Return of Dick Clark to "Rockin Eve"

http://www.tmz.com/2012/04/18/dick-clark-dead-heart-attack/

Dick Clark and Don Cornelius in the same year.

I'd keep taking my vitamins if I was Ralph Emery.

http://performingsongwriter.com/alan-freed-payola-scandal/

Alan Freed and Dick Clark both played important parts in the rise of rock ’n’ roll (Freed embodied the incendiary spirit of the music more than Clark, refusing to play white cover versions of black songs, such as Pat Boone’s “Tutti Frutti”). And though they both denied ever accepting payola, it’s almost impossible to imagine two young, popular jocks not succumbing to a little temptation. Guilty or not, it was Freed who ended up taking the fall for DJs everywhere.

Why did the committee single him out? Freed was abrasive. He consorted with black R&B musicians. He jive talked, smoked constantly and looked like an insomniac. Clark was squeaky clean, Brylcreemed, handsome and polite. At least on the surface. Once the grilling started, Freed’s friends and allies in broadcasting quickly deserted him. He refused—“on principle”—to sign an affidavit saying that he’d never accepted payola. WABC fired him, and he was charged with 26 counts of commercial bribery. Freed escaped with fines and a suspended jail sentence. He died five years later, broke and virtually forgotten.

Dick Clark During House Hearing
Previous to the trial, Dick Clark had wisely divested himself of all incriminating connections (he had part ownership in seven indie labels, six publishers, three record distributors and two talent agencies). He got a slap on the wrist by Committee chairman Oren Harris, who called him “a fine young man.” As Clark told Rolling Stone in 1989, the lesson he learned from the payola trial was: “Protect your ass at all times.” Surprisingly candid words from the eternal teenager.

In that interview, they asked him what records he had on his personal home jukebox.

His reply was "Protect your ass at all times."

So, do we get a Dick Clark hologram for New Year's Eve?

this guy was awful

yes but

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hZLhqTzjpUM

https://twitter.com/#!/JensenClan88/status/192699807515680768

Ha! I remember that!

TV's Bloompers and Practical Joeks

They got John Schneider good one time. The old "Sweet Old Southern Lady With A Flat Tire And A Trunk Full Of Gold" routine.

Somewhere on a tape I've got the American Bandstand with (maybe) a pre-fame Wham appearance. It's a trip. They perform "Death by Matrimony" with two female dancers and Dick interviews the two girls like they're in the band. Little did he know!

Oh and he's all "these guys are nice young English men but the record sounds like a techno record from Detroit!"

http://www.boredpanda.com/dick-clarks-flinstones-inspired-home-malibu/

Anyone remember Lester Bangs' entertaining interview? Dick Clark as premature cynic.

Goddamn I want that house.

PIL on AB was awesome

Dick interviewing a shockingly coherent (for the one sentence he's required to be) Syd Barrett:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6MMMN0VZmYw

This was my favorite:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bdXSEUY_O4k

that Bangs interview is great. Anybody else notice Clark forecasting the Great Springsteen Craze of '75 in it?

I watched American Bandstand every week, it had its own cheesy charm.

too young for bandstand but i watched syndicated reruns of the 'pyramid's every day after school for awhile (grooviest game show theme ever?)

great, we're stuck with 2012 forever

I watched plenty of Bandstand, and also Where The Action Is. Formative influences both. RIP Mr. Clark.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1K_ASuyviY0

When Sunny and I were on our honeymoon, we saw him on Pyramid describe "banana" to Betty White as "PEEL THE YELLOW FRUIT."

It's been a meme of our marriage ever since.

Dick Clark and Don Cornelius in the same year.

― pplains, Wednesday, April 18, 2012 7:46 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I'd keep taking my vitamins if I was Ralph Emery.

― pplains, Wednesday, April 18, 2012 7:47 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

would it be tasteless to call for Ryan Seacrest's sudden death on an internet message board

RIP Dick now you are truly "Where The Action Is"

this guy was awful

― Jilly Boel and the Eltones (Shakey Mo Collier), Wednesday, April 18, 2012 1:11 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Guys, what of Denny Terrio? What, I ask you?

I'm not going to lie, I loved Dance Fever more than Bandstand or Soul Train.

sorta surprised how little press this seems to be getting?

he means not a whole helluva lot to ppl under 40

but over 40s still mostly run the news biz, and I frankly don't know that DC deserves front page blurbs he IS getting, or that he enriched the music culture a scintilla.

from this interview with Matt Delmont, author of The Nicest Kids in Town: American Bandstand, Rock 'n' Roll, and the Struggle for Civil Rights in 1950's Philadelphia:

All the available evidence that I was able to find points to the fact that black teenagers continued to be discriminated against by American Bandstand. I had interviews with white teenagers who danced on the show who were able to tell me cases of black teens being turned away at the door. I interviewed black folks who themselves tried to get on American Bandstand or had friends who couldn't get on the show. I was able to find a lot of evidence from the Philadelphia Tribune, which was the African-American newspaper in Philadelphia and still is, and they had over a dozen different instances where kids and their parents would write in to complain about the racial policies on American Bandstand. In addition to that, I was able to find all the available photographs from this time period of'57-'63, there's something like over a thousand different images that showed teens in the studio, and there's only one picture of two African-American teens in the studio. All the available evidence I was able to find contradicts Dick Clark and his claim about American Bandstand.

so, Michael Moore nailed him

Yes, thank god he has the courage to confront history's monsters.

Dick Clark appears to have been affable, but it's kind of hard to tell from this distance. I doubt he was much more racist than the average white guy of his period, but that's a pretty low bar to get over. He certainly helped to introduce U.S. teenagers to a lot of pop and rock bands, but that was how he made his living, so it's not like he did it solely to help out the bands. I can't think of a bad word to say about him, or much else fwiw. RIP.

You're assuming Dick Clark instated the door policy.

Tracy Turnblad just needed to integrate Bandstand like she did The Corny Collins Show.

x-post. He did not try to change it. Also, later (call it a business decision or not) but unlike Alan Freed, he was more than willing to play Pat Boone covers of r'n'b hits rather than the originals. This all made him a successful businessman, but not exactly admirable.

I spent hundredsfold more time watching the Pyramid than AB.

I can't think of a bad word to say about him

you aren't trying very hard

corrupt, greedy, racist what do you need

Dick Clark and Don Cornelius in the same year.

― pplains, Wednesday, April 18, 2012 7:46 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I'd keep taking my vitamins if I was Ralph Emery.

― pplains, Wednesday, April 18, 2012 7:47 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

would it be tasteless to call for Ryan Seacrest's sudden death on an internet message board

― demolition with discretion (m coleman), Wednesday, April 18, 2012 5:32 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

just how tasteful/tasteless is this BB?

besides, casey kasem has a lot more to worry about.

Don Cornelius >>>> Casey Kasem >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>Dick Clark >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Ryan Seacrest

can someone change the thread title from "Rockin Eve" to "dust"

It's possible Dick bought Throbbing Gristle albums in the eighties but I got the sense from the Lester Bangs interview that he was in the biz for the dough. It's true though that he didn't patronize the fans or the artists he interviewed.

John Peel loved music. Dick Clark loved money.

i love both! give me a damn tv show

Not sure Peel relished the thought of living in squalor either.

Twenty year old at work provided the inevitable "who's Dick Clark?"

she said
and smiled in her special way

I spent hundredsfold more time watching the Pyramid than AB.

It's possible Dick bought Throbbing Gristle albums in the eighties but I got the sense from the Lester Bangs interview that he was in the biz for the dough. It's true though that he didn't patronize the fans or the artists he interviewed.

from the NYTimes obit:

But he was as much a businessman as a television personality. “I get enormous pleasure and excitement sitting in on conferences with accountants, tax experts and lawyers,” he said in an interview with The New York Times in 1961.

so, good riddance

I get enormous pleasure and excitement sitting in on conferences with accountants, tax experts and lawyers,

It's almost a punk rock statement!

too late to get Dick to say "Ever get the feeling you've been cheated?" for posterity

“At that moment in time, the world realized that kids might rule the world,” Mr. Clark said. “They had their own music, their own fashion, their own money.”

Dick Clark OTM

https://fbcdn-sphotos-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash4/s320x320/380740_10151526694245556_792880555_23782305_1079126519_n.jpg

reviving lots of old Guy Lombardo jokes

More like "old guy" Lombardo jokes, am I right?

Don't you mean "old guy lumbago" jokes? Eh? Eh?

http://oldies.s3.amazonaws.com/i/boxart/large/a-z/wzmca150001.jpg

Guylum Bargo

Goyim Bardo

What movie was it where a guy talks about how much he hates Guy Lombardo because he saw his mom fucking another guy on New Year's Eve?

I want to say the actor was William Hurt, but I don't know.

William Disappointed

Believe it or not, I know who Guy Lombardo was, Morbs.

"Xavier Cugat" a better bandleader-cum-punchline anyway.

but Cugat was not Mr New Years Eve.

Grantland obit cites the Bangs interview I mentioned a couple times:

In 1973, he found time between $10,000 Pyramid tapings to sit down with Lester Bangs. Bangs zinged him a little, asked him what he made of "fag-rock" — Bowie, Lou Reed, et al. Dick said, "Bisexual … what's the other word, AC/DC? I think it's partially fad and partially goldfish swallowing, as protest was." That's the part of the interview everyone remembers — Dick, who described himself in his 1976 autobiography as having "the heart of a cunning capitalist," equating bisexuality and political activism with goldfish swallowing. But he went on to say other, smarter things to Bangs: "We all know Alice [Cooper] is a put-on, a shuck. But what's funny is when you read the sociological commentators and how torn up the whole straight world is over this craziness. I can't attach any significance to that."

He liked how he came off in Bangs's piece, published in the November '73 issue of Creem as "Screwing the System With Dick Clark," felt Bangs had quoted him accurately. I like the piece, too. I like how Clark comes off in it, square and shrewd and unapologetic about being both.

"I'm always distressed by the supposedly bright people who don't know what they are," he tells Bangs, citing the Monkees as an example. "They could have had a very nice thing going in their area for another couple of years, despite the fact that it was a shuck. It was a commercially built commodity for which there was an audience from which they could have made a great deal of money and retired and passed it on to their children. Instead Mickey Dolenz thought he was Paul McCartney. He went up to Monterey and they laughed at him."

think it's partially fad and partially goldfish swallowing

totally correct in Bowie's case (less so in Reed's)

kinda think Dolenz was not the silliest person at Monterey.

Shakey Mo, seer of your inner Kinsey scale.

what's good DIck Clark's Rockin' New Year's Eve EVent