THE VIDEO Krokus, "Screaming in the Night," Headhunter, 1983, Arista
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SAMPLE LYRIC "Screamin' in the night / fightin' for my life / I di-iiied for you / I knew it all along / headed for the sun / our loooo-ooove was true"
EXCESSIVELY DETAILED DESCRIPTION The video opens with a head-on shot of some bizarrely dressed women doing a high-kicking dance with some kind of strange structure in the background. Because the film has some kind of weird effect going on in order to make the sky all black, it's hard to tell exactly what's happening. Anyway, they do slo-mo jumps and kicks while carrying giant staffs and wearing outfits made of various leather scraps tied to their bodies sort of randomly.
This shot fades into one of a number of plainly dressed people wearing metal masks or helmets who are all pulling a large wagon. We quickly see the band, then see a woman in a black leotard waving something around. Then we see the band again -- the guitarists are standing up on some sort of platform, while the lead singer is clad in nothing but a loincloth (and what the hell is that giant thing between his legs! Who are they kidding! If that thing were real, it would mean the guy from Black Oak Arkansas was hung like a toddler, if you see what I'm saying). He's sort of semi-crucified on a wooden thing.
The camera then pans past a strange open-air structure decorated by mannequin legs. It enables us to see that the Krokus dude is being pulled forward on the back of a wagon (probably the wagon we saw the front of before). Behind him are coming a punch of people in blue-gray coveralls and black hoods or masks carrying a wooden casket on their shoulders while more women do goofy modern dance moves alongside them. Other people walk behind them carrying staffs and such, most of whom are festively dressed in sort of a pseudo-Renaissance fashion.
Next we see more hapless masked men, these ones are using rope to drag along an old car that has had its windows painted over (what the hell was the point of this? I know I could say that for anything I've described so far, but this detail really begs the question). As the song finally starts, we get a close-up of the singer getting all growly as he sings whilst chained to that post thing. Next we jump back to the beginning of the procession, and the lady in the black leotard (who appears to be layering it over loose gray sweatpants tucked into knee-high black boots). She's carrying a helmet, too, and for no reason, the sky has turned red.
Now Mr. Krokus is not on the cross and he has been given his shirt back. He's walking along face-to-face with a Pat Benatar-ish girl in a silvery corset thing, both appear to have their hands tied behind their backs. The leotard lady leads the group up to that big cage from "Rock You Like a Hurricane," only now it's outside in a sort of post-apocalyptic courtyard. We can see pinkish-red clouds in the distance and people (guards?) standing on top of buildings. Along with a ton of masked men, she throws the whole band into the cage, and at the last minute pulls out the girl. The Krokus dude runs over to the fence, and the girl calls out as the lady drags her away toward some stairs.
A bunch more masked folk turn a giant contraption, and fake lightning flickers in the sky as the leotard lady drags the girl through a crowded marketplace full of futuristic weirdos. The lady shoves people aside while dragging the girl. They finally make it up to the same set they use in Krokus' "Eat the Rich" video, which is some statues beside several tiers of stairs leading up to a throne with a giant spire coming out of it. Tons of the masked guys are standing guard all over it, and there are people doing fruity partner dances too.
The lady pulls the girl to the top of all the stairs, where she gives her over to a heavy bald bearded dude who is sitting in the throne. He's dressed sort of like a futuristic biker dude, with an army helmet and vest on but also a big cape. He nods approval and then grabs the girl, who struggles with him. He cackles as they forcibly embrace.
A shot of a fake sunset fades to black to establish that it is now night. A hand reaches out to the face of the Krokus dude, who is sleeping on the floor of the cage. He startles, but then realizes it's the girl. He of course gets up right away to make out with her, but then the evil bald dude runs in and grabs her away. We see the Krokus dude's insanely lame reaction shot as the bald guy pulls out a knife and stabs her. He laughs all crazily as her body slumps to the ground with a line of blood above her right breast.
The scene fades out, and we again see the masked coverall guys carrying a wooden coffin with some dancers cavorting about behind them. They are followed by more of the same guys carrying the Krokus dude (shirtless yet again) chained to a platform thing. The sky is artificial black again, and they carry the whole kit and caboodle into a smallish striped pyramid thing with some statuary outside of it. They load it all in, and the bald dude waves his arm around, and they seal off the entrance.
Fake lightning strikes the point of the pyramid, and the assembled crowd scatters. Lightning then strikes the door of bricks that they just propped up, and it falls over. Lastly, lightning strikes inside the pyramid, causing the chains binding the Krokus dude to disappear, and he sits up and rubs his wrists. There is a small explosion behind him, causing a burst of light from a box. He goes over to the box and finds sneakers, jeans, and a lame, pirate-esque shirt, which he puts on. A trap door opens in the floor, and he looks over and then heads over to it. As he runs he peeks out the main door again, and sees the masked guards approaching, so he hauls ass through that trap door.
Coming out the other side, he finds himself climbing down a ladder into a diner. He looks around the whole room -- yes, typical urban diner -- and is rubbing a hand through his curly locks when he realizes
He makes a disgusted face, and as that ends the TV changes over to a blue screen that says "Rock + Roll" on it in white and
The Krokus dude grabs the sides of the TV and sings the final chorus to it, giving it all he's got. The leotard lady/sassy waitress nods her approval. Two of the band members look up at him, one holding a coffee cup and the other gesturing while holding half a sandwich in his mouth. The girl on TV just goes on talking, oblivious to his remonstrations, and he makes many, many wussy faces. The last shot we see is of one of his bandmates looking up at him while pouring the entire sugar container out onto his plate.
THE VERDICT It's been a while since I've done a video that's pretty ridiculous and requires truly excessive description, but whatever, I'm worth it. But is Krokus? Though not pretty boys by any stretch of the imagination, these five Swiss lads are considered by many to be the lowest of the low. The All Music Guide, which normally can find something good to say about practically anybody (at the very least, they find in favor of the bands via their having been "underappreciated," "underrated," etc.), dishes out nothing but bile for Krokus. Ok, wait -- at least I thought they did. Reading this again, it is sounding not so harsh. Jeez, did they retract their previous statements about the band being musically inept opportunists looking to make a quick buck? I'm confused. Oh man, it seems that Headhunter has even been made an album pick.
A-ha! Here's what I'm remembering -- not the band bio, but the album review. Here's but a taste to whet your palate: "Shameless bandwagon hoppers that they were... singer generally makes a nuisance of himself with his grating speech... guitarist Fernando Von Arb's incessant pouting remains an especially horrifying image...." Okay, so it's not actually quite as bad as I remembered. But still.
Do they deserve it? Well, maybe. Much of the criticism involves their having been a crappy prog rock band who spotted a quick buck when they switched to metal (this fad was a precursor to the numerous glam metal bands who switched to heavier stuff, not all of whom are necessarily bad -- viz. Pantera). I'm not sure if the name was a leftover from their trippier days or if in Switzerland crocuses are considered more badass than they are over here (they are, after all, very hardy flowers), though simply changing the C's to K's doesn't make it that badass. It reminds me of that Danish band D:A:D (a/k/a "Disneyland After Dark") -- could no English speaker at their record label tell them that that acronym was not so badass across the pond?
I digress. To me, Krokus' weak point is neither their name nor their willingness to change genres. Their wussiness stems from two things. First, for every single they put out that was actually an original song, they also put out one that was an abominably crappy cover (e.g., "Ballroom Blitz," "School's Out"). Their original songs are no picnic either (particularly "Midnight Maniac," which is kind of unbelievably bad), but at least on those you feel like they're sort of trying.
The second thing is the tendency of their non-performance videos to hinge upon a relationship between the toad-like lead singer (who's also got to be what, like 5'6" max?) and an 80s babe. Like David Coverdale, this dude is no stranger to the open-mouthed kiss on camera. But compared to this guy, David Coverdale is a total fox. Apparently they didn't think the rest of the band was even worth showing off stateside, as they tend to figure into their videos very, very little. Now sure, those dudes are not good looking, but they really believed the lead singer was so good looking that he needed to be shirtless practically at all times? This I find hard to believe.
Also, what the hell happened in this video? (Besides that the record company was like "We built this set, and you need to use it at least twice" -- and apparently later it was lent out for Babylon A.D.'s craptastic "Hammer Swings Down.") I'm guessing it was like, he had this whole persecuted in the future nightmare, and then he woke up.... Uh okay, maybe it's like, he works in the diner, or he lives upstairs from it, and he had this nightmare that he was in the future and his evil coworkers were running everything and he had this hot girlfriend from TV but like, they were unjustly persecuted? And then he woke up and came back down to work, and couldn't believe that like, it was such a coincidence that that girl was on TV? So he decided to make a big mess on the counter? Or something?
Note: To give credit where credit (or perhaps blame) is due, the members of Krokus are vocalist Marc Storace, guitarist Fernando Von Arb, guitarist Mark Kohler, drummer Freddy Steady, and bassist Chris Von Rohr.
Another note: Yes, I'll fix these murky-ass photos as soon as I can -- I am in the process of upgrading my computer to OSX four years too late, so it may be a while before I can actually get anything done.
A last note: It took me fully five years to actually get around to updating these images (9/6/10). What can I say -- while my personal technology has advanced by leaps and bounds, the quality of the copies of Krokus videos floating around out there has remained static.