TOTP 3/11/77 (tx 22/11/12): Peter's out

Well, if nothing else it's already lasted much longer than the last time the BBC tried a Doctor Who repeat run. For the second week running we have to start with bad tidings, this time not legally but broadcasterly. At the weekend a researcher for the programme let on via Twitter that the 1978 documentary and thus repeat run was going ahead, yet just yesterday at a press launch BBC4 controller Richard Klein said he hadn't decided whether it would continue.

Now, public indecision is not a blanket rejection per se and the quotes do smack a little of someone who wasn't expecting to be asked - and let's be fair, scheduling a repeat run is less about budgets, studios and suchlike then it is ordering some tapes from the BBC Worldwide library - but clearly that's not what we want to hear. Klein also mentioned declining viewer figures, which is kind of borne out and in such not due to recent events. Discounting the Kenny Everett night TOTP has been in BBC4's weekly ratings top ten once between mid-April and the last published figures, compared to thirteen times in the same span in 2011, and has topped 400,000 viewers three times in 2012 (the last that mid-April show, the one recovered from Diddy's collection as it goes) as opposed to eight last year. 1977 hasn't really had any different scheduling or any less wide advertising than 1976 had, and this for I think I'm right in saying the only all year round regular programming the station has. I know some argue people will flock back for 1978 because of the music but that's rot - 1977, for its associations with punk and disco, is regarded as one of pop music's banner years, whereas 1978 is Grease and Boney M in similar strata of popular culture. We shall have to wait and see, and then perhaps think of something else to do here next year.

Mind you, never mind BBC4's treatment of the show in 2013, it's BBC4's treatment in late 2012 that's looking precarious. With The Sky At Night confirmed for the 7th and just the one show for the week after, the as yet unpublished schedules for the week before and the two weeks around the festive season mean three* normal TOTPs will have to be fitted in between 16th December and whenever the Christmas shows are scheduled for, which last year was the 20th and 22nd. It's as if someone lost count. Or doesn't care that much, obviously.

(* One of which is hosted by Dave Lee Travis, but I haven't heard anything about whether all his programmes have been pulled for the time being or if last week was a one-off, but his job on Magic AM has been dropped until enquiries are completed)

Still, I'm pretty sure we're here for the rest of 2012 at least, so we must press on, sword of Damocles overhead as it may be.

So what do you think of when you hear of Peter Powell? Shape Up And Dance? Anthea Turner? Five 45s At 5.45? Being director of the management company that act as agents to several ITV prime-time's worth of talent? The Record Race? This? (Not the kites, that was another Peter Powell) Whatever, he'd almost literally just joined Radio 1 (bar three months in 1972) and was reputedly so excited at the prospect of hosting the show of shows he lost his voice minutes before recording. The excitement, it's fair to say, shows, even though all he has to say is hello and welcome. Positively bursting at the seams, he is, and that's not the half of it. And he's wearing a Radio 1 T-shirt tucked snugly into his jeans. The exciting new youthful face of radio, there. ELO's Turn To Stone over the charts.

The Jam – The Modern World
Rickenbacker on high alert, and one going on close-ups with an unreadable address on an affixed label and 'I AM NOBODY' written in Tipp-Ex or similar on its body. This is the sort of performance that could, and for all the show lets on might have been, recorded last time the trio were in, so used are we already to the suits and the stances, though Rick Buckler does chance a grin at the camera looking up at him. Bar the full upper body movement of a chap in a flat cap and the similar motions of a friend who joins him halfway through, perhaps that being the designated punk appreciation side of the stage, it's not convincing too many down the front to move wholeheartedly no matter how much Weller gurns in anguish at society and stuff. Those two, and this man...



He jumps in the air.

HE JUMPS IN THE AIR.

And whoops. "Woo! Hey! Wild stuff from the Jam" indeed.

The Carpenters – Calling Occupants Of Interplanetary Craft
And just to top off this opening link of opening links: "let's just think about those occupants of interplanetary craft, shall we?" Richard and Karen on video in front of shots of the milky way.

The Barron Knights – Live In Trouble
The Barron Knights! THE BARRON KNIGHTS! The group the Grumbleweeds could have been! Stop the rerun now, BBC4, the apex has been reached. "A bigger bunch of loonies you're never likely to meet" is Peter's somewhat overheated introduction, so much so he then goes and gets the title wrong. Live It Up indeed. What were they, Mental As Anything? This is the song with the celebrated reworking of Angelo, chip shop in Walthamstow and all that, in the middle, so obviously that's the bit of the song the producer made them cut for time reasons. Red satin jackets and ruffled shirts are the order of the day and if they look direct from their cabaret act that's because they probably were. Just before he starts singing... the singer does a leap in the air and air guitar. One of the Barron Knights taking the piss out of Paul Weller. Oh, those were the days of levelled impetuousness. The kids of 1977 are either stony faced or seem to enjoy the You Make Me Feel Like Dancing section, especially when... the singer unveils his comedy pinging braces. That just leaves the Float On section, which it's fair to say has not wethered the changes in moral attitudes well, rare as it is to see a man corpse at the weight of his own comedy Irish accent. Towards the end one of them does a spin on the spot. "Can you spin like that?" Powell enquires of a lady in a very thick pink cashmere sweater. She obliges. Powell does likewise, in the counter direction. I, watching this in the future, have no idea what future anyone saw in this. So wrapped up is Powell in this idea introducing the next song is an afterthought.

Queen – We Are The Champions
The live video clip wherein to a crowd of scarf wavers Freddie dons the black and white catsuit of fate. "Best thing since Bohemian Rhapsody" Powell avers afterwards. What, out of absolutely everything?

Dorothy Moore – I Believe You
"And now, a little bit of beauty" says Powell in voiceover in the tone of a Radio 3 announcer, a very grandiloquent way of introducing Legs & Co. Entering through some McDonalds hoops, Flick clearly had some spare bathroom curtain material she wanted to get rid of and got it fashioned into six green and yellow dresses, matched to leggins. It's a neatly worked out routine, the girls positioning themselves between the hoops and dancing around and between them, but given I think we've even seen those props before it looks like they made it for 80p.

Status Quo – Rockin' All Over The World
I cannot make out what Powell says before introducing this performance video - "well, wolvey guy?" is my best go - maybe because he can't wait to get the title out before chatting a bystander up. "Hello blue eyes." "Hi!" "Hi hi! Let's get down to this one. Yeah!" Afterwards he delivers a succinct summary: "Status Quo, you know?"

David Bowie – Heroes
My, is he keen to be here. Powell, not (openly) Bowie. "We're rocking on the very best show on television. This is the biggest party in the whole lar." Well, that's what it sounds like. It's not 'world', it's not 'lot', it's not 'bar', again it's not anything distinct. Peter, you're a radio DJ with years of experience. You're supposed to be a clear, enunciating vocal presence. No wonder Sweater Girl back by his side keeps looking at him with some trepidation. As for Bowie, a repeat the original of which we didn't see, the guitarist is clearly no Robert Fripp in style or effects and the drummer is on begrudging session time (though apparently Tony Visconti popped in to play bass) but Bowie is his charismatic self singing live and committed in a shirt with big floppy cuffs. And yes, he's actually there in his pomp and glory, with a crowd, recorded on a proper studio recording night. Now what's your excuse, Mercury? Although having said that Bowie didn't return to Pops until 1995.

Showaddywaddy – Dancin' Party
And to prove the yin and yang of TOTP is in full effect, keeping us all on our critical toes and all that... this is a repeat to everyone but us as well. A cover that still sounds like a ripoff of Runaround Sue, it starts with everyone bar the drummer huddled over Dave Bartram as he launches a call and response, the latter filmed from the crane camera overhead. So was that all in one take or is some of their famed visual perception trickery in evidence again? All in red suits and black shirts Bartram then takes an immediate step into the crowd as two groups of two behind launch into involved routines, including an awkward chorus line. Before we can consider the likely casualty rate from a TOTP camera and its man following Bartram around an audience given their usual GTA-style success with the trolley our man has spotted two people in massive tinfoil top hats like Isembard Kingdom Brunel misunderstanding Noddy Holder and has purloined one for himself. Stolen off the head, in fact, before delving deeper to find its mate, a couple of others following and finding women to dance with as they go, and whomsoever possesses the twin hat shall be joined forever in matrimony, possibly. The hat has written on one side 'HELLO MUM', this being the 70s when that was nearly original, and on the other 'VOTE FONZIE'. Viral Happy Days advertising/vote rigging? On the BBC? Questions must be asked. Powell challenges those given around him to name one each of their other hits. Interactive in this brand new era too.

ABBA – The Name Of The Game
Back to their glares, their anguished soft singing, their dinner table and their Fla. Powell wishes the best "from all of us here to all of you back home" and because the show can't go a week without them, Smokie play out over a weird graphical effect of wavy coloured concentric circles which is never going to overtake the kaleidoscope of studio lights in the nation's affections, I'll tell them that right now. Were this 1977 you'd be about to see the first Citizen Smith. Were this 1977 and you Peter Powell you'd probably be going for quite the lie down with a cool flannel in a darkened room.

TOTP 18/8/77 (tx 20/9/12): sunshine, nights and the stars

Firstly, that short T.Rex clip posted last week? The whole thing has now surfaced. There's a second keyboard player doing Gloria Jones' supposed parts! Swizz!

Clipped straightforward DLT, Stranglers' Something Better Change under the rundown, the Fleetwood Mac slide moved so we can see Mick's face.

The Dooleys – Think I'm Gonna Fall In Love With You
A band who'd become semi-regulars in the coming years, not actually on their debut - that was on the wiped show a fortnight previously - but dressed for their big break, Jim Dooley in the requisite half-open shirt and medallion unnecessarily tightened around his thorax, one sister in a cocktail bar evening dress, the other pushing the boat out in velvet full-length skirt and open jacket with tube top. She's not shy about casually pushing the side of the jacket aside to show her full worth either. At least all this preparation is something when allied to a form of disco that started out showband weak and is now fed through the orchestral mangle.

The Floaters – Float On
 
No, hang on, that's not it. "I've got some loonies up here" DLT remarks, which is two-faced of him given they're women and thus he doubtless chose them to join him. One seems to be rivalling Dooley Left in the cold studio stakes. (This is beginning to seem unseemly already, isn't it? I do apologise) The Jonathan Cainers of smooth soul are on tape, having like half the other smooth soul troupes we've seen fallen for the popularity of powder blue suits, bow ties and ruffled shirts in mid-70s Detroit. Maybe someone had a knock-off job lot going.

Elkie Brooks – Sunshine After The Rain
"A lot of people were really, really pleased" by her hit, apparently. Shooting her from underneath is an unkind way to repay the compliment, though, BBC. Curiously the theme for the week is overalls, red one-piece with zip and brooch that looks a lot like that worn by Mr Dooley for Elkie, pristine white for her band, including a drummer with a bravura perm. A four way mirrored shot attempts to add the visual element that costumes and plants used to provide, but the main note to take away is one horrid line of off-key harmony twixt Brooks and Ladybirds, who you may recall used to be her friends. Still, when it lifts at the end the audience seem keen, including one young chap literally spinning into the middle of the crowd shot. As the camera slowly pans back, DLT is miming along to the last words. I hope he wasn't doing that for effect as thinking he sings along with everything would explain a lot.

Mink De Ville – Spanish Stroll
"Brother Johnny, he caught a plane and he got on it". Yeah, we'd kind of been led to assume that. Faux-live clip, which reveals the backing vocalists to all be men. DLT bemoans "all that foreign lingo".

Carly Simon – Nobody Does It Better
Go on, guess how DLT linked into Legs & Co using the song title as leverage. No sitting down this week, and Flick must have had words as everyone's gone all out on their behalf. The stage has various levels and steps to work around. The set has funny round things hung all around like the curtain between the kitchen and counter in a cheap kebab house. The costumes use flesh-coloured materials and glitter to give a barely-there look, coupled with slit full length skirts, long gloves and a variety of cummerbunds. The routine veers from elegant solo spots to bits where everyone seems to just be doing their own sets of crouches and spins, which if you look closely are actually in pattern but on simultaneous viewing look a bit of a mess. They also have those eyemasks-on-sticks things that probably have a proper name, but only Gill seems to use hers for their proper purpose at one moment, as opposed to wafting them about like a rhythmic gymnastic implement.

Danny Williams – Dancin' Easy 
One of the girls now with DLT has 'Midge' picked out in glitter on her T-shirt. You can tell the Slik kids a mile away. Taking "the anchor position", as DLT renames number 30, Danny's gone for the suave white suit this time. Half the audience join him two lines in, as if all suddenly realising it's that one from that advert simultaneously, and begin bopping on the spot immediately. In the background Legs & Co can be seen leaving their set to put coats on before they catch their deaths. Given two options of where to look, a good proportion of the audience chooses the third and stares at the overhead monitors. A man in a suit stands side of stage impassively throughout, watching the kids more than the singer. Security? Really? A red shirted friend joins him later on, ready to leap onto the stage right at the end, and tries to barge past an audience member despite surely not heading anywhere. Williams and his brown wing collars continues effervescently on regardless.

The Rah Band – The Crunch
Again. According to someone on Twitter the subtitles read 'STOMPIN' RHYTHM & BLUES PLAYED ON AN ELECTRIC KEYBOARD'. DLT claims he can get bin liners cheap. I bet he can.

Candi Staton – Nights On Broadway
A triumph of Flick-esque literalism in video making as Candi in an ambitious pink trouser suit sings from Broadway. At night. "I'm standing in the dark" she sings under film lighting. Then she sits on the bonnet of a Cadillac. Hope she asked first.

The Jam – All Around The World
Like Danny Williams, the Jam's set is flanked by a huge spiral of red lightbulbs, which they must be proud of as it keeps prominently appearing in a suspiciously large number of side-on shots. Unlike Danny Williams, Weller is wearing shades. If Williams had been given enough weeks, though... Midge Girl is standing right front and centre, angry young men proselytizing youth explosions right beside her, and she's standing side on chatting to someone. This happened last time the Jam were on. Were these really the salad days of punk's life if the youth are not only feigning ignorance but doing it so pointedly?

Elvis Presley – Loving You
Or so it says here, Elvis having died two days previously. It seems to have been cut for rights reasons - it was a clip from the film of the same name and the Presley estate are a lot more hard on that sort of thing being rebroadcast these days, especially as the Beeb don't hold the UK broadcast rights. When a run of Elvis reissues reached number one in 2005 the show was banned from broadcasting any actual footage of him.

Brotherhood Of Man – Angelo 
After an age, it finally makes it to the top. Despite this, for once they're not available to come in. Space's synth odyssey Magic Fly sees us out.

TOTP 21/7/77 (tx 22/8/12): everything changes

Last time we were gathered here there was a national sensation lurking. This (thanks to jamesonedin from Popscene) is a scan of a page from The Sex Pistols File by Ray Stevenson, published first in 1978, then in 1982, a scrapbook of a great deal written about the band at the time, the centrepiece of which is a mock-lurid telling of the night's events from Sounds magazine's Giovanni Dadomo, who also wrote for ZigZag and The Face, co-wrote a Damned single and fronted cult punks The Snivelling Shits.

The proper big TOTP news from the week is the appearance of one of the great holy grails of 60s British music - Pink Floyd, Syd inclusive, playback-performing See Emily Play on the Pops broadcast 6th July 1967 (if it's too ragged for you, a homemade remastering has been done) The footage has been known to exist initially in private hands - an unknown rock star's collection, it's said - for three years or so and was shown at Kaleidoscope in January 2010 but this is the first time it's slipped into the public domain.

And so to 1977, where the leonine face of DLT greets us and throws to... a song?

John Miles – Slow Down
Yes, now there's a hit to kick things off rather than the rundown. This changearound lasted one week. Shame, as John came in especially. This week's little things: the bassist wearing a tie with an open shirt, Miles' vocal adlibs being adhered to in miming but unfortunately well off mike, and Miles shutting his eyes as tight as David Parton did when a-talkboxing. Four people rush towards the throng just in time for the track's end, and as the camera pulls away we find DLT in full air guitar mode with the mike cord. "He-hey! Is that magic?" is his ungrammatic question. It's left to him to explain what's happened to the rundown, which he does via a completely wrong rendition of the opening riff that sounds more like the end of the Countdown clock timer, followed by the top 30 plus Tavares. Yes, for the next few years Top Of The Pops had no regular theme tune, just another chart hit jemmied in to accompany all the latest action shots:





Bay City Rollers – You Made Me Believe In Magic
And while we're on the changing of the ways, the Rollers final fling, both in the chart and on TOTP. Neither DLT nor the girls surrounding him, one arm in arm with him, another clearly trying to plant their palm on his bum, two clearly mothers with brilliantly northern stereotypical nan perms and bottle-bottom glasses, can truly summon up the excitement over it. There's not a stitch of tartan anywhere on the stage either, as if to show this is the new, mildly funky Rollers, not the ones you like. It's all looking very grown up until the camera gets to Eric Faulkner, who's chosen a leather jacket, rugby shorts and knee-high hooped socks. Nobody mixes styles that much and hopes to get away with it. There's a weird little tableau off to one side of the front of the stage too, where a man who looks like a burly policeman is looking disconsolately at the floor as everyone else does the side to side shuffle, a similarly catatonic if more attentive girl by both sides. Maybe they heard about the last bassist too.

Brotherhood Of Man – Angelo
"Here's a song that's going to do well in the charts, definitely". It's already number five! What more does DLT want? Repeat, anyway.

The Jam – All Around The World
Ah, this'll be a youth explosion, then. Well, maybe outside. Apart from less jumping around this time, either from Weller, Foxton or two blokes at the back, it's pretty similar to their debut showing, as committed young men in suits play power chords to a largely clueless crowd, still moving around just as they had five minutes earlier. Introducing the ways and means of TOTP directing to the new breed, Foxton's interjections in the middle are matched to a tight close-up of Weller. But there is a difference, as while there are a gaggle of people looking bored at the front stage left they're singing along, one directing it at his friend. He could look at the blokes right in front of him if he's that committed, surely.

Alessi – Oh Lori
"Some people from Ireland, say hello!" DLT's next line, or more precisely the bad accent it's delivered in, is sadly inevitable. Weeks after they participated in an awkward chat the brothers get to perform, and Bobby Alessi gets to show off his little bicycle-riding mime. We've kind of already seen the pair of them performing, albeit on video with one mike and a camera stuck on close-up, and pans, the sight of Bobby giving Billy unreciprocated matey looks and a small audience don't add much to the experience. That doesn't excuse the pair visible at the back of the stage having a chat.

Barry Biggs – Three Ring Circus
"In the same sort of vein", according to DLT. Barry's left his ringmaster gear and his mysterious sidekick at home this time, instead sitting down swaying, thinking that now just the song will do. Given the distance he misses the first note by, this isn't the case.

Smokie – It's Your Life
Perhaps as tired with the usual TOTP routine as the rest of us by now Chris Norman is dressed like a flamboyant flamenco dancer, if flamenco ever lent itself to the colour lemon. Not as tired of repeating themselves, the cameraman gets his bottom-of-a-bottle filter out again for the mid-section and waits for everyone to gather around one mike

Fleetwood Mac – Dreams
In what we shall now call the Supertramp Slot, about a minute and a half of grainy live footage - this, should you be interested - chiefly notable for Mick Fleetwood grimacing at the end of every bar and Stevie fiddling with a piece of material throughout.

The Rah Band – The Crunch
"After a good meal on a Thursday, what do you need? A crunch!" Makes about as much sense as the outfits. Repeat.

Danny Willians – Dancin' Easy
Panning over a phalanx of girls in white jackets we find Williams doing a David Dundas, rewriting an advertising jingle, in this case Martini's Anytime Anyplace Anywhere, for fun and profit. Williams had had a UK number one sixteen years previously (with Moon River) and so can be forgiven for being out of the soul style loop, but Huggy Bear's castoff jacket and big hat is not it. Gill tries to provide a distraction in a familiar looking all electric blue small top and flamenco skirt, which by the look of the punters confuses things even further for people already trying desperately to remember where the tune comes from. In fact, so easily distracted are a number of them that a couple openly wave to camera while a third does poses of largesse.

Queen – Good Old Fashioned Loverboy
Well, Queen weren't going to come back in again for the same song.

Donna Summer – I Feel Love
"I forecast it last week" says DLT, before his usual orgasm. Well, it's not like we can prove it. And now the show has a problem, because I Feel Love looks cemented to that top spot for a while and there's no video and no hope of Donna coming over to perform it, so here comes the first of at least four seperate Legs & Co-centric presentations. One can only hope the others are better reflective of its spacey disco rush than this one, in which the effort put into obtaining a rotating colour filter for mood lighting effects seems to outweigh that put into the routine, in which the girls shake their shoulders and wave the hem of their big long dresses a bit, looking more like they're trying to keep up with the BPM rather than do anything clever. Then they run from side to side a bit. Rosie gyrates her bosom at the camera a bit in a solo spot but coming some way into the routine it's literally a busted flush. The whole thing doesn't really reflect the erotic charge of the record, just when you want them to, catatonic as it may have made DLT. "I can assure you our playout group does not refer to Legs & Co - boney? Mmmm...." Over the credits again? Did Frank Farian have photos, just not quite enough? The designers are busy amusing themselves by using the colour filters against the kaleidoscope lenses. It just resembles a blur.

TOTP 19/5/77 (tx 31/5/12): Jam, Jacko, Joe and Joy

"Time to bop with the best in rock and pop" Say this for Jensen, he goes that extra yard to make his intros stand out. In the background what seems to be the keyboard player with our first act of the evening tries to mime along with the end of his spiel before Kid triumphantly punches the air as final visual punctuation, a la Diddy.

If ever a smile said "I don't really understand what I'm doing here or supposed to be smiling about, but..."



Suzi Quatro – Roxy Roller
Mixed in emerging from the centre of the number one picture, which is a new one. Suzi would be given big billing by Pops for a little while yet, and it'd pay off eventually, but for now it's another, unsuccessful go-round with the glam sound. For some reason the drummer starts with his foot on top of the bass drum, making the kit look children's sized until he realises that's not really a good enough angle to play more than the snare from. Suzi for her part, in a powder blue jumpsuit, is sitting cross-legged on a box at the front of the stage, singing down to the camera, which just means she looks like she's wearing a distracting huge crown of lights until the angle changes to one lengthways on. Eventually Suzi gets up like her music teacher would have told her to, straps on the big bass and... contributes? Well, she plays the instrumental break bit while standing on the box, sadly stepping down rather than take a showbiz flying leap. The director finds Kid a second or two too early at the end, finding him in the midst of some enthusiastic arm swinging to the beat.

Heatwave – Too Hot To Handle
On grainy video with flames superimposed over the top, like someone saw the Bohemian Rhapsody version with flames at the start and took the wrong bit of inspiration. The band seem to be wearing kimonos with individual colour patterns taking up only half the outfit, as if they were meant to stand side to side and make subtitles for the Chinese. Halfway through, and it's not clear for reasons I'll come back to for a later performance whether these were added at the BBC end or not, very bright flashing lights appear in the middle of the screen of a contrast that might have blown out the RGB settings of colour sets of the time. They seem intrusively bright enough on HD. As the video cuts out one of the frontmen is into full-on karate moves. Kid finds it understandably hilarious.

Linda Lewis – The Moon And I
Why Lewis should get special treatment being alone on a stage is anyone's guess - maybe, being a rewrite of a song from The Mikado, they thought it demanded extra culture - but her entire performance is framed in a blue-purple oval, as if a dry run for the graphics of early 80s BBC news. Close-ups of cellos and a clarinet too. None of this overshadows that Lewis' great soul voice is being parlayed into somewhere it barely belongs, and that after Feelings and We'll Gather Lilacs it's the nation's pop program falling back on the classics songbook again. Very few audience shots to determine what the kids think of it, though they hardly need help in coming across as catatonic.

Bay City Rollers – It's A Game
Same as two weeks ago. Health and safety, can't have that many tartan scarves in one built up area too often.

Carol Bayer Sager – You’re Moving Out Today
Kid sees this as "a real treat", and to emphasise how special he is he gets a ride on a camera trolley while introducing it, to the evident delight of several of those he passes. DLT or Jimmy would have done all sorts of business while there; Kid just introduces it without reference or playing up to it, as if nothing were amiss. There's the mark of the man. As it stops he embarks on some self-conscious strutting on the spot as Sayer, hands deep in high waisted white trousered pockets, peppily/quirkily sings like you'd imagine Diane Keaton would, complete with mid-lyric face 'trying to remember' acting, before miming along to the trumpet/scat solo before realising it makes her look foolish. Meanwhile offscreen the male vocal role is shared by a too casual bloke from the office and a Speak & Spell machine. "The grocer told me what you do with bread"?

Joe Tex – Ain’t Gonna Bump No More (With No Big Fat Woman)
I mean, he's not exactly svelte either, is he? Great as it is and as successful as the single was, strange to see this make the early edit, not least because you'd imagine Soul Train would have to be paid an extra set of export repeat fees. Kid's virtually pissing himself laughing afterwards. It's been on before, man!

The Trammps – Disco Inferno
Big old edit in the early version: "For fans of Legs and Co, we have a bonanza for you today (massive jump cut) as they dance to the Trammps' new record" Hard to see in the light what the costumes are, but they appear to consist of gold bras and pants, quite a bit of tinsel and, for some reason, large gold buttons on fronts and sides. I say hard to see because the whole routine is overlaid with a screen of flashing red lights at epilepsy rates. The routine shows up the problem with still nascent Legs & Co - they're fine dancers, fully conversant in getting down, but the actual choreographed bits don't seem to have much going for them. The version on One For The Dads confirms that it wasn't BBC4 cutting the song off in mid-flow but BBC1 in 1976. Must have been given razor blades for Christmas.

Tony Etoria – I Can Prove It
"Good disco fun" says Kid, the song already long well underway behind him. In a Harry Hill-collared white shirt and elaboratedly knotted snood-cum-neckerchief with with a rarely utilised guitar strapped on, Etoria seems more than a bit nervous, perhaps because orchestra and singers are throwing everything they can at the arrangement. At various points he seems to be singing behind the rhythm, vainly trying but missing the click track altogether.

Joy Sarney – Naughty Naughty Naughty
I think all has been said that neeed to be said here.

The Jacksons – Show You The Way To Go
"From the land of a thousand dances!" Even Michael only exhibits two or three here, but it's enough. This has gone down as the record where Michael really started showing what he'd become, the eighteen year old's voice achieving full range under the new tutelage of Gamble & Huff as writers and producers. As for their actual studio presence, it's a wonder. People are dancing! Kid's swinging his mike cord! The brothers have broken out their colour coded martial jackets with glittery designs on the front that might as well have been based on the outfits from a lost Gerry Anderson series! Michael's straight to the front, leaving Jackie and Marlon to try and pull off a full choreographed synchronised routine when there's two of them and their brother's in front spinning away and adding ad-libs. Unfortunately, after a commanding performance Michael decides he can trust a Top Of The Pops crowd with participation. "Everybody clap your hands! Put 'em up high so I can see 'em!" By the time we cut away five people have done so.

Van McCoy – The Shuffle
Legs & Co again, clearly without time to rehearse new bits for this prime example of Sport On Four Pop as Sue and Lulu pretty much replicate their routine from the other week and everyone else follows their moves in pairs of Patti/Pauline and Gill/Rosie on seperate podiums behind, all sporting bedouin-based trousers.

The Jam – In The City
Ah, the point of no return, how are you.



Well, that was effervescent. Note Kid's brief spate of air guitar when he thinks he's far enough off camera - he did it again at the end - the two blokes pogoing at different speeds from first to last while everyone else remains rigid, fighting that good fight, and that in his indoor shades at that angle at 0:43 Rick Buckler looks a bit like Roger Taylor does now. Note the expert coincidental timing that sees this appear the day before BBC4's Punk Britannia season kicks off, and then wonder, while neither song nor performance are really recognised as major moments in punk's heritage, whether a crack hadn't just appeared in the prime-time pop continuum. "Right at the forefront of a new rock phenomenon known as New Wave", Kid declares confusingly.

Rod Stewart – The First Cut Is The Deepest
Toppotron™'s back! Three months after the last use of a pretend big screen, one seems to grow into the set out of nowhere, giving away its secret with its initial picture-in-picture shot, replicating what we're seeing only with a big blue bit of cloth where Toppotron™ is, eventually replaced by a projection of the countdown still of Rod in full emotive body language which someone then walks in front of, none too cleverly. Song introduced, Kid turns towards it. So does most of the audience. What were they expecting to see there? We see the video in all its back-guitar-playing, arse-waggling glory. Boz Scaggs' Lido Shuffle sees us out. Just one thing for Kid to do before the end, and he doesn't disappoint: "from me it's good love!"