1970s pre-MTV-era music videos - where did they air?

I love VH1 Classic; ot reminds me of the old MTV when that network truly earned the name Music Television.

Occasionally, VH1 Classic will air music videos from the 1970s. These look like conventional music videos, although they have the technology and production values of the day. They aren’t videos of a band’s appearance on another television show, concert footage adorned with kaleidoscope pattern chyrons and trumpet shots, or a song overlaid with stock film footage illustrating the gestalt of the era; these seem like REAL music videos.

I’m curious about why such videos were produced, and where they were presented. There was no MTV in the 1970s, and the videos seem to predate the UHF music video-only television channels that a few large cities had in the early 1980s before MTV hit the coax.

So, with no MTV, and no over-the-air video only channels, where did music videos from the 1970s air?

There was a UHF show called Music Connection in Phila. in the mid- late-1960s, which showed music videos on weekends. It certainly can’t have been the only one . . .

I remember a couple of late-night shows that showed videos way back when. Midnight Special, hosted by Wolfman Jack, is the one that stands out in my mind. Once upon a time, the Midnight Special was live music, but toward the end of the 70s I recall seeing more and more “filmed music” that would be classified as videos now. In fact, I remembe rthe first one I ever saw - it was Alice Cooper’s “How You Gonna See Me Now”.

As to “why” these old-time videos were made, I can’t say, but I’d guess it would sort of tie in with recordings - have your music get exposure without having to travel from live show to live show. Perhaps some realized early on that it was a nice way to blend visual art with music.

Todd33rpm says that a lot of the videos for English bands came from overseas shows for their networks, which is how we have Beatles songs as videos, for example. If the band was from the U.S., odds are that the performance was recorded for the aforementioned Midnight Special (mostly NBC affiliates carried the show), or the independently syndicated Don Kirshner’s Rock Concert.

Todd says the first time he saw Alice Cooper, it was on Midnight Special…he was five. He says it scared the crap out of him.

There was also a syndicated show in the early 80s called FMTV, but that was designed for broadcast networks in areas without cable access to MTV.

Yeah, Don Kirshner’s Rock Concert had a big impact on my musical tastes. I remember seeing Devo’s “The Truth about De-evolution” on DKRC, and I never forgot about it, and finally found a copy of it on the net a few years ago. I saw an ad in a magazine last week for A DVD release of it, so I’m gonna buy it when I have the cash. Anyway…
Did USA’s Night Flight pre-date MTV? It was on from midnight to six on weekends, and showed videos, cult and indie flicks, comedy, general weird shit and a great punk show called “New Wave Theatre” Some cool network should bring that back.

There was also a show on USA hosted by Lisa Robinson called Radio 1990 that showed vids and had features on bands, such as a documentary on Neil Youngs collaboration with Devo.
I think that show might not have aired untill 1981 or so.

It wasn’t videos per se, but the big screen flick, Urgh: A Music War showed MTV like live songs by a bunch of bands . This movie is a MUST SEE if you’re into alt-rock or punk.
I’m pretty sure that came out before MTV.

Jon

I also remember some show in the 70s that was hosted by Twiggy. I forget what it was called, but I remember seeing a bunch of videos by UK glam bands like Fanny, Slade and Garry Glitter.

Jon

“Video clips” of the artist performing (or miming) their song were shown in the US on “The Ed Sullivan Show”, “The Smothers Brothers”, “The Flip Wilson Show” and other such variety programs, back when there was little or no outlet for the dreaded rock music on national television.

It’s odd that you can get an audio compilation with just about any song ever committed to tape on it, but the “videos” of these songs, or live performances on TV are all but impossible to come by! Now that is something I’d plunk down the cash for! “Midnight Special” and “Don Kirshner’s Rock Concert” on DVD. Yeah!

Oh, yeah! Midnight Special and Rock Concert! Woohoo, I feel eighteen again. Speaking of which, diehard Alice Cooper fan here. (Sure hope no one from church is lurking…)

It’s not really a video, but who remembers Alice’s hour long “Welcome to My Nightmare” special? It came out late '70’s so it did pre-date MTV and Muchmusic.

Bands playing their music - live or lipped - does not a music video make. For me it only counts if they are inserted into a background of some sort.

The first several episodes of Laugh-In had true music videos, with the band taking part in skits, hijinks, or playlets rather than miming playing instruments. “Buy for Me the Rain” by the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band is still one of the best music videos ever, hands down. This was after The Monkees, however, whose music segments were obvious precursors to modern music videos. The “Going Down” video - a song not on any of their regular albums but shown on a half dozen episodes - could easily be played on early MTV without anyone guessing the group or the age of the video.

As said earlier, Europe had many video shows before they took hold in the U.S. That’s one reason why the overwhelming percentage of videos on the early MTV were by non-U.S. groups. That was truly a revolution because in those days you heard about as many British groups on American radio - as you do now, I suppose. None to hardly any.

There were a few late-night shows playing videos before MTV. I remember several Robert Palmer videos from those.

But basically the answer is that Europe was way ahead of the U.S. when it came to music videos. David Bowie was a big influence on this and on the glam groups mentioned.

They used to insert videos as filler between movies on premium cable channels like Showtime back in the late 70s–I remember seeing my first video ever (“Skateaway” by Dire Straits) there. I think I might also have seen “Mickey” by Tori Amos between movies.

For some reason, in the late 70s, I remember Home Box Office (HBO) showing music videos in between movie showings as way to synch up their schedules, I suppose. Like, if a movie ended at 7:52, they’d show a couple of music videos before the 8:00 movie. That was the first I remember seeing music videos on cable tv.

There were lots of music videos shown during movie previews in the theaters (I remember about a dozen shown right before Rocky Horror Picture Show at my local theater, including “Paradise Garage” by Tim Curry, “White Punks on Dope” by the Tubes, and some stuff by Devo). The first one I ever saw was “Banapple Gas” by Cat Stevens, around 1975; the last one of these I saw in the theaters was either “What’s It To Ya” by Robby Neville or “Dock of the Bay” by Michael Bolton, circa 1986.

cmonidareya you’re remembering that right.

Video Jukebox was the name of the thing, on HBO. In fact, in addition to using the videos as filler, there was a monthly half hour show (or a full hour, mebbe, it’s been a while) by the same name.

In fact, we’re going back to when HBO was only on the air from like 4PM to 4AM, or some such. I recall in the early part of the day there was a scrolling schedule of the night’s movies on, a sort of precursor to that TV guide channel. (But obviously, they only listed what was gonna be on HBO.)

I’d gather that other early cable stations did something similar.
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They also ran film shorts as filler, in addition to the videos. Short ‘N’ Specials, I think it was billed. That was where I first ran across the Star Wars parody “Hardware Wars” and the CE3K thing called “Closet Cases of the Nerd Kind.” There was one bizarre animated piece about a bunch of pinball game characters coming to life after hours in a video arcade, and doing battle with a bunch of pixellated Space Invaders, that I’ve been trying to hunt down for years now, and can’t remember the name of to save me.
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bodypoet: I seem to recall that the very first episode of Midnight Special was the Alice Cooper “Nightmare” concert/video show, in 75. (My memory may be suspect, however, and I don’t know if that’s when the show first ran, or not.)

That particular episode with the “How Ya Gonna See Me Now?” video was indeed later in the run of the show, when there was more than one featured artist per episode. VH-1 ran a bunch of Midnight Special episodes sometime… early last year, I think.

Well, whenever it was, they ran that episode among others, so fishbicycle, you might have some luck getting your hands on some tapes/DVDs of Midnight Special through the channel, or thier website.
[sub]No, I’m not affiliated with VH-1 in any way, I just vaguely recall seeing that one video on a rerun of the show a while back.[/sub]

Uh, Skeezix? Didja mean me? :slight_smile:

Michael Nesmith developed a show in the seventies called Pop Clips. It was all music videos. He sold the format to the folks who became MTV.

Nesmith also won the first ever Grammy awarded for video. The award was given for Nesmith’s Elephant Parts.

.

Why? These videos were made for promotion of an album or single. Oftentimes a band couldn’t schedule their tour to coincide with an appearance on a variety show or late night talk show, so they taped a performance and sent it to the show in their place. I believe the Beatles started the trend with Paperback Writer and Rain, but I could be wrong.

The Beatles began producing film footage in the 1960s to substitute for touring. Other bands like The Byrds and The Beach Boys followed their example. Mr Nesmith did indeed virtually invent MTV (much as his mother invented Whiteout) and this is the most concise explanation.

Two other outlets for music videos on American television in the 1970s were Dick Clark’s shows American Bandstand and Where the Action Is.

Mike Nesmith’s mother, Bette Nesmith Graham, invented Liquid Paper®, not Wite-Out®.

Yeah, I remember seeing Devo’s “Girl U Want” on American Bandstand of all places.

I was just goingto mention that I remember seeing Nesmith’s “Flying to Rio” video on HBO several years before MTv came around.

Additionally, I remember showing Jerry Rafferty’s “Baker Street” film at the theatre I worked at. It was spliced into the start of the movie after the trailers. IIRC, this was a couple of years before MTv.