On This Date, April 17th in 1991: Nirvana filmed the music video for “Smells Like Teen Spirit” in Culver City, CA. The video, made on budget of less than $50,000, led MTV (which, believe it or not, actually showed music videos at that time) to favor the new crop of alternative bands in place of pop metal bands.
Ken Ober on The Set of Remote Control
In a previous life of mine, back when MTV didn’t suck balls (i.e. before you were born), I used to watch a tacky, low-budget game show on that network called Remote Control. Basically your standard Pop Culture Trivia-themed game show where contestants answered fun questions about Rock music and classic TV shows for points, while sitting in easy chairs flanked by bowls of snacks, Remote Control was just awesome. The show helped to launch the careers of exploitation film actress and spokesmodel Cari Wuhrer (Who? Exactly), comedian Colin Quinn and box office poison Adam Sandler, and was hosted by a guy named Ken Ober. Ken Ober continued to work in the entertainment industry in his post-Remote Control career, but never achieved the “household name” status of some of his costars: and now he’s dead. Yes, Ken Ober, best known as the former host of MTV’s Remote Control passed away over the weekend of as yet unspecified causes. He was 52. Read more on this sad story and reminisce about the rad genius that was Remote Control at This Link.
Please Do Not Support This Man
Have you heard / read yet about the classless, douchebag stunt Kanye West pulled at the Video Music Awards last night? The way he completely upstaged Taylor Swift? Or did you maybe witness it in real time? If not, let me know and I’ll send a link to the YouTube video – assuming it hasn’t already been posted a million times to your FaceBook news feed. Gee whiz, what a tool that guy is.
Continue reading Kanye West: Tool of The Century!
Back in March of last year, my friend and fellow rock journalist, Nicole, phoned me up to read me an ad she’d just seen somewhere on line. “You’ll never believe this,” she says to me – which is what she always says when she’s about to hip me to something that’s totally ridiculous. “Rolling Stone is looking for writers just out of college to intern at the magazine for some stupid Reality TV Show!
Continue reading Like a Complete Unknown: What it Means to Write for Rolling Stone
Steve Issacs: Panic Channel Vocalist. Gail Hater
Oh man, this is so awesome. Just a few hours after I posted This blog entry about the shitty new CD by The Panic Channel, and copied the post to my Myspace blog (rip), I received genuine, authentic HATE MAIL from none other than Panic Channel vocalist (and former MTV Veejay) Steve Issacs. This is so exciting! Look at what Steve wrote personally to me: Continue reading Breaking News: Gail Gets Hate Mail from Lead Singer of The Panic Channel!