What was the first song on top of the Pops?

This was originally the Top 20, though this varied throughout the show's history. The Top 30 was used from 1969, and the Top 40 from 1984. Dusty Springfield's "I Only Want to Be with You" was the first song featured on TOTP, while the Rolling Stones were the first band to perform, with "I Wanna Be Your Man".

What is the podcast about top of the pops?

Chart Music: the Top Of The Pops Podcast Chart Music. The podcast that takes one random episode of Top Of The Pops - the greatest TV Pop show ever - and breaks it down to its very last compound.

Why did they stop Top of the Pops?

It started in 1964 and ended in 2006 because not enough people were watching it any more . It was hosted by many presenters over the years, most notably by Sir Jimmy Savile, who opened the very first show on New Year's Day 1964 on BBC1. TOTP2 (Top of the Pops 2) is a variant of the show.

Did anyone ever sing live on Top of the Pops?

In an attempt to appease American audiences, acts were also allowed to send in pre-recorded performances, much to the dismay of British fans and those in the studio. Miming had always been allowed and acted as a backing track for artists but was scrapped entirely, forcing the musical guests to sing live.

Who refused to lip sync on Top of the Pops?

Watch Faith No More's Mike Patton refuse to lip-sync on Top Of The Pops in 1990. If there's one thing metalheads should know by now, it's to never put constraints on Mike Patton.

Who was the first person to sing on Top of the Pops?

The opening band was The Rolling Stones , who had just made number 13 in the chart with 'I Wanna Be Your Man'. They were followed by Dusty Springfield with 'I Only Want to be With You'; 'Glad All Over' by the Dave Clark Five; The Hollies with 'Stay' and The Swinging Blue Jeans performing 'The Hippy Hippy Shake'.

Was any of Top of the Pops live?

The show featured performances by artists who had performed well in that week's pop singles charts, including the number one song. Shows were firstly broadcast live, with a studio audience, with artists miming to their songs. They were later pre-recorded, still with artists miming.

What was the first band to appear on Top of the Pops?

The very first Top of the Pops, broadcast on a Wednesday evening at 6.36 pm, was introduced by DJ Jimmy Savile. The opening band was The Rolling Stones , who had just made number 13 in the chart with 'I Wanna Be Your Man'.

What was the original theme song for Top of the Pops?

In 1972 TOTP changed its signature tune. The original music, a percussion piece written by Johnnie Stewart and Harry Rabinowitz (and there had been two subsequent orchestral versions in the '60s), was replaced by CCS, performing Led Zeppelin's 'Whole Lotta Love' . To this day, this tune is associated with the Pops.

What was the first famous pop song?

The song is called ' After the Ball ' by Charles Harris. It was written in 1891 and debuted in 1892. Sheet music was one of the metrics used to determine the popularity of a song.

What was the first rap song on Top of the Pops?

It's generally agreed to be ' Rappers Delight ' by the Sugarhill Gang. Although there were earlier recordings knocking around New York, this was the first on proper vinyl. It was a very small hit in the US but quite big in the UK. I remember them on Top Of The Pops.

Chart Music: the Top Of The Pops Podcast - #71: March 19th 1981 – Shaky Of The Dorm Transcript and Discussion (2024)

Starting point is 00:00:00 This is the first radio ad you can smell. The new Cinnabon pull-apart only at Wendy's. It's ooey, gooey, and just five bucks for the small coffee all day long. Taxes extra at participating Wendy's until May 5th. Terms and conditions apply. This will certainly have an adult theme and might well contain strong scenes of sex or violence, which could be quite graphic. It may also contain some very explicit language which will frequently mean sexual swear words sharp music Hey, you pop craze youngsters.

Starting point is 00:00:53 Welcome to the latest episode of Charm Music. The podcast that gets its hands right down the back of the settee on a random episode of Top of the Pops. I'm your host, Al Needham, and the shoulders I stand upon today belong to Neil Kulkarni... Hello there. ...and Taylor Parks. Yeah, hello.

Starting point is 00:01:16 Don't you think we should soup these up a bit? We deserve more professional introductions. As you say, Taylor Parks, author of 2001 an inventor of the communication satellite now in retreat in sri lanka he ponders the riddles of this and other worlds harmful to aquatic life with long-lasting effects no let's carry on doing what we normally do and we should have catchphrases i I might go with, nice to see you, to see you, c*nt.

Starting point is 00:01:48 That's a good one. And at the end, one of us should say, and it's goodnight from me. And then the other one should say, and it's goodnight from that c*nt. And then we both say, goodnight,

Starting point is 00:01:59 Q Starfield. Are you going on Chuck GPT for your biog or something? Because, yeah, I was outraged that mine says I'm from Wolverhampton, man. Really? Mine says that I wrote for Sounds, Melody Maker and The Enemy and Vice. f*ck that.

Starting point is 00:02:15 Mine says I prefer looking at paintings from behind. I don't know where they got that from. Anyway, boys, put your hands on my belly, and I'll say, do you want to fill me with all the pop and interesting things that have occurred of late? I've been doing a bit of work. I've been working with Rudy from ARKane. Oh, yes.

Starting point is 00:02:38 Oh, nice. Sleeve notes for their latest box set. f*ck me. It's been fun, but ARKane were ad copywriters you know i mean so preparing copy for them was somewhat nerve-wracking i've been um decorating my house trying to control my cat i'm having a nice burn up every night though in my newly swept chimney oh god i've turned into such a fire wanker about that or conflagration can't any rather but um anyway far away from such middle

Starting point is 00:03:05 class bougie concerns I've also spent possibly the strangest night I have in many a year oh really

Starting point is 00:03:11 yeah a night that I'm not sure I can talk about with full candour because I don't want to wake up with my

Starting point is 00:03:15 tongue buried on a beach somewhere I went to a masonic ladies night oh yes you did yes

Starting point is 00:03:21 it was a bizarre and odd glimpse of how the elites live right with a tombola thrown in as well. Did you win? No, it was f*cking fixed, wasn't it?

Starting point is 00:03:29 No, of course it was. I mean, as you can imagine, it was very like a call in the gang ladies night. I mean, it wasn't a night special everywhere from New York to Hollywood. This was in Warwick, a town that I've never got along with. Not just because of Warwick Uni, planting its ugly, snobbish presence in Carpentry, but also like most medieval towns, it's kind of wonky and wrong and not fit for purpose. Ah, yes.

Starting point is 00:03:51 And the bathroom in my hotel was so misshapen and small, I had to sit with my legs at 10am just to have a decent dump. Oh no! I should perhaps explain how I ended up at a Masonic ladies' night, but obviously I'm going gonna have to protect names so that i can continue on sharp music podcast and as a teacher with my vocal cords still effective so my dear friend name redacted his partner to a chap called name redacted this fella he happens to have been a grand worshipful master of the local masons for the past year as it combines his loves of dressing

Starting point is 00:04:26 up and ridiculous ceremony and charity work that sounds a bit familiar does he go for really long walks as well no he doesn't he doesn't jingle jingle um uh you know my dear friend as partner to grand worshipful master is therefore lady name redacted for that year. And commensurate with that role is her responsibility to put together a ladies night in which, you know, money's raid and speeches are made and get a stripper on. Yeah. And gavels are banged. She invited me and a few cov mates along as moral support and as a sort of general buttress against the sheer weirdness of the evening. I mean, we were, of course, all determined at some point to stumble down corridors we shouldn't have, you know,

Starting point is 00:05:12 and chance upon the summoning of Osmodeus or something. But truth be told, as soon as we stepped into the Masonic Hall, we were whisked upstairs and we were straight into this kind of bizarre devil-rides-out style furnishings in this room. There was a magnificent checkerboard black and white rug that carpeted the room. And we patiently waited for it to turn into a walling vortex that would tumble us into a netherworld of arcane occultism. It didn't. Instead, a nice chap called Bill, who like all the masons there, was identifiable by his bow tie and evening dress, got us some champagne.

Starting point is 00:05:46 And we looked at the bizarre aprons and symbols and thrones, not daring really to ask what any of it meant. Yeah, it was weird. And then it was downstairs for a three-course meal and the speeches, which was all kind of normal, apart from a couple of things. Were there serving wenches? No, there weren't, actually. Oh, it was ladies' night, wasn't it? It was ladies' night. Were there any kind of like waiters in aprons and then you turn around you could see their bare ass

Starting point is 00:06:08 no although we did leave early maybe that's how the night went i don't know we were on top table man it was great and we noticed when we sat down that the table had a massive gavel on it right kind of the heft and weight of a hefty sofa leg but sort of shaped like a dunce's cap and we started to notice as the ceremony started that the grand worshipful master was able to bang this on the table with this kind of shocking loudness and reverberance and then every other table would answer with their own gavel right it's like a dub style effect really we should unhinge things more there was speeches there was this raffle which was a total f*cking stitch up what was the top price one a child's heart i think it was one of those horrible days where you go away and drive a fast car or something yeah it was a fix that

Starting point is 00:06:56 that raffle it had that real west midland serious crime squad feel in terms of corruption but basically i mean the entire room looked populated with bent coppers. I was one of only about two non-white people in the room. Right. But my suit, cravat, and spats meant that I passed for civilized. The most bizarre moment, though, we had to toast the king and also sing the national anthem.

Starting point is 00:07:17 Oh, for f*ck's sake, Neil. I know I did it as well, craven and pathetic as I am. As a Republican-minded person, I should have kept my mouth shut. But, you know, this is the power of these things. And the night ended with me sort of boogieing to Luther Vandross

Starting point is 00:07:33 and I requested the call in the gang song. Of course. But it was very telling for me the next day that me and my girlfriend, we had a little stroll around Warwick Castle. My girlfriend asked the grand worshipful master who we were giving a lift back to Cobb, you know castle and he was full of kind of oh well you know we do a barbecue every year you should come and we do a tour that's how they f*cking get you in it yes

Starting point is 00:07:54 i think it would be my last masonic encounter because um looking around that room i just thought you know if i put myself about right here i may well not only be able to speed through 50 mile per hour zones on the motorway, I could also probably get embroiled in Warwickshire's biggest swinging scene. Oh, yes. A very strange night, a brush with the Masons, which I'm hoping will never happen again. Did you win the day driving the fast car?

Starting point is 00:08:19 No, I didn't. I was going to say, I was going to ask you if you've got a sunroof for the antlers to poke out the sun. No. It was a to say, I was going to ask you if it's got a sunroof for the antlers to poke out. No, it was a total fix, man. You know, because the Masons, they were identifiable because they were all in sort of evening trash, you know, like black bow tie and all of that. Yeah. And they were the only f*ckers going up and winning any prizes. Whereas us outlanders, yeah, we were just sort of cold-shouldered in that regard but

Starting point is 00:08:45 an insight that i don't want to repeat because i suspect that room upstairs with the thrones and the compasses and all of that that's where the real sick sh*t goes on that they don't put on when outsiders are in the building you know taylor um well i can't compete with that no i've just been cooking my coronation quiche lovely broad beans and tarragon makes you feel so proud to be british doesn't it truly a quiche to put the great back into great scott that looks disgusting anyway i paid a servant to make mine i was too busy working on my blaxploitation film about one of the old ladies from Fawlty Towers working title. They call me Miss Tibbs.

Starting point is 00:09:28 And I know it's irresponsible putting a joke that obscure this close to the top of the show. But it's all I can manage this month. I sound old because I've been feeling old at this point. It's only the fact that I'm not two years of my age in defiance of the pandemic that's keeping me under 50. Can you believe it? I've reached that age where you're supposed to relax a bit, slow down and enjoy the fruits of your labor, which in my case are three crab apples and a lime. And I'm not expecting to get rich poking holes in things, even though a lot of people who do it far less well are millionaires. And I appreciate that there are those many, many chart music listeners

Starting point is 00:10:09 who allow me to sleep with their wives or girlfriends in front of them out of sheer admiration and gratitude. Tears in their eyes. They say, sir, I don't mind that she's going to go with you while I watch because it means I get to meet you, which is heartening. But apart from that, what do I get? Just this sense that it's all my own fault. So bear with me.

Starting point is 00:10:34 It's like being an actor who's also a dwarf in 1970. Like you're sat there waiting for your phone to ring and every three years your agent calls and he's like,, yeah, good news, we found another part for you. What? Oh, yes, actually, it is playing an eccentric evil millionaire's personal butler. How did you guess that? But this is how it is now. It's like I've been showing my dog at Crufts,

Starting point is 00:10:58 and in the obedience round, it leapt up and bit the judge's throat out. You know, it's not going to be oh well maybe next year right i've set my expectations there but i've been keeping busy i was out oh good the other week watching a live on stage interview with some of the old composers from kpm the library music oh yeah one of whom was john cameron and one of whom was alan parker that is to say the co-composer of and guitarist on the piece of music the Pop Crazy Youngsters were hearing just a moment ago

Starting point is 00:11:29 Brother by CCS lovely to be in the same room as them although I didn't mention anything about this podcast in case they wanted money yes, what a plate Taylor, thank f*ck what else, oh it was my birthday last month or this month as it used to be called i can't keep

Starting point is 00:11:48 up with this changing times no major cause for celebration except that i didn't die which is something i'm quite paranoid about dying on my own birthday because aside from making me something of a party pooper as though there were any party it would render me utterly predictable in death because it means that every single person who looked at my gravestone would say exactly the same thing apart from good riddance or he could afford a gravestone then yeah you and shakespeare taylor that's what i'd say oh and also i've been listening to this great podcast called chart music really it's really long but you don't have to listen to it all in one go i love the grange hill bit in the last episode and i'm grateful that you put in that completely

Starting point is 00:12:36 true story about me in the mid-nineties encountering the just say no era grange hill cast in the green room of the word where they were indeed running around looking very animated and singing to each other just say yes it's all accurate but I should add this detail the most tragic bit was Melissa Wilkes

Starting point is 00:12:56 Melissa Grom Pricks Wilkes aka Jackie Zamo's girlfriend that's pathetic Zamo first of all she'd played no part in that just say yes horseplay just as she'd seemingly played no part in the just say no record but i saw her standing at the exit door of teddington lock studios as the audience were filing out saying thank you thanks for coming to every single person as they went out as though it was her show f*cking hell i remember feeling a bit of a chill how polite yeah but she wasn't even 30 at the time and looking at that it was horrible she was like a psychologically

Starting point is 00:13:41 broken relic you know it's like, well, that's that. Two defining moments, upstage by Zamo and his clockwork orange eye makeup to show that he's on heroin. And upstage by Dickie Davis saying co*cksucker instead of cupsocker by mistake. And that's it, right? And that sheepdog that slid down the hill because it had worms while that bloke was singing.

Starting point is 00:14:04 Oh, yeah. Yes. There you go. hope you had fun melissa you're out the door stand aside please here comes lucinda rhodes flyerty to take your place it's terrible melissa wilkes doesn't even have a wikipedia page Wikipedia page. Oh, no. Not even one as depressing as that of the genuinely likeable Lee MacDonald, a.k.a. Junkie Kid Zamo. Yes. Whose Wikipedia page lists his profession as actor, locksmith. Yes. Although, speaking of Grange Hill, you know the tube station, Grange Hill?

Starting point is 00:14:42 Yeah. It's out on a loop on the far eastern end of the central line right essex borders middle of nowhere and it's nothing to do with the tv show it's not set there it's just a coincidence but how f*cking inescapably tedious that connection must be if you actually lived there yeah and i was sat on the tube of the day looking at it thinking imagine if you were the station master of grange hill underground station you'd feel like you had no choice but to take over the tannoy system and instead of the spoken announcements insist on just playing chicken man by alan hawkshaw

Starting point is 00:15:18 the one true grange hill theme over and over on a loop all day and night endlessly at deafening volume so that passengers just wouldn't be able to escape it whatever they did like echoing just lob sausages on forks at people as they come out yeah i'll replace the ticket barriers with big sausages on forks yeah yeah hire a 15 year old with a quiff to hang around the station bullying people, stealing their fare money. And you could have Mr. Bronson going, you, boy, mind the gap! Yeah, but the important thing would be the music, blasting out 24 hours a day, making everyone smile. Yeah. So even just people passing through the station couldn't hear themselves think because of the sound of it

Starting point is 00:16:05 until eventually the top brass would call you in for dressing down and the bloke says look this has to stop we've had thousands of complaints from commuters several hundred of them from a locksmith's down the road just please stop playing that music over and over again all day but you'd have to stand firm and say no i'm sorry this is just the way it has to be until eventually they'd say right that's it we warned you you are no longer the station master of grange hill station you're being moved to baker street hope it goes well well i have something that's very pop and extremely interesting so mark this down right now in your pop craze diary saturday september the 16th 2023 king's place king's cross london

Starting point is 00:17:00 chart music comes alive and returns to the london podcast festival f*cking yes same venue hall one the big one little bit later in the day at half past four but don't you worry there'll be plenty of time to link up with us and the pop craze universe afterwards i.e get f*cking k-lied and i can exclusively reveal right now that the lineup will be me taylor parks and neil called carney oh yes pub craze youngsters teammate tv land in the ass if you will yeah yeah there's none of that you know face for radio hiding no more is no man i'm gonna have to rouge up. f*ck it, it'll be the first time I've ever met you in person, Neil. No, it's mad, isn't it, Al?

Starting point is 00:17:49 That is ridiculous, man. It's like a long-distance relationship is finally going to be consummated in front of, hopefully, 600 people. After years and years of Neil asking you to forward some money so that he could come and see you. Now, as these words are coming out of my mouth,

Starting point is 00:18:08 I don't know how much it's going to be, but I can reveal that the Pop Craze Patreons are going to be hit off with a 20% discount. So if you're not one of those people yet, maybe now is the time to get some tips in this g-string right here oh they're f*cking good aren't they taylor these uh these live shows yeah we we were treated very kindly yes we were yeah wait till you see the green room they have at king's place they'll f*cking out all the best crisps oh man yeah get out you're not supposed to say this in front of the listeners.

Starting point is 00:18:49 But, yeah, it's a great opportunity for you, the listener, to commune with your fellow pop-craze youngsters, and it's a great opportunity for me to get shot of a load of f*cking bummer dog T-shirts that have been clogging up my back room for the past year. Do you think it would be profitable to try and sell a T-shirt that didn't feature a silhouette image of a dog buggering a small child? Yeah, I know. 2022 wasn't ready for that T-shirt. I think 2023 is more than ready for the bummer dog T-shirt.

Starting point is 00:19:16 Let's talk about the really important people at the moment. And those people are the brand new batch of pop craze patreons and in the five dollar section this week we have gordon kennedy thomas dowding neil major saps paul whitelaw jessup peeps robin Matthew Kendrick, Pie Museum, Foul Play, Ash Preston, Matthew Reitz, Paul Thorpe, Matt D, Lee Kyle, OPEC Dreams, Brian Oblivion, Lee Kremen, Sean Moran, and Wendy Bort comes in. Oh, thank you, babies. And in the $3 section, we have Philip Bedford, Chris Dowding, Brendan Parsons, and Roderick Lewis. God, we f*cking fancy the arse off you. Oh, and Martin Reilly.

Starting point is 00:20:20 You nudged it up, didn't you, you naughty boy? Thank you so much and as well as keeping chart music alive and getting the latest episodes in full without any advert ramble, days before anyone else, the Pop Craze

Starting point is 00:20:38 Patreons get to tinker and a tanker and a fiddle and a widdle and a diddle with the all new chart music top ten. Are you ready for it boys? Yes. Hit the f*cking music! We've lost

Starting point is 00:20:53 sex under Artex and the two Ronnies clash which means three up, two down, two non-movers one new entry and one re-entry. Last week's number three dropped seven places to number ten. Noel Edmonds' wank fantasy.

Starting point is 00:21:14 Up one place from number ten to number nine. Jeff Sex. It's another one place jump to number eight. But here comes ji*zzum. Re-entry at number seven for my f*cking car. And last week's number four drops two places to number six, Eric Smallshore of Eccles. Into the top five and no change at five for the bent c*nts who aren't f*cking real. Last week's number six, this week's number four, bummer dog.

Starting point is 00:21:55 Into the top three and it's a two-place drop for the Birmingham piss troll. Birmingham Pistrol. This week's number two. No change for the provisional O-R-O-R-A which means... This week's highest new entry and the brand new chart music number one.

Starting point is 00:22:19 Ghostface Scylla. Oh, what a chart boys. f*cking hell. The, what a chart, boys. f*cking hell. The Pop Craze youngsters, they don't like stasis, man. They like change. Yeah, it's exciting.

Starting point is 00:22:31 They live for kicks. So, yeah, Ghostface Scylla. I don't even want to talk about what that sounds like. I just had it in my head while I've been lying in bed for the past fortnight. f*cking hell, man. But a couple of pop craze youngsters have alerted me chaps to a possible Eric Smallshore sighting.

Starting point is 00:22:50 Have you heard about this? All my days, really. A karaoke singer in an episode of Cracker Doom when the Saints go marching in. Someone pointed out that the way the singer phrases the word number is extremely similar to Eric. But yeah you you don't think so no eric's influence spread far and wide right it's a bit it's a bit like saying i heard a band it's a singer who's singing just like mick jagger was it the rolling stones no no no no he's 100 not him oh well

Starting point is 00:23:20 never mind so if you want to get in on all this thrilling excitement, you know what you do, Pop Craze Youngsters. You take them fingers over to the keyboard. You tap out patreon.com slash chart music and you pledge and you pledge and you pledge if you can. It's a sound investment, I would say. So, this episode, Pop Craze Youngsters, takes us all the way back to March the 19th, 1981.

Starting point is 00:23:51 Nothing particularly special or landmark about this episode, but I can tell you right now that a lot of the old friends we've made along the way during our Chomp Music Odyssey will be swinging by. But also, hey, we've got a few surprises in store. Just put your head round the door. Also, chaps, we're a good nine months into the reign of Michael Earl by now. So this is an excellent opportunity for an examination,

Starting point is 00:24:18 an ultrasound, if you will, of the difficult pregnancy of the yellow hurl era. Because the reformations have not kicked in yet have they oh god yeah i mean it does feel this episode for me still quite 70s yeah yeah yeah there are some old familiars here but there's also some new enemies for us as well but truth be told i mean looking at the charts they still don't really feel entirely colonized by by new pop music there's still a lot of dinosaurs there and in terms of this episode it's certainly sort of old pop and older pop people who are kind of winning in a way um top of the pops could never entirely commit to new music in a way you know a show like the tube could later but i don't think hurl has yet realized

Starting point is 00:25:02 that new bands are more exciting yeah in a of classic Top of the Pops way than their older competitors. So consequently, I found this episode lurches between sort of variety and pop, probably in a way that would have angered me at the time. It's clear here that while the 80s are gagging to kick on in certain places, the 70s aren't quite ready to let go, are they? No, absolutely not. They're clinging on with their scaly tendrils yeah there's really a lot of old lags on this episode from the top of the pots

Starting point is 00:25:31 from 1981 my god yeah deep in the booming heart of either the finest or at least the second finest half decade ever for the british charts you know full of young spunk and piss and basically half the acts on this episode are over 30 and have been recording since the 60s or early 70s but it's quite interesting because unlike in the later 80s when all these older guys like all souped up with the modern aor sound were a f*cking plague on the charts and essentially all the same uh what you got here is a bunch of oldens creeping out from under the blankets now that punk is over you're looking around and trying to work out how to respond to the new decade and so it's different in every case right it might mean horrifying self-consciousness

Starting point is 00:26:27 or a new lease of life or in one case here hang on didn't i invent half of this well i don't do that sh*t anymore and we get examples of all of these tonight you know i mean it's not like 1986 with steve winwood delivering another soulful pop ballad or elton john returning with a new album described as his finest work since too low for zero you know it's a business as usual in 1981 these old f*ckers have got a dilemma because yeah they still feel like they have to justify their existence within pop and most of them seem to be addressing it with varying degrees of success so even when the music isn't brilliant or even bearable it's worth discussing yeah yeah and the highs are quite high but the lows are really low on this episode you know yeah yeah

Starting point is 00:27:20 low as crocodile piss yeah i mean it is a reminder that golden ages are quite often beheaded with straight up golden showers and and some of the older acts here f*ck me i mean there's no other word but shameful for some of what we're gonna talk about yeah i mean it's always the same isn't it's always easy to fall into that sort of bbc4 bullsh*t that hey everything was changing culturally but look i watched an episode of summertime special the other night the bbc saturday night variety spectacular from august 1981 still a flagship light entertainment program and it's indistinguishable from 1971 and in a lot of ways from 1951 and anyway you can tell it's not is that the title sequence features members of the a team not the real a team oh my shame this perma smiling song and dance troupe of pleasant face nothings in cheap nylon t-shirts with their names printed on the front and ice skater trousers right who come on regularly to pad out this

Starting point is 00:28:26 grim 45 minutes until you're longing for the young generation to hobble in their zimmer frames and headbutt them in the bollocks but anyway at the start you see all the members of the a team larking around in an overcast and freezing brighton seafront i mean the very first shot of this program is the word summertime special superimposed over a helicopter shot of a marina in the pissing rain and you see them all leaping about in their t-shirts pretending not to be cold on the beach giving a kid a donkey ride, buying candy floss, purchasing a lobster from a seafood shop, stroking a police horse, all those things you do on holiday, right?

Starting point is 00:29:14 And the only way that you can tell that you're even looking at a time that's within our lifespan is when one of the girls picks up a giant novelty lollipop, which says, kiss me quick, from a revolving lollipop stand, and pretends to lick it without first taking the plastic off. And you can see the other two lollipops on the stand, and one of them says, Charles Diana Royal Wedding, and the other one says, I like puss*, with a picture of a cat. I guess nobody knew what it meant mrs slocum would

Starting point is 00:29:48 and so this program is hosted by rod hull and emu right of course a bully and his fig leaf and features guests uh such as shaking stevens um the ir-listening vocal trio The Bachelors, as hot and sexy as the frozen peas which share their name, the Birmingham-born easy-listening... And as mushy as the peas that go intense. Yeah, they're dressed in a hundred shades of brown, that most complex of colours. The Birmingham-born easy- easy listening chanteuse maggie

Starting point is 00:30:28 moon who's got don't bring maggie moon's name up in front of me taylor i go all red so she turns up she's got a hair sprayed up cloud of copper colored hair uh a slinky ankle length black lace dress slit to the thigh and far too much pink lipstick she looks like she's at her gangster husband's funeral but unbelievably she was in her twenties I've got to break in there Taylor before you can carry on a couple of years hence

Starting point is 00:31:00 from this episode of Summertime Special Maggie Moon was the guest singer on Name That Tune. And I was sitting there watching it with me mam and me dad. And she came on wearing what sounds like the same outfit that you've just described there. I remember me mam just tutting and just says, oh, I bet she hasn't got any knickers on.

Starting point is 00:31:21 And I was absolutely overcome with lust and had to go upstairs and do something about it so there we go that is my second most embarrassing uh masturbatory story anyway she's uh one of the guests on summertime special along with irish all-girl easy listening vocal trio sheba of whom more later believe it or not um and the uh whip cracking arabian nights themed acrobatics act kazbek and zari who are very impressive at what they do but it's a bit like the boring bit at a fetish club where everyone has to stand still and watch an act and throughout the the show, over and over again,

Starting point is 00:32:05 the A-team, the A-team, I see the A-team. Yeah, they had to appear on Summertime Special for the crime they didn't commit. Until the grand finale of this programme, which has a huge studio audience right there in the place, is a ten-minute item on film featuring song and dance production numbers shot in the rolls royce factory in goodwood introduced by rod hull and his fake bird as a place where we can still

Starting point is 00:32:36 be proud of the slogan british made summertime special salutes rolls royce and it's literally just these grinning inadequates leaping about in a f*cking gray factory full of exhaust pipes and windscreen wipers yeah all dressed in pink and baby blue to a medley of easy listening versions of appropriate tunes like grease lightning pick up the pieces interrupting production at a time when the british motor industry really needed to pull its finger out all in the cut with close-ups of people in brown stores coats and overalls soldering things and fitting washers in that pale gray light sat Saturday evening, prime time. And then at the end,

Starting point is 00:33:28 they pile in the finished Rolls Royces to the sound of the 18 singing Silver Lady, obviously. And they drive out through the factory gates triumphantly. Of course. And that's the end, you think. And there's about a minute of shots of the studio audience in rapturous applause. But then they cut back to rod hull and he says before we leave rolls royce let's have a look at what more than a million pounds

Starting point is 00:33:53 worth of motorcars looks like cue another minute of film showing 18 brand new rolls royces clearly not actually being driven by members of the a team who i guess couldn't be trusted rolling into a field and assembling themselves into a giant double r which is then filmed from a helicopter it's a f*cking advert it's a prime time bbc advert for a product way out of the price range of anybody in the studio audience or indeed watching this lower class bilge at home right a super high-end product whose image can surely only be tarnished by association with rod hull and the a-teams and the whole thing stinks right this was shortly after rolls royce was sold to the engineering and aviation group vickers and while i can't pinpoint any particular significance there i'll bet you any

Starting point is 00:34:51 money that's significant somehow some f*cking spear fall in a wood paneled office sitting behind a huge phone and a massive glass ashtray calling in a favor but the reason i bring this up is that a number of things i just mentioned will recur later so more of this when the time comes but also just to mention the strange pickled feeling of that program which was absolutely in the mainstream of 1981 but feels decades older like something which should have been swept away by the luftwaffe you know what i mean like and punk yeah and there it is front and center saturday night prime time a harrowing watch alas no footage of the after show party when maggie moon drank two bottles of martini and punched a

Starting point is 00:35:41 police horse in the face but this is bad enough And this was the main reality of 1981, right? I'm here to tell you young people, it was. It's like a rule with yours, right? You know, if you go on a dating app and someone's got five pictures up, the worst one will be the best likeness of what that person looks like in real life. Well, it's the same.

Starting point is 00:36:04 The worst pop cultural artifacts from a particular time be the best likeness of what that person looks like in real life well it's the same the worst pop cultural artifacts from a particular time are usually the best representation of the reality of being alive at that time as a working or lower middle class english person yeah and this is how i remember 1981 despite since then the gradual creep of this idea that, Hey, even your dad looked like a member of visage, right? No, it's 1981 was more like 1971 than it was like 1991, which is why the stuff that we now think looks so 1981 looked f*cking crazy at the time.

Starting point is 00:36:42 Because it's down to where you, where you are at that time. A lot of the people on these BBC four documentaries talking about the early 80s weren't in places like we were actually watching sh*t like this but maggie moon i'd completely forgotten about that real brummy sultriness up there with lisa dominique and um you know connie anyway seeing as you asked um my most embarrassing masturbation story happened in early 1983 in my bedroom just before school was about to start while i was watching tv am on my portable now chaps this was the era of ridiculously tight stay pressed trousers and i was paranoid that i get a bonk on at school and it got noticed and i'd get

Starting point is 00:37:25 absolutely shamed up so i was in the habit round about that time of enjoying myself in the gentlemanly manner you know to get it out the way for the day get the poison out exactly taylor so you know i fished my copy of men only from under the mattress and proceeded to set about me, Sen. And when I was at the I Know Corrida stage, I could hear my sister thumping up the stairs, screaming and shouting and carrying on. And I was absolutely terrified she was going to burst into my room. So I got up to throw myself against the door

Starting point is 00:37:58 and accidentally ejacul*ted over Wincy Willis's face. Yeah. f*cking hell. So I just want to say, if you're out there, Wincy, I am so f*cking sorry, even now, 40 years later. And I swear to you, it was completely unintentional. And you were just collateral damage, dog. It could have been anyone.

Starting point is 00:38:23 But it could have been Mike Morris, which doesn't bear thinking about at all so um yeah let's move on did you ever find out if maggie moon was wearing knickers oh god knows i bet emu knew yeah the only way to find out would have been uh i stand neath the maggie moon hesitating Hesitate in. and shatter the myths that we all tell ourselves about this place called Canada. Gripping interviews, explosive archival footage, and real-life expeditions, you'll hear from the people at the very center of these stories. In the latest season, we're exposing the ever-present war on workers

Starting point is 00:39:18 and how workers are fighting back. Follow Commons in your podcast app. Acast helps creators launch, grow, and monetize their podcasts everywhere. Acast.com Onward! Radio 1 News In the news! Ronnie Biggs has been maced in his home in Rio de Janeiro by three kidnappers who claim to be former members of the SAS,

Starting point is 00:39:58 who then stuff him into a canvas bag with four carrier handles, and is currently whereabouts. Unknown! canvas bag with four carrier handles and is currently whereabouts unknown while the media speculates that it's a publicity stunt for his forthcoming autobiography it turns out to be a legitimate attempt to abduct him to a place where he can be extradited to britain in three days time a yacht containing biggs goes out of control off the coast of Barbados and all four men are rescued. And Barbados tells Britain to f*ck off when they request an extradition and he's returned to Brazil.

Starting point is 00:40:33 You lucky bastard. The Social Democratic Party estimates that they will have 14 MPs when they officially start next Thursday. All Labour MPs who have resigned and defected to the SDP. They would end the year with 27 former Labour MPs and a Tory. Sir Peter Heyman, the former British diplomat and intelligence officer who was revealed in Parliament last week as the unnamed member of the paedophile

Starting point is 00:41:00 information exchange who had left a packet of child grot on a bus but was let off by the police has been found in a hotel in Normandy with his wife trying to keep the f*ck out of it. Residents in his home village of Chequendam, Oxfordshire have been doorstopped by the papers and they're remarkably

Starting point is 00:41:19 okay with it all. Who are we to judge him, says a woman in the street. We'll decide for ourselves when the fuss has blown over. Okay. Yeah. tested a killer satellite that shot the f*ck out of another satellite over Eastern Europe. The Bank of England have put out their first £50 note since the war. They've got Christopher Wren on the back. Liverpool and Ipswich cruise into the semi-finals of the European and UEFA Cups after beating CSKA Sofia and Centetti in respective layer, but West Ham get knocked out by Dynamo Tbilisi and Newport County are dispatched by Coles Aigena in the UEFA Cup.

Starting point is 00:42:13 But the big news this week is in the Sunday Mirror. Headline, banned! Sickest group in pop. A top punk rock group have been banned from college concerts because of their vile stage antics the chart-busting group who call themselves splodgeness abounds use the seven heads of pigs and oxen in their act it sounds sick and that's what many people feel after seeing them perform. After a recent concert at Thames Polytechnic in London, cleaners were horrified to find the group had left behind the rotting remains of their gruesome stage props. Now college officials have banned further concerts and even the students themselves are so disgusted they have advised other colleges

Starting point is 00:43:07 not to book the group. But 23-year-old Max Blotch, leader of the group that shot up the charts with a record called Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps, is unrepentant. I'm not surprised the cleaners found the heads, he bragged. They probably smelt them before they could see them. They were a bit maggoty when we left them. Then Max spoke in loving detail about the group's ideas of entertainment. Our showstopper used to be oral sex, but we've cut that out because we no longer have a girl in the group, he said. Now we buy pigs and oxen heads from the market and use them in sexual movements or as ventriloquist dummies. Then we throw them into the crowd. It's just a bit of a giggle,

Starting point is 00:44:00 know what I mean? If you don't find that very funny there's always what max calls the group's bingo interval one of the group lies on the floor and spits pig's eyes out of his mouth like the numbered balls in bingo it's sort of kelly's eye with a difference. Student Union President Simon Hubbard said it was seconding. We hope we have seen and heard the last of this group. Alas not quite. When Moronic Max heard of the ban

Starting point is 00:44:35 he retaliated in typical style by sending the college two more heads through the post. Oh! Sh shocking behaviour. Disgraceful. I mean, everyone's just going to be waiting around, aren't they, for two pints of lager and a packet of crisps, please.

Starting point is 00:44:51 They've got to do something. I think people would be more offended nowadays if they did two little boys again. I don't understand why they didn't just let the music do the talking. On the cover of Melody Maker this week, Pauline Black of The Selector. On the cover of Smash Hits,

Starting point is 00:45:11 Orchestral Maneuvers in the Dark. On the cover of Record Mirror, Francis Rossi of Quo in a very tight bomber jacket and tie leaning against a wall with a fa*g on. Oh, they're still relevant the number one lp in the uk at the moment kings of the wild frontier by adam and the ants over in america the number one single is nine to five by dolly parton and the number one lp is high infidelity by

Starting point is 00:45:41 ario speedwagon which of course was the number one LP in America for 15 weeks on non-consecutive occasions broken up for three weeks by something a bit more punchy and vibrant Paradise Theatre by Styx America

Starting point is 00:45:58 So me boys, what were we doing in March of 1981? Well, I would have been eight a year into wearing glasses i'm adjusted to that second year at junior school i mean the only thing i genuinely remember about this time is that i was entering into a key moment for any young person i think my first fountain pen oh get you i'd long looked longingly at the massive array of quinks. Oh, yeah. In Midland Educational,

Starting point is 00:46:28 Coventry's one-stop shop for all your stationary needs. But now I was finally given the chance to actually write with a fountain pen, load up cartridges in that shotgun way, and, of course, become acquainted with the taste of ink. I've never used a fountain pen ever. They're great. What's the f*cking point man we got ball

Starting point is 00:46:46 points in this century neil yeah i know but you can do italics and stuff you can get all calligraphical or whatever the word is i mean i wouldn't feel as grown up until i got my texas instruments graphic calculator so this is a big big moment for me no man i was happy with me parker nicked out wh smith in vicky center well it was mod, wasn't it? You know, the arrow. Oh, yeah, of course. Jotting out of your pocket, man. Taylor? I think I went to Butlins on holiday in 1981. Ooh, which one? Yeah, Minehead.

Starting point is 00:47:12 Yeah. We were one of the last families to go to Butlins when it was still Butlins, I think, as opposed to a cultural abattoir, which it became. As early as the mid-'80s, really. Yeah, we went to Mine minehead it was f*cking brilliant me and my dad went on the monorail and my mum wouldn't go on it like she thought it was going to come off the rails and crash through the glass windowed wall of the princess ballroom like some

Starting point is 00:47:39 kind of working class disaster movie either that or she'd heard the word from ogdenville and new haverbrook and skagness yeah and she wasn't entirely foolish as it was indeed closed in the 1990s after an accident during which six people received whiplash injuries oh that buckling's monorail i think one shunted another one up the back oh fair dues the dues. The year before, I went to Skegness, Butlins. Fell in the boating lake in my brand new jam t-shirt. But yeah, we went on the monorail, but we were really disappointed because when we got off, we realised we were still in Butlins. I thought it was going to take me all the way to the pier in Skegge,

Starting point is 00:48:21 but no, miles away. Yeah. No, I was just happy sitting in a slow-moving fiberglass shell 20 feet off the ground, looking down on crazy golf courses and those tiny roller coasters for five-year-olds. You know, it was a heavenly chariot. 1981 was a really grim year for me.

Starting point is 00:48:41 It's one of my least favourite years, along with 1996 and 1975 my granny who was the the rolling stones fan who was convinced that all the beacles were hom*osexuals she died a few weeks previously and my grandpa was about to have a heart operation that could kill him but it didn't thank f*ck and three members of the family are going to be made unemployed in the space of a month man from a job at a Mike Barlow-like children's clothing factory, dad from his removal van firm, and me from the programme shop, which absolutely f*cking broke my heart.

Starting point is 00:49:14 So yeah, not good times at all. I'm still basking in the joy of having my own dog, Hot Rex, but by this point, my sister's nicked him off me, and she and her mate have started dressing him up in baby clothes and putting him in a pram on his back and pushing him up and down the estate in an attempt to get the fish wives of the area tutting at two 11 year old girls getting in the family way and i'm not happy about that all it's most undignified it's the sort of thing that would become an instagram account now yeah yeah yeah well i put a stop to that very quickly because my sister had a like a swimming costume and i put

Starting point is 00:49:50 that on the dog and let him run out um my sister's chasing him down the street and then he just squats down and has a massive piss all over her clothes so yeah yeah that got nipped right in the bud straight away if those fishwives thought it was bad enough that two 11-year-old girls had got pregnant, wait till they looked in the pram. My God. Music-wise, well, obviously I'm still an absolute weller sheep and I've been boring the f*cking arse off everyone at school

Starting point is 00:50:17 going on about how only the jam could get into the charts with a German import single. That's entertainment, which is still at number 36 in the charts and would have been number one if polydor released it properly let me tell you possibly but you know also looking around me and disgust at my peers not being mods or rude boys anymore things are changing and i'm refusing to keep up with the rapid turnover of pop. And as a matter of fact, there was a poem in the letters page of a recent smash hits by disillusioned X mod that absolutely chimed with my state of mind at the time. And if you don't mind chaps, I'd like to read it right now.

Starting point is 00:50:58 Yeah. We rose like lions to the sound of Secret Affair. Yet we died... f*ck off, you're making this up, man. If you don't mind. Sorry. We rose like lions to the sound of Secret Affair. Yet we died like sheep to the next fashion.

Starting point is 00:51:25 Heroes we were in our two-tone tonic suits. Corner of the street we waited with our hair nice and neat. Along they came, our little modettes, proud and all they were. Yet as mods, the big heroes gave it all up. So please somebody tell me, mod, what was it for? It's plaintive, that, isn't it? It is.

Starting point is 00:52:01 It gets you right in the solar plexus. Yeah. Is he suggesting that mod means nothing unless everyone involved wore exactly the same clothes for the next 40 years because you know to be fair it was right wasn't it because yeah pop is turning over rapidly at the moment isn't it yeah that's the best thing about it well. However bleak and unappealing the early 80s seem in retrospect and seemed at the time because they f*cking did. My God, for a kid.

Starting point is 00:52:31 This isn't just an impression you get looking back. It was like it at the time. You were in a world of wet concrete shopping centres, the same colour as the sky, you know and saturday nights trying to stay awake if you weren't at home watching summertime special you were there eyes streaming under a blanket of indoor fa*g smoke in the pub or all in the works club waiting for the old bloke selling the young soldier to come around not the evening's biggest highlight so let's not think too fondly and imagine that stuff was too good but however grim it got this was also a time when a small child would hear pop groups sing

Starting point is 00:53:13 about being crushed by the wheels of industry yeah and just take that on board yeah it's like oh okay these people have been crushed by the wheels of industry. That's a shame. But it meant that access was provided to that wider world of language and thought. And you saw these intriguing shapes in the distance and became familiar with the idea of artistic courage from an early age. And you develop these high expectations of low culture but it was always doomed because eventually things will follow the path of least resistance and ultimately if you're aiming your work at teenagers and trying to make money sooner or later you realize there's no room for this stuff and you're better off sticking with the things teenagers are most likely to respond to

Starting point is 00:54:02 competitive consumerism and over emotional self-obsession and these aren't new things these are the dark secrets behind every positive teenage craze but you know they're just exploited more unapologetically as time goes on yeah it's not like i'm saying i don't like pop music now you know i like pink panther s as much as anybody in beats by dray headphones and silver trainers you know probably because it sounds like music from 20 years ago last time i was paying attention it's just gloomy looking at so much mainstream pop now and getting that feeling off it you know that feeling of competitive consumerism split along class lines so many pop stars now being either a whoop whoop hands in the air

Starting point is 00:54:46 celebration of of young white tory privilege or a statement of intent to defeat and humiliate all you other bitches because for most unlucky people nowadays society means combat and it's accurate and it's a fair reflection of the times. You can't complain about that. I just don't enjoy it. I don't enjoy songs boasting about having money, unlike all you sh*t people with no money, you know. Or this kind of vague, indulgent, unreflective glumness as a kind of privileged lifestyle choice, you know.

Starting point is 00:55:22 Ooh, I'm in my feels, as Ian Curtis once said, you know i'm in my field as ian curtis once said you know and nobody singing about being crushed by the wheels of industry or no industry anymore yeah being crushed by the non wheels of post-industrial society crushed by the van of amazon but it wasn't at a distance that's the thing i mean even as an eight-year- you know, you're basically talking about a year 81 where, you know, Ghost Town has been a number one. You know, it's been in the charts. This stuff is close. It's not like even as an eight-year-old,

Starting point is 00:55:53 you'll have to start f*cking reading the enemies. Yeah, yeah. This stuff is in the charts. Right. So that's really, really important. Oh, yeah. I would so much rather have been 16 in 1981 than 1988, which is when I was. Except that I'd be six years older now, which would possibly kill me.

Starting point is 00:56:14 Well, chaps, I do believe that this is the moment that we retreat, if you will, to the Chart Music Crap Room, riffle through the boxes and pull out an issue of this week's music press and this time we're going for the nme march the 21st 1981 would you care to come with me on this journey yes on the cover a big rising sun over the nme logo, a full-page image of Tokyo at night, and a lady of the ethnicity that gets Tony Blackburn all excited. It could only be an examination of the Japanese music scene with the tasteful headline, Jap Payback, a nip into the 21st century. In the news, the main story this week is that shooting has started on the BBC's

Starting point is 00:57:08 new fantasy thriller Artemis 81, starring none other than Sting. He'll be playing Heleth, a Danish angel of love who has resolved to overthrow the forces of evil after the theft of the statue of Magog and the resultant disruption of cosmic forces by the powers of evil after the theft of the statue of magog and the resultant disruption of cosmic forces by the powers of evil obviously there's only one location suitable for such a tableau the kreutz tram museum was he there with a pal cordian sting arrived in a thin white vest and white tuxedo jacket and looked decidedly on a pair posing for pictures in a battered old troop carrier says the enemy when asked why the f*ck the bbc would want him in this and does he reckon he's an actor now sting said the production people said they wanted me because

Starting point is 00:57:59 i'm a god-like figure i decided not to do the bond film because it's too camp i'd like to create a new stereotype where the entertainer can sing play music and act it hasn't been done very successfully or meow toyah i've done a certain amount of role playing in my life not acting yet it's an ocean Not acting. Yet. It's a notion I've dipped my toe in, and until I'm swimming, I'm not calling myself an actor. Hang on, Sting, when you bummed Paul Cook in the back of that car in the great rock and roll swindle, that was acting, wasn't it? Wasn't it? The Who are back with their new LP, Face Dancers, and they've put on a lunchtime party to celebrate,

Starting point is 00:58:46 and the music press with it to cram as many scotch eggs into their hypocritical, backstabbing maws before going back to the office and coating the album down. Naturally, Pete Townshend was there, despite being spotted at the venue at 4am the night before, along with Paul Simon and Topper Heaton from The Clash, Mike Reid, Annie Nightingale, John Walters and John Peel from Radio 1, Robert Powell from Jesus of Nazareth, and the 16 artists that The Who have commissioned to paint individual portraits of the band on the LP cover. What amazed us about the event was the music provided reports the enemy most of which turned out to be from the likes of spandau bally and steve strange and none at all from the actual album i wonder why that would be cloud as a silver line are pink floyd about to split up or are they

Starting point is 00:59:40 getting back on the road the enemy believe they have the answer with the headline, Floyd in June. Despite widespread speculation concerning a possible Pink Floyd split, the NME understand that they'll be performing in Britain again before long. It was learned this week that they intend to play another season at London's Earl's Court, scene of their triumphant wall shows in 1980. They're expected to play a five-day stint at the 15,000 capacity venue, although it's not yet known if they will retain their wall-building set or come up with a revised act.

Starting point is 01:00:19 Rumours that Floyd were about to split followed in the wake of the announcement last month of the collapse of their investment company Norton Warburg. The band are said to have lost more than £1 million in the downfall, which came about after the company had invested in money in two disastrous films, a horse racing stable and other unusual projects. Sources close to the band suggest suggested they were on the verge of splitting but they evidently decided to remain together and recoup

Starting point is 01:00:49 some of their losses. The NME turned out to be bang on the money with a set of the Waltall being hoiked up one more time. Oh god. Well one bit of good news, what with Roger Waters being such an important, pioneering inexhaustibly creative

Starting point is 01:01:06 artist that'll be the last we ever see of the f*cking wall live on stage thankfully with the headline it's a mad mad mad mad madness world we're informed that madness started work this week on their first full-length feature film take Take It or Leave It, which covers the period from 1976 to 1979 and documents the band's career from their first steps as musicians through their early gigs and towards their emergence into the big time. It's being shot entirely on location in Camden Town in Islington, directed by Stiff Records chief Dave Robinson. The film comes out in Octoberober have you ever seen that

Starting point is 01:01:48 yeah i've still not seen me neither that's shocking isn't it it's all right my mate had it on video oh yeah yeah it's a good film is it like as good as the slade film no no no no no no because it was directed by stiff records chief dave Robinson. It's not a cinematic masterpiece. But they're surprisingly convincing as themselves younger, you know, getting beaten up by skinheads and stuff. It's all right. Is it as good as Never Too Young To Rock? Yes.

Starting point is 01:02:20 In tour news on the road sooner, The Cure, White Snake, Stiff Little Fingers, The Stylistics, Rolls-Royce, Status Quo, The Selector, Adam and the Ants, Bow Wow Wow, Echo and the Bunnymen, Dexys Midnight Runners, Toya, Girl School, Motorhead, Japan, Gang of Four and The Old Sailor. But it's bad news for British fans of Bruce Springsteen, not just because they don't live in America, but also because his first UK tour since 1975 has been cancelled at the last minute. What with the boss being badly after playing 72 gigs in North America.

Starting point is 01:03:03 Barbara March, Springsteen's manager, tells us that his exhaustion got so bad that he couldn't talk. The British gigs have been rearranged for April and May, and if fans are desperate to see him in action right now, they can make do with seeing him in the No Nukes film, which opens in the UK this week, and features Springsteen, Graham Nash, Jackson Brown,

Starting point is 01:03:26 Ralph Nader, David Crosby, Stephen Stills, James Taylor, Carly Simon, Bonnie Reitt and the Doobie Brothers. Oh, welcome to the 80s, everyone. I'd rather have nukes. One venue that Springsteen won't be playing this summer is Acklam Hall on the Westway. And just as well if the news story Acklam Agro is anything to go by. West London's Acklam Hall was pulverised last Wednesday and seven people in hospital,

Starting point is 01:03:59 non-seriously, following a Viking-like invasion by a gang of locals. On the bill were anti-establishment, last resorts and info-riots who were tuning up backstage when the assault force landed. One eyewitness described the invaders as long-haired West London soccer supporters who mistakenly assumed the hall was packed with alien EastEnders. But the Mets have logged it as a punk versus skinhead gang battle and say that a 16-year-old and a 90-year-old will shortly be charged with possessing offensive weapons. Oh, dear. Better times.

Starting point is 01:04:39 In comings and goings this week, Adam and the Ants have parted company with bassist Kevin Mooney, the Softboys have split up, with Robin Hitchco*ck promising to go solo, and Bow Wow Wow are being taken away from EMI by Malcolm McLaren. We've had to cancel the tour because EMI won't support us financially, claims Malc. The problem, as McLaren sees it, is EMI's reluctance to fork out for singer Alabella Lewin's GLC-ordained governor's tutor, which has already delayed the tour for a week. When we put it to McLaren that the EMI contretemps

Starting point is 01:05:16 maybe had something to do with the band stiffing out on the door, he replied, Nah. We sold out the rainbow, played a date in Manchester last week without a tutor present, I might add, and that sold out. Good business, mate. Taking a band on the road and that's where the governess gets a bit pricey. EMI weren't prepared to cough up. General cowardice.

Starting point is 01:05:42 They felt they were promoting something that they didn't believe in it's not wholly different to what happened when the sex pistols were there they operate at the level whereby they didn't move with the times move with the times the pro tip malc if you're going to exploit an underage girl in order to present her as a transgressive symbol of anti-social polymorphously perverse granny worrying anarchy make sure you can afford to pay for her governess and tutor before you start over in new york the enemy's correspondent tantalizingly tells us of the rap party at the ritz which brought together the sugar hill gang grandmaster flash sequence spoony g and the up-and-coming funky four plus one the advertised mc popular r&b dj frankie crocker and the ventriloquist act that opened the show didn't go down too well. I love that.

Starting point is 01:06:46 But the wall-to-wall crowd got the message once Funky 4 Plus 1 struck up their big hit, Rapping and Rocking the House. Oh, God, I hope it was Roger DeCoursey and Nucky Bear. Yes. Nucky B, Taylor, come on. The Sugar Hill Gang headlined the show their first new york appearance in over a year with an unwieldy 10-piece band that often obscured their rap and flipped the rhythm but the real show

Starting point is 01:07:16 shopper turned out to be grandmaster flash a dj whose dexterity with two turntables has to be seen to be believed and his rapping assistants the furious five man do you think rod and emu would have gone down well yes yeah yeah yeah oh he'd have caused some beef though wouldn't he emu oh for a time machine though to go back to that gig bloody hell oh no but ventriloquist bad move i mean they should have got, I don't know, Octavio the Clown from Scarface. Terminator X was a brilliant ventriloquist, man. He speaks with his hands, don't you know?

Starting point is 01:07:54 In killing music and its illegal news, Island Records are raising a lot of industry eyebrows with their determination to introduce the OnePlus One cassette series in the US, where the likes of U2, Ultravox, Kid Creole and the Coconuts, Cat Stevens, Grace Jones

Starting point is 01:08:13 and Robert Palmer take up the full side of each tape, giving the purchaser the option to record what they like over one side, or both in the case of U2. Ireland's US partner Warner Brothers has refused point blank to carry the line, so they like over one side or both in the case of you two island's u.s partner warner brothers has refused point blank to carry the line so island is currently negotiating with american cassette manufacturers for a possible joint distribution deal lower sound quality why don't they make the

Starting point is 01:08:41 tape 18 000 miles long and then you could record everything on it yeah brilliant i wonder if the failure of this influenced you know alternative tentacles dead kennedy's label because because when they bought cassettes out it did say on one side home taping is killing record industry profits we've left this side blank so you can help and um yeah it must have been an inspiration to them. And underneath the headline, Clapton Ulcer, we learn that the Enoch of Rock has been forced to abandon his 56-date US tour with only nine shows played after collapsing with a perforated stomach ulcer.

Starting point is 01:09:20 Finally some good news. Interviews. In the thrill section this week, Chris Bone talks to Mute Records' newest signings, Depeche Mode. Finally some good news. Interviews. In the thrill section this week, Chris Bone talks to Mute Records' newest signings, Depeche Mode, who have just put out their debut single, Dreaming of Me.

Starting point is 01:09:36 Due to them being extremely shy lads, they brought along their producer, Daniel Miller, who they refer to as Uncle Daniel. When asked about their switch from a more conventional guitar trio to an all-electronic lineup after buying their synths on the Never Never for 25 quid a month, Dave Gayon insists we didn't get into them just for the fashion, it just happens that way. Vince Clark, who feels a bit awkward that he's the only member of the band over 20, Vince Clark, who feels a bit awkward that he's the only member of the band over 20,

Starting point is 01:10:10 says it's strange that the kids who went to soul clubs are now moving over to this. Electronic pop is commercially viable now, whereas two years ago it wasn't. Gavin Martin nips over to what we used to call Holland to witness the first ever gig by The Bureau and finds out why they broke away from Dex's Midnight Runners. Kevin pushed all his ideas to the forefront and they weren't discussed with the band. We grew apart, says Jeff Bly in a chat before the gig. With Dex's we'd made a very big promise and we brought a lot of responsibility on ourselves. We said we were going to be very genuine and we were going to do something to a lot of people, but it started to be more posturing than anything else. I'd really hate myself if I went on stage and made a total mess of it,

Starting point is 01:10:58 and I never did that once with Dexys. So when I was told you can't do that or you can't do this, with Dexys. So when I was told you can't do that or you can't do this, I got really cross about it. Undoubtedly, notes Martin, this is a reference to Rowland's decision to ban dope from tours. The interview with Archie Brown and Steve Spooner after the gig goes less well. Pursuing a line of questioning that would lead to the obvious ah but wasn't kevin controlling you line i got short change from both interviewees with steve saying he wanted to talk about the bureau and archie suspected me of being a hack merchant right away the conversation continued to unwind lazily for a few minutes until looking down i realized archie had switched off my tape recorder what did you do that for i ask depressing the record button well i think you're f*cking about i think you're asking

Starting point is 01:11:55 funny questions i'm stoned man i want to go to sleep an actual physical tussle ensued with the vocalist attempting to rest the machine and the cassette from my grasp but eventually following a long discourse on the role and function of the critic the problem is sorted out few incidentally the following evening archer attributing his reservations and paranoia to the intake of a certain verdant oriental plant intimates that he's knocking the habit on the head. And then he said, pull the blind, I'm closing down the bureau

Starting point is 01:12:33 for an hour. Has that ever happened to you? Do you record as sacrosanct, isn't it? No f*cking touch is that. That's never happened to me, but if that did happen to me, I'd just let the band know, I'm going to make it all up then. You know,

Starting point is 01:12:48 I mean, I did anyway, quite often, to be honest with you, I always made them sound more interesting than they were. It'd be like going into an interview with them in the studio, and like just going over to the guitars and pick out Smoke on the Wall on them. You just don't do that sh*t,

Starting point is 01:13:02 man. That's their tool. And that record is your tool yeah nobody ever dared to do that with me but it's funny what a mess that sound yeah how many long-suffering musicians who escape the bullying and hectoring of their cruel genius master finally stumble free into the bright spring air and immediately fall to pieces. In an at-home-with-the-stars special, Nick Kent sits down with Phil Collins in his country home

Starting point is 01:13:32 just outside of Guildford to talk about recent collaborations with John Martin, his new solo album Face Value and the runaway success of its lead-off single In The Air Tonight. Peter Gabriel banned all cymbals from all Genesis sessions, but I played an active role in gaining that drum sound. Ahmed Ertegun actually assisted in the mixing of Air,

Starting point is 01:13:58 persuading me to place the drum break in exactly that place. It's a particular talent that he has, plus the fact that he's the guy who worked with Aretha Franklin and Otis Redding and therefore knows what it's about, and he was right. He got an immense amount of radio play from the very outset, which was ultimately the vital factor in his chart success. It tends to sound very strong on car radio, particularly when the drums break in. Mike Rutherford said that he likes it a lot, while Tony has, well, I've not felt any animosity. They seem pleased.

Starting point is 01:14:36 Oh, that's nice. Adrian Thrills has a sit-down with Jim Kerr and Charlie Burchill of Simple Minds, and they immediately bring up his review from a year ago in which he dismissed the band as pretentious. We've used images in our songs so we do run a giant risk of being labelled as pretentious, being Glasgow boys and singing about Europe and things like that. What do they want us to sing about? Football? Life in the Gorbals? Hang on, hang on. The Gorbals is in europe yes what's the problem after that's out the way they start having a go at mid-york that whole european thing has

Starting point is 01:15:13 been used very wrongly just recently by people like ultra box in vienna it just looks really tacky using the names of foreign people to impress people, said the singer of Belfast Child. Our last LP has got a lot of foreign imagery in it, but everything there did actually come from meeting and talking to people in Europe and drawing from that experience. People should define what they mean by realism before they start accusing us of pretension. I think we must be the first generation that

Starting point is 01:15:45 hasn't seen either the draft or a war we haven't seen guns and uniforms but when you do see it even through a van window in central europe how can it not affect you hang on they're the first generation not to have been drafted or seen a war yeah born in 1945 yeah i mean the fact that the previous generation hadn't been in a war or done national service was often cited as a major reason for why the 60s turned out as it did you must have missed that but also like can he not count f*cking idiot have you ever had an interview where you've been pulled up for things you've said about bands and that? Yeah, yeah.

Starting point is 01:16:31 Go on. Well, occasionally they used to send you to interview people that you'd already slagged off to have an argument with them. They don't do that anymore, I can tell you. No. Oh, God, no. But it was good fun, yeah. They smashed.

Starting point is 01:16:42 Do you remember that great smash? Oh, yeah, I remember that piece, Taylor. Yeah. I was a kid when I did that. I don't imagine it would read very well now. But it was good fun. You just go there and just argue with someone. And, yeah, they were quite nice about it as well, fair play.

Starting point is 01:16:58 There's still time for all of this to happen. Somebody out there commissioned me to interview Rick Witter or something. Yeah, turn up with a clothes peg on your nose. Under the headline, A Touch of Yen, the middle four pages are given over to Max Bell's jaunt to Japan to find out what's happening with the pop craze whack-a-mono. He tells us that while your stereotypical Japanese businessman likes either Enka, traditional over-sentimental Nippon music that sounds like a theme tune to the water margin,

Starting point is 01:17:28 or the cabaret acts who supported the Beatles on their Japanese tours, such as the Blue Comets, the Tigers, or the Spiders. The kids are into technipop. They play it in privacy on the Walkman, or out on the streets on their big portables, like the sharp black dudes in america while japan and talking heads are big gauging bands at the moment along with queen kiss cheap trick and rainbow they're like the f*cking brummies of the orient aren't they the homegrown faves of the moment are eki chizawa their their Bruce Springsteen, Elvis Presley and Chuck Berry rolled into one,

Starting point is 01:18:06 along with Yellow Magic Orchestra, Southern All Stars and an abominable pop group called Juicy Fruits. A local rockabilly band called The Channels would be even bigger than they already are if three of them hadn't been caught molesting 15-year-old girls.

Starting point is 01:18:22 And warns us about Roosters, a biker band supported by Tokyo's Chapter of the Hell's Angels, who tend to be well-versed in martial arts and like to kill policemen now and then. It was said to me many times in Japan that domestic groups were aware of their culture, but realised the need to communicate in a common tongue. English, writes Bell. The greatest compliment I can pay the Japanese music scene, even after the most cursory visit,

Starting point is 01:18:51 is that I wish I could speak Japanese. Oh, what a f*cking jolly that was. Oh, too right, yeah. No mention of Anika, though, for shame. Hey, lads, I just read Maxi's japan piece i think i've thought of the perfect headline single reviews in the chair this week is paul morley who insists on using the word consume in all his sub-eds his single of the week is tell me Easter's on Friday by The Associates. The Associates are perfectionists.

Starting point is 01:19:28 This is as close as pop comes to the elusive dream of perfection. This is another sublime single in the year of the single. A simmering sharply cut pattern. A stream of seduction. Music of dignity and destiny. A great amount of respect is at play here. Return it, add a kiss, don't miss. Meanwhile, Spandau Bally have put out a double A-side,

Starting point is 01:19:56 but Morley doesn't bother with the side the radio's playing, muscle band and zeros in on Glow, which he likes. It shrivels the dry journeys to glory LP under its heat. It's such a vivid, vaulting chunk of growth, such a bursting tumble through the underground, such a dose of undaunted exertion. Of course the cover's daft, just like the LP, more comic than fascist. In fact, until I wrecked Glow, I'd have said Spandau were fat sh*t more than fascist. Now the only thing that's fat around here is the bass. Go, don't miss out. Consume, schools out forever, gasps Morley as he gorges upon work by Bow Wow Wow.

Starting point is 01:20:45 Sensationalist, irresponsible, distracting and fantastic. The moralists can steal themselves. The art matter realists can steal this. But it's a coat down for Eye of the Lens by Comsat Angels. The worst support act Susie and the band she's ever had. I can't understand any dedication to the square Comsat Angels. Eye of the Lens is crushingly unimposing.

Starting point is 01:21:14 The other three songs on this starchy showcase are tame, tediously fair-minded examples of a lukewarm new pop versatility. Scotland continue to hurl new bands over Hadrian's Wall Whoa. incomplete strength. These love songs that speak of sadness with undefiled integrity seem closer to the white music of Nick Drake and some John Martin than the lament dance music of Josie Kay or the irony pop of Postcard, the sound of young Scotland. Private themes and fairy tales, new romance and chilled distance. Aztec camera are smooth and special taste, a smile on their face, a tear in their eye between Vic Goddard and Cliff Richard. Young Marble Giants have

Starting point is 01:22:16 released the Test Card EP, six instrumentals in praise and celebration of mid-morning television and is praised by Morley for affectionately capturing the ageing formality of schools programmes, the unspoilt correctness of the links in between, the colourless compulsion and pale peace of the TV at that time. A very sane, confidently superficial souvenir. Englishness you can trust. God, it's like I'm having phone sex with david

Starting point is 01:22:46 stubbs reading out this reviews page the thing is though i mean you get the feel with morley's i love morley's writing and you get the feeling with it that he sent this through right and no editor f*cked with it or if they did it was probably just little chops here and there the weird thing about doing the singles pages whereas like with review i always found with live reviews album reviews i could kind of get away with most stuff um because it went to the reviews ed with singles pages it usually went through to the features ed which was a different kettle of fish so whenever i sent singles reviews through i'd always get this call because you know you'd be an all-nighter and you get the call at nine in the morning of like neil this just won't do you had to change loads what did you have to change now your opinion on the records or just cut the poncy sh*t out just

Starting point is 01:23:34 yeah the the kind of thing you know i mean i was just a big chris roberts paul morley head if you like and i tried to do some of the stylistic things that morley's doing with his writing you know you try and put a bit of that in yeah and it'd always just get knocked back in my experience anyway but has it got a beat to it can you tap a toe to it neil that's what the kids want to know the thing is if pricey was saying i mean pricey was reviews editor if i'd have sent through an english singles page for him he would have just you know checked if it's under word count and run with it because for some reason the singles were seen as a feature and consequently you got a different editorial head looking at it and they just you know they wanted rid of that kind of writing by the time i joined so yeah but the singles page is a f*cking huge deal of a magazine isn't it yeah it's usually

Starting point is 01:24:18 one of the first things i turn to yeah in theory i mean by this point nobody gave a sh*t what we said anyway so you could just publish anything it wouldn't make any difference i got it though i got rung up at nine in the morning once like what you because i'd done a singles page and sound garden had made a comeback and it was just dreary i just did a review and just wrote sh*te garden more like you know some childish thing and it's like this is one of the biggest bands in the world you can't say that so so i had to rewrite it and as i recall the rewritten one said it rocks like a bed with someone f*cking a corpse on it um and i think they probably would rather stuck with the original,

Starting point is 01:25:07 but there you go. Yeah, I mean, the thing about Morley, even though sometimes it might seem a little bit much, and that did happen from time to time, you always get a little shard of brilliance in every one. Like when he says, the associates put out Tell Me Easterters on friday as a single and it's mostly just a lot of alliteration and you know funny words but also he says there's a great

Starting point is 01:25:31 deal of respect at play here which is like a key thing the associates put out tell me easters on friday they're showing you respect by doing that show some respect back to them it's brilliant yeah i mean morley can be flash but there's heart and i know that sounds corny but there is and you think he's on the side of the listener and i think that's really important yeah joseph case sorry for laughing sounds real wild and with a great color cartoon cover is product to want fad gadgets make room suggests that Depeche Mode will be the first Mute Boys to hit the hit parade, but Fad might be the first Mutants to make the old Grey Whistle test. And Orange Juice's poor old soul is no pips, no peel, no growl, no snarl, just juice.

Starting point is 01:26:19 A bit of a f*cking week for singles, isn't it? Isn't it just? A bit of a f*cking week for singles, isn't it? Isn't it just? Sadly, despite all this proto-new-pop goodness being available, the mug masses are still queuing up, waiting for their thick moths to be filled with the sugary pap they mistakenly crave, and Morley ploughs through them. Rationally speaking, I would detect that bad manners are running out of life he says in response to just

Starting point is 01:26:48 a feeling a fool like you by yachts is dismissed as manger and don't panic by liquid gold shame by race air one-to-one by joe jackson and saint san by b.a. c*nterson are all bunched together, all the better to take the critical shotgun too. Look, I know I go on, writes Morley, but the pop music of altered images, scars, associates, orange juice, cure, a certain ratio, etc. should be in the hip parade selling thousands and dislodging pop culture shapes every month in every way. Their music is relentless, consumed by energy, and produced to be lapped up by the masses not cultured into corners. The pop that generally charts with obnoxious ease, like this mixed bag,

Starting point is 01:27:40 is wearer, though shrewd and studious. All those groups like Altered Images and Fire Engines want to force life, action and new style into the hip parade, the mobile militant charge that pop music should be. Look at what a fuss Adam's caused. That's because new pop consumers are essentially starved and cut off from new pop commotion. Liquid Gold, Racer, Joe Jackson, B.A. c*nterson.

Starting point is 01:28:07 What a state. You'd be pleased to know that none of those songs got in the charts. And he signs off with Nigel Dixon's Thunderbird on stiff records. Nigel Dixon, ex-Whirlwind, on the limp label with a sad plop of neo-op crushed under the weight of this week's singles anyone feel sad and that's the way it is this week oh nice water cronkite reference well played mr morley in the album section the main review this week is given over to He Who Dares Wins, the debut LP by Theatre of Eight, and Phil McNeill is not convinced that this time next year the band will be millionaires.

Starting point is 01:28:52 Last year, a heroic gamble, the Iranian Embassy Siege, thrusts the SAS into history and the hearts of the great British public. It is less likely that Theatre of Hate's heroic gamble will be similarly successful. TOH's gamble involves releasing as their debut LP a £2.50 cassette-recorded live show under the banner Beat the Bootleggers Bootleg. Quite why Theatre of Hate should want to beat the bootleggers,

Starting point is 01:29:22 thousands of whom are of course to be found jostling for space at every theatre of hate gig, is a mystery. More to the point, does the immediacy of this Leeds warehouse set convey the passion of this inspiredly committed group, or will the dull sound quality and warts aplenty prove to be a lead and albatross about the career of the most exciting new group in the country. Stripped down, live, the rhythm emphasis often sounds horribly drab. Countered by Brandon's histrionics, they sometimes veer dangerously close to the clumsy starkness of such early 70s progressive rock drones as Van de Graaff Generator. One NME writer assures me theatre of hate can't be any good because a friend of his knew Kirk Brandon at school and he was a right prat.

Starting point is 01:30:15 I can believe it. Brandon's the spunkiest, most self-important singer to emerge since the equally exciting, equally self-obsessed Kevin Rowland. Like Rowland, he tries to sing things he really shouldn't. Unlike Rowland, he doesn't always bring it off. The Who are back with their first new LP in three years, Face Dancers, but Gavin Martin's review cuts like a knife. I remember around the time Who By Numbers was released having a lot of respect for Townsend. He was the only member of Rock's Babylonian hierarchy who seemed concerned about his mythical detachment from the listener,

Starting point is 01:30:59 the lies he was living and the life he was lying about. But five years later, with the release of Face Dancers, my respect has been totally demolished, he writes, before decrying the album's directionless lyrics and bubble and squeak like musical mashing up and rehashing. For Pete's sake, how much longer are we going to have to endure your irrelevant fantasies? Concludes Martin, clearly trying to make a name for himself. Motown are capitalising on the recent success of Diana Ross's collaboration with Chic

Starting point is 01:31:37 and her forthcoming pissing off to RCA by putting out To Love Again, a compilation of remixes, movie soundtrack recordings and offcuts from the Diana LP. But Dorota co*ck doesn't reckon it in the slightest. It's bound to be forgotten before the last wine dies away. This LP is Diana Ross's contribution to late-night slush and a sure indication that she would benefit from any change that contract shifting might bring the bef ian marsh and martin wears human league heaven 17

Starting point is 01:32:15 perineum have released their instrumental lp music for stowaways stowaway being the original name for the sony walkman and it makes ch Chris Bone want to strap on some roller boots and careen around a shopping centre in Milton Keynes. The first purpose-built cassette for portable recorders from the enterprising British Electric Foundation is one of the few unselfconscious ambient electropop products yet made. It's a wonderful new accessory to daily living, one that should be used on buses or trains,

Starting point is 01:32:49 in the supermarket or at the laundrette, as an accompaniment to household chores, for anything, as long as you're not standing still. Unlike Eno, they recognise that ambient music for most people means tinny transistor radios, not long, vacuous instrumentals. Thus theirs is a synthesis of pop from Adam Ant and Gary Glitter to Kraftwerk and OMD, with the bonus that the 35 minutes of this cassette are far more consistent

Starting point is 01:33:19 than the equivalent of any radio show. At £2 more than Bow Wow wow's your cassette pet it comes pretty expensive but if you're one of the lucky elites like me who can afford such luxuries as portable machines then you're hardly likely to quibble oh look at them all cool with these big orange discs of foam over his ears yes there's a's a lot of tape stuff, isn't there? Yes. In the gig guide, well, David could have seen the Bell Stars at Dingwalls,

Starting point is 01:33:52 the Grateful Dead at the Rainbow, Tom Waits pulling a three-night stint at the Victoria Apollo, the Buddy Rich Orchestra's week-long stand at Ronnie Scott's, Gene Pitney at Lewisham Concert Hall, Sugar Minot and David Rodigan at Hammersmith Palais, and wound up the week enduring the Bush Tetras at Dingwalls or altered images at the 100 Club, but probably didn't.

Starting point is 01:34:17 Taylor could have got his brothel creepers on for Stray Cats at Birmingham Odeon, seen Rose Royce at the Odeon the night after that, and then followed it up with Steel Ice Span again at Birmingham Odeon, seen Rose Royce at the Odeon the night after that, and then followed it up with Steel Ice Span again at the Odeon before getting double-denimed up for status quo's two nights at the NEC. A triple-denimed out. Let's not forget the waistcoat. Of course, yeah.

Starting point is 01:34:39 Yeah, hat tip to the very great Francis Ween, who reminded me of this for our social media a couple of weeks ago. The serious quo look was a denim three-piece suit and ting. As I said at the time, I'm sure that if they'd been able to find some denim shoes, we might just have witnessed the quadruple. No pop, no style. They're strictly rock.

Starting point is 01:35:02 Yeah, probably not in diamond socks. No. Sarah could have seen altered images at Leeds Fan Club, the teardrop explodes at Sheffield Unair, the selector at Sheff Poly the following night, and finished her week at Doncaster Rotters, checking out Classics Nouveau and Theatre of Hate. Beat the bootleggers, Sarah.

Starting point is 01:35:25 Al could have basically set up camp in Rock City for the week and had a go at pig's-eye bingo with Splodge Nessa Bands on Thursday, Wasted Youth on Friday, The Selector on Saturday, f*ck All on Sunday and Monday, but come back hard for a night with Rose Royce on Tuesday. Neil could have seen Gino Washington at Warwick Uni, Victorian parents and human cabbages at Coventry's General Wolf, and f*ck all else.

Starting point is 01:35:55 And Simon could have seen Psycho Hamster at Cardiff South Glamorgan Institute, bombed it over the bridge to see Bow Wow Wow at Bristol Locarno, Morgan Institute, bombed it over the bridge to see Bow Wow Wow at Bristol Locarno and checked out Elvis Costello and the attractions at Cardiff Top Rank. Oh, what a time to be alive. In the letters page, Paul Denism, presumably Paul Denoyer using a demi-sudenim, the reasons for which now are lost to the sands of time is running gas bag this week and the main topic of conversation is the announcement that remaining members of joy division have returned as new order are not already in the charts with their debut single ceremony currently at number 34 all i know is that a man, a man who alone with four other musicians laid down three killer singles and two classic albums, which personally left me devastated and which I suspect had a similar effect on a great depressive, bid a final farewell.

Starting point is 01:37:09 Gone forever, sadly missed, but no! I heard the news today, oh boy! I stood alone in the record shop. I heard a record, that guitar sound, the tingling cymbals. I had to get closer. I knew that sound. Tears filled my eyes they were carrying on with a little help from their friends i paid the man my money and made for the privacy of my own turntable oh joy of joys the only slab of vinyl worthy of a second listen since that single almost a year ago and that single the birdie song by the tweets

Starting point is 01:37:49 naturally the band's new name has already raised hackles but kevin a correspondent seemingly from nowhere has already leapt in front of the critical gunfire in slow motion, screaming, No! I interpret the name New Order as meaning joy after despair and suffering, he writes. Oh, that's all right, then. The oppressors overthrown and the people free with fresh hope and an intense happiness. Bernard Albrecht, Stephen Morris, Gillian and Peter Hook seem to me to be among the least

Starting point is 01:38:28 likely people in the universe to have fascist sympathies. Just listen to the music. I feel your concern is ill-founded. Forget, whilst thinking of New Order, the past of Nazi Europe. Their worlds apart. Concentrate on

Starting point is 01:38:44 the present. Look to the future yeah yeah jillian's got a surname you know mate i've displayed yeah it's actually an ancient symbol for the sun yes speaking of which uh check out the press ad for bow wow wow single work released this week yeah i don't know if it's in this nme but it's in that week's record mirror but probably not in bravo on account of it being against the law in that country as yeah it's a great big ancient symbol for the sun yes probably a witty reference the title of the song being work do you get it in other fast chat news the nme did a feature on the anti-Nazi League the other week and the mewling, whining letters have piled in.

Starting point is 01:39:31 Whether the anti-Nazi League like it or not, people have the right to hold and express whatever opinions they choose in a democratic society, even if those views are in themselves undemocratic, says Dubon from Bristol. Do the League subscribe to the view of freedom of speech for everyone except the right? I am sometimes cynical enough to believe that the League is as odious as any political movement which helps to divide society while claiming to unite it.

Starting point is 01:40:03 Or am I just another Nazi to be be removed says the nazi twat so the enemy's at it again pushing politics down our throats with promotional features on the anti-nazi league before all you impressionable mix-up idiots out there go going below the dust off your old A&L badges circa 1978, consider the following. Why does an enemy, while posing as a music paper, blandly include articles championing Marxism and Marxist leftist organisations amongst its musical features, thus suggesting that the two are inseparable and therefore we should subscribe to both? Asks non-aligned from Wolverhampton, who actually spent time writing a letter, putting a stamp on it,

Starting point is 01:40:51 and posting this sh*t. If NME really feels that its readers are unable to formulate opinions for themselves without the aid of its propagandising, it might at least do the honourable thing and present both sides of the argument. So go on NME, give the National Front the same opportunity to state their case. Or are you afraid of being investigated by Mr P Haynes Intelligence,

Starting point is 01:41:16 writes the Nazi yim-yam dipsh*t? I thought the Nazis already did state their case. Pretty hard to forget, wasn't it? Although it's 1981, punk is not dead, and its exponents are still alive and moaning like fishwives. Barney Hoskins' write-up of the UK subslyceum gig was pathetic, declares Pitts of South Norwood. Apart from being ignorant and moronic,

Starting point is 01:41:44 I think old Barney must be blind and deaf. He writes, for some reason, Antipasti did not appear. This is remarkable, considering that everyone else at the Lyceum saw them. You couldn't miss them. The singer had bright red hair and they made quite a bit of noise. Yeah, which distinguishes them from all the other bands on that line of no doubt. Adam and the Ants are in full cry at the moment and are about to undertake a UK tour. But Dominic, of no fixed abode or hometown, reckons it's a swindle. So Adam is charging the kids three to four pounds

Starting point is 01:42:21 to thank them for their wonderful support, he writes. I hope the kids tell Adam to f*ck off. If Sting had Debbie Harry's legs, little girls wouldn't stare at him. If Debbie Harry had Sting's tit*, little boys wouldn't stare at her, writes Sarah Wiggins from London. Sexism is about stereotypes, male and female. Watch a few adverts. You'll find not nearly so many stereotyped macho men as stereotyped pretty women. That's the only reason more women than men fight sexism. They're stereotyped and picked on more often. Sexism stifles all of us, men and women women and although you may not have noticed it the male stereotype is swinging from just muscly to muscly and pretty which you may find harder to contend

Starting point is 01:43:14 with unless of course you are sting if sting had debbie harry's tit* would you look at him wait you mean legs no i'm just throwing that out there i'd always stare at debbie harry but if sting had debbie harry's tit* of course i'd stare and they're kind of horrified curious and if sting had debbie harry's legs everyone would stare at him until he stowed them somewhere discreet and finally it's a letter from a frequent nme letters page correspondent of the era, a non-disillusioned Sharon from Ormskirk, Lancashire. I have better things to do than become enraged and upset at the flippant editing of my recent attack on your misplaced write-up

Starting point is 01:43:57 slash down on crass. She writes in an open letter to the NME, and Andy Gill in particular. I've since been very busy fantasising violently about chopping your hands off with a slightly blunt hatchet, shoving your poisoned pens up your bottom, thus poking holes into your brain, mopping up my baby's diarrhoea accidents with the NME, plastering it to the wall and bombarding it with rotten eggs, rather than go and beat someone up. I sleep soundly with proof that you are very silly.

Starting point is 01:44:34 May your ego burst, Andy Gill. I sincerely hope that you drown in your own vile goo. You'd also be as well to have a communal sh*t on blank paper i don't think you're stupid you seem quite intelligent actually but it's your warps kinks and perversions that worry me this correspondence is now closed as are your eyes and ears oh sharon fancies and sharon fancies and uh 58 pages 30p i never knew there was so much in it it's not a bad issue is it the enemy i mean no and also good you know they've just not not just got rid but birch was left in 1980 and i think parsons has left in 79 and it's just a much better paper now yeah yeah but that last letter those threats of violence

Starting point is 01:45:25 it was amazing what you could kind of get away with i mean i remember a letter from a guy called gerpreet that's all i kind of remember about it but it was about a corner shop review i did and it got printed on the letters page and it basically said you know um if i'm ever in the midlands i'm going to hunt you down and kill you it actually just said that midlands is a big place o'neill yeah true enough it was from leicester but yeah it was just a weird thing that you could just yeah if you wanted to kill somebody back then you could send a death threat into the music press and it'd get printed so what else was on telly today well bbc won't start as they mean to go on by laying down a pile of open university knowledge bombs at 6 40 a.m before

Starting point is 01:46:07 closing down for an hour and five minutes then the channel leaps back into action with three hours and 20 minutes of schools and colleges ramble before closing down again for two minutes what's the point of closing down for two minutes man piss break Get the potter's wheel on all them goldfish. Then it's regional news in your area. The midday news. Pebble Mill at one. Bod. You and me.

Starting point is 01:46:33 And a short shock. Shock of schools and colleges again. Claire Rayner drops in on two people who have beaten their addictions to alcohol and tranquilizers in Claire Rayner's casebook. Then it's another close down, this time for 18 minutes. Then it's Play School, Secret Squirrel, Jack and Ore, Scooby and Scrappy Doo. f*ck that. John Craven's news round

Starting point is 01:46:57 and Sarah Green shows us how to make a card for Mother's Day. After Fred Bassett, it's the evening news, regional news in your area, nationwide, and then Prenderville, Han, Rod, and Ingle,

Starting point is 01:47:10 show us some paint, that can kill flies, onions that won't make you cry, and disco lighting, for the living room, in tomorrow's world. Oh, disco lights,

Starting point is 01:47:21 Neil. I actually shivered, when you read that, mate. It's weird looking back, isn't it, to think these people, like to live in a world, disco lights, Neil. I actually shivered when you read that, mate. It's weird looking back, isn't it, to think these people had to live in a world without paint that could kill flies. Surely, though, if you got a fly and stuck it in a tin of paint, that wouldn't do much good, would it? BBC Two goes three the hard way with borehole logging,

Starting point is 01:47:41 seven-card stud air and Guernsey in another Open University Triforce, also at 6.40, and then closes down for three hours and five minutes. Then it's play school, then it's another close down, this time for two hours and 35 minutes, before they treat us to the final day of the Cheltenham Festival, including the Gold Cup, whatever that is.

Starting point is 01:48:04 I don't f*cking know. f*ck horse racing. I used to work in a bookcase, man, it was the most boring job ever. Non-stop, seven f*cking rows of tellies all showing f*cking horse racing all day. Did you get fired for stealing a small

Starting point is 01:48:19 pencil? Then they closed down again for half an hour before springing back with more open university then it's king of the rocket men and they're now into the final five minutes of it's a grand life the 1953 film about post-war army life starring frank randall diana doors and the wrestler dirty jack pie itv starts at half nine with two and a half hours of schools programmes, then it's Gideon, Stepping Stones, The Sullivans,

Starting point is 01:48:50 News at One, and Regional News in your area. After the Southern TV soap the tale likes so much, together it's Afternoon Plus, then a repeat of the Racing Game, the Dick Francis series where a retired jockey with a mangled up hand

Starting point is 01:49:07 forms a private detective agency with a karate expert called Chico. And off they go to investigate some horsey crimes. This week's episode, Horse Nap. How did he get a mangled hand? A horse trod on it. Oh, I thought he might have been feeding him a sugar lump or something. He forgot to tuck his thumb in. Yes.

Starting point is 01:49:32 Bam. That's followed by a repeat of Leave It To Charlie, the David Roper sitcom about an insurance agent in Lancashire. After Dr Snuggles and Bugs Bunny and friends were whipped over to Wembley Arena to see Great Britain take on Canada in the USSR in the Hunt Gymnastics International, followed by some good old American gloopiness in Little House on the Prairie. After the news at 5.45, Kevin Banks gives Iris Scott some m mithering crossroads then it's regional news in your area and they're 20 minutes into amos and mr wilkes going on holiday in emmerdale farm

Starting point is 01:50:13 presumably not booking out an airbnb for some chem sex but you know you never know i know you don't want to look at it again but there was a open university thing you read out called borehole what was it called hang on um borehole logging okay i misheard you sorry i thought you said borehole loving i don't know why i thought no mate borehole loving was part of the open university's red triangle series all right then pop craze youngsters it is time to go way back Red Triangle series. All right, then, Pop Craze Youngsters, it is time to go way back to March of 1981. Always remember,

Starting point is 01:50:53 we may coat down your favourite band or artist, but we never forget they've been on Top of the Pops more than we have. Hello, welcome to yet another edition of Top of the Pops. It's 20 past seven on Thursday, March 19th, 1981, and Top of the Pops has entered its ninth month

Starting point is 01:51:13 under the reign of Michael Hurl, and business is booming. It's been knocking on the door of the top ten most watched broadcasts on all three channels all year, and while this episode will pull down a mere 14.9 million viewers on a par with crossroads open or hours and the professionals next week's episode will back 19 million on them which is coronation street numbers and i have no idea why third of the population pretty much yes it was. It was all we had, that's the thing.

Starting point is 01:51:45 It was all we had. Yeah. I bet it was raining that night. Pop music TV-wise, it's currently the only game in town, with only the old grey whistle test and a few late-night regional efforts knocking about. And the only new music programme that ITV have in the works at the moment is Moondog's Matinee, only new music program that itv have in the works at the moment is moon dogs matinee which is another

Starting point is 01:52:07 muriel young kids program hosted by a band from northern ireland which featured the likes of chas and dave rock pile and andy fairweather low not only that but top of the pops is also going through a very rare period where it's not being coated down in the media. Even Clive James found time to mention this episode in his TV review in next Sunday's Observer and said that one of the acts on tonight's show, quote, uncorked the best pop single in years. It should make you feel good about life

Starting point is 01:52:42 for about three and a half minutes. I'll leave it there for now. A mystery from the Godfather. Is it as good as dog sh*t in my garden, I wonder? The period of guest presenters, pop news and surprise micro-interviews that flared up after the technician strikes is long behind us, but chaps, we're still a long way from the yellow hair era and judging by this episode the show is absolutely crying out for a revamp don't you think very much so it's not

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Starting point is 01:53:12 looking 80s yet um there's frequent moments in this episode where if you'd have been told you know this was from 76 or something you could have well believed it yeah yeah there's a few attempts to uh make a few little changes it's not really happening yet is it so your host tonight is peter powell who is now three and a half years into his career with the bbc and nearing the peak of his career there he's currently firmly embedded into the drive time slot from half past four to 7pm on weekdays at Radio 1, which means he gets to break down the new top 40 in full every Tuesday. That was important, wasn't it? Oh, it was, yeah.

Starting point is 01:53:53 I've banged on many a time enough about nipping out to spend it on my lunch break on Tuesday afternoons to get the first news from Gallup. But later on, we're going to hear massive chunks of the new top four which was really important man wasn't it very important yeah i mean let's be honest 81 i mean this for me was a time before the big emergence of commercial stations on the radio so it was radio one constantly and this was a big deal i mean his voice peter powell voice, is as associated with that rundown as it is for me in 81 with his advert for Chart Hits Volume 1 and 2 on KTL, which is a big memory of Powell from 81 as well.

Starting point is 01:54:35 Tonight, he finds himself as the meat in a hairy sandwich as his show takes over from Travis's afternoon slot and then hands over to Wheels, the hour-long show about motorbikes presented by the living Nashabaj himself. Not only that, but tonight's episode, which is being broadcast right now on Radio 1, features Dave Taylor, the wheelie king himself,

Starting point is 01:55:01 putting a new motorcyclist through his paces and giving him tips on how to break into the sport of motorbike racing a certain peter james bernard pal f*cking hell all up in your area he's already been lined up for a stint on the radio one road show including an appearance at collier bay in corn, where the advertising in the local press will announce that there's also free access to the Polgever Naturist Bay. Thank God it wasn't Travis's week to do the road show. And along with Dave Lee, Travis and Simon Bates,

Starting point is 01:55:37 he'll be holding down a summer DJ residency at Tiffany's Ballroom in Blackpool, going head-to-head with a rival discotheque who will be hosting dj slots this summer by martin shaw lewis collins and dennis waterman taylor you'd go to professionals disco wouldn't you oh yeah imagine the caliber of ladies he'd be turning up at that with cowley at the bar f*cking moaning that they're not playing anything ever. Yeah, all those ladies either wearing designer jeans or calf-length skirts and kitten heels. All of whom died before the end of the night to terrorists, no doubt.

Starting point is 01:56:19 Yeah, but, you know, whatever, there'll be another one along in a minute. By the way, chaps, do you know who officially opened Polgever Nature's Bay in 1971? I found out during my research. I was quite delighted. 71? Someone in the entertainment realm. Regvani?

Starting point is 01:56:36 Mmm? Ooh. Your mmm indicates that Taylor was close there. Bob Grant? No. Arthur Lowe? Freddie Starr. trailer was close there bob grant no arthur low freddy star oh jesus of course it was freddy star sadly he didn't go about as a nudie hitler with a comedy swastika painted on his bollock he was in a nice 70s leisure tracksuit not freddy star hid my hamster fred Freddy Star smuggled my budget.

Starting point is 01:57:06 This is Powell's 35th appearance as the host of our favourite Thursday evening pop treat, and he reached the summit of his profession when he hosted the 1980 Christmas Day episode and is still the youngest member of a talent pool currently consisting of Richard Skinner, Mike Reid, Tommy Vance,

Starting point is 01:57:33 Dave Lee Travis and Jingle Nonce OBE. And there's been an attempt by the BBC to place him squarely within the ranks of the dishette. Only last week, he appeared in the pages of the Sunday Mirror Women's section as that week's action man, posing in the very latest off-the-peg casual wear. Quote, Britain's most popular DJ, Peter Powell, tells me that after three years of having no special girlfriend, he is now in love. Alison is a dancer and model, and I'm both possessive and proud of her he says I've never been happier

Starting point is 01:58:08 and you don't know her she goes to a different school how could a guy like Peter age 29, 5 foot 8 inches with sexy dark eyes square jaw and fine brown hair stay unattached for so long answer

Starting point is 01:58:24 Peter really stays still long enough for him to catch up he's on radio one every weekday afternoon he's a regular on top of the pops he's forever scurrying around britain doing live dj gigs he recently received award for his popularity from prince michael of kent What's the baseline for that? Being more popular than Prince Michael of Kent's missus? And when he's not working, he's playing football, squash, tennis, or sailing, windsurfing, or skiing. But I did manage to pin him down long enough to model his top of the pops

Starting point is 01:59:03 among the latest in men's casual fashions two-ton beige nylon anorak by adidas from top man and burton's cotton shirt and stretch denim jeans by v del susun from way in at harrods so yeah everything's coming up pal but it's the last episode he'll ever present in his 20s. Article in the telly pages of today's Daily Mirror. Hitman Peter turns 30. Disc jockey Peter Powell is trying to grow old gracefully. Peter, who introduces Top of the Pops tonight, will turn 30 on Tuesday.

Starting point is 01:59:47 pops tonight will turn 30 on tuesday i am facing being 30 like an ostrich with his head in the sand hoping it'll go away quietly says peter so chaps from next week there will be no presenters in their 20s until they're drafting gary davis and pat sharp at the end of next year oh dear gosh end of an era yes i love that article where at the start it said uh so how can a man like this be single he's five foot eight he looks like a pre-chewed bolus of bubble gum so desperately ingratiating that his face is folding in on itself a whole tightly folded bud the flowers of evil yeah i mean it's weird him turning 30 he's going to be 72 this year i mean he is 72 this year now peter powell which is mental um but he's still looking good at this point he's still um you know looking like the party crasher killer from the hard way he's very very ambitious isn't he powell oh yes i mean i read an interesting quote which might

Starting point is 02:00:47 have been mentioned on chart music before of his early ambitions in this interview that i read powell said i've always been interested in business when i was 17 i was a salesman for expanded metal dung passages for piggeries it was my dream to be a salesman for ICI so there you go you know ICI's loss is our game reach for the stars and then I noticed somebody across the style masturbating a pig and he got me into radio one he knows where the bodies are buried does Powell I mean think about yeah think about who he represents now particularly right now at this moment that we're recording this podcast the whole Chiswick Mafia the whole Schofield thing oh yes yeah he knows where the Yeah, think about who he represents now, particularly right now at this moment that we're recording this podcast. The whole Chiswick Mafia, the whole Schofield thing.

Starting point is 02:01:28 Oh, yes. Yeah, he knows where the bodies are buried. But as far as presentation goes, chaps, we know that age brings maturity, and we can see that in Powell, can't we? The poem has been replaced by a sensible haircut, and this is no longer the Mr. Woo Hay 1977 you know songs are no longer ace they're excellent and the feet are going to stay on the floor throughout this episode aren't they yeah

Starting point is 02:01:53 but you can tell he's still got his enthusiasm by the way he starts off hello welcome to yet another edition of top of the pot which i like because it has a sort of desperate, death-haunted world weariness, which is a little bit at odds with his upbeat demeanour. He's like a slaughterman smiling ruefully as he slots a bolt through the 45th cow brain of the day, just sealed inside a meaningless, endlessly repeating sequence of episodes of Top of the day just sealed inside a meaningless endlessly repeating sequence of episodes of top of the pops will be there one day it's hard to imagine i know oh yeah but i mean he could have looked at his elder peers at radio one and slotted into one of their kind of categories

Starting point is 02:02:39 like dlt for instance but he's i think he's taking cue some jensen um in being a safe pair of hands at this point it is weird with power though isn't it i mean he's a man who hasn't aged well i don't mean personally last time i saw him he you know he was holding up reasonably averagely for a man with a face that's essentially internal bundled in like a brussels sprout um but then he was an early adopter of what was then called keep fit wasn't it yes he was what i mean by not aging well is that his legend has grown tatty because he's remembered as a sort of second tier dj isn't it yeah but he was a huge name at the time but he's not really up there in the collective memory with well-loved figures like Travis or Bates or Mike Reed or even Gary Davis, right? But at the same time, he's not down in that third tier of cultural amnesia with Paul Burnett or Adrian John or Dixie Peach or me, Mark Page.

Starting point is 02:03:44 He's on that sort of middle shelf with people like richard skinner yeah or or maybe diddy david hamilton the the tony gubber of music presentation and with peter powell it's partly because he's not got his own thing you know in the 80s they had music djs like peel and and janice long and Rankin Miss P, Robbie Vincent. Andy Kershaw, loathe him or hate him. And then they had the supposed personality DJs like Steve Wright. But it's the fools who tried to straddle that gap who've actually fallen into it in the collective memory. Because nobody thinks about these in-between blokes

Starting point is 02:04:23 who on the one hand were entirely image orientated, but that image was just, hey, I'm a regular young guy who quite likes his music. It was just too bland to be memorable over time. But back then, Peter Powell was huge. He was a massive star. I mean, he never had the weekday breakfast show, but he must have opened more fates and guested at more provincial Dickie Bo Dorman nightclubs than most c*nts in history and was considered dishy with his beady eyes and pushy manner. And all of that is now gone as though it had never existed, like the contents of a broken hard drive

Starting point is 02:05:05 after the heat death of the universe. You can say that, but also you can say that he got out in time. Yeah. You know, he was never going to be lumped in with the U-Tree era of Radio 1 DJs because he just said, right, OK, I've done this now, I'm going off to do something else and be even more successful at that.

Starting point is 02:05:22 It's true, yeah. Although the thing about Powell as well, when you look back, he does represent a very specific subset of British men from this period, right? It's the kind of bloke who's very well aware that he's now living in the 80s, even if he's not quite sure yet what that means, beyond having shorter hair and straight leg trousers right and maybe a tight white t-shirt promoting sandwell valley nature reserve or something like under the bomber jacket but he's ambitious and he's positive in a way that didn't really exist in the 70s

Starting point is 02:06:01 that kind of slightly obnoxious but moderately discreet kind of ambition right like i don't know his politics although i can f*cking guess you sense that he would not see a contradiction between like the go for it positivity of the jam and the upbeat vibe of early thatcherism right like he operates in the cultural sphere but he never really thinks about what culture is or what it means like apart from telling john peel not to play hip-hop because it was the music of black criminals yes because when did they ever make any good music he's got no ideas but he respects himself for getting on and making it happen yeah do you know in summary he is exactly the kind of person who would describe the record vienna by ultravox as

Starting point is 02:06:55 magnificent yes well he's a businessman northerner uh a personality in a way um i mean you get the feeling even through his radio one career that he ultimately what he's doing is networking yeah you know he doesn't really want to foster a future career as the kind of voice of britain like f*cking noel edmonds or something i think he just yeah he he's a businessman who happens to have spent some time in his in his youth in his salad days doing this presenting the most popular pop program on television yeah he played his hand very well didn't he it's just a hook like nowadays he's like hey remember this face yeah like a brussels sprout but it's amazing isn't it when you look it up the amount of people that he managed what they yeah musically called talent management right he's managed simon cowell

Starting point is 02:07:45 deck philip scofield and good god richard and judy yeah the television of white criminals but i looked him up at company's house right and it's quite the patchwork quilt his record there i'm not really a business guy you'll be shocked to hear but the list of companies that peter powell has co-founded or been the president of and resigned from that list is longer than the string of a stunt kite one of those stunt kites that somebody else with the same name put their name to hello welcome to yet another edition of top of the pops and we got a great show lined up we got the who we got roxy music we got duran duran and if you can handle that lot then hopefully you can handle this because live on top of the pop's white-on-black logo

Starting point is 02:08:51 with a blue square border layered atop each other, a conceit they have been using since August of last year and will continue to use until July of this year, and the strains of the instrumental bit of Can You Feel It by the Jacksons sadly not on this episode. That cold open style that they're going for here really unsatisfactory. It's brutal.

Starting point is 02:09:15 It's got an emergency broadcast hint to it, hasn't it? Or back in the day when the adverts came on and the regional logo would flash up. Yeah, that's not good, man. You need a theme tune. You need a clarion call to bring all the youth together. Yeah, yeah, completely. I mean, it ties in with what you were saying.

Starting point is 02:09:32 The 80s hasn't really started yet. They've decided that a whole lot of love isn't going to cut it in their thrusting new era. But they've not replaced it with anything. No. No, you need a theme tune so you can turn it up and wait for the thunderous footsteps coming down the stairs yeah then the screen fills with powell in a lemon yellow wind cheater with the sleeves rolled up

Starting point is 02:09:52 a jazzy blue mustard and wine striped shirt with the collar turned up and powder blue slacks or new sounds new styles hfs powder blue slacks with a thin brown belt. Of course, yes. You've got to have an eye for detail with this sort of thing. And introducing the next record with some of the slickest, sexiest dance moves ever busted out by a man in a lemon yellow and cheetah and powder blue slacks. It's a bit startling, this convulsion of youthful exuberance

Starting point is 02:10:23 from a man dressed like Paul out of ever-decreasing circles. He tells us we've got a great show lined up and then spoilers half the acts on offer, telling us if we can handle that lot, then hopefully we can handle this. Can You Handle It? by Sharon Redd. Born in Norfolk, Virginia in 1945, Sharon Redd was the daughter of a producer at King Records, James Brown's original label.

Starting point is 02:10:55 She signed to United Artists in 1968 and put out a few singles, before being headhunted a year later by a couple of Australian stage producers who cast her in the Sydney production of Hair. She became an overnight success over there, appearing in adverts for Amoco petrol stations and landing her own TV special, but she, along with other black cast members, had their work visas unrenewed by the Australian Immigration Department and she found herself

Starting point is 02:11:25 back in America in the spring of 1971. A year later she was recruited into Bette Midler's backing singers the Harletts and stayed there for six years during which time she and fellow harlet Charlotte Crossley popped up on an episode of Rhoda as Johnny Ventura's backup. In 1978, she signed to RCA and a year later, under the name Front Page, put out the disco single Love Insurance. And by 1980, she had moved to Prelude Records, the New York disco label who had D-Train and Jocelyn Brown on their books. This is her first single release as a solo artist since her cover of Easy To Be Hard from the Hair soundtrack, which got to number 32 in the Australian chart in 1969. It entered the chart three weeks ago

Starting point is 02:12:20 at number 60, then soared 17 places to number 43. And this week it's jumped four places to number 33, which has necessitated a big fly across the Atlantic for a Top of the Pops debut. And all dear chaps, it's safe to say that this is the most disastrous welcoming party for an American since that episode of Dad's Armour, where Captain Manorin gets chinned twice f*cking hell

Starting point is 02:12:46 before we get into it chaps the first thing that needs to be pointed out is that immediately after introducing this the camera sweeps across the studio floor pal still in vision breaks into a lumbering dad at a wedding dance oh dear he's not doing the running pal just yet but he's more one of those you know them thumb toys or push puppets or whatever you call them you know when you've got a zebra or something and you you push it underneath and it flops well he's dancing like he's a push puppet and someone's just applied tiny bit of pressure a flicker by some distance he's not the worst dancer oh no no no no what we see here in the studio not only from power but from the audience is there's no other way of putting it apart from in a racist way oh it's the whitest dancing i have ever seen should we talk about the

Starting point is 02:13:38 single first should we get that out of the way sure sure because that'll take off a minute because it's a f*cking tune isn't it it's a great single but what we're hearing here is not the single no no no no no if you actually bought it as a single or heard it on the radio you'd get a prime example of new york post disco yeah yeah you have to listen to the 12 inch special extended version which is nearly 10 minutes long and a f*cking mint the recorded version is this crisp kind of glittering i mean it's perfect it's one of those early 80s funk tunes every single detail is perfect what we have here is not that i mean like most singles of his elkin era it would have completely sailed over my head at the time you know that that combination of hardcore funk and show tune flamboyance but

Starting point is 02:14:20 the performance we get f*cking hell fire it's as if michael hill's trying to prove a point by lumping together everything that he wants rid of from top of the pops i mean i reiterate what we said earlier with regards to plenty of bits in this episode if you'd have told me this was from 76 come on it looks like 76 there seems to be this powerful idea in the 70s, in particular, that if you give a crowd of young people the task of sitting down and doing an annoying series of hand gestures to do, they'll be delighted. And like Castle, they will join this herd of idiocy. And this is what we get here.

Starting point is 02:14:57 If we've just talked about the record, we now have to talk, I think, about how the Top of the Pops Orchestra play this record. I thought this was all done by 1980. No, no, no. The sound of Philadelphia cheese. Indeed. I mean, it's a typically shonky start, right,

Starting point is 02:15:13 before they actually settle into the song. There's a few bass mistakes and stuff. The use of the Top of the Pops Orchestra dates it because, simply put, they never really got their heads around disco no I mean we keep saying disco but what we hear is not disco no I mean the point about disco whether it's been made by Chic or whether it's made by ACDC who I think makes some great disco records is that the kick drum is a regular thump throughout and not to get too musicological the

Starting point is 02:15:41 kick drum the bass drum hits not just in between the snare hits but on each snare hit that's really key to disco the top of the pops orchestra they play it with a normal sort of kick snare pattern and it instantly dates the song yes it dates the song back to the early 70s and as ever with the t.a.t.p orchestra you know it can't help but have that we've had a what these parties seven each in the green room feel to it as well you know so oh it'd be arctic light by now yeah yeah or breaker it's a shonky start but they make it into a soul slash funk record not a disco record so it's weird what we're hearing the big question here i can't work out what she's singing into right because she's not holding a mic yeah yeah and

Starting point is 02:16:26 she doesn't appear to have one clipped to that weird body suit that she's wearing and i've never quite seen this before on top of the pops wherever the microphone is it's too far from her mouth because the acoustics of the vocal are horrendous. So I can't tell. Is she singing into like a boom mic off screen like what they would use to record dialogue on a sitcom? Maybe. Surely not. Do you reckon it was a hastily done sort of pre-recorded version

Starting point is 02:16:58 that she did with the Top of the Pops Orchestra? I thought of that. I thought of that, but I don't think so. And I'll tell you why. Because obviously it's not the record. No, I thought of that. Yeah. I thought of that, but I don't think so. And I'll tell you why. Because obviously it's not the record. No, it's certainly not the record. The record being a perfectly weighted production that sounds like a helicopter shot of some skyscrapers.

Starting point is 02:17:17 As opposed to this, this two-on-the-floor nonsense. So I was looking for any suggestion that it was that and that she'd recorded the vocal earlier while not dancing but in fact not only does it look like she's singing live while dancing it f*cking sounds like it too because every time she bends off in one direction the level drops right right right so it's very confusing this clip is up on youtube but it's got the record dubbed over of course but at least you can say that the audio fits the chaos of the scene oh god with all these kids rowing the boat like they're in school assembly it's like you might as well have had girls tie him plaits into the hair of the girl in front

Starting point is 02:18:05 as Sharon Red sings about how she's apparently so good in bed it's intimidating I mean the kids are all sat round on an elongated platform and they're doing a f*cking group blockbusters hand jive years before it was such a thing it's appalling

Starting point is 02:18:22 it is appalling there's this particular young lady who I don't want to pick on but she does look like she could be in her mid-60s to be honest with you but she's doing it so stiffly and so confusedly and bewilderedly you know that because there's finger points involved in this thing that they're getting the kids to do and the point she does is so fatally just not right on the beat i mean it's interesting watching any group of british dancers to be honest with you ever because you can see the people who actually do dance to music yeah they've sort of just got it in their shoulders and their groove you know but some people are just incapable i don't know how they live and there's plenty of those in the

Starting point is 02:19:01 audience here and it should be mentioned that a small modicum of satisfaction is provided by Legs & Co. in the background. Yeah, Legs & Co. are there as well. I mean, they are still doing that rubbish I've-just-trod-in-dog-sh*t move. They're in the Doric Kytons again, looking like they're doing a keep-fit demonstration before some Christians get fed to the lions.

Starting point is 02:19:23 And also, Legs & Co. nearing the end of their working life. Yeah. Quite literally left on the shelf here. Oh, yes. For the first time in their lives. Relegated to this distant bookcase thing. And then a bit later in the song, they're let down from the shelf, but they're still not allowed out of their technical area.

Starting point is 02:19:44 They've got a little painted off bit in the corner and still having to wear industrial knickers in defiance of this obsessively upskirting cameraman why else are they on a raised platform yeah um it must have got tiresome even for game girls like legs and coat in fact this here is the last ever appearance of Pauline Peters. Oh, left the legs this week to be replaced for the final six months by Anita Chellamar, the Doug Yule of fixed grin.

Starting point is 02:20:19 Actually, no, no. It's more like when Ron would join the creation because that was also for a very brief period right at the end and because they're both better known for what they did afterwards. In Ron's case, the faces and the Rolling Stones, and in Anita's case, Toto Coelho. Oh, yes.

Starting point is 02:20:37 She ate cannibals. Yes. It was incredible. And as a founding member of the Toto Coelho Ultras, I am the bloke holding the megaphone with his back to the performance. I won't have anything bad said about it. By this time, Legs & Co are pulling double shifts almost every week, you know, doing their own routine and backing up some band.

Starting point is 02:20:57 And I always assumed that it was because, you know, Michael Hurl wanted to jack up the daddy's faction. But now I think, were their contracts on a performance basis and Hurl wants them gone as soon as possible. So he's just squeezing maximum value out of them before they're off. Well, instead of saying you signed up for 52 weeks, you signed up to 52 performances. Ah, I see, yeah.

Starting point is 02:21:17 So we get you in two at a time and knob you off early. Yeah. Also, lest we forget, providing a visual contrast to two-man sound of course yes serves neither party you know legs and co are being pushed off to the side and you know no one puts legs and co in the corner and meanwhile sharon red she's there slinking about telling everyone she's just the best shag ever and she's doing it while standing next to lots of younger women yeah there is that in shorter skirts but to be fair i think sharon is the star here um not just because it's her record i think she looks great and she's got this great sort of black spangly dress on she moves great her performance

Starting point is 02:21:56 background that you mentioned you know being in air and things like that is clearly there and she puts it across i mean with this lumbering f*ck awful arrangement um which has its pleasures don't get me wrong like all top of the pops orchestra stuff it has its interesting slightly beard up pleasures but um yeah she comes through it okay the audience do not know it's a great opportunity for us to see the youth of 1981 and a f*cking hell yeah dear me the dress so appallingly that if he had had the time steve strange will be standing in their own front doorways and refusing them entrance to the outside world no sorry this is not for you there's a couple of little punkers though in there isn't there there's less like a few dotted about and they're actually some of the best dancers to be

Starting point is 02:22:42 honest with you yeah the punks that are dotted in this audience they provide some nice sort of moodiness later on in this episode as well but yeah is there anything more dispiriting than seeing british children forced into the block but it's the f*cking dance um it's well chiggers plays pop isn't it yeah yeah i mean they should have just given them an inflatable to jump up and down on. I mean, in fairness, nobody's going to look cool doing that school assembly. I mean, rarely has Top of the Pops felt more like a church hall dance and sausage sizzle, which at heart is what it always wanted to be, complete with Stranger Danger, but without the sausages, which were the best bit. You know when you watch these old top of the pops is on a

Starting point is 02:23:25 downloaded file and it's straight from the bbc vt so sometimes at the end they run on past where the tv broadcast yes cutter so after the credits you get the whole of the closing song with the audience dancing and then at the end when it stops you hear the floor manager barking at the kids to leave the studio and it really does slice through the the jollity like an oxyacetylene torch like you're at the supposed to be the greatest party in the world and then the second the music stops some old blokes bellowing like thank you for coming now please leave the studio instantly and it's a bit of a jolt you know yeah ladies and gentlemen you now have nine seconds to vacate the building before we uncage the hyenas they will be laughing you will not good luck children this clip has got that same

Starting point is 02:24:20 atmosphere but while the f*cking show is going on yeah what needs to change and i think her realizes it pretty soon is that this thing of piling the stage with the kids yeah that's got to change for a f*cking start off i mean if you're going to rebuild a set and make it like a nightclub put the kids out in the nightclub put zoo c*nts up on the platforms and yeah just don't let sh*t like this happen again because even though the record itself even in this iteration is not a bad start to the show the staging of it's pretty awful Shannon does come through okay though

Starting point is 02:24:50 apologies for repeating myself Pop Craze youngsters but when we covered Department S in our live show last year I quoted their interview in Smash Hits in May of this year when they were on Top of the Pops and I'm quoting it again seven o'clock on a Wednesday evening this year when they were on Top of the Pops, and I'm quoting it again. Seven o'clock on a Wednesday evening, and in Studio 3 at the Television Centre, a hundred teenagers are milling about beneath the white arc lights of Top of the Pops.

Starting point is 02:25:20 Flick Colbert, the American choreographer of Legs & Co, gets up on stage to tell them what comes next and how to dance to it the next one's by department s and that's a real blitz kid number i want some intense meaningful movements none of this silly disco stuff so yeah by this time flick colby's telling the kids what to do and tell them they've got a pain sweat right now. Because by this point, Hull has clearly had enough with the kids just standing there or chatting to the mates about lads and shoes and what they like the look of in Chelsea Girl at the moment or making rabbit ears behind the mates' back

Starting point is 02:25:57 while Dean Freeman's trying to emote and has enlisted Sergeant Major Colbert. And by the look of this, it's an experiment that's doomed to failure and zoo are imminent. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, those kids here, you can see, are just ashamed of this enforced jollity

Starting point is 02:26:14 and they just don't want any part of it. The most shocking thing to my mind is the return of the top of the Pops Orchestra and whatever the Maggie Streder singers are calling themselves these days. And, you know, it's clear from the first note that they can't handle it. This might do for Seedside Special or the Yorkshire TV Disco Dancing Championship, but, you know, Sharon's been poorly served here. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Starting point is 02:26:36 She has. If I wanted to go and get it together, I'd have gone and get it together. Yeah. Or wheel tappers and shunters or something. Oh, can you imagine? Or wheel tappers and shunters or something. Oh, can you imagine that? So the following week, Can You Handle It nudged up two places to number 31 somehow and got no further.

Starting point is 02:27:05 The follow-up, Love Is Gonna Get Ya, failed to chart, but she roared back in 1982 with Never Give You Up, getting to number 20 in November of that year. Ten years later, DNA, the Tom Steiner remix hitmakers, collaborated with Red on an update of Can You Handle It, which got to number 17 in February of 1992, sparking what should have been a comeback, but she died of pneumonia three months later, at the age of 46. Nothing like it. Can you handle it?

Starting point is 02:27:41 Hey, loads of applause to our audience, Licks & Co and Sharon Redman, Can You Handle It? on top of the post. OK, he's got an album coming out, the same name as the hit single. His name? Shaggy Stevens and This Old House. How? After listing everyone responsible for the last performance, lies to the kids about a new LP that has actually been out for months

Starting point is 02:28:08 before throwing us into this old house by shaking Stevens. Yes, he added a G. Disgusting behaviour. Simon Bates wouldn't do that. Simon Bates knows when to snip off a G. Born in Evansville, Texas in 1908, Carl Hamblin was the son of a preacher man who founded the Evangelical Methodist Church. In 1931, he relocated to California and became the host of the radio show Family Album whilst nurturing a career as a country singer-songwriter. And in 1934, he became the first artist signed up to the American subsidiary of Decca. He rapidly became

Starting point is 02:28:53 the most popular radio personality in Los Angeles, but the fame got to him and he became a rabid pisshead and gambler. But in 1949, he turned up at a Billy Graham crusade in LA, an event which Graham later claimed was a turning point in his own popularity and bank balance. But when Hamblin subsequently tried to ban beer adverts off his radio show, he got the sack. In 1954, according to legend, Hamblin was on a hunting exposition with his mate John Wayne when they came across a dilapidated hut in the mountains which contained one mangy dog and a human corpse, which inspired him to write this song, which got a number two in the Billboard Country Chart. Later that year, it was covered by Rosemary Clooney and put out as a B-side to Hey There,

Starting point is 02:29:44 which got a number one in America. But when it was released over here, the sides were flipped around and this old house became her first UK number one in December of 1954. The song lay mouldering for a quarter of a century until it was recorded by the Kentucky band NRBQ, who recorded it rockabilly style for their 1979 LP Kick Me Hard. And it's this version that has been covered by the ever-victorious, iron-willed, highest incarnation of the revolutionary comradeship of heterosexual rock and roll. It's a follow-up to Shooting Gallery,

Starting point is 02:30:25 which only got to number 46 in October of 1980, and is the third cut from his third LP, Marie Marie, which came out five months ago. It entered the chart at number 64 three weeks ago, then soared 35 places to number 29. He was immediately invited into the top of the pop studio, which helped it soar another 22 places to number seven. This week, it's jumped another five places and stands at number two in the chart. And here's a special film broadcast from Overway Cottage, a dilapidated

Starting point is 02:31:02 coach house in Nalton Park near Bury St Edmunds, so Shakey can elaborate on his five-year plan to address the social housing crisis. Yeah, Powell f*cked up there when he said it was from an album that was coming out because Epic have retitled Marie Marie to this old house in the wake of this becoming a hit. Right, right. You know what what i don't think i've ever have i ever talked about shaky before on chart music i'm not entirely sure i am which is remarkable really that is yeah because for the rest of us it's got to the point now where every time he comes on it's like your brother-in-law's drop round without texting first

Starting point is 02:31:40 oh hello it's like an easy familiarity but without a great deal of affection and yet if you saw him in trouble in the street you'd feel duty bound to help out yeah not that shaky would ever find himself in trouble in the street no no but he was everywhere in my life in 81 i think this video was probably my biggest first memory of shaky and and i think the start of my liking of him he's got that insanely good looking dad dave bartram look he's even better looking and that jet black coiffure is all important but in 81 he's everywhere you know i mean yes he's on connor he's on cannon and ball on swap shop mean, two of my most serpentine memories of him is that he's on Jim Will Fix It.

Starting point is 02:32:28 Ooh, yes. Two appearances really stuck in my head. I mean, there may well be more of them, but the two ones that really stuck in my head, there was one where two kids just write in, and they want to dance with him, basically, and that's it. Jim, can you fix it?

Starting point is 02:32:42 So they dance with him doing this whole house and the jingle noncer tells the little girl that she's very pretty and the little boy that he's a great mover. It's a bit grisly but there's a bizarre fate memory I have that perhaps a pop-craze youngster can confirm or find where a girl

Starting point is 02:33:00 she wanted to stay in a posh boarding school for the night. That was her wish, right? So she goes, she does the kind of posh boarding school stuff. They have a school disco to Japanese boy, actually. Right. And then later on, there's this really bizarre moment where all the girls are in the dorm, you know, waiting for lights out. And Shakey just turns up to kind of check if they're all okay.

Starting point is 02:33:25 No! And, yeah. No, you dream that, Neil, surely. No, I swear to hell, I have not dreamt that. Shakey just turns up, he turns up in the dorm, he checks if they're all okay. He doesn't tuck them in or anything, but they're all sort of very excited to see him. Shakey of the dorm, man. Sounds like a stripping djinty or something.

Starting point is 02:33:44 But, yeah, I mean i mean you know it's appearances like that that obviously by 81 uh turned him into a household name giving him the commercial momentum to make this a big hit after quite a long journey obviously you know he's been doing rock and roll revivalism since the since the days of f*cking sha na na really he was the only other guy doing it he's shane a nake. But in the late 70s, you know, he's actually, he's kind of cool.

Starting point is 02:34:07 John Lydon, at the end of an interview at the height of the Sex Pistols fame, says, he's off to see Shaking Stevens that night. In that late 70s period,

Starting point is 02:34:17 Danny Baker at the time wanted to call a kind of punk versus rockabilly summit to diffuse tensions and he wanted Shaky there, you know, as the sort of boot truss boot tross stevens there but i mean all the tv appearances obviously make him way more mainstream and he's hitting right this year you know you've got the stray cats in the charts even alvin stardust has a hit again this year with with you know rockabilly revival in full

Starting point is 02:34:42 swing and he's the perfect idol really for the for the sort of under nines you know so you know rockabilly revival in full swing and he's the perfect idol really for the for the sort of under nines you know so you know i mean if i was old enough in 81 to feel spiritually behind new pop his presence this kind of retrograde presence probably would have angered me but um no i loved him and this song as you point out i mean you know now sort of at our age everything we watch or hear sounds like death you know even a center part but i mean you know now sort of at our age everything we watch or hear sounds like death you know even a center part but i mean this is a this is a kind of song about death and it's quite macabre in a way but it's an eight-year-old kid i just thought he had a bit of a knackered house and he needs to fix it this is the first opportunity we've had to actually

Starting point is 02:35:20 look at a shaking stevens video right which was the second one he ever made after marie marie and you know by 1981 chaps the promo video seen as an opportunity for an artist to expand upon their creative manifesto and harness the elements of multimedia to round out their artistic statements so what does shaky do here he sings it in front of an old house yeah it starts with him leaping from the veranda over a camera giving the audience a tantalizing denim upskirt shot and then there's a bit of panther-like jiggling about in front of this dilapidator's house until he seizes the means of production and drives the acts of revolutionary socialism into the rotting stump of capitalism. FWAH! They really missed a trick, though.

Starting point is 02:36:08 They should have stayed true to the spirit of this song and put a corpse inside the old house. Yeah. And his dog still stood there guarding the door, bloke dressed up as John Wayne. And then eating his face at the end of it. Yeah. The terrible thing about that story is the fact that the dog

Starting point is 02:36:25 was still alive yeah suggests that the bloke only died recently which in a way is more creepy than if he'd been there two years but you know when you're going down a b road in the country somewhere then you see an overturned car in the ditch and you just assume it's been left abandoned there for days when in fact for all you know, it could have gone off the road 90 seconds ago just before you came round the corner and the wheels might only just have stopped spinning. But, yeah, they don't do it.

Starting point is 02:36:53 They don't do it. There's a corpse in an armchair and a starving dog behind the green door. No, instead, his mates turn up, don't they? There's like a Brotherhood of man foursome who've just walked out of a Kay's catalogue. And it cuts back to Shakey giving them a lean and hungry look while still clapping, of course.

Starting point is 02:37:14 And, you know, to my mind, the video starts to take on sinister, video-nasty-like connotations. Yes. This surly youth brandishing an axe and four people come walking along all happy and couple it never ends well does it no and it looks like a video nasty as well because of the strange way it's lit yeah because it's not shot on video it's shot on 16 millimeter film which is less forgiving in gloomy conditions so on some of these shots there's a an eerie glow with the very dark shadows

Starting point is 02:37:47 behind because it was obviously such a miserable day that by the time they were filming shaky posing upstairs in the old house yes by the window pane he says he's not gonna mend there wasn't enough light so they've had to turn a big arc light on him and it creates that slightly unearthly post-apocalyptic look but it's cheap lighting so it gives it the feel of a very low budget horror film yeah halloween blood on white shoes also aggravated by the fact that these days all the copies of top of the pops in circulation come from these supposed restorations yes done by a private citizen which look like they've just gone through one of those free photoshop filters because you can't restore or upscale top of the

Starting point is 02:38:39 pops to hd because they were made on videotape which is a standard definition medium and even stuff shot on film like this has been telecineed onto video so there is no hd information that is it's not there at source so the confused computer just smooths everything out as best it can and it just sharpens the edges and flattens the shadows and you end up with all the detail wiped out yeah destroys the image that's there especially small areas of detail like people's faces to the point of it being disturbing so when shakey's catalog model friends come down the path to join his fun at the old house it looks like silent hill on the ps1 you look at a screenshot of their faces or the concave caverns of lovecraftian horror where their faces were it's f*cking horrible yeah but it's also an interesting lesson in

Starting point is 02:39:36 photogenia because these ordinary looking extras who were all sort of blandly pleasant looking you put them through the faux upscaling process they come out looking like abattoir sweepings whereas shakey's own face has been subjected to the same process of simplification and approximation and when you wipe all the detail out of his face he just ends up looking even more like his own viz cartoon yeah he looks great so maybe in the same way that the secret of a memorable and distinctive animated character is that they should be instantly recognizable in silhouette maybe the secret of being a late 20th century pop icon is having the kind of face that becomes stronger and more distinctive the more degraded and messy the image becomes

Starting point is 02:40:25 with the passing of time over generations of cheap reproduction and this is why 40 years on everyone's still talking about shaking steven not that you'd ever associate shaking stevens with the words cheap reproduction you understand understand. The thing is, that sinister thing you identified in the video sort of tipped me the wink as a kid that, yeah, this song's perhaps not about just fixing up an old house. But there was always something sinister about Shaky. And I think that was part of his appeal.

Starting point is 02:40:57 And I don't mean sinister in a bad way. Who's he going to spring upon next? He's already taken down Maidlet. It could be you. But you never got the feeling. You know, no matter what chaff he was on, bring upon next well there's that he's already taken down madeleine it could be you but you never got the feeling that you know it no matter what chaff he was on like if he was on chagas plays pop or something you didn't think oh yeah shake is going to go off and hobnob with chagas now no no chagas is going to go and do whatever he's doing which probably you know is is completely

Starting point is 02:41:21 innocent and full of bonhomie shaking stevens who knew what home he was going back to? He was kind of, he had this sort of mystery to him. And consequently, yeah, I mean, this song, it is a song about death. And of course, as a kid, you don't quite get that. The black door of death doesn't loom large in your consciousness at that age because it just seems so far away. The lyrics confuse me a little bit. You know, growing up in an old people's home, at that age because it just seems so far away um the lyrics confuse me a little bit you know

Starting point is 02:41:45 growing up in an old people's home the line about not having time to fix the shingles really medically confused me but overwhelmingly as a kid this was just a simple fun song to sing and dance to and the jauntiness of the arrangement of course helps that yeah but so did this video i didn't quite pick up the sinister overtones at the time now watching i can't believe i didn't because it is an unsettling watch so after the axe bit there's a series of cuts where he points at things that are in the song so you know thanks to shake it i found out what a shingle was long before i should have done and then he leaps from the top window to the ground ready to stalk his prey who we later see trapped in the attic being forced to sing out the window presumably in a vain cry for help

Starting point is 02:42:31 and then shaky finds a baseball on the floor and i did look at it hard and it is a baseball it's too odd for it not to have just been there and they thought hey that's great let's use it it's american hey shaky you like american stuff who's use it. It's American. Hey, Shaky, you like American stuff. Who's got a baseball in Bury St Edmunds? You know, a baseball bat possibly, but not a ball. And then he picks the baseball up and he tosses it from hand to hand and then he turns around and just lobs it skyward. Yeah, f*cking hooligan.

Starting point is 02:42:58 Shaky Stevens has thrown a baseball over a house. What have you done? Someone's greenhouse paying the price for that. There's a happy ending of sorts because the Brotherhood of Man types are let out into the front yard and they instantly transmogrify into 13 people, including a child.

Starting point is 02:43:16 Which leads me as a viewer to believe that Shakin' Stevens is actually the leader of a cult who have taken up squatters' rights in the countryside, which is nice. No one's died yet. But yeah, going back to the song, Neil, leader of a cult who have taken up squatters rights in the countryside which is you know which is nice no one's died yet but yeah going back to the song neil because the original version by stewart hamlin it is your bog standard religious ramble you know it doesn't matter if you're poor and your living arrangements are killing you because you know jesus has prepared a new build

Starting point is 02:43:41 with all mod cons in heaven for you yeah yeah, yeah. But like all good benevolent dictators, the man of denim, as we know him as, has painted all that bollocks out of the picture, hasn't it? Yeah, yeah. And that's partly because he delivers the songs in an extremely mushed-mouth manner, like he was eating a sausage cob. But he also alters the lyric in the chorus.

Starting point is 02:44:00 You know, because Stuart Hamblin says, I'm a-getting ready to meet the saints. Yeah, yeah. Rose Marie Clooney sang, he's a I'm getting ready to meet the saints yeah yeah Roseberry Clooney sang he's getting ready to meet the saints but Conrad Shaker he sings she's getting ready to meet the saints which implies that it's a house yeah that's going to die and ascend to the Barrett estate in the sky or he's taking his daughter to a meet and greet at South Hampton football club yeah because like you, Neil, I just thought Shake is going,

Starting point is 02:44:26 oh, I'm shaking Stevens, this house is sh*t. I'm going to buy a new one. That's it. A denim house. Yeah, it's had its day. It's had a good innings. Let's move on and get on the property ladder, is my kind of overwhelming message from the song.

Starting point is 02:44:37 Yeah. Or a meet and greet at the tour of the This Perfect Day hitmaker. Is it hack to say this? Right,'t know but to me it's perfect that whatever this song's actually about it's perfect that the man who took these lyrics to number one went on to be a landlord now he should absolutely have had this as the voicemail on whichever number he gave to his tenant he just left his phone permanently switched off so he's impossible to contact.

Starting point is 02:45:07 He just goes, I ain't got time to fix the shingles. Like all f*cking landlords. Yeah, just like a normal landlord, but more musical. Except that in this case, he ain't got time to fix the shingles or the floor or the boiler

Starting point is 02:45:19 because he's getting ready to meet the saints rather than because he's getting ready to go to Alicante for three weeks again. So why is Shaking Stevens so popular in 1981? 1981 of all years. Look, two things I think, right. He's massively good looking. Two.

Starting point is 02:45:37 And perhaps I'm overestimating this, but I also detect this in a later record. The power of the Grease soundtrack should never be underestimated things that sound 50s ish but have a modern production are gonna hit big yeah yeah it's just lodged in people's consciousness so much so so yeah i i think that might have something to do with it plus he's ubiquitous he is f*cking everywhere he's he's on he's appearing on everything so it's difficult to avoid he's He's generation straddling, isn't he? Oh, yeah. I think the only people who sort of hated Shaking Stevens at this point were fierce poptimist advocates of new pop

Starting point is 02:46:12 who probably would have seen this as shamelessly retrograde and worthless. But for the rest of us, yeah, it's just a fun record with a very good-looking man singing it. He was ubiquitous. He was the subject of one of Ronnie Corbett's best jokes, of course. Ronnie Corbett was talking about something that had scared him, and he said, I haven't been so nervous since I stood next to Shakin' Stevens in The Gents.

Starting point is 02:46:38 Which, if you don't get that joke, what it's saying is, he's suggesting the image of Ronnie Corbett being showered with urine as an uncontrollably gyrating Welshman, pissed in like a horse, insists on standing right next to him at the urinal, despite the fact that, like an unmanned garden hose, his penis is flapping around everywhere because of the shaking, his penis is flapping around everywhere because of the shaking and is sousing the pint-sized discursive storyteller in gallon after gallon of 50s revivalist piss. And Ron is just standing there with waves of piss dripping down the lenses of those iconic black frame glasses,

Starting point is 02:47:23 like the windscreen of a Mercedes in a car wash, or the rainy windows of a Glaswegian tenement in his Scottish homeland, wringing out his Lyle and Scott V-neck into the sink. What, I have to imagine if it all went in his mouth and all that. Oh, Christ. I should say, by the way, I did go and check that joke before I quoted it

Starting point is 02:47:44 to make sure I got the wording right, Because like all writers or people who call themselves writers, I know there's nothing worse than someone quoting your work, especially the jokes and getting it just slightly wrong after you spent a very long time getting it precisely right. Such is the insatiable perfectionism of the creative genius you know oscar wilde was once supposedly asked oscar what did you do this morning and he said i removed a semicolon from one of my poems and they said how did you spend the afternoon and he said putting it back in again this is what it's like we wouldn't know anything about this stuff of course but i guarantee you that whoever wrote that joke for ronnie corbett will have laid in bed tossing and turning flipping that sentence backwards and forwards in their mind for hours looking for the perfect structure really earning their three-piece suite and co*cktail cabinet and this is why comedy writers are paid such outrageous sums of money

Starting point is 02:48:41 because you get the rhythm of the sentence wrong and you lose the gag everything rests on linguistic precision it's like a surgeon your mirth in their hands just one slip and you've got a pancreas hitting the floor with a wet slap it's terrible can you imagine the repercussions if eddie large had ever told a joke that wasn't funny. Yeah. That would have been that. Career over. That's a guy back to living off Sid Little's dinner money. And it needs saying, by the way, this old house, right, I think this is best shaky.

Starting point is 02:49:14 This is best shaky for me. It's his best one. Right. Not that I'm going to sit around listening to it. But in terms of getting those jitters in your legs when you're eight years old, this is the one. Oh, I think this was the single

Starting point is 02:49:27 that just turned me squarely against Shaker. Right, right. I removed myself from all that Ted sh*t and here it was again. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And when it got to number one, oh, Jesus. Yeah, but your age difference, Al,

Starting point is 02:49:40 that's the thing. You were sick of him by now. Complete age difference because while I was watching Top of the Pops, if I was allowed to watch it in the living room this would come on and my dad would be like oh f*cking oh yeah finally finally something good and the knees would start going and everything and it's like oh god yeah i can imagine it's not sitting well with a young mod yeah yeah no there's rocker sh*t in it you you know. Yeah. Yeah. And in No Escape either. You know, I mentioned earlier that episode of Summertime Special that I watched.

Starting point is 02:50:09 And Shakey's on that. Of course. And it's genuinely fascinating because, for a start, he's introduced by Rod Hull and Emu, but alas, from a safe distance. Yeah. We don't get to see what would have become the featherweight title bout of early 80s light entertainment. But also, because Shakey performs a live version of This Old House.

Starting point is 02:50:33 Oh, yes, I've heard that. The Summertime Special Band, yeah, who make the top of the pop orchestra sound like Booker T and the MGs. And he's got the most unnaturally twinkly eyes I've ever seen. And he doesn't seem to be able to remember the words very well yes admittedly this old house does have three verses but he's been singing it all year every day over and over again and yet there's moments where he just seems to be doing what you do when you're walking around your flat singing a song out loud yeah and you can't quite remember how it goes so you just make some noises with your mouth that are similar phonetically

Starting point is 02:51:10 like the greatest ever example of this being uh jimmy hendrix's version of all along the watch tower yeah it's a track i listen to quite a lot because in east london there's always a low-flying police helicopter overhead the only way to make that noise sound good is to put on all along the watch tower and pretend you're in the nam but he seemingly recorded that song without knowing the words west now which which when you're doing a dylan cover he's bordering on mischief but you can hear him he goes uh none will ever on the mine nobody of it is worth it's just gibberish but on that record by the first guitar break nobody cares right but when it's shaky smoldering into the camera and he's going i mean i'm all for i had lives right but i think with this song, you're honour bound to stick to the text, lest you spoil that mood of John Wayne in a bothy,

Starting point is 02:52:09 staring at a corpse in an armchair and a starving dog. Because that's what the kids want, right? Yeah. John Wayne, big leggy himself. Indeed. Got off his horse, drank his milk, looked deep into his horse's eyes. Well, no, he could only see one of them, actually,

Starting point is 02:52:28 because he was standing around the side. So he gazed into the deep black intelligence of that one eye, like a snooker ball embedded in a veiny blanket, and he turned to Stuart Hamblin and he said, Stu, not only do I believe in white supremacy and the ostracisation of gay men, but you know elephants, cute little baby elephants, I say f*ck them.

Starting point is 02:52:57 f*ck them up the trunk and drink your milk. And then spring arrived and they both went home it was one of the defining moments you might almost say iconic moments in rock and roll history and without that history this song is almost meaningless yeah yeah i mean look but the thing is with shaky what what's crucial to me with shaky in this period is he has the appeal of almost a cartoon. Because he's impervious to analysis as a child. You don't look at Shakey and think, oh, I know the person behind that. Yeah.

Starting point is 02:53:33 Or I know the background behind that. He's just fully formed, utterly impervious to analysis, never really revealing anything about himself in anything that I was exposed to. So he couldn't be demystified. Look, I'm not saying he's a bewitching kind of spell. It's shaking. Stevens were talking about,

Starting point is 02:53:51 but there was no sort of, um, background to him. Do you know what I mean? I mean, not that I knew about as an eight year old, you just got the idea that, yeah,

Starting point is 02:53:58 he was on all these TV shows, but that didn't demystify him because you just got the feeling that afterwards he went on being shaking Stevens. He just walked around being shaking stevens yes in his life and and you know that's really important as jumping off things exactly that's really important as a kid just climbing up things and then jumping off them it would take him off an hour to get to the shops because he'd have to jump on things and climb up them. Yeah, pioneer of parkour. But no, you're onto something, Neil,

Starting point is 02:54:27 because, you know, out of all the mock and roll acts of the 70s and early 80s, Shake is the only one who plays it without the slightest trace of an element of humour. You know, Show Waddy Waddy never took themselves seriously. Neither did Darts or Rocky Sharp and the replays, or, you know, even coast to coast yeah who are currently at number five but sadly not in this episode but no shaky he's not joking is it no he takes his bubble with him you know everywhere he goes and it never gets punctured and that's really the mask never slips yeah grown more serious with age as well have you heard his new song no i haven't i heard it is it is it

Starting point is 02:55:06 ace no it's called all need is greed it's a it's a condemnation of uh of today's money focused culture you know maybe nowadays the shaking is largely involuntary but the social conscience is still glowing white hot you know it sounds like a brian adams 12 inch extra track right it's nice that he gives a f*ck i suppose and what a thrill to be lectured on greed by a buy to let landlord yes invigorating yeah but it shows how he's not been forgotten because there was a lot of excitement about that yes you know about him coming but i've detected more excitement about the new Shaken Steven single than, like, I don't know, Susie and the Banshees going on the road.

Starting point is 02:55:50 It's, you know, people are, oh, wow, he's back. Wet leg, wet who? There's only one leg I'm interested in, and it's going... And yes, Neil, it is only March, but, you know, there is going to be a whole lot of shaking going on in 1981, especially during what the kids are going to be calling the Summer of Shaking,

Starting point is 02:56:12 because he's going to be the focal point of Let's Rock, which is Jack Good's latest attempt to do Old Boy again, an 18-part series made by ATV in Birmingham for American television. It's already been out in America, and god knows how they reacted to it but it'll launch on itv in july on saturday nights featuring shaker alvin stardust joe brown lulu den hegerter and all the original ted singers that are still alive have you seen that i have and and you know what you were saying about me you know what you were saying about not smirking that's the thing that's what mark shaky is different because a lot of people on that show especially joe brown yeah um smirks their way or it's f*cking awful that program man it's a headache that show it never stops it starts and it's just a

Starting point is 02:57:02 racket for about 20 minutes and yeah it's horrible starts off with a racket and then here comes some more racket with some other old bloke yeah yeah but shaky man he puts himself about there's one scene where um i can't remember what the song was because he didn't do his own songs on that but there's one scene where he's doing his pieces and he's in front of this enormous jukebox that's got a record player on the top and you see shaky going up this absolutely f*cking massive ladder you know the the type of ladder you that they use in a studio to change the lights goes up to the top of there holding this massive cardboard record yeah just look at it you just go health and safety anyone yeah yeah but he doesn't

Starting point is 02:57:43 give a f*ck man no he doesn't it's f*ck, man. No, he doesn't. It's about rock and roll. Does he not jump off in slow motion? No, sadly not. But the standout moment of that series, because there is a compilation of it on YouTube and in the video playlist, they have the rocking shades being joined by the cast and audience

Starting point is 02:57:59 for a rousing version of the 1958 Jesse James song, Salve's Gonna Rise Again, complete with f*cking confederate flags aplenty. Oh, God, man. Including one massive one that comes down and obscures about half the audience. And the audience are brandishing pro-rockabilly banners in the same font as the ones that the kids used to hold up in Tiswas.

Starting point is 02:58:21 Oh, dear. If Chris Tarrant organised a Ku klux klan rally this is what it looked like maybe it means south wales yeah that clearly must have been a massive influence on bobby gillespie in primal scream oh yeah definitely yeah yeah anything else to say chaps yeah i'm afraid of course there is it's shaking neil you know you said you didn't really know anything about Shaking Stevens. No, no, I don't. I'll fill in some of that background because I've recently been privileged to read this book, the intriguingly titled Shaking Stevens, which is a paperback biography published by Starbucks,

Starting point is 02:59:01 ever the mark of quality, in 1983 by paul barrett shaky's former manager paul barrett shaking gold with whom shaky parted ways roughly around the exact moment he hit the big time and it turns out his brother as well it's not is the name spelt differently uh it turns out... Isn't he his brother as well? It's not. It's the name spelt differently. It turns out he's exactly the right man to have written this book because not only does he have access to all those early hardscrabble stories and insider tales from the Sunsets tour van, he was clearly a pivotal figure in Shakey and Stephen's life because we can see that while Shakey was being managed by Paul, he was a bit of a rough diamond,

Starting point is 02:59:45 but essentially a nice, simple lad from South Wales. He liked rock and roll, liked to drink, liked the ladies, wasn't above causing a bit of mischief from time to time. And then as soon as he split from Paul, he immediately turned into the world's biggest c*nt. Now, that might just be a coincidence, but surely it's far more likely that paul's steadying hand is what made the difference and shaky was led astray by his subsequent much more high-powered and far more

Starting point is 03:00:13 successful manager who if this book is to be believed is also a complete bitch very sad what happened to him i now understand um now you can gauge how carefully proofread this book was by the fact that in the course of its 150 pages paul misspells the names of jimmy hendrix the savel theater hanoi pedal steel guitar adrian henry that's all Right Mama by Arthur Big Boy Crudup. Arthur Big Boy Crudup, The Town of Bastard in Sweden. Really, I think that one. Hound Dog. No, how do you spell Hound Dog?

Starting point is 03:00:57 He didn't put W in, did he? No, he spelled it as one word, H-O-U-N-D-O-G. Oh, no. Clark Kent, Muff Wynwoodwood and so on and so on i mean there are some revelations in here right like the fact that shaky is actually a natural blonde no that did you yes it's true or that his status as comrade shaky is really reflected commitment from paul barrett and some of the sunsets who were proper commies and organized all those cpgb benefits but what's most interesting are the little details like how he wouldn't let his wife come to the pub with him quote as her more equality minded contemporaries might have insisted upon but sometimes he would take her out on a drive

Starting point is 03:01:45 around local social clubs and leave her literally locked in the car no what with a bag of crisps and a bottle of co*ke with his straw in it yeah yeah there's a travel mastermind see you in a bit yes yes him and paul barrett went in to organize gigs with the managers of the social clubs and that's the only time she was allowed out of the house jesus um you ain't gonna leave this house no longer there's also that story that we've already covered on this podcast where they play kenneth tynan's daughter's birthday party and shaky cups off with a certain flame haired irish authoress and guest on the first ever episode of question time now f*ck i wouldn't necessarily have this author down as a rock expert no here's a passage from page 51 it was early november brackets 1969 when john lennon appeared at a peace festival in toronto wearing a white

Starting point is 03:02:43 drape suit and playing a couple of rock and roll numbers it reached the ears of the rock fans in england as something of a joke john lennon had never before expressed a love for their music right okay and i'm not 100 sure about his assessment that if the soul of elvis flew anywhere after his death it surely would have flown into the young shaking steven or even that shaking stevens is he exists as a phenomenon however he got there is a matter for the academics to debate he doesn't particularly care that's where we come in exactly yeah you're too kind paul but i love most the actual transitional moment on page 119 when shaky has found success playing elvis in the west end show which was his big break and suddenly paul

Starting point is 03:03:43 who's been narrating this story very sympathetically the whole time always taking shaky's side suddenly becomes a third party being quoted by name in his own book it's a neat post-modernist touch it's a little bit jarring um it says to paul that last gig with shaky had been a huge relief quote i waved goodbye to years of acting as nursemaid nanny pimp and official nose wiper that night he says god and after that all bets are off right we're told about shaky becoming a horrible spoiled man baby monster we hear about shaky having a piss against marty wild's house no yeah while the young kim wild is inside oh yeah shaky being a complete prick about owing people money shaky moving into his new house and immediately soaring down all the ancient furs and elders in the garden because he didn't like trees and he killed some puppies whilst doing that

Starting point is 03:04:55 seriously and best of all the night that the boy playing young elvis in the show oh yeah who was the host of let's rock let's remember oh yeah under the unlikely stage name gbh yes yeah one night he dropped out with illness and his understudy appeared instead right and despite the nerves or whatever the young lad did really well was congratulated by everyone and then received a summons to the star's dressing room where shaky very drunk started screaming at him don't you ever do that again you were imitating me out there to which the lad pointed out that in fact he was imitating elvis and shaky shouted at him don't deny it you were moving your legs like me that what I do. Before being physically held back as the child is bundled out of the dressing room. And then until finally, the last chapter of this book is just flat out bitching.

Starting point is 03:05:56 Like the water temperature has been slowly turned up and now suddenly we're being boiled alive. The last few pages are like Paul Barrett's brain exploding. I'll read you the last paragraph of this book. Shaky is constantly being quoted as having had a hard time of it on the way up the ladder to success. It wasn't all that hard, actually. Any sleeping in the van was done either on the way home or if it broke down although paul barrett was affiliated to the efficient rac for many years hotel rooms

Starting point is 03:06:33 in europe were of excellent standard paul insisted on it as part of any european deal for a young boy who had left school at 15 semi-literate and without formal qualifications of any kind life as the lead singer in a rock and roll band offered far more glamour and interest and wages than working as an upholsterer ever could and yet now that he's got his mansion in the country and his big cars he feels angry at the world for making him wait so long for something he feels he deserved a long time ago hence the aggressive attitude to journalists but there's a well-known saying in the entertainment business which goes something like you should be nice to the people you meet on the way up because you're gonna need them on the way down if shaky doesn't continue to defy gravity

Starting point is 03:07:26 in his career and one day falls from popularity he'll find it so much harder than most to quote paul barrett who has been watching shake his career with the caring concerned interest of a colleague who has been a friend he's got what he always wanted but he's almost certainly lost what he had and what he had we now understand was paul barrett and that's a hell of a thing to lose so the following week comrade shaker choosing his enemy, this week's number one, prepared his plans minutely and slaked an implacable vengeance upon them before going to bed satisfied upon the summit of Mount Pop for three weeks in a row,

Starting point is 03:08:19 eventually being usurped by a single we're going to hear later on. It would finish the year as the fifth biggest selling single in 1981, one place below Prince Charming and one above Vienna. The follow-up, You Drive Me Crazy, spent four weeks at number two, held off the top spot by Stand and Deliver, but he went back to the rocking up an old tune bag for the follow-up to that and took green door to number one for four weeks in august an overweight cottage still stands today after it was bought by a local architect and converted and refurbished offering 2150 square

Starting point is 03:09:00 feet of well-proportioned living accommodation an l-shaped reception room a double aspect sitting room with an open fireplace four double bedrooms and a double cart lodge which went on the market in 2019 at nearly 700 grand i did some of the notes for this one in a cafe on bestman green road and right it says here in my notes and i quote two beautiful women in their early 20s at next table laughing sat here on my own trying to think of something new to say about shaking stevens perhaps i should introduce myself that might go well ask them if they can think of something new to say about Shaking Stevens. Help, what has happened? Sweet bird, you are quicker than a falling star.

Starting point is 03:09:50 But it's a tough world. Nobody ever said it wasn't going to be a tough world. And did you? No, of course not. No. Shaking Stevens and this little house is at number two. Ain't got time to fix the shingles Ain't got time to fix the floor Ain't got time Oh, the things you love Thank you, Stephen. And this little house is at number two. And it's been some time since Colin Blunstone

Starting point is 03:10:12 blessed the British TV scene. But he's together with Dave Stewart, who created his version of the Jimmy Ruffin classic. It's at 30, and what becomes of our broken-hearted? It's... and what becomes of our broken-hearted. Without cutting back to Powell, we're immediately whipped into the future as we witness a pair of hands operating a bank of synthesizers. Powell tells us that it's been a long time

Starting point is 03:10:44 since the next act, bless the British TV scene, making it sound like Danny LaRue has returned from Vegas. But no, it's what becomes of our broken-hearted tut-tut-tut by Dave Stewart with Colin Blundstone.

Starting point is 03:11:01 Born in Hatfield in 1945, Colin Blundstone was the son of an aeronautical engineer and a professional dancer who teamed up with Paul Atkinson, Hugh Grunder and Rod Argent to form the Zombies in 1961 while they were all at the St Albans County Grammar School for boys. In 1964, after winning a beat combo battle of the band's competition sponsored by the London Evening News, they signed a deal with Decca and their debut single, She's Not There, immediately smashed into the chart, spending two weeks at number 12 in September of that year.

Starting point is 03:11:39 That would be their only top 40 hit in the UK, however, as they spent much of 1965 in America and in 1967 they signed to CBS to record the LP Odyssey and Oracle the lead-off cut of which Time of the Season got to number three over there in March of 1969 despite the fact that the band had split up in December of 1967, leading to not only one, but two bands to tour around America, pretending to be them, one of which featured Frank Beard and Dusty Hill before they formed ZZ Top. Blundstone had quit the music business

Starting point is 03:12:17 after the Zombies split and had worked as an insurance clerk for a while, but the success of Time of the Season encouraged him to return as a solo artist recording a new version of she's not there under the name neil macarthur which got to number 34 over here in the last week of 1969 in 1971 he signed to epic and put out his debut solo LP One Year, and the lead-off single Say You Don't Mind got to number 15 in March of 1972. The follow-up, I Don't Believe in Miracles, got to number 31, but when his next single and the next two LPs flopped,

Starting point is 03:12:58 he moved to Rocket Records, putting out three more LPs that were only released in Europe. This year, however, he's teamed up with Dave Stewart, the former keyboard player of Egg, Hatfield and the North and Bruford, but not the Eurythmics, for a cover of the Jimmy Ruffin single, which got to number eight in January of 1967 and number four in August of 1974. It entered the chart last week at number 57 and this week it soared 27

Starting point is 03:13:32 places to number 30 and here they are in the studio. First question chaps, would you have known anything about the zombies at the time? At the time no, not time, no. Not in 81, no.

Starting point is 03:13:46 No. I'm a bit older than you, so I would have heard She's Not There, but more likely the Santana version in 1977 or the UK subs one in 1979. Is this before or after that advert that went, let me tell you, that is Goosey's Cooch? Ooh. Memorable, wasn't it? Yeah.

Starting point is 03:14:03 That was the first time I heard She's Not There. I remember hearing this advert thinking, this is a great tune. Yeah. And, like, my mum or dad going, yeah, it's an old song. Yeah. What was that for? I remember that about as well as you remember the advert. Oh, well.

Starting point is 03:14:18 Some office sh*t. Well, it's weird, isn't it? Because we've just started Shaky doing an old song. Mm. And I'd have been delighted about that. And I'd have been so angry about this right an eight-year-old you know what it actually makes me angry now really i've been doing this music but well in a way there's too many oddities here in a sort of pop cultural history sense of my head to deal with what we have here we have essentially a sort of prog rocker in a way from hatfield in the north backing a 60s

Starting point is 03:14:46 site pop singer playing a vintage motown song electronically while wearing a pill t-shirt i mean i think the key word here is bank raid basically this will this will be a hit among oldies and perhaps for a few youngies who like their sin it's tainted love for dads isn't it this yeah yeah yeah yeah but you know whereas tainted love the thing is you know the differences in the soft sell version of tainted love to the original are delightful the differences with the original here are really key blundstone i mean he has got one of the clearest most liquid voices in british pop um it's a great voice he's got yes he has so that means in this version you know there's no oomph or grit here like the jimmy ruffin version yeah and he's not clapping with massive gold bangles on and

Starting point is 03:15:29 eyeliner he's not but that suits stewart's arrangement which occasionally breaks off into these sort of odd passages of nothingness that the song happens but in between there's like these demo of the presets on his keyboard basically you know a journey around his ace keyboard so this would have angered me this would have angered me as much as the sort of spike punk in the front row um of the audience who clearly didn't have to stand there no just decides to go stand there and look totally disgusted with the whole thing it is dad synth it's one of those songs i mean dad synth is a genre to come to with isn't it it is it is what else is going to be in that well it's things like jean-bissau jar and

Starting point is 03:16:12 things you know it's my party by of course yeah of course of course i think the kids would have known of the original i did at the time i mean we've mentioned on chomies before that this is one of the greatest songs ever when it was done by jimmy ruffin i knew of it by the time this came out and i didn't approve look bunsen's got a lovely voice it's a well-appointed well-tooled voice but it's not the right song for him i don't think you want a bit of grit with this song it's about having a broken heart so yeah you know um that that's lacking. And what Stuart fills things out with, it's all a bit proggy. It's a bit pre-Howard Jones-y. It's not pleasant.

Starting point is 03:16:50 I'm honestly not sure who's the worst Dave Stewart. This one, the one from the Eurythmics, or the one who f*cked my cousin's hamster to death. Easily done. Yeah, well, I certainly trust you on that. This sideline of taking old songs and doing them in a self-consciously modern style you know like a more basic bf yeah i don't like it i don't i didn't like it then and i don't like the modern equivalent which is ukulele trust a variant time

Starting point is 03:17:21 you know or some indie band doing hey listen this is a pop hit but we're playing it as though it were real music yeah i.e worse and it's tired to complain about that stuff but the point is we're still getting that kind of stuff even now when complaining about it has become old hat yeah never mind the stuff itself so at this point it's a bit like being an evolutionary biologist and meeting a fundamentalist christian who says you believe that one day a fish just turned into a monkey it's like you spent 35 years developing your understanding of the most arcane intricacies of your speciality and then suddenly you realize the power is with people who aren't just totally ignorant they're frighteningly ignorant and they're

Starting point is 03:18:12 looking down their nose at you and they're in charge you know what i mean it's like we're sitting at home splitting the pop cultural atom in between counting out two pence pieces and scrubbing mold off the shower and these c*nts are basically banging two rocks together and grunting and they've just taken delivery of a new ferrari monza you know c*nts i say good luck to him colin he looks very mr lucas in his shiny powder blue suit at first as he's obscured by the spiky hair of that punk youth. But that's the best bit, because, yeah, the camera's trying to swing around the conker shell hair of a 1981 punk because his spikes are obscuring Colin Blunston's face,

Starting point is 03:19:02 or rather the underside of Colin Bl blunston's face because it's the usual top of the pops camera angle so it looks like you're giving him a f*cking blow j*b but it's possibly the most authentic image of bog standard 1981 right as opposed to the curated modern memory version it's a 60s relic in a sports jacket grinding out a last few grand semi-obscured by an 18 year old who's four years out of date yeah there was there was a lot of this yeah yeah what would that lad think of dave stewart wearing a pill t-shirt hey maybe i you know what maybe you know when they were coming on stage before the floor you know when the floor manager got on stage the punk saw that t-shirt and thought i'm winning out of luck but yeah get up the front exactly he looks bitterly disappointed i mean they're both being retrograde obviously because

Starting point is 03:19:55 like taylor says this guy's four years out of date this spiky punk he literally looks like yeah one of those ones who was posing for japanese tourists for a quid a pop in 1978, you know, when it was all over. But, yeah, it's grimness. And, you know, it's weird because, you know, I was having lots of fun listening to Shakey literally 30 seconds ago. And then here's another old song. And I'm hating every minute of it as an eight-year-old, most certainly. Is that because you could associate yourself more with old houses than you could with broken hearts it's simple at that age in it it's just um it's just this has got to be this hasn't f*ck this yeah you know but when the camera pulls back and we see

Starting point is 03:20:34 mr lucas in his full pomp it hang on a minute he's actually come dressed as shaking stevens hasn't he he's got the collars turned up and he's even got white f*cking shoes on god just as well it was only a shaking stevens video this week or uh colin blundstone would be summoned up to a dressing room at the end of the show for a dressing down it's a neat preview of just how dull synthesizers can be as well i mean you know there's an awful lot of synth excitement in this period but this is a reminder that, yeah, in the wrong hands, they could just be turned into an even more syrupy version of normal music, if you like. Yeah.

Starting point is 03:21:11 And I mean, this is such a good tune, you can't completely kill it. No. But there's nothing gained by removing any trace of a groove and replacing it with that on-the-beat school assembly piano. And this sort of not the nine o'clock news idea of what synth pop was yeah it's not age well because it's neither an honest human statement nor a shiny electronic thrill it just like you say it sounds like a demo of some new equipment yeah he's knocked up on a wet Wednesday.

Starting point is 03:21:45 It's not thought through. It's not really an attempt to create anything. It's completely unserious, but also completely humorless. So who cares? The only conceivable human reaction is, so what? Yeah, so what? I mean, he plays the melody like one-handed in the instrumental break. And just how much better would it have been if, I don't know,

Starting point is 03:22:08 he'd have done it with a dog bark sample or something like that. Total gimmickry. Whereas he's demonstrating the kind of classiness of this kind of instrumentation. And that's what's boring about it. And that's what's, you know, it's not Top of the Pops, is it? This is Afternoon Plus at best. Oh, yes. about it and that's what's you know it's not uh top of the pops is it this this is afternoon plus at best oh yes and the terrible thing is they pumped out pipe falls of this sh*t oh yeah dave stewart and barbara gaskin yeah in their folia do that all through the 80s and 90s even into this

Starting point is 03:22:38 century really they kept on getting stuck into these old songs like Fred and Rose. They put out thousands of pointless CDs full of stupid electronic cover versions, released as albums just because they could. They kept putting out singles, too. There's a version of The Locomotion from 1986, a year before Kylie Minogue's somehow more successful version and it sounds exactly as you would imagine a dave stewart and barbara gaskin cover of the locomotion released in 1986 to sound like presumably he owned the studio because there's no way they made a living from that you know that and working with victor lewis smith which is the other thing

Starting point is 03:23:23 at least it's an arresting contrast and he did the music for most of victor lewis smith which is the other thing he did at least it's an arresting contrast and he did the music for most of victor lewis smith shows so he did sing if you're glad to be gay in the doctor who theme which was a work of genius i was imagined that would be his underwear yeah but it can't have been a living wage right and yet i don't recall picking up a newspaper and seeing the headline on page 19 dave stewart starves to death no in smaller print underneath no not that dave stewart the other one passerby alerted authorities after seeing 105 bottles of milk on his doorstep and flies pouring out of the kitchen window because nobody cared so you know he must have done better than me at least it's strangely dead emotionally this song as well for for doing

Starting point is 03:24:11 this song it feels um the word is joyless i think joyless in the making of it joyless in the performance of it and you know what what personal satisfaction would you get from being part of this record none whatsoever you've taken a great song and yeah you've done very very little with it but What personal satisfaction would you get from being part of this record? None whatsoever. You've taken a great song and, yeah, you've done very, very little with it, bar tart up the equipment a little bit. But, you know, there is a lot of this. I mean, we've got another record in the charts from them, haven't we? And, I mean, I'm intrigued as well by, apart from Dave and Colin,

Starting point is 03:24:39 who else is on stage there? Well, is that Barbara Gaskin off to the side, wearing the sort of jumpsuit Prince was fond of during Around the World in a Day? It could be. The hair threw me off. The hair threw me off, because it's not like she's in the video for the other song,

Starting point is 03:24:53 but yeah, it may well be. And you can definitely see this being on the portable telly in the dressing room of the Q-tips, and their lead singer looking at it and thinking, hmm, old Motown hits, giving an 80s sheen. Wonder what Pino Palladino's up to. Time to nip off to Burton's to get that flecked grey suit I've been looking at. Anything else to say about this?

Starting point is 03:25:14 No, and the fact that I've got nothing else to say about it angers me in itself. So the following week, what becomes of the broken hearted soared 11 places to number 19, and a fortnight later, began a two-week stand at number 13. Blundstone's follow-up, a synthy cover of Tracks of My Tears, would only get to number 16 June of 1982, by which time he joined the Alan Parsons Project, and in 1984, he teamed up with David Payton and other APP members to form the rock band Keats. He's still active today, working with Rod Argent

Starting point is 03:25:53 and making occasional appearances in Manfred Mann. Meanwhile, Stewart repeated the trick when he teamed up with Barbara Gaskin and put out a cover of It's My Party which got to number one for four weeks when he teamed up with Barbara Gaskin and put out a cover of It's My Party, which got to number one for four weeks in October of this year. Four weeks. I wouldn't mind it if they weren't picking such great songs to cover,

Starting point is 03:26:19 but just they're sucking any resonance that they once had out of them. Welcome to the 80s, Neil. Indeed. One of Britain's best singers, Colin Blum, starting to go with Dave Stewart in What Becomes of a Broken Hearted. Excellent. Well, You Better, You Bet is at number nine. And here on Tour de Pops, the who? Ow!

Starting point is 03:27:05 Surrounded by four ladies with voluminous amounts of hair and one lad with his jumper tucked into his jeans tells us that Colin Blumstone is one of Britain's best singers before f*cking up the intro to the next single, which is You Better You Bet by The Who. I think Pow was going for something like, you better you bet we got the number nine single next. It's, but he didn't.

Starting point is 03:27:31 No, he pulled out of it. Formed in London in 1964 from the ashes of the detours, The Who are the f*cking who. The last time the pop craze youngsters chanced upon the band as part of their Thursday evening pop treat was in August of 1978, when the video of Who Are You was aired, and since then, much has happened. A month after that, Keith Moon was found dead in his flat,

Starting point is 03:27:57 leading Pete Townsend to almost immediately rush out a statement that the band would continue, and they eventually got in Kenny Jones formerly of the Small Faces and the Faces. They spent 1979 continuing to draw a line under their career up till then working on the retrospective film The Kids Are Alright and the corresponding soundtrack slash compilation LP working on the film Quadrophenia and returning to the stage at the Rainbow before playing a tour of France, Scotland, a gig at Wembley Stadium and one at the Zeppelin Felt at Nuremberg.

Starting point is 03:28:34 After a five-night stint at Madison Square Garden, they returned to the UK for four dates in Brighton and Stafford before embarking on a full-scale tour of America. Stafford before embarking on a full-scale tour of America. However, three dates in, 11 people were killed in a pre-gig stampede without the band's knowledge, but they decided to carry on the tour and finish 1979 with a gig at Hammersmith Odeon. The band went on hiatus for the first half of 1980 with Daltrey working on the film McVicar and Townsend finishing off his second solo LP, Empty Glass, but reconvened in July to commence work on their ninth studio LP, Face Dancers,

Starting point is 03:29:15 which came out last Monday. And this is the lead-off cut from it. It's the follow-up, of sorts, to Long Live Rock, the 1972 track which had been available on odds and sods since 1974 but was put out in 1979 to accompany the release of The Kids Are Alright and it got to number 48 in May of that year This single was released three weeks ago and it immediately entered the charts at number 35

Starting point is 03:29:44 leading to an invite on top of the pops which helped it soar 19 places to number 16 and this week it's jumped seven places to number nine so here's a repeat of their appearance from a fortnight ago their first in the top of the pop studio since they did 515 in October of 1973. Chaps, that Wembley gig I mentioned earlier, it sounds extremely heavy manners. 80,000 people jammed into Wembley in the middle of August and someone thought it was a good idea to sell gallon jugs of scrumpy at £4 each, which rendered punters legless and puke in their ring after half a pint, and

Starting point is 03:30:27 resulting in brawls between old rockers and younger mods who had seen Quadrophenia the night before, and were well dischuffed that the support act was ACDC and not the Lambretta's, followed by the discovery that there were no tubes running afterwards. Great times!

Starting point is 03:30:46 The same happened when they played charlton football ground in 1974 it pissed down with rain and basically like you thought there'd been some fights there when there was a football batch on you should have seen the who concert by all accounts but yeah being the mod lion that i was at the time you know i always had at least one who badge as part of my clanking in, even though I actually didn't own any of their records. I mean, I bought Rough Boys by Pete Townsend the previous year, so you can imagine my anticipation

Starting point is 03:31:15 of seeing The Who on top of the box, can't you? Because this was a thing. It was, right, they're mods. They're a mod band. Why are they acting like grebs? I remember seeing in Smash Hits the lyrics for Long Live Rock in 1979 this was a thing it was right they're mods they're a mod band why are they acting like grebs i remember seeing in smash hits the lyrics for long live rock in 1979 and thinking hang on a minute what's this bollocks yeah it is weird because there's a nationwide piece about the who playing the rainbow

Starting point is 03:31:35 in 1979 and you can see loads of using parkers queuing up outside the rainbow, including one twat who's written Tamla Mow Town with a W on the back of his parka. You know, not for nothing do they call Detroit the Flymo City. You're supposed to be mods, and here you are not being mods. What's going on here? So, yeah, a very confused young lad I was. Now, this period of The Who is a bit unsettling, it has to be said.

Starting point is 03:32:06 They've gone all in on specifically Aventers, specifically early middle-aged male aesthetic, which burnt out very fast. But it's very distinctive when you see it. Nicholas Ball as Hazel, Paul McCartney's Rockistra, I Won't Let You down by phd uh the video to street cafe by john lodge right jeans white trainers bomber jackets all scruffy but expensive it's the first attempt by white british rock and rollers to age without complete surrender. But there wasn't yet a template of what to do and what not to do.

Starting point is 03:32:48 They were just winging it. So you got a little dash of the new fashions here and there, like Pete Townsend's eye makeup. But Townsend is in yet another midlife crisis here, drinking too much, doing co*ke, getting chucked out of nightclubs in between worshipping his eastern guru and lecturing everyone about the healing and unifying powers of rock oh and having an affair with a woman young enough to be his daughter while still trying to hang on to his family and trying not to be in the who while forcing himself to stay in the who. And what makes this simultaneously more interesting and more annoying is that all of this went into the music.

Starting point is 03:33:34 And that's precisely what this song is about, lyrically and spiritually. It's about that affair he was having and all that self-doubt and self-loathing. Funnelled, as usual, through an uncomprehending roger daltrey with tele evangelist hair thinking that a brand new scarf tied around the neck with a big rupert bear knot yes 100 degree studio light he looks like the most violent rupert the bear there's ever been yeah you want to come and join in all of my f*cking games you slag i'm the f*cking hardest man in nutwood yeah it's a little bit of country squire little bit of tennis pro bit of urban professional but hey this rebel ain't wearing no tie yeah but this depressing stuff is also what i kind of like

Starting point is 03:34:27 about this silly and objectively not good record right i'm quite intrigued by the purity of expression of that very specific mood and style and mental state because it's unusual in rock music this is about people reaching an age where their rock and roll preoccupations and addictions now seem incongruous and anachronistic, but they can't shake them. And they haven't yet developed a new vocabulary or style to carry those things with them into middle age.

Starting point is 03:35:00 So the album that this single is from, Face Dances, is the worst Who album by some distance because it's all like this. Late 30-something, self-loathing, very self-conscious, loads of goofy lyrics about nothing. And all these bitty songs like this one where Pete, and this happened all the times he got older, where Pete just doesn't have faith in any of his riffs or melodies to carry the whole song so he makes the songs in the sequences of bits yeah jam together like a mini suite like simon reynolds once said he's like a weird hybrid of pop rock and prog rock um and they never flow you're trying to follow the song that's pop rock which sounds fascinating you know they spit at the camera and then write the lyrics out but so none of these songs flow you're trying to follow the song but it just keeps changing

Starting point is 03:35:59 direction like a runaway pig you know yeah and even speaking to someone who can enjoy crap music when it's interesting in other ways i can't listen to that album and neither should you but i can take this song because it crushes all that stuff into one stupid pop single which is all you need of it and in its brevity and its weird bubbliciousness it makes that torpor halfway entertaining and it gives full-throated rock voice to that unfortunate age of man the neurotic heading for 40 when 40 was old yes pathetically obsessed with one's own fading vitality, but still young enough that sometimes you can get off the rowing machine and still be able to sing,

Starting point is 03:36:50 but my body feels so good, and mean it, right? There was a lot of that about Boomer Sunset. The f*cking lyrics, mate. Well, let's return to the review in this week's NME of Face Dancers, because it's been absolutely slagged right across the board. But here Gavin Martin says,

Starting point is 03:37:10 In the mental asylum that is rock and roll, the who have a room with no view, drained by the darkness of experience, bent arthritically by the weight of their own myth. Townsend is a battered elder statesman, offering a set of mouldy memories, vague, pig-headed, unproductive and dogmatic. The Who stand in only one dimension, which is that of their own selfish and worthless world. Townsend's problems and struggles have no real depth because they are cocooned in his own

Starting point is 03:37:45 mythology. He's pulling the worst con of the lot, that of a suffering sensitive artist. Apart from failing to cut it in the immediate areas, social, moral and aesthetic, this album is a hell of a shambles musically. Given the dawdling senility of Townsend's songs and the predictably cliched couple of contributions from Entwistle, it's very hard to imagine any sort of cognizant tension being mustered by the group.

Starting point is 03:38:16 Adultery sings with all the conviction of a man who is wondering where his next film contract is coming from, and it is only fitting that he should often sound like a co*ckney pub artist parodying himself Harsh, well no not harsh at all. He was good, the young Gavin

Starting point is 03:38:32 Martin, that's good trying to make a name for himself The thing is though, I mean perhaps the best thing to come out of this period of The Who might be this Top of the Pops performance. They are old pros and they know how to do Top of the Pops. And Townsend's got this weird

Starting point is 03:38:48 double-breasted leather jerkin' on. Yeah, he's trying to live in the moment, isn't he? It's a bit kind of like futurist jumpsuit. He looks like a bellboy to me. But I think Entwistle is perhaps the oddest looking. Yes. You know that episode of Dad's Army where Jones, Godfrey and Fraser

Starting point is 03:39:03 go round Fraser's and get embalmed to look younger? That's kind of like what Entwistle looks like. I was really offended by his Flying V bass. That was just wrong, mate. A Flying V needs to be brandished and flung about, not just picked at. You know what I mean? But he likes tapping and all of that stuff. You know, he's a bass soloist

Starting point is 03:39:25 it's like having a f*cking Harley Davidson and just walking up the street pushing it along not right mate hey you slagging off thunder fingers the thing is

Starting point is 03:39:35 like it does seem by the time we find them here on this episode of Top of the Pops anyway you know I mean Townsend since about 71

Starting point is 03:39:43 for me just seems to be someone enormously unbittered about pretty much everything about rock as well he's constantly singing and writing about how rock and roll is stopping him becoming a functioning adult and and the lyrics here are just this half-pissed let me in doggerel yeah that's pretty appalling i mean why is he listening to old t-rex that really struck me as an odd line yeah him and b.a robertson indeed and and there's a better but also who's next yeah name checking your own f*cking album that there's a great way to kick on who yeah like pete tansley in 1981 he's thinking i haven't heard babbro riley often enough but there's also isn't

Starting point is 03:40:26 there that line you welcome me with open arms and open legs i mean come on yeah oh no gross acted by adultery as well he goes you welcome me with open arms and open legs yeah the mcvicker himself the song and the lyric just seems to revel in that kind of arrested development thing that he's been moaning about a while but it's revealing revealing of a kind of squalor obviously in town's end's life at the time a squalor that extends into the way daltry snarls you better with that kind of punky you better yeah it's definitely a kind of not a nod to the pistols or anything but he's definitely aiming for that. But as with everything by The Who, you know, there are certain things I can't eat, right?

Starting point is 03:41:10 Not just because I don't like them, but because I've had a slightly traumatic sensory memory of them that just creates this kind of instant gag reflex. Such as? Eggs, right? I can't eat eggs. Oh. And people are appalled at this.

Starting point is 03:41:22 They're like, you've got, you're missing out. That's also how I am about listening to the who right um who the who are eggs to me they're just they're just rank what kind of eggs just at any kind of exile i mean you know map out the who's career by egg by egg come on well they can't explain well to my generation an exciting sizzling fried i get that but no but i wanted to cook yeah okay good good good um sell out by the who seller well you know we're talking scrambled i would say right tommy yeah now here we're getting poached right okay um who are you yeah this hard-boiled sh*t from then on, isn't it? It's pretty horrible. I mean,

Starting point is 03:42:05 look, don't get me wrong. I think all of us here had that little moment in our listening life when we were sent back. You know, we had to go back because the present

Starting point is 03:42:13 was so horrific. And my period of my life when I was doing that was entirely conducted under sort of three different auspices, really. One was the Melody Maker.

Starting point is 03:42:21 The other one was that 100 Greatest Albums book by Paul Gambaccini. And the other was Formula 30. Now, formula 30 had two who tracks on it and one was substitute right and it amazed me i thought it was astonishing yeah not only that here was this really combustible sounding band but also that the lyrics they seem to have a really true class consciousness that no other band of that period perhaps this side of the kinks possessed and even with the kinks as a young listener there was a kind of class slipperiness to them so that even if the sound was quite in it's a punk the lyrics were

Starting point is 03:42:53 a bit more diffuse than that davis would sing about dead end streets but it also sing about mansions and poshery you know whereas substitute seemed to be something authentically angry from an underdog and substitute pushed me towards the other Who singles from that time. You know, I can't explain. Yes. Any way, anyhow, anywhere, my generation. And I can see for miles. And I already started having feelings hearing those songs as a kid.

Starting point is 03:43:17 That, man, if they'd have come out with those and then, I don't know, died in a van crash or something, that would have been perfect. and then, I don't know, died in a van crash or something, that would have been perfect. They were as interesting to me as The Creation or John's Children or Misunderstood or any of those sort of bands. Those singles, that run of singles is one of the greatest runs of singles in the 60s. They're properly unique.

Starting point is 03:43:36 They seem completely disinterested in making friends or becoming stars, really, or appealing. They still feel like things that have to come out of their system. And crucially, even in those early records records you can detect that this is less a band than four massive egos straining against each other and there's this faint hint of mutual hatred there which is really exciting especially when combined with the people behind them you know andrew lou goldham is more interesting than brian epstein and peter meeson and kit lambert and people like that are even more interesting than and Lou Goldham, you know?

Starting point is 03:44:07 There seemed to be a genuine commitment then to pop art in what they did. That rub between the rhythm section, this singer who just seemed to want to be famous, really. And this guitarist who seemed to be in constant torment. It seemed really interesting. But then, you know, you watch Monterey pop and you see Hendrix kill them.

Starting point is 03:44:23 And, you know, the other song on Formula 30 was Pinball Wizard, right? And that's clearly a later band. Yeah. Unfortunately, feeling a bit more like Townsend's Baby and feeling a little less chaotic, more like a band. And like a twat, you know, I got out Tommy at the library. Oof. And, you know, it was one of those moments about halfway through that album where I thought, you know, stop, you've gone too far. Roll that back a little.

Starting point is 03:44:47 Ponderous, ugly music made by ponderous, ugly people. Can I just stick up for the Who at Monterey, by the way? Right, okay. Their penny-pinching, their fascinating but penny-pinching managers had just paid for their tickets. So all their guitars and amps they had to hire in America. Yeah, yeah. So they didn't sound like they normally did whereas the more streetwise chas chandler had made sure hendrix took a then brand new marshall stack and his own strat with him uh which is why hendrix sounds twice as good at monterey the thing is by the time i heard tommy i'd also seen what i still

Starting point is 03:45:22 contend is the most horrific image in pop and that's roger daltrey and those beans and even knowing that you know he nearly copped a dose of pneumonia from that photo shoot was sort of scant consolation really yeah substitute was my in point as well neil because it got re-released and he got in the charts in about 1976 yeah yeah so yeah that was the who to me for a long time. And then when I became a mod, I heard all the early stuff. I was like, oh, f*cking hell, this is amazing. And I go all the way up to sell out.

Starting point is 03:45:52 I can't go any further. As soon as the fringes and the perms appear, that's me out. To me, they're a definitive singles band that perhaps should have stayed as a singles band. But, I mean, you know, they're one of those bands who I'm pushed towards, you know,

Starting point is 03:46:03 my entry points quite often, and I just can never do do it the look of adultery is a big part of this i am it just revolts me you know adultery and those beans yeah right it was less grim when i thought that the item in the foreground was a sausage like you know you get beans and they got a sausage in i thought that's what it was meant to be then when i realized it was his leg it was much worse you thought it was a savory 99 yeah yeah yeah but you know i ended up watching the tommy film and like all ken russell films that you see in childhood it kind of freaks you out with the intensity of it but it was just repellent and to

Starting point is 03:46:45 be honest i've never really been able to get over that i mean i really wasn't blown away as promised by live at leeds and and who's next was an album where you know reading about townsend's initial concept i mean that concept for lifehouse is it his project that he had you know i found that concept much more exciting if bizarre than its truncated kind of realization this idea he had the grid you know and he didn't he'd sort of like get biometric data about all the audience members and then feed into this kind of communal musical moment yeah i mean there's moments of excitement don't get me wrong even in the later stuff so in won't get fooled again that big scream is ace but it's

Starting point is 03:47:25 done better by iron maiden on number of the beast as i can say you know the worst thing about life house by the way when they were first starting like preliminary work on that they did some gigs at the young vic in london right to try and work on this idea that talented out of, like, creating an amazing transcendent connection between the audience and the band, to the point where you could hit a certain chord and the audience would disappear, you know. Right. And what actually happened was it just degenerated into the Who

Starting point is 03:47:58 doing a version of Boney Maroney while some skinheads kicked each other's heads in. It didn't go well. It was a little bad omen straight away. But this performance, this isn't the Who that anyone wants, is it? The older elements of the top of the pop's audience are going to want to see Daltrey just swinging his mic around and people of my age want Ready, Steady, Go all over again.

Starting point is 03:48:21 But we get neither. Well, the 60s Who would have made much more of the chorus and like taylor says there's these big blustery sort of bollocky bits in between the chorus is the point of this song so the big blustery bits it's a long-winded getting to that chorus put it that way yeah to me the only good thing they do post 1967 is roger daltrey's horrific death by botched tracheotomy in sh*te 78 horror film The Legacy. That's a marvellous, marvellous moment. I perhaps have taken a dislike to The Who, which is unfair.

Starting point is 03:48:52 I mean, there's loads of 70s rockers who did morally far more appalling things who did, you know, but their sound is seductive, so I don't care. I find The Who rarely seductive like that. They were very blustery to me. And that's even before we get into the individual members i just don't like any of them you know i mean keith moon selfish prick john intrissell nasty prick pete townsend balls achingly earnest prick and roger daltrey king brexit you know i don't like his liking of enoch i don't like his quotes about hitler which was

Starting point is 03:49:24 oh well he said at some point in the mid 70s i think he said you need someone who's going to make people jump you need a hitler figure to just say this is what it is and then he goes on to say and hitler was right for germany at the time they were being really being sh*t on he turned out mad in the end but when he started he was there he just did marvelous things for the german people you just need a hitler figure internationally for kids one other thing that one of it wasn't the thing that bonded me and my missus but we both were repulsed by roger doughter i will never ever forget one night when i suggested to her a dream that I wanted her to have because I wanted to see how terrifying it could be. The dream is this.

Starting point is 03:50:10 Because my wife, like a lot of girls who grew up in the 1970s, massively fancied Robert Powell as Jesus Christ. So I suggested this dream to her that she's following Jesus up a biblical hill. And she's following him up. And she thinks it's Robert Powell. And she gets to the top of the hill following Jesus up a biblical hill, you know, and she's following him out, and she thinks it's Robert Powell, and she gets to the top of the hill following Jesus, and she touches the sort of hem of his garment or his shoulder, and he turns around, and instead of the beautiful blue eyes of Powell Jesus, it's Daltrey Jesus. Oh, Daltrey Jesus.

Starting point is 03:50:43 Yeah, yeah, and just even coming out with that makes me shiver. Because he's just vile. So, yeah, I... She was expecting this hollow-cheeked purity, and she got what looked like a hard Phil Neville. Yeah. But, I mean, I do want to stress, when the Who were exciting,

Starting point is 03:51:02 they're tremendously exciting. But I just think that that didn't last long enough for me. I mean, that performance of them doing Any Way, Any How, Any Where on Ready, Steady, Go is f*cking astonishing. Yeah, one of the high points of post-war British culture. And so it always offends me when I see it on YouTube and there's some comment underneath berating the Ready Fusion cameramen and directors for shaking the camera berating the ready fusion cameramen and directors

Starting point is 03:51:25 for shaking the camera about join the uh join the drum solo yeah f*cking offensive man that's the best bit yeah there's some american twat who wants to see how f*cking keith moon's doing the paradiddles f*ck off have you ever seen that on youtube pop craze youngster did you have a f*cking word with him i mean it's a really exciting performance that and also you know i've got to say just from a music journalist geek angle reading nick con on the who he's amazing on the who he's really thrilling about that band and that was a big part of my sort of really getting into that early stuff yeah hence the disappointment later you know one of those bands like the pet shop boys like zapper where i'm more than willing to read about them because an awful lot of people have written good stuff about them and knowledge the importance the legacy the lineage or something but i have next to no

Starting point is 03:52:12 interest in listening to them sort of post 67 really yeah yeah the thing about doltry irrespective of his rock horse face his main musical problem is that he's always had a great natural voice in terms of power and attack regardless of what you think of the sound of it but he's very often used it in ways which don't do him any favors he never really knew what was good for him so you hear him on this record trying to interpret these smashed up garbled lyrics just in any way he can which for him means bombastic shouting with occasional real speech inflections broadway style but it all feels daft because he doesn't know what town's ends on about um they didn't communicate well enough for town's end to explain it to him so he's just putting the inflections on random words, you know.

Starting point is 03:53:09 To give him a bit more credit, he's timing those inflections for musical and rhythmic variation rather than any internal narrative logic in the lyrics. But that's how we get to this track's insane peak moment, which is where he sings, I know I've been wearing crazy clothes and I look pretty crappy sometimes. Although, tragically, that gets lost in this performance because this is a re-recording or more likely a remix with live vocals rather than just miming. But it's there on the record and it's the best bit.

Starting point is 03:53:48 He always had the same problems. If you listen to the very early Who, Daltrey is trying really hard to resist their transition from a London R&B covers band to a new style pop art group, even though that's what elevated them out of the pack and made them big yeah and not just the yard birds um and also despite the fact that he sings those new songs beautifully with exactly the right blend of toughness and sincerity and vulnerability it's a genuine emotional street voice whereas on the stuff that he wanted The Who to be doing,

Starting point is 03:54:26 like James Brown covers, and especially their version of I Am A Man by Bo Diddley, which made it onto the first LP, his singing is ridiculous. It's so stylised and affected that it's just absurd. He's trying to sound like Howling Wolf. It's more like Howling co*ckapoo. Like beyond Blackthroat to the point where he just sounds like he's doing a funny voice.

Starting point is 03:54:52 Have you ever heard this? He goes, f*cking bizarre. But he resisted the move away from that material to the more innovative stuff because accepting that meant ceding control of the band to town's end who was a middle class art student from healing while adultery was a rock hard sheet metal worker from acton and if you're not from london you might not quite understand the difference between healing and acton there's a difference um the fact that the tension between Ealing and Acton. There's a difference.

Starting point is 03:55:35 The fact that the tension between those two things and those two worldviews turned out to be the Who's main feature and selling point and ultimately the point of the band. In the end, that was a curse because it meant that they then had to preserve the tension between those two men endlessly to keep it going and daltrey rode that out because he was fundamentally unflappable perhaps a little too thick to be flappable whereas townsend was a massive neurotic to the point where it almost killed him which is how he ended up like this pete townsend writing songs like this one about being a self-loathing middle-aged failure of a human being delivered by a bopping adultery yeah as though with a roar of a lion triumphant in battle so you get townsend with his expression of vague contempt and he's got like a trendy haircut that looks sh*t because he's going thin on top. And he's still chasing fashions because he still believes in youth, even though he's not young anymore.

Starting point is 03:56:32 And he doesn't know what else to do. And he's in the same spiral where he spent most of his adult life. Smashing his guitar to express the frustration of being caught in a showbiz trap. And then realising that the guitar smashing itself has become showbiz and a trap of its own so he smashes another to let out that frustration and so on it's the exact same psychological loop as alcoholism which he also had and at the same time this is why he became such a key figure especially for critics in the 70s yeah like his life and career working with adultery was the perfect illustration of that tug between art and showbiz or principles and commerce with which rock music discourse was obsessed for 20 years and because he was the most articulate and verbal

Starting point is 03:57:17 and self-analytical of that generation he was very aware of this conflict and it became an obsession this perpetual self-flagellation you know and so everything he said and did after about 1969 he's like an old dissident endlessly picking over the failed revolution except from a throne rather than from a prison cell um and he knows that he sounds pampered and out of touch he knows that he is and he looks pretty crappy sometimes and he feels guilty about that as well yeah yeah and we're supposed to care and it's awful really like the perfect pete tansy story from this period which i'm sure everyone knows is the night that inspired the song who are you when he went out in soho and bumped into steve jones and paul cook from the sex pistols

Starting point is 03:58:11 in a club and he went into a half hour rant about how they had to save rock and roll from from stagnation and wipe away the useless old c*nts like him because they were young and valid and he's a rotten old drunken has been who should be burnt up in the fiery cloud of their liftoff and jones and cook just sort of sat there shuffling nervously no idea what he was talking about and then when he finished they asked him when the who were going to be touring again because the Who were their favourite group and Townsend screamed, went off his nut tried to hit someone and shortly afterwards was ejected from the nightclub

Starting point is 03:58:53 he might have made a better critic, perhaps I mean he might have been a good writer about music but I mean the thing is these neuroses don't get me wrong, a lot of neuroses can be part of rock and roll but it's precisely those neuroses that stop rock happening sometimes the excitement of rock and roll happening at least yeah i mean i i find town center a really interesting figure and when i've ever sort of read him talking about music he's very insightful and and he's a smart smart chap but it's precisely that that smartness which which forestalls the pleasure

Starting point is 03:59:26 in their music and and whereas in those 60 in those 60 singles you know you do those those records sound like a fight i mean that they sound like a fight between four people in a sense there's a togetherness there but there's a tension there yeah whereas of course by the 70s moon was pretty much um not inept. What's the word? A f*cking nightmare. A nightmare in all kinds of ways. But fundamentally not up for a fight, as it were.

Starting point is 03:59:52 He was too busy cherry bombing toilet bowls and stuff. Apart from with his wife. Yeah. But that crucial dynamic that makes those singles. Yeah, you can't be stressed in the fact that those singles are. But that dynamic had gone. So it does seem to me when I listened to seventies, who the main dynamic is between adultery and townsend.

Starting point is 04:00:12 Daltrey is just like Taylor says, unapologetically and totally. And I think this isn't even a, he's commercially minded and that is it. And I don't even think that's a lacking in him. I just think that's what he sees music as. Yeah. And that he doesn't want to go back to working in a sheet metal factory.

Starting point is 04:00:30 Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Or a trout farm. The way they're being presented on Top of the Pops, it's like, here are the great survivors of the 60s who have picked their way through the wreckage of the 70s, and here they stand, ready to face a new decade. But out of all four of them,

Starting point is 04:00:47 you'll notice we haven't said one thing about Kenny Jones because there's absolutely nothing to say about it. He's just a drummer, and that's how he's treated. But out of all four members of that band, only one of them looks anywhere near ready to kick on into a new decade. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And the problem is, he's got to funnel everything through Doltre, who just wants to carry on being the rock horse.

Starting point is 04:01:10 It's a curse for Tandem. Because Neil's absolutely right that he was a good rock critic and he considered himself a good rock critic and said so on several occasions. And the curse, and I don't know if you find this but i certainly do the curse of having naturally good critical instincts is that you end up turning them on yourself yeah yeah um and it can paralyze you in some ways yeah it's impossible for me to look back at anything i wrote when i was like you know in my 20s or 30s and not think it's disgusting because I know I

Starting point is 04:01:47 could do it better now but that's not healthy right that's not a healthy way of looking at your life that's really only like an inversion of Pete Townsend who looks back at when he was 20 or 21 and thinks oh I'm sh*t now and I was great then you know the exact opposite of most people yeah and the terrible thing is that like me he's right and that at 20 or 21 he had the emotion and the vision to write songs like the kids are all right which articulate adolescent feelings in a in a coherent and insightful way but are still transmissions from the inside and are still about the moment and are still authentically youthful in that they behave as though the future does not and cannot ever exist have you ever seen him on that program a whole scene going from 1965 yeah

Starting point is 04:02:41 he's like 20 years old and he's obviously on speed and he's sat there twitching and he's taking questions from the audience and it's the greatest interview with a rock star i've ever seen because everything he says is brilliant and perfect it's the one where he says the problem with rock music is when you start trying to introduce quality to it he's going to think about our group we haven't got any quality and it's the audience can't understand him and they're saying things like well why don't you try and put some quality into it yeah and it's like no no you're missing the point it's rock and roll it's not supposed to have quality the quality is somewhere else it's not where you're looking yeah he. He knew all of this. He understood it and he could articulate it.

Starting point is 04:03:26 So when the future that he was pretending would never exist suddenly did exist, he stuck to this grand theme of youthful confusion. And he found himself writing about being a confused adolescent, which is not the same thing at all. And he couldn't hack it because he knew it wasn't as good. Like, I like the much maligned quadrophenia the album right right for all its proggy filigree and waffle and all the bits where roger daltrey has to deliver gilbert and sullivan like recitations because tanzan can't fit all the words into the tune, which doesn't sound lovely, I'll grant you. But I think it's a genuine achievement in that it does express those deep teenage feelings

Starting point is 04:04:12 in the best way that you can hope for from a slightly older man, accurately with some distance and wisdom. But it's shot through with self-hatred because he knows this is worse than writing the kids are all right so you get all this tortured bluster right so to me that album is the high point of the beard and brandy years of the who but f*cking out right one of the key songs on that album is

Starting point is 04:04:38 the punk and the godfather which is a song he wrote about the relationship between him and his audience but it's not his actual audience it's his idealized audience it's this imaginary audience who all hate him for what he's become so in the song you've got this scrappy 60s street kid mod who's voiced by adultery jimmy from quadrophenia right addressing pete townsend himself but it's the pete townsend of 1973 as though he's fallen back through a time warp and it's a really overblown high concept you know pub prog thing and it's the most thorough and unsparing self immolation you'll ever hear in song so he has this kid sings the rock star you declared you would be three inches taller you only became what we made you you thought you were chasing a destiny

Starting point is 04:05:32 calling you only earned what we gave you now you're watching movies trying to find the feelers you only see what we show you and he's inventing punk three years early but top down and it's not even actual punk it's the music journalist concept of punk do you know what i mean and it did create that discourse because it was like a time paradox because a lot of those original punk writers were old who fans who'd grown up listening to this stuff so in the middle section it drops out and you've just got the synth going me me me me and townshend comes in with his wobbly high voice like a 12 year old richard manuel off school with a cold and in audible anguish he sings back to this kid i have lived your future out by pounding stages like a clown and on the dance floor broken

Starting point is 04:06:27 glass and bloodied faces slowly pass the empty seats in numbered rows it all belongs to me you know and it's really uncomfortable to listen to because you're listening to a breakdown formed into a song but you can see why 70s music writers considered that more interesting than Wings. Yeah. I mean, Paul McCartney also wrote a song about how he imagined the experience of going to one of his own 1970s stadium gigs. The song Rock Show from 1975. And the lyrics to that go, Behind the stacks you glimpse an axe the tension mounts you score an

Starting point is 04:07:08 ounce and i wonder townsend was so f*cking lonely and depressed but that's the thing loneliness i mean the thing is if townsend say had split from the who in 1970 and become a singer songwriter now i don't think he's got the voice for it, to be honest with you. But what he needs in a band is somebody to enforce a little concision on him. And just to say, cheer up, mate. I know that sounds daft, but a balancing ego, if you like. A balancing ego. Now, what he's doing in the 70s, he's drowning in his neuroses. And who has he got as bandmates?

Starting point is 04:07:40 He's got two total hooligans in the rhythm section. And he's got somebody who just wantsigans in the rhythm section and he's got somebody just wants to lamp him as his front man so you know he's he's not got that person saying oh maybe we could cut that you know what i mean composition who seem to be this thing that are constantly almost sickened by townsend's indulgence but without that indulgence there is no band i can't help but think charles about the terrible buying that The Who and Townsend in particular are in in 1981, because, you know, he's got a solo career on the go,

Starting point is 04:08:11 and you get the feeling he'd like to keep it that way for at least a bit, but as we know, The Who have started spunking their money on films. You know, the budget for Quadrophenia was £2 million, would you believe? Blimey. So the only way to finance that is either to knock out huge selling albums or relentlessly touring the old tunes out. And on this showing, they clearly can't do the former anymore, so it's hello to non-stop Tommy gigs for the rest of the decade.

Starting point is 04:08:39 And when you compare them to their peers who are still about, you know, it's obvious that Paul McCartney and the Rolling Stones still have the ability to knock out a decent new tune every now and then and will be hanging around through the 80s. Or, you know, in the case of Led Zeppelin, accepting that they can't go on without a key component and calling it a day. But I'm afraid to say that what we're watching here on Top of the Pops

Starting point is 04:09:02 sounds like a band shouldering the last straw before resigning themselves to being a heritage act. Yeah, I mean, the Stones have got, what, about two, three more years of making good songs before they disappear into nothing. But at least they managed it, you know? The Who are not managing that at all. Yeah, but the Stones believed in rock and roll

Starting point is 04:09:24 and Paul McCartney believed in pop. Yeah. So they could still churn something out. At this point, Pete Townshend is only really able to express himself artistically as this kind of mess of neurosis. You know what I mean? It's not going to be commercial, and it's not going to be much like The Who,

Starting point is 04:09:42 you know, when he was just windmilling and having a good time so yeah yeah he can't do it he can only create things that kids aren't interested in now it's a slightly i mean it's maybe not slightly it's a toxic relationship but you know how people can get institutionalized to toxic relationships and yeah adultery can function without the who you know he doesn't particularly want to because it's still a moneymaker town's end i don't think can function without that dynamic he's so used to it by that's funny i'd assume it was the other way around because no one's going to want to listen to a roger adultery solo lp in 1981 adultery will go where the hits are adultery will go where he

Starting point is 04:10:20 thinks is commercially viable town's end i don think, can let go of the Who. Otherwise, why wouldn't he already? Why does he need the Who? If it's all this aggravation, why doesn't he just do a solo album, get some session guys in, go around bloody Ronnie Wood's house or something, and get something recorded?

Starting point is 04:10:37 Well, he did. He'll put out all the best cowboys have Chinese eyes a year from now. If he's disgusted with what he's become, which he seems to be disgusted from about 1971 onwards why does he keep coming back why did the who keep coming back it's an addictive toxic relationship for him i think yeah that's precisely what's thrilling about their 60s records but as the 70s go on it really does seem like him townsend that is against the rest of the band which probably isn't the way it was,

Starting point is 04:11:05 but that's the way these records... No, it was. Well, that's how these records come across. There is the only creative force in the band, but the rest of the band can't stand him. I mean, the only half-decent Who record from this period is sung by Townsend, Eminence Front. Oh, yeah, where they tried to have an actual contemporary sound on it as well.

Starting point is 04:11:24 Yeah. Which doesn't just mean playing a blustery who song and and you know making the drums splash a bit so it sounds like a modern i mean it's constructed like an 80s record but doltry can't do that no and wouldn't want no god certainly not because he feels like he's put his flag in the ground yeah and this is what we do isn't it this is what people pay to come and see the who and he's absolutely right it is what we're talking about did at least give us the extraordinary album the who by numbers have you ever had that from the bleak season of 1975 and it's like the high point of that tortured self-loathing inverted narcissist version of the who or version of pete townsend you know

Starting point is 04:12:06 and it's real grot it's all these solipsistic songs about obsessive self-destructive anxiety it's around the time pete townsend turned 30 so it's right full of songs called things like however much i booze and you know how many friends have I really got and stuff. He opens songs with lines like, I see myself on TV. I'm a faker, a paper clown, as if anyone's meant to care. You know, people listen to that going,

Starting point is 04:12:36 wow, you saw yourself on TV. f*cking brilliant. What, were you being pulled up by the ears by Chris Tarrant on Tiswell? This is what anyone else is thinking. And he's ending songs with lines like goodbye all you punks you see what i mean goodbye all you punks stay young and stay high hand me my checkbook while i crawl off to die like a woman in childbirth grown ugly

Starting point is 04:12:59 in a flash that's nice i've seen magic and pain. Now I'm recycling trash. So it's the only answer is, well, don't do it. Yeah. Yeah. And also, this is not something that ever seemed to hold back David Bowie or can or Leonard Cohen or anyone else who was interesting and interested in their 30s it just wasn't an issue because they hadn't nailed everything to their own youthful energy and frustration yeah dooming themselves to pantomime in in in later life and of course that means pete townsend trying to stay youthful ends up sounding like the least youthful person on the planet there's a line on the who by numbers which goes i lose so many nights of sleep worrying about my responsibilities has there ever been a less rock and roll line than i lose so many nights of sleep worrying about my responsibility this is what paul weller was trying to dodge when he split up the jam at the age of 23 and started wearing cycling gear and singing about milton keynes he didn't want to be doing You Better You Bet in 1994. God, no.

Starting point is 04:14:08 It might have been an improvement on Oh Yeah, to be honest. Yeah. That was the thing. That's the thing. I mean, you know, as soon as you hit 30, to be honest with you, you start dwelling on the good times. You start dwelling on those bits of your past, you know, and a large part of the rest of your life is

Starting point is 04:14:25 spent doing that don't get me wrong it doesn't make for music it doesn't make for rock and roll i'm not saying you have to plaster on a smile and face a face a future but you know perhaps get out of yourself a little bit um would have been good for townsend i, I think. Yeah, have a drink. Have a drink, yeah. No, but from 71 onwards, I mean, look, I understand why. You know, he's lived through one of the most thrilling periods of pop music history and he's been a part of it. Yeah.

Starting point is 04:14:53 But you cannot just spend the rest of your career endlessly, bitterly dwelling on that fact and what has been lost since. And I think if The Who were more of a, not democratic proposition, but I mean, Townshend had been challenged more rather than by a pig sh*t thick c*nt like doltry but somebody with you know ideas beyond pure commercial success he he would have developed better but by the time we find him here it's just endless this end and i'm not going to say self-pity

Starting point is 04:15:23 because he you know townshend would reject that himself, I think. It is slightly drunken, slightly red-eyed, self-piteous. But yeah, he's just endlessly from about 70 onwards, I think, just dwelling on the past. He can't get over it, that once he felt excited and now he feels dead. I mean, that's great. Turn that into one song. I'm not saying you can spin the rest of your career out

Starting point is 04:15:45 of it and he couldn't shake himself loose from adultery because adultery was his connection to who he thought he was writing for which was like rough lads who you know can't express themselves so they need somebody else to do it for him and as you know like a lot of lower middle class people he felt like a link between the working class and the artistic middle class. And that's what he was explicitly trying to do. And it must have been soul-destroying to him that the personification of the people

Starting point is 04:16:16 he thought he was writing for was like, yeah, I don't want this. I don't like this. Can't we just do, I can't explain again. Maybe the song's not about a nagging girlfriend who keeps saying, you better. It's about f*cking Daltrey.

Starting point is 04:16:29 Yeah, but the thought of Daltrey opening his legs and mind to Pete Townshend isn't a pleasant one. Well, you only have to watch Compost Corner to understand that. As far as Top of the Pops is concerned, and this performance, Daltrey is the absolute front person of The Who, because he's bagging the lion's share of the camera here with some very awkward cutaways from Townsend.

Starting point is 04:16:53 But this week's Enemy News section explains all. Quote from that news piece at The Who press launch, Pete also explained the reason that he wasn't anywhere to be seen on the recent Who appearance at Top of the Pops, their first in eight years, was because the director, unused to Townsend's windmill actions on the guitars, mistook his flailing

Starting point is 04:17:13 arms for a fascist salute and therefore concentrated on adultery. What with the attention being given to the fascist element in England today, the director didn't want to inflame the situation. Do you believe that? f*cking mencle.

Starting point is 04:17:31 Because the thing is, Townsend's holding up a raised fist. Yeah. But mind you, Donald Trump does that nowadays, because that's the right wing, isn't it? They always nick all the good left-wing stuff. c*nts. That might not be true, but I really hope it is is also means you get a lot of john entwistle which is like at least evens it up after years and years and years of tv appearances where you

Starting point is 04:17:53 never saw john entwistle i was gonna say anything else to say i interviewed him once pete townsend yeah in the 90s really obviously not a proper in-depth interview, because people like me would never be allowed to do that. It was a thing for rebellious jukebox in Melody Maker. Right. People would list their favourite records and talk about them. Was it face-to-face or a phoner? Face-to-face. I did it at his house up by Heel Pie Island.

Starting point is 04:18:19 Wow. So we were sat in the little recording studio built onto the side of his house. And I found out years later from reading his terrible autobiography and working out the chronology, this was about a fortnight after he'd finally given up drinking, which explains why his hands were shaking so badly every time he lit a Marlborough light, which was very, very often. Either that or he was nervous being in the presence of the great Taylor Polk's a melody maker come on yeah it's probably probably a bit of both on it

Starting point is 04:18:51 really if you're being honest but he was exactly as I expected and in a way exactly as I'd hoped he was still completely obsessed with what was young and new, right? More so now that he was effectively excluded from it. So he was asking me about it. I don't f*cking know, you know. But it was the mid-90s, so he was full of the possibilities of the internet for music and music writing, as though that effect was going to be something more

Starting point is 04:19:20 than simply to fragment and impoverish. Bless him. Poor bastard. It's all his own fault but you know we all felt like that at the time which of us which of us honestly can't say that everything is our own fault you know still doesn't mean it's fair and if you want to know what it was like working for melody maker at that time when it finally went into the paper someone changed the spelling of his name so it was wrong but took the h out the h out yeah sorry yeah so the following week you better you bet stayed at number nine before dropping down the chart but face dancers entered the lp chart at number three a week later and then spent two weeks at number two held off number one by Kings of the Wild Frontier. The follow-up Don't Let Go the Coat only got to number 47 in May

Starting point is 04:20:14 and they finished the year with Athena getting to number 40 in October. Although they put out the LP It's Hard in 1982 garnering an American single hit with eminence front a fault line developed between town's end who wanted the band to stop touring and become a studio only concern and adultery and end twistle who respectively wanted to whirl a microphone about and then throw it dead eye and catch it or just stand there in an enormous dome for the rest of their lives, which resulted in their farewell tour in late 1982. And after Townsend attempted to write their final contractually obligated LP for Polidor, he gave up, bought himself and Kenny Jones out of their contracts, and announced he was leaving in December of 1983.

Starting point is 04:21:02 However, they reunited for their final gig at live aid in 1985 their final tour in 1989 their final gig in 1996 their final tour in 1999 their final tour in 2000 their final tour in 2002 even though john n twissel died in a a Las Vegas hotel the night before the first date. Their final LP, Endless Wire, in 2006. Their final tour in 2012, 2015 and 2016. Their final LP, Who, in 2019. And their final tour, which finished last year. And they'll be beginning their final tour in Hull

Starting point is 04:21:45 this July. There's still time to die before I get old tour. Just like a dream pow with his hand in his pocket and adopting a pose which my non-o would have described as slorming about introduces something really delicate that's going to be emoted to by Legs and Co. It's Lately by Stevie Wonder. We've covered Steve Lamorris a time or two, and this, the follow-up to I Ain't Gonna Stand For It, which got to number 10 in January of this year,

Starting point is 04:22:58 is the third cut from his 19th LP, Hotter Than July, which came out last September. It entered the charts for Fortnite to go at number 57, then soared 30 places to number 27. And this week, it's up nine places to number 18, causing Legs & Co. to embark upon a second wave of daddisfaction. And yeah, Neil, I didn't know that this was Pauline's last ever performance

Starting point is 04:23:28 on Top of the Pops, and it's a shame they didn't let her pog it. Indeed. Truth be told, I wasn't really looking at legs and cojo in this. I was staring at the strange, granulated ball hanging down to the right. Yeah! Looks like a big scotch egg. Well, it just made me repeatedly

Starting point is 04:23:44 yearn for the long-wanted bliss of ear syringing oh what a dream but no it's barely dance isn't it what they're asked to i mean which you can't really dance to this record anyway it's more of a selection of sort of one and two point balances with them dressed in some sort of strange blend of native american tribal dress they've been given an absolute dog to dance to it in terms of dancing, but it's not a bad song. It starts with Rosie, Jill and Sue depicted in close-up forming a pyramid shape,

Starting point is 04:24:12 possibly in tribute to the cover of Zenyatta Mondatta, while Lulu lies on the floor of a very sparse set which features a long blue bit of fabric that's just been draped at an angle and a brown crusty globe hanging down like a big scotch egg. And that's your lot, Legs & Co. Here you go. They're supposed to look like, you know, full of Eastern promise, aren't they?

Starting point is 04:24:35 Like the Turkish Delight advert. The overall effect is a Turkish Delight advert shot during a technician strike, isn't it? Yeah, but you're right. It's got to be the least mobile dance routine i've ever seen now their fit bits barely registered it they don't do any of the horsey horsey or the the knee pointing most of it is just hot girl on girl staring yeah yes yeah it's got quite an erotic charge. You know,

Starting point is 04:25:05 if it, if you didn't know they were trying not to giggle. Um, and I discovered this is Rosie's favorite legs and coat before. Really? Yeah. And you can sort of see why, because it's classy in it.

Starting point is 04:25:18 Yeah. In the same way as the record, which is to say 1981 classy. And they look very nice. Um, they're not made to look silly like normal but also like the record it's immobile and a bit unengaging i think i don't know if that's a controversial view no it's not exactly controversial i mean for me when i heard this track because it's been a while since i've heard this track, well, they're being familiar with it, as we all were. I think, you know, it's a fairly big hit.

Starting point is 04:25:48 For me, it sounded like it wouldn't be out of place on the oft-forgot Stevie album that I think everyone should listen to the most, in a way, fulfilling this first finale. It sounds like something off that. It reminds me of something like They Won't Go When I Go. Yeah. Or kind of a ballad of songs in the key of life,

Starting point is 04:26:03 something like Ask. So it's a good song. It's a good song, but yeah, its immobility is part of its point Yeah. Or kind of a ballad of songs in the key of life, something like Ask. So it's a good song. It's a good song, but yeah, it's immobility as part of its point. It's kind of a static song, and consequently the dancing reflects that. I can't believe it's a favourite, but perhaps it's precisely, yeah,

Starting point is 04:26:15 it's that classiness, that staticness that puts it in our affections. Yeah. But yeah, I wasn't looking at legs and cat. I was looking at that weird, what is it? What is that thing meant to represent? I can't quite get it.

Starting point is 04:26:27 Did they nick it off a set of Blake Seven or something? It does look like something like that. It's probably got eyes on either side or something. I don't know. But the song, is this Stevie Wonder's last great ballad? I f*cking love it. Well, what ballad has he done after this that we should be aware of? Well, forget it.

Starting point is 04:26:42 I just called to say I love you. Well, this is it. This is it. And that's the cutoff point,'t it yeah we're not messing with stevie after that or even with that yeah so yeah i mean it's the black american talking in your sleep by crystal gale isn't it there's something going on behind his back yeah i always say it's about stevie wonder but with a lot of artists you love the stuff that they did in one period and then you hate the stuff they did in some other period. But with Stevie Wonder,

Starting point is 04:27:10 I find this split happening on the same albums. Right. Like there's always something that is the greatest thing I've ever heard and then there's something that sounds like an ass. And it's unsettling to me because obviously in terms of talent stevie wonder is in the top circle you know he's one of the relatively small group of people who were genuinely musically and creatively gifted and didn't need the egalitarianism of

Starting point is 04:27:41 popular music to express themselves except in terms of escaping his background, obviously. In purely musical terms, he's one of those who could well have been composing concertos for the court in 1835. You know, if he wasn't a blind black man, you know, there's a good chance that on talent he could have been there, sat next to, you know, Paul McCartney and brian wilson but baccarat to the point where some of it is actually frightening to any mortal musician who can see what he's doing but has no idea how he came up with yeah but his middle of the road streak is a big problem for me even on his best records right although i've never quite understood the

Starting point is 04:28:26 phrase middle of the road because first of all okay if you're in the middle of the road you've got edgy and challenging music on one side of you and on the other what yeah and also since when was the safe choice to be in the middle of the road yeah that sounds riskier than almost anything exactly yeah when stevie's soft he's very soft indeed and and you know when i first came to songs in the key of life which is one of my favorite albums now i was initially daunted by some of those balladic kind of songs they are they're soppy they're not soppy they're they're sweet yeah i used to go straight for you know live it in the city and the funk stuff much more more than the ballads. I think as I've got older,

Starting point is 04:29:05 I see how he's weaving something that you've got to kind of put yourself in for the duration of. And eventually you stomach it. And I don't mean it's difficult to stomach, but eventually you take that even as a young listener. It's like as a young listener, when everyone's telling me to listen to Forever Changes, right?

Starting point is 04:29:22 I've got to say the first time, say I listened to Forever Changes, I was like, this is dead is dead soft you know what's going on here um i'm not really into this but then of course it grows on you and that's what happened with me with stevie sly stone presented no such problems but stevie did songs in the key of life is a long record and there's some very very soft sappy stuff on there but as you get older i think yeah it becomes it becomes more amenable to you and lately is from that side of him i haven't i've got to admit checked out the album that this is from because i do kind of part company with stevie after songs in the key of life really um i have

Starting point is 04:29:55 the occasional moment when i go for the private life of plants but um yeah i mean i i sort of avoid 80 stevie because of that horrible record that's coming down the pipe in a few years. The Secret Life of Plants. The Secret Life of Plants, I should have said. The Private Life of Plants kind of like suggests, you know, stamen action. I think what it is, I can take some people's middle of the road leanings because what happens is it gets mixed in with what they usually do. And the amalgam that comes out is unusual and interesting. Like Forever Changes, it's like there's that little bit of middle-of-the-road strings

Starting point is 04:30:29 mixed in with this psychotic, unpleasant man music. But Stevie's Commander Music is so effortless that when he decides to do middle-of-the-road, he just snaps his fingers and it's just instant super slick middle of the road there's no errors or mutations he just does it yeah and there it is and i never like it you know and i mean i like all the different kinds of music disco classical military band yeah i think that's all of them um but i struggle with this kind of thing you know you are the sunshine of my life and all that stuff from his good period and i don't like it right and this is a

Starting point is 04:31:11 superior slick ballad because it's by stevie wonder before he completely lost it and i like some things about it i can appreciate the way that the hook line rises up quickly and then slowly flutters back down again like an autumn leaf it's very smartly done and it worked because i remember this being on the radio at the time very clearly and at this age i was aware of the charts but i only registered the stuff that was actually memorable so it's clearly not terrible or forgettable. It just doesn't do anything much for me. It's like it's too nicely done, you know. So it just has to join a bunch of other Stevie Wonder records with a bunch of Kate Bush records,

Starting point is 04:31:57 Weather Report, you know, Paul Simon, stuff that I can see is good, I just don't respond to it. I heard this on the radio once and i just burst into tears man oh i envy you just just going through all manner of sh*t with my girlfriend of the time and i was in the paper shop getting some back in rizzlers before going to work and it came on and it just stopped me in my tracks and just f*cking lost it, man. Which is something I wouldn't have done in 1981. He would have been like,

Starting point is 04:32:28 oh, can we have something else, please? Yeah, you do need to fall in love and get your heart broken to understand a lot of Stevie stuff. I haven't really investigated Hotter in July as much as I should, but I do note in the track list, he does his own version of a song he wrote in the 60s for Tammy Terrell, which is called All I Do Is Think think about you which never got released it's one of the greatest motown songs ever definitely one of the greatest slow motown songs ever you need to investigate it only came

Starting point is 04:32:57 out on cd a few years ago it's f*cking incredible video playlist yeah I mean, he's not in the studio, but... No. In contrast to an awful lot of the 60s figures we're seeing this year, Stevie is coming out of this with dignity. Yeah. You know. Yeah, for now. For now.

Starting point is 04:33:14 I mean, his last great single, to my mind, was Do I Do, a year later. Mm-hmm. But, yeah, after that, it gets hard. It does get very difficult. But f*cking hell, what a run. Oh, yeah, what a run. If the only thing you'd ever done was Superstition on Sesame Street, you could have made 25 albums that sounded like f*cking Mumford & Sons.

Starting point is 04:33:34 It wouldn't matter. You did it. You did the greatest thing anyone has ever done in music. So the following week lately soared 12 places to number six, and a fortnight later began a two-week run at number three the follow-up happy birthday did even better getting to number two in august behind green door by chicken steven Cos this time could mean goodbye Goodbye Hey, excellent.

Starting point is 04:34:13 Slates & Co, dancing to Sticky Wonders lately. And this is two out of two for Phil Collins. Of his LP Face Value, I missed again. I missed again. Hey, excellent Purs Powell at Legs & Co. As he stands there with his free hand suggestively on his belt buckle in front of a few rows of kids who all look as if they've been made to sit in the corner and think about what they've done to Sharon Red.

Starting point is 04:34:45 He then tells us that it's two out of two for the next act, Phil Collins with I Missed Again. We've chanced upon Phil Collins a couple of times in chart music, and this, his second solo single, is the follow-up to In The Air Tonight, which got to number two only a month ago, held off number one by Woman by John Lennon. It's the second cut from the LP Face Value,

Starting point is 04:35:13 which came out last month, and immediately spent three weeks at number one in the album chart, and is still hanging in there in the face of the ant invasion at number two, and it was recorded with the assistance of the earth wind and fire horn section it entered the chart of fortnight ago at number 45 and the bbc immediately invited him into the stew stew studio if you will which helped it soar 25 places to number 20. This week, it's leapt six places to number 14. So here is a repeat of that performance. f*cking hell, lots of repeats this week.

Starting point is 04:35:52 Yeah, there's a few, isn't there? But anyway, that Powell introduction where he displays interest at Phil Collins for having two hits in a row. It's a timely reminder, isn't it, chaps, being the drummer out of genesis wasn't a guarantee of an endless run of hits in early 1981 no no but face value is massive and it's like a showreel of what he can do outside of genesis yes and in a weird way that album not that i sit around listening to it much it does when you think about all the tracks that became singles and stuff it prefigures the 80s a lot more than perhaps more revered less commercially successful albums do you know what we ultimately

Starting point is 04:36:30 have here is an adolescent or young man of the 60s and 70s coming out the other side of the divorce and making music definitely pitched an adult audience i mean it's not that i think phil considers the kiddie stuff beneath him but he's going to dominate the 80s both in bands and out of bands and scoring massive solo hits they're not in any other way analogous but he's like the rod stewart of the 80s in that in that regard it's like what rod stewart does in the 70s and what he's ultimately saying is comforting it's hey look i know you like these new sounds but you might not like the weirdos using those new sounds i'm going to use those new sounds but i'm going to make music for grown-ups hence

Starting point is 04:37:10 its success i think yeah and he could have been on this episode five minutes earlier you know he approached pete townsend a few weeks after the death of keith moon offered up his services but townsend had already asked kenny jones but Pete Townsend was clearly up for it though and it would have been interesting having Phil Collins to bounce off yeah how long it will have lasted I don't know thing is as divorce albums go I mean look obviously every middle-aged man who's just gone through a separation can identify with a lyric like i can feel it coming in the air tonight um but when you listen to a great divorce album like blood on the tracks by bob dylan that's an unfair comparison right but all right or a great divorce pop single like the winner

Starting point is 04:37:59 takes it all by abba they're full of all these tiny insights and little chilling details with tragic residents and all that stuff and face value just seems like some old c*nt moaning by comparison it's a difficult balance to get right between magic and some old c*nt moaning so they tell me um yeah the original title for chart music that was wasn't it but look we we should probably start with the paint pot on the piano round one of phil collins versus dignity and boy does he come out swinging yeah let's talk about the paint pot because it's making a return after its debut when he did In The Air Tonight. We all know that his missus ran off with a painter and decorator the year before. And some people assume it's a wry comment on that.

Starting point is 04:38:53 But allow me to direct you to chapter 10 of Not Dead Yet, his 2016 memoir. Quote about that tin of paint. In The Air Tonight comes out as a single in the uk on january the 5th 1981 within a week it's at number 36 and i'm at the bbc appearing on their nation uniting weekly chart show how am i going to perform the song i'm still not comfortable standing there with a microphone, especially on TV, so I'll play keyboards. And my engineer, Rhodium Factorium's Steve Pud Jones says, I'll get a keyboard stand. Nah, looks a bit Duran Duran to me. Get a black and decker workmate, that'll do.

Starting point is 04:39:39 Okay, what will we put the drum machine on? Um, a tea chest. The tin of paint? That's because we're going for rehearsal after rehearsal and the top of the pops producers are desperately trying to make this tea chest look interesting so pud just adds little bits a paint pot so there it is indeed a diy theme to that infamous top of the pops performance but it has nothing to do with my wife going off with a decorator. That performance and that paint pot have come back to haunt me time and time again. I mean, it needs stressing here that he actually did work as a painter and decorator

Starting point is 04:40:20 in the 60s when Genesis had just started up. And apparently this other bloke was actually a public school type who'd just lost his job and was acting as the real decorator's mate. So there we go. You'd think after hanging out with Genesis for 10 years, Phil Collins would be a little bit sick of being aced out by public school boys, wouldn't you? I never understood it because I always thought it was a bit weird

Starting point is 04:40:44 because you can't tell whether it's meant to be you're sleeping in my bed with my wife. But in the daytime, we're painting walls. I'm on top of the pops or, you know, where horrible paint can't took my wife away. Here is his emblem. It's a shame that cookholder pop stars didn't use props like Phil Collins has done. You know, Tony Blackburn could have pitched up on top of the pots wearing the nudie woman apron, like the one out of Robin's Nest. Yeah, you just think nowadays his wife would respond

Starting point is 04:41:13 by putting a picture on Instagram of her sitting at a piano with a button mushroom on top of it. I'll tell you what's really funny when you look at him here, by the way. He's not even that bold. No. It's strange, isn't it? It's like how when you see on the buses now and Olive isn't actually particularly fat or ugly.

Starting point is 04:41:33 You know, it's like, how did this happen? But anyway, the song, I've got to say, I think it's far superior to In The Air Tonight. Do you? Yeah, I do, yeah. And I'm saying it right now. Doing chart music has left me with a shocking revelation that I kind of get on with a lot of Aventis, Genesis and Phil Collins.

Starting point is 04:41:53 And that's because Collins has pretty much taken over the band by now and he's leaning on his love of 60s black music. He's featured in the top ten in Smash It smash it says bit section the other month and he he drops earth wind and fire who he says has been his biggest influence over the past few years the jacksons the miracles and his all-time favorite group the action who i get into in a very big way in a year or two's time yeah so yeah when it came on the radio back in the day it's like oh this is all right and now appearing on top of the pops after the who more of this please he seems really at ease doesn't he uncomfortable he sort of knows his own limitations and so consequently he's not going

Starting point is 04:42:34 to try and look 80s um or dress up well i mean yeah i know he's not that bald but in contrast the amount of hair going on elsewhere in this episode, he's comparatively bald. But he's this kind of dressed down, very approachable, avuncular figure. He's not going to put makeup on in any way, dress differently in this new decade. And he actually tells us in this decade, you know, that he can't dance. This song, it has a touch of ELO's Evil Woman about it as well, melodically. Oh, yes. Crossed with, as you mentioned, a kind of EWF vibe.

Starting point is 04:43:09 The thing is, he's had the hit now, you know, and he's consequently looking very relaxed. He looks like he literally just got the cab from his Guildford home, aforementioned, to do this. And who joins him on stage is a bit odd because they look like cameramen in disguise, to be honest with you. Yes, they do. I'm not entirely sure if they had any part to play in Face Value at all.

Starting point is 04:43:27 It's certainly not the original sax player on this record, because that's Ronnie Scott in it, and it's not him. Is Ronnie Scott the one playing the trumpet? I don't think so. Yeah, that would be odd. But yeah, Ronnie Scott, the Ronnie Scott. This new love for late 70s Phil and Genesis, have you actually dived

Starting point is 04:43:45 into Face Value? Are you loving it now? No, I haven't yet, no, because In The Air Tonight puts me off. But I need to listen to Horror In July and Face Value now. Because you haven't finished listening to Duke. No. And Abba Cab.

Starting point is 04:44:01 By this time, Genesis and Phil Collins are on a roll, man. They're sh*tting out the hits. And, you know, as a curator of pub quizzes, I know that people have difficulty in remembering who did what song. You know, people think Abacab is a Phil Collins song. So I've devised a rhyme that I teach people to help them out. And I'd like to share it with the Pop Craze Youngsters, if you don't mind. So if the lyrics are gibberish, the song must be by Genesis.

Starting point is 04:44:30 But if they whine about a cheating wife, that's Phil Collins. You can bet your life. So there you go. That's locked in there now, Al. I will never forget that. And much like my sister's mnemonic for diarrhea, I will never forget that. Go on. You know, diarrhea is a difficult word to spell.

Starting point is 04:44:48 Very difficult word to spell. So just let me lodge this in people's heads. Did it at Robert Redford's house one early afternoon. There you go. Whoa. Yeah, he's a strange man against whom to have a vendetta. But I sort of did. Like a lot of people after this a few years

Starting point is 04:45:07 after this he was just below dire straits and weirdly uh five star in my personal rogues gallery at the time when i was a teenager and it's partly just the fact that he was so brazen in his blandness like it was his selling point. You know, it was like it was his personal brand, like Sheeran now. And that enraged me at a time when I still thought there might be hope. So to stay pure, I had to wipe my brain of the feeling that maybe In The Air Tonight was an imaginative and unusual record. of the feeling that maybe In The Air Tonight was an imaginative and unusual record. And instead, just get exercised about stuff like

Starting point is 04:45:49 the way he spent most of the 80s copying styles of black American music, past and present, which maybe he couldn't really pull off, in return for which he was worshipped by two generations of black American musicians who clearly knew far less about the subject than i did but idea 1999 by prince and then i'd hear susudio by phil collins and i just couldn't process how the latter was a fractionally bigger worldwide hit in the same way that at that age you can't

Starting point is 04:46:20 process how the world won't simply bend to your will and reality won't bend to your own intuition of what does and doesn't make sense you know i mean this was put out as the lead cut from face value in america above in the air tonight yeah it's more radio friendly yeah taylor you weren't even persuaded by you know the proto-industrial grooves of Mama. I know. What it is with Phil Collins is that he wasn't just a good musician. He had actual imagination and feeling in his playing, even though I don't like Genesis, right?

Starting point is 04:46:58 He was a really good drummer. And if you listen to some of the drumming he did on Good Records by other people in the 70s, it's great, you know. And he also had pretty good taste in music. And yet what comes out of him is this terrible, gauzy whine, you know. And it annoyed me because it came across the same way he did, as pinched and unremarkable and hyper-conventional and simultaneously humble and apologetic and sour and grudgeful it's like this kind of rich little man music yeah and it's bloody mindedly stubborn in its refusal to venture beyond

Starting point is 04:47:35 the crushingly ordinary you know and when it does like on in the air tonight suddenly he sounds talented and the music at least sounds interesting i mean is that a better or worse record than harold the barrel you know or one but it was his choice to do a kind of pastiche act and i think that's partly why he rubs people at the wrong way he made that choice and he didn't have to, probably he just heard a lot of this kind of breezy, radio-friendly sort of quasi-jazz-funk pop on the radio and wanted to make one, you know, which is fair enough. And, of course, he was deliberately going commercial

Starting point is 04:48:17 after 10 years in a prog band, like the London Prole reasserting himself as one of the common men after having to sit behind those public school fops for 10 years with their songs about sentient aubergines and fantastical croquet matches like the streets weren't burning man it might just have been liberating for him to turn on the radio and think you know what i like this stuff i know how to do it yeah even before you got to the millions of pounds it could potentially make him but the trouble is although he could do it he didn't really have any flair for it because his problem

Starting point is 04:48:56 was he was talented but it wasn't really a creative talent he was a drummer and that's not being schneid it's just a different kind of musicality the fact that he could also sing and play piano and knock a tune together and make it sound technically good i think fooled him into thinking that he was a creative talent but no there's something else you need for that you can be a really good musician you can be multi-talented to a very high professional standard with a a real feel for music and great imagination and all that and still be a horribly pedestrian writer and performer in fact in in this case your horribly pedestrian work will sound so assured and superficially pleasing to the

Starting point is 04:49:41 ear it means it might sell which just makes it worse he does that thing in performance as well repeatedly of sort of chuckling to himself like with the daftness of it all so he doesn't take himself too seriously yeah oh do you follow him all the way i mean is easy lover on your radar al is oh yeah that's a tune man i think that's a f*cking great tune but that's a philip bailey song not a colin song yeah yeah yeah even i like but it's phil's drums and they're great drums yeah anything else to say about this it's just the best of what he did sounds better now right it sounds sort of competent yeah okay if you can switch off and dream yourself into the aesthetic universe of Grand Theft Auto.

Starting point is 04:50:25 I was just about to say Grand Theft Auto. So you're essentially eating the carton empty. But it's easy to forget at the time this was the sound of evil. It was the sound of upwardly mobile slime. Yeah. You know, and front lawns being concreted over and filled with pebbles and turned into driveways for new BMWs with disastrous effects on the local water table. And it was also the sound of adult music,

Starting point is 04:50:53 like popular, big-selling music, which wasn't specifically aimed at young teenagers. You know, it's like every Phil Collins album should have come with a little sign saying, done roaming. You know, hang it on your brain. And it sounds silly to say this now, because who cares about Phil Collins?

Starting point is 04:51:12 And if you do, you know, who's got time to hate him? But that's because time has drained the poison. So people can listen to this and think, oh, yeah, it's all right. But we should probably remember what it was and what it was used for. Yeah. And it's probably good to remember as well that his Motown covers that became big hits are some of the most horrible records of the 80s. f*cking hell, yeah.

Starting point is 04:51:36 They're such defeated and defeating things. That shouldn't be forgotten either. Yeah. Face Value isn't an album I sit around listening to. I suspect it will be soon. I am going to get to it. By the way... You're not getting divorced, are you, Neil?

Starting point is 04:51:48 No, no, no. It's just the time I caught up with all those 80s things that I hated out of principle and actually hear what they sound like. Do not bother, by the way, with The Police. I don't mean ever, because some of their songs are pretty good, man. But their albums do not hold up. No. You know, I have memories of, because my sister was really into the police,

Starting point is 04:52:10 and I had memories of the album being good. But she's given me all her albums now, and I listened to a police album the other day, and it was sh*te. Which one? So just don't bother. Oh, it's the first one, I think. Is it Outlander's Demour? I can't remember which one it was.

Starting point is 04:52:21 I think it's just called The Police, isn't it? No, Outlander's Demour. Outlander's Demour The Police, isn't it? No, Alandostamor. Alandostamor, yeah, dreadful. Best thing they ever did was Landlord, The B-Side of Roxanne. But, yeah, do not bother with The Police. Too much jokes. Yeah. Not enough Copeland.

Starting point is 04:52:34 That's like Jefferson Airplane. Just don't listen to those albums. Say what? The thing about Phil Collins, I wish that his pent-up rage and resentment could have been given more voice you know and i don't just mean about his wife i mean it's almost fascinating that it's not just that he was crabby and undignified about his own love life when you look at the rest of his emotional range you know you know that thing a few years ago it came out

Starting point is 04:53:01 about how he hates paul mccartney because he met him and felt really patronised. Yeah, yeah. And it's understandable because that is what Paul McCartney can be like. But what a strange thing to even think about if you're Phil Collins, right? It's interesting because he spotted that about McCartney, which most musicians don't. They're just in awe. I've seen film of Paul McCartney outrageously patronising't they're just in awe and they let it go I've seen film of Paul McCartney outrageously patronizing Ozzy Osbourne right but Ozzy Osbourne is just love struck he

Starting point is 04:53:32 doesn't care yeah you know whereas Phil noticed it and he really cared and got pissed off about it and got a grudge about it and I don't know what that says about him i just wish there was more of that madness expressed directly in his music you know i would listen to a mystifyingly bitter little twerp like frothing and raging against these smooth expensive backdrops and probably like that more you know rather than just him melting into the metallic finish, you know. Because I've got to be honest, this song was a hit and I've heard it a number of times in the past week and I can't even remember how it goes.

Starting point is 04:54:17 Like, frankly, this whole record, to me, is about as memorable as those parts of the song Living in a Box by Living in a box that don't go am i living in a box am i living in a cardboard box and if you asked me to hum both those songs to you now my god what a mess that would be luckily it got better things to do so the following week i missed again dropped three places to number 17 the follow-up if leaving me is easy got to number 17 in june and he finished the year with the first cut from his next lp hello i must be going through these walls only getting to number 56 in october but he'd start 1982 with his cover of you can't hurry love spending two weeks at number one in October. But he'd start 1982 with his cover of You Can't Hurry Love,

Starting point is 04:55:06 spending two weeks at number one in January, and he'd coast through the 80s and beyond. Oh, I'm Mr Gay, oh-oh-oh I've been a Mr Gay, oh-oh-oh Phil Collins and I'm Mr Gay. Excellent single there. Well, the band who are going to represent us at Eurovision on April the 4th in Dublin

Starting point is 04:55:32 have a name which is made up of a simple thing like orange juice and a bit of champagne. Don't let the court go. It's got to be, and good luck to them. Bucks fit! We return to Powell, standing twixt two young ladies wearing matching horrible blouses with squiggles on them and see-through visors, holding up bottles and clearly preparing to do a bit. Powell tells us that it's Eurovision time once more and explains the name of the group that are going to ride out to Dublin to defend our musical

Starting point is 04:56:13 honour by getting one girl to hold up a bottle of orange juice and the other a bottle of champagne. Shame he didn't do the same thing for Candy Flip nine years later, but never mind. didn't do the same thing for Candy Flip nine years later, but never mind. Here's Bucks Fizz and making your mind up. We've become the definitive podcast authorities on Bucks Fizz since we started our odyssey on chart music, and this is the single that brought them to the dance. They were formed in late 1980 by the composing management in a relationship team of Nicola Martin and Andy Hill, specifically to make a run at the Eurovision Song Contest. And their first pick was Mike Nolan, a singer from the proto-boy band Brooks,

Starting point is 04:56:57 who was managed by Freya Miller before she guided Comrade Shakey's March to Glory and originally featured Chris Hamill, who went on to be Lamar. He went off and recorded the demo of the song that they'd already written with Eurovision 81 in mind, this one. With that demo tape nestling snugly in their pocket, they then offered a spot to Cheryl Baker, who had already represented the UK with Coco in 1978, and while she was

Starting point is 04:57:26 making her mind up whether to join the band or not, they held an audition for the missing piece of the puzzle, opening it up to men and women with the intention of forming a three-piece with two males and one female, but keeping their options if Baker decided against it but they found it impossible to turn away the Italia Conti graduate and former Miss Pearlie 1978 Jay Aston. The male choice was easy the theatrical singer Stephen Fisher but when he landed a part in Godspell at the Young Vic he had to turn them down so the spot was offered to a former builder and plumber who had packed it all in to become a pub singer and an understudy for Pontius Pilate in the West End run of Jesus Christ superstar Robert Gubbe who changed his

Starting point is 04:58:17 name to Bobby G. The brand new four-piece immediately signed to RCA and was shoved into Pineapple Studios and put through a two-day dance routine boot camp organised by Chrissy Wickham, the dark-haired one out of Hot Gossip. And eight days ago, they took part in a song for Europe, not only crushing the favourites Liquid Gold and Unite, a six-girl band which featured Kathy Hargreaves out of Grange Hill under their heels, but also battering Andy Hill's own band, Gem.

Starting point is 04:58:51 RCA rushed out the single by the end of the week, and they were instantly adopted by the BBC and flung into a whirlwind of promotional appearances. And although the single hasn't charted yet, the BBC looks after its own. So, a full 16 days before they sally-fall to Dublin to take on Bjorn Bingebonger and his European ilk, here they are for their first ever Top of the Pops performance. Yes, Jay Aston, Miss Pearlie 1978, chaps. Wow.

Starting point is 04:59:22 Yeah, yeah. I watched Miss England 1978 just the other day in fact of course you did taylor two worlds collide yeah yeah cheryl appears as part of coco who were there as the failed british entry in the 1978 eurovision song contest dressed as a pride float from the planet mongo and jay is there as a failed contestant yes miss pearly no she didn't get past the uh the first bit so we don't see her in a bikini no what we do get um no it's basically this is one of the great horrible beauty contests it's hosted by terry you're a connoisseur of them aren't you tell us so you know what you're talking about i really do it's terrible um hosted by terry wogan in a frilled green shirt that looks like a mint vionetta

Starting point is 05:00:13 um with his radio 2 piss mop ray moore as the voiceover man which allows terry to skip those awkward scenes where usually the presenter has to interview the girls with a hand mic you know and it's like well i have to ask please can i just touch you um so instead what happens is they walk down the catwalk while ray off screen makes remarks about them into a microphone. It's f*cking awful. He says things like, Susan co*ckett, 20 years old, and has in fact been involved in the National Child Development Survey since birth. Developed rather well, I'd have thought.

Starting point is 05:01:01 Oh yeah, fixed smile from Susan co*ckett. Or things like beverly isherwood miss blackburn her great passion in life is watching golf and a pretty attractive birdie she is herself no he says it he really does say that this was actually fit for broadcast oh yeah janet morris miss sc*nthorpe a great musician very fond of playing the piano terry was telling me she's got a lovely touch it's a bit disturbing how many of his jokes are about the contestants supposedly having sex with terry wogan but his comments on Jay Aston are probably the worst of all of them. She comes out in a frock and he says, a rather interesting girl, very keen on weight training. And she picked up a train to get here tonight.

Starting point is 05:01:56 Now, I don't know if he meant to say she caught a train, which would make more sense as a joke. She's into weight training. She's very strong. She caught a train. which would make more sense as a joke right she's into weight training she's very strong she caught a train right i don't know but unfortunately what he actually said he might as well have said she pulled a train to get on this program tonight she's a really unkind suggestion poor jay i know and we we were serious at the beginning because all the girls get to introduce themselves. I was appalled to see Miss Nottingham f*cking it up. Oh, really? I didn't.

Starting point is 05:02:30 I didn't. Look, I don't want to fall into the trap of being an ersatz Ray Moore here. Miss Nottingham couldn't even say Miss Nottingham. No, but she was the only busty lady in the whole competition. Right. I can't say I noticed, Taylor. I know. Well, you wouldn't, you see.

Starting point is 05:02:47 You're not a connoisseur of these things. But you don't get a lot of busty women in beauty contests of the old school, right? So I was just sort of thinking, well, good for her. She didn't let that hold her back. And in case you're interested, it's finally won by Miss blackburn beverly isherwood um largely i think for a storming go in the round where the finalists get interviewed by esther ranson oh god yeah to see what their personalities are like esther comes on and grills them and to be fair beverly isherwood miss blackburn does actually have a personality so she wins good

Starting point is 05:03:25 beverly issue would best unknown as the original projected letters girl on countdown um really yes until the producers decided that having a dolly dealer for the numbers and a different one for the letters was just overkill so they axed her not. Not literally, as far as I know, much to Ray Moore's chagrin, but unceremoniously. But anyway, this song, I mean, there's absolutely no point in talking about the song or the routine, because if you're listening to child music,

Starting point is 05:03:56 you know every f*cking millisecond of it. But I've got to say that when I approached this song with fresh eyes, it just immediately hit me. It's another f*cking rock and roll song, isn't it? Oh, yeah. I mean, you can easily imagine Racy doing this with a bit more piano and a bit more drum. And they could even bring a girl on

Starting point is 05:04:13 so Mr. Racy could rip her skirt off. This could perfectly accompany, to be honest with you, Danny and Sandy on the Shaken Shack. I mean, it's got that Grease soundtrack feel to it. Yeah, and there's even more hand-jiving going on going on f*cking out but this record is very important to me i mean this was my forklands this record it really was i absolutely loved this when it came out extremely catchy great gimmicks gorgeous people perfect facial expressions great production it felt like an inevitable winner we were in that period i mean eng England goes through that period of caring about the Eurovision

Starting point is 05:04:46 and then, you know, not caring because actually we're good at music and we don't need to win it. But I think by 81, we were a bit pissed off we hadn't won it for a while. Five whole years, Neil. That's a drought, isn't it? Indeed. So we all thought, come on, it's a great song. It's got to win.

Starting point is 05:05:01 And, you know, Bucks Visit make better records, I think. London Maple Leaf, now those days are gone. And they'd find themselves, like Dollar, really, curiously adjacent to New Park. But I think this is, yeah, it's got,

Starting point is 05:05:11 it's that most irresistible moment. It's sort of clever enough not to just be totally dismissible as cheese, but it is dumb enough to get in your head on first exposure. Yeah.

Starting point is 05:05:21 And I did like, and I do think, I'm not totally barking up the wrong tree as a kid i thought the lyrics were kind of half a love song and half like at the judges you know because there's all this stuff about making your mind up and going for the right choice and it does feel it's got that that metanus so yeah this was the best moment to be english since the 66 cup final really yeah the lyrics always confuse me a bit because what do you really have to speed up and then really have to slow down i've lost valuable time

Starting point is 05:05:53 pondering this like in fear of having something important in my life running at the wrong speed which is something i've long suspected to be the case. Possibly oral sex. Eh, I don't know. I mean, I'll trust Bobby G on that. But I've also lost even more valuable time pondering on the exact meaning of the line, don't let your indecision take you from behind. Because if we really have to anthropomorphise

Starting point is 05:06:22 individual character traits in this way, I'm not sure that's the kind of behavior you'd associate with indecision. No. Taking you from behind, like, especially against your will, seems a bit assertive to me. Yeah, it's quite decisive, isn't it, really? Yeah. I mean, the only scenario I can imagine is that indecision had already come around the front of you and then decided to go round the back, and then it came back round the front again, and you were like, come on, this is ridiculous.

Starting point is 05:06:49 Yeah. I can't have this. A sort of pincer movement. Yeah. To the point where, eventually, you got so pissed off with it, indecision went storming out of the bedroom in tears, just screaming at you, look, I'm sorry, but if I wasn't like this, I wouldn't be ind indecision and if you don't like it why did you

Starting point is 05:07:07 f*cking marry me and out the door it's the kind of terrible emotional scene that people like bucks viz just don't think about no and they come swanning in telling everyone what they can and can't do it's terrible they ought to stick to what they're good at, which is cybernetics, blow football and necromancy. Do you know what I mean? It's supposed to be a really simple song. They're all there dressed like two-year-olds, in washing powder advert colours. But the lyrics to this song would bamboozle Ted Rogers,

Starting point is 05:07:41 master of the opaque verse. You can imagine it so you've chosen the ripped off knee length skirt that was brought in by Cheryl from Bucks Fizz you're standing there reading off the card you put your rubbish in this cylindrical tub you drive this down the road it's two weeks holiday in Marbella and an 18 piece set of stainless steel steak knives worth nearly 200 pounds now what do you think that might be remember you've already rejected dusty bin you don't have to worry about that you've rejected the car you've rejected a holiday in marbella and you've rejected an 18 piece set of stainless steel steak knives worth nearly 200 pounds piece set of stainless steel steak knives worth nearly 200 pounds now i think in general lyrically uh it's an answer song to shop around by smoky robinson isn't it don't you think if the the

Starting point is 05:08:33 answer song if the question posed by shop around had been can you write a song that's nowhere near as good as this and then sing it with about as much guts and aggression as if you were trying to stop a child crying. The answer to Smokey's question is a resounding yes. See, what we didn't realise at the time was how much it would f*ck up Eurovision chances for a good decade afterwards, you know. But I hugely remember the tension of the night itself. Oh, we'll come to that later, Neil.

Starting point is 05:09:04 But yeah, you that later, Neil. But yeah, you're right, man. I mean, this is an updated Brotherhood of Man who actually look like they might be in their 20s. One perky blonde, one saucy blonde, two men with lady dye hair. Come on, Europe, refuse that, you bastards. But it's got to be said that not everyone is raving about the hot new sound of Bucks Fizz,

Starting point is 05:09:25 because in a review of the Song for Europe contest in the Daily Mirror, Hilary Kingsley dared to write the following. We didn't need the viewing panels to tell us that the number nearest to the winning Eurovision Thump-a-Thump formula was making your mind up, performed by a set of ABBA lookalikes called Bucks Fizz. The song involved much bottom wiggling and grinning, with the two girls losing their swirling skirts to reveal swirling minis underneath. There was also a bit of jiving,

Starting point is 05:09:57 which must have gone down well in old folks' homes everywhere. I hate to sound unpatriotic but i hope the continental singers provide something better otherwise the eurovision song contest won't be worth the trouble typical ramona yeah traitor traitor so the eurovision song contest i mean there are very real fears at the moment as this episode's going out chaps that it's going to be disrupted by the National H-Block Committee, who will be forming a picket line, which is going to be very uncomfortable for one of the members of Sheba, Ireland's entry this year, whose brother is actually in the maze prison at the moment. But it raises the very real possibility of a dirty protest while books fizzle on. Is that necessary? Thankfully, though, they kept the protest outside the hall,

Starting point is 05:10:52 and we were treated to what I thought was a very disco-centric Eurovision, don't you think? You know, a good three years after the event. Yeah, that's the way it goes, isn't it? I mean, because the Eurovision Song Contest, I mean, I'm 12 years old, and I should have no time by now, but I remember it very clearly.

Starting point is 05:11:10 I remember being absolutely f*cking co*ck-a-hoop when we won, because, you know, I'm English. I'd seen England fail so many times since 1976 that I'd given up on the football side of things. Eurovision was my one chance to see Britain winning somewhere. Yeah, it was an amazing night.

Starting point is 05:11:27 Yeah. Well, if you want your memory refreshed, in the interests of interest, I watched the 1981 Eurovision Song Contest when I could have been wanking. Come on, Taylor, give it, man. Hosted by Ireland this year, as Terry Wogan says, because of Johnny Logan's victory at the Hague I knew those

Starting point is 05:11:47 charges would never stick so here we are back in the good old days of Ireland when priests were just allowed to randomly kick you in the bollocks there wasn't enough electricity to go around red lemonade and chocolate with bits of crisps in it. This is my understanding. And the entries in capsule form read verbatim from my scribbled notes as quickly as possible. Austria, Venduda Bist by Marty Brehm. Generic Euro ballad sung by white-suited Tucker Carlson bloke with backing vocals by a beautiful young woman in leotard,

Starting point is 05:12:24 pop socks and an American football helmet. They must have their reasons. Turkey. Don Me Dolap by the Modern Folk Trio. Since there are four of them, their name is inaccurate on three separate counts. Lead singer described by Terry as a very pretty girl.

Starting point is 05:12:42 Germany. Johnny Blue by Lena Valaitis. Olivia Newton, John. Described by Terry as a very attractive performer. She's Lithuanian. She weren't German. Sorry, I just thought I'd insert that there. Is that a fact?

Starting point is 05:12:57 Yeah, it is a fact. She was Lithuanian. She wasn't German. Yeah, there's a couple there who invented a ringer, as we shall see. Luxembourg. C'est peut-être pas l'Amérique by Jean-Claude Pascal, who apparently lacks the certainty of David Bowie.

Starting point is 05:13:17 This song, sung by a teak-faced, bucket-voiced 60-year-old crooner, has everything you associate with Luxembourg. Israel. Halila by Habibi, spelt with a l-a-y-l-a so this halfway possible showbiz disco number becomes the best song ever written with a title spelt like that lead singer introduced by terry as schlommet who's an attractive girl denmark crawler la by tommy seeback and debbie cameron Denmark, Kroller LA by Tommy Seaback and Debbie Cameron. Tonight's only multiracial act, inevitably singing about the fact that they are a multiracial act. Lady done up as a 1920s flapper and bloke done up as a prick.

Starting point is 05:13:58 Yugoslavia, Leila by Saeed Memichvaita. The long-suspected transitional form between Demis Roussos and Dr. Hook, spelt L-E-I-L-A, but pronounced Layla, so this undistinguished nug of nothing becomes the best song ever written with a title pronounced like that. Finland,

Starting point is 05:14:20 Reggae OK, by Ricky Saucer, the I-Roy to Paul Nicholas's Uroy, dressed in a rhubarb and custard-coloured harlequin outfit with a footballer's haircut. Author of the book Sipple Out Dare, an illustrated history of South Ostrobothnia. Music for this one written by Jim Pembroke,

Starting point is 05:14:42 British leader of Finnish prog rock band Wigwam. Whoa. And the song that brought the accordion into the reggae sphere. Indeed. About time. France, Humana Hum by Jean Gabelou, from the people Orson Welles would call, uh, the French.

Starting point is 05:14:59 As though in a deliberate attempt to bust stereotypes and defy preconceptions, France's entry this year is an arrogant-looking man in an open-neck suit growling a histrionic ballad into a hand mic. Spain. E solo tu, by Baccheli, another ringer. This man is Italian, even though he looks like he should be a bloke called Mike from Swansea.

Starting point is 05:15:22 Should be disqualified for fielding an ineligible player and also for wearing a white double-breasted jacket with grey slacks spain's selection of this song proves that they were still only just getting to grips with democracy netherlands hit is in wonder by linda williams this is what a really big fan of the nitty-gritty dirt band thinks abba sound like and considering they've stolen the synth sound and some of the notes in one sense they'd be right linda williams introduced by terry as a charming lady married with two children ireland horoscopes by sheba as seen on the bbc summertime special as mentioned by me what feels like a week ago a spirited condemnation of astrology which goes it's crazy crazy don't let the planets take

Starting point is 05:16:15 control of our lives believe in the truth and not celestial lies which i would applaud were it not for the suspicion that this is not actually a sceptic's anthem. And by the truth, they mean Christianity and specifically Roman Catholicism. Throw away almanacs, signs of the zodiac when there is sense to be found. They are celestial. We are terrestrial. Let's keep our feet on the ground. We are terrestrial.

Starting point is 05:16:44 Let's keep our feet on the ground. Described by Terry as three attractive Irish girls. Very charming. Very pretty. Norway. Audrey Ilevite by Finn Kalvik. Incomprehensible attempt to be charming by a clean shaven Kenny Burns. In the voting becomes the definitive Nolpo point, the OG, if you will.

Starting point is 05:17:11 No, mate, there were loads of nil pointers in the 50s and 60s in Europe. Oh, really? But in 1970, they changed the way they voted, and there was a drought of nil point until 1978. Jan Tegen, Milete Mil. You know that one, surely. Which one was that? It looks a bit like Iggy Pop nowadays, and he's dressed like XTC's dad, and he's doing his bit and everything,

Starting point is 05:17:32 and then all of a sudden he just goes, Me Let Him Meal. But no, carry on. Sorry to interrupt. United Kingdom, making your mind up by Bucks V. Yes, come on, come on. Introdu to interrupt. United Kingdom, Making Your Mind Up by Bucks Fizz. Yes, come on! Go on! Introduced by Terry, an Irishman sat in Ireland

Starting point is 05:17:50 observing a contest in which Ireland are taking part against the United Kingdom as the song we've been waiting for. But here they are, flying the flag. Truly a band to put the great back into Great Britain is a bit tatty. Jay's high harmony shredded by the demands of the dance routine and manic grin. They f*cked up, didn't they? Yeah, it sounds f*cking horrible. Oh, yeah, it's breathless, isn't it?

Starting point is 05:18:15 Wasn't Cheryl singing in a key too high? And the lead mics were given to the wrong people. Oh. Yeah, it was a bit of a balls-up. A bit of a gemini well no harm done best bit is when the men rip the ladies clothes off um almost done not long to go now portugal playback by carlos piao oh yes it looks like if bruno fernandez had a little brother who resented br Bruno getting all the attention.

Starting point is 05:18:46 So he's got a blue plastic anorak, stick on dickie bow, backing band dressed as Ludo counters. They're well chock-a-block, aren't they? Yeah. This is probably my favourite of all these songs, just because practically the whole thing is on one note, which in the context of Eurovision sounds stylistically outrageous. But if you put it in the open air, it'd die like a fish. Belgium, Samson by Emily Starr, song described by Terry as one of their strongest, I think, for some time.

Starting point is 05:19:17 And I think it can fairly be described as one of the strongest Belgian entries to the Eurovision Song Contest in one particular time period, according to one man's subjective opinion. Lead singer described by Terry as best legs in the contest. Home straight. Grease. Figari Calacarino by Yanis Dimitris. dagari calacarino by janice dimitris bearded youngish man singing all around a female pianist described by terry as 18 years of age like a music teacher a little bit too fond of his star pupil who may or may not be blind like lionel richie's was because she doesn't seem to notice him or look

Starting point is 05:20:00 at him at any point as well as how he's inhaling a um cyprus monica by island six people dressed in outfits based around the colors gray indigo lilac pink and aubergine sort of a song switzerland eo sensate by peter sue and mark mustachioed sing-along with a guitarist he looks like he's on trial for his life and a balding man playing panpipes in white shoes with a bit of a heel. And finally, Sweden, Fangad, E and Drom by Bjorn Skiffs. Lads, face it, the glory days aren't coming back. But the Swedes staying true to their reputation

Starting point is 05:20:42 as one of the more tuned-in musical nations in Europe because unlike most of the more tuned-in musical nations in Europe, because unlike most of the entries, this does at least sound like some utter sh*t from 1981. Right. And then Planxty come on and play an Irish reel, reels being something I find about as welcoming music as on Facebook. So I fast-forwarded to the voting, which, as ever, is some of the most austere ritualistic television

Starting point is 05:21:06 ever broadcast at weekend prime time yeah although the actual race is pretty exciting in this one but of course in the end just like in two world wars one world cup and so many swimming ice dancing and short and middle distance running events of the 1980s, God's will prevails, as usual after a dogfight with the Swiss. And slick old broadcasting dog Terry talks right over the moment when Bucks Fizz reach the number of points they need and actually win it, completely spoiling the drama. And at this point he still sounds sober, so he's got no excuse.

Starting point is 05:21:47 I seem to recall the last vote's quite shocking, isn't it? Because it hinges on it. It's like Switzerland give Germany zero and they give us eight in the penultimate vote. Yeah. And that's what swings it, isn't it? Yeah, a bit ungrateful, that. They're Swiss bearer grudge, man.

Starting point is 05:22:01 Or something. Where's that famous new travel team? Yeah, yeah, yeah. But, yeah, it was a very tense night. Yeah, they should have given 12 points to everyone. Switzerland should have done it. So, yes, the golden year of Bucks Fizz. But let's not forget, chaps, that with success comes problems,

Starting point is 05:22:18 as they're going to soon discover. Article in the stage from a few weeks from now, Bucks Fizz, this year's Eurovision winners, can look forward to a date list which includes engagements at the London Palladium, Bayliss Club Watford and the Night Out Birmingham.

Starting point is 05:22:35 But the group's formation means that there are now two Bucks Fizz acts working the circuit. The other Bucks Fizz comprises three Cambridge graduates who perform a Camp Noel Coward style show and are managed by Stephen Hayter, owner of

Starting point is 05:22:52 London's Embassy Club. They were formed 18 months ago but the Eurovision line-up founded earlier this year has already registered the name. So f*ck off David Van Day. Hayter claimed he was not worried our group cannot say hello in three languages and we have no intention of teaching them he commented well

Starting point is 05:23:14 they must be right think bunch of c*nts i can f*cking do that yeah it's more than three languages where it's just hello yeah but sadly for taylor and his ilk the gig at the night out didn't happen because they had to pull out to make a top of the pops appearance so they were replaced by the brotherhood of man oh f*ck me that's so yeah to be fair pioneers, the first of the shabbers. They must be, right? Because people think of Bucks Fizz as being a shabber, but there was a lot of it about at this time, wasn't there? The Doolies had gone shabber.

Starting point is 05:24:00 Tight Fit were about to come roaring in with Fantasy Island. Guys and Dolls. Guys and Dolls. After Barry and Yvonne left. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But more disturbingly, chaps, is this other article in the stage from September. Headline,

Starting point is 05:24:13 Bucks Fizz Con Man Escapes With Cash. Police are looking for a blonde con man who escaped with cash from two... I know who you're thinking of immediately. Who escaped with cash from two theater box officers by passing himself off as a well-known pop singer the cheeky imposter claimed that he was mike nolan of bucks fizz and even came equipped with a stack of records by the group small sums of money 50 pounds in one case 18 pound in another went missing from two Blackpool theatres shortly after his visit. In both cases, he gained admittance to the box office

Starting point is 05:24:52 by saying that he wanted to telephone the theatre manager and discuss the possibility of Bucks Fizz staging a charity concert and police a warning that he could strike again. So, touch one one eye touch other eye keep them peeled last scene speeding away in a burger van yes so books fears well on their way to success and glory and you know already if you want a measure of how well this song's going to do i remember it already being parodied in the playground as you've got to shove it up and then you've got to twist it round.

Starting point is 05:25:34 It's a nailed on certainty, man. Straight to the bookmakers, everyone. Oh, yeah. Seal of quality, that, isn't it? I mean, I see some cool similar things. Yeah, I mean, there was not an inevitability about their success. They could have just disappeared, didn't they? Oh, yeah, definitely.

Starting point is 05:25:49 Given the songs that they were given, they were all right. I mean, what's Love got to do with it was initially offered to Buxfers, wasn't it? God, yeah. Recorded a demo. I don't think it actually appeared on an album, did it? No. Yeah. You've really got to twist it round.

Starting point is 05:26:03 Yeah, I know. yeah you really gotta twist it around yeah i know is this like it's quite sort of forward thinking because it's really it centers uh sex toy use yes predates the rabbit yeah rather than piv there yeah so i gotta ask how do you think making your mind up would have got on in this year's eurovision chaps oh yeah it's a very catchy number i think it's it's ageless and it would have done pretty damn good um they are for the white heterosexual women and men so that might count against them but you know because it's not really the eurovision song contest anymore is it it's a eurovision emotional gut punch contest yeah and i fear that the song and the routine wouldn't have cut it oh yeah you know i mean i think if books were doing

Starting point is 05:26:52 it in the last eurovision song contest it would have to involve cheryl and jay ripping off mike and bobby's trousers and they waving their penises about because that would pass muster with the woke snowflakes of today what with the ukrainian flag painted on their balls or yes yes definitely yeah or they could have had uh leotards made up for the girls with pictures of viscera on it and worn that under their clothes so they could do that line and if you want to see even more and rip the front off them so it'll look like organs and a rib cage and stuff. It would have worked quite well. Or they could have hired smaller versions of Cheryl Baker and Jay Aston

Starting point is 05:27:34 and then when it got to that bit, rip their whole bodies away to reveal the miniature versions inside. So if you want to see some less. Did you watch it this year? No no i don't bother anymore because it's all too knowing it's all too winky nudgy i mean the fact that it's become gay christmas is f*cking brilliant but i miss the seriousness of it you know what i mean yeah it's not for us anymore no basically which is fine oh yeah yeah mean, I'm guessing that previous on-chart music, we've acknowledged Cheryl Baker's huge part in kick-starting Britpop.

Starting point is 05:28:09 What? Well, you know Blur's first TV appearance? Go on. It was doing There's No Other Way on Sunday morning cooking show Eggs and Baker. Really? Right. Yeah, a key moment in the Britpop history,

Starting point is 05:28:21 which is unacknowledged. So thank you, Cheryl. It would have been funny if Jay had had a programme where she'd been the first people to put Oasis on TV. Yeah! It could have been set in Spain called Aston's Villa. Yeah, let's not get that sh*t on the

Starting point is 05:28:36 Villa, man. So, the following week, making your mind up, smashed into the charts at 24, then soared 19 places to number 5. On the verge of the contest, it tucked in at number 2. And after edging out West Germany by 4 points to win Eurovision for the UK for the first time since 1976, it deposed Konrad Schaecker and stayed at number 1 for 3 weeks,

Starting point is 05:29:01 giving way to Stand and Deliver by Adam and the Ants. It's also got to number one in Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Ireland, Israel and the Netherlands, selling over four million copies worldwide and finishing the year as the seventh biggest selling single of 1981. It's also spawned not one but three immediate cover versions, Mi Ma A Valverloco by Paraches, the mini-pops of Barcelona, My Rock and Roll Cowboy by Maggie May, the Deirdre Barlow of German Schlager who was known as the Mad Hen, and it's only a wind-up by Brown Ale, a collective led by Stephanie De Sykes. Ooh, Stephanie De Sykes! Who refused permission to release it by the co-owner of the publishing rights,

Starting point is 05:29:51 Billy Lorre. Lulu us, brother. The follow-up piece of the action got to number 12 in June, and one of those nights only got to number 20 for two weeks in September but in November they closed out the year by releasing Land of Make Believe which took eight

Starting point is 05:30:12 weeks to nimbly scale the charts and got to number one for two weeks in January of 1982 while the group was still on £30 a week their weekly stipend from the record company, until the royalties started to kick in. But they did receive an estimated 1,000 bottles of champagne during their many personal appearances, and a car dealer gave them a mini Metro each. Stephen Fisher, the Pete Best of Bucks Fizz, finally got his place in the sun

Starting point is 05:30:44 when he teamed up with his girlfriend Sally Ann Triplett as Bardo, who represented the UK in the 1982 Eurovision Song Contest and took their song one step further to number two. And 17 years later, when the eggs laid by the parasitic wasp of Bucks Fizz began to hatch, Bucks Fizz, not yet David Van Day's Bucks Fizz, released Making Your Mind Up 98, featuring Van Day, Mike Nolan and some birds.

Starting point is 05:31:14 But despite the Europop update, Paul Laver's appearing in the video, and a bit where the girls ripped open their tops to reveal their wonder-brought-up jubilage, it only got to number 84 in May of that year. According to Van Day in that incredible Trouble at the Top episode, quote, Although we didn't do the skirt-ripping routine, we did this 90s thing.

Starting point is 05:31:40 I felt we were in the boob age. We came up with this idea where the girls would rip their tops off and they would have skimpy bras on underneath and I thought it was a nice thing to move it on. I mean, at least the girls did the Velcro ripping bit themselves, which is extremely feminist of David Van Dyke. It's such a fantastic thing, that, isn't it? That trouble at the top thing oh my god we've

Starting point is 05:32:06 got to cover it one day in full obviously it's very difficult to like david van day but how dull would pop be without him yes without moments like that and without the coach trip that you know he's gone oh that was glorious that was amazing People were moaning on in the last Eurovision that Sonya pitched up to make a special appearance. And it's like, no, no, no, no. Hang on a minute. Say what you like for Sonya. You go and look at her battling with David Van Day

Starting point is 05:32:34 in that reborn in the USA. And then come back to me and then go and apologise to Sonya. Yeah. She's f*cking brilliant in that. Yeah, really upped her in my estimation that yeah definitely and before we go chaps i do need to ask how did you feel when you found out the other week about the announcement of teresa bazaar's dollar did you punch the air like i did yes yes i did especially when you found out that she'd actually got an ex-member of the Fizzing to replace David Van Dyke.

Starting point is 05:33:05 Oh, my God. Oh, my. If she'd have got Bobby G in, I think the universe would have collapsed in on itself. It would have been a perfect end to human existence. Britain's entry to Eurovision, Max Fizz and Making Your Mind Up. Good luck to them. OK, their number one in Germany at the moment is Fade to Grey,

Starting point is 05:33:34 which is a single released before this in Britain. It's Fizzage, a mind of a toy. My bleeding face is chipped and cracked. My mind seems to fade too fast. Clutching straws, sinking slow. Nothing lasts. Nothing lasts. As Powell, off camera, wishes Buxfiz the best of British, we're immediately catapulted into the glossy futurescape of now as he introduces us to the current occupants of the very summit of Poppenburg. This arch with Mind of a Toy.

Starting point is 05:34:12 Born in Newbridge, Caerphilly in 1959, Stephen Harrington was the son of a former paratrooper turned seaside cafe mogul who spent his teenage years as a Bowie youth and Northern Soul disciple who caught on to punk very early due to his many weekend visits to London and first came to public attention when his photo appeared in the western mail with the headline Wales's first punk. After seeing the sex

Starting point is 05:34:38 pistols at their gig in Caerphilla which resulted in every pub in the area being boarded up and local religious nutters holding a protest in the car park, Harrington, who was now calling himself Steve Strange, linked up with Glenn Matlock for a drink afterwards, which would have long-term implications. That Pistols gig inspired Strange to start organising punk gigs in Wales, where he got to know Billy Idol and Jean-Jacques Bernal, which inspired him to relocate to London in 1977.

Starting point is 05:35:08 Desperate to get in on the music scene, he was roped into an extremely loose collective involving Sue Catwoman, Topper Hedden and Chrissie Hynde, which immediately made a splash in the tabloids. Article in the Sunday Mirror dated January 8th, 1978. Why must they be so cruel? A new rock group called the Moors Murderers have recorded a number called Free Myra Hindley.

Starting point is 05:35:37 The disc is a plea by the members of the band for the release of the infamous murderess. The man behind the record is Dave Goodman, who claims to have produced records for the Sex Pistols. The lead singer and guitarist calls himself Steve Brader. After Ian Brader, Myra Hindley's lover and accomplice in the horrific Morse killings, the group refused to be photographed

Starting point is 05:36:01 unless their faces are masked with hoods or plastic bags. Leader Brady said last night, the least a criminal sentence to life can expect is consideration for parole. Tut, tut, tut. Did somebody interview them and say, so, do you really mean this or is it just a publicity stunt? Yes. Although the single was never released, the experience scared him off a music

Starting point is 05:36:27 career for a bit although he did fill in as a front man of a liverpool band called the photons but when matt lock's new band the rich kids got a record deal he started working in their london office where he teamed up with the band's drummer rusty ey Egan, to start up an assortment of Bowie and Roxy music nights at a club called Soho called Billy's in mid-1978, with Strange working the door to keep people who weren't getting into the dress-up spirit away and Egan on the decks. By early 1979, the club nights were becoming so successful

Starting point is 05:37:02 that Strange was offered a residency at the Blitz Club in Covent Garden, which was located between two major art colleges and became a magnet for young designers and the future peaco*cks of pop, including Boy George, Marilyn, Azy Fantasia, Spandau Ballet, and Martin Degville, to name but a few.

Starting point is 05:37:23 While the club harvested a swathe of media attention, particularly when it was reported that Strange had barred Mick Jagger out due to the place being rammed out, Strange was approached by Midyore, keyboard player of the Rich Kids, who told him that the band were on the verge of splitting up due to musical differences, EMI owed him a wodge of studio time, and he wanted to try something new and electronic. He invited him and Egan to work on a demo together which resulted in Visage and

Starting point is 05:37:53 the single Tar, which was put out on Radar Records in 1979 but failed to chart. Undeterred, the trio pulled in Billy Curry of Ultravox, who would invite her to replace John Fox as the frontman of the band very soon after, and John McGeoch, Dave Formula and Barry Adamson of Magazine. of it and left it on the shelf for six months, eventually putting it out in November of 1980, along with the lead-off single Fade to Grey. It took a month for it to enter the chart at number 68, but with the help of a video directed by Godley and Cream, it began a seven-week cruise all the way up to number eight over here last month and number one in switzerland and west germany at the moment with fate of grace still in the charts at number 40 this follow-up immediately became a new entry at number 32 and this week it's gone up eight places to number 24 so here is the video once again directed by godly and cream and f*cking yes finally 1981 is here and finally steve strange comes into play it actually feels like the first time in the episode we're witnessing

Starting point is 05:39:15 something that that could not have happened in the 70s exactly and it also feels like the diametric opposite of phil collins very much so i like this song a lot it's probably my second favorite visage after night train and just better for me than than fay to gray it's an interesting time this because i don't think music journalists as yet in early 81 are so convinced of new pop let alone the futurists or the new romantics that they're bold enough to say it's okay for steve strange to kind of look amazing and be incredibly stylish. Every interview I've read in 80 and 81, he's having to fend off these very sort of raucous questions about superficiality, about not having any substance to it.

Starting point is 05:39:56 You know, it's very much still assumed that if you self-create yourself in fashion or style, there's got to be this hollowness inside. Whereas, you know, I'd argue quite the opposite. And, you know, actually, there's just to be this hollowness inside whereas um you know i'd argue quite the opposite and you know actually there's just as much pop artifice and phil collins dressed downness as there is in strangers dressed upness um but the cut of his gym man watching this um age day watching this amazing video and don't forget it also it also needs remembering the retrospective um way people look at times,

Starting point is 05:40:25 as if everyone knew what the New Romantics were, or it existed. It might have done in London. Out in the sticks, New Romantic was just one lyric in a Duran Duran song, to be honest with you. I mean, they did get a lot of tabloid attention. So it was known about, but you didn't see any in the street. You certainly didn't see any in the street no you certainly didn't see any of them at school no no i mean this is this weird in-between period really where we find this bizarre video it's in between the release of fate of gray and basically spandau and juran are going

Starting point is 05:40:56 to eventually have a victory in this entire sphere really they're going to win but what's really noticeable at this time when you're a man like i said it hadn't really been coined for most of us what was thrilling about visage as a little kid was that even i mean you'd been aware of craft work maybe but you know you could not visualize how this music was being made even with human lead you could see guys the boring looking guys in the background doing stuff but whenever you caught Visage on the telly, it was always a video or just strange, just, you know, Steve, basically. So you had to kind of imagine the making of this music. So that helped. And this video is f*cking fantastic.

Starting point is 05:41:38 Yeah, a proper music video. You know, none of the band pretending to play a gig or the band having fun in the studio bollocks here. This is pure concept. And the kind of poncing about that's going to set the playground ablaze tomorrow morning. Yeah, yeah. Because Visage are pretty much the first band of the era who bring out a new video rather than a new single. Yeah.

Starting point is 05:42:01 And the early 80s wasn't all fun and games. No. I really would like to like this. But to me, it's like if you took the early 80s wasn't all fun and games no i really would like to like this but to me it's like if you took the early 80s ground them down into meal fed it to a diseased hog waited for it to pass through his polyp ridden digestive system and then when it emerged froze that liquid sh*t into the shape of a giant hammer and then a dull bewildered farmhand walked by picked up the frozen pig sh*t hammer and smashed you in the temple with it this is that intense level of early 80sness that you see in old episodes of riverside oh yes the bbc youth

Starting point is 05:42:40 magazine show of the time of which no caricature is possible because the early eight is a already being pushed to the absolute conceptual limit of early eight isness and satire expires in the resulting vacuum i mean if this track had a composer credit of curtis goodall it wouldn't look any different and it would only sound better possibly a niche reference there but f*ck it let's use what freedoms we have remaining and i just i can't help thinking for all the great things about punk and post-punk this is what happens when deeply untalented people are given the means to express themselves you know it's better nothing, but it's worse than anything good. You know, Midge Urin, Rusty Egan, the swan's legs thrashing away beneath the still water here. I mean, f*cking hell.

Starting point is 05:43:33 I just can't go with it. He looks like, you know, the supposedly cursed painting of the crying boy. Yes. yes and in fact everyone who bought a copy of mind of a toy by visage did soon find their house burning down and in the charred ruins right there in the middle of what used to be the front room they found the seven inch of this record completely untouched by the fire but there was nothing supernatural about it um it turned out those fires were started by uh music lovers so fair is fair and the reason the record didn't burn is it was sh*t all of that just sounds great though to me the the pig sh*t hammer etc yeah as jimmy tarbuck would say we've got a difference of opinion here

Starting point is 05:44:20 we're going to have to agree to disagree but i know it sounds great to me too that's what annoys me about this record i should be enjoying it um yeah i should certainly be enjoying the video and i do think it's a mostly positive mark of the time that although these people must at some level be at least peripherally aware of their own mediocrity. They still dress up this way and they still call themselves, you know, Ian Interesting and construct a... Ian Interesting, I'd buy his records. Yeah, I mean, it's, you know, it's a fantasy self, however secondhand it looks, because the notion still prevails that pop stars should be something other than ordinary. it looks because the notion still prevails that pop stars should be something other than ordinary and if you can't achieve that naturally you should force it which is the complete opposite of what

Starting point is 05:45:10 it's like now obviously where being an identikit middle-class kid in a jumper is a selling point because now it's a desperate market and so the trick is not to alienate anyone yeah and so this is a lot better than that because at least it's funny and at least it's umbilically connected to something which was sort of kind of counter cultural right but the trouble is it's one thing to say that pop is better when it's a bit silly and overdressed and a bit preposterous and that's usually true but i just think if a record is in my subjective opinion as crappy as this one it breaks the spell and suddenly you're just looking at some bloke standing there in makeup thick enough to stop a bullet uh dressed like adrian headley and

Starting point is 05:46:01 you know he neither looks good enough to legitimize that or surprising or weird enough to make looking good irrelevant and that's the fine line between glorious and ludicrous but you're kind of witnessing this in isolation when you say that i mean in the context of this episode it's a moment i mean there's this sense yeah it is when you read in the press about strange uh you know early 80s stuff, it's kind of, it's a very London-based press. And consequently, they see him as running this club night, this new movement. You know, out here in the sticks, of course, you know, especially age date,

Starting point is 05:46:34 we're not cognizant of that. We just see him as this weird figure. He'd crop up on the telly now and then. And in between times, you know, presumably climb into a crypt until being awakened again. If new romantic history is all about the way club culture feeds into and is kind of fed on by the music business that's fine but for us underage as much as we clung to say two-tone by what we could get hold of i.e harrington's maybe you know embraces we hung on to something like visage well i certainly

Starting point is 05:47:01 did anyway sort of purely on videos like this really they were exciting things in the middle of quite a bland period for top of the pops i mean if this single had come out a couple years before like a lot of electronic pop it wouldn't really have been seen as a change in direction for british music it would have been seen as numenoid you know but now that now that newman's moment has faintly passed and steve stranger's becoming known i i think it hits that much harder and the video is fantastic it's kind of maddening that it's cut short in this episode of top of the pops uh because you know you don't forget what we've been through you know i mean i know it looks fierce but we've been through phil collins and we've been through the who and you know we want

Starting point is 05:47:41 something that i'm not saying we're there thirsting for modernity or something, but we want something to look at, you know? And we certainly did not get that with f*cking Dave Stewart and Colin Blundstone. Yeah, this is true. You know? So, yeah, I think it's important to remember that at this point, in this rather bland episode, it does feel like something new and exciting, I think.

Starting point is 05:48:02 Oh, yeah. As we all know, know chaps the last video featured steve strange having a snake painted on his arm that bits him in his own face so following that up is going to be a big ass so you know let's see how he gets on and the first thing we notice is we're hit with the sight of a gilt mirror frame on a blue background on a blue wall displaying a blue staircase is that godly increase of clearly being given a proper budget this time because you know there's a proper glossy sheen to this that would have stood out even on 1981 crappy tellies yeah yeah it feels like i'm not saying it births mtv or anything but it'd sit nicely with all the other big budget videos at the time and then a load of

Starting point is 05:48:40 teddy bears tumble down the stairs and then then we're confronted by Strange the Clock, which is a terrifying big grandfather clock with Steve Strange's own face, which has taken Homer Simpson's makeup gun full in the face, and with an arm for a pendulum. That's f*cking mental. And then, while we're still trying to process that, we're confronted by a puppet of Steve Strange.

Starting point is 05:49:04 Some kid kids dressed as steve strange who was in his little or funcleroy outfit and then my favorite bit which was massive licorice all sorts tumbling down the stairs so the viewer can imagine themselves sitting at the bottom with their mouths wide open going slew did you notice there were no pink ones was that a trademark thing i wonder oh oh you see the pink ones would be the one as well would have been well i hate f*cking licorice all sorts yeah i'm like you neil the pink ones are my absolute favorite i liked licorice all sorts but i didn't like licorice so i would just nibble the good bits off and just love the licorice in the ashtray

Starting point is 05:49:42 which used to piss my mum off, no end. I mean, what should have happened was Steve Strange pitching up as Bertie Bassett. Because, you know, after all, he is Britain's greatest asset. And then we get a really creepy bit where Strange confronts his own puppet who kind of, like, sneaks off in fast motion. And then he rides a rocking horse. He's essentially picked up 1981 and he's

Starting point is 05:50:07 battering us around the head with it yeah yeah a real sense in this of the sort of horror of puppetry and crucially it's not something so out of the ordinary i mean this was stuff you might have had in your own home the teddies the jack-in-the-box the rocking horse it very much reminds me of uh the sort of infamous disturbing sequence in dario agento's profundo russo with a puppet and also the final you know which we all know the herbert lom sequence in asylum as well that came to mind i mean what a shame that he didn't have sooty and sweep and sue playing the sims man that would have been perfect that would have taken the edge off it a little bit i mean at the time

Starting point is 05:50:45 i would have taken right against this because it wasn't real kids issues and it immediately became the forgotten follow-up to fade to grey but when it came on when i revisited for this episode i did f*cking go yes because you know now i've grown up i can really appreciate a good ponce about and it's not like i've paid for the making of the video so you f*ck it have this on what it reminded me of was a few months ago when sam smith one of the most boring pop stars even in this sh*tty period of music when he turns up at the brit awards looking like a prostate stimulator and you know you immediately got all the usual twats moaning on about it while i was

Starting point is 05:51:25 thinking oh f*cking hell he's actually done something interesting for once yeah yeah well in thin gruelish times you know these sort of slim pickings that they're there to be yeah grab that and that underlying theme of the lyrics i should say that you know i love it discarded like a toy i think it works it's sort of strong enough to be understandable by grown-ups and kids so yeah i mean i actually had a distinct sensory memory of this coming on in this episode and suddenly feeling happy top of the pops was on where i hadn't for sort of the past half an hour to be honest i consulted blitzed the autobiography of steve strange in the hope of finding out something about the making of the video but all i got was him

Starting point is 05:52:05 describing what the video is which i've just done so that's no use to anyone but what he does say is maybe the video was too effective it was banned by top of the pops because they said it was frightening for children well hand going to chin. When a hand goes to a chin. Strange has this habit, I should say, you know, is it misremembering? I don't know whether you call it, because you know the Moors murderous thing. I mean, you know, in interviews he's saying,

Starting point is 05:52:36 I never knew anything about that. You know, I turned up, I didn't know that they were going to call the band this, but that's clearly not the case, is it? No. It's after the event correction of history, i suspect that there is as well yeah i changed my name in tribute to liam brady yes imagine my surprise i mean look i'll i'll grant you that this is not boring to look at yeah um yeah that's you know which is the first hurdle overcome you know do you like any visage

Starting point is 05:53:06 well i like fades great yeah yeah but i tend to think they should have left it at that really do you know what i mean it's like it's just look it because if you could if you do one single you can sail on the novelty of it and the the sort of initial shock of what you look like. But after that, you kind of got to sort of do some music. You know what I mean? And to me, this is just another illustration of the axiom that nobody who ever took David Bowie as their primary influence ever made really good music. It never happened. Loads of people have taken bits from david bowie and made it work but nobody ever took him as their main central inspiration and survived artistically because

Starting point is 05:53:51 you can't take most of that stuff and use it yourself because it was fine-tuned for him yeah and his own strengths and weaknesses and if you do it yourself you're going to be fundamentally second rate not just because you're an original but because you're not david bowie and this is the difference between being a post-modern artist who steals and adapts and thus forges a true expression of themselves as a human being a drift in a culture of other people's ideas and just being a c*nt in a silly hat just making an exhibition of yourself but you're saying you're saying that being a c*nt in the silly hat just make it an exhibition of yourself but you're saying you're saying that being a c*nt in the silly hat in a way i know exactly what you mean because it's like david bowie's definitively post-modern so if you're going to be post-modern about somebody post-modern

Starting point is 05:54:34 the dilution gets too thin doesn't it yes yeah yeah i know what you mean and but i i still think visage have something um and actually you know what it is i i'm not saying these are great songs but they they i think it's a kid thing for me because nobody's repping in my experience you know night train by visage i f*cking really love that song and yeah i liked it too i really liked it at the time um but it's not held up as some sort of great classic of the early 80s so perhaps it is kids stuff but you know i mean what else have we got in this episode well in the interest of fairness first of all i don't think you could i should say i don't think you can blame david bowie for any of this any more than if some idiot jumps out of a window

Starting point is 05:55:20 thinking they can fly you can blame superman um and in some ways robert wyatt yeah in some ways i do admire his bloody minded refusal to accept that he doesn't look very good dressed like this and he doesn't really you know he's not a mysterious guy and to some extent you can even almost appreciate the determination to carry on regardless because he has no other musical vocabulary. Right. You can feel him thinking, no, no, I've allowed this to mean everything to me. I can't do anything else now. You know, I can't get a job in a pet shop.

Starting point is 05:56:01 And it's a bit of a gray area because we do need people who think like that even if we don't necessarily need this you know I don't know it's like all those people you read those interviews with rock stars and they say oh I never did any work at school

Starting point is 05:56:16 I never went and got a job because I knew that I was going to make it I never doubted myself and of course you're not hearing from a representative cross section of everyone who's ever said that because nobody's ever bothered to interview 99 of the c*nts so it's just yeah i don't know but i also i do feel bad for steve strange because at some point he rang up midure and said okay f*cker what's next? And Mijua said, yeah, I'm in Ultravox now, bye.

Starting point is 05:56:45 Yeah. And he was sort of left stranded on a bit of floating ice like a climate-changed polar bear. You mean nothing to me. Yeah. Can you imagine being dependent on Mijua? f*cking hell. With his one-ounce moustache.

Starting point is 05:57:02 f*ck. In fact, was anyone with a standalone mustache any good i mean if you once you rule out some 80s soul singers who did one good single right who is that prince uh lee hazelwood when he looked like john alderton um paul mccartney when he looked like john alderton um john lennon when he looked like a Victorian doctor and then what else have you got there's Hitler, Stalin Ewer

Starting point is 05:57:31 Viv Stanchel yeah but beyond that Sune S, South Yorkshire Police Mr Bronson DLT if you shaved off the rest of his beard and just left the moustache

Starting point is 05:57:47 Dominic Raab if he grew a moustache it's not a happy crew is it you've raised the problem with Visage because you know they're being pitched as this neo band but it's a f*cking super group you know every time Visage come out with a song the automatic response is oh so this

Starting point is 05:58:05 wasn't good enough for ultravox was it this wasn't good enough for suzy and the banshees was it this wasn't good enough for f*cking magazine for folks sake yeah but their impact relies on my not me but their impact relies on our ignorance to a certain extent you know i didn't know any of that you know when i heard the name Visage, the only thing that I associated it with was Steve. So, you know, all of the rest of it, I didn't know or care about, to be honest with you, at the age that I was.

Starting point is 05:58:36 But, you know, f*ck it. What would you sooner have on top of the Pops in 1981? This or Status Quo? Or Shaking Stevens? There's lots of Quo. You know what I mean? there's lots of quote you know good records in this chart this week that don't get on oh yeah you know and there's lots of sh*t records

Starting point is 05:58:51 on now we may disagree about the sh*tness of this record I quite like it this is using top the pops time much better than an awful lot of other things on this episode yeah I agree with all that and you know he's dead now, so God bless him and everything.

Starting point is 05:59:07 And better to do this than to just sit in carefully, of course. Just don't make me listen to Mind of a Toy by the Wizard again. I'm just thinking of Sweet playing a synth with a moustache now. So, the following week, Mind of a Tour soared ten places to

Starting point is 05:59:28 number 14, and a week later would nip up to number 13, its highest position. The follow-up, Visage, would spend two weeks at number 21, and they'd have two more hits which skirted the top ten with the Damn Don't Cry and Night Train, but

Starting point is 05:59:44 Diminishing Return set in. It became impossible to get the band members together as they were already committed to Ultravox, Suzy and the Banshees and Magazine, and they split up in 1985. Strange resurrected the Visage brand in 2002 in order to get in on the Here and Now Heritage Festival bonanza and put out the LP Hearts and Knives in 2013, but he died of a heart attack in Egypt in 2015.

Starting point is 06:00:14 What about Ron Mayle? No! Oh, yeah. Yeah. Whole argument in pieces. LAUGHTER The whole argument in pieces. Mitch Yeo, Russ Egan, Steve Strange and the crew make up Visage, Mind of a Toy. Total Pops is about charts and charts exactly what we're going to take a look at now,

Starting point is 06:00:44 starting with the top 30. At 30, what becomes of the broken-hearted dave stewart and colin blumstone at 29 rock this town from the stray cats at 28 can you feel it the jacksons at 27 it's madness and return to los palmas 7 at 26 it's a love thing the whispers at 25 intuition from At 24, Mind of a Toy, Visage. At 23, Hot Love from Kelly Marie. At 22, I Surrender, it's Rainbow. And at 21, it's Einstein and Gogo from Landscape. At a number 20, it's Planet Earth from Duran Duran. He came outside to watch the night fall with the rain. Pow!

Starting point is 06:01:23 Now with his jacket off and flung casually over his shoulder, stands next to the video screen with the charts in the Top of the Pops font emblazoned upon it. He reminds us that Top of the Pops is all about the charts and runs them down from 30 to 21. As he alights on the number 21 single, Einstein A Go Go, the fist punches the air once more in anticipation, but Top Of The Pops doesn't run videos back to back just yet. So we're hit with a photo of the next band who all look as if they're saying,

Starting point is 06:01:57 tonight, Matthew, we're going to be Japan. It's Duran Duran with Planet Earth. Why wasn't it f*cking einstein a go-go man we've done jiran jiran loads on chart music and this is where it all began with their debut single it's the lead-off cut from their first lp jiran jiran which will be coming out in june and it took three weeks to enter the chart at number 67 late last month. But while it took another three weeks to meander up to number 47, it was seized upon and played out by none other than Radio 1's man at C&A, Peter Powell, leading to their debut performance on the show, helping it to soar 21 places to number 26.

Starting point is 06:02:44 helping it to soar 21 places to number 26. This week, it's moved up six places to number 20. So here's another repeat from Top of the Pops of Fortnite to go. And sadly, chaps, one thing Hurl has already done in his reformation is sort out the band and artist pictures, which has taken out a lot of the fun of it for us, hasn't it? Yeah, boo. Yeah. Yeah, although I like how they show that publicity picture

Starting point is 06:03:08 of Duran Duran for a few seconds at the start of this. Yes. And just for a moment, you think they might just leave that on the screen and play the record over it, which would have been brilliant. It's a pretty bad photo of Duran Duran, isn't it? I mean, it's possibly the one image that cemented the incorrect aspersion that

Starting point is 06:03:25 Simon Le Bon was a bit of a fat bloater, because he's got his bandolero over a billowy white shirt, making it look like he's got a beer gut. I mean, he effectively looks like Sancho Panza about to play for the bronze bullet. I mean, when we flick over to see the band in action, you know, he's got some very tight PVC trousers trousers on so he's slim enough i mean looked at purely visually they're not the way they're going to end up looking yeah yeah on this showing they really need to go back to the bedrooms and put more work in on their girls world heads because on this showing in 1981 they're pretty much the new street station dolls aren't the, chubs?

Starting point is 06:04:08 No, they look sort of more, I don't know, proto-goth than you're romantic. But I mean, really, they are exactly as they are in the video for this song. Right. Albeit with Le Bon not wearing the pirate pantaloons that he wears in that video. And Rhodes has got a different hair colour in the video as well. He's blonde in the Top of the Pop studio rather than ginger. And of course we don't have any of those odd captions that the video has about the surface area and

Starting point is 06:04:30 the population of the planet and the oldest song in the world being the Shadoof chant and all of that nonsense that happens in the video. But you know as a package, this appearance is astonishingly accomplished for a band dude. I mean they'd only hired

Starting point is 06:04:45 lebon about a year ago and they're already sort of talking in interviews but looking yeah starish although i think that this little lord fontleroy look that they had at this time is not the best it's a bit lacking because it infantilizes them and that wasn't their thing right they're not meant to look like boy princes. Their appeal was that they were young adults, and they were sort of a little bit sexy and druggie, you know, living it up. That was their real-life appeal, but it was also baked into the image and the way they sold them,

Starting point is 06:05:16 because they never did that Osmonds or Rollers thing of condescending to their audience. You know, they were like the musical equivalent of calling the magazine just 17 so that 13 year olds would read it and the idea of them being adults and men of the world was kind of aspirational in itself so when you see him dressed like you know when did you last see your father it's it's just sort of wrong it doesn't sit right especially not on simon lebon who has that big flat dog face which could never look delicate or sensitive they do suffer in comparison to steve strange on this episode of top of the pops particularly as he is dressed as a little lord funkelroy but it's very clear that top of the pops likes the cut of this band's jib yeah

Starting point is 06:06:02 this is a repeat of a couple of weeks ago, but it appears that that week's audience are a bit older and savvier than the gormless youths in visors that we get this week, because you can see them on the side f*cking loving this tune, bouncing up and down like bastards. Well, you know, pop radio, pop television

Starting point is 06:06:19 is never going to have a problem with Duran. They're not a challenge, really, Duran. They're funny in interviews at this time because they're always slagging off Spandau and they're always slagging off the London scene, calling it kind of tense where in Brum it's more of a release they say at the Rum Runner than it is

Starting point is 06:06:35 at the Blitz. They're very sort of unproblematically about entertainment. I'm not saying they've not got big ideas, but it's very telling that in interviews at the time they talk about how they think melodies have gone missing in the last three years of British pop and how they want to bring that back a little bit.

Starting point is 06:06:51 So they're much less of a kind of foreboding proposition than Visage for instance and this is why they're going to be bigger than Spandau. They're going to be bigger than anyone because they're literally, it's a ghastly phrase but they are, as they used to call themselves, techno rock. They're a little bit proggy about their music they love gabriel era genesis they say that's a big influence and it's that progginess that accounts for some of the slaggings that the debut album gets so consequently you know that nobody's going to have a problem with duran so

Starting point is 06:07:20 when neuromanticism blows itself out they're still going to be around because they're working always towards, how can I put it, new songs, new hits rather than just new sound. And as listeners and music makers, they're interested in music at its point of consumption. They have no sort of lofty demands of pop. When you think about the other bands in the Midlands at this point, seen as, you know, this isv land dexys specials um serious bands it's not just that duran don't sound like those bands they unproblematically want to be massive and they have no problem with being stars and no desire really to use stardom as a platform for something else or being a mouthpiece for something else biggest band from brumson sabbath yeah really i mean the midlands is a sh*thole in 1981 oh yeah you know it really is dying industry just everywhere and and you know absolute crumbling

Starting point is 06:08:12 infrastructure and everything else and yet still largely tory yeah that's the depressive thing about the midlands we don't like to talk about like the north responded to its its emasculation by, like, never voting for the Conservatives ever again until Brexit. The Midlands has always been Tory, and right of Tory. Like, where I come from, right? You know, where I was born, around sort of West Bromwich, Smethwick and Tipton and stuff. f*cking BNP-NF heartland, you know? It's a really depressing thing about the Midlands.

Starting point is 06:08:44 I think it might be the inferiority complex of the region weirdly enough that it never wants to stand up to the government and say hang on you're f*cking taking the piss here yeah yeah something quite servile about midlands the west midlands is it's f*cking enoch i mean when you think about what happens in smithereen and stuff i mean durant that durant biggest ban from brumson sabbath but unlike sabbath of course they're studiously determined in a way only to reflect their surroundings in their sense of aspirational escape duran music does not sound like it's from birmingham really it sounds like it's made for a nightclub and it wants to stay in that nightclub really and and in interviews they talk about pleasure and entertainment and product as

Starting point is 06:09:24 being what they want to create. There's actually a really good quote from, I think it's Paul Morley interview in 1981, where they talk about how we have a responsibility. I think it's Nick Rhodes who says it. He says, we have a responsibility not to tell them things. When he's talking about the audience, he's saying he wants to keep them ignorant in a sense when it comes to politics because they're young, their audience. But that escapism that I think is inherent to the dram and and why they appeal so so big is it eventually does start smelling quite thatcher right by the time they say rio but at this point it's still just it's kind of just a little purer i guess so i don't have any problems with this

Starting point is 06:10:01 yeah they were never like flying the flag for Birmingham, that's for sure, through their music. They were not yim-yam, yim-yam. But in a way, that's the most Birmingham thing about them. Yeah, completely. But yeah, Top of the Pops have really pushed out the boat for them. Not only do we get that stop-motion effect that the punk bands used to get, but they also get a proper massive globe hanging down as opposed to the scotch egg that legs and co had to deal with and they can do

Starting point is 06:10:31 it they can fill out that stage i mean you think about other bands and never mind sort of electro pop or anything else you think about other bands given that space and what they'd fill it with there would be no one here as good as you know i i think of something like omd or something you know yeah something that was contemporaneous always just looked like yeah indie kids given a pop stage and consequently the discomfort was part of the enjoyment but durant already look like a stadium band you know i mean it's mad how developed they are at this very early point yeah there's a few gigs of theirs on youtube from around this time that were on telly and stuff and they're more like big country or something than visage you know what i mean they're like they're a real they got dry ice going and they've all got their guitar tech

Starting point is 06:11:16 hanging around and stuff it's uh yeah it's rock they're proper rock and it it's hardly an original observation but i quite like the fact that they based almost their entire catalog on late 70s roxy music and almost nothing else and japan right it's like those are the only records they've ever heard it struck me while i was listening to this it's like f*cking hell this is atomic by blonde oh it is a little bit yeah perhaps that a bass player the bass player needs no you know i didn't notice it at the time, it is a little bit. Yeah. Perhaps that and the bass playing. The bass playing needs noting. I didn't notice it at the time because I was a little kid.

Starting point is 06:11:47 But the bass playing raises them above a lot of other things, I think, Duran. It's really, really good. Yeah. I didn't mind that when this came on the radio,

Starting point is 06:11:55 it was like, oh, it's this. It's alright. I didn't mind it, which was a massive achievement when you look at what they look like with the ruffs and everything.

Starting point is 06:12:04 Well, their ubiquity hadn't started chafing on your tit-ends yet. I mean, that starts happening soon, but at this stage it hasn't. I think what it is is that, first of all, they demonstrate a lot of sort of energy and personality of their own. And somehow they give you the impression that they're grinning at you, even as they've got their pouts fixed tight. You know what I mean? I think that's why people

Starting point is 06:12:26 are sort of forgiving of dran dran and give them the benefit of the doubt you know they skate they always skate and with distinction like a five-headed robin cousins because if you're a pop star and what you do just works you can get away with anything, you know. Like in terms of theft, I mean, my God, the greatest pop stars are the greatest thieves, you know. Would Mark Bolan ever have written those lyrics if he had never heard Sid Barrett singing send a cage through the post, make your name like a ghost?

Starting point is 06:13:01 But who cares? You can't sit around drumming your fingers and waiting for musical abiogenesis you know and when your aesthetic is trashy enough you don't even have to wait for an original thought you just need a spark and for me that's what's missing from visage but it's there in Duran Duran they've got a spark if nothing else anything else to say about this no but the episode for me it it suddenly got good so the following week planet earth jumped eight places to number 12 its highest position as

Starting point is 06:13:32 discussed in chart music number 39 emi then forced them into putting out careless memories as a follow-up which only got to number 37 for two weeks in May. But the ship was righted when they went with the band's original choice and put out Girls on Film, which got to number five in August. Stupid EMI. And their debut album will be due out soon. Right, let's go back to the charts. At 20 is Planet Earth from Duran Duran.

Starting point is 06:14:16 At 19, Somebody Help Me Out from Beggar & Co. At 18, Stevie Wonder and Lately. At 17, it's Jones vs. Jones, cool on the gang. At 16, Once in a Lifetime, Talking Heads. At 15, Please Don't Touch, Motorhead and Girl School. At 14, it's Phil Collins,

Starting point is 06:14:28 I Missed Again. At 13, it's Kiki Dee and Star. At 12, Something About You Baby, I Like, Status Quo. And at 11,

Starting point is 06:14:36 it's Southern Freeze and Freeze. But now we go to number eight and here's Toya, It's a Mystery. It's a Mystery. Somewhere in the distance We cut back to Powell with some youths but with no jacket as he's draped it over the shoulders of his pick of the litter, the lucky lady. He then shoves us into the second part of the chart rundown from 20 to 11 before introducing It's A Mystery by Toya.

Starting point is 06:15:15 We covered Toya Wilcox and her band of Kens in chart music number 36 and this, her sixth single release, is the follow-up to Danced, her live single which got to number seven in the independent charts in July of 1980. It's the main cut from the EP Four from Toyah, which immediately rose to the top of the indie chart when it came out in the first week of February, but it also marked her first dent on the proper chart when it entered at number 59 on Valentine's Day. The following week, it jumped 17 places to number 42, which gave Michael Hill all the incentive he needed to get her into the top of the pop studio.

Starting point is 06:15:56 And the following week, it soared 16 places to number 26. A week later, it jumped 10 places to places number 16 and a repeat of the first performance was trotted out again and this week it's nudged up three places from number 11 to number 8 and here she is in the studio so chaps off you go well you know different strokes of different folks it takes all kinds of people to make what life's about um you know even if you don't like toy i think you can agree that um you know music's the real winner here yeah i mean toy may not be to everyone's taste but these things are subjective and she obviously worked very hard on her music and this may not

Starting point is 06:16:42 be the kind of thing that i'm into but i imagine if you are into this kind of thing it's probably a very good example of this kind of thing so who am i to criticize it anything else to say no no so the following week four from toyah jumped four places to number four its highest position the follow-up i Wanna Be Free, would get to number eight in June and she'd close out 1981 with Thunder in the Mountains, getting to number four in October. No, no, no, no. We're not done.

Starting point is 06:17:23 We're not done. Come on, let's do this properly. Dad. Can I also say, I think most of the people who want to knock Toya are probably just jealous of her success. It's either that or they can't handle a strong woman who doesn't pander to men. You know, any Nina Simone, Jodie Mitchell or Betty Davis fans who knock Toya, I think they're just revealing themselves as sad little men.

Starting point is 06:17:49 It's the only possible explanation. Now then, Pop Craze youngsters, you're going to be shocked and appalled by what I'm about to impart to you, but impart it I must. You'll recall a while back that Taylor andil here delivered a comprehensive coat down of i want to be free and when this episode was mooted i wanted to do 1981 but i let them have their little say and told them to pick the episode out they really wanted to do the who and uh you bet you bet but it turned out that both of their appearances on Top of the Pops coincided with this f*cking single here. And when that was made apparent,

Starting point is 06:18:30 my so-called colleagues claimed that they were all toyed out and went on a work to rule and just wanted to say a little bit and move on. Well, you know, I can't have that. And the Pop Craze youngsters can't have that either. So, like all creative industry entrepreneurs faced with the difficult challenges of the age i called upon the services of artificial intelligence went on chat gpt and typed in taylor park's review of

Starting point is 06:18:59 toyah and neil kulkarni review of toyah yeah you, you weren't expecting that, was you, lad? Yeah. So, Neil Kulkarni delivers an enthusiastic review of Toya in his article, commending her for her energy and entertaining performance. He praises her ability to connect with the audience

Starting point is 06:19:19 and create a memorable experience. Kulkarni notes that her set list includes plenty of hits, but also showcases her lesser-known tracks, which he found to be a pleasant surprise. Overall, he describes the concerts as a

Starting point is 06:19:35 fun and nostalgic experience that left him wanting more. Wow. Uncanny. And I didn't say she stank of piss or anything this is amazing meanwhile taylor parks of the quietest reviews toyah's 2020 album posh pop describing it as an impressive and adventurous release that defies genres and expectations parks notes Toya's ability to surprise her audience with her range and versatility as a vocalist

Starting point is 06:20:08 and praises the album's eclectic production and bold musical choices, including nods to punk, disco and classic rock. Overall, Parks regards posh pop as a testament to Toya's enduring creativity and willingness to take risk with her music well we're dead and gone that's what's going to be left yeah yeah no use of the word iconic though yeah what a letdown well we've got standards man yeah

Starting point is 06:20:38 but that wasn't enough for me or the pop craze youngsters. So I went back in and typed Taylor Parks and Neil Kulkarni review. It's a mystery by Toya. All right. Yeah, here we go. Taylor Parks reviewed Toya's album. It's a mystery.

Starting point is 06:20:57 No such thing. There never was an album called it's a mystery, but anyone, you know, let's, let's carry on describing it as a synth, heavy pop art terrain he praised toy's ability to mix various musical genres here you're back on that one again

Starting point is 06:21:13 taylor and acknowledge the diversity of tracks such as the title track and thunder in the mountains parks remarked on the album's sci-fi soundscapes and commended toy as charismatic and confident singing throughout overall he deemed it's a mystery as an eccentric glorious bizarre wow pop gem yeah however however there is a difference of opinion here because Neil Kulkarni's take on Toya's album It's A Mystery is less than favourable. He deems it a synthetic black hole with cold and vapid vocals that lack emotional depth. Kulkarni also criticised the album's production, calling it suffocatingly slick and lacking in musicality. Overall, he sees the album as a reflection of the shallow, commercialised nature of the music industry in the 1980s. Yeah, man.

Starting point is 06:22:16 Oh, AI Neil Kulkarni there, trying to make a name for himself. Yeah, see, nobody tell AI about the word wank snap or i'm f*cked as dusty road said a computer just took your place daddy i can't believe neither of us called her a songstress that's the only thing that yeah the birmingham sparrow it's a bit misogynist your review there i thought neil yeah well you know the older you get before we say anything else i don't know why we're bothering because that i think that said it all you know yeah do you even need us here yeah that's what i'm thinking about as soon as ai can develop a yum yum accent mate i'm laughing after this episode i'm going to type out david stubbs reviews if i shall fall

Starting point is 06:23:02 from grace with god, I hope. Oh, what amazing times we live in. Let me just get this out and we'll move on. My mate was a stage manager of an open-air production of a Midsummer Night's Dream in the 90s. And he says that Toya Wilcox was the nicest actor he's ever come across. There was nothing she wouldn't do for anyone

Starting point is 06:23:21 and he won't have a word said against her. So, you know, that's out there now. But having having said that you can be the nicest person in the world but if you turn up on top of the pops and you take up three minutes of top of the pops in order to get on my tit* i'm sorry but that gets held against you for the rest of your life and i don't make the rules so here we go well you know i just wanted to note the presence of nigel glockler on drums here future saxon drummer really oh yeah he joined saxon later this year is he the one with a headband on aye aye oh that's him but even he can't save this it's f*cking horrible can i just say the terrible moment at the start of this where they do the chart rundown and just for a second

Starting point is 06:24:02 you think we might be about to go into southern freeze by yeah it's like someone holding out a big juicy pineapple in front of you and then suddenly snatching it away and flicking sh*t up your nose off a fork i mean toy is pretty much one of the first acts to break out of the independent chart ghetto and make it to the big boy charts along with joy division ub forte and depeche mode and yes pop craze youngsters toyah is the person who uncorked the best pop single in years that should make you feel good about life for about three and a half minutes according to clive james next Sunday's observer. f*cking Australians. So yeah, this song is as good as watching Japanese lads getting tortured in a game

Starting point is 06:24:51 show. That's mental. Although, you know, it was kind of mental, wasn't it? Not, not to rake over our past glories,

Starting point is 06:24:59 but you know, when we last discussed Toya and then I tweeted something, I think, I think chart music tweeted my thing about Charles Brandreth he got back to us didn't he yes

Starting point is 06:25:08 yes what did you say if Charles Brandreth if Charles Brandreth was asked to write a punk song yeah it'd be which song was it

Starting point is 06:25:16 again maybe I want to be free that's right and he said yeah a classic of its kind I think he tweeted back yeah interaction from the brand the jumper man himself indeed Right. And he said, yeah, a classic of its kind, I think he tweeted back.

Starting point is 06:25:25 Yeah. Interaction from the brand. The jumper man himself. Indeed. Toy is getting a lot of praise in the media at the minute, but mainly the London media. Because Jim Cusack, who does a column called Rock in the Belfast Observer, offers a different take in his article a few months from now entitled the face of rock or just a passing fad just to prove that there is no accounting for taste tickets for wednesday's toyah concert in the ulster hall seem to be selling like hot cakes a chart it it's a mystery

Starting point is 06:26:01 is no doubt an important contribututive factor but apart from this song and a couple of other forgettable numbers Toya has little to recommend her as an important rock performer. She is in fact a bit like Hazel O'Connor in that she is a figure the London media have seized upon

Starting point is 06:26:19 as the modern face of rock music but Toya is more a media event than a rock artist. I thought everyone would have had enough of her by now because of all the coverage she was receiving a couple of months ago. She actually had a one-hour TV documentary and received endless praise for her seemingly ordinary acting abilities. Anyway, it would be interesting to see how the media image fares as a live artist. The concert is being screened as part of a series

Starting point is 06:26:50 on Northern Ireland BBC, and this column will be watching carefully to ensure that all that appears on stage appears on screen. But then, a few days later, Mr Cusack was forced to change his tune in the following review toya entered stage right at the king's hall last night about 20 foot up some scaffolding she was apparently trying to imitate a monkey and grabbed hold of the bars and shook them

Starting point is 06:27:21 and displayed other mannerisms associated with caged anthropoids meanwhile there was a voice coming out of the pa and a synthesizer somewhere making a growling noise that grew in volume the voice was going ee ooh ee the rather tame looking section of the audience where i was standing was slightly taken aback. Well-bred teenage girls, most of them wearing leg warmers, looked around quizzically at their boyfriends, unsure if this was not all a bit weird for a Wednesday night. But within a minute or two, Toyah began a more normal stage show, shaking a wonderful head of orange hair,

Starting point is 06:28:02 and within a number or two, the show was fairly cracking along. Toyah has, in cabaret talk, a real bouncer of a voice. And the band, who seemed a bit ordinary at the start, was soon showing some rare talent. It really became a good rock show. The only things that really jobbed were the sound and stage set. The echo near the back of the hall was unique in my experience, and the stage set looked like a really bad night on Blake 7.

Starting point is 06:28:32 Yeah, try and copy that, AI, you c*nt. But the song, chaps... I mean, really, it just sums up Tor in one go, doesn't it? Something that's been presented as punk or post-punk, but is actually really f*cking proggy. Yeah. But, you know, the thing is, the trouble is, she's that worst thing.

Starting point is 06:28:56 She's a contrarian pop star. You know, the one that, if they're annoying you, they see that as more grist to the mill, as proof that she's on the right track. And this song, she moans about this song, you know she didn't like it at first because she was she she's got the f*cking gall to say you know she was losing her punk roots you know it's too poppy and all of this stuff but i think it's probably her most annoying one. The shot in the dark line. There's lots of annoying moments in this.

Starting point is 06:29:27 And, you know, it's weird with Toya because she's one of those where an awful lot of the attention she was getting was quite positive. But there's just, it needs pointing out, there was so many people, so many of us sat at home just f*cking hating her.

Starting point is 06:29:44 Come on, Taylor! Well, all I can give you is this article from the Sunday Mirror in June 1981, from the Star Time section. Again, the Sunday Mirror gets the big exclusive.

Starting point is 06:29:59 It says, What disgusts Toya in Top Pop? I don't know what that means her hair and clothes have stamped toyah unmistakably as a fashion leader quote people see me and think i'm thick some silly tart who dyes her hair different colors she said but it takes guts because i can't walk down the street without being laughed at or thought cheap i want other kids to have the courage to do what they want to do so what if she dyes her hair she's still got a brain up there her hair is currently sunshine gold a color fans can copy using Toya's crazy colour hair colouring at three pounds a bottle. Mum, it burns.

Starting point is 06:30:51 I use the stuff myself, Toya said. Her style may be outrageous, but her opinions are not. Morally, I'm very strict, she said. The promiscuous side of the music business disgusts me i have seen a lot of women get emotionally mixed up because of sleeping around they cheapen themselves so yeah down with people having the courage to do what they want to do yes she also believes in capital punishment and castration for rapists. I have no compassion for anyone like that.

Starting point is 06:31:32 She says, well, you know, people like Peter Sutcliffe, who should be put to sleep by an injection. I'm too bitter to write songs about it at all. Well, yeah, OK. Doesn't Toya go on in interviews that, you know know whenever she's backstage and there's some girl chatting up the sexy virile members of her backing band she slaps them about yes she boasted of this yeah that's not on is it i mean f*cking hell i mean if we were doing a live show right and sarah was standing at the bar and some bloke was just talking to her and saying hello and everything,

Starting point is 06:32:07 and I just went up to him and f*cking lapped him, that made me a right c*nt, wouldn't it? It made you a gentleman, Al. Oh, yeah, I forgot, yeah. From the Daily Mirror, Thursday, February 26th, 1981. After Punk meet the girl on the crest of a new wave toyah is a bit of a funny name so her close friends call her toilet that's the opening look i'm not making this up and the in crowd trendies have nicknamed her toyota her rather posh mum no kidding from the

Starting point is 06:32:44 better side of birmingham probably there's a better side of birmingham is there have you not been to the worst side of birmingham f*cking hell it's called coventry isn't it neil oh f*ck up cheeky c*nt it probably wishes she'd christened her beryl and saved herself a lot of sleepless nights it would have been tough for a girl called beryl to dye her hair tangerine and yellow leave home with just a carrier bag immediately land starring roles in big films and host her own chat show all before her 22nd birthday but i don't know why but toyah toilet toyota wilcox did just that and more and then there's a bit where they ask for her opinions of the other women who seem to be making it in the 80s because if you're a woman and you're successful it's only

Starting point is 06:33:33 natural you would want to bitch about all the other women who are successful my publicist says i shouldn't put other artists down but, I think honesty is the best policy. So, Hazel O'Connor. I like her as a person, but frankly, I'm insulted being compared to her. She's not very original. Debbie Harry. She's beautiful, and I don't see why she shouldn't exploit that. She's got some good people working for her.

Starting point is 06:34:06 Jesus. Paulie Yates. I think she regrets doing all that nude stuff. I did a photograph once with a nipple hanging out, painted black for a laugh. I couldn't believe it when people were shocked. And those are all the women. There's obviously

Starting point is 06:34:25 no other successful women in the eight no just uh hazel o'connor debbie harry and paul e8 well i mean far be it for me to tell toy how to be a good feminist but she's got a sort of bit of that in a lot of interviews i read one where she you know she was talking about kind of what made her want to go to drama school and stuff. And she says, you know, seeing scores of teenage girls pushing prams around Birmingham on a Saturday morning affected me. I'd rather have died than gone through that. I mean, you know what I mean? Am I the only one to detect something wrong about saying that? It just seems she's slightly scorned.

Starting point is 06:35:02 I mean, in a class sense, she's very scorned. This article finishes she lives in a huge flat in hendon north london where she moved to recently from a weird warehouse home in battersea her remaining ambition is to be a goddess to be worshipped quote that's what it takes to have a guaranteed commercial audience for the rest of my life or what about just being dead good yeah well come on come on you know but you can't ask for the world but yeah 1981 is the year of toyah and she would end it like all good 80s pop stars and if you had little sisters and they'd been nice all year, there's a reasonable chance that they'd be getting a little Toya in their stocking this Christmas.

Starting point is 06:35:49 Article in the Birmingham Evening Mail in November. Birmingham's trend-setting Toya Wilcox has gone into the beauty business. Leader in her own right, the star of stage, screen and disc, has dreamed up a makeup range that's good quality and low price, theatrical and great fun. Under the banner Soul Reflectors, there's a kit of four different coloured eye shaders and another kit of two face shaders, while there's also a duo pack of two bottles of nail paint called man scratchers

Starting point is 06:36:27 still available now on ebay recommended retail price 11.99 soul reflectors why do i see nothing the last time we covered toyah chaps i did ask the question who the f*ck is buying this and and who the f*ck are our audience and then afterwards it just hit me adrian mole who charts a rise and fall perfect yes on november the 19th of this year he compiles a list of suitable names for his new baby sister which include include Diana, Pandora and Toya. Then there's this diary entry from December the 12th. My mother has gone out with Mrs Singh, Mrs O'Leary and her women's group to have a picnic on Greenham Common.

Starting point is 06:37:18 She has taken Rose so the house is dead peaceful. I played my Toya records at full volume and had a bath with the door open. But then, on Tuesday, April 12th, 1982, after his run away from home and come back in distress, he writes, Nigel has just left after trying to arouse me by playing my favourite Toyah tapes at a discreet

Starting point is 06:37:46 volume. I signal that I would prefer both his and Toyah's absence. How the mighty fall. Indeed. You know where Toyah's make-up was available? Go on. It was Marks and Sparks. Really?

Starting point is 06:38:01 Yes, it was Marks and Spencer, which is a bit up market for her punk fanbase. I'd Yes. It was Marks and Spencer, which is a bit upmarket for her fan base. Very thoughtless of her. I thought you should sell it on the street from a cart fashioned out of the carved out anus of a rotting cow. So, the following week

Starting point is 06:38:18 4 From Toya jumped 4 places to number 4, its highest position. The follow-up, I Wanna Be Free would get to number four its highest position the follow-up i want to be free would get to number eight in june and she'd close out 1981 with thunder in the mountains getting to number four in october and the ep four more from toya spending two weeks at number 14 in december But her first single of 1982, Brave New World, only got to number 21 in June of 1982 and Diminishing

Starting point is 06:38:49 Returns set in rapidly. Coincidentally, around the time that she co-starred in the BBC 2 sketch show Dear Heart with B.A. Robertson. What a combination! Nice f*cking music. What a shame Paul Nicholas wasn't in it as well, man.

Starting point is 06:39:18 That's Toya. And four from Toya, that's a track called It's A Mystery. All right, we take a look at the top ten best-selling singles this week. Hey! It's Joe Dolce and I'll shut up your face. Up seven and nine is The Who and You Better, You Bet. Three and eight you saw on the show. It's four from Toya, It's a Mystery, Toya.

Starting point is 06:39:44 Good for her. And down three, alas, are number seven, Ultravox, and the Magnificent. Magnificent. I hate being right all the time. Yay. Yeah. At seven and six, go Teardrop Explodes. And their reward.

Starting point is 06:40:09 No change of five it's coast to coast hey and they did make it to number one down two of four it's kings of the wild frontier adam and the for her first single she's up three and three. Kids in America, it's Kim Wilde. You can still hear the sound of Shakey's piss trickling down the outside wall. And up by the two, good old rock and roll, Shaking Stevens, This Old House. Careful with that shake there.

Starting point is 06:40:45 And before we get to that big number one, let me tell you, the Radio 1 on Max is going up to Scotland starting on Sunday with a football match. Hope very much to see you there. Hope you've enjoyed Top of the Pops. Great audience tonight. And to celebrate the fact that Roxy Music have their first ever number one, it's been there for two weeks, and it's a great song.

Starting point is 06:41:00 Until next week, good night. Here's Jealous Guy. Bye-bye, everyone. great song. Until next week, goodnight. Here's Jealous Guy. Bye-bye, everyone. I was dreaming of the past How? Now surrounded by the girls in the previous link, as well as a

Starting point is 06:41:20 couple of unruly youths, including one who pretends to chew gum behind pal's shoulder drags us through the top 10 almost all of them have videos apart from poor old coast to coast who have to make do with a publicity shot and the cover of kings of the wild frontier by adam and the ants yeah that top 10 chaps it gives us further proof that the 70s are still hanging about. Because I noticed not only one, but two songs with a liberal deployment of the word, hey! You can't get rid of hey.

Starting point is 06:41:53 You just can't. I still contend that every song in the world would be unlike Joe Dolce's audience, who, despite the fact that he's told them exactly when they should say hey, proceed to do it at the end of every line, which is not what he said. They got it completely wrong. Well, he should have known what he was letting himself in for there. Yeah, and it's doubly bad

Starting point is 06:42:18 because it's not even a real audience. It's Joe Dolce's band in the studio pretending to be an audience and then double-tracked. So there's just no excuse. And look at Powell's Italian accent for that. He was well Wario on Mario Kart 64, wasn't he? It's-a me, Peter Powell, I'm-a gonna win. He's a spicy meatball.

Starting point is 06:42:40 As we cut back to Powell, who we now discover is sitting with the audience with his best girl still wearing his jacket and the unruly youth still building their part up by pushing about, gurning and in one case pointing a finger at Powell's head. He introduces this week's number one, Jealous Guy by Roxy Music. guy by Roxy Music. Born in Fort Worth, Texas in 1955, Mark David Chapman was the son of a staff sergeant in the US Air Force and a nurse who was relocated to Decatur, Georgia in his teens, where he got Jesus'd up. After working in a YMCA summer camp as a counsellor, where he read J.D. Salinger's Catcher in the Rye and thought it was dead good. He then moved to Chicago and effectively became the American Sid Little, playing guitar and

Starting point is 06:43:32 singing in clubs while his mate did impressions. After working in Arkansas counselling Vietnamese refugees and a spell working for World Vision in Lebanon, he enrolled into a Presbyterian college in Georgia but dropped out after one semester and eventually wound up in Hawaii where he tried to commit suicide in his car but the end of the hosepipe attached to the exhaust melted. He ended up working at the hospital where he was treated for clinical depression as a janitor,

Starting point is 06:44:03 went on a trip round the world in 1978, returned to Hawaii and got married there in 1979 and took up a new hobby of fantasizing about killing someone famous. He compiled a hit list which is alleged to have included Jacqueline Anassis, Paul McCartney, Elizabeth Taylor, Johnny Carson, George C. Scott, Ronald Reagan and David Boer but one stood out among the rest, John Lennon who Chapman read about in an article in Esquire in October of 1980 that documented his four mansions, his yacht, his private beach in Florida and his collection of 250 dead expensive cows and deduced that he was a massive sellout man. He flew to New York in October of 1980 with the intent of doing him in

Starting point is 06:44:54 but nipped over to Atlanta to pon some ammo off his mate and when he went back he went to see the Robert Redford film Ordinary People at the pictures and changed his mind and went back to Hawaii. But on the 6th of December, he flew back, trying to pick between killing Lennon or jumping off the Statue of Liberty. Finally, on the 8th of December, he stopped pissing about and did it, giving Lennon's solo career a massive boost, British people a golden opportunity to coat down Americans for all being mad bastards and absolutely ruining the British charts for months.

Starting point is 06:45:31 Just like Starting Over, which dropped 11 places to number 21 the day after the murder, soared to number one the following week before immediately giving way to There's No One Quite As Racist Like Grandma by the St. Winifred School Choir. Before immediately giving way to there's no one quite as racist like grandma by the St. Winifred School Choir. But Apple responded by rushing out Happy Christmas, War is Over,

Starting point is 06:45:52 which got to number three on the Christmas chart of 1980, and Imagine, which entered the chart at number nine on the same week, and began a four-week stand at number one. In the last week of January, when we were already Lennoned out to f*ck, Geffen put out the true follow-up to Just Like Starting Over, Woman, which crashed into the chart at number three, and a fortnight later usurped Imagine and spent two weeks at number one. Just when we thought it was all over, when Woman was Toppled by Shut Up Your Face by Joe Dolce Music Theatre,

Starting point is 06:46:28 another Lennon song entered the charts at number 21, a cover of a track from his 1971 LP Imagine by Roxy Music, who were Roxy f*cking Music, who were touring West Germany at the time and immediately added it to their set as a tribute and then put it out as the follow-up to the same old scene, which got to number 12 in November of 1980. A week later, after a screening of the video on Top of the Pops, it soared 15 places to number 6.

Starting point is 06:47:01 And last week, it rose from number 3 to the very topmost of the popper most slapping away everyone's favorite italia austral singer songwriter this is its second week at number one and here's the video again past it's mad in it past six number one singles yes neil let's imagine the number ones of early 1981 with no dead john lennon it's easy if you try so stop the cavalry for one week and music for two weeks in the air tonight for two weeks vienna for one week shut up your face for three weeks as it was and kings of the wild frontier for one week, Shut Up Your Face for three weeks, as it was, and Kings of the Wild Frontier for one week. That is two number ones ripped out of the hands of Adam in the Ants

Starting point is 06:47:51 because some f*cking tubby menclist was allowed to have a go. Thanks, America. It's mad. Lennon, novelty, Lennon, Lennon, novelty, Lennon. It's the past six number one singles. And it's a slight shame, really. This is Roxy's first number one, isn't it? I know.

Starting point is 06:48:07 Which is a shame. What else is a shame, Neil? This is our first dig into Roxy music, and it's not Mad Artie Genius Roxair or Monte Carlo Disco Roxair, both of which would have been an absolute joy to tuck into, but Lickin' Pickridge Roxair with their single i remember johnny lennon oh i love to hear him sing i mean by this time we were thoroughly lennon doubt but the music industry was still churning it out you know woman still malingering at number 32 walking on thin ice by yoko ono's drop five places to number 40 djm have rushed out elton john's live cover of i saw her standing

Starting point is 06:48:46 there when lennon made a guest appearance at an encore in 1975 and we're a month away from watching the wheels coming out and i don't know about you but as a pop craze youngster of the time i felt that we were being told that all this classic material was better than all the sh*t i listened to by bent c*nts who aren't f*cking real and and this puts a tin lid on everything doesn't it yeah yeah i don't trust this bloke his eyes are too close together no first of all this is the worst roxy music single and possibly the worst roxy music track just because it is what it is a dropping of character yeah behind which there's very little character because it's mostly a sincere tribute and sincerity is not what brian ferry did

Starting point is 06:49:33 well no and he's trying to have his cake and eat it here right he's honoring the dead legend and at the same time he's still trying to be glassy and gassy and 100 miles away and i'm not sure you can do those things simultaneously like if it was me you'd just been shot dead i don't think i'd appreciate it you know either pay tribute like you mean it or do your own thing either of those is fine you know the thing is sonically right this version it's kind of immaculate it doesn't mean i like any of it but it's kind of immaculate it almost seems to create the need for the invention of cds as you hear it um it sounds very cd-ish but the thing is you know i don't know what your thoughts are about the original of this um the john lennon version i kind of really like the original it's one of my favorite songs in fact

Starting point is 06:50:23 you know it's one of those songs that percolated over from the kind of beatles time because i think he started writing it white album era didn't he really yeah he wrote the music on the white and then he wrote the words for in 1971 it has that kind of melodic strength to it and the string arrangements which i'm guessing are by specter on the original they're pretty amazing i mean the thing that always made me uncomfortable a little bit about the original was that lyrically it came across as the you know it's the talk after she's been given a black eye a little bit and the way that he sees the song out because he goes watch out doesn't he yeah the original is watch out he goes look out baby indicating that the relationship

Starting point is 06:51:03 is kind of ongoing you don't really get that in this version. This feels like this person has already left. It's sung towards someone who's never coming back. And the video accentuates that loneliness, I think, because it's very close up on Brian and in an almost creepy way. But it feels like he's singing this walking through a kind of now emptied out living space,

Starting point is 06:51:24 knowing that the person he's singing it to will never return no more carefree laughter silence ever after but that whistling at the end you know which goes on for far too long it's almost absurd oh the cowboy sh*t it goes from sort of romantic to i don't know pathetic almost there's been lots of covers of this song, and this is probably sort of one of the best. But yeah, I mean, at this point, it's galling that Lennon's on sale again, you know? We've had enough.

Starting point is 06:51:55 Well, the greatest version of this song, by a country mile, is Donny Hathaway's live version. Yeah, oh God, yeah, I'd completely forgotten about that. But that is amazing, yeah, yeah. I take a trad view on this song. To me, this is one of Lennon's greatest ever songs. Right. Because unlike a lot of his emotional stuff,

Starting point is 06:52:12 it doesn't just put across raw feelings, which you have to make sense of. It's got a bit of self-awareness. But you can't quite tell the extent to which it not having complete self-awareness is an unreliable narrator device or if more likely it's a genuine lack in the 31 year old man writing the lyrics because on the one hand it's like a an ashamed apology song which considers being a dick to your wife or girlfriend

Starting point is 06:52:42 as being on a continuum so the words can cover everything from snapping at them in the car on the way back from morrison's to leaving them in a ditch by the side of the road and the problem with this song is that he's reached the point of thinking this but not yet the point of fixing it so he's still at that stage of yeah oh sorry i'm just a jealous guy you know like he's not a psychopath yeah he's not taking any pleasure from being toxic in fact it upsets him too you know so his mates might say ah that's just john so it's a start but it's not a finish you know my suspicion is that this is actually the point that Lennon was at when he wrote it, because that's where a lot of people are at about 30, you know.

Starting point is 06:53:30 Depending on the degree of manipulation and emotional abuse, the other half of the partnership is capable of, which in his case did appear to be quite a lot, even if you don't go so far as believing the Albert Goldman narrative and you just look at the established facts not the healthiest situation in paradise but obviously if there's one singer on earth who's absolutely not going to convey this emotional complexity in their interpretation of the song it's brian ferry you just get this chandelier glimmer when you squint past the light, that reptilian coldness, which changes the atmosphere of the whole thing completely in a way that's moderately interesting. But it doesn't improve the song, you know. way because it was always like he'd suddenly missed the point of himself which is the frictionless

Starting point is 06:54:26 sound of later period Roxy music and the solo Brian Ferry records suits that unnerving disconnected semi-imaginary world in which that work exists spiritually and it feels like a conceit when you take someone else's song and you deaden it the same way as your own songs because what this record's doing is taking a raw disturbed complex song and treating it the way a 70s italian horror director would treat the female murder victims you know they look immaculately beautiful lying dead and porcelain white with a perfect drip of crimson blood you know empty-headed and it's always creepy and i can see that it's a clever and interesting idea to take an agonized song and glaze it when the man who sung it had just died and of course creepy is a big part of briar ferry's charm um and the surface of this track is almost as gorgeous as any of the other near

Starting point is 06:55:37 identical sound worlds that he's strolled through it just seems a bit forced and in a way beneath them it's kind of really gutting that this is how we come to roxy yes sorry about that hopefully at some point we'll get to do virginia plain or get to do the strand i mean well you know we'll even get to do other records that roxy music are making in this period i could have had much more fun talking about more than this or something oh yeah with him in the white jeans and the gingham shirt although you know listening to this it did remind me of that um you know the brian ferry spaghetti story so that's always nice to be reminded of that go on uh well someone who was at art school with brian ferry remembers him draining a colander of spaghetti over the toilet and accidentally

Starting point is 06:56:23 sending a sort of big load of the spaghetti into the toilet bowl and just totally unperturbed just pulling it out and adding it to all the rest of the spaghetti oh that was smoothie rinaldo would never do that no no i mean i was only 12 at the time but i remember being really surprised when it turned out that Roxy Music were doing a cover of John Lennon. Because even then, I had them down as a band that were a million miles away from the era of the Beatles. And, you know, even now they're held up as one of those bands who cut through that post-Beatles split of malaise and kicked everything on. So the idea that they were looking back in tribute and citing him as an influence that yeah did my head in yeah and it's very explicit i mean it says a tribute on the sleeve to the

Starting point is 06:57:09 seven and yes and and yeah you do get in case you thought they were taking the piss yeah and i think they donated like a lot of it to charity i mean obviously lennon's estate would have got a lot of the proceeds and the sales of this as well. But, you know, you do get McKay and you get Manzareno in the video. But it's much more of a Brian Ferry move than a Roxy move. That's what it feels like to me. Because obviously, he's done albums before full of covers. So, yeah, it's a bit odd. And it's a shame that we're coming to it like this.

Starting point is 06:57:40 It is a great song, though. Because, I mean, yeah, having to do this meant i went back to the lennon version which i hadn't done in ages and it is one of his best i think yeah there's only about three good tracks on the album imagine which is hugely overrated but yeah jealous guy is a wonderful and chilling record but it's a right downer to an episode of Top of the Pops that hasn't fulfilled our expectations of a 1981 episode at all, has it? No, and this probably, I mean, that's precisely what makes this episode

Starting point is 06:58:12 quite interesting. I mean, nothing comes on after it. This is the last song of the episode. The credits roll over to the bitter end of the credits, you know. Because how can you follow up to this, man? The f*cking coffin lid's been shut. Yeah, you can't really fade this out and then go, anyway, we'll be back next week.

Starting point is 06:58:27 Here's Do The Hucklebutt by Coaster Cuts. Hey, and it's a foxhide better than all those years ago by George Harrison, which we're going to be treated to in a couple of months. Oh, my God. Yes. I don't know. It's just, it's weird seeing Roxy doing this because it's such a dull narrative

Starting point is 06:58:47 you know the biggest rock star dies and they do a tribute it's because this is the the first band to understand and use post-modernism you know because generally speaking when bands attempt to do that it's really a cop-out and they get it all wrong whereas roxy music it was probably only them and david bowie in the 70s who could actually have told you what post-modernism was and they actually understood what they were doing and that approach was what gave them meaning you know and it's surprising how few bands even art school educated bands really understood how to do that so here they are on top of the pops and it's like oh you know theatrical tears the guy's dead you know it's just do you think

Starting point is 06:59:32 mankind will ever stop going on about the beatles and is mankind as well you know i mean the obsession with elvis that's tailed right off but just just when you think the teabag of the mop fabs has been thoroughly squeezed, some new artifact will pop up and it starts all over again. I mean, I always look at the podcast charts, see how we're getting on, and we're surrounded by Beatles podcasts. A lot of them really f*cking good. But it's like, will we ever stop going on about them? No, pop needs centrality here and there.

Starting point is 07:00:03 It needs a canon. So it's never going to go away no no and you know the the only thing that's going to happen is there's going to be more of it yeah um i mean has everything been uncovered about the beatles yet i don't know i'm not sure the best book has ever been written about the beatles yet but i mean no pop needs still writing it yeah so our beatles fans will know exactly what i mean but no i don't think it will and it shouldn't do to be honest with you if we could do with a little less i personally

Starting point is 07:00:30 think we could do a little less because you know there is that sit down eat your beatles thing yeah and it's funny how other bands i mean for instance the herb and and you know the stones don't get that centrality i don't think that the beatles, you know, they didn't in our lives when we were growing up. They're part of the National Songbook, to a deeper extent than any other band, you know. You did these songs at school. You knew them by the time you were 10. You knew a lot of Beatles songs, whether you liked it or not.

Starting point is 07:01:01 And there were so many others you hadn't discovered yet. Yeah, they're the kind of mandatory that that's sort of yeah the mandatory if you're british it's gonna rise to a massive peak when mccartney dies yeah especially if he's the last one to go but or even if he isn't yeah it's i think we could do with a bit less beatles in the in as much as the beatles are now like the royal family of music. I think we could do with a lot less of that. But I think we do with a bit more Beatles

Starting point is 07:01:29 in the sense of them being smart, intelligent, cynical, imaginative people trying to create something that was really valuable. But without taking themselves seriously in that way while they did it. Yeah, and I think that will only come with new people talking about them rather than the same old f*ckers that it always is. You know what I mean?

Starting point is 07:01:51 Yeah. There's going to be BBC4 stuff. There's going to be documentaries. And you're going to see the same old heads. Different perspective would be beneficial, I think. I think it's just that what I perceive as the bad reasons why a lot of music is made now is the opposite of the reason why the Beatles were making music.

Starting point is 07:02:10 And the way it's done is the opposite of the way the Beatles were doing it. Bring that stuff back. Make that stuff the standard. Not the bit about, you know, oh, look, you know, Paul McCartney's like the f*cking Paddington Bear of music, you know. So I don't think that helps anybody, the f*cking Paddington Bear of music. So I don't think that helps anybody, especially not Paddington Bear. I've got to admit that this Lennon deluge of early 1981, it put me off the Beatles for quite a few years,

Starting point is 07:02:34 to the point where when I finally got to listen to Sgt Pepper, when I got it out of the library in 1984, I would play it really low on my dad's music centre in absolute terror that someone i know would walk past and catch me listening to the beatles you know what i mean yeah their stock was that low yeah that's what i'm like with marillion getting back to the matter in hand though i should say i completely believe in brian ferry's work all of it, right?

Starting point is 07:03:05 Even this, which I don't like very much and I don't think works very well. I believe in it. Even the stuff that you barely notice is there because that really is him, right? He really is that vague and offhand and decorative, you know. I interviewed him a few years ago. Yes, you did. I think probably a badly overwritten article like a lot of my stuff from that time but i was going through a peculiar period but

Starting point is 07:03:30 part of the reason for the overwriting is that he had genuinely nothing to say it wasn't a front he wasn't being rude he wasn't tired it wasn't that like daniel powder's confidant he'd had a bad day it just wasn't there i was prodding him into talking about art right trying to get to all these extraordinary ideas under the surface but he would only talk in the blandest and most superficial terms so i was trying to get him to talk about silly stuff trying to crack it open a bit but he's got no sense of humor so he's very pleasant and obviously intelligent, but he just came across as a man with middle-brow good taste and nothing much else, you know,

Starting point is 07:04:11 putting together these records out of complementary shades of nothing, which, as I said at the time, sound like an expensive gas, like nothing there at all, which i think is fine right but you're thinking can this really be an accurate reflection of brian ferry who started all this by scattering a million fantastic ideas in intriguing patterns out of his own weird brill creamed head right so something must be going on in there but my speculation now is that sometimes people with a lot of ideas in their head don't really like it and as they get older their ambition is to work towards a quieter mind and a state of grace where all these things are in balance and you can just float through your existence and maybe that complex

Starting point is 07:05:06 network of signs and signifiers which held up early roxy music was really just a ladder on which he could climb out of that into a universe where he didn't have to care anymore where you can just glide around doing that shrugging palms up dance you know eyes screwed up drifting in the clouds of this lush anesthetized music you know and everything's fine oh somebody's hijacking your plane yeah no worry it's like being in heaven to him maybe it would be for me but that would marry the trajectory that rocks the albums when you think about it i mean there's a real dissonance with what you've just said about how he was in Interview. And then you think of, obviously,

Starting point is 07:05:48 like the first three albums, you think about Siren as well. I mean, these are dazzling records. And, you know, if you were interviewing him in 73 or something and he was genuinely just that blank, that would be really dissonant because they're full of ideas, those records.

Starting point is 07:06:05 Whereas you do get the feeling with late 70s roxy that it's not so much that they're aiming for a purity or a sincerity but they're aiming for perhaps a little bit more simplicity perhaps a few less ideas i think eventually he starts aiming for dignity which is an odd thing to aim for but yeah no that's really interesting that he didn't actually say much. But truth be told, it's probably better like that, isn't it? I mean, if he'd have fully explicated all of his ideas. What about fox hunting and Brexit? I think you should have just asked him some better questions, Taylor, to be honest.

Starting point is 07:06:38 Yeah, no, I agree. I would have asked him, what's the best out of Whoop Scottie's Tasty Tarts Foster Grant's and I and Allied for Carpets for You? Yes. Which one do you look back on with most pride, Brian? I was really tempted. But the thing is, when you look back, what's the most amazing thing is he was there in that period where you could propel yourself from that difficult place to that easier place financially with art rather than art dealing or financial services or some other branch of the industry of human unhappiness.

Starting point is 07:07:17 Because nowadays you can only really get rich by making less fortunate people unhappy or taking something from them or overcharging them for something. And if you want to do something positive or artistic, you're expected to do that in your spare time, assuming you're allowed any. And it slightly blows the mind to think that in our living memory, you could be skint, do something purely constructive and creative and made with love, and as a result of that, end up in a mansion. And I don't mean like, you know, one American singer or rapper has got 85 private jets and a golden toilet, and everyone else in music only eats next week if they can sell five t-shirts after the gig

Starting point is 07:08:06 in those days a lot of people made really good money just from bringing beautiful things into the world it's like another reality but this is always the thing when you look at it the passage of time and it involves moving forwards and backwards at once like the staircase shot from vertigo i bet you get somebody else to drain his spaghetti over the bog now yeah and what a shame me no wasn't still in roxy music because maybe they'd have done revolution number nine this episode would have gone on for another f*cking 15 minutes so jealous Guy would spend two weeks at number one before being crushed under the white-shot heel of Comrade Shaker

Starting point is 07:08:50 and would be their only number one single in the UK. For shame. The follow-up, More Than This, would get to number six in October of 1982, which was the first cut from their final LP, Avalon, and they split up in 1983. Mark Chapman remains incarcerated at the Greenhaven Correctional Facility in New York after 12 denials of parole, and his next attempt will be in February of 2024. In none of his many statements at either parole hearings or media interviews has he apologised

Starting point is 07:09:28 personally to Adam Ant or Simon Price for the playground falsehood that he cried when John Lennon died. So as far as I'm concerned, the bastard can fry. And that, Pop Craze Youngsters, brings us

Starting point is 07:09:44 to the end of this episode of Top of the Pops. What's on telly afterwards? Well, BBC One kicks on with the fourth episode of their new sitcom, Heidi High. Ted can't hear you, Heidi High. Ho-dee-ho. Where Fred Quilly Bent Jockey is convinced that a betting syndicate is in the camp

Starting point is 07:10:04 and about to cut him up proper. Then it's the second ever episode of Sorry, where Timothy Lumsden gets some aggro from the massive boyfriend of a woman he's knocking about with. After the 9 o'clock news, it's the final part of the American TV version of Brave New World. Then the news headlines, Question Time, The Weather and Close Down at Five Past Midnight. BBC Two has just finished 100 Great Paintings, then it's 15 minutes of highlights from the racing at Cheltenham, the documentary In Search of Athelstan, where Michael Wood knocks about a ruined Abbey in Wiltshire and bangs on about Smoke King, and the 11th part of the BBC's adaptation

Starting point is 07:10:47 of The Little World of Don Camillo about the communist takeover of a small town in northern Italy. Man Alive looks at how our chances of being killed on the road hasn't changed in 50 years and what the government is doing about it which is f*ck all then it's news night and close down at midnight.

Starting point is 07:11:08 ITV has just finished the latest episode of Bogner, the drama series about an investigator who works for the Board of Trade. Yeah, I've never seen that programme. All I know is that it's about a man called Simon Bogner who works for the Department of trade imagine taking that one into a meeting with tv executives yeah i'm pretty confident about this pitch you get a better pitch at the baseball ground in february 1974 also according to imdb this program also stars Tim Meats as Lingard.

Starting point is 07:11:47 Tim Meats. M-E-A-T-S. Tim Meats. Then it's the Brian Murphy and Roy Kinnear sitcom The Incredible Mr Tanner about a couple of down-on-their-look street performers. Yeah, which I watched in preference to Heidi Eye for about three weeks and had no one to talk about it with at school. Yeah, serves you right. Yeah, which I watched in preference to Heidi Eye for about three weeks and had no one to talk about it with at school.

Starting point is 07:12:06 Yeah, serves you right. Yeah, it did. TVI investigates the Atlanta child murders. Then it's Hill Street Blues, the news at 10, regional political show in your area. Then Gus MacDonald looks at the pioneers of cinema and camera. Then it's regional news update in your area. Lou Grant and closed down at 25 to 1 so dear boys what are we talking about in the playground tomorrow uh box fairs box fairs they're

Starting point is 07:12:36 gonna win they're gonna win uh how come the who are meant to be mods but they all look like your mate's dad who's got a cb radio and also, when the men rip the ladies' clothes off. What are we buying on Saturday? Ooh, not Toya, obviously. I think I'll buy Duran Duran, Visage, Books Fizz, and... Ooh, what else? No, that's it. No, sorry, this whole house combination achy as well i'd consider

Starting point is 07:13:07 buying roxy music even though it's their worst single because these things are relative and the who just to keep the faith and what does this episode tell us about march of 1981 the usual thing that um you know the golden golden ages is quite often piss and the 80s is not all going to be a young thrusting decade. The old f*ckers are actually going to have quite a big say as to how the rest of this decade is going to sound. There was more than one March 1981

Starting point is 07:13:36 although they did happen simultaneously. And that pop craze youngsters brings us to the end of this episode of Chart Music. Use your promotional flange, www.chart-music.co.uk, facebook.com slash chartmusic, reach out to us on Twitter at chartmusic, T-O-T-P,

Starting point is 07:13:58 money down the G-string, and updates on our live show, patreon.com slash chartmusic. Thank you, Taylor Parks. Unless, of course, you know different. God bless you, Neil Kulkarni. No worries. My name's Al Needham, and if you want to see some more...

Starting point is 07:14:19 Taylor, you said you'd have pants on. Ha, ha, ha, ha. Taylor, you said she'd have pants on. Sharp music. On BBC Two now, Brass Tax reports on the mood of today's university students. Here on BBC One, we go live to the Lyceum Ballroom in London for Miss England 1978. Julie, Miss Norwich. Beverly, Miss Blankburn. Jasmine, Miss Dunstable. Carol, Miss Liverpool North. Beverly, Miss Blackburn.

Starting point is 07:15:07 Jasmine, Miss Dunstable. Carol, Miss Liverpool North. Susan, Miss Hammersmith. Jackie, Miss Chester. Janet, Miss Sc*nthorpe. And I'm Jacqueline, Miss Streatham. This is Miss England. Everything about her is lovely.

Starting point is 07:15:23 This is Miss England. Looking like a picture of pure sensation. Julie, Miss Birmingham. Patricia, Miss Leeds. Linda, Miss Tottenham. Debbie, Miss Stafford. Debbie, Miss Manchester. Rita, Miss Bournemouth.

Starting point is 07:15:36 Benji, Miss Nottingham. And I'm Jill, Miss Sheffield. She walks with confidence across a crowded room A breath of summer that can brighten up the gloom Christina, Miss Newcastle Alison, Miss Sunderland Tracy, Miss Lester Debbie, Miss Brighton

Starting point is 07:15:58 Vivian, Miss Southampton Denise, Miss Liverpool South Jay, Miss Purley And I'm Karen, Miss Portsmouth Terry Wogan Miss Liverpool South. Jay, Miss Pearlie. And I'm Karen, Miss Portsmouth. Terry Morgan. Good evening and welcome. However, lest your senses become drugged with all this talk of beauty,

Starting point is 07:16:18 here to bring us back to stark reality is the beast, Ray Moore. People are saying we're in love, you know, Terry. Yes, it's just an ugly rumour, though. It's about the only ugly thing here tonight. Miss Blackburn, Beverly Isherwood. Her great passion in life is watching golf. A pretty attractive birdie she is herself, too. Miss Janet Norris, Miss Sc*nthorpe, a great musician, very fond of playing the piano.

Starting point is 07:16:37 Terry was telling me she's got a lovely touch. Miss Sc*nthorpe, number seven. And Miss Tottenham, Linda Hart, number 11. Used to be a croupier in a nightclub. She's a very good bet by the look of it herself tonight. She's 24, by the way. And Susan co*ckett, 20 years old, and in fact has been involved in the National Child Development Survey since birth.

Starting point is 07:17:00 Developed rather well, I'd have thought, Miss Hammersmith. Earth developed rather well, I'd have thought, Miss Hammersmith. Our final two young misses, contestant number 31, Jay Aston, Miss Purley, and number 32, Miss Ports, a rather interesting girl, actually. Jay Aston is her name. She's 17, very keen on weight training. Actually picked up a train to get here tonight. Likes jogging with her dog.

Starting point is 07:17:40 But at home she's got thousands of rabbits, she was saying. Doesn't seem to know what's causing them. She's 22 years old and recently appeared on The Generation Game with her father. She wants to go round Brown's Hatch with James Hunt, complete an army assault course, and the following day she'll have it lying. Her wildest ambition in life is to drive a police car, for reasons best known to herself. And she was telling me this afternoon she wants to try and improve her capabilities.

Starting point is 07:18:06 Could have fine to be as they are.

Chart Music: the Top Of The Pops Podcast - #71: March 19th 1981 – Shaky Of The Dorm Transcript and Discussion (2024)

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