July 21, 1999
Frozen Moments

July 28, 1999
Burger! Burger!

Devin Pike is a freelance designer. No, wait, he's a DJ. No, sorry, he's a sports nut. He lives in Irving, TX with four cats and a hamster, who are plotting to kill him in his sleep this week.

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I don't remember when I acquired my little secret. Up until '96 or so, the only reason I liked VH1 was that they had used my friend Sara Hickman as a guest VJ, and played her music when she was signed to Elektra Records. The music they played seemed to be a little... too feminine, the musical equivelant of the Lifetime Network.

Eventually, the testosterone level climbed above the dew point, and I could listen / watch without feeling my love berries crawl up into my body cavity. There was actually a music video network that played music again, without endless marathons of Beavis and Butt-head Get Singled Out In The Real World's Road Rules. M2 plays only music, true, but no cable system has it in the Dallas area yet, and my apartment doesn't have a south-facing window to hang a DSS dish from, so VH1 it is.

Then, 'Behind The Music' came into my life.

The first 'Behind The Music' I saw was Stevie Ray Vaughan. I'm a huge Stevie fan, and had the pleasure of interviewing him and his brother Jimmie while they were recording the album 'Family Style.' Being a local hero, many of his foibles were common knowledge, but I didn't know the depths he sank to before kicking the booze.

'Behind The Music' has a successful format, one that's identifiable even to newbies of the show. The best segments deal with one or more of the following: addiction to drugs and/or alcohol; financial ruin, caused either by addiction or bad choices of management; infidelity, leading to multiple divorces and alienated children (bonus points for inter-band mate swapping); bitterness and jealousy between former band members; anything involving Grace Slick.

They've tried to duplicate the success of 'BTM' with a show called 'Legends,' but it pales in comparison. The only thing good about 'Legends' is the narrator is usually Henry Rollins, and if it keeps him from doing more books of poetry, outstanding. (I do dig Henry, so don't start sending my tons of hate mail.)

Then, you've got "Where Are They Now?" The one-hit wonders of the last 30 years, from Shawn Cassidy to Rick Astley, exposed for everyone to see. Most have gotten fat, quite a few still have aspirations of cutting that new hit record and taking a ride on the comeback wagon. All are hoisted on the pitard of their own fleeting success.

Lately, the bands I grew up listening to have made the 'BTM' grade -- Def Leppard, Poison, Duran Duran, Queen. Def Leppard has got to be the Rasputin of the rock era. Drummer loses an arm? They keep going. Guitarist dies from alcoholism? They keep going. Their core audience grows up? They keep going. One of my favorite bits of local radio a couple of years ago came from the local rock station and a game called "One Arm Or Two?" People would call in and listen to a snippet of a Def Leppard song. They would then have to say if the song had one Rick Allen arm or two playing the track. Genius.

VH1 does has its faults, scant though they may be. The programming leans less toward the music these days, shades of when MTV started to get away from what made them successful. When they have a program coming up that you just HAVE to watch, they'll run a wholly annoying box on the bottom right corner breathlessly telling you there's only SIX DAYS until the debut of the first VH1 Original Movie. However, these gripes are only nitpicking, next to the greatness that is VH1.

Now that I actually watch VH1 on a regular basis -- Insomniac Music Theatre is on in the background as I type this -- you could make the case that I've grown up a little, or at least my musical tastes have. Perhaps. However, if I make that small trek down the dial to the parent network, MTV will be running some asinine Isle of MTV marathon. Teenage and college girls shaking their thangs to whatever Police song Puff Daddy decided to blatantly rip off this week. Carson Daly's expression-free visage, the anti-Alan Hunter. The Backstreet Boys, for God's sake.

Back in 1981, I wanted my MTV, and I got it. Now, I just want the damned kids off my lawn. I've got my VH1, and that's all I need. Just gotta keep paying that cable bill.