Subject: MTV Documentary
Hi Bob!
I hope this email finds you safe and well.
Thank you for the kind words in your piece regarding the MTV documentary.
I've not seen the doc yet but you mention it's the viewpoint from inside the belly of the beast. For the sequel I'd love to see a compendium of views looking at MTV from the outside, an exploration of the profound effect MTV had on an entire generation of fans.
Today when you see the MTV logo it takes no time at all for our brains to process what it represents. Like looking at a grilled cheese sandwich. One second. Boom. Got it. It's hard to remember now, but in 1981 this was far from the case. MTV burst out of left-field like a meteor into an unsuspecting world. One summer night (August 1st to be specific, a night I will always remember) a fiery, mind-blowing, meteoric pop-culture disruptor blasted into our consciousness, changing the lives it touched forever.
You might have seen the (excellent) ZZ Top doc where Dusty Hill, Billy Gibbons and Frank Beard were calling each other the night they first saw MTV, asking each other "how long is this show going to be on??" No one could wrap their minds around what was in the world they were seeing. This extended to us working at MTV, we'd never seen anything like it before either. There were times when I Martha Quinn was late to my job working at MTV because I was home…watching MTV. One more video, just one more, just one more. The videos, the funky spray-painted logo, the unset we called a set, plus commercials with rockers?? Never, ever, ever witnessed before. The marriage of the 24-hour music radio format with television delivered an impact so massive it still reverberates today. I know first-hand how much MTV continues living in people's hearts.
Listeners call in literally every day to my all-80s music radio station (iHeart 80s @ 103-7, KOSF in San Francisco) sharing what MTV meant to them. How they would dash home from school, turn on MTV and watch breathlessly for hours. Entire neighborhoods cramming into the basement of the one house on the block that had MTV. Kids who got jobs after school to help their parents pay for the cable. Stories of screwdrivers jammed into cable boxes to somehow receive MTV. Memories like these are Alive and Kicking. Fans have told me MTV was their solace while serving in the military, or enduring family struggles. Indie music fans have shared the isolation they felt until MTV blew into town showing them they were not alone, there was a tribe that existed for them in the world!
You're so right nothing lasts forever (we can't rewind we've gone too far) but wow what a miraculous We're Not Gonna Take It moment in time. A shared experience that united a generation.
What do you say Bob, want to make the outside-looking-in documentary with me? We'll call it I Got My MTV!
Best Always,
Martha
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From: Meg Griffin
Subject: just the facts
Hey Bob..
I've been told you wrote that "Meg Griffin refused to be a VJ".
Allow me to correct that.
I turned down an offer to work at MTV after some comments by Bob Pittman that rubbed me the wrong way.
Compensation they offered was not much to speak of, either.
My heart had always been in radio and shortly after I turned down MTV, Scottso hired me full time at WNEW-FM.
I had left WNEW FM in 1979 to be Music Director and full time host on
WPIX-New York's Rock and Roll From Elvis to Elvis which was a groundbreaking radio station in NYC. When the ownership there decided to dump the format where we mixed the Ramones into Buddy Holly into Devo -and Elvis Costello into Elvis Presley - in favor of going with a format they called Love Songs Nothing But Love Songs, I was outta there. And Scottso asked me back to WNEW FM at just about the same time MTV was launching. I auditioned at MTV and they liked me enough to offer the gig.
I have never regretted turning that job down. It was not a mistake for me.
And I was a VJ at two different eras on VH1.
And way more fun than that, I also hosted as VJ a show called "New Grooves" produced by Campus Network - which aired in some markets on NBC TV, following SNL.
-MG
And that's the truth.
___________________________________
Subject: Re: Mailbag
Just occurred to me that even though Les Garland's contributions to MTV were surely a stellar achievement, I'm pretty sure he'd put being a featured guest interview on Golf Radio right up there in the top 3.
Regards,
Bob Cayne
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