Frame This

There are zillions of 80s-themed radio stations, but many of them tend to forget the J. Geils Band and their fun contributions to the early 80s.

My favorite is "Freeze Frame." I was very into roller rinks as a kid and this song encouraged me to skate as fast as I possibly could; even though it meant mowing a few slow skaters down.

I like the video too, though the members of the band all look like they don't even belong on the same planet, much less in the same band, but they did work well together. I just wish there were more scenes where they were shown playing with paint. Who wouldn't want to be in a blank room armed with a variety of different colored paints?

Watching what?

I am the youngest of three siblings. Naturally, my brothers knew about things before I did. They were watching music videos before I knew what they were about. I didn't know you watched music. You listen to it. TV was for programs. Simple enough.

On weekend nights, they got to watch their big-boy programs, while I went and did my thing because their programs did not interest me.

Sometimes, I would try watching their stuff with them, but I was either too dumb or too smart to get it.

They sometimes watched shows that had nothing except for crazy people with guitars. Yes, I just didn't get it. You could listen to that stuff on the stereo; why waste good television time with music?

One of these times that I sat down to try and understand the appeal of what they were watching, I saw that there was kind of a story mixed in with it.

Then my dad walked in and asked, "What the hell is that?" This meant that there could very well be something to this watching music thing. I watched the whole video. Afterwards, I was left thinking, "What the hell was that?"


That was the beginning...

ZZalagadoola

Everyone likes a Cinderella story; in one form or another. Several music videos have a Cinderella theme, where you have a sweet victim in distress, harassed by badly-dressed jerks, until the band comes along to transform the victim into a jaw-dropping superstar, dissing the tormentors.

In ZZ Top's "Legs," we have the classic story of the cute little lady who is teased and picked on, when her fairy godmother comes in the form of a red Cadzilla...