MTV Ruled the World- The Early Years of Music Video

by Greg Prato

  KEN R. CLARK: Nina was so shy and so humble. She would come into that studio in a tracksuit with her hood pulled up over her head, so that nobody would ever recognize her. Although she did date a couple of music biz people — she dated John Waite for a while and a video director — but Nina was so quiet and un-celebrity-like in any way, shape, or form. And Martha was the one who was dating Stiv Bators from Lords of the New Church! Martha was a rude, crude, little girl. When a bunch of people work in close proximity for years, you get to know each other very well, and frequently during our hour lunch break, I don't know what would set them off, but we would have "belch-offs" on the set. And Martha would win every one! Martha's like 4'10" and weighs like 90 pounds. Very big burps come in small packages.

  STEWART COPELAND: [Martha] was going out with a real degenerate at the time, which we all thought was kind of cool. Who was she going out with...Stiv Bators? She was a nice girl, clean-cut. And the idea of her with Stiv Bators was kind of intriguing.

  ALAN HUNTER: I can't remember when Martha reportedly started dating Paul Stanley. It was like, "Paul Stanley dates women?"

  KEN R. CLARK: I don't think Martha ever dated Paul Stanley. Kiss were a regular staple of MTV for quite a while. Paul and Gene in particular were at the studio really regularly. We used them as fill-in VJs a lot, when one of our guys was out or sick or on vacation. Paul and Martha were friends, as was Paul and Mark Goodman and Mark's wife at the time, Carol Miller. No, I don't think they ever dated. The only rock star I can recall Martha actually "dating dating" was Stiv Bators. People were always surprised that she was dating hardcore punk rockers. And although he's not a punk rocker anymore, she married Jordan Tarlow from the Fuzztones, who was an MTV alternative rock star of the day. So, Martha liked the bad boys.

  KEN R. CLARK: There were a couple of funny sex stories. Sometimes, the fact that a high-end MTV executive was caught getting "oral" from a female early MTV star — in someone else's office!

  ALAN HUNTER: I remember probably three years into it, we started getting different memos from the head guys. Whereas before, they just let us do our own thing. We started getting memos about what we were saying and, "Be careful about this." We'd get memos quite frequently about the way we were talking about some of the bands. "Hey, make sure not to make fun of..." "You mispronounced this guy's name." "Manager of so-and-so called up and said you were ragging on the guy." It was a funny corporate thing that started happening. Instead of 2 million people, there were 20 million people watching. Stakes were rising daily around year two or three. The other thing I remember happening was all five of us got shipped off to a communication coach. We had to take lessons from a lady who coached the likes of Tom Brokaw and President Bush Senior, on how to speak and communicate. And there we were, once a week, each of us going with our little air checks, plugging the three-quarter tape into the deck and having this woman watch us talk rock n' roll. It was excruciating. Helpful, but the kind of language we were using was a little clipped, and it was the kind of vocabulary you'd use when you're talking about a cool video or some rock n' roll...but not making a speech at a National Governor's Association.

  NINA BLACKWOOD: At first, I didn't know what to think [about Julia Louis-Dreyfus' Saturday Night Live spoof on Nina]. And it's funny, because I have never used that [phrase], "Hot!" But after she did that, people would come up to me, and say, "Say 'Hot!' the way you do." And I never did! Everybody was saying, "You should really be flattered," and I would like to see it again, because I haven't seen it in a really long time, since it was on. Of course, I love Julia Louis-Dreyfus, what she's gone on to do. So yeah, it's cool. It was funny, with the head going back and forth. Yeah, I really do that, so I was like, "Oh damn." [Laughs]

  KEN R. CLARK: During the course, we worked at Unitel — and I think it was increasing towards the end, maybe it would only happen every few months — someone would take a shit somewhere! It never happened in MTV-leased space; it was always in the Unitel building. So we knew it wasn't a disgruntled MTV employee, rather a disgruntled Unitel employee. But there had been turds on the reception desk, turds on the sofa in the waiting room, somebody had left a turd on a digital mixing console in one of the editing suites, which had everybody in a complete fucking uproar. We'd all be having coffee and donuts in the morning, because that was one thing about MTV in those days — they always catered the set, so the whole crew would gather for morning coffee, bagels, and donuts. We'd be mingling around, ready to make rock n' roll television, and the Unitel gestapo would come raging through, looking very stern-faced, and they'd be questioning people quietly. We'd be whispering, "What's going on? Oh...the shitter struck again."

  Bad Rockers, Good Rockers, Strange Rockers

  ALAN HUNTER: I loved Frank Zappa — I was a huge fan of his — and I was glad to get the gig. I studied hard for him, and I remember I was coming back from Mardi Gras, and I had to take the red eye back to make this interview happen mid-morning in Manhattan. And Moon Unit was coming on with Frank. I was interviewing them about "Valley Girl." I was sleepy, tired, a little punchy. And I remember asking questions, when I started getting into Frank's life, he was just answering "Yes" and "No." Being really mean. I'd ask a question, and he'd go, "No. Why do you ask that question, Alan?" And Moon Unit would elbow him and say, "Dad, why are you being so mean to Alan?" The interview went downhill. The producer kept stopping tape and whispering in my ear. I was very disheartened by that. A few weeks later, Dweezil and Moon Unit came on to do a guest spot, and Pop came along with them and hunted me down and apologized. He said, "I was just feeling kind of perky that day. Sorry if I ribbed on you."

  NINA BLACKWOOD: One name — Frank Zappa. Oh, that guy. You know how I said they were matching people up with the artists? They should have put him with JJ, because he wouldn't have pulled the stuff he pulled with me with JJ. I don't even want to talk about it...just Frank Zappa. To this day, it remains the worst moment in my broadcasting career.

  ALAN HUNTER: Ozzy Osbourne was the hardest for me, because he was the "Ozzy" that we see in all the clichés. Sharon was saying that he had a trip, and on the plane, he was sick and was taking medication. But he didn't make a lick of sense. Again, that was early in my days as an interviewer. I was very reverent to all the artists. I didn't have the sense of my stability, so when I would ask a question, and he didn't even come close to answering it, I was just thrown for a loop. It was really his fault. I could have kept going. I interviewed Billy Joel in Russia towards the latter part of my career. In fact, I think it was the first freelance gig I did after I left MTV. I went to Russia for almost two weeks, in 1987, and that would have been right when Perestroika was happening. It was just an amazing time to be there and then interviewing Billy Joel in...at the time, it was Leningrad. He had been drinking like crazy the whole time, and he and Christie [Brinkley] apparently were fighting like mad. So he showed up for the interview with his sunglasses on, and nobody knew how to ask if he would take them off. He took them off, pointed at the saddlebags under his eyes, and said, "Gentlemen, I don't think you want these on camera!" I was a huge Billy Joel fan, and to interview him was sort of the pinnacle of my '80s career.

  MIKE PELECH: Devo. Jerry Romano — the other cameraman — and myself...I don't know who came up with the idea to wear green flowerpots on our heads behind the camera, when they came into the studio. They were not amused. These guys were really into their whole persona, and we thought it was hysterical.

  KEN R. CLARK: Paul McCartney — I've read over the years that he has a reputation for not always being so nice. But that's not what I witnessed, at all. When I tell you this story, it's going to jump ahead a little bit, because it ties into one of the most unpleasant people I ever met. [Laughs] Ringo Starr had come to plug one of his All-Starr Bands...what a jackass. He came in with a flotilla of five stretch limousines, and bodyguards, make-up artists, security people, managers, and publicists. It was the freaking Ringo Star Battalion. We had to clear the halls. We were not allowed to "look
at Mr. Starr," "speak to Mr. Starr," "no photos with Mr. Starr," "no autographs with Mr. Starr." In order for him to walk from the green room to the set, we had to clear the hall, including MTV staff. You know, we had worked with the biggest of the big...kiss our ass. [Laughs] We didn't have a lot of patience for celebrities who came in and acted like that, because the majority of them weren't. The majority were just professional and very nice. Especially newer celebrities were very excited to be at the MTV studio. They were as in awe of being there as we were of them. But that was the "Ringo Starr experience." It was just like, "Jesus." He was the lesser Beatle anyway, come on. So a week or two later, Paul McCartney was scheduled to come in. We were ready to batten down the hatches for this one, because we figured if Ringo had been such an ordeal, this one was going to be a real hinderance in the flow of our day. And nothing could have been further from the truth. That man showed up in a yellow cab with his publicist or manager, did the interview, and spent probably a good hour after the interview — he wanted a tour of the studio, the sets, and the control room. He hung out, had lunch, took pictures, signed autographs. He asked questions about MTV and how we managed to produce 24 hours a day/seven days a week of television in a Monday through Friday, 9:00-5:00 work week, which was pretty much an assembly line in of itself. He was just a very gracious person, and that always stuck with me.

  NINA BLACKWOOD: A cool event that I got to do — I got to fly on the maiden voyage of Virgin Airways and interview Richard Branson. I love Chrissie Hynde, Ray Davies. A fun one that sticks out was George Clinton from Parliament-Funkadelic, because he was just so "out there." Somebody that I felt a real poignancy behind — and sadly, he passed away not too long afterwards — was Phil Lynott. I thought he was a very interesting soul. He put out a poetry book at the time, and that's what I was talking to him about. I remember him just affecting me. There was something that I felt from him that was very poignant. A kindred spirit maybe, at the time. But I'm a person that, if Van Gogh were alive, I probably would have gone out with him. [Laughs] The "tortured artist" — that's what I was picking up. One of John Mellencamp's very first times he came down — his nickname, "Little Bastard," well, that's what he was! But he was great. I loved him right from the start. I just had a feeling he was going to go places.

  ALAN HUNTER: Interviewing Kevin Bacon. He came on and was a big fan of the channel. I liked talking movies. It was fun to do those Hollywood premieres. I had the chance to interview James Taylor one time at one of his concerts, and I was just such a big fan of his, the record company guy said, "Do you want to talk to him?" And I said, "I don't think I can. I think I'll just throw up!"

  KEN R. CLARK: Tina Turner was probably the first big celebrity that I personally had to interact with. I may have still been an intern at that point, but David Bowie and Mick Jagger had done a video for "Dancing in the Street," and she was good friends with both of them. The video had just come out, and she hadn't seen it, so she had come into the studio to do an interview and heard that we had an advance copy of the video, so they brought her down to the screening room and asked me if I could screen a copy of it for her. She sat there about five feet away from me, sort of dancing in her chair, singing along with it. That was like my own, "private Tina Turner conference." I was the only other person in the room with her. I just sat there and quietly died. It was one of those mind-blowing moments for a kid from the Midwest. It was like, "Holy shit!" And when she was done, she gave me a hug and said, "Thank you, cupcakes." I'll never forget [that] she called me "cupcakes!" and went on about her business. Just throughout her whole time there, and watching her interact with people, she was a genuinely pleasant, gracious, lovely woman. Jimmy Page from Led Zeppelin — quietest, most low-key, soft-spoken, pleasant man. I had really been prepared for something weird there, because I had grown up a big Zeppelin fan. Robert Plant had been in numerous times, and although he had been a nice guy, he was not terribly approachable. He always had a lot of people with him and was sort of "rock royalty." You didn't just walk up to Robert Plant and say, "Hey, can I get a picture?" [Laughs] I think Jimmy Page came by himself — in a cab — with an acoustic guitar and a stack of photographs. While we were either waiting in the green room for him to go on or afterwards, he actually sat in the green room with four or five of us and played the guitar. He actually played a little "Stairway to Heaven," which again, was one of those "Holy shit, I can't believe I'm living through this!" moments. And I think for the VJs, too, those moments were pretty crazy. David Lee Roth was in regularly. He actually lived in New York for a while and would always jog around Manhattan, wearing those God-awful multicolored stretch/spandex pants that he used to wear on stage. So you'd run into David Lee Roth in the deli next to the studio in those damn things, and the bandana tied around his head. David Lee Roth is David Lee Roth — on stage, off stage. It wasn't an act; that's Dave. Dave was the sort of guy that would just stop in the studio. There were a couple of celebrities that would occasionally drop in for the hell of it. We wouldn't even know they were coming. Jon Bon Jovi, when he was first getting started, I think right around the time of "Runaway," which was his first video to hit the channel, he would just come in and hang out at the studio. Watch tapings and stuff like that. There were a number of people back then that were part of the social entourage. Mötley Crüe came in a lot of times over the years. They were never any terribly debaucherous stories with Mötley Crüe. They were just high-energy guys, who are ball-busters. They're certainly not quiet and meek, that's for sure. Y'know, "The 'Crüe Circus' has arrived." They were always a lot of fun and barely under control. We had a guy that worked in our staff, Andy, who by day was a PA with MTV, but by night, he was a "rock n' roll magician" named Arioch. Martha loved Andy, too. She featured him on a couple of segments with her, where he came on and did various tricks. But Andy could shove a six-inch spike up his nose. [Laughs] I'll never forget — I think it was Tommy Lee and Nikki Sixx were sitting there in the green room — and Andy said, "Hey you guys, do you want to see something cool?" And took that nail, banged it on the pool table a couple of times to prove that it was a real spike, and then just slowly shoved it up into his brain. Tommy Lee in particular I thought was going to faint. He was really, really grossed out. The blood left his face. He was like, "Oh my God. Dude...that is the sickest thing I've ever seen!" So we were proud of the fact that we could actually shock Tommy Lee. That probably doesn't happen too often.

  KEN CEIZLER: The most memorable stuff, that I got really excited about, was when Dan Aykroyd came to us and was promoting Ghostbusters. I think that was the first time I recognized that MTV might have had some influence, in that we were attracting people who were looking to promote their movies. For us, the directors, there was nothing more thrilling than an artist that wanted to come down and do a Christmas song, because it gave us a chance to do something besides just a "talking head" kind of thing. And then it was just the series of rock n' roll stars that came through. I always tell this story, when Madonna was first brought in, and she was just beginning at that point. I remember her promoter or manager said, "Do you think you can get her on?" And I said, "I don't know, but I'll try. Just have her sit over there." And we had this little diner area. I remember her patiently waiting. There's moments like that.

  KEN R. CLARK: Frankie Goes to Hollywood weren't too nice. I don't remember much about that, other than the fact that sometimes it was the one-hit wonders that were the most terribly most unpleasant people to work with. It was the people who had been in the business a long time and had been up and had been down and had seen it all [who] were truly the best people to work with. There were never really a whole lot of odd requests from celebrities when they came through. It's not like there was a concert, and there was a dressing room rider with requirements. There were some shenanigans...do you remember Vinnie Vincent? He replaced Ace Frehley in Kiss, and then after that, went on to the Vinnie Vincent Invasion. He was one of the first big glam, over-the-top, almost to the point of full drag. Apparen
tly, Vincent was a very neurotic man. [Laughs] He ended up locked in a janitor's closet! He ended up locked in an honest-to-God broom closet, with this manager and publicists all banging on the door, trying to get him to come out. [Laughs] We were all in the halls going, "What the fuck is going on?!" As I recall, someone was let in there with him, and then a while later, he came out. I don't know what went on in there. Nobody probably knows but the other person that went in there.

  Portrayal of Women in Music Video

  DAVE MARSH: People talk moralistically about hip-hop and metal in terms of their exploitation of women. Well, who encouraged them more than anybody else to do it? Not radio. Not really the record companies. The encouraging factor was MTV, and they never get put on the hook for that. Or at least not very often. There's a difference between "Roxanne Roxanne" and what came later. MTV didn't have nothing to do with "Roxanne Roxanne." That was an empowered woman there.

  DEBORA IYALL: A lot of the videos that came on probably post-when we got started, especially once the more mainstream artists were making videos, then the women were just like "props." Totally. Well-dressed props. But when it first started out, there was, in my mind, a lot of creativity about women being artists. In "Video Killed the Radio Star," the girl was an individual personality. She wasn't dressing herself to be a sex object. And Bow Wow Wow was like that, and Altered Images were on real early, and Joan Jett and "I Love Rock n' Roll." Before there was more of the pop music or mainstream rock on it, it was "showing the new way." You can be a musician and be yourself. And not a commodity so much, but as an artist statement.