Pity Jewel. The folk-rock hit machine with the pretty face, pretty voice and pretty hair never had a chance with the guys who create “Image Mind Television,” an award-winning cable show devoted to pop music.
Jewel’s name comes up at least three times as the team behind “Image Mind” tries to explain the goal of their program, which is mostly a reaction to what they perceive as the current failings of the music business.
“The reason an artist like Jewel . . . made it big is because Atlantic (her record company) worked it,” said Jocko Hedblade. “I saw it happen all the time at WEBX.”
Hedblade and his brother, Jay, were music and program co-directors at that Champaign radio station from August 1995 to October 1996. Though WEBX refused to play Jewel’s music because “there was better stuff out there,” Hedblade said the record label’s determination combined with an industry-wide system of calling in favors eventually landed her in television, radio, newspapers and magazines.
If people then bought into it and made Jewel a hit, he said, it was only because they weren’t truly given a full range of options.
“If you’re hungry and there are only four things to eat, you’ll eat one of them,” Hedblade said. “If there’s only hot dogs then you’ll eat hot dogs. If there’s lobster and other stuff, you might pick something else.”
At “Image Mind Television,” he likes to think they offer more than hot dogs.
“We’re interested in showcasing the best bands out there,” said “Image Mind” founder Brian Vegter. “The show’s not about small bands or big bands; it’s just about bands . . . the best bands. It just so happens that the ones we cover haven’t been heard by 90 percent of the world.”
With little more than a vision, heavy debt and a spare bedroom full of editing equipment in his Logan Square apartment, the 26-year-old Vegter has managed to produce his half-hour program for three years. Celebrating pop music with live performances and backstage interviews, the show can be seen at 11 p.m. Thursdays on Chicago Cable Access’ Channel 19, 7:30 p.m. Wednesdays on Downers Grove Television’s Channel 21, and 9 p.m. Fridays on Naperville Community Television’s Channel 17.
The show costs about $400 a month to produce, money he sometimes barely has.
“I jokingly refer to it as a drug addiction,” he said. “Sometimes I need to buy tape, and I need groceries.” The decision is always the same: “Ah, groceries can wait till next week.”
His brainchild is much like any other music specialty show, if perhaps a little more aggressive than most. Refusing to show music videos (“I want to do our own work”), Vegter instead sets up cameras to record bands’ performances at local clubs and bars, such as Lounge Ax, Double Door, Schubas and Metro. The Hedblades, whom Vegter met backstage at a Frank Black concert, contribute affable interviews with band members. And to keep the show from becoming a one-note music program, Vegter recruited Geoffrey Zoeller, a high school buddy and former professional actor, to write short sketches that introduce each band.
Then Vegter takes the whole mess and edits it down to half an hour.
In early November, “Image Mind” was rewarded for its efforts with a Cammy. These annual awards are handed out by Naperville Community Television to the best cable-access shows in northeastern Illinois. “Image Mind Television” was selected as the best performance program by an unbiased, out-of-state panel that cited the show’s “solid production values.”
Most of the bands featured on the program, such as the Moviegoers and Jolene, can’t match Jewel’s recognition or record sales. Slightly more familiar faces sometimes appear, like Billy Bragg, Bad Religion and Bare Naked Ladies, but they, too, are mostly out of music’s mainstream. The most famous band to appear on “Image Mind” is Oasis, when it first toured the United States in 1994. Booked into the Rosemont Horizon this month, the band then couldn’t even sell out Metro, with a capacity of 1,100.
Vegter said the goal of his show is “promoting music that doesn’t fit a particular genre, but has an audience.” So instead of wooing a return by the now-famous Gallagher brothers, “Image Mind” is more likely to feature Moxy Fruvous transforming Dr. Seuss’ “Green Eggs and Ham” into a bongo-driven rap duet.
For a program that can be seen in no more than half a million homes for a half-hour each week, Vegter and the Hedblades have a rather lofty goal: changing the way the music industry functions.
“I’d like to have the ability to make an impact on the way music is presented to the public,” Vegter said. “There’s a lot out there that doesn’t fit a category or a specific genre, but that doesn’t mean it’s bad. Like Phish. They don’t really fit in anywhere but they managed to get huge, mostly through word of mouth.”
But the “Image Mind” impact is negligible so far. Said Jocko Hedblade: “Is it making huge waves? No. Could it? Who knows? At least the masses have access. Hey, we’re doing something. The philosophy is not, `Hey we’ve got a TV show,’ it’s that we’re ambassadors of music.”
Vegter, who in 1996 had to suspend production of “Image Mind” after being laid off from his job in a custom black-and-white printing photo lab, relies these days on freelance video editing to make a living; his biggest client is the American Society of Golf Course Architects. Jocko Hedblade, 37, works in a downtown cigar shop, and Jay Hedblade, 30, works for a video transcription company and does freelance writing for local magazines and newspapers. Zoeller, 25, was a bartender but is now back in school studying computer animation.
“Image Mind” isn’t going to keep any of them afloat yet. But that’s no reason not to continue, if for no other reason than to keep up the fight.
“The more we expose bands,” said Jocko Hedblade, “the less we have to listen to Jewel.”
