Dear Shaded Viewers,
David McDermott on TV Party
I was speaking with a new friend, David Herman from Standard, the other night at an opening and he reminded me of a TV show from NYC in the late 70’s to early 80’s that I had totally forgotten. I don’t know how that was possible but it was great fun to watch it again with the intro by the artist David McDermott, half of McDermott & McGough, Paris galerie, Jerome de Noirmont. The last show of McDermott McGough was sold out.
SYNOPSIS:
From 1978 to 1982, Glenn O’Brien hosted a New York city public access cable TV show called TV Party. Co-hosted by Chris Stein, from Blondie, and directed by filmmaker Amos Poe, the hour long show took television where it had never gone before: to the edge of civility and “sub-realism” as Glenn would put it. Walter Steding and his TV Party “Orchestra” provided a musical accompaniment to the madness at hand, and many artists and musicians, from The Clash, Nile Rodgers, Jean-Michel Basquiat, David Bryne and Arto Lindsey were regular guests. It was the cocktail party that could be a political party.
With 80 hours of disintegrating 3/4 inch videotape as a starting point, we tracked down the trend setting participants still living today and found out what they remember of the period and how the show influenced their lives. This, combined with clips from the orginal show, became the documentary “TV Party.
FEATURING:
Glenn O’Brien, Chris Stein, Walter Steding, Lenny Ferrari, Deborah Harry, Amos Poe, Tim Wright, Lisa Rosen, Kate Simon, Frederick Brathwaite, Tav Falco, Edo Bertoglio, Robert Aaron, Arto Lindsay, Paul Daugherty, and James Chladek
For those of you that love the 80’s but never had the opportunity to live through them, voila, an excellent document of the times.
Later,
Diane
