Tuesday, June 2, 2009

Nostalgia Trippin'

As a kid, my folks would let me stay up late on Friday nights to watch The Midnight Special.
Most of you should remember this show, usually narrated by Wolfman Jack, and featuring live musical performances.

One of the first acts I saw was Kiss. I remember my sister and I were in awe of the whole spectacle, while my Dad was fit to be tied, muttering about "freaks", "horseshit", and other things.

Hard to believe that was over thirty years ago.
And that Kiss is still relevant.

8 comments:

RW said...

Kiss was relevant?? Dude...

Jade said...

:) Hey, that's the year I was born!

I remember two distinct examples of my parent's reaction to music on TV.

The first was Madonna's performance of "Like a Virgin" on the MTV Music Awards show... my mom said "That's disgusting!" and stormed out of the room.

The second was Faith No More on SNL... my dad said "What the hell are you watching?" and after I said SNL, he left the room.

As a teenager I was pretty much allowed to listen to anything I wanted, so long as they didn't have to hear it. My walkman was my best friend.

Mr. D said...

The only time my Dad really angry and made me turn off a TV program was an episode of "Monty Python's Flying Circus." What made him angry was a Terry Gilliam cartoon that showed a telephone lineman on a line tapping into the phone, saying he wasn't getting anything. Then the shot panned back and the telephone wires were attached to Jesus on the cross. Guess I can see why that bugged him....

The only problem with the Midnight Special was that it was on at midnight and I got tired. And by the time I was staying up later, it had pretty much gone all disco. There are a lot of really cool old videos on YouTube, though -- I've used them a lot on my blog for the "Guilty Pleasures" thing that I stole from you, Gino.

Gino said...

RW:sad, but true.

jade: walkmans came out my senior yr. they were too expensive, and the only one i knew about belonged to my best frined's dad, who worked for Sony.

mark: staying up late wasnt too hard for me. i had and older sister to emulate.

Brian said...

Plus there was the time they saved Santa. That was freakin' sweet!

Night Writer said...

The late hour was a bit tough since I hadn't yet hit my college years and all night pizza delivery. Anyway, I remember seeing David Bowie singing Ziggy Stardust on Midnight Special. He was dressed as Ziggy, with the Spiders behind him as well. Problem is, it took me several years to fully believe that I actually HAD seen what really seemed to have been a half-waking hallucination.

Guitarman said...

They did have beat that you could really feel. Anyone ever heard the rumor why they called themselves KISS? It's said to be the acronym for Kings In Satan's Service!

Gino said...

thats false, guitarman.

although, they refused to deny the rumor because press such as that sold records. and they were all about the money, and made no bones about it.