20 years later, I finally get to see it again...
Posted: Wed Oct 10, 2007 10:16 amHaving been an on and off video collector for the past nearly-20 years, I've managed to find most videos ever on my want list. And thanks to YouTube and band websites, I've managed to at least see others I may not otherwise have the chance to. Hell, I even found Toto Coelo's "Dracula's Tango" video on YouTube a couple of weeks ago! Throughout all of this there has always been 1 lone video that has eluded me for more than 20 years. One late night in 1986, I was watching Night Tracks on (W)TBS, recording videos with my new and first VCR. On came a brand new video by Australian band Real Life. It was for their latest single "Babies". Having never heard the song before, I let it play without recording it. I loved the song and rushed to get the 12" single, as well as the bizarre compilation album it was released on, "Down comes the hammer". Since then I have always wanted to see the video again, and continually requested it during trades. No one ever had it. Even when I asked former Vice President of VH1 Classic, Eric (Satan) Sherman, if it was in the MTV archive (restricted or otherwise), he looked on his computer database and found that not even MTV had the video. I looked through EVERY Rockamerica and Telegenics reel I've ever seen, and never saw it released on one of those either. It seemed to be a lost cause... THEN, today I decided to browse the band's website for the first time in a while, only to discover a Jukebox feature that included some videos...and there it was, complete from beginning to end. I was so excited I had to watch it twice (so far). It was definitely one of the last of an era; shot on videotape, the boys playing their instruments in front of a plain white background. It has New Wave written all over it, which was rare in 1986. I always remembered the scenes of the guys sitting and banging away at their drums, but nothing else. So if anyone only knows this band for the still-classic "Send me an angel", I highly suggest you head over to www.reallifemusic.net and check out one of the rarest music videos in history, "Babies". Not to mention that David Sterry looks very cool, and not unlike some darker variation of Annie Lennox.