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

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.

yeah, he was talking about other pop stars. I've no idea of the truth of it, tho' totp 1976 isn't giving it the lie.

Ah! The Kidz knew better.

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_YkX8JRP-16w/SiD1_xKqTWI/AAAAAAAACew/HHVJZXZ6IUY/s320/metro1.jpg

Beyond the "Glenn Miller" revival, I think you'd have to wait for Bobby Valentino and/or Midge out of Ultravox.

How old are you Tom? For some reason I've always assumed you're about the same age as Onimo & Ailsa (because obviously all Celtic fans were born on the same day), but you seem impossibly knowledgeable about the mid-70s for this to be true.

My big sister was a punk before you was a punk... she was also a Bowie/ Roxy freak before that... she taught me everything I know!

Who taught you to taught yer?

'twas yer father's daughter...

Midge copped his Ultravox look not from Ferry et al, but from the bass player of Slik:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a0PfOFsKnK8

I was surprised too.

TOTP 76 is on tonight, er, tonight, to make way for the PROMZ tomorrow. NO EXTENDED VERSION!

What a coincidence that BBC4 is unable to show an extended version the week One Hundred Ton and a Feather appeared on the programme #rottentothecore

aaa haha ha....

So THAT's how they gonna ban the glitter...

These fuckers sound like Kings of Leon.

Smirking twuntbag Blackburn. Ruby Flipper ponce about to a disco version of Tubular Bells, ffs.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sfEkX-mcDlw

Billy Ocean should really have checked the colour combination of his outfit against the colour of the set.

Elton John (with Kiki Dee) really staking his claim as 'the 70's Robbie Williams' here.

SAHB's keyboard player's instrument has 'Professional Piano' written on the back, just in case anyone was in any doubt. Alex himself looking like he's just walked on stage after a serious night out.

The obligatory 'DJ surrounded by women' crepe-o moment.

Waitin' on the repeat now.