TV Party

TV Party was a pub­lic access cable show that aired inter­mit­tently between 1978 and 1982 in New York City. The only things that really held it together were the host, Glenn O’Brien, the core three mem­bers of the revolv­ing noise band TV Orches­tra, and every participant’s vague but over­whelm­ing sense that this was much, much more than a sense­less, tele­vised cacophony.

Some­how the hol­low­est of ide­olo­gies always strike me as the most fas­ci­nat­ing and the most inspir­ing. Though lack­ing any focused, dis­cern­able agenda, these peo­ple were any­thing but nihilists. Theirs was a dis­play of raw exu­ber­ance, one less of rebel­lion, rejec­tion, and denial than it was of affir­ma­tion and empow­er­ment. It was some­thing to be believed in, its reg­u­lars, guests, and per­for­mances simul­ta­ne­ously cru­cial and inci­den­tal to this greater Thing.

And, at the same time, it wasn’t any of that.

Any­way, I was a tod­dler in Chicago when TV Party last aired, so it’d prob­a­bly serve you bet­ter to read about it else­where, or bet­ter yet snag the tor­rent of the doc­u­men­tary (or, bet­ter still, pur­chase the DVDs from the offi­cial site).

Very spe­cial thanks to the con­sis­tently won­der­ful WFMU blog for bring­ing this to my attention.