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

I remember hating 'Diddy' David Hamilton a lot, but he's not that bad a presenter compared to the dross of Edmondsm the enforced wackiness of DLT, and the crepeiness of Sir Jimmy.

Mostly I watch this for the grim fascination of the awful music, awful fashion, ugly people and the bloke in Ruby Flipper dancing around dressed as a leopard, but I have to say the Roxy Music one tickled my fancy.

Ha Ha...wondered when the first reference to the Summer of '76 would occur...David Hamilton looking appropriately sweaty in his White whistle...

David Hamilton was very dull. His radio show used to play 'versions' from TOTP sessions to get round needletime restrictions, and was the housewives favourite. At least Edmonds was into his music..

Hamilton's R1 afternoon show also went out simultaneously on R2, as I recall - so it was MOR to the max.

RUBBISH EPISODE THIS WEEK.

longer version was 10 minutes rubbisher.

actually, i enjoyed it again.

Yes, I always watch the LONG VERSION.

I enjoyed what in 1976 I might have happily called Ruby Flidder, but obviously would not do that nowadays.

long version had extra Cherry Flipper doing a dance, Alex Harvey again and Johnny ("not Cash") Nash.

It was rubbish this week.

Also, what's with the iplayer not being updated with the longer version anymore?

i don't think it ever has been. certainly all the ones i have (think i'm missing the first) are the short version.

They did get updated previously.

the 5 iplayer downloads i have here are all the short version. am pretty certain all the others are too.

and i usually grab them the monday or tuesday after they air, which should be enough time for them to throw the longer versions up (otherwise they'd only be up for a day before being replaced)

But you have to remember that 99% of the British population despised/dismissed/detested punk rock and only a tiny handful of punk singles charted in 1977.

chapter and verse stats pls.

Big Hits: TOTP 1964-1975 on BBC2 on Saturday was much better. Lots of things everyone has seen before but it worked well enough. Driscoll/Auger still looks like 2028, not 1968.

I've had "Where do you go to my lovely?" stuck in my head since watching that.

could be worse, my brain randomly flings OOH-AR OOH-AR at me. was surprised to find out that Wurzels song is based on a Melanie song, though.

all the wurzels hits were based on other songs, that was the point (i thought), parodies that piggy backed other tunes.

Except for "Drink Up Thy Zider" ..

Honest, guv: I have seen a long iplayer version (at least two), and only a couple of times recently caught the actual late-transmission of the 40 min version.

yeah, that's a bit of a mystery. and, of course, i'd prefer the longer versions myself.

i had forgotten drink up thy zider. but #45 in 1966 who would blame me?

That was with Adge Cutler, the Dylan of Zummerzet, though. They were more credible in them days.

And then poor Cutler was killed in a car crash and the Wurzels resolved to go on but alas "Combine Harvester" was no "Blue Monday."

Johnny Nash's "Wonderful World" on the extended show was pretty good, we thought.

xpost: punk singles which charted (meaning Top 40) in 77: mostly from memory, we had 3 each from the Pistols, Stranglers and Jam, 2 from the Clash, plus Sheena Is A Punk Rocker, Gary Gilmore's Eyes, Your Generation (Gen X), This Perfect Day (The Saints)... OK, so 15 is perhaps not strictly speaking a "tiny handful", but it's still a tiny fraction! Widening the net, there was also Watching The Detectives, Do Anything You Wanna Do, Marquee Moon and Prove It... can't recall any more?

And of that list, how many did not feature on TOTP?

The two Clash ones (They banned themselves from the programme because they did a foreign TV show similar in concept and found they were crap at miming, no other reason actually), I dont think "Sheenah" was, apart from that: all those..

Oh, and "God save the queen" and "Anarchy" obv.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1977_in_music#Other_significant_singles_and_major_hits

God Save The Queen, obv. And was Holidays In The Sun aired? I have a feeling it wasn't. Also no memory of Television on TOTP...?

You are right.

some boomtown rats and x ray specs singles amongst that lot. not sure what made it to totp. (the couple of buzzcocks singles probably didn't)

X-Ray Spex and Buzzcocks didn't chart until 1978. But, yeah, Boomtown Rats...

'2-4-6-8 Motorway' maybe?

Yeah, a few appearances with that one, they liked Tom.

And "Little Girl" by The Banned! That was on TOTP as well...

I was more interested in the “99% of the British population” stat.

Well, that's how it felt to me! (Subjectively rather than scientifically, of course.) And I did say "dismissed", as well as "despised" and "detested".

Or to put it another way: 1% of the general population feeling positively about punk in 1977 feels about right. (And of course by 1979, the same people who had scorned the Pistols and the Clash two years earlier were queuing up to tape my albums, but by then the cultural assimilation process was well underway...)

I didn't meet all the general population in 1976-7 so can't say whether your estimation is accurate. How high did "indifferent to" or "didn't know it existed" score?

In my year at school, for instance, the ratio was roughly 80% not bothered to 20% loved, but I don't know how representative that would be for the country as a whole.

Well, by 1977 the ratio was 50/50, but that would discount the ones not bothered about music in general.

The previous year would have been 10% punk, 90% Lynyrd Skynyrd.

(oh what fun there was at the sixth form the week before "Street Survivors" was issued)

Rush were inexplicably big at my school

And mine. Hardly anyone else got a turn on the Common Room record player.

I was fortunate in getting a couple of singles before official issue, "Oh Bondage" being one.

That one, everyone hated, then sort-of liked, then went out and bought.

When I say everyone, I'm talking 10% or so, obv.

BFerry in that "Let's Stick Together" clip looks to me* like he's been beamed in from TOTP1982. His whole style - baggy white suit, slim tie, fringe - is what half the acts on TOTP were trying to achieve 5 or 6 years later.

(* non-fashion expert)

there was a documentary about suits on bbc4 last week where Antony Price, the designer behind a lot of Roxy/Ferry stuff was saying exactly that – no contemporaries copied lines of the Ferry look, but it was grabbed by the 80s generation.

(* also non-fashion expert)

there should be a reference to me with an asterisk next to it in that post.

there was a documentary about suits on bbc4 last week where Antony Price, the designer behind a lot of Roxy/Ferry stuff was saying exactly that – no contemporaries copied lines of the Ferry look, but it was grabbed by the 80s generation.

I can sure you that in Glasgow, guys did try to copy the Bryan Ferry look, even that sorta military look he had on the cover of "Viva!"

... when did he have the thin 'tache? That look was copied too.

I think by "contemporaries" he means other pop stars / famous people.