As opposed to the MTV 30th anniversary thread, I thought I’d mention that my favorite videos were always outside of MTV (not least because I didn’t get my MTV until 1985 or so). What did you watch? Night Flight, Solid Gold, Friday Night Videos . . . good times. Fie on MTV, this is where you found your real 80s vintage cheese:
There was a brief, glorious period in Chicago where channel 66 showed nothing but music videos, like a free MTV but without the VeeJays. It was in 1984 and lasted maybe nine months. They were on sort of a loop, getting mixed up now and then, but I remember a month where I’d come home from school and watch “One Night in Bangkok” from the Chess soundtrack.
Channel 69 in Atlanta focused on music videos for a while. It was edgier and more interesting than anything MTV was doing at the time. They often had in-studio visits from emerging artists, and were showing videos that were more in the alternative music vein (back when the phrase “alternative music” still had meaning).
I was living out in the country at the time, and I remember fiddling with the rabbit ears trying to get a decent picture so I could watch it.
I remember that channel. That’s where I first saw the Timewarp from Rocky Horror Picture Show. I don’t remember much of what else the channel played, but they seemed to be second tier videos compared to what MTV had at the time. Not that I should complain about that. I seem to recall also seeing Cindi Lauper’s Time After Time on there once as well. Lauper was tres awesome then and is still a great musician.
I also remember Friday Night Videos on NBC. During my senior year around August 88, my sister came home from college and was swooning over New Kids on the Block, except for one of them who she thought was lame – I couldn’t remember if it was Jonathan or Corey or Sheckie or someone, but she was going on and on about how bad of a dancer he was. All I could think was that my sister, who was in college, should be at the point in her life where she is seeking out new artists and undiscovered songs, broadening her horizons and musical tastes. Instead she was eating up the prefab, spoon fed, safe and boring pop music designed for 13 year old girls.
We used to sit in the computer lab at school and watch Channel 69 videos during lunch. I seem to recall them having Lionel Richie’s Hello and Jermaine Jackson’s Do What You Do in extremely heavy rotation.
Around 83-84 the PBS station used to show music videos between shows. They had the lyrics in subtitles, with certain parts of speech highlighted. Some videos featured adjectives, so all adjectives in the lyrics were highlighted in red. Others had nouns highlighted, and so on. I had just changed colleges and moved from a city that had MTV almost from day 1 to a smaller town that didn’t have it yet. PBS and Night Flight were about my only reliable sources for videos then.
By the time I had access to MTV again network decay was already underway.
Well maybe I’m misremembering as to how “edgy” they were, then. Or maybe I am remembering their late-night programming.
Also, in the late 80s to early 90s, I seem to recall an alternative video program that was produced in Pittsburgh and (if I recall correctly) aired locally on Atlanta’s PBS station. I remember them featuring such acts as The Pogues, Poi Dog Pondering, Pere Ubu, Let’s Active and The Mekons. Anyone remember anything about that?
Since our family didn’t have cable in the 1980s, it was Friday Night Videos first (for some reason I seem to recall ZZ Top’s “Gimme All Your Lovin’” winning the ‘Video Vote’ week after week after week - till they had to retire it from the contest),
Then, for the New York Area, c1985-1986 it was U68 - music videos all the time, various genre blocks (I can only recall the Heavy Metal “Power Hour” block right now), Uncle Floyd & Oogie doing various skits between videos, the “Dire Straits ‘Money For Nothing’” contraversy which delayed me from seeing that video for months after it’s release (you, know, ‘I want my MTV’ - not on U68 you don’t), and seem to recall, decades after the fact, a reall cool ad for Zachary’s Dance club, East Meadow NY (which I spent a lot of time at in the early 1990s).
Most excellent video channel it was…
…then the dang fools had to change it into yet another freaking shopping channel!
Damn you! Damn You all to hell!
Videos most definitely not on MTV’s playlist - grunge before it was grunge: Bombshelter Videos. Watching NW and other punk bands on that, or listen to them on KJET or KCMU (now KEXP) then off to Fallout Records, or to the Offramp or OK Hotel to watch them live. '87 - '91 was an awesome time in Seattle, then ‘grunge’ took off and it stopped being a ‘local’ music scene. The golden age was over…
One show not mentioned so far was Rock World. They had an editorial policy of “If we can get it for free, we play it” which led to them playing a lot of amazing stuff eMpTyVee wouldn’t touch. One particularly memorable evening they played the entire Stiff Records catalog and I discovered folks like Wreckless Eric, Ian Dury and others. Not sure if I had discovered Lene Lovich before that show.
I think it was Night Flight in 1986 that showed a 1976 clip of Talking Heads at CBGBs doing Psycho Killer. I liked that show. I’d get home late on the weekend, kinda drunk, and watch an hour or so as I wound down. And had another beer.
It was Daisy Fuentes. She speaks a language we all understand.
Night Flight. Saw all of Tony Powers’ award-winning videos one night and now I have his permission to turn his hits into a Broadway musical, like Jersey Boys. Given, of course, that I’m too lazy to do it.
Anyone remember the Box? It was a station that aired videos that viewers requested on a 900 number;some places had it on cable while some places had it on the higher end of the UHF dial. You usually saw rap videos that MTV wouldn’t even think of airing–Eazy-E, Luther Campbell, South Central Cartel, Spice 1, E-40, etc. Unfortunately they shut down in the late 90s when MTV bought them out.
On a show called Image Union, Chicago’s PBS station had an episode where they showed videos from around the world. For the life of me, I can’t remember three of the four that were played. One song was “Miami sound” with the a lot of percussion – think the Miami Vice theme. Another song was from the UK and one of the guys had a mohawk-like hairdo that was more like a cross. I can’t remember the third at all, but the fourth video was Laibach’s Life is Life.
http://www.youtube.co m/watch?v=JbB1s7TZUQk I broke the link for topless Amazon archer.
Or maybe I am remembering their late-night programming.