When I turned 13, my parents let me spend $99 of my Bar Mitzvah money on a 13 inch black and white TV. It was 1977, the year punk rock – born on the streets of New York’s Lower East Side and Bowery and nurtured in London and Manchester – was discovered by the mainstream American media. And my new black and white TV, with it’s rabbit ears and UHF loop antennas, was my window into the new world.
First there was DEVO on Saturday Night Live. Then Don Kirshner’s Rock Concert. And then I discovered Tom Snyder. Like most TV viewers, I discovered him first through Dan Ackroyd’s dead-on impressions on the still-relevent and funny Saturday Night Live. But there was no substitute for the real thing. For a teenager seeking out new music I wasn’t going to find on the typical Long Island radio stations, Snyder was like an oasis in the desert. Not only Johnny Rotten and PiL, but Wendy O. William, The Tubes and many others found their first American TV appearences on Synder’s Tomorrow show.
Tom Snyder passed away on Sunday. I can’t think of any better tribute than this, his interview with The Clash.
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