American Bandstand 1967 What the f*** is going on?

[toomanyhatz]

That's an amazing Airplane performance, and it's of two of...well, their five greatest songs, anyway. The others are interesting for how out of place they seem, but the Airplane don't seem out of place - they actually take the show over. Suddenly DC seems out of place on his own show.

The Doors and Floyd seem uncomfortable by comparison.

[Bent Fabric]

One reason the Airplane and Doors clips work so well is because they aren't taking the piss - a LOT of bands did, thinking it made them look hip and above-it-all, but it usually only made them look self-conscious. I was thinking of that, watching both Slick and Morrison - they're both absolutely invested, committed to the performance. (The Small Faces were really good for that, too.)

In 1967, I think its safe to assume that if you had a group, a song, a sound, a record, a career to promote - no matter how lofty or Utopian your artistic goals - you'd more likely than not be inclined to approach the largest platforms available with a certain enthusiasm and spirit of cooperative engagement.

Neil Young not wanting to do television in the Buffalo Springfield era - I totally get it, for sure ("this is fucking jive, this is not our audience, this belittles our work"), but he was most certainly the exception.

Syd Barrett's reported declaration that "Lennon (and we can note that he was four years and a hundred albums and singles into the teflon stage of the biggest career of them all) doesn't have to do TOTP, why should I?" would have inevitably grated with anyone who was working to make the PF "happen" in some larger sense then.

The idea that the paradigm probably was changing (FM radio, underground word of mouth, Fillmore gigs, Monterey) isn't without merit, but...most of these young musicians had been watching their heroes and peers on Ed Sullivan, etc. just years, months, weeks earlier, and the platform (bring something new to the living rooms of middle America) would have probably seemed deeply valid to most adolescent musicians.

[Jimbo]

The issue wasn't being on TV per se but lip synching. Ed Sullivan was real but not many other shows were. I don't think the Beatles ever did it. That is why they were the paradigm of cool. That the Airplane, PF and the Doors did in this ABS show, well, I wouldn't be surprised if they hadn't lost hippie points for doing it. (The Doors lost points for not having a bass player, not to mention for shrinking Light My Fire for the single.) The idea that rock and roll bands were talentless was big with my mother whom I vividly recall complaining that rock and rollers needed echo to improve the singing. Frank, Dean and Perry Como never needed echo. That a band would "fake it" on TV might indicate a lack of skills in a live situation. Fairly soon I began to see guitars with cables and actual live performances on TV. Even AMS stopped the lip synching I believe but it was all they had done before.

Now I am my mother complaining about how using synths, etc., is cheating.

[zoomboogity]

Well, the rock'n'rollers weren't "cheating" by not playing - in fact, they were the ones cheated out of soundcheck time. TV production crews weren't going to spend two hours of prep for a two-minute song that would get drowned out by girls screaming anyway. They didn't care, they just knew it was popular enough to book. Even worse for a music-oriented show like Shindig! with several bands in an episode. That's why bands sometimes used "tv tracks" - a tape of instrumental tracks with no vocals - so the band could mime playing and sing live. (One example: The Times They Are A-Changin' by The Byrds on Hullabaloo.) As the tapes were already pre-mixed, usually in mono for 1960s tv, the sound guy's job was made a thousand times easier, and soundcheck for that would take just a few minutes.

I remember seeing those bands who would smirk when they'd mime a song. I thought they looked lame even then. I mean, we all knew they were miming, no one cared, and I thought, "What, you think you're too good for show biz, why are you there?" The extra irony of these bands thinking they were so anti-establishment while being signed by major labels would occur to me some time later, merely adding to how lame it looks now. Bring back the plate spinner guy, y'know? At least he cared. The Who put everything into putting on a show when they mimed, which is why their '60s clips are so fun - its not "cheating" when you played it in the first place.

And Jimbo, your mom was wrong - echo actually accentuates bad singing (just my opinion). And you're about 45 years late to start kvetching about synthesizers. I don't know how to break it to you, but...

[The Modernist]

The issue wasn't being on TV per se but lip synching. Ed Sullivan was real but not many other shows were. I don't think the Beatles ever did it. That is why they were the paradigm of cool.

They did it all the time! Most of their British tv appearances are miming.

[Bent Fabric]

The issue wasn't being on TV per se but lip synching. Ed Sullivan was real but not many other shows were. I don't think the Beatles ever did it. That is why they were the paradigm of cool.

They did it all the time! Most of their British tv appearances are miming.

Yeah, there are clips of them miming virtually every early hit ("Love Me Do", "From Me To You", etc.). This was the game then, for better or worse.

[Bent Fabric]

The Who put everything into putting on a show when they mimed, which is why their '60s clips are so fun - its not "cheating" when you played it in the first place.

Yeah, they really are the gold standard of miming.

[Charlie O.]

In 1967, I think its safe to assume that if you had a group, a song, a sound, a record, a career to promote - no matter how lofty or Utopian your artistic goals - you'd more likely than not be inclined to approach the largest platforms available with a certain enthusiasm and spirit of cooperative engagement.

But as zoomboogity corroborates, the piss-taking did happen, and quite a lot. Actually, I'll give a lot of those bands the benefit of the doubt - they probably honestly thought it would be funny. In at least few cases it was (Keith Moon's dainty drumming on The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour, for one).

The issue wasn't being on TV per se but lip synching. Ed Sullivan was real but not many other shows were.

And you watch those Sullivan clips now and you know what? - on a lot of them, the sound stinks. It wasn't just that they had insufficient time for sound-checking (though there certainly was that factor) - it was also that the union sound mixers on the show (and on other shows that did live music) were not rock fans, did not know how it was meant to sound, and most likely did not care in the slightest. So miming/lip-syncing was usually simple self-preservation as much as anything else, even for bands that could have pulled it off live from a performance standpoint.

[bobzilla77]

And you watch those Sullivan clips now and you know what? - on a lot of them, the sound stinks. It wasn't just that they had insufficient time for sound-checking (though there certainly was that factor) - it was also that the union sound mixers on the show (and on other shows that did live music) were not rock fans, did not know how it was meant to sound, and most likely did not care in the slightest. So miming/lip-syncing was usually simple self-preservation as much as anything else, even for bands that could have pulled it off live from a performance standpoint.

Tht's a good point. There's a bit in the Who's "30 Years of Max R&B" video where you see Pete giving an interview on Finnish television about how he hates playing on live tv because the sound is always so awful, even in America and England, how bad it is going to be in Scandanavia. Then you see them take the stage for the TV show, and it's completely inaudible.

It's not like it was impossible to do, there are wonderful TV clips of jazz players from the early 60s, obviously playing live. The TAMI show is totally live. It just required more technical manpower and expense than was thought be necessary for standard TV.

[Charlie O.]

There's a bit in the Who's "30 Years of Max R&B" video where you see Pete giving an interview on Finnish television about how he hates playing on live tv because the sound is always so awful, even in America and England, how bad it is going to be in Scandanavia. Then you see them take the stage for the TV show, and it's completely inaudible.

Well, no shit - Pete had just dissed the sound guy!

[zoomboogity]

Yeah that's amazing. Thanks for posting it.

This is even cooler, from Dick Clark's other show, Where The Action Is.

[sloopjohnc]

One reason the Airplane and Doors clips work so well is because they aren't taking the piss - a LOT of bands did, thinking it made them look hip and above-it-all, but it usually only made them look self-conscious. I was thinking of that, watching both Slick and Morrison - they're both absolutely invested, committed to the performance. (The Small Faces were really good for that, too.)

In 1967, I think its safe to assume that if you had a group, a song, a sound, a record, a career to promote - no matter how lofty or Utopian your artistic goals - you'd more likely than not be inclined to approach the largest platforms available with a certain enthusiasm and spirit of cooperative engagement.

I always think back to Hendrix touring with the Monkees.

[Hightea]

Forgot about these videos. Always had a hard time with the lip syncing, however the airplane and doors at least play along. Shows how ahead of the time Grace was as we always look back at the 60's hippie era as happy and Grace has this dark style. Dick always asks stupid questions.

zoomboogity thanks for posting the 13th floor elevators don't think I've seen that before.