I Want My (Book About) MTV

A new book by the four surviving orgiainal MTV video jockeys, "VJ: The Unplugged Adventures of MTV's First Wave," is a must-read for fans of early Music Television.  The delicious '80s-lyrics chapter names (I Might Like You Better If We Slept Together: Celebrity Flirtations and Liasions) are just the tip of the iceberg, with stories by Nina Blackwood, Mark Goodman, Alan Hunter and Martha Quinn about:

Doing coke with David Lee Roth -- and how the singer quietly escaped an LAPD bust

The best-kept secret of MTV: the VJs weren't watching the videos -- or paid well

The most disastrous interviews ever: Paul Simon, Frank Zappa and Bow Wow Wow

Why you shouldn't go to John Cougar's place along late at night 

How a member of the Human League ended up asleep in Martha's grandpa's wood shop

How David Bowie helped get black artists on MTV

What it was like interviewing a pre-superstar Madonna at the Limelight and lots more. 

The only way it could be better would be if there had been an index in back so you could flip straight to the pages about certain stars you like, a la "The Andy Warhol Diaries"!

Pre-order the paperback HERE and the Kindle edition HERE.

Some favorite bits:

Martha: I never met Madonna, although I got the celebrity nod from her once on Fifty-Seventh Street when we were walking in opposite directions. She got lambasted recently because it was reported that her camp made the people who worked at the Toronto Film Festival look away when she was walking down the hallway. And she denied it: “Oh, I would never make people turn away from me, that’s outlandish, who would say that?” Well, maybe it didn’t happen then, but I saw that very thing happen backstage at Live Aid: Madonna and Sean Penn were heading to the stage, surrounded by a phalanx of people, and their bodyguards told people they had to turn away. So I know for a fact she would do that.

Mark: I wouldn't say this about everybody that MTV played, but I think Cyndi [Lauper] would have made it without videos. She had such an amazing voice, an d the production sounded great on the radio. But the visual element was so strong, and so integral to people getting her -- I think Cyndi and us together made it way more of a culture phenomenon, way faster.

Nina: Julia Louis-Dreyfus put on a blonde wig and did an impression of me [on "Saturday Night Live"]. Her big schtick was that she kept saying things were "hotttt, hotttt." My first thought was that I didn't say "hot"! And I didn't realize I bopped my head all the time, but I actually did do that. I had no idea until she did her bit, though -- nobody ever said anything to me. Why didn't someone stop me? I was a little taken aback by the sketch, and I had to be convinced it was a compliment. Then I realized you've really made it when somebody imitates you.