{"id":21699,"date":"2017-04-30T21:08:05","date_gmt":"2017-05-01T01:08:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/iaintjustmusic.bobleafe.com\/?p=21699"},"modified":"2024-10-07T19:26:33","modified_gmt":"2024-10-07T23:26:33","slug":"40-years-ago-tonight-the-first-mtv-video-music-awards","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/iaintjustmusic.bobleafe.com\/?p=21699","title":{"rendered":"2024 – 40 Years Ago Tonight \u2013 The First MTV Video Music Awards"},"content":{"rendered":"

…………………………………………….<\/span>(ignore April 30, 2017 publish date – this was published on September 14, 2024)<\/p>\n

………………………………………………………..<\/span>NOTE: all posted contents are COPYRIGHT BOB LEAFE<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Click to enlarge:<\/span>Click to enlarge:\"\"<\/a>…………………………………………….<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n

As you may know, MTV celebrated the 40th anniversary of the VMAs last Wednesday, September 11. What you may NOT know is that I photographed the very first VMAs 40 years ago tonight (September 14, 1984):<\/span><\/p>\n

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I’m not going to go through the entire evening – I’m just gonna steal a dozen or so images and mini-writeups from my site to give you a taste of what went on that night, starting with a shot that – apparently – no one else took. Because it\u2019s hard to read, I\u2019ve enlarged the good part at the top of the page):<\/span>
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I’m showing these in the order I took them. In this one, we\u2019re being welcomed by NYC mayor Ed Koch:<\/span>
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Ron Wood from the Rolling Stones (and way before that, the Faces):<\/span>
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And Little Miss Boy Toy – Madonna:<\/span>
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Nick and Simon from Duran Duran:<\/span>
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Belinda and Kathy from the Go-Go’s:<\/span>
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Tina Turner:<\/span>
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A photo two-fer! Eddie Murphy and Joe Piscopo:<\/span>
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Cyndi Lauper and her Mom:<\/span>
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Show hosts Dan Aykroyd and Bette Midler:<\/span>
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After the festivities, MTV had a post-show party at Tavern on the Green. I didn’t shoot much there………….in fact, my choice to post here was between a dopey-looking David Lee Roth (it must have been the bad photography) and my friends from The Uncle Floyd Show – (l-r): producer\/director Jeff Friedman and his wife Karen (known to ALL Uncle Floyd Show fans as Weenie), Lisa and Floyd Vivino. <\/span><\/p>\n

By the way, this selection had absolutely NOTHING\u00a0 to do with the fact that I was the show’s photographer at the time, but I WAS (happily) surprised to see them there:<\/span>
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So what did I get paid for all my efforts that night?<\/span>
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\nIt might now be worth a buck or two more than it was 40 years ago. The event date is shown on the back of the shirt.<\/span><\/p>\n

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It was so much<\/span> – ahem<\/em><\/span><\/span> – fun that I did it again the following year……….<\/span>
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\n……….but I’m not gonna write about it. I will, however, share my two favorite memories from it.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Favorite shot of 2nd MTV VMAs:<\/span>
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Favorite freebie from that show: One of the featured acts this night was Run-DMC. Darryl McDaniels (DMC) was moving about the room handing out Run-DMC t-shirts. Guess who got the last one (and promptly cut the sleeves off):<\/span>
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The first VMAs show started my couple-of-years association with MTV (until a new publicist who had her own favorite photographer came along). I got to shoot the first 2 VMAs, I was the stage photographer for the New Years\u2019 Eve Ball going into 1985 and just found some weird thing I barely remember – also from 1985:<\/span><\/p>\n

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How many people do you know who have had their picture taken with Danger Mouse AND had a secret, autographed message from him that’s now mostly erased by time?<\/span><\/p>\n

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Unfortunately, PhotoShop brought the boring message back to life:<\/span><\/p>\n

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Way before all of this, I also photographed MTV\u2018s first Christmas video in their first year – 1981. It featured Billy Squier singing \u201cChristmas Is The Time To Say I Love You\u201d, along with MTV VJs, record company people and my girlfriend.\u00a0 She AND I got in the last take. You might have seen a “review” of the video on \u201cBeavis & Butt-head\u201d. I have 3 shots from this shoot on my site under \u201cMTV\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n

One last oddity: I think I must have had an extra available shot in my B&W camera (film<\/em>, remember?) when I got home from that long, exhausting VMAs night at 3am:<\/span><\/p>\n

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I seem to recall being asked before the show date to spiff up my wardrobe for this gala event, instead of my usual black t-shirt and jeans.<\/span><\/p>\n

How’d I do?<\/span><\/p>\n

Didn’t know I was 3′-7″, did you?<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

…………………………………………….(ignore April 30, 2017 publish date – this was published on September 14, 2024) ………………………………………………………..NOTE: all posted contents are COPYRIGHT BOB LEAFE   Click to enlarge:Click to enlarge:……………………………………………. \u00a0\u00a0 As you may know, MTV celebrated the 40th anniversary of the VMAs last Wednesday, September 11. What you may NOT know is that I photographed the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21699","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/iaintjustmusic.bobleafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21699","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/iaintjustmusic.bobleafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/iaintjustmusic.bobleafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iaintjustmusic.bobleafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iaintjustmusic.bobleafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=21699"}],"version-history":[{"count":29,"href":"https:\/\/iaintjustmusic.bobleafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21699\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21841,"href":"https:\/\/iaintjustmusic.bobleafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21699\/revisions\/21841"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/iaintjustmusic.bobleafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=21699"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iaintjustmusic.bobleafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=21699"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iaintjustmusic.bobleafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=21699"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}