Nothing groovier than go-go dancing. And Linda Rogers is sublime in this 1970 video from Atlanta-based TV show The Now Explosion.

The Now Explosion broke new ground for broadcasting music on television, programming music in a free-flowing style and experimenting with video in a format that pre-dated MTV by 10 years. Check out their website. It’s a gas.

The special effects used in The Now Explosion were crude but state of the art for the early 1970 era. Video was shot with heavy, non portable studio cameras on large rolling tripods. The music videos were recorded on two inch magnetic tape. The video editing required the use of 3 massive and costly “quad” tape recorders allowing only simple transitions such as cuts and dissolves.

Most performers were young amateurs recruited from the Atlanta audience. Many appeared with home-grown costumes - often after midnight when station facilities became available - and were recorded dancing extemporaneously as rock rhythms were piped into an almost bare and darkened studio. The lighting often placed performers “in limbo” so that only the illuminated dancers were seen against darkened studio walls. Extensive special effects were added in post production as images were combined and distorted to form what production people often called “eye candy.”

Linda Rogers (Albritton) went on to have a career as a dancer and dance teacher. She continues to teach dance to this day. 

In this segment from The Now Explosion, Rogers is simply dreamy as she does a sultry go-go to Bread’s 1970 hit “Make It With You.”
 

 
Linda and Grand Funk get the trippy treatment:

 
R. Metzger, always ahead of the curve. Previously on DM: The Now Explosion: The Original MTV. 

The Now Explosion was an early attempt—ten years before MTV—to make a music video network. The programming on The Now Explosion consisted mostly of professionally produced music videos of the era, but they also generated dozens of hours of homegrown music videos featuring lip-sync and amateur performers slathered with tons of primitive special effects (and this was 25 years before YouTube!).

The “Now Explosion” first aired in Atlanta on Channel 36 in 1970. It was a Top 40 music program which, along with airing the current songs of the day, showed images to go with the music, all to the patter of an unseen DJ. Images came from promotional films and videotapes from the bands’ management, but the show’s producer, Bob Whitney, also created in-studio and on-location film and tape images to play with the songs. He created psychedelic visual effects over the images, producing rapid zooms, shapes morphing on top of images, multiple colors and images. The show is a very good depiction of the music, cultural imagery, and clothing styles of the late 1960s and early 1970s.

Not much survives from The Now Explosion, although many hours were recently preserved by the Walter J. Brown Media Archives & Peabody Awards Collection in Georgia.

Click HERE to see a video reel of highlights from The Now Explosion.

The Now Explosion website

An interview with Atlanta reporter, Miriam Longino, about her efforts to uncover the history of The Now Explosion