"and now on The Whistle Test Years...

What is the point of this thread, steve?

He is hating on Gang Of Four.

god but it's been shit hasn't it ?
what a load of whale wad. literally not a single good track last 2 weeks. if you picked an hour of highlights from each year for
'later...' (say what you like about it) it'd be f-ing ace
by comparison.

'mmmmm yes lovely that...'

f- off you corduroy clown.

Man, you cannot lump hatred on Whispering Bob. The man's a fucking icon. And that "School Days" track from the last episode was the second best thing they've had all series (Sensational Alex Harvey Band's live version of "Next" was amazing...)

Tom Waits did a grate version of In The Neighbourhood on it...

"next up, skiffle fusion from Roding Valley & The Harlots..."

Hello, and welcome to Jazz Club. Bringing you all that's best in the world
of jazz. Niiice. On this week's show, an act that Wrong Note magazine
described as the best of the young British jazz upstarts. Hah! Grrreat!
It's the James Dance Quartet, with James Dance on Hammond -
naturally - Therman Boyes on guitar, Sid Banham on drums and "Clam"
on bass. Playing a haunting Buddy Freak melody, "Desolate Shore", in
an inventive new arrangement. Where, although it follows the original
thirty two bar A-A-B-A structure, the C providing a harmonic departure
from the A section, the bridge resolves the rising chromatic pattern.
Great? Wwwonderful. Desolate Shore...
[the usual hideous racket ensues, JT winks at camera]

'mmm, dependable...'
was my fave.

jt literaly bumped straight into me coming out
of his cold feet mini-trailer one sunday in manchester
city centre.

piscesboy, if you'd stayed at the Gu a bit longer you'd have had the enjoyment of seeing a pissed up JT acting extremely lairy at our sales conference in Rome a couple of years ago (he was doing the entertainment). Didn't go myself, but heard some naughty stories.

did they have PiL doing careering in the 1980 show?

that was actually Theydon Bois on guitar, as in the tube station...hence the joke. get it right next time or i will cut ya.

and now...watch out! new wave! here's the illustrious Tegan & Turlough with 'Interstellar Queen'

ive been watching all these

ref: that Tom Waits performance on the '77 show of 'small change (got rained on)' - ha i recall sitting there stunned, wondering whether this guy was some alcoholic tramp with mental health problems swept up off the street given a scrub-down and jammed into a wedding suit for some occupational therapy

yes PiL were on the '80 show but doing Poptones, they cut before the move into Careering
(strange to see it again, I had a cassette recorder sitting in front of the telly speaker during the original broadcast - which picked up me muttering 'fuck off' at Levene during 'Careering' coz he was prodding at a Prophet 5....and had forgotten about Lydon being in a big red hairy overcoat and yellow-checkered suit like some vaudeville/music-hall geezer)

thought Go4 on the '81 show were great

was surprised there wasn't a thread about this prog already actually

have found the track selection generally frustrating too - but from last weeks (1981) these were good:
Go4 - to hell with poverty
(fuckin stormer - singer pretending he's made out of india rubber, wearing oxfam suit & bootlace tie - yeeehaaaa - the other 3 seemed almost brittle with earnest post-punkness)
eurythmmics - never gonna cry again
(clem burke on drums! holger czukay on half-fucked-up french horn! the brunette from sex & the city on keyboards! (ahem musht be shome mishtake))
the sound - sense of purpose
(wow i had no idea adrian borland looked so......doughy)
altered images - insects
(3 smirky blokes in school disco outfits but a drummer in cozy powell castoffs! grogan in wee white leggings & ballet shoes doing twee girly dancing and occasional squeaks!)

even when i'm not bothered about the music there's plenty to goggle at in amazement

i do not have the '80 list with me zebedee else i could tell you who else was on - can recall:
PiL - Poptones
Ian Dury & The Blockheads - Sweet Gene Vincent (wilko johnson guesting as startled cartoon-chicken)
Teardrop Explodes - Reward (JC in his dambusters jacket and horsey trousers)
Genesis - Duchess (which was mildly interesting in one respect: seeing collins 'play' the then state-of-the-art roland drum machine (CR-78 iirc) ie switching instrument sounds/little fills in/out of the programmed pattern)

i can list all the stuff that's been on so far for other obsessives - but then i'll bet others round here can too....

ta, snowy!

I was thinking about the old TV shows "sounds of the..." and how the last three programmes of the sound of the 70's changed my musical perspective, they broke punk down in to America (new york dolls, talking heads) and Britain (buzzcocks, The Clash) and a new wave one right at the end which ushered in the eighties basically. Many of the tracks came from shows such as "something else" and "TOTP" but i seem to recall a fair old amount of "TOGWT" on it. A great show presented by a great bloke.

I believe there is a DVD which i keep meaning to get my hands on.

Incidentally considering the amount of BBC channels that are now avaliable i would have thought they would have shown repeats of "sounds of the.." by now as when i was younger it tended to be repeated at 3 monthly intervals. If anyone knows any schedulers give them a nudge (and maybe a wink)

my fave WT moment is actually from 1983 when mark ellen (and david hepworth?) had assumed presenting duties. robert wyatt was on the show - he did "born again cretin" and "shipbuilding" (both grebt).

ellen was doing a link between acts, attempting to plug some hip and groovy new albums, including duck rock IIRC, but was repeatedly interrupted by a bloke in the studio audience (yes, they had audiences that year) shouting "vote labour!" - this was in the run up to the '83 general election (which the tories won by a landslide. i bet ellen voted tory after that).