The Rolling "Top of the Pops" BBC4 Revival thread.

I keep reading OGWT as Odd Gang Wolf Them. Argh.

Don't mind me, just catching up:

Mud's "Shake it down" the latest victim of the "must re-record with the BBC orchestra" rule, the record is much better than this.

The musicians featured on the Cliff Richard recording are Terry Britten on guitar, Alan Tarney on bass, Clem Cattini on drums, Graham Todd on keyboards.

So, some top names in that list. OK. they're a bit ug, but hey.

I'd forgotten how bad Ruby Flipper were. Pan's People's over-literal interpretation of lyrics were much better by comparison.
And Midge Ure looks about 14.

Three times a month, a little reggae like it used to be

NOT AGAIN

Wait till we get to 'Mull of Kintyre'...there'll be mass suicides across the country...

austerity totp this week - 75% recycled clips and robin sarstedt singing to an empty studio.

am amazed at the amount of blokes in the charts, think i counted 6 acts containing women in the top 30 and 2 of those were BoM and abba. and also at how long things are hanging around - BoM were #1 for 5 or 6 weeks and are still in top 10 a month later.

late version, the long one, started 15 minute late so i missed the end.

ok, wasn't as bad as i thought:
29 Melba Moore
28 Tina Charles
24 Gladys Knight and the Pips
16 Wings
15 Diana Ross
12 Silver Connection
10 Fox
08 BoM
06 Andrea True Connection
01 Abba

I remember Linda Lewis getting nominated for Best Female for years at a stretch in Record Mirror.

True moved to New York City as a teenager, to seek fame as a mainstream movie star. While she did manage to get some minor roles in mainstream movies, including The Way We Were, the fame she sought was fleeting. Desperate for work, she decided to pursue a career as a porn star. She appeared in more than 60 hardcore porn films throughout the 1970s and early to mid-80s, and distinguished herself as one of the more recognizable porn stars in the early New York adult-film industry.

During her heyday as a porn actress, True was hired by a real estate business in Jamaica to appear in their commercial ads. During her stay on Jamaica, a political crisis gripped the island, and no one was allowed to leave with any money. Not wanting to lose her hard-earned pay, True asked her friend, record producer Gregg Diamond, to travel to the island and produce a track for her, which she would finance locally. Diamond arrived with a composition in hand, to which True added lyrics. The result of their collaboration was "More, More, More."

i never knew any of this but it goes some way to explaining why Andrea True Connection gives me funny feelings in my tummy when i watch her video

http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/2011/may/29/critics-notebook-alexis-petridis

I agree with everything he said. Staggering Noosha Fox - Ben Goldacre fact, too.

Sailor are Roxy-lite, but you can bet that Ferry wishes he'd written 'A Glass of Champagne'.
I like the idea that R&B/hip hop in 2011 is in the same state as glam in 1976 - a style left to second tier chancers after the real innovators have long since moved on.

Catching up with last week's. thought I'd acclimatised to this strange world, then they start off with close-up on golliwog logo.

This is my favourite thing on television at the moment.

Oh dear... Heavy Metal Kids

Holton is like a UK Woolworth's version of Alice Cooper.

The naff disco really kicked in at this point, didn't it?

I'm pretty sure that the dream Iggy had that inspired 'TVC15' didn't look like Ruby Flipper's interpretation.

Jesus fuck, Heavy Metal Kids.
how did punk ever happen after that? how could that not make every youth in the country immediately swear never to make chugging pub rock with out-of-tune faux-working class vocals?

</reductive mis-analysis of the trends of 35 years ago>

also sadface because "Heavy Metal Kids" made me think of Kraftwerk with Rother and Dinger. But still, Archie Bell and the Drells!

(did the presenters get to choose the acts? last week's was very conspicuously all white, in rather stark contrast to the acts pictured in the chart rundown at the start, so this week's was a refreshing change after that. wondered if JS should get any credit for that or if I should continue to be skeeved out by him)

I don't think that the presenters had any real say in who was on. By the mid 70's the producers of TOTP had to pick from whoever was available, the programme not being able to get the big hitters like Bowie or the Stones. Hence the procession of uninspired soul/disco groups, Ruby Flipper, videotapes of MOR stuff like Barrie and Sarstedt, and arse-end-of-glam bands like HMK (the singer desperately trying to sound like Ian Hunter and failing dismally).

I don't know about 'punk had to happen' but certainly something had to happen. If I was a young teenager in 1976 I'd have been in fucking despair.

favourite bit was Archie Bell and the Drells 'looking for their contact lenses' dance moves
also didn't know the junkie from Auf Wiedershen Pet was in a band

(the singer desperately trying to sound like Ian Hunter and failing dismally)

Ah! That works, yes.

Or rather, it didn't work. But it probably was the general idea.

Wikipedia has the goods...

in 1976 their single "She's No Angel" was regularly played on BBC Radio 1, a favourite of legendary DJ John Peel, and this led to an appearance on Top Of The Pops

Can't see why Peel would particularly care about them. There is something very vaguely proto-punk about them, highlighting that glam was quite a big part of punk.

And HMK minus the more obvious theatrics would be more or less Sham 69.

I thought HMK was okay! What the hell's going on with this J J Barrie character though.

wondered if JS should get any credit for that or if I should continue to be skeeved out by him

i am always creeped out by any of these R1 DJ sleezers standing amidst teenage girls. Whole atmosphere is unwholesome.

watching now ffs no charge

The always excellent blog Pushing Ahead of the Dame has reached the last Bowie/Bolan colab, mentioning Bolan's connection to punk:
http://bowiesongs.wordpress.com/2011/06/01/the-bolan-collaborations/

Would have thought HMK OK minus the singer. Lively tune.

ok now i live in world where the wurzels are blessed relief.

"Introduced by Jimmy Saville O.B.E."

decent one overall! Archie Bell + Drells, Real Thing, little of total awfulness.

I'm pretty sure that the dream Iggy had that inspired 'TVC15' didn't look like Ruby Flipper's interpretation.

No I now choose to see bowie-in-berlin through the Ruby Flipper lens - Iggy does headstand on table, Bowie mugs at image of woman on tv then somersaults, Eno walks on hands across living room. Everyone is dressed confusingly.

(looking forward to Pushing Ahead on The Lodger. Been listening to that a lot lately)

It did seem that Gry Holton's performance was cut just after he tried to get the audience to clap along, or do SOMETHING anyway...

Yeah, John Peel would have championed them, it wasn't all Ramones at his place at this point in history, it was The Faces, Mott etc...

I thought that Katie Kissoon sold her shit song rather effectively. Once she ditched the hopeless Mac, she forged a more-than-respectable session/backing singing career.

> I now choose to see bowie-in-berlin through the Ruby Flipper lens - Iggy does headstand on table, Bowie mugs at image of woman on tv then somersaults, Eno walks on hands across living room. Everyone is dressed confusingly.

genius. the whole thing did look like some kind of fever dream.

must admit i ffwded through the repeats of things last night

The dance sequence to the Bowie track was just unbelievable.

for posterity & the non-iplayered

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QD4Om04vECY

Yes, I mean Flick Colby RIP and all that but wtf was she thinking? Why was the black guy dressed like a jockey? It's nice that HM Kids were making some sort of effort but it was still terrible, and then punk started and one nanosecond later they were dead and Gary Holton was phoning his agent and looking for acting roles

I think the Bowie living room routine was a spookily accurate portrayal of what it meant to be a Bowie fan in Britian '76.

it reminded me of Talc & Turnips from Big Night Out.

Staggering Noosha Fox - Ben Goldacre fact, too.

I read that then, later the same day, happened to meet BG at a gig. I drunkenly assailed him with "NOOSHA FOX IS YOUR MUM!" Not my greatest moment. No, actually, scratch that. My greatest moment.

Alternate A.C. Song titles

(xp) What was his response?

He changed the subject. Then I offered to photograph his wedding. I was really covering myself in glory.

Did you tell him you had a s-s-single bed?

Mike, it totally was your greatest moment, and it was the future Mrs G's greatest moment when she immediately asked you if you were offering to photograph the wedding to "spend time with Noosha".

Apparently, he later let it be known that he's actually very proud of his mum, once all the rabid fans such as ourselves were out of earshot. So much for rationality and science, eh?

I thought that maybe it had been dropped, but it's on tonight at 7:30.

Oh right..

I saw that the episode on Thursday isn't on at 7:30 but the 35 minute edition is, later on the same night.

Is there much of a difference or do they just edit out a lame track/crappy DLT 'joeks'?

Well, one week they edited out "Fool to Cry" the Rolling Stones...

I quite like the 1st Heavy Metal Kids album. No idea what they sounded like by 1976 though, I haven't been watching this. Although I'm now intrigued by the couple of Fox LPs in my grandpa's old record collection.

Studio average seems to be one good act (Gladys Knight and the Pips most recently), one that's of historical interest (HM Kids, Fox) and one complete WTF (Ruby Flipper etc). The rest is unalloyed dross.
On last week's they seemed to have run out of money for acts, so played the theme music (?) for an extra two minutes at the end, while filming the studio lights.

I think that was Mistura's "The Flasher", not the TOTP theme tune there.