Real Punk and Late Night TV
blacknapkins
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Wednesday, February 8, 2006 (SF Chronicle)
When talk show host Tom Snyder took on punk rock, things got mighty
interesting
by Tim Goodman
There is a moment on the thoroughly brilliant DVD "The Tomorrow Show With Tom Snyder: Punk & New Wave" when you realize that even the coolest
late-night hosts of today have inherited a boring, innovation-challenged format that they haven't bothered to update or -- giving them the benefit of the doubt -- they are completely hamstrung by their networks.
That moment comes on a show broadcast May 21, 1981, as Wendy O. Williams of the punk band the Plasmatics blows up a car onstage. First she smashes
the windshield and headlights with a sledgehammer, then lights a fuse, tosses some kind of bomb into the car and blows it apart.
Say what you want about the Plasmatics -- like they never had the songs to back the act -- but that was pretty punk.
You know, maybe in the early days of Jimmy Kimmel, things felt that loose. Or those times when David Letterman smashes stuff to bits -- but that's all choreographed tameness in comparison. Granted, the Plasmatics were a particularly finely honed instrument of shock, but about the last time any
singer did anything remotely edgy on a late-night talk show, it was Conor Oberst singing the politically charged "When the President Talks to God"
last year and making Jay Leno appear to squirm with fear. Oooooh, scary.
Nick Lowe once sang that it's not really hard to make an American squirm, so let's not categorize Oberst's fine, just fine, performance as truly rock 'n' roll.
All of our current late-night hosts are talented. There's not one you watch and think, hell, this is amateur hour. Letterman, Conan O'Brien, Kimmel -- some really great moments have come from their shows. But Snyder is probably the most underrated host in television history. There's a part of the DVD when he squares off with John Lydon. Now, everybody who knows anything about music or at least the marketing end knows that the former Johnny Rotten liked to be, in his words, a difficult, "snot-nosed little git." Though Snyder couldn't understand it, he wasn't ruffled by it, gave as good as he got and ended up dismissing Lydon rather handily. Any modern host would have taken the bait, made a rude comment and gone to a commercial. But the real beauty of Snyder, a misunderstood visionary of the highest order, was that you couldn't shake him off. You could try to embarrass him or be cooler than him or be disdainfully aloof, but he could bring the high heat in return better than anyone.
If you're looking for some sweet TV action instead of ill-advised reruns, now's the time to dabble in some DVD offerings. This is the network dead zone we're in right now -- February. Normally that's a sweeps month, when things blow up and stars who have no relationship to a series pop up in cameo roles and, let's be honest here, shows get hyper-ridiculous. Except this year NBC has the Winter Olympics, so everybody else has folded up tents and gone home.
March -- that's when your screen will once again be bombarded with new midseason series and fresh episodes of your current faves. In the meantime, "The Tomorrow Show With Tom Snyder: Punk & New Wave," from Shout! Factory, is a marvelous diversion. What's not to like?
Snyder, whose insatiable curiosity, fearlessness and quirky ways have left a gaping hole in the late-night talk world, is a complete rush to watch here. You forget how he told people straight up what he thought of them, or what the perception of them was. For example, the DVD opens with a show from Oct. 11, 1977, and the topic was the emergence of punk rock and new wave in the United States. For most media outlets, the idea of angry Brit kids with spiky hair, not much melodic sense and a ton of anger was not unlike, to a previous generation, the advent of rock 'n' roll itself.
And so there were Bill Graham, Los Angeles Times music critic Robert Hilburn and Kim Fowley, a dandy in makeup who totally got the scene before anyone and was not only producing the Runaways with Joan Jett but also writing songs for Kiss and working with, of all people, Helen Reddy.
"You look ridiculous," Snyder said bluntly to Fowley. But Snyder wanted to understand this music. He knew almost nothing. He wasn't dismissive, he
was curious. Strangely enough, it was Graham who came off as someone's out-of-touch father. "It's novelty," Graham said. And though Hilburn said, "I think it's a fad," he at least understood the groundswell, the rebellion, the idea that the '60s bands of Graham's era had grown up and teenagers left in their wake were looking for -- you guessed it -- something to rebel against.
So Snyder trotted out the youngest-looking Joan Jett you'll ever see -- a totally fantastic reminder of how cool she was back then, and she in turn was topped by an 18-year-old Paul Weller, who's band the Jam was dominating England and who eloquently and quite politely, for a sullen teen, dismissed Graham's idea that most punk and new wave bands weren't really any good because they didn't have melody. This is 1977, remember, and Graham later came around. Hilburn, a legendary music critic, who only recently retired, was sporting a full beard and looking like a college professor. It was a beautiful moment that encompassed shifting eras, changing musical genres, a critic at once removed but connected, a promoter suspicious and a talk-show host curious.
It would never happen today. On the second DVD in the set (after stellar performances and introspective interviews from both Elvis Costello and Iggy Pop), the Jam tears through "Pretty Green" and "Funeral Pyre," and later the Ramones destroy "We Want the Airwaves," "I Wanna Be Sedated" and "The KKK Took My Baby Away."
Most guests and, in particular, Snyder, are smoking cigarettes as if the price per pack were rising as they inhale. There's an unstructured lo-fi element to it all. It's the kind of environment that allowed Patti Smith to open up and encouraged countless other bands (not all of them appearing on this series from Shout! Factory because they couldn't get the clearances) to appear.
But the point is, in addition to authors and other men and women of interest who had things to talk about as opposed to promote or sell, Snyder voraciously went after new bands of the day.
And when they came on, he wanted to talk -- really discuss things.
Anything. Today? In comparison, it's a dog and pony show. With precious few exceptions, it's marketing, disguised as talking.
E-mail Tim Goodman at tgoodman@sfchronicle.com.
Copyright 2006 SF Chronicle
When talk show host Tom Snyder took on punk rock, things got mighty
interesting
by Tim Goodman
There is a moment on the thoroughly brilliant DVD "The Tomorrow Show With Tom Snyder: Punk & New Wave" when you realize that even the coolest
late-night hosts of today have inherited a boring, innovation-challenged format that they haven't bothered to update or -- giving them the benefit of the doubt -- they are completely hamstrung by their networks.
That moment comes on a show broadcast May 21, 1981, as Wendy O. Williams of the punk band the Plasmatics blows up a car onstage. First she smashes
the windshield and headlights with a sledgehammer, then lights a fuse, tosses some kind of bomb into the car and blows it apart.
Say what you want about the Plasmatics -- like they never had the songs to back the act -- but that was pretty punk.
You know, maybe in the early days of Jimmy Kimmel, things felt that loose. Or those times when David Letterman smashes stuff to bits -- but that's all choreographed tameness in comparison. Granted, the Plasmatics were a particularly finely honed instrument of shock, but about the last time any
singer did anything remotely edgy on a late-night talk show, it was Conor Oberst singing the politically charged "When the President Talks to God"
last year and making Jay Leno appear to squirm with fear. Oooooh, scary.
Nick Lowe once sang that it's not really hard to make an American squirm, so let's not categorize Oberst's fine, just fine, performance as truly rock 'n' roll.
All of our current late-night hosts are talented. There's not one you watch and think, hell, this is amateur hour. Letterman, Conan O'Brien, Kimmel -- some really great moments have come from their shows. But Snyder is probably the most underrated host in television history. There's a part of the DVD when he squares off with John Lydon. Now, everybody who knows anything about music or at least the marketing end knows that the former Johnny Rotten liked to be, in his words, a difficult, "snot-nosed little git." Though Snyder couldn't understand it, he wasn't ruffled by it, gave as good as he got and ended up dismissing Lydon rather handily. Any modern host would have taken the bait, made a rude comment and gone to a commercial. But the real beauty of Snyder, a misunderstood visionary of the highest order, was that you couldn't shake him off. You could try to embarrass him or be cooler than him or be disdainfully aloof, but he could bring the high heat in return better than anyone.
If you're looking for some sweet TV action instead of ill-advised reruns, now's the time to dabble in some DVD offerings. This is the network dead zone we're in right now -- February. Normally that's a sweeps month, when things blow up and stars who have no relationship to a series pop up in cameo roles and, let's be honest here, shows get hyper-ridiculous. Except this year NBC has the Winter Olympics, so everybody else has folded up tents and gone home.
March -- that's when your screen will once again be bombarded with new midseason series and fresh episodes of your current faves. In the meantime, "The Tomorrow Show With Tom Snyder: Punk & New Wave," from Shout! Factory, is a marvelous diversion. What's not to like?
Snyder, whose insatiable curiosity, fearlessness and quirky ways have left a gaping hole in the late-night talk world, is a complete rush to watch here. You forget how he told people straight up what he thought of them, or what the perception of them was. For example, the DVD opens with a show from Oct. 11, 1977, and the topic was the emergence of punk rock and new wave in the United States. For most media outlets, the idea of angry Brit kids with spiky hair, not much melodic sense and a ton of anger was not unlike, to a previous generation, the advent of rock 'n' roll itself.
And so there were Bill Graham, Los Angeles Times music critic Robert Hilburn and Kim Fowley, a dandy in makeup who totally got the scene before anyone and was not only producing the Runaways with Joan Jett but also writing songs for Kiss and working with, of all people, Helen Reddy.
"You look ridiculous," Snyder said bluntly to Fowley. But Snyder wanted to understand this music. He knew almost nothing. He wasn't dismissive, he
was curious. Strangely enough, it was Graham who came off as someone's out-of-touch father. "It's novelty," Graham said. And though Hilburn said, "I think it's a fad," he at least understood the groundswell, the rebellion, the idea that the '60s bands of Graham's era had grown up and teenagers left in their wake were looking for -- you guessed it -- something to rebel against.
So Snyder trotted out the youngest-looking Joan Jett you'll ever see -- a totally fantastic reminder of how cool she was back then, and she in turn was topped by an 18-year-old Paul Weller, who's band the Jam was dominating England and who eloquently and quite politely, for a sullen teen, dismissed Graham's idea that most punk and new wave bands weren't really any good because they didn't have melody. This is 1977, remember, and Graham later came around. Hilburn, a legendary music critic, who only recently retired, was sporting a full beard and looking like a college professor. It was a beautiful moment that encompassed shifting eras, changing musical genres, a critic at once removed but connected, a promoter suspicious and a talk-show host curious.
It would never happen today. On the second DVD in the set (after stellar performances and introspective interviews from both Elvis Costello and Iggy Pop), the Jam tears through "Pretty Green" and "Funeral Pyre," and later the Ramones destroy "We Want the Airwaves," "I Wanna Be Sedated" and "The KKK Took My Baby Away."
Most guests and, in particular, Snyder, are smoking cigarettes as if the price per pack were rising as they inhale. There's an unstructured lo-fi element to it all. It's the kind of environment that allowed Patti Smith to open up and encouraged countless other bands (not all of them appearing on this series from Shout! Factory because they couldn't get the clearances) to appear.
But the point is, in addition to authors and other men and women of interest who had things to talk about as opposed to promote or sell, Snyder voraciously went after new bands of the day.
And when they came on, he wanted to talk -- really discuss things.
Anything. Today? In comparison, it's a dog and pony show. With precious few exceptions, it's marketing, disguised as talking.
E-mail Tim Goodman at tgoodman@sfchronicle.com.
Copyright 2006 SF Chronicle
"Information is not knowledge.
Knowledge is not wisdom.
Wisdom is not truth.
Truth is not beauty.
Beauty is not love.
Love is not music.
Music is the best."
~ FZ ~
Knowledge is not wisdom.
Wisdom is not truth.
Truth is not beauty.
Beauty is not love.
Love is not music.
Music is the best."
~ FZ ~
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