Beat-Club

I used to watch it back home in Chile after school. I wonder if they are available on DVD's. This program was so good that even my parents used to watch it with us kids. I have seen some of the current music videos and yearn for Beat Club, maybe is a romantic feeling, but it was a clean show, we saw all the top artist, some are still around today. It was sophisticated, pleasant, decent show. There was no foul language, no criminals turned singers, no uneducated masses making millions of dollars, certainly they didn't promote drugs, easy women, vulgar men; lyrics were important too, I don't recall listening to "shoot the cop" or "hitting and abusing women" and so on, you get my drift. Music videos today are a disgrace, nothing but profanity and vulgarity.

This show is a perfect example of how rock music can translate well on television. It pretty much was a German version of shows like "American Bandstand" and "Shindig". However, the thing that distinguished it from those shows was the fact that it featured an even wider variety of acts than those two shows ever did. In fact, many of the acts that appeared on the show were more suited to FM radio than the more pop oriented acts that appeared on "Bandstand". The thing that really made this show special was the fact that it featured many artists that were huge in Britain and the Continent than they were in the U.S. (eg. Family, Ginger Baker's Airforce and Man). The only thing that keeps this show from being shown in its entirety is the fact that it is done almost entirely in German. Fortunately, the "Let it Rock" DVD series and VH-1 Classic show highlights from this very special show.

I first came across Beat Club when it was re-shown (in compilations presented by sometime host Dave Dee) on UK TV in the small hours of the morning during the late 1980s. As an impressionable teen I was hugely interested in the plethora of artists and songs who were new to me - The Who, The Kinks, Small Faces, Bonzo Dog Band (I'd never seen anything quite *that* weird), Gene Pitney, Tim Rose, The Easybeats, Zager and Evans, Stealer's Wheel, T-Rex, Joe South, Manfred Mann, the Bee Gees (when young and not steeped in disco!), Dave Dee Dozy Beaky Mick 'n' Tich, the Moody Blues (when young and not creaky and MOR), Dave Clark Five, Deep Purple (in the 80s on the comeback trail) and many more.

Its early editions (as Beat Club) and its flashy colour later version (Musik Laden) marked this show out for special reverence. It had weirder camera angles than did Ready Steady Go (which was rerunning on UK TV at prime time in the 80s), it had a far wider range of artists, and many, many acts stole my heart and fed my developing musical taste. I'd love to see it re-run again or be more widely available on video than the few compilations that have been out.

This show was great with bands like Cream, Black Sabbath, Deep Purple and many others. Make this show better than any rock show of it time including American Bandstand. I wish MTV or VH1 show more clips to this show. also the sister show Musikladen was great also.