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

Ray Parker Jr.'s guitar doubles as a snow shovel.

heavy on legs and co this week.

Nobody worth a squirt of piss wants to go on it, that's why.

Forever Autumn seemed like it was 6 minutes long, and it's not the first time it's been on

Oh, I thought it was "Sky at night" week..

Apart from Raydio you haven't missed anything.

it's wednesday, that's probably why.

it's repeated tonight and maybe saturday. and on iplayer.

oh yeah!

Right, will have a word wit' tivo.

A bland cover of 'It's Only Make Believe'. Totally not an attempt to ride on the coat-tails of 'Grease's success, oh no...

Nah, that would suggest a thought process 'in the moment' which is not evident

I guess Lloyd-Webber and Rice couldn't get Ringo Starr so they had to settle for David Essex...

More like Che Whatever.

hadn't seen that clip of gordon dancing with legs and co before. noticed he'd also amended his t-shirt...

Tony Blackburn confused by all these Hong Kong Gardens and Dreadlock Holidays.

I'm intrigued by the breaks in transmission. Are we missing J P$£l episodes?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/totp2/trivia/presenters/list2.shtml

am not sure where we are...

August 3, 1978 - Dave Lee Travis
August 10, 1978 - Peter Powell
August 17, 1978 - Noel Edmonds
August 24, 1978 - David Jensen
August 31, 1978 - Tony Blackburn
September 7, 1978 - Peter Powell
September 14, 1978 - Jimmy Saville
September 21, 1978 - Paul Burnett
September 28, 1978 - Dave Lee Travis

peel is much later iirc (feb '82)

also, some breaks may just be due to missing recordings.

(wednesday's was 31/08)

Apologies for the easy google opportunities I missed there.

Right, I assumed JP was around earlier than he may have been. It seems the beeb is trying to keep the broadcasts in the original week of each particular year.

(he'd done some of the earlier shows but there was a hiatus...)

1977: The Year Doo-Wop Broke.

(wait, it's 1978. still, with all the showaddywaddy, darts and grease stuff in the charts... 4 things in top 10 from grease.)

There've been a lot of godawful piano ballads recently. Just listen to this monstrosity.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OGfb6pm3DOg

er, convicted sex offender Jonathan King?

yeah, that's an odd decision given that they aren't showing some episodes because two different presenters are currently unpeople.

still, it's like they have discovered punk / new wave this week. (i may've spoken too soon, am watching about 20 minutes behind real time). odd given that blackburn's shows are usually disco-heavy.

so is this Aug 31 or Oct 26?

August 31, 1978 - Tony Blackburn
September 7, 1978 - Peter Powell
September 14, 1978 - Jimmy Saville
September 21, 1978 - Paul Burnett
September 28, 1978 - Dave Lee Travis
October 5, 1978 - David Jensen
October 12, 1978 - Jimmy Saville
October 19, 1978 - Peter Powell
October 26, 1978 - Tony Blackburn

actually given that the last four have been Powell, Burnett, Jensen, Powell it must be Oct 26.

is it still 1978? these years must have been interminable to actually live through.

yeah, they are trying, i thought, to stay exactly 35 years ahead. which is my i'm surprised that we are 3 weeks ahead.

actually i'm being a bit harsh this week's has almost all of Public Image, after the Number 1 over the end credits!

(that was last week's. this week they were on (video) as part of the main show)

was that a different vocal on Germfree Adolescent? could swear her voice cracks more on the version i know.

otherwise, that was dire. Dandy, Patrick Juvet, ONJ, Rats, Darts, Cars, Xray Spex, JT&ONJ, Jacksons over end credits

Yeah, they would sometimes have the original backing track and a 'live' vocal.

Polystyrene was asked by the TOTP producer to change "Listerine" to "glycerine" and "SR" to "XR" to avoid what-we-now-call product placement.

could've sworn it was SR last night. will give it another listen.

and just listening to the John Peel Session version (on Let's Submerge) and that *is* XR and Glycerine. (and breaking voice, although not as much as the lp version)

no, you're right (1:22 and others)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hmlujq7qsW0

star ship trooper really is a thing.

i'm not sure i have the words to describe it.

The song itself isn't too bad, but the visual presentation tips it over into Woolworths naff-ness.

Back on tonight, 30th Nov 2013.

^^^ uh, I meant 30th Nov 1978

did peter powell turn into tony blackburn?

no, was TB all the way through. could've sworn the first link was PP.

meh. it's beginning to sound a lot like christmas.

I'd forgotten that Hot Chocolate's song was a Christmas (of sorts) tune - kind of fits now though. Apart from them and the Buzzcocks, really a sort of blah week. IIRC not much happens now until early 1979 and the proper New Wave stuff kicks in. OTOH Boney M in a class of their own, even if the bloke looked like some manic ski instructor. Possibly my first memory of the actual physical production side of music was hearing 'Mary's Boy Child' being played off my father's Akai reel-to-reel tape machine and watching the tape spools rotating in almost a trance state, about five minutes after he'd recorded the track of the radio. I think it was then that a small light bulb went on above four and a half year old me's head that there was a technological element to music and the dim beginnings of the idea that it would be exciting to work in that area.

OK it's not on BBC4, but this TOTP2 Christmas show is the usual grab bag of the usual suspects (Wizzard, etc.), plus Emilie Sande why because she had a bit of tinsel around her neck and The Teardrop Explodes why because there's a Christmas Tree on stage. Also featuring Mark Radcliffe's oh-so-funny-it-hurts pomo hipster snarktastic between song commentary.

Mark Radcliffe's oh-so-funny-it-hurts pomo hipster snarktastic between song commentary

Still better than Steve Wright

oof...

Anyway, Barron Knights - possibly their only decent song is the one about Rubik's Cube, but I haven't heard that one in so long that possibly my memory is playing tricks on me and that one stinks as well.

Robbie Williams, fuck off. I know he's been made-up to look older in this video, but I can't believe that he's only a couple of months older than me.

A fun game for all the family: try and figure out whether it's Bowie or Crosby who wants to be there the least.

Crosby was out of it according to DB

"I was wondering if he was still alive. He was just… not there. He was not there at all. He had the words in front of him. (Deep Bing voice) “Hi, Dave, nice to see you here…” And he looked like a little old orange sitting on a stool. “Cos he’d been made up very heavily and his skin was a bit pitted, and there was just nobody home at all, you know? It was the most bizarre experience. I didn’t know anything about him. I just knew my mother liked him. Maybe I would have known (sings) “When the mooon,,,” No… (hums) “Dadada, dadada, someone waits for me…” That’s about the only song of his I would have actually known."

http://exploringdavidbowie.com/2013/02/05/david-bowie-the-interview-hours/

As a fitting tribute to Mud, that polystyrene 'snow' is still polluting the oceans to this day.