Glenn O'Brien TV Party: The Sublimely Intolerable Show, January 8, 1979

The first 10% of this show sums up what we don't get on TV anymore. Technical difficulties. TV Party was live and improvised, and this meant casual disaster. This early episode gets off to an artistically agonizing start--the sound person is late, overdosing on drugs or both. Or it was the broken down equipment. Once the sound kicks in the show gets lively. Compton Maddux, a droll singer songwriter, is backed up by Debbie Harry and Glenn; the unique futurist soprano Klaus Nomi does one of his post-modern arias; Adny Shernoff, of the Dictators, plays the Beach Boys' "Be True to Your School" backed up by pom pom girls Tish and Snooky, the Manic Panic designers. Downtown legend director Eric Mitchell announces the opening of the now famous New Cinema theater and shows a clip from his film "Kidnapped" with Arto Lindsay, Duncan Smith and Anya Phillips. Brit director David Silver and photographer Kate Simon do the "white people talk about reggae" segment. Blondie's Chris Stein and Debbie Harry and the Patti Smith Group's Richard Sohl drop in to smoke a reefer and take calls from all the crazies in cable land. Chris explains all this isn't chaos, it's art.