MV3 Episodes....

[liquid engineer]

I have 2 episodes on video of MV3 that I will sell copies of, from Detroit when it was on channel 62 at 4pm! The commercials are even on it (man, they we're cheaply made back then!). I also have on the tape, DAVID BOWIE singing, "Space Oddity" on the Midnight Special from 1973, plus GARY NUMAN singing, "Cars" live on Saturday Night Live from 1980! Some of the videos are cut short, but all of the conversations between the 3 hosts and the dancers are all there! Oingo Boingo performs-nothing to fear live on the stage, this tape will really bring back a ton of memories!! If anyone is interested, send me an email with MV3 on the subject title so I know it's not junk mail and how much you would pay for a copy. I sold copies 3 years ago on Ebay between $50 and $75. Look around and see if you can find copies, counting the Bowie and Numan performances, there are 28 videos on the tape! Send me an email at: KAP234@aol.com, thanx!

[SwampThing]

I'm only speaking for myself (maybe others will agree). I don't think this is the place to push your bootleg for a profit. If you would like to sell it for your cost and time then I think that's fair. I hope your not expecting to get between $50 - $75 bucks for a VHS tape around here, this isn't ebay.

[bhs82]

I concur

I put together the website and made available to the masses the material I had at no charge, and with considerable time and effort, yet you want to charge $50 - $75?? Whats Up with that??

!@#$%^&*(())_+

[bhs82]

PS - Lycos pulled the second site again, so half the vidz are absent...

Perhaps if someone wants to fork out $75, I might try and re-up the site to a different addy - Geez -

Reality check - Busy time of year, probably won't be able to re-up for a little while.

[Krokodyle]

bhs82-
Well, if a disc burner ever finds its way into your lap,
I'm still willing to get the MV3s you have. I contacted you
a while back but didn't hear back, and didn't want to keep
buggin' you. [:)]

[ChiGirl]

[quote]Originally posted by joefrog91
[br]Wow, I am the only one of my friends that remembers this show. I live in Waco, TX and I used to watch this every day after school. I first heard Yaz's "Don't Go" and fell in love with that band.
[/quote]

Make that two of us, because this show also introduced me to Yaz(Yazzo), and several other U.K. new wave artists. Oh, I loved the show and only one other friend of mine who was a grade school friend watched this show. I LOVED IT. So when I read here on this site that other people also knew of the show, I got all excited. It's just one of those things that will forever remind me of my early teens. I LOVED the 80's!!!!!!!!!

[CacheMonet]

Ahh yes.. those were the days, MV3, Square Pegs, Suburban Lawns, Lena Lovich, Missing Persons, Altered Images, etc etc etc!!!!!

[Harmonie]

Oh good lord, I was just surfing the net and tripped over this message board and bhs82's web page! I was an inauspicious one-time "guest dancer" on MV3! I wanted to be a regular, but I had to lie to my parents just to make it down to the one taping. I had asked them if I could go, but in their typical over-protectiveness they said no. So my best friend and I dressed conservatively, told them we were going to a movie, then stashed a change of clothes and headed off to Burbank! When I think back on that time in my life, MV3 always pops into my head.

Hehehehe, I had a love-hate thing about Debbie Diamond, because even though I never actually spoke with her, she seemed SOOO cool (I loved her look) and yet stuck up at the same time. Oh well, just teenage envy I guess. I wanted to be her. Now I don't, and I hope she's doing well.

Besides dancing, I really wanted to be on the show to get close to Richard Blade. I had SUCH a crush on him back then, as this was before I knew of his relationship with Terri Nunn. When I found out I was heartbroken! But I got over it enough to keep listening to Berlin for several more years. Did the regular dancers know they were together when you were on the show?

Anyway, thanks bhs82 for your site and for posting your own memories. And thanks EchoBeach for posting this thread!

[8D]

[Harmonie]

[quote]Does anybody remember these following clubs? Phases, Hot Trax, Dillon's, Sherman Square Roller Rink, Rage, 7 Seas, Odyssey...etc..etc...

[/quote]
In addition to the sneaking-out mentioned in my previous message, Odyssey was the other place my best friend and I would sneak out to dance. My parents had very strict anti-clubbing rules, so it was always an event to go there. Odyssey was my first brush with seeing gay sex (I was 17, and as you can guess, I had lead a very sheltered life until then). But what was great about Odyssey was that we didn't have to wait for the boys to ask us to dance! They weren't going to anyway, so we just got out on the floor and went for it. No more being a wallflower for me! [:D]

By the way, my brand of cloves was Gudang Garam, or Djarum if I couldn't get Garam. Then in college I heard cloves made your lungs bleed and switched to plain old Marlboro Lights (all the way up until 2 years ago).

[8D]

[bhs82]

krok - sorry dude, no disrespect, been real busy... no dvd burner yet.

Harmonie - OMG, The Odyssey... you are one of a very few (outside of my friends) I know that remember that place. Yes it had a tremendous gay influence - Kristy McNichol used to go there for the girls - so sad, as I had a crush on her - LOL. It was on Beverly just East of La Cienega, long before the Beverly Center. A trip to "Tail O The Pup" was right around the corner.

Those times in the eighties were a time of revolution and departure. As such, there were those who were experimenting with homosexuality, and I had a few friends which went there. As for me - There is just too much to love about women for me to be enticed by a man. As such, I never did really hang out at the Odessey.... Remember Osko's though?? (The Diso), or Flippers (Roller Rink) - LOL - I was only in Junior High at the time.

As far as Richard and Terri, I can't speak for everyone, but my friends and I knew. My recollection is (and may not be accurate) that Richard was the one whipped, and Terri was advancing her career.
I think that a true friendship developed between them, but the initial impression was as stated.

You are quite welcome, and I hope to get some time to fix the site soon. It is for people like you that I spent the time to create it, and posts like yours are quite rewarding.

Still hoping some long lost friends of mine will stumble across this board someday.

Cheers

[bhs82]

Just read my post, and don't know how to edit it.

Clarification - During Osko's and Flipper's heyday I was in Jr. High and High School (Disco Era mid to late 70s), and the Odyssey was around into the 80s when I graduated.

My preferred clubs were Circus Circus in OC, and Seven Seas in Hollywood. I went to the others but those two were my favorite.
I was just at the old Seven Seas building. It is so confusing the way they divided it up into several different store fronts, but the tell tale sign is the rear. As far as I remember the only entrance was from the rear - or at least that is all we ever used because it was next to the parking lot. As much as the front and interior have changed, you can not mistake the rear as it was the only place recessed from the alley with the old steel stairways and parking spaces.

I hate time - lol.

[British]

They played an MV3 clip or 2 on Vh1 last night all about Berlin.

[Krokodyle]

bhs82 - I'm still interested in them, so keep me in mind. I am, of course, willing to compensate...

[powerpop]

[quote]Originally posted by bhs82
[br]Michael,

What clubs?? Was the "Seven Seas" one of them?? It was cool to see the "Seven Seas" imortalized as a background shot in "Valley Girl" while they were cruising Hollywood (A movie of fairly accurate geographical and cultural portrayals of the time).

Anyway, most of your post was correct except for just a couple of things.

I was actually a dancer on MV3!
I don't know how other dancers were recruited, but I heard of it word of mouth through some guys at an OC club called "Circus Circus"
Another OC club was "Dejavu". "Louis" appeared in dance contests and usually won at these clubs before getting the lead in Madonna's "Borderline", and going on to date her, then be sponsored by her in his short lived musical carreer.

MV3 did stand for Music Videos 3, and I think that the "3" referred to the number of hosts.

It was taped at a little stage / studio in Burbank, CA, right off the 5 fwy @ Alameda. The studio was on a side street running along side the 5, just S. of Alameda on the E. side... it is now a plumbing supply wherehouse. From the show, you would have thought the studio huge, but it was actually very small.

I thought that it aired on channel 9 at the time - now know as KCAL, but back then it was something else. Anyway, KCOP 13's studios are on LaBrea, and most certainly a far cry from where we shot MV3 when I was on it.

I always thought that MV3 was merely a local show here in LA. I am floored by the posts here - absolutely floored. I can not believe y'all remember the show, let alone the impact and the widespread distribution.

I lived in Orange County at the time, and split the club scene between OC and LA. I was also trying to break into acting at the time and had stints in Michael Jackson's "Beat It" video as well as Dwight Twilley's "Girls", while getting the lead for Kiss's "I Love It Loud". We shot "Beat It" just as "Billy Jean" was starting to air on MV3. For years I've heard black artists mention that MTV didn't play black artists until "Thriller", which seemed off to me because I remember so vividly that when we filmed "Beat It", I was a fan from the "Off the Wall" days, and "Billy Jean" (song and video) had surfaced, but not caught on yet.... Now after reading here, I realize that MV3 was where I saw "Billy Jean", and yes - they were innovative and playing black artists before their big brother ever did.

Back to filming, or taping actually... There was a giant Blue Screen (same kind they use behind news people). - It may have been Green, I honestly don't remember the exact color having worked with both over the years... Anyway, whichever color it was, dancers would have to avoid wearing the same color, otherwise they would "dissapear". If I remember correctly, they would shoot several episodes in a day, and dancers were asked to bring several changes of clothes. They never actually showed videos on-screen in the studio, except on occasion to start off a song. So, we, as dancers, only got to see the videos by watching the show on TV, just like everybody else. I had a lot of fun doing the show, but people I knew wouldn't return more than once because it was much less glamorous than it appeared.

Besides the "live" performances by bands like Psych Furs, Berlin and so on, I also remember other odd things like commedians - Vic Dunlop for instance. The "stage" was directly opposite the Video Screen, and occasionally we got to get up on stage and dance while a band was performing as with Berlin.

Michael, I am curious if one of the people you knew was "Debbie Diamond"? She was the one wearing the outragoeous and cool outfits like dresses reminicent of Little Bo Peep - Bleached Blonde?? My wife went to school in the San Gabriel Valley (she is about to go to her 20 year reunion, and the thing she is most tickled about is telling a certain couple of friends that she married an MV3 dancer), where Debbie was from and had friends that had friends that knew her. I remember pulling her onto an episode of "Square Pegs" when some rockabilly band was playing (I think the "Copy Cats"), and then of course, when we showed up and Richard Blade was also in the episode, we had our little MV3 sub thing going on.

I did extra work on "Square Pegs" at the time, and they did a couple of shows that featured elements of the "80s" dancing scene.

Anyway, like all of you, and perhaps even a little more, in todays age of technology, I would love to get my hands on some of these episodes and preserve them. I recently succeeded in acquiring some of the music videos and tv episodes I mentioned, but not any MV3 ones. I would love to know who has the rights to these things... I am sure the episodes are sitting in some vault somewhere... Perhaps attempting to contact Richard Blade may be a good lead??

Thank y'all for taking me down memory lane, and perking me up! I really had no idea. I always thought what we were doing was in the class of a local public access channel, but with the cool - not mainstream - scene. The people I danced there with thought that a lot of things were cheesy - some of the intros (writing), having comedians, etc. I always thought that although they keyed on and into the scene, they often strayed and were not centrally focussed. In retrospect, I imagine Richard Blade brought the scene to the party, and the (clueless)producers probably insisted on some of the other, and the result was a little splintered. Nevertheless, it was a milestone, and much more so than I ever knew. Please - please post any resources!

Cheers


[/quote]

[bhs82]

<MARQUEE><H2><FONT COLOR="RED">Now Working</FONT COLOR></H2></MARQUEE>

<strike>http://members.lycos.co.uk/mv3videos/</strike>
New Link - 03-22-05
http://www.freewebtown.com/mv3vidz/

All links are now restored and working.
Powerpop - I didn't realize how long winded I was till you quoted my whole post - lol... got your email, but swamped right now, especially after restoring page.

Will get back to you.

Cheers