http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xo0vmT1nL7s
An odd piece of cultural history, which gets much odder at 2:38.
I'm not sure what strikes me more: that SNL was once so committed to NY hipster culture that they had Phillip Glass as their musical guest, the sight of George Wendt introducing Phillip Glass on SNL (thus creating an 80s-TV hat trick), or that, when paired with the video, Phillip Glass actually does seem to have nailed the feeling of television culture better than anyone since.
And I don't even much *like* Phillip Glass!
2 comments:
Sadly eaten. "This video is no longer available due to a copyright claim by NBC Universal."
(So... what happened at 2:38?)
At least starting to type "philip glass snl" into YT's search box will auto-complete to "Philip Glass Sesame Street" and lead you to a weirdly grating 70s animation...
Damn you NBC! Daaaaamn yooooou! Musta gotten pulled when they did their great "pull every SNL clip from YouTube" purge.
As for The Mystery of 2:38: For the first 2-and-a-half minutes, it's the usual SNL musical guest bit---the band, the dark stage, some purple light, like every other act.
Only then, at 2:38, some NYU student apparently takes control, as the image of the Phillip Glass Ensemble gives way to several minutes of vintage 80s video collage, complete with Nam Jun Paik-ish banks of TVs and Ye Olde Skoole video FX. A reminder of the days when SNL was way looser, and way more drug-driven, than today.
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