Times change
Posted on | July 8, 2008 | 100 Comments
When I was much younger I used to stay up late at night watching MTV. This was when MTV actually had some M on it and wasn’t the reality TV station for retarded celebrities.
Does anyone remember Ray Cokes and his massive chin? Anyway, I’d be sitting there, exhausted in the chair, watching video after video until I could barely keep my eyes open any more. But my need to watch more music videos was always pressing, MTV being such a wonderful novelty back then. I also seem to remember we only used to get it between certain hours, 6pm onwards or something, and if you found it on in the middle of the day it was the most marvellous treat.
Anyway, I’d sit there watching and watching, and most of it was crap, but even though my eyes would be hanging out of my head I’d say ‘Right, if the next video is crap I’m going to bed’.
And right enough the next video would be crap. But I’d re-jig my little promise to myself so it’d be ‘Well, if the one after this one is crap then I’m going to bed’. It’s amazing how many next crap ones you’ll sit through.
Nowadays I can’t remember the last time I watched an entire music video and the idea of sitting up late at night to trawl through the music channels is about as appealing as a shit sandwich.
Spoilt for choice or just too old for the MTV?
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July 8th, 2008 @ 12:28 am
Twenty, I bet you’re whacking off to ‘The Hills’ right now.
July 8th, 2008 @ 12:33 am
Shit, I was doing exactly that last night. (Not whacking off to ‘The Hills’ but just-one-more-video-and-then-I’ll-go-bed).
July 8th, 2008 @ 12:34 am
Hah! And then the Adventures of Duckman would come on just to break up the videofest, and someone would skin up and someone would buy Hobnobs and then you’d discover some exchange student from Paraguay that nobody knew who’d been trapped in one of the creases in the shit beanbag for three weeks. Aah, thanks for that, Mr Major.
July 8th, 2008 @ 12:41 am
everything is shite now…..that’s right everything……
July 8th, 2008 @ 12:42 am
I did the same and now do the same with shite non-MTV programmes, so yup we are getting old.
July 8th, 2008 @ 12:44 am
MTV had the novelty feature about it back in the 80s when I had 5 tv stations with crap. There are a million viewing choices now rendering MTV redundant.
Plus I’m old.
July 8th, 2008 @ 1:27 am
MTV indeed. You young Whip Her Snap Her, Twenty.
Try the Six Five Special.
July 8th, 2008 @ 1:51 am
well said manuel. everything non-news, non-sport and non-plane crash analysis is pure muck.
July 8th, 2008 @ 2:34 am
Only decent thing on TV nowadays is Gordon Ramsay.
July 8th, 2008 @ 3:40 am
What about the hair on that Pat Sharpe fella?
Or the stupidity of that Bruno Shitforbrains?
I was with you back there in the 80′s Twenty, doing exactly the same thing. The next video was always going to be better, wasn’t it?
Imagine that though, all those years ago. Me and you, totally unaware of each other, yet both of us on the vinegar-strokes near the end of a Kate Bush video, and praying for Transvision Vamp to come on next so that we might be able to get up in time for work.
July 8th, 2008 @ 4:55 am
Ahhh,the memories. Surely there can’t be a conversation about MTV without an honorable mention to the late, great Vincent Hanley? “Fag Vinnie” indeed!! And don’t forget the wonderful “Jet” from Gladiators. Now there’s a ride if ever! I shall sing 80′s songs all day now. Thanks for that Your Maj.
July 8th, 2008 @ 7:18 am
It’s Ok, PP, your jar of wee is back. Don’t know what happened yesterday.
I’m going to sound awfully like my dad here, but music vids were better back then. Because CGI’s & stuff were only in their infancy we were much more easily impressed by something like the Aha video, plus they had to put more effort in. Also, there were fewer of them so you got to know them better.
July 8th, 2008 @ 8:31 am
I did the same last night , only not watching videos or whacking off, it was ; one more glass of wine and then I’m going to bed.
July 8th, 2008 @ 8:45 am
heh, MonkeyBalls.
Pat Sharp – remember that phone in show he did where kids would request a video and then some fella called Ronnie would have to run out of the studio and go find the tape in the ‘video library’, while the kid went ‘Run Ronnie! Run!’ the whole time?
When you think about it now that was a fucking weird concept.
July 8th, 2008 @ 8:48 am
Never ever watch videos now. Or listen to pop radio. Getting old, apparently, but to me it just seems that everything is shit.
If something actually good filters through, nop doubt I’ll hear it / hear about it.
Bah. Humbug.
Remember MT USA on a Sunday afternoon?
The Specials all in a car, The Cure in a wardrobe?
July 8th, 2008 @ 8:51 am
I fucking hate it when I agree with you.
MTV is shit now for the original MTV generation.
Ray was a legend.
July 8th, 2008 @ 8:56 am
There’s fuck all music on MTV now, I find myself watching these stations that have the best of the eighties/nineties until the early hours with overwheming feelings of nostalgia. Due to that I found myself downloading Love & Rockets back catalogue, much to my dismay.
July 8th, 2008 @ 9:00 am
I remember watching that Felix video, with the african lass with the big jugs wandering through some basement. It always came on at about 3.30 in the morning.
July 8th, 2008 @ 9:07 am
MT-USA was way cool. Denis DeYoung anyone?
July 8th, 2008 @ 9:15 am
I think we have the internet instead now. But the personalities are gone. Ray Cokes and his chin would never get a job now (or PAul King, he was cool too) – they want pretty, vacuous VJs. Though I think Alex Zane is funny and I miss that New Zealand guy, Zane Whatsisname… clearly the Zane bit is key. Though I’m not sure about Billy Zane…
It is getting old though – the TV3 and Channel Six video shows have some good suff on them, but my concentration is shot. Not to mention that I’m living under the tyrannical regime of PlayhouseDisney at the moment.
Bring back videos with stories, that’s what I say – that Artic Monkeys one with the suicidal woman was brilliant.
Tinman, Take on me was a classic! Did anyone see the family guy version? Genius, but I can’t find the original on YouTube :(
July 8th, 2008 @ 9:19 am
Ha Ha Ibanez, Desert Moon… fuck sake.
Other regulars included Pat Benatar leaving home in a strop, Cyndi Lauper taking over the gaff with her mates, Radio Ga Ga, Private Dancer, Mickey Jackson lighting up paving stones.
The Madness videos were the best.
July 8th, 2008 @ 9:21 am
MTV is horrendous now, and the rest of the music channels have shit music.
But fuck me, those videos have turned into classy porn.
The one with the hordes of girls in green skirts flashing their knickers and blowing saxophones is . . . like a really really good dream.
July 8th, 2008 @ 9:25 am
didn’t have MTV, had the RTE equivalent, set in New York – not really the same.
But “my sweet 16″ is TV gold – you know the future is safe when you see those spoilt arrogant kids.
July 8th, 2008 @ 9:27 am
I used to watch MTV with my video set to record/pause. Waiting for a good song to come on to record it. As a result I have about 12 hours of old but great music videos on VHS. But I don’t have a video player anymore. shit.
July 8th, 2008 @ 9:34 am
Ray Cokes earns a buck in France now, and he’s as much of a wanker en francais as he ever was on MTV. (Got to admire the re-invention though.)
July 8th, 2008 @ 9:35 am
The theme tune of MTUSA is the weirdest song on the planet. Its starts off all ‘oh yeah ..hard rock’ and then goes super gay…like Vincent Hanly gay.
July 8th, 2008 @ 9:41 am
Desert moon, oh man.
And Zane Lowe is one of the biggest cunts on earth, the eager prick.
July 8th, 2008 @ 9:45 am
My god, sweet 16, I turned it on once to see a kid having a screaming tantrum at her mother for ruining it all because she had her new Lexus delivered to her school insead of the party! It was horrific! It depressed me so much I couldn’t watch any more, and now every time my five year old throws a strop I’m seized with the cold hand of fear.
July 8th, 2008 @ 9:45 am
but as MTV got worse, did the female presenters get better ?
July 8th, 2008 @ 9:46 am
Yeah – “Destination Calabria” by some Dj or other. Trust me – I’ve been to Calabria and I didn’t see one group of 40 cheerleaders blowing sax’s and touching themseleves. Not one. “Destination PlayboyTV” more like…
July 8th, 2008 @ 9:46 am
Ah Twenty. One of the biggest cunts on earth? Come on. You have to have way more worthy targets higher on the list than him.
July 8th, 2008 @ 9:48 am
No, he makes my kidneys itch with rage.
July 8th, 2008 @ 9:50 am
Sweet 16 makes me angry.
Normally I wouldn’t approve of gang-rape but in certain circumstances . . .
July 8th, 2008 @ 10:08 am
Morgor!
July 8th, 2008 @ 10:34 am
Fucking hell Morgor, your Gravatar is taking over your personality, you have changed into a gang raping serial killer.
July 8th, 2008 @ 10:37 am
Yeah, I’d better stop chatting to him online. I can see the headlines now.
July 8th, 2008 @ 10:40 am
Ray Cokes to Naughty Nympho Nina:
“Did you score Nina? You should do in that outfit.”
Love it.
July 8th, 2008 @ 10:42 am
He does looka bit like Buffalo Bill, do you wear the skin of your victims Morgor?
July 8th, 2008 @ 10:45 am
Heh, morgor in a lady-skin suit. God, people have some imaginations.
July 8th, 2008 @ 10:48 am
Wasn’t Cokes fired from MTV for something a bit funny?
July 8th, 2008 @ 10:55 am
Heh, I was always too old for MTV, even when it started. Only used to watch music on New Year’s Eve, but since that young Jools Holland chap has taken over from Andy Stewart I’ve given that up too.Now, where was I?
July 8th, 2008 @ 10:57 am
I tried to google the Ray Cokes thing, but nothing came up (well, this post did) – sounds like there was a row.
July 8th, 2008 @ 11:04 am
He “quit” because of a load of drunken Germans during a live broadcast from Hamburg ruined the show and he was blamed
July 8th, 2008 @ 11:13 am
Currently MTV is just cac, like a never-ending BB series – and that’s shite tv this time out. (BTW: I’m waiting for the BB9 lot to get SARS and die horribly live on air. Emdemol have lost it).
Your MTV post reminded me of how exciting MTV was at the start, it really did revolutionize television. Even early MTV reality shows, like early runs of The Real World, were brilliant. Now it’s sad non-entity VJs with weird decentered English accents and wanna-be fashion victims. I don’t watch it too often, but I sense the ‘real celebs’ have moved on.
Ray Cokes was a brilliant showman. I saw Cokes on some MTV thing not so long ago, he was cited as being somewhere ‘upstairs’ in the MTV organisation. The presenters now are just amateurs by comparison, margarine of presenters really. Kinda in that Gay Byrne/Pat Kenny way.
July 8th, 2008 @ 11:13 am
Ray Cokes was awesome! It all went downhill when he left… when the real world started, you could tell things were heading down, but when Ray left it was tragic. Now he’s some DJ in Germany or something. So wrong. I don’t think I’ve watched MTV since 1998.
July 8th, 2008 @ 11:14 am
Bastard Germans.
July 8th, 2008 @ 11:15 am
MTV? Well aren’t you posh!
Down the country all we had was the Beat Box on a Sunday morning with Ian Dempsey, Simon Young, Phil Collins and Dave Fanning. I was never bothered with No Disco (though I shoudl have been) and because we only had poverTV most of my chart musical knowledge came from Long Wave Radio Atlantic 252.
MTV? Pfffft.
July 8th, 2008 @ 11:26 am
wasn’t it – “ray cokes alot” or something like that ?
July 8th, 2008 @ 11:28 am
I didn’t have MTV for years either, because we had no cable. We didn’t have chennel four, we had channel 4 Cymru. MTV was like a mythic foreign country when I saw it at other people’s houses.
July 8th, 2008 @ 11:44 am
the guy in chains in that nick kershaw video that was posted here before has to be the hero of the day…..
as for the shit nowadays….its like the battle of the hoes of trigger happy gangsta rappers, playing to the needs of 13 year old little bitches who want to change their fucking ring tones every 20 mins. MTV should be outlawed….bring back MT USA, sunday afternoons used to kick ass
July 8th, 2008 @ 11:47 am
the guy in chains in that nick kershaw video that was posted here before has to be the hero of the day…..
You mean Howard Jones. And funnily enough…
July 8th, 2008 @ 11:47 am
most of my chart musical knowledge came from Long Wave Radio Atlantic 252.
I once didn’t get a job there.
July 8th, 2008 @ 11:49 am
I already told you absent-minded cunts, Ray Cokes now works for French TV. I won’t tell you again.
July 8th, 2008 @ 11:50 am
I’m sure I read somewhere Ray Cokes is working for Swiss radio these days…
July 8th, 2008 @ 11:56 am
Well done.
July 8th, 2008 @ 11:58 am
Sorry, had to…
July 8th, 2008 @ 12:14 pm
I’d like to take Edith Bowman out for a nice seafood dinner…
July 8th, 2008 @ 12:17 pm
…oh and ride her rotten afterward
July 8th, 2008 @ 12:21 pm
Aw, little Edith – she doesn’t deserve such courseness!
July 8th, 2008 @ 12:23 pm
She’s another fucking pain in the hole.
July 8th, 2008 @ 12:24 pm
Sarah Cox, now, she’s dorty.
July 8th, 2008 @ 12:25 pm
Jesus Twenty. Why not just call it Ihateeveryone.net ?
July 8th, 2008 @ 12:27 pm
yeah I used to watch 2tv when I was little! imagine.
July 8th, 2008 @ 12:29 pm
nice one 20, and that was before i started reading your blog!!!
July 8th, 2008 @ 12:29 pm
Sara Cox is a fucking whore with ideas above her station
July 8th, 2008 @ 12:30 pm
You’re still little, B’dum.
July 8th, 2008 @ 12:32 pm
A fucking whore? Classy, PP.
July 8th, 2008 @ 12:36 pm
On an absolutly un-related topic.
I came across this today and thought about our own TD’s. How would the stats look then!!!!
Subject: Re: House of Criminals
This is unbelievable, but true! Can you imagine working for a company that has a little more than 600 employees and has the following employee statistics
29 have been accused of spouse abuse. 7 have been arrested for fraud. 9 have been accused of writing bad cheques. 17 have directly or indirectly bankrupted at least 2 businesses. 3 have done time for assault. 71 cannot get a credit card due to bad credit. 14 have been arrested on drug-related charges. 8 have been arrested for shoplifting
21 are currently defendants in lawsuits. 84 have been arrested for drink driving in the last year.
Which organisation is this? It’s the 635 members of the House of Commons, the same group that cranks out hundreds of new laws each year designed to keep the rest of us inline. What a bunch of b*****ds we have running our country – it says it all. And just to top all that they probably have the best ‘corporate’ pension scheme in the country!!
July 8th, 2008 @ 12:38 pm
Yeah Edith seems so nice that perhaps I wouldn’t ride her rotten (even if she wanted me to) but we would sit up all nite and talk about our feelings and hopes and dreams, and with some luck her hopes would involve me engaged in some form of copulation with her.
Or maybe a second date.
July 8th, 2008 @ 12:38 pm
Edith looks like a shoe
July 8th, 2008 @ 12:57 pm
I remember doing the same. That and watching Beavis and Butthead, a show which involved watching dickheads watching music videos. What a waste of youth.
July 8th, 2008 @ 1:25 pm
“Edith looks like a shoe”
Yep she’s a munter.
July 8th, 2008 @ 1:26 pm
Might as well face it you’re addicted to loooove.
That video gave me the Teenage Horn.
July 8th, 2008 @ 1:28 pm
Recently watched MTV to see what is going on, and was confronted with some rapper with a house full of crack hores all trying to win him over. I could only watch for about 6 minutes until my MTV-Generation attention span took over and I flicked..
Funny thing is, i never had MTV up till five years ago..
That Felix song/vid someone referred to is a classic…
magic of watching muscic video programmes in the old days I think was the anticipation of them actually playing something you like..
July 8th, 2008 @ 1:34 pm
Felix Video
July 8th, 2008 @ 1:34 pm
I thought we only got MTV in the 90′s no?
July 8th, 2008 @ 1:40 pm
The Dead Kennedys(punk) had a good song called “MTV Get Off The Air, NOW!”
also other great stuff like “Kill The Poor”; “Is my cock big enough for you to make a star”; “Give me convenience or give me death”
Not too old; not spoilt for choice; tv is just plain shite now.
July 8th, 2008 @ 2:00 pm
It’s true that videos were better back then. There was more imagination put into them.
Nowadays it’s all strolls down the beach with the wind blowing in your hair, or jumping around on the furniture in an overcrowded house.
July 8th, 2008 @ 2:04 pm
Just the sight of Madonna’s cleavage in La Isla Bonita was enough to have me reaching for the kleenex. But I couldn’t afford Kleenex. Only yellow pack tissue paper. Not quite as absorbent let me tell you.
July 8th, 2008 @ 2:08 pm
A Teenage Horn, Holemaster. What can compare to it?
July 8th, 2008 @ 2:09 pm
Hee, that was meant to read, ‘Ah, Teenage Horn..’
Oops
July 8th, 2008 @ 2:11 pm
Stop it Jo. You’re only making it worse.
July 8th, 2008 @ 2:23 pm
No, no, the second time was what I meant to say. :)
July 8th, 2008 @ 2:24 pm
And I don’t know what you’re talking about, with your dangly testicled monkey picture :)
July 8th, 2008 @ 2:27 pm
He has changed to Dutch Gold Jo, which probably shrank his dangly bits.
July 8th, 2008 @ 2:29 pm
It whithers the parts other beers can’t reach?
July 8th, 2008 @ 2:36 pm
He has changed to Dutch Gold
He’s changed to 3 Dutch Gold, 2 Joints, and 3 lumps of hash, in various sizes.
And my testicles have never felt better.
July 8th, 2008 @ 2:37 pm
thanks sam for posting the vid link to felix
July 8th, 2008 @ 2:38 pm
Hmmmm! Actually they feel really nice!
Back in 20mins.
July 8th, 2008 @ 2:49 pm
Monkey Balls, the new Belle de Jour…
July 8th, 2008 @ 2:55 pm
Fucking Hell Monkey Balls, I thought SAm was pedantic but…..
July 8th, 2008 @ 2:58 pm
And in the interests of communism I think you should share some of your wealth out.
July 8th, 2008 @ 3:00 pm
Knowledge is wealth.
Here’s a few gems for you; http://tinyurl.com/6fqcw7
July 8th, 2008 @ 3:51 pm
I’m not little, I’m average.
July 8th, 2008 @ 5:09 pm
“MTV makes me wanna smoke crack…”
http://www.xhtmlcoder.com/beck/mtvsmokecrack.xht
July 9th, 2008 @ 2:42 am
Are you Beavis or Butthead?
July 9th, 2008 @ 3:00 pm
All this music-on-TV nostalgia suggests someone here will be able to help me:
Sometime in the mid 90′s there was a music programme on one of the RTEs that had a decent enough “alternative” coverage, early evening – maybe 30 mins long? What was it & who was the moon-face guy who presented it?
July 10th, 2008 @ 2:30 pm
[...] A bitta nostalgia about Ray Cokes and the MTV glory days… [...]
July 12th, 2008 @ 4:03 am
This makes me deeply sad for some reason, nostalgia’s a bitch.
MTV was the fuckin’ shit when the only shows to interrupt the never ending stream of videos was beavis & butthead/duckman.
July 12th, 2008 @ 11:17 pm
It turned shit when it stopped being MTV Europe. Remember Headbangers Ball, Party Zone, Europe’s Top 40, Wanted, Beavis & Butthead, Daria, Duckman, Chill Out Zone, Yo! MTV Raps… best channel for years. Now it’s chewing gum for the eyes.