Chart Music: the Top Of The Pops Podcast - #62 (Pt 1): 3.11.1977 – WHOO! HEY!

Episode Date: November 2, 2021

David Stubbs, Taylor Parkes and Al Needham are planning a journey into the dark heart of late 1977 – a treacherous odyssey through a land strewn with gargantuan chart acts, shape-shifting monstrosities who can change from The Old Sailor to Him Out Of The Floaters in the blink of an eye, fertility symbols hewn from clay and feral youths who prey on unsuspecting Labradors. Dare you join them?  Video Playlist | Subscribe | Facebook | Twitter | The Chart Music Wiki | Patreon Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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. Hello, I'm John Holmes, and each week myself, Mark Haynes, and a guest sit and discuss and analyze some television so far so podcast but the difference is that we discuss a particular corner of television that you've never watched and nor will you ever because it's awful that's right it's tv's the one show join us as we gleefully take it apart every week taking taking a deep dive into TV's shallowest programme. You don't have to like The One Show or have ever seen it.

To be honest, it's probably best if you don't and haven't. So join us as we take the bullet for you in what The Guardian say is the creme de la creme of obscure stuff to stick in your ears, the big issue called Really Funny, and Pop It's Right is a joy. The The One Show Show. Wherever you... Oh, you know the rest.

is a joy for the one show show wherever you oh you know the rest the following podcast is a member of the great big owl family 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? 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 Al Needham, and by my side today are Taylor Parks and rock expert David Stubbs. Howdy doody. Boys, the pop things, the interesting things. Tell me, tell me, tell me, tell me now. Well, there is one little thing. At the Shepherds Bush Empire, Scritty Politty were playing.

Oh, fucking oh yeah And David probably didn't go When in fact he did He did I went to a gig Oh fucking yes Yeah it was Well it was a gig

It was Scritty Politty It was pretty immaculate Hung around near the back You know I didn't really want to Sort of join the throng At the front I thought that might be a bit much It's funny though

I mean I was probably About average age At one point Green from the stage said something about um anyone here remembers student grants i think everyone would not only remember student grants but have been had one um i mean john peel talking at one point about um you know he felt self-conscious being a gig being 40 years old a rock gig i mean god even though it's a 40 year old there now you'd say hey kid what are you doing you weren't even born when

sweetest girl came out yeah you know it's too unlimited doing a gig around the corner fuck off there shouldn't you be playing with your nintendo game and what it must be fucking weird going back to gigs though david i was a little phased and i'll be honest i won't be hurrying back you know but i tended to go to sort of free improv gigs anyway and there was no problem socially distancing at them i can assure you but yeah something where there's a throng a sweaty adoring throng yeah i'm still a little bit wary of that taylor yeah you know i'm all right same as usual the only interesting thing that happened to me was the other day i was out and about and what with one thing and another uh had to have a piss so without wanting to give away too much detail, I went into a toilet. And as I was there, in the process, I heard the door behind me fly open.

And someone pushed past, threw themselves onto the floor in front of me, just sort of sprawled there with their eyes and mouth open, pushing their face into a now unstoppable torrent of piss just getting totally drenched with this sort of blissful look on their face i thought wait a minute i recognize that white hair and that sort of long bobbly nose and horsey face you know like the crown and the the orb and septum the fuck is the fucking queen i thought i didn't expect that yeah incredible um i mean it wasn't even a very nice toilet you know it's only in stratford westfield but you know what you say what you like about the queen she looks so regal you can't buy that sort

of breeding made me so proud and grateful to be british so afterwards i washed my hands and i went outside and straight away i got my phone out and i rang a couple of my friends and i said you won't believe what's just happened to me and i was right they didn't and it struck me it's so hard to share anything with your friends because this is the thing this is the experience of everyday life that that separation and that that screaming gulf between your experiences and your private world and those of the only people that you have to turn to and all you can do is try to bridge that gap with words and stories. And to a greater or lesser extent, you always fail. And that's how I feel all the time.

So this was just another day. I forgot all about it. I went home. I got on with my ship in a bottle. But I tell you what, she's still the best diplomat we've got she works harder than what you do or i do or the rest of this country and anyone who criticizes her ought to be removed from the discussion i say i say god bless your mom and uh see you again next thursday yeah oh indeed actually there was a couple of other things actually rock and roll related because

you know there's not a lot of rock in my life, I sometimes think. Which is wrong for a rock expert, isn't it? Oh, yeah. My daughter Alicia went to her first gig. Yeah, she went to Reading. It was very strange. And, of course, there's all that kind of sort of paternal concern, you know, for a teenager daughter, you know, yomping off to these dubious vortex of sleaze and what have you. But no, and you know, it's weird. I mean, she showed me some of the videos and, you know, she's just like shivering in his videos. I'm cold. I haven't slept in 48 hours. I haven't been to the toilet

in three days. You know, it's just like, you know, please just pay the ransom. But she absolutely loved it. You know, I just just said i'd take a jumper next time but otherwise yeah do it again you know why i i just never went through this phase i think i just went straight from childhood to wherever i am now really i didn't have this kind of intermittent period where something like that would remotely appeal to me no the other thing was that when i looked at the lineup apart from stormzy i didn't recognize any of the names you know it was just like emily bland you know rob real you know tyler the xxx privately educated or whatever you know it's very strange listening to that kind of music when alicia plays me and it seems to me there's there's no euphoria anymore there's no banging euphoria it all seems to sort of vacillate between

melancholia and fury uh and those seem to be the sort of two dominant motifs but then again he's and i'm talking i feel like you know jb priestly talking about rock and roll music or something like that you know no ted rogers talking about mick jagger you know i'm completely out of touch basically and the only other rock and roll thing that happened to me was um i went up north i sort of see my dad he's not doing too well at the moment and um just turned 86. Yeah. So there you go.

Yeah, I had to go out and do his window cleaner. And, you know, he got chatty. He was pretty chatty. But, you know, this wasn't George Formby. You know, he wasn't strumming a ukulele. You know, he was quite erudite in his taste. You know, he was talking about Tangerine Dream. Fucking hell.

There were pioneers. There were pioneers. Tangerine Dream. Okay, fair enough. And who else? Yeahwork you know and he said yeah yeah craftwork they're pioneers they're pioneers and it went on to um the who and um yeah and he says yeah yeah you know what you know what they were i think i can guess pioneers or pioneers you know and it just occurred to me that like yeah we need window cleaners no doubt about it but we do also need um contrary to a lot of opinion music journalists you know we need just that supply of language you know i think otherwise you know it's either pioneers or of

course iconic yes so there you go you know even if you're into the music you might not necessarily have the language yeah yeah i've only got one pop and interesting thing to impart this episode, but it's very pop and fuck me, it's interesting. Now, we all have this conversation over Skype, don't we? Yes. Well, okay, in that case, I'm just going to put my video camera on. Say what you see. Oh, hello.

Oh, my God. Oh, yes. I am wearing a Judy Zook satin tour jacket fucking yes oh that is glorious and it fits did you get it tailored is it it's medium and i'm not so i'm absolutely terrified of breathing at the moment yeah i was gonna say yeah yeah i'll take it off as soon as i finish this bit but yes all praise is due to pop craze youngster from around the way, Justin Dodsworth. His man ran a record shop in the Oswestry area. Apparently a lot of arty fufkins of the Salop area used to swing by with Bounty.

And he got given a load of stuff from it. And unbelievably, this was one of them. The golden fleece of chart music has been unearthed from a back room in Oswestry, ladies and gentlemen. Wow. That is quite superb. Yes. I'm impressed that you've managed to kind of climb into it with such aplomb. Of course, the downside to all this is the thought of all the sex that's going to be offered to me

when I'm going about tying in my Judy Zook satin tour jacket you know what i mean yeah you know they'll be coming up to me and said is that judy zook satin tour jacket and i go yeah yeah yeah oh how did you get that i do a music podcast yeah that's right shall i just lie down here now and let you get on with it yeah it's gonna be like a high karate advert isn't't it? Also, keep away from naked flame. Definitely, yes. He told me that his mum used to get loads of picture discs, which he used to give out to girls he fancied at school. And more importantly, loads and loads of bottles of whisky.

It was like when Brian Clough won Bell's Manager of the Month every fucking month for about two years. That was his mum's record show but for the newer pop craze youngsters judy zook sat in tour jacket has been for a very long time chart music slang for payola from the world in action documentary called the chart busters about chart rigging in the event is and we started using the term judy zook sat in tour jacket and not believing that such a thing existed but here it is on my shoulders it's extraordinary it doesn't fit me at all now but let me tell you there is no operation too life-threatening for me not to take it to fit into this fucker yeah yeah it is sharp music's own amazing technicolor dream coat really isn't it

it is yeah even though it's just one color yes blue yeah royal blue with blue sleeves yeah yeah and a nice white love heart with judy zooks logo across it sadly no embroidery of an overbite on the back it must have been kept in a very safe place because i imagine all the others have perished oh it's an immaculate condition. It's pristine. I think the V&A could do an exhibition with this as the single exhibit. Yeah, definitely. Yeah, they'd be queuing round the block like it's Tutankhamun. If we turn up at number one in the iTunes podcast chart any time soon,

that will just have been under our own steam no need to worry about that oh yeah yeah yes i mean the only pop and interesting thing i truly care about is the latest batch of pop crazy youngsters who have stuffed a handful down our g-string this month and this time in the five dollar section we have mark cowan, Burt Baccaracums, Andy Hurd, Spencer Rogers, Will, Gigantic Station Master, Cy Smith, Matt D, Sean Moran, Beck Dodd, Matthew Duggan, Paul Mongan, Tim Ward, Matthew Marra joe o'donnell lorcan connelly michael warr and richard

williamson thank you babies i love each and every one of you magnificent people and in the three dollar section we have a provost steve mckevitt peter adams tim Frings, Stephen Dyer, and James Dawes. Oh, you lovely people. Oh, and Matt Savine, Victoria Clester, Lynn Robb, Dr. Greggles, Toaster in the Bath, and the Blood and Mud podcast. You jacked it right up this month, didn't you? And for that, we thank you so very very much we are the mountain you are the rain amen step back inside me pop craze youngsters amen there's a lone raven just outside my window staring at me oh no that's good to see And one thing those brand new pop crazed youngsters get to do

Along with all the other Patreon people Is to rig and a jig the chart music top ten Are you ready boys? Yes Hit the fucking music We've said goodbye to the Cuppatino Kid Friar David Fox Biz And the pink People of Charlesmoor.

Which means two up, two down, two non-movers, three new entries and one re-entry. Down eight places from number two to number ten. Sharks piss fire. A new entry at number 9, Oven Ready Women. Down three from number 5 to number 8, it's

Jeff Sex. A re-entry straight in at number 7, Taylor Parks' 20 Romantic Moments. And it's up one place from number seven to number six for rock expert David Stubbs. Into the top five and back up from number six to number five.

Here comes Jizzum. No change at number four, Bummer Dog. A new entry at number three, The Continuity Westlife. This week's highest new entry, straight in at number two, Romo Cop, which means... Britain's number one. They're still there at the top. The chart music number one. The bent cunts who aren't fucking real.

Yes. Oh, what a fucking chart that is. Glorious, glorious. The bent cunts who aren't fucking real, they're not going anywhere, are they? I bet they played Reading Festival. I bet they didn't. I bet they weren't allowed yeah yeah maybe actually i think it's just a really dirty pigeon

so chaps oven ready women what was their game feminist in it yeah sarcastic feminists oh the worst kind oh yeah continuity westlife speaks for itself, doesn't it? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And RomoCop, clearly electroclash. Yeah. So if you want in on all the sexy top ten action, as well as getting the full episode in one go without adverts, ages before anyone else,

see that keyboard, use those fingers, mash out patreon.com slash chart music and make our G-stringsge oh oh you two finished are we i thought taylor you just think you can join in yeah yeah so what joining with that yeah it's fun it's fun honestly you know let your hair down that was well funky given that was taylor now chaps before we get stuck in i need to make a couple of clarifications because i made a right balls up last episode and i need to beat myself with the rod of correction so you may recall that i said i'd done some work about 20 years ago for Maxim and hadn't been paid for it.

And I gave them a nudge and they said that they thought that I was Alex Needham. Well, the minute I published that episode, remembered it wasn't Maxim at all. It was for a pullout that I did for a magazine that shall remain nameless, which I got paid for in the end. Anyway, me and Alex Needham have had a chat about it and it turns out that it was the first he'd ever heard of it. He didn't get paid anything and I'm of the opinion now that said accounts department of said magazine

was stringing me along or something like that. I don't know. Anyway, just want to make absolutely clear that no one at the NME received money on my behalf or took food off my table and I'd like to take the opportunity to apologize to Alex Needham the accounts department of Maxim and to you the pop craze youngsters because I hate being wrong about this sort of thing man it just fucking gnaws away at my soul oh and i also implied that freddie and the dreamers came from liverpool when they obviously came from man i know they obviously came from manchester and to be honest

with you i don't know which city i need to apologize to the most so i'm like kurt cabane this episode i'm all apologies so this episode pop Youngsters, takes us away from all the modern rubbish we did last time and plunges us straight back into the comforting breast of November the 3rd, 1977. Oh, nom, nom, nom. I mean, chaps, on the surface, there's nothing particularly special about this episode for the era. There's a lot of regular acts and chart music favourites that pitch up, and there's a fuckload of cover versions. Clearly, this is an episode where punk needs to happen and happen soon,

except for the fact that it already has. Yeah, I think at this time, I didn't have rock-critical consciousness. That was a few months away yet for me. And in fact, you know, this episode of top of the pops is pretty close to my kind of pop sensibility at the time much more so than the music press that wasn't really aware of you know i hadn't you know i mean i could pretend later on that i was all about sort of throwing gristle and wire and suicide in 1977 but i think everything had equal merit as far as i was concerned if it was in the charts always had a bit of velocity and

paul nicholas and bob marley you know it was all much the same sort of thing, really, all part of the same sort of, you know, spectrum of entertainment. Well, yeah. It felt very 1977 to me, I would say, this episode. Very much so. You know, if it was a stick of rock, it'd have 1977 running through it. Yeah, this is the real 1977, as opposed to... Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

You know, if you want to see the the sort of the enemy world 1977 you have to watch top of the pops from 1978 yeah i watched a random top of the pops from 1978 last week and it had x-ray specs and the lurkers on it oh this is the real 1977 this is full of monster acts and uh yeah you know records that people remember and stuff. Like, I've actually got quite into this period of time lately. But mostly the American version, which we don't see all that much of in this episode, but it's useful as a comparison, I think. Because this is one of the periods of greatest distance

between British and American pop culture, right? And in the way that we had the Aventus, which isn't quite here yet in this episode. No. That was when the changes came, and that was how things shifted and settled. In America, they had this distinct period between Watergate and Reagan,

which I just think of as bicentennial, you know? It's like big cars with brown interiors that look like wood. And those suits that weren't just wide lapel, they were also about four inches thick. The Herb Tarlac look. Yeah, yeah. And you couldn't drive your car down the street

without seeing a Native American chief standing by the side of the road weeping about pollution and it was you know the bionic man acting like he was going to make a fucking difference you know when we had punk they had rumors by fleetwood mac and it was it just looks nicer and smooth it's just as depressing it's like a heat haze of sex drenched hairy qualued addicted malaise you know but i quite like it yeah they had afternoon delight we had angel delight i was just going to mention afternoon delight actually this dance wasn't vocal band if you if you go on youtube there's a sort of video of them performing this and they're performing in the middle of a city and it's a tremendous sort of time capsule

really and it exudes a lot of you know that's 1976 minus the um native american chief but um you know if i ever want to sort of get a sort of dose of pure america 1976 that very far off pre freddie laker america yeah um i always dip into that and if you want to do it in a less classy way also on youtube there's all these compilations of trailers and opening titles for the new network shows of each new season from the late 70s. So it's like the 36 new shows of the hellish mid-season of 1979 and things like that. And they are chokingly evocative of this period. There's all these short-livedlived sitcoms and they're all

shot in smear revision you know with uh they've all got theme songs that explain the premise of the show yes so like if the show's called mickey and it's about a bloke who works in an abattoir and he's got an extra arm it goes uh do do do do oh mickey you work in an abattoir and you've got an extra arm yes i know why are you telling me this your best friend is an incubus who came out of a cursed bassoon and every show has got a distinct american location like which you see in the titles like snake handlers of pittsburgh pa yeah yeah isn't it yeah yeah or it's shot in in philadelphia or portland oregon or somewhere you get a helicopter shot in the titles which you're just supposed to recognize where it is and there's a really short list of themes and tropes is put upon every man surrounded by loonies uh neurotic modern woman looking for love

and trying to make her way in the 70s um you're a good look with that dog semi-unusual place of work fish out of water battle of the sexes and as you get to the late 70s every show features one black cast member, but no more or less than one, or else it gets confusing. That's how it is, unless it's one of those shows where the gimmick is that they're all black and it's called like Good Brothers or something, and the only point of the show is that they're black.

They don't do anything except be black. What you talking about, Taylor? Yeah, you know what I mean? But at the beginning of every show, all the cast appear in a little circle, one by one. And then at the end it says, and introducing Linda Puccarelli as Sandy. I couldn't sit through a whole episode of any of these,

but when you watch the titles en masse, they're fascinating as evidence of a culture that had made a certain amount of progress towards a decent society and then got tired and just fall into a slump so it's almost time for everything to get nasty again and wake everybody up but unfortunately when that happens it's always a bit too late but that that's what you always get. You get a period of modest improvement to standards of living and personal freedom. And then everyone gets progress fatigue. And it all starts to sag and slide back towards the reactionary, you know. And then you get that period of empty sort of upbeat bollocks,

which usually heralds another clamp down you know like it's morning in america yeah yeah i think there's a link between progress fatigue and prog fatigue in a sense you know because you know that's what made punk happen you know and yeah it is the response is a lot of these new possibilities are boring that realization really hits people yeah people were actually comfortably often there was relative social equality but people got bored people just got bored um but i mean actually going back to sitcoms i think that taxi was the one that perhaps came along to drive out all of the kind of you know tropes that taylor was talking about i mean the theme music again is pure distillation of that yeah bob james bob james you know but there's a continuum from taxi through to cheers and then

phrasia obviously is the era of course when they the checkered thing on the side of the New York cabs, which then they discontinued. I mean, what mean spirit in what council decided, no, we don't need them anymore? Yeah, it's like when they stopped British police cars from going, Nino, Nino. Yes. Why did you do that? Why? There's something to be said for that period just before things go backwards right when people stop being hungry and harassed enough for just long enough to reflect on in the end the emptiness of society and their own existence which is always what it comes around to

like in early lockdown i was watching quite a lot of seinfeld but i had to stop because i realized how much i miss living in the affluent west in the untroubled 90s not having to care about anything opened up all these fascinating vistas you know all these these in-depth conversations about being human and attempting to operate as an imperfect being in a twisted society you know and all these deep dives into intriguing trivialities and it's you don't get it now nowadays everyone's so fucking boring and strident because there's actual immediate things to worry about you know everybody's really one-dimensional because they have to concentrate on survival. There's no time for anything interesting or discursive.

But what I would say about this episode of Top of the Pops, if nothing else... Oh, we're talking about an episode of Top of the Pops, are we? Yeah. I didn't know if you'd saw it. It does show us, albeit British style, some of that thumb-twiddling, us albeit british style some of that thumb twiddling malazer delic variation of thought and expression right because whatever else 1977 is it's never entirely predictable there's always

a few things what the fuck is this yeah yeah i mean you could say that this episode represents the absolute crest of the late 70s with with record companies getting ready for Christmas by pushing their biggest acts to the fore. And they've all got single releases to promote those albums. And they're all here. And we're about to tuck into them. Let's go. Yes. 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 with a 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 Eleanor Morton.

My name is David Reed. Please join us as we present to you mysteries that have baffled the world. You had any noises? What about a door creaking? No, you don't have to do that. That weird ka-dunk that lights going off off, mate, for some reason in films. All rather mysterious. Radio 1 News.

In the news, blackouts have been going off all over Britain this week due to unofficial action by power station workers. Meanwhile, BBC staff have joined in the fun, blacking out coverage of today's state opening of Parliament and this evening's episode of Nationwide. But thankfully, they've left Top of the Pops the fuck alone. Michael Barrett is still alive, Nationwide. Is he?

Yeah. It's like kissinger or something yeah he's still with us jesus yeah he's still danding yeah yeah 300 tons of contaminated tinned corn beef that was imported into the country from australia have resurfaced across grocery stores and corner shops across the UK. The Metropolitan Police have recovered £3,000 from the home of Andrew Newton, the hitman who was paid £5,000 by an associate of Jeremy Thorpe to kill Norman Scott in October of 1974. Security forces in Northern Ireland report that the IRA are having a clean-up in their ranks by rounding up all the gangsters

rapists and muggers and administering punishments such as kneecapping, breaking fingers with hammers and shooting folk in the penis let's hope they don't get the wrong person but I'm sure they went through a lengthy

detection process to make sure that didn't happen. Meanwhile, Roddy Llewellyn, Princess Margaret's current shag, has flown out to Mystique to be with her, unaware that she's been spending her time looking at John Bindon walking around with six pint pot handles around his cock. Hercules, the horse in Steptoe and Son, has been saved from the knacker's yard thanks to the International League for the Protection of Horses,

who stepped into Bayern before he was turned into tins of catamete. He will now be living on a farm in Surrey. Ray Cooney, the producer of the forthcoming West End musical Elvis, has unveiled the man who will be playing the 30-year-old king, a club singer called Shakin' Stevens. He joins Tim Whitnall and PJ Proby in the star role, with Tracy Ullman as one of the dancers. FBI agents investigating an illegal gambling ring

have released film of Lee Majors gambling on American football while getting friendly with a blonde waitress, leading his wife, Farrah Fawcett, to kick the fuck off on him. He was last seen jumping over a building to get away from her dead slowly. A nightclub owner from Blantyre, Scotland, has announced that he's about to hire a submarine from an undisclosed European country with the intent of charging 150 Scotland fans

£595 each to take him to Argentina for next year's World Cup. Brian Clough has erected a sign on the pitch of the city ground which reads, Gentlemen, no swearing please, Brian and Nottingham Forest go on to batter Middlesbrough 4-0 opening up a four-point lead over Liverpool at the top of Division 1

But the big news this week is that the Sex Pistols have just released Never Mind the Bollocks and Virgin Records' advertising campaign is already causing mither. Them big posters in the window, chaps. Do you remember them? I certainly do, yeah. Yeah. Ooh, did you have one in your area? Ooh, yeah, I had two or three, yeah.

At the Seen and Heard record shop in Leeds. Ooh. Various hoardings and what have you. You know, there was Nipply Rectors, Buzzcocks. Goodx you know good lord filth cunt all along the cologne filth so i'll tell you my nevermind the bollocks story yeah yeah so a few years ago i was doing bits and bobs uh on inside out on bbc one you know the local magazine show that used to be yeah yeah yeah yeah i fucking loved it i used to do all types of mad shit and one time they asked me to do a piece on the Nevermind the Bollocks trial, which happened in Nottingham because the manager of the Virgin Records shop here

had put up all these massive Nevermind the Bollocks posters. And then he got arrested and, you know, they had the obscenity trial there. So, you know, Nottingham once again being the cradle of punk this time. And yeah, they asked me to do a piece on that. And they got someone lined up for me to interview richard fucking branson oh yes well yeah that was that was my reaction both of them because you know apart from johnny rotten he was going to be the absolute best person to talk to about this so said yeah you come down on a monday morning and uh richard will be there and

you can have half an hour with him and all that kind of stuff. He's like, oh, brilliant. So if it's a Monday, that means I can go and see my mates in London for the weekend. So yeah, got hammered. Monday morning, I feel like absolute dog shit. I've got this fucking evil racking cough that won't go away. You know one of them really proper tickly ones? Yeah, yeah, yeah. A malcolm cough if you will i pitch up at the virgin officers you know meet the camera crew and all

that kind of stuff we get there and says oh rich is not around at the minute he's still in cambridge did you want to sit down and you know get comfy in that and fucking hours and hours tick on and it's obvious that he can't even be fucked to get into an helicopter to talk to me so they said right we'll do it online we'll put you in a little office we'll set up the screen and all that kind of stuff so when they're i'm waiting i'm waiting i'm waiting they've got connection problems on their internet haven't they ah they call us back and before he pops up they say well you've only got 10 minutes now and it it's like, oh, for fuck's sake. So I've got a right cob on. He finally pops up on screen and introduces himself.

And the first thing that comes out of my mouth was, bloody hell, Richard, your internet's not very good. Who are you with? Which put a bit of a frosty edge on the interview, it had to be said. But by this time, I didn't give a fuck. Also, it was punk rock, isn't it? Yes, very much so. You know, you should have just given him the V sign

and gone... We start the interview, and I've got a list of questions. I want to know about the trial. And he immediately launches into this spiel that he must have given thousands of times about how he was the only person who gave the sex pistols a break and all this kind of stuff.

And then he says, oh, I can see you want me to move on. And I looked down and I realised my hand's giving the wind it on gesture. But afterwards, I had another interview. We had to go right across to the countryside to interview Trevor Dan and he was miles better. You know, Trevor Dan, the sidekick of Matthew Bannister, Radio 1, because he was a Radio Nottingham DJ at the time. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. He was a far superior interview.

I could have spent all night listening to him, especially as you could tell that he really didn't like Dave Lee Travis. This is just when chart music has started, so I wasn't on my game as much, but I'd love to pin him down in here as Tales of Travis. I bet they're brilliant. I mean, one thing he said, we got talking about Top of the Pops, and he said there was a plan for BBC television to actually launch a Top of the Pops network

where you could get all the episodes available on the iPlayer. Why didn't they do that? Yeah, yeah. Good grief. It's weird. Something like Branson, it's just awful the fact that he has to be engaged because of his role in the formation of punk. It's like Tim Martin or whatever, you know, Weatherspoons, you know,

having a sort of founding role in introducing techno in this country or something like that. It's just horrible. On the cover of Melody Maker this week, Dunno, think there was a printer's strike. On the cover of Disco 45, The Carpenters. The number one LP in the UK at the moment is 40 Golden Greats by Cliff Richard, 20 Golden Greats by Diana Ross and the Supremes is at number two,

and the highest placed non-compilation LP, Heroes by David Bowie, is at number three. Over in America, the number one single is You Light Up My Life by Debbie Boone. And the number one LP, of course, is Rumours by Fleetwood Mac. So, boys, what were we doing in November of 1977? Right. Well, I was 15 at the time. And I was just getting over, at this point, one of the bitterest disappointments of my life, almost a formative one. So what happened is I'd got a holiday job, you know, around in the autumn time in Barrack-on-Elm, near Leeds, my home village.

You could earn a little bit of extra pocket money by doing potato picking in the school holidays. Grim, back-breaking work working for some of britain's worst bastards northern farmers we used to have a little field called jack heaps playing field it was the one place where like kids could kind of go out and play football because weren't allowed in like you know the sort of the main football pitch you know that was by the village hall which is this slope of you know that's all we had to kind of you know own your skills so nice skills that was exactly the cliche i was reaching good enough for the charlton brothers and this bastard right you know it's always named fred thorpe and he'd come around and he'd sort of

shoo us off in the middle of a game so he could ride around in his pony and trap no this farmer no acres of his own land bastard and this is it and he'd just drive us off and he'd go around in circles you know you bastard man that's terrible man because you've been brought up thinking that all these farmers were like the wurzels yeah oh totally exactly yeah absolutely loving yeah yokels i was just thinking is it wise to mention him by name but he'll be dead now aren't he they always long gone put a shotgun in his mouth about four years after we'd heard about people getting a pound an hour you know potato picking and he's you know i'm just remembering i'm saying i'm paying your normal riches i'm paying your normal on 50p hour 50p hour so on your walk and you better work if you know and it was just like

miserable old cum how many food man chews are you gonna get out of that i know well this is it so anyway managed to sort of scrape together enough wherewithal to uh buy a scalextric set unfortunately i'm not not to sort of turn into a half man half biscuit song but they never fucking worked it just didn't know and it wasn't just the dodgy transformer it was the fact that you had this kind of um overexcitable little gun you know my fingers were sort of blistered already from playing crossfire for a solid year you know so i mean perhaps my grip was a bit kind of, like, sunk, you know, but it would overshoot, the pieces never fit together, and I'd basically blown my whole watch

on this useless box of crap. How many potatoes? Oh, sackfuls. Two, three sackfuls a day, probably, you know. You should have got Jodie Schechter racing. Yeah, yeah. This is why I play Mario Kart every day. I play Mario Kart for about an hour.

You know, I'm chasing around those circuits, racing those monkeys and skeletons and two-year-old girls, like, an hour a day. And it's to compensate, basically, for that huge section of my lost childhood. Who do you go for in Mario Kart? I'm one of these terrible people. Somebody said on Twitter, like, one of the characteristics of a centrist dad,

and I don't think I'm that, was that they're always Mario when they play Mario Kart. Yeah, fuck that. I am always Mario, unfortunately. Why? I don't know. I tried a few of the others, and I tried to be, was it Donkey Kong once? I just couldn't get on with it.

I don't know. I don't know, really. I'm a Wario kind of guy. Ah, okay, yeah. Simply because of the N64 version, because his laugh is so fucking filthy and gleeful at other people's misfortunes. That's the kind of person I want to be, I think.

Taylor? Yeah. Well, as I think I mentioned before, in 1977, I was living in this cheap, falling-down cottage in the middle of nowhere. Yes. Just extending the natural, introspective maladjustment of the adopted only child into new realms of hallucinatory alienation by living out there for three or four crucial years, no one to play with. Just unsupervised in the 1970s style.

Just wandering around forests and streams and farms on my own, you know, with my head illuminated. Just thinking and processing everything wrongly. Like walking through the set of every public information film. Yeah, but having to invent an inner life, just like now, except with forests and streams and farms and a future. But it was all right,

except when my dad chucked all my crayons out of the window in a rage. What? Yeah, because I'd written the word warship on the new carpet. Why? Right, we'd moved into this place, and the reason we could afford it was that it had no staircase and no carpets, and it needed loads of work,

which my dad took on as a project. And because he worked at a carpet factory, Kidderminster's one and only now long-departed industry, he got all these wall-to-wall fitted carpets sort of fawn colour dad why does my new jacket feel like axminster yeah but he he was not best pleased to get back from the pub and find this i've been sat there drawing pictures with my crayons while my mum was watching the telly and at some point they showed a preview of that evening's viewing on BBC One, which included the dreary, ocean-going drama serial Warship,

co-created by Ian McIntosh, author of incredibly brilliant spy series The Soundbaggers, and Anthony Coburn, talented hack writer of the first ever episode of doctor who and so for some reason feeling like it was totally natural i got a red crayon and wrote the word warship in block capitals on the carpet in front of me and i mean what color was the carpet it was pale and i mean look i was five or four or five so i must have had some sense that this was not completely acceptable but i think i only realized the extent of the problem when my mom

turned around and saw it and went ape shit right i mean there's two possible responses when you turn around and see something like that one of them is ah my kid is danny from the shining and the other one is fuck you little little shit, you fuck the carpet. I think my mum went very much for the second option. So I got sent to bed. And when my dad got in, there wasn't much to suggest that he was creeped out either by the eeriness of the scene. So much is furious about the price of a steam clean.

So the option was was number one my dad stormed upstairs and threw my box of crayons out of the window and two to this very day i start laughing whenever i hear this song breaking glass by david bowie uh because he says don't look at the carpet i drew something awful on it my only regret, right, the only thing that could have made this better is it wasn't the Grand National on TV. Won that year by Red Rush. Yes, yes, yes. Which might have set up the most beautiful, perfect scenario,

which would make a far better story. But things like that just don't happen in real life. I'm nine years old, and I'm in the third year at junior school, and I just about remember this episode because it was the one relief in a very turbulent week. All involving, like you, Taylor, an art project. Because on our estate,

there was a big concrete staircase at the bottom of the street next to us, which was, like like built into a grass bank and right about this time me and ian jarvis my mate we discovered that if you dug into the grass bank there was a huge clay deposit underneath and we couldn't believe it it was like finding a a lake of school glue or something like that we didn't realize that you could get clay out of the ground so we spent an afternoon playing with the clay and eventually making nudie women and cocks and balls out of clay and showcasing them on the staircase and we were about 60 through the whole staircase and

fucking bragger jag whose house was next to where we were he He came home, got out of his car and just saw a staircase of cock and he went fucking mental. Grabbed hold of me, dragged me up the street by the tab, banged on the fucking front door, told me mum I was a dirty bastard and I wanted me arse tanning.

He was called Braggajag because his only topic of conversation was his car. Oh, I thought he was Hungarian. He had a jag. He liked to brag. But more importantly, I'm pretty much convinced that this is the night that my granny was rushed to hospital after having a minor heart attack. And we got the call just before this episode started. My mum's going hysterical.

My dad's running around getting ready to take her to the hospital which meant that me and my sister were allowed to watch top of the pops to calm us down because we were both going hysterical as well because you know i'm nine and i've been really lucky so far to my mind the only people that ever died were people who were mentioned on news at 10 and pets yeah she was me granny on me mom's side and she was fucking rock she brought up six girls on her own on the roughest estate in nottingham and very opinionated about pop she loved the rolling stones she thought mick jagger was really leery she was convinced to her dying day that all the Beatles were homosexual.

Yeah, well, it's not like the Beatles ever showed any interest in women. No. I used to go round us after school every now and then, and she'd always let me watch any pop programme that was on. I remember seeing every episode of Mark, the Mark Boland-hosted kids' TV show. I remember watching the first episode with her,

and radio stars came on and did No Russians in Russia. She just sat there with a faggot going, what the bloody hell are they going on about? There's no Russians in Russia, filling kids' heads up with bloody rubbish. I would have told her that it was based on a private eye cover when Gerald Ford said there were no Soviet domination of Eastern Europe during the presidential debate with Jimmy Carter the previous year, but I was only nine and i didn't know that but she pulled through

she she lived another four years and she spent quite a bit of time afterwards stopping around our house while she was getting better which was fucking brilliant because that meant my dad had to the pub a bit earlier so on thursday, the living room telly was free for watching Top of the Pops, which she was quite happy to watch as well. She always hated songs about suicide. She'd just tut away when Song for Guy by Elton John came on and the theme from MASH.

And I didn't ask why, and I wish I'd have done now. So music-wise, like many of my age and my gran air, I'm still trying to come to terms with punk if i'd have been a teenager i like to think that i'd be full into punk but you know when you're nine it's teenagers music and teenagers are horrible cunts who kick your football into someone's garden or or boot you up the arse for no reason yeah they're always smoking and spitting

so my only source of information about punk was the same source where i got information about sex which was the sunday papers and they made punk sound absolutely fucking terrifying yeah it's not just some kids who are kind of bored and want to dress up a bit the greatest internet forum post in history was in the early noughties when someone on the word magazine forum said that around about this time, it went round their school that a Sex Pistols concert consisted of Johnny Rotten singing, we hate the queen because she's no use. Look out, baby. Here comes the juice. And then the band would all get their cocks out and piss all over the audience. And if that had gone round my school, we'd have totally believed that. So by this point, if an actual punk band had pitched up on top of the pubs and didn't do something like shit on a picture of the Queen

or throw a pig into a wood chipper and shower Tony Blackburn with blood, we'd have been massively let down. And of course, you know, as soon as the double whammy of sa plan pour moi and jilted john came on top of the pubs that was it i realized what punk was all about oh yeah and like everyone else at school i was full into it there was a lot of moral panic about sort of you know delinquency and hooliganism at this point wasn't there and i think that punk

somehow ended up getting conflated with that. Do you remember that public information film set in a kind of suburb and, like, hooligans during the night have, like, absolutely trashed the whole area and the adults are just, yeah. Do you remember that one? Yes. And everyone's saying, like, can't call the police, it's no use. There's just nothing you can do. Half of them are in the police.

Yes. But first of all, that happened precisely zero times in the area that I lived in, you know, the entire area getting trashed. I mean, if any kids had sort of turned out and, you know, there are enough sort of like hard nuts in my road, they'd have absolutely got the shit kicked out of them if they sort of like, you know, they aren't going to be kind of glowering from behind net curtains, look at them, the hooligans smashing up our garage door. But, you know, I think there was a sort of a lot of moral panic and punk somehow kind of got roughly treated, I think, in that regard. By this point, we're 11 months away from the Grundy incident.

There was the initial explosion of outrage over that, and then there was a summer of scare stories over the Punks' teds fighting on the King's Road. And, you know, by this point, Punk has finally filtered out to the provinces. And yes, David, you're right, vandalism and wrongness hangs thick in the air for example here's a dispatch from the coventry evening telegraph a mere fortnight before this episode which documents that havoc that's being wreaked upon the nation by the punk crazy youngsters the headline down with punks The headline, Down With Punks. Rebel the Labrador has had just about enough of the punk rock craze.

He didn't mind when the punk rockers stuck safety pins through their noses and ripped their clothes. But he is not happy about the trend of punk fans wearing dog collars around their necks. And Rebel's owner, Mr Harold Smith, is not very pleased either, because the four collars stolen from the pet in the past month have cost him about £20. I'm quite sure that it's the work of these punk rockers, said Mr. Smith, who owns the Beachwood Hotel,

St. Pitt's Lane, Kerslay, Coventry. Very reasonable rate. The first three that went were expensive chain-link collars with name tags. Then, rather than buy a new collar, the Smiths decided to use the brass-stud leather collar which was worn by their last dog, Brande, who died last year.

But within a few days that was gone too memento we had of Brandy, who was a great old dog, said Mr. Smith. The trouble with Rebel is that he is so friendly and will go to anyone, but I can't understand the mentality of kids who would steal a collar from a dog. of kids who would steal a collar from a dog. Mr. Smith now faces a choice of letting 15-month-old Rebel go

out without a collar and risk it being stolen again. Meanwhile, he wants anyone who knows of a punk rocker wearing a dog collar tagged Rebel or Brandair to contact him or the police. Well well if you call your dog rebel you're asking

for it aren't you but oh look at poor rebel in that photo chaps sadness in his eyes he can't understand he's only friendly yeah they should have called their dog uh i love pink floyd yes I love Pink Floyd. Yes. Yeah. Genesis. Exactly, yeah. No problem at all, yeah. But have I missed something here? How do you steal a collar off a dog? Is the dog out on his own? Yeah. Just wandering the streets? Oh, yeah.

That was the 70s. That used to happen all the time, like the dog at the road, Glenn. I mean, he'd just, they'd be just out in the morning. Glenn? Yeah, Glenn. Yeah.

Anyway, yeah. Who calls a dog Glenn? The clerks did up the road, yeah. Anyway, you know. He was always having his collar stolen by country music fans. Yes. He would just roam the streets like a Beano character and then come back for his tea.

Yeah, so that did happen. So it's quite plausible, yeah. He didn't live in the kind of surveillance society we do now, you know. Didn't the van come round with dog water on the side? Like a butterfly net to get in with. If you let your dog out on your own, some of you is going to smear shaving cream round its mouth, aren't there, for larks.

Yeah. Bummer dog never had a collar. I'll bet not, yeah. We would have a collar round our neck when he came around. Of his paws. I'd wear a dog collar with bummer dog on it. So, Pop Craze youngsters, you know how we go about. This is the time of the episode

when we delve into the crates and pull out an example of the music press from this week. And this week, I have gone for the NME. November the 5th, 1977. Fucking hell, bonfire nights around the corner. What kind of bonfire night would you have round about this time? God, I can't believe that Jack keeps playing field as getting two mentions on chart music,

but that is precisely where the bonfire took place, yeah. Core. Gingerbread bread, jacket potatoes, which are considered quite exotic, really, one of those kind of once-a-year things, you know, whatever and of course a guy yeah just the usual you know like the face scorching hot and your back freezing cold like some plastic cups trotting into the grass you'd think the enemy would be uh less enthusiastic as it does celebrate uh the murder of someone who tried to blow up parliament which i thought the enemy at the time would be all

for that you know yeah albeit in the name of a sort of catholic taliban which is what the actually were but people don't like to talk about that on the cover a mid-60s black and white shot of pete towns end he's facing straight on you could actually cut his face out and put it on your guy maybe that's what they were thinking of you know like whoopie used to do yeah they'd have a cut out of guy forks but who's gonna want to cut the comic up yeah ridiculous yeah in the news the forthcoming Sex Pistols movie, Who Killed Bamber, is off. Shooting was due to commence last week, but after the budget escalated to three quarters of a million pounds and one of the backers pulled out, the sets and stages have been struck. Director Russ Meyer has returned to Los Angeles and the scripted drug orgy between Johnny Rotten and

Marianne Faithfull never happened. According to a Daily Mirror article this week, technicians walked off set after a deer was shot with a crossbow and the pistols are claiming that it's all the fault of Princess Grace of Monaco, a director

of 20th Century Fox, having a cob on about the film so one of the great missed opportunities of punk that film at one point was going to be directed by pete walker the british yeah genius super hack behind films like uh frightmare and house of Mortal Sin. Like proper 70s British sleaze, but with a really funny, cynical, sort of anti-establishment, but not pro-anything kind of feel. That would have been perfect for the Sex Pistols.

Also directed Schizo, the one true British giallo, and some bangers of mashed giallo. But unfortunately, it never happened, and Pete Walker was asked about this, and he said he met up with him and had some meetings, and jello. But unfortunately, it never happened. And Pete Walker was asked about this. And he said he met up with him and had some meetings. And he liked Johnny Rotten because apparently Johnny Rotten admitted to him

that he was only in it for the laugh and the money. But he hated the other Sex Pistols because he said they were idiots who had no idea what was going on. So it's a sort of belief. I love Pete Walker, though. Just don't bother watching any of his films if you're a big fan of satisfying endings.

Meanwhile, shooting has just begun on another film, Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, featuring Peter Frampton, the Bee Gees, George Burns and the third world superstar himself, Paul Nicholas. That's going to be fucking brilliant. I can't wait. There's no possible way that could be a letdown. I know.

Having never seen that film, I can state nevertheless with absolute authority that it's shite. I don't think anyone's ever seen all of it. I have. Have you got through the whole thing? Yes. Wow. Because I wanted to see the end bit because there's loads of famous people like curtis mayfield yeah is in the fucking background at the end it's a film i've never been able to get all the way through and i once watched andy warhol's sleep um there's just something sort of queasy and wrong about it

on every level but not in a compelling way, right? It's just like you have a dream, and the next day you can't quite remember what happened in it. You just have a vivid memory of this indescribable atmosphere which you can't really put into words. Possibly Frankie Howard was in it. Yes. You try and tell anyone else about it,

and it's the most boring thing they've ever heard. It's what watching that film's like. Yeah, Pete Waterman should have done a film about the Bee Gees with Big Fun in it ten years later

to see how they liked it. Yeah, put a quote from Big Fun saying, yeah, now the Bee Gees records no longer exist. Isn't that what they said about the original Sgt. Pembroke? Now it may as well no longer exist. Peter. Now it may as well

no longer exist. Peter Gabriel and his band have been arrested on tour in St Gallen, Switzerland after Gabriel stopped off on his way to France to make a phone call in the early hours and he and the band were mistaken for bank robbers by locals.

But the police cleared it all up when they opened the tour manager's suitcase discovered huge wads of four different currencies and accused them of being members of the bard and mine off gang after a four-hour interrogation one phone call to a french promoter cleared it all up and they were released without charge yeah and p and Peter Gabriel said to the police, did this interrogation really have to last four hours? And they said, yes, see, now you know how we feel. Yes. That pebble coming at you direct from a glass house.

Basically, if you're young in Germany, you couldn't go out, unless you had a short back and sides, you couldn't go out without being arrested. A lot of people in the German police at the the time with uh shall we say an interesting history yes a bit of a problem there bit of a problem getting them out in other pop stars in the nick news jet black and jean jacques bernell of the stranglers have spent the night in the cells at brighton after six local policemen who were tracking two dozen Hells Angels from Holland who were mates of the band raided their dressing room with a police dog. When two

of the angels were arrested after the gig Black and Burnell went to the station to have it out with them and were themselves arrested for disorderly conduct. Imagine sharing a cell with half of the stranglers. Yeah it's funny that they were arrested for disorderly conduct, because usually the plan lets go angrily and drunkenly to the police station and have it out with the police as a much happier conclusion. Yeah. At least that dog kept his collar this time, though. EMI have won the battle to sign the Rich Kids,

the new group formed by ex-pistol Glenn Matlock, while CBS have made do with signing the Cortinas. Meanwhile, the punk-crazed youngsters are finally allowed to purchase the new double-A-side terminal stupid I Can't Come by a band who choose to call themselves Snivelling Shit. They're a punk band formed by sound journo Giovanni Dodomo, and it's available in all good record shops. Manufacturing problems forced Island Records to press it in France, and when the first batch was imported into the country,

it was impounded by customs officers for being dead rude i love how you say uh the band called the sniveling shit they're a punk band oh really it's like i was watching uh hammer house of horror last night and someone says uh you need to meet this bloke the swami gupta krishna He's an Indian. Inside the paper, well, Charles Charles Murray gets on the bus for the live stiffs tour and discovers that Nick Lowe is reading Jack the Ripper for the final solution. Dave Edmonds is getting stuck into Elvis What Happened? And Elvis Costello is leafing through the essential Lenny Bruce.

On the way to Manchester, Costello nips into a walrus and comes out with two copies of Anarchy in the UK, a single changing hands for anything up to £15 in London for 32p each. Meanwhile, Dave Edmonds is pissed off that Tony Parcell described him as dumpy and mattered in the NME and gets thrown off the tour after an altercation in Leicester. Any injury on the blockheads are absolutely astonishing on stage and are going to be massive. Because of a dispute with the printers, the pagination has been cut down this week

and regular sections are missing, which means that five and a half pages are dedicated to an article written by Pete Townsend, who takes the opportunity to talk about how shit being in The Who in 1977 is, his battle with alcoholism, how Danone is the best yoghurt in the world, but he's only ever seen it in New York, his ongoing rows with Roger D d'altre and bangs on about mehaba again although in fairness can you imagine being in the who in 1977 it's not exactly peachy i wouldn't have thought you know i mean you got this constant brandy headache yeah he is permanently ringing uh your drummer can't play anymore because he's so full of champagne

and elephant tranquiliser. You're playing Charlton Football Ground in the rain while your audience kick the shit out of each other. And they only want to hear Boris the Spider. And then you whack a Les Paul off the stage until the neck separates from the body. And you have to be there on time just to look at the ox's softening booze face and i knew you're going to complain to roger daltry

he's just got off a naughtiness machine drinking water and eating a carrot he's golden all over and he feels like a shiny new penny you know know. And he only achieves peace and fulfilment through the mindless, repetitive work that is literally driving you insane. Poor old dodgy Pete, you know what I mean? No wonder he grew a beard. And Tony Parsons introduces the world to polystyrene of X-ray specs.

We find out that Identity was written on the spot one night in the rocks air when she was disgusted at the sight of a punkette smashing a full-length mirror because that's what she thought punks had to do she stopped selling clothes at the king's road market because ted's kept smashing up her stall brixton is the worst place in the world for a mixed race kid to grow up in, and she doesn't like the Stranglers. Single reviews. Due to the printers dispute, there is no singles page in the NME this week, so we whip you over to that week's record mirror. And in the chair this week is Rosalind Russell,

who once dropped her notebook on the floor during an interview with Grace Slick so she could check if she had a metal septum. Her single of the week is With You by Demis Roussos. You have to hand it to old Demis. Who else would have the gall to get on stage dressed in a tent and sing silly love songs? I'm pleased he has women after him all the time. He makes beautifully romantic records and proves to all ladies that they don't have to be skinny to be sexy. A massive hit.

Open brackets, failed to chart. Close brackets. Railway Hotel by Mike Batt is a sensitive piece of writing that's made me go all weak at the knees i love it i hope he manages to lay the ghost of his furry friends once and for all oh yeah right speaking of pete walker there's a really lousy film of his called home before midnight uh from around the period we're discussing here which is a like a pseudo moralistic drama about a pop songwriter who's having an affair with a girl who turns out to be underage, even though she looks 28. And this character is a successful writer, but not the public face of a load of bubblegum hits. And his name is Mike Beresford.

load of bubblegum hits and his name is mike beresford now if i'd been the similarly named mike bat successful writer but not public face of bubblegum hits most notably for the wumbles much love creation of elizabeth beresford i might have felt a bit uneasy about this film but it is a terrible film actually it's not don't start with that one the best thing about it is that it co-stars des dia out of no oh yes he does yeah he plays the singer of a pop band called bad accident which is one of the greatest fictional or non-victual band names ever the other best thing about that film someone says says to Mike Beresford, it wasn't your fault, it was the filth and degradation

of our profession. You can't really argue. And it's got a cameo from Diddy David Hamilton. Good Lord. But yeah, don't start your Pete Walker odyssey with that one,

really. Just don't. But it's a coat down for orgasmatic by the Buzzcocks. Oh, hell, good grief. Sorry, we're completely unshockable by now, and that's the only thing this single has going for it. As a song, it stinks.

It has only one line to hold up the entire effort. The singer sounds less like he's having an orgasm and more like he has a bad attack of asthma that's a bit weird isn't it you know you big up the bat and you kick the cocks yeah also i like the idea that she just assumes the only reason for this song is to shock you like it doesn't cross her mind that maybe it's supposed to be funny. I mean... Really Free by John Otway and Wild Willie Barrett is described as Mike Sarn meets Judge Dredd, and the collision is not a pretty sight. That's not on this episode, Pop Crazy Youngsters.

Don't get your hopes up. But hang on, Mike Sarn meets Judge Dredd. That's Judge Dredd's version of Come Outside, isn't it? Yeah. Equally short shrift is given to Rip Her to Shreds by Blonde. All sex and sadism, sadly little talent, says Russell. Have you seen the press advert in Record Mirror for Rip Her to Shreds? Yeah.

Oh, Debbie Arie in a miniskirt and over her head in massive letters. Wouldn't you like to rip her to shreds? Different times. I'll tell you what, though. It's like Rosalind Russell. I mean, I wonder why she was stuck on record mirror, eh? They say the Championship's a tough league to get out of. Although she's meant to be a very good interviewer, actually.

I mean, you know, perhaps more where a skill lay than singles assessment. But Russell really, really hates Short People by Randy Newman. Let me tell you, Mr Newman, I ain't too keen on you either. Keep your insults to yourself or I'll come round here and I'll stand on a box and kick you where it hurts. Alessi have finally followed up their top ten hits with their new single All For A Reason, but Russell doesn't reckon it. A slick production, but the song doesn't have the charm of Olore, even with the cutesy lisp. Sorry, doesn't cut it this time. with the cutesy lisp. Sorry, doesn't cut it this time. Sweet Music Man by Kenny Rogers is sad, but not gas oven sad. Annie by Pete Townsend and Ronnie Lane is almost like a Scottish folk ballad.

Little Queen by Heart is a waste of time. Anything for You by Flintlock is one of the best and most commercial singles of this week's bunch. And Guns Of Navarone by The Scarterlights is the Grime Thorpe Colliery Band goes raster. Golden Age. Back to the NME and the LP review section. It's a huge week for LPs, but only one gets a full page. Never mind the bollocks here's the sex pistols unfortunately they've given the review to julie birchill she claims that she doesn't know where bodies comes from but it scares her and it will be open to much misinterpretation and it was

grossly irresponsible to release it open to much misinterpretation by lost punk rockers, of course, Taylor. Yes, indeed. Immaculate like a tureen. Like a tureen. I don't really know anything about music, but the Sex Pistols play as well as anyone I've heard, and I've heard Jimi Hendrix and Pete Townshend records, she says. But she claims that Spunk, the bootleg LP that also

came out this week, is better. Leonard Cohen has got together with Phil Spector for his first LP since 1974, Death of a Lady's Man, and Roy Carl reckons it. The teaming of the tycoon of teen and the doyen of doom has proved to be a masterful collaboration. This is an album of great maturity that has succeeded because a great deal of time and talent have gone into its making, from performance right through to production. There are no weak links. Makes it sound like a bloody Ford Cortina.

Yeah, and also the whole charm of that LP is that it is a peculiar weak link in Leonard Cohen's career. It was a bit William Woolard, wasn't it, that review? Yes, very much so. It's getting close to Christmas, so out come the compilations. And greatest hits by Roxy Music is Bags It by Julie Birchall. by Roxy Music is Bags It by Julie Birchall. After sneering at the cover, a gold disc, and accusing Brian Ferry of lying in his lyrics, she changes tack and declares it the best compilation ever. This music is a precious relic, not relevant anymore, but at their best,

Roxy Music were better than David Bowie, than the Supremes, than the Doors, than the Sex Pistols, than anyone I imagine I will ever hear. But it's a coat down for Out of the Blue by ELO. Why does the praying mantis eat her male partner after orgasm? Why do the Italians slaughter so many songbirds during shooting season why did jeff lynn and electric light orchestra sell so many albums asks angus mckinnon out of the blue celebrates nothing but its own artifice it will naturally sell the requisite billion and more it scares me to the bone marrow i think we're supposed to be scared

of in 1977 but uh i think the idea of celebrating your own art if this sounds pretty good to me so this is the modern world i'm glad they told me for an instant i thought i'd been transported to 1965 writes mcfarren of this is the World, the second LP by The Jam. He then spends the rest of the piece having a gargantuan mod on about Paul Weller singing that he doesn't give two fucks about his review on the title track and only mentions one other song in the street today, which he doesn't like.

It's fair enough, though, that he's fucking hilarious in that song. Paul Weller goes i don't give two fucks about your review yeah i can tell volume six of sing along a freder turns out to be a good deal less limp than the current hit single might suggest says bob edmonds of news of the world by queen but But unhappily, the first two tracks are the songs on the single, We Are the Champions and We Will Rock You, with May and Mercury evidently vying with each other to outdo Rod Stewart's sailing and create new anthems for chucking out time. Once they're out of the way, however, Edmonds contends that this is an LP which, quote,

rips out of the speakers in a way that makes communication sound broken down. In many ways, this is the most intriguing Queen album since their finest, Sheer Heart Attack. Whether all the obvious tension within the band will spur them on to greater things or simply pull them apart remains to be seen inspectors by blue oyster court is their most cerebral lp yet and absolutely

flawless according to paul rambale while monty smith reckons that slow hand by eric clapton is dismal stuff yeah fuck off eric clapton i bet jimmy endrix's anti-vaccination single would have been miles better than yours in the gig guide wow david could have seen the stranglers and the dictators at the roundhouse elton john at wembley empire pool shaking stevens and the sunsets at the covent garden rock garden mungo jerry at the music machine dire straets at the Covent Garden Rock Garden, Mungo Jerry at the Music Machine, Dire Straits at the Hope and Anchor, Wire at the Rochester Castle in Stoke Newington, Slim Whitman at the Palladium,

or Show Waddy Waddy at Hammersmith Odeon. But probably didn't. I'd probably have gone to see Mungo Jerry when I was 15 at that point, of that lot, given that choice. Wouldn't have known who Wire were. Just reaching their peak in 1977. Yeah.

Taylor could have seen the Tom Robinson band at Barbarella's, darts at Aston University, the Steve Gibbons band at Barbarella's, Kenny Rogers and Crystal Gale at the Birmingham Hippodrome, X-ray specs at Barbarella's, or Barbara Dixon at the birmingham hippodrome x-ray specs at barbarella's or barbara dixon at the birmingham town hall oh birmingham the center of the world this week boston neil could have seen caravan at warwick university the four tops at coventry theatre the clash and richard hell and the void

at the locarno or plunged into Wolverhampton to see Smokey at the Civic Hall. Sarah could have seen Van de Graaff Generator at Hull University, Sham69 at the F Club in Leeds, The Runaways and 999 at Sheffield City Hall, Jasper Carrot at Sheffield University, Generation X at the Doncaster Outlook Club,

or Gary Glitter at Bradford St. George's Hall. Al could have seen Burning Spear at the Palais, or nipped out to Derby to see The Clash and Richard Hell and the Voidoids at the King's Hall, or XTC at Blue Blows in Colville. And Simon could have seen The Drifters at Aberyst with Great Hall, the adverts at the Cardiff Top Rank, or Max Boyce at the Stoneley Club in Porthcawl.

While you were just reading those out, I just looked out my window and a dog went past with a collar on without an owner, just wondering. Well, there we go. Were there any punk rockers chasing after him? Yeah, it was like the Benny Hill show.

There was a whole queue of them just going round and round and round. In the letters page, Neil Spencer is in the chair for Gasbag this week, and the main topic of conversation is the other week's clash gig at the Ulster Hall in Belfast, which was cancelled at the last minute due to the promoters being unable to get insurance cover. Still not having a clue at what was happening, a large crowd of punks gathered outside the venue. They spilled out into the road, and so cars, etc. had difficulty getting through. A few of the more pissed punks started to stop the cars in protest, which is when the real aggro began,

writes A. Greer from local fanzine Private World. Frantic pogoing broke out in the road, and when the Brits pulled up in their jeep, they called for the pigs to get us out of the way. When the RUC came, they came in force and charged straight into them with batons drawn. When we could, we got out of the scene and went round to the Europa Hotel and tried to see the band. We saw Joe Strummer,

the great prophet of repression and society's failure on the inside. This made a lot of people angry, but what really got my blood up was when he deliberately turned his back on us, all caps. I mean, I can understand being a little bit pissed off with the very out of character behavior of the RUC there, but I like how they're just outraged that the clash are staying in a hotel in

Belfast, like rather than choosing to bed down in the Comber Greenway. Just, yeah, just wrapped up in a, in a coat with urban threat stent sword on the front. You caught yourself, punk rockers.

You sleep in beds. Yeah, I bet Bad Accident would have slept out on the streets. No, no, you humped a miner. That's death to a band like Bad Accident. That's what someone says to Mike Beresford. I hope the smug little bastard at the insurance company feels at ease with himself knowing exactly what he's done writes ian duncan communications officer of northern ireland polytechnic the promoters of the gig in the meantime we'll have to pay the clash and sew

up all the holes and that will take two thousand pounds can't afford. I feel sorry for the social secretary, sorry for the polly, but most of all, sorry for the innocent kids of Belfast who just wanted to have a good time and escape reality for a little while. But we're going to see the clash if you want to escape reality.

If escape isn't for you. I say, you jolly chaps, what a load of jolly old cobblers the old gnarled great whistle test thingy is and that hearing rabbit teeth chappy harris is quite revolting says rupert ponsonby farquhar smith of olden possibly not real name let's have some jolly old new wave weekly pop program instead of some poncing old hippies with cobwebs strewn around their personas it's been two weeks since lynyrd skinnard's plane crashed and the readership are paying tribute no smart ass one-liners just a big thank you to ronnie van zandt steve gains cassie

gains and all the rest of lynyrd skinnyrd who have given me so much pleasure in the last few years both on stage and on record writes Ian Wilson dear Ronnie Van Zandt when you get up there and see Elvis on his guilt throne munching his way to eternal obesity at his private pizza parlor give him a good boot from us all i'll tell you who was fucking king says hapa diet melv of the cambridge corn exchange appreciation society fucking so much death in late 1977 people forget about lynyrd skinner's julie birchall and tony parsons have announced their engagement but the two letters printed are too boring to read out. Why would you announce that?

Like, if I was working on a music paper and I was getting engaged... To Neil, for example. To Neil, yeah. I wouldn't feel it was worth telling anybody about. You know, why... Court circular. An angry feminist from Edinburgh

has a cob on with the Stranglers for their outdated lyrics about women. A short-haired working-class student living on a minimum grant from Nottingham points out the similarity between something better changed by the Stranglers and we're not going to take it by the who. And Kev Biscoe reckons the new Sex Pistols LP should be called Never Mind the Fans. Here's the singles again. 44 pages, 18 pence.

I never knew there was so much in it, even though there wasn't so much in it this week. Didn't cost me fucking 18p off eBay, let me tell you that. Fucking hell. 1977 NMEs go at a premium. So you got to hear that Pete Townshend likes Danon.

Who? Danon. So, dear boys, what else was on telly today? Well, BBC One kicks off at 9.41 with a quick blast of schools and colleges programmes and then has a ten-minute break before displaying a caption for an hour which reads Because of an industrial dispute, and then has a 10-minute break before displaying a caption for an hour which reads, because of an industrial dispute,

we are unable to cover the state opening of Parliament. Fucking hell, thank God you weren't watching that at the time with your crayon in your hand, Taylor. Well, yeah, it could have been worse if it had been on and looked around and I'd just written Black Rod on the carpet. Yeah. I didn't think they had cameras in uh parliament in 1977 no it would film them going in and out right yeah then it's the school's program milestones in working class history oh i think that was one of them just then after a 15 minute close down it's on the move

the midday news pebble mill at one heads, You and Me, and more schools and colleges programs. And then it closes down for another 53 minutes. After regional news in your area, it's Play School and Lippy the Lion and Hardy Ha Ha. Then Michael Jaston reads The Edge of Evening by Nicholas Stewart Gray and Jack Inore. That's followed by Charlie Brown, John Craven's Newsround, then John Noakes and Leslie Judd get to sit in an open carriage being pulled down the mall while wearing the actual coronation robes and some coronets in blue pizza.

Fucking hell. I bet you any money the magpie wouldn't have had permission to do that. No. Or Pauline Qu permission to do that. No. Or Pauline Quirk and Flintlock. No. Going down the mail. Wrong. So wrong.

After Noah and Nellie, it's the evening news, followed by a caption of Bob Wellings which reads, because of an industrial dispute, we are unable to broadcast nationwide. And they've just finished the usual gaze into the future in tomorrow's world. BBC Two commences at 11 with 40 minutes of schools and colleges programmes, then play school and then shuts down for six hours and five minutes. Coming back with Open University, the news on on two headlines and they're currently five minutes into your move the brian redhead adult reading and writing show with special guests sheila hancock

and roy kinnear they've got on the move and then you've got your move yeah on at the same time yeah getting people ready for cfax david yeah itv starts at 9 30 with two and a half hours of schools programs then here we come to pop land here we come to pop land for a heavy session with animal quackers they didn't go punk at all did the animal quackers they were terrifying enough i think yeah yeah then top off the emo monkey is the only one in Pipkins who hasn't got a place of his own, bar the top of someone's wardrobe. So Hartley here, Pig and Octavia

make him a treehouse in Pipkins. After the special child, where Dr Kenneth Day looks at schooling and adult facilities that are available to the mentally handicapped, it's the news at one, by this is your right where Lord Winstanley answers legal problems sent in by owners then it's Crown Court then afternoon with Mavis Nicholson and then Agro breaks out at a wedding between the groom and the bride's ex in the Midlands police drama Hunter's Walk. Graham Kerr shows us how to make Calchas Amsterdam in the Galloping Gourmet

and I have no idea what that is at all. Oh, yeah, you're just the first celebrity chef. Oh, I know who he is. I don't know what Calchas Amsterdam is. Oh, sorry. God, I thought I was going to say. God, I don't know. It's probably got drugs in it.

Yeah. I don't think I'd have to stubsplain the Galloping Gourmet to Alan Eden. No. My apologies. God, no. Then it's the cedar tree, Le Class on the Prairie, a second chance to see It's Your Right, and Meg Mortimer is badly in Crossroads.

After the news at 5.45, it's regional news in your area, Emmerdale Farm, and they've just started the Bionic Woman, where Jamie Summers battles a robot replica of herself by, I don't know, squeezing a tennis ball until it bursts again. I mean, I cast aspersions on that many a time and often on Charm Music, but, you know, when you think about it, it's actually quite clever because, you know, whenever the lads on the school playground started jeering the girls about the obvious inferiority of the bionic woman you know because after all she can she can only just listen and squeeze a tennis

ball one of us would be drawn into proving how easy it was to burst a tennis ball and you know you come off looking like a right twat so you know was that a special power you've got to be jeff capes to do that. Yeah, well, it was in the opening credits, wasn't it? She squeezed a tennis ball and it burst. The fact that the bionic woman was very good at listening. Oh, yeah. She kind of, like, pulled back her flick back here

and cock a tab. That's brilliant. And I think some waves came. Yeah, I remember that. You make six cakes at once. Yes. You know what I was like, why isn't there a bionic man?

And that, chaps, I believe, sets the table quite nicely for this episode of Charm Music that we're going to delve into over the next few hours, don't you think? Oh, very much so. I'm feeling 1977. Yeah. So, Pop Crazy Youngsters, we're going to leave it there

and we're going to come back tomorrow to begin our odyssey Into the episode marked November The 3rd 1977 It's a big one Trust me, lot to talk about In this one, so we'll leave it till then Thank you very much David Stubbs

Thank you Tar ever so Taylor Parks My name's Al Needham And I advise you very strongly to stay pop crazed. Chart music. GreatBigHour.com Love football? Can't wait for the season to hit its stride? Salivate over Super Sunday?

Well, this podcast is probably not for you. If, however, you're tired of the hype, but part of you still loves the game, you could try The Famous Sloping Pitch from Great Big Owl. With Chris England, Nick Hancock and guests. The Famous Sloping Pitch. It's a podcast about football, not market traders.