"Bow Wow Wow was far from a failure"

That's my point exactly—nobody "invented" Punk. It was something in the air at the time—a virus endemic to the moment. There are notable American precedents in The Flamin' Groovies, The Dictators, The Standells, The Seeds, The Sonics, and, of course, The MC5, the Stooges, and The New York Dolls. But there are also…

Justified and Ancient
To me the whole cult of 'Dr. Who' was wrapped up in the same curious mantle of Anglophilia that PBS reveled in throughout the 70's and 80's. It's that old idea that, since Monty Python was funny and they all had British accents, so too, any comedy with a British accent was automatically funny as…

The 'Duck Rock' album (and the McLaren 12" 'Do ya Like Scratchin?) was one of the first records to include a DJ scratching on it that got any significant airplay. That and its eclectic inclusion of what would become known as "World Music" with aspects of Latin and African pop were quite a bit ahead of their time.

They might break and they might fall, but the gals from New York City don't—They just start again, start again…
I feel like I went to bat for McLaren after the John Lydon interview, so I won't belabor the point here—except to say that the Sex Pistols and Bow Wow Wow alone make McLaren an important tastemaker to the…

AMEN—I've been championing Bow Wow Wow since I picked up their American debut in the early 90's. At the time I was just trying to assemble a nostalgic collection of what were 80's one hit wonders in the US—including such acts as Talk Talk, Modern English and Gary Numan—and as with them Bow Wow Wow made me realize how…

I so love that record—'Laurette' is just luscious.

Okay—As important as 'Please Kill Me' is, 'England's Dreaming' is a crucial document for putting British Punk into its proper context. People spend way too much time and energy trying to decide who did what first and who influenced whom—There are concrete cultural, economic and sociopolitical reasons why Punk was…

To be fair, if you order lemonade in the US you're likely to get some kind of Crystal Light / Minute Maid / Country Time mess. The only widely available commercial version of true lemonade is Nantucket Nectars—but boy is that good stuff.

And to add insult to injury, my factchecker failed to catch that it was actually 'Bender's Big Score' that had all that frenetic reiterative absurdity. Now I'm going to have to fire my entire staff.

"Fururama"? "bulit"? I guess my proofreader was too busy looking up the correct spelling of "Turanga" and ogling the accompanying illustration of said cyclops in a wifebeater to notice other, less forgiveable errors (Thank god I know how to spell LaBarbara).

Another show that has a great pilot is 'Fururama'—And the way they kept spiraling back to change the significance of what happened in the pilot even as far as the frenetic reiterative absurdity of 'Into the Wild Green Yonder' is practically miraculous, and it ensures that the pilot is integral. A lot of series, once…

Well—if you really want to take it back as far as it goes, I'd say the "see what sticks" model goes back at least as far as the Marx Bros. who used to literally workshop their film material on stage in exactly that fashion. You'd never see the same show twice until it was filmed. The best example of the product of…

I've never seen this thing—and I think I've seen more than enough of it now—but the write up is far more interesting than its subject, and seems to me to be quite a bit more than a self-serving "OMG has anyone else seen this? piece. Insofar as this column is as much about the state of television at various points in…

The only Iced Tea I endorse is that rich, strong Thai Iced Tea. I've tried making it at home and it just doesn't get there, but when the weather is hot (and it's already getting there now) nothing is more refreshing.

I've never seen '30 Rock' but from what I've seen of 'Arrested Development', I wouldn't put it in that mix. It seems to me that show follows more of a 'Green Acres' or 'Newhart' model, i.e. one sane straight man surrounded by eccentrics and loonies. But I think there's definitely a kitchen sink, throw everything at…

Not surprisingly enough, I used to get Matthew McConaughey and Owen Wilson confused. I probab;y still would if Owen didn't have a brother with such a similar vocal tone and cadence.

So, did the original concept have more of a 'Lord of the Flies' vibe? Because that would be so awesome. The Professor: Piggy or Simon?

For the most part pilots are opening gambits—a first move to see if the other guy will bite. As such they are rarely the best because they require all kinds of implication and exposition as a way of communicating both "here is where we start" and "here's where we could go with this". Since many series—especially…

'Who's the Moff?'