Tv-A-Go-Go: Rock on TV from American Bandstand to American Idol

by Jake Austen and Jake Austen

Book Overview

From Elvis and a hound dog wearing matching tuxedos and the comic adventures of artificially produced bands to elaborate music videos and contrived reality-show contests, television--as this critical look brilliantly shows--has done a superb job of presenting the energy of rock in a fabulously entertaining but patently "fake" manner. The dichotomy of "fake" and "real" music as it is portrayed on television is presented in detail through many generations...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1556525729
• ISBN13: 9781556525728
• Release Date: July 2005
• Publisher: Chicago Review Press
• Length: 368 Pages
• Weight: 1.10 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 6.1" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

Mr. Rector seems to be talking about a different book

I just finished reading TV A-Go-Go and don't recall any "claims of being the definitive book on its subject," as Mr. Rector claims. In fact, Mr. Austen's introduction states "Obviously,a comprehensive overview of all rock on TV is imposible... No one writer could cover everything and nobody would want to read a book that did." Apparently Mr. Rector wanted an encyclopedia of rock on TV, rather than a series of entertaining essays with thought-provoking theses. I'm sorry he didn't get what he wanted, but this was a very worthwhile read. Further, I could find no claim in the book "that punk rock only became popular after Fear appeared on Saturday Night Live in 1981." In fact, Austen writes: "After polling more than a hundred musicians, zine editors, and fans active in hardcore, none of them cited Fear's Saturday Night Live appearance as their point of entry into the scene (the most frequently cited TV moment that led pollsters to punk/hardcore was actually Devo on Saturday Night Live in 1978)... One reason may be that very few people were watching SNL at that point... the evidence of its realness--the downtime between songs, the lack of distance between audience and artists, and the imperfect performance--may have been unappealing to those not familiar with the hardcore experience." Mr. Rector should talk about the book that exists, not the book he's (for better as well as worse) imagining.

Essential Reading

Jake Austin (publisher of "Rocktober," the finest retro-Rock & Roll magazine since the death of "Kicks") has really done us all a great service with this book. Most of the other reviewers here have already detailed the enlightening and fun to read contents, so I won't belabor the point--except to repeat that it's well-written, extremely entertaining and informative, and an essential addition to any serious Rock & Roll fan's music library. Buy this book now, and if you're lucky enough to ever run across some back issues of "Rocktober," pawn whatever is necessary to get them into your greedy hooks.

A masterpiece of pop culture archaeology.

Jake Austen not only captured what was important in the partnership between television and rock music down through the years, but he does so in entertaining fashion. His soundly expressed theories and crisp, no-B.S. writing style, shed a whole new light on the sometimes deluded expectations of both the genre and it's fans. Filled with detailed information, sly wit, and unique insights, TV-a-Go-Go is the best book ever written on this subject.

enormously entertaining

Essential, witty and thoughtful guide to the history of televised rock and pop, from regional dance party shows to Ed Sullivan, punk's invasion of the SNL set to Michael Jackson's metamorphosis into a pop icon. Jake Austen, who oversees the brilliant obsessives who make up the staff of Roctober Magazine, both loves and understands the mass media, and subjects it to an incisive yet affectionate analysis that's as entertaining as it's rare. The result is an enormously entertaining and informative book, recommended for anyone who's curious about the intersections between music and the idiot box.

Genius

My older siblings were into Kenny Loggins and Bread, and when they wanted to rock, it was Elton John, or maybe Queen. But as a wee `un I knew better than to be unduly influenced by their example. Fortunately, I was under the able, personal tutelage of Television (not the Richard Hell kind, the other kind)-Scooby and the gang running from werewolves to a bubblegum soundtrack; 60s superhero rock gods The Impossibles; the Mosquitos on Gilligan's Island and the Bedbugs on F-Troop: if I'd lived above CBGB's in the late 70s, I still woulda yelled down to cut out that noise, the Banana Splits are on! And now, Austen has penned the definitive tome on all things Rock TV. His prose crackles like a man in awe of his subject, and rightfully so; lucid and engaging, TV-A-Go-Go not only has everything and then some inside, but includes-rather than a mere detailing of who-was-on-what-all manner of interesting, cogent theses on culture woven into the text. As important as bubblepop and sillypunk are to the brain (Austen's chapter on punk rock is spot-on, especially his detailing of Fear's 1981 Saturday Night Live performance), most pleasing is the enormous gamut he covers, from early TV to our American Idol age, with chapters on dance shows, fake bands, 70s TV rock, video programs, international stuff, an investigation into how Michael Jackson and TV shaped each other, and my favorite chapter, on black music television, which describes über-rarity The !!! Beat. Plus appendices on international rock TV and a "Rock N' Roll TV Guide" that'll make you drool and shiver. This is one to buy.