Hiya. Sorry to do this again, but with broadband down and only able to use a slow computer not near a television on, essentially, dial-up and a browser without Flash or sound it's going to have to be another open thread week. Shame, as it's an intriguing one and not just for harbouring a set of Noel links...
Steve Gibbons Band – Tulane
Boney M – Ma Baker
Showaddywaddy – You Got What It Takes
Jonathan Richman & The Modern Lovers – Roadrunner (Legs & Co)
Bob Marley & The Wailers – Exodus
Dana – It's High Time You Put Some Words Together
Emerson Lake & Palmer – Fanfare For The Common Man
Rita Coolidge – We’re All Alone
Thin Lizzy – Dancin' In The Moonlight (It's Caught Me In Its Spotlight)
Donna Summer – I Feel Love
53 comments:
I can never remmeber whether the Steve Gibbons band were American or British, but this wasn't a bad start to a show that seemed to have more repeats than it actually did.
Amusing, Legs & Co calibre miming from Boney M, and all the better for them acting out the song rather than actually doing the singing like they did at the beginning of the year.
Might have known Noel would criticise Lulu's driving, was he still on Top Gear at this stage? Here's hoping Gill's lack of appearance was not because she was run over in the studio.
Actual, last song at the youth club disco, slow dancing seen during Thin Lizzy! Strange song for it, or strange band for it anyway.
Although it's still a pity Donna couldn't make it, I feel we were seeing her hit in something close to its nightclub habitat judging by the grooving from the audience.
Oh, and I laughed at Noel's Wirral Loan gag. I'm so ashamed.
"Wirral loan". For christ's sake.
So, bypassing the I Was Dancing In The Lesbian Bar reference that all too readily presents itself when Legs & Co set the controls for Richman, imagine the conversation. "So obviously you'll do something for the number one again, Flick, but you got away with keeping them aside until the end last week so there'll need to be a second routine for something else too" "Right. What are you thinking of, then? More disco? Uptempo Europop? Not another soul love ballad for big dresses, surely?" "No, not again, no. Well, there's this record fast climbing the charts for which we don't have a video and the singer isn't coming over. It's a Velvet Underground-inspired proto-punk tribute to driving through Boston suburbia at night, and we've got this oversized model of a dodgem car we could paint up for the routine." "...."
No wonder she had nothing left to give for I Feel Love. Left shoulder forward, roll upper body, right shoulder forward, roll, repeat. There were less people watching them as they set out than there were in the troupe, and that's with Gill (delete as see fit) on holiday/walked out in disgust/given a week off due to a phobia of cars/given a week off due to a phobia of plywood.
What was with the dancers next to Thin Lizzy? It's not a classic of the 'last song of the night for all you young lovers out there' ranks. Wasn't even moonlight. Plus Boney M on some sort of blackleg MusikLaden showing off their acting skills in front of a DIY superstore rolls of wallpaper display. All the fun.
A welcome antidote to last week, and a song to start with for a second unexpected week. I wonder if they did this because of Donna at number 1 and no end-credit playout track after it?
Anyway, a fine starter from Alessi’s rough-house dad in a carpet underlay jacket backed by a right old disparate pick ‘n’ mix bunch of boogiers from Birmingham (that’s Warwickshire as was if I’m right, and not Alabama), including a contender for Village People. By the way, has anyone out there ever heard of someone called Tulane?
We then get an unexpected bonus of the Detroit Emeralds playing over some fine photos, e.g The Rah Band team photo, the Alessi BROTHERS no less, and that bathtub terror, The Floaters (“Cancer! And my name is Larry!”).
Boney M in the flesh, at last – probably because they’re at number 2. Breakdance Bobby does a great turn, shame he couldn’t sing! The girls were a bit wooden, could’ve done with straddling some chairs (ahem), though nowhere as wooden as that audience…and is “Muziek Winkel” some form of talented crustacean?
Couldn’t Showaddywaddy have borrowed Thin Lizzy’s sax player to make it look more authentic? And doesn’t that guitarist in blue and yellow look like Russ Abbott? Still, you can’t argue with two drummers – up there with The Glitter Band, Bow Wow Wow, and Adam and the Ants. Respect! Meanwhile, Mud were left kicking their heels in desperation…
Now we come to the first of two ‘back of a fag packet’ ambling routines by Legs & Co – to call that dancing would breach the Trade Descriptions Act. Still, as we see later, the group name’s on the back of those jackets, and it’s amazing what you can build with some bolsa wood, Gloy, poster paints and staples. Two things worried me, though – was Lulu really old enough to drive, and did you see the close-up of that woman in the jacket scowling as if we’d looked at her pint?
Flycatcher ahoy, it’s “Exodus”! Those backing vocalists’ hats made it look like they’d just rushed out of the shower (stop it!). Jurassic joke time – how did Bob Marley like his doughnuts? Wi’ jam in!
Ah, a turkey for poor old Dana, who had her last top 20 (top 40, in fact) hit with “Fairy Tale”. She’ll be back once more in two years’ time with a quirky top 50 hit. This song was far too verbose, almost like two lines’ worth in each line. Still, lovely shoulders.
Intriguing that we got the ELP Olympic Stadium video on the same day as the Paralympics’ opening ceremony – almost as if BBC4 had planned it. By the way, hadn’t this gone DOWN the chart from 2 last week?
Then…I had to watch Rita closely, but I can confirm…cameltoe ahoy! Funny how the video starts and ends with Rita in a dark studio. Still can’t find that carmalite in the shops – can you get it on QVC?
Aye aye, it’s the Lizzy, too poppy to be heavy, too heavy to be poppy, but still pretty good in my book. Why wasn’t Phil wearing any trousers in the cinema? That would have least stopped the chocolate stains on his pants! Loved the smoochers propping each other up far right of stage.
Then, it’s Toppotron alert! Get out of that car, you lazy shysters. Talk about money for old rope! I burst out laughing at shiny satin suit hobbling dance man. Why didn’t he get the gig for “Saturday Night Fever”?
PS - Hope it all gets fixed soon, Simon.
I think that the Legs & Co routine to Roadrunner was brilliant, but we only got two minutes. i wonder if the repeats tonight and saturday night may have fuller versions, because to have got all dressed up in those sexy green and red college girl outfits, it deserved a whole show, never mind one song.
So it was a pleasant surprise to see them still in the car for Donna Summer's number one song, which was a better showing than last week, as the studio audience dancing this week did us a good routine, and i felt better than last week's Legs & Co who were obstructed by the flashing of disco lights. We even got nearly four minutes of donna summer even with the credits!
I did like the two consecutive videos, ie, Emerson Lake Palmer and then Rita Coolidge which were typically soothing on a Wednesday night after work.
I would still like to have the show back on Thursday night, as the wednesday slot somehow doesn't have the same anticipation.
Quite an Irish-heavy show with Thin Lizzy, Dana and The Detroit Emeralds (geddit?). But perhaps a little disappointing because a lot of acts were on video or were repeats.
Sounding not unlike Rockpile The Steve Gibbons Band was a great way to kick off the show and the audience really seems to be enjoying it, there's even a couple jiving at the background when Noel back-announces the song. Not sure about the band's sartorial elegance. There's a lot of leather trouser action and the bass player looks like a gay biker from a horror movie although that may not be a bad thing.
The rundown looks like it's been given a serious makeover this week with all of the photos seeming a lot brighter and sharper, even the black and white ones. Love this Detroit Emeralds track (although not sure why it sounds all phased at the end), what a shame we never get to see them.
So Boney M appeared on a German pop show called Winkel! They are miming but doing a good job all done up in 1930s Bonnie and Clyde style clobber. The German audience although seated look reasonably enthusiastic by clapping along although the average age appears to be 58 (is that Mrs Doubtfire at the front?). Like TOTP the music in the studio doesn't appear to be very loud judging the the ease in which two audience members are having a conversation all the way through the track. Go on Bobby do a back flip and kick their heads!
Ah Showaddywaddy reviving old rock 'n' roll again this time in different coloured suits looking for all the world like a packet of Plasticine. Quite a good performance with drummer Malcolm Allured going for the full Ringo Starr Rory Storm-era beard. I think this has been said by others before but singer Dave's hair was always an annoyance to me because while the others opted for the quiff-mullet combination he opted for a blow-dryed style that was somewhere between Les Gray and Tucker Jenkins. It was as though he didn't have the courage to go for the fully Teddy boy look. It's too late now Dave.
A great pity that we don't get to see Johnathan Richman in the flesh but Legs and Co sit down dancing in satin mini skirts and tour jackets in a sports car sort of makes up for it. I love the way that Lulu takes her driving responsibility very seriously by not standing up to dance. Did she not know the car wasn't moving? But was she actually old enough to drive? I love the way the camera zooms off to the back of the car at one point much to one crowd member's puzzlement (if looks could kill). The cameraman then spies a nice pair of breasts belonging to a girl in a red top and concentrates on those for a few seconds before getting back to the job in hand. You can always tell that all BBC cameramen were heterosexual.
Bob Marley again then Dana in the easy listening spot filled by Cilla a few weeks back. God she was dreary wasn't she. Even Noel acknowledges its lack of appeal by saying that it should keep Dana fans happy. Yep, all three of them. The crowd aren't even interested enough to do what Danny Baker calls the disinterested bop.
That ELP video again because this went back up the chart one place. Zzz. Then another video, Rita Coolidge in the spider web hammock again.
Thin Lizzy are a breath of fresh air after the last two, A good solid performance. I always loved Phil Lynott's heavy lidded eyes and laid back look. The two couples dancing in the background are a neat touch.
And so to Donna Summer with a series of slides of Donna on the Toppotron with Legs and Co still in the same outfits in the same car doing some very half-heated sit sown dancing. The crowd seem more into it than they do. Noel then interrupts it to end the show (shove off Noel) and I thought for one horrible moment that we were going to see him dancing but we didn't. I forgot you can't dance in boots with lifts.
As always, Boney M were my highlight of the evening. I really do worry about my musical tastes sometimes.
I was too busy sounding the "Musik Laden" klaxon on Twitter to notice that "Ma Baker" was taken from "Musiek Winkel" - its Dutch cousin.
I don't know if anyone else has noticed this but I paused the rundown to make a cuppa earlier and the numbers don't completely coincide with the photos which are running slightly behind. So I saw a photo of Barbara Streisand with the caption saying 28 Television! I tried pausing again a few seconds later and had a photo of Candi Staton with the caption 26 Dave Edmunds. Confusing and quite amusing!
THX - The Steve Gibbons Band came from Birmingham, UK. Their bassist, Trevor Burton, was a former member of The Move.
Just to clarify: "Musiek Winkel" is Dutch for "Music Shop".
How many times was that ELP video shown in total, anyway?
That ELP score in total, as read by James Alexander Gordon...
Video 3, end credits 2
Studio appearance 0, Xmas Legs & Co routine 1
Forgot to mention - Noel not wearing a suit for once. Were they all down the dry cleaners?
Yes, oddly casual for Noel this week. I quite like the cold open with the first track, shame they abandoned it sharpish. I informed my auntie of this week's episode because her and her late husband were big Steve Gibbons groupies while he was tearing up the Brum Beat scene - I assume they went to see them in places like Shrewsbury and Stoke. Shame we won't get his other band, the majestically-titled Balls.
Classy lighting on Dutch telly, just turning the lights on and off. Clearly clip licencing rights were a bit looser in those days unless Top Pop and Music Shop were on the same channel. The Roadrunner routine was ace, I did like Lulu not getting up because she was driving, and her being the only one to wear a cap like a proper chauffuer.
My dad has been reminded how much he likes Fanfare for the Common Man so much in the last few weeks that when I was at his house at the weekend he was searching through his compilation albums to see if it was on any of them. I liked Noel being big enough to bring up one of his crap predictions. Good job John Christie never comes back.
And I liked the closing sequence with Noel saying goodbye over blaring music becuase it reminded me a bit of his gas disco.
I take it the cinema Phil Lynott frequented didn't sell Treets ("they melt in your mouth, not in your hand"). Oh dear, everyone sighs, he's on about bloody chocolate again!
It wasn't until I Googled the line in question that I realised Jonathan Richman had a song called "I Was Dancing In A Lesbian Bar". A couple of intriguing lines in the song..."Well in the first bar, things were okay, but in this bar things were more my way". Hmm, so, Jonathan, your way's a tad voyeuristic, is it? Should have been the follow-up single!
Oh, also - "CANDY STATTON".
Noel was wearing a rather lovely cream Puma shirt. Probably worth a fortune to collectors of old sportswear.
Funny that Noel should make a quip about Hylda Baker when introducing Boney M, she would be on the show in a years time!
Considering the dance troupe are called Legs and Co shouldn't Roadrunner have had them done up as the Roadrunner cartoon bird - Lulu Beep-beep!
Did anyone else notice the floor manager having a go at someone in the background of Roadrunner.
Still trying to work out what it is Rita Coolidge has croched on her top. A tree? A signpost? Someone doing a handstand?
Steve Gibbons face has a touch of the Rob Brydons. He should use Carmalite.
does anyone else have a problem with the way "archive" material is shown on their television (especially on the bbc)? what they do is "squash" the screen horizontally, presumably because when we watched it the first time our tellys were shaped that way rather than the wide-screen we all have now (or else they do it because they think we're too thick to realise it's archive material otherwise!)... anyway, whatever the reason, its intensely annoying and i for one can do without it - i usually tape the late edition of the show so i can watch it in all its unedited glory, but this time they insisted on broadcasting it with that stupid squashed look... so i had to watch the edited version i had recorded earlier (just in case the later one wasn't recorded for some reason) where it was broadcast in wide-screen!!! just what are these clowns playing at? does anyone else feel the same way about this? as for the show itself, yes definitely a better one with regard to things to write about (if not on a musical level)...
how the hell did steve gibbons gatecrash the charts with his no-frills rock 'n' roll cover that you could hear in any pub in any town of your choosing (and probably find steve actually playing in)? my landlord likes it, but then again he grew up hero-worshipping the likes of eddie cochran and "the king"...
why are the audience in the boney m clip positioned as if they were either on a bus or at the pictures? hey, the performers are to the left of you - turn around you idiots! those silly europeans - they just don't "get" pop like us brits do, do they? bobby wasn't the only one doing a "milli vanilli" - apparently the vast majority of the female vocals were recorded by only one of the trio of ladies (can't remember which one), whilst another did the odd vocal here and there and the third did none at all...
bamaboogiewoogie - yes, it's me who made the previous comments about dave bartram's shiny freshly-washed feathercut being at odds with both his costume and the rest of the band - didn't they ever get together and point out to him how out of place it looked? perhaps they did but romeo (the only other member not to make an effort with his barnet - in his case a short nappy/afro typical of the era for black guys) stepped in as dave's minder and warned them off - he looks like a guy not to be messed with, even by the dick emery bovver-boy lookalike...
perhaps surprisingly for the first time, i had written too much to fit one post, so here's the rest of it:
i know jonathan richman gets raved over, but as with most american new wave i'm not very impressed (the velvet underground have a lot to answer for in my opinion). however i did note that his chart picture had been colourised this week. as for the legs routine, definitely a case of running on empty... btw arthur: bolsa wood? gloy? had you been sniffing some gloy when you wrote that? (good bob marley joke though)
why did dana's people still think there was a market for this ballad that sounds at least 5 years out-of-date? i'd rather she jumped on the disco bandwagon than bore us to death with slop like that...
i had to endure the rita coolidge video just so i could spot the camel's toe! i remember the last time this was showed and someone said she had great hair - as someone else pointed out afterward, not the case at all. it's all horribly frizzy and yet stiff at the same time - she should obviously have had taken some advice from dave bartram on this matter...
i always thought thin lizzy's scott gorham was a cool-looking guy, but his hair's so long you can't see his face most of the time (although like dave b's it's still a lot more soft and luxurious than rita's!). the cameraman does the usual thing of zooming in on the rhythm guitarist when there's a lead break - don't they have a run-through, or at least take notes beforehand?
the way they approached the problem of how to replace donna summer was brilliant and awful at the same time - the toppotron looking like one of those home-made youtube videos, and legs doing a repetitive cut-down routine intercut with an audience boogieing on down in the hope that no one would notice! at the start there's a small gaggle of bods hanging around watching legs do their thing over and over again, including some gauche teenage boys who (unlike the girls) just stand there staring with their arms folded, not moving a muscle - perhaps unsurprisingly, later on it looked as if the floor manager had herded them off-camera, but the fact that they were allowed there in the first place is typical of the shambolic way the show was produced...which is why us post-modern ironists love it so much now!
oh yes, forgot to mention about phil lynott's reference to "pants" - as with other songs of the era with that word in, i'm sure it's difficult for us british boys who were going through puberty at the time not to imagine (and snigger at the thought of) guys wearing Y-fronts and no trousers as if they're in a brian rix farce or something - whether they're being patched or bright orange!
I also hate the way archive material is ponced about with. As most if not all of you know, it's because we've gone from an old-style 4:3 telly screen ratio to 16:9 widescreen ratio, which works out as 16:12 if you magnify the old clips to fit the width of the new screens, thus meaning we lose a lot of the outer fringes of the old picture and, in the case of old 405-line black-and-white material, the picture becomes fuzzy to the point of being unwatchable in some cases.
Re aspect ratio, this often causes problems. BBC4 sometimes forget to switch from widescreen to 4:3 and usually remember about 30 seconds in as they did it here. What annoys me is if you record it from the watch again facility then that then it's all in widescreen and you have to manually adjust the picture to 4:3.
@wilberforce - do you still record stuff on tape? I bought a fantastic Panasonic DVD recorder in January which enables me to record and edit stuff and dub onto disc. You can even dub from video and other DVDs so I'm putting all my old TOTP and other old shows on DVD with edit points for the start of each song (you can tell I've too much spare time).
Aspect ratio - reminds me of the old Bob Monkhouse gag about Andrew Lloyd Webber's new musical about geese - arse pecks of love.
Sorry to continue aspect ration chat, but just to say that the issue with the late night (or early morning) repeat is that it was shown in 4:3 in a 16:9 frame, as it would if you were showing it within a new programme. So if you had a widescreen telly it would come out properly with black bars on the sides, as it did for me, but if you were watching it on a non-widescreen set it would have had black bars on all four sides.
The opposite was true with Comedy Central until last year when they'd infuriatingly show widescreen material in 4:3 so if you were watching on a widescreen set there were black bars on all four sides.
The ideal solution is for BBC4 to show it in 4:3 which they do on most occasions but sometimes they forget, as at 7.30 last night when they forgot to switch it until about twenty seconds in.
i forgot to mention our smug host getting the bob marley title wrong - to the best of my knowledge it's just "exodus", not the definitive article
if anyone really hasn't got anything better to do, perhaps they could complile a "league table" of totp dj's erroneously announcing track titles - to my recollection i think diddy might win that one... but not by much!
sorry, i should have replied in the last post to bamaboogiewoogie regarding recording totp:
yes, i still use video tape to record onto as i haven't got over the hurdle of learning how to record onto dvd (despite having a panasonic combo video/dvd recorder) - the last time i tried doing that, the whole machine packed up on me and had to be replaced for £200, so it's a case of once bitten, twice shy... even though it may have been a coincidence
anyone else notice that, due to the poor overlay technique used, this week is copyright 1976? The MCMLXXVII is missing its last 'I'..
Spoiler alert - can't wait for that first top 30 rundown featuring both the Steve Gibbons Band and Black Gorilla!
@Julie: Thanks for the info, I'll try and remember it this time.
@Arthur: Treets were the chocolate peanuts, wasn't it Minstrels which melted in your mouth, not in your hand?
Also, I hope that wasn't real fur Boney M were wearing. And if it was, what kind of animals were they?! Some kind of James Herbert style giant rats?!
Nice to see at the end of the Thin Lizzy bit, the girl slow dancing in an embrace gave the boy a kiss. Aw...
Treets were before Minstrels, and their 'tag line' was kept for Minstrels. Those flavours in full... just chocolate (brown wrapper, I think), peanut (yellow), toffee (sky blue).
I think we miss the first Gibbons / Gorilla rundown due to a wiped episode, but there are stll two in reserve.
With I Feel Love justly at the top spot, and complete with The Crunch and (soon to be on?) Magic Fly, my 7 year old self really latched on to electronic chart music in 1977, starting to buy proper records for the first time. Looking forward to new-wave being on soon and so hope these repeats continue on into the 80s.
I wait with waited breath for Arthur Mullard
A bit late to the party this week, I enjoyed this edition as there were some good tunes and Noel seemed a bit more relaxed and less punsome than he has been recently.
The rundown pictures did indeed look very sharp, and we get light blue captions for the first time in...I can't remember, but probably ages.
Steve Gibbons Band - I remember seeing this song on one of the UK Gold repeats which also had dancing to Donna Summer at the end, but it can't be this one as Noel's shows weren't on, were they? Must be a later one...
Anyway, after hearing it for the first time ever, I got slightly obsessed with it for a bit. Pretty sure I played it on Hospital Radio at (TOPICALITY ALERT!) Stoke Mandeville and searched for it on CD in vain. It is weird that this never seems to appear on compilations at all.
I still think it's a decent tune, though as others have pointed out, nothing particularly out of the ordinary.
Boney M - Or 'Ma Boney' as Noel called it last time. I'm glad we got to see it finally, even more glad that they didn't get to sing, and delighted that 'Music Wienkel' existed. I like to think that the Dutch had a Whistle Test style cool alternative called 'Coeckel Club'.
But they probably didn't.
Showaddywaddy - Good value as ever, and with one of their forgotten songs too. And even more colourful than usual even though I didn't think that was possible.
Jonathan Richman - I'm not keen on the song at all, and I'm not sure why they had a prop built by someone who had seemingly never seen an actual car before either.
Dana - Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear. Even her hair looked limp and bored. I remember thinking that she looked quite foxy in the 'Fairytale' video as well.
ELP - I *think*, though I'm willing to be proved wrong, that this went down from 2 to 3 a couple of weeks ago and was a non-mover at 3 this week?
I have got Top 40 chart books a metre away from where I'm typing this but frankly can't be bothered to check.
Thin Lizzy - They cut this off a bit early, but it was nice to hear what little we got, and great to hear Phil singing. Not sure what he had a little giggle at, perhaps those loons slow-dancing?
Definitely the best song called 'Dancing in the moonlight', of that there is no doubt.
Donna Summer - Yay to the Toppotron! I recorded the late version so not sure what they did on the edit, but on that edition they played the long version of the song, although still cut fairly early.
They really do like that beer bottle on the end of the camera, don't they?
Just checked. Two weeks previously ELP were number 2, they then dropped to 4 but moved up the next (i.e. this) week to 3 and got the video play.
The passing of Max Bygraves today reminds me of one of the great lost album titles. A band on EMI called A Raincoat (featuring Andy Arthurs, co-writer of "Drummer Man" by Tonight) did an album cover photo shoot dressed in raincoats in a cemetery and wanted to call their Album "Macs By Graves". Thinking Max would go ballistic, EMI refused, whereupon the album was released as "Digalongamacs".
Never mind Trevor Burton on bass - was that Kenney Jones of the Faces om drums with Steve Gibbon?
did anyone else watch the totp "school days" special this weekend? in amongst the usual suspects (alice cooper, floyd, grange hill kids etc) was another airing for johnny nash's version of "wonderful world" from last year... featuring the worst audience dancer seen so far (no prizes for guessing who):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xT6T_YBXYfI
@Noax - I already mentioned that ELP had gone back up a place this week in my first post because it niggled me as well. This seems to happen quite a lot where songs are featured even though they have dropped down and then back up again, even if just one place, and not just in the Top Ten. Queen dropped out of the Top 20 recently and when they went back up and were featured again with the same repeat performance
It's quite strange when you examine each show in detail and compare it with the chart week-by-week and see just how little choice they have sometimes, which explains why stuff like Dana and Cilla are included, especially in the 40min shows. But for me these weird non-charting/low charting songs are just as interesting as the ones that made the Top 30.
@wilberforce - your candidate for worst ever dancer, do you mean the girl in white at the back left who just swings her shoulders backwards and forwards? There was one like this during I Feel Love this week.
Ah, but was stuff like Dana and Cilla included as an antiseptic to keep out that nasty new ABOTSOR? Some of the choices this year, like Cleo Laine and John Williams playing "Feelings" and that Simon facking May have been mind-boggling,
LOVED Steve Gibbons band. Its gr8 when you come across a track that you havent heard since you were 6. The audience really went for it as well (unusually). Remember this from the 'Marc' Granada tv series. BTW, its 35 years this month since his untimely rendez vous with a tree.
I remember watching the Marc series at the time, he had quite a few interesting guests. I wonder if they would have done a second series if he's lived. 1977 was quite a big year for music losses with Elvis, Marc Bolan and then Bing. I remember being on holiday in North Wales for two weeks at the start of August '77 and Elvis died the day after we got back. My mum who was a big fan was devastated.
While we were away I remember being disappointed that I missed both editions of TOTP(although we visited Portmeirion which got me into The Prisoner), but now I see from Popscene that the first of these is wiped, so I will never see it.
And as if history is repeating itself I see there's no show this WEdnesday to make way for The Sky At Friggin Night again which is a repeat anyway (it was shown on BBC2 on Saturday). What a shame ITV2 can't be persuaded to show repeats of Supersonic, Marc and Get It Together. Instead I'm consoling myself by re-watching some 1976 shows and noticing a lot of things I missed the first time round. And some of the songs are growing on me now!
Hmmm, can't find anyone called Tulane on Google, but Tulane is the name of a university in New Orleans.
The New Wave/Punk performers who have featured so far still have a jarring effect (in the best possible way!) when they crash land amongst the acres of slinky feather cuts and elephantine flared trousers! Those awful 70s 'retro' parties (the inevitable afro hairdo's and platform shoes) never seem to include punk/new wave styles, evidence of the iconoclastic anti-70s nature of the movement and not so easy to caricature.
Well, knowing retro entirely works on a so-bad-it's-good basis, which is why it's all middle management in wigs and dayglo flares dancing to Stayin' Alive/Tiger Feet - and it has to be the most flagrantly commercial end of disco and glam, never, say, I Feel Love/Ride A White Swan, you can't do Travolta pointing or beery shuffling dances to that.
Simon, how very dare you...I had a Flashmob-style blokes-only "Tiger Feet" dance at my wedding reception three years ago to the day! :-)
arthur, is it on video? if so then please put it on youtube!
So late with this again – blame the Paralympics. But for me this was one of the best Pops yet.
Steve Gibbons Band – yes, I rushed out and bought this back in the day. One long druggie story though – did the BBC not notice or weren’t they bothered? I don’t think anyone has mentioned, on here at least, that it’s a Chuck Berry song – from 1970, so one of the last he wrote before his career took that funny turn with “My Ding-a-Ling”. So, Bama etc, it’s not surprising SGB sound a bit like Rockpile, since we’ve got Nick Lowe channelling “You Never Can Tell” to write “I Knew The Bride” and some real Chuck Berry in the same chart.
Showaddywaddy – I may have mentioned it before, but the K-Tel rock’n’roll compilation album “Juke Box Jive” released in 1976 must have been a Waddy favourite, since “You Got What It Takes” like “Under The Moon Of Love” and “Pretty Little Angel Eyes” was among the semi-obscurities on that album. They mined this seam for a few years didn’t they?
Jonathan Richman – sheer genius, love it. Pity TOTP missed out the classic intro “One, two, three, four, five, SIX!”
Dana – the lyric says that the words the bloke is supposed to put together don’t have to rhyme – just as well ‘cos the song doesn’t, and it’s a really half-assed effort all around isn’t it?
Rita Coolidge – great to be hearing this again, lovely song.
Thin Lizzy – cool dude, great track and they’re usually the best thing on any TOTP they’re on.
Moot point, Wilberforce. My TigerFeet dance was indeed video'ed but, instead of emailing it to me or sending a CD of it in the post, my 'mate' said he'd only give me a copy if my wife and I visited him and his family 150 miles north. At the time I was very busy at work - I was notified of my impending redundancy on my honeymoon(!) and spent months rebuilding my work database at my new employers - plus I needed an op and physio work on a split cartilege suffered while reffing a works football match. I never got the video clip and secretly hate my mate for depriving me of something I'd have cherished.
Boney M - really liked the routine from Bobby (if I've remembered his name right)
Thin Lizzy - I think this is the best thing I've ever heard from them. Really evokes those long hot summer nights he's singing about. Funky rather than rocky.
'Exodus' & Emerson Lake & Palmer must have racked up nearly 10 appearances between them!
Dana - a complete flop - but they seem to be getting rarer. I wonder if it made the bubbling under section which if you add it to the Top 50 and factor in those fallers which weren't included means you can basically have a Top 75 since about 1966.Some of these TOTP flops didn't even make the bubblers.
Jonathan Richman - always thought this was dreadful. And like Wilberforce never thought much of American new wave music.
Donna Summer - great to see it presented like this with a genuinely enthusiastic dancing audience (verging on the halcyon TOTP days of the late 60s/early 70s in their getting into it). And it went on so long I kept thinking it was going to go into the Patrick Cowley mix!
For those Roadrunner-sceptics out there, see if this wonderful article changes your view of the song: http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2007/jul/20/popandrock5
sorry erithian, but as far as i'm concerned, "roadrunner" is just another of those boring 2-chord vamps (like "waiting for the man") where the lyrics are considered of much more importance than the music (as painfully evident in this article), and that does nothing for me whatsoever - and when it comes to music to drive to, give me boston's "more than a feeling" with its immaculately-crafted production and functional lyrics anyday!
Re Wilberforce's comment above that just about sums up my feelings as well. I see 'Roadrunner'/'Waiting For the Man' etc as sort of the triumph of rock writers' and academics' theorising over music.
i know it's all subjective, but i think of such stuff as "emperor's new clothes" music... anyway, that knocks off another half-century!
Ha ha, doesn't look like I've convinced many there! Anyway, there's a lot of music where the lyrics are of more importance - most of Dylan's for starters - and there's nowt wrong with that. Let's just say that both "Roadrunner" and "More Than A Feeling" are among my favourite songs of 1977 and indeed of all time.
Looking forward to this week's instalment!
Yeah , Steve gibbons is a fantastic performer stl touring the uk & europe to sell out gigs , still an important current band with great new albums & DVDs & all his back catalogue all out , check his gig list out youl be in for a treat !!!!
Steve gibbons !!! Still cool as f**k check him out !!!
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