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

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.