Meh. There’s not a lot to go on here, information being as scarce as jobs in Jeopardy. Here’s Davey describing the Lynchian (David, not Kenny) premise of the “Shampoo Tears” promotional video :
“Watch it with your sunglasses on. There’s a lot of heavy-duty rain, elements and stuff flying at us and we’re holding this massive fridge on a big shipyard rope, and there’s these wee cherub-like kids dressed in nappies and cowboy hats filming each other, and filming the contents of this fridge, which in turn is a shrine to consumerism. And we’ve got this wee piglet running around and a couple of turkeys – they say never work with children and animals, but it was great! This big male turkey and a female turkey come on the scene, and the male turkey’s feathers go up in the air and he …. ” (there follows a long description of one game bird goosing the other!)
Also regarding “Shampoo Tears”’s promo, DH had this to say : “I ripped the basic idea off Luis Bunuel. He made a film called ‘L’Age D’Or’ where two priests walk along hauling a living room behind them. We didn’t have enough money for a whole living room, so we compromised with a fridge. We put loads of plants in it and turned it into a kind of shrine. We wanted some livestock in the video, so we roped in a couple of turkeys. At one stage they started getting a bit rude but the floor was covered in Swarfega so they were sliding about all over the place. It was very, um, interesting”.
(… to those interested, Bunuel was a Spanish film-maker regarded as the father of cinematic Surrealism. The film referred to was from 1930, entitled in English as “The Age Of Gold”, and coincidentally written with Russel Burn’s Pie Finger muse Salvador Dali, based on a novel by the arch-perv himself the Marquis de Sade).
Talking about American influence on British culture, Davey referenced the “Shampoo Tears” video : “We’ve always loved juxtaposition in pop, in coating bullets with candy and using glamour and superficiality to expose something a little deeper. In the ‘Shampoo Tears’ video, we wanted to tow a New York yellow cab down the street on ropes, like a big block of concrete or something, but we didn’t have enough money so we had to setle for a fridge. So often our ideas are constricted by purely practical problems like not having enough money”
I’ve also come across a couple of quotes concerning the video for “UnAmerican Broadcasting” and it’s larcenous origins. DH begins : “It was totally scratched. It couldn’t have been on TV because we were ripping off 40 million dollar movies. It would have cost us a fortune”. Russel Burn continues : “In fact, we’d probably have gone to jail”. In an early interview, a journalist describes watching a work-in-progress of this video in Russel Burn’s flat : “(it’s) … a scratch affair that’s a prototype of the eventual ‘Unamerican’ one. Walter Mondale waves as a polar bear treks away from cullers. Carl Lewis sprints past the line and straight into the Edinburgh Tattoo. This isn’t deep and startling, it’s just funny”.
In an article by Melody Maker’s then-scribe Paul Mather, he wrote the following about the “UnAmerican Broadcasting” video which reveals a little of it’s origins and manufacture : “The one made to accompany the debut single was only shown twice due to its unashamed filching of cinema’s finest moments, or at least the ones that the band happened to have in their video collection. I remember visiting their house a few years back and watching long tapes of home made cut-up videos put together to visualise hours and hours of songs”.
In an interview back in late ’85, Davey H and Ian S spoke highly of the world’s finest rockumentary (and, if you will, mockumentary), Spinal Tap. “Actually, Spinal Tap are my favourite group. Write that as a headline, baby. What a magic film. Films are much better than groups”, with Ian adding : “Actors are much better than pop stars. I’ve never seen a group as good as Theresa Russell”.
I do have the one Win video, that of “What’ll You Do ‘Til Sunday Baby?”, acquired in 2005 off (where else?) Ebay. It’s on a VHS video and hence is currently unwatched on account of our video player being packed away while I’m renovating my house. I might take it soon to be transferred to a digital format so I can have a butcher’s and report back – let’s see.