TOTP 2 Miscellanea

God I love Pan's People.

"Who WAS the bass player - he looked v. familiar?"

The bass player was Ronnie Thomas - no idea why he'd look familiar; are you sure it wasn't the keyboard player, John Sinclair, who looked familiar Doc?

He's also played with Black Sabbath, The Cult, The Enid, Grace Jones, Ozzy Osbourne and Savoy Brown (as did HMK drummer Keith Boyce and guitarist Barry Paul), was a member of Uriah Heep and Buggles and most importantly he was actually the keyboard player on This Is Spinal Tap!

As for TOTP2 itself: I have been left with permanent scarring on two separate occasions after tripping over furniture in a desperate bid to get to the remote to turn the sound up for TOTP2 - once was for The Adverts' Gary Gilmore's Eyes the other was for The Vibrators' Automatic Lover.

Both fantastic performances which got the adrenalin pumping back in '77 / '78 when they were first shown and I thought I'd never see again - but which I discovered painfully were still capable of making me want to pogo 'round the living room like an imbecile a quarter of a century later.

Two nights ago. The Move's California Man - I remember seeing this in 71 - it was my last year in junior school. We went swimming on the friday morning and always talked about TOTP. I remember us being highly entertained by the double-bass player who realized the camera was on him and decided to erm...'go mad'. So he lay down with the bass on top of him, kicked his legs a bit and then painfully obv. *didn't really know what else what to do*, so slowly sort of struggled out from underneath it. Jeff Lynne was playing KEYBOARDS! and Roy Wood was playing SAX! There was no guitar player evident, but all the usual brum beat suspects - Rick Price, Bev Bevan and loads of fat ape-like blokes who looked EXACTLY LIKE ROY WOOD were all present and correct. I didn't know any of this in 1971, but I liked the record. In thought I'd never see that clip again. Where have the years gone OMG.

Stew - yes the punk and new wave clips are fucking exhilarating. Haha - yes, Backburn et al really hated punk acts on TOTP.

I don't think so Mark.

I liked it when they got guest presenters to show their chosen picks, and I certainly enjoyed more of the music that they played, but I'm glad they generally resist the temptation to show 'the classics' all the time.

Naff TOTP performance which I do not think has been rescreened yet: Shakin' Stevens trying to go Hi-NRG in 1987 ("A Little Boogie Woogie In The Back Of My Mind"). Four butch dancers in binliners cavort at the back of the stage while Shakin' "Shaky" Stevens just does his usual schtick regardless.

I am going to inundate the BBC with nuisance mail until THEY SHOW THIS!

Sad growls. Oh well, now I await the BBC3 repeat...

This I want to see.

They might do it y'know - they did include Bob Harris sneeringly dismissing NY Dolls as "mock rock" on the OGWT DVD!

I'm just hoping that a future release is going to include "The Light Pours Of Me", followed by him explaining that Magazine have been ".... described by some people (I'd have loved to have been able to challenge him to name one of them btw!) "as New Wave intellectual...." before muttering something barely audible under his breath about "a contradiction in terms".

Tosser.

As for Blackburn, do you remember how he used to slag off reggae - starting to play a reggae version of something on the radio then pulling it off after a few seconds to replace it by a version of someone else playing the same song (as he considered it) "properly"?

Tosser.

No wonder my initial reaction is still to assume that all radio DJ's are arrogant, obnoxious, opinionated, self-obsessed areseheads with no real interest in music.

I want to see Sailor. And (Noosha) Fox. s-s-s-single bed.

I somehow dread the prospect of seeing Noosha Fox as she is now.

Apropos DJs being twats:

DLT back-announcing "Complete Control" by the Clash on the Top 40 rundown, Tuesday lunchtime, sometime in late '77:

"Well! I thought that was a comPLETE and UTTER PILE of CRAP! But YOU bought it! YOU made it the highest new entry at number 12!"

all through clenched teeth.

Blackburn back-announcing "Flowers Of Romance" by PiL on the Top 40 rundown, Sunday teatime, sometime in spring '81:

"Yes that was Public Image Limited. And now here's some music."

Peter Powell back-announcing "Jack Your Body" by Steve "Silk" Hurley on the Top 40 rundown, Tuesday teatime, the day it went to number one, January '87:

"This is the end of music. Why don't they just set up a separate chart for...all...these...talentless...gibbons...and leave the REAL chart for REAL artists and REAL bands who are trying to make a living? Thank you."

He left Radio 1 shortly thereafter.

There's a nice 'search' on here, where you can put an artist and it shows their TOTP appearences, what song, when, who the dj/announcer/introducer was, and wether or not its in the archives.

I can't get it to work here, you might have better luck...

"Yes that was Public Image Limited. And now here's some music."

That's quite funny tho, depending on how it was delivered and how good Blackburn's comic timing is etc

He later redeemed himself slightly by being instrumental in making tease me by Chaka Demus and Pliers a hit. He still should have been pensioned off years before though.

(I don't actually have one, btw)

by the time of "Jack Your Body" Powell had been sent to fester at weekend breakfast (the usual home for Radio 1 DJs in decline pre-Bannister; successively from 1980-93 it was Blackburn, Powell, Brookes, Davies) and was only back on the teatime show sitting in for Bruno Brookes - at the same time Tommy Vance made a welcome return to the Sunday-afternoon Top 40. if he did indeed refer to "gibbons" i suspect he was trying to convince Marmaduke Hussey that he was On His Side and that, yes, he did want Alasdair Milne out even though he was one of those nasty "pop" johnnies. or had Milne already "resigned" (ha bloody ha) by 20th January?

Mr Carmody, you're scaring me now.