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

Because, the first one (tonight) is 1976, where we get :

01/04/1976
With Abba, the Brotherhood of Man, the Beatles, Fox, John Miles, Diana Ross and Sailor. (R).

Then after that they are on Thursday night, 7:30pm, and basically are running weekly, each
episode being from (exactly) 35 years ago (near enough)..

Until BBC4 sack it.

Brilliant idea. I can relive my childhood. My earliest musical memories (from pre-school days) are stuff like Abba, The Wurzels, Showaddywaddy and Hot Chocolate.

This docu that's on now makes grim viewing.

The docu made some interesting points, and for all that I'd have loved if they'd started in 1964 (or whenever), 1976 is a good year to kickoff from.

The big point made was that the charts had become a 'variety' show source, as opposed to the 'teen hit parade' of the sixties. So, loads of Mathis, Roussos, BroMan, Abba and Radio DJs having comedy send-up hits.

It'll be like this for a while, but one I do remember being somewhat of a life changing moment was when Eddie and the Hot Rods did "Get out of Denver",and I went straight out and bought the (expensive) ep the next day.

I know, thesedays peopple decry the rods as being "not as seminal as Dr Feelgood", but I saw a repeat on TOTP2 and it was as good as I remembered. So, soon come, that show which showed the juxtaposition of this band against the other acts on that night.

(also, it means that the quality of dodgy Punk TOTP compilation DVDs are going to shoot up. If they get that far, of course)

What tickled me most was the former TOTP producer saying that they didn't get the Pistols on for "Anarchy In The UK" (which peaked at #38) because it didn't chart high enough, very important that we always stuck by the rules etc etc... followed by an April 1976 show featuring two (useless) acts which never charted at all.

The Hot Rods did well to get a TOTP appearance for "Get Out Of Denver", as a) the Live At The Marquee EP peaked at #43 and b) it was the lead track on the B-side.

It was track 2 on the a-side, but yeah.

Also, the funny was having Dave Bartram saying "yeah, a TOTP appearance guaranteed you a top 10 hit" and demonstrating this with a screening of their massive top (fillinasecond) hit "Trocadero"...

32

xpost - Aaargh, so it was!

The big point made was that the charts had become a 'variety' show source, as opposed to the 'teen hit parade' of the sixties. So, loads of Mathis, Roussos, BroMan, Abba and Radio DJs having comedy send-up hits.

Am I misunderstanding? cos the 60s had big hits for Ken Dodd, Englebert Humperdinck, the Barron Knights etc etc

Oh sure, but the theory being that those were in the minority, show-content wise.

oh on the show. yeah probly fair enough. chartwise it was variety a-go-go

Yeah, I don't think the point was that the charts had become (more) like a variety show, but that TOTP had.

fuck Noel Edmonds and his 'comedy' links

fuck Noel Edmonds and his 'comedy' links

I know, what a dick. Still we had the Four Seasons doing "Silver Star" this week. Also Eric Carmen's "interview" with Noel Edmonds, where you couldn't hear a word he was saying, don't be shy Eric!

Interviews on TOTP? that's a rarity...

"Inteview" not really the word.

"You wrote a song for Dana didn't you?"
"Mumble mumble mumble"
"What's the best song you've ever written?"
"Mumble mumble mumble All By Myself"
"Well all the best with the new single"
"Mumble"

Don't know what song he wrote for Dana

Oh and Noel was saying what a good album "Eric Carmen" was: a rare display of good taste from Edmonds there!

Noel had to say he liked it cos he didn't want to blow a raspberry.

My god that it horribly formed.

*is*

OK so Google tells me Dana covered "Never Gonna Fall in Love Again" from the aforementioned "Eric Carmen" album

Is Dana the one who did some religious kids programme called 'Wake Up Sunday'?

Sounds likely

10CC, "Mandy Fly Me" was on too. Fantastic!

NEdmonds always had his love of singer-songwriters, to be fair.

Big fan of Harry Chapin, yer Edmonds.

Balderdash certainly describes droll Noel's career.

This was easily the most WTF song on this week's show:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iISUroWbu2U

I watched last night's 1976 episode, it was amazingly and compellingly bad. Lots of odd-looking folks I've never heard of awkwardly performing novelty songs, and one of Pan's People doing some remarkably gratuitous ass-shaking in the direction of the camera. I need more.

70s was the golden age for ugly blokes, you could still end up in a band on TOTP with groupies galore. Rubettes' (sans caps) song sounded more like the Beatles than the Rutles!

I'm watching this now. LOL at the male members of the Vagabonds miming the female backing vocals. Something massively depressing about second tier disco groups though, like they're trapped in time, it's as if they're composed entirely of all the bits of late 70's disco that don't influence music today.

Shoeless and carrying a walking stick with a bicycle bell on it? Fucking hell, Harpo could teach Lady gaga a thing or two.

Sheer Elegance one of the most misnamed bands ever judging by what they were wearing, the uglyness of the Rubettes & their overcocky drummer, the utter WTFness of Harpo. mandatory viewing from now on!

I'm sure Punk would never of happened if Sky+ would of been available in 1976...ended up fast forwarding most of last night's show...bring back Noosha Fox...become a little obsessed with s-s-single bed...

^^^ same goes for watching it on iPlayer. I don't know if 'compellingly bad' is the term, or just 'bad'.

the uglyness of the Rubettes & their overcocky drummer

Enjoy!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sx-aH0oBscw

definitely 'compellingly bad' for me. and Fox lady really reminded me of Alison Goldfrapp which is a Good Thing.

Noosha F missing link between Clare Grogan and Goldfrapp. Love that record.

Ah, been catching up via good old iplayer on the wii.

Old enough to remember these episodes quite clearly in some cases.

Sad that they haven't gone back far enough in time to have Sparks on.

Still, don't recall that Gilbert O'Sullivan song though I must have heard it then.

Oh, last I heard, they are definitely doing this run for a year.

After that? Who knows...

Still, don't recall that Gilbert O'Sullivan song though I must have heard it then.

He was long gone as commercial proposition by 1976. That song sounded like a demo, did artists have to re-record tracks? I know they had to re-record vocals, hence the ubiquity of the Ladybirds. But then other acts obviously just mimed to the record.

They did 'have' to.

A lot of them switched the tapes post-session, apparently.

ooooooo-oooooooooooooh Vienna it's Slik

It's Midge Uuuurrrr...

And Paul knickerless

Jesus Christ, superstar?

DLT looks like Badly Drawn Boy.

This is sooooo much better than last weeks....

Only one novelty act so far.

Shit Brotherhood Of Man are still number one...

They were there for 6 weeks.

The guy without the 'tasche wants to die.

I still fucking hate the last line of that song...not for the paedo connotations...just cos i hate it...

So, there isn't a TOTP this week, but there is a "Primal Scream" themed evening coming up on Friday.

AAAAAAAAAAARGH

No, the band, not the Janov therapy.

You could kind of see why Midge Ure ended up in Ultravox, I mean "Requiem", the title sounds an like Ultravox song. Slik were a pretty cool looking band by 1976 standards.

Oh, it was very Ultravox, for sure.

I got tickets to see them live in 1978, Top Rank, Reading, thanks to being at the Radio210 offices at the right time: The whole band were there, I met them all, and got the signed piccies, and for some reason that escapes me two free tickets and a bunch of discount vouchers. It wasn't full to say the least, and the support band, "Screemer", were perfectly competent early seventies pophairies that would lose their career path in the wake of punk...

That 1978 should be (Nov) 1976 (oops), timings at that point in history are crucial.

Mud go disco, urgh...

Didn't the guitarist write 'Can't get you out my head' by Kylie...sounds a bit like it...

Frankie Valli's tired performance there. He really got a boost from appearing in Grease in '78, didn't he.

Sometimes I think Elvis died just to avoid crappy cover versions like this.

DEVIL WOMAN!!!
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_LP_YP0I7zZY/SoFziAfbpiI/AAAAAAAAC-c/RoLUJLbssFU/s200/RikMayall.png

the shadows have let themselves go...

Mud go disco

Surreal

the shadows have let themselves go...

Even by 1976 standards that was one ugly backing band.

Was there anything good in this episode? Apart from Cliff?

The iplayer only has the 30 min version!

Blimey, Robin Sarstedt, what was that all about? Sutherland Brothers/Quiver was quite nice, not enough guys with combovers in the charts these days.

Guessing Annie Lennox has superseded the Sutherland Brothers as Aberdeenshire's biggest chart act though

The Sutherland Brothers and Quiver were pretty great, a lot of quality 70s country rock/AOR tunes. Never heard the Suths on their own tho.

odd that they chopped the Stones out of the longer version.

Robin Sarstedt song was familiar. probably from Jane Russell in The Las Vegas Story.

i think claire grogan has heard that fox single.

The Sutherlan Brothers did the original of "Sailing", and I knew it before Rods version thanks to a k-tel compilation.

Well....'punk had to happen' is a tired old theme, but IF it was ever true then this weeks shows why. Robin Sarstedt - just die you seedy bastard. Sutherland Brothers and Quiver - a soundtrack for cruisin' down the Gateshead bypass in your Hillman Avenger. The singer (Gavin Sutherland?) had great hair though. Frankie Valli, who I maintain it is impossible to dislike looked like he hadn't slept for a year. Manilow - unspeakably awful, and why did he have the piano stool so high? He could barely reach the keys. JJ Barrie - nothing can really describe the horror of this record, although he looked like a decent enough bloke. The Mud record was utterly bizarre - I have no memory of this at all. Even though it was a bit of a disco death-rattle from the bubble-glam stalwarts, they at least seemed enthusistic about it. And bonus marks go to Dave Mount for doing the 'let's arse about on the telly' walk around his drum-kit. What else was there? Ruby Flipper - what did Pan's People do to deserve this fate? Only bright spot was Cliff - crackin' song that with a lovely electric piano sound. The band were hod-carriers even by TOTP session-men standards. They made Sutherland Brothers and Quiver look like arch sex gods in comparison. Oh and of course Abba. But they faded it in verse 2 - bastards. A dire week but at least they didn't show Hank Mizell or John Miles. And how bored was Noel throughout?

Back in 76, I was still watching TOTP as a 14yr old, along with OGWT, but I don't think I was listening to anything much from the charts. I had some Pink Floyd albums, I think I'd just discovered the Syd era LPs. I had a couple of Status Quo albums (Piledriver, Hello) some Bowie and T-Rex, Story of The Who, some K-Tel comps. Within a year I'd be spending my pocket money on scratchy singles in home-made sleeves made by bands barely older than myself from Belfast, Manchester, Deptford and Ladbroke Grove. Happy days, and yeah they did HAVE to happen.

(Imagine a bootmix of "Give peace a chance" with the lyrics of "Sailing" over the top of it)

xpost obviously, blimey thread's suddenly busy.

Two of SB and Quiver played with Pink Floyd - Tim Renwick and Willie Wilson.

And Bruce Thomas was in Quiver!! But not in SB&Q, I think.

Tim Renwick? Something to do with Bowie too?

Muso note - Cliff's bass player was playing an interesting Burns Bison bass. And he looked like a bison too. A bespectacled bison.

xpost - yes, Space Oddity-era IIRC

Re: SB+Q, I like this idea of two struggling bands joining together a la Dagenham & Redbridge or something

A bit like Bob Dylan and The Band, with a shared credit!

Or do I mean Cliff Richard and The Shadows, but ran backwards?

Was Robin Sarstedt related to Peter Sarstedt? Were they even their real names?

Yes, they were brothers. Also Eden Kane, who was actually Richard Starstedt

although, you are also right, Robin's first name was Clive.

I thought they looked alike but I was worried I was just being racist. I love Peter Sarstedt, I'd love it if a performance of this turned up on BBC4.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qRyIiutZ8ck

> Back in 76, I was still watching TOTP as a 14yr old, along with OGWT

that's something else they should repeat, whistle test.

in fact, ditch bbc3 and just use it to show bbc1 from 35 years ago, verbatim.

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.

according to bbc4 (although i must check, yep) the one on tonight is the same one that'll be on on thursday.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00704hg/episodes/upcoming

"From the year that sculpted pop, Tony Blackburn introduces the Glitter Band, New Edition, JJ Barrie, Our Kid, Cliff Richard, Mud, Thin Lizzy, Dolly Parton and the Rolling Stones."

maybe they (there was another skipped week recently) are missing from the archive?

btw, was in the lexington yesterday and some weekly show there is using an A3 picture of noosha on their posters.

30 minutes tonight
40 minutes thu (late)
40 minutes sat + 2 other programmes:

00:10–01:40
Big Hits: TOTP 1964 to 1975
With the Rolling Stones, Tom Jones, Status Quo, Procol Harum, Stevie Wonder and the Kinks. (R)

01:40–02:30
Top of the Pops: The Story of 1976
Top of the Pops in 1976, as a barometer of the state of pop and light entertainment TV. (R)

"Changed their name singe Gary Glitter retired"

I bet "Our Kid" got the piss ripped out of them at school for this.

Oh, they had all sorts offering them TV series, etc..

Was so glad they went away!

Still, a bonafide classic appears, "The boys are back in town"...

Missed out, repeats of "Devil Woman" and "Shake it down"..

Right, that week was somewhat scattered around the schedule, this week presumably back to normal..

if only there was some way of looking up, i don't know, the bbc4 schedule...

Thu 23 Jun 2011 19:30
Fri 24 Jun 2011 00:45
Sat 25 Jun 2011 23:25

"Noel Edmonds looks at highlights of the weekly 1976 pop charts and introduces the Surprise Sisters, the Real Thing, the Sensational Alex Harvey Band, Flintlock, Osibisa, Archie Bell and the Drells, Brian Ferry, the Wurzels and Ruby Flipper."

osibisa... and weren't flintlock the band that one of the tomorrow people used to be in?

lots of non-chart entries in last week's i noticed. unless they are using the top 40 for eligibility but only listing the top 30.

No, a whole bunch of not-charting stuff.

"New Edition" get the wildcard that is "some sort of BBC TV programme tie-in". I remember two theme tunes for "Saturday Special", the variety show that came each week from a different seaside town. One was a hit "Summertime City", and one wasn't, "Get a little sand between yr toes". That one I don't remember at all.

"Natural Rhythm" and "Don't make promises" weren't, but got a fair amount of radio play.

ouch, that Surprise Sisters medley of Beatles songs was really bad. Anyone know when TOTP stopped this variety show nonsense or was it basically just When Punk Happened(tm)?

Not SAHB's best single, but better than yet another repeat of this Archie Bell video.

That cover of Got To Get You Into My Life was all kinds of awful.

have only watched half of last night's but i laughed all the way through alex harvey. the clown. the bassist's hair. the drummer in a suit. the ax!

the surprise sisters were no way sisters.

I haven't seen this weeks yet, but I do remember it, I think.

Did they medley into "You won't see me" ?

Yes.

Hmmmm, girlbands weren't quite as, uh, glamorous in the 70s as now, were they? All worth it for SAHB, Alex didn't do much but still looked pretty scary!

BOLAN!

There must have been some kind of BBC enforced limit on the amount of excitement that TOTP could serve up in the mid 70's. Every stomping track had to be followed by some abject shite. Bolan followed by Lancaster & Bile, Frampton ("tube in the mouth") followed by Brotherhood of Spam (another song with a stupid twist ending).

DLT's world famous dual purpose pirate/yokel impersonation...

ruby flipper on acid again last night.

and for all the dreadfulness (bom, wurzels) i quite enjoyed it.

odd how that disco Mud song has been lost to history despite being on TOTP 4 or 5 times.

(i only got 17 minutes of the longer version but the extra bit i saw was a Thin Lizzy repeat)

Yes, Bolan.

Was that his last TOTP appearance? And, didn't he look so young? (and healthy!)

Actually, I shouldn't 'ask' that, I should know..

(There's a "Marc on TV" DVD that I did a sleevenote for, I don't think it has any TOTP though)

'Laser Love' from October 1976?
(and if the BBC can the repeats before we get that far)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tewzXZrUmJ0&feature=related

Liverpool Express song would have been more interesting if they'd bother to write more than just a chorus. Punk Rock = Year Zero, just decimated so much of this stuff.

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.

That said, my anticipation for Eddie & The Hot Rods grows with every passing week...

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

I know but its effect in the music business was more profound, it was like they realised that Mr. Big being the Most Exciting New Act of the year was, all things considered, not really good enough. Uh, but maybe I'm rewriting history here because wiki tells me Mr. Big's big hit was 1977!

Ah, but do you remember "Christmas with Dicken"? Their big hit "Romeo" was somewhat at the close of play, but still...

also:

That said, my anticipation for Eddie & The Hot Rods grows with every passing week...

― mike t-diva, Friday, 1 July 2011 11:20 (2 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

We are of a mind, yes.

Demis Roussos looking like Spock's psychic half-brother from that Star Trek movie.

This week is pretty bad so far, two videos and Ruby Flipper pissing about (I'm not even going to call it dancing) to an instrumental.

That New Seekers track is apalling, presumably it was only bought by teenage lads who wanted to check Eve Graham out on totp.

Art Garfunkel clearly doesn't give a shit here.

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.

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.

It's 'alright', the Sutherlands, but think of it like this: within 7 years we would have "Blue Monday" New Order.

I didn't think Ruby Flipper's TubBells was so bad, at least the whole idea they'd take on more complicated routines seemed to be happening. As opposed to just sort of 'moving around a bit' when they had to do "heart on my sleeve"

do I get points for spotting the Blue Peter Garden?

no. which other garden would they use?

anyway, re iplayer, you were right:

INFO: File name prefix = Top_of_the_Pops_-_24_06_1976_b012hsws_default

categories: Music,Classic Pop & Rock
channel: BBC Four
desc: David Hamilton looks at the weekly pop chart and introduces Pilot, Brian Ferry, The New Seekers, Osibisa, Art Garfunkel, and The Real Thing.
descmedium: David Hamilton looks at the weekly pop chart and introduces Pilot, Brian Ferry, The New Seekers, Osibisa, Art Garfunkel, and The Real Thing.
descshort: David Hamilton looks at the weekly pop chart and introduces Pilot and Brian Ferry.
dir: /home/common/Music/radio
dldate: 2011-07-21
dltime: 09:57:37
duration: 1800
durations: default: 1800
durations: default2: 2400
episode: 24/06/1976
...
modesizes: default: flashhigh1=175MB,flashlow1=87MB,flashstd1=105MB,flashvhigh1=330MB,n95_wifi1=40MB
modesizes: default2: flashhigh1=233MB,flashlow1=116MB,flashstd1=141MB,flashvhigh1=439MB,n95_wifi1=54MB
name: Top of the Pops
...
version: default
versions: default,default2
web: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b012hsws.html

there are two versions available, but get_iplayer doesn't, afaik, allow you to get at the second, longer version.

will have to look into it. i have 10 hours according to the expiry time...

David Hamilton looks at the weekly pop chart and introduces Pilot and Brian Ferry TO EACH OTHER.

Smirking twuntbag Blackburn

He is by no means the worst plus he actually liked music, which was unusual, someone upthread said Edmonds was a music fan but I've seen little evidence of that, he admitted as much himself

When do the Kid Jensen years kick off?

Apparently, his timeline on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_presenters_on_Top_of_the_Pops has it he begins this year.

Ah okay, he always seemed to be enthusiastic about music. Apparently still calls himself Kid though which is kinda wishful thinking. Sonic Youth syndrome.

Well, he dropped it at the end of his Radio1 tenure, but I guess it's a 'condition of employment' at Capital Radio, "Smooth" or wherever else he is thesedays...

Ideally these would be preceded by the relevant Nationwide and Tomorrow's World. Panorama afterwards, perhaps. And a full John Peel show on the radio later. Is this too much to ask, BBC?

So that was great prom right guys? The Janacek was awesome in particular.

Lemmy movie on tonite.

Ideally these would be preceded by the relevant Nationwide and Tomorrow's World. Panorama afterwards, perhaps. And a full John Peel show on the radio later. Is this too much to ask, BBC?

Last week, when Hamilton suggested I tune in on Saturday for Seaside Special I really really wished I could.

Yeah, and tone plugged it too.

oh maybe it was tone. I got a bit lost imagining what i'd see.

Should have just checked the wiki:

10 July 1976
Location - Southsea
guests Lulu, Mike & Bernie Winters, Janet Brown, Dream Express, Ron Martin, host Paul Burnett, and New Edition

17 July 1976
Location - Blackpool
guests Al Dean, Kate T. Fields Rod Hull and Emu, Little and Large, New Edition

24 July 1976
Location - Southsea
featured acts from Gerry Cottles Circus.
guests Tony Monopoly, Paul Daniels, Cannon and Ball and Explosion (the original pre-duo trio), Surprise Sisters, Mary Chipperfield – chimpanzee act, Jacko Fossett and Little Billy, Cimarro Brothers, host Mike Reid, New Edition

Cannon and Ball and Explosion

Want to know more!

Even their Wikipedia page starts at 1979.

He wasn't with them long and then he got fired.

I should sell them that joke btw

Boom Boom!!

Good to see a young Les McQueen there, handling bass duties on "Dr Kiss-Kiss", back in the days before it all turned sour.

It's a shit business.

On BBC4 tonight at 7:30PM.

Cannon and Ball and Explosion - oh, this must be someone goofing around with the Wiki page, surely? Yeah, Little and Large really got going once they dropped second straight man Medium. And thank goodness Hinge & Bracket jettisoned Fixing Screw.

Talking of Wiki japes - the C&B Wiki page currently seems to have been merged with that of Adam Ant...

I think it probably is messing around - this article says they were a trio for a bit ("with a guy called Stan on the keyboard"), but also implies that they'd become a duo by Opportunity Knocks in 1969.

Sunfighter - never heard of them - and the awful Queen pastiche 'Drag Race Queen'.

Ruby Flipper do the can-can dressed as Russians to The Beatles' 'Back In The USSR'.

Noel successfully breaks the world record for using the word 'successful' as many times as possible in a sentence.

QUO!

fat Russell Brand Demis Roussos

I think my mother had a blouse made of that shirt material.

I have just learned that one of Sunfighter's many guitarists is Sarah Harding's estranged father.

If that's a Demis Roussos I'd hate to see a full one (Circa 1976 joke)

yes, sunfighter, who dey?

the butterfly song also completely unfamiliar.

a question: what are the wings song and the shangri-las song in the top 30 countdown?

ok, wikipedia says for the wings:

"Silly Love Songs" / "Cook of the House"
"Let 'Em In" / "Beware My Love"

both released in 1976, both reached #2.

and shangri-las:

The recordings for Morton featured lavish production with heavy orchestration and sound effects, and their next and biggest hit, "Leader of the Pack" (U.S. #1, UK #11), climaxes with roaring motorcycles and breaking glass. UK re-issues peaked at #3 in 1972 and #7 in 1976.

glamour puss? history has not been kind.

Wings' track is 'Silly Love Songs'.

Singing a song whose lyrics namecheck Superman is not going to work unless you're Laurie Anderson.

Shangra-Las' is indeed 'Leader of the Pack'.

This is a good site for chart stats, the cunningly named Chart Stats.

Anyone else think that the Glamour Puss on the left looks vaguely familiar? I can't place where from and can't find out who were in Glamour Puss.

BTW Jonathan King was edited out of that edition - he was on just before Glamour Puss.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i524U9YfyXs

was that a necklace of teeth demis was wearing?

(JK might be on the long version)

Even Edmonds thinks this is shit...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ta3EeMi4Ll4

oh and we also missed RubFlip dancing to Tavares' 'Heaven Must Be Missing An Angel', which must have been even worse than their BITUSSR routine.

Anyone else think that the Glamour Puss on the left looks vaguely familiar?

Looks a bit like Nell Campbell but I'm pretty sure it isn't her. The (nominally) lead singer on the far right and the black woman seem familiar from late 70's TV. Maybe after Glamour Puss did spectacularly well failed dismally they pursued acting careers.

Now is the Time by Jimmy James and the Vagabonds. One of those records I remember very clearly listening to on the radio as a child. It's still sort of wonderful, that voice and that song. Rest of the show execrable.

tavares was on the longer version - girls dressed as angels, blokes dressed as devils. lots of dry ice. this stuff writes itself.

no JK in the long version either.

I want to know everything there is to know about Glamourpuss! Like someone upthread, the singer on the far right looks familiar, possibly from TV comedy. Were they some sort of fictional TV spin-off thing? They look/sound more like actresses than singers. (And there's the "of a certain age" factor, as well.)

The singer on the far right kind of looks like Carol Vorderman in a blonde wig. Isn't though. The single didn't even chart in the Top 40, this being the dry period where TOTP were so desperate to get acts in the studios that they'd consider just about anyone.

fictional TV spin-off

That would be the unrelated and considerably better Rock Follies, from the same time. On ITV, so they wouldn't have been on TOTP.

Yeah, I was wondering if it was some sort of Rock Follies-inspired copycat manoeuvre.

I watched it last night in some disbelief. Did I have amnesia? I didn't remember any of it - not even the ghastly video for "A Little Bit More" - but then I remembered we spent July ’76 on holiday in New York, so all this stuff would have passed me right by. Don’t remember Sunfighter, Glamourpuss or that dreadful Bobby Goldsboro* effort ever being played on the radio. It’s always extra-duff when Noel’s presenting.

The only thing I can find out about Glamourpuss on Google is that they were allegedly “five beauty queens.”

The ghastly “Now Is The Time” (it went top five!). “Revolution is no solution!” – erm, Jimmy, there are these guys (and gals) in West London (and Bromley, and Manchester) warming up on the touchline…Rhyming “future” with “nuclear.” Extraordinary.

When an eight-year-old Beatles track is the rockiest thing on the programme and Status Quo couldn’t even be bothered to turn up then you know things are up for grabs.

*Bobby Goldsboro actually did make some very decent records – one of which I’m planning to give a spin at the Hangover Lounge this coming Sunday (plug, plug) – but it’s very hard to convince people of this.

Ok, this show is getting weirder the closer it draws to Year Zero. Sunfughter?!??!? What the fu...?!?!? My encyclopaedic knowledge of crap bands of the 70s has badly let me down here. And this lot got three minutes on one of the most watched shows of the 1970s! I thought they must be Swedish or something. Song sounded a bit like the Stories, if you're at all familiar with that band. And Glamourpuss? Jesus... pure Seaside Special material, except not even that good.

Bobby G (no, not that one) was utter crap and even the Quo song was a duffer

Sunfighter were probably locked in a right-angled room straight after that TOTP performance.

As for Demis, can't hate it 'cos his voice is really a thing of wonder and... DOUBLE BOUZOUKI SOLO!

For a seocnd I thought Demis was Danny Baker.

it was quite an episode for beards

The one on Dennis Thingummabob from Dr. Hook was fairly startling

Take out the word "Race", and the Sunfighter song becomes Quite Interesting.

Steve Harley's keyboard player rocking a huge stack of synths here.

More acts in the studio this week, but it fizzled out in the second half. And I think maybe the producer had told DLT to tone it down and not be so ***WACKY***

i watched this last night, i'm sure i did. am blanking on non-kiki-dee details though. oh, 'oh suzannah'. what is it with that? it's a terrible thing to try and cover, even the byrds sucked at it. some beatles cover too.

o_O at wikipedia entry for oh! susanna.

Cock-er-knee Webel covered 'Here Comes The Sun'. I wonder what was up with all these Beatles covers, and the band themselves still appearing in the charts, six years after they'd split?

xp !!! I knew that there was a minstrel connection to the song, but the original 2nd verse is o__________O

I assume there was a mass re-release of Beatles' singles. If the current music scene is crap then I suppose nostalgia for when it wasn't is more likely. Six years was forever in the 70s.

Possibly 15th anniversary of the first Beatles' single? Something like that?

during one of the songs some girls in the crowd were wearing t-shirts saying Hot Gossip on them. Ruby Flippers days numbered?

RubFlip were replaced by Legs & Co. Hot Gossip appeared on ITV, later C4.

Six years was forever in the 70s

xpost

That's because we were young then

Weren't Hot Gossip on Kenny Everett...

That was when he moved over to ITV in '78.

Six years was forever in the 70s

xpost

That's because we were young then

No it's not that. Probably been covered in some learned thread somewhere.

weird, wonder what was going on - fledgling Hot Gossip trying to promote themselves?

Which song was it?

3 girls right at the front of crowd dancing during that Blue Jeans song

Six years was forever in the 70s

Yeah, it's the difference between 'Tie A Yellow Ribbon' and 'Are Friends Electric?'

Now it's the difference between McFly's 'I'll Be OK' and JLS's 'She Make Me Wanna' ;_;

I don't remember a specific reason for the 1976 Beatles singles reissues, but they were heavily promoted, with new sleeve art, and a couple of tracks (Yesterday/USSR) were issued as A-sides for the first time. I bought several of them, mostly for the B-sides (e.g. Rain, Baby You're A Rich Man) as there were no Past Masters comps at that stage.

David Dundas was the owner of the house in Camden Town where Bruce Robinson and Vivian MacKerrell lived in the late 60s/early 70s: the period that inspired "Withnail and I".

I think they'd moved out by '76, and they probably didn't have a tv anyway, but it would have been interesting to see the reaction to their landlord's appearance on TOTP.

"How like a god" etc, probably.

xp "{...} Nothing that reasonable members of society demand as their rights! No fridges, no televisions, no phones. {...}"

only one mention of Dr Kiss-Kiss on this thread - and I assumed it would be NOTHING BUT :-(

Right, so tomorrow's TOTP revival features the first punk reference.

Albeit "The Kid's a Punk" by Slik.

Jimmy Saville in a kilt. Thanks BBC.

Midge Ure is appearing in 'West Side Story' at the Drury Lane Theatre oh wait...

David Dundas clearly aghast at the prospect of having to perform while RubFlip caper to the right of him.

OK, this is the second time that Billy Ocean's outfit has matched the colour of the backdrop. Was this his 'thing'? Some kind of gimmick?

It's Fearne Cotton, singing on TOTP decades before she presented it. Oh wait it's Twiggy. They really let anyone be a pop star in the mid 70's, didn't they.

If they asked nicely.

And if they do Country Joe and the Fish numbers...

For a horrible second there I thought that DLT was hanging out by the toilets, but no, just another cheap mid 70's CSO effect.

...also it makes Hot Chocolate's percussionist's congas look like they're made of cardboard.

lol ABBA couldn't even be bothered to go on TOTP with their biggest single.

not even a very good video for it, surprised me.

and another bryan ferry single...

cherry appears to have left ruby flipper 8(

George McRae was rather lovely.

Didn't need the extreme close up of Steve Harley's massive teeth though.

am surprised those doors didn't kill someone

jesse green's keyboardist looks like a pound-shop eno.

xp Somebody nearly walked into one of them.

Steve Harley looked like he was trying to sing with a dislocated jaw.
Aside from Hot Chocolate, everything else was promo clips, recordings of previous appearances, or lacklustre performances.
And Bryan Ferry churns out another sausage pointless cover version for a single.

also...
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-JZHcjhQFDfM/Taqrm94FozI/AAAAAAAACFc/pazRIt6JNvU/s400/dear3

BLINDED BY THE SHITE!
REVVED UP LIKE A DOUCHE!
A RUBBER BUMMER IN THE NIGHT!

Can are on this episode apparently.

You should be dancing jumping about aimlessly and flailing your arms around like you're shooing away a bee

You should be flashing gusset

Robin Sarstedt, performing tonight on stilts.

Noel and Cliff clearly have the same hairdresser.

and tailor.

too much Noel Edmonds for anyone.

We haven't reached the saturation point of the peak Swap Shop years, but Edmonds gets increasingly irritating from here. Try to imagine him and Chris Tarrant swapping presenting duties on their respective Saturday morning shows.

RubFlip being worked hard this week, relatively speaking. That tape of Elton and Kiki pretending to goof around in a studio must have broken.

Also it looks like Can aren't going to be shown on the short version...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2l2K9Zigc0w
...they followed Sarstedt.

dancer's miming but not knowing the words. TOTP seems to have a core dancing troupe too.
There's something really depressing about ALL TOTP episodes in that the people there look like they desperately want to be somewhere else.

need to watch it again but at least last night's had a good churn of acts - barely anything that had been on before. that said, the cliff song and the sarsted song were both things that were instantly forgettable, weak follow-ons.

Also it looks like Can aren't going to be shown on the short version...

Daft. It's their one and only appearance, isn't it?

I shall be there 23:40 tonight with my save DVD-r..

I'm surprised that they didn't show Can - thought it would have been right up the alley of a lot of BBC4 viewers.

I'm guessing sometimes the one that gets edited out is the one that's easiest to do.

Also it looks like Can aren't going to be shown on the short version...

Daft. It's their one and only appearance, isn't it?

Haven't they already been on? I'm sure I made some comment about before on this thread about Irmin Schmidt and Holger Czukay being the only people on the show older (and pervier looking) than the DJs? 1976 seems to have been an esp. successful year for Scottish artists: Slik, SAHB, Sutherland Bros., Gallagher + Lyle.

... and Irmin, that shirt open to the waist, nagl in a man of your years

Can were on that documentary that aired when they started this run, iirc. Maybe it was that.

Ah, that'll be it

Surely not the first time they decided to can the can on TOTP.

diamond among sequinned turds

Eddie and the Hot Rods are on this week.

Ah, punk looms

yes, filled with pink mohair...

Actually, I was doing a compilaDVD of "the road to punk/new wave", so far consisting of:

1. "The kid's a punk" Slik
2. "I want more" Can
3. "Get out of Denver" Eddie and the Hot Rods (to be)..

But then, after that, how long until the next one / how high to set the bar?

As low as Tonight's "The Drummer Man" I guess...

then:

I would certainly ARGUE about Can being one of the most influential groups to feature on TOTP : very much a 'niche' "Johnny Foreigner has a go at prog rock" band. I well recall some of my "up themselves" friends at the time going mad about them. Totally inconsequential.

lol other boards...

Who said that, David Cameron?

xp to MG: Kursaal Flyers, maybe? At a pinch?

Were they ever on TOTP? Ditto Doctors of Madness?

mmmm....

nrrgggg....

mmm...

No.

Yeah, they were on with "Little does she know that I know that she knows that I know she's two timing me"

I do remember them popping up on "Supersonic" with "I don't want to ride no freeway" though.

I'd put them next to Sailor, to be honest.

One of them joined the Hot Rods in 77. Tenuous, I know...

Jonathan Richman?

Don't remember him on until "New England", apart from the flip/legs&co dancing to "Egyptian Reggae"

"Roadrunner" was a notable hit, was that ever represented on TOTP? Anyway punk was already up and running by the time the Modern Lovers started having hit singles.

Yeah, but The Clash never got acknowledged until "Bankrobber" I think. The pistols got "Pretty Vacant" and the Saints got on the same week..

That's well into 1977 though.

What's left for 1976?

(Rhetorical question, if you're a nospoilers dude..)

i have great video of pans people dancing to RoadRunner taped from TOTP2 a few years ago. it'll be on youtubes. is them in a beachbuggy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2x7D2VUP62I

i say great but...

(that's legs and co, obv)

I think these are your next ones, all from the first half of 1977:

March 10 - Graham Parker & The Rumour - Hold Back The Night (arguably?)
April 21 - Eddie & The Hot Rods - I Might Be Lying
May 19 - The Jam - In The City
May 26 - The Stranglers - Go Buddy Go

The Tubes maybe? Did they ever get on TOTP though?

Ah right, 'Roadrunner' was on in July 1977 apparently, the week after 'Pretty Vacant'.

GParker gets in, yes.

What it is, is that the 1976 compil is onto a 5inch DVD disc.

Might break out a larger size for 1977....

I think the tubes are a no, until "Prime Time".

This is all from memory, btw.

See, it was tempting to grab Thin Lizzy and the HM kids, but.

Almost mentioned Lizzy. HM Kids turned out to be awful and dated.

Didn't realise, until seeing Manfred Mann's Earthband, that Go Kart Mozart was from a line in "Blinded By the Light"

How about Legs & Co dancing to Be-Bop Deluxe's "Maid In Heaven" on Nov 25 1976?

Oh, by the way: we've only got five more weeks of Ruby Flipper, before Legs & Co take over...

I'll miss them when they're gone

apparently, L&C did "Pretty Vacant" too, no doubt I'll see it and go "oh yeah, I remember now"...

Yeah, but The Clash never got acknowledged until "Bankrobber" I think.

They were invited a few times but always refused to go on it.

There was a big plaver when the reformed Sex Pistols were on, but oddly enough, somewhat unheralded, the same show had Joe Strummer on for the first time, miming his chorus to "England's Irie" ...

Anyways, tonight's episode is dated 9th September 1976.

They just updated next week's schedule, and TOTP is the 23rd September.

Wonder what we've missed?

A strike?

No, there was an episode.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0730378/
I think the video of ABBA's 'Dancing Queen' gets another play as well.

Well, looking at the 'lostshows' website, the show from the 16th is missing, but no list of participants.

As far as my 1977 compilation is concerned, they'd better get on and find the show from 8th Sept 1977, as that has the Boomtown rats And the Motors. "Dancing the night away" most likely. (I'm sure I've seen that clip recently)..

I guess that site answers the question as to why the BBC started off from 1976 - practically everything before then is missing.

I've found that Ruby Flipper danced to "the light of experience" on that missing show. Still, next show up, they do "Disco Duck"...

For those who can't wait until next week...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qRPpXCTqJB4

Features some poor clucker in a chicken costume.

Amazingly, I found the missing show content on the Pans People fansite:

16-9-76: Presenter: Noel Edmonds (Wiped)

(28) TOMMY HUNT – Loving On The Losing Side
(13) TINA CHARLES – Dance Little Lady Dance
(48) J.A.L.N. BAND – Disco Music (I Like It)
(3) THE REAL THING – Can’t Get By Without You
(20) JESSE GREEN – Nice And Slow ® *
(12) PUSSYCAT – Mississippi (video)
(22) STARLAND VOCAL BAND – Afternoon Delight (video)
(4) GHEORGE ZAMFIR – Light Of Experience ‘Doina De Jale’ (danced to by Ruby Flipper)
(1) ABBA – Dancing Queen (video) (and credits)

Tommy Who? Jesse What?

I guess that site answers the question as to why the BBC started off from 1976 - practically everything before then is missing

That would explain why every nostalgic TOTP documentary features exactly the same 10-15 songs from the sixties.

Tommy Hunt's is a pretty good Northern Soul type dance track, and Jesse Green has been on before.

Noel Edmonds (Wiped)

I always thought that Edmonds looked a bit tipsy, but to present the show completely drunk?

The JALN Band song is a busy sounding disco/funk track with JB styled horns.

It's a Tony Blackburn kinda show

... Abba are the closest thing to a rock band on it

It's a pretty fine looking show, actually.

The one after it, however..

Yes, a lack of rock bands was a definite plus in 1976

EXCITEMENT!!!

(courtesy of Eddie & The Hot Rods)

'Punk' t-shirt!

Oh Hot Rods, what UTTER joy. If a little sartorially confused.

So, anyway, thanks to the "Popscene" board that has all the shows listed, I was passing through to find more 'punk styled' tracks for my DVD save, and it's pretty slim pickings for the rest of the year.

The other Eddie/Hotrods performance "Teenage Depression" is wiped/lost, and there's nothing on the horizon until April 1977 when they are back on again "I might be lying".

I guess I'll have to close up 1976 with T-Rex and "Laser Love"...

Rod clocks in another entry for 'Men who looks like old lesbians'.

These guys may be revved up like douches, but the keyboard played has an ARP Odyssey which partially compensates.

the last twice that was on the ARP was a minimoog.

dire this week, i thought. i blame tony blackburn.

Almost a carbon copy of last week's. But for Disco Duck it would have been crap.

Randy who?

T-Rex on tonight.

A repeat of Can was slotted into the start last week's, presumably as padding; completely unacknowledged by the Hairy Cornf.

Yes, that was a weird one; Can were already down to #29, as I recall. It kinda compensates for their omission in the previous edited-down show, though.

Even by the standards of TOTP '76 the backing band of Jesse Green (that was the name, right?) were beyond weird. 1976 was weird.

BOLAN!

Would have been better if the rhythm guitarist had a) not worn just his pajamas, and b) not been taking the piss out of Marc behind his back.

I think Wogan played 'Mississippi' a lot. Certainly remember hearing it a lot when my mother had the radio on in the mornings.

#oldfart

This Manhattans song has the consistency of microwave porridge.

Paul Nicholas, the Mika of '76.

manhattans, if nothing else, were mixing 4 different camera angles.

mississippi very familiar, yes. musically lacking though.

not sure i'd heard that trex song before.

and the bloke in the yellow suit was dancing to beats that only he could hear.

Bolan looking like Siouxie!

Oh look it's Frankie Cockhoser lookalike David Essex.

i'm going to buy a satin jacket and write HOWZAT on the back in marker pen.

http://www.handbag.com/cm/handbaguk/images/Iu/or_jim-top-of-the-pops.jpg.jpg

goodness gracious guys n gals

http://edition.cnn.com/2011/10/29/world/europe/uk-dj-jimmy-savile-dead/

Ed Stewart, king of tossbags

Steve Harley somehow managing a bowlcut and a proto-mullet at the same time.

The obligatory DJ/teenage girls crepe-o moment.

Rod Stewart is clearly hungover in this video, and the very last thing he wants to do is walk around a blustery Portsmouth.

Climax Blues apparently playing live?

can on this one? 76? just saw their name pop up at the beginning.

ah think they were just on the charts bit at the beginning. damn.

I'm going to enter the contest and to name this as yet un-named dancing group. I think I'll call them... let's see... 'Pan's People' Nobody steal that, OK?

Oh and they're dancing to the Jaws theme. 'Pan's People in rubber' turning out to be not quite what the dads wanted.

My boy thought that routine was an exercise in Derren Brown-like thought control.

LEGS.... LEGS.... you will fetch your pencil and your postcard.... and you will write.... LEGS...,

oh that's right, they're going to be called Legs & Co, not Pan's People, duh me

sharks were hilarious though

'77 gets off to a ropey start tonight with Pussycat, Barry Biggs, Liverpool Express, David Parton, Gallagher & Lyle and Status Quo.

there's been one already this year, a couple of weeks ago - the chart hadn't changed from the christmas episode but they had choosen different acts.

Just realised that someone I used to work with looked like Leo Sayer without the hair.

search for 'pops' doesn't find this thread because of the quotes 8(

surprised to see that the extra track on the longer saturday repeat was Gary Glitter.

They've 'apologised' for cutting him and JKing out.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UBsLy5ayHU4

would watch

xp lol

Rose Royce represented in this week's chart countdown by a picture of a Ford Granada in a car wash.

uh oh, Glitter Alert

Picture of innocence, obv.

Thin Lizzy were good though.

Boz Scaggs would have been better if he'd had more musicians on stage with him...

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/gary-glitter-to-receive-royalties-for-broadcast-188903

iow: "We heard he's on this programme, we all had a guess as to which song, we could have looked it up buy we cbb"

Hang on, in that Youtube spoof, is 'Raoul Gummidge' gr8080?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PLKp5oj2NAo

What is it with BBC4 and detective shows with larger than life main characters?

that Mr Big record was a new low
got the 1977 TOTP annual in a charity shop the other day for £2!

Contains spoilers

Edmonds interviewing a very awkward sounding Andrew Lloyd-Webber and Tim Rice - a precision nuclear strike could have solved so many of the world's woes in 1977.

Brotherhood of Man not trying to look like ABBA at all. Or sound like them for this particular single.

Kid Jensen looking like a bizarre genetic cross between Noel Edmonds and Keith Chegwin.

Graham Parker was displaying a distinct narrowness of trouser this week, in marked contrast to the massed loons of Brotherhood of Man and Smokie.

The times were changing a bit.

t rex. something i'd not heard before.

this week's episode appears to have been recorded on one of those cheap vhs tapes you get from supermarkets.

Sort-of..

It was up until 2 weeks ago, assumed lost.

Then it was found and supplied out of "Diddy" David Hamilton's personal collection

I imagine that he has a lot of other videos recorded on cheap supermarket VHS tapes in his 'personal collection'.

that 'tracksuit top over turtleneck sweater' look was just bleargh

abba song head and shoulders above everything else on the show. the dundass thing, very much like those manhatten transfer and bom followups - very similar, only twice as bad...

(nice handle btw snoball)

Thanks. It was going to be 'Cheggers Plays Poop' but my last two display names were poop related so I thought I'd better come up with something else.

annnnnnnnnnnd on topic...
When are we going to see some/any punk? Marc Bolan and Boz Scaggs have been the last couple of acts approaching anything near excitement in the last few weeks.

I could tell you, but that'd be cheating...

If I had known it was going to be from David "Diddy" Hamilton's "personal collection" I would have watched.

It's still on iplayer.

lol at the guy in the patterned tank top walking away disgustedly through the crowd as the camera pans into Showaddywaddy

Has "Sound and Vision" been on yet? On the last one I saw it was straight in at 3, but ignored in favour of the usual dreck

It's been the end credits playout music, twice.

Yesterday it was Legs & Co interpreting Maxine Nightingale's "Love Hit Me" in a boxing ring.

I don't remember it ever being on TOTP beyond that.

legs and co the highlight yesterday, along with said playout music where they just turned the camera, with some kind of hexagonal lens, at the studio lights for a couple of minutes.

where they just turned the camera, with some kind of hexagonal lens, at the studio lights for a couple of minutes.

The BBC must have hours and hours of this kind of footage, just gathering dust somewhere. They don't realise that there is a very dedicated audience, on their very doorstep in Shepherd's Bush, and I'm sure he would love a DVD release.

Who the fuck is this Brendon guy who keeps appearing in the chart rundown?

oh here he is

He looks like a cross between Kevin Keagan and Mick Robertson.

some rampant inflation going on in that stylistics track.

It was the 70's, you had to take extra change with you when you went shopping because the prices would have gone up.

and this is the second time in two days i've heard an andrew gold song (Annabella Lwin chose one on radio 6 yesterday)

Odd song, AG sulks about his sister, she goes and has a son, and so it goes on.

Not actually what the song is about, according to AG. It is about him, but not the way you think.

Seems you cannot post on FT without logging in at the moment (saw your note now, ta)

I think "Gimme Some" by Brendon represents an absolute nadir. Esp. when appearing with "Have I the Right?" by the Dead End Kids. I'm considering deleting this from the planner. It's too depressing.

chin up, you made it through Paul Nicholas, nothings as bad as that
this afternoons Counterpoint had a specialist round about TOTP, test yr knowledge here
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b01gvlfp/Counterpoint_Series_26_Episode_2/

EDDIE & THE HOT RODS!!!

I find myself fast forwarding through the acts just so that I can enjoy Tony Blackburn's wit all the more easily.

He was the only one moving during Legs and Co's Stevie Wonder routine, probably because he knew he was going to have his way with one or more of them after the show. Their dancing was rubbish.

I've decided the reason the singer of the Dead End kids gives me such fear is his resemblance to the Sruwwelpeter.

Thinking about "Sound & Vision" made me really notice the musical similarities between "Knowing Me Knowing You" and some of the tracks on Low.

"Salisbury Hill" over the end credits the best thing on the show.

A double bill tonight, with a 1974 ep of Blue Peter in the middle.

what the what? have never heard this first track before. is kinda dreadful. "Contempt"?

The band was called Contempt, the song was called 'Money Is A Girl's Best Friend'. Never heard of them either, but I liked it.