Metamatic Forums John Foxx John Foxx and Louis Gordon VIRGIN VIDEO

As it as already been discussed on a previous thread, it's well known from various interviews what John thinks about his video's that were released nearly 30 years ago.

My point is whatever John thinks of them now, how do forums members rate the video's themselves?

I like them.
Underpass was a very original idea at the time for a video and some very well shot scenes. It also goes along with the lyrics and music very well. IMHO the best video.

He's a Liquid. Another good video. Well thought out and again goes hand in hand with the song.

Endlessly I like a lot as well. It as a lot feeling in it. Like the outside scenes and John running up the white spiral staircase. Again goes with the lyric's very nicely.

No One Driving and Dancing like a gun. Typical studio video's of the era. Nothing special. I guess made on a very limited budget and it shows.

Miles away. Not keen on this. My least favourite.

Stars on Fire and Lose All Sense of Time. My daughter loved them when she was younger being colourful and funny. I can take it or leave them.

To sum up being a huge fan however critical I am of the video's I still enjoy seeing them and I've never regreted buying the tape.

Peter

I agree with you Peter. Would be nice to have it on an official DVD ( copies of self - made DVD's gone around here).

But I fully understand John he dislike it. It is the same with Ure/ vox collection DVD. It is not really important but nice to watch sometimes. At least it is history - many musicians did videos like this in the eighties.

Would be nice John would release it as a small limited edition for his fans.

My favourite John Foxx video is He's A Liquid as it was the first one I saw and heard the song, so the two are forever linked in my mind. I thought it was unique and suited the song wonderfully. The Underpass video was very good too, although some of the imagery, the children for example may be lost on me.

I love his other videos too, particularly Dancing Like A Gun, just for seeing how someone actually does.... Dance Like A Gun!

I know for certain I would buy a DVD compilation if it was ever released.

Well if its going to take time for a DVD release (if ever), then that time may as well be spent getting copyright permission for tv clips from that period too. That way John can release all what he no longer likes so much and then forget it. Plus it would make for a more definitive release as with the early album re-issues.

personally i think that the buggles were quite right as they've said "video killed the radio star" , because videos rob u of your own visual imagination of the songs , which may be totally different to what u see in the videos then !

anyway ... i only saw a few foxx(vox) videos more or less "by accident" & never really cared for any of them , as i already had my own "videos" for all those songs in my mind by then !

so i could live very well without the ol' & also any new videos - not only in john's case ! ;-)

btw : andy mc cluskey of o.m.d. - another virgin act - thinks very much the same as john about their ol' videos ! ;-)
however ... not much of a "coincidence" imho ! ;-)

Personally I think it is extremely unlikely that these videos will ever be made more widely available in their original form. Why should they - don't most of us have them in some for already, or at least access to them via the likes of iTubes?

In the recent Swedish interview that Sarah linked us too (and cited by Garry), he says quite emphatically that he hates them, and they were produced at the time as nothing more than a contractual obligation. He says also that he sometimes didn't even see the final edits.

I believe he does not even consider them to be 'his' work, and so (quite righlty IMHO) wants to disassociate from them. John Foxx has always stayed true to the principle of only ever releasing material that he considers to be the best it can be, which explains why we have so many rarities and unreleased demos etc. It must always be a consideration that putting out relatively 'unfinished' or unrealised material will have a slow, erosive effect on the standard of everything else surely?
And given that Foxx is now putting out his best ever material and has a cast-iron quality stamp running through all his releases, why should he want to undermine that with stuff he doesn't even like? It would never be for the sake of making a few quid because I don't think that is the way he works.

That said, we all know that John Foxx is a keen advocate of 're-purposing' his own material. So maybe new versions of the same could see the light of day - or at least bits of them used in other films.
I suspect that's more likely.

To answer Peter's question, I also like the first two best and then they go downhill. Rather like Virgin's enthusiasm for John's work (in commercial terms)…
Which is the one with lots of shots of 'A Woman on A Stairway' in it? I like bits of that one too

I haven't really seen them properly - just the odd grotty glipse on YouTube -
the last one I saw was "Dancing Like a Gun", and it seemed gloriously of its time, with all this overexposed flames and video negativising and people mooning around like some kinda JG Ballard take on Brideshead Revisted,
I thought it was ace!

the only ol' video stuff that i would rather enjoy seeing would be , if john would use them as a kind of "way back to the 80s / from trash" ( ;-) idea to create a video to ... "making movies" with them ! ;-)
that would be really ace imho ! :-)