TOTP 5/5/77 (tx 17/5/12): no show without Punch

We will get round to this in the fulness of time.

"Right, come on! You're not supposed to enjoy yourselves!" It's to be assumed Noel was making a joke, but this is at the start of a TOTP fronted by Noel Edmonds so who really knows.



Cryptic.

Bay City Rollers – It's A Game
Ah, the Rollers! Except this is the beginning of the end, down to four and this their first single not to reach the top ten. Les has gone for the open shirt look plus high waisted white jeans and a badge reading 'I CAN DO IT' but more notably there are few strands of hanging on to the tartan tradition, Eric Faulkner with a scarf, Stuart Wood his collar. Not that this matters much to the Rollerites, there's still quite a few scarves and one girl down the front completely losing it. Later, however, when the camera is right behind her she keeps turning back and checking where it is. Fearful of being found out? "Somebody wrote to me and said 'how do you measure tartan? With a Bay City ruler?' Well, close" Someone wrote to Noel, yet it still sounds like the sort of line only he would attempt.

Rod Stewart – The First Cut Is The Deepest
"Rod Stewart also wears tartan". Yes, Noel, maybe so, but not in this video clip. Rod looks uncomfortable playing an acoustic guitar, as if it's physically weighing him down, and notably there's no instrument shots for the difficult bits. That'll be why on the second chorus he suddenly swings it behind his back, as if he's making that Kenny Everett sketch flesh and playing it with the arse cheeks, before bringing it back just to turn his back on camera and then abandoning the instrument entirely regardless of the soundtrack. He then makes like he's using his vertebrae to fingerpick. "What a moody lot of romantic individuals we have here" comments Noel. The Rollers and Rod? We can't hear screaming but we're led to assume it, which is an interesting touch.

Delegation – Where Is The Love (We Used To Know)
And now, The Green Lantern - The Harmonic Soul Years.



It's not a colour that radiates serious minded greatness, is it? As if this weren't undignified enough, a badly timed closeup reveals a massive gap in the front teeth of the lead singer.

The Eagles – Hotel California
"They're touring around the UK at the moment" Noel tells us. So why aren't they on the show? Legs & Co - still Patti-free! Three weeks now - instead, and what says more about Californian decadence then dressing your dancers as matadors in fake moustaches. Well, that's one way of putting paid to the literalism accusations. Gill Rosie takes a supporting role that's meant to be lead as a Hollywood starlet type, the backdrop is a single door against clouds looking like a painting and none of it really makes much sense.

Mac & Katie Kissoon - Your Love
"You might well have heard the rumours of Mac & Katie Kissoon in split partnership riddle. Well, here's the truth - they're back together again." What? They don't seem very together to start with, Katie having to descend some stairs to join Mac. She's also been lumbered with an impractical looking Mexican-inspired dress with what seems to be a large peacock feather affixed to the front. A lot of people only seem to come over to watch right at the end.

Leo Sayer – How Much Love
The massed Leos of the VT suite strike again.

Joy Sarney – Naughty Naughty Naughty
This is true. Within the last day another clip of this has appeared on YouTube. Title: 'Punch & judy song on Top of the pops'. Description: 'What the hell is wrong with people from the past....'



The first line of the middle eight is "he's been in trouble with the law for grevious bodily harm", and it's sung like a grand soul statement. As you admire the work of the director, who refuses to let on any sight of Sarney's singing partner or his habitation until right at the end of the first chorus, just think about this for a moment. As this blog post reveals, the recorded version is different. Johnny Pearson had to find out how to play this and then run it through with his orchestra. The Punch operator, wrist blatantly in shot, had to provide live vocals. Someone had to get all those balloons pumped up. Humanity, that whole curing cancer thing can wait for another day, we've got a new performance of a song in which a session singer pretends to be a forgiving rival for Judy's affections in the face of a heavily sexed up Punch to organise. You'll notice the lack of audience shots.

Tavares – Whodunnit
The TopPop clip again, enlivened by Noel picking a fight with a girl in a flat cap behind him.

Frankie Valli – Easily
Surrounded by Rollermania girls, of whom there really are a lot, Noel informs us Valli is "doing some fabulous concerts". How important is he? He gets a walk-on. Presumably the best bits don't include this sappy piano ballad, judging by the fact that half the audience, even the two seemingly transfixed at the front are distracted by the crane camera as it swoops from round the back of a 50p shaped mini-stage we haven't seen before. Some start waving at it. You're not telling me that wouldn't distract Valli, stage veteran or not. Noel, now in front of the balloons, takes quite some time to start talking afterwards.

Andrew Gold – Lonely Boy
"Sounds like a company with Angela Rippon as managing director, doesn't it?" It's taken him this long to think of a line for Legs & Co? The oddest piece of early version editing comes here and must be for timing reasons, even though the edit comes in a good minute or so short of as long as it can run, as the earlier routine was cut but this repeat, Floyd and all, was left in.

Mr Big – Feel Like Calling Home
Noel has got a Union Jack flag ("the only thing that spoils it is it says Made In Hong Kong") and hat from somewhere. That's more intriguing than this leaden number, which the singer tries to enliven with some very odd strained falsetto singing at the start and his bandmates add some "bidibidibidi" backing vocals to at one stage.

Deniece Williams – Free
At last, a new number one! Noel, absolutely surrounded and packed in by people - well, let's be fair, girls - asks one what it will be and gets no answer. He seems to be chiding someone in response as a slow wipe takes him and his kind off the screen in favour of Williams' studio performance from two shows ago now, just before someone holding an autograph book can reach him. He's on telly, woman! "It's been great presenting Top Of The Pops from inside a lift" is Noel's line out of the action and into Sir Duke and the credits as everyone presses in on him, but not before someone clearly pokes him in the eye.

TOTP 21/4/77 (tx 3/5/12): just because a record has a groove don't make it in the groove

A side note to begin: there's no Pops next week - don't know if The Sky At Night is moving any time soon but this month's is a special to mark 55 years on the air so give them some leeway for now - but as part of their 1970s series BBC2 is getting in on the act by showing this one at 10pm on the 12th May. Surely there's better choices? And not just for Gary Glitter's presence, much as that'll get the duty log going.

And then, on the 17th... two TOTPs in one night! Christ alive, I'm already dreading how I'm going to work out that week. 7.30 and 8.30, since you ask, with the long promised Tales From Television Centre documentary at 9 and a 1974 Blue Peter featuring a tour of the same building at 8, and the unedited Pops will be shown back to back from 11.20.

Back to forty minute originals this week, so let's try a new way of doing things - if possible (as, for example, not this week) I'll have the Thursday evening recap up later the same night, then some time on Friday the songs edited out will be included.

Oh, Tony Blackburn. With your Lego man hair and your cream polo neck and your lack of jokes now Diddy's off the roster.

Eddie & The Hot Rods – I Might Be Lying
PUNK! Well, no it isn't, it's not even as punk-like as their previous appearance with Get Out Of Denver, it's just not-as-good-as-Dr Feelgood-style pumped up rhythm and blues pub rock. Barrie Masters is certainly aware of what's going on with his stance and microphone attack mode, forward and back across the stage with an artfully bare chest and with the camera following his every step eagerly from almost underneath, but somehow it's not quite right. Maybe it's because it always looks like he's about to break out into a great big smirk. Both guitarists and the becapped bassist are in shades, one of the former pulling plenty of rock action moves unbecoming to his Graham Parker-in-leather-jacket appearance. Not for the last time tonight the audience couldn't be less interested. Three girls right by the front of the stage are watching the overhead monitor. Another is not only looking away from it but also chewing gum nonchalantly. Put some ripped leathers on her and she'd make the lead in a bad comedy sketch about punk, I suppose.

O.C. Smith – Together
"This used to be one of my records of the week". Oh, Tony, everything's your record of the week. He even mentions it again afterwards, he's so proud of its status. It's a long way from the Soul Train clip of two weeks ago to Elstree, but in his neat all-blue ensemble incorporating waistcoat Smith still exudes a kind of glazed sophistication against the very vague efforts of the orchestra, showmanship limited to some finger clicking. In the background various Hot Rods briefly appear to tidy up after themselves.

Stevie Wonder – Sir Duke
Cameraman and director in perfect misdirection harmony.



Pauline and the others (bar Patti - well, she needed time off after what Floyd put her through last week) are in very shiny and reflective silver dresses with something similar on top of their heads and they're going right through their training, bits of celebrated dance styles mixed in with the usual exertions somehow to balance with Stevie's appreciation shout-outs. Plus, for that extra ingredient, audible handclaps. As long as they weren't dubbed on in post-production, that's all that matters. And the audience respond in kind with... well, no, they don't respond in the slightest. Hardly a twitch, even though Pops seems to have built them three ringside grandstands to sit in and still have to have some standing around at the sides. Never a good idea, putting the audience in the background, you can then see how easily distracted they get. In one close-up only Tony, absent mindedly tapping the mike against his other wrist, is showing any sign of life.

Berni Flint – I Don't Want To Put A Hold On You (edited from 7.30)
Can't work out if this is a repeat or not. There are after all a limited number of things a director can do with one seated man and his acoustic guitar picking.

Tavares – Whodunnit
"I hate to brag but this was another of my records of the week". How many does he get a week? It's a clip from Holland's Top Pop, possibly chosen for the name alone, and a show that clearly holds no truck with the art of miming as only the lead singer is given a microphone even though backing vocals and harmonies are scattered throughout. Their matching crimson outfits with elaborate collars are quite the thing, along with the standard issue soul wing shirt collars. The shirts are pink. Pink!

Lynsey De Paul & Mike Moran – Rock Bottom
Lynsey's special 'ROCK BOTTOM' paper didn't arrive that morning, nothing amuses her and this time nobody can be bothered with flags (or reactions) around them, but otherwise it's pretty much the same facing pianos arrangement as last time. They didn't even play it like that on the night, which was still more than two weeks away at this time due to strike-related postponement. The early version features a tremendously clumsy mid-song edit.

Leo Sayer – How Much Love
Well, this is decidedly odd. A video (here it is) directed by the man behind the Bohemian Rhapsody video (and has directed every live American Idol), it's essentially built around up to four Leos dancing and essentially messing about while singing, filmed individually and often in silhouette, looking like a cross between Once In A Lifetime and the credits sequence of Bottom.

Delegation – Where Is The Love (We Used To Know)
With Tony keen to state they're from Birmingham, so we run into 1977's Sheer Elegance, only with toned down wardrobes, if that's how you'd describe all-in-ones with zips right up the front in Wolverhampton Wanderers colours. All things are relative, after all, and you definitely wouldn't run them over. As far as the song goes it's pretty much the same as every other male vocal harmony soul outfit, their USPs seemingly being a) the Charlie Williams-a-gram lead singer pitching the mike at an angle where he constantly has to tilt his head upwards, and b) the chain of male pattern baldness from left to right - curly perm, shaved short, actually receded to the sides. "They now go back to Germany" Tony enthuses.

Elkie Brooks – Pearl's A Singer
Repeat from her second appearance. The pianist is quite Lennonish, isn't he?

David Dundas – Another Funny Honeymoon (edited from 7.30)
"At last David Dundas has given us another hit single!" I can't imagine that was an oft heard exultation at the time. Better arrangement - no chicken guitar, less In The Summertime stealing - and an unobtrusive white suit but ultimately a lack of charisma does for him no matter how much he tries to make unbecoming doe eyes at the camera. Someone right near the front in a huge floppy hat nods along while looking away from the stage. He's not that bad. "A nice happy-go-lucky one for the summer, I'd have said" is Tony's only half listening interpretation.

Dead End Kids – Have I The Right (edited from 7.30)
The multi-stage production from last time around.

Deniece Williams – Free
As with OC Smith she was performing this on clips imported from Soul Train two shows ago. Impractical as it sounds, it'd be nice to think there was some exchange program going on and that same week Showaddywaddy and Dead End Kids were confusing the cool kids of LA. What is definite is even for the time those are the greatest width of bell bottom we've seen, and in another all-in-one to boot. Turquoise, too. Great live vocal, hamfisted interpretation, and only what looks like a portable set of steps for her to sing on, Delegation obviously far more important to properly locate than an American boasting the country's number four single. The camera crane ends up behind her so we can see the orchestra in the middle distance and in between a sea of blank faces. Johnny Pearson, it transpires, is miles away, behind part of the camera run. Maybe that was the problem.

ABBA – Knowing Me Knowing You
With the minimum of fuss it's a third week atop for that video, then someone behind Tony adds their own "bye!" just after he says it, then Peter Gabriel's Solsbury Hill and we're out.

TOTP 17/2/77 (tx 23/2/12): after the spike

Hello, everyone following the Guardian mention/online link about to become quite confused. You want the next post down.

Ruby Flipper update! Now there's a factual concept that hasn't been exerted in thirty five and a half years. A newspaper clipping of their rejection has been unearthed dated 19th August 1976, the date of broadcast of their face-making meisterwork Let 'Em In and also, adding mystery to that previous side issue, the last week of Cherry's still unexplained break. Three and a half months it seems to have taken for the BBC to decide they were wrong. The BBC spokesman - offical quotes! - claimed viewers were missing the all-girl nature of the dancing, which maybe gives away quite something about their actual purpose by this stage.

And as we've brought up Signora Gillespie, something else I've stumbled across since we all last met in this place is her perhaps sole piece of choreography work, Enya's Caribbean Blue video from 1991. This is known because there's an lengthy making of the video feature (part two) to which she contributes, still with the Rapunzel-esque tresses of her heyday but with the crucial addition of a bumbag. Also, though it's not mentioned, one of the nymph-like figures in the video is a young Martine McCutcheon.

"Don't panic, you've got the right channel" asserts Paul Burnett. Not one of Radio 1's great and legendary figures, Burnett, despite being in charge of the Tuesday afternoon chart reveal and being DLT's sideman on Convoy UK. It's this intro that was used at the start of the Big Hits 1977 compilation, odd given it's his only appearance of the year - he seemed to be doing one Pops a year at this stage - and he's not a figure any casual viewer would ever connect with the programme's storied past.

Is that another new angle of the Rose Royce Cortina?

Suzi Quatro – Tear Me Apart
We're seeing a lot at the moment of what the glam stars did next once Chinn and Chapman had stepped aside - Slade, the Rubettes, Gary Glitter, Mud last year. Suzi of course was pretty much doing this stuff from the off (and this actually is a late period Chinnichap), but her swapping of leather for fringed jacket-cum-catsuit - the angles never make it entirely clear - while the rest of her band donned the black biker accroutement of her heyday perhaps just to tease us, demonstrated how she'd now willingly let her country side eke out. Yeah, another one. Having started with an alarmingly wayward note she never quite finds her new range but can still play a bass the size size as her, and her showmanship credentials are renewed quite apart from her looks deep into the lens and vigorous upper body shaking - that is when she's on camera at all, the director fascinated by closeups of the guitar - as she spends most of the break with her foot up on the piano. It's a wonder she isn't trying to play it with the heel. If it's a muted instrument, perhaps she was. Less than lucidly, Paul calls it "a new chart contender". Yeah, we'd assumed that already.

The Moments – Jack In The Box
Just because, Paul refers to this as "a Tony Blackburn record of the week... and it made the charts". No, surely it's Noel's selections that tend to stiff. It's matching powder blue suits all round it transpires as well as doing virtually all the singing Harry Ray is the only one into the art of movement to. At one point he nearly goes for a spin on the spot and gets halfway before thinking better of it. At another there's some impromptu knee bending. The director, confused, zooms in on the back of his head. Bunched up uncomfortably in the middle of the stage, Ray's bandmates strive to look interested.

The Brothers – Sing Me
There's a very awkward moment when the camera lingers on Paul while pulling away towards the stage as he gathers up the mike cord, looks downwards while grinning and looking mildly embarrassed as if in realisation that, given a national telly platform on the nation's pop conversation hotspot, "it's always exciting to see a new band in the charts" really was the best he could come up with on the hoof. Brown suits and very wide open lapels on yellow shirts are the dresscode this time. There's now a hand gesture developed for 'paper kite' and a tug on the cord for 'pull my string', so the time in the spotlight is teaching them tricks of stagecraft alright. At the back of the audience a woman wears a red hat with a remarkably broad brim. You know that 'Barry Manilow from above' cartoon gag? It must be like that.

Boz Scaggs – What Can I Say
"A fabulous thing" Paul labels it. Doesn't bother with the title, though. It's the overmanned video clip again. And they left it in the edit ahead of a song that isn't on again.

Thelma Houston – Don’t Leave Me This Way
Again Paul doesn't name the song, but he does stress that "we're very fortunate" to have her here as she has to go back to the US straight afterwards. Judging by her outfit - scarf around neck, functional white dress, notable lack of item (YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN) - she'd done most of the packing before arriving at the studio. The orchestra for their part sound like they're merely on holiday, leaving the little regarded on record Hammond organ player to do the heavy lifting. The funky bassline is apparently being played by osmosis. At least Thelma's giving it plenty, staring out the front row, shimmying, adlibbing and a huge note to near enough close. People are clearly impressed. Well, some are, a good swathe of the crowd not even waiting for the full fade out before racing across for the earthier delights of...

The Rubettes – Baby I Know
With Tony Thorpe singing, not Alan Williams, you're right. Chiefly of interest this time is bassist Mick Clarke, who is giving it one last go on his own in resuscitating the white flat cloth cap from their heyday. Is he intending to stand out further? Given how unrepossessing his colleagues look it doesn't take much.

Mr Big – Romeo
The mildly disturbing wild card from the last show has a video every bit as quixotic. One of the singers is only wearing an open leather jacket on his top half, which given they're serious minded AOR makes it all the more alarming he's liberally slathered himself in baby oil. The other one has a camera angle that exclusively films right up his nose. Loads of dry ice and backlighting and no small amount of visual tricks, one a kaleidoscopic Bohemian Rhapsody nod, Mr Big having toured with Queen.

Tavares – The Mighty Power Of Love
Legs & Co are in the studio with an audience, which seems rare these days. It's a 'see what's around' week, everyone in a different coloured leotard, a differently wrapped beige scarf and, for flavour, a tambourine, shaken and tapped against the other wrist vigorously throughout to reflect the instrument's position high in the mix on the record. Wouldn't that make a hell of a noise in the studio? Can you get tambourine deadeners? (Don't answer that) Maybe that's why the crowd aren't all that enthusiastic compared to earlier, though something clearly happens to Patti up front as she puts her right leg out in accordance with the choreography, makes a surprised face and glances down at where her foot was. "A beautiful performance", apparently.

Leo Sayer – When I Need You
Very hesitant, Paul. And this man read out the chart rundown. Not a man always given to dynamism, Leo, as he stands stock still at the mike in what appears to be an ice hockey jersey, hands actually in his pockets for a good two and a half minutes. Look lively, Leo, much as the song may not demand it and all the director can come up with is multiple panning shots. Perhaps knowing we need something for the big finish, the Earth Wind & Fire outro seems to be focusing on the audience without telling them. Some leave, some stand around chatting, a large camera is dragged into shot for no good reason and with only a couple of exceptions everywhere is a tableau of awkwardness and knitwear.


EDIT NEWS: A song we'll see again but not in this version, Manhattan Transfer's Chanson D’Amour given the Legs & Co treatment, worth a look not for Burnett's comedy French accent but the leg work and the country thematic costumes with a hint of Where's Wally - on the occasions Ruby Flipper had two routines a show one would almost always be lost, but they decided the other was superior? - and a song we won't see again, Les Gray's unbecoming solo cover of Groovy Kind Of Love in a white jacket producing a rose out of seeming thin air at the end. He makes about as convincing a loving balladeer as Danny Dyer would.

TOTP 4/11/76 (tx 24/11/11): we've had lots of letters

Fourth last retained show before Christmas, but it looks like Noel has been a little ahead of schedule by surrounding himself with big sacks. Oh, no, it's the other possible gag: "tonight's programme is dedicated to everyone who wanted me to get the sack".

Steve Miller, who we'll see later, gets a cutout that doesn't work in two dimensions, pointing the guitar head right at camera as he is. It's almost as alarming as the Pipe Smoker Of The Year Lalo Schifrin.

Showaddywaddy – Under The Moon Of Love
Since we last saw the 'waddy, in the real world singer Dave Bartram has retired and secondary frontman Buddy Gask has died, so consider this a tribute. The canned applause at the end of the countdown completely masks Romeo Challenger's big kettle drum intro, surely revival rockabilly's most exciting moment that doesn't involve Den Hegarty. There's a big concept to this one as it's been recorded twice, once in white suits, once in black suits, the former the default but with clips of the latter being cut in gradually more often. It's a neat method of confusion, not that a stage full of faux-Teds in Daz-sparkling suits really needs more visual gimmickery to stand out. Bartram makes an appealing frontman, lots of side looks to camera and for the bridge getting down on his knees on the lip of the stage so as to greater appeal to the girls who it turned out rarely returned the compliment in awestruckness terms, but they'd got to find something for the two auxiliary members to do other than BVs, handclaps and turning in circles. Everyone, after all, is already doing that step-forward-step-back thing. Lots of tipping of the shot to the side too, which we haven't seen since Dancing With The Captain, appropriately given in conjunction with the band's perpetual motion it threatens seasickness. Eventually Bartram sits on the front of the stage and then does so in black too, which spoils the impression of in-the-moment improvisation. As a crowning coda Challenger gives the timpani one last double whack after the playback has finished. That natural reverb goes a long way.

The Manhattans – Hurt
"The sound in the chart with the big deep voice at the beginning - no, not Lena Zavaroni!" Girls behind Noel actually laugh. One falls off a small ledge in mirth. He's found his level at last. Just nobody mention that Zavaroni was going to have had all the chart success she'd have by mid-1974. This video in all its overhead spotlit, dragging nature was on back in October. It feels longer, actually.

Steve Miller Band – Rock 'N' Me
Those sacks? They seem to contain a lot of letters of potential names for what Noel pointedly refers to as "our new all lady dancing group". In fact "you've ruined it, totally ruined it" - us, Noel? The problem is at your end, surely, if you can't find time to read and weight up all the suggestions. Leaving the announcement to "DLT next week" - yeah, about that... - he instead bids "see you next week for that announcement", which seems undue of him. For their third week of nameless wondering the girls are lost in a fog of dry ice amid a song that (knowingly) rips off the intro to All Right Now. Some patented strutting, shimmying and smiling follows in tops and skirts of a variety of lengths and glitteriness. Gill and Pauline get to do some backwards back arching work but in truth it all looks a bit of a mess of routines. Now, I got this wrong last week, but getting a bit of a solo at the end as everyone else retreats mysteriously into the gloaming... that is Patti, isn't it?

The Who – Substitute
This is fascinating for all sorts of reasons. Firstly, Noel is correct in saying the live footage shown is from their gig at Charlton Athletic's The Valley, but it's the show from 1974 rather than that from May 1976 that set a longstanding record for the world's loudest gig (and from which this marvellous piece of Moon/Townshend exchanging of views comes). In fairness Noel doesn't give a year so maybe he'd hoped nobody would look it up. Secondly, what's it doing back in the charts anyway? To promote The Story Of The Who, in fact, and perhaps latch onto that aforementioned gig. Thirdly, it doesn't seem the clip is that well circulated. Even to a BBC considerably better off than it is now when it's reduced to putting 35 year old stupid pop show repeats on its arts and learning channel, how much must it have cost to clear?

Bonnie Tyler – Lost In France
Noel's keen to mention Bonnie is from South Wales; I'm keen to mention that the hexagon backdrop has been redesigned so it looks even more Holnessised to our modern eyes. Can't work out if the lights coming back from its surface are CSO or reflections. Bonnie's enjoying herself alone on stage , which is far more that her audience are visibly doing. Noel, even by his own standards, is stretching things: "She obviously went Toulon, went to Rouen, Paris the thought". Nobody laughs at that.

Tavares – Don't Take Away The Music
The glittery bolero/matador jackets and even more dry ice than Legs & Co got are back.

Climax Blues Band – Couldn't Get It Right
Noel lets on that he'd only just found out that they're British, though in fairness otherwise would be your first impression. He then calls the song Couldn't Get It Wrong, because he's a wit. It's a new performance, as shown by the singer's heavy five o'clock shadow and a new band logo sign right behind the drummer's head. The letters flicker with lights! Though that may be visual editor majick, actually, as shown when the cardboard star for some reason attached to the bass changes shade. A group of kids near the back shuffle self-consciously in an attempt to look hip, grin and then just turn round and watch the monitor instead. At the end one of them, and someone else across the other side of the crowd, wave at the crane camera. Yes, we can see you.

Before we get to number one, Noel has guests of some standing joining him by those kettle drums. Terry Kath, Peter Cetera and Danny Seraphine of Chicago, in fact, whom Noel soft soaps by going on about how their number two sound should be number one. Behind his back Peter is doing lots of pointing that he imagines is self-effacing. Noel's interview technique makes Jools Holland seem like David Frost, starting with asking the wrong person what inspired the song ("experience") and then failing to get anything of note out of anyone. Noel consciously mentions jet lag. Not sure that's the half of it.

Pussycat – Mississippi
It's right at the end of their little chat that the real gold comes as the music starts, maybe out of producer blind panic, and we get the sight of Kath, a large man, starts dancing. I say 'dancing', he kind of bends at the knee while air guitaring and making an appropriate face, one part meaningful to at least four parts downright mocking. The director cops out and cuts to a close-up of Noel's face lest the moment of a fourth week at number one (for a song placename "nowhere near Chicago") be spoilt by his full move set. God knows it would have been far more entertaining than that video again.

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.