"Just Like Paradise" -- a music video retrospective

It amazes me that I haven't yet written about the exploits of Diamond Dave. A real icon of 1980s rock music. He was in his element 25 years ago. Roth was ultra-excessive, super suave and he didn't even know how to play guitar. He had six pack abs, and yet he drank excessively. He knew how to give an epic interview. Women loved him. He became too big for an already-big band (they started to use keyboards*).

Crazy from the Heat showed MTV he could go solo, with the legendary videos of "California Girls" and "Just a Gigalo/I Ain't Got Nobody" (both by Pete Angelus, a Van Halen artistic guru). Other great videos followed (I'd bet you've never heard or seen "Goin' Crazy!"). Skyscraper came out in early 1988, and I seriously have the "Just Like Paradise" music video burned into my childhood.

David Lee had his pick of the litter for a backing band, and I bet dudes were clamoring to get in on the action. In 1988, "Team Stud" was Steve Vai, Gregg Bissonette and Billy Sheehan (actually Matt Bissonette in the video). I think Brett Tuggle was on keyboards*, too. All-star, all-glam. Steve Vai is best known as a masturbatory shredder, and for outlandish guitar designs. Gregg, for his surfer mullet.

Also, hovering stages were a hot deal in '88:

There are few tidbits here that make this memorable. First, there is something like stop-motion animation used in many of the Roth close-ups. It's hard to describe, but it's like a slow animated GIF of David Lee Roth. I don't think it was such cool special effect for the time.

Other than a stage performance, there are some great shots of DLR himself rock climbing somewhere awesome (Yosemite National Park?) There's also boxing (with silver-flecked gloves) and surfing! The closing shot is Roth air surfing via guy-wires. As a kid, I really really loved this whenever I saw it on TV, and had to completely watch the video just to get to see the ending surfboard scene. I mean, the board is smoking!

Roth definitely did something for extreme sports here. Rock climbing, surfing and boxing all in one package! The only thing missing is skydiving.

For a select few, the1980s were just like paradise. And, just like some of the lesser-known hits or singles, there is nothing on the web that verifies the production costs or director. All in all, pretty much the same exact pace and shots as the promo clip for "Yankee Rose", save for the convenience store intro and about 20% less sex. I'm going to assume Pete Angelus did "Just Like Paradise" until I find a DVD that contradicts me!

Video stats
Length: 4:10
Director: Unknown (Pete Angelus?)
Date: January, 1988
Est. Cost: unknown

Links
* http://www.mvdbase.com/video.php?id=24057

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