Illegal Foreign Object

From 1988-’96, there wasn’t a channel I watched more frequently than MTV.

I have so many memories of those days. Riki Rachtman and the infamous water park Headbangers Ball episode with Alice In Chains (“I’m not a STRONG swimmer…”), Lonn Friend rockin’ a badass Trouble band shirt while giving us a zany-as-balls sneak peek of Megadeth’s “Countdown To Extinction” album on one of his always vital Friend At Large segments, Janet Jackson’s tearing her shirt open during her VMA performance of “Black Cat”.

Speaking of the VMAs, Mötley Crüe’s Vince Neil punched out Guns ‘N’ Roses guitarist Izzy Stradlin for hitting on his wife in ’89, then Poison singer Bret Michaels decked his coked-up guitarist C.C. DeVille backstage for playing the wrong song during the band’s live performance in ’91. Those rank high on the list of stuff we heard about after the fact. MTV just always seemed to bring the heater, man.

I still remember getting ready to go out and meet some girls at a movie theater with the two guitarists in my band, seeing Stone Temple Pilots’ Unplugged episode debut, and forgetting all about that movie rendezvous. They were pissed (and so was one of the girl’s dads). In our defense, cell phones weren’t a thing, and it was fucking STP UNPLUGGED, okay?

Remote Control was insane, Totally Pauly was goofy as shit, Beavis and Butt-head were hilarious, Kurt Loder was informative, and both Yo! MTV Raps & Matt Pinfield’s 120 Minutes opened our eyes to artists you rarely heard on the radio at the time. During the Dial MTV days, I made hundreds of calls to cast votes for L.A. Guns, Winger, and Faster Pussycat. Why? Because they were “my bands” and I needed to help them!

Today’s MTV is what it is, and I won’t bother running it down, but back in the day — man, what an era for music. The fact that you could sit in your living room in the middle of the day and see Tom Petty, followed by Paula Abdul, followed by Great White, followed by MC Hammer, followed by R.E.M… Look, whether you love all those artists or not, MTV introduced a lot of variety to a bunch of kids looking to absorb as much cool shit as possible. Certainly not as much variety as watching 48 episodes of Ridiculousness per day in 2023, but it was still a cool time. Sorry, I had to sneak in one tiny jab.