Well, there's the first proper row this blog's stoked up. Even in such unfortunate circumstances, glad to find out that Popular, the fine UK number ones blog by Guardian/Pitchfork contributor Tom Ewing, is hosting a lively TOTP debate itself in its comments box. Also, hello back to the One For The Dads forum.
Tony Blackburn in charge this week, and he pretends to forget the show's name... until reminded by himself in a thought bubble. Cliche, I know, but this really isn't too far from one of the set-ups in Smashie & Nicey: End Of An Era. Really did their research, they did. Still can't work out what Archie Bell and the Drells are doing in their chart still. They seem to be doing laps of an inflatable boxing ring.
Sutherland Brothers & Quiver – When The Train Comes In
We start on a close-up of a 'SBQ' badge, which is one way of self-identifying. Since we last had them round Iain Sutherland has solved the problem of his receding hairline rather too well with a Breton fisherman's cap and a fulsome beard while his band have gone in for Doobie Brothers-style funk rhythm guitar, if that's not too much a suggestion led on by the train theme. Also, Bruce Thomas looks even more like Chris Langham than last time. There's plenty of dancing going on to their hi-hat heavy FM rock which from its middle eight's interplay sounds like the last chorus is just getting in the way unnecessarily, with the crowd giving each other plenty of space. Tony is so excited he bellows his link out. "Gonna be a smash, that one!" It wasn't.
Candi Station – Young Hearts Run Free
"Listen to the words of this one" Tony advises, good advice given nobody could have been concentrating on the track when presented with Flick's interpretation. As with Thin Lizzy it's awkwardly shuffling audience members intercut with a performance clip in which Candi seems to be wearing a dream catcher, which cocks up when the director fades back in seconds too early for the second chorus and we see another audience, this time American ergo confident, which had clearly been intercut by whichever US programme Staton was recorded for. Both her and the kids prove there was lots of elbow movement inherent to 1976 dancing.
The Champ's Boys Orchestra – Tubular Bells
Tony gets a head and shoulders shot with the studio lights above him, which just means loads of empty blank space as if Rusty Goffe had taken over the camera. And what's the song, Tone? "From Tubular Bells, it's called... from Champ's Boys". Idiot boards are called that for a reason. This week's big idea is to take advantage of the long hot summer and send Ruby Flipper to the Blue Peter garden, not running roughshod over the flowers Les Ferdinand-style but in fact on a big square of carpet in the middle of a dug out patch of soil. Six in white sitting in a circle being liberally doused with petals and confetti out of a big wicker bowl by Patti. There's a lot of outstretching of arms going on before the inevitable running around. It's quite paganistic in a way that doesn't suit a poor attempt to mix Mike Oldfield's theme with Love To Love You Baby. Coupled with that for further oddness, one of them is wearing inappropriate dress, a sheikh's outfit, and for once it's not Floyd lumbered with it (Philip, in fact). Some continuity kept, though - The Omnipresent Cherry Gillespie has the shortest skirt and thinnest top of all four women. Tony attempts a joke about a dead garden. It dies. Appropriately.
Billy Ocean – L.O.D. (Love On Delivery)
If all else fails, stick a soul singer in front of keen teens on the tiny tiered stage and let the orchestra do their worst. Billy's chosen to make himself known by sporting a bright pink top. One girl in the audience attempts oneupmanship in the awkward fashion stakes with triple denim (jeans, shirt, waistcoat) and a Wurzels memorial neckerchief.
Elton John & Kiki Dee – Don’t Go Breaking My Heart
The video in a pretend studio, which you used to see a lot but is always worth appreciating to see just how smug Elton's face between lines is.
The Sensational Alex Harvey Band – The Boston Tea Party
For the second time the introduction makes specific reference to the 200th anniversary of American independence, which must have been quite a big thing in that case. And in case we'd forgotten another long running perennial, Tony notes this is "just about the same age as David Hamilton". Just about the only act Tony doesn't actually call "sensational", they're back in the studio to scare the children. Harvey, with bloodhound eyes, fulsome beard and habit of staring down the lens as if it's offering him out, looks like he hasn't been to sleep since his last studio appearance. This is entirely plausible. He has, after all, chosen to appear on prime time BBC television in denim hot pants and a massive hat. There's a small cannon in front of the drumkit but we don't see it go off, and no wonder as you fear what Harvey might have thought it was and what his reaction would have been. Further point: the keyboard appears to be of that Casio-rivalling brand Professional Piano. Surely a Ronseal offshoot. "Showing a pair of sensational legs" Tony lies.
Dorothy Moore – Misty Blue
More Soul Train setpiece, this time far too slow for anyone to appreciably dance to in anything but a sway. "I've never known a time when there's been so many great records about" claims Tony, despite the evidence of this run so far.
5000 Volts – Dr Kiss Kiss
And here's another oddity that, while the records claim it made number eight, seems so out of place it's possible it never actually existed beyond osmosis. A couple of people are seen walking away from the stage after one line, which isn't that sporting but does demonstrate the folly of linking a huge voiced country singer in Linda Kelly sporting a heavy secretary-goes-clubbing fringe with a band who start out tentatively disco-funky - and only a tentative disco-funk band would pose for promo shots like this - before going the full sub-Fox. And by that we mean the most televisually ostentatious talkbox playing we've ever seen, the guitarist gurning to camera and wrapping his lips round the pipe where others (alright, Frampton) do it casually as if we might not notice. Meanwhile the bassist produces a stethoscope and for some reason checks Kelly's shoulder. I'm not making this up. After that's done with Tony introduces "a very surprise guest", which must be a superior level of surprise. It's Ian Mitchell, who seems to be about twelve but is the new bassist for the Bay City Rollers, who in a highly stilted fashion and while sporting an open shirt lets Tony know they played to 50,000 kids in America and they'll be touring here in September. Once Tony has to introduce the next performance he really doesn't know where to look. FYI, Mitchell left in November claiming he was "getting out before I stick my head in a gas oven", not that that stops him playing in America as The Bay City Rollers Featuring Ian Mitchell.
The Real Thing – You To Me Are Everything
A new number one! Presumably the three silver objects are meant to be the stars Eddie Amoo wants to take out of the sky for you, but they look more like forward planning a performance for the Christmas show. Costumes still haven't been synchronised, Eddie in a flat cap, one bandmate in butcher's pinstriped dungarees, another with the magically returned guitar apparently in a woman's orange halterneck top. Awkwardly someone is occasionally clapping along too close to a mike, unless that was an orchestra member wanting to make a point about union rates. Marvellously, at the end Tony facilitates a stage invasion, though once up there none of the kids really know what to do and end up looking like lemons, which is easy enough anyway given they're taking inspiration from Tony Blackburn. War play us out, "see you on Saturday for Seaside Special".
EDIT NEWS: There isn't any, it was only ever a half hour long show this week. Makes this gig a lot simpler.
Showing posts with label sutherland brothers. Show all posts
Showing posts with label sutherland brothers. Show all posts
Wednesday, 20 July 2011
Friday, 13 May 2011
TOTP 6/5/76 (tx 12/5/11): No Charge, some change
This is the first week we've had an uncut version very late on Thursdays and Saturdays (11.35pm if you're quick), but for the time being we'll stick with the prime-time showing if that's alright with you. Noel's on, and his pidgin-Russian accent is what people on TV message boards would call "delightfully un-PC". Silver Convention are still going up the chart, making them the soul harmony Trotskies of the BBC cuts. And bloody hell, look who's not number one!
Mud - Shake It Down
Truth be told, looking at the tracklisting we thought we'd struggle to get anything out of this. But no, it's Mud gone disco! Obviously they haven't smartened up much for all the Diana Ross-style glissandos, heroic trumpets and falsetto backing vocals and gang shouts, having gone for the obviously none more Studio 54 combination of green shirts and vests, green trousers and white jackets. Les Gray still looks the same as he did when doing Tiger Feet, that is to say suspicious. Bassist Ray Stiles is giving it a go with Michael Jackson-presaging black glittery gloves and some extravagant swaying, and on the breakdown Dave Mount leaps from his kit to batter a pair of tom-toms while leaping about like a cartoon villain sneaking after the girl. No matter, it still looks like the teachers doing an end of term revue.
Frankie Valli - Fallen Angel
Robin Nash gets a mention from Noel, it being the already veteran LE producer's last show with only directing Bread, Goodnight Sweetheart and Harry Hill's Channel 4 series in his future. What he gets for his trouble is the soppiest of emotional grandstanding ballads, Johnny Pearson's orchestra on syrupy overtime. "What a sad story - tripped over her harp and over she went" Noel interjects, still working to his own agenda.
The Stylistics – Can’t Help Falling In Love
And a big hello to Ruby Flipper! Sadly none of them are sitting down. Wisely they start with just the two Pan's emigres before introducing the multi-gender collective to almost do as they please in a line. Here's Noel's full explanation: "Top Of The Pops have made a little move on the dancing front, Pan's People have sort of moved slightly stage left, stage right we've got Ruby Flipper, and you might recognise two of the faces there but five new faces and they're going to be doing various dance routines throughout the Top Of The Pops series". And that's it. Eight years of the People cast aside with no aforethought. That was, in fairness, pretty much what levity Flick Colby and Ruth Pearson gave the change too, just deciding to change the concept without even telling Bill Cotton according to Pearson. But, as we will discover over the coming months, you just weren't ready for men dancing on TOTP.
Barry Manilow – Trying To Get The Feeling
His stool is far too high, that's the first thing to note. The angle of his mike must be adjustable. It's... well, it's a Barry Manilow song, one that didn't chart at that - in fact he didn't have a top 50 single between Mandy in 1975 and Can't Smile Without You three years later. Even the album of the same title did nothing. He's really putting his all into it by the end too, slapping his hands against the keys, the arms of his white suit jacket trembling.
Robin Sarstedt - My Resistance Is Low
Nobody anywhere is giving it their all to this. With the female four-sevenths of Ruby Flipper in ballgowns behind him, one of whom is idly miming to half the female vocals, Peter's kid brother smarms for his country. The Bernard Cribbens version might be better.
Sutherland Brothers & Quiver - Arms Of Mary
"From one of my records of the week to one of my artists of the week" says Noel, neatly linking into his breakfast show. Funny, he never made a thing about his musical spotting worth usually. Iain Sutherland looks like Jack Black trying to deny his fashionable long hair is fast receding, a look the drummer has taken to its natural next stage. You can tell this is earnest folk-rock from his scrunched up facial expressions on the meaningful words. Lots of white suit jackets this week. Oh, and on bass looking exactly like the young Chris Langham that's Bruce Thomas, later to produce rather more complex lead basslines for Elvis Costello and the Attractions.
JJ Barrie - No Charge
Or, as the chart caption calls him, JJ Barry. The edit here is extraordinarily good, comparing the lyrical content of this to that of a song we haven't heard but could equally have been the one we just saw. Anyhow, this is one of the worst songs ever made and you'd better get used to it, from a man who somehow looks exactly as you'd think he would, right down to the massive collars in a pattern more often seen on grandparents' curtains. Noel overly pretends to wipe his tears away with the mike, commenting "quite amazing" as he does so. Difficult to tell if he's being sarcastic. "On his way to a monster success" he predicts, not inaccurately.
Cliff Richard - Devil Woman
And apparently Barrie's wife wrote this. Cliff actually hadn't had a top 40 single for two years until Miss You Nights in February, so this was his attempt to reconnect with AOR. It's not actually about the devil or loose women, by the way, it's about a voodoo cat or something. All that gets pushed to one side by first a shot from beneath which uncomfortably reveals which way Cliff dresses and then a glimpse of the bass player, who is sporting magnificent mutton chops and huge glasses giving him the air of a friendly tobacconist. Noel seems to take it literally and personally.
ABBA - Fernando
Number one. Thank christ! It's the one with everyone sitting around the fire again. Then Noel promises "an awful lot of good sounds" in the morning and we're out with Johnny Taylor. Someone on Twitter pointed out that for the last two links the huge flower in Noel's lapel changes colour from white to red. He's playing with us, the tinker.
EDIT NEWS: Fox! The big success story, as we always say... but it's just the week one performance again, as memorable as it was. Noel's introductory comment is worth considering: "I suppose if you call a number Single Bed then you're bound to have to get up and make it at some point". Tina Charles' Love Me Like A Lover seems to have Mr Punch on backing vocals and, to push home how much more integrated Ruby Flipper are going to be, features one of them dancing in inset while wearing yellow tartan trousers. Charles for her own part is wearing a daffodil and several plants in her lapel, which just makes it look like she got caught in a hedge just outside the green room. Noel claims two girls in the audience brought the carnation in his own suit. After a live Rolling Stones performance of much pouting and little stickability Noel commends how the charts are "full of variety and records of many different sorts of appeal making it" before being drowned out by Mac & Katie Kissoon's blaring horns. As if to deliberately disprove his point it turns out to be Studio 54 disco of a sort we've already seen a lot. Then Noel refers to a "relationship of a very different sort", and cue JJ...
Mud - Shake It Down
Truth be told, looking at the tracklisting we thought we'd struggle to get anything out of this. But no, it's Mud gone disco! Obviously they haven't smartened up much for all the Diana Ross-style glissandos, heroic trumpets and falsetto backing vocals and gang shouts, having gone for the obviously none more Studio 54 combination of green shirts and vests, green trousers and white jackets. Les Gray still looks the same as he did when doing Tiger Feet, that is to say suspicious. Bassist Ray Stiles is giving it a go with Michael Jackson-presaging black glittery gloves and some extravagant swaying, and on the breakdown Dave Mount leaps from his kit to batter a pair of tom-toms while leaping about like a cartoon villain sneaking after the girl. No matter, it still looks like the teachers doing an end of term revue.
Frankie Valli - Fallen Angel
Robin Nash gets a mention from Noel, it being the already veteran LE producer's last show with only directing Bread, Goodnight Sweetheart and Harry Hill's Channel 4 series in his future. What he gets for his trouble is the soppiest of emotional grandstanding ballads, Johnny Pearson's orchestra on syrupy overtime. "What a sad story - tripped over her harp and over she went" Noel interjects, still working to his own agenda.
The Stylistics – Can’t Help Falling In Love
And a big hello to Ruby Flipper! Sadly none of them are sitting down. Wisely they start with just the two Pan's emigres before introducing the multi-gender collective to almost do as they please in a line. Here's Noel's full explanation: "Top Of The Pops have made a little move on the dancing front, Pan's People have sort of moved slightly stage left, stage right we've got Ruby Flipper, and you might recognise two of the faces there but five new faces and they're going to be doing various dance routines throughout the Top Of The Pops series". And that's it. Eight years of the People cast aside with no aforethought. That was, in fairness, pretty much what levity Flick Colby and Ruth Pearson gave the change too, just deciding to change the concept without even telling Bill Cotton according to Pearson. But, as we will discover over the coming months, you just weren't ready for men dancing on TOTP.
Barry Manilow – Trying To Get The Feeling
His stool is far too high, that's the first thing to note. The angle of his mike must be adjustable. It's... well, it's a Barry Manilow song, one that didn't chart at that - in fact he didn't have a top 50 single between Mandy in 1975 and Can't Smile Without You three years later. Even the album of the same title did nothing. He's really putting his all into it by the end too, slapping his hands against the keys, the arms of his white suit jacket trembling.
Robin Sarstedt - My Resistance Is Low
Nobody anywhere is giving it their all to this. With the female four-sevenths of Ruby Flipper in ballgowns behind him, one of whom is idly miming to half the female vocals, Peter's kid brother smarms for his country. The Bernard Cribbens version might be better.
Sutherland Brothers & Quiver - Arms Of Mary
"From one of my records of the week to one of my artists of the week" says Noel, neatly linking into his breakfast show. Funny, he never made a thing about his musical spotting worth usually. Iain Sutherland looks like Jack Black trying to deny his fashionable long hair is fast receding, a look the drummer has taken to its natural next stage. You can tell this is earnest folk-rock from his scrunched up facial expressions on the meaningful words. Lots of white suit jackets this week. Oh, and on bass looking exactly like the young Chris Langham that's Bruce Thomas, later to produce rather more complex lead basslines for Elvis Costello and the Attractions.
JJ Barrie - No Charge
Or, as the chart caption calls him, JJ Barry. The edit here is extraordinarily good, comparing the lyrical content of this to that of a song we haven't heard but could equally have been the one we just saw. Anyhow, this is one of the worst songs ever made and you'd better get used to it, from a man who somehow looks exactly as you'd think he would, right down to the massive collars in a pattern more often seen on grandparents' curtains. Noel overly pretends to wipe his tears away with the mike, commenting "quite amazing" as he does so. Difficult to tell if he's being sarcastic. "On his way to a monster success" he predicts, not inaccurately.
Cliff Richard - Devil Woman
And apparently Barrie's wife wrote this. Cliff actually hadn't had a top 40 single for two years until Miss You Nights in February, so this was his attempt to reconnect with AOR. It's not actually about the devil or loose women, by the way, it's about a voodoo cat or something. All that gets pushed to one side by first a shot from beneath which uncomfortably reveals which way Cliff dresses and then a glimpse of the bass player, who is sporting magnificent mutton chops and huge glasses giving him the air of a friendly tobacconist. Noel seems to take it literally and personally.
ABBA - Fernando
Number one. Thank christ! It's the one with everyone sitting around the fire again. Then Noel promises "an awful lot of good sounds" in the morning and we're out with Johnny Taylor. Someone on Twitter pointed out that for the last two links the huge flower in Noel's lapel changes colour from white to red. He's playing with us, the tinker.
EDIT NEWS: Fox! The big success story, as we always say... but it's just the week one performance again, as memorable as it was. Noel's introductory comment is worth considering: "I suppose if you call a number Single Bed then you're bound to have to get up and make it at some point". Tina Charles' Love Me Like A Lover seems to have Mr Punch on backing vocals and, to push home how much more integrated Ruby Flipper are going to be, features one of them dancing in inset while wearing yellow tartan trousers. Charles for her own part is wearing a daffodil and several plants in her lapel, which just makes it look like she got caught in a hedge just outside the green room. Noel claims two girls in the audience brought the carnation in his own suit. After a live Rolling Stones performance of much pouting and little stickability Noel commends how the charts are "full of variety and records of many different sorts of appeal making it" before being drowned out by Mac & Katie Kissoon's blaring horns. As if to deliberately disprove his point it turns out to be Studio 54 disco of a sort we've already seen a lot. Then Noel refers to a "relationship of a very different sort", and cue JJ...
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