Who Played the MTV Guitar Riff?

Factual Questions
21

Okay, now that that’s out of the way, who played drums on said theme? :stuck_out_tongue:

22

Here is my memory…from reading a load of guitar player mags in the 1980’s.

  1. He was a former session player, and mostly did pop metal.
  2. He had formed his own band during the last peak of the “hair metal” craze (think around the time of “Slaughter” or “Skid ROw”).
  3. For some reason I remember him having an Italian sounding name*.

Unfortunately, according to the All Music Guide’s site, Mr. Pomposello died in 1999. His credits did not include anything really related to that sort of session work, but I have found the AMG online site to have gaps in information in the past. But Pomposello was into electric blues, and the player I have in mind was more of a Ritchie Samboa clone.

Furthermore, the name “Pomposello” does not ring a bell to me…Anyway, he could have been the compser of this riff, and the MTV version was a pop metal “cover” performed by a session player.

Maybe if enough fuzzy recollections are combined, the truth will emerge.

23

Actually, two sites I found give reference to Pomposello working alot with MTV, VH1 and Nickelodeon:

http://www.smoothvibes.com/rjnewsletter/rjnewsletter_nov_dec_95.html

http://oregonladymusic.com/tom.php

Both mention him doing the “Cow getting MTV stamped on its ass” but neither say he did the big famous riff from the OP.

I’m guessing Pomposello is close but no cigar.

What boggles my mind is the lack of MTV history info on mtv.com!!

24

Well… to add some “fuel” to the fire…

I just heard that the riffing guitar player is none other than Gordon Sumner AKA Sting!

Now, let’s see if this is true!

25

It was Bobby Messano who played that riff.

26

What is your source for that?

This has Ray Foote:

27

Welcome to the SDMB, @lightningcatcher ! Do you have any links to any citations that support your post?

(Also, for what it’s worth, you’ve resurrected a conversation from 21 years ago.)

28

There were many MTV “idents” or “IDs” played to fill time between videos — the Saturn V launch/Moon Man one probably being the most iconic and longest running ident. Ray Foote played on that particular one.

Bobby Messano was a prolific session guitarist and hired touring player. His best known work is likely on Benny Mardones’ 1980s hit “Into The Night”. Messano also toured with Lou Gramm after Gramm left Foreigner to go solo.

Now, there are a good number of online articles and interviews featuring Messano. They usually mention that he played some “MTV jingles”. That doesn’t necessarily mean he played the original version of the iconic Moon Man riff. However, there were many, many MTV idents produced. Some featured guitar riffs different from the Moon Man one. Some also DID use the Moon Man riff but were clearly played by someone other than Foote. Anyway, there were many MTV idents on which Messano could’ve played—and some of them might have even had Messano playing his own version of the Moon Man power chords. But Messano didn’t play on the original Moon Man ident.

29

The clip in question:

30

I don’t think anyone played it. I think the whole thing was faked by Stanley Kubrick.

31

Its an interesting riff. It seems to be calculated to be reminiscent of other riffs of the era, just enough to capture the ear, but not too close. Perfect for its use case, and quite clever.

32

I don’t know who Lightningcatcher is but…

Tonite, Bobby Masano played at my work, The Broken Spoke in Genoa City, WI. He is a friend of ours and occasionally stops in for our Open Mics. He plays songs and tells stories of his >50yr career. Tonite he told us about the MTV Riff that he wrote and played.

33

Which he probably did. But I would always take with a grain of salt the reminiscing of old musicians on their >50 yr careers. Not because they lie necessarily, but because they very frequently misremember. At some points in time I believe both Carlos Alomar and Earl Slick have claimed that they designed the main guitar riff on Golden Years (looks like it has settled mostly on Slick in this case), but they were also both completely zonked on cocaine at the time so some vagueness is to be expected. Masano could have easily done a number of pieces for MTV, but misremembered which exact one and now decades later remembers himself doing part A, when he really did part B.