Decade Of VHS – Motley Home Videos 1986-1992

 

Motley Crue’s Uncensored home video from 1986 is one of the better band home videos of those years because it showed the Crue have a sense of humor. Along with their wild biography & classic songs & videos, Uncensored is a time-capsule of an age when Rock n’ Roll was a living, breathing thing. We see a picture of the band just before they would go off the rails in 1987.

 

Although there are ‘set-up’ scenes that they try to pass off as real there is still a good amount of natural moments like when the guys finally gather in the studio to share a drink & watch their old videos. It's a very entertaining & classic 40 some minutes with our heroes. Here's the whole thing! (enjoy before it's removed!)

My first Uncensored was just a VHS copy but I watched the shit out of that thing. For a young kid, to have this access into the Motley world was wild. I’m re-posting a Metal Edge article on the home video below.

 

 

Dr. Feelgood had a total of 5 videos made for the singles: ‘Dr. Feelgood,’ ‘Kickstart My Heart,’ ‘Without You,’ ‘Don’t Go Away Mad’ & ‘Same Ole Situation.’ So many videos in fact that they released a short home video dedicated to them. I would have had all these vids from recording them when they were aired on Much Music but the home video included footage of the boys goofing around in a rehearsal space, introducing the videos.

 

The Decade Of Decadence home video was a disappointment for this fan due to the lack of archival footage on it. Some of us Crueheads were salivating, thinking that the video would contain footage from the Shout days or earlier (because Nikki had said there would be in interviews). No such luck, unfortunately (except for THIS short clip of the band walking to the stage at Donington in 1984). What we did get was all the Motley videos up to 1992 (including ‘You’re All I Need’ & the uncensored ‘Girls, Girls, Girls’) & footage of the boys sitting around their luxury homes giving interviews. There are little interludes that show a bunch of rare images from the decade but you have to pause & move slowly through the frames to even catch a glimpse of them. 

The below review of the home video in Rip Magazine echoes my opinion of the release. This was the last Motley footage many of us Crue fans saw before Vince left/was fired from the band. 

The complete Decade home video is presently on YouTube so I’ll embed part 1 below. Click on the YouTube icon in the bottom right corner of the video itself to bring you to YouTube where you can watch the other 16 parts. Enjoy!

Motley Scrapbook #2, Part 2

 

Above are a few items that foreshadow some other upcoming Sleaze Patrol posts: magazine Reader’s Awards Polls & letters to the editor/band/musician which used to be a centerpiece of most hard rock publications back in the day. It’s interesting to think of Rock fans of the ‘80s & early ‘90s writing letters to connect with their musical heroes. No email, no Twitter, no MyFace, just the postal service.

Blast! Magazine had such a low inventory of quality fan-submitted drawings of Rock stars that they had to use the above Tommy Lee one twice for two different stories: Tommy got pickpocketed in New York & Heather Locklear cut her hair (!). A disheveled Tommy comes in second in a car race & a fan writes into to some magazine to say what a cool guy Vince was when she recently met him.

I started cutting out the Record Chart Top 10 LPs & Singles from my local newspaper & above we see that ‘Primal Scream’ made the top 10 as a single & that the Dr. Feelgood record charted as well. There’s a small pic with text of Tommy with his sister Athena & her band way back in 1989, a goofy Nikki & Mick interview from who knows, members of the Scorpions reviewing the Dr. F video, Motley fans letters . . .

In an earlier post about Vince I brought up the rumour that he had plastic surgery back in 1989 (read the bottom of the Vince post HERE) & a couple fans wrote to their favourite Metal mag to ask if it was true. Also above, more local charts, a news item about Heather Locklear being jealous of Jessica Hahn’s advances at Tommy at a Sam Kinison video shoot & Nikki talks tats.

Scrapbook mania!!: Vince at the MTV Awards, two fans hitting on Nikki via letters, a hilarious National Enquirer-style story (probably is NI) about Tommy cheating on Heather in 1989 & she may have to support him if Dr. Feelgood isn’t a success!!!, part of a controversial & classic article from Hit Parader with Quiet Riot’s Kevin DuBrow & Nikki slagging each other & defending each’s band. DuBrow said (see the article’s quote) ‘Motley Crue are nothing but a bunch of poseurs’ & Nikki responds, & Vince waves goodbye until next time at the SP FILES . . . .

Decade Of Decadence Part One–Metal Edge, January 1992

 

Decade Of Decadence was released in October of 1991 after the band played shows in Europe. A bunch of video from this tour has been popping up on YouTube. The band did a show at the Marquee club in London in August & billed themselves as ‘The Fourskins'. Here’s audio of the very first performance of one of the new Decade tunes, ‘Primal Scream.’

Metal Edge’s Gerri Miller contacted Nikki & Vince in the summer of 1991 while they were still working on tracks for the new album. They give details on the then as of yet unreleased Decade & plans for the next Crue record . . .

I still have this magazine intact so I’m posting all of the Crue-related material from the issue including a centerfold, an ad for the new record & random Crue content.

Here’s part one (two, actually. Part one seems to have been removed) of a Motley fan’s collection of DOD-era Motley media with footage from the boys at Donington for the Monsters of Rock fest. More Decade of Decadence down the long & winding road at the SPFiles . . .