Calling sister midnight

October 17, 2008 6:05 PM

Iggy Pop chats with Dinah Shore in 1977. Performs Sister Midnight and Fun House with David Bowie and then opens up a bit.

In other news, Dinah Shore is one classy lady.

posted by milarepa (16 comments total)

This is awesome.
posted by not_on_display at 6:42 PM on October 17, 2008

I always liked this bit with Peter Gsowski too, and so did Mogwai apparently.
posted by philip-random at 6:51 PM on October 17, 2008 [1 favorite]

Quite a collision of cultures... the tail-end of the daytime talk show/nighttime variety show format combined with the the rising youth culture/new rock and roll... it was very jarring to see this as a 16-year-old, lemme tell ya. I grew up watching David Frost, Dinah Shore, Graham Kerr, Merv Griffin and others and sometimes their shows with guests (like Iggy) were very surreal... I swear I remember seeing Merv Griffin, chin on fist, asking Adam Ant "So you call this... ANT MUSIC?" as only Merv could...
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posted by Ron Thanagar at 6:56 PM on October 17, 2008 [1 favorite]

Quite a collision of cultures... the tail-end of the daytime talk show/nighttime variety show format combined with the the rising youth culture/new rock and roll

Not so much "new rock and roll" as PUNK ROCK, which is a good illustration of just how savagely raw punk really was when it hit the culture in 1976-78. It really did destroy everything that had ever come before (figuratively, of course) ... or more to the point, it eviscerated all the soft-rock-MOR crap that had settled in so softly, so incrementally over the previous six or seven years of the decade.

Look no further than what the Sex Pistols did to Bill Grundy in Britain. Clearly, these were young men that were not welcome in the living rooms of any nation.
posted by philip-random at 7:16 PM on October 17, 2008

The Gzowski show has been unfairly maligned for years. Sure, the guy was a lot more awkward on tv than he was on radio, the set cost $3.21 in Canadian Tire money, and the entire viewing audience could have fit into my room for a slumber party, but he had the most awesome guests. Robin Williams was on, pre-Mork, when he was brand new and actually funny (I remember my Mum, sister and I gasping for air from laughing so hard). David Steinberg, Harlan Ellison, and Flo and Eddie were practically regulars. And who can forget Pierre Burton stopping a spinning Cuisinart with his bare finger? (Gore alert starting at 1:48.) To be fair, Pierre was probably stoned at the time.

The full Gzowski-Pop interview here.
posted by maudlin at 7:45 PM on October 17, 2008 [1 favorite]

Thanks for Iggy and Pierre.

More Iggy.
More Pierre.
posted by philip-random at 8:39 PM on October 17, 2008

I don't know exactly what I was expecting from an encounter between Dinah Shore and Iggy Pop, but I do know that that wasn't it. Neat.
posted by Flunkie at 9:18 PM on October 17, 2008 [1 favorite]

Man, she was GOOD! She asked great questions, mixed it up with enough sweetness to keep her audience from freaking out, and seemed genuinely engaged.

Now I just want to watch old Dinah Shore shows on YouTube all night long.
posted by padraigin at 9:49 PM on October 17, 2008 [1 favorite]

Potatoes were in my bed last night, too!
posted by kaseijin at 12:36 AM on October 18, 2008

I always enjoy watching Gene Simmons on the Mike Douglas Show. He's trying his best to be bat-creepy, while Totie Fields nails him: "He's probably just a nice Jewish boy."
posted by Oriole Adams at 1:02 AM on October 18, 2008

That interview was fabulous! Both Iggy and Dinah Shore come off as utterly likable. And I believe both of them.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 3:46 AM on October 18, 2008

That gene simmons interview made me crack up! Finally, I get to forward something to my mom.
posted by milarepa at 5:25 AM on October 18, 2008

Nice flashbacks, all!  The Stooges' recent revival effort (The Weirdness, 2007) sucked donkey-balls, but they were once as vital -- for half a second, at least -- as Bruce Springsteen (I'm thinking of The Stooges, Fun House and Raw Power), even if the Stooges initially came across as a dark Doors or VU tribute band.

And Dinah Shore hails from a kinder, gentler day, before the Reagan-ushered culture wars. What a classy lady. Back then, daytime talkshow hosts even took 'younger' people like Iggy seriously.

NOTE: I was never aware that Ig self-identified as punk until I saw that Peter Gzowski interview. Going to a middle- and high school full of Dichord House protéges and band members, I never identified Iggy as a punk-rocker -- he and Bowie (and Lou Reed) were always a generation ahead of us -- relevant but important artifacts of the late '60's.

AFAIC, punk broke out only about 1977, or about the same time the Sex Pistols broke Stateside and the Ramones made it into the big-time. Punk rockers *didn't* jam with David Bowie -- David Bowie™ and all of the corporatism that he and RCA Records represented were regarded as the enemy.
posted by vhsiv at 6:25 AM on October 18, 2008

(Dischord House -- I never get this name-dropping thing right.)
posted by vhsiv at 6:37 AM on October 18, 2008

Only now do I know how cool shows like "Dinah Shore" and "The Mike Douglas Show" were. Mike was so clueless, yet so game. I remember Don MacLean singing a song (maybe "Vincent") on the show, and Mike complimenting him on it, saying "so many songs these days just have lyrics like 'Ooooooh Baby, Oooooooh Baby'. Now what's your next song?" And MacLean said, sheepishly, "It's called 'Oh Baby'." And then there's the time Douglas interviewed Brian Wilson, who appeared (as I realize now) heavily drugged.

Every day after school I would see guests from every era (Eubie Blake! Mason Reese!) and experience the gamut of popular culture.
posted by acrasis at 7:15 AM on October 18, 2008

amazing. i always assumed that no one would have ever asked iggy pop "well, what does your mother think about you singing with no shirt on?" oh man.
posted by shmegegge at 9:26 AM on October 20, 2008