1980-1989

“Sex, drugs and rock n roll” once a rebellious rallying cry was now a marketing term for a lifestyle. I watched in dismay as a member of the band Aerosmith whined (with no sense of irony at all) that Steven Tyler should receive royalties from another artist because the artist used a scarf in his […]

“It’s a fragmented culture in a way that it’s never been. You know how baby boomers ask, ‘Where’s the protest music?’ and lament the lack of youth activities? There is protest music, but it’s so broken up into niche audiences that it doesn’t gain as much traction.”

Living in Los Angeles in the heyday of music video I assiduously followed its development, watched it assimilate and remix the vocabulary of film and television, witnessed the introduction of the “shaky cam”, and the kaleidoscopic rush of image cut to music, freed of plot. Mostly lacking narrative content, we referred to music video as […]

It was night when I arrived back in Los Angeles, and driving home, I could see a thirty-foot can of spinach being tugged down Hollywood Boulevard, spot-lit, surrounded by limousines. There really is no place like it.  Early evening almost two weeks later, I was walking around my front room and listening to Bruce Springsteen’s […]

“Double Fantasy is John’s first record in more than four years.  intermittently we have heard of his “lost weekend” in Los Angeles, his return to Yoko, his stint as a “house husband.”  The secretary ushers me into the office where the operating head of the company sits behind his desk. He wears a beard, appears […]

“By 1985 there was no doubt about it, music video was the New Big Thing. Its ”official” birth one would have to say was MTV’s premiere on August 1st, 1981. Then they broadcast the Buggies singing – in a wry McLuhan-esque ditty – ”Video killed the Radio Star.” For the next ten years, music video […]

For FULLSCREEN click control below-right of video. Please add any comments below. But finally a shoot wasn’t canceled. The crew was waiting outside, along with two New York policemen assigned by the city to keep watch. In the coffee shop Yoko sat frozen in a corner. She appeared to be easily as uptight as I […]

“Let the revels begin Let the fire be started We’re dancing for the restless and the broken-hearted!” Smoking! From the strange and brooding Streets of Fire , a film that improves with age like a surprising vintage of blood-dark wine. Arguably, when all the components are taken into account, this cut (Fire, Inc) is the […]

Few books I have read on the effects of technology on culture have stood the test of time as well as Amusing Ourselves to Death. “It may be true, as Charles Beard wrote, that the primary motivation of the writers of the United States Constitution was the protection of their economic interests. But it is also […]