On this day: 28/10/82

Well, hoped you liked this trial period of On This Day onto the blog. If you want to keep up after today, why not follow the Yes It's Number One Twitter account. For now, some audience members give it their best in both moves and dress to keep up with post-Soft Cell makeweights Blue Zoo.

On this day: 27/10/77

As said the other day, were Darts Showaddywaddy's fault? There must have been some lift-off point for doo-wop and 1950s rock and roll tropes becoming popular. Whatever, Darts had the not so secret weapon of the nuts bass vocalist's nuts bass vocalist Den Hegarty, here taking advantage of the fact Pops literally couldn't fit the pianist on the stage by attempting, albeit hidden largely from our view by the audience, to take the man out himself.



ALSO ON THIS DAY:
- 1977: Here's some careful and sensitive analysis of political and religious turmoil. Yes, it's Boney M's Belfast.

- 1983: one clip from this has been on here before, King Kurt (not Curtis, Tony) getting tarred and feathered. From the same week, Musical Youth dress as junior wine waiters and cover Desmond Dekker.

- 1988: somewhat missing the point, Tom Jones and the reductive (as in only two of the original five still involved) Art Of Noise take great minimalist pop and maximise it. Of course he gets on the piano. Elsewhere, Milli Vanilli. Miming. Obviously.

- 2000: Blur's last appearance in the original line-up, and Graham Coxon takes the opportunity to break out the deerstalker.

On this day: 26/10/78

And somewhere in Suffolk, or wherever he was living at the time, a bearded man sobs.



ALSO ON THIS DAY:
- 1978: interesting show all round, this, as Tony Blackburn uncomfortably introduces a peeved Elvis Costello - note pointed gesticulation - and the revelation of what happens if you make Legs & Co (Patti, Lulu and Pauline at least)'s outfits with only tinsel to hand. Last week I discussed Legs & Co appearing on the 1978 BBC VT Christmas tape, but in 1977 a fuller lineup in oddly Spanish outfits gave Instant Replay a seperate run-through.

- 1995: in case you'd ever wondered, this is Cher's natural hairstyle.

On this day: 25/10/84

Here's an intriguing team-up - habitual TOTP 'takers' Madness back up Feargal Sharkey on his first solo single Listen To Your Father. Chas Smash had written the song and it was released on their own shortlived Zarjazz label (also home to Suggs and Chas' highly odd 2000AD tribute Mutants In Mega City One by the Fink Brothers)



ALSO ON THIS DAY:
- 1979: a classic example of a US disco singer giving at all she's got in the face of the orchestra, Viola Wills swings it in her pantaloons.

- 1984: who's the backing singer here, Limahl or the woman who appears to be mixed above him?

- 1990: this is what both chart rundowns and Jason Donovan's show looked like then.

- 1996: a leonine Suede introduced by Steve Lamacq. Again: Steve Lamacq hosting TOTP!

On this day: 24/10/91

How much do you think Vic Reeves wanted to be a rock star on Top Of The Pops? Well, technically, Born Free had already put him there, but with the Wonder Stuff he gets the full rein of the stage. He also forgets a line in the second verse, ends up scrabbling around singing down the washing machines at the back of the set in the mistaken belief one had a camera in and has to fill at the end for an otherwise headbanging Miles Hunt, but these are mere trifles. "I can't keep a straight face" says Dortie afterwards, keeping a straight face.



ALSO ON THIS DAY:
- 1985: refusing to acknowledge the possibilities of a keyboard stack, Jan Hammer gets the treatment all one man synth artistes got when they weren't very televisual, that is to say some directly related film gets cut into their performance.

- 1991: once the washing machines had been set aside for Vic and co, the rest of the stock from Curry's was given to Carter USM.

- 2003: two confusing, conflicting examples of pop females seeking cred. You'd never have guessed there was a Bond film released two months earlier from Emma Bunton's Maybe; on the other end of the glamour scale comes the great lost reality pop show winner, Alex Parks. It's said nobody (bar friends and family, obviously) knows what Parks, the Ani di Franco-loving Fame Academy winner for whom the descriptive word 'pixieish' seemed obligatory, is up to now, beyond rumours of further education enrolment.

On this day: 23/10/80

Alright, for the first time in this featured format let's step into the cultured world of Legs & Co. Hands off Pauline, you cornflake brute! And after that, yes of course they were always going to get Ottawan's D.I.S.C.O., but what's the car park theme about? It's not enveloped into the routine, they could have done it on a bare stage for all the movements are affected by their surroundings.



ALSO ON THIS DAY:
- 1986: a couple here from opposing angles. Firstly the Housemartins, who are apparently playing the same night in Aberdeen. Not a live show that week then, Gary? No idea what tune Paul and Stan are dancing to but it's not Think For A Minute. Then it's Cyndi Lauper, gradually emerging from the gloaming.

On this day: 22/10/81

Disco medleys had reached an out of control level by the end of 1981. I know what the building blocks of this are, but I still don't quite understand what it's for or who those people are.



ALSO ON THIS DAY:
- 1987: Was (Not Was) may have got dressed up neatly but they only remember hiring those dancers halfway through.

On this day: 21/10/82

You know the Piranhas' big hit Tom Hark; what you may not recall is Boring Bob Grover and co returned two years with another big band favourite given new lyrics, Lou Busch's Zambesi. With Paul Young's celebrated backing singers The Fabulously Wealth Tarts, a Pete Waterman production and a parrot suit for the drummer they were away.



ALSO ON THIS DAY:
- 1982: Kool & The Gang believe in strength in numbers, and all in the same Evel Knievel cast-offs.

On this day: 20/10/88

Isn't it embarrassing when your big Interflora order arrives at the wrong time?



A genuinely unlike much else number one single, that. Incidentally the caption meister is wrong, the line in question is "Ross and his dependencies" after engineer Ross Cullum, but indeed at 2:41 is a reference to "Rob Dickins at the wheel". And we know who Rob Dickins later married, don't we? Well, let's not dwell on that for once, especially when we've found he was on Going Live! that same year.

ALSO ON THIS DAY:
- 1977: as the most cursory of listens will confirm, this isn't the Heroes you're used to. That really doesn't sound like Robert Fripp's effect laden guitar or Eno's synths, whoever's playing piano seems to have been borrowed from the nearest boozer and David hardly seems arsed until he gets to "you will be queen", at which he loses it entirely. From the same week Legs & Co don sports gear, cowboy hat and a lei for, erm, Calling Occupants of Interplanetary Craft

- 1994: The 1600th show demanded a fitting guest host. What it got was pop's man who wasn't there Jarvis Cocker. He started with his polar opposite Michelle Gayle. Having then had to work through Let Loose, Ultimate Kaos and Tom Jones, by the time he got to Elastica he'd gone a bit mad.

On this day: 19/10/78

Where does the influence of Showaddywaddy lie? Not in the teddy boy revivalism, which they were never really cut out for, but in the doo-wop mini-revival of the late 70s that brought us Darts, Rocky Sharpe & the Replays and, oh, all the others. Here's the perennial TOTP standbys with Pretty Little Angel Eyes. With superb timing, after 38 years (he was 26 here!) Dave Bartram retired as singer just yesterday. Not unreasonable, given my experience of seeing them over the summer. They've just got a second drummer back as well but Bartram's voice is absolutely shot. By Hey Rock'n'Roll he was positively Norman Collier.



ALSO ON THIS DAY:
- 1978: Legs & Co, the tree years. Well, how would you interpret Macarthur Park?

- 1989: Debbie Harry's solo career was imbued with the blocky production values of the day, but otherwise she still very much had it, even in khaki. The bear came with the crew.

- 1995: and you thought the recently mentioned Steve Lamacq was an unlikely Top Of The Pops host? Some men suit receding hairlines.

- 2001: an hour long, Savile co-hosted special to mark the show's return to TV Centre. Really, who cares?

On this day: 18/10/90

A fabled example of when counter-cultures meet the prime-time mainstream, the Happy Mondays' first appearance is more famous largely for who they backed up with (and that'll be coming up here in November) but their slot for Kinky Afro showcases their Northern urchin approach to perfection, basin haircutted Shaun Ryder with hands in pockets, Bez very much plotting his own route.



ALSO ON THIS DAY:

- 1979: proof that Suzi Quatro didn't need leathers or dance routines, though she could still grapple a bass to within an inch of its life. A fascinating sideline is that at rehearsals she knocked off an inhouse rewrite of that song for VT's Christmas tape, the concept of which must have taken some previous explanation. He's A Sports PA failed to trouble the scorers. (The same year, in fact, as the engineers got to indulge in Legs & Co's take on Nice Legs Shame About The Face)

- 1979: meanwhile the children of Abbey Hey Junior School were doing their worst and there were high knee lifts all round for The Selecter.

- 2002: remember the New Rock Revolution, kids? For highly strung garage rockers The Vines' Craig Nicholls, legibility was other people.

On this day: 17/10/91

Back in his Radio 1 breakfast days Simon Mayo had a record of relaunching novelty songs into hits - Donald Where's Your Troosers, Kinky Boots - and Always Look On The Bright Side Of Life became the biggest of the lot. It's not clear whether he picked it up from football chants or vice versa, but its surprise success must have been manna to the wiles of Eric Idle, who appeared on the show and laid waste to the studio.



ALSO ON THIS DAY:
- 1991: It's more difficult than you might have thought to find clips showing Noddy Holder in his full mirrored hat regalia, but by Slade's death rattle (Noddy left the following year) he and his band had become a poor man's Wayne Hussey. FACT: Only Cliff appeared in the TOTP studio more often than Slade.

- 2003: labels are so hard up these days even Kylie has to arrange her own light show.