Before MTV: 'Night Flight,' 'Puttin' On The Hits' and More

Night Flight

This week on Totally 80's Podcast, creator of "Network 77" Rachel Lichtman returns to chat with host Lyndsey Parker and the other John Hughes to talk about music television shows of the 80's that weren't MTV. Tune in below as the trio reminisce on the days of "Night Flight, "Friday Night Videos," "Puttin' on the Hits" and more!

 ON THE EYE-OPENING AESTHETIC OF "NIGHT FLIGHT":

LICHTMAN: "That was a real game changer for me personally. I mean, it wasn't just about, you know, sometimes MTV would have like an early days there'd be videos that were a little scary, like, you know, 'Oh, it's a roasted chicken with cobwebs on it. Or like high heels walking by hot steam, you know?' And you're like, 'Ooh, what is all this?' And then, 'Night Flight' sort of picked up where that left off, you know, where you're discovering an entire universe of weird B-movies, old and new, and A-movies. Like I first saw 'Magical Mystery Tour' on 'Night Flight,' with commercials and the whole thing."

"This world of like Andy Warhols' 'Dracula' you know, and 'The Fabulous Stains' and like, you know, this other world that was like, just completely foreign to me that I covered at a time where I was like, I was open for business when it came to like, what can this, like small town gal absorb from these worlds?"

PARKER: "I discovered Bauhaus from 'Night Light,' for whatever reason, I don't care what the reason was. I just want to thank them for whatever reason it was. It was a good reason, but for whatever reason, they were showing like a Bauhaus concert video.

"All the time it was on like almost everywhere, even though Bauhaus, you know, legendary, set the template for goth, listen to our Goth podcast, by the way, everybody here. That was a really good one. You know, it's about a house, very important fan, but MTV did not get on board with that house. I don't ever remember seeing about house video on MTV.

I don't remember even KROQ out here. They may have played Bela Lugosi, but probably a very severe radio edit of it, but not the entire Bauhaus concert at like 1:00 AM on my TV. That blew my mind and that completely - I will always associate 'Night Flight' and Bauhaus in my mind together. That's my even 120 minutes.

HUGHES: "As someone who works at Rhino Records, I really appreciated the curatorial aspect of that because there were themes, it was always takeoff to goth and there would be music, videos, concerts, or a feature length that was like 'The Hunger' or something..."

ON THE CURATORIAL PROGRAMMING OF "THE CUTTING EDGE":

PARKER: "I actually discovered some - there were some very weird stuff on it. I remember very specifically finding out about the Batcave and Specimen from IRS' The Cutting Edge.

"I think the reason why I've always sort of seen Madonna as kind of this punk underground East Village girl. And I'm very aware that that was where she came from, even though she became the biggest woman on the planet is because I discovered her from IRS' 'The Cutting Edge."

"They showed 'The Lucky Star' video, which looks like it costs $5. She looked almost kind of goth, she had all this jewelry on. She was in black, she was in netting. She looked very self-styled and kind of like punky and ragamuffin. And I watched that video on IRS' 'The Cutting Edge.'"

HUGHES: "It was interesting because it was obviously the house organ promotional vehicle for IRS records. Right. But they would feature other artists from other labels like Madonna. You said the thing that really struck with me was I was in 1984, I was the biggest Smiths fan you will ever find on this planet.

"The IRS' 'The Cutting Edge,' they had Morrissey on once and I remember it vividly, he was in a bathroom with just like a single camera on a tripod, no one else. And they gave him a bunch of cards with words written on them and he had to hold up the word and just describe what he thought about that particular word or what it meant to him. And you never saw Morrissey or the Smiths being interviewed on TV. It was like such a moment for me."

ON THE BEST SHOW OF THE 80S:

LICHTMAN: "I am here for "Putting On The Hits' article / conversation / holiday [Laughs]."

"Let's just do a whole thing. So here's the thing. First of all, Alan Fawcett, another one of these, like, you know, in that 'Solid Gold' that we talked about last time, where it's like, you just grabbed some personality. So then. 'Putting On The Hits' had that."

"First of all, I saw a lot of weird, like new wave stuff. In fact, Adam and the Ants was definitely a big one that they always did. And then Sparks of course, the through line to all of these shows about there was the greatest, greatest, greatest, greatest performance. They do "Angst in My Pants" and it's so, so good."

Listen to the rest of the podcast here

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