Caught in the Carousel

Letter from the Editor - March 2007

By Alex Green

It’s hard to believe MTV is over twenty-five years old. And then it’s not so hard to believe. When MTV first came on the air, for me it was like a portal to a series of secret worlds I had never known about had suddenly been opened (think “Pan’s Labyrinth” by way of Quarterflash) and the chance to peer inside was a thrill each time Iturned the television on. Sure, in terms of concept the early videos were fairly low-fi (guy dances around girls dancing around classroom) but in that pioneering period, cinematic authenticity was hardly the point.

(This made me think high school was way sexier than it turned out to be.)

If anything, this simplicity made the videos sexier, more visceral and in some cases, even downright frightening. For example, when I was eleven I had no idea what to do with David Bowie's "Ashes To Ashes." The video may have been a rudimentary and purely predictive vision of the aftermath of a nuclear holocaust, but what it lacked in realism, it made up for in imagination. The fevered glow of Bowie's post-apocalyptic clown surveying the blurry new wave wasteland in nuclear soaked frills, scared me so thoroughly, it didn't occur to me until years later, that it's actually a hell of song.

(Actually, this still freaks me out a bit...)

I did better with the performance stuff like The Specials' "A Message to You Rudy" or Hall & Oates' "Private Eyes" or The Rolling Stones' "Waiting On A Friend." For the most part, the video medium was as new to the musicians as it was to me and as a result, there was a certain awareness of the camera that those early videos subtly capture. The bands seemed to be navigating the video world as it was happening and the viewer was watching them do the navigation. In other words, everyone was sort of making it up as they went along and it was pretty brilliant to watch.

When concept videos came around, of course I was into them. There were some that made loose sense and others that made none at all, but from Duran Duran's "Hungry Like To Wolf" to a-ha's brilliant "Take On Me" I watched every second with my face far too close to the television. Pat Benatar's Nazi-battling "Shadows of the Night" was particularly thrilling (who doesn't love an elfin rock star and her bandmates outsmarting the Third Reich?) and Def Leppard's "Rock Of Ages" clumsily cryptic and altogether slapdash as it may have been, was hard to resist. However, I drew the line at the Kansas video where a guy plays chess with a giant mosquito in a robe. Something about the way that mosquito dangled its bony hand over the board made it look like the direct translation of a fever. Couldn't get into it.

When I was eleven I used to come home from school and watch as many videos as I could before tennis practice. All I had was a half-hour, so if I could get in a handful (Genesis, Pat Benatar, The J. Geils Band, Elvis Costello, Talking Heads) I was happy. But when I was sixteen and found that I really liked the night I would stay up late and watch "120 Minutes" with a pad of paper in front of me, ready to write down any band that I hadn't heard of before. The Jazz Butcher Conspiracy, Love Tractor, Husker Du, and Hoodoo Gurus all made the list and the next day I would drive to the record store and blow a lot of money all based on that late night list.

I'll stop there. I know my experience with MTV is probably not much different than yours if you grew up when MTV played music. But that's just the thing-MTV doesn't really play music anymore and if they do, their music programming is dwarfed by their selection of original reality-based shows.

So when I said it's hard to believe that MTV has been around for over 25 years, I didn't mean that it's hard to believe that so much time has gone by. If that were the case I would say it's hard to believe that I have gray hair, or that Andy Summers of The Police is sixty-four, or that The Smiths broke up three decades ago. What I mean is that looking at MTV now, it's hard to believe it's the same channel that it was when I was a kid. I understand things have to change, but MTV is unrecognizable from its former self. Robert Smith and Simon LeBon and Siouxie Sioux have been replaced by shows about teenagers getting married, snotty sixteen-year-olds planning their birthdays, kids in juvenile hall who may or may not get second chances, Bam Margera sabotaging his own wedding with a chainsaw, a batch of pumpkins and bad metal and drunk guys making out with drunk girls by bonfires and forcing us to hear their conversations.

What's so unusual now is that while video may very well have killed the radio star, at least those videos had new stars to offer. The real stars now are not the girls from "The Hills" or "Laguna Beach" but their cellphones. Most of the new shows have scenes that center around watching someone talk on their cellphone, or watching someone watching someone talk on their cellphone.

But perhaps the most dispiriting thing I've seen lately is "The Real World: Denver." Not only is the cast a revolting bunch, they seem intent on acting out every possible social cliché' possible. They yell, they're racist, they sleep with each other, they hate each other, they drink a lot, they shower together, they cry, they threaten to move out (they don't) and then they make weird apologies that never address the thing and instead address the thing about the thing, which means nobody takes responsibility for anything. It's no different than past shows, but something about this lot is especially repugnant.

So yeah, I want my MTV. But I want the old one, not the new one. I know it's not coming back because the MTV of 2007 is not the same as it ever was, and this is not my beautiful wife, and this is not my beautiful house and I get that, but it bums me out.

This seemed to bum former MTV veejay Nina Blackwood out, too, when we spoke about MTV's past and present a few weeks ago. One of the original veejays, Nina is an enthusiastic and engaging interview, who is more than happy to talk about the nature of music on television and on the radio--her insights about both were particularly illuminating. To be able to talk to Nina, who was someone who introduced me to so much music at such a young age was an absolute treat. It's our featured interview of the month and I think you'll find her comments very interesting.

Here's what else we've got for you this month:

**Producer/Engineer Matt Boudreau gives us his all-time list in our "CITC's Top Ten Essential Albums" feature.

**New album reviews of The Shins, Andrew Collberg, The Good, The Bad, & The Queen, Bayside, The Phoenix Foundation, Tigers and Monkeys and more.

**The debut of David Porter's sardonic and brilliant "Pretty Sure" comic strip.

Next month?

Tons of reviews, exclusive MP3's, interviews and homemade lentil soup.

You know you want a bowl.

In the meantime, big thanks this month to largeheartedboy, Adrfit Clothing, Carl at Mod Media, Stephanie Trick, Fanatic, Caroline at AAM, Skye Media, Mike Farley, Truck Records, Fire Records and Rey Roldan at Reybee for getting on the Carousel and staying there. Thank you for your support.

If we hear from you, you'll hear from us: alex670@earthlink.net

Alex Green
Editor, Caught In The Carousel
Alex670@earthlink.net