Everyone was high at the 1985 MTV VMAs after-party
Rick James is the most sober adult in this resurfaced footage from the ’80s.
TV Features MTV
Most people in 1985 were operating at a baseline of fairly stoned on something. This writer was born in 1985, and so any and all understanding of this time comes from Scarface and actual music videos on MTV. According to pop culture, it was all cocaine on mirrors, ice cold beers, and Pontiac Firebirds soaked in hairspray. Watching this footage from the MTV VMAs after-party in 1985 all but validates these assumptions. It’s delightful but not surprising to see an absolutely blasted David Lee Roth scatting like Kim Cattrall, but it is definitely wild when you realize Rick James might be the most sober person in the room:
For the 12 people who will inevitably point this out in the comments: MTV actually released this footage last August, but some of us had shit to do and it’s making the rounds again, and thank god because it’s a real treat. The whole thing is a who’s high of who’s who situations, from a mumbling Joey Ramone to a stone-faced Cher supernaturally gliding across the room, her eyes completely devoid of recognition. There are dozens of people—other famouses, even—around her, and she just glares through them like the room is empty. Also on deck are some baby Beastie Boys, Run-DMC, and a glassy-eyed Morris Day who—like most of the shit-faced celebs after him—says his favorite part of the show was himself.
Righteous praise is heaped upon Tina Turner, one of a few music icons wisely not approached by the camera crew (Cher and Grace Jones were also left alone), as well as Eddie Murphy, who hosted the 1985 VMAs. Around the 2:30 mark the guys from Van Halen fully embarrass themselves by proclaiming the Sammy Hagar iteration of the band superior to the David Lee Roth era, and even your drunk uncle who exclusively dresses in Kirkland Signature separates knows that’s bullshit. Oh, and also the band Ratt is there. Remember the band Ratt? Anyone? Ratt?
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And at the pre-party, and at the ceremony, and at the after-after-party, and the entire next day, and for the next several years.
Remember the band Ratt? Anyone? Ratt?I remember “Round and Round”, which I think is the only Ratt song that had more than one rotation on MTV, and if there were others, I don’t really give a damn. This has been your weekly installment of Old Man Yells at Britt Hayes/Cloud.
i heard that song yesterday! Everything but the hook/chorus was really awful. Like they came up with the good part and filled in the rest. The guitar solo could have been from any song, it was completely disconnected from the melody.
When I was in fourth grade, all the cool kids who seemed a little bit edgy were into Ratt. They also liked skateboards, although as far as I know none of them actually ever actually skated.
i believe its recently been on a geico commercial, which may have jogged your memory
Seeing as how Ratt actually *charted* in the year of our lord two thousand twenty due to said commercial, I’d make a conjecture that a significant number of folks remember Ratt. Dozens, at least.
Watch this.
This is a disgusting erasure of “Wanted Man” and I won’t stand for it!
One of the best guitar riffs of all time.
“Lay it Down” was also pretty cool, and a pretty successful radio hit:
“Lay it Down” is an all-timer but Invasion of Your Privacy was a major step down from Out of the Cellar.
Ratt was one of the better bands of that early-mid 80s pop metal scene. They had a really good guitarist in Warren DiMartini who created some great riffs
i’m sure everyone will want to know that there are, in fact, two! bands bearing the official name of Ratt.
They’re back and bigger than evuh…**ok..maybe not bigger
That video had Milton Berle in drag and a stuffy butler who wore a spiked armband and torn Ratt shirt by the end. Peak 80s hair metal.
I remember Henry Rollins gave the best summation of Ratt after “Round and Round” was a hit: “They put out another record that didn’t really go anywhere, and then they tried to put out a third record but it fell off the charts before they could type out the second ‘T’ in ‘Ratt’.”
Also at one point Ratt had a singer named “Jizzy Pearl” and I’m amazed a gay porn star hadn’t already claimed that name.
So Invasion Of Your Privacy, which got to #7 on the Billboard charts while hitting double platinum is what Rollins deemed as “didn’t really go anywhere”? LOL Dude was probably too busy screaming angrily at his mic with Black Flag’s empty wallets to bother keeping track.And their third album, Dancing Undercover, which was okay but not a major hit, still went platinum.That being said, the silly legal battles I’ve read about over the years with their old drummer has definitely been a major clownfest. And for what, when their time in the spotlight is ancient history at this point? That drummer, out of any of the guys in the band, is the last guy that should be claiming ownership. lol
Sure, I got “Dancing in the Dark” for x-mas back then, along with “1984″. Ratt was great.
Out of the Cellar is right up there with any 80s album. Seriously. 35 minutes, no ballads, no bullshit, all killer no filler. Better from front to back than any Motley Crue album except Too Fast for Love.
Ratt plays at the concert venue a town over once a year or so.Why yes, my part of rural PA figured the ‘80s were the height of culture and decided to stop everything right there, why do you ask?
I got news for ya, it ain’t just PA, there’s a bar in Ohio that was owned by Tim “Ripper” Owens that specialized in booking 80’s bands.
I have a feeling there’s a lot of rural America that decided we weren’t gonna get any better than 1988 and just stuck with it.
We were a kinder, gentler nation
He opened the bar close to downtown Akron (his hometown), while it’s not exactly a bustling mega city, I wouldn’t really call it rural (but it’s close enough to a bunch of rural areas.
While not entrely correct, it’s at least a defensible thesis.
News flash,this just in mullets are back. Those people were way ahead of the curve
…and most fairgrounds across the non-coastal areas of the country when they can’t find an even mildly popular country act.
Don’t be silly, the country acts expect too much of a cut on the money laundering.
I was actually sad to see Pat Benetar playing a county fair by my house. Seven Mary Three playing there the next year made a lot more sense.
I live in Pittsburgh and I happened to go to rural PA in the greater metro for a date a few years back and 38 special was playing. I mean, not like ‘oh at a small bar, good for them!’ but a HUGE venue, sold out no less, at the casino in the area. I give you they’re more a 70’s band but they had continued success in the 80s and it blew my mind to see 5-7K people crammed into this semi-open amphitheater to see…38 special. :S
It kills me that I still recall the hard rock/alternative radio stations in even the early 00’s would call out Donnie Iris for doing shows in da souf side. I love the fact that my duplex on Parkview was literally a block down from where Andy Warhol was born and grew up. Also: Dan Marino apparently grew up on the same street that I lived on, and the Catholic church a block down from me was where he would (and apparently still does) take his parents back for Thanksgiving Day mass. That Donnie Iris was a punching bag for radio MCs even as late as the ‘00s is surprising, but it was Pittsburgh.
Him and The Clarks were so treated so weirdly divergent, I never really listened to Iris much but I’ve heard enough of the Clarks to know that they’re on the same level but you would think the Clarks were going on to reach the heights of alt rock and Iris was a complete has been. I was only born in 1984 so I remember the 90s well in Pittsburgh where WDVE was already fading into ‘classic rock’ as Yinzer boomers became even more unbearable and The X was slowly corporatized completely so that they played singles from Master of Puppets and Justice For all almost every hour. I was so happy when I went to college and got siriusXM and it allowed me to discover a whole other world of Punk and better Alt/Rock.
It amazes me that even though I was in Pittsburgh off and on thoughout the entire 1990’s, and lived there from 2000-’05, and went to -a lot- of shows, I never once saw the Clarks. In all honesty, I had completely forgotten about them. I stopped listening to WDVE by 2001 except to listen to Pens games when at work. The X was always garbage to me. This is probably why I started listening to NPR and WYEP exclusively.
By the time I hit late HS/College the really alternative/punk scene was already fading in Pittsburgh, Club Laga was on the wane, Pitt’s punk scene was fading. Slackers on Southside was already starting to become a relic of the past as more bars started to crowd out all the weird shops that had cropped up there (I grew up just above south side, so it was my stomping grounds all through the late 90s when I was old enough to go out by myself). My BF and later my husband was so well liked by the bouncers for shows that he got us into shows for free just for showing up and keeping an eye on the inside for them. So we saw so many shows including the Clarks….who are ok? I mean, they’re definitely part of that early 90’s not really grunge but alt rock sound. It was solidly Gen X when we saw a show they were part of because the bands opening for them were people we knew, at 21/22 (I forget my exact age, I knew I could drink and was still in undergrad) he and I were the youngest people in the place by a significant margin, not like the others were ancient but most of the crowd was around 30 and it felt weird. I actually was friends with Vinnie who was the X’s local director for a number of years around that time. He was a great guy and hated his job. They all hated their job because they got paid crap to run whatever the top-40 alt was at the moment with just tons of metal sprinkled in and zero ability to present actually interesting stuff. He did get to have ‘The Edge of the X’ show and I used to get burned CDs of stuff from that from him on occasion which was awesome.
That’s surprising. Aaliyah and Love Is Like a Rock were fun songs.
I was gonna mention casinos too, but there’s a lot of baggage there, and their acts aren’t quite as region specific as “anywhere away from the coasts,” lol.
There are parts of NorCal that are frozen in the 80’s; like their hair is non-ironically feathered…
RATT quoting Spinal Tap was pretty fucking rad.
Morris Day’s inner monologue is screaming “BE COOL BE COOL BE COOL” so loudly I can hear it across both time and space. I had a flashback to coming home stoned off my ass and trying to navigate an interaction with my parents on my way to hide in my bedroom.
Rick James could just handle his drugs better. Or, you know, he might be pacing himself because those prolonged torture sessions are fucking strenuous.
Remember the band Ratt?Hell yeah. Out of the Cellar was one of the 12 cassettes I got for a penny from Columbia House when I about 10. BTW I’m serious, that’s not a joke.
Does Colombia House still send you one cassette a month that if you don’t return, you owe them $30 for it?
On a whim, I just checked to see if it’s still around and HOLY SHIT.It’s only movies now (both DVD and Blue-Ray!!!), you can join and get two for $10 apiece – but only certain ones. For some insane reason, with your “join now” selections you can’t choose from the clearance section. Of course, that section which has 10x more recognizable titles than the New Releases.https://www.columbiahouse.com/
And their prices are a lot higher than Amazon or your local Target or Walmart! Who is buying from them in this day and age?
I do know they sent you records that you could open,record and send back without remifications. They must have been high too.
They shot a video at this concert and if the camera had panned over a few more feet in one shot I would have been in it.
Love the Ratt/Marvin Gaye mix.
Dude, you overpaid.
I remember bumping in the mid-80s………..
*sniff* I don’t…*sniff*
I thought Cher was a tee-totaler.
You would be too if you had been previously married to Gregg Allman.
I believe teetotalers specifically don’t drink alcohol. There are plenty of other drugs out there.
Really? I thought it meant you don’t even smoke cigarettes.
According to Merriam Webster:
alright then.
Buncha fuckin’ amatuers! Who wants to fucking HANG?!
He’s no Bob Stinson.
Keith is still alive, so I think he wins that competition.
Keith had the support of millions of dollars and blood transfusions. I’ll take heroic intake with no help over coddling any day.
It’s not a competition, it’s a cooperation!
I remember this (as a junior HS student). Another great internet find:
Somebody has no idea how to record drums.
You can tell Idol was/is an Elvis fan.
Welcome to the AV Club, where it’s always the main page of reddit from 2 days ago.
It is under “Great Job Internet”. So maybe kind of the point of the tag.
wow! ya think?????
My favourite mid-80s awards show moment is Phil Collins sitting in the audience at the Academy Awards watching an absolutely stoned out of her mind Ann Reinking massacring Against All Odds (Take A Look at Me Now).
1:30 She looks like she can see through time.
Look at 3:59. 😂
Phil is all of us listening to Phil to Phil sing “Take a Look at Me Now”
Wut
Yes, it clearly is just an empty space. This what a cyborg powered and programmed by cocaine looks like.
The worst thing is it’s pre-recorded lip sync too (she’s not wearing a mic, nor could she sing like that while being spun around dancing). How?
The funny thing is she probably sang it in the hall for rehearsal, recorded it, and then used that recording for the lip sync. You can hear the hall echo in the recording.
Man even Jeff Bridges was taking shit too seriously in the 80s.
yeah, he’s really lightened up since then.
It’s almost like that episode of Parks and Recreation where Leslie has a flu-fever and yet somehow manages to pull off a major speech purely through muscle memory alone, except with truly heroic amounts of cocaine and a sub-par Phil Collins cover.
Watched the whole video and no Phil Collins. Thanks for the wasted time.
Out of the Cellar and Invasion Of Your Privacy were Ratt albums I wore out. Still blast them once in a while. Warren DeMartini’s guitars on them were phenomenal, especially on the Lay It Down track.🤘😎👍
When I read that fast it looked like “Out of the Cellar and Into Your Privacy”.
“Lack of Communication”>>>>>>
What you saw with Joey Ramone was how he spoke pretty much all the time, whether he was high or not.
Yeah DeeDee was the stoner of the group, thank you very much.
Yeah, maybe it’s cause he was always stoned, but he always talked like that.
Yeah, the premise here is kind of sophomoric. When I was a teenager and high on the weed, I assumed that everybody else at the concert was equally stoned out of their gourds.
Remember: Carbona, not glue
Let us repair to the basement to continue this discussion.
Hey, nearly everybody under 28 here. In this clip, noted target of virtue-signaling Eddie Murphy was praised as “brilliant” by another talent by the name of Boy George. History (like older media works) has lots of this shit called “context”.
Should’ve just made it under 35 or so…
What are you going on about?
Morris Day is high as balls in that video. I love it!
That’s because he knew he didn’t have much “time” left…
Grace Jones was just breaking in John Thundergun back then.
Of course Donald Trump was there. Of course.
Always a good reminder that preferring David Lee Roth era VH over Van Hagar is the right take to have if you also aren’t constantly touring with David Lee Roth.
Great point
OK, let’s get this straight. You get a pass because of your age, but David Lee Roth was a fucking mess. Yes, he was fun to watch jumping around in videos, and the albums were better than Van Hagar. BUT, when it came to concerts, Roth was completely unprofessional. Coked up and drunk, he never remembered lyrics, constantly missed cues, and was an embarrassment. Sammy showed up at a concert to give a good show. AND he added a rhythm guitar which took VH in a different direction. So stop with this “oh Dave was so great.” Google 1983 Van Halen US festival. Yeah, Eddie was drunk too, but he could still play. Dave kept shouting where he was like he kept forgetting then suddenly remembering again.
David Lee Roth’s gift was exactly that he could do an eight ball and never feel compelled to STFU. Most people catch themselves, but not old Dave! Boozedy boozedy BOP!
I have a feeling drugs or no drugs David Lee Roth doesn’t know how to STFU.
Lol “…but some of us had shit to do” like what? Write for a pop culture blog with almost nothing else to do but see shit like this when it came out?
Great Caesar’s Ghost! 80s pop stars were utterly coked up to the gills most of the time! STOP THE PRESSES! Lane, Kent, drop whatever you’re doing, I want you covering this story yesterday! And Olsen, if I don’t have some good photos on my desk by this afternoon you won’t have a job by this evening!
I do not remember Ratt but i do remember the UK band RatPack. Yeah bet most of you have to google that shit.
I wish the camera guy zoomed back a bit with Dolph Lundgren and Grace Jones. That couple is a sight to behold.