Show #168 November 25, 2018

Our Midnight Special goes out to Jackie!

Jackie- Mark Johnson Mark Johnson and The Wild Alligators 
12 O'Clock High- Dirty Looks Dirty Looks 
*Midnight Special- Paul Collins Out of My Head 
*Midnight Music- The Runaways Queens Of Noise 
*Midnight Girls- Eyz Buttons: From Champaign to Chicago 
Wither Away- The Genuine Fakes Issues 
A Different Light- The Odd Numbers The Oddyssey 
Rich Kids- Tours Language School 
^After Midnight- Blink 182 After Midnight 
*Down In The Tube Station At Midnight- The Jam Direction, Reaction, Creation 
*Midnight Movie Star- The Diodes Tired of Waking Up Tired 
He's Got Me Dreaming- Lisa Mychols Sugar 
Three Bells In A Row- Tenpole Tudor Wunderbar - The Best Of Tenpole Tudor 
Spin Me Around- The Modulators Tomorrow's Coming 
*Midnight Radio- Hedwig and The Angry Inch Original Soundtrack 
*Midnight Rendezvous- The Babys Anthology 
*Midnight Creep- The New Trocaderos Thrills and Chills 
*Midnight- The Revillos Attack of the Giant Revillos 
Erasure (feat. Waxahatchee and Stephin Merritt)- Superchunk What a Time to Be Alive  
Lose Control- The Stripes Strangers 
What Are We Gonna Do?- The Stanleys The Stanleys 
*Midnite Snack- The Donnas Turn 21 
*At Midnight- Sweet Water's Edge 
*Alone At Midnight- The Smithereens Especially For You 
No Return- Nick Piunti Temporary High 
Better Days- Travoltas Until We Hit the Shore 
>Midnight to Six Man- The Pretty Things Greatest Hits 
*The Midnight Moon- The Dawgs My Town 
*Midnight Caller- Badfinger No Dice 
*Midnight On The Hill- Maxïmo Park Too Much Information 

^Power Pop Peak:  #20 Billboard Hot Rock Songs 1/14/12

*SacroSet[s]:  Midnight Songs 

>Power Pop Prototype:  1965

In my life there have been few television shows that have taken me to both rapturous highs and devastating lows.  One that comes to mind is The Midnight Special, which ran on NBC between 1973 and 1981.  Back in those pre-Internet days I would scour the TV listings in The Boston Globe every Sunday looking for cool things to watch- starting with the gateway drug of Saturday morning cartoons I was a full blown TV junkie by the time I was 10.  For starters, The Midnight Special aired on Friday night AFTER The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, which might as well have been 4 in the morning as far as my mother was concerned.  Throughout its run I found the artists on the show to be decidedly hit or miss- for every group I liked there would be 50 or so I didn't care for.  For example, of the 200 or so artists on the show in 1973 only a hand full have been featured on ALL KINDSA GIRLS:  Badfinger, The Hollies, T Rex, Bowie, Slade and The Raspberries.

Badfinger on The Midnight Special March 2, 1973

The balance of artists on the show that year were pop (Anne Murray, Bee Gees, Helen Reddy), R and B (Aretha Franklin, Lou Rawls, The Miracles) or Country (Mac Davis, Loretta Lynn, Conway Twitty.)

In any case, I didn't discover The Midnight Special until the following year when I was shocked to see Brownsville Station of "Smokin' In The Boys Room"
fame were playing.  I LOVED that song, it was on one of the first records I ever bought Ronco presents Get It On!  I asked my mom if I could stay up and watch the show and she shot me down instantly- zero consideration!  Seething I planned to sneak down and watch it anyway but I slept right through the show!  

Brownsville Station on The Midnight Special 1/25/74

Later that year, I saw Aerosmith were playing on The Midnight Special and I vowed that I would not miss it.  I didn't bother asking Mum and set an alarm only to sleep right through it again, waking up the next morning in a stew of disappointment.  It didn't help when I saw this awesome picture of the band's performance in Circus magazine.

Aersomith on The Midnight Special 8/16/74

One of the coolest things about the show is those huge letters they would put up behind the bands.  I'd think to myself, "man you know you've made it when your name is spelled out in 6 foot red neon letters behind you!"  The artist didn't even have to rock- if you played on the show, you got the letters.  Case in point:

Although to my mind, the letters always looked better behind a rocking band:

Status Quo on The Midnight Special

And can you imagine what a mind-blower this would have been to see?

New York Dolls on The Midnight Special

Why just "n.y." on the backdrop when there is plenty of space and letters for "New York Dolls?"  Who knows.  In any case, I'd like to think that 10 year old me would have loved seeing the New York Dolls on The Midnight Special.  Perhaps I might even have noticed how Aerosmith's look and stage moves were eerily similar to those of the trailblazing Dolls.  (Though in fairness, it's now clear to me that both bands were cribbing from The Rolling Stones.)  Steve Leber and David Krebs managed the two groups and while the Dolls circled their drug-fueled drain, Aerosmith were ascendant.  I'd still love to know if Steven Tyler's mic stand scarves were a direct lift from The Dolls' David Johansen but the fact is in a perfect world BOTH bands would've been huge.

When I was older I'd stay up to watch The Midnight Special- at great cost because my Boston Globe paper route had me up at 6:30 Saturday morning.  I learned to make the effort only if a group I liked was on.  A couple of times the Globe TV listings screwed me over and I'd wreck myself for the weekend for the likes of -no offense- The Captain and Tennille, Barry Manilow or Olivia Newton-John.

Still on those rare occasions that I was awake and a group I loved was on- it was truly amazing.  I'll never forget seeing AC/DC perform Sin City in 1978.

 
AC/DC "Sin City" Live (1978) from Columbia Records on Vimeo.


Cousin Rich had hipped me to their new record Powerage and I was intrigued by the album jacket photos as well as pictures I'd seen of the band in Circus and Hit Parader.  Even so, I was in no way prepared for the sonic onslaught that was their performance of "Sin City" on The Midnight Special.  (If you just watched it yourself you know what I'm talking about!)  I mean they were introduced by Ted Nugent and Steven Tyler for God's sake!!!  

AC/DC, Nugent and Aerosmith were on tour at the time and Ted hosted this episode.  The funny thing is, while "Sin City" is seared in my memory and I'm a big fan of both, I have no recollection of what Aerosmith or the Motor City Madman played on the show that night.  

AC/DC on The Midnight Special
9/6/78

I became a lifelong fan of AC/DC after seeing them on The Midnight Special- my love for the band undimmed by their ensuing popularity, Bon Scott's death or even their musical decline in the 2000's.   I have probably seen the band more than any other- at least 15 times.  Sad to say there will never be another AC/DC.  

As it was on the radio, punk rock was completely ignored on American television.  It was a different story in England where, in 1977 alone, Top of The Pops featured The Jam, The Stranglers, The Saints, The Boomtown Rats, The Adverts, The Banned, Generation X and The Tom Robinson Band. 

The Jam on Top of The Pops

I saw Cheap Trick play "Surrender" on The Midnight Special, Robin and Tom resplendent in their white suits...

 

 And there was Blondie's memorable performance in 1979... 






The Cars of course, the biggest New Wave band in the world...

...but that was it- going by The Midnight Special, you'd think that Punk and New Wave had never happened.  I will always bow down to England's broader, more tolerant music tastes  "that was The Stranglers, now here's Kiki Dee!"  It continues to this day with shows like Later...With Jools Holland.  The former Squeeze keyboard player's show debuted in 1991 with a brilliant concept- a bunch of groups are arrayed in a circle, each playing separately then all together.  I've seen The Cure and Willie Nelson on the same episode as well as million selling artists like Metallica on the same show as an indie band you've never heard of.  Can you imagine something like that on American TV?  Sadly, I can't either.

While The Midnight Special was never as adventurous as I would have liked, I'm still grateful for a few legendary performances that I will never forget.

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ALL KINDSA GIRLS #168