R.I.P. Dave Kendall (120 Minutes)
Never Mind The Mainstream…The Best Of 120 Minutes (1991)
Dave Kendall talks to Matt Pinfield (1991.09.22)
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■ Matt PinfieldMatt Pinfield is an American television host, radio disc jockey, and music executive best known as an iconic VJ on MTV. He gained widespread national prominence in the 1990s for hosting MTV’s alternative rock program 120 Minutes.
British music journalist and reluctant VJ, Dave Kendall has died at the age of 68. Kendall was responsible for creating one of MTV’s most influential show called 120 Minutes, which aired on Sunday night at midnight to 2am. I was in high school at the time and would stay up for the show and tape the second half on VHS to watch at a later time.
Kendall wanted to create a show showcasing his favorite music at the time, music that the mainstream didn’t play… but “the powers that be” (MTV) wanted more popular programming – so there was always a tug-of-war tension between MTV and Kendall.
120 Minutes introduced me to so many great bands, including The Church, XTC, The Smiths (already knew about them before 120 but you can catch their video on the program), etc.
I did catch Kendall when he hosted the show, until MTV fired him in 1991, and the program continued with Lewis Largent (RIP), and followed by Matt Pinfield, who recently confirmed Dave Kendall’s death on Instagram.
I asked Matt Pinfield about Dave Kendall in May 2012 and he said:
I gotta give Dave [Kendall] props, because he came up with the show to begin with. Even though I host it, originally he would do the countdown on the big, y’know, alternative songs of the week, he would do the countdown behind the screen. And then he eventually came out from behind. Dave’s a good guy, we’ve always been good friends and I thought he did a good job. What’s funny is after, when the show went off the air the first time, they had me and Dave come back and sit on the road cases that all the artists used to sit on. And Jim Shearer, who now does the VHS Top 20 Countdown, he was hosting the [120 Minutes] show and he, y’know, was asking us questions about some of our favorite moments of the show when we were on the air. Obviously I loved the stuff from the very beginning of the show, y’know, I was spinning at alternative clubs, playing that music. In fact, oddly enough, I missed so many of those original episodes of 120, because I DJed at those alternative clubs every Sunday night. Sometimes I would tape it on VHS. But yeah, Dave’s in Thailand now. He’s doing some work out there doing internet stuff, and he’s a great guy. Y’know I haven’t seen him since we did that- I saw once after we did the final episodes the first time around. But it was… y’know my hat off to Dave, for coming up with the idea [for 120 Minutes] for being one of the longest running shows on that [MTV] network.
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