WTTW National has apparently partnered with KOCH Vision on a DVD distribution deal for at least one past episode of their music performance series Soundstage.
This July you'll be able to pull the Sheryl Crow concert originally telecast as a Soundstage in 2004 right off the shelf and go home to watch and listen in glorious high-definition and 5.1 surround sound. Stevie Nicks plans to release a DVD of her 2007 Soundstage appearance later this year and it could be part of the same deal.
What confuses me is that starpulse.com (perhaps picking up on a press release from KOCH Vision) is busy crowing that this is a first, even though many Soundstage episodes have been available through Shop PBS for some time now.
This dubious news trickling through the interweb fails to motivate me to sort out the confusion for myself (or for you dear reader). Instead, I am moved to reminisce about the former power and faded glory that once was Soundstage.
WTTW first produced and distributed the series from 1974 to 1985. Then it was gone until a revival in 2003, a revival seemingly spurred as much by HD's potential to make sweet and easily monetized ear/eye candy from live pop concert performances than by a desire to bring original and meaningful music to the public. I say this because the past five seasons have given us the likes of Michael McDonald, Alanis Morissette, America (with special guest Christopher Cross, no less) Train and Jewel.
To be fair and balanced and to give credit where credit is due, Soundstage has lightly peppered their seasons with some creative risks by featuring some off the beaten path artists who are at home in more than one hipster's pantheon—from a Wilco and Sonic Youth doubleheader in 2003 to what's left of the New York Dolls three seasons ago.
Continuing in the fair vein, I should confess my own musical tastes can be as twisted as they are eclectic, nevertheless I would fear I had fallen too far into what Martha Bayles calls perverse postmodernism if I didn't get some kicks from both the 2003 and more recent Soundstage episodes showcasing Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. But Daughtry? C'mon . . . Daughtry?
If memory serves, one of Bob Dylan's first major public performances after his reclusive recovery from a motorcycle accident was on Soundstage. One of my few vivid television childhood memories (along with the flying monkeys from Wizard of Oz) is Leon Russell and the Shelter People just bringing down the house on Soundstage. And while I think it may have been a WNET one-off rather than a WTTW Soundstage, one of the few televised performances of the Doors was courtesy of PBS (they performed Soft Parade material not too long after the Dade County public indecency bust as Mr. Mojo Risin' began his slide into the bearded, bloated, I'm-gonna-die-in-a-bathtub soon phase of his short life).
Decades later this is the sort of stuff that seems like meaty slices of American cultural history. Will Christopher Cross and Daughtry look that way thirty years from now or will they still seem like the Velveeta I believe them to be today?
Perhaps my criticisms and laments are really more about the art, entertainment and culture of today as reflected by Soundstage than they are about the production itself, but I can't help but wonder if Soundstage, specifically, and other PBS music vehicles, in general, couldn't get a bit more edgy.
Looking ahead, could the series play it a little less safe? Could
aging gracefully icons such as Van Morrison, Lou Reed or Ray Davies be convinced to perform? Could
Eminem be persuaded to give a bleepless performance sans misogyny and
abusive allusions and imagery? Has anyone called the agent for emo
whiz kids Say Anything? Does any one else think that the average series lineup (admittedly much like my own extemporaneous list of suggestions) seems a bit too white?
Looking back, I wonder who owns the rights to the old school Soundstage stuff? Who has the tapes? I am sure ownership of much of it is scattered here and there and that the content itself is available on various DVDs featuring the artists in question. But couldn't some of that stuff be brought back in the form of some Nick at Nightesque nostalgia trip episodes? Living in the internet-fueled United States of Amnesia (to use Gore Vidal's term), it's tough to even find any solid info about the first eleven year run of Soundstage.
But if you recall those days yourself (or don't and would like to get a taste of them), it's YouTube to the rescue.
The aforementioned Leon Russell looking Bantam-spry and telling it like it is.
A before-the-graying Judy Collins and Leonard Cohen duet on Cohen's Suzanne's Song.
And then Chick Corea with the rest of Return to Forever take us Beyond the 7th Galaxy and out . . .
PS—From the too interesting to pass up (at least to me) department, way before Journey was just another faded stadium act lucky enough to have one of their hits picked to underscore the cryptic ending to The Sopranos, they didn't suck (and, of course, didn't sell either). In my humble opinion, the sucking started when Steve Perry was recruited for lead vocals and, of course, then they began to sell quite nicely. To hear a Journey you might not recognize, check out the albums (or downloads from) Look Into the Future and Next. Journey had a moment or two circa 1978 in the Soundstage spotlight in the series' first run.
Sounds like you might want to check out Austin City Limits - it may lean more towards your tastes.
Posted by: Michael Toland | 05 June 2008 at 09:43 AM