In this episode of 'Seeing Them Live,' hosts interview Stephen Pitalo, a music video historian and creator of the Music Video Time Machine website. The discussion kicks off with Stephen reminiscing about his first concert experience at a Ratt show in 1985, featuring Bon Jovi as the opening act. They delve into Stephen's extensive career in music journalism, his interviews with iconic music video directors, and his ongoing book project that aims to document the golden age of music videos, which he defines as spanning from 1976 to 1994. The episode also highlights Stephen's work at Serino Coyne Incorporated, producing radio commercials with notable talent, and his experiences in the music industry, including playing in a punk band and hosting music video dance parties.
In this episode of Seeing Them Live, Charles and Doug welcome Stephen Pitalo, a music video historian and creator of the Music Video Time Machine. The discussion explores the golden age of music videos from the 80s and 90s, touching on Stephen's website, magazine, and blog that highlight iconic music videos and upcoming events. They reminisce about Stephen's first concert experience with Ratt and Bon Jovi in 1985, his fascinating encounters with musicians, and the influential music video directors he has interviewed for his upcoming book. The conversation also delves into memorable concerts attended by Stephen, from an unforgettable Joey Ramone show to a spectacular Prince performance, while also addressing the surprising disappointment of Billy Bob Thornton's Boxmasters. The episode offers a compelling look into the historical and cultural significance of music videos and live music experiences.
BANDS: Alice In Chains, Bad Manners, Big Country, Billy Bob Thornton, Blondie, Bon Jovi, Cheap Trick, Crazy Town, Criss Cross, Dixie Chicks, Duran Duran, EMF, Fontaines D.C., Foo Fighters, Garbage, Guns and Roses, Guns N Roses, Henry Rollins, INXS, Joan Jett and the Blackhearts, Joey Ramone, L7, Lap Daddy, Madness, Marshmello, Morris Day and the Time, Motley Crue, Primus, Queen, Ratt, REM, Rick Springfield, Rod Stewart, Ronnie Spector, Soraia, Spin Doctors, Taylor Swift, Tears for Fears, The Boxmasters, The Dictators, The Independence, The Knuckle Sandwiches, The Meters, The Pristines, The Ramones, The Runaways, Twisted Sister, U2, Whitesnake, Whitney Houston, ZZ Top.
VENUES: Bowery Ballroom, Brownies, Continental Club, CBGB, Coast Coliseum, Coney Island High, Continental Club, Continental Club, Gulf Coast Coliseum, Hank's, Mississippi Gulf Coast Coliseum, Pussycat Lounge, Starplex Amphitheater, Starplex Amphitheater, Tramps, Westbeth Theater, Westbeth Theater.
[00:00:00] Charles: Our guest today is Stephen Pitalo Stephen is a music video historian and the creator of the Music Video Time Machine website, which includes his Music Video Time Machine magazine and a blog featuring insights on your favorite music videos from the 80s and 90s.
[00:00:20] Stephen describes this period as the golden age of music videos. You'll also find a list of his upcoming events there. Steven frequently speaks on the history of music videos and up until recently, DJ'd and hosted the Music Video Time Machine dance party in various clubs throughout New York city.
[00:00:43] Steven is also a live music fan and has been to numerous concerts. Steven, welcome to Seeing Them Live.
[00:00:51] Stephen: Hey, thanks for having me. I appreciate it. I like the podcast. It's always good to hear people's different concert stories.
[00:00:58] Charles: Yeah. We're also joined today by my cohost and producer Doug Florzak. And I, and I just wanted to mention Steven, to everybody, that was a very brief bio. It goes back a ways to the beginning, but I encourage people to go to the website Music Video Time Machine and and check out your bio because you've done a lot, a lot of stuff, a lot of cool things. And we can touch on you know, we'll touch on some of that and feel free to to jump in and add whatever you like in that regard.
[00:01:29] Stephen: I've been very lucky to be able to do as many things as I have so far in my career, but, uh, you know, half of it's right place, right time. Some of it's luck, you know, but I've always enjoyed writing about music. So that's, that's kind of been the jump off point.
[00:01:44] Charles: Yeah, and you've got an extensive blog and interviews and such with artists and directors of music videos. So it's, it's really a really cool site you have there. As is our tradition, uh, Doug and I always like to start with, you know, a few concerts you've been to, and then, and then we'll chat about some of the things you've been up to and have done in the past.
[00:02:05] But your first concert you had mentioned was back in 1985. It was at a Ratt, a Ratt concert with Bon Jovi as the opening act. And you were 15 years old and, uh, took place, I guess, at the Gulf Coast Coliseum in, uh, Mississippi. Want to chat about that?
[00:02:25] Stephen: Oh yeah, absolutely. Well, I grew up in Biloxi, Mississippi and, uh, the Mississippi Gulf Coast Coliseum opened in, I think maybe '79, '80, and it was a stop for most big arena rock bands and heavy metal bands, uh, because it was halfway between New Orleans and Mobile, Alabama.
[00:02:46] So, we got a lot of metal acts. I remember during the 80s I saw a lot. I saw Motley Crue, Whitesnake, you know, all the, the bands that you would recall. But my first show was Ratt. It was August of '85. Bon Jovi was the opening band and they were, and that was what was the most memorable was and I still can see it as clearly as anything.
[00:03:12] John Bon Jovi on up on a 2nd level with an American flag wrapped around him. And he's like, spinning around during Tokyo Road or In and Out of Love or one of those ones off the 7800 Fahrenheit album. And, you being the music fans that you are, I know that you obviously know that that that second album by Bon Jovi is called 7800 Fahrenheit, because that's the temperature at which you can melt rock.
[00:03:39] Charles: Ha ha ha.
[00:03:41] Stephen: But they, they were actually shooting the music video for Your in Love there, and they also, they did footage in Shreveport as well, so the band ended up only playing about four or five songs because they had to play Your in Love I know, at least 2 or 3 times, and they kept resetting for the TV and stuff like that.
[00:04:02] So, but everybody knew that they were doing that. And so nobody was was going. Oh, I want to hear it. You know, this isn't what I came here for back then. Of course, 1985 is back. It was prime MTV time. So we were all really thrilled to be there for that.
[00:04:20] Charles: Yeah, and you, uh, you know, you'd mentioned they were shooting a video, so I went and I watched that music video. And they don't, they don't show a whole lot of the crowd, it's like these fast pannings of the crowd, and I thought, Yeah. I was expecting more, maybe more of the crowd to be featured, than, than there was.
[00:04:39] Stephen: You have to kind of think about where they were. This was really only their second album. First album was, you know, Ratt was Round and Round, uh, Back for More. And I think Wanted Man, were all off of that first album Out of the Cellar. This album was Invasion of your Privacy and they had already had a big hit with Lay it Down.
[00:05:00] So that was the, the song that they were touring on at the moment. So I guess they decided they wanted to do something a little bit more supportive of the live show so that people would come out to see them. And I mean, they were great. Warren Demartini is a very underrated guitar player. So it was, it was great to see him playing.
[00:05:18] I'm not absolutely sure that the drummer's name, Bobby Blotzer, is an actual name, but if I was going to make one up, I think it might be Bobby Blotzer.
[00:05:30] Charles: That's a good one. Yeah. I had, uh, mentioned I had a, a brief Ratt, uh, encounter, um, when I was, uh, working. I was at a trade show, staying at a hotel in Dallas, uh, in Texas, and, I get on the elevator with the work colleague and we ride it down and there's these rock and roll guys in the elevator, but I, you know, yeah, I didn't recognize him and the doors open and and we get out and he's like, do you know who that was?
[00:05:56] And I'm like, no, it was a Ratt. You know, like, oh my god, you know, I had no idea but they were in town playing like a venue. This is a 1999, Starplex Amphitheater. I did a little research. I think that's when this happened. So yeah, it was my brief brush that I didn't even know was happening at the time with Ratt.
[00:06:18] Stephen: Well, to that end, if you ever get a chance to hear Henry Rollins, one of his standup performances, he has a whole block about going to see Ratt, and I think it was maybe far after they were headlining. I think it was at a small club or something like that. And it is just beautiful. His description of the band and the banter and everything. It's really, really great. I saw him do it live actually at the Westbeth Theater up here, but it's worth seeking out.
[00:06:50] Charles: Okay. Yeah. I'll have to, have to check that out. So, I would imagine you were just, you know, a fan at that time. Did that like, but did that inspire you or get the spark to your interest in music videos at that time with kind of, you're being like a part of that, that live video?
[00:07:08] Stephen: That makes a really good narrative. But no, I was just a teenager. At the time, I was very lucky that my junior high school, high school and college years are exactly 80 to 90. And so that was such a wonderful period of time for, for popular music and, and a huge time for MTV. So I think it probably, you know, put a little something in my mind, but, you know, at that point, I just, I was watching MTV all the time, just like every other teenager, but it did make it interesting, uh, you know, later on to kind of look back and, and, and try to find out about some of these music videos. I was able to actually talk to Marshall Burrell, who is Milton Burrell's son, who directed a bunch of the Ratt videos. So that was fun. To talk to him about that.
[00:07:56] Charles: You'd mentioned, either, and we'll talk about this in more detail, the MTV panel, or maybe it was your, uh, your recording of your talk you did, on the music video history, where you, you're in the process of writing a book, that I think what features the directors of, of these music videos and such that you've, you've been interviewing for a book?
[00:08:19] Stephen: Yes. I've been working on this project for a really long time. And initially I had been working as a broadcast producer for an advertising agency. And we were looking for directors for specific commercial. One of the reels that came in had a bunch of music videos on it for this particular director. He had done those as well.
[00:08:38] And it turned out to be Nigel Dick and Nigel is a very, very, very prolific director. And what was interesting was when I got him to talk a little bit about it, he had a very unique perspective and a unique career that actually crossed into all these other areas. He was originally a PR person for Stiff Records, working for Dave Robinson in the UK, back in the very early 80s late 70s.
[00:09:06] So he got to see all those videos that they shot for Madness and for Tracy Almonds, You Don't Know, and stuff like that. And then later he became a director on his own and he calls himself a brick layer, a utilitarian type video, video director. So he, he said he never turned down a, a job ever.
[00:09:27] And it's, it's completely believable because you look at this entire thing. So just from the, the, the numbers and the ratios, he had some hits. And those hits were the trilogy of Tears for Fears, Everybody Wants to Rule the World, Shout, and Head Over Heels, which were all top 10 hits. And then, he shot the videos for Guns and Roses, Welcome to the Jungle, Sweet Child of Mine, and Paradise City.
[00:09:56] And then later on, he shot Britney Spears, Hit Me Baby One More Time. So he had this great sort of career and he didn't mind just kind of hanging out a little bit and talking about it because we eventually decided to hire him to shoot this, this commercial for a Broadway show and it was great and I started thinking about the fact that I didn't I didn't think there was a resource anywhere that had interviews with the directors of these videos, and I was right.
[00:10:24] I mean, there's a few things here and there, you know, John Landis, who directed thriller and and, you know, a few, but mostly not. So I actually got, talking to a specific video director named Brian Grant, who shot videos for Whitney Houston and, and, um, Duran Duran, and it turns out that he knew all of these other people.
[00:10:47] And then once I talked to him and I talked. To a few of the more notable ones, everybody else was okay with talking to me. So now I'm up to about a hundred music video director interviews.
[00:10:57] Charles: Wow.
[00:10:58] Stephen: What's fascinating is I've also gotten a chance to interview a lot of the bands about what it was like. I mean, most recently I interviewed, Ian Dench from EMF and I'm putting together the, uh, interview from that about, you know, Because he was in EMF and they're coming back to the states for the first time in 30 years to, uh, to do some concerts.
[00:11:21] So, yes, I'd have to say that getting to talk to those guys really put things in perspective and it made me come up with the idea of the Golden Age of Music Video because all these guys were shooting those videos and people talk about MTV being a huge phenomenon and all, you know, that's great, but it's really it's just the delivery system for all of this.
[00:11:44] Somebody had to make those videos. Somebody had to start working toward this being a little bit more than a performance piece. And once there was some good concepts, and pretty soon the marketing people saw that if you were on MTV, and no matter what it was, you were going to sell some records.
[00:12:03] They started loosening up the reins a little bit for the creativity to flow. Because they didn't know what would work. They just knew if you were on the air and it quote looked cool, then you would sell some records. So these directors had a free hand for a certain period of time. And if you got a hit, then all these other people would come to you and say, "Hey, can you make one like that for us?"
[00:12:25] And, you know, and sometimes it works. Sometimes it didn't at the end. Most of these directors just said to me, the thing that they had in common was that they never had enough money and they never had enough time, but over the course of their career, they never had more fun doing anything like they did when they were making these music videos, because it was just, you know, you had to creative free hand.
[00:12:51] Somebody call you up. Hey, uh, I need you to make when you think about it as an independent filmmaking, if you frame it that way, this guy's giving you $30,000 to go and shoot a 3 minute film that you don't even have to worry about the sound on.
[00:13:04] Charles: Yeah.
[00:13:05] Stephen: You know, what an amazing opportunity. Yeah, it's been fascinating to talk to all these guys. And so, uh, when the pandemic hit, I decided to just put out a magazine with all these, uh, these interviews in it and to grab some photos and, and pull in some interviews from some bands. And that's how Music Video Time Machine, the magazine, uh, was launched.
[00:13:25] Charles: Yeah. Now that I, I thought that was a really interesting angle, you know, uh, interviewing the directors of the videos and their interaction with the bands. And like you said, some of the bands, their input on, on what that was like. Yeah, it sounds like an interesting topic to write a book around. So, looking forward to that. Any idea when, um, that project might be finished?
[00:13:49] Stephen: Uh, no, I don't. I'm still actually in the process of trying to figure out how this is best structured because I've tried, you know, trying to do a chronological through line of it, but that doesn't necessarily give justice to all of the, all of the videos and all the stories that I've gotten. And so it might end up being sort of an encyclopedia of these clips, but to tell you the truth, I've been working on this thing for, you know, over a decade, and I still don't know exactly what it is, but it's one of those things where I know there's value in collecting the information on the front end
[00:14:31] Charles: Yeah, I could kind of, in my head, I'm picturing almost like a, family tree or a flow chart of, you know, all of these people are connected and, and, you know, throughout that whole process of, of shooting the video and, and who they interacted with. I would imagine there's a lot there, but yeah, Encyclopedia would be, that would be an interesting approach to that.
[00:14:54] Stephen: Or, I guess what you could call an omnibus.
[00:14:57] Charles: Okay. I wanted to talk, about a couple more concerts that you had mentioned or maybe a few here. The Joey Ramone concert at Tramps, in New York City, as your, uh, most surprising. So, there was a, there was a special guest that, that played there as well that night.
[00:15:17] Stephen: What was great about that, was Joey Ramone. The Ramones weren't playing together anymore. So it was Joey Ramone and The Independence, which was just sort of a showcase for him to do whatever songs he wanted and to throw in some Ramones as well. He had also recently produced an album by Ronnie Spector.
[00:15:35] So Ronnie Spector shows up and does some songs with him, which is, I mean, that's, that's the ticket right there. It's incredible. But also on the bill were The Dictators who were incredible. This very, very underrated band from the era called The Pristines. They were, sort of guttural punk, but with girl group melodies and girl group voices.
[00:16:02] It was, it was incredible. They were on a label called Almo Sounds, but I think Garbage was on that album, on that label. And so I think they got all the attention, but it's worth looking up on The Pristines. They did an album called Scandal, Controversy and Romance, and it's fantastic. They do a cover of David Bowie's, um, Sorrow, which I think is actually a cover of somebody else, but they do that and they do a cover of Reckless Eric's The Whole Wide World, but amazing.
[00:16:32] Anyway, they played, The Dictators played, and then, you know, there's people like, there's going to be a, uh, special guest. And so there's all these rumblings about who it could be. And then the lights go down and people just start screaming. The lights come up and it's Blondie. So they're like roaring and they're playing Dreaming.
[00:16:54] That's like the first thing out of the gate. And there's, there's Debbie in full sunglasses and just like, you know, going at it. It was, it was an amazing, amazing show. I still have the ticket, still have most of the tickets of all the stuff that I saw. But that was fantastic. And I missed that venue too, Tramps.
[00:17:13] It was a kind of a, a club. Atmosphere a little bit smaller than Bowery Ballroom, I would say, but those those places like that don't really exist in New York anymore. Um, it used to be Tramps, Brownies, Continental Club, and Coney Island High, which Jesse Malin ran. We had all these great bands that come through and play there. Then again, I'm much older now. So all the new places that they would be playing, I really don't know anyway.
[00:17:43] Charles: And how long had you been in New York City at that point when you saw the show?
[00:17:48] Stephen: I moved in 1995. So that was, I want to say...
[00:17:55] Charles: I think you had it done as 1998.
[00:17:57] Stephen: Yeah, '98. I actually have a, have a, an advertisement on the wall that has a calendar of all the things that all the people that were playing there that month, and it's just unbelievable the people that they had. Among the people that were there that month were Joe Ely, Steve Earl, Fun Loving Criminals, uh, different members of The Meters played there, uh, George Porter. Dixie Chicks, weirdly enough, were playing there, I guess, before the, they really made it big. Bad Manners, you might remember from, uh, from the UK and one of my favorite shows, Morris Day and the Time played there and it was, I mean, he is a showman extraordinaire.
[00:18:39] Douglas: I love Morris Day, he's great.
[00:18:41] Stephen: Oh man, and still out there doing it. So, you know, more, more power to Morris. I remember a moment in the show where he says, I'm going to take a moment now to talk about one of my favorite subjects: me.
[00:18:54] Charles: You know, that was, the golden age of, maybe those clubs, huh? Steven, like, you know, same kind of thing.
[00:19:01] Stephen: Probably.
[00:19:02] Charles: Then you had mentioned a Prince concert that you went to in 2004 as a, your best concert. And I've talked to people who've seen Prince and I never did see Prince live. I wish I did, but, they all say what a fantastic show it was, usually like one of the best concerts they've ever been to. But what was kind of interesting, you mentioned there was, that they played all the hits and there was like this acoustic set sandwiched between the two electric performances. So I, if you wanted to comment on that, like what that was like or how that was, you know, structured.
[00:19:37] Stephen: Well, I think if you want to see it on YouTube, it's fairly available, but I think they have in a smaller, smaller area. What they did in the coast Coliseum was he sat in a chair with an acoustic guitar and it was on, uh, on some sort of contraption and it just moved up, up, up, up, up in the air. And I don't know how high he was.
[00:20:02] But it was high because you could, I mean, everybody was amazed that he was going to, you know, play from that high up in the air. And it was just, it was fantastic. And I, you know, he played, um, Cream, an acoustic version of that. He played, gosh, what else did he play? Um, I think he played a, uh, a Rufus song, maybe, maybe A Sweet Thing or something like that.
[00:20:28] But what I found to be amazing was, the energy just never stopped. He would sometimes stay on stage and play or whatever and the whole rest of the band would go, you know, rest and then they would come back and, you know, but it was, it was incredible. I want to say it was the third encore that he comes out and sits down at the piano and starts playing The Beautiful Ones from Purple Rain.
[00:20:55] And I think the, the roof just blew off of the place. It was just incredible. So, yeah, that was that's probably the greatest show I've ever seen. On another occasion, I was lucky enough to go to one of those Prince shows that's after the show. In New York. I was there, I stayed for three songs, but it was four o'clock in the morning and I just had to go home, because I had to go to work the next day.
[00:21:23] Charles: Oh my goodness.
[00:21:23] Stephen: He played Motherless Child, which is a, was a Ritchie Haven song, I think, and he played Alphabet Street, and he played one other cover. But he, he was in town supporting the Larry Graham album that he, I believe he had produced until Larry Graham was on there on stage with him, him, Larry Graham being the former bass player for a Sly and the Family Stone.
[00:21:48] Charles: Okay.
[00:21:49] Stephen: So that was, that was wild to see and to be that close to see him.
[00:21:55] Charles: Yeah. That, that sounds like a really special, once in a lifetime thing there.
[00:22:00] Stephen: Let me also just say what it reminds me of is that I've only gotten to go to a few of those little things before. Cheap Trick did a secret show at CBGB's, and it was like 2001. I want to say maybe 98, maybe 99. I'm not sure. Um, their musical, Music for Hangovers album had come out.
[00:22:19] We went and it was hard. I mean, it was one of those, it's a tiny place and there's Cheap Trick right there. And it was, it was amazing. It was incredible. And I, that's one of the bands I've seen the most in my life, Cheap Trick. They just never disappoint. So yeah, that was, that was special too.
[00:22:36] Charles: Moving from special to we'll, we'll say not so special or, um, maybe disappointing was this Billy Bob Thornton band, the Boxmasters. And, um, it was a free show, I guess you were saying, and, uh, I read online some stuff about his performances and I think he offended the entire country of Canada. Some comments he made warming up for, opening for Willie Nelson, but what was your experience like with that?
[00:23:13] Stephen: Well, you know, I'm, I'm at the point in my life and my career where I find it very difficult to criticize or downgrade anybody who's making an effort out there to make music, do what they want to do. But Billy Bob Thornton is a very, very talented man, just not in this arena. My wife and I went, it was at a casino, it was for free, and people started leaving almost immediately. The prowess of the of the band was not even as good as a high school talent show, you know, I'm sorry, but what was disappointing, though, was that one of the guys in the band was Teddy Andreas, who's basically who's Teddy Zigzag, who was, who played harmonica on Guns N Roses, Use Your Illusion album.
[00:24:04] He's the, he's the, he's the harmonica on Bad Obsession, you know? So I, and I think he was still with the band at that moment, but now that I think about it, I'm not absolutely sure he was. The other thing is that, you know, Billy Bob's on stage and he's trying to make some jokes and trying to be funny and all, but unfortunately his tone and his presence cinematically as such a badass, is that it just made everybody nervous. You know, people were not like, oh, that's funny. It was like, uh, this guy might come down and punch me in the mouth. I mean, the Boxmasters have been around for a long time now. And I really expected something a little bit better than what I saw.
[00:24:47] When you're playing a show for free and people are walking out, that's, I mean, that should be a signal to you that maybe either practice some more or, or something. But yeah, it was not a, it was not a good experience. And I, I was really rooting for him too. I really wanted it to be good, but it just wasn't in the cards.
[00:25:06] Charles: Until you had mentioned that I think I knew he was in a band or at one time, you know, but yeah, like you said, they'd been around for a long time. So yeah, that was, that was new to me. I thought we could switch gears a little bit here, Steven, and just, uh, maybe get into some of the things you list on your, uh, Music Video Time Machine.
[00:25:27] On the website, there's, there's this great clip. Oh my God. of you, and this VH1, it was, uh, is a game show, right? Name That Video? And I was thinking, man, they. got the wrong guy, or in your case, the right show, uh, for this, cause he's, he's gonna, he's gonna crush this. I was wondering, like, how did you, how did you become a contestant to, to start with?
[00:25:51] Stephen: Well, my best friend, Andy, uh, called me one day and said, I just did this thing to be a contestant on, on Name That Video. They asked me some questions and all and, uh, you really ought to call these people and do this because I think you would just kill it. And so, you know, I got the number. I called them and they said, sure.
[00:26:12] We're looking for contestants. And they asked me some questions and they call me back. Yeah. And they asked me some more questions and they called me back and they said, are you free on this particular day? And I said, sure.
[00:26:22] So I went to the studios. VJ Karen Bryant was the, was the host and it was set up just like Name That Video. I mean, just like Name That Tune, the old Ron Ely hosted version, which I recall. So the first thing was they would ask a question. There was three of us and you had to accumulate points, um, for answering the question. Sometimes you had to complete the lyric or something like that. And I won that round.
[00:26:50] And then it was myself versus another guy. And it was, I can Name That Video in blank seconds, you know, I, you know, and we went back and forth and the clues were pretty easy for me. Like, as I recall, one of them very specifically was Atlanta astronomy, and I instantly knew that was the Georgia Satellites.
[00:27:11] Charles: Okay.
[00:27:12] Stephen: I mean, that's that's easy. So I basically really, it was kind of a dirty thing to do. But I said, I can Name That Video in one second, you know, and the guy was like, okay, I named that or, you know, or 0 seconds or something like that. And I got that one and then I get to the end. And the end is they'd show music videos on a screen.
[00:27:32] You have to name the artist and the song and then they go to the next one. And if you do 10 of them in 60 seconds, you win the grand prize. And they were easy. It was like, you know, Girls Just Want to Have Fun by Cindy Lauper and Keeping the Faith by Billy Joel. And, they were pretty easy. The very last one, actually I think, Foo Fighters was the one I got stuck on.
[00:27:55] Charles: When I was watching it, I'm yelling, Foo Fighters, Foo Fighters.
[00:27:58] Stephen: You know, I had stopped myself because...
[00:28:01] Charles: You knew the song.
[00:28:03] Stephen: Right, Learn to Fly and I knew it was Foo Fighters. But, Goo Goo Dolls was like about to come out of my mouth. And I was like, that's wrong. You know, in my head, I was like, pass, pass. But the funniest part of this is that to me is that the very last song was Sarah McLaughlin, I Will Remember You.
[00:28:22] The only reason I knew that song was my girlfriend at the time would just play it all the time. It's like, Oh God, I hate this song. So luckily. You know, that, that worked out and, uh, I want a Toyota 4 by 4, and with a really great sound system.
[00:28:40] Charles: Yeah.
[00:28:41] Stephen: And this, this, this is kind of a sign of the times, because it was at 2001. I won Rolling Stone magazine's 100 greatest albums of rock and roll on CD.
[00:28:54] Charles: Yeah, yeah, that was a good haul at the time. I mean, I was like, wow, that's, that's not bad.
[00:29:01] Stephen: Worked out. It worked out well. It was funny. I had to go to Tower Records and with a list and they just, and they were like, all right, we walked around and I think they were missing like six of them. So they had to special order it. But, uh, Yeah, it was great. And, uh, you know, I was lucky. It's a nice thing to add to the resume, considering the stuff that I was writing about.
[00:29:24] Charles: Yeah, yeah, it totally fits. And yeah, it's a great, um, to, to check out. So people should, uh, definitely take a look at that.
[00:29:33] Stephen: I just want to mention it. I know it says it in my bio, but I want to mention that I, I sold the car back to the dealership and I paid off my student loans with the money.
[00:29:44] Charles: nice, nice. Yeah, that, I would imagine that was a pretty expensive vehicle, uh, back then or even currently, you know.
[00:29:52] Stephen: But to be honest, it was about $35,000.
[00:29:55] Charles: Yeah, so not, not bad for naming, uh, 10 videos, right?
[00:30:00] Stephen: And believe me, it's, it's, it's nice to be able to tell your parents that you paid off your student loans by doing something that, like watching TV and watching MTV a lot.
[00:30:11] Charles: Yeah. See, if you, yeah, you add up all the hours there, it was like a, you know, your part time job, right? You're going to a good, cause. Then, uh, also on your website, you have this, uh, it's a longer, video of the MTV 40th anniversary. You put this panel together and I, I was just wondering you know, how did that all come about? Getting that together? It was at a Comic-Con in New York, right?
[00:30:41] Stephen: Right? I had done a few, um, presentations and a few panels as part of Comic-Con's, uh, they had sort of an adjacent pop culture. Thing that they were doing, and I got to know some of the people, um, with read pop, the people who produce Comic-Con and, uh, it was coming around. And. Uh, to be honest, you have to get your panel information in very early and I knew it was coming up.
[00:31:09] I knew that anniversary was going to be, you know, in 2021. So I said, you know, I, I'm a music video historian MTV's 40th anniversary is coming up. This would be a big deal. And they wanted to know who would be on the panel. And so I just, uh, had kind of a dream list that I put forth as booked. And they were not so we got the panel 1st, and then I, you know, because as I found out later, they'll come back to you and they say, okay, can you confirm this?
[00:31:41] And if you have replacements that they say, well, who are your replacements for that? And so they don't cancel it. They just, you know, you have to still follow through, um, depending on. I mean, you know, if it was the godfather anniversary and Al Pacino is supposed to be there, and then he's not obviously, that's probably going to get canceled.
[00:32:00] But this they were a little bit okay with. So I was able to get John Sykes, who was the former president of MTV in the 1980s. I got Karen Duffy, who was V. J. known as Duff in the 1990s, who I got just from a, a cold call email, and she was just wonderful. She's such a lovely person. Uh, and she said, I'm on board. Let's do it.
[00:32:25] And then as luck would have it. I got one of the members of Naughty by Nature, uh, who are known for their songs OPP and, and, uh, Hip Hop Hooray, uh, Vinnie Brown. And he came out and it was great. And then I talked, I said, well, I need one of the directors because I, you know, that's, I've been talking to these guys forever.
[00:32:44] So I got Tim Newman, who directed music videos for many people, but he's most famous for the ZZ Top Trilogy of Sharp Dressed Man, Give Me All Your Lovin, and Legs. So he was, he would be able to talk about, you know, that era and those. And so I got them all and we did it. And, you know, it went over really big.
[00:33:02] And what was good enough that the next year, uh, we did something called Where Were You in 92. Karen Duffy came back and talked some more. I had, uh, directors Rich Murray and Paul Rockman who had done music videos for, Spin Doctors, Cris Cross, Alice In Chains, you know, all these great ones. And so we were able to do that in 92 as well.
[00:33:26] Charles: I thought it was a great discussion and presentation and one other question I had Steven was, you'd mentioned this list of people were there. I guess some people that, uh, couldn't make it, or you wanted to add to the panel because, although it's, you know, it's like an hour presentation, it seemed like that was pretty, a pretty good number of people and kind of filled up that discussion. I thought kind of completed it, but I was just wondering if there was like, maybe one other person or somebody you wanted.
[00:33:57] Stephen: To be honest, I thought that an hour wasn't actually gonna be enough time to do everything that we wanted to do, and I'm not even sure is in an hour and an hour and a half. 'cause it's like, it, it might be a little bit longer, but point being. Is that, uh, I wanted a chance for everybody to contribute it, to talk and to have Q and A and stuff like that.
[00:34:17] And so it's surprising when you have four people on a on a panel, how fast the time can go, but to your point, I, at the very beginning, I reached out to a lot of people and I just didn't hear back from many of them. But the one person who did try to make it and then could not get, could not get the logistics together was Dee Snider.
[00:34:36] And he was, I mean, he was very nice, very sweet. He, his people were like, we really want to be a part of this, but we just can't make it work. And so, I look forward to doing something with him, you know, maybe in the future and all. To speak to that for a second though, the, We're Not Going to Take It video and I Want to Rock, were videos that the director Marty Kallner, talked to me about and they were kind of, you know, they were cartoony and they were silly.
[00:35:02] And he, the kid who's in the videos, uh, is his son, Dax Kallner, who as a friend of a friend, I got to talk to about doing those videos and about the process and stuff. And he actually, it was one of those ones where he was showing the other kids were auditioning how to do it. And finally, his dad said, why don't you just do it? But he said that D Snyder became a lifelong friend and mentor and a big influence on him because, you know, I don't know if you know a lot about D, but he doesn't drink. He doesn't smoke. He's a very straight laced person. And he said, you know, told Dax, you know, whatever you want, you've really got to work hard at it. You can't get distracted and you got to, you know, and Dax said and said that made a big difference in his life. So yet another one of these wild stories that happen.
[00:35:51] Charles: Yeah, I thought it was a great, panel that you put together and the presentation. I found it very interesting. Yeah, you mentioned it goes by fast. It goes by fast when you're you're listening to it too. I kind of wanted a bit more if possible, but, uh, that was great.
[00:36:06] And then, you know, you mentioned, the golden age, uh, which I, from your website, I, I think you, you put it at like 1976 to 1994, the golden age of, of music videos. Beyond that, Stephen, what, what is there a definition you have of what, um, I know you talked about a little earlier about, you know, the directors just getting to, to work on these projects, these three minute projects, but is there anything else that kind of defines that beyond that?
[00:36:38] Stephen: Well, I set it at 76 and 94, because 1976 was when Bohemian Rhapsody by Queen, ended up airing on the BBC and there are many directors that told me that that was kind of a moment that they saw that type of thing being a larger creative idea for a music video. Some of them said it's like the musicians who say they saw the Beatles on Ed Sullivan.
[00:37:03] These UK directors saw Bohemian Rhapsody and saw, you know, it was some, it was very simple video, but because Bohemian Rhapsody is basically three different kinds of songs all stuck together, it needed something different to portray it. And so, and I was lucky enough to talk to the director, Bruce Gowers, about shooting it and all of the special effects, the wipes and the things are all done in camera.
[00:37:32] Basically, he said that they took maybe a half a day to shoot the whole thing to tell you the truth, I said it at the beginning of that. And then, of course, you know, MTV launches on August 1st, 1981. It's got a lot of videos that are performance based. It's got, you know, a few different ones here and there. Very important to note, Rod Stewart, 11 different music videos airing on MTV from the 1st, because Rod Rod Stewart, he's always ahead of everybody. He never gets enough credit for for being way ahead.
[00:38:07] But by the time we get to 1994, it's a full blown industry. It's a different world than it was before. We've got the largely bloated trilogy of videos from Guns N Roses for Don't Cry, Estranged, and November Rain, which ended up costing over a million dollars and still don't make any sense. The director, Andy Morahan told me, I still don't know what it means. I still don't want any of those videos mean that we shot. Something he did do was that when it was over, he felt like he had not captured what Guns and Roses is. The down and dirty, you know, punk inspired hard rock band.
[00:38:48] And so he did a video and you can find it on, on YouTube, called In the Garden of Eden and it's just a locked off camera with them doing song hyperactively, and it is down and dirty and very basic and actually a throwback to when it was just performance videos. And so I thought it was an interesting kind of loop back around that to get to the essence of a, of a band. He had to shoot what would have been their video back in 1976.
[00:39:17] Charles: That's interesting. And then your, your cutoff date is 1994. Is there a...
[00:39:23] Stephen: Well, that's, that's, that's when the last one was. Yeah.
[00:39:27] Charles: Okay.
[00:39:28] Stephen: There were a few other things going on there too, because I think the Avid video editing system had come out and so things were getting easier to do. And also by then you started getting some reality tv, uh, established and so MTV was kind of moving away from it's 24 hour music videos idea. Things were just different. Completely different. And, uh, never, never were the same again. Actually.
[00:39:53] Charles: Yeah. And that kind of segues into my other question here. You know, where do you see like today's music videos? Because, um, I think I, I sent you that. Uh, linked to that, Fontaine's DC, their new song Starburster. That's pretty involved video, lots of imagery and such. And, um, are, are there, are there fewer music videos or, or just cause the, the platform is like, I would guess YouTube now it's just different or what's your take on that?
[00:40:26] Stephen: I think it's complicated, but I do think that because the Internet world is so fractured and, and disparate that it's needle in a haystack type stuff, or as friends of mine say, the sea of crap. Because, you know, there used to be, okay, and some would say it's better, that there are no guardians at the gate now for this type of stuff.
[00:40:53] You know, you sent your, you try to get your video on MTV, they would say yes, or they would say no, you know, and then you would, you know, whatever. Now you make anything, you upload it, doesn't matter if it was any good or not. It's still, it's still up there. So it's just, it, everything is just so different.
[00:41:13] You know, that it used to be. But I still try to follow some of the bands that I used to follow and some of their stuff that they put out is fairly interesting, I think. But I did watch that Fontaine's video and it's, it's got some connective tissue to a lot of videos that I've seen before, but I, I do like some of the mask imagery.
[00:41:33] I liked the production value of being outside with the windmills because I, it reminded me when I interviewed Lindsey Clinnell and he directed many music videos, but most notably In a Big Country by Big Country where they're on all terrain vehicles, riding across the English pasture.
[00:41:53] And he said, one of the great things about being in the UK is when you don't have any budget, you can always drive out and it's a beautiful countryside somewhere. And you can shoot that. You know, that's that's something. So his access, you know, Fontaine's access to that windmill is just a great idea, you know, uh, and sometimes that's, that's all you need is a great idea.
[00:42:14] But I think some music videos, and I don't know if this is one for you, but I think. There was this period of time where MTV created a mythos of you would watch the video and it didn't make any sense. So there was this conceit that MTV knew what was going on and you, the viewer, do not. So I think there became this thing of, oh, if I make a music video, I really don't have to make it make any sense.
[00:42:43] Because they don't have to make sense and I don't even have to explain it I just have to put a bunch of stuff up there. And you know this and that and it might mean, mean something it might not mean something, you know, whatever only, you know the Fontaines and the, and the songwriters know if this song has any connection to this video and if it means anything, you know. There are some that obviously do mean something. Childish Gambino's This is America. That's connected that's definitely what they're trying to do there.
[00:43:12] But, you know, there's a lot of them out there that don't make any sense. I challenged the director, Brian Grant. Uh, what does the video for Peter Gabriel's Shock the Monkey? What, what is going on? You know, he's got three little people in suits jumped up on him, like, you know. And he didn't really have much of an answer.
[00:43:32] Some of that had to do with the duality of man or something like that, flipping a coin. But most of the time there isn't a through line for some of that stuff. And I think nowadays, a lot of it is sloppy and there's not a lot of care to it because there's, uh, there's no standard for uploading something anymore.
[00:43:56] Charles: Okay.
[00:43:56] Stephen: But, the other side of that, of course, is the democratization of media allows people who have creativity and have voices to release things and try to connect with an audience, and that's great. But the democratization of anything that's creative, you end up with 99 percent crap, because you know, I'm sure you've heard this before, like, everybody has a story to tell. Well, you know, maybe, but not everybody is a storyteller.
[00:44:25] Charles: Right. Right.
[00:44:27] Stephen: I have relatives that like, let me tell you what happened the other night. I'm like, God, I can't even. I gotta listen to this story. I'm going to blow my brains out. Because I know how it's going to go. It's going to go badly. So, you know, there you go. When there's, when there's nobody, you know, watching the store, and it's out of control, bad things happen.
[00:44:46] Douglas: Stephen, I was looking at your bio and there's a period where you were working for Serino Coyne Incorporated, and you produced a lot of radio commercials that included some really well known talent. People like Gladys Knight, Rosie O'Donnell, Jerry Orbach, Dick Cavett, Elton John, Tony Braxton, Judd Hirsch. I was wondering if there are any stories from that production work that you did that you could share with us.
[00:45:17] Stephen: I think maybe my favorite one was that we were, doing radio spots for Thoroughly Modern Millie, the musical. And we got Jerry Orbach to come in and do the voiceover for it because Thoroughly Modern Millie is based in New York and it's a big New York, a big New York set music musical.
[00:45:39] And, Jerry Orbach didn't really do much with Broadway anymore. He was basically known as Lenny Briscoe on Law and Order and, you know, continued to do that. But he wanted to have his foot in it somehow. And so he continued to do voiceovers. So he comes in, and you know, I got to work with him, I'd say less than 10 sessions or so, but it was enough that we knew each other and those were great.
[00:46:05] And the two things that he, he showed me was that, because one time I said, you know, you've been playing Lenny Briscoe forever. How, how is, do you keep it still interesting? You know, every time? He goes, well, for one thing, I never learned my lines. What? He goes, no, look, and he showed me what's called sides, which is basically the script.
[00:46:25] And he's like, you know, he's got it shrunk down kind of small and he said, and basically, you know, I can, I can just read it. I have a sort of a photographic memory, but before I get to the set, I don't know where what the other person looks like. A lot of the time. I don't know what the blocking is where we're going to be, you know, and so I learned it there and it keeps it all kind of fresh at the same time.
[00:46:47] I thought that was just fascinating. And the other thing he told me that keeps him sane was he convinced himself a while back that. The acting is free, they're paying me to sit around and wait.
[00:47:01] Douglas: That's a good one.
[00:47:03] Stephen: He said, and that's what I do most of the time sitting around and waiting. So that's, that's maybe my favorite. I mean, everybody that I worked with was very kind and very patient and very nice. Gladys Knight was just so sweet. Just a really, really sweet person. And that, that, that meant a lot because my, my parents are big soul music fans. So getting to tell my mom that I worked with Gladys Knight was nice.
[00:47:27] Douglas: So, I also saw that you, yourself, are, or at least were, a musician. You played in a punk band, uh, The Knuckle Sandwiches, I believe. So, were you a singer? Were you, uh, did you play an instrument? Can you tell us a little bit about, that experience?
[00:47:44] Stephen: I don't have the confidence to say that I was a singer. I think I'll just go with frontman. And the Knuckle Sandwiches was a band that my, my friend Andy, who I mentioned earlier, put together. Basically he was getting divorced. I was still single. And we just had never done it. And we were like, let's, let's put together a band.
[00:48:08] Let's just do this before we were too old to do it. And so we put it together. One of my roommates at the time was a guitar player and a guy that I worked with was a drummer. And so we started playing, started writing songs. The songs that I wrote were very bad at first. And then we got an opportunity to play a gig called Classic Albums Night where they had you learn a whole album by another, by a famous artist, and you play the whole thing. And so we went with the Ramones second album, Leave Home.
[00:48:41] So we had to learn the whole album all the way through. It seems like it would be easy because it ends up being less than 25 minutes, I think. But the Ramones is very, very specific. And, you know, 1-2-3-4, it's tough and it, it changed our sound.
[00:48:58] Basically when we started writing more stuff. I mean, we ended up, I ended up writing a song called Granny is a Crackhead. And it's basically, it's a Ramons song. It really sounds like that. Um, but we ended up playing for about two years. And, uh, I still have all the live tracks and I think maybe for the 20th or the 25th anniversary, I'm going to put together a record store day vinyl only release of some kind.
[00:49:22] But, among the great venues that we got to play were the Pussycat Lounge in, uh, downtown. We played Hank's, and we played CBGB's once. So that was like a real landmark for us getting to do that. We also played a woman's roller derby party. We played a crawfish festival in New Jersey.
[00:49:42] Yeah, that's, it was a fun time. It was, it was, it was great. Yeah, The Knuckle Sandwiches. We even had a little four song EP for a little bit. But that's out of print. Yeah, it was just, it's one of those things that you cross it off your bucket list.
[00:49:57] Douglas: Nice. Also, I read, you've done so many things. We could go on forever, but, you yourself produce albums now and develop talent with your company Pack Ratt Planet. Can you tell us a little bit more about that experience?
[00:50:15] Stephen: Well, that's just sort of a banner that sort of over all the different things, you know, Music, Video Time Machine magazine. I produced dance parties for quite a while as a DJ and a VJ. But it's also for those presentations and talks that I've been doing as well.
[00:50:32] And then, you know, like you said, producing. I produced an album for an artist named Scott Niolet, who I knew. He had an album that he wanted to do called Clearing the Debris after his home was destroyed in hurricane Katrina. And, uh, he had all these songs that he wanted to do. And so we put that together.
[00:50:49] So Pack Ratt Planet was originally Pack Ratt NYC, and I started producing things through that. But now, you know, I wanted to expand it, be able to do something a little bit larger. So I've been able to do events in many different cities and produce content and produce events within film festivals and within music video festivals and things like that.
[00:51:11] So, that's what that's about. It's sort of a catch all. And it's also, you know, the place where I can sell all the T-shirts. Strangely, very recently, somebody sent me a tick tock with me in it that had footage from 1994, where I'm talking to someone at the college library about the Internet. And asking, Hey, can I look up these REM lyrics? I get all this stuff from all these people. They're like, Hey man, is that you? And it's like, yeah, yeah, that's me. And I was wearing a T-shirt from a band called Lap Daddy that I made up at the time. And people were like, we're, we're going to get a Lap Daddy shirt? Like, give me two hours, get all the ones you want. So. Weirdly enough, I sold a bunch of Lap Daddy T-shirts because of a TikTok that I had no involvement in.
[00:51:59] Douglas: It sells itself.
[00:52:01] Stephen: I'd like to think so.
[00:52:03] Douglas: When you were writing entertainment pieces, you interviewed a lot of famous artists. Joan Jett, the Ramones, uh, Henry Rollins, Rick Springfield, and so on. I was particularly drawn to when you said you interviewed Joan Jett. A couple of weeks ago, we had an artist by the name of Zuzu Mansoor, who plays in a band called Soraia. Her band has played, opening for Joan Jett a number of times, and she's identified sort of as a, as a similar to Joan Jett in a lot of ways. And so I was wondering if you were familiar with her in Soraia and if you had any, uh, comments on that.
[00:52:42] Stephen: Only that I listened to that episode and she sounds like she's definitely got the same, the same soul as Joan, when it comes to the... I was lucky enough to interview her. I didn't, you know, we didn't talk for all that long, but something that I found interesting that I had not heard before was that she told me before she decided to make a, get a band together and try to do that, she actually thought about going into the army. And I was like, why, how, you know, she was like, I don't know, I was just a little lost.
[00:53:13] And the other thing I asked her was what's the one thing that people get wrong about you regularly? She said that I'm intimidating. I mean, I don't think I'm intimidating. How can I be intimidating when I'm this tall?
[00:53:25] Charles: You said you had an interesting story, Steven, about the director of, was it the David Bowie movie?
[00:53:33] Stephen: Oh, before he passed away, I was lucky enough to interview D. A. Pennebaker. Who is a noted documentarian, but most famous for shooting Bob Dylan's Don't Look Back Movie, which contains the famous, subterranean homesick blues clip with the, the signs and stuff.
[00:53:53] He also directed Ziggy, the Ziggy Stardust movie. And he directed Monterey Pop. So he told me that there's a moment in Ziggy Stardust at the end where, where David Bowie announces that this is the last time that they're going to play. Meaning, you know, the last time they're going to play as Ziggy Stardust and Spiders from Mars.
[00:54:13] And so, D. A. is on stage, way in the back. He's shooting from the, from the back angle, while somebody else is shooting the stage. And so, he's right behind some of the musicians. And he's actually very close to Mick Ronson, the main guitar player. And so, he hears when David Bowie says, and this is the last time we'll be playing this, playing ever. Thank you. Good night. And he hears Mick Ronson go, Oh shit.
[00:54:41] Charles: He didn't get the memo.
[00:54:43] Stephen: No, I guess he didn't tell anybody. So I thought that was a funny moment, you know?
[00:54:50] Charles: Yeah, that's quite a surprise if you're, you're on stage in the band to hear that. Well, Steven, we really appreciate taking the time to chat with us. It's been really fascinating. Just the, whole, perspective from the music videos and the directors and such, is there anything you'd like to plug or chat about before we, we sign off here.
[00:55:11] Stephen: Well, people can check me out on Instagram. Music Video Time Machine is right up there. I'm continuing to write things for the blog and put more content together. I'm going to have much more video content coming up with interviews that I've done with musicians and directors. It's just a matter of putting it together on the right platform and getting it out there. So, people can look forward to that. Besides that, I just hope everybody has a good summer. I appreciate the opportunity to talk with you guys. It's been a lot of fun.
[00:55:41] Charles: Yeah, this has been great. We'll keep our ears and eyes open to what you're up to and maybe we do a part two sometime.
[00:55:48] Stephen: That sounds good to me. Just make it better than breaking two electric boogaloo.
[00:55:53] Charles: Oh, all right. With that, Steven, it's been great And we'll, we'll talk to you sometime soon.
[00:55:58]
Stephen:
Sounds good. Take care, guys.