Chart Music: the Top Of The Pops Podcast - #57 (Part 1): 11.10.1973 – A Balloon Full Of Gravy

Episode Date: February 23, 2021

Simon Price, Neil Kulkarni and Al Needham reunite for a new year of picking at the open wound of random episodes of TOTP, discuss being a news item on Twitter for saying Oasis were lumbering and ponderous, and prepare the ground for a vintage episode by perusing that week’s issue of Melody Maker, paying particular attention to Welsh Glam tours and the rancid t-shirt adverts in the back pages… Video Playlist | Subscribe | Facebook | Twitter | The Chart Music Wiki | Patreon Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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this will certainly have an adult theme and might well contain strong scenes of sex or violence which could be quite graphic it may also contain some very explicit language which will frequently mean sexual swear words. What do you like listening to? Um... Chart music. Chart music. Hey! Up you pop-crazy youngsters and welcome to the latest episode of Chart Music.

The podcast that gets its hands right down the back of the settee on a random episode of Top of the Pops. I'm your host, Al Needham, and with me today are simon price hello and neil cool carne hello there boys what's pop what's interesting tell me tell me now well i mean obviously like the entire nation i think i was saddened by the news that um mark shitterland has been stopped being editor of Music Week. No! Yeah, presumably to go away and be a disgraceful cunt to a different group of people. So, you know, the Facebook algorithms actually suggested him as somebody I might know and that I should make friends with.

Horrific, getting his photo in the morning. No, I'm not going to make friends with him. So, you know, that was slightly not that interesting. another thing happened um obviously it's post christmas now and invariably my dad job was taking all the decorations up to the attic and getting them back up there and um something strange happened i went up the attic and um you know there's a lot of crap up there from my past and my childhood to be honest with you because i've lived here since i was 82 and i wish i had an attic um i was cut i genuinely wasn't digging through anything but um as i was coming back down something dislodged and fell down and landed on my head actually um and it was a tape it was it was a cassette tape and i noticed i crawled back up the ladder and i noticed

all of my tapes from when i was a teenager used to record stuff off the radio used to record tapes for mates and stuff they're still up there i had no idea about um the one that actually fell down and and hit me on the head isaac newton like well quite yeah um was actually kind i mean you know i'm waiting to bring them all down because my my eldest is at home at the moment until she can go back to manchester when her uni resumes she's massively sort of mary poppins ish and doesn't like clutter um and i want to add a load of clutter to the house by getting all these tapes down because there's a bag of videotapes up there as well and what the audio tape tellingly that actually fell on me um was it was just the kind of index of what a sad bastard i was rather poignantly i found one

that i'd made for a girl i remember making it um a girl i fancied at school where i'd done you know when you're filling out the tape inlays and stuff and sticking the stickers on i'd done the entire track listing right using a four-colored biro and i thought you know showing the lunaticness of me um back then and my complete inability to flirt let alone chat anyone up i'd like to not just each word in a different color but each fucking letter no no yeah and it was and it was a it was a t-rex compilation right i'd record a load of t-rex before oh my god and i gave her the telling thing is i still have it yeah how come what's gone off there well that's a sad thing i think she gave it me back it was a gift that she returned because i think jesus christ this bloke's

fucking nuts also you know what some of those t-rex song titles are pretty long like the the perfumed garden of gulliver smith or whatever it was you know yeah you have to put a lot of letters in there you're changing color a lot of times they're not all just like jeepster or whatever did you write at the end put a little needle in your heart i should i mean thank god it was only four color byron not one of those 13 color. But yeah, it was a real kind of touching moment where I was like, Jesus Christ, no wonder I wasn't getting any. Oh, man. What was the first track on it?

It was Metal Guru. Good call. Yeah. I've done that kind of thing only twice in my life. Practically the same track listing. But the same track was first because I always felt that the first one's the most important one. You know, because that's like the national anthem of you yeah mine was always what you see is what

you get by the dramatics which sums up me you know yeah some people are made of plastic some people are made of wood some people have hearts of stone some people are up to no good but baby i'm for real. I'm as real as a real can get. Making tapes was a way of flirting with people. If what you're looking for is real love, then what you see is what you get. Don't stop him, Neil. He's in the zone. He is in the zone.

Al's in the room. That is a classy choice. That classy choice that was classy tapes were ways i mean you know this is before the era of course when you're going out clubbing getting people back to your flat or whatever and you've arranged the records in the most tasteful order so that they're massively impressed by your time like it like like bobby gillespie in a photo shoot exactly um that era, all we had was making tapes for girls that we fancied or boys that we fancied. And yeah, this one clearly failed in its mission. Oh, dear.

Oh, man. Yeah, but, you know. Simon, tapes. That rings a bell, doesn't it? Well, funny you should mention that. Yeah, yeah. I mean, first of all, same as Neil, just working real hard. This whole lockdown thing is so different for so many people.

I think maybe the majority of the country, I don't know if it's quite a numerical majority, are kind of going a bit stir-crazy, sort of shut away at home and just champing at the bit to get out and do stuff. Whereas for people like myself, who I work from home anyway most of the time it so happens that this is just an insanely busy time that i'm working my fucking ass off here um i'm writing a book um i you know i think i mentioned a few episodes ago that i'm writing a top secret book well it ain't top secret anymore it's out there public domain that i'm writing a book about the

cure it's called curepedia and it's going to be sort of A to Z of the cure. J for jumpers. Yeah, big long jumpers with your thumbs through the sort of holes in the end. C for crappy trainers. You can laugh about it. I think I need a credit already. All right. I'm opening the air, Simon. You can joke, right, but just the other day,

I had to send some sort of sample chapters in so that the publishers can share it around, like foreign foreign publishers and see if they want to syndicate it and one of the chapters i wrote that i was happy to sort of send off at this stage was a whole chapter on trainers yes i spent ages researching by going through old photos and just googling everything i could and just like doing detective work into what trainers robert smith was wearing at any given time wow yeah i i now know way more about kind of puffy spongy high top trainers of the late 80s than i ever really wanted to uh there you go there's a there's a q a right there yeah yeah right you can tour all the rough trades just talking about his trainers or no yeah we can get sponsored by high tech or reebok or whatever yeah yeah so yeah so that's what i've been doing and the deadline is breathing down my neck and i'm

absolute shit but um another thing i'm doing i'm kind of multitasking i'm i'm sort of doing some manics related stuff because at some point i'm i'm gonna have to um you know update my my legendary and acclaimed and award winning Manic Street Preacher's biography that came out in 1999 and so I've been going through old bags of cassettes to see what's there and

you know because I've got this little Walkman shaped thing that can convert, it can basically transfer cassette tapes to digital so I've never tried it before but I've been tried it before, but I've been sort of doing a lot of that and transferring old Manic Street Preachers interview tapes. And while I was searching through this bag,

well, lo and behold, right, there's a bit of a backstory to this. And this goes back to the mid-90s when Neil and I were both working at Melody Maker. And I think Neil remembers this. The actual origin story is a little bit in doubt because Taylor's got a slightly different take on it but essentially a tape came into our possession and we're not sure whether it came in the post or Taylor reckons the guy might have

actually handed it to us in person at Bristol Sound City the um Radio 1 sponsored week of gigs that Neil, Taylor and I all went to and had quite a time. Where you, Neil and Taylor did the Bummers Congo. Well, allegedly, yeah. It was an epochal week that was. First time I met Taylor and Pricey. Unforgettable.

Yeah, so many memories of that week. So, this guy, he goes into the name ed case right and um the tape um there's four tracks on it and it's it's the gizzard job ep and um the lead track on it and it's just kind of one man and his guitar or billy brag like kind of punk song it's called east end tune um and uh it became a bit of a cult favourite in the office with me and I guess Neil, even though Neil was living in Carth and did come here. Oh, yeah, I was obsessed.

Yeah, yeah. So we were just obsessed with it this day. It crossed my mind last year, funnily enough, and I put out a bit of a fairly hopeless long-shot appeal on the internet. Does anyone remember this East End tune by Ed Case? And nobody had anything. But there I was the other day, searching through my big bag of Manic Street Preachers interview tapes,

and there it was. There it was, the tape itself. And I'm sort of holding it like, you know, there were sort of heavenly choirs like, ah. You know, it was like in, is it, is it Pulp Fiction, where they open the suitcase,

and there's this kind of golden glow, and you never quite see what's in the suitcase, so yeah, and I was thinking, please don't be sort of distorted, or corrupted, or you know, or wiped,

or anything like that, and I played it, and it was perfect, or at least as perfect as it ever was, and basically, it's this guy, and I'll put out the appeal again, I've got the tape now but if anyone knows anything about

Ed Case, who he was if you are Ed Case please get in touch, we would fucking love to hear from you because it's given us so much pleasure. So it's kind of almost outsider art. It's so... Basically I'll give you some of the lyrics art. It's very, it's, it's so...

Basically, I'll give you some of the lyrics. Now, the first verse, right? It goes, my name's Sanjay. I love Gita. My name's Ricky. I love Bianca. My name's Frank Butcher. I've done a bit of a runner.

My name's Arthur. arthur fowler i hope i'm doing it justice there um a few other highlights of the lyrics just goes my name's richard tricky dicky and uh and my favorite bit of all my name's grant mitchell sharon's me lover if you don't like it i'll come around and nut you i won't spoiler the ending though right the ending is amazing and i've uploaded it to youtube so basically go on youtube search ed case eastenders and you and you should find it and like i say if anyone's got any kind of clues at all where this guy is, who he was,

apparently there was an Ed Case who was the drummer of the kind of punk new wave band 999. I don't know if that's the same guy, but that would be an interesting possibility. Apparently he's mates with Captain Sensible. Right. And I know Captain Sensible.

I run into him in Brighton from time to time. So next time I see the captain, I might ask him if he knows anything about this but yeah so that that's maybe the most exciting pop an interesting thing that's happened to me is a an old dusty tape from 1994 um the other thing that's happened to me um involves um uh our favorite band all of us oasis just something happened the other day, just went fucking mental, right? Yeah. Now, you know me, I'm always just sort of,

I type what comes into my head about old music. Tell it like it is. I just have thoughts and quite often I'll be... Straight shooting Simon Price, they call you. Well, you know, so my normal kind of fare that I put out there is me arguing with somebody's lyrics from the 70s and, like, picking fault with, like, you know, so my normal kind of fare that I put out there is me arguing with somebody's lyrics from the 70s and, like, picking fault with, like, you know, Tony Orlando and Dawn saying, you know,

knock three times and all that. The guy should basically be arrested for sexual harassment and all that kind of thing. You know, that's the kind of thing I normally put out there and it might get eight replies or five likes or something and I'm fine with that. It's just me shooting shit out into the void. The voice of reason well

the other night i did exactly the same i was just going on about oasis and i just said that the trouble with them is that they don't have fast songs they just lumber about yeah fat arsed and graceless at 20 miles an hour because it's a residential area right yeah and and i also said they are rock but they don't rock and what's the fucking point in that? And, you know, it's not the most controversial opinion to have. I was just sort of, what it was, I'd actually, like, Janie, my fiancee and I had been having a few drinks and playing a bit of old vinyl. It was actually because Stephen Santa Cruz,

the guitarist from Pink Grease, R.I.P., passed away. Lovely man. And so I put their album on and it's a bit kind of garage rocky, and it's like New York Dolls meets Roxy Music meets The Cramps. It's really good. And then that got me in the mood for a bit more sort of noughties garage rock. So I stuck on the first album by The Hives, who I really fucking love, really entertaining band.

And their music's just so high energy. This is a track called Untutored Youth. It's almost too fast. You're untutored youth! And I thought, oh, my God, this is track called untuted youth like you couldn't it's almost too fast and i thought oh my god this is just so it just shoots you full of adrenaline and i just thought why was anybody circa the millennium not listen to this and listen to fucking oasis instead why why anyway so i just anyway i put this tweet out there and it just went i don't think it's exaggerated to say went viral there was i've had a look now and it's had 1.8 000 replies 1.7 000 retweets 10.5 000 likes and um and it was a fucking news item it became a fucking news item on a slow news weekend. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It really was. And off the back of it, I got 2,000 new Twitter followers overnight. Well played.

Yeah, I wasn't playing for that, but I guess it's a nice side effect. But, you know, why does nobody react like that when I'm banging on about visage? Or, you know, I'm making the Arthur Brown joke for the ninth time. Or obsessing about a Welsh glam rock band who never made any records. More of that in a bit. Or you got some comeback, though, didn't you, Simon? Oh, yeah.

Well, the thing is... You even got bots, didn't you? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, people where they've just got a grey egg for a face. And I replied to a bot, and people pointed out, and I went, oh, fuck this. Fuck this century.

I want my old one back. Yeah. The one that stood out to me was some twat who said congratulations for slagging down somebody's talents in order to stay relevant stay relevant it's a 30 year old band for fuck's sake it's like saying oh you know them monsters on the power rangers they weren't real you know and as anyone who knows me will be aware all I care about is staying relevant oh yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah but yeah Danny Baker got involved quite early

saying that when Oasis played uh did a cover of Come On Feel The Noise by Slade they even slowed that down for fuck's sake so I think that the fact that he got involved then I'd sort of set the ball rolling and it went a bit nuts yeah all, all the football twats got involved, didn't they then? Yeah, I had to mute my own thread, my own sort of Twitter post because it was making Twitter unusable for me. I just couldn't go on there because everything I was getting was like, you know, Brexity Oasis fans give me shit. So I just thought, do you know what, guys? Carry on, knock yourselves out.

If anybody's listening to this now because of what Simon said, can I just say that on behalf of everyone on Chart Music, we wipe Analsation's arsehole with what you think about Oasis. Fuck off. Well, I mean, I was shocked at people's shock. And it's always weird being at the eye of one of those sort of Twitter storms or something that goes viral. It's never really happened to me, but years ago,

I wrote a piece about the NME and why they were shit. And yeah, like Simon says, you do have to turn off Twitter because for that day, what you're going to get, and what I noticed, this was the same thing with all the responses, all the negative responses to what Pricey said, which was a totally right assertion, is a frequent thing is, is oh you're just trying to be controversial you know yeah um you know and this thing of staying irrelevant yeah good luck

trying to stay relevant and this thing of i always get it um you know i've been doing this for fucking 20 odd years and i still get it you're trying to make a name for yourself aren't you how dare you very very strange oh god yeah i mean the thing is the the people in the world whose attention i want the least are brexity oasis lads yeah so so the idea that i'm tugging their sleeve like please notice me well no but with regards to the tape that simon uncovered ed case that is the highlight of to be honest with you this decade so far simon finding that um i as soon as he uploaded it to youtube i listened to it immediately and then i listened to it again and i listened to it about five or six times it's a fucking great song

and the thing is i think you know it's not a generational thing necessarily but i think what you'd normally expect with a song called withEnders is some smirky bastard taking the piss out of EastEnders. That isn't really what's going on with this song. It's joyous and it's almost a celebration. There's no snarkiness. There's no smirk. It's not done by somebody who would fucking use the word cockwomble. Do you know what I mean?

It's a really great song. So I encourage people to go to YouTube and inject some sunshine into your day with Ed Case because it's a really great song. So I encourage people to go to YouTube and inject some sunshine into your day with Ed Case because it's a really great song. I wonder if he's updated it. You know, different cast members now. I guess so. I wouldn't.

I don't watch it anymore. I wouldn't. Don't fuck with the classics. For all we know, there's a box set of like 30 years of EastEnders character updates lying about somewhere that's just waiting to be released yeah it's like you know John Cooper Clarke's Beasley Street he now he does that live but then he changes it to Beasley Boulevard and it's all about gentrification and it's got these kind of like uh 21st century hipster references in it and I guess that's it's fair enough John

Cooper Clarke's a genius but yeah just with the east end tune i think gotta leave it be it's you know yeah it is what it's part of anything else um i stopped watching east enders when tiffany died because i was just so outraged um so um yeah i wouldn't i wouldn't know who anyone is anymore no i don't want him to to do an updated version the poignancy of lines like come down the market sprouts 28p, should not be fucked with. Leave it as be. The only tape I ever heard that was sent to a magazine was when I worked at Mayfair and we found this tape in a box and I think somebody sent it

in the mid-80s or early 80s to one of the models, a song that he'd done, and it was all done on a synth. It was fucking amazing it was called Tenderheart like a love song to the model was it

yes on a synth that's not going to get to number one is it you're making me think of the Simpsons now Kirk Van Houten's can I borrow a feeling but the tune was... It was proper John Shuckleworth. And he went... Bodies entwined in autistic forms

We make love till the break of dawn It's your tender heart Tender heart, I of dawn. It's your tender heart. Tender heart, I want it now. It's your tender heart. Tender heart, I need it now. It actually sounds amazing. My mate's probably

got that tape. Fucking upload it. With his bin bags full of wank mag letters, he won't let me look at them or use them or borrow them or anything. Oh, for fuck's sake. Bastard. He's sitting on a fucking absolute time capsule of the open wound of male sexuality.

But anyway, let's not worry about trying to stay relevant. Let's do what we were put on this fucking earth to do. Give thanks and praise to the latest batch of pop crazed youngsters. Who've shoved some money down our G-string. In the five dollar zone. We have Darren. Robert Musker. Rich Barber.

Joe O'Donnell. David R. Calway. Tim Turner. Paul O'Dwyer. Rachel. Zoe Parker. Ian Sullivan, Huel Roberts, Joe DeMont, Emma Roberts, Greg McManaman, Steve Johnson, Andrew Nemeth, David Scott, Manny Grillo,

Richard Connell, Anthony Gregory, Elizabeth Harrison, Emily Davis, Richard Tubb, Ben Groom, Paul Coleman, Bruce Bernard, Stephen Sheridan, Emma Murray, Christopher, Phil Maguire, Justin Thomas, Ron Sims, Matt Nixer, Bobbe, Nick people. Legends, all of you. And am I imagining it? It was at the longest list we've ever had. Yeah. That's brilliant. We had a big take-up after that last episode. Oh, thank you, everyone.

Bless them all. That's amazing. And I reckon some of them may well have listened to, because I remember on Pricey's thread about Oasis that you did mention our little rant about Oasis when we got to them. Once they've had a drop of the harder stuff, of the chart music stuff, they want more, don't they? That's it. I think a lot of these people were thinking I'm just trying to somehow monetize my hatred of Oasis. Listen, if I could do that, I would have done it a long time before now. Or you'd have golden prongs on your head, wouldn't you say?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But then i thought well what can i do what and i thought well if i can point them in the direction of something where um where where i and of course neil and and yourself al uh have really laid on the line why we hate oasis yeah i thought i would tell them i've gone off the top of my head i can't remember which episode it was the movement that wouldn't feel the benefit. Yeah. So I told everyone just go and listen to that.

So yeah, maybe some of these lovely people who've chucked a bit of a few quid our way were lured in by the prospect of some people being rude about Oasis. Yeah, of hatred. You're the Katie Hopkins of Britpop. That's very much how i see

myself like laurence fox yeah one of those kind of people yeah i'll be off to parlor and in the three dollar section we have callum thompson damian jones paul bernard alex brennan tim ward tim o'connor mitch ben nick loveland sam wistenhoff andy healing hannah blarwood Connor, Mitch Ben, Nick Loveland, Sam Wisternoff, Andy Heelan, Hannah Blarwood, Gary Potter, Brian Moore, Mark Wardlow, Tom Davis, Michelle Shaw, Paul Devlin, and

Patrick Meehan. Thank you babies. Thanks guys. Yeah, yeah, thanks everyone, that's incredible. Yeah, and I do mean that so very sincerely from the bottom of my heart. Oh, and Queen Air, John Macca,

Mac McClure, Ali Lowe, Vic Summers, Matt Milner, and Mark Hunter, a special thanks to you. Cause you whacked your donation up over and beyond and above and away. Yeah.

Thank you. It really does feel, doesn't it? That the pop craze youngster army is expanding. Yes. We're growing in numbers. It really does feel, doesn't it, that the Pop Craze Youngster Army is expanding. Yes. We're growing in numbers. It's great. Just keep your ears peeled for that call from Channel 5, Al.

I reckon it's coming, mate. Yes. Just one more thing. I just want to give a big shout-out to Shane Bruin. Stay Pop Craze, ducker. Oh, the other thing I want to say is, as well, if you want to join those people and have your name mangled by my beautiful dulcet tones,

you know what you've got to do. You've got to get them fingers, you've got to put them on the keyboard, and you've got to mash, mash, mash patreon.com slash chop music. I just realised kind of how British I am, or we all are, in terms of thanking people. We're crap at thanking people.

Because, like, you know know it's a very British thing to be bad at accepting compliments, right? And in a way, this is a financial compliment that these people are giving us. The best compliment of all. Yeah, yeah. It's the only compliment I'm really interested in. So, yeah, when I was thanking them there,

I did sound, like, a bit snide and sarcastic because we're almost embarrassed to receive these these financial compliments but i really do mean it you know it's but i think you're actually quite good at al you're you're good at sounding sincere yeah i'm like huey green and bob podcast rolled into one but yeah i did mean it sincerely even if it didn't sound like I did. And those people, along with all the other Pulp Craze Patreon, have been lobbing out the Judy Zouk satin tour jackets and fiddling with a brand new chart music top ten.

Chaps, shall we? Yes. Yes, we jolly well shall. Hit the fucking music! We've said goodbye to Dave D, Creephead, Twat and Cunt, Simon Price's arsehole material, and 15 Hitlers, which means four up, two down, four new entries and a brand new number one.

The Christmas number one is down nine places to number 10, James Galway's flute of VD. First new entry at number nine, Saxon Finder General. Up one place from number nine to number eight, it's Jeff Sachs. Get it, Jeff. A former number one down three places to number seven, CFAX Data Blast. Pulsing upwards from number seven to number six, here comes Jizzle. Your turn.

Into the top five, and it's a new entry for Rennie out of the Stone Roses and Renato. for Rennie out of the Stone Roses and Renato. Up one place from number five to number four, it could only be Bomberdog. Yes! Into the top three and a new entry at three for Jarwody Woddy. This week's highest new entry goes all the way to number two, the Boogie Woogie Bugle boys from quality streets which means

last week's number three this week's chalk music number one rock expert david startups he's made it fucking hell what a job that's brilliant that's how you start a new year everyone absolutely yeah i think i think rock expert david stubbs has really caught on because um i made i made a reference to it on twitter thinking nobody except uh david who is at send victorious on twitter would even respond to it but they're quite a lot of people chuckling and laughing and liking that. So yeah, I think that's who he is now. He's never going to shake that off.

That's a thrilling chart, not only for the new entries, but also it's strangely comforting. That jism is so adherent, isn't it? It just can't be shamed. Cannot wipe it off. It's like Monica Lewinsky in her dress. You just cannot wipe that off.

So Saxon Finder General, what are they all about? Well, obviously i can't think i can't think beyond the first word it's just wheels of steel it's yes it's definite yes it's new album it's 747 strangers in the night yeah and i'm quite proud that um this slang and saxons for flares has kind of been revived because i don't even think anybody from my school remembers it now but it was a thing. Fucking hell. Renny out of the Stone Roses and Renato.

I mean, baggy opera. I mean, surely that's got to happen at some point in the show. Yeah, I suppose a bit like that Malcolm McLaren, Madame Butterfly kind of thing, you know, where it's sort of hip-hopper-er, whatever. Definitely, yes. And, of course, you know, Jar Waddy Waddy does exactly what it says on the tin.

You've been waiting to use that one ever since we started. Oh man, I've been sitting on that for fucking years. And the Boogie Woogie Bugle Boys of Quality Street. Well, yeah, there we go. I don't remember that one. What was that in relation to? That's Taylor's description of Duran Duran in the Is There Something I Should Know video.

Fair enough. So, this episode pop craze youngsters takes us all the way back to October the 11th 1973 smack dab into the middle of what I consider to be the golden age of top of the pops if we're comparing top of the pops to marvel comics and we are now um i consider top of the pops 1972 to 1974 as the golden age and then the aventis as the silver age yeah i think so i think for me um the aventis is the golden age musically but there's just something about the early 70s that feels very top of the pops it was when the show really came into its own and probably when it was you know a huge cultural force which uh you know thrilled and also terrified as as we're going to find out yeah yeah and as much delight gained from watching the audience

as the as the performers yeah in this era in particular we've visited 1973 many a time and oft and it's always been a lucky bag of randomness. You know, sometimes it's life-affirming. Sometimes it's tainted with the musk of beige. But it's always fascinating, isn't it, this year? I think it's because for me and Simon in particular, it's just about memorable. As mentioned before, my dad would be sat in a tin bath

watching Emmerdale fall. And I didn't want to be around when that was happening. So I go around and make Tony Bones' house, because his mum had let us watch Top of the Pops, because she was progressive. By the way, Tony Bones is an amazing name. That's just so cool. It is, isn't it?

I'd love to meet him again. That's a member of the Wu-Tang Clan, surely. Yeah, yeah. Let's get stuck in. This is the first radio ad you can smell. The new Cinnabon pull-apart only at Wendy's. It's ooey, gooey and just five bucks for the small coffee all day long. Taxes extra at participating Wendy's until May 5th.

Terms and conditions apply. 5th. Terms and conditions apply. Hello, I'm Chris England, and I'm here to tell you about the Fun Factory podcast, available now on Great Big Owl. Each time, I will be reading a couple of chapters of my novel, The Fun Factory, a historical comedy about the history of comedy. So it will kind of be like a free audiobook, which you can listen to at the gym, or jogging, or at your desk while pretending to do your job, or on the train without the embarrassment of people seeing you actually reading a book like some kind of swat.

Radio 1 News In the news this week, Spiro Agnew resigns as Vice President of the USA for being a tax-cheating minjbag cunt. Day 5 of the Yom Kippur War sees a stalemate between Egypt and Israel on the Israeli side of the Suez Canal and a pushback of Syrian tanks on the Golem Heights. Ted Heath announces a £10 bonus for the Oldens at Christmas

and New Year's Day to become a public holiday in the UK. Elvis and Priscilla Presley have got divorced in Santa Monica. Fears grow over a potential rationing of milk due to the disappearance of millions of milk bottles that are not being returned. Folkestone Council announced plans to carve the faces of Winston Churchill and Ted Heath into the town's cliffs.

Three members of the Alice Cooper Band were arrested in Greenwich, Connecticut for the possession of marijuana. Jackie Stewart announces his retirement from motor racing after his teammate Francois Servette dies during a practice session for the United States Grand Prix. Crossroads has broadcast its 2000th episode a couple of days ago. Bobby Moore has been ruled out of next week's vital World Cup qualifying match against Poland due to injury.

But the big news this week is that LBC, the first legal commercial radio station in the UK, has gone on air, kicking off a flood of new local radio stations right across the 70s and beyond. Oh, commercial radio, a very big deal at the time, don't you know? Yeah, we kind of avoided it. Round here, we had BRMB, and it was just a bit too brummagey, you know, for our tastes, I think. We had to wait really until 1980 with the advent of Mercia Sound, which instantly became the main station that my whole family listened to in the car

and became a station where I learned about pop really. Mercy Sound, particularly the Gordon Astley show in the morning, the breakfast show. But BRMB passed us by because it seemed to mainly be quite a few ads, very brummy DJs and elderly women phoning up from like, you know, Selly Oak complaining about dog shit on the pavements and stuff.

And it just didn't appeal that much. But yeah, commercial radio, I don't know why, but by the time we did get a commercial radio station, it was exciting. You know, and we wanted to listen to it more than we wanted to listen to Radio 1. It just felt fresher. I don't think it happened in South Wales until several years later. If I'm not mistaken, CBC in Cardiff didn't launch until about 1980. My dad got a job with CBC around 81,

I think it was, as a presenter. But prior to that, I can't remember there being an independent local radio station for us to listen to. And even if there had been one, I don't think it would have been in our house.

My mum would have considered it terribly common and brash with all all the adverts and stuff like that very non-itv your house very non-itv yeah and there wasn't even much pop radio or pop telly going on until i got to the age where i could really kick kick off and insist on it so certainly um this episode of top the pops i would not have seen and I definitely wouldn't have had commercial radio. Probably wouldn't have even had Radio 1 playing at that time, to be honest. God. Yeah, but I made up for it later. Yeah, we had Radio Trent in 1975, and it was fucking massive in Nottingham, it was.

It was like 50% of the population of Notts listened to it at some point in the week, and it was amazing because, you know, we were still trapped under the cruel reign of atv which was massively west midland centric it was finally we had an entity apart from radio nottingham that played pop music all through the day and the djs actually knew where the victoria center was and they knew where broad marsh center was and they talked about forest and canton yeah they'd heard of the goose fair yes and people fucking loved it nottingham's that place that that never

celebrates itself and is is happy to be obscure and then all of a sudden a load of people come along and they they just put resources into it they had their own news team they had a really big sports team and it was fucking brilliant and i listened to radio trent up until i was about 10 then i switched to radio one and then when i was about 13 i got bored with radio one and i switched back to radio trent again because i wanted to hear about car boot fairs in my area which is the one that had dale winton yeah dale winton radio right yeah yeah right kit jensen was on radio trends as well blimey radio nottingham was fucking massive as well there was this bloke

called dennis mccarthy who used to present crufts on the bbc once a year but he had his own radio show on sunday afternoon yes sunday dinner time and it was so popular that the post office put a message out to the people of Nottingham saying, if your phone number starts off with the same four numbers as Radio Nottingham, don't bother ringing anybody up on a Sunday morning because you're not going to get through. That's mad. But what's crazy is, you know, it took time, didn't it, to filter out to the rest of the country. I mean, you know, Nottingham had to wait two years.

We had to wait two years we had to wait seven years and when and when it did you know i would have thought these stations would have been waiting you know to pounce as soon as it was allowed commercial radio but it did take time but what was exciting about mercy was yeah the local presenters and all that they talked about local stuff that wasn't that interested in the sexy thing was the stickers the car stickers were amazing for mercy sound and the t-shirts were as well they were much better than the radio one um counterparts so um yeah that was always a thrill yeah i did end up with a show on local radio um on a commentary station called kicks 96 yes kicks 96 i had a show for about four or five years in the late 90s early i didn't know that and it was it was a late night sunday show um i went on after the soul guy.

He was a lovely chap. He had a show from 8 to 10. It was all the specialist stuff on a Sunday night. And I had a show 10 to 1 in the morning. Fuck! You kept that quiet. Did I? Oh, no.

That's a dream job. What a job. You know, with no control over my playlist or anything. The Kit Carson of Cov. I could absolutely play anything I wanted I mean I did of course have to play ads you know local skip hire firms and all of that it's that nice mix of kind of very local stuff with the stuff that I was playing and of course I had to field calls quite a lot when you can imagine the kind of people who phone up a

commentary radio station at about one o'clock in the morning um it was mainly directing them towards the relevant social services but it was it was i really enjoyed it i actually ended up losing that job because i missed a staff meeting i didn't go to a staff meeting and i was fired for that and my boss my boss she was a strange lady she she exerted a really kind of frenzied micromanaged control over lots of aspects of the station but i'll never forget when i did actually go to her office once she sat in this office and the only picture she had on a wall was a gigantic portrait of john wayne behind her desk and yeah and she was the controller of the station i missed the staff meeting i got fired you know i got off my horse

and drank my milk i guess but yeah it was enjoyable it was really lovely doing a radio show um not obviously anyone would love a radio show to a national audience but doing one to a cov audience was was really a lot of fun local radio was a lot of fun i kind of bit gutted i lost that and what i find on local radio now is that all those specialist shows you know a lot of these stations these local stations really did have specialist shows covering kind of like you know local reggae scenes local soul scenes and all the rest of it it all get reflected on these local stations what's happened since i think is that most commercial stations are basically adhering to a kind of daytime playlist day and night you know and the specialist djs have gone which is a real shame commercial radio like itv was a conservative conceit the heath government brought it in and the specialist djs have gone which is a real shame commercial radio like itv was a

conservative conceit the heath government brought it in and the wilson government obviously got rid of the pirates which meant that every dj of the past 50 years has been a massive torret and you know the conservative truism is that competition breeds excellence and you know that only goes for so far because you know before too long one station is going to be a little bit bigger than all the others and starts buying them all up and then you've got another monopoly which was what happened to commercial radio you know it's just a shitter bbc um but trent went by the wayside a long time ago we now have capital radio they couldn't even be bothered to change the name

yeah yeah we get our news nowadays from an office in leicester square yeah yeah which is shit and that's that's very much the american model of radio where everything everything is centrally sort of syndicated there was i think a golden age um of american radio in the sort of 70s maybe early 80s uh oh even earlier than that, 60s. Yeah, but no, I think when FM came in, yeah, talking about the 70s really. And I do love the romance of that, the idea of being the late night DJ,

like Midnight Caller or something. I'm so envious. On W-O-L-D. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was amazing. And the thing is, they should relax more, you know. The ad revenues at that time are going to be okay you're going to get the same old companies yes skip hire firms and cab firms

this is what you get on local radio and they're always going to pay for advertising space so i could play what the i genuinely have no playlist i could play what i wanted i could say what i wanted and you know i didn't actually say that much that was controversial I had a lot of good music to play but yeah all of that has gone all of that has gone there much more musical carne

used to call you I got my stepkids to do little jingles for me oh Neil you must have these on tape I'll see

I'll ask them actually if they've still got them you must are there no shows are there no like whole shows I don't think there's any I didn't I never kept cuttings i never recorded anything but kind

of i got my my stepkids to do little little stupid like jingles like my my stepson jake saying i'm ainsley harriet and i listened to neil kulkarni it was it was it was lovely it was nice and freewheeling in a sense and i sort of slightly couldn't believe i was getting away with it but um yeah that those days are that that'll never happen again i mean late night djs now on local radio are exactly the same as all the day i'm djs you know yeah but yeah there was certainly late at night that kind of edge of freedom to it and it is and it it does sort does sort of descend from the American model of people like, you know, these kind of fictional versions like Clint Eastwood

in Play Misty for me. Or in Vanishing Point, is it Super Soul or something? Yeah, yeah, yeah. That blind guy is amazing. And then my favourite, Tim Curry in Times Square. This is a great film anyway. I don't know if any of you've watched it, but Times Square, it was made by,

it was produced by Robert Stigwood with all the Saturday Night Fever money. Your Daughter Is One. Your Daughter Is One. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. So it's about this sort of proto-Riot Girl punk duo, these teenage runaways who break out of a mental hospital

and form a punk band. And Tim Curry, out of Rocky Horror, is this late night DJ sort of egging them on, sort of telling them, you know, sort of just sending them goodwill messages and then telling fans where they might be doing some guerrilla gigging and this kind of stuff.

And it's just amazing. I've always loved that idea. And actually my dad, when he did get the job with CBC in Cardiff, had an even more graveyard shift than 10 till 1 I think my dad was on from about maybe like 2 till 6 or 1 till 5 in the morning something like that um to begin with um and and I remember that I was at the age where I was starting to go nightclubs so I would I would go in to Cardiff have a night out get pissed and then um because i couldn't really afford a taxi home yeah yeah i i no no i would go to the radio station he buzzed me in and i'd sit there sort of gradually sobering up while he's doing his show playing old sort of

like james taylor records or whatever playing a bit of santana all these sort of like very mellow grooves and um and he had he had listeners because the way that the transmitters pointed, like across the West Country as well as Wales. And one person who used to phone in quite regularly was Gary Glitter. No! Yeah. Fuck! Yeah, Gary Glitter had a place in the West Country

and used to listen to my dad's show. And this is before anybody knew anything was untoward about Gigi. And, yeah, he used to phone in and say, oh, that record just played what is it and stuff like that and another one who listened was phil collins who must also have had a place over in the west country so that that was all a bit weird but yeah i think if if there was still money being paid for people to do late night radio shows that might be my dream job oh god yeah i mean sorry one last thing that i can't believe i've forgotten about this decision i've just remembered that um i said you know the guy before me had the show like seven till ten and it was a strictly a soul show it was like a quiet storm show really cool guy um

black hog or jerry and um the studio ended up Kix96 Studio in this weird building near to what we called the Irish Centre in Coventry i.e. a place to pick up divorcees but before that it was in this really odd disused church and Luther Vandross

came to that studio to be on this guy's show and I was you know know i didn't know this like it only kind of been sorted during the week when i was away somewhere and i turned up on my on sunday night to do my show at 10 and normally there'd be a handover you know between me and the guy before me and i get there and he's like luther van dross is here and i was like oh my fucking god it'd be amazing if i can meet him he goes i don't think that's going to happen mate come here and he takes me to the bathroom right not luther the dj takes me to the bathroom says luther's in there

have a listen and all i could hear was just incessant quacking up of cocaine just just just over and over it yeah it was nuts but that yeah sorry that's just come back to me um it's a surreal time but yeah no it's amazing what happened on local radio it's amazing in retrospect that we were allowed to get away with it but in real in really that's what people want late at night on radio you know and and it needs to come back in a big way but it's not is it nah no of course not because people just go oh well you can do that on the internet if you want now you don't need radio and it's like no it's not the same mate yeah i mean it's the thing of you know i think when we

talk about oddly the commodore's night shift that that's a great song about being on the listening to the radio at night some of the greatest things i've ever heard have come filtering to me through the radio at night when you just stick it on your day and think about it perhaps you listen to a specialist show that maybe isn't for you and you just hear something amazing yeah this is the magic of radio and it's just not happening anymore yeah on the cover of the enemy this week emerson lake and palmer on the cover of music star donny osmond the number one lp at the minute is the slade compilation album sladest i'm a writer not a fighter by gilbert o sullivan is at number two over in america the number one single is half breed by share and the number one lp in america is goat's head soup by the rolling stones so boys what were we doing in october of 1973 obviously 73 i'm one right so

i was doing my usual thing of preparing for this and jotting down memories normally i can come up with a few memories but yeah i've looking at my jottings now and it looks more like a haiku to be honest with you i've written pretty flowers green push chair shitting my nappy and that's it really it's all vague sensual memories like that you know yeah i mean um not only have we done 1973 before um i've done 1973 twice um so i mean i'd refer people back to episode 25 if they really care um and episode three I think was the other one um that I did of 73 um but in brief I had just turned six um I was living with my grandparents because my mum and dad had split up and I was going to Romley Infant School in Barry and here's a bit I don't think I mentioned before so yeah I was I was a freckly little kid with

wavy ginger hair only child of a single parent, trying to be optimistic and just trying to kind of figure it all out, you know, sort of figuring out the world despite all the uncertainty of my family life. But at school, I was a brainy kid. I was advanced for my age. I could read and write before everyone else because my mum had taught me when I was little. And I guess partly because of that, the previous year,

I got moved up a year. There was me and three other kids. There was me, Suzanne Vincent, Andrew Hammond, both of whom I'm still friends with, and one other I can't remember. James Harries. We were too clever, and the other kids were holding us back was the theory.

So we were put in with the older kids to see how we'd get on, right? And, you know, I thought we were fine. But at the end of that year, the school decided that that wasn't allowed after all and that we couldn't just carry on then in the older group. So they just held us back and we had to do the whole third year of the infants again. Oh, fucking hell.

Yeah, while the kids who were our age caught up with us if you if you get what i mean and and that that is when this is fatally i drifted off yeah and started daydreaming i you know i became quite sort of disengaged daydreamer at the age of six and i and i never quite re-engaged and i do really think that that kind of laid the pattern for me at school that i was quite bright but i was always staring out the window you know wow pricey do you think what could have happened i mean would you have been like a really specky academic by now yeah yeah who knows yeah i thought maybe as well i got i got let into uh infant school at the age of four because i could already read yeah yeah i

feel your pain yeah yeah yeah i mean maybe i could have kept that going they keep moving me up here and up here and i'd end up going to university at the age of 12 i'd be like i'd be like the protagonist of beat the clock by sparks you know yes um yeah and fisher child they'd be like a little story about me on the local tv news about local 11 year old is going to Oxford well and yeah I basically be you know James Harry's the uh the the antiques child Lauren Harry's now of course yeah yeah um but but you know that that that wasn't allowed to happen so sadly I got thrown in with all the idiots and cretins of my own age group and uh yeah ended up staring out the window forever and here I am literally staring out a window or like like Michael Jackson yeah ends up staring out the window forever and here i am literally staring

out a window or like like michael jackson that is yeah i'm very much the michael jackson of south wales maybe delete that bit i'm not sure so yeah me just a little bit younger than simon scott home infant school uh thursday dinner time disco off peter get in me and the rudy guys going men clover blockbuster and leader of the gang dad's a lorry driver mam's a bingo caller life is bliss i fucking love 1973 i'd go back there like that tomorrow today even see i wouldn't because this was a time when i was getting the first of my many childhood diseases so no well you know i ran through the gamut i think i was it was a german measles year that year i see yes um and um then i got a hooping cough the next

year i never got mumps though which worries me because i hear that when you get it when you're old it can do terrible damage to your testicles yeah so i hope i managed to avoid that the other thing about this time when i was a five-year-old um i was starting to decide what i was going to be when i grew up because you know i was five you know time was ticking on and you know up till that point i i just thought i'd be like my dad i just thought you automatically did whatever your dad was doing and he was a lorry driver and i think it was around about this time that i'd done a map well the teacher had done an out big outline of the teacher had done a big outline of the United Kingdom. And I would find on the map where my dad went that week and just draw lines and work out how long,

how many miles it was and all that kind of stuff. But, you know, at this time, my dad would be just out the house for like days on end because he was a lorry driver. Every time I saw him, he'd come back from work or the pub and he'd look absolutely knackered or pissed up and everything i thought i don't really want to do that and you know when you're five you've got a very limited circle of people you know and i look around at all of them as well who were of adult age and they didn't seem to be having much of a good time either but

one of the most profound things i've ever heard on chart music out of the millions of them is when you simon said that boy george taught you another way of being a man yeah and this was essentially what the pop stars of the era were doing for me you know i could either yeah sit in a lorry all day and come back really knackered or Or I could wear this amazing fucking flared Bako foil suit and just turn up somewhere and just punch the air and go, Hey! And people would go, Menkle. And that really appealed to me.

I didn't really know how you went about getting that job, but it was definitely a job I wanted. I either wanted to be Brian Connolly of the suite or Stan Bowles. Nice, yeah. And that was my goal in life. There's still time. I'm 52. It could happen, surely.

Who was doing it for you when you were 5-0? Oh, 1977. Who would that have been? Must have been David Sowell. He must have had some bearing on your life. That kind of thing. I mean, in combination

with the denim advert. Yeah, I wanted a chest like that. I wanted that kind of manliness. in combination with the denim advert yeah i wanted a chest like that i wanted yeah yeah that kind of that kind of manliness by the time i was a teenager it was prince who did that for me it just suggested a different way of being like simon said about boy george yeah having no hair on your chest well quite for me it was gary glitter i'm afraid to say you know and i've i've talked about this before but the first record i ever owned was i'm the lead to the gang i am because my dad dragged me to a record shop and I was bored to tears.

And he said, all right, you can have a record, what do you want? And I think Gary Glitter might have been, from my sort of rare glimpses of Top of the Pop, so any kind of music TV, the only pop star I was really aware of. And yeah, just something about it. Like you say, the big Baker Foil shoulder pads and punching the air going, hey, was it for me. That was just amazing.

Yeah, I would have settled for being in the glitter band if I could have the star-shaped guitar. That would have sorted me out. I wasn't a greedy lad. When you're five, it's that pop star who kind of is exciting and thrilling and is a pop star, but in a sense seems reachable. Like you probably, you know,

we're not going to think, oh, I want to be David Bowie because, or Mark Bowman or something, because these people are astonishing, sort of like beamed in from Venus type people. But Brian Connolly, he's got that amazing thing,

you know, that he's doing. And yet you could, you'd see a face like that walking down a street, you know, he's reachable in that way. Anyway, Pop Craze Young says it's that time of the episode when we delve into the crates

and pull out one of the music press from this week. And this time I've gone for Melody Maker, October the 13th, 1973. Shall we delve, chaps? Yes, please. On the cover, Liza Minnelli and Alice Cooper in the studio. They're laying down a track for Alice Cooper's next album, I believe. In the news section, Rick Wakeman has announced his first two solo gigs at the Royal Festival Hall next January with the London Symphony Orchestra.

They'll be performing his adaptation of Jules Verne's Journey to the Centre of the Earth, and he threatens to play three Moogs, three Mellotrons, three electric pianos, a normal piano, a Hammond organ, and an electric harpsichord. And there'll be a live LP soon after. Fucking hell, how big is that stage? Plans are also afoot to film the concerts for

color video cassettes or they must sell at least three of those at some point that whole um lisa nelly and alice cooper thing i guess very much the kylie minogue and michael hutchins of their day yes kylie minogue and nick cave know, this kind of improbable meeting. And it turns out that Melty Maker had a running joke that Liza Minnelli and Alice Cooper look like each other. So they must have been so delighted to get this photo on the front cover because, you know, it's become real because, yeah, Liza,

as you say, singing backing vocals on Alice's new record. The Japanese bassist Tetsuya Mauche, Ronnie Lane's replacement in The Faces, has finally been allowed to join the Musicians' Union and the band have dropped their threat to never play in the UK again if he wasn't allowed a work visa.

They'll be touring next month. That's on the front cover, right? Sorry to keep interrupting, but I should explain to the pot-crazed youngsters that I also have had a look through this copy of Melody Maker because Al accidentally bought two copies and sent the spare one to me. Yeah, that thing about Tetsu Yamauchi, the faces, joining the Musicians' Union, that's front cover news.

All right, it's only a little bit, but that tells you a lot about Melody Maker at that time, just how much of a muso's mag it was. Nearly three months after the retirement of Ziggy Stardust, David Bowie announces his return to the stage for two gigs at the Marquee for the American TV show Midnight Special, better known as the 1980 Floor Show. 200 tickets have been made available through the Bowie Fan Club

and the venue has been booked out for three days for recording. Meanwhile the Osmonds have announced an extra date at the Rainbow next week and once again tickets are only available through their fan club. Over in America a scheduled gig by Manassas, Stephen Still'sills Band is interrupted by a guest appearance by David Crosby, Graham Nash and Neil Young which leads to the announcement that oh yes, Crosby, Stills,

Nash and Young are reforming Hooray! That Bowie story says he's working on a West End stage adaptation of Orwell's 1984 so eventually I guess that became Diamond Dogs which when it actually says he's working on a West End stage adaptation of Orwell's 1984. So eventually, I guess that became Diamond Dogs. Which, when it actually happened, it was so shoddily designed that a walkway between two tower blocks collapsed while Bowie was walking on it.

And there was this cherry picker which broke down at the end of Space Oddity, leaving him stranded over the heads of the crowd, which I suppose is quite fitting. It's a bit like Major Tom himself, just kind of stranded overhead, you know. Bowie fan club, Osman's fan club. Were you ever in a fan club, Al? Yes, I was in the Torch Society, the Style Council.

Yes. Yes. Yeah, I was for a while. And me badge keeps on burning. I was in the MIS, the Madness Information Service. Wow. Yeah, so I used to get the Nutty Boys comic and various other bits and bobs. God, I never was.

You see, I wasn't bold enough. I really wanted to, obviously, I wanted a... You weren't bold enough. Well, you know, cowardly. I don't know why, but the only fan club that interested me in the 70s was obviously the dennis the menace fan club because i really wanted i really wanted a hairy badge but um oh i've got one of them somewhere yeah that's all right six fucking weeks when you're that age that's fucking ages six weeks you might not be into dennis the menace by that time i've

gone off exactly yeah you might have progressed. Inside the paper, well, Michael Watts finds himself at the Academy of Music in New York to see how Slade are getting on in their latest attempt to break America. He finds that the natives are a bit confused at the sight of a tramp from the future telling them to stand up and start clapping, or else they'll get a boot up their arses, but are more receptive to the band than they were last year. What sees Slade as a potential beachhead for the likes of Gary Glitter and Sweet, but wonders if the gulf between Britain and America is too wide now. Meanwhile, on the West Coast,

Nazareth are having a go at cracking America by dint of supporting Rare Earth and Fleetwood Mac. And Chris Charlesworth gets to hear them talk about being bemused by 15-year-old girls who are collecting articles of clothing off Led Zeppelin and playing cover versions of Joni Mitchell songs at actual Joni Mitchell. Back in New York, David Milton has tracked down Bobby Pickett, whose 1962 single Monster Mash has risen from the grave and is currently at number five in the UK charts.

Yes. He's currently working as a cabaret and in a folk duo with his wife at night and is gobsmacked to learn it's finally made the UK chart as it was banned by the BBC for being too morbid 11 years ago for the marlin manson of its day oh we can't mention yes he announces plans to put together a crip kicker 5 review and re-record the monster mash lp as the original masters have been lost fucking hell jeff brown sits down with joyce vincent and telma

hopkins of dawn who was still in london after appearing on the 500th top of the pops and learns that when they had a massive american hit with not three times but didn't want to tour there were no less than 14 different bogus dawns operating in america wow. And when they played a gig in Spain, a lad asked him to sign his copy of Not Three Times, which had a photo of four blokes on it. They talk about working with Alice Cooper, Isaac Hayes and Dionne Warwick, and how they like it when 12-year-old boys

ask them for a kiss and then go all red and run off. Back in LA, Chris Charlesworth links up with Ray Manzarek of The Doors who have just split up. He says the end came when they were in London trying to find a new fourth member and they all finally realised that they couldn't replace Jim Morrison. He talks about his new solo project,

an LP about his seven years with The Doors, but points out that The Doors still have three more albums left on their Elektra contract. Our old Ian Asprey at this time. Wolf Cub. Yeah, yeah. He was suckling at his wolfy mother's teeth at the time. Robert Partridge gives a potted history of the events

leading up to the launch of commercial radio in the UK and points out that between the end of the pirates and the birth of Radio 1 7 million people stopped listening to radio and he wonders if Capital Radio and the like can tempt those missing listeners back in a rundown of every station available to UK listeners at the moment, he contends that the American Forces Network is the best, as it's the only taste of genuine American radio we have. And they get to let us see, in their rock giants from A to Z centre-spread feature,

uncover Eric Clapton and Creedence Clearwater revival. But I couldn't be arsed to read them. Single reviews. Chris Welch is in the chair this week, and his single of the week is Sorrow by David Bowie. A remarkable performance in this old Mersey's hit, he proclaims. His voice is charged with emotion and tinged with madness. Terrific stuff and proof that David has tremendous powers lurking behind that sparse frame.

Despite the country overtones of the Carpenters' new single, Top of the World, Welch can't help but like it. Karen Carpenter has a beautiful voice and it's difficult not to like the sound they make, even though they are middle class and rich. Not one of their best songs, but it'll probably do well. Although Earth, Wind & Fire sound like, quote, a night in one of those curry houses north of Oxford Street, Welch is intrigued by the ringing vibraphones and intelligent, sophisticated vocals on their latest single, Evil.

They sound like an extremely interesting, worthwhile band. Hold on, hold on. A night in one of those curry houses north of Oxford, what does that mean? I don't know. Yeah. Something to Chris Welsh, obviously.

However, it's a coat down for tight rope by richie havens never been a fan i remember seeing havens at the blind faith concerts at high park and thinking there's a duff singer even while the hordes clapped he may be a sincere talented performer but at the risk of incurring abusive mail and even the tight-lipped wrath of fellow rock writers, I shall bellow to the world, DOLLSVILLE, whenever the subject of Havens is broached. in Star, an exciting piece of spine tingling up raw, faint praise for sweet understanding love by the Four Tops, and approval of James Brown going back to a bit of balladry with Woman, part one. In the LP review section, the lead review is given over to Berlin, the third solo LP by Lou Reed, but Michael Watts puts Das Boot in.

Along with Bob Dylan, Lou Reed, of all the important figures of the 60s, has been most ill-treated by the passing of time. While the former has lost contact with the 70s, the latter has been cut adrift from the significant body of his own work and is left to thrash around, casting about for a helping hand to set his course straight. Meanwhile, Michael Oldfield froths at the mouth over We're an American Band by Grand Funk. Forget everything you've read or heard about Grand Funk. This is one hell of a great album. The last vestiges of heavy metal music

have finally been cast out. This is pure rock. Jeff Brand cops an earful of Inside Out, the new release by John Martin, and reckons it's dead good. John Martin's long stopped being a folk

singer. He's, well, I'd say he's a jazz singer now, if you want to category. Caravan's fifth LP, for girls who grow plump in the night, sees the band moving in some interesting new directions, according to Steve Lake. A chart album, I hope. The band deserve a break. But it's a coat down for Los Cochinos by Cheech and Chong. One of the main problems is that nothing the pair say is particularly funny or interesting, claims Chris Welch.

A surfeit of mans renders the conversations tedious to the extreme. And an unnamed reviewer describes liberace as gary glitter's dad in a brief review of his new lp the sound of love i noticed in that lou reed review that um the term punk rock is used about lou reed which is really interesting i think in 1973 seems very early to be uh using that that phrase um but i i looked into it and apparently the phrase has been kicking around since 1970 um one of the thugs used it in an american magazine so yeah it's just hard sort of picking up a british paper from that era and they're just throwing around the term punk rock quite freely when what we think of as punk rock with a capital pr um just doesn't even exist

yet in the gig guide david could have seen man at the rainbow bitch at ronnie scott's ray charles count basie and oscar peterson at the hammersmith odeon status quo at the rainbow the detroit emeralds at mr bees in peckham or up with people for two nights at the Royal Albert Hall, but probably didn't. Taylor could have seen Jimmy Ruffin at La Dolce Vita, Lindisfarne at the Birmingham Town Hall, or Tiny Tim at La Dolce Vita. Neil could have seen John Martin at Warwick University,

Thin Lizzy at Manchester Poly, or gone to Wolverhampton to see Cliff Richard at the Gaumont, or nipped over to Kenilworth to check out Bobby Crush at the Chesford Lion Hotel. What a week. I would have loved to see Martin and Lizzy at the Lanch. The Lanch is such a notorious venue in Coff. Don't forget the Lanchester Poly is where Chuck Berry recorded My Dingling. Sarah could have seen Limmy and Family cooking at the doncaster top rank suite marty wilde at the fiesta club in sheffield

or 10 years after at york university al could have seen horse lips at nottingham university fantastix at the grey topper or gone to leicester to see the final ever gig of family at Leicester Polytechnic and Simon could have seen Greenslade at the Memorial Hall in Barrie fucking hell on your own doorstep Simon I've actually performed in that venue oh doing what as a child my mum joined the Barrie Arts Centre local Amdram group and I got roped into i think two performances in one of them they wrote a role for me as the young scrooge in a christmas carol in a christmas carol and in the other one i'm whatever the boys called in um treasure island so um yeah yeah yeah so i was i I was sat on this kind of metal treasure chest

that I've still got, actually, to this day. Whoa. I was allowed to keep it. Yeah, yeah. Oh, man. So yeah, I've performed at the Memorial Hall along with Greenslade, the prog rock band, who I don't actually know their stuff, but there we go.

It's really rare for gigs to happen in Barry. Yeah. So much so that in the noughtoughties i think about 2007 or something super fury animals played there and um i went back to barry to to review it just because it was such a big deal a band actually playing in the town gallagher and lilac glamorgan polytechnic and al stewart at abaris with university i just say it must be really difficult for you to pull this gig guy bit together, Al, because I don't know if you noticed,

well, obviously you noticed, the listings, right? Get this, Neil, the listings were artist first rather than location first. Yeah, what? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So you'd have like Tuesday and then there'd be like an alphabetical list of artists

and then you've got to sort of go through and see if they're playing in your town rather than the town first. Fucking. Took fucking ages to do that bit. Mental. Well, and I was scanning through it myself, and something jumped out at me, which I'm going to get into now,

if you don't mind. This is amazing. This is amazing. Because it's a Welsh band. There's a band playing Club Rex in Bognor called Ingroville. That's spelled I-N-G-R-O-V-i-l-l-e and there's a little bit normally the listing is just a listing but sometimes they have a little footnote underneath this one it says they need to fill space yeah yeah so this one it says right welsh band ingroville

are well into a two-month tour to replace nude dancer delia The band is shortly to hire the services of a mass hypnotist. So obviously when I read this, I'd never heard of Ingroville, but of course now I want to know everything about them. So I've done a bit of research. They're from Penarth, which is just down the road from Barry's, between Barry and Cardiff,

a little sleepy seaside town. And I found, there's not a lot out there, but thereide town um and I found there's not a lot out there but there's one thing I found there's a photo of them very much putting the glam into Glamorgan um looking very very Roxy Music um and uh John Ingroville aka Ingi after whom they were named is wearing an amazing feather coat in the in the photo um sadly i've learned that drummer dave bush who's wearing a fantastic tiger print jacket in that photo passed away from covid recently in a care home so uh yeah our condolences to his family and the bloke in the middle has got a right

fucking packet on him and it's proper armadillo down the trousers job yeah is that is that it's like a ball it's like he's got one of them rubber dog balls and just shoved it down it's it's it's very much look like he's just got a massive bollock yeah it's it's really odd i do think there's probably a bit of uh you know derrick smalls in spinal tap the old cucumber down the track although it's more of a butternut squash kind of shape really what's going on there um i think I might have seen him play live, right? Because this is Mike. Is it Mike Lloyd-Jones, I think, the guy, the guitarist?

Because he joined a band called Madassa Soul Band, who were always playing the pubs in Barry. And to connect it all back to chart music, he had a stint in Shaking Stephen's Sunsets, who Ingroville had actually shaking steven's reference yeah yeah this episode who uh ingroville had actually supported in amsterdam so uh he ended up playing heterosexual rock and roll with his big packet you know um steve parr from the heterosexual glam yeah steve parr from the band went on to run a successful

studio in London. Adrian Angove, the bassist, there's a few interesting things here. He used to wear red platform boots that were given to him by a Soho stripper he used to be at school with. And later on, again bringing this back to chart music favourite subjects, for a while he played with the old sailor. Oh! Yeah. The circle of pop spreads on.

Delia, the nude dancer who they were replacing with a hypnotist, was the girlfriend of Adrian Angove, or the ex-girlfriend, so it's possibly why they had to get a hypnotist instead of a nude dancer. She was probably like, fuck this, halfway through the tour. She's this kind of substasia. You will forget about your stripper x yeah yeah yeah or you will buy an ingroville t-shirt after the concert so obviously they were doing a kind of stacia from hawkwin thing by having a new dancer this led to uh to

nme doing a piece about them with the headline rude rock in the valleys even though even though panath is not the valleys but anyway and some other things i found out about ingroville who i'm i'm totally obsessed with i've never heard of their music this is just you know i'll probably get over it in a couple of days but right now they're my favorite band in the world i've never heard anything by them they were once booked but the new punters yeah yeah yeah they they were once booked a headline over suzy quattro but suzy quattro that week suddenly had a number one so the bill got flipped and reversed uh they they headlined over average white band and they supported love sculpture and the strawbs and the suite on tour

oh imagine that and supposedly right this is a sad ending it, Ingroville were just about to sign a four-album deal with Polydor, but their management company went bust, leading to their van and all their gear being repossessed outside Samantha's Discotheque in Swansea. So their final gig, Samantha's Disco in Swansea, and then all their gear gets snatched by the man. So there we go. That's the fascinating story of Ingroville, my latest obsession.

That bonus content. We don't just do chart nonsense you know so if anyone out there is related to him or even is a member of ingroville and has any of their records i don't think they made any but anything at all please get in touch with me via the usual channels because i am obsessed and if you meet one of them simon when all this is over you've got to give them your welsh musical yes underhandedly from david that's right that's right stick it to the fucking man simon listen right one day i ought to write a book about welsh music yeah it's going to be a chapter on these guys it's fucking brilliant yeah yeah in the letters page well fucking hell the 1973 melody maker poll came out last week and the readership

is understandably pleased with itself about the results what a fantastically refreshing experience your poll turned out to be writes paul mansfield of south end on sea it is good to see great artists such as boe Maggie Bell yes Floyd ELP and Lou Reed topping the poll there is no sign at all of Donny and the Osmonds, David Cassidy, Slade, etc. And that shows that adult-minded people who enjoy good music like reading a great paper. I was overjoyed to see Lindsay DePaul take fourth place for best female singer in the British section of the melody maker Pop Paul, Gush's S. Bramhold of Doncaster. Lindsay is a female Gilbert O'Sullivan. If only she could get the same recognition.

Oh, imagine a female Gilbert O'Sullivan. That good, eh? Yeah, yeah. female Gilbert O'Sullivan. Bob Dylan's latest LP, the soundtrack to Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid, has been universally panned, but Caroline Southern of Stanmore Middlesex is not having

it. In a star letter entitled Lay Off Dylan, he's still the best. That hard rain never seems to stop falling on Bob Dylan, does it? So what's the matter now, old Dylan followers? It must be pretty clear by now his music is in a constant state of progression. So let's get up and stop being prejudiced and hard done by.

Buy his records, you bastards! Dee Garside of Lytham St Anne's went to see the Moody Blues in Preston and was unimpressed about how loud they were I cannot understand why a group of such talented musicians should have to hide behind a wall of sound to put their act over What promised to be an evening to remember turned into a night of sheer disappointment Oh man, Moody, you're too heavy.

West Coast and hard rock music must be stopped, screams Andrew Davis of Penarth. It is choking the truly musical efforts of bands such as Greenslade, Gentle Giant, Tempest, Stackridge and Good Habit. Penarth, home of Ingroville, and they didn't even mention Ingroville in that rundown. Shame. These British bands truly deserve success, and people are ignoring them for the lesser hype freakies.

Freakies. There's some rare praise for the BBC from John Avery of Ramsgate. How pleased I was to see that the old grey whistle test actually devoted a good 40 minutes to the brilliant reggae festival in Edinburgh. Now come on, Tony Blackburn, Noel Edmonds and others, play some of the most popular music in England. Here, here, sir. Have you seen that, Al?

Yes, it's fucking mint, isn't it? Have you seen it, Neil? Yeah, I have, yeah. It's fucking incredible. I mean, to the listeners if nothing else find it and skim through to nicky thomas doing is it because i'm black like like a man possessed it's phenomenal the footage really sharp lovely sort of cinema quality footage of early 70s reggae artists in their prime it's just amazing paul bonza of billericchi gets upset

that a course at the Basildon Evening Institute on the history of jazz was cancelled after only seven people enrolled for it. S. Gallico of Fulham begs Mutter Slater and Billy Sparkle to change their mind and return to Stackridge, and Peter Stead is dead happy that Don McLean is about to tour the UK, as he's one of the few musicians who really cares about his fans in Britain.

Cracker Jack. While our own singers are too busy making their fortunes in the States to bother about us. And Keith Perry of Birmingham was disgusted by the cover of the previous issue. Did you really have to put that appalling photograph of Wayne County on the front of Melody Maker last week? Okay, we know these people exist, but let's just hope that in the name of legitimate rock that they slash it die a natural death.

Don't publicise it. Suppress it. Fuck off. Fuck off. just wait another three or four years keith you know what right this this kind of transphobia sadly proves that people like suzanne moore julie birchill graham lenehan jk rowling nothing new you know and um and by the way um wayne now jane county is still alive so all this business let's hope that they slash it die a natural death fuck you keith perry if you haven't already died a natural death i have though just discovered a i'm a bit bored of using lad rock as a sublocator

slag off oasis i think i'm going to start calling them legitimate rock from now on can you believe that that letter though these people that should have been in italics i think we know these I think I'm going to start calling them legitimate rock from now on. Can you believe that? That letter, though. These people. That should have been in italics, I think. We know these people exist. Fuck's sake. I mean, I guess it was the early 70s, but... I looked all over for the cover of that melody, man.

I can't find it anywhere. I've actually seen the photo that Keith Perry's on about. Oh, what's Wayne County doing? It's a live shot of Wayne wearing stockings and suspenders and hot pants and a pearl necklace pause for laughter there and a massive blonde wig and i'm going to play it safe and go with she is the pronoun because i don't want to misgender anyone she's grabbing her tits and doing a pantomime grimace and the story to go with it is that wayne has signed to tony defreeze company main Main Man, who also look after David Bowie and Iggy Pop. And it's a brilliant picture.

Keith wants legitimate rock. Well, it's probably the most rock and roll thing that had been on the front of Melody Maker all year. It's a fantastic cover and a fantastic photo. And of course, Wayne County and the Electric Chairs later released a classic punk single called Fuck Off. So in honour of that, fuck off keith perry that word legitimate rock it really does remind me of bob harris saying mock rock at the end of that new

york dolls doing jet boy it's exactly the same mock rock yeah exactly oh and in the musicians wanted section of melody maker this week is this advert major recording label artist sparks required drummer must be an exciting inventive drummer with a really good face that isn't covered with a beard oh god i love them so much previous applicants need not apply bring sticks only that is so it's so brilliant and it's so them right um yeah there's there's a story about them around this time because of course what what happened was that uh uh things weren't working out for them in la but they got quite a lot of traction when they visited the uk um they've done a residency at the marquee and they've been on whistle test and that you know they've started to make inroads over here so they decamped they sacked their band and decampedcamped to Britain to pick up a new band.

And yeah, there's that drummer ad and there's this amazing story that their new guitarist during their first sort of practice session got his cigarette and stuck it on the end of a guitar string in that kind of rock and roll way. And they just told him,

no, no, no, we're not that sort of band. We don't do that sort of thing. roll way and they just told him no no no we're not we're not that sort of band we don't do that sort of thing as we speak of course there is a documentary about sparks coming out um called the sparks brothers made by edgar wright of hot furs um sean of the dead baby driver fame i've seen it i had a sneak preview because I did a bit of work on the production notes for the film and oh god, it's amazing, it's, I mean I think we're all Sparks admirers on this pod today and

it's quite emotional because you know, the whole thing with Sparks is that everybody who's into them feels aggrieved that they're not bigger than they are, they're one of these bands you get quite evangelical about, like you know, you sort of, and if you meet somebody at a party who's a sparks fan that's it it's the two of you in a corner talking about sparks all night yeah it's like that but in film form it's just basically saying look here you go here's your beginner's guide to sparks and it's just got

amazing footage of just you know just archive stuff i've never seen before um and just these guys now ron and russell in their 70s and the this beautiful understanding they have and it's quite it's yeah it is it is quite quite quite moving and so uh i don't know when it's getting a sort of well it's coming on netflix or god knows but seriously everybody look out for that the sparks brothers 80 pages 8p i never knew there was so much in it and there there was so much in this issue, wasn't there, Simon? It's fucking dense as fuck. It really is, yeah.

I mean, I just got so engrossed in reading this. Even little things like being a bit of a music journalism nerd. The staff list, right? The list of people on it. Some of the names you mentioned already, but Ray Coleman, the editor, you know, sort of legendary magazine editor. Some famous staffers, including Chris Welch, you you've mentioned and Max Jones still hanging on in there

the chief photographer was Barry Wenzel and um his photos were the basis of that pretty terrible Melody Maker documentary that came out last year and and seem to think that nothing of any interest happened after 1980 um that they had here's the thing that got me and it just makes anybody of my generation and neil's generation weep they had 10 american correspondents right um including and most of these people were british including chris charlesworth as the los angeles correspondent what a sweet job that must have been there was even a montreal correspondent i mean i don't i don't know what kind of retainer they were they probably didn't do anything

they just sat there on a lovely little retainer and they probably didn't have to do much to earn it but yeah just really really so much in here obviously Melody Maker in the 70s was still very much a muso paper so there's a lot of jazz it's very B2B isn't it

yeah yeah it is and you realise right how many legends of jazz. It's very B2B, isn't it? Yeah, yeah, it is. And you realise, right, how many legends, of jazz particularly, were still alive. I mean, Duke Ellington was still hanging on just about. He had a new record out. That's an idea. There's an item in the small print about a Charlie Parker tribute concert featuring Dizzy Gillespie, who would have been only 55 at the time. This might have been the show, the Charlie Parker tribute,

where an audience member converted Dizzy Gillespie to the Baha'i faith. Oh, right. Which he couldn't stop banging on about for the rest of his life. But, yeah, apparently it was after Charlie Parker died at a concert that Dizzy Gillespie was harassed by a fan who sort of bent his mind towards that faith. There's this whole thing when you're flicking through an old paper of songs that we consider iconic just being brand new just like a new record come now so you've got and there's quite a variety like i love you love me love by gary glitter is about to come out there's a there's a an advert a little sort of column advert down the side for virgin

records and it's got a little flash across it genesis selling england by the pound for one pound 85 so yeah yeah um there's an advert for cockney rebel sebastian which has got the strap line some singles are too good to make it some singles are too good not to make it what like whatever i don't know how you're meant to kind of pass that i think maybe the thing i i get the most out of um is just going through the small ads in the back there are these yeah obviously like you look at the clothes ads and it's all bell bottoms and what have you but there are a lot of so on patches right yeah and so on patches of things like kiss my and it's got a picture of a donkey like ass yeah it's when it says sex breakfast of champions there's another one right national sex appeal fund volunteer give all you can yeah um there's

another one it's got a peach a picture of tweety pie the cartoon bird and it says even i like a little pussy right yeah yeah yeah and there's one with with um with with a superhero with a chicken under their cape and it just says super cock yeah and and and the the disco scene as in the mobile disco or the discotheque scene was obviously thriving um in the ads for equipment and stuff there's an advert for something called the van morrison-Eyed Rainbow Roadshow. What the fuck? What? Presumably not the Van Morrison, because Jesus Christ, imagine him trying to rock a party.

Fuck me. There's another one under Situations Wanted that just says, female DJs available now. Like, nothing about what music they play, just female djs because that that in itself was somehow a novelty oh there was an advert around this time for mars bars with the disco birds maybe it's them really yeah they go around in a minute and uh do discos and really get the party started and then they go off and do something else with their boyfriends, like, I don't know, water skiing or something. But they're eating Mars bars along the way. And in the gig ads, there's just a little one that says

Citizen Kane apologised for not appearing at the North Pole last Sunday. What? I mean, obviously, with our sensible heads on, we have to assume that that's the name of a pub or something. Yeah, a bit of an odd one. And it's just how rich and packed with stuff these old papers are.

I mean, there was this tiny review of an album by an obscure prog band called Public Foot the Roman. That was their name, right? And I listened to that earlier due to the magic of the internet, you know. And it's got quite a groove going on you can basically you can investigate things instantly now so the combination it's this amazing combination of the old and the new the old the music paper and the new the internet the ability to go find things and it's just a lovely perfect sort of combo and i i would say just in general if if you're a music lover and you if you aren't, then I don't know why you're even here

unless it's for the swearing and the stories of bummer dogs. Sexy not in a accent. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Then really just treat yourself to a secondhand copy of an old music paper and just lose yourself in it because it's like wandering into a field where the ground is completely perforated with rabbit holes, you know? It's amazing. My music teacher at school, my secondary school, where the ground is completely perforated with rabbit holes, you know? It's amazing.

My music teacher at school, my secondary school, there was just a big pile of old Melody Makers in one of the cupboards, you know, from the early 70s, and he just let me have them. And, yeah, you just get lost just looking at loon pants, to be honest with you, and, you know, all the keep-on-trucking patches and stuff. But they really are truly unlike a current retrospective look back at 73, it puts you there. It puts you right in the mindset and the feel of the times. So, yeah, highly recommended.

Deluge yourself in as much of that stuff as you can find. So, what else was on telly today? Well, BBC One start the day at 9.41 with three and a half hours of schools and colleges programmes before nipping over to Wentworth, sadly not the Australian women's prison, for the 10th Piccadilly World Match Play Championship. After five minutes of news,

it's Pebble Mill at one, then Chigley, then Scene, a schools programme about the work and beliefs of a young female shop steward in the Transport and General Workers Union. After that, there's an hour and a half of more golf. At 4pm, it's Play School, then Boris the Bold, Jackanore, Blue Peter, John Craven's Newsrand, Wacky Racers and Crystal Tips and Alistair.

After the news, it's Nationwide, where Bob Tibbenham arses about on the canals of Britain and then Raymond Baxter, William Wallard and Michael Rod tantalises with Tomorrow's World. A moment for the name Michael Rod, please, everybody. You know how Taylor went on in a previous episode of Chart Music that if he had time travel, he'd bash the very young B.A. Robertson on a sink. I think if I

had time travel, I'd go back to a 1973 episode of Tomorrow's World and just tell them that it's all bollocks and they should stay where they are and warn them that I come from a world where there's no top of the pops. BBC Two commences at 9.30, with live coverage of the second day

of the Conservative Party conference from Blackpool. Breaking off after an hour and a half for play school, before going back for another hour and a half, before closing down at 12.40. Then they reopen for another half an hour of red-hot Tory action, and then at one o'clock, it's the business series, Training for Work. Then there's more Tory party conference, more golf, and some Open Université, before closing down from 10 to 6 until quarter past six.

They've just finished some more open university and are about to show highlights from today's tory stock fucking hell i know that's like the broadcasting schedule of a communist country or something yes play school though i guess so that little window of fun yeah but but what shape is that window neil oh well's got to be an arch, hasn't it? It's got to be. ITV kicks off at 9.30 for an hour of schools programmes. Then it's half an hour from the Tory party conference hosted by Bill Grundy. Wow.

Oh, my God. What a fucking rotter. Stopping free milk, that really turns us on. After another hour of school's programmes, there's a five-minute thing called Christians at Large, where the Christians barge into a baby welfare clinic in Birmingham and bang on about Jesus or something, I don't know. They sing Harvest for the World and Forgotten Town.

Yeah, okay, sorry. Whatever. Then Mr Trimble takes some kids to see a model railway and reads a story about a tired old horse called Frederick. Then it's the witcher's brew. First report, the proto-news at one. Then a blackmail trial

in Crown Court. A ward gets infected in General Hospital, then it's an hour and a half of racing from York, followed by a cartoon and lost in space. After the news and regional news in your area, it's the 2002nd episode of Crossroads. If you're from the ATV region, we got it first. ATV, always ahead of the game.

After that, it's the cartoon Wayward Pups, and they're currently 20 minutes into the film version of Columbo, where someone tries to murder a former world chess champion before his match with the current champ. Oh, my dad would be watching that shit. My dad loved Columbo. Me too. Come on, we all love Columbo, don't we?

Nah, not me. At the time, if it was American and Murderer, I wasn't interested because it's something my dad liked. You'd enjoy it now, Al. Watch the Johnny Cash episode. Yeah. Oh, yes. Yeah.

All right then, Pop Craze youngsters. I do believe that that is enough foreplay for now. So come and join us tomorrow and listen to us take this episode of Top of the Pops into every single orifice. Thank you very much, Neil Kukane. No worries.

Tor Everso, Simon Price. You're welcome. My name's Al Needham and I implore you to stay pop crazed. Chart music. GreatBigOwl.com Hello, my name is Pete Ellison. This is Dave Cribb. Hello, and we do a podcast called Friends with Friends,

as you might have guessed from the music that's playing underneath, which is a sort of lo-fi rendition of the Friends theme tune for rights reasons. We get a different guest on every week on our podcast to talk about their favourite episode of Friends. And we look through it in excruciating detail. We pick through levels of plots like no one has ever done before. So if you like Friends or just listening to people talking, which are both valid activities, do look us up on the old podcast apps and that. Friends with Friends. And we're on Twitter at Friends WF. This is the first radio ad you can smell.

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