V-66, "The Beat of Boston," was the short-lived, but sorely missed local music video station that was the only thing that made 8th grade tolerable for this poorly socialized example of nerdy adolesecent angst...
It lasted for little more than a year before selling out to the Home Shopping Network in late 1986, but it was a blast while it lasted. Its playlist was ecumenical, if a bit too skewed at times to the AOR end of the spectrum (though the magic of music video could make the most commercial drek palatable by adding a visual narrative or sci-fi art direction), yet it remained fiercely parochial (sometimes embarassingly so), spotlighting music by a host of local acts of the day.
Some, like the Del Fuegos and Til Tuesday, mananged to register on the national scene. Others, like Ball and Pivot, November Group, and the Dogmatics, never broke free of the Boston-Providence axis. V-66 had a tremendous impact on the youth of this region. Mere mention of it can inspire near-fatal bouts of nostalgia in those who were enraptured by its low-budget UHF spell, yet much (but not all) of the recorded evidence has been lost to the ages. (The same goes for the "I'm Robillard and I'm from Mars" PSA that used to run early weekend mornings on WCVB.)
The music can still be found with a bit of digging (and it would be nice if CDBaby would get around to reissuing the Lizzie Borden & The Axes compilation), and this promises to be a fucking hoot:
Ordinarily, I'd be the last person on earth to defend the use of that particular Starship song, but a Bostonized version of the track did figure heavily into the station's promotional efforts. Hey, it was the mid-1980's, what can I say?
Speaking of awkward memories, there is one track and video that represents the V-66 era above all others. It's the one that inevitably gets mentioned whenever the subject of V-66 is brought up. While I cannot produce the video, which was shot on Newbury Street (and featured a feminist-positive image of woman as the devil), I did recently manage to locate a copy of the LP featuring the song, a dangerously infectious bit of Latin-inflected new wave pop that has been indelibly burned into the brains of a generation of Bay Staters.
New Man - Bad Boys (from New Man, 1986) - Like getting sacpunched by the zeitgeist of twenty-two years ago....
(This post is dedicated to thirdmate and Jack. They know damn well why.)
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12 comments:
New Man! Man, V66 memories are flooding my brain!
Is that a good or bad thing?
John.
"V66, Way out in Weymouth"!!
All I remember is Erin from the front office.
Oh... ON AIR memories.
Thanks, bitterandrew.
Oh, Andrew. You are so good to me.
"I'm Robillard and I'm from Mars"
"...and I only eat candy ba-a-ahs!"
HOLY SHIT NOSTALGIAGASM
That New Man track is great, BTW. They were on Epic at one point, and "You Make Me Feel" was supposed to be their breakout:
ANYWAY WHAT I'M TRYINASAY IS
David Bowie poached their sax player shortly after that...
A time machine and a dope slap, that's all I'm asking for.
No no, this is where the line starts. The end of the line is waaaaaaaay back there.
And don't forget to drill into his head the winning Megabucks numbers for the week of his 18th birthday.
Man, V66 brings back a lot of memories. That damn song is appropriate, and I would have tolerated the blood pouring out of my ears just to see that old V66 version of the video.
Oh, and is Bill Stevens like Adam Corolla's older brother or something?
From my LJ entry about your post:
Tomorrow I turn 37. Whoop-de-fuck, and all that. I've been inoculating myself against the grim realization that I'm no longer even in my mid-30s by referring to myself as a thirty-seven-year-old for some weeks, and it's mostly worked. Whatever. My mind is on a month from now, when I'll be back in New York and Boston, and huge tracts of life will make more sense.
Kat has something secret and doubtless elaborate planned for tomorrow night, but we had cake and champagne (and takeout Indian) last night after my late private lesson. Until Friday evening, though, I have this to tide me over, the best unlooked-for early present I've gotten in a long time:
http://armagideontime.blogspot.com/
The June 18th, 2008 entry specifically.
I love Armagiddeon Time a whole bunch in any case, for the music, the comics, the politics, and the snark, but most especially for the Massachusetts post-industrial suburban nostalgia, which resonates strongly with many aspects of my own (admittedly upper-middle-class) childhood. But the V66 post is manna from Marlboro.
I was 13 when V66 debuted; in fact, it appeared on my UHF dial about two months after I received a 5" black and white TV for my bedroom as a Christmas gift. The timing could not have been more potent, nor bitterandrew's tribute more Proustian. I watched V66 for fucking hours, thousands of them, I'd guess, and it was for a solid year and a half of my life one of the reigning and most reliable sources of comfort and happiness I had. I still miss it, sometimes. (I even used to turn the brightness on my crappy little black-and-white all the way down so that my parents, checking in, wouldn't realize I had the TV on; all the while, I'd have a single-ear headphone snuggled into the ear nearest my pillow, listening to V66 in monaural.)
* * *
Thanks, man. I needed this a whole bunch.
Dear Bitterandrew, Thank You for all of the wonderful wit, music and comics! I have been savoring your blog for quite a while now and suddenly my husband of 22 years just left me for a 22 year old (and damn, I haven't even let myself go!) You music posts, humor and comics have seem to be the only thing I can focus on. I grew up in RI a little before you but have the exact same taste in just about everything. Do you have an older single brother?
There's nothing wrong with Robert Smith. ;)
John #1: "Goodbad," I think.
thirdmate: You'd have made an awesome VJ.
Jack: "Great" isn't the word I'd use, but the song is effective and doing whatever it's supposed to do.
algerine: Hopefully the documentary will feature more footage from the video.
John #2: Happy Belated Birthday! Your post captured everything I wanted to say, but was too hung up on painful flashbacks to enunciate.
Anonymous: Wow. I don't know what to say but a heartfelt thanks and a sincere "hang in there."
a: There is something wrong with the way Robert Smith loves pie, however.
AAAAAAAHAHAHAHA!!! Now I feel obliged to post that one pic of me with a mullet and jeans which I artistically bleached by dripping Clorox on them. Also, having seen Maura's bedhead, now I can't get rid of my clapped out refrigerator covered in all-ages promo stickers from the 1990's.
I turn 36 in December (same date as Ozzy Osbourne). I'm referring to myself as "six squared".
OK, I'm scared. My husband has that exact same Hawaiian shirt.
Well, I'm 36 and I'm from STONE-UM and I remember V66 well.
I grew up in a house with parents too cheap to buy cable (they think North Koreans live an extravagent lifestyle) so there was no MTV - just V66.
And the bottom line was I got exposed to a lot more good music than I would have, otherwise. I got into post-punk and new wave (gotta give 'FNX credit, too) while my classmates were busting moves to Mariah and Amy Grant.
The great thing about V66 is that it wasn't around long enough to start sucking. As the 1980s closed out nearly everything else did (even Larry Bird!) - but my memories of V66 are forever untainted.
Now about that "Bad Boys" song.
I remember that video well. The ending chorus had a woman with a devil's costume & lantern leading the band to an open grave that (presumably) opened up into hell.
I've been waiting for somebody to post it on YouTube but that hasn't happened yet.
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