Parish notice first: were you in the audience for a TOTP recording in 1977? A BBC4 team are putting together the launch documentary for next year's rerun fun and want to hear from you if you were, by emailing david.maguire(at)bbc.co.uk
"Ello darling!" Yeah, of course he'd start like that. Well, here's a turn-up, it's Ed 'Stewpot' Stewart. He was a very occasional visitor to the presenting roster, doing thirty shows between 1968 and 1977, of which still exist... wait for it... three! The last show of 1971 (for which he wears an eyepatch for some reason), a last hurrah in September 1977 and this one. In fact having done 21 shows in 1971 and 1972 he had a three year gap before returning for three in 1975, two in 1976 (a second in December - wiped, of course) and a last hurrah in September 1977. This latter period coincides with his time on Crackerjack*, and he did Junior Choice until 1980, and indeed still does on its annual Christmas Day morning revival on Radio 2. Is he proud of that CV? Will he lose his bearings and attempt to introduce Windmill In Old Amsterdam? Let's see.
Making a return to the countdown is the black and white cutout, this time of Lalo Schifrin smoking a pipe - that was the best promo shot that could be offered? - against a lurid purple backdrop. That sort of low-tech associating got us through that troubled decade together.
(* CRACKERJACK!)
Steve Harley & Cockney Rebel – (I Believe) Love's A Prima Donna
Some rousing organ from a man in the early stages of attempting to look like Roy Wood shepherds in Harley in a red suit, casually leaning on the mike stand before launching into a full set of studied interpretative gestures, never losing eye contact with the camera. So the director decides to test him on that with three sudden and unrepeated wipes to other angles. He nearly misses the first, immediately catches the second and decides not to bother with the third, intenion of staring into your very soul denied. The latest of several things we haven't seen for a while to turn up this week is the punctuative intercut shot of some lights rotating. Unusually, it's the lights rather than the lens that are rotating, though you have to say the studio could do with jazzing up in that respect, it's either moody spotlighting or full-on. As we enter the final stages the guitarist, who looks a bit like Art Garfunkel, comes over to have an arm draped round them Mick Ronson-style, except the effect this time is somewhat different and, had Boy George seen this one instead, might well have turned him straight. "Some lovely guitar work in that as well" Stewpot offers before somewhat ungrammatically suggesting "before you can say Cockney Rebel that'll be up in the charts, I'm sure". It peaked at 41, outside the countdown range. Ah, the TOTP presenter kiss of death.
Demis Roussos – When Forever Has Gone
There's a big announcement and big thread running through the show this week as Stewpot promises a competition, one which "everyone watching this evening has got a chance of winning", as if someone unaware of it might guess the address and question. "Get a pencil and paper within the next fifteen to twenty minutes" he further advises. Now, you know how sometimes Jimmy Savile (RIP) will just carry on for ages at the end of an intro because the timings aren't as they should be? Stewpot seems to have a similar problem here, in that he finds himself needing to string out an intro because the music isn't coming in, but instead of spewing forth filler babble he finds himself going uncomfortably staccato. "Lots of good records. Lots of lovely people on the show. And what better. Next. Number two. In the charts. Demis Roussos." It's like his circuitry was breaking down. This is a different performance to that made at DLT's table side and amid shots of a vast space-like blackness perhaps borrowed from Whistle Test after being shorn of their logo it's the grand return of the Noddy Holder's Hat Memorial many mirrored stage backdrop. Standing here stoutly, someone comes up with the idea of training three cameras at him, one profile, two from either side of the face, capturing every glance aside. He gives his all, we'll say that for him.
Paul Nicholas – Dancing With The Captain
Stewpot is flanked by two young blonde girls in ties, white trousers and untucked shirts, looking vaguely like sailor costumes in fact. "You might recognise two of the faces here" - actually, Ed, there's only two people there, so in that you're asserting nobody recognises your face - "they're two of the daughters of the Beverley sisters, Teddy and Joy", pointing to each in turn. Teddy and Joy were two of the actual Beverley Sisters, so clearly their daughters didn't deserve publicly given names yet. I have consequently no idea if these are the precise daughters of Teddy and Joy who formed a close harmony group called The Foxes,, but from the matching dress you'd imagine so, which would explain why, even in 1976, anyone bar Ed Stewart should care about two of the daughters of the Beverley sisters being introduced to a Top Of The Pops audience. Why might we recognise them anyway if the best Stewpot can come up with is identifying them by their mothers? You might go on to rhetorically ask why a 1976 Top Of The Pops audience should care about the bloke from Godspell prancing in a bowler hat singing about having a party on a ship, but such is pop life. In fact how Stewpot actually ends is "...Teddy and Joy. Here's Paul Nicholas!", so clearly he can't come up with much either. Paul's back in the studio, white jacket and bowler as per, nobody else out to help him this time. This means he has no fallback when he finds he can't help himself on the ad libs. All I'll say is the captain seems to have developed a Jamaican accent. Reggae like it used to be, indeed. Audience members try their best but Nicholas still effortlessly laps them for enthusiasm at this stuff. Orchestra and overmiked Ladybirds make a mess of this, by the way, though it proves they had a specialist penny whistle player.
Rod Stewart – Sailing
Stewpot, sitting at a piano briefly wearing a top hat with an unidentifiable picture in it, reminds us of the pressing need for pencil and paper before promising "lots of good sounds and lots of good sights". If we hadn't been primed by its first appearance his next statement would make for a spectacular non sequitur: "A lot of you saw that marvellous documentary on the HMS Ark Royal. Here's Rod Stewart again". This is the proper video, shot in cinema verite style as Rod in various combinations of often open shirts and tennis shorts wanders around a barge, looks pensive on an aircraft carrier, hangs around with a blonde woman (EDIT: Britt Ekland! Of course!) and talks to some people.
When that's done, we get to the burning issue. Stewpot declares himself "a thorn amongst six roses", the new TOTP dancers. They even get to introduce themselves, all in cut glass RP. Now, given Ruby Flipper (three of whom made the leap across, of course, not that they're treated any differently) were just introduced as if we should know them and have now been got rid of like so much Greek currency this seems effusive, but then again Pan's People did eight years' service and then as far as viewers could see were just handed their cards without warning. Someone must have got the unions involved. The competition is to give them a name, the required details of your postcard entry - Stewpot just said get some paper earlier, if we had to go to the extra expense of a postcard he should have said so - displayed on the time honoured huge replica complete with cartoon of a stamp - 'DANCERS COMP.' via BBC Television Centre W12 8QT, of course. All entries must be in by first post 1st November and "a set of judges" will make the decision, the winner somehow giving the group their name "formally". By decree? How does that work? It's something of a surprise all this made the edit, actually, with modern BBC compliance structure you wouldn't have thought a repeat could go around giving out addresses.
John Miles – Remember Yesterday
Oh blimey, another man and his piano and his earnest plaintiveness. Miles is wearing far too tight a shirt and far too shaggy a blonde haircut for a man of his balledic standing. As is his trademark it changes pace between the verses and chorus, it being unfortunate that both speeds are pedestrian.
Average White Band – Queen Of My Soul
"Some lovely girls around me" - does that count the bloke at the back? - "we've got some lovely girls for you now". It's the debut of Dance Troupe To Be Named but not that auspicious a beginning, stuck out on a tiny stage in tops that are attached to long bits of fabric they have to keep hold of throughout. All six get their turn at smiling at their own close-up twice over before some spinning and general veil waving. Still, it's something to build from.
Climax Blues Band – Couldn’t Get It Right
Or as Stewpot goes and calls it, Gonna Get It Right. No, that's the exact opposite. The Musician's Union demand to re-record everything before air really drives a coach and horses through this one that no amount of green flare solarisation or the tremendous volume of hair on show can cover for, as the groove develops leaden boots and Colin Cooper sings the whole thing as if he has other things on his mind. Perhaps it's the saxophone he holds onto like a pacifier throughout. Buy a strap, man. When he does actually play it it's both in melodic tune with and in the mix completely overshadowed by the guitar solo so ends up pointless.
Pussycat – Mississippi
"Time to introduce our number one, and who better than the number one boxer in Britain and Europe, Joe Bugner!" Well, Stewpot, there's you, given that's what you're there for. Bugner had in fact won the British and European belts off Richard Dunn nine days earlier, a year after being KO'd by Ali, which supposedly made him ideal for going "Pussycat, Mississippi" as if he wasn't expecting to be asked. And, bar a wave, some standing around looking useless and the regulation comedy sparring on the fade to the video - Crazyboat again - that's the whole of his contribution. Hope he had other things to do within TVC that day.
Showing posts with label steve harley and cockney rebel. Show all posts
Showing posts with label steve harley and cockney rebel. Show all posts
Thursday, 3 November 2011
Thursday, 1 September 2011
TOTP 19/8/76 (tx 1/9/11): the doors of perception
Just to say the usual cut and thrust of the active comments box will have to do without me for a week or so (that's why this is up so early, almost all of it had to be written in advance off YouTube uploads so I could get it up tonight), but for next week's repeat-blank week I've dragged in a regular commenter of televisual archival note to electronically reproduce some excellent written archive material.
It's another Dave Lee Travis conceptual opening, I'm afraid. Using some doors, the purpose of which you'll see later, he opens a door outwards on one half of the screen and says hello to himself coming inwards through the same door on the other half. At least it shows mirror image effects are quickly progressing.
Hot Chocolate – Heaven Is On The Back Seat Of My Cadillac
It's a Brit-funk odyssey with which to begin, and one that at the off uses the changing tones effect we last saw on the 5000 Volts backline on their fabled first appearance. Errol has bought a portable mic stand like Freddie Mercury's and has decided on his own form of outre garments, sporting loads of necklaces and a Olympic medal size-besting medallion as well as a sparkly bolero jacket and silver trousers with the sort of tremendously high waist that we seem to be learning was incredibly fashionable back then. They're not as tight as some have managed, but they're getting there. Well out in front of his bandmates it's already clear that he's being groomed as the face of some interchangeable men. He and most of his band's crazy feet just can't keep still to the rhythm either. Some late fish eye lens work demonstrates... that... the BBC had a fish eye lens and they wanted to use it, but we already knew this from a year of closing credit abuse. Given the vigorous thrusting he's carrying off with it we must just cut away before Errol can consider actively grinding the mike stand. Awkwardly, DLT does his next link from between audience front and stage with a crane shot swooping in from the back of the room, which means we get to see his own unsure bop. He lands his cue perfectly from range, though.
David Dundas – Jeans On
"Hit sound three", a new iteration of the more common "number three sound" line, with "a few young people you may well recognise". Same as we saw last week.
5000 Volts – Dr Kiss Kiss
"I'm very sad to say this record stayed at number eight this week - it's got to go higher next week, it's fantastic!" DLT chides, before delivering the band name in an approximation of Barry White's tone. Amazingly/desperately they actually came into the studio on four seperate occasions even though their box of stagecraft tricks was pretty much up after two. Linda, the Lynn Faulds-Wood of lover's disco, has trousers on. Guitarist Martin Jay, of errant talkbox fame, is sporting an open mustard coloured waistcoat and nothing underneath. It was the times. For the record, as this is where 5000 Volts and TOTP part company after a storied run: Jay later helped out Tight Fit and is now in a corporate entertainment band, his CV listed therein claiming work with Take That, Jason Donovan, Sonia, Michael Ball, David Essex, Cockney Rebel, Buggles, Twiggy, Mike Batt, P J Proby and Bombalurina (Timmy Mallett, then). Sadly Kelly died in 1998.
ABBA – Dancing Queen
A new entry at 26. The video, which surely everyone knows. It's too obvious! There's nothing to be gleaned or learnt from it! Well, except for DLT's outro line, "I'll dedicate that one specially to David Hamilton, he loves that record". Did he? Or is that a 'Queen'-related diss? If so it's not lasted the ages.
Bryan Ferry – The Price Of Love
And still Bryan can't be bothered to come into the studio. He's lost his own pimp tache but not Jerry Hall's attention as she gets to wave a cushion around as other women generally look coquettishly to camera in slow motion.
Wings – Let 'Em In
Here's perhaps the most unrepossessing thing DLT has ever said, and there's plenty of competition.
Ringing the bell apparently caused temporary but virulent seasickness in the mid-70s. Those of you with 42" plasma screen sets, let us all know how that bit came across. There's really too much stuff to discuss in so scattershot an interpretation, the fourth in just this run of Macca-related songs. Still no Cherry (I think we can do away with TOCG if she's not going to be omnipresent and nobody on the show mentions a thing about her exits and forthcoming re-entrance), so everyone's trying to take her crown as expressive ruler. Having made a fine effort last week Lulu seems to be less than convincing (what is she doing at 2:31? Dietrich as a defrocked nun?) and despite Patti's best come-on efforts it seems to be the men making the headway, specifically Philip at 1:18 - a future as a Duncan Norvelle stunt double eluded that lad - and then the sequence starting at 2:33 with implied Dr Hook-style homoeroticism then, after some vigorous arse-waggling, Floyd... well, you tell me, but it might be connected to his 3:05 hustling. Wonder whose insistence the bit just after that came from. A routine for this must have been decided well in advance as I can't imagine those doors were just lying around in a BBC stock cupboard in those designs but there's not that much actual dancing in it. There's some leaning and forearm work, and then about halfway through some fancy walking after which Floyd tries to style it out while heading backwards. Opening and closing doors does not qualify as dancer choreography. DLT says something about a cat flap, perhaps as distressed as the rest of us.
Steve Harley & Cockney Rebel – Here Comes The Sun
After that we needed familiarity, and the video shot on the cloudiest day possible gives us that. DLT makes some gag about needing a security guard around Harley's props, suggesting erroneously that this was somehow made at the BBC's expense when we've just seen what extra levels the LE department can reach given the right musical impetus. "Here comes the rain should be the title of the next one!" DLT ungallantly suggests.
Jesse Green – Nice And Slow
Firstly, flagrancy from the drummer has to be pointed up. He's playing above his hi-hat! It's not at all moving. Green doesn't come across as the most charismatic performer, and when TOTP has played the instrumental version of your song over the end credits last time out maybe you need to be forceful, which may have been why he has a flautist with a droopy moustache standing right next to him. Unusual instrumentation and of its time facial hair is always a winner. The only other detail that can add light and shade to a fairly rote disco makeweight is that Green, who you may also note is the only person making his debut on the repeat run tonight, and 5000 Volts share a Best Of for no connective reason I can work out.
Twiggy – Here I Go Again
DLT is leaning on some bongos as "my knees are going to go weak", apparently because Twiggy has grown her hair. As he then goes on to highlight her "gorgeous voice" he might just be being kind above and beyond. She's changed into a purple dress and red boots and her vocal's been turned up a bit but very little is otherwise different, right down to her placing on the set and the picture montages against lights and second angle shots.
Elton John & Kiki Dee – Don't Go Breaking My Heart
Look, I haven't got much time this week to mess about with this again. Even DLT sounds bored, complaining "do I really need to tell you?" Afterwards is a curiosity, though, as while wearing a glittery hat with elastic under the chin he tells us "there will be a new number one next week". Eh? Without spoilering he couldn't have known whether there would be. Maybe he meant 'may be'. Or maybe he had a touch of the Ortis Deleys. Anyway, the Stylistics' 16 Bars sees us out. Next time out on the 15th there's only one song you'll have seen before on here, and not before time.
EDIT NEWS: Edits within edits, for the most part, as for some reason BBC4 decide to squeeze as much of the whole show on as possible, maybe out of repeat-fuelled boredom. That's surely the only reason they'd keep Steve Harley in again. Oddly, though, Dancing Queen losing half a verse seems to be in the original broadcast, though it's not as if nobody's ever heard it and doesn't know that it comes out of the introductory chorus with "anybody could be that guy". Johnny Wakelin still misses out, though, which is a shame if only for the intro where DLT has two girls on each arm and nearly drags one backwards off the stage as he tells us kids are resultantly rushing out to buy tom-toms. Are they? Are they really?
It's another Dave Lee Travis conceptual opening, I'm afraid. Using some doors, the purpose of which you'll see later, he opens a door outwards on one half of the screen and says hello to himself coming inwards through the same door on the other half. At least it shows mirror image effects are quickly progressing.
Hot Chocolate – Heaven Is On The Back Seat Of My Cadillac
It's a Brit-funk odyssey with which to begin, and one that at the off uses the changing tones effect we last saw on the 5000 Volts backline on their fabled first appearance. Errol has bought a portable mic stand like Freddie Mercury's and has decided on his own form of outre garments, sporting loads of necklaces and a Olympic medal size-besting medallion as well as a sparkly bolero jacket and silver trousers with the sort of tremendously high waist that we seem to be learning was incredibly fashionable back then. They're not as tight as some have managed, but they're getting there. Well out in front of his bandmates it's already clear that he's being groomed as the face of some interchangeable men. He and most of his band's crazy feet just can't keep still to the rhythm either. Some late fish eye lens work demonstrates... that... the BBC had a fish eye lens and they wanted to use it, but we already knew this from a year of closing credit abuse. Given the vigorous thrusting he's carrying off with it we must just cut away before Errol can consider actively grinding the mike stand. Awkwardly, DLT does his next link from between audience front and stage with a crane shot swooping in from the back of the room, which means we get to see his own unsure bop. He lands his cue perfectly from range, though.
David Dundas – Jeans On
"Hit sound three", a new iteration of the more common "number three sound" line, with "a few young people you may well recognise". Same as we saw last week.
5000 Volts – Dr Kiss Kiss
"I'm very sad to say this record stayed at number eight this week - it's got to go higher next week, it's fantastic!" DLT chides, before delivering the band name in an approximation of Barry White's tone. Amazingly/desperately they actually came into the studio on four seperate occasions even though their box of stagecraft tricks was pretty much up after two. Linda, the Lynn Faulds-Wood of lover's disco, has trousers on. Guitarist Martin Jay, of errant talkbox fame, is sporting an open mustard coloured waistcoat and nothing underneath. It was the times. For the record, as this is where 5000 Volts and TOTP part company after a storied run: Jay later helped out Tight Fit and is now in a corporate entertainment band, his CV listed therein claiming work with Take That, Jason Donovan, Sonia, Michael Ball, David Essex, Cockney Rebel, Buggles, Twiggy, Mike Batt, P J Proby and Bombalurina (Timmy Mallett, then). Sadly Kelly died in 1998.
ABBA – Dancing Queen
A new entry at 26. The video, which surely everyone knows. It's too obvious! There's nothing to be gleaned or learnt from it! Well, except for DLT's outro line, "I'll dedicate that one specially to David Hamilton, he loves that record". Did he? Or is that a 'Queen'-related diss? If so it's not lasted the ages.
Bryan Ferry – The Price Of Love
And still Bryan can't be bothered to come into the studio. He's lost his own pimp tache but not Jerry Hall's attention as she gets to wave a cushion around as other women generally look coquettishly to camera in slow motion.
Wings – Let 'Em In
Here's perhaps the most unrepossessing thing DLT has ever said, and there's plenty of competition.
Ringing the bell apparently caused temporary but virulent seasickness in the mid-70s. Those of you with 42" plasma screen sets, let us all know how that bit came across. There's really too much stuff to discuss in so scattershot an interpretation, the fourth in just this run of Macca-related songs. Still no Cherry (I think we can do away with TOCG if she's not going to be omnipresent and nobody on the show mentions a thing about her exits and forthcoming re-entrance), so everyone's trying to take her crown as expressive ruler. Having made a fine effort last week Lulu seems to be less than convincing (what is she doing at 2:31? Dietrich as a defrocked nun?) and despite Patti's best come-on efforts it seems to be the men making the headway, specifically Philip at 1:18 - a future as a Duncan Norvelle stunt double eluded that lad - and then the sequence starting at 2:33 with implied Dr Hook-style homoeroticism then, after some vigorous arse-waggling, Floyd... well, you tell me, but it might be connected to his 3:05 hustling. Wonder whose insistence the bit just after that came from. A routine for this must have been decided well in advance as I can't imagine those doors were just lying around in a BBC stock cupboard in those designs but there's not that much actual dancing in it. There's some leaning and forearm work, and then about halfway through some fancy walking after which Floyd tries to style it out while heading backwards. Opening and closing doors does not qualify as dancer choreography. DLT says something about a cat flap, perhaps as distressed as the rest of us.
Steve Harley & Cockney Rebel – Here Comes The Sun
After that we needed familiarity, and the video shot on the cloudiest day possible gives us that. DLT makes some gag about needing a security guard around Harley's props, suggesting erroneously that this was somehow made at the BBC's expense when we've just seen what extra levels the LE department can reach given the right musical impetus. "Here comes the rain should be the title of the next one!" DLT ungallantly suggests.
Jesse Green – Nice And Slow
Firstly, flagrancy from the drummer has to be pointed up. He's playing above his hi-hat! It's not at all moving. Green doesn't come across as the most charismatic performer, and when TOTP has played the instrumental version of your song over the end credits last time out maybe you need to be forceful, which may have been why he has a flautist with a droopy moustache standing right next to him. Unusual instrumentation and of its time facial hair is always a winner. The only other detail that can add light and shade to a fairly rote disco makeweight is that Green, who you may also note is the only person making his debut on the repeat run tonight, and 5000 Volts share a Best Of for no connective reason I can work out.
Twiggy – Here I Go Again
DLT is leaning on some bongos as "my knees are going to go weak", apparently because Twiggy has grown her hair. As he then goes on to highlight her "gorgeous voice" he might just be being kind above and beyond. She's changed into a purple dress and red boots and her vocal's been turned up a bit but very little is otherwise different, right down to her placing on the set and the picture montages against lights and second angle shots.
Elton John & Kiki Dee – Don't Go Breaking My Heart
Look, I haven't got much time this week to mess about with this again. Even DLT sounds bored, complaining "do I really need to tell you?" Afterwards is a curiosity, though, as while wearing a glittery hat with elastic under the chin he tells us "there will be a new number one next week". Eh? Without spoilering he couldn't have known whether there would be. Maybe he meant 'may be'. Or maybe he had a touch of the Ortis Deleys. Anyway, the Stylistics' 16 Bars sees us out. Next time out on the 15th there's only one song you'll have seen before on here, and not before time.
EDIT NEWS: Edits within edits, for the most part, as for some reason BBC4 decide to squeeze as much of the whole show on as possible, maybe out of repeat-fuelled boredom. That's surely the only reason they'd keep Steve Harley in again. Oddly, though, Dancing Queen losing half a verse seems to be in the original broadcast, though it's not as if nobody's ever heard it and doesn't know that it comes out of the introductory chorus with "anybody could be that guy". Johnny Wakelin still misses out, though, which is a shame if only for the intro where DLT has two girls on each arm and nearly drags one backwards off the stage as he tells us kids are resultantly rushing out to buy tom-toms. Are they? Are they really?
Thursday, 25 August 2011
TOTP 5/8/76 (tx 25/8/11): it's like punk happened
Let's get this out of the way first, because it'll be keenly felt in the comments box, I can tell. Yes, unfolding drama in the Ruby Flipper camp as it turns out TOCG isn't so O after all - not only was she not present this week, she'd been excised from the troupe's end credit! Did she get time off? Surely not, dancers can't go on extended breaks from the show, they just record in advance, surely. Unless... she does come back, but given she's not long for the show anyway maybe she went on strike like that time Noel Edmonds had creative differences and refused to do House Party one week.
Unless she was ill.
Shall we ask her?
She'll probably have forgotten. It's not worth it. Also, I wouldn't know how to ask her.
Jimmy's back in charge for one of what aren't that many appearances in 1976, at least in the sector of it we're covering. He's dressed up for the occasion this week, none of his glitter patterned speciality T-shirts, it's a jacket a bit like a police constable's, dignified if polka-dotted tie... oh, the pull-back reveals he's wearing a kilt. Always has to spoil things.
The charts reveal a new Wings single and a new Wings picture, all five holding gold discs to emphasise their big shot status. Linda looks most unsure.
Slik – The Kid's A Punk
Now, hold on youngsters, while there may have been prescience in choosing to release a song with that word in the title in July 1976, the month of the Ramones' celebrated catalystic London Roundhouse gig and six months after it was first coined in America to refer to that form of rock (we caught on in February within the Sex Pistols' NME debut - see, it's not just sneering at bad mainstream music fashion here, you learn stuff too), but what eleven year old Midge and baseball-attired friends are clearly meaning here, unless they were hugely prescient on writing it, is the (namechecked in the second line) youth gone wild delinquency/cool-as dropout use of the word. Midge backs that up with his opening stance, clicking his fingers contemptuously like someone who was just too damned good for Guys & Dolls round a pretend lamp-post. His acting masterclass isn't over once he gets into the song, though, staring down the camera on the chorus, challenging us to disagree with his assessment of the fictional subject. As if we didn't know from the dress sense Slik are by this stage definitely the sort of people who wish they were American or at least second hand aspire to its culture but aren't quite sure how to go about co-opting it, rolling out barrelhouse piano, FM soft rock choruses and the idea Glasgow is well across the idea of a "hip shaking, heartbreaking hobo". As a crazed sax player holds the middle eight hostage Ure, just to set the seal on this being someone else's dream, draws out a flick-comb and draws it across the sides of his hair like he thinks he once saw James Dean do. America was a long way away in those days, congenitally as well as figuratively. "Of course they're from Scotland, of course" Jimmy repetitively states afterwards, just to rub it in. It wasn't a hit. By this point in 1977 Ure was an actual punk in PVC2 (who were Slik with a new name, clothes and guitar tuning anyway) and then the Rich Kids.
David Dundas – Jeans On
And this week providing something to fill the stage gaps, the temporarily reduced Ruby Flipper! The message is clear. BACK OFF, HOT GOSSIP, THIS IS OUR PATCH. As if to show they can do the suggestive stuff as well as any Arlene Phillips choreography, their collective stance at outset will come in familiar to anyone who's seen Rita, Sue And Bob Too. For some reason all but Lulu are wearing hats too - huge peaked cap for Floyd, workman's cap for Sue, blue Liam Gallagher bucket hat for Philip, golf visor for Patti. Maybe Lulu's hair was too high maintenance to be messed with. Also worth noting "when I wake up" is literally rubbing of eyes. Dundas has at least remembered not to wear slacks this week, but he still looks a little friendless there all on his tod.
Billie Jo Spears – What I've Got In Mind
Jimmy must have completely mistimed a simple introduction as having introduced this video he chooses to improvise: "Also we have all sorts of other great sounds as well, on account of tonight is a good night for music. How about this one? Yes siree." Not exactly a flashy COMING SOON graphic, is it? Billie Jo is on whatever show it was that all the country clips come from and looks most unsure of her surroundings, and rather like a lost early 80s Coronation Street character.
Steve Harley & Cockney Rebel – Here Comes The Sun
It's a video and a half, this one.
Oh, no, that's not the right one, hang on a moment. Ah, now, this is it. Never quite tops its opening thirty seconds, really.
I want the percussionist's job. He's still not as threatening as Harley, despite wielding a mallet for his job. Harley himself has before long been comfortably covered from every angle.
KC & The Sunshine Band – (Shake, Shake, Shake) Shake Your Booty
Or The KC Sunshine Band, as Jimmy calls them. Of course Ruby Flipper were always destined for this one. Surrounded by an expectant audience and with TOCG having been kidnapped by errant gypsies Patti steps up and takes the jointly significant mantles of most gawping at camera and most minimalist top, although all three will catch their death if they go out like that. Obviously there's shakeage when required, and occasionally when not, but Flick must have been caught off guard by the reduction in numbers as the rest is mere leaning, arm waving and sidestepping filler. What's more, most of the shaking is done from the shoulders and on at least a couple of occasions the lower legs, which defeats the purpose of choosing this song. Dancer of the day goes to Floyd, who gets to illustrate the words "very well" in closeup by pretending to lick his finger and then making that circle with the thumb and forefinger gesture that people did in the 1970s to express goodness.
Dorothy Moore – Misty Blue
"Everybody take a breather!" Surrounded by pretty much the entire audience, which he creeps into surely accidentally while on camera in the background about thirty seconds before Ruby Flipper have finished, Jimmy cues up the same video clip as last time.
Billy Ocean – L.O.D. (Love On Delivery)
And will sir be favouring the mustard coloured waistcoat with matching trousers a size too small over the shirt with the green and white striped mint-like design tonight? Decently strident and professional performance, but this is where the cameraman gets his excuse to indulge in his weekly hit-and-run audience rampage, his target primed and set this week for a girl getting into Ocean somewhat, joyously bouncing around in her cool Wolfie Smith-turns-fisherman cap until being stopped in her tracks and then, judging by her expression, having her foot run over by the machinery.
Twiggy – Here I Go Again
One thing we haven't discussed in the two or three weeks since it was erected is the new stage backdrop, designed in a V shape without the point, with hundreds of small Noddy Holder's hat-style mirrors attached which at times move about as if being shaken by some black-clad stagehand. If it's meant to resonate the glitter of glitzy pop it only works in stages - Dundas' backing was a spectacular prism of random flashing, yet here they don't seem to reflect any light much as Twiggy doesn't seem to exude much charisma or singing ability. Of course this is the same Twiggy who stands now in her big eyelashes as shorthand for 60s Mary Quant fashion, going on to spend the 70s and much of the 80s in stage musicals and the early 00s being the worst This Morning host ever, but with a shot at pop in the middle. Fair to say that by this time she's less the waifish Vogue androgyne and more the lost Charlie's Angel in her all white trouser and waistcoat outfit and poor make-up. Just to make sure it's caught the trend of the day it's a country number (originally by Country Joe & The Fish), one that, reinterpreted in-house, loses Ms Lawson's voice somewhere in the mix. All the pleading eyes she makes at the mixed-in close-up camera shots won't save her now.
Elton John & Kiki Dee – Don't Go Breaking My Heart
Yeah, I know. What can you do? This time it's enlivened by Jimmy's original and wayward way with the language. "And now, what should we have now?" is the link's opening gambit and again it runs slightly too long for comfort, leading him to freestyle: "We have just time to say how are all of you at home? Very good we are? Here we go!" Rather too late in the show to be asking after us, your loyal viewership, but it's appreciated nonetheless. "We've assembled the troops!" Jimmy announces afterwards, though they aren't actually troops, they're women in nurses' uniforms whose presence is never explained, and he spends most of the link standing in front of them anyway, but is presumably something to do with Jim's famously tireless charity work. That's how he earned that OBE he proudly has displayed by his name in the credits. Hopefully. "Yes siree!" he concludes for the fourth time in the show. Someone called Jesse Green's something called Nice And Slow, which seems to be an instrumental only because in the actual version (he's on an upcoming show, you'll see) he doesn't start singing for more than a minute, soundtracks those controversial cast lists.
EDIT NEWS: So evidently BBC4 don't trust a pre-watershed audience with Sheer Elegance's 'challenging' subject matter, as It's Temptation misses out for the second of two appearances. Unique Sheer Elegance sense of fashion watch: red dungarees over blue shirts with sleeve ruffs. When at one point all three try twirls, all completely out of sync and one in a different direction to his colleagues, you begin to understand why they never had another hit. 5000 Volts turn up with just Linda, the guitarist (who doesn't even bother pretending when it comes to the talkbox bit) and bassist, so there must have been rows there. Lastly was Johnny Wakelin & The Kinshasa Band, which has to be posted for all sorts of reasons, from Jimmy's manner of disappearing out of shot to the shaker maker's manly chest, but mainly the bassist having some gloriously undignified issues with his headgear at 1:38.
Oh, and Jimmy was wearing a kilt to promote his role as Chieftain of the Lochaber Highland Games, a role he still holds after forty years albeit only in an honorary position now. That's not an excuse.
Unless she was ill.
Shall we ask her?
She'll probably have forgotten. It's not worth it. Also, I wouldn't know how to ask her.
Jimmy's back in charge for one of what aren't that many appearances in 1976, at least in the sector of it we're covering. He's dressed up for the occasion this week, none of his glitter patterned speciality T-shirts, it's a jacket a bit like a police constable's, dignified if polka-dotted tie... oh, the pull-back reveals he's wearing a kilt. Always has to spoil things.
The charts reveal a new Wings single and a new Wings picture, all five holding gold discs to emphasise their big shot status. Linda looks most unsure.
Slik – The Kid's A Punk
Now, hold on youngsters, while there may have been prescience in choosing to release a song with that word in the title in July 1976, the month of the Ramones' celebrated catalystic London Roundhouse gig and six months after it was first coined in America to refer to that form of rock (we caught on in February within the Sex Pistols' NME debut - see, it's not just sneering at bad mainstream music fashion here, you learn stuff too), but what eleven year old Midge and baseball-attired friends are clearly meaning here, unless they were hugely prescient on writing it, is the (namechecked in the second line) youth gone wild delinquency/cool-as dropout use of the word. Midge backs that up with his opening stance, clicking his fingers contemptuously like someone who was just too damned good for Guys & Dolls round a pretend lamp-post. His acting masterclass isn't over once he gets into the song, though, staring down the camera on the chorus, challenging us to disagree with his assessment of the fictional subject. As if we didn't know from the dress sense Slik are by this stage definitely the sort of people who wish they were American or at least second hand aspire to its culture but aren't quite sure how to go about co-opting it, rolling out barrelhouse piano, FM soft rock choruses and the idea Glasgow is well across the idea of a "hip shaking, heartbreaking hobo". As a crazed sax player holds the middle eight hostage Ure, just to set the seal on this being someone else's dream, draws out a flick-comb and draws it across the sides of his hair like he thinks he once saw James Dean do. America was a long way away in those days, congenitally as well as figuratively. "Of course they're from Scotland, of course" Jimmy repetitively states afterwards, just to rub it in. It wasn't a hit. By this point in 1977 Ure was an actual punk in PVC2 (who were Slik with a new name, clothes and guitar tuning anyway) and then the Rich Kids.
David Dundas – Jeans On
And this week providing something to fill the stage gaps, the temporarily reduced Ruby Flipper! The message is clear. BACK OFF, HOT GOSSIP, THIS IS OUR PATCH. As if to show they can do the suggestive stuff as well as any Arlene Phillips choreography, their collective stance at outset will come in familiar to anyone who's seen Rita, Sue And Bob Too. For some reason all but Lulu are wearing hats too - huge peaked cap for Floyd, workman's cap for Sue, blue Liam Gallagher bucket hat for Philip, golf visor for Patti. Maybe Lulu's hair was too high maintenance to be messed with. Also worth noting "when I wake up" is literally rubbing of eyes. Dundas has at least remembered not to wear slacks this week, but he still looks a little friendless there all on his tod.
Billie Jo Spears – What I've Got In Mind
Jimmy must have completely mistimed a simple introduction as having introduced this video he chooses to improvise: "Also we have all sorts of other great sounds as well, on account of tonight is a good night for music. How about this one? Yes siree." Not exactly a flashy COMING SOON graphic, is it? Billie Jo is on whatever show it was that all the country clips come from and looks most unsure of her surroundings, and rather like a lost early 80s Coronation Street character.
Steve Harley & Cockney Rebel – Here Comes The Sun
It's a video and a half, this one.
Oh, no, that's not the right one, hang on a moment. Ah, now, this is it. Never quite tops its opening thirty seconds, really.
I want the percussionist's job. He's still not as threatening as Harley, despite wielding a mallet for his job. Harley himself has before long been comfortably covered from every angle.
KC & The Sunshine Band – (Shake, Shake, Shake) Shake Your Booty
Or The KC Sunshine Band, as Jimmy calls them. Of course Ruby Flipper were always destined for this one. Surrounded by an expectant audience and with TOCG having been kidnapped by errant gypsies Patti steps up and takes the jointly significant mantles of most gawping at camera and most minimalist top, although all three will catch their death if they go out like that. Obviously there's shakeage when required, and occasionally when not, but Flick must have been caught off guard by the reduction in numbers as the rest is mere leaning, arm waving and sidestepping filler. What's more, most of the shaking is done from the shoulders and on at least a couple of occasions the lower legs, which defeats the purpose of choosing this song. Dancer of the day goes to Floyd, who gets to illustrate the words "very well" in closeup by pretending to lick his finger and then making that circle with the thumb and forefinger gesture that people did in the 1970s to express goodness.
Dorothy Moore – Misty Blue
"Everybody take a breather!" Surrounded by pretty much the entire audience, which he creeps into surely accidentally while on camera in the background about thirty seconds before Ruby Flipper have finished, Jimmy cues up the same video clip as last time.
Billy Ocean – L.O.D. (Love On Delivery)
And will sir be favouring the mustard coloured waistcoat with matching trousers a size too small over the shirt with the green and white striped mint-like design tonight? Decently strident and professional performance, but this is where the cameraman gets his excuse to indulge in his weekly hit-and-run audience rampage, his target primed and set this week for a girl getting into Ocean somewhat, joyously bouncing around in her cool Wolfie Smith-turns-fisherman cap until being stopped in her tracks and then, judging by her expression, having her foot run over by the machinery.
Twiggy – Here I Go Again
One thing we haven't discussed in the two or three weeks since it was erected is the new stage backdrop, designed in a V shape without the point, with hundreds of small Noddy Holder's hat-style mirrors attached which at times move about as if being shaken by some black-clad stagehand. If it's meant to resonate the glitter of glitzy pop it only works in stages - Dundas' backing was a spectacular prism of random flashing, yet here they don't seem to reflect any light much as Twiggy doesn't seem to exude much charisma or singing ability. Of course this is the same Twiggy who stands now in her big eyelashes as shorthand for 60s Mary Quant fashion, going on to spend the 70s and much of the 80s in stage musicals and the early 00s being the worst This Morning host ever, but with a shot at pop in the middle. Fair to say that by this time she's less the waifish Vogue androgyne and more the lost Charlie's Angel in her all white trouser and waistcoat outfit and poor make-up. Just to make sure it's caught the trend of the day it's a country number (originally by Country Joe & The Fish), one that, reinterpreted in-house, loses Ms Lawson's voice somewhere in the mix. All the pleading eyes she makes at the mixed-in close-up camera shots won't save her now.
Elton John & Kiki Dee – Don't Go Breaking My Heart
Yeah, I know. What can you do? This time it's enlivened by Jimmy's original and wayward way with the language. "And now, what should we have now?" is the link's opening gambit and again it runs slightly too long for comfort, leading him to freestyle: "We have just time to say how are all of you at home? Very good we are? Here we go!" Rather too late in the show to be asking after us, your loyal viewership, but it's appreciated nonetheless. "We've assembled the troops!" Jimmy announces afterwards, though they aren't actually troops, they're women in nurses' uniforms whose presence is never explained, and he spends most of the link standing in front of them anyway, but is presumably something to do with Jim's famously tireless charity work. That's how he earned that OBE he proudly has displayed by his name in the credits. Hopefully. "Yes siree!" he concludes for the fourth time in the show. Someone called Jesse Green's something called Nice And Slow, which seems to be an instrumental only because in the actual version (he's on an upcoming show, you'll see) he doesn't start singing for more than a minute, soundtracks those controversial cast lists.
EDIT NEWS: So evidently BBC4 don't trust a pre-watershed audience with Sheer Elegance's 'challenging' subject matter, as It's Temptation misses out for the second of two appearances. Unique Sheer Elegance sense of fashion watch: red dungarees over blue shirts with sleeve ruffs. When at one point all three try twirls, all completely out of sync and one in a different direction to his colleagues, you begin to understand why they never had another hit. 5000 Volts turn up with just Linda, the guitarist (who doesn't even bother pretending when it comes to the talkbox bit) and bassist, so there must have been rows there. Lastly was Johnny Wakelin & The Kinshasa Band, which has to be posted for all sorts of reasons, from Jimmy's manner of disappearing out of shot to the shaker maker's manly chest, but mainly the bassist having some gloriously undignified issues with his headgear at 1:38.
Oh, and Jimmy was wearing a kilt to promote his role as Chieftain of the Lochaber Highland Games, a role he still holds after forty years albeit only in an honorary position now. That's not an excuse.
Thursday, 4 August 2011
TOTP 22/7/76 (tx 3/8/11): states of independence
Parish notices first, in the wake of last week's by far the largest number of comments for one show. Pan's People and TOTP Dance Troupes are interviewing those who strutted for the greater Pops good, one per month, starting with three Gojos but for our timeline purposes getting round to Lulu in October and Sue in December. We suppose you can drop questions off via that site.
Hey ho, it's DLT! He too seems to be riffing on the long hot summer by wearing big shades, but is the rest of his face burnt or has something been chromakeyed over his eyes or... oh, no, they've wrongfooted us all again by superimposing his finishing the opening sentence onto one of the lenses, pointlessly. Billy Connolly's in the top 30, unfortunately not appearing on the show any time soon with his ultra-quick parody No Chance as it doesn't seem to be the most family friendly of songs. At least they've found a picture of him looking his most affable.
Here's a question with no set answer - why was Queen's You're My Best Friend, already on its way down but still in the top ten, never represented on the show when labelmates Sunfighter were?
Steve Harley & Cockney Rebel - Here Comes The Sun
Oh, sweet meterological irony. The graphics team do their best with what we must presume to be a rain shower effect but actually seems to be strips of foil overlaid as a far too hairy man prods at far too many keyboards. The second Beatles version we've had in this run (and the first is imprinted on all our brains forever) is one of no fixed pace, rattling away in rhythm and keyboard run even as Harley refuses to budge from its normal speed. The bass player is wearing a Cockney Rebel T-shirt, Harley at one point sings towards a camera at the back of the stage which is quite some queueing and it becomes noticeable that someone has the dual job of bongos, which remain largely untouched, and tuned percussion, the fake playing of which is exemplary. Then there's some varispeeded outro vocals, which Steve makes a valiant attempt of looking cool while miming. Oh, and this actually was a hit for once of an opening song.
David Dundas - Jeans On
DLT, in his Florida World Football League top - how glamorous that must have seemed at the time, the idea Radio 1 disc jockeys got to go right across the Atlantic as a matter of course and then show off about it - claims it's about "something that we do first thing in the morning - well, for me personally it's second thing". There's no wink or little eyebrows to suggest double entrende, so that could mean anything. It could just be he's being scrupulously accurate about how he gets up first thing. It could. Advertising jingle writer made good Dundas is wearing pink trainers and slacks, the big liar, and is playing a keyboard that looks like a typewriter from the side angle, but the attention is instead drawn to a woman right at the front who seems to be enacting St Vitus' Dance, all pointy elbows and physical upper body jerks. Soon enough a wider angle reveals the truth, that there are three women dancing in front of the stage in, well, jeans but also tight white T-shirts bearing the legend 'HOT GOSSIP'. Now, Arlene Phillips' gusset-gyrating Everett sidelings did exist at the time but as far as I can find they had no direct connection with Dundas, and what are they doing on Flick's patch anyway? Had they heard on the interpretative shimmying grapevine that Ruby Flipper were in trouble and decided to cheekily stake an early claim? Surely, with all now six of the residents about to take their marks, any interlopers could be chased out. If they wanted a peaceful resolution, could the unions not have been brought in? Whoever these invaders are they require some work, all three never managing to simultaneously choreograph anything, one just off on a turning round and arms high in the air freestyle. There's a lot of spinning on the spot too, as well as some pushing out of chests to get word in for any viewing competing producers. Whatever, there's a couple of typically uncommittally frugging girls at the front getting increasingly annoyed by it all. Meanwhile Dundas plays on affecting nonchalance.
The Isley Brothers - Harvest For The World
Eventually Ruby Flipper get their oats. "All expense spared on the costume" DLT... jokes or knows? Because at first there's three different routines. Stage right Patti and Floyd are slow dancing, her in evening wear, him in something that seems to be made out of second hand tartan. In the centre Philip lives it up as a silver trousered ringmaster with two flappers, while stage left it's TOCG in some sort of two-tone get-up. Around them an audience clap, more in hope than expectation that this might lead anywhere. Patti gets to mug a kiss to camera. What does it all have to do with the song? Nothing, but it has a rhythm that brings forward awkward body shifting, though Lulu is rather splendidly caught singing along. Philip then gets a solo spot and goes for it with some vigour as the non-Patti girls get together to form an impressive circle of spinning and outreaching. Before long all six are off into the crowd, and in one of those moments of directorial indecisiveness we see the floor manager rush into a shot back from the stage towards the retreating dancers to push some people out of the way. They knew how to handle a crowd then, with force and not caring whether it was seen by the nation or not. Even then the camera has to keep zooming in and eventually just cuts outlying Flipperers out altogether. For a closing piece de resistance, everyone grabs a partner out of the crowd in the hope they'll match their exultations. As Lulu's partner can't even get the moving from side to side in time right that seems a vain hope but the seemingly spontaneous nature is somewhat dulled when you find someone on Pan's People etc has spotted that Floyd's partner is Pan's Person and Flipper co-manager Ruth Pearson. TOCG gets DLT. Of course she does.
Johnny Wakelin & The Kinshasa Band – In Zaire
In another triumph of the editor's art we cut from DLT being frankly flung about, and not before time, to DLT in a different part of the studio looking across and feigning weariness. It's at this point he tries to affect a black American accent, possibly in tribute to Ali ahead of Wakelin's Rumble In The Jungle tribute. It doesn't suit... anyone. And it's a drum circle! Or at least two drummers plus a self-consciously I'm-mad-me bloke in the middle in a pilot jacket and polka dotted trousers wielding a massive maraca in one hand and two tambourines in the other. Meanwhile the guitarist has on voluminous flares and Wakelin has gone for the pimp Sly Stone camouflaged in a carpet warehouse look. Pink fedora, outgrown pencil tache, ageing supper club comedian shades, jacket-cum-waistcoat with card suit symbols sewn in ("an explosion in a paint factory" DLT says when Wakelin's safely out of earshot, which can't be right given it has definite patterns), the lot. Bearing in mind he was a club singer in his late thirties from pre-hip Brighton it feels wrong to hear him emote about Elijah Mohammed while having to write in two seperate goes at pronouncing the titular country, but that's Love Thy Neighbour-era Britain for you. Only to add that on Spotify there's a whole album of Wakelin songs about boxers, proving there's a man who knows his market as much as he knows his wardrobe.
5000 Volts – Dr Kiss Kiss
It's her again! It's a new performance but Linda Kelly still moves like it's a works night out and is now sporting something that can't decide whether it's dress, robe or curtain. Her bandmates just look even sleazier, guitarist and bassist alike favouring the plunging neckline, the latter with a silk shirt and more top lip hair, the former in a red playsuit. The whole charade crashes down, though, as we get to the talkbox bit and the guitarist - let's dignify him with a name, Martin Jay, who was later involved with Tight Fit somehow - realises they didn't bring it. His solution is to make a "ooh" face, grin and look to his right, where the bassist is trying not to look at him for fear of giggling too much. The bass drum and panels around the back of the stage start flashing via the magic of CSO but it's far too late to distract from the moment. Quite a few people start wandering towards the stage right at the end of the song, perhaps in wanton hope. This is on twice more, by the way. It's the new Shake It Down.
Johnny Cash – One Piece At A Time
While going through his full range of expressions DLT extends an arm as if showing us the other stage. Cash is, of course, on tape on a much grander stage. Because he's Johnny Cash and he's singing about essentially stealing a car he can get away with abandoning his guitar halfway through with no change in the sound. Because it's US TV they feel no shame in adding canned laughter that doesn't match the crowd size or imagined ambience at all. DLT claims his engine fell out in Amersham last Sunday. He may or may not mean his car.
1776 – Oh Susannah
Well, this is a mess. First off, it's a grandstanding arrangement of a California Gold Rush song traditionally performed by blackface minstrel troupes by a French band named after the year of American independence. Secondly, singer Jacques Mercier (who in his previous band Dynastie Crisis had invented rap) is rum indeed, bald and with an extravagant moustache he's either the prototype for cartoons of dumb-bell lifting strongmen or the violent prisoner Charles Bronson, were the latter ever to favour purple trousers of a width you could hold Summertime Special in. There's some staging going on here as we begin on a close up of him before slowly panning out and a lighting change revealing bloody loads of people, four extra musicians and eight gospel singers. Mercier certainly has an expressive way of singing, lots of muso looking into the lights and the occasional Eric Clapton feint. It's hard to know what to make of all this. That's probably why nobody bought it and 1776 didn't make a second single.
Elton John & Kiki Dee – Don’t Go Breaking My Heart
Again with Kiki's pink dungarees for its first week of six (sorry) at number one. If this video ever looks rushed that's because it was, being shot in one take with three cameras and no rehearsal at a tiny dressed up soundstage round the back of a Rod Stewart TV special taping. DLT introduces the closing KC & the Sunshine Band and says goodbye "on behalf of Phil, Brian and the rest of the maniacs who work here". Don't drag them all into your private hell!
EDIT NEWS: The Sensational Alex Harvey Band again - no idea at time of writing which of the two performances, though it does mean two very differing songs about the American War of Independence in one show - and the grand return of Sheer Elegance, who by now are well beyond the reasoning of mortals. Check the evidence of It's Temptation - the outfits of a boxing Santa Claus with their trademark wing collars, some sort of early business with beads, a Hitler moustache and the half-hidden confession that the object of their love is under 16.
Next show Thursday 18th. Alternative Canon Week next week.
Hey ho, it's DLT! He too seems to be riffing on the long hot summer by wearing big shades, but is the rest of his face burnt or has something been chromakeyed over his eyes or... oh, no, they've wrongfooted us all again by superimposing his finishing the opening sentence onto one of the lenses, pointlessly. Billy Connolly's in the top 30, unfortunately not appearing on the show any time soon with his ultra-quick parody No Chance as it doesn't seem to be the most family friendly of songs. At least they've found a picture of him looking his most affable.
Here's a question with no set answer - why was Queen's You're My Best Friend, already on its way down but still in the top ten, never represented on the show when labelmates Sunfighter were?
Steve Harley & Cockney Rebel - Here Comes The Sun
Oh, sweet meterological irony. The graphics team do their best with what we must presume to be a rain shower effect but actually seems to be strips of foil overlaid as a far too hairy man prods at far too many keyboards. The second Beatles version we've had in this run (and the first is imprinted on all our brains forever) is one of no fixed pace, rattling away in rhythm and keyboard run even as Harley refuses to budge from its normal speed. The bass player is wearing a Cockney Rebel T-shirt, Harley at one point sings towards a camera at the back of the stage which is quite some queueing and it becomes noticeable that someone has the dual job of bongos, which remain largely untouched, and tuned percussion, the fake playing of which is exemplary. Then there's some varispeeded outro vocals, which Steve makes a valiant attempt of looking cool while miming. Oh, and this actually was a hit for once of an opening song.
David Dundas - Jeans On
DLT, in his Florida World Football League top - how glamorous that must have seemed at the time, the idea Radio 1 disc jockeys got to go right across the Atlantic as a matter of course and then show off about it - claims it's about "something that we do first thing in the morning - well, for me personally it's second thing". There's no wink or little eyebrows to suggest double entrende, so that could mean anything. It could just be he's being scrupulously accurate about how he gets up first thing. It could. Advertising jingle writer made good Dundas is wearing pink trainers and slacks, the big liar, and is playing a keyboard that looks like a typewriter from the side angle, but the attention is instead drawn to a woman right at the front who seems to be enacting St Vitus' Dance, all pointy elbows and physical upper body jerks. Soon enough a wider angle reveals the truth, that there are three women dancing in front of the stage in, well, jeans but also tight white T-shirts bearing the legend 'HOT GOSSIP'. Now, Arlene Phillips' gusset-gyrating Everett sidelings did exist at the time but as far as I can find they had no direct connection with Dundas, and what are they doing on Flick's patch anyway? Had they heard on the interpretative shimmying grapevine that Ruby Flipper were in trouble and decided to cheekily stake an early claim? Surely, with all now six of the residents about to take their marks, any interlopers could be chased out. If they wanted a peaceful resolution, could the unions not have been brought in? Whoever these invaders are they require some work, all three never managing to simultaneously choreograph anything, one just off on a turning round and arms high in the air freestyle. There's a lot of spinning on the spot too, as well as some pushing out of chests to get word in for any viewing competing producers. Whatever, there's a couple of typically uncommittally frugging girls at the front getting increasingly annoyed by it all. Meanwhile Dundas plays on affecting nonchalance.
The Isley Brothers - Harvest For The World
Eventually Ruby Flipper get their oats. "All expense spared on the costume" DLT... jokes or knows? Because at first there's three different routines. Stage right Patti and Floyd are slow dancing, her in evening wear, him in something that seems to be made out of second hand tartan. In the centre Philip lives it up as a silver trousered ringmaster with two flappers, while stage left it's TOCG in some sort of two-tone get-up. Around them an audience clap, more in hope than expectation that this might lead anywhere. Patti gets to mug a kiss to camera. What does it all have to do with the song? Nothing, but it has a rhythm that brings forward awkward body shifting, though Lulu is rather splendidly caught singing along. Philip then gets a solo spot and goes for it with some vigour as the non-Patti girls get together to form an impressive circle of spinning and outreaching. Before long all six are off into the crowd, and in one of those moments of directorial indecisiveness we see the floor manager rush into a shot back from the stage towards the retreating dancers to push some people out of the way. They knew how to handle a crowd then, with force and not caring whether it was seen by the nation or not. Even then the camera has to keep zooming in and eventually just cuts outlying Flipperers out altogether. For a closing piece de resistance, everyone grabs a partner out of the crowd in the hope they'll match their exultations. As Lulu's partner can't even get the moving from side to side in time right that seems a vain hope but the seemingly spontaneous nature is somewhat dulled when you find someone on Pan's People etc has spotted that Floyd's partner is Pan's Person and Flipper co-manager Ruth Pearson. TOCG gets DLT. Of course she does.
Johnny Wakelin & The Kinshasa Band – In Zaire
In another triumph of the editor's art we cut from DLT being frankly flung about, and not before time, to DLT in a different part of the studio looking across and feigning weariness. It's at this point he tries to affect a black American accent, possibly in tribute to Ali ahead of Wakelin's Rumble In The Jungle tribute. It doesn't suit... anyone. And it's a drum circle! Or at least two drummers plus a self-consciously I'm-mad-me bloke in the middle in a pilot jacket and polka dotted trousers wielding a massive maraca in one hand and two tambourines in the other. Meanwhile the guitarist has on voluminous flares and Wakelin has gone for the pimp Sly Stone camouflaged in a carpet warehouse look. Pink fedora, outgrown pencil tache, ageing supper club comedian shades, jacket-cum-waistcoat with card suit symbols sewn in ("an explosion in a paint factory" DLT says when Wakelin's safely out of earshot, which can't be right given it has definite patterns), the lot. Bearing in mind he was a club singer in his late thirties from pre-hip Brighton it feels wrong to hear him emote about Elijah Mohammed while having to write in two seperate goes at pronouncing the titular country, but that's Love Thy Neighbour-era Britain for you. Only to add that on Spotify there's a whole album of Wakelin songs about boxers, proving there's a man who knows his market as much as he knows his wardrobe.
5000 Volts – Dr Kiss Kiss
It's her again! It's a new performance but Linda Kelly still moves like it's a works night out and is now sporting something that can't decide whether it's dress, robe or curtain. Her bandmates just look even sleazier, guitarist and bassist alike favouring the plunging neckline, the latter with a silk shirt and more top lip hair, the former in a red playsuit. The whole charade crashes down, though, as we get to the talkbox bit and the guitarist - let's dignify him with a name, Martin Jay, who was later involved with Tight Fit somehow - realises they didn't bring it. His solution is to make a "ooh" face, grin and look to his right, where the bassist is trying not to look at him for fear of giggling too much. The bass drum and panels around the back of the stage start flashing via the magic of CSO but it's far too late to distract from the moment. Quite a few people start wandering towards the stage right at the end of the song, perhaps in wanton hope. This is on twice more, by the way. It's the new Shake It Down.
Johnny Cash – One Piece At A Time
While going through his full range of expressions DLT extends an arm as if showing us the other stage. Cash is, of course, on tape on a much grander stage. Because he's Johnny Cash and he's singing about essentially stealing a car he can get away with abandoning his guitar halfway through with no change in the sound. Because it's US TV they feel no shame in adding canned laughter that doesn't match the crowd size or imagined ambience at all. DLT claims his engine fell out in Amersham last Sunday. He may or may not mean his car.
1776 – Oh Susannah
Well, this is a mess. First off, it's a grandstanding arrangement of a California Gold Rush song traditionally performed by blackface minstrel troupes by a French band named after the year of American independence. Secondly, singer Jacques Mercier (who in his previous band Dynastie Crisis had invented rap) is rum indeed, bald and with an extravagant moustache he's either the prototype for cartoons of dumb-bell lifting strongmen or the violent prisoner Charles Bronson, were the latter ever to favour purple trousers of a width you could hold Summertime Special in. There's some staging going on here as we begin on a close up of him before slowly panning out and a lighting change revealing bloody loads of people, four extra musicians and eight gospel singers. Mercier certainly has an expressive way of singing, lots of muso looking into the lights and the occasional Eric Clapton feint. It's hard to know what to make of all this. That's probably why nobody bought it and 1776 didn't make a second single.
Elton John & Kiki Dee – Don’t Go Breaking My Heart
Again with Kiki's pink dungarees for its first week of six (sorry) at number one. If this video ever looks rushed that's because it was, being shot in one take with three cameras and no rehearsal at a tiny dressed up soundstage round the back of a Rod Stewart TV special taping. DLT introduces the closing KC & the Sunshine Band and says goodbye "on behalf of Phil, Brian and the rest of the maniacs who work here". Don't drag them all into your private hell!
EDIT NEWS: The Sensational Alex Harvey Band again - no idea at time of writing which of the two performances, though it does mean two very differing songs about the American War of Independence in one show - and the grand return of Sheer Elegance, who by now are well beyond the reasoning of mortals. Check the evidence of It's Temptation - the outfits of a boxing Santa Claus with their trademark wing collars, some sort of early business with beads, a Hitler moustache and the half-hidden confession that the object of their love is under 16.
Next show Thursday 18th. Alternative Canon Week next week.
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