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The Rockstar Ramblings: Heroic Bad Ass Moments

Band Photo: Guns N Roses (?)

Last week Slash (Velvet Revolver, ex-Guns N Roses) was attacked on stage by a man attempting to tackle him from behind. The guitarist literally brushed off the offender and continued to play (on a broken guitar that would be replaced). In honor of this move this week we look at some of the heroic and/or bad ass (rating of 10) and not so heroic/or not so bad ass (rating of 1) moments from the world of videos.

1.0 Vince Neil showing he is not a morning person by grabbing his alarm clock and throwing it against a wall in Motley Crue’s “Don’t Go Away Mad (Just Go Away)”. Maybe the least bad-ass moment of the eighties… / Bret Michaels (Poison) throwing the beer in the backstage tunnel in “Every Rose Has It’s Thorn”…

2.0 Paul Stanley’s (Kiss) bold use of pink feathers and a green neon cape in “Rock and Roll all Nite”… / The band Dokken carefully walking through the fire in the video for, uh, “Into The Fire”…

3.0 Rainbow’s transition from the racing video game (is that Pole Position?) to an actual motorcycle race in “Death Alley Driver”…

4.0 Steven Tyler and Aerosmith breaking down a wall that was separating the band from Run D.M.C. in the video “Walk This Way”, breaking down musical racial barriers along the way…

5.0 Rob Halford’s clenched fist as he rides in the back of a Caddy in the video for Judas Priest’s “Breaking The Law”… / The half-shirt worn by the lead singer of Jailhouse in the video for “Modern Girl”…

6.0 The balls on the Asian kid in Motley Crue’s “Too Young To Fall In Love”, deciding that the only person to save his village is Nikki Sixx?...

7.0 The non-use of the Samurai sword in Dio’s “Holy Diver”. As Mr. Miyagi would say, (pointing to his head) “Karate is here”, not (pointing to Danielson’s fists), “Not here”… / Douglass, the black student, in King’s X video for “King”, a modern day Rosa Parks… / Jon Bon Jovi (Bon Jovi) seemingly throwing his guitar into the audience at the start of “You Give Love a Bad Name”, reminding me of Huey Lewis in the karaoke movie Duets, “I can’t go back, I’m a singer now!”…

8.0 David Lee Roth scaling a mountain in “Just Like Paradise”. How do we know it is really Diamond Dave? Who else does a karate kick while swinging from a mountain thousands of feet off the ground?...

9.0 The bitch slap in “Don’t Cry” by Guns N Roses, causing the girls head to bounce off the floor… / The guitar chord played in the beginning of “I Wanna Rock” by Twisted Sister, sending the authority figure through a second floor window, onto the pavement…

10.0 Rick Allen (Def Leppard) in every video after Pyromania…

David S. Grant (aka Rockstar_Scribbler) is the author of several books including Rock Stars, Happy Hour, and Corporate Porn. For more information please go to www.rockstarbooks.net or www.davidsgrant.com. You can also follow David on Twitter @david_S_grant.