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

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

The times were changing a bit.

t rex. something i'd not heard before.

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

Sort-of..

It was up until 2 weeks ago, assumed lost.

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

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

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

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

(nice handle btw snoball)

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

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

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

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

It's still on iplayer.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

oh here he is

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

some rampant inflation going on in that stylistics track.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

EDDIE & THE HOT RODS!!!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I saw it was coming up so looked it up. Martin Rushent produced it, that's all I found out.

Don't remember it, will check it on the repeat

Right, I have seen it now. Godawful!

Once the 'bank-manager' got out of the way, you can see a bunch of young rock guys backing the wrong horse, basically.

that they are german was the only other thing that discogs threw up. reminded me of Sailor. it's actually a good name wasted.

'77 not any better than '76 so far. Possibly worse. Joy Sarney?

Actually, these two shows had a hell of a lot of stuff that didn't make the charts at all!

I regret missing Uriah Heep! That's how bad it was!

I missed the Bay Cities! thbiw.

I popped out to get Amber who was getting back from a school theatre trip. Back just-in-time to see Joy Sarney.

Amber was "I've seen enough" and went to bed.

BCR song was cack, like they were trying to be all grown up and adult

"Its A Game", who did that originally? That one was alright..

"String Driven Thing", there you go.

You know, I thought I knew the song too, not suited to them

Caught the end of this. What a dreary bunch of songs. I was ready to top myself after that. Even ABBA in that context came off as utterly joyless.

I like the idea of this much more than the reality. By this stage of 1977 I was still not quite 4 years old so there's hardly been anything I can honestly say I remember. By 1979 (if we get that far) I should know much more, but the quality so far has been so desperately poor that I wonder if things actually do improve later on, or if TOTP was always rubbish and my memory has just filtered out 90% of what was on there.

It's always been largely rubbish. Last night's shows were crap in 1977 (when I was 13, and therefore remember things all too well) and they're still crap now.

I've been compiling/saving the 'new-wave' entries onto DVD from the off, so far there's not been many.

I did miss Eddie/Hotrods "I might be lying", but then it wasn't as good as I remembered.

Anyway, I was going through some stuff in the loft and I found two 'archive' DVDs I bought at a record fair, clearly copied from someone's original VHS (or were they from UKTV gold? I dunno), quality pretty ropey. But there was a lot of tracks on them.

So, I should end up with much the same as these, just better quality.