#735: Quite Possibly the Worst Music Video I’ve Ever Seen: Vigilants – “Run For Cover”

GETTING MORE TALE #735: Quite Possibly the Worst Music Video I’ve Ever Seen
Vigilants – “Run For Cover”

Recording music videos from the TV as a kid was a fine art.  My method was to keep the machine on “record-pause” as videos were playing.  Then all I had to do was un-pause and I’d be able to start recording almost immediately.  I’d lose maybe a second of video.  Then I’d pause again at the end, waiting for the next “good song”.

The Pepsi Power Hour was an amazing way to discover new (or old) bands.  By recording the videos, I could hear the songs over and over.  If there was a new band I was curious about, I’d take a chance and hit record.  If I didn’t like the song or band, I’d just rewind and record over it.  The Power Hour would play virtually any kind of metal.  Their intro had Slayer’s “Angel of Death” as the theme music!  From Poison to Cro-Mags, they would play it.  Venom were regular favourites.

One afternoon in 1986, I was recording away when J.D. (John) Roberts announced a new band coming up, called Vigilant.  (Over the years I’ve seen it spelled as Vigilants and Vigilante, but I will continue to use the spelling as it appeared on TV that day.)  I recorded it — decent enough hard rock song — and I kept the video because their labelmate Lee Aaron had a cameo in it.  Lee Aaron was and is Canada’s Metal Queen, so I thought the band must be OK.  But dear God, what a video.  What a horrendous video!

Let’s break it down.

We got the asshole record exec who won’t give a band a shot.  We have Lee Aaron at reception, and a stripper entering the offices!  What could this be about?

The stripper plays the record exec a tape, and then suddenly enters:  more strippers!  How many?  Who knows, but you can play “count the strippers” with your friends if you like.  The song is playing, but we still haven’t seen the band.

It’s well over two minutes before the band burst into the room, guitars in hand, to play along to their song.  The fashion of the day:  checkers, stripes, tassels, and tight tight pants.  Pants so loud that Jon Bon Jovi himself wouldn’t have been seen in them.  The bassist has one of those narrow body basses that were trendy at the time.  The drummer?  He doesn’t even show up until the 3:00 mark.  Poor drummer!  The point of course is that the strippers have far more screen time than the guys in the actual band, the hallmark of the stinkiest of the 1980s.  Sulfer-stinky!

The one on the left is in roller skates.

The plot thickens when a roadie enters, with a flash bomb.  He’s going to blow up the band!  But then, Lee Aaron pulls the old switcheroo.  And the roadie, though good at plugging in flash bombs, doesn’t seem to know how to unplug them.  Guess who gets blowded up!  Not the band or the strippers, I’ll tell you that!

Don’t worry, it’s a happy ending for everybody.  Including the lead stripper, it’s heavily implied….

Please enjoy (?) the music video for “Run For Cover” by Vigilant (or Vigilante, or Vigilants) featuring Lee Aaron.  The song actually wasn’t that bad.  The verses were nothing to write home about, but the bridge and chorus are pretty good!  Generic as hell, but it was the 80s.  (Oh, and check out the funny MuchMusic bumper before the actual video, featuring Loudness singer Minoru Niihara!)

38 comments

        1. HAHAH! Well think of it this way. For 35 years all I had to listen to was that old, mono VHS tape. To hear it on LP in proper stereo, after that much time…that could be pretty cool, man.

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      2. The EP is excellent. Refused to sign over their publishing rights to helix manager Bill “ the crook” Seip. Attic wanted to sign them. Seip blackballed them. They were only 21 when they won the homegrown contest and put out this EP. What could have been. Band split in 86

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      3. You should feel bad for the band they had zero say in this travesty. It was a promo for Lee Aaron. The band had one a a metal contest and this was their reward. This is all Lee Aaron’s doing and it sucks bad

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