What I Like Most About You is Your Girlfriend The Special AKA - Directed and photographed by Jeff. Jerry had strong ideas of how to present his songs and for “Girlfriend” he gave me a story board and also suggested the location which was a bar downstairs in a cheap hotel opposite the Roundhouse in Camden. We did the casting together to find a hunk of a sailor and a model of a girlfriend and Jerry also got the dance troop Jazz Defectors on board, he instructed the band to dress in black with polo neck sweaters and I employed an art director to prop the bar (the cut out New York skyline was part of the bar). A space ship was made from a silver poof which we attached sparklers to and Jerry arrives on earth via an aluminium step ladder, finding himself outside a club that he enters – On entry he realises his space suit is inappropriate so changes into black with a polo neck sweater and shades then re-enters and goes to the bar where he meets the sailor and his model girlfriend – his face is green. Ironically it won a DA&AD award for best art direction although the all the art director did was dress the bar!
War Crimes - The Special AKA - Directed and photographed by Jeff In 1983 I was asked by Peter Wagg at Chrysalis records to photograph and direct a video for the track “War Crimes” by The Special AKA - We filmed it in a club in Coventry I lit the band with stark uplighting and used smoke to create an atmosphere – it was the first single to be released of the album In The Studio and the start of a relationship with the band and Jerry Dammers that led me to film all the songs on the album.
What I Like Most About You is Your Girlfriend
Free Nelson Mandela - The Special AKA Directed by Jeff photographed by Nic Knowland Perhaps the most significant protest song written in the eighties was Free Nelson Mandela, a Jerry Dammers composition that became an anthem in Africa and helped build the pressure for the release of Mandela and the end of apartheid. It was Jerry’s idea to film in a hall that might look like one from the townships and we found an old church hall in Malden Road which was part of a Catholic priory, Jerry then went and asked dancers from a club night at the Electric Ballroom to appear in the video and I asked Nic Knowland to light the video. Nic had filmed a music documentary in South Africa called the Rhythm of Resistance for channel 4 directed by Jeremy Marre that became the inspiration for Paul Simon’s Graceland album. What I remember most about the day is that there was an argument between Jerry and Stan Campbell the lead singer with the Special AKA as Stan thought he wasn’t being paid enough, he turned up with two blond twins at what was a predominantly black event which further irritated Jerry – we filmed the stage performance of Stan singing with the backing vocalists the Afrodisiacs then Stan left with the two girls one on either arm and we continued filming the dancers and the rest of the band _ not the most polished of videos but perhaps one of the most significant in my career.
Alcohol - The Special AKA - Directed and photographed by Jeff. Jerry Dammers is a well-educated man as well as being a phenomenal musician and composer While touring with The Specials he developed a love of alcohol to the extent that he decided the only way out was to stop – he wrote this song about his experience and when it came to making the video he wanted to base it on the character Tom Miller in the film “The Girl Can’t Help It” who in an alcoholic stupor starts hallucinating – Rhoda Dakar plays the femme fatal
Lonely Crowd
Racist Friend
Housebound