I am listening to The Dictator's live album "Fuck 'Em All If They Can't Take a Joke" as I type this.
What I want to discuss tonight is TV.
So much of new wave, punk, and post-punk was obsessed with television. The television, available commercially since the 1930s, was a recent invention and gadget in the 70s and 80s, but why the sudden fascination with the device at that time?
Either way there's so much TV in punk and punk-related new wave music of the era. Bands: TV Sex Star, Television, Alternative TV, TV Personalities. Songs: The Cramps' "TV Set," The Stooges' "TV Eye" (although this one is purportedly based on a Iggy Pop nickname given to him by a female friend to describe his knack for scopin' babes), The Misfits' "TV Casualty," Los Microwaves' "TV in My Eye," Magazine's "TV Baby," and of course "TV Party" by Black Flag. The show, "TV Party" for chrissakes.
What's with the TV obsession? In most cases the songs have to do with violence and human carnage. With the band names, it's subversion, vulgarity, and a little mischief (a band named "Television" is up to something if not a lot). Man has long feared death by technology.
Plus TV imagery looks really great, with neon cathode rays and all.
"Uncle Handsome's got the microphone...Uncle Handsome's got the power....the man with the power of the hour. And you gotta wait for me.....cause we I say go, then we go. Then you party."
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