Where can I find the video of Lou Reed's "No Money Down"?

August 10, 2004 8:59 PM

Where can I find a copy of Lou Reed's video for "No Money Down?" It's the one where halfway through the video, Lou turns out to be a robot and starts tearing himself apart. Freaked me out as a kid, and I'd love to see it again, in whatever format might be available.

To broaden the question, what are some good places for finding obscure/out of print music videos?

posted by nixxon to media & arts (7 comments total)

ebay or gemm.com?
posted by riffola at 9:22 PM on August 10, 2004

What a great question. Old songs survive on CDs, vinyl, etc, but what happens to old music videos? Obviously, only someof them were deemed worth compiling onto VHS/DVD titles for sale. What about alllll the rest? Talk about a way for the labels to make money on the internet...
posted by scarabic at 9:36 PM on August 10, 2004

Maybe VH1 would play it.

What? Why is everyone laughing?

VH1 Classic (digital cable, DirectTV channel 337) is all videos, small chance though of finding it. You could request it and watch during their request hours, that's assuming you have the channel.

LouReed.com has some videos, though not the one you're looking for
posted by ALongDecember at 11:16 PM on August 10, 2004

Oh man. I had totally forgotten about that song and video until now.

I would just about kill to be able to get a copy of a lot of those old videos.

A few years ago, MTV2 played all the songs in their vault (i.e., all the songs MTV ever played) from A to Z. It took months. I bet that was the last time that video was ever broadcast.
posted by litlnemo at 2:32 AM on August 11, 2004

Nope, litlnemo, it wasn't. I've seen this video a few times on VH1 Classic, most recently within the last two weeks, so its absolutely in the rotation. Most likely it'd pop up in the "All Star Jams" blocks, as opposed to "We Are the 80s" (even though it would fit timewise) which seems to be mostly mainstream pop.

I'd second ALongDecember's suggestion of making a request of it for the Request Hour program. It would be far from the most obscure vid shown, by quite a distance.
posted by Dreama at 5:35 AM on August 11, 2004

I have to recommend VH1 Classic as well. There's a show called "The Alternative" on a few times a week that has kindly unearthed MTV's 80's and 90's alternative videos. It sounds like the exact type of thing you're looking for. The hosts thank the viewers for their input from time to time, so maybe you can email the channel and request it. Then TiVo it. :)
posted by boomchicka at 6:34 AM on August 11, 2004

I just ordered a bunch of video collections off ebay. I found pretty much full collections of the clash, english beat, the smiths / morrissey and the go-gos on DVD-R. This particular person didn't have anything that seemed lou reed-ish, but I'll bet someone out there does. (ebay usually angers me, but I could think of no other source)

Also perhaps not very useful, but if you have a friend who works at any of the music channels then the whole thing is very easy as they can just dump it to tape for you ( I made a cocteau twins video compilation this way, although unfortunately my friend no longer works there )
posted by milovoo at 8:18 AM on August 11, 2004