Vincent Hanley documentary

Arghus

spurious

Some amazing comments here.

Not in a good way.

Hangdogroad

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118697150#Comment_118697150

Not sure if many of his immediate family are alive. His brother, who featured in the Fab Vinny doc from 2017, passed away a couple of years ago and I'd imagine his parents are deceased. The quote in question was someone (Hughes i think) quoting Vinnies father from the time of his death.

solerina

Vincent is buried in St Patrick’s cemetery in Clonmel, go up the central avenue and towards the house on the left by taking the second last path on the left, he isn’t too far from the back wall of the house. I often pass by when visiting family.

ford fiesta

RTE Guide from Feb 1984 promoting the start of MT USA

Tork

I hadn't seen that article before so thanks for sharing. He already looks like he's going downhill in the photos, doesn't he?

fryup

ah the RTE guide that and smash hits and shoot magazine the highlight of my week, simpler times simpler country...you know in a strange way for all its faults (and it had many) i kinda miss the place 😐️

riclad

MTV usa was very popular, it was the only show that showed all the latest music videos on rte before everyone had cable TV or sky TV at that time there was only a few programs that showed music videos like top of the pops , if you made a good music video you had a hit in the top 30 billboard charts. Any kid who grew up in the 80s watched it

TheIrishGrover

I'm from Clonmel and grew up there at the time. I remember it well. Don't remember the rocks being thrown but wouldn't be surprised. Not to condone it on any way (the town was and still is, a kip) but unfortunately this would have happened anywhere in Ireland (and many other places) at the time.

It's quite staggering to see how the gay community was treated then. Homosexuality was illegal! Gay meant pedophile to pretty much everyone, you could get AIDS from a toilet seat. Houses vandalised, careers ruined forever. Sure, you have the usual idiots everywhere today with their homophobia, especially in eastern European countries and the middle East. But it is nothing on a par to not so long ago.

I do remember MTUSA and remember loving it. We rented a VCR at the time (very fancy) and would tape it every weekend (assuming you taped the right channel). As others have said and the name implies, it was mainly aimed at the American music scene. We had Top of The Pops for everything else. It gave us this image of a optimistic, youthful, open America. THE place to go (Unfortunately usually by illegal emigration, given the time). The people were younger, the fashion better (!), the music lighter (if not quite as interesting) than music you see on TOTP, hell, even the weather was better (of course all in the opinion of a 1980's kid). It was VERY influential for it's time.

Regarding the RTE tapes being lost, unfortunately this is VERY common everywhere. Tapes were recorded over regularly. Remember, these were not your VCR tapes, these cost terms of thousands at the time and everyone taped over them. Who at the time would think that people 40 years later would want to dig up an old episode of Wanderly Wagon and play it on their thin computer thing or TELEPHONE!!! over telephone lines.

I haven't gotten around to watching the doc. Must do

ford fiesta

I wonder were RTE the only source that had the MT USA tapes. I wonder would Bill Hughes or Conor McAnally and their then production company have any info on this, perhaps there were 2 copies of each tape kept ?

RTE only played the programme tapes, that Bill Hughes would have complied. The links that were brought back from New York might be on separate tapes?

I assume Betamax tapes were used and I doubt each tape would have cost thousands !!

cml387

RTE would have no rights to the music videos so there was no point in keeping the recordings just for the links by Vincent Hanley.

Most of the videos are available on Youtube anyway.

What I would like is just the names of all the songs, there were some videos I enjoyed but have totally forgotten what the songs were!

ford fiesta

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118724179#Comment_118724179

well of course all the music videos are on You Tube now. these songs have been well documented / name checked in documentaries, articles etc, in the context of MT USA since the show ended.

But it would be great to have full MT USA programmes as they were with opening titles, Vincent's links, other presenter segments and the special effects / titles that added to the excitement of the show.

Hotblack Desiato

Somebody said 8-bit graphics, hah! The computer generated links were state of the art for the time and would have cost a fair bit to make (I suspect a lot were bought in and just had the MT-USA logo put on top. As an aside, a lot of the bigger pirate stations back in the 80s ad similar names to US stations so they could use their jingles)

ford fiesta

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118726761#Comment_118726761

It was not just the MT USA logo opening/closing that was a graphic...there were artist names/song titles, features etc.

some of the presenter content was done in Dublin by other radio 2 presenters (Irish new releases etc) - this would have required more graphics.