,
"So Alone.” Lynott, Thunders, and Steve Marriott teamed up to cut a
rocking cover of "Daddy Rolling Stone,” and they would all go on to die
young (Thunders and Marriott in the same week). Phil would even go so far as to
recruit Midge Ure, future Ultravox frontman and recent departee from Glen
Matlock's post-Pistols outfit, The Rich Kids, as a temporary member of Thin
Lizzy. So, while Lizzy remained top priority, it would have been fun to delve a
little bit more into Lynott's side projects. Eventually, Phil marries, becomes
a father, and seems to be content with a more structured lifestyle (this was
still before "Rehab Chic"), but marital bliss could not be sustained,
and a death wish continued to follow our man, whose manager, Chris O' Donnell,
is quoted, tellingly, as saying "All of Phil's role models were DEAD Rock
stars, Jimi Hendrix, Elvis Presley, Janis Joplin, Brian Jones...” And, while Phil was reported as a shoo-in for
the leading role in a proposed film about Hendrix's life story (despite his
thick Irish brogue, right-handed (BASS) playing style, and only a vague resemblance,
at best, to the man he succeeded as the reigning Black Rocker [and he wore that
crown well]). Lynott would also go on to write one of the finest Elvis tribute
songs to date, "King's Call.” Through it all, a constant source of love
and support, Phillip's mother, the lovely Philomena (Who raised Phil as a
single mom, when being one meant constant persecution, particularly in
contemporary Irish society), comes on as sweet and as devoid of pretension as
friends of mine who've met the lady have described her. Her recollections of
life with and without Phil, and how the support of fans has helped her to get
on with her own life, brought me to tears, though I also found myself smiling
in time with her. St. Patrick may have driven out the snakes, but Philomena
surely would have charmed them if they ever returned. Now, on a purely
technical level, this episode is amazing, the editing is superb, and there's
lots of great rare live and T.V. footage. His death, in a hospital bed, from
total system failure (it is revealed that, while in the hospital, he was still
using in secret), is, of course, a tremendously sad final chapter in a life and
career that traveled a path still rich with promise, but littered with
roadblocks. While Phil didn’t live to
make a comeback (in spite of the possibilities MTV and the early 80s Metal
revival might have held, to say nothing of the fact that Lynott's good friend,
Bob Geldolf, was recently quoted as saying that he wished he had tried to
instigate a Thin Lizzy reunion for Live Aid. One of Phil's last live
appearances would turn out to be playing second bass (bad pun, I know), to his
good mate, Lemmy, in a one-off performance of the song, "Motorhead,” which
featured nearly everyone who had, up to that point, played in Motorhead,
excluding Larry Wallis, but including Brian Robertson, whose relationship with
Motorhead was reportedly as rocky as it was in Thin Lizzy). But still, Lynott's legend grows ever
stronger, as does his presence. Close friend, Jim Fitzpatrick, whose great,
Marvel Comics style, artwork has graced Thin Lizzy's LP's, and even Phil's
gravesite, confides that he has felt the presence of Phil's spirit, as have
several fans. Moreover, a statue of Phil is expected to be unveiled in Dublin
sometime in the near future, and Philomena, who makes no bones of the fact that
she, too, was treated as an outcast in her homeland, was just named Ireland's
Woman of The Year. The Irish Rose, Long
May She Reign... (JB)
LOU PERLMAN (never aired) Perlman was the creepy mogul behind the
“O-Town” acts (Orlando based pre-fab pop vocal acts like N*SYNC, Backstreet
Boys and several lesser stars). This
episode of BTM was certainly shot and scheduled (it appeared as an upcoming
episode on their website) but never aired, and some of the footage ended up
being the heart of Behind The Music 1999. You can see why they wanted to make a whole
episode out of him, as he is an obese freak who drools over the sexy teen girls
(he horribly is seen adjusting a teenybopper pop girl’s clothing, under the
banner of “no detail is too small”) and sexy teen boys, and who is seen
directing a teen movie and yelling out inanities about how if the movie is
going to be any good they need to work in the line “My way or the highway!”
(JA)
ROCKY HORROR
PICTURE SHOW (10/31/99) There were several documentaries about Rocky Horror done on several channels
and they were all OK. The story of a
small rock play that becomes a sensation and the flop movie that follows that
becomes a cult classic is interesting, and this show covers the fanatical fans
pretty well. It is also good to see
Richard O’Brien (the man behind the play/movie, who plays Riff Raff) proud and
centered about this and not bitter about not matching it. It is also interesting to see which major
stars no longer embrace this (basically only Barry Bostwick seems to have a
great sense of humor about this being on his resume). (JA)
BARRY WHITE (11/99) Though White does have a brother who died
tragically that is downplayed and much is made of a very brief and seemingly
insignificant arrest, dressing the Walrus of Love’s story up as an ex-con made
good tale, when that doesn’t really apply.
While they don’t do a great job telling what is a very interesting story
(White did interesting production work before becoming a solo singer, and he
became a star releasing records with really unusual arrangements, and his
relationship with his wife Glodean is fascinating) this is still a great
episode. Where the narrative falters it
is picked up by a riveting interview with White who is incredibly hostile and
angry about everything he talks about even when it seems unwarranted. His dark, moody attitude makes one reexamine
his body of work and makes this episode extremely memorable. (JA)
ALANIS MORISETTE (12/99) “Now music’s
most immaterial girl bares all…the story behind the music.” Interestingly that is pretty much the only
Madonna reference in the show, because making a big point of how she was signed
to Madonna’s label would throw off the serious, anti-Pop angle they are playing
up here. Driven even as a little kid
Alanis releases a record on her own label with the money she made acting on a
kiddie show on Nickelodeon. She soon
becomes a Canadian bubblegum Pop princess.
But that isn’t enough for her, and she becomes much more serious when
she meets an intense, sensitive songwriting partner. Her serious, expressive letter of pain and
deep emotion then goes on to sell THIRTY MILLION COPIES! I had to rewind a couple of times, that is
unbelievable. Critics contended that she was a pop puppet who was being
manipulated by her songwriting “partner” who must be the sole creative force,
but seeing the meek, sensitive mouse man who she worked with I find that hard
to believe. What those critics fail to
realize is that she made it because of her expressive voice and good lyrics and
her healthy bouncy hair, and most importantly, because the hooky way she sings
these lines, with weird, bold vocal decisions, is pop! Hooks is pop, and if
these lyrics had been sung with an acoustic strum at a coffeehouse by an Indigo
Girl fan this would not have worked. Her
next BTM conflict is the sophomore jinx, but she is fairly convincing in
explaining that she didn’t care. She is
much happier and more at peace after using her money and down time to visit
spiritual meccas around the globe at a leisurely pace. She came back with a happy, upbeat, vaguely
spiritual album that sold less but made her happy, and that seems like a nice
ending. (JA)
DR. DRE (12/99) The man who brought
melody to hiphop is a complex character, forged in the heat and pressure of a
great many ups and downs. Moms immersed
the kids in music to keep them off the mean streets of Compton. After she got him a mixer for Christmas,
15-year-old Andre Young borrowed Dr. J’s title and scratched ‘til it bled. We do get to see a few photos of a
jheri-curled Dre, but the World Class Wrecking Kru just wasn’t big enough. During NWA’s first tour, “911” on the pager
means a phone call home, and the news of younger brother Tyree’s death in a
brawl hits hard. During his recollection
of an alleged attack on radio personality Dee Barnes, Dre makes just one moment
of direct eye contact with the camera when he blames the media for blowing the
situation out of proportion. The Chronic introduces the world to
cousin Snoop while Eazy and Jerry Heller get dissed in the video for “Dre Day.”
Getting shot outside the Mariott in August of ’92 is lovingly recounted and
partially reenacted by cousin RBX. Dre
is also left shook in a moment of truth when one of Suge’s posse beats an
engineer down for rewinding a tape too far.
Released on Dre’s own Aftermath Records, The Chronic 2001 introduces the world to Eminem and quashes much
beef. All in all, an extensive episode,
though it would have been nice to know something about the inspiration (Mom’s
old copy of Innervisions?) behind all
those classic skits. (EB)
1999
(12/99) Like the Y2K fears, this promised some bang but was actually a
disappointment. Framed in Millennium
Mania this BTM fails to really deliver fireworks. They cover the manufactured
“Latin Music Boom” with uncritical eyes.
Their report on the Woodstock 99 riots were tame and cleaned up. The best parts were the Lou Perlman segment
(see LOU PERLMAN entry) which was fascinating in this episode’s original 90
minute version and fun in the shortened version, and the Columbine incident is
covered pretty well because commentators include a handsome, wheelchair-bound
survivor and the insipid Insane Clown Posse, and both make good sense in
exonerating rock & roll in the slayings.
The silliest moment here is the coverage of Leif Garrett’s drug bust,
which was not an actual national news story or something that resonated in the
music world but it sure is amusing to
Behind The Music fans. (JA)
GENESIS (12/19/99) The fact that Genesis has had, over the course
of their career, three different lead singers, should go a long way towards
making this episode less the story of a frontman than the story of a band. But it’s still unmistakably the Phil Collins
Show. From Peter Gabriel’s departure onward,
it’s clear that if Genesis weren’t hawking a best-of at the moment, the very
same footage would be going into Behind
the Music: Phil Collins. A lot of
time is spent building up the band’s discovery that Phil could sing, and
maintaining that he hadn’t ever intended to be a singer, but as anyone who’s
heard Selling England by the Pound
can tell you, it was clear well before Peter Gabriel considered leaving that
Phil could sing even very difficult parts well.
While the episode makes a long digression into how Phil’s failing
marriage became Face Value, Mike and
The Mechanics aren’t even mentioned by name.
The disparity between the treatments of Phil Collins and Peter Gabriel’s
post-Genesis careers is criminal.
Granted, Phil’s a good deal less swollen-headed in interview segments
than you might expect, and we’re treated to several pictures of him as a young
man, including a blow-up of his headshot from the gatefold of Foxtrot, where he looks exactly like
Kurt Cobain! (TA)
QUINCY JONES (2000) The story opens
with Quincy at home surrounded by a bevy of extremely attractive children,
fathered by Jones with a parade of sexy ladies (many Caucasian, a few famous -
Peggy “Mod Squad’ Lipton, Nastassja Kinski -
and all seemingly the same young age when they fell under Quincy’s
spell, though his age varied by decades).
As “Home” from the movie version of The
Wiz (a Jones project that isn’t really covered in this show) plays we
contemplate this family and the way women are drawn to Q, and still seem to
remain fond of him after he traded up for a younger model. It becomes clear that he is an unusual
dude. As this BTM reveals Quincy Jones
is such a driven visionary that his charisma stems from not just his good looks
or his player ways but from his actual greatness, and that is what truly draws
people to him. We learn of his Jazz
career, as a teen in Lionel Hampton’s band, and as an expatriate in Paris
leading his own combo, and his pioneering of electric bass in Jazz. We see how he decided to test the waters of Pop,
scoring instantly with Lesley Gore. He
becomes Sinatra’s band leader, then an almost insanely prolific film scorer,
than a force in 70s Black pop, than Michael Jackson’s producer during the most
successful years of anyone in Pop history.
It’s a long, mighty career, that extends into the Hip Hop era, with
Jones collaborating with rappers, bringing the Fresh Prince to TV and coming to
peace with Tupac dating his daughter (obviously this contains no mentions of
Jones/Tupac conspiracy theories). While
I was surprised that Patti Austin and James Ingram, who I consider two of his
best collaborators, weren’t involved, this BTM featured affirmations from a
wide breadth of Jones admirers and it was as much of a love fest as any
episode. But when it ends with his son
expressing pride that his dad has a younger girlfriend than him we come back to
Q as loverman, and I think that is appropriate.
He has achieved so much that he deserves all the love he gets, and if he
wants that love to be from extremely hot, extremely young, light complexioned
women, so be it. (JA)
PARTRIDGE FAMILY (1/2/00) Since a David Cassidy BTM was already in
the can what exactly is this show? It’s Danny Bonaduce Behind The Music! Which isn’t a bad thing, as Bonaduce was at
the time at his healthiest, happiest and handsomest, having survived drugs and
foolishness to marry a hot babe (they got married on their first date, yet it
really worked out for some reason) and doing well professionally as a
personality deejay. Actually the whole
episode isn’t about Danny and it couldn’t be because he breaks some BTM rules
by never being serious or dire or teary when discussing his horrible mistakes,
it’s just one joke after another! The
rest of the show focuses on the musical mechanics of the show, celebrating the
godlike session men who played the music (Hal Blaine and Mike Melvoin are
interviewed) and mocking the absurdity of the Partridge actor’s miming (the
girl who played Tracy posits, “We
were the original Milli Vanilli”). The
most interesting thing in the episode does turn out to be David again, but for
different reasons. He seems jubilant,
grounded and in great spirits here, the best attitude he’s ever displayed in
any interview I’ve ever seen of him. He
is usually arrogant, charmless and bubbling with hostility or ambivalence
towards the TV show, or towards constantly having to talk about it. But as the show progresses we see that he is
a little too into the P-Family these
days, involved in a Made For TV movie about the show, re-recording the songs
with the original session men for that movie’s soundtrack and then
re-re-recording them in new modern (cheesy) arrangements for a solo album. One suspects that he has reached a pocket in
his career where it is prudent to be pro-Partridge, and perhaps his charming
smile is pasted on to cover his still seething hostility. This theory proves to be the case when the
show ends with Cassidy declaring that he has nothing bad to say about the
Partridge Family days, and then looking directly in the camera and half-joking,
half-scary declaring, “and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise!” (JA)
MICHAEL HUTCHENCE (1/9/00) Though this didn’t convince me to like
INXS music it did convince me that something might have been fishy about his
“suicide.” Involved with a crazy broad
who was married to Bob Geldof (I’m not suggesting Geldof is a murderer who
killed Hutchence, just saying that maybe it’s a good thing he didn’t win that
Nobel Peace Prize he coveted) and depressed because an accident caused him to
lose his tastebuds (?!?) anything could have happened. The craziest thing in the whole show (which
was, by the way, an advertisement for his new solo album) was that he named his
daughter something like Heavenly Tiger Hamani.
(JA)
CELINE DION (1/16/00) Taken at face value, Behind the Music fails to live up to its name in its profile of
Celine Dion. Rather than delving behind the music in search of sleaze, it
presents us with the polished, publicist’s version of Dion’s biography –
Celine’s life as the sort of uncomplicated, happy fairytale intended to
reassure her milquetoast-loving fans that dreams do come true (even if they’re Celine’s dreams, not yours). Visually, the episode is loaded with endless
soft-focus interview footage of Celine looking pensive in cashmere sweaters,
searching for the right words to express just how wonderfully perfectly happy
she is, and slow-motion propaganda shots of Dion waving triumphantly from
Nuremberg-like stages to stadiums filled to capacity with the faithful. It would be unwatchable for anyone with the
faintest streak of cynicism or capacity for critical reasoning, if not for the
fact that, like every good fairytale, this one has a creepy, psychosexual
subtext, which BTM – like the Brothers Grimm - neither hides nor points out. First, the Cinderella story. Celine’s early childhood resembled a
Francophonic version of The Waltons, sleeping five to a bed in a small house
crammed with fourteen kids and two parents in rural Quebec. Though they
lived only 12 miles from Montreal, the logistics of transporting such a massive brood
limited their entertainment and cultural options to family sing-alongs in the
basement, where Celine distinguished herself at the age of three. When her father finally scraped together
enough money to open a pub, 10-year-old Celine provided the entertainment. At least she did until her mother (one of the
principal interviewees), ever mindful of Celine’s long-term career prospects,
forbade it, insisting that instead she record a demo tape (music by Celine’s
brother, words by Mom) and shop it to industry bigwigs. Enter our creepy subtext as 12-year-old
Celine’s demo crosses the desk of Rene Angelil, a 38-year-old, veteran
French-Canadian talent manager, at the time contemplating retirement. Reinvigorated by Celine’s alluring voice and
innocently attractive press photos, Rene wastes no time making her a star,
first in French Canada, then (following two months of English lessons), the
United States. A scant six years later,
just hours after Celine received a presitigous Eurovision music award at a
ceremony in Ireland, Rene bedded his barely-legal songbird, using a
congratulatory kiss as a pretext for busting a move. They carry on for years without going public,
albeit with the full knowledge and tacit consent of Maman Dion. Okay, perhaps that’s making it out to be more
sinister than it actually is. Celine,
from all appearances in the interviews, couldn’t be happier (or just doesn’t
know better) in her relationship with Rene.
And it’s not as if the corpulent Quebecois Cassanova defiled Dion only
to dump her: the two were eventually married in an absolutely regal ceremony in
Montreal’s Notre Dame cathedral (the opulent images of which
rival Charles and Di’s globally televised nuptials). Still, we’ve got a right to wonder. This is, after all, a girl who dropped out of
high school to spend all her waking hours with her mother, manager, and record
producer before she ever got a chance to date a boy her own age. And it’s obvious, from that faint nervousness
behind his eyes in the interviews. that Rene knows we have a right to wonder.
All right, all right - so maybe it’s not that obvious. Maybe I’m reading too much into all
this. But the part where the
cancer-stricken Rene, too weak from chemotherapy to accompany Celine on tour,
has technicians install a satellite link-up in his hospital room so he can
watch Celine perform, anywhere in the world, and whisper long-distance nothings
directly into her in-ear monitors… you gotta admit that sounds like a hack, made-for-TV
update of the original Svengali story (wherein a diabolic Italian opera coach
trains a gift young soprano so that she cannot sing outside his presence). Creeeeeeee-py! Enough psychoanalysis – how’s the music? Wretched, over-sung, under-written Streisand-caliber
easy-listening pap, minus the benefit of Barry Gibb’s production. What did you expect? But I must say, Celine has a huge fan in Sony Music CEO Tommy
Mottola, whose decision to grace this episode with some fawning personal
comments suggests just how big an industry Celine Dion, Incorporated must be.
(EH)
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4
