V/A – The Jettisoundz Promo Years
V/A – The Jettisoundz Promo Years DVD (Screen Edge/MVD Visual)
Subtitled ‘The Promos From 1983 Onwards’, this DVD consists of 197 minutes (um, that’s a lot of minutes) packed with promotional videos from the Jettisoundz archives. While there are a few acts on here that don’t really make the cut for me, the good definitely outweighs the bad and the great stuff trumps it all, making this a more than worthwhile way to spend 3+ hours of time. So, 50 videos. My picks for the ‘great’ list? First, The Cherry Bombz. C’mon, the band featured Andy McCoy and Nasty Suicide (Hanoi Rocks) alongside Dave Tregunna (Sham 69/Lords Of The New Church) and Terry Chimes (The Clash/Generation X), and had a bad-ass frontwoman in Anita Chellemah. Their original EP was one of my best discoveries in 1986 and remains a favorite to this day – and even though I’d have preferred to hear ‘Oil And Gasoline’ or ‘100 Degrees In The Shade’, the video for their cover of Loverboy’s ‘Hot Girls In Love’ is a real classic. Next, Toy Dolls – whose ‘Singles 83/84’ EP was another of my great discoveries back in the way-back and also remains a favorite to this day. The inclusion of two Toy Dolls tracks – ‘Nellie The Elephant’ and ‘Geordie’s Gone To Jail’ – ups the ‘essential’ quotient for this DVD significantly. Other videos on the ‘great’ list found here: The Exploited ‘Sexual Favours’, Action Pact ‘Johnny Fontaine’, Xentrix ‘For Whose Advantage?’, Crumbsuckers ‘Trapped’, and Psychic TV ‘Joy’. My picks for the ‘good’ category – which is not to disparage these artists or videos at all, quite the contrary in fact – comprises most of the remaining footage found here and includes the likes of Inca Babies, Turnpike Cruisers, Meteors, Robyn Hitchcock, Inner City Unit, Guana Batz, Frenzy, Bad Karma Beckons, Horse London, Alien Sex Fiend, Hawkwind, and Phantom Creeps. I’ve always had broad-reaching and eclectic tastes in music, and this compilation gives me good justification – though I don’t need it – for my mixed-bag record collection, which would appear positively deranged to anyone who doesn’t quite ‘get it’ the way I do. Thankfully, John Bentham and the rest of the good folks at Jettisoundz ‘get it’ quite nicely, and this wonderful compilation of videos is their way of saying thank you to the music fans of the world. Added points awarded for the stunning mastering job: the sound is consistent and clear throughout, and the visual quality only wavers slightly based on the source material but even the worst of the bunch looks as good as it ever would have on MTV, if MTV had actually played any of these videos in the first place. At the end of the day, this is over 3 hours’ worth of classic punk, metal, psychobilly, and other truly alternative songs with an engaging and entertaining visual element – so my recommendation is to pick this up and exhort in your own alternative MTV for a night. The Impaler @impalerspeaks
