The recent connection troubles at this end meant we've missed the opportunity to mark a couple of recent TOTP-related deaths. Jerry Nelson, who died on 25th August aged 78, had worked as part of Jim Henson's company since 1965 and was best known as the voice of Count von Count (he also did Statler for a while and innumerable minor characters), but it's him voicing Robin on Halfway Down The Stairs, the tender AA Milne-penned song that never failed to send Noel into giggles.
More pertinently for Pops, we lost Louise Clarke a couple of weeks short of her 63rd birthday. She wasn't strictly a founder member of Pan's People, joining a year after they were initially set up and not appearing with them on TOTP until May 1968, a month after their debut, but she was there through their imperial phase, leaving after almost exactly six years, the famous Homely Girl routine her swansong, to get married and start a family. Here's a tribute to her work.
Meanwhile, many have noted the letter in this week's Radio Times in response to praise for this series/year that "it has no immediate plans to show the 1978 series, but is keeping that decision under review". The reading from our end: calm down. It doesn't say they're not going to, it says essentially they don't know. BBC4 won't have made any plans for next year (apart from a couple of already announced special seasons, but that's different) by the end of August when RT would have started being put to bed and they didn't announce or start working on '77 until some way into October.
Back to this week. (Well, the week we're up to in 1977, but you know what I mean) Kid's in charge and literally showing his true colours in a red and white lace-up top emblazoned with a maple leaf motif and, in case the subtlety was lost, 'CANADA' in big diagonal letters. We later see '74' is emblazoned on the maple leaf. No idea. The countdown is restored, as is only correct, to the top of the show, and Kid has a countdown of his own to add as Jonathan Richman's Roadrunner is the chart rundown music. Kid then does a voiceover link into the first song, ruining the ever fun element of surprise and anticipation. Or maybe not, in this case.
Showaddywaddy – You Got What It Takes
"Unmistakeably Showaddywaddy" at that, though surely that doesn't take into account all the original rock and roll bands and all the songs they cover, this included. We do at least know the drill now, wherein Dave Bartram and his lush, tumbling, vitality-filled locks attempts to look appealing towards crowd and camera in turn, coupled with the odd bit of visual comedy double take. Very low forms of visual comedy, admittedly, when it constitutes looking quizzically at his open palm for the line "with your money we won't get far". This time the drapes seem to be colour coded by instrument, with the allotted backing singers in canary yellow meaning despite it being mostly hidden by Bartram's head we can kind of get the gist of their middle eight routine involving spinning, kicking and the ever present notion there's got to be more dignified ways to come across on television, as Bartram goes on to glad-hand the front row and plant a smacker on some girl's forehead. Meanwhile Buddy Gask does his single basso profundo vocal and wonders when that supposed joint lead singer role is going to come up again. To close everyone turns their back on the audience as a mystery invisible sax solos away.
Steve Gibbons Band – Tulane
Hard to describe the motion Kid makes into this, a kind of swung arm round towards camera into leg-aided air guitar power chord. Splendidly, with only two to choose from the intended opening close-up on the guitar strings chosen by the director is on the rhythm, which has two notes to play, rather than that playing the distinctive lead riff. A Chuck Berry cover, rock and roll business is conducted by a man who's really tried to look the part - receding pompadour, white shirt and leather trousers, one handed confident mike stance leading to full knee knocking once the mike is in his hand, looks, like Alvin Stardust, far too old for all this. As for his band the bassist is wearing the cap of a stereotypical camp biker - as he is in their countdown photo and was last time we checked in, maybe it was his "thing" - while I still can't work out whether both guitarists have moustaches or not. The audience are into it, at least one young couple jiving as much as what they understand jiving to look like. Even better, one long shot reveals two men in a committed full-on rendition of that shoulder-first routine usually carried out by men in distressed denim jackets at Status Quo gigs or on stage with Mud doing Tiger Feet. Not for the last time tonight, Kid appears alone in the distance, slapping the side of his thigh in time to the beat during the instrumental break. Kid promises more for "the rock fans" later.
Barry Biggs – Three Ring Circus
Repeat. The seated one rather than the ringmaster one, sadly.
The Rods – Do Anything You Wanna Do
Not a mistake, Eddie & The Hot Rods traded under this name for a little while, presumably to make people think they were a hot new young punk band. It seems to have worked on Kid, who goes falsetto by the end of declaiming the title having enthused "this has got to be one of the best rhythm and rock records this year". Rhythm And Rock, for those who don't recall, was the more ostensibly commercial parallel to A Bit Of That Sort Of Rock. Not that the band are hiding anything, Barrie Masters still restlessly stalking and covering every inch of the stage and gurning between occasionally mimed lines in white jeans and an open shirt, occasionally grabbing the above the crotch area of his huge belt. Of course there's a member, the bassist, in dark glasses. Less punk-like, he's also wearing a yellow and black striped headband.
Rita Coolidge – We're All Alone
Well, this is quite rum. "The mood is mellow" maybe but not so literally, surely. For one thing, surely it's a late replacement given we've seen the video twice, but it's not clear what it might have replaced. Tavares' One Step Away seems most likely as it had been hovering around a central position before suddenly falling right out of the top 30, while Mink DeVille's Spanish Stroll had entered the top 50 the week before but hadn't quite yet made the rundown. Danny Williams' Dancin' Easy, surprisingly sticking at 32? The Ramones' Swallow My Pride, which entered at 36 the previous week but fell? We can but ponder and create unlikely mental images. Anyway, We're All Alone it is. The troupe, in non-fetching shades of electric blue/mauve and orange dresses with matching legwarmers, start lying on their backs and kind of stay there. Not just like that, obviously, even Flick would be called into question were it a tableau rather than routine no matter how clearly properly undanceable for slowness reasons the song is. No, from there is carved out a succession of seated positions, Oops Upside Your Head-recalling bends and lunges, rolls, crawls and just about every combination of arm and leg bending and swinging, closing with an extreme close-up on... well, I can rarely get them right when their faces are the right way up, but I think it's Gill... whoever, she's making something akin to devil eyes at us, perhaps hoping for something upbeat soon. It's more like a gymnastic floor exercise routine-cum-keep fit video on 2x fast forward and for all we know might have constituted an ongoing sit-down protest following Roadrunner's seated delivery. And not a cacti in sight either.
Thin Lizzy – Dancin' In The Moonlight (It's Caught Me In It’s Spotlight)
"From some delightful Lizzies..." Eh? I double checked, he does say "Lizzies". As seems traditional with Lizzy - and that's what Kid calls them at the end so it's an official diminutive - it's a repeat, slow dancers and all. Perhaps inspired by the Rods, Kid calls them just "Lizzy".
Delegation – You've Been Doing Me Wrong
Delegation were soul's own Liverpool Express, clearly. In very Seventies ruffled white suits over paisley patterned shirts and huge bow ties and embarking on choreographed knee lifting, they can't quite disguise that they've just slowed You To Me Are Everything down a bit, or that the first verse is clearly supposed to be in three part harmony but the Willie Thorne one either has been written out of the part at late notice or can't be bothered to lift the mike to his mouth but is gamely miming along anyway. After that he's always just slightly out of the movement routine, glancing across more out of blind hope than checking, sometimes affecting a half turn to make it seem more noticeable. The main singer isn't well served by shooting from below either given it means we can see the gap in the front of his teeth all the clearer. When the camera pans back to Kid he's swaying gently sat in the lotus position grinning to himself, as if in the midst of a pleasant flashback.
Fleetwood Mac – Dreams
A few more seconds than last time of the live clip, I reckon. "Isn't that fabulous?" Kid says. Maybe if we saw more of it.
J.A.L.N. Band – I Got To Sing
"Back to the disco scene", apparently. Apart from the keyboard player in grey slacks hoping we won't notice because of his instrument, more white suits all round. Was there someone unscrupulous going round the dressing rooms? Plausible given the horn section, who so clearly aren't regular members of the band they should have had their own caption. If the singer gets any closer to the edge of the stage for the verses he'll be dragged in, and he can't say he wasn't warned. Maybe that's why he's not concentrating on his miming, missing half a line at one point. Or maybe he's just terrible at it, not clear in his own mind whether vocals are lead or backing by the end. He's completely disrespecting the title of his own band's song in that.
Donna Summer – I Feel Love
Week four of four atop, and evidently not a moment too soon for the show. Obviously we don't know what they did in week three, but given week two involved slides and seated lunges you'd have put good money on a kaleidoscopic image of a potter's wheel or similar by now. Instead once Kid has symbolically clutched at his heart it's the escape hatch once more, but with a twist - Donna's passport photos on Toppotron™ once more, awkward dancing in semi-darkness again, but in the distance five sixths of Legs & Co swish their long dresses about in strict formation - shimmy, dip left shoulder, shimmy shoulders, dip right shoulder. In other words, a standing version of the routine they developed from within RoadRunner, and just as then most people aren't paying the blindest bit of attention. Five, though? Sue's the odd one out as she faces off and shimmies on a raised corner of the set with... Floyd! The man for all emergencies. Sue's still wearing her outfit from earlier, from which we must assume her colleagues are too, and we now see a bit of netting on the front, which we see the rest moving around a bit during the chorus. The little details lost on the big stages. To fully cap this mise-en-scene of disco shaking, visible in his colours right in front of the Legs & Co quorum is Kid. He's dancing. Or so the intention seems anyway, his style developing over time from some awkward rhythmic (but not rockist) finger clicking to full-on shifting from side to side in an approximation of getting down with the groove, apparently not only completely unaware and out of time with what's immediately behind him but with everyone else too. We're allowed just the 1:50 this week before Kid, still shifting in one spot with a little arm movement too, delivers the coup de grace before resuming with even more gusto as the song continues to play us out: "from me, Kid Jensen, it's goodbye and good love!" Yep, the full version. It's been a while.
By the time Pops returned the following week, there'd been a death in the family.
Showing posts with label jaln band. Show all posts
Showing posts with label jaln band. Show all posts
Thursday, 13 September 2012
Friday, 28 October 2011
TOTP 14/10/76 (tx 27/10/11): apocalypse Flipper
Should do open threads every week. But I won't.
What's with David Hamilton climaxing his intro about "number one sounds" with a heroic air punch? And anyway by Blackburn's lore they can't all be number one sounds.
Tavares – Don’t Take Away The Music
And we start with... a video. Would have been weird enough in the video age, here it just makes you wonder who pulled out too late to properly replace. Instead we get a video clip filmed in a right pea-souper of dry ice, Tavares' five members mere shadows in the mist from the opening angle. This despite the light refraction safety consciousness of wearing bolero jackets festooned with sequins. They can't quite decide whether their moves should be synchronised or not, leading to awkward moments where some are spinning and some ski-shuffling. They then approach the mikes a bar early and their shadows can't save them from awkwardness. With their afros those are some shadows too. The lead singer gets to hold his mike. That's how important he is. Diddy sticks his arm out at the end as if they were just across the studio, grin of gratification writ large.
Sherbet – Howzat
Or as Diddy and his starched collars pronounces it, How's Dat. It sounds like he's approximating an Australian accent, though of course it sounds more West Indian. Maybe he's channelling a concerned Pluto Shervington. This is a repeat from two weeks ago, which Diddy still animatedly clicks his fingers to before the beat has started.
Simon May – Summer Of My Life
Someone shouts something unintelligible over the applause, to which Diddy remarks "yes, more indeed". Didn't sound like anything that concise. According to David "it's always nice to welcome a newcomer to the top 30, especially when it's somebody who has written the song that they sing". REAL MUSIC. A pan out reveals Diddy is on a massive platform well above May's piano on the studio floor. It's little man syndrome. Spotting an audience very much in the shade and for the most part watching the monitor instead is more interesting than the Crossroads-originating song (which May's Wiki claims was "one of the best selling singles of the year", which I suppose is true if you count down far enough) which starts as a poor man's Gilbert O'Sullivan until a truck driver's gear change which turns him into a poor man's John Miles. The director has realised it needs spicing up so has wedged Lulu into a blue taffeta dress and got her to twirl round and fling her arms about a bit in overlay. Between times... well, you can see why May largely stayed off screen.
Wild Cherry – Play That Funky Music
Ah, time for Diddy's Tony Blackburn jibe. This time it's a crowbar in for the line "you've got the body of a 20 year old man". You know the rest, but it still gets huge laugh from techs and a decent one from the man who's just told it. So overwhelmed is he he forgets to namecheck the artist. So this is the final fling for Flick's dream of a mixed sex Top Of The Pops dance troupe (until Zoo, but not even their members remember them) and if you didn't know, which is likely given as expected we're given no hints, that Floyd and Philip's days were numbered the fact they're in casual gear and the girls are in nothing more than midriff/bra exposing shawls and dresses slit to constantly expose the stocking tops, and by the three second mark all three females have flashed their knickers at camera, might just give a hint. After an opening which invents vogueing a decade or so before it was ever necessary to do so there's some tight choreography going on on a massive stage. Go on, guess which member the first "play that funky music, white boy" is implicitly addressed to. Ah, you'll miss his boggle eyes to camera, admit it. As for the boys' only dual/solo moment they seem to be re-enacting, of all things, the Tiger Feet shoulder-lean back-other shoulder routine. Floyd does get a lengthy solo, his conditions for being in the mother goose costume presumably still being enacted right at the death. And off they sail into a forgotten status that will befall their unique presence in the show's storied history until a station the existence of which they surely could not have anticipated back then resurrects their entire oeuvre 35 years later. Wonder if they've deigned to watch themselves. "Some fabulous outfits there" Diddy approvingly nods, presumably not of the T-shirts. Or indeed Philip's jacket, which has something written on the back. From freeze frame I can make out 'WHEEL & BRAKE' and half a phone number. A fallback job already set up?
Liverpool Express – Hold Tight
"If you want more music on Top Of The Pops"... well, yeah, that's the idea. Kids must think Liverpool Express were one of the biggest bands of the era. On the set that some say looks like Blockbusters but I reckon looks more like giant Duplo bricks they've come as a slightly seconded Pilot. What the bassist has physically come as in a broad brimmed hat, wide lapelled black jacket with white lining over black shirt and big cream coloured bow tie one can only speculate. The person who's brought their Wolves scarf is keen, at least.
David Essex – Coming Home
"This is Bev and you can all see who Bev likes - who is it, Bev?" Diddy enquires of a girl in big glasses, Rubettes cap and, tellingly, Essex monographed pink scarf. "About to do his new tour" Essex's chirpy charm, aided by a large red with white spots handkerchief rakishly tumbling from his breast pocket and silver musical note brooch on the other lapel, has every effect in the book without resorting to effects thrown at it - fish eye, overlay, picture-in-picture (capturing David in the throes of elbow dancing) turning the lens round, unforgiving extreme close-up. Then at an appropriate moment the director finds a girl singing along to it. The producer threw a lot at the song too, incorporating both sleigh bells and two clarinet solos, both played right down the camera. If only TOTP76 was 3D retrofitted. (FAO BBC: never do this) The player is wearing shades and sports a tache too. Still the song feels like it lasts hours. David Essex and Simon May on the same show. Who'd have thought, so far down the line, there'd be a more direct connection.
J.A.L.N. Band – Disco Music (I Like It)
You'd think such shows would have standard audience waiting list procedure, but along with a bunch of early 30s women surrounding Diddy for his link, two of whom start it by indulging his desire for an arm in arm jig as if he'd been listening all along, are two sailors. What was it with sailors and these links? Had they been waiting around all week just in case? Did Jimmy invite them and they got the dates confused? One of them looks about eleven years old. As the disco funk drops the women get their dance back on while Diddy graduates to pretend clicking with both hands. The Brummies are really not bad at the fat grooves thing either but the attention is taken by their huge scarf-wearing singer's perpetual motion, running back and forth, sometimes on the spot, his bandmates that can move vainly attempting to do so in the style of a good soul revue. It's supposed to get across the restless energy of the genre. Instead it reminds the modern viewer (me, anyway) that Buster Bloodvessel also moves like that, though he was less keen on the jumping from left to right the singer has broken into by the end. Also worth noting is the saxophonist using a break to put in the least effort ever put into playing bongos.
Pussycat – Mississippi
"I'll see you on Radio 1 and Radio 2 tomorrow afternoon" - ah, those were the days - says Diddy before announcing the new number one, receiving a snatched kiss from a woman and reacting with the time honoured swoon and faux-faint. Where would you stage a video for a Dutch country band with harmony female vocals? Yeah, on a paddle steamer, thought so - 'Crazy-BOAT', in fact. To mix the visual metaphors even further cowboy hats and pretend guns are in evidence. The slide guitar player ends up using one of the latter's barrel in close-up. One of the men, presumably the drummer, basically spends the video sitting around looking distant. More interestingly, so far there's been two rundown pictures and two performances by Pussycat and they've had a different look in each. You'll never gain a lasting image that way.
What's with David Hamilton climaxing his intro about "number one sounds" with a heroic air punch? And anyway by Blackburn's lore they can't all be number one sounds.
Tavares – Don’t Take Away The Music
And we start with... a video. Would have been weird enough in the video age, here it just makes you wonder who pulled out too late to properly replace. Instead we get a video clip filmed in a right pea-souper of dry ice, Tavares' five members mere shadows in the mist from the opening angle. This despite the light refraction safety consciousness of wearing bolero jackets festooned with sequins. They can't quite decide whether their moves should be synchronised or not, leading to awkward moments where some are spinning and some ski-shuffling. They then approach the mikes a bar early and their shadows can't save them from awkwardness. With their afros those are some shadows too. The lead singer gets to hold his mike. That's how important he is. Diddy sticks his arm out at the end as if they were just across the studio, grin of gratification writ large.
Sherbet – Howzat
Or as Diddy and his starched collars pronounces it, How's Dat. It sounds like he's approximating an Australian accent, though of course it sounds more West Indian. Maybe he's channelling a concerned Pluto Shervington. This is a repeat from two weeks ago, which Diddy still animatedly clicks his fingers to before the beat has started.
Simon May – Summer Of My Life
Someone shouts something unintelligible over the applause, to which Diddy remarks "yes, more indeed". Didn't sound like anything that concise. According to David "it's always nice to welcome a newcomer to the top 30, especially when it's somebody who has written the song that they sing". REAL MUSIC. A pan out reveals Diddy is on a massive platform well above May's piano on the studio floor. It's little man syndrome. Spotting an audience very much in the shade and for the most part watching the monitor instead is more interesting than the Crossroads-originating song (which May's Wiki claims was "one of the best selling singles of the year", which I suppose is true if you count down far enough) which starts as a poor man's Gilbert O'Sullivan until a truck driver's gear change which turns him into a poor man's John Miles. The director has realised it needs spicing up so has wedged Lulu into a blue taffeta dress and got her to twirl round and fling her arms about a bit in overlay. Between times... well, you can see why May largely stayed off screen.
Wild Cherry – Play That Funky Music
Ah, time for Diddy's Tony Blackburn jibe. This time it's a crowbar in for the line "you've got the body of a 20 year old man". You know the rest, but it still gets huge laugh from techs and a decent one from the man who's just told it. So overwhelmed is he he forgets to namecheck the artist. So this is the final fling for Flick's dream of a mixed sex Top Of The Pops dance troupe (until Zoo, but not even their members remember them) and if you didn't know, which is likely given as expected we're given no hints, that Floyd and Philip's days were numbered the fact they're in casual gear and the girls are in nothing more than midriff/bra exposing shawls and dresses slit to constantly expose the stocking tops, and by the three second mark all three females have flashed their knickers at camera, might just give a hint. After an opening which invents vogueing a decade or so before it was ever necessary to do so there's some tight choreography going on on a massive stage. Go on, guess which member the first "play that funky music, white boy" is implicitly addressed to. Ah, you'll miss his boggle eyes to camera, admit it. As for the boys' only dual/solo moment they seem to be re-enacting, of all things, the Tiger Feet shoulder-lean back-other shoulder routine. Floyd does get a lengthy solo, his conditions for being in the mother goose costume presumably still being enacted right at the death. And off they sail into a forgotten status that will befall their unique presence in the show's storied history until a station the existence of which they surely could not have anticipated back then resurrects their entire oeuvre 35 years later. Wonder if they've deigned to watch themselves. "Some fabulous outfits there" Diddy approvingly nods, presumably not of the T-shirts. Or indeed Philip's jacket, which has something written on the back. From freeze frame I can make out 'WHEEL & BRAKE' and half a phone number. A fallback job already set up?
Liverpool Express – Hold Tight
"If you want more music on Top Of The Pops"... well, yeah, that's the idea. Kids must think Liverpool Express were one of the biggest bands of the era. On the set that some say looks like Blockbusters but I reckon looks more like giant Duplo bricks they've come as a slightly seconded Pilot. What the bassist has physically come as in a broad brimmed hat, wide lapelled black jacket with white lining over black shirt and big cream coloured bow tie one can only speculate. The person who's brought their Wolves scarf is keen, at least.
David Essex – Coming Home
"This is Bev and you can all see who Bev likes - who is it, Bev?" Diddy enquires of a girl in big glasses, Rubettes cap and, tellingly, Essex monographed pink scarf. "About to do his new tour" Essex's chirpy charm, aided by a large red with white spots handkerchief rakishly tumbling from his breast pocket and silver musical note brooch on the other lapel, has every effect in the book without resorting to effects thrown at it - fish eye, overlay, picture-in-picture (capturing David in the throes of elbow dancing) turning the lens round, unforgiving extreme close-up. Then at an appropriate moment the director finds a girl singing along to it. The producer threw a lot at the song too, incorporating both sleigh bells and two clarinet solos, both played right down the camera. If only TOTP76 was 3D retrofitted. (FAO BBC: never do this) The player is wearing shades and sports a tache too. Still the song feels like it lasts hours. David Essex and Simon May on the same show. Who'd have thought, so far down the line, there'd be a more direct connection.
J.A.L.N. Band – Disco Music (I Like It)
You'd think such shows would have standard audience waiting list procedure, but along with a bunch of early 30s women surrounding Diddy for his link, two of whom start it by indulging his desire for an arm in arm jig as if he'd been listening all along, are two sailors. What was it with sailors and these links? Had they been waiting around all week just in case? Did Jimmy invite them and they got the dates confused? One of them looks about eleven years old. As the disco funk drops the women get their dance back on while Diddy graduates to pretend clicking with both hands. The Brummies are really not bad at the fat grooves thing either but the attention is taken by their huge scarf-wearing singer's perpetual motion, running back and forth, sometimes on the spot, his bandmates that can move vainly attempting to do so in the style of a good soul revue. It's supposed to get across the restless energy of the genre. Instead it reminds the modern viewer (me, anyway) that Buster Bloodvessel also moves like that, though he was less keen on the jumping from left to right the singer has broken into by the end. Also worth noting is the saxophonist using a break to put in the least effort ever put into playing bongos.
Pussycat – Mississippi
"I'll see you on Radio 1 and Radio 2 tomorrow afternoon" - ah, those were the days - says Diddy before announcing the new number one, receiving a snatched kiss from a woman and reacting with the time honoured swoon and faux-faint. Where would you stage a video for a Dutch country band with harmony female vocals? Yeah, on a paddle steamer, thought so - 'Crazy-BOAT', in fact. To mix the visual metaphors even further cowboy hats and pretend guns are in evidence. The slide guitar player ends up using one of the latter's barrel in close-up. One of the men, presumably the drummer, basically spends the video sitting around looking distant. More interestingly, so far there's been two rundown pictures and two performances by Pussycat and they've had a different look in each. You'll never gain a lasting image that way.
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