Chart Music: the Top Of The Pops Podcast - #58 (Part 2): 23.10.1980 – Top Of The Gear

Episode Date: April 13, 2021

Taylor Parkes, David Stubbs and Al Needham commence an intensive evisceration of this episode of Top Of The Pops, but oh dear – Dave Lee Travis has decided to fill the studio with box...y cars and bored women in Talbot t-shirts...Video Playlist | Subscribe | Facebook | Twitter | The Chart Music Wiki | Patreon Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Starting point is 00:00:00 This is the first radio ad you can smell. The new Cinnabon pull-apart only at Wendy's. It's ooey, gooey, and just five bucks for the small coffee all day long. Taxes extra at participating Wendy's until May 5th. Terms and conditions apply. Welcome to All Rather Mysterious, the podcast that aims to unlock the mysteries of the past with the key of fact. My name is John Rain. My name is Ele key of fact. My name is John Rain. My name is Eleanor Morton. My name is David Reed. Please join us as we present to you mysteries that have baffled the world.
Starting point is 00:00:34 You had any noises? What about a door creaking? No, you don't have to do this. That weird ka-dunk that lights going off makes for some reason in films. All Rather Mysterious. that likes going off makes for some reason in films. All rather mysterious. The following podcast is a member of the Great Big Owl family.
Starting point is 00:00:55 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 to listen to? Erm, chart music. Chart music. Chart music.
Starting point is 00:01:34 Hey! Up you pop-crazy youngsters, and welcome to part two of episode 58 of Chalk Music. Here I am, Al Needham, sitting with my dear friends David Stubbs and Taylor Parks. Boys, this episode we're about to get stuck into. We might as well get it out into the open straight away. It's fucking cat shit, isn't it, this episode we're about to get stuck into we might as well get it out into the open straight away it's fucking cat shit isn't it this episode yeah you know but um yes it's a sign of the times though it's like replete with signifiers of uh 1980 you know you can sink our teeth into there's nothing like sinking your teeth into a good signifier in a way it's better to enjoy something as a historical document than it is to enjoy it on its own terms all right then pop craze youngsters it's time to go way back to october of 1980 always remember we may coat down your favorite band or artist but we never forget they've been on top of the Pops more than we have.
Starting point is 00:02:36 Good evening and welcome to the Motor Show. Well, actually, it looks a bit like that because amongst all these kids having a good time here, there's a pile of cars. More about that later. We thought we'd have our own little motor show. We've got a host of good things on tonight's Top of the Pops. It's 20 minutes past seven on Thursday, October the 23rd, 1980, and Top of the Pops is nearly three months into a rebirth, foisted upon it by the musicians' union strike. The strike was caused by the BBC reacting to a £40 million budget deficit
Starting point is 00:03:06 by laying off five orchestras and as a consequence Top of the Pops was taken off the air for the entirety of June and July which gave the show and its new producer Michael Hurl a chance to take a long look at the format and reset it for the 80s and beyond. By this point, they've experimented with guest co-hosts, given a trial run to the two-DJ format when they teamed up Richard Skinner with Jingle Nonsobe, split up and staggered out the top 30 rundown, tried out a new section and a big video screen, but this episode is a step too far, as they've tied our only window of weekly pop excitement in with the 1980 Motor Show,
Starting point is 00:03:54 a biannual event which by 1980 had moved to the NEC in Birmingham. 1980 Motor Show, chaps, a very big deal apparently. It was the world debut of the Mini Metro, the Vauxhall Astra and the Ford Escort Mark III. Margaret Thatcher was driven to the show in a Metro, but unfortunately didn't die in any crashes. And the BBC were making an equally big deal out of it in a special show hosted by Noel Edmonds,
Starting point is 00:04:20 who was the face of Top Gear at the time, with assistance from Jan Leeming, because, hey, you've got to have one woman in there with clothes on. Stuart Hall, Eric Morecambe and Norman Wisdom. Quite a programme that was, wasn't it? Very good introduction. Or it could have been good. Yeah, Noel Edmonds in a car going,
Starting point is 00:04:39 and then it pulls back to reveal he's actually dangling underneath a helicopter. Yeah. But obviously, rather more precautions taken for Noel than there were for Michael Lush. A bit of a shame. Yeah. And now we see this kind of shit getting in the way of this episode of Top of the Pops. So the first question that has to be asked, chaps, is why? What are they fucking doing this for?
Starting point is 00:05:06 I mean, you know, why not just have it, merge it with a Chelsea flower show or something like that? You know, what is... Let's have a tie-in with Crufts and have loads of dogs running about. Peter Powell, live from the 1980 Ideal Home exhibition. Yeah, it's top of the fucking pops, not top of the gear. These cars sitting in the studio it's it's it's absolutely forlorn i actually felt felt for these cars you know sitting there you know their dignity stripped of them sitting there completely out of context in strewed balloons or what have you and it's just
Starting point is 00:05:37 yeah if they'd had little eyes in their headlamps they very much have been rolling those eyes yes during the course of this program very little thought has gone into this yeah it is really just hey we're having a party in the studio mind the cars don't scratch the car it's as if you know they somehow expected the cars to generate some sort of chemistry you know by their fucking cars yeah yeah it's it feels sort of natural in a horrible way though because you could see it even at the time most of the people at radio one were like this they were you know the kind of people who always describe themselves as motorists you know i mean like motor enthusiasts yeah proto petrol heads and all that sort of stuff and it's's like that sickly sweet smell of hot-edged oil
Starting point is 00:06:26 does waft off a lot of these creeps. I've got a documentary. I think it might be some kind of internal home movie or something, not for broadcast, because I couldn't find a transmission listed anywhere online. But it's a visual record of a Radio one fun day at brand's hatch in 1974 narrated by noel edmunds of course yes and it's about as fun as a public information film it's like you for a start inevitably it's cold and it's damp and it's overcast and there's a a freezing sky the color of bone and then by about three
Starting point is 00:07:08 o'clock in the afternoon it's so dim that the 16 millimeter film is just all murk and gloom and it's that uniquely depressing and unfestive british light you know and then it starts raining but even if this had been staged in maui it would still have been a fate worse than death because you got dlt broadcasting live from what looks like a burger van you know and a couple of pans people being driven around on the back of a lorry like transporting circus animals dignified yeah it's them and a moth-eating womble. And they can't even wear, like, you know, short skirts or anything like that
Starting point is 00:07:51 because it's fucking freezing. So they've just got a sweater and jeans on. And it's just, everywhere you look, it's grey-faced people in anoraks just shivering in front of signs saying Texaco and Lucas and Wesslers. And it's all blustery. And they have a terrible DJ race around the track in Ford Escorts or something.
Starting point is 00:08:14 This is like they're supposed to be there. Mario cunt. Yeah. This is like the highlight of the day, which, of course, Noel Edmonds wins. And it's all that mildewed dismal 70s britishness and everything reeks of petrol and fag smoke and stale sweat and a catering caravan where someone's stood there spreading baps with translucent margarine you know from a tub the size of a shipping container flies landing on it and a two-hour queue of cars to get in and out and it looks like the grimmest moment in history
Starting point is 00:08:53 i'm told jackie kennedy was there she said it had been the worst day of her life i mean in that studio i think perhaps that's the assumption as well. All right, so if the cars can't generate any chemistry or pizzazz, of course the top of the pops audience certainly can. And by sort of like surrounding them, you know, surrounding the cars with them, that their natural charm and effervescence will somehow jazz up the motor vehicles. But as we all know, I mean, a top of theops audience is a sort of collective, you know, charm void. They represent negative energy, these hapless wretches,
Starting point is 00:09:32 and so it transpires. I mean, would you have been asked about this at the time? No! Because by the age of 12, I didn't give a fuck about cars. I'd gone through all that. My dad was into cars and everything, what with being a lorry driver. So, you know, as you do,
Starting point is 00:09:46 you look up to what your dad's into. But I'm 12 now. I'm my own man. And no, fuck cars. If it was tanks or, you know. Yes. Or even if it was like racing cars or, you know. Yeah, decent cars.
Starting point is 00:10:00 If it was like the monkey mobile or something like that, that'd be interesting yeah or if you had evil kenevil jumping across uh yes but i mean or even eddie kidd the the tommy steel yeah evil kenevil's elvis you know shaking kenevil yeah it would be fine it would be fun but no it's just like a fucking like like a Lancia just parked. Yeah. Just whack a stripe down the side or something like that. Yeah, not even bother to do that up there.
Starting point is 00:10:33 Or if all the cars exploded, that would be all right. Does any of the panel drive? No. I live in London. No. I live in London and I'm skint. No, I don't drive. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:10:42 Couldn't even afford the parking permit. Because, I mean mean I learned to drive when I was 17 I spent too much time talking to the driving instructor about wrestling because we were both into the WWF and NWA and I failed my test and I came and my dad sat there with his tea on his lap and just looked at me gave me this filthy look because I'd let the family down
Starting point is 00:11:00 and then he just said well I want to let you use my fucking car anyway and I just thought oh well fuck you then dad and then he just said well i want to let you use me fucking car anyway i just thought oh well fuck you then dad and then i moved to london it's like no fucking way am i learning to drive in london fuck cars as soon as they have cars that you can drive and read a decent chunk of book at the same time i'm not interested and apart from the lads who are passing copies of custom car or whatever around in the playground because he's got nudie women sprawled over a hot rod. It's pretty safe to say that a sizeable population
Starting point is 00:11:30 at the top of the Pops audience don't give a monkey's wank about cars either. Yeah. And it's always us lot that have to put up with this shit. I don't remember it being reciprocated in Top Gear. You know, I never saw that episode where William Woolard's breaking off from test driving
Starting point is 00:11:45 the austin princess to say oh look there's bad manners on that traffic island over there let's hear what they've got to say about fatties yeah my brothers and dad uh were both really interesting cars and it was just the conversations were just so tedious you know i mean like imagine investing any enthusiasm or energy into a subject like that you know they're just bits of metal you drive around in you know it's like yeah fetishizing telephone kiosks or something like that i mean i don't mind a nice car but it's i don't want to watch top of the pops live from a fucking car park which is all this really yeah it's an indoor car park. Top of the Pops tonight coming to you live from Bristol Street Motors.
Starting point is 00:12:28 They think it's exciting. I know. It's the idea they drive him onto the floor there and then they just think right now things will start to happen. Of course they don't. What about if we left
Starting point is 00:12:38 the hazard lights on? Yeah, it looks pretty funky. We get a cold open of the Top of the Pops studio as the kids, kickled in by assorted cars which all appear to be red and under a lighting gallery
Starting point is 00:12:51 festooned with bunting, get down to D-I-S-C-O by Otterwen and throw balloons about. Eventually, your host, clad in black racing overalls as it down to the belly button, reveals himself. Wack, wack, oops.
Starting point is 00:13:07 Dave Lee Travis, who is still the alpha male of Radio 1, providing a hairy breakfast from 7 to 9.30, but in a month's time the BBC will announce a shake-up at 1, which sees Richard Skinner taking over Mike Reid's 7-9 evening slot, Reid taking over the breakfast show, Travis replacing Simon Bates in the afternoon, and Bates replacing Andy Peebles at mid-morning.
Starting point is 00:13:36 In the meantime, he's been putting himself about all across the media, doing voice-overs in radio ads for NatWest, and appearing on BBC One as the host of Kickstart and Junior Kickstart. The show jumping on wheels competition. And you best believe there's going to be a whole lot of Travis next week. This Saturday he's appearing on Pro Celebrity Snooker. As he teams up with Steve Davis in a vital semi-final clash against cliff
Starting point is 00:14:06 forburn and dougie brown and next tuesday he'll be making a very special daytime appearance quote from the daily mirrors tv page radio one dj show what they're made of on pebble mill at one this week royal marines from devon have set up a treacherous assault course for them in the studio's grounds. It's all part of the Lunchtime Show's three-day link-up this week with Radio One personalities as part of the Radio One Week in Birmingham. Today, it's the turn of Peter Powell and Dave Lee Travis to see if they complete the course
Starting point is 00:14:46 on wednesday it'll be tony blackburn and on friday mike reed oh your granddad would love to see that hey david oh well good grief yeah i always imagined david travis as someone who when he hit puberty the hairs didn't actually sprout around his genitals, but just all over his head and his chin and under his nose and down his upper chest. And I imagine him having to sniff off segments of his beard and glue them around the top of his dick when he's 13 so he's not laughed out of the boys' changing rooms at the swimming baths.
Starting point is 00:15:20 You know, it's just something distinctive. I mean, there were other hairy men about them, but there's a sort of, I don't know, there's a sort of insidious pubicness about his hairiness yeah yeah and isn't it entirely predictable that travis would be one of these proto petrol heads i mean as long as we know that he did motor in shows and all that even if you didn't know that wouldn't you just think that he is precisely that type of wanker you know i mean all those aging like nothing to contribute dickheads pumped up with failed machismo which is in jeans and shoes you know still
Starting point is 00:16:09 smoking nudging you in the ribs like oh personally i'm a tit man yes you are man but what are you driving what are you driving right now yeah the thing is i remember this from the early eighties that generation of djs obsession with motoring which was so alienating to kids it's like saying by the way kids we this isn't for you we don't really care about what you like or what you're interested in um but it it did seem to dovetail with the other theme of this episode which is creepy sexism and grotesque levels of grabbiness around women it's the car that brings out isn't it i mean you're right about that kind of association i mean david travis is the sort of person who's really only really into pop and rock because in his mind it's all of a piece with like the rev of a Ford Sierra.
Starting point is 00:17:09 You know, a chord change is like a gear change. You know, there's all analogies. You've got different music styles, like different tyres, crossfire and radio. You know, a female artist, you know, a real cracker. She's like one of those birds you get draped over the bonnet when asked to marty at a motor show and, you know, Auto Cars is NME. I think that's what they get right, that Alan Partridge gets right. You know, the Alan Partridge stroke DLT,
Starting point is 00:17:31 they wouldn't have a thin Lizzie Jackie, they'd have a castral one. You know, like the one that Partridge wears at Tony Hayes' funeral. And a good rock tune is something like Wings' Jet. It has all this velocity of petrol-driven motor propulsion. But I think he's definitely taken the presence of so many cars as a signal to unleash himself with the ladies. It's like he's turned up in his kinky racing driver jumpsuit with an iron-on badge.
Starting point is 00:18:00 Zipped right down as well, man. Yeah, and with an iron-on badge on the front in the shape of a stop sign so he's got the word stop in block capitals on his chest almost as a taunt it's like he's emblazoned with the one word that nobody ever dares say to him and he spends the whole of this episode harassing women as we will see in the most uncomfortable ways and even though you could argue about whether the crime for which he was eventually disciplined was justification not just to punish him but to banish his image from all media in perpetuity like gary glitter or Jimmy Savile.
Starting point is 00:18:45 You do have to say, when you watch this episode, it's hard to imagine any television station feeling comfortable about broadcasting this ever again, because it is just half an hour of semi-bullying sexual harassment. Yeah. And it's really uncomfortable to watch. Yeah. I mean, he spends this whole episode as Pepe Le Pew. Yeah. And it's really uncomfortable to watch. Yeah. I mean, he spends this
Starting point is 00:19:06 whole episode as Pepe Le Pew. Yes. Except he smells worse, I think. PLP. As you say, this is what happens when he's in the proximity of cars, you know, obviously has this hideously, too messantly fair. Yeah. Because it's not just leather lifestyle or all those things about
Starting point is 00:19:22 music. Of course, you know, it's the idea of sexual potency and as a transmitter of sexual potency. Yeah, or as a substitute. Yeah, but off a mini metro. Well. I mean, David, you're right. I, too, am placing the blame on Travis for this farrago. He'd been putting himself about as a car wanker for ages.
Starting point is 00:19:39 He appeared on the Music Star Annual in 1975, driving around Ed Straker from UFO Space Age car. And in a 1991 interview with the Gerry Anderson mag Century 21 with Simon Archer, quote, So what was the interest in owning the unique car of the future for DLT? It was a fabulous machine to have, he explained. I bought it on a whim, the same way that you might go out and buy a new stereo system anyway i love the series and to actually own the car was something very special i had the car for two years with the intention of hiring it out for promotional use added dave i even had color
Starting point is 00:20:19 leaflets produced but i never got it moving in the end, with Dave's radio commitments increasing, he had less and less time to devote to UFO One and finally sold it to an enthusiast from Birmingham. Since the 70s, DLT's vehicles have included a Renault 5 Gordina, a Trans Am, known as the Flying Banana, several large American cars including a rear 1963 thunderbird and a massive winnebago motorhome he's been a drag racer of course since the mid 70s and he appeared on an episode of top gear racing one and you do know that it boiled his piss that edmund's got the top gear gig and
Starting point is 00:20:59 not no doubt no doubt yeah so yes the blame firmly fixed upon Travis. And I think one thing we can be absolutely certain of is that Dave Lee Travis in his life owned far more cars than he did records. Yes. While Travis tries to explain to us why there's loads of fucking cars in the studio, we see two men off to the side who clearly don't belong there. One bloke who looks like a bearded Tony Solbert
Starting point is 00:21:24 in an English teacher leather jacket, and his fatter, older mate in a manky pattern jumper. More disturbingly, we see a youth in a white t-shirt who looks a bit Weetabix emerge from the crowd, stand in the middle of shot, and
Starting point is 00:21:40 stick both arms out, like an enthusiastic Nazi having a morning stretch, before he plays keep you up with a balloon was he was he doing a double nazi salute there do you think the answer depressingly is probably yes because in last week's episode someone else wearing a similar t-shirt did a nazi salute behind tommy vance while he was introducing When You Ask About Love by Matchbox and then immediately played it off as if he was scratching the back of his neck. Apparently, they are acolytes or actual band members of 4B2,
Starting point is 00:22:17 the post-punk also-rans whose sole claim to fame was that one of them was Johnny Rotten's brother and they've been on with their band t-shirts every week this month unbelievably they're still being let in a week after they baited adam and the ants off camera when they made their debut performance with dog eat dog resulting in a mass brawl on bbc premises afterwards and according to all accounts the ants fucking battered them. It's unbelievable because you've been told for years and years and years that you were put on a massive waiting list and then you had to wait six months to get on top of the pops.
Starting point is 00:22:54 But these twats, who were all wearing the 4B2 band T-shirts, they're on for like every week for a month. It's like, what the fuck's going off there? Are they in with a commissioner or something and they do put themselves about don't they in this episode
Starting point is 00:23:08 and in previous ones yeah we've got a host of good things on tonight's top of the box and here is a little taster
Starting point is 00:23:14 of some of those things we have in store well air supply may well be all out of luck but they're certainly all in luck
Starting point is 00:23:20 at number 20 in this week's charts Kate Bush perhaps as you've never seen her before in luck at number 20 in this week's charts. Kate Bush, perhaps, as you've never seen her before, with just a little mucky make-up on. And the story of an oligary from orchestral manugas in the dark. OK, so, that's a little taste of it, we've got a lot of good stuff,
Starting point is 00:23:47 and we're going to kick off with an excellent sound from Status Quo, it's What you're proposing After completely spoilering a good half of this episode, we cut back to Travis amongst all the cars, holding a yellow balloon as he tells us to prepare for an excellent sound. It's actually What You're Proposing by Status Quo. We last covered the innovators of heads-down, no-nonsense group masturbation in the previous episode of Chart Music
Starting point is 00:24:31 when they took Caroline to number five for two weeks in October of 1973. Since then, they've racked up 11 more top 40 hits, seven of which have made the top 10, 11 more top 40 hits, 7 of which have made the top 10, culminating with Down Down getting to number 1 for a week in January of 1975. This single, their 26th, is the follow-up to Living on an Island, which got to number 16 for two weeks in December of 1979. It's also the first cut from their 13th LP, Just Supposing, which was released last week.
Starting point is 00:25:16 After entering the charts of Fortnite ago at number 27, it soared 22 places to number 5, and this week it's nudged up one place to number 4. And here they are are back in the studio two weeks after their last stint on the pops and yes pop crazy youngsters i know we did them last episode but seeing as they've made 106 appearances on top of the pops the most for a band ever it's shocking that we've only done them three times i can't go back and kill status quo in 1973. Sorry about that. Here they are. Deal with it. Yeah. And it is, I mean, not musically,
Starting point is 00:25:49 but in other ways, almost like a different group. Musically, it's like exactly the same group, but worse. But seeing status quo on top of the pops in the early 80s, all puffy eyes and unlaundered denim, it always feels a little bit like when you went to the zoo and you saw the sick animals you know all mangy and glazed behind the bars although it's it is better than the late 80s when they looked like a bomb had gone off at some tiggy winkles but um the thing is you look at the monkeys aren't wanking together as much as quo are though no yeah that i'm still haunted by that image of uh both they're having a
Starting point is 00:26:34 polish with uh rick parfit leaning over and shouting something in francis ross's ear yes but the thing is you look at this clip and they're clearly still having fun. And I mean, they never really stopped. But there is that air of tragic gloom of old people trapped in a routine that is reducing them to spiritual skeletons. And it comes across really strongly. I mean, this is even before they've moved from the denim and white shirt look to the sports jacket and trainers look, you know. That shift is just beginning.
Starting point is 00:27:12 But that madly chomping gum and tapping of the nose make it pretty obvious that they're having a good time. They're having a fine old time, but they're having a good time they're having a fine old time but they're making a spectacle of themselves in a way that becomes a bit less charming as they get a bit more grizzled they are fucking about at this point there was an interview with francis rossi when top of the pops was finishing up and he said you know by point, it started to get a bit childish. We used to leave half-eaten curries above the ceiling tiles to stink the dressing room out. Problem was, we'd be back in the same dressing room a few weeks later, and they'd still be there, only a bit more rancid.
Starting point is 00:28:00 Backfired on us, that one. And yeah, they are playing as if they've had to sit in a dressing room that stank of three-week-old curry and yet they're still meticulous enough to put the capos on their guitars for a mimed performance the best thing's happening visually here is nothing to do with francis rossi or rick parfitt it's the drummer who looks like herman the one-armed proprietor of Herman's military antiques in The Simpsons. Yes. And the keyboard player, carefully, conscientiously miming along to a record with no audible keyboard part. It makes you think, why stop there?
Starting point is 00:28:38 They should have had an old bloke playing the bassoon, you know, like Grandpa from Peter and the Wolf. Well, the top of the Pops Orchestra are finished now, unfortunately. They've got a steel band in the background, you know what I mean? Why not? Actually, they should have put that on the record. These things only ever occur to you when it's too late. It's strange, this.
Starting point is 00:28:58 I mean, at this point in my life, I mean, in terms of, like, existential fraughtness, like, you had joy division at one end of the universe and status quo at the other you know and i was very much in the joy division end of the universe um i mean you know that my attitude towards status quo at this time um it would well it a few months like when i was at university and um i was doing a kind of sort of coat down of like the um jcr junior common room sweaty disco on a saturday night and it's the sort of thing where it was a weird mix of tentative neuromantics and the sort of geezers whose ideal attire for turning up to nightclubs was a rugby shirt.
Starting point is 00:29:31 And, of course, they'd sort of dominate with the rifles and that kind of stuff. And I kind of did a sort of slag off of these people. And, of course, at one point, Quo would have come on. I talked about the status quo, which they're helping perpetuate. Oh, very good. Booming out on the dance floor. You see what I did there? Brackets, which are right, kids.
Starting point is 00:29:50 So, you know, that was how I felt about status quo. Yeah, definitely. They were responsible for Margaret Thatcher and what have you, and the fact that, like, Toyer's much-yearned-for revolution was going to be kept well at bay, you know, not while there was a wall of quo in the way but but come on to be fair to quote they were aware of the global situation as well the cover of what you're proposing is a load of missiles coming out from
Starting point is 00:30:15 under the water from a submarine cool they're not nuclear missiles but you know you wouldn't want one on your house no no true and i suppose as're in the army now, it's presumably a vaguely kind of... Yeah, fair enough. And the follow-up LP had a massive hand holding a nuclear missile and just stabbing the world with it. Yeah, well, there you go. I mean, really badly done.
Starting point is 00:30:36 Like someone had just got Photoshopped for the first time and was just fucking about with it. Someone from Status Quo went, hey, yeah, we'll use that, fuck it, why not? They were like the sort of Bertrand Russells, really of the um you know the sort of heavy pop rock scene i suppose yeah and i think this should have been pointed out to my 19 year old self definitely um but you know looking at this now it's i kind of there's something i suppose having got all my kind of rage long since sort of spent and vented on um stays quote i i look at it now and
Starting point is 00:31:06 i just think i'm kind of i don't mind the fact that they at least sort of feel comfortable in their own genes their own skins their own ball sacks wherever you know they are the least existentially fraught band in rock and the fact that you know they've gone out there they'll have had a quick snort or something in the bathroom you know quick, a quick group wank as a bonding session or whatever. I wonder if they always asked to be home early, you know. Like live egg, whack it out, back to the bar, you know. And yeah, right at the beginning, Rossi taps his nose and Parfitt has a good laugh about it.
Starting point is 00:31:36 That would have gone completely over my head at the time. I'd have just thought he had a secret. It was, to me, it would have been like, you know, fast show, you haven't seen me. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Of course, yeah, yeah, yeah. But no, it was a to me it would have been like you know fascia you you haven't seen me yeah yeah of course yeah yeah but no it was it was a drug reference yeah and i think perhaps as a sort of the sort of example of sort of confident maleness which contrasts in a way with dave lee travis really and i mean you know like david trapdoor all of his car aspirations whatever his motor show aspirations you can imagine them pooping around in a kind of second-hand, reliable sort of clapped-out vehicle from a sort of car dealership
Starting point is 00:32:08 or whatever that, you know, does the job or whatever, chugs along nicely. And in a way, yeah, there's a sort of contrast between their form of easygoing maleness, not too particularly predatory, kind of self-satisfied or whatever, but comfortable with themselves in a way that you feel that David Travis is not. So in other words, David, there's something about them baby you like yeah there's a slightly sort of i
Starting point is 00:32:30 don't know dennis watermanish quality in a way i suppose yeah yeah this singles look back on now as the last of the classic quo singles but apparently at this point it's their fastest selling single ever and an indication that they are going to survive the early 80s i mean rick paulfitz going around in interviews at the moment claiming that quo are the only band to have had a top 20 hit every year since 1973 so yeah they've become an institution but there's not a lot about them at this point that's going to scare anyone off. No, no. This is not a record exclusively for greasy rockers. I mean, this is... The sound of this is where motoric intersects with music.
Starting point is 00:33:14 You know, it's like serious... Motorized. Serious efforts have been made to solve the problem of how to play a heavy, repetitive, hypnotic track without allowing it to pick up any kind of momentum or induce any physical excitement at all it's all just it's all at that weird frequency of a mid-period status quo record like even on a mint condition record or a a remastered cd it sounds like it's been taped off medium wave radio. It's like this sound has been fine-tuned to have no punch and no brightness.
Starting point is 00:33:54 It's like the texture of a silver handrail that's been worn away from years of overuse. It's smooth, but it's not frictionless. There's loads of drag and it's all tarnished so it sets your teeth on edge a bit and there's just there's no space in any of these records is what it is there's no air allowed in it's like it's been recorded in a pure nitrogen atmosphere you know where you strike a match and it immediately goes out. They've set up this system that operates by itself and it just keeps on chugging. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Starting point is 00:34:29 Here's the riff, but really quiet. So get used to this, because you're going to hear it quite a lot over the next three minutes. And here it is a lot louder. It's like a model railway, going round and round at double O scale. Now, if you'd sing Quo live around this time, it's very possible that the
Starting point is 00:34:46 sheer volume would have put some life back into it because i mean considering this music it's like a freeze-dried version of rock and roll i suspect the massive amplification might act like boiling water and make it wake up you know but it But it's not just that. Because if you listen to Down Down and then this, it's obvious that something's been sucked out, you know. It's like all the vitamins and minerals have boiled away, you know, and you're just left with this inert husk. It's like it zooms straight past you and it doesn't even make your collar flap, you know, like it's not really there somewhere.
Starting point is 00:35:25 I mean, I have a theory that Quo's audience by 1980 is an even split between Chris Tarrant on one side and a younger generation who need some stabilisers before they can progress to the new wave of heavy metal bands that are currently on the rise. I mean, you need this sort of mush before you can progress to songs about the devil and massacres and all that. And for the benefit i mean you need this sort of mush before you can progress to songs about the devil and massacres and all that and for the benefit of the pop craze youngsters
Starting point is 00:35:49 i went off and sat at the feet of my metal guru chris needham and asked him about quo in 1980 and he said quote what you're proposing marks the beginning of the end of Quo and Me. They were treading water at the time, but they still put on a damn fine live show in the wake of rocking all over the world. Maybe a few kids hearing that might have convinced them to check out other bands and come over to the dark side. Thus spake the great Chris Needham.
Starting point is 00:36:21 And of course, because I'm a journalist, I did ask him if his brother john needham britain's youngest thrash metal fan was still down with quo and he said he definitely is in fact chris bought him a three cd quo compilation for christmas so there you go nice cool you could have saved money by just playing one cd three times i just don't think that they would be remotely concerned about any of these sort of aesthetic, you know, criticisms, valid as they are.
Starting point is 00:36:50 I mean, you know, treading water. Yeah, in a way that, you know, like people aren't one of those little sort of paddle boats or whatever, you know, like, quite aptly and merrily sort of pootling away. And it just gives the appearance of being completely, you know, comfortable with that and just being, you know, like you say, this institution, basically,
Starting point is 00:37:09 of whom no more evolution is particularly expected. It's got to be said that the 4B2 twats in the audience, they seem to like this song. They're doing some pogoing and gumpy dancing to it and getting in the way of some more old men in car coats. Yeah, but those lads, it's so joyless, isn't it? It's just that need, you see see in a very particular kind of young man to announce his existence, you know,
Starting point is 00:37:32 despite his existence being about as interesting and about as consequential as the existence of a four-foot asteroid fragment in a distant retrograde orbit around one of the outer moons of Neptune you know part of a cluster of 6,000 essentially identical four-foot asteroid fragments I mean the only difference between these blokes and grey rocks is that they've got branded beanie hats and yes the ability to make noise and get in the way of things.
Starting point is 00:38:06 They're the kind of people that Dave Lee Travis would probably describe as completely mad. The most dismally sane people you could ever hope not to meet. Yeah, you're right about denouncing themselves. I'm having a bop, what about it?
Starting point is 00:38:22 The kids have all been given free shit to wear which consists of red champion sport plug baseball caps or white bucket hats with the volkswagen logo on them and the overall effect you get from this is if they've been just plunged into the near future and they can't decide whether they're into big audio dynamite the beastie boys or theoses. It's weird. This is the era of Sanyo Music Centre being written by Harvey Smith on the Horse of the Year show. And the BBC coming under fire for giving out free advertising.
Starting point is 00:38:55 But this is even more blatant. It's ridiculous. Anything else to say? Yeah, what's it about, this song? Oh, folk notes. Anything else to say? Yeah, what's it about this song? Oh, folk notes. I think the lyrics are supposed to be about some sort of invitation to a sneaky friends with benefits situation, but it's hard to tell because the lyrics are a touch underwritten
Starting point is 00:39:18 and they make do with rhyming what you're proposing with I might be runny nosing which I've got no idea what that's meant to mean but I'm fairly sure it doesn't mean what urban dictionary says it means in this particular concept and it just makes me think of empty cupping which is a practice that really annoys me in old like in old films and tv drama right you see it in see in old films and especially like bbc or thames television drama which are like the peel session version of films right is it where someone's having a cup of tea or coffee and you look closely and you can see that they're really holding an empty cup and they're just pretending to drink out of it.
Starting point is 00:40:06 And then they do a fake swallow. And sometimes they do a fake lick of the lips. And it drives me mad. Have a look. Because I'm warning you, once it's seen, it can never be unseen. It is. Runny nosing, though. What the fuck does that mean?
Starting point is 00:40:19 Is it a cocaine reference? I've just realised I've forgotten what it said. Oh, fucking hell. No, let me check. I'll check. Oh, are you looking it up there? Leave everything to me. Okay, I'll let you do it.
Starting point is 00:40:32 Oh, for fuck's sake, no. No. Runny nosing. When a man shoots semen into another person's nostril and it comes out the other. I don't believe anyone has ever done that who thinks this shit up urban dictionary must be a fucking russian farm full of sex crazed 12 year olds just making shit up oh hang on though rick parfitt he was very well known for sticking
Starting point is 00:41:02 a handkerchief up one nostril and pulling it out through the other one so fuck well there we go there's there's another song ruined by the internet there's a sort of self-sufficiency about quo in a sense really they don't have that kind of desperate sort of lustful raging sexual wherever you just get the impression that uh you know they're pretty happy in that department. Yes. There's always the group wank. Quick wank, then a sandwich and half a lager. Then off to beddy-byes.
Starting point is 00:41:36 So the following week, while the LP enter the charts at number four, staying there for two weeks, what you're proposing nipped up two places to number two, staying there for two weeks, unable to dislodge this week's number one fucking out was nearly a number one single this the follow-up the double a side lies slash don't drive my car got to number 11 in january of 1981 but it would be a torrid year for quo with their decision to use keyboards on their next lp never too late being poorly received by the rock craze youngsters and having to revert to their previous lp for the single
Starting point is 00:42:12 rock and roll and the departure of john coglan at the end of the year and one final quote from rossi in 2006 when top of the pops was cancelled, Top of the Pops has been a friend to everyone in the business. The record companies would know they were reaching almost everybody at once. But there's so much music on TV now that it's hard to tell who's watching what. The era of super saturation is upon us. This is the first radio ad you can smell. The new Cinnabon Pull Apart, only at Wendy's.
Starting point is 00:43:14 It's ooey, gooey, and just five bucks with a small coffee all day long. Taxes extra at participating Wendy's until May 5th. Terms and conditions apply. Participating Wendy's until May 5th. Terms and conditions apply. Hello, my name is Pete Ellison. This is Dave Cribb. Hello, and we do a podcast called Friends with Friends,
Starting point is 00:43:36 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 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 well there you go what a great way to start off the show status quo doing their thing currently at number four well we're surrounded by cars as you know tucked away in the corner over there we've got the vw golf convertible which is quite Oh, I'm getting hit by flying balloons over here.
Starting point is 00:44:25 This one is quite nice as well, the Scimitar convertible. Lots of other cars we can look at too, but how about artists to look at, because literally just flown in from the States, Gladys Knight and the Pits. Yay! Hi. Hi, guys. Welcome. Welcome.
Starting point is 00:44:41 I didn't mean to get you with my balloon. You got me with your balloon. It was a good shot. Madis, you've just come in. I know you're a bit tired because you've been on a jet from a million miles away. Your latest record, which we can hear in the background now, Bougie Bougie, is doing very well. Are you pleased about that? Happy, ecstatic about it. The one thing about you I must say is you've been going for so long
Starting point is 00:44:58 with such good music that you are one of my favorite ladies, and I love you, and I was pleased when they told me we were going to be on here together. Thanks, gang, for coming in. Super to see you. We get back in with the music now and listen to the latest sound from the Nolans, the Curtain Songs, Gotta Pull Myself Together. Yeah. Now that I know Why did I doubt you
Starting point is 00:45:29 I let you go Now I'm without you Travis immediately starts banging on about the fucking cars again, telling us that there's a VW Golf convertible off to his right, but the camera doesn't bother to show us it. After someone hits him in the face with a balloon, sadly not filled with piss, he tries and fails to interest us in a scimitar convertible. Like all the other cars, it's red. Finally, he remembers that he's actually
Starting point is 00:45:59 doing a fucking pop show and introduces Gladys Knight and the Pibbs. PA's on top of the pops chaps it's a it's another whole innovation that was brought in last month and so far we've had Diana Ross, Morrison Robin Gibb, The Old Sailor, Wonder Woman, The Old Sailor again, Dennis Waterman, Paul Jones and last week we had Michael Palin and Dollar announcing their fake engagement so they could shill their new single. They weren't getting married to Michael Palin. They were getting married to each other. What's the point of them?
Starting point is 00:46:34 Yeah, a lot of these brief appearances, struggling somewhat with the so what factor. These bewildered looking, slightly drunk musicians just standing there for like 10 seconds. So, he hasn't even got a question to ask. It's just, no, you just be there. Just be there for 10 seconds, and everyone will love it. I mean, a lot of the people they're bringing in are older acts,
Starting point is 00:46:59 you know, that appeal to the more mature audience. Is this whole kind of like saying, OK, we've got to feature these, but we're not getting fucking Lulu and Cilla Black on to sing? It's hard to say. I mean, in 1980, Gladys Knight's probably in her mid-30s as well, I suppose. You know, there's old then and there's old now. She's like a black Lena Martell.
Starting point is 00:47:21 She's got like a sensible roll-neck jumper with a big crucifix on her chain. Yeah, absolutely. But I have to admire the consummate professionalism of her and the pips. And I guess by this point, if you're a pip, you'll have seen it all, really. You're not going to be fazed by an incongruously parked VW Golf convertible. I mean, they do take
Starting point is 00:47:40 it very well in their stride. And then, of course, he starts with his kind of arm draping. You know, you're one of my favourite ladies. And she, you know, accepts that, inverted commas, compliment very graciously, I thought. It would have been more exciting if you'd interviewed Miss Havisham and the Pips. Midnight train to Barnard's Inn. I mean, look, for a start, there's clearly been no rehearsal, as usual,
Starting point is 00:48:07 when they do these little interviews, because they all march on, and the pips all stand with them back to the camera, so you can't see anything. And, of course, DLT shows utter disrespect towards the pips. Oh, yeah. It only has eyes for gladiators. Well, eyes and wondering great paws. But, I mean, look, I know that in the 70s and 80s,
Starting point is 00:48:29 TV directors would encourage the host to put their arm around the person they're talking to, to narrow the shot, and to stop them from wandering off their mark and out of the… Bruce Forsythe being the master of this. Yeah, and Terry Wogan used to do it as well. You watch Blankety Blank, and Terry Wogan brings the contestant out from behind the little desk for the supermatch.
Starting point is 00:48:51 And regardless of whether they're a fella or a lovely lady, he'll put a vuncular Irish arm around their shoulder. I was going to say exactly. It's a very warm, a vuncular gesture. Yeah, it's protective rather than hungry. And he'll say to them, Corona blank. Corona blank. So Lorraine, Lorraine Chase, well, Coronation Street.
Starting point is 00:49:18 You know, I saw an old blankety blank the other week, right, and saw being a better word than watched, to be honest. And they got to the supermatch, and it was blank feet. Blank feet. And I think, you know, they suggested cold feet and dancing feet. And I felt really bad because all I could think was severed feet. And I was hoping Beryl Reid might say that, but she didn't. So I was worried it would give the game away.
Starting point is 00:49:54 Your mail order shoe sales business is no longer trading, Reid. Yeah, I mean, there's a funcular and there's tarantula, really, isn't there? That's really what you've got with Davey Trowes throughout the show. Yeah, I mean, the way he's mauling Gladys is really just the hors d'oeuvre for this evening's banquet of boorishness. It's round the shoulder, isn't it? As this episode goes on, you watch what parts of the body he's putting his hand on, and in this
Starting point is 00:50:25 case it's around the shoulder yeah it's he's respectful because you know he says you're one of my favorite artists yeah she's an artist and the fact that she's got a gang with her that kind of puts him off a bit yeah yeah but she's a classy lady as well yes so even though she is still his property he does have the courtesy of keeping those mitts above the equator gladys claims to have lobbed the balloon at travis before getting to the meat of the conversation shilling bougie bougie their latest single which came out in the uk last week she claims to be ecstatic about his performance even though it only peaked at number five in the American R&B charts and isn't doing anything over here yet. Travis claims that he's a
Starting point is 00:51:13 massive fan and was well chuffed when he found out they were going to be on, electing to materly put his arm around her shoulder while giving the slightest of nods to the pips who just stand there and say nothing bourgie bourgie would get to number 32 a month later gladys knight and the pips knew what the game was i know you just come off a plane and you fucking knacker but do you just want to stand next to this bloke for 10 seconds to so he's single yeah yeah you're gonna do that aren't you yeah they're very gracious about it tiredness isness is a recurring motif, isn't it, in these interviews? Oh, yes. They do look faintly perplexed as to why there's cars everywhere
Starting point is 00:51:55 and people in hats that say champion. Travis does that. He tries to make it into Top Gear really half-heartedly for about 15 he says he comes he says well we're surrounded by cars as you know it's sadly none of them speeding towards him but he but he tries to justify this motor show theme by talking about the cars but it's it's not exactly an in-depth review i mean for a start the director can't even be bothered to point a camera at any of the cars so what you actually see is a car door and a bonnet with davely travis leaning against it while he points a finger at an unseen car off screen and tells us that it's quite nice
Starting point is 00:52:48 so that's the justification for cluttering the studio with boxy early 80s hatchbacks or alas not turning on the engines before locking and sealing the studio doors once again the absolute raising confidence they have that they can just wing these things you know as if they're kind of gifted with these immense powers of improvisation least able to improvise people on the planet it's uh quite extraordinary travis then whips us into the next single, which he calls The Curtain Song. It's Gotta Pull Myself Together by the Nolans. My mate did that joke on me when this record was in the charts, and I thought he had made it up.
Starting point is 00:53:36 No. I was very impressed, yeah. The Curtain Song. We've done Bernet, Maureen, Colleen and Denise, formerly the Nolan sisters, now the nolans loads of times on chart music and this is the follow-up to don't make waves which got to number 12 in may of this year it's the second cut from the new lp making waves which came out last week and their first single with the 15 year old colleold Colleen as an official member, as Anne Nolan took maternity leave after getting married to Brian Wilson.
Starting point is 00:54:10 Not that one, the one who plays defender at the moment for Torquay United. It came out at the beginning of September, scraped in at number 40 at the end of the month, then jumped 12 places to number 28 and stealthily rose through the charts until this week when it jumped five places from number 14 to number nine they're currently out of the country at the moment because i'm in the mood for dancing has become one of the few foreign singles to breach the japanese top 10 and they've decamped there for the month to make as many TV appearances as they can. So here's the video. Yes, chaps, an actual promo video for the Nolans.
Starting point is 00:54:52 Still not the industry standard in 1980, is it? No, no, it's a little odd, really. Perhaps they realised that DLT was going to be there and cobbled it together the day before. And when you team that together with the fact that their new lp is the first that they've done which isn't rammed out by cover versions of the day pigwicks style this is indicating the epic records their label are taking the nolans quite seriously yeah yeah well this is the one of theirs that i don't mind it's right i mean obviously it's like
Starting point is 00:55:28 a toy town version of abba records of the period but someone somewhere has at least grasped something about what it is that makes those abba records sound appealing and they've given this record a sort of icy cold electronic pulse at the bottom of everything which pulls you in whether you like it or not there's tiny split seconds of silence between the beats that get into your brain and chop at the alpha rhythms or or something and there's a genuinely hypnotic quality to the backing track which survives the cheap blandness of the vocal sound you know and if anything is actually strengthened by the the absolute infinite banality of the song i mean the producer here is david bowie's old piano player um not mike
Starting point is 00:56:20 garson the other one uh the one before nicky Graham. So, you know, credit where it's due. I mean, it's only a crumpled paper bag full of midget gems, but there's plenty of worse things that could be in that bag. Yes. It's almost like they're slightly struggling to keep pace with that kind of musicality. I mean, they think of, like, I'm in the mood for dancing, you know, with the kind of the strings and everything like that.
Starting point is 00:56:43 It's very redolent of the time when, you know, women would turn up to night clubs in party dresses, whatever, and, you know, dance badly around handbags and, you know, and that whole Aventis thing. And I think they are obviously, as you say, they're trying to make a sort of great leap forward into the kind of electronic 80s, to some extent
Starting point is 00:57:00 with this one. But there's still all those signifiers about the Nogans, you know, case catalogue, Avon ladies, shaken vacca, whatever. or whatever but you know up there and doing it you know and wiggling their arses and all that as well oh yes i mean right at the beginning are they doing a sex at the beginning because yeah we get a very alarming shot of bernie and colleen doing what we in the male stripping business used to call an arse roll oh yeah you know you do a bit of an arse roll at the beginning to you know just just turn the heat up just a little bit yeah get this lads 15 year old arse well yes exactly there's a 15 year old arse there and those yellow case catalog trousers
Starting point is 00:57:38 they're fucking tight aren't they very similar to them yoga pants that the fuckwitted youth of today wear. Well, this whole video is a bit weird. I mean, for a start, it looks like it's shot on that early 80s film stock that gives everything a sort of greyish, brushed chrome look. Like really clear, but strangely distant, which at the time was considered an upgrade on the sort of murky look of mid-70s film. I mean, technically it is,
Starting point is 00:58:07 but there's something really dead about it. It makes everything look like a British Leyland advert or Daily Mail advert, however you light it. And you just end up with this slightly joyless, overcast look, which acts like daylight on magic. It's very bad. Yeah, it's tawdry slightly tawdry yeah any film which requires a suspension of disbelief um is ruined by this um yeah because it makes everything
Starting point is 00:58:34 look like just real people in a real room uh just doing stuff as opposed to the weird alternative realities you could create sometimes without meaning to on on older film stock so i mean the video to jealous guy by roxy music is filmed the same way on and for all the improved definition of the image so now you can see brian ferry's kiss curl moving in the breeze like jack lord at at the start of Hawaii Five-Eye. It looks cold and contrived, and it's clearly just people in a studio posing and behaving unnaturally. So, like, you don't have that smeary unreality of older film,
Starting point is 00:59:20 and you also don't have the sort of of glaring hyper immediacy of video and the thing is this video does require a bit of suspension of disbelief because it portrays the nolans as as sexy temptresses you know wiggling around in a room full of slatted wooden wardrobe doors um yeah all in white and yellow like a family of freshly forked fried egg facetily fun loving fried eggs but it is a bit jarring seeing the nolans sold as uh high street sex kittens you know to me they were always icons of anti-sex yeah no like just waiting for the right guy sorry i'm waiting for the right guy to arrive in his ford fiesta xr2 yeah i always felt that about you know it's almost again going back to that club thing it's like you know girls together all looking out for one another probably politely or not so politely rebuffing any sort of advances from the chaps, you know.
Starting point is 01:00:27 Wall of Nolan. And I always thought that the thing about the Nolans generally is as much as any shoegazing ban, you know, they're doing it for themselves and if anyone else likes it, that's a bonus. I mean, they kind of exude that sort of self-sufficient air. I think there's a sort of group, and I think there are other acts like this, Kylie Minogue up to a point, shaky, that they're not rapturously
Starting point is 01:00:48 received by the pop public. It's not about rapture with these people. It's almost like well, you know, they're having a go, fair play to them. Kind of sticking with them and somehow managed to kind of remain this, have this kind of adhesive presence in pop charts. The Boris Johnsons of pop.
Starting point is 01:01:03 Oh, they're doing their best. Exactly, yeah, yeah. And, you know, again, obviously, you know, they get in people who write some tunes or whatever to varying degrees of effect, and they get played and they stick around for a surprisingly long time. But, you know, Madonna is just around the corner. Yes.
Starting point is 01:01:20 Grace Jones, even people like Bananarama or whatever, all that kind of stuff is going to drive them away. There's a very early nod to Venetian Blinds, which is one of the key components of early 80s videos. So you've got to take your hat off to whoever's made this video. We get a lot of clips of them pretending to be interacting on set. Oh, give each other a hug and lean on each other's shoulders and, you know, look a bit sad and then look a bit happy.
Starting point is 01:01:46 They've gone for this faux documentary style. They essentially look like a load of mams pretending to be the Nolans for a TikTok video. But that sort of is what they are. Exactly, yeah, yeah. I mean, and you feel for them a bit watching this video because what it brings home is one of the more peculiar aspects of the Aventis, which was the very small range of looks available to women who wanted to look classy on a budget. lower middle class women who were keen to look their best but they didn't want to look remotely sexy or suggestive because they didn't want the hassle or because it was inappropriate for their
Starting point is 01:02:31 job or because they just they just didn't believe in that sort of thing and nowadays there's quite a lot of clothes that fit that bill and they sort of were in the 70s and the 60s but for some reason around this time it narrowed down to just look like you're 46 you know they've got these mum hairstyles and lightweight jackets and polyester slacks and it's such a specific look um but it was everywhere at the time and in a way it's ideal for the nolans as they try and leave the jumpsuits behind but it's so clearly the female equivalent of sports casual and it's it's so inextricably linked to that heartbreakingly dismal world of richard shops and steve mcqueen posters and sharing a bottle of nasty white wine with your fiancée in a bistro in Watford. And it clashes with what the director's trying to do here
Starting point is 01:03:31 with all these close-ups of their wiggling arses and their heavily made-up eyelashes fluttering, you know. It's like there's that vaguely suggestive voyeuristic thing of filming them through the Venetian blinds as well, you know, as if, you know... It's like he wants it to be a little bit electric blue, you know, as opposed to fried egg yellow. But in fact, if you listen to the Nolans' one venture
Starting point is 01:04:01 into hopeful eroticism, their Japan-only 1981 single sexy music you can see that their relationship with sex at least in the context of pop music is not an easy or or a natural one i mean it's i mean apart from the fact that record sounds like it's only in 1981 because 1978 picked it up and drop kicked it. It's the kind of sort of sodden sub disco record. It wouldn't sound convincing on the waltzers, never mind in the bedroom, you know. But selling the Nolans as sexy was never gonna work but that's as much a criticism of 1980
Starting point is 01:04:50 as it is of the nolans because in 1980 yeah a group of non-punk young women can't really be sold as anything else except sex yeah it's like the apparatus is is not in place you know and it's like looking back the nolan's whole career just looks like a load of hanging around waiting for 21st century daytime itv to exist but it but you know i don't know though tell i mean sheena easton's gonna come along in a well now sheena easton's here now. We have four Sheena Eastons here. Yeah, right. Because pre-Prince, Sheena Easton was basically Sheena Nolan. Oh, why didn't Prince hook up with the Nolans, man? That would have been fucking amazing. Even with this single, there's always that feeling I get with the Nolans that as soon as they strike up, it's like, Hello, have you been to a Harvester restaurant before?
Starting point is 01:05:43 Yes. I'm trying to work out who their fan base are. Glenda are out of Crossroads, isn't it? Oh, yeah. They're still just about managing to keep both legs on the stools of pure pop and the butling circuit. I mean, Denise would actually take steps towards a solo career in a couple of months when she supported Little and Large at their seven
Starting point is 01:06:05 night stand at caesar's palace in luton but unfortunately eric harris of the stage wrote i couldn't help wondering if she's done the right thing by splitting from her sisters a female singer has to have something special and although denise has a good voice she seems desperately short of her own exclusive material and you could pretty much say that about the nolans as a whole couldn't you yes i mean i think it's what you said earlier on it's quite true that there are a bunch of women pretending to be a pop group like the nolans so the following week gotta pull myself together stayed at number nine before sliding down the charts the follow-up who's gonna rock here got to number 12 in january of 1981 and they'd only have two more top 40 singles over here however
Starting point is 01:06:54 as this episode is going out the japanese are going mental over the nolans to the extent that the japanese army have been called out to protect them from their new fans. And the Making Waves LP, which was known over there as Happy Dating Love, got to number one on the Japanese LP chart, becoming Japan's ninth biggest selling album of 1981. Fucking hell. Can you imagine being a Japanese Seven Days Jankers
Starting point is 01:07:24 and having to contemplate that image? We had a fucking empire right across Asia and now we're doing this, protecting some Irish girls. I'm just only glad that Yukio Mishima sliced his stomach open back in 1970 so that you could see the Japanese army run out to the Nolans. The influence by the Nolans on Japan is so extensive that in 2009 the UK anime magazine
Starting point is 01:07:50 Neo speculated that practically every all-girl anime since the early 80s is based directly on the Nolans with Anne who rejoined in 1982 as the matriarch Bernie as the tomboy,
Starting point is 01:08:06 Linda as the girl next door, Maureen as the snooty maiden, and Colleen as the baby with a dark power. I'm just thinking about Nolan tentacle porn now, so let's move on really very quickly. As usual. Quick as we can, please. And on that jarring note,
Starting point is 01:08:47 we're going to step away from this episode and promise that we'll pick it back up tomorrow in the next part of Chart Music number 58. So, on behalf of David Stubbs and Taylor Parks, this is Al Needham strongly advising you to stay pop crazed. Seven's insane TV show. Yeah, I can't imagine anyone's been to watch this. Anyone who's not on drugs. Thank you for bringing this into my life. It was honestly, truly appalling. Guests helped me analyze the show in more detail than anyone ever asked for. It feels weird to me to say the phrase sex object in a show that was aimed at six-year-olds.
Starting point is 01:09:40 Do you think, do you think one of the problems of the show is that seven is too much? It's an S-Pod thing from Great Big Owl. 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
Starting point is 01:09:59 extra at participating Wendy's until May 5th. Terms and conditions apply.

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