hey I'm just saying OR whoa I didn't even see all this stuff down here!
This blog is in a sad state dear readers. I'm sure you're all confused when you come here expecting to read something mildly related to the shop and instead are hit with a barrage of posts about the new cinefamily program, the next show up at hope gallery, or (worse), an article lazily clipped from the ny times, but you can rest eas(ier)y now because I personally am off of school for another month and that leaves me with a lot of free time, so much free time in fact that I've decided to start a new feature on this blog where each week I'll talk about something in the shop that's new or maybe overlooked or just something I'm into.
For the first installment of this I want to talk about something both new and old, Glenn O'Brien's TV Party. I've briefly touched on it in a few other blog posts a while back, but this is the definitive TV Party blog post I promise.
Glenn O'Brien's TV Party was a live new york city public access tv show that aired once a week and ran from 1978 until 1982, hosted by Glenn (who was at the time a writer for Interview magazine, and who at present time is the editorial director of the very same publication!) with the help of his friends like Chris Stein from Blondie and Walter Steding (Andy Warhol's janitor, who led the TVP orchestra). Described by O'Brien himself as "A TV show that's a cocktail party, but which could be a political party" each episode seemed to be loosely scripted and is filled with guests that range from the known (George Clinton, Robert Fripp) to the not-so-known (David Walter Mcdermott, google him). Did I mention it was also a call in show too? It was, and that meant almost every episode ended with Jean-Michel Basquiat or Glenn taking angry phone calls of disgruntled new yorkers who were flipping through the channels and had nothing better to do.
I was shocked when I found out this show was put onto dvd that it wasn't causing a bigger stir. To me it captured a time in new york I didn't think was very heavily documented (well, until all nine of those no wave books came out last year) and I was shocked that Glenn O'Brien was not considered a national treasure. To do my part I ordered the dvds and we have them here in the shop, initially there were four dvds (including the premiere episode and a halloween episode from 1979 featuring Fab-Five Freddy dressed as a nickel bag and Debbie Harry as an umbrella) and last month two new dvds of episodes from 79 & 82 (the latter being an episode in full color, no doubt breaking new ground at the time) were released. There's also a pretty decent documentary dvd on the whole show too. To me it is truly a milestone in broadcast television.
if you made it this far here's a clip from the documentary as your reward:
posted by NATE at 12:20 PM
1 comments
This blog is in a sad state dear readers. I'm sure you're all confused when you come here expecting to read something mildly related to the shop and instead are hit with a barrage of posts about the new cinefamily program, the next show up at hope gallery, or (worse), an article lazily clipped from the ny times, but you can rest eas(ier)y now because I personally am off of school for another month and that leaves me with a lot of free time, so much free time in fact that I've decided to start a new feature on this blog where each week I'll talk about something in the shop that's new or maybe overlooked or just something I'm into.
For the first installment of this I want to talk about something both new and old, Glenn O'Brien's TV Party. I've briefly touched on it in a few other blog posts a while back, but this is the definitive TV Party blog post I promise.
Glenn O'Brien's TV Party was a live new york city public access tv show that aired once a week and ran from 1978 until 1982, hosted by Glenn (who was at the time a writer for Interview magazine, and who at present time is the editorial director of the very same publication!) with the help of his friends like Chris Stein from Blondie and Walter Steding (Andy Warhol's janitor, who led the TVP orchestra). Described by O'Brien himself as "A TV show that's a cocktail party, but which could be a political party" each episode seemed to be loosely scripted and is filled with guests that range from the known (George Clinton, Robert Fripp) to the not-so-known (David Walter Mcdermott, google him). Did I mention it was also a call in show too? It was, and that meant almost every episode ended with Jean-Michel Basquiat or Glenn taking angry phone calls of disgruntled new yorkers who were flipping through the channels and had nothing better to do.
I was shocked when I found out this show was put onto dvd that it wasn't causing a bigger stir. To me it captured a time in new york I didn't think was very heavily documented (well, until all nine of those no wave books came out last year) and I was shocked that Glenn O'Brien was not considered a national treasure. To do my part I ordered the dvds and we have them here in the shop, initially there were four dvds (including the premiere episode and a halloween episode from 1979 featuring Fab-Five Freddy dressed as a nickel bag and Debbie Harry as an umbrella) and last month two new dvds of episodes from 79 & 82 (the latter being an episode in full color, no doubt breaking new ground at the time) were released. There's also a pretty decent documentary dvd on the whole show too. To me it is truly a milestone in broadcast television.
if you made it this far here's a clip from the documentary as your reward:
posted by NATE at 12:20 PM
1 comments
Nate, this post is further proof that if someone in NYC took a dump in a shoebox you would find it compelling.
Love,
Cali
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