Chart Music: the Top Of The Pops Podcast - #3 - November 15th 1973: Ken, Ken, Ken, Ken and Donny

Episode Date: April 7, 2017

The third edition of the podcast which asks: is that an apple or a strawberry on Pans Peoples' arses? In this episode - the chunkiest yet - we set the controls of the Time Sofa smack into the heart of the Glam era and get down to '73. The charts are encrusted with the bland mung of Osmond, but it's also rammed out with mid-Sixties chancers suddenly finding themselves in the Big Time in strange trousers, and milking their opportunity dry. And Tony Blackburn is on hand to vibrate with excitement, suggest that records about failed relationships make great Christmas presents, and abuse a Womble. Highlights of this episode include Alvin Stardust debuting the Satanic sound of the Mansfield Delta, Mott The Hoople demonstrating that if you're on a three-day week, have a four-day weekend,  Paul McCartney deep into his Style Council period, Kiki Dee flinging disgusting filth at our Pop Kids, and the Bacofoiled Elephant In The Room crashing straight in at No.1. Al Needham is joined by Melody Maker veterans Taylor Parkes and Simon Price for a good old hack at the face of the Velvet Tinmine, breaking off every now and then to discuss who we fancied at the age of 5, the difference between cheesecloth and gingham, and what happens when you mention Gary Glitter at a pub quiz.     (Warning: lots of swearing, occasional seagull interference, and a long conversation about Gary Glitter which goes beyond fist-shaking and arguing over which one of us would pull the lever first)   Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Chart music. Hey up you pop crazed youngsters and welcome back to the latest edition of Chart Music, the podcast that reaches down the back of the settee of old episodes of Top of the Pops. I'm your host, Al Needham, and as always I have two very special guests who know what the fuck they're talking about when it comes to music. And the first of which is the return of Taylor Parks. Taylor, how are you, sir? Too early to say. I should give you my very best. Good skills. Anything interesting and fascinating in your sparkly pop music journalist life of late?

No. Okay, let's move on. Our third opinion is provided by someone making his chart music debut, Simon Price. Hello, Simon, how are you? Hello, I'm very excited about this. That's how I am. Another Melody Maker veteran. Yeah, you. How are you? Hello. I'm very excited about this. That's how I am. Another Melody Maker veteran. Yeah, you know, that's it. You know, NME veterans have got proper jobs in the media.

They're basically running the media. So, you know, Melody Maker alumni like me and Taylor just washing around social media, you know, waiting for anybody to take our opinions even vaguely seriously. So that's how you managed to get us so easily. Well, here we are. This is your home for as long as you like. Ah, bless you. So, Simon, as always, when we have a new guest on,

we ask two questions. Number one, when did you start watching Top of the Pops? Do you know what? My earliest really vivid memories of watching it would have been around the time of stuff like Staying Alive by the Bee Gees and Donna Summer, I Feel Love, that kind of disco era. But because I didn't really grow up in a sort of top of the pops household, my mum wasn't really into it. And, you know, my parents divorced when I was five.

Actually, my parents divorced around about the time of the episode we're about to watch. So all kinds of bleak. Yeah, how bleakak how bleak do you want it um but um in terms of uh yeah watching it that that would have been the sort of disco ear but but fleetingly before that so it's almost a sort of a ghost memory i have of the you know early 70s and the one we're about to watch it is like right on the brink on the sort of horizon of what i can and can't remember excellent and the next question is when did you stop watching Top of the Pops? I was there I guess well I watched the very last one um when Jimmy Savile turned out the lights which uh that's that's a phrase I used that's a phrase I once used on another podcast and got told off for saying possibly the darkest sentence ever uttered um but yeah I mean I I

remember the the last one being being um really sort of faintly tragic the way that um Shakira and Wyclef Jean couldn't even be bothered turning up it was just a video because that's how low yeah that's how low the stock of the show had fallen at that point but um I guess I stopped watching it week in week out um when Britpop went to shit you know around the end of Britpop uh when my job was no longer, you know, keeping up to date with what was going on every single week. I quit Melody Maker to write a book. So we're talking about 97, I suppose,

that I sort of took my eye off the ball and stopped bothering so much. I mean, for the both of you, how important was Top of the Pops while you were actually working at the Maker? It was dying, really. Occasionally you'd be sent there if you were doing an interview or something, I'll go down to Top of the Pops with a band. Yeah, it never lived up to even your lowest expectations. Oh, you've been there then? Yeah, when it was at Elstree, a couple of times.

But all it was was a much smaller crowd of kids than it looked on the telly being shunted from one corner of a studio to another by a grumpy floor manager telling them to look out for the swinging crane camera and yeah it was the music sounds terrible when you're in there because it's coming through these crappy little speakers and stuff. Drummers miming with pads on the drums. There's a terrible dull thud. It's a disheartening experience. That pretty much sums up Britpop though, doesn't it? A terrible dull thud.

Yeah, but you see, I'm fairly certain that in 1973 this is not what it was like. It actually was the best party that anyone had ever been to is taylor's absolutely right i went there myself uh once with the band the now forgotten band these animal men who um bundled me into the boot of their car because they didn't have enough passes to get me in and like bearing in mind you know they were all about reenacting punk and bearing in mind what the stranglers used to do to journalists in the back of in the boots of cars i was taking my life in my hands there but um it was all a bit sort of tawdry and pathetic when i actually got inside there um i've got very little memory i think oasis might be on the show

but the thing i remember most was reel to reel featuring the mad stuntman and it was it wasn't even it wasn't even i like to move it It was the crap follow-up, whatever that was called. So yeah, absolutely. It was not this kind of golden promised land that you thought it was going to be. What's it like watching people mime? I suppose I was conditioned, having watched Top Of The Pops growing up, that when you go and see a band live, that's what you get. They sound absolutely perfect.

So in a way, a better question is is what's it like being 13 years old and seeing the first live gig and it sounds shit you know that it sounds nothing like the record because in a way top of the pops is in your head that's how things are meant to sound it's like watching people mime is uh it's like what it's like watching it from your sofa but less comfortable but i also i was going to say about uh being at meldy maker in the 90s um i was there a little bit um before taylor joined and um at that point before brit pop had really started taking off it was such a novelty to even see any of our bands on the show you know um we're talking about that kind of lull after sort of between live aid and brit pop where um really stuff that's on top the pops is mainly kind of dance records or novelty tracks.

And things coming from what you might call the alternative sector very rarely made it on. When they did, like the famous one with Happy Mondays and Stone Roses, it was a real kind of, you know, I'm not going to say water cooler moment because we live in a cold climate. I'll say a kettle moment, you know, a tea urn moment but um yeah it was it was really quite a rarity so i guess uh we got a bit spoiled around the brit pop time because week in week out our bands in inverted commas were rocking up to top of the pops yeah so for this episode we're going right back to november the 5th 1973 which is supposed to be the pinnacle of the glam era In the news Prime Minister Edward Heath admits in an interview

that petrol rationing might have to be introduced due to the miners strike 10 people are injured in a bomb blast in Belfast an animal protection group win a court case to ban the Argyle and Sutherland Highlanders from wearing badgers heads on their sparrans.

Scotland draw one all with West Germany in a friendly, but the big news this week is that Princess Anne and Captain Mark Phillips are pissing off on their honeymoon. That list basically sounded like the lyrics to the song The Osmonds by Denim, if you know that. It's basically that. It's this litany of just grim things happening grim things happening and other people living in unimaginable luxury yes yeah i mean do

you remember anything about that wedding because i can't remember us having a street party or anything like that now not for that one my street went mental for the queen silver jubilee and then four years later for charles and died but, I don't remember that one at all. Taylor, any recollection? Of 1973? I was adopted, which was good for me because it meant I didn't have to grow up in a 1970s children's home. So on the cover of the NME is Greg Lake. And this will be the last NME of 1973

because there was a nine-week printer strike. The number one LP is Pinups by David Bowie. In the US, the number one is Keep on Trucking by Eddie Kendricks. And the number one LP in America is Goodbye Yellow Brick Road by Elton John. So the glam era had a bit of a renaissance with the Simon Reynolds book, Shock and Awe. Yeah, and I think one thing that Simon did really well was to highlight that there are these two strands of glam. There's this real kind of almost working men's club,

British cabaret strand of glam, which is represented quite strongly in the show we're about to watch. And then there is the real kind of magical, otherworldly sort of top level of glam and you know kind of art glam as well and both going hand in hand I think you know it wasn't as if you had to sort of embrace one and reject the other So what else was on telly on that day? Well BBC One's already had Pebble Mill at one live from Heathrow Airport

to watch Princess Anne and Captain Mark Phillips go on their honeymoon and there's been another chance just before this show to see Raymond Baxter in China on Tomorrow's World. BBC Two has a programme about people protesting against a ring road in York. And on ITV, Bungle and Geoffrey have been pretending to be squirrels on Rainbow and they're currently showing the Sammy Davis Jr. film The Pigeon. Not a lot of competition tonight, I feel. It's a kind of animal transvestitism,

isn't it? Getting like, so Bungle's a bear pretending to be a squirrel. And what, you've got, I can never work out what George is. George is a cow or a hippo. It's a hippo. It looks really cow-like, but it's kind of pink. And then you've got whatever the fuck, you know, Zippy is.

I guess, in a way, it ties in with the spirit of glam, that you can be what you want to be. You can just morph into something that you weren't born to be. You can wear a really cheap bear suit. Hello and welcome once again to Top of the Pops. So the theme tune, a whole lot of love, the CCS version, the, as we've already established, the Top of the Pops theme tune. And we've got a nice bit of an opening credit kind of thing going on there, haven't we?

Yeah, the shots of USAF bombers is what rock and roll is all about to me. And an egg, also an egg and a dartboard. It says it all. It's kind of sexy futurism. It's sort of Goldfinger meets Barbarella going on with the painted ladies and all this kind of stuff. And you've got that mixed with this kind of childlike psychedelia that's going on as well.

I'm really fascinated by this idea that decades actually happen 10 years later than we think they did. And, you know, in a lot of ways, psychedelia didn't really hit Britain until about 1973, when you look at the opening credits of Top of the Pops and the chart countdown, and these crazy animations, you know, it's like, you know, never mind, you know, I don't know, Yellow Submarine or, and certainly never mind The Grateful Dead. Probably the first time that British children would have seen anything kind of, you know, a bit mind-frazzling and psychedelic would have been this.

And I actually looked it up. It was the animations, I'm guessing, were done, the guy at the end of the credits, who's, you know, the designer, a guy called Steve Brownsey. And he did, among other things, he did both Cracker Jack and Spike Milligan's Q9. So it's a kind of combination of those two things, I think. Even the sexual revolution didn't really happen in the 60s. It didn't really sort of get going until the kind of swinging suburbia of the 70s, when the contraceptive pill was more widely prescribed. And I think what happened was that people who grew up in the 60s,

who were sort of, you know, hippie teenagers, were now starting to be in charge of things. And I wouldn't be surprised if Top of the Pop's Steve Brownsy was a bit of an old head, you know. For example, recently I've befriended the guy who was Yoffie on Finger Bobs. No! Yeah, yeah. Yeah, on Facebook and on Twitter.

He's a lovely fella. He's about 80 now. But he was in a country rock band called Meal Ticket. He never really made it, but they were on Whistle Test a couple of times. And I think all these people who were sort of running children's telly, they were all... If you just look in Carol Chell's eyes, you're not telling me she's never dropped a tab once in a while you know and um i i really think there's a lot that we we all had teachers at school you must have had

teachers at school who like infant school who may be about let's say 26 years old and looked a bit like joan baez and they had these kind of very well-meaning ideas about teaching you to kind of open your minds and pretend to be a tree and that kind of stuff. Oh, yes. And I think that generation was starting to get a foothold in the British media and British telly. It's nothing like nothing like an English teacher just trying to crowbar in Bob Dylan's lyrics. Like, yeah, yeah. But what about this?

So the host of this episode is Tony Blackburn, So, the host of this episode is Tony Blackburn. The former lead singer of Tony Blackburn and the Rovers in the early 60s. He joined Radio Caroline in 1964. He moved to the BBC in 1967 and, of course, he was the first DJ ever to be heard on Radio 1. By this time, he's established as a Top of the Pops host. A few weeks later, after this episode of Top of the Pops, the pantomime he was in was interrupted by a power cut due to the miners' strike,

and the next day on air he told the miners to go back to work. Then he got a bollocking by the BBC management, and he was suspended for two weeks. Typical left-wing BBC, isn't it? The thing is, despite his somewhat fascist politics in that incident, I think we'd all have to agree that I think we'd all have to agree

that Blackburn has kind of become rehabilitated of late, almost by default. Almost as a kind of side effect of Utrecht, that at least he wasn't one of that lot. He certainly had a lot of sex with a lot of women but they were all over age as far as anyone

knows. And also I just remember in the 80s he was the easy target. He was the stuff of bad alternative comedians going sensational and that kind of stuff. He is the ultimate cheese meister but I think there's something quite likeable about

the sheer simplicity of his kind of enthusiasm for pop and famously he's a big fan of soul music as well genuinely so he knows his stuff so you know I've kind of warmed him lately I don't know about you guys he's always you're right Simon he has been seen as a bit of a gurning

smiling idiot but you know there's a part of me that's got a soft spot for him as well, I have to say. Taylor? Well, he likes being an idiot. He does it deliberately. I mean, he almost certainly is an idiot, but he enjoys being an idiot. He uses it in a provocative way. He likes nothing better, and this has always been the case, He likes nothing better than to wind up people who take idiots too seriously.

That's his shtick. It always has been. That's why he used to love winding up John Peel and stuff. To be fair, Peel took it in the spirit in which it was intended. But a lot of people don't and never have done. If you read his first autobiography...

Pop-tastic! No, no, no. Pop-tastic is his second autobiography. It's toned down a bit. If you read his first one, called The Living Legend, it's really something. The trouble is he kind of shoots himself in the foot because he goes on about

all these screaming girls and he does it all in a very self-deprecating kind of self-mocking way until it gets to the bit where he gets dumped by Tessa Wyatt and she runs off with Richard O'Sullivan and

he starts going, well I thought the scripts for this program, Robin's Nest, were not very funny. And I made a point of telling her so. And suddenly, he completely loses

his self-awareness. And he starts talking really indignantly about the disgraceful behavior about when he was at a Radio 1 roadshow and a load of lads in the front row

started chanting, Robin's next, Robin's next, Robin's next. And you just, you lose all sympathy for him. To the best of my knowledge, nobody's got a recording of the morning when he implored Tessa Wyatt to come back to him live on Radio 1. It's almost like an urban legend

because nobody's ever heard it. Or, you know, there doesn't seem to be an archive recording of it, but I would pay. Well, yes. For all the kind of rampant egotism and the sort of accidental partridge of his autobiography, I think it probably stands up better

to modern scrutiny than Ed stewart's uh autobiography which is let oh that i mean you want to talk you tree have a look at that um but also you know you mentioned john peel just then john peel's been on the the 80s repeats of top of the pops on bbc4 a lot lately and i've got to say at the time i thought yeah he's great he's taking the piss out of it all he's one of us now i just find it incredibly aggravating i just think i'll just just just lay off it will you you know when i watch peel whereas i don't get that with blackburn i think you know he is what he is and and there's something really likable about that kind of genuine love of cheese and pop you know so anyway at this point in tony blackburn's career he's just been demoted from the breakfast slot and been replaced by...

Edmonds. Noel Edmonds. Noel Edmonds. So he's now on the 9-12 slot on Radio 1, so he's been relegated. And there was always a great deal of enmity between Blackburn and Edmonds, wasn't there? I don't know whose side I'd have been.

I'd definitely have been on Team Blackburn there, I think. Yeah, yeah. Because when team Blackburn there I think yeah yeah because when when Tony Blackburn was Caroline Noel Edmonds came on and apparently Tony Blackburn fronted him up and said there's only room for one person to do corny jokes on this station

it'd be like having to vote for Nicholas Sarkozy to stop Le Pen getting in or something. You know what I mean? But he's very nicely turned out in this show. He's got a nice blue Gingham shirt on. He looks of the time without being too flamboyant. It's really a cheesecloth shirt.

Gingham is smaller checks. You should know this, Al. Yeah, I know I should. I was torn between the two on my notes and I went for gingham and that was wrong and i apologize cheesecloth the interactions between blackburn and the girls around him it's kind of awkward and stilted and you know there's no rapport there but at least you think they're safe in his company at least he's got his hands to himself yeah they look bored which is you know at least that's fine that's okay yeah well i'll take that He's down on me. He's down on me. He's down on me. He's down on me. He's down on me. He's down on himself, yeah. They look bored, which is, you know, at least... That's fine.

That's okay, yeah. I'll take that. Hello, hi. Welcome to Top of the Box. Every time I see your face It reminds me of the places we used to go So, Photograph by Ringo Starr. This is the third top ten hit in a row, after It Don't Come Easy and Back Off Boogaloo,

and it's the lead single from his new LP Ringo, which was written with george harrison on a yacht in the south of france cellar black was a guest on the yacht at the time and wanted to record the song but ringo told her to bollocks he's up to number eight from 13 and the only other interesting thing about this song is a single cover which is ringo inside a massive silver star looking like a hairy maggie simpson this was just before they ran out of steam this was sort of like the last gasp of beetle juice you know this was um they sort of had enough after they split up they sort of had enough in the tank for maybe one more album um if you look at all the solo stuff you could you could i'm except that all the lennon stuff is totally unsuitable because he was you know singing

about his mum and stuff yeah wouldn't have yet but in terms of actual musical invention they kept going for about another another year or two before it all ran dry. There's plenty of good stuff. But this is possibly the last great solo Beatles single apart from, you know, you can make an argument for a few of those Wings records, but I don't think any of them are as good as Photograph, quite honestly. Right. I mean, I'm not a Beatles person, you know, particularly at all, to be honest. But even I will say that photograph

by ringo star it's just a fantastic record it really is if you just listen to the sound of that the way it chimes and then builds upon those chimes it's it's just huge i could really imagine somebody you know in the 90s like teenage fan club having to uncover version of it and probably not doing it justice but it's that kind of sound if you know what i mean yeah an interesting fact about john lennon that's rarely mentioned is that at the age of 40 he didn't believe in evolution he said why aren't monkeys turning into men now makes makes you think doesn't it perhaps he was talking about the monkeys monkeys so as is the want of top of the pops in the early 70s we have a tune playing and it's interspersed with the chart rundown and shots of the audience dancing which is extremely school

disco isn't it you can tell the professional dancers are mile off can't you it's that the the this is back in the days when brit people, if a camera was on them, were tremendously self-conscious rather than launching into their tap routine or whatever. They were a little bit embarrassed. You can tell the people who were kind of self-possessed

and got the steps down. I miss that, don't you? When Vox Pops would stop people in shopping centres and you could tell that, you know, they were just dying to blurt something out quickly and get away from the camera, which is completely the opposite of how things are now. Yeah, on That's Life in particular.

Yeah. So the chart run down, it's a bit tasty, isn't it? There's some huge names in there. There's The Who, Slade, there's two Bowie songs. Wink Martindale. Yes, Wink Martindale, Perry Como, Max Bygraves. This is what I spotted. It's the height of glam.

You've got all these huge glam artists. But, yeah, there's also this kind of very strong undercurrent of, you know, granddads and grandmas' easy listening music, isn't there? Will Tuppers and Shunters music, yeah. Michael Ward. Wink Martindale and Max Bygraves have recorded the same song, Deck of Cards. Oh, my God.

So, yeah. And who was Michael Ward? Michael Ward. Michael Ward was a boy soprano who did religious tunes and stuff. I mean, this would have been an early Christmas release, I'd have thought. So, kind of Ali Jones of his day. Yeah, yeah. Aim squarely between

the eyes of your gran. Here's an image to conjure with. So the song dropped two places the following week. However, it got to number one in America late that month and went platinum. Ringo would have two more hits in 1974 and then wasn't heard from again until Weight of

the World got to number 74 in 1992. And of course, obligatory mention for Thomas the Tank Engine. But don't send anything to get him autographed because he's had enough of that now. Yes, yes, we won't. We won't send him this podcast. Well, that's the brand new top 30 there And we have five new entries

And what after the fantastic wedding yesterday Who went to see the wedding? You did? Yeah Where were you? I was staying outside the palace It's great that you had time to drop along and see us tonight Fabulous

And as I said we've got some really marvellous records for you to see right now And this one has gone straight in In fact at number 27 It's called My Cuckoo Chew And it comes from Alvin Stardust marvellous records for you to see right now. And this one has gone straight in. In fact, at number 27, it's called My Cuckoo Chew, and it comes from Alvin Stardust. Tony asks a girl if she went to the Royal Wedding while a Herbert in a tank top tries to get into shot. And we're introduced to Alvin Stardust, or Bernard Dury, as was his original name.

Born in London, moved to Mansfield as a child. He was working as a roadie for Shane Fenton and the Fentones, who sent a demo tape off to the BBC in the early 60s. The band was about to split up when the lead singer died, but the BBC invited them onto a TV show, so Bernard was asked to be Shane Fenton, and they went on to have a few minor hits. In 1973, the songwriter Peter Shelley released My Cuckoo Chew

under the name Alvin Stardust, and appeared on the TV kids' show Lift Off With A. Shea. The song rocketed up the charts, but he didn't want to promote it anymore, so he asked Marty Wilde, who turned it down. Then he asked Bernard Stroke Shane, who was working as a band manager at the time, to be Alvin Stardust, and thus a star is born. I mean, this is how you introduce yourself on Top of the Pops, isn't it? It's amazing. It's just, i love this it's sinister very thin

but with a massive head further further elongated with hair with this quiff inviting you to have sex on his mat it's the mic microphone held sideways to his mouth in in time-honored pornographic box cover pose um it's yeah visibly old grecian 2000 it's it's there's a sort of voodoo about this it's the this it's just one this is one of the best top of the pops clips of all time i think it is it's an incredible record it's just a fantastic piece of music, even though he's not on it. And yeah, Taylor's right. It's sinister, partly because he doesn't move. He's just stood there stock still in this weird kind of slightly awkward side-on pose, wearing this, I mean, these black latex gloves.

People say it's leather, but look, where did you even get black latex gloves in 1973? I have no idea. Well, there's a tale behind that. According to an interview that he gave a few years ago, the night before he went on top of the pops, he decided to dye his blonde hair black the night before, and he ended up staining the sides of his face and his hands. So the next morning, he got some sideburns fitted at a theatrical wig makers

and then nipped across the road to a women's boutique and bought some black gloves. Brilliant. And that is fucking amazing, isn't it? By the way, Taylor saying, you know, that Alvin Stardust looks old there. You can probably see where I'm going with this, but he certainly had a he must have had a tough paper round because how old do you reckon he was? If we just ask the listeners to this, just to sort of pause for a second, look at Alvin St doing my kooka chew and decide how old he was right he was i know yeah you know he was 31 years old right now i don't know about you i was quite baby faced at 31 still uh all right um a lot of the hair had gone but i still had you know taut stretched skin across my bones you know what i

mean he looks i mean he looks like he's been down the coal mine for 31 years never mind been alive for 31 years that's what growing up in mansfield in the 50s and 60s does for you mate absolutely and i i like that i you know um i like the fact that glam rock was teen oriented but it wasn't of teenagers it wasn't made by teenagers that's kind of odd thing about it and i also love how that the guys in his band in their pink tops that say i'll be stardust they technically those guys are pop stars in this moment and you know uh their children can look back and say yeah my my dad was a pop star yeah but they're they're just sort of british 70s egg and chips with HP sauce filth.

You know what I mean? But with the pink T-shirts and everything, it sort of undermines them and accentuates Alvin's default alpha status. It's this sort of curdled Elvis. But he is kind of sexy. The fact that he's old, if you had a young, beautiful man doing this, it'd still be a great record, but it'd be a completely different kind of

record, because the sort of earthiness and the oiliness of this is there's nothing naive or elfin about this motherfucker, right? It's like, he looks like he can fix machinery and punch people in the eye with rings on, you know what I mean? There's a, he looks like he can fix machinery and punch people

in the eye with rings on, you know what I mean? There's a sort of, there's a when he wants you to have sex on his mat, it, like he might not be a very giving lover, but at least he'll mean it. Yeah. And I think, is it

the first time that the word flat has been used in a rock and roll song oh instead of apartment or whatever yeah it could be it's not his pad is it

it's very much a flat no it's his flat definitely and there's an amazing bit of footage because when he dies I wrote a piece

a bittery piece about him for the Guardian and I found this clip of him on the Wheel Tappers and Shunters show and it's just extraordinary. Which I watched just before this.

Did you? It's incredible, isn't it? Yeah, he's wearing, I mean, if memory serves, some kind of brown checked flared outfit but it's just the most, it's the most British thing that's ever happened and he's given it the full Elvis 68 comeback special but in the context of all these women who look like the front row of ITV wrestling, it's extraordinary.

It's absolutely amazing. Another thing about My Cuckoo Chew, it's a rare example of somebody's best-known song being not their biggest hit. Jealous Mind. Jealous Mind actually got to number one. My Cuckoo Chew didn't. But most people could not sing you Jealous Mind. Yeah, yeah. I always thought My Cuckoo Chew didn't. Yes. But most people could not sing you Jealous Mind. Yeah, yeah.

I always thought My Cuckoo Chew was number one. Yeah. It should have been. I mean, to me, this is man glam, isn't it? It's early 70s British suburban blues, right? Yes. It's like, in the same way that the simplicity of blues allowed some things to come across about, you across about life in the Delta and then Chicago, life in the cities of Chicago.

This tells you everything you need to know about life in the suburbs of cities of Britain in the early 70s. The Mansfield Delta. Yeah, and out comes the soul or whatever is there instead of soul. You know what I mean? It's that same channel to something genuine through the ludicrous artifice. But it works. All this Andy helped you cross the road. Yes.

And isn't it interesting that the sonic palette of glam is kind of the same from the most base to the most kind of high flow because if you look at something like gene genie by bowie and you know my kooka chew by alvin stardust there's not a lot between and then in the middle of 50 50 50 in between you've got blockbuster by the suite yeah you know and i guess it's it's all rooted in in uh spirit in the sky but you know and it you know it all led on to golf rap and all that business but i just find it really interesting that you know bowie's there um being this sort of sexy alien and then alvin stardust is taking you back to his flat and his mat and it sounds the same yeah but this is because this is a demonic Englishness. It's like, you know, David Bowie was going somewhere else with this, you know, whereas Alvin Stardust was going deeper into his own Englishness until he finds the essential satanic core of Englishness. The sort of demonic power of old England

it's excellent. So Mike Cuckoo jumped up to number 8 the following week and then up to number 2 only held off the top spot by the current number 1 and he spent 8 weeks in the top 5 the follow up My Jealous Mind got to number 1 in February of 1974 and he

had 3 other hits that year he kind of like petered out and ended up taking the wheel tappers route, but he made a comeback on stiff records in the early 80s, and he died at the age of 74 in 2014. Marty Weil, as a side note, did try to get on the bandwagon later on when he changed his name to Zappo with limited success.

He really fucked up there, didn't he? Could have been Alvin Stardust. He missed the trick, but then I guess he passed the torch down to his daughter. She did all right. Yes, she did, yeah. That's Alvin Stardust there. But it seems at the moment that any Osman record that comes out is automatically a hit. We've got Little Jimmy Osman, we've got Psy, Donny Osman, Donny Osman,

and the Osmonds, of course, they make hit records. Oh, and now, believe it or not, we've got Marie Osman with a number called Paper Roses. Tony Blackburn is refraining from cramming young girls into his face and introduced Paper Roses by Marie Osmond. Marie Osmond is obviously the only daughter in the Osmond family and in the early 70s she was encouraged to join her brothers on stage and then she decided to be a little bit country this is a cover of a 1968 Anita Bryant tune and it was the number one country song in America and it had got to number five on the billboard hot 100 she just turned 14 this is what blew my mind as well because when she first appears on the screen, there's a

split second where I thought, is that a guy? Is it a drag queen or something? Such is the size of her hair and the thickness of her fake eyelashes. Oh, they're amazing, aren't they? It's really quite something. Do you know what? Until we were going to do this show

and I had to do a bit of research into it, I honestly wasn't sure if Marie Osmond was donny osmond's sister or his missus i i and and in a way that kind of sums up the the creepy vibe that the osmonds gave off there's there's that series now on channel four three wives one husband about you know um uh polyggamy in the mormon community in utah and when you watch that stuff and it really is quite bleak um it gives it gives you quite quite an insight into what's what's underlying this this whole squeaky clean them osman's facade she looks like a more waspy selena gomez um which is not not at all how i remember marie osmond one of my first memories is the donny and marie show on tv yeah which i guess was a few years after this uh and i just remember as being

this kind of bland tooth i basically i i couldn't remember what she looked like so i was my memory was giving me donny osmond in a wig right she she doesn't look like donny osmond and the song is actually uh the song's quite like that stuff we were talking about from the opening credits isn't it it's grandma music yes it's total kind of um british working men's club version of country and western that's the kind of stuff that probably to this day you would walk into you know a provincial um club where older people drink and hear that song. The other thing about this film is that Marie Osmond's microphone is fucking massive, isn't it? Well, they all are, isn't it?

I noticed this. There's a few enormous microphones. It might just be that they had tiny pop stars in those days. Yeah. It's like people grew up in rationing or something. They weren't full size. It's hard to... Well, you know, it goes back to Alvin Stardust and his massive head. It's just scale grew up in rationing or something. They weren't full size. It's hard to... Well, you know, it goes back to Alvin Stardust and his massive head.

It's just scale, isn't it? It's like the thing on Father Ted. These ones are small, those ones are far away. It's hard to find very much to say about this record because it's almost designed to be as nondescript as possible. Yeah, wash over you. Yeah, so as little as possible can be said about it. It's like God wants it to be that wayondescript as possible. So... Yeah, wash over you. Yeah, so as little as possible can be said about it. It's like God wants

it to be that way, you know. Do you know what she does now, Marie Osmond? She makes dolls. Yes, she does. It's quite macabre. Yeah, and sells them on QVC. She makes dolls that look exactly like herself, with big kind of wobbling heads.

A bit like the doll that Steve Martin has on his dashboard of his dead wife in the man with two brains that's how I'm picturing it all across Utah people are going missing, unexplained disappearances, just saying so the

next week this song rocketed up to number three, got as far as number two, again held off the top spot by this week's number one uh the follow-up single in my little corner of the world flopped in the uk but then marie would team up with donnie for a string of top 30 hits until 1976 by which time they had their own tv show and uh did you know that marie osmond is one of the few pop stars quoted in Civilization VI? When you discover iron working, Marie Osmond's quote,

the Lord made us all out of iron, then he turns up the heat to forge some of us into steel. A load of bollocks. Well there it is, that's Marie Osmond and Paper Rose. They're all at it now. They must be a granny and granddad, Osmond. They must get in on the act sooner or later. At 26, it's Paul McCartney and Wings. The next tune-up is Helen Wheels by Paul McCartney and Wings. Wings, of course, were formed in 1971 by Paul McCartney.

It's the sixth Wings single, and it's the follow-up to Live and Let Die, the songs about his Land Rover, really, and a trip from Scotland to London. Taylor, you've had an opinion or two on McCartney's 70s output, haven't you? Yeah, more than one or two it's variable it is variable You've stuck up for him on a few occasions haven't you? Yeah, because it's

never less than interesting you know what I mean? Even when it's terrible it's interesting and more often than you might imagine it's actually quite good um not a big fan of this one it's like it's you know he's got a cute pet name for his land rover you know right so to go with the one about let's go with the song about his horse and the song about fungus the bogeyman you know what i mean it's and also i don't the the great thing about

this is they show the video. And first of all, like all videos on Top of the Pops in this period, it looks like it's about 40 years old already. They always have the worst print. It's like footage of nuclear tests in the Nevada desert.

It's like this kind of terrible quality and the sound on it is awful. What it's like, have you ever seen vintage TV or those channels that they have? If you go through the high numbers on the freeview, you get these sort of

sub-MTV video channels. They've always got the worst print that they found under somebody's bed or something. That's what this is like. But it's the videos, it's terrible sort of fogeolity with yes like linda doing the sort of stoned mugging into the camera and denny lane hating every minute on six bob a week you know just oh it's yeah and maca's weird, sleazy, unwashed 70s incarnation.

It's like unrecognisable from the sort of smart, well-groomed, beautiful young manor about town of the mid-60s. Yeah, Jane Asher would not have gone near this geezer, right? This is this... It's not one of his best, I've got to be honest. It's not... This is no high, high, high, right? Or let them in.

The only thing it's got in common with that is his weirdo lyrics. You can't even call them surreal because they're not trying to paint pictures in your mind or anything. He's just saying anything, literally anything, to fill out the lines. And it's like a little window into his is the sort of stew of his subconscious it's quite interesting simon you're a uh as you've said already you're a you're a beagle skeptic um what about the solo output of the beat yeah i i am a beetle skeptic um but i quite like mccartney for what a dick he is for kind of how how just

sort of rubbish he is in so many ways like i suppose the most recent example would be that amazing campaign he did for veganism that that meat-free mondays thing uh where where he suddenly he suddenly puts on a sort of sting style jamaican accent that starts rapping and clicking his fingers and going you can do it right now please it's absolutely amazing um but i also quite like the mccartney of the 70s um this song is as taylor says absolutely terrible um it's the follow-up to live and let die and it is no live and let die um but i i just kind of just i like the whole vibe you get off mccartney in the 70s that he seems like a freed man.

He's freed from having to have records that get to number one anymore. It's fine for him to put out a record that gets to number four or number eight or something. No one's going to care. This is his style council period then, isn't it? Yeah, it is. It's exactly what it is. It's McCartney's style council period,

and he looks like he's loving it, and I quite like that. That means Linda's Mick Tolbert. Yeah, Linda is Mick Tolbert. period and he looks like he's loving it and i quite like that that means linda's mick tolbert yeah linda is mick tolbert and yeah and uh uh yeah they're they're driving down this this country lane in a in a what is a bentley or a rolls in a roller in a roller very irresponsibly indeed it's standing up and waving his arms around where he's supposed to there's a fucking removals van behind them. It's like, you want to watch what you're doing, mate? This is not a good example to set.

But what I love about that is that, you know, that car was clearly paid for by the Beatles' millions. And now he's just spunking it all away on these records that are a bit crap. But he's having a lot of fun. And I actually think Lynn does the one to watch in this video. She does a bit of kind of Brian Eno-like synth at one point. You know, twiddling with a super expensive, just probably mind-bogglingly expensive 1973 synthesizer

and giving a cheeky V sign to the camera. Yes. You know, on top of the pop. So, you know, shocking. Never mind Johnny Rot camera. Yes. You know, on top of the pop. So, you know, shocking, nevermind Johnny rotten. Yes. And the video cuts between them pissing about in the roller and, uh,

the band, because Paul McCartney was very, uh, you know, really wanted to put over the fact that he's in a band again. Cause he holds up. There is no band. Cause this is shortly after his entire band left him.

The whole band walked out. Yeah. They all walked out en masse because he paid them so little and was such a bossy boot. The only people left out of his band were the one he was married to and the one who was now officially

his songwriting partner. Oh, so that's why McCartney's playing drums in the video. It's not like a little conceit. He literally couldn't get anyone to do it. No, he played drums on the record. He played everything on the record except what Denny Lane played, which was basically just rhythm guitar.

Which we never see in the video. We never see him playing. We just see him just sitting there or standing there. Well, we see Denny Lane with a patch of glitter on his forehead and a moustache. And I put it to you that this is the only point in human history when a patch of glitter on the forehead and a moustache could be seen on the same face. Although it is a weird moustache

because the middle bit is missing. Oh, it's terrible, isn't it? It's like the anti-Hitler. It's almost like he's... Yes. I'm trying to say he's as unlike Hitler as it's possible to get. He's just got the moustache on the sides of his lips.

Do you think Paul McCartney looks back now and goes, oh, if the Beatles had split up in 1968, I would have been the fucking biggest thing ever? Because all those tunes he gave to the Beatles right at the end, he could have had for himself. Nah. No, he just wanted to... Okay.

He wanted to be in the Beatles for his whole life, didn't he? He'd have liked nothing better, you know, despite all this sort of rationalisation after the fact, saying, oh, well, you know, we split up at the top. It's like, no, he would like to still be in the Beatles now. Helen Wheels moved up to number 17 and then stalled at number 12, the first winged single not to make the top ten since Give Ireland Back to the Irish. A month later, they released the band on the Run LP

and would have 15 more hits before splitting up in 1979. That's Paul McCartney and Wings and Helen Wills all vibrating with excitement to that one. Have you done any Christmas shopping yet? No. Haven't you done it yet? Anybody done the Christmas shopping? it's not far away is it and you might want to get this one because it's gone straight in at number 17 another

singer-songwriter this is a beautiful song it's called y-o-y-o-y from gilbert o'sullivan Why is it you must be so very cruel to me In order to be kind Gilbert O'Sullivan. Before Gilbert O'Sullivan, Tony tries to chat up one of the girls by asking her if she's done her christmas shopping yet which is like the dreariest chat up line ever and he also suggests that this song about a relationship breakdown will make a great present for somebody yeah i would say considering this is christmas 1973 uh no ask for candles get candles you're gonna you're gonna need them

really soon maybe he sent a copy to Tessa Wyatt. And as the song begins, two girls in the foreground awkwardly dance really fast before nearly being run over by a cameraman. I quite like that about this crowd. You know, you see these people bopping really enthusiastically, like it was Moldy Old Doe or something like that that they're dancing to. It's really inappropriate. I quite like that. They're dancing to... They're just vibrating with the sheer excitement of pop music inside their own heads.

And we're introduced to Gilbert O'Sullivan, born Raymond O'Sullivan in Waterford Island. This is his 10th single release, a year after he had two number ones with Claire and Get Down. It's also the debut of his new look after the original cloth cap appearance and an aborted attempt to look like

a 1950s college boy with a big G on the front, like he was a member of the goodies. And it's in at number 17. What we're saying about Gilbert O'Sullivan, chaps? He's got a really odd style. He sort of operates in this sort of unmatched

shadow zone between singer songwriter and comedy songs do you know what I mean it's weird all his songs are sort of on the cusp of being humorous but they're not funny they're just they're like part witty and

poised and part clumsy and dumb he says he says why in the name of God are you so angry? Could it be that you can no longer stand me? You can imagine him writing that and

feeling quite pleased with himself. It's terrible. He says why when I kiss your lips do you astound me? Saying that you won't put your arms around me this whole song it's like he won't take the hint you know what i mean it's uh his girlfriend's basically making it very obvious that she wants nothing to do with this partick thistle center off 1973 74 season um but he's singing it with this complete naivety and he does this weird self-satisfied

grin between lines as they once said of david crosby um he's he seems very kind of pleased to be there but it's uh it's it's quite a bleak song room it's terrible it's uh it's it's it's divorce pop but it's being performed to 12 year olds this is the weird thing you know he's singing these lyrics about you know a relationship that's been probably uh lingering on for at least 10 years and it's really sort of very jaded now um and he's singing it to people who have no idea of that none of that kind of life experience yeah and um a lot of his lyrics are really depressing you know if you listen to alone again naturally you know your mum and dad dying and

stuff like that you know it's just really grim um and and you wonder what the selling point was here he's not he's not good looking um like taylor says uh he doesn't quite tip over into being witty or clever and it's not a banger melodically, is it? So what's going on? Are people appreciating the craft? Are they thinking, oh, it's somehow classy and proper? I genuinely don't know. What do you reckon?

Well, I mean, the Partick Thistle reference was spot on, Taylor. I was going to go for, he looks now like a sensible rod hole. Oh, I'll tell you one thing. When a pop star whips off their hat it's quite a surprise that they're not bald underneath, isn't it? So that's the real shock here. You know, if somebody becomes famous and they've always

got a hat on, you think, okay, we're not stupid. We know what's going on there. Look at Paul Simon, you know, he whips off his hat. Elton John? Yeah, yeah, exactly. Or the drummer out of Gene. Yeah, Matt the Hat, yeah. But yeah, there he is. He's got quite

a decent head of hair there. So he's put the hat on that looks like one of those Scottish Highland gonks consciously as a fashion choice. And then he thought better of it and whipped it off. Did Matt the Hat ever invite a girl back to his flat to groove on the mat?

Every night. Never worked. Why do I have to cry myself to sleep seven days a week? Is this you now or is this the song? It's a bit of both. That can't be. I mean, take the hint, Gil. Life's short and you get old fast.

Yeah. The two inappropriately dancing girls hove back into view near the end of the song and have clocked themselves on the monitors. One goes to scratch at her nose and catches herself doing it and laughs. And that reminds me a lot of being on the bus in Nottingham because we have video cameras everywhere.

And you see that you're on the camera and you go, oh, how long is the delay on this? So I'm going to do something and catch myself and see how long it is. And that's what she was doing, I'm sure. I would say that scratching the nose and bopping around manically might be somehow connected, but those are more innocent times. The thing is, Al, we have those cameras on the buses in London now you'd be amazed

except we don't have a delay give it 10 years so this song went up to number 12 the next week and peaked at number 6 it was his last top 10 hit because he sued his manager Gordon Mills over his contract soon after this.

And it wasn't resolved until 1982 when he received seven million pounds. He later went on to destroy hip-hop in 1991 when he successfully sued Biz Markie for sampling alone again naturally, meaning that any future sampling had to be pre-approved and

paid for by the original artists before being used. You fucking permy bastards. That was basically the Bosman ruling of hip-hop, wasn't it? Yes, it was. It really was. That's lovely, isn't it? That's Gilbert O'Sullivan there. Look what I found. A little, or should I say, a big womble.

Where do you come from, Womble? I come from Wimbledon. You come from Wimbledon. And what do you do? Well, we pick up litter, and we've been here all day picking up all the litter from that lovely wedding yesterday. Have you really? You're doing a marvellous job.

What a big nose you've got. Yes, I've had six full tidy bags today. Have you really? That's fantastic. Well, keep going, because right now, you can see the Wombles, of course, on BBC One television every day except Tuesday, every weekday except Tuesday. Right now, though, it's new release time.

That is called Roll Away the Stones from Mop the Hoople and Thunder Thighs. Tony is joined by a womble but presumably Orinoco who holds his throat so his head doesn't fall off the great thing about this womble is tony says to him where are you from and he says i'm from wimbledon and he actually sounds like it i bet i'm the only person you've had on this show who's been inside a womble oh yeah i've actually been inside one of the actual womble suits that were seen on top of the pops.

What happened was, this again is a Melody Maker thing from the 90s. I went to EMI Records to interview Errol Brown from Hot Chocolate. In fact, it wasn't interviewing. I was getting him to review the singles for us. And we went in this conference room. And after he'd left and we'd taken a few photos and me and the photographer just packing away, we noticed in the corner of the room there are four Womble heads just lying there, disembodied, just the heads on the floor.

Because they just had a comeback hit around that time. That's right. And, well, you've got to, haven't you? If you see it there, you've got to put it on. So, you know, I had my photo taken with this Womble head on. I thought, great, you know, just so I've got it for posterity. Next time I review the fucking singles from Melody Maker, guess which fucking photo

we did. Yeah, fucking Tobermory here. Oh, it smelled really bad, by the way. Yeah, they do. God only knows what they do in those. Well, they spend all their life picking up rubbish, don't they? The nearest I've come to that, Simon,

is I donned the head of News Bunny when I was freelancing at Live TV. That stank. And I really wanted to nick it as well. I was working on this desk and I was kicking something underneath it and I just thought, what the fuck is that? It's getting on my nerves.

I looked underneath. News Bunny's head. Could have had it. I think I used to have a crush on Madame Cholet I don't know how common that is for children of my age in the 70s but she seemed kind of exotic and sexy in a weird way

but also she'd cook you dinner as well they have internet groups for people like you now it's nothing to be ashamed of anymore I used to fancy Maid Marian as a fox now, Simon. It's nothing to be ashamed of anymore. I used to fancy Maid Marian as a fox on Robert Doyle. I think that was my

first crush. I have a threesome with her at the Cadbury's Caramel Rabbit. Yes! Somewhere in a hotel suite in Britain right now, there's about 50 people, and they're all either dressed up as Madame Cholet, Maid Marian, or the News bunny.

Yes. So Tony draws attention to the Womble's big nose, which is a bit uncharitable of him, and the Womble talks about cleaning up all the people's shit at the royal wedding. Six bags full. It would have been great if he'd drawn attention to the Womble's big nose. The Womble would have said, yeah, well, look at your teeth, you cunt.

Yes. Also, he talks over the Wombler said yeah well look at your teeth you cunt also he talks over the Womble really rudely he talks right over it appropriately enough fluffs the link that he's trying to do yes he does roll away the stones but pop for young people

and pop culture was weirdly socially conscious at this time wasn't it you've got the Wombles advocating environmentalism and then you've got Alvin Stardust teaching them how to cross the road and all that, you know. It's none of this kind of wanton devil may care attitude that pop culture

has now. It was all about making you a better person in some way and I quite like that, I think. Indeed, one thing I didn't approve of though, Womble gets a proper handful of that girl next to him at the end, doesn't he? He's making good use of the things that he finds. And yes, Tony Blackburn introduces Mark the Hoople and their song Roll Away the Stone, not Stones, Tony.

An amalgamation of two 60s bands from Herefordshire, The Solents and The Buddies, Mark the Hoople performed in 1968 to minimal success and they were on the verge of splitting up in 1972 when David Bowie offered them All The Young Dudes which got to number three. This is the fourth single and it's the follow up to All The

Way From Memphis. I mean if it wasn't for Alvin this would have taken the whole show wouldn't it? Yeah. This is their best record I think. I think it's their best record. It's just absolutely brilliant. It's got everything. But what is going on with the vocal there?

Do you notice this? That basically his mic is up, Ian Hunter, and they're playing the backing track, the seven-inch single, and he's singing live over his own. So you've got this kind of double vocal. You've got the studio take and bad you know version where he can't hear himself properly it's it's bizarre it's like sort of you know primitive karaoke or sort of hen night version of it it's quite quite appropriate to the because part of the glory of this record is

the the the the earthbound nature of it do you know what i mean? If Alvin Stardust is invoking these kind of demons and spirits, it's Saturday Night Music, the whole point of it. You've got a singer who looks like what Robert Plant looks like to a dog.

Do you know what I mean? It's sort of like he's in a disguise or something. And their female backing vocal trio, Thunder Thighs, with their self-deprecating name. It's like what it says is that this is attainable. You know, this amount of joy

and power and freedom is actually attainable. Because it does look like he's rounded up loads of people from a pub and Thunder Thighs were sitting on one table with a cherry bees or whatever. It's like, oh, come on, let's go on top of the pubs.

It'll be a laugh. I'm fascinated by the idea of convivial music. And this is a real early 70s thing. You have things like Meet Me on the Corner by Lindisfarne. You had See My Baby Charge by Wizard. And you've got Roll Away the Stone by Mott the Hoople. And, you know, things like you've also got the theme from Whatever Happened to the Lightly Lads.

All these tunes, there's something about them that makes it feel like, you know, a load of people in Power Cut Britain going down the pub on a Saturday night with their arms around their mates, having a sing-along. And there's just something really lovely about that, I think. I think Mott the Hoople, more than anyone, convey that essence of convivial music.

Yeah, and it is a lot of people as well. I counted 11 people on stage. And what I like about them is they look like the Spiders from Mars, of convivial music. Yeah, and it is a lot of people as well. I counted 11 people on stage. And what I like about them is they look like the Spiders from Mars where everyone is Trevor Boulder. Yes. Yes, they do. And it's the first sighting of really massive platforms, isn't it, in that one?

I think the guitarist has got these really, really long, right up to the middle of his thighs, white boots. And they're just... Don't just call him the guitarist here. Let's have the proper name, Ariel Bender. One of the greatest names of any band ever. Is that Ariel Bender? Or did Ariel Bender join Mott after this point?

Oh, that's a good question. I believe he was in them at this point, though, because they'd had four hit singles by this time. I think he joined them. He was in Spooky Tooth wasn't he before? Yeah, possibly. I should know this really. See that's why I said the guitarist. Cover my arse.

I want it to be Ariel Bender. Just go with me on this. Yeah, fuck it, yeah. Also, you know, we've got to talk about his book. Have we all read his book dive you're a rock and roll star it's absolutely amazing it's you know one of the probably the great um rock memoirs and it takes place over their uh american tour around the time of um all the young dudes so it's the previous autumn and they've been this kind of jobbing sort of pub

rock band um going around the uk for years and not really selling many records till david bowie suddenly decides to take them under his wing and uh they're suddenly getting to tour america and just these these guys from you know the um is it hereford shrewsbury from you know yeah yeah from the west from the west midlands there at the very west from the welsh borders basically um and they're there wearing this sort of lower league English football shirts in this world of rooftop swimming pools. And they're even freaked out by the idea of fresh orange juice.

It's just the most wonderful thing to read. I think everybody ought to read it. And that book is, you know what, I've tried to get hold of that book. It's rarer than Jeremy Kyle Guest's teeth. Well, I've got an autographed copy so in your face well get you well that'll be worth a pretty penny because um i can't see any lower than 45 quid on ebay at the minute and amazon about the same so you know keep hold of it simon

yeah also keeping in with the theme of tiny pop stars did you notice the drummer's got the giant drumsticks like giant comedy drumsticks like you know like it looks like something that should be hanging on the wall of a shop in amsterdam you know i mean yes also i this is this is boring and probably it might not make the final cut but the other sax players and it's tragic that i even could recognize this but i swear one of the sax players and it's tragic that i even could recognize this but i swear one of the sax players is a bloke called dick parry who played sack he wasn't in mott the hoopoe but he played sax on all those pink floyd records you know those boring sax on like dark side of the moon and stuff dick parry um i'm sure that's him in which case leaving the floyd session to go and do top of the Pops with Mott the Hoople must have just been like, you know when you get in and you don't even realise how uncomfortable your shoes are until you take them off.

It's like, oh, that's better. That's better. No, I'm in Mott. But they all look horrible. They all look really horrible. Yes. And so do Thunder Thighs. But they use it as a ticket to this wonderful freedom.

When I was a young man, I was quite vain, and I was always worried about my appearance and stuff. It's a cage. It's a horrible way to live. I've just checked. Can I just say, Ariel Bender is probably not on this performance because get this they recorded it twice they record it once for the single with mick ralph's on guitar and then they re-recorded it for the album the hoopoe with ariel bender so there we go i was wrong i hold my hands up but he was there in spirit oh god yeah and of course the other thing to mention about is his thunder thighs were the coloured girls on Walk on the Wild Side. Who were they?

Yes. You would think that Lou Reed in New York of the 70s could find some actual coloured girls. I might have you, was he recorded in Berlin or something? I think maybe his reputation got around. Not a PC fellow on the quiet so we're all in agreement that this is quite wonderful and

just fucking brilliant just one of the greatest records of the 70s I think it's neck and neck with all the young dudes for them I think I think this is better because I think this comes more naturally to them than all the young dudes all the young dudes it All the young dudes, it's like

it's fantastic but they're wearing David Bowie's shoes. You know what I mean? This seems to just come from somewhere in their Ross-on-Wye guts. So this song entered the charts at 28

the following week and it got to number 8. Their last top 10 single. Ian Hunter left the band at 28 the following week and it got to number eight, their last top ten single. Ian Hunter left the band at the end of 1974, formed a short-lived duo with Mick Ronson. Pop the Hoople and Thunderfizer. And that, of course, is a new release. Right now, they want to introduce you to a marvellous singer, a marvellous actor, but right now we're going to see him singing,

the one that's gone straight in at number 23. Follow-up to Rock On, Lamplight from David Essex. So, born David Cook in Plastow, London, David Essex spent the 60s as the lead singer of David Essex and the Mood Indigo before taking the lead in the West End version of Godspell in 1971. Two years later, he starred in the film That'll Be The Day with Adam Faith and Ringo Starr, and he recorded Rock On, which got to number three in August of 1973.

This is the follow-up, and it's jumped 15 places to number 23. Did he fuck up the intro? Did you notice that? Yeah, but he can get away with anything, David Essex. Yeah, he can. Do you know what I mean? He can, can't he? That perpetual smirk, that

sort of, you know, I'm alright Jack smirk, on anyone else would be the most punchable thing. But it makes him more likeable. It's like an infectious smirk. Have you ever heard of such a thing? An infectious smirk. He's like the anti

Paul Nicholas. You know what I mean? I was going to say Paul Nicholas. He is the rich man's Paul Nicholas. Because if you compare and contrast those two, you probably would want to punch Paul Nicholas, wouldn't you? He'd never get tired of it. Look how much the girls love him in the front row. Oh, fucking hell, yeah.

The looks on their faces. Yes. There's one definitely staring at his packet while he's cocking his leg up. He is the discerning teeny boppers bit of crumpet, isn't he, David Essex? You can sort of see why really yeah he's got it all going on definitely yeah he's sort of the robin williams of his era isn't it

but a likable one still yeah yeah and let's face it right the elephant in the room we all wish it was rock on that we're hearing yes definitely uh which you know because you could go on about that for ages go on about the weird crazy production that sort of prefigured hip-hop and all that kind of stuff yeah but but this record's kind of weird in its own way isn't it um lamplight it's got it's got a really strange sound it's almost a sort of big band jazz a trad jazz noir it's sort of you know it's got a dark dark dixieland thing going on which i quite like well in its in their in their own way they're all really strange all these early singles there i mean in a way this is weirder because rock on you can at least trace it back to uh you know papas are rolling stone and records like that it's like that psychedelic soul

stuff uh kind of shrunk down to tiny size by a handsome wizard uh it's it's it basically it's what uh it's what british white people have always done best in pop music which is take black american music and do it a bit wrong and a bit stiff and a bit weird but good in other ways and create a new a new style and it's like on rock on it was doing that in a really pure way but in its own way this is a stranger record because you you can't trace it directly back like that to anything um and a lot of his his other ones like this as well like my favorite is stardust which is uh sounds like a it sounds like a ghost of itself you know what what I mean? Or a record made by ghosts. There's something really empty and spectral about it. This isn't his best one, but it's just...

I mean, it's not that... The tune isn't that memorable. There isn't really much of a hook to it. It doesn't sound that alien, but it's... It passes the time nicely, doesn't it? Yeah, it's definitely weird and ear-catching and unusual in the way that all this stuff is um i think the one thing about david essex is that if you were like a 15 year old lad and you had a little sister and she displayed a ponch on for

david essex you kind of understand it wouldn't you I don't think you'd get it so much if she was into the Osmonds. Yeah, and I think Danny Baker actually pretended to be David Essex's kid brother, and he used to get quite a bit of action in the 70s by doing that. And you can sort of see how that would rub off. Yeah, he's got a lot of charm. That's it, isn't it? His charm is the word that David Essex has got. And also, I like the way that he is such a creature of the 70s.

You can't imagine him existing in the 60s. And by the 80s, he just seemed like a fish out of water. He was like, he was David Essex from the 70s. Even, you know, in the very early 80s, where he's got that song, Me and My Girl Nightclubbing, which is this kind of a bitter tirade against the new romantics Even, you know, in the very early 80s where he's got that song, Me and My Girl Nightclubbing, which is this kind of a bitter tirade against the new romantics, really, where, you know, he's going, teenage hero, fashion dummy weirdo, I like your pink lipstick.

And it feels to me like Terry McCann turning up at the Blitz Club and sort of like, you know, looking around and thinking, oh God, I don't get all this at all. So the following week, Lamplight would go to number eight, would jump as high as number seven. It would stay in the top ten for seven weeks. That's not bad going. The follow up America would only get to number 38. But the follow up to that, We're Gonna Make You a Star, ah-ha-ha, was his first of his two number ones, and he'd be a chart regular up until the mid-'80s.

So, yeah, David Essex, the panel's in agreement with him here, aren't we? Yeah, up until his cover of Ghostbusters on the album's centre stage, which is sort of a nadir of popular music, really. And also, you know his record, It Was Only a Winter's Tale, just another winter's tale.

The woman who lived next door to us when I was a little kid was a big David Essex fan. And one Christmas, you know how hard it is to get to sleep on Christmas Eve when you're a kid she had the bedroom

next door to mine like in the next house and she played Winter's Tale by David Essex over and over again until about one in the morning

I presume she was pissed or something what did the CIA do with Noriega yeah exactly like that. and it's still stuck at the number two slot, comes once again from the Osmonds called Let Me In. APPLAUSE Exporned by George and Olive Osmond

from the late 40s to the late 50s in Ogden, the Osmond brothers, Ken, Ken, Ken, Ken and Donny, started as a barbershop quartet in order to raise money for hearing aids for their two older brothers who were deaf. They made an appearance on the TV show Disneyland After Dark in 1962. Fucking hell, that's a name to conjure with, isn't it? And they became regular guests on the Andy Williams show throughout the 60s. In 1969, they decided to become a pop band.

And in 1971, they had a US number one with one bad apple. In 1972, Donnie had branched out as a solo artist and was currently number six in this charts with When I Fall in Love. By 1973, the Osmonds were undergoing two crises. Their appeal was waning in the US and Donny's balls had dropped, which fucked up the band's harmony. But the combination of the band, Donny, Marie and Little Jimmy

scored 13 hit singles in the UK in this year alone. This is the third straight top five hit for the Osmonds and it's stuck at number two for two weeks. Chaps, speaking as middle-aged men, what is the appeal amongst young girls of the 70s for the Osmonds? You know what, right? I think they're an interesting compare-contrast with David Essex, because David Essex, you can sort of imagine that he might do something indecent to you behind the chip van at the fairground.

But, you know, the Osmonds, absolutely no way. They're completely pre-sexual. Even the sort of 25-year-old members. There's nothing remotely sexually threatening about them. And to a certain age of female music fan that that is quite appealing in itself i think yeah after david essex it's like all that cheek and daring and sass and all the life and dynamics of the record just drains away and suddenly we're in upstate new york listening to a convicted fraudster dictating God's word from behind a curtain off a set of gold plates

we're not allowed to see. What I mean is it's not convincing, right? I don't want to be the one to say this because it doesn't suit my sophisticated image to make a joke like this, but when Tony Blackburn says this record is stuck in the number two slot he's not joking i mean it's a life we're watching a live performance because uh obviously they're the osmonds and they can't go anywhere without being ripped apart um i trust you've seen the the 1974 bbc series uh of of osman's concerts

introduced by noel edmunds i hope you'll forgive me not in it but my research didn't go that far well you it's bizarre because you you look at them and they're there doing their kind of like the vaudeville routines and they're all you you know, taking the piss out of each other. And like everything they say is just met with a barrage of screams as if they're riding on ponies naked. I saw them live about 10 years ago in Ipswich. And yeah, and it was the same, except it was women my age. What do you think?

And yeah, it was women my age and older absolutely screaming at them but donnie wasn't even there it was the rest of them plus a video message from donnie about halfway through and then the the youngest man but obviously little jimmy is you know at this point he's about 50 or something but yeah it's extraordinary i i actually entertained myself during uh this this top of the pops clip by imagining the song being performed or recited by uh you know maybe sort of darker characters like just imagine it being intoned by serge gansburg singing let me in or something like that or nick cave barry white or maybe being belted out by you you know, I don't know, Pete Burns or Holly Johnson or, you know, Man to Man featuring Man Parish.

It takes on a whole different meaning. The worst thing about this record is it's got that smeared feel to it. You listen to it after all the British hits, right? And even the sort of beer-y, sort of boozy British hits, there's a sort of sharpness to them, like Mott the Hoople. And this comes on. It sounds like an airline commercial. You know what I mean? It's got that sort of weird, smeared American.

The only good thing is it's got the nice little synth part on it, played by Donnie, who in the video is sunk so low behind the keyboards, he looks like he's drowning and clinging onto a bit of driftwood. He's very much the Linda Eastman McCartney of the Osmonds at that point.

At this point, it's all about Donnie, isn't it? You do get the feeling that, right, we're going to do this tune and we'll make a film for it but can we be in it as well? And can we just have Donnie just over there hidden behind something? I guess it's like the Jacksons in the early 80s

where one of them is suddenly becoming this massive star and the others are just trying to hide their resentment behind these gleaming white teeth. Yeah, they sorted out Donnie's stool that he sat on behind the keyboards. They go, there you go. It's like one of those...

Do you reckon they used to beat him up? Maybe they had fights afterwards. Yeah. I reckon they sort of wrapped him in a duvet or continental quilt, as it would have been at the time, and just beat the crap out of him so it didn't show up any bruises on his body. They kept it all below the neck, I reckon. I think the best thing Donny Osmond could have done

was at the same time as Michael Jackson's skin tone was changing, Donny's started changing the other way. And so there'd be a point maybe in, I don't know, 1983, where there'd be the absolute same skin tone before they went off in other directions. That'd be great, wouldn't it? The whole Jackson's comparison is more than, you know, just the fact that they were brothers and all that kind of stuff.

There's a track by the Osmonds, and obviously everyone goes on about Crazy Horses, which is, you know, a fantastic kind of... Yes. You know, it's a total, you know, Utah Valkyrie. It's a Thor's hammer of a tune. But there's this other one they had that wasn't a hit in the UK, but number one in the States called One Bad Apple.

Do you know that one? Yes, yes. Absolutely. And it sounds exactly like a Jackson fight. It was originally written for the Jacksons. It was offered to the Jacksons. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And it turned up about six months after the Jacksons had had a couple of hits.

And, you know, for all this horrible smeared sound that Taylor described really well there, they did still occasionally knock out a couple of absolutely fantastic tunes. I think Crazy Horses justifies whatever they did after that. I think that is probably... It's one of my favourite tunes. I always imagine being a 15-year-old head

and you're in your bedroom and you hear this amazing sound and you just think oh god is that sabbath or you know could that be i don't know i don't know fucking nazareth or anything like that and then you find out it's from your little sister's bedroom and it's the fucking osmonds and that would ruin you wouldn't it i wonder how they squared the kind of um ecological message of that song with the fact that the Mormon faith instructs them to repopulate the earth as much as they possibly can.

It doesn't quite match up. Speaking of which, the sound of this record can to some extent be explained by the fact that they believe black people have second class souls. It's not really surprising that this is the sort of music they're going to come out with you know and uh miscegenation punishable by instant

death uh at this point until 1978 when the civil rights ordinance went through which meant that if you racially discriminated you lost your tax-exempt status. Suddenly the Mormon church looked deep within itself and decided actually maybe black people were all right after all. Yeah, hit them in the pocket, the big rhinestone pocket, and they'll change their ways. I would suggest hit them where it hurts, in their bodies. But it's... So let me in, hung on for one more week at number two,

dropped down to number 10, moved up to number five, and then took six more weeks to leave the top 40. The band would have their only number one in the UK, Loving Me For A Reason, the following year, and they were pretty much done by 1975. The rest of the band became producers for the Donny and Marie TV show, sank all their money into building their own TV studio for it and went bankrupt when the show was cancelled.

There they are, they're my favourite group. So talented, aren't they? They're at number two. Of course, the Osmonds' number called Let Me In and from one that's at number two, Let's go to a tip for the top Once again, it's tip for the top time on top of the pops and here really is a most beautiful beautiful song It's going to be a real smash. It's called Amoureuse from Kiki Dee Strands of light upon a bedroom floor Change the night through an open door

Pauline Matthew started as a singer with a band in Bradford in the early 60s and became a backing singer for Dusty Springfield before launching a solo career in 1963. A couple of her late 60s singles were picked up by the Northern Soul crowd. In 1970, she linked up with Mitch Murray, changed her name to Kiki D and became the first white British artist to be signed to Motown. This is her first hit record

and is a cover of a French album track written by Véronique Sanson the year before. It's quite racy this song isn't it? You listen to the lyrics it's very for the time, it's very go ahead. Spiritual awakening and all that shit. Yeah. One thing I want

to draw your attention to is it's part of Top of the Pops' tip for the top section which to my mind completely fucks with the formula. What's that all about? You know you want the chart hits A big wad of money in a brown paper bag you know what I mean. Tip for the top. Oh yeah. It's not what

surprise it's Kiki D. The BBC was obsessed with Kiki D. Yes. You know I've noticed there were certain singers and I think Patti Boulay is another one that the BBC decided were going to be stars whatever happened they were going to just put them on variety shows, tea time

sort of comedy shows or whatever doing a number as often as they possibly could. Even with Kiki D it never quite worked, she had one hit with Elton John and another sort of, you know, comedy shows or whatever, doing a number as often as they possibly could. Even with Kiki D, it never quite worked. She had, you know, one hit with Elton John and another sort of token consolation hit with Star in the 80s. But she is so pebble mill. She's pebble mill to her soul. Do you know what I mean by that?

Yes. I mean, this song, it's a sort of sub-Olivia Newton-John, vaguely sort of country-tinged weepy. But you've got to wonder, whose blackmail photos did she have? Why did the BBC insist that she was going to become this great diva to represent Britain against all the American divas? You know, to somehow fight the good fight against Rita Coolidge and Linda Ronstadt or something like that?

I'd watch that. Yes. It's not a great record. I like the fact that they're trying to write about sex in an adult way. But it's a bad adult way. This isn't adult sex

with Alvin Stardust. The sex that she's singing about in this song was not on Alvin Stardust's The sex that she's singing about in this song was not on Alvin Stardust's mat. I can tell you that much. Adult Sex with Alvin Stardust coming to the Dave channel soon. After Extreme Fishing

with Robson Green. It's a dull record as well. You can always tell when a record's dull is when the drummer's trying to liven it up. If you listen to this track, the drummer keeps putting in these fills and stuff, just basically trying to fool you into thinking that it's not actually as slow

and that the rate of harmonic change is not as slow as it actually seems. Yeah, there's not a lot to say about it really, is there? The whole tip for the top thing interests me because I think we have a false memory with Top of the Pops and this is something that's been brought home to me

by the BBC4 repeats is that if you'd asked me about five years ago, I would have said that Top of the Pops in the old days was this pure unsullied democratic reflection of just whatever the Pops in the old days was this pure unsullied democratic reflection of just whatever happened to be in the charts at the time give or take people's availability

to be on the show. But in fact throughout its history they would try and give somebody a leg up foot on the ladder and there were loads of things, certainly in the 80s Top of the Pops they never made the chart, even with the help of a TOTP appearance.

Yeah. You know, there was no reason for, she wasn't this kind of hot new artist that the kids were demanding. There wasn't graffiti. There wasn't graffiti on the streets of London saying, put Kiki D on the television. It wasn't like, you know,

it wasn't like Suzie and the Banshees where people were writing, sign the Banshees on London back streets, you know. It was purely some kind of handshake done in a smoke-filled green room. She was probably on the two Ronnies or something the week

after. The one thing you can say for this record, and probably the only thing you can say for this record, is that I feel the rainfall of another planet is probably the most out there metaphor for spunk that has ever been in a hit record i assume that's it's every other line in the song is about it is about uh doing it so i assume that's what it means. Right between your grandma's eyes. But this is the second song that's not in the charts at the moment

because Mott the Hoople were under the new release section. Yeah, but at least they'd had three hits, you know, so they're kind of a chart act, weren't they? So this song entered the top 30 the next week at number 25 and it would get up to number 13. She followed it up with I've got the music in me which got to number 14 but when dusty springfield dropped out of a proposed duet with elton john in 1976 kiki filled in and got to number one with don't go breaking my heart meanwhile the song was picked

up in america in 1975 the lyrics were rewritten again the title was changed to emotion and helen ready had a us number one hit with it and I can guarantee there was no reference to otherworldly spunking there In 1997, Paul Gad was arrested PC World in Bristol when it was discovered that the hard drive of the laptop he had brought in for repair contained 4,000 images of child pornography. In court two years later, he pleaded guilty to 54 incidences of downloading child porn and was jailed for four months. In 2006, he was jailed for three years for committing sex acts with two underage girls.

His sentence was eventually reduced to three months and he was deported. After being refused entry by 19 different countries he returned to the UK and was placed on the sex offenders register. In 2012 Paul Gad became the first person to be arrested under Operation U-Tree and charged with raping a teenage girl in Jimmy Savile's dressing room. He was convicted of attempted rape, four counts of indecent assault and one count of having sexual intercourse with a girl under the age of 13. He was sentenced to 16 years imprisonment and he remains in prison to this day. How do we talk about this? Obviously, there are perfectly valid reasons why people wouldn't want to listen to Gary Glitter anymore

and would find just the thought of it completely distasteful. Well, you're a glam DJ. You play glam. Yeah. You're a glam DJ. Yeah. Do you play Gary Glitter? I do, but I have to psych myself up for it beforehand. you're a glam DJ do you play Gary Glitter?

I do but I have to psych myself up for it beforehand I sort of judge the crowd a little bit and decide if I can get away with it the cop out of course is to play Rock and Roll Part 2 which is an instrumental and you know it just somehow seems to excise the evil man from the equation

Do you get requests? So it just somehow seems to excise the evil man from the equation. Do you get requests? Never get requests, but by the same token, I never get anyone complaining. I've had them coming over and sort of whispering, oh, that was quite brave, nice one, or something like that. And, you know, I just try and judge it on a musical level, but it is a storming sound. And I went to see the Glitter Band, or a version of the Glitter Band, about six or seven years ago,

and it was just a jubilant, liberated atmosphere that people were able to sing, punch the air, chant, stamp their feet along to these records without any kind of overtones of guilt, because you know as far as anyone knows that the glitter band themselves were innocent it's no wonder that we're living in a society which is practically defined by its inability to hold two ideas in its head at the same time in that people seem unable to separate this bit of cultural confectionery from the crimes of the scumbag whose name went on it. For a start, would you listen to Stalin's demo tape? Yeah, of course you would. I would.

Separating the art and the artist is just the first thing you have to do when you approach pop music. And secondly, it's not really art, right? That's not a... I'm not putting it down. I'm saying it's something else. I could understand it when all those Morrissey fans got upset, when they said, oh, Morrissey's like a racist, you know, because they felt that he was reaching out and touching them somehow, you know, and it was like they felt like he was their friend. From this distance, I'm not sure anybody feels like that about Gary Glitter.

He's an actor playing a part. He didn't have that much to do with the actual music other than fronting it. So there's no conflict there. It's something which exists right it's a his performance is hideously magnificent and that exists that's on the record that's something in the world and having a gap in the record is always worse than facing up to what should go in that gap always on top of which and this is in no way a defense of the the cunt everyone creative has got something wrong with them right from the the worthless shit that we spew out all the way to the the great artists

right there they wouldn't be doing it if they didn't have something wrong with them and sometimes that something is benign, and sometimes it's completely monstrous. And I think the thing with Gary Glitter, and the same with all the U-Tree DJs, nobody can forgive them for the gap between how creative they were and how appalling their fatal flaw turned out to be, right? Like, everyone knows that John Lennon used to hit his wife, right?

But because he's John Lennon, he gets away with it. If he'd killed his wife, maybe that would start to turn it a bit. You see what I mean? Phil Spector killed someone, and people still listen to Phil Spector records at Christmas. Yeah, yeah, yeah. This is something I've learned, that it's impossible to expect

consistency from people with their attitude to this. Actually, it's not even a case that everyone has a different breaking point and everyone has a different threshold. It's that their threshold is jumbled and all over the place. Somebody might find the idea

of listening to Gary Glitter completely beyond the pale, but they'll still listen to Led Zeppelin or the Rolling Stones or Elvis Presley or Jerry Lee Lewis. And we all know what those guys did. Yeah, yeah, Chuck Berry. And, you know, it would be great if everybody could be at least consistent and say, well, I draw the line here, but they don't even do that. It's not even a line. It's a zigzag. I think the one thing we can all agree on is we don't want him to get our money.

Right? That's probably the one that you can, like, hammer that into the sand and nobody's going to – we don't want him to get our money. So, yeah, don't go out and buy Gary Glitter records. Luckily, we live in a world where you don't have to go out and buy a Gary Glitter record if you want to hear it he was never loved

for himself I don't know about that you know I think there was a time in the 80s where you know he was this kind of pantomime day and he was viewed very affectionately by a lot of people and this is why he would do this sort of pantomime dame and he was viewed very affectionately by a lot of people and this is why you know he would do this sort of young person's rail card advert and stuff like

that and he was doing these every Christmas he'd do the Gary's gang show at Wembley Arena you know that's a little theatre he would fill Wembley Arena with people who wanted to see that so I don't know I think in some ways people felt more let down when it turned out when he turned out to be a wrong and than than if it was somebody whose whole public image was quite kind of sleazy and you know wrong in the first place someone started on me the other month for uh mentioning gary glitter in a pub. I did a picture round of celebrity, well, pop stars and what the real names were, and Gary Glitter was there. And I'm giving out the answers, and I say Gary Glitter,

and this pisshead had been in. And the minute he heard the word Gary Glitter, he just kicked the fuck off and started shouting that Gary Glitter was a paedophile who had sex with kids and all that kind of stuff. You should have said, really? Yes. Well, I said, really? Yes. Well, I said many things to him.

At first I asked him to leave it be and then I just told him to fuck off over the microphone, which isn't always the best thing to do. And then he started going on and saying, I'm going to fucking kick the shit out of you because you play Gary Glitter songs all night. And I hadn't. And the landlady grabbed hold of him and was dragging him out.

And he said, oh, he's played Gary Glitter. And she said, oh, it's a fucking pub quiz. And Gary Glitter's part of our fucking musical heritage. Now, fuck off. And that's how that tune went down. Paul Gad was born in Banbury, Oxfordshire, moved to London at the age of 16 and changed his name to Paul Raven.

He was signed by Parlophone in 1961 and released a handful of flop records produced by George Martin. By 1964, he was working as an assistant and warm-up man on Ready Steady Go until he joined the Mike Leander show band. He had another go at a solo career in the late 60s as Paul Munday. Then in 1971, he hooked up again with Mike Leander show band. He had another go at a solo career in the late 60s as Paul Munday.

Then in 1971, he hooked up again with Mike Leander and released Rock and Roll Part 1 and 2, which got to number two in the UK and number seven in America. This is his sixth single, the follow-up to Leader of the Gang, and has gone in straight in at number one, the third of four singles to do that in 1973, and only the eighth to do so. And what an introduction turning around on that massive heart in his uh in his silver boots and i would wear those boots by the way

i'll tell you in fact his entire outfit i would happily wear it's it's quite something simon spangle yeah you know i i think you know i should have been a glam rock star of the 70s um i've got to say um i'm the leader of the gang I am by Gary Glitter was the first single I ever bought. Right. I was five years old and my dad, who was a complete music freak, used to drag me along to record shops with him

and make me wait around while he's leafing through sort of American psychedelic and country rock albums. And I was getting bored and fidgety and he said all right all right I'll get your record what you want and that's what I chose and I think you know he just quite liked the fact that I was interested in music at all so he then bought me I Love You Love Me Love the follow-up and I think I had you know about four or five Gary Glitter singles they would have been the first records I owned, so it's very much shaped my idea of what pop music

is and what it sounds like The review for the NME This is Charles Sean Murray, a thoroughly reprehensible record with an unsettling resemblance to a drunken working men's club singing a 50's do-what ballad. My informants

tell me that Gary is going to use this song to strip to on stage which could result in the most horrifying piece of overexposure since watergate the thing is everything that charles charles murray says there is accurate except yeah it's a brilliant record you know like all the way through i'm thinking you say that like it's a bad thing you know because it is it's it's stripper music that's exactly it is. It doesn't have the same beat as the other. It's not a terraced stomp like Glitter's other records. It is this kind of sleazy burlesque kind of feel to it, isn't it?

And I like that. Yes. And it doesn't bear a resemblance to a boozy Working Men's Club version of a 50s duo, but it is that. That's what it is. And it's proud of it too. Yeah, the NME seemed to be very down on glam uh back in the day well the music press in general i i think didn't know didn't know what to

do with it because yeah uh you know um they they basically most people on the music press in the early 70s had come out the 60s underground they'd come out of things like you know international times and friends and all, like Charles Shaw Murray he'd written for Oz and stuff like that so they're all sort of Afghan coated Afro haired heads

and the idea that music could be something instant and fun aimed at teenagers was anathema to them at this point Also a lot of the glam people had been around in the 60s, and they'd either been around as hippies, like Mark Bolan and Bowie, trying to do acoustic psychedelic music, which nobody was really buying. So they thought, okay, now these guys are sold out, you know.

Oh, these guys couldn't make it, now they've sold out. Or they were around, like, Gary Glitter as sort of like old hacks, you know, stomping the boards, you know, like relics from another era. And now, oh, they've returned, you know, now they're back. So psychologically, those people, it was like, oh, we're going back to the bad old days now, oh, they've returned, you know, now they're back. So psychologically, those people, it was like, oh, we're going back to the bad old days now, you know. You had exactly the same thing 10 years later in the new romantic era where, you know, a lot of the people in the music press were old punks

and a lot of the pop stars coming through were sort of discredited punks who never made it first time round, like Adam Ant. Adam Ant being the obvious example. Adam Ant, in a lot of ways, was a glam rock star just 10 years too late and uh you know yeah people in the music press were like what him really you know this guy that we all laughed out of town a few years ago and and here he's the biggest thing going um so you know that you you can't uh discount that kind of sheer resentment, I think. So the actual performance, it's your standard,

this is how we know Gary Glitter, isn't it? It is an incredible sound. I mean, obviously two drummers, first of all, but also you've got fuzz guitar and sax playing the same melody. Fuzz guitar, sax and the bass, I think, all playing the same melody at the same time which is a really powerful thing. It's the look of shock on his face is the thing which

I hesitate to use a word like wonderful about him but I think in terms of performance it really is quite a dazzling thing the way he's, I mean God knows how do you know how old he was at this point i think he was in his uh early 30s yeah he's got a little bit older than alvin stardust

even yes um and and he's not he's not a thin man and he's not a pretty boy um but but there he is acting sexy it's a bit like um when uh oliver reed turned up on the word and started taking his clothes off you know um it's a it's off. But he carries it off with just the sheer kind of bravado of it and the arched eyebrow and the look of shock and all this kind of stuff. I don't know. I think whatever else we may think

about him, it takes some kind of bulletproof balls to go you know go in front of national you know a national tv audience and act like you are god's gift when you're not if he if he did actually have bulletproof balls it might be safe for him to go out in public now so i love you love me love would stay at number one for four weeks and would be knocked off the top spot by Merry Christmas Everyone and hung in at number two for three further weeks.

It was the biggest selling single of 1973 and sold an estimated 1.14 million copies. It was the first UK platinum record by a British artist. His next five singles made the top ten and his career pretty much petered out by 1976 and yeah all that bad shit that happened afterwards Right now we have

Barry Blue and Do You Want To Dance to dance to it pans people and we have to say goodbye but be back with us at the same time next week for another edition of Top of the Pop. See you then. Bye. APPLAUSE MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC

MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC Formed by five members of the Beat Girls, a dance troupe on the mid-60s BBC Two programme, The Beat Room,

Pan's people changed their original name, Dionysus' Darlings, and made their debut on Top of the Box. Did you not know that? Dionysus' Darlings. I didn't know that. How did I not know? I would have preferred Crumb's Crumpet. It would have been more suitable, I think.

They made their debut on Top of the Pops in 1968. As we've said before about Legs and Co and Zoo, their role was to dance to records that had no video when the acting question wasn't available. They're in bikinis with belts with different colours, with apples on their arses. And yeah, there's a lot of what anthropologists would describe as uh presenting in this routine yeah i think it's actually strawberries on their asses not is it not that i was looking that

closely or anything uh strawberries would make more sense wouldn't they why is that because yeah simon what do you think about pants people i think i think the existence of pants people and the way that grown-up men uh in my family and in and of my acquaintance used to talk about them made me wonder about myself whether i was ever going to never mind be heterosexual, but just be sexual. Because just the sexual aesthetic of the 70s, people would talk about, oh, look at them, they've got legs up to their armpits. And I used to think, that's a hideous image you've just painted there. And there was this whole kind of, and blondes were very big.

Everyone had to be blonde. Blondes with legs up to their armpits was the sort of sexual aesthetic of the 1970s. And I just didn't get it. And I thought, well, maybe one day something will happen and I'll grow into that. And I never did. You know, obviously I found other things attractive when that time came for me. But so still now, when I look back at this, and I assume it's there for the dads, you know. Oh, it's dad time, isn't it?

Yeah, they're there in their gold stilettos and their multicoloured one-piece swimsuits. And yeah, it's a whole lost world to me. And I wonder now if young men watching that find it at all arousing or if they like me feel alienated by the desires of two or three generations previous yeah because I fancied the Oz of Pants people when I was five yes I did yeah I wanted to

marry all five of Pants people and Paula Wilcox that was my goal in life seriously I used to fancy Paula Wil wilcox as well yeah lovely yeah i quite like neris hughes that's all i can throw in there it's it's a bit creepy isn't it how when you look back at the first women on tv that you fancy as a young heterosexual man they are quite mumsy often quite mumsy it's not something you want to dwell on yeah yeah i actually think

neris shoes looked a bit like my mum now i think about it oh shit we're into some dark as well but you know the the name pans people see seems to kind of um um invite and offer a whole realm of paganism you know it seems to go back to the age of aquarius or something like that but but the reality is a bit more tawdry it's basically five prospective rod stewart girlfriends no it was back to it was back to the age of uh age of paganism when everyone's pranced around in uh strawberries on their arses uh it's there's there's something very up front there's no pretensions here they're doing their aggressive pointy finger routine um and there's there's no pretension to it it's basically saying look at this look at look at this as for as long as you like just stare

at this stare at these women do you think it helped the song in general i mean it'd be great to get some stats on whether the song tended to go up or down after one of these performances. Yeah, that's true. But it's a very suitable song, isn't it, for Pans people? Because the lyrics are

Do you want to dance? Do you want to dance? Do you want to dance? Do you want to dance? Do you want to dance? Do you want to dance? And Pans people clearly do want to dance? Do you want to dance? Do you want to dance? Do you want to dance? And Pans people clearly do want to dance. There's no rain from another planet going on there.

No, no, not at all. Not at all. I suspect that by the Thursday, they maybe didn't want to dance as much as they had by the Monday, going on what I know of their rehearsal schedule but it's a great record though we haven't really mentioned the record much. No we're going to do that

but before we do so I just want to point out the other thing I noticed during this bit, while all this is going on the camera will pan back so you've got this amazing contrast between Pan's people and reality and the Dowdy School Disco but also you've got the wombles in the crowd and he's just staring off into the distance as if he's had a premonition

about what's going to happen to gary glitter under the costume the womble is wearing a bright red swimsuit just waiting for the chance you know but also remember they used to look they used to see out of a bit of gauze in their neck so the direction in which the womble's eyes are pointing is not necessarily where the man inside is is looking he might have been using that womble costume like people used to use mirrored shades you know to like kugel people without you know when they You know, when they first brought out wraparound sunglasses, they were called girl watchers, right? The implication being that you can now ogle women on the street without them realising that you're doing it.

It's all a bit creepy. I think under that Womble costume, he's just twisted the head a little bit to one side. Yeah, you reckon? Yeah, oh yes. Okay, so anyway, the song they little bit to one side. Yeah, you reckon? Yeah, oh yes. Okay, so anyway, the song they're dancing to is Do You Wanna Dance by

Barry Blue. Born in London, Barry Green became a professional songwriter at the age of 14 for Norrie Paramore, who was Cliff Rich's producer. In the mid-60s, he played bass for a local R&B band who'd later become a Uriah Heep, and then he re-signed as a songwriter in 1970,

teaming up with Lindsay DePaul to write Sugar Me. In 1973, he signed to Bell Records under the name Barry Blue. And this is his second release, the follow-up to Dancing on a Saturday Night, which got to number two in July of that year. It's currently at number nine. I'm actually very fond of this kind of dog shit glam pop of that era. Other examples being bands like Kenny with The Bump and Fancy Pants, stuff like that.

There's something really pleasing about it and very, very British. British um and uh I I don't know if it was I I mentioned before how uh things like my kooka chew and the jean genie are cut from the same cloth but I don't think you can really say it of this I don't know if it ever was a gateway drug to kind of you know clever glam or or you know art rock at all it was just pure foot stomping you know it's paving way for shawadi wadi if anything and there's nothing wrong with that i don't know about that i think that there's something weird and futuristic about this record you know even though it's obviously got it is even though it's obviously got one foot in cabaret or whatever or you know in showbiz there's there's definitely something kind of cold and pounding about it,

which you don't really get with a Shawoddy Woddy record or a Kenny record. I mean, a lot of this Bell Records stuff has got that weird feel to it. I don't know if it would have sounded like that at the time, right? I don't know. I think if you were listening to, you know, For Your Pleasure by Roxy Music and then you listen to Barry Blue

it would just sound like a dumb pop record but looking back there's definitely something kind of frosty and intriguing about the sound of this record Yeah I'd agree with that and I suppose the more inventive minds of

more recent years who've drawn upon glam, they've tended not to sort of go back to the clever stuff. And they often have drawn upon this kind of dumb foot stomping thing. And I'm thinking of people like Goldfrapp and Peaches and Marilyn Manson and people like that. They've gone straight for the jocular for this this kind of like i say dog shit glam pop um to to find something raw that they can manipulate into um a futuristic sounding record um as as opposed to the the more kind of intricate work of say roxy or sparks or bowie i mean to me it's just a really early youth club disco record

you know do you want to dance yeah right but it's what it's got in common with a lot of those records from that time a lot of these sort of British white records there's no soul to it at all not even the suggestion of

soul which makes it quite interesting. I mean, it's a dance record, but you don't really know how to dance to. There's no funk, nothing in it. Would you do the mud rocker to it, would you? Yeah, just a stomp. There's nothing syncopated or, you know,

none of the stuff you would normally do if you were making a dance record. It is just a stomp. But I suppose that the sheer repetitiveness of the title and the chorus does in a way prefigure house records and rave records of the late 80s and early 90s that just had one sentence repeated over and over and over. And it's kind of remorseless grinding down that just beats you into submission. So I suppose it does have a bit of that about it,

even if it doesn't really have anything you could call a groove. It went no further than number nine and the follow-up, School Love, got to number 11 and his singing career was done by 1974. But he went on to produce Heat Wave and his singing career was done by 1974, but he went on to produce Heat Wave, and he wrote or co-wrote All Fall Down for Five Star, I Eat Cannibals for Toto Coelho. Really?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's incredible. And the disco hit Devil's Gun for CJ and Company, which was the first record ever to be played at Studio 54. That's quite a CV. That really is. Genuinely. Not being ironic, that is great.

Yeah. And in 1989, he went under the pseudonym Cry Cisco and released the dance tune Afro Dizzy Act, which just missed the top 40. So he could have had another run there. But yeah, I mean, I think what we found in this edition of Top of the Pops is like virtually everyone bar Marie Osmond were all at it in the mid 60s and

their careers were just coming to fruition now and then they all went off and did mad shit but that was what 1973 was there was Bowie Elton John, Mark Bolan Led Zeppelin Rod Stewart. All these people have been around for bloody years.

They didn't make it until they were 25. Yeah, and there's no more Donny Osmond and Marie Osmond. There's no teenagers involved. Yeah, that's it. So, weirdly, however conservative and cheesy they may have sounded,

the only genuine young people in the show are the Osmonds. And all the music that the only genuine young people in the show are the Osmonds and all the music that's aimed at young people is made by 30 odd year old postmen but also just like the last time we sat here no black people on this top of the

box, yes I know absolutely no black people none at all and it's not as if the early 70s was not a golden era for black music that was singles based uh it absolutely was but none of it if you look at that chart i mean off the top of my head going through that top 30 or only one i can recall and black act i can recall is the detroit spinners at number 10 yeah with ghetto child i think it is. There's nothing else, which is very odd. No reggae.

Yeah, it's weird, isn't it? Yeah, that's a bloody Brexit. That's what the chart's going to be like again, just you watch. So, what's on now, then? BBC One follows up with Mastermind from the University of Reading and David Attenborough's nosing around a graveyard in Indonesia. BBC Two is asking if the Channel Tunnel is anything to get excited about. And ITV has an episode of Beryl's Lot, a sitcom with Robin Asquith,

that I know absolutely fuck all about. So this was pretty much the highlight of the whole day on the telly. So what are we talking about in the playground tomorrow, chaps? Do you know what? I reckon Alvin Stardust I mean it's obviously it's easy to go back and sort of second guess or maybe you know airbrush it a little bit and say oh I would have been really cool

in 1973 I was five years old and obviously I can't remember what I talked about the next day. But if I did, I would like to think at least it was Alvin Stardust because that is just really unsettling and creepy and larger than life. And he does look like some kind of perverted superhero. And it would mess with your brain seeing that. Maybe Gary Glitter not so much because he'd already had a hit.

You know, he was already a bit of a household name. But suddenly this guy turns up in black leather and black latex. A rival, if you will. Yeah, yeah. In black. Yeah, yeah. It's the anarchy in the UK of creepy British glam. Taylor? Well, I was only one.

So there was no playground for me. I've got nothing to add, really. I agree with Simon, so just let's move on. Okay, so what are those records we'll be buying on Saturday? Essex, Stardust, Mott, Blue. I couldn't afford all of them. But yeah, that's a good haul. Do you know what? I've already got most of them but yeah that is for one week yeah that's a good haul. Do you know what I've already got most of them but I am going to go out and at least

download the David Essex one because I'm not really that familiar with it and it's got something to it that I think is going to bring me back to it. His whole first album is amazing he's not really an albums artist but his first

album is pretty great all the way through so what does his show tell us about 1973 these people were the same species as us but that's about it and they knew how to respond to austerity

as well they didn't start getting mean spirited they just to austerity as well. Yes. They didn't start getting mean-spirited and fucking you know. They just got out of the baker foil and had a party. Yeah, I think he's right. I think Taylor's right.

I think in the same way that the kind of flamboyant pop of the 80s was a response to the Cold War and the absolute certainty that we were all going to die in a nuclear holocaust um I I do think that uh glam rock and glam pop was a response to a three-day week and having to um keep all your water in the bath all week and yeah ration it and that kind of stuff if you've got got to have a three day week that means

you can have a four day weekend. Well I like your optimism and I think that is shared by the hit makers of 73. Well I think that brings proceedings to a close. Thank you very much chaps. I've really enjoyed sitting down and chatting with you. Taylor thank you very much

sir. No problem. Simon please come back again. You've been an absolute joy to chat to. You're thank you very much, sir. No problem. Simon, please come back again. You've been an absolute joy to chit and chat to. Oh, you're welcome. I'd love to. Good skills. Thank you very much. Well, that's it for us.

Don't forget that you can go on our website, which is www.chart-music.co.uk, and we've got a Facebook group, and we don't bother with Twitter because we just don't give a shit. This has been Al Needham, inviting you all to come back to my flat and groove on my mat. Ha ha! Chart music. You don't bring me flowers, and you don't sing me love songs.

And you don't sing me love songs You hardly talk to me anymore When I come through the door at the end of the day I remember when You couldn't wait to love me You used to hate to leave me Now after loving me Oh, so late at night Well, it's good for you, babe. Know what I mean?

You're feeling alright. Well, you just roll over, John, and...