I Want My MTV Read Online Free PDF Page B

his brother Bob, and I were writing songs for Devo when our friend Chuck Statler came over with a copy of Popular Science magazine. On the cover, it had a picture of a young couple holding what looked like a vinyl record, except it was silver and reflective. And it said, “Laser discs. Everyone will have them by Christmas.” Chuck had taken filmmaking classes, and then directed commercials. We wanted to make films that used our songs, so they could eventually be on laser discs. We were art students from Kent State who were influenced by Robert Rauschenberg and Andy Warhol. Laser discs looked like the obvious bridge between the conceptual world of art museums and the real world of record stores.
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    JERRY CASALE: It was a burgeoning, do-it-yourself thing. The Devo videos I directed were hideous and funny. We saw the world as grotesque, and put ourselves right in with it. I grew up loving the New York underground films of the Kuchar Brothers and Kenneth Anger. I hired friends and we’d get extras for $25 a day. The video for “Satisfaction” cost a whopping $5,000. By the time we spent $16,000 on “Whip It,” it was like, Uh-oh, these video budgets are getting out of hand.
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    MARK MOTHERSBAUGH: “Whip It” was shot in our rehearsal room. The faux log cabin was made out of the cheapest paneling we could find at Home Depot. We cast a band member’s girlfriend, and when I was at the mall, I saw a girl who was really pretty and really cross-eyed, so I asked if she’d be in a video. It was very casual. My dad’s in about a half dozen Devo videos. Our management and our agents didn’t understand us, and our record company certainly didn’t.
    STEVE LUKATHER, Toto: We did some lip-synced videos for our first album, in 1978, including “Hold the Line.” I had Mork and Mindy fucking suspenders on. For our second album, Hydra , we decided to try concept videos. This was before MTV. Bruce Gowers shot four videos for us in one day. They’re so bad, they’re hilarious. The sets looked like the inside of a sewer. Even when we were doing it, we were laughing. We figured, “No one’s ever gonna show this.”
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    TOM PETTY, artist: We made a video for “Refugee” because we didn’t want to appear on The Merv Griffin Show . We thought if we sent a film clip, they’d play it—which they did. We showed up with our guitars, the director said, “Stand here,” and that was it. It was meant to be shown once.
    Then in 1981, for Hard Promises , we did four videos in two days, directed by my high-school buddy Jim Lenahan, who did our lighting and staging on tour. “A Woman in Love” was really good. The Police completely stole that. They stole the cinematographer, Daniel Pearl, the location, everything, for “Every Breath You Take.” In those days we were actually cutting film by hand in the editing booth, and I was there right through the cut, through everything. So when MTV came along, I was an old hand at it. But I never dreamed those things would be seen repeatedly.
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    DAVID MALLET: I directed “Emotional Rescue” and “She’s So Cold” for the Rolling Stones. Afterwards, I got an interesting fax from Keith Richards, and it happens to be in front of me because it’s framed and hangs on my office wall. Part of it reads, “TV and rock n’ roll have always had a weird marriage.” He’s right. One of the most difficult things to film is rock n’ roll. People get bored and want to go home. By the time you’ve filmed the bloody thing, all the rock n’ roll has gone out of it.

Chapter 3
    â€œWE WERE JUST IDIOTS IN HOTEL ROOMS”
    JOHN LACK, BOB PITTMAN, AND THE CREATION OF MTV
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    IF MTV HAD PLACED A HELP-WANTED AD, IT MIGHT HAVE read: “Novice TV station seeks employees. Ideal candidates must love music, be willing to work long hours and drink