Chart Music: the Top Of The Pops Podcast - #66 (Pt 1): 15.3.90 – De La Stoke

Episode Date: June 20, 2022

Sarah Bee, Taylor Parkes and Al Needham ready themselves for a comprehensive rummage through an episode of The Pops from the spring of 1990, leafing through that week’s NME and its four-page spread on the Stone Roses chucking some paint about, and a discussion Human Frogger and the deepest of delves into Mike Read’s Heritage Chart, before concluding that the world is full of things that you can shove up your arse.Video Playlist | Subscribe | Facebook | Twitter | The Chart Music Wiki | Patreon Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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. Chart music. Hey, up you pop-crazy youngsters, and welcome to the latest episode of Chart Music, the podcast that gets its hands right down the back of the settee on a random episode of Top of the Pops.

I'm your host, Al Needham, and standing with me today are Sarah B. It's your girl. And Taylor Parks. Afternoon. Oh, they're back, pop-crazed youngsters. And I'm just going to lie back and let them shower me with all the pop and interesting things. Go! Well, I went to see one of my favourite bands, McCluskey, at a private gig, a small venue in Hackney, with about 100 other people, out of whom approximately 30 contracted the novel

coronavirus, COVID-19. And that was seven months ago. Fucking hell. novel coronavirus oh no and that was seven months ago fucking hell and yeah i've got that long covid that um all the cool kids have these days oh shitting hell yeah so you know fucking mccluskey makes i get my hands on them they're dear old chums of mine or at least one of them is and i forgive them it was really not their fault okay yeah um andrew andrew the singer got it as well for the second time oh his whole family him and his and and his missus who plays bass and uh their little girl all had it and um yeah so bummer yeah i basically shielded for like 18 months until i was fully jabbed yeah or double jabbed at least you know before but this is pre-booster and i was

about three and a half months out from my second jab because what i was gonna do was like go out and do a few things and then like just nip back into hibernation before my immunity started to wane and i just mistimed it i guess you know you went out enjoying yourself sarah that's what you did enjoying myself i mean you know it's really my own fault but that's the thing is that it was at the time you were still supposed to wear masks on public transport at least but obviously a lot of people didn't bother and it was just i i was mad as hell for quite a long time and i'm not necessarily over it yet just thinking about like well the chain of the way that these things work it's all incremental and it sort of works its way between it goes it passes from one person to

another person to another person until it hits your face and it's just like oh maybe if one person had worn their mask for 10 minutes instead of leaving it on their chin i might be able to like go out and do stuff and everything but how are you now dog uh just really tired the thing is that the first i mean you know we bloke and i both had it pretty badly to start with i mean not not hospital badly although his blood oxygen did plummet at one point just because you start to get better and then there's a dodgy bit where you might get loads worse and he just felt really ill and his blood oxygen was like in the toilet so i should probably call you know it's 111 isn't it it's not 101 yes that's when your neighbors are having a COVID party. You call 101. When you're having a COVID party, just you on your own, then you call 111. So we called them and they were like,

yeah, get an ambulance round. And it was fine. And they checked them all out and they were like, no, you're right. But that was slightly hairy. So yeah, we were like pretty much down for the count for the first kind of two months um and then he started to get better and i kind of didn't i have got better since then but it's really slow and it's very sort of incremental the fatigue is the thing i have had issues with fatigue before and i have i wish i had more words for it you know like there should be at least 30 different types that you can should have distinction it's a cunt isn't it let's just leave it to that it's such a cunt yeah yeah so yeah it's just that the distinction between these two is that like for the first three months it was basically like a giant industrial

fatigue fan kind of on full blast all the time and now it's more like a sort of industrial vacuum just that kind of has a few different settings so what i'm saying is that first it blew and now it sucks but i'm all right and it's nice to be back i must say oh and it's so nice to have you back ducker taylor well i understand the spiteful armabolic came a knock knock knocking on your door as well yeah it did but i was lucky and i think sarah was the last one on the delta train which is a which is a tough train to ride yeah it might have been early omicron but we'll never know yeah i got what was definitely omicron um but although i felt terrible at the time uh i seem to have recovered, perhaps just out of sheer subconscious determination

not to be laid low by anything with the initials BA. Nah. But other than that, well, Edward Lear wrote in a letter to Lord Fortescue in 1859, I am doing little but dimly walking on along the dusty twilight lanes of incomprehensible life. So mostly that. That's the spirit.

That and the usual hard work ensuring my place in history as the non-venerable, non-bead riddle that no one had any particular reason to solve. But that's long-term work. In the meantime, I've mostly been glued to the heritage chart with Mike Reid. Oh, I've not seen this yet. Yes, we've got Sarah to thank for this. I am afraid so.

This is a strange discovery. So I happened upon this late one night. The only other pop and interesting thing that I have to report is that we have acquired a small neurotic dog who is currently on my lap. What's his name? His name's Dee Dee. Dee Dee?

Dee Dee. Nice. After the Ramones? Yeah, pretty much. Also, he had two previous names, both of which started with a D. Right. And he is also a Dachshund and a dog. Oh, nice.

Yeah, I mean, he was in need of a new home pretty urgently. And so we said, yeah, we'll take him. And to settle him in, as is good to do with any new dog, I was sleeping on the sofa with him. This is a couple of months ago. Just to have some soothing background noise. And for me to snooze to,'d put on the talking pictures channel right which shows kind of archive and vintage films um there's loads of really good stuff on there um and also lots of just dreck and lots of

kind of amiable pleasant 1950s flotsam which is quite nice you know the sort of the gentle rhythms of those things are quite nice to fall asleep to when you're settling in your fretted dog so i i tuned my television box to talking pictures one night and who should i see but our old pal mike reed yes when i was expecting to see you know the mystery at clifton point or something and it's like mike reed what are you doing here are you going to upset my dog did he upset the dog upset me i've heard about this but i've not seen it like two girls one cup yeah it's just it's just there concealed in the schedule between the quota quickies and the

episodes of big breadwinner hog um look for anyone who's foolishly never seen this program this is a show where mike reed dressed as a 16 year old from 1979 his hair an oddly even shade of brown but his chin hanging down in the shape of an upside down jelly, just sort of dangling there like a flesh chandelier. And his voice, the same as when he was young, except if you were listening to it on a tape machine with the batteries running down. Right. And he sits inside a pulsating neon cube in standard definition

and introduces a chart which exists only in his head voted for by people on the talking pictures website i think um and so he's always proudly saying this week's chart voted for by 350 countries and he you know it's like 16 people in 350 countries you know it only the bands that are on yeah i think perhaps and this chart comprises current singles and online only releases from the heroes of yesteryear and in some cases complete unknowns who just happen to be the same age as the heroes of yesteryear so it's something for the oldens then at last yeah oh that woman would be so proud yeah it's what it is basically none of these old fools can get proper record deals anymore old-fashioned so it's like the

egalitarian leveling down of the internet age means that they can still create product and, you know, get it out there. A bit like 90s music journalists, you know, who would be a painter man. But what's so great is that when you watch this, it's mostly videos shot by somebody's nephew on a Samsung Galaxy. So it's just like the artist hobbling around some street in hastings or wherever they live now but they've put it in black and white or they of course they've put on a load of colored confetti effects or just whatever comes as a preset on windows movie maker or something but soon you're going to see a video with a watermark on it saying you know free video editor.com trial version they

often have as well the um kind of karaoke style the lyrics in really big fonts yes laid over the images as well yeah like you know those modern lyric videos where it's just an animation with the words coming up on screen it's like those but because it's like old people and they don't know what they're doing you'll get like a comic sans lyric video or something like that because it's all so imprecise fucking hell and also there's all these videos made up of stock footage that's just like off the peg just hd junk like drone footage of a lake or something and then like a close-up of a horse and a dog and a little baby and stuff just edited together with like the new one from tears for fears underneath or something so who features on this chart then come on tell me well it's quite reassuring um that most of these people

are still alive first of all yeah i mean I hate being in this demographic because it's like watching an advert for a funeral plan with Betty boo in it or something, but it's nice to see them again. Even if it is a bit innovating to watch, what is technically a pop music program where every male performer is wearing a hat. I mean, I'm not being mean,

but once you notice it, you can't unnotice it. Right. The honorable exception is Peter Cox out of Go West, who, as my friend pointed out, should really be called Go Bold. But he's all jimmed up and symmetrical, so he gets away with that sort of Ross Kemp on horny divorcees look. His voice is still good.

He still sounds exactly the same. Oh, who cares about the music, Sarah? Fucking hell. He is very, very bold, though, it's true. Fair play to him, because the only other hatless guy I've seen in seven weeks of watching this programme looked like The Scream. From his LP, The Scream Sings.

Includes his version of Don't Worry Coco, Mum is only looking for a hand in the snow. So it's basically the pop equivalent of those Masters five-a-side matches in London Arena. Yeah, yeah, it really, really is, yeah. It's the same people, but they look weird and they move slowly. Who else was on it? Limahl turned up. Oh, really?

Yeah, he now looks like a sex doll. Or like a little Jack Grealish action figure. Got run over. Because like a lot of these people, I think he's been somewhat tweaked physically since appearing on The Roxy, you know. But Toya came on, like Toya's new video right our favorite is toyah encased in a toyah shaped botulinum shell there's a hunky but somewhat confused looking paul young who now does cowboy music because that's all his ragged voice can stretch to.

Yeah, he's got video filmed in his front room. And you feel for him because if charity shops were chart returned, no parlay would still be at number one. Oh, did he have a hat on? I think he had a cowboy hat on. He's homeless then. He's not laying his hat down. Oh, this is terrible news.

Al. Tony Hadley as well. Oh, Tony Hadley. Tony Hadley out of Spandau Valley. He was on there. Probably perhaps the only one of these people you won't hear on Gary Kemp's Rock On Tours podcast. The Undertones. Oh, yeah.

The Under Undertones. Some Undertones. Yes. Not the Undertones. No Fergal Sharky. Yeah, Oh, yeah. The Under-Undertones. Some Undertones. Yes. Not the Undertones. No, Fergal Sharky. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, he's off protecting fish now, so that's his deal. Bit of nominative determinism.

Some Buzzcocks. Merillion. Some of Merillion. Yeah. Owen Paul. You know Owen Paul? God, yeah. He did My Favourite Waste of Time.

He's on it. He's got a sock that's like Mumford and Dad. favourite waste of time he's on he's got a so it's like mumford and dad but he turns out he's got a cap and a beard and shades he looks like he's been smuggled out of occupied belgium he must be super bold oh yeah yeah that's yeah that's he's playing in a band with uh saxon dale's girlfriend on Back in Vogue. Right. And with a certain deadening inevitability, Chesney Hawks turned up. Yay! Yeah, now coming across like Julian Lennon if his dad was shit too.

And indeed, Julian Lennon himself, who scarcely believably has just released an acoustic cover version of Imagine. Oh, no. No! Possessed him. Oh, Julian. He's not even getting a cut of the royalties.

So, what's the terms and conditions for being in the heritage chart, then? Just be old? Yeah. Who's the youngest person you saw on it? I can't think. I mean, it's Taylor who has seen more of it than I have. Who's on it from the 90s? The

Boo Radleys. What? Oh yeah, the Boo Radleys. Yeah, some Boo Radleys. The Stereophonics. Oh, really? A band from this century. Good Lord. Glad I missed the Stereophonics because I think that really would have upset the dog. So it's voted on by people from all over the world

but yeah, it is basically it's mike reed's choice isn't it they've given him his own show on on this weird little channel it basically it looks like outsider art from 1993 it's it's quite it's quite a sight and it's difficult to i i feel like people are in it for sort of different reasons it immediately comes across as like the most desperate thing you've ever seen just people trying to cling to their kind of form of glory as their face falls off but it's not necessarily that for everyone there are people who just who enjoy doing it it's their their gift they like to share it they enjoy doing it they enjoy the pleasure it gives to others they like being recognized occasionally in morrison's but not getting harassed that's the dream for some

people and it's like they might have they maybe they made bank back in the day they don't really have to worry about money maybe they've got something else going on that that makes them enough to tide them over you know there's people who are perfectly happy to be on the heritage chart show with mike reed and then there are people who are just clawing desperately and you can kind of pick them out quite easily so like lee john just perfectly perfectly content to be doing what i mean sadly um you know always had a great voice still has it sounds really great um looks great it's true unfortunately inexplicably doing a cover of betcha by golly wow but when i saw it, I don't know if they fixed this in later episodes,

but the caption came up and it had a typo in it. It said Betha by Golly Wow. Oh. Which, by coincidence, is my roller derby name. The thing is that, like, obviously a lot of these people are of a certain age. Mike Reid is now 74. Jesus. I know. I know. What the fuck? But age comes to us all. are of a certain age. Mike Reid is now 74 and most people... I know!

I know! What the fuck? But age comes to us all and the thing is it doesn't fucking mean a shit. It really doesn't. It's like ageism is like it's the forgotten ism.

It's the last acceptable ism and we do it to ourselves and others and it's a scourge and an irrelevance. However, if I'm being awful... Be awful,ah i'm gonna be awful it can be unsettling to see old pop stars still trying to be pop stars like in the way that it would be to

see old gymnasts you know like are you sure that you can and want to be doing this yeah so there's that current of unease yeah running underneath the whole production for me. And the ones that don't give you that discomfort are the ones that remain free of self-consciousness and the need for validation, which is the case with all music made by anyone of any age, but especially older musicians. It's like, how much the fuck do you give?

If you're at home in your art and in yourself as an artist, you'll never grow old. The thing is as well, it's like, if you weren't good to your art and in yourself as an artist you know you'll you'll never grow old the thing is as well it's like if you weren't good to start with you won't be good now if you were then you might have retained it or you might have lost it so there's just a lot there's a lot going on all the time isn't there with every single it's exhausting i mean i i hardly i could hardly get through a whole episode except for the times when i was just fascinated by it and just glued to it you know i'm not saying that all these people should have been like the character whose name i can't remember in the story whose name i can't remember by guida mopason who finds one day one

single gray hair on his head and exclaims finney it's like i'm watching like the guitarist out of dire straits who isn't mark knopfler his new record like who knew he was still with us and you just look at i'm thinking this bloke used to get his chicks for free i mean fucking doesn't anymore yeah and lee has got a video which is it's like you couldn't take this any further it's lee john performing in front of a still photograph of a beach at sunset that would be considered too generic for a windows lock screen and he's moving but the clouds and the waves are not it's like mike reed has lived his dream and actually frozen time um trapping lee in this eternal moment like the the three e's stand for extra exciting event horizon

so you know wasn't the trocadero open that day? Yeah, it closed, Al, quite some years ago. Oh, right. I don't fucking know. I don't care what happens in London. But this awareness of current affairs is why we end up watching Mike Reid's Heritage Chart Show. But Lee still sounds all right. I've got to be fair, hats off to him, so to speak.

But I just wouldn't want to watch his video on ketamine, that's all. You wouldn't want to watch any of this on ketamine, to be... Well, I was thinking as well, like, Heritage, it's interesting, like, I think the official title is The Heritage Chart Show with Mike Reed. I wonder if he lobbied for it to be called Mike Reid's Heritage Chart Show Considering every episode starts with the words Mike Reid presents in massive letters on the screen I think probably he would have been allowed to call it whatever the fuck he wants With its theme tune by Mike Reid

Oh is it now? Fancy that And his backing band the Immigrants No not really I love your Calypso number I fancy that. And his backing band, The Immigrants. No, not really. That's what he should call himself. A lovely Calypso number. Why hasn't he rigged his own chart yet? Come on, Mike. You know you want to do it.

Well, he's got a few people in there who think, who's this bloke? I've never heard of this bloke. Who's voting for this bloke? This is just an unknown. And then you realise he probably came to fix Mike Reid's bath. A couple of weeks ago. And he's like, oh, did I ever tell you?

I was in the music business. Oh, yeah, really? You know, it's a bit of a cheeky monkey thing going on. But he's very hard to love, Mike Reed, even now. You know, even at the point where you might want to sort of, you know, pat him on the head. He's no, no, no, no. Basically, I was recently watching an old episode of Pop Quest,

the shit 70s kids pop quiz programme. Yes. The third series of which was presented by Mike Reid from the early 18th century, right, when he's got no glasses and this absurd black adder haircut, like a powdered wig. He looks like a disinherited nobleman. Edward Radcliffe, second Earl of Derwentwater's breath, stinks. Mike Reid has got to...

He's sat there looking like a bad at maths Isaac Newton and you're just praying for an apple to fall on his head, but an apple with a massive ball bearing inside. And I was watching and thinking, he's always been the same. He's a groovy fun crusher. That's just what he's all about. He's like, hi kids, are you chewing in the bin? He's, I mean, out of everyone, if there is desperation in this show,

I think the kind of motherlode of it is situated within the shriveled heart of my creed you know because he wants it more than anyone else who is in that chart i think oh yeah oh yeah and if there was ever a former top of the pops presenter concerned about heritage it's mike reed isn't it hey tight fits new one's quite good though is it fallout decent it's funny the word heritage as well it's kind of like hipster it's not something nobody does anyone self-identify as heritage it's something that other people will use to define you and probably not kindly for the most part but i don't know maybe they're sort of reclaiming it you know like i said i think a lot of people don't give a fuck they're perfectly happy to be here but some of them are desperate to to be there just for some oh there's there's

little interviews as well it's like it's not just the chart rundown really there's little interviews where that like i said the resolution just getting further and further just getting the pixels just getting larger and larger until you can't even see who it is you know yeah all done over zoom yeah yeah well no they have people go in the studio as well and sit with Mike. Yeah, the Zoom ones are better, though. I saw Mike interviewing the lead singer out of Men Without Hats. Yes. Who perhaps should rename themselves Men Without Hits.

But certainly it's fair to say that Men Without Hats is now a bitterly ironic band name. Yes. No, it's a great show. But I got a bit disillusioned watching one of the most recent ones, actually, because some actually still famous old people had records out and he showed all their videos. So it got a bit boring.

I don't tune in for that. I tune in to see The Fizz live at Goose Green, you know, and all that sort of stuff. But it's, I watched one, it was Pink Floyd's record for Ukraine. Sting's record for Ukraine. Marillion's record for Ukraine. Lads, it's Ukraine, not me-crane. Fucking hell.

I mean, it is touching, this overflow of compassion from a country that is not let's face it not noted for giving a shit about other countries um I think it's a kinship built up over all those years we've spent next to each other on drop down menus gives a sense of familiarity you know which I think probably explains why we also give a toss about the united states of america yeah and uganda but yeah no it's a great show and you don't need to feel bad about laughing at any of these people because every single one of them owns a six-bedroom house that's worth 900 times what they paid for it in 1988 so what they do now they do purely for love, the love of music, right, which is how it should be, right?

As we all know, you shouldn't be paid for anything you enjoy. Certainly not. That you just don't hate doing because payment is compensation for suffering and or stolen time. Anything else is a hobby and you should fucking do it for love right your passion yeah that's right yeah so what you're saying taylor is we may have just coated them down but we've never forgotten that they've been on the heritage chart more than we have so yeah the heritage chart everyone go and check it out how long does it go on for it's an hour long it's an

hour that means there's two repeats of fucking Tipping Point that's not on the telly at the minute. So I'm all for it. And remember, one day this will be the real chart when Nigel is in number 10. Anyway, you know what we do right about this time, Pop Craze youngsters. We stop, we drop, we bow the knee,

and we give the rightful praise and recognition to the latest batch of people who have lobbed their hard-earned cash down our well-worn G-strings. And this month, those people are in the $5 section. Phil Robinson, Paul Kay, Minneapolis Fuckhat, Stuart Mills, Jeffrey S. Dixon, Kieran, Gaten B, Morgan Marshall, George White, Ken Aiden, Johnny Holloway, Amy Casey, Hannah Blarwitt, Casey, Hannah Blarwitt, Joanne Longworth, Michelle Lyons,

Tim Ward, Riley Briggs, Mark Atler, Simon Mulvaney, Pete Boardman, Peter Moore, and ill-fitting Casio. Bless you. Bless you and keep you all. And in the $3 section we have

Mark Colclough, Matthew Evans, Nicholas Leach, Paul Braithwaite, Saps, Jim Tomlinson, and Chip Steaks. Chip Steaks! Oh, and Kat and Don Whiskerando, you jacked it up a little bit, didn't you, this month? You lovely, lovely people. You come with me into the back room and watch me degrade myself just for you.

But no touching. No touching. And of course, as well as seeing me defile myself for their entertainment and getting the latest episode of Chart Music ages before you minj bags who haven't dubbed in yet the pop craze patreons get to tinker and a tanker and a fiddle and a diddle and a whiddle and even

a piddle with the new chart music top 10 I've got it in front of me should we have it chaps hit the fucking music we've said goodbye to the Mary Brennell boys murder Shall we have it, chaps? Yes. Hit the fucking music! We've said goodbye to the Mary Brennell Boys murder, Sugar Blokes, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Glitter and Jeff Sex, which means two up, two down, one non-mover, one re-entry and four new entries.

New entry straight in at number ten, Mini Horse. A former number one down three places to number nine, the bent cunts who aren't fucking real. A non-mover at number eight, here comes Jizzum. New entry at number seven, the worst dressed homosexual in the Castro.

And a re-entry at number six, for rock expert David Statham! Into the top five, and it's a new entry at number five for Heap Big Cunt. Up one place from number five to number four, Bomber Dog.

Into the top three and last week's number one has dropped two places to number three, Two Ronnies One Cup. Up two places to number two, That Dog's Dead dead now which means the new chop music number one and the highest new entry semiotic trousers

oh what a chop me did i was expecting a higher placing for Hick and Jism as a sort of tribute. You know what I mean? Like, posthumous. There were a lot of Pop Craze patrons who asked if they could change the vote in the wake of Dennis Walkman dying. And I said, no, sorry. Oh, what a shame. Dave Lee Travis didn't change the top 40 after John Lennon died.

Yeah. But he said it in a sad way. I remember listening to that chart. And he said, down so many places, number 21. Just like starting over by John Lennon. He was upset. But did he change the chart? No.

So what do you like about Travis? He respected a chart. Poor old Dennis Waterman. Yeah. There goes Chisholm. At least he got a couple of years out of those teeth. So the new entries, Mini Whores, what are they all about? Sort of like baby metal, but not as good.

Anything to chip in there, Taylor? No, because... What's going through your mind when I say the word Mini Whores? Don't ask him that. Thinking of Shetland Pony. The worst dressed homosexual in the castle. That's obviously, you know, Fred Wedlock. That sort of thing.

He big cunt. Yeah, what was that from? That was Johnny Cougar, wasn't it? The fucking tiger thief. Oh, right, yeah. I just think he'd be a really piss-poor adamant, shaking ant, if you will. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And semiotic trials as well as whatever mad shit david likes yeah i think they would be angular so if you want to have your say in the only chart that matters as well as getting every new episode in full with our adverts long before everyone else you know what to do pop crazy young crazy you grab this keyboard right in front of you and you mash mash mash patreon.com slash chart music and you hang on have i got any change on me no i haven't i would have rattled a bit of change there and you pledge all you can well whatever you can i know times are hard but chart music is here to get you through those hard times brothers and sisters that's true so this episode pop craze youngsters takes us all

the way back to march the 15th 1990 a year that we've kept away from so far but one that sarah and taylor were very keen to get stuck into and And hey, who am I to break their little hearts? So me days. I asked you to pick one out from 1990. And you've come back with this. And I've got to say, you've chosen well. But what was it about this one? Yeah, well, because this episode pretty much represents 1990 as I remember it,

having been 17, 18 at the time. The peak of the 90s yes a new dawn it was going to be do you remember a new dawn for the human race pure optimism pure beauty time for the guru I don't think we ever figured out whether it was you know 1990s as in the decade um the as if he was claiming the entire decade was time for the guru or if it was simply if he was being a bit more humble about it and saying 1990 is yeah time for the guru i guess we'll never know now we'll never know no it wasn't anyway so it really wasn't the 80s was a bit short on preening Thatcherites, wasn't it? Yes. The 90s was going to be his time. Any zero year is going to be interesting,

just based on the fact that it's like an infant that doesn't know where its own hands are yet, you know. It doesn't know what it's doing. It's a lot of jumble, a lot of detritus. You know, like in the way that the theory is that dreams are basically your brain just processing all the stuff that it couldn't process while conscious. Like the first year of a new decade is sort of it's sort of like that isn't it it's all the kind of it's a processing of all the all the junk before of the previous

one before you can before anything new can come yeah i don't know if it's down to how old i was at the time but i think the key word of 1990, in everything, not just music, is optimism. I mean, the South African government have finally listened to Jerry Dammers. Paul Weller's finally brought the Berlin Wall down. Everybody's got the arse about the poll tax. People are finally starting to believe

that the foul hag Thatcherax is about to finally fuck off. There's a general sense of relief that the 80s is dead and a burning desire to kick on and put things right yeah don't you think yeah humanity never learns does it really it's like yeah it's a new it's like i always used to love new year right because it's a secular festival it's the festival of the fresh start and i just thought there's something so pure about that and maybe i will come around to this again but especially

having had two absolutely shit identical New Years on the bounce the last two years, I've just been like, fuck this shit. We really need to get a handle on the fact that, and, you know, it's like, no, nothing's going to be any different. This is just going to be the same, possibly a bit worse. It's a false dawn, isn't it? Although, of course, obviously a lot of stuff,

not least Thatcher, did get shifted this year. Yes. So fair enough. See, I remember that in 1980, people were very optimistic about the new decade. Yeah. Yeah, that worked well. Yes.

And 1990 as well. I think that had gone by 2000. I remember on Millennium Night, I was at my mate's house and I walked back to my house and on the way I passed this very drunk bloke who was staggering down the street coming the other way and as I passed him

he looked up at me and went what's the fucking difference and I thought yeah you speak for us all mate but this episode is, I assume the fact that there's no proper acid house on it, but of course, it's like watching the top of the pops from 1969

and complaining that it hasn't got the stooges on it. No, of course it hasn't. But other than that, I think this is a fair representation of 1990, at least as it was in the sixth form common room, you know, and on the high street. And it is what you would probably have been hearing as your train crashed into another train because they'd recently been privatised

and so corners were being cut to increase profits at the expense of human safety. But you probably wouldn't have minded because you were probably on one mating. Yes. You know. And, of course, that's the other thing, Taylor, because there's a feeling that

everyone in the music industry is to use the words of my mom bloody drug in it yeah drugs are back hurrah sort of well did they ever go away i mean the immediate moral panic about the drugs is is over i think i i would say that moral panics only last a season, really. That intensity doesn't last very long. It's kind of months, isn't it? But it has now become encoded in the mainstream. So this week's smash hits, it was interesting to see two two-page adverts that struck me, one of which was the famous drugs, you never know what they'll do to you, the effects can last forever campaign.

So yeah, this campaign had like a picture of a sort of picturesquely messed up kid. Um, and a bit of copy talking about, you know, you're going to lose your job and you're going to have to sell your ass and all of this, which is, you know,

the effects of, of serious drug addiction, which is everyone knows is what you get when you take a drug once or occasionally. The other two page ad being, uh, for, uh,

it was anti-smoking, um, and the message being, you really need to give up smoking because it's going to cost you 200 quid a year. So that was... Think of how many drugs you could buy with that, kids. That's the most important reason. The only reason, in fact, to give up smoking is to, you know, cost a living.

So, yeah, also, like any right-thinking person, I'm obsessed with public information films some of which made by the now sadly defunct Central Office of Information which if they'd still been on the case maybe I wouldn't have long COVID that's all I'm saying exactly

so there were you know there were some public information films about the drugs there were two entitled Chris and Friends which were very vague about drugs there were pills pills and more specific, it was pills. And there's one where, you know, a fucked up kid goes to hospital and a doctor tells his mates, you know, he's very, very ill and he might die. And they said, we hope he'll be OK.

We're his friends. And there's this great moment of acting where the doctor looks at them with naked contempt and if not actual loathing. And, you know, we are to assume that their friend, quote unquote, is going to die of drugs. Yeah, I remember the other one. The other one was like a cheap British version of that scene towards the end of Saturday Night Fever, wasn't it? He was he was dancing up on the bridge because he was on drugs. And he's going, oh, yeah, look at me. And one of his friends goes, Chris, come down.

And he turns around and goes to them, my baby, like that. And I just stuck in my head ever since. Does he fall off? Yeah, yeah. Well, yeah, of course. He was on drugs, though, wasn't he? He was on pills. They used to call them bridge plunge biscuits.

It used to happen a lot. Fall off one, matey. It's interesting that this is the chosen episode in terms of, you know, the influence of drugs on music, which obviously has been a thing since there were drugs and music, but, you know, it's become particularly pointed and acute in the last two years. And there's a very interesting example of how this influence has made its way into Top of the Pops,

in possibly the most Top of the Pops way, just kind of squeezed through in a really strange way, like a sort of like kind of icing sugar out of a slightly deformed pipette we'll get to that oh yes we will but this episode me dears is absolutely shot through with newness and optimism isn't it three bands make the debut on this episode one from the rave scene two of them you could say are our bands and if you disregard the fact that two of those bands have been going for fucking ages, you know, you do get the feeling that the dinosaurs are being chased back into their caves and everything's setting up nicely for the 90s.

But looking back now, we can see the real story of 1990, which is the music industry being absolutely up arsehole street. Although the drive to get the CD player out has resulted in a quarter of a million British households owning one by Christmas of 1989, vinyl sales have absolutely gone through the floor, dropping by 50% since 1988. Really?

Yeah. According to an article in Music Week around about this time, there was an estimate that independent record shops were going bankrupt at the rate of one a day. Smash Hits, Circulations, Tankin, and in the eyes of the music industry, the only bankers are compilation LPs by the likes of Madonna and Elton John. So yeah, it's hard times for red spectacle, ponytail music business wankers. Good times for ravey chancers and indie sorts. And interesting times for the panel of chart music.

And also, this was like the last time, really, that you had a proper split between youth acts and stars from 10, 15, 20 years ago. Do you know what I mean? That always causes a bit of a crisis in the music business. You remember the big concert of 1990 was Nebworth.

Yes. An all-day gig featuring Phil Collins, Elton John, Pink Floyd, Dire Straits, Paul McCartney, Eric Clapton, all at their absolute peak of irrelevant. And at the time, if you were a teenager that looked hilarious yes right the state of it right and they were all relevant artists 10 15 years previously unlike the mid 90s by which point you know the who were somehow mods again yeah you know and Macca was playing the hoffner bass again and uh everyone

was mates and respectful of their elders you know what i mean or now when groups from 15 or 20 years ago are still considered current yeah and we are our own mike reed's heritage chart yes we are but what's nice is the definite sense of movement away from the 80s. Yes. At least, you know. Because it was probably the last period where culture, and specifically popular culture, moved fast and it changed. And you could look at 15 seconds of footage of a street and you could guess not just the time period but the actual year. Yeah.

And in some cases, which quarter of that year, just from what people were wearing and what it looked like and it's unthinkable now definitely because it's slowed to a core like around my way the the so-called hipsters look exactly the same as they did 10 years ago yeah which is not very hip if you come around my part of the world there's places like columbia road which is right on the cusp of beth negreen andoreditch. And it's like a crane has picked up a little bit of Hampstead and just dropped it into this sea of concrete and chicken shops. There's like a genteel oasis of like posh wine shops

and these little twee bagpush shops selling miniature pink teapots and pre-gabbling brioche, you know. But it's all populated by people who look exactly the same but they look exactly the same as a decade ago it's yeah still blokes with big wire wall beards that look like a cloud of ginger gas and uh women with asylum haircuts and and thick clown eyebrows dressed in romper suits and platform trainers you know because that was the last time that culture moved in their dead brained world you know and so however much crap went down in 1990 there was still a sense that you were on a moving train you know or albeit a moving train heading directly for another moving train. A groovy train, if you will.

I mean, I knocked the 90s a lot because that was the time when I was the most active and so I have to blame something, right? But there was a lot to complain about, although now it's only ever remembered in the twisted terms of the 859th BBC documentary about Britpop in which Steve Lamac tells us it was a radical musical revolution after which British rock was never the same

oh no wait after which British rock was always exactly the same and you can trace back a lot of the problems of today to the complacency and the many missed open goals of the 90s but there's also an argument this was

maybe the best time ever to be alive despite everything just because of that odd balance that is achieved like on the one hand technology and public attitudes had advanced to the point where you know boredom and and bigotry were no longer necessarily the default experience of living in Britain. But you still have that great nourishing and motivational force of often having to see and hear things you didn't like or weren't interested in, you know. And more than anything else, this is crucial, the Second World War had not yet worn off. This is our big issue today, the problem for our times. The Second World War is wearing off. And all those things that we thought we'd learnt from it

and which our generation took for granted, all those shared truths about freedom and tyranny and human dignity and what's too dangerous to countenance or coexist with, these were all the things which temporarily saved the world or a lot of the world from moral squalor and servitude and obscurantism and now they were no longer forged within living memory or barely and they're beginning to dissolve and it's fucking terrifying and at this point here 1990 all that was still firmly in place along with a shared understanding of objective truth however shit things got at least that was

a solid wooden wedge behind the the back wheel of this suv parked on a slope which is all modern civilization really is or ever has been. You know, the general belief at this point was that casual democracy was the only future and there wasn't going to be any global warming because teenagers in baggy white T-shirts with bright African art designs on the front would grow up and take care of it. Oh, God, yeah. Onward! 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. In the news, Farzad Bazoft, a journalist for The Observer,

is hanged in Iraq after being accused of spying for the British, and British media suddenly gets very interested in Saddam Hussein. Labour have opened up a 21-point lead in the opinion polls, with 50% of those polled thinking that Margaret Thatcher should resign. An anti-poll tax demonstration in Brixton ends in a riot after 3,000 protesters singing stick your poll tax up your arse are battened charged by riot police, resulting in youths lobbing stones and bottles at them in return. Eric and Lyle Menendez, two brothers from Beverly Hills, have been arrested on suspicion of nipping round the mam and dads with shotguns

and reducing them to mints in order to claim $10 million worth of inheritance money. They eventually get sentenced to life imprisonment. Mikhail Gorbachev has become the first president of the Soviet Union and East Germany is getting ready for its first and last free elections while Lithuania has declared its independence from the USSR. Five Star, who haven't had a top 40 hit in two years, announced that next month's UK tour,

which featured dates at Wembley Arena in the NEC, has been scrapped. They give no reason for this. Makes the no money sign. Similar to the Oxo crumble in happier tour news paul mccartney has finally been allowed back into japan to play the gigs he should have done 10 years earlier were it not for him having a hunk of weed the size of a man's head in his luggage david bowie has revealed that he feels guilty about being such a custard gannet in the 70s and that it nearly killed him.

I feel bad that kids took drugs because I did. They looked up to me as a hero and wanted to do what I was doing, he says, in an interview with Woman Magazine. However, he says that he can't give up the fags. Woman Magazine getting fucking David Bow bowie that's insane yeah well wasn't quite as in demand in 1990 s express calls the royal college of art to be evacuated while they're shooting a video for their next single when a technician notices that one of the world war ii artifacts they're using as props was an unexploded bomb i was petrified because i've been kicking it

around all morning says mark moore madonna and warren beatty have split up and she's gone back to her ex jellybean benitez because she was sick to death of seeing her name linked with his all the time in the papers but the big news this week courtesy of last week's sunday mirror gay sex orgy on tv four men meet they kiss and fondle they undress and swap underwear and anyone can watch tonight a shocking gay sex show about mass murderer denn Dennis Nielsen is to be shown on ITV tonight, despite furious protests. Presenter Melvin Bragg admitted the prize-winning drama was shocking and frightening, but he defended his decision to screen it on the South Bank show. Dead Dreams of Monochrome Men, performed by the gay dance and drama group DV8. A pun on DV8.

Think about it, man. The show starts with a group of homosexuals cruising for pickups in a sleazy nightclub. To the strains of the song I Feel Love, two men kiss passionately and fondle each other's private parts. Two other gays simulate sex against a wall. Then a couple undress each other and caress their nipples. One man removes another's trousers and blindfolds him, while a third watches on all fours with his mouth suggestively open wide finally nelson kills his lovers one by one and sexually abuses their corpses the show is broadcast immediately after an edna everidge special sparking fears that children will see the sordid sex scenes so So, yeah, it's wrong

for some kids to see men pretending to have gay sex on the telly because, you know, as we all know, kids went mental for the South Bank show back in the day, didn't they? But it's fine for the Sunday Mirror to tell even more kids who can read what actually happens. That's fine, that is. Would you watch that, Taylor?

If you were, I don't know, 12? Yeah. Of course you would. You want to see what they get up to. It looks like fun. The idea of wearing someone else's freshly worn pants would... Yeah, that was the bit I didn't like about Dennis Nielsen. Sarah, would you have watched that? Would I have watched the

lads in the pants? The pants swap. Yeah, of course I would, yeah. So I was 11. I don't know how. It's not that my mum was a bad parent, but I saw all kinds of shit that I probably ought not have seen at a tender age. And I regret nothing. I turned out fine.

Nothing wrong with me, et cetera. Stuff you saw after being tipped off by the Sunday Mirror. They should have done that. They should have had a column in the Sunday Papers every week. Hey, kids, here's some filth you might want to watch. Set your videos. Sneak downstairs in the dead of night. Yeah.

Pop the telly on. On the cover of Melody Maker this week, Nick Cave and Sinead O'Connor and the Stone Roses. It was just a time when Melody Maker was just slapping as much as it could on the front page. Looks awful. was just slapping as much as it could on the front page. Looks awful. On the cover of Smash Hits, Christian James of Halo James eating a daffodil.

The number one LP in the country is But Seriously by Phil Collins. Over in America, the number one single is Escapade by Janet Jackson. And the number one LP was Forever Your Girl by Paula Abdul. So, me dears, what were we doing in March of 1990? I'm going to be really boring and I honestly don't remember. This was like one of those fallow years.

At some point, my brain has done like a sweep of memories and just decided to dump that entire year. I think nothing terrible happened, but you know nothing significant i was just making the difficult transition from confusing childhood to horrifying adolescence which is like that's what being 11 is isn't it yeah i was going to school keeping my head head down and probably still making many tapes of the top 40. I was still very much in recording the top 40 mode. So I wasn't I didn't really have a lot of albums at this point. Who are you into?

Well, there's two of my favourite ever singles in the top 10 this very week. Enjoy the silence by the Pesh mode. One of my favourites of all time. Just it doesn't even read to my brain as a song made by people anymore. It's more like a little comet that I can just hear whenever I want. And Blue Savannah by Erasure, which is also just a lovely,

melancholy pop song of which I will never tire. Both the witch aunts on this episode. No, sadly not. But, you know, I know they're there. At this point, I would still have been listening to Raw Like Sushi,

which came out in 1989. So I had the cassette of that until it was carved into my brain. George Michael as well. This is when Listen Without Prejudice came out, which is such a lovely, warm album. As soon as we heard that he died, that just went straight on. It was like, oh, God, this is so fucking good. What a loss.

It's one of those people. There's a few people when they die and it's like years later, it's like, do you still miss George Michael? Yeah, yeah, I do. So Heaven or Las Vegas by the Cocteau Twins came out in 1990, but I didn't discover it at the time because, you know, I don't think they were on top of the pops. So, you know, I discovered that later and I was still very much at the kind of mercy of the top 40. Yeah, I got far too much to say about 1990 i began 1990 as a school boy and ended it as an unemployed acid casualty having me having passed through uh three jobs two pop festivals and one polite expulsion from school best year of my life i turned 18 later this year right which of course means that if i hadn't

officially knocked a year off my age in defiance of the pandemic on the logic that if i didn't get to live it i shouldn't have to cart it around with me like luggage uh i would have just turned 50 which would have been scary but i'm sure that when that finally does roll around in the 12 months time i'll have had such a rich and full 2022 that it won't matter quite ready for it yeah but i remember 1990 is a fabulous year although a personally turbulent one and even though this top of the pops doesn't contain either of the records which bring that feeling back in a flash for me killer by adamski or the joker by the steve miller band it does it does suggest it but the thing is look in 1990 i wasn't a city kid and by this point i

wasn't even a medium-sized town kid uh we'd moved south and i was living in a small town surrounded by countryside and almost no bus services and for teenagers who think too much that kind of semi-rural environment is a funny thing it's the hand that giveth and taketh away. Because on the one hand, there's something really good about being 18 in that space with nature encircling you. And having to create your own subculture with your mates as best you can. And on the other hand, it's a frustrating bore and a desperate trial. We were fully aware that things were going on nearby. You know, the rave

scene and all that uh but we had no access because we didn't have transport and we weren't really dancing people anyway we didn't have any access to those drugs because it was a rural area so all the supply routes for drugs were through new age traveler types so it was all hash and mushrooms and that sort of thing and for the most part we had no access to sex uh without a formal courtship and a phony pledge because that was just the times out in the tory shires you know so that kind of psychedelic isolation which lasted right up until i moved to london really defined my experience of the world. But for 1990, that wasn't a bad thing, you know.

It's like my main memories of 1990 are playing music with various lousy but authentically bizarre groups with absurdly mismatched influences that had nothing to do with anything that was current. And instead of joyous all-night dance parties absurdly mismatched influences that had nothing to do with anything that was current and instead of joyous all-night dance parties surrounded by bug-eyed loved-up strangers it would be a gang of about eight of us dragging a shit battery-powered tape player in a farmer barley mose field and just sitting out there all night with a bottle of thunderbird and 50 pro

plus listening to neil young and sid barrett and lee scratch perry and our oxfam suede jackets littering the bridal way with ripped up rizzler packets you know and the dawn would be beautiful but it just it never felt symbolic. I'll tell you what, you know what we had to do, and I've only just remembered this. One of my mates eventually got used to his dad's car, and on Saturday nights we used to drive out to the Blue Boar services near Northampton.

The Bright Lights. Yeah, because they would serve coffee until the early hours and not kick us out because we weren't eight teenagers sat there chain smoking. And to get to the services from the car park, you had to walk across this enclosed footbridge over the motorway, looking down on the lanes of traffic. so sometimes we'd be in there playing human frogger like jumping from side to side without knowing if a car or a lorry was going to emerge from under the bridge into your lane you see and that was saturday night because we weren't welcome anywhere else or else we hated the people we were going to find so hang on there's supposed to be illegal raves going on everywhere what they're coming around your way no we'd drive past them, maybe, without realising it,

with talk-talk playing at full volume. Passing round a wet-ended spliff of horrible soap bar hash, and then it was human frogger until the soles of your feet hurt, you know, and then into the calf to be scowled at by truckers. And by the old ladies serving because we looked like a bunch of shiny-haired ponces. I'll say that again. We were a bunch of shiny-haired ponces

trying to live and failing miserably. I mean, we had our moments. It's just that nobody else was ever around to appreciate them. Luckily, turns out, in the fullness of time, there will be no biographer who has to worry about any of that. Effectively, none of it ever happened, which is how it felt at the time. Well, I was 21 and working as a labourer

in a furniture factory in Ucknell called Stag, which made just about affordable stuff, which was stained really, really, really, really, really dark brown. And the place was essentially a massive indoor school playground with power tools. Wow. I'm working from seven to four in a barn with no windows, meaning I'm not seeing any daylight during the winter.

I'm humping pallets of headboards around. I'm fetching boxes of screws for people called jinner chinny and rat boy and i'm only about three or four months into the job but i've already realized that i just can't do this fucking job for the rest of my life not because it was beneath me but because i wasn't physically or mentally prepared for the job quitter it wasn't the most diverse of workplaces there was there was one black person in the entire factory right and he came from texas and he wore this constant look on his face that said how the fuck did i get here there was one

homosexual that had a sign on the front of his bench that read aids alert don't bend for a friend with somebody bending over ghostbusters style yeah there was one person who took drugs and he had an out to lunch sign on his bench with an arrow that read fuck pig or whatever his name was he's off work because of and there'd be drawings of spliffs and pills and needles and one woman in the entire factory who wasn't working in the kitchen, which was my mum, who pulled strings to get me the job and, you know, keep me from burning electricity on tellies and my Amiga. Because, you know, that's how nepotism works. I mean, do you remember in a previous episode when I talked about Lance,

the bloke with a Viennetta shirt who used to wear shorts with bananas and pineapples on them? Yeah. That were so fucking tight that his bollocks would flop out. Yes. He was my superior. In every way. As you can imagine, there was a lot of what we nowadays call banter flying about. But, you know, let's call it what it actually was.

Bitching. These people were absolute master bitches. Every mistake, every misfortuneortune every excuse to needle someone was logged filed away and deployed at the opposite moment i'll give you two examples right there was this one bloke who got divorced about five years ago and every time he fucked up the entire line would just shout fucking hell no wonder his missus fucked off that's that's a quite clever one the second one i remember there was this lad called warfare whose bench was directly under a massive blackboard with all the all the part orders on it and he got into a fight

in a chip shop and was due in court for sentencing after his morning shift and he turned up at about six o'clock in the morning and he discovered that someone had already been there an hour earlier and filled this enormous board with the odds for his sentence from slap on the wrist to electric chair and he was actually taking bets on it and people were laying out money on it lovely the upside of the job was it was still the age we're fucking about at work was not only allowed but encouraged. You know, people would spend the morning working the tits off to fill the quota and then get on to the serious business of playing cards, having staple gun fights, having 50-a-side games of football

or demonstrating that they were actually fucking brilliant at doing woodwork. You know, they used to knock out pencil cases, boxes, carvings bird tables you know all sorts i remember one morning i came across two blokes in the warehouse who got into an argument over whether you could escape from a crocodile by running at it and jumping over it lengthway and it got more and more animated as the day went on and sometime in the afternoon I went back to pick up some more screws. And I noticed that half the cab shop had disappeared. And they were in the fucking storeroom because someone had drawn an anatomically correct full-scale crocodile on this floor in chalk. And people were either staring at it in awe and pointing bits out, or they were taking turns to try and jump over it.

And nobody could. So, you know, the argument was proved. And another day was successfully pissed away in Hocknall. And it seems like only yesterday that Judas Priest were at the miners' welfare. I know. What happened, Hocknall? The other thing about Stagg was the walls were absolutely festooned with fannies i saw less fannies when i was actually working in paul than when i did in that factory and one of the other laborers he was this like called tom and some of the lads convinced him

that um princess anne was coming later on in the day to be given a guided tour around the factory and we had to get rid of all the grot he said have I got to rip down all these posters and everything said no no no you don't have to do that here's some paper and I've already cut you out a template for a bra what you got to do is you've got to go around you've got to put bras on all the tits, and Princess Anne will be cool with that. And, yeah, he started doing it, and some of the blokes, he nearly got fucking lamped a couple of times. And we just had to tell him it was a joke before he got murdered.

But Princess Anne wouldn't mind. She opened the original wank factory. Did she? Back in the 80s, yeah, yeah. Yeah, she was going around, and they cleared up all the porn and someone some some wag left out uh a copy of penthouse and they were taking around and everything and they saw the copy of penthouse and tried to sweep it away and she says oh don't worry about it i

know what you do here yeah she was a woman of the world bless her that was the same building where the happy mondays edited uh an issue of penthouse once edited my arse oh you surprised me what they didn't actually uh go meetings with the publisher and stuff they didn't lay out one flat plan you know when wank mags are edited by models right no they're due to stop and end up um bending over a power mac with a pen suggestively in their gob yeah yeah i don't know if bez did that i hope not i'm gonna say guest editing is basically it's like guest djing isn't it where like you know a dj well not always sometimes people can actually dj usually they show up with a dj and they just stand in the booth giving it loads it's me yes occasionally hand them a record you know possibly the day after this episode could

be the moment that i was in the co-op with my mom after work and i told her that i decided to try and get into university and she just looked at me as if i'd gone out and said well what the fuck do you want to do that for she couldn't understand it and he's like well because i can't do this i'm not strong enough to do this job for the rest of my life. She just folded her arms and went, ooh. Yes, she did. So music-wise, I'm taking what's left of my wage packet after my mum's had her board, and I'm just lobbing it at Selectedist for hip-hop imports,

Arcade Records for under-the-counter tapes of Marley Marl and WBLS, and Rob's Records for second hand funk and soul i'm still banging we're in this together by low profile done by the forces of nature by the jungle brewers and i'm absolutely gagging for fear of a black planet by public enemy which comes out in a few weeks i can't fucking wait for that i'm still watching top of the pops before going out with my mates to the rubbish student disco they insist on going to. But like pretty much everyone else of my age, I've stopped expecting to see something that's going to blow my tiny mind. Top of the Pops nowadays to me is more of a chance to finally see the bands that the music press have been banging on about

that I couldn't be bothered to investigate for myself. And there's a couple of instances in that in this very episode so yeah there we go that's me but anyway pop craze youngsters you know that whenever we roll on an episode of top of the pops we roll deep and to that end let us retire to the chart music shed and dig out an issue of the music press from this very week. And this time, the spotlight shines on the NME, dated March 17th, 1990. Shall we have a riffle through, me dears? Go on then.

Don't see why not. On the cover, the Stone Roses standing outside a court in Wolverhampton, looking excessively leery and full of themselves. outside a court in Wolverhampton, looking excessively leery and full of themselves. In the news section, well, Manchester continues to dominate, with the main story being reports that the Stone Roses are pencilled

in two shows at Brixton Academy in June, as well as confirming ticket details for their gig at Spike Island on Bank Holiday Sunday, May 27th oh what a shame they didn't announce a reunion gig for snake island the other month eh meanwhile the happy mondays have revealed their forthcoming new single it's a cover version of he's gonna step on you which was originally a number four hit for john congos and t-reex's Fly label all the way back in 1971. It's all down to Elektra Records in the States,

who asked the Mondays to do a cover version for the label's 40th anniversary LP, Rubaiyat. After ditching an idea to cover a Tom Waits number, they opted for He's Gonna Step On You, but eventually decided to keep it as a single and give Elektra another Congo's cover, Tokoloshe Man, instead. Oh, and the Inspiral Carpets have announced a big adopted hometown gig at Manchester's GMEX on July the 21st. The alternative takeover kicks up a gear as the compilation label Telstar, best known for LPs such as the Joe Longthorne songbook,

the Rosemary Party album and Jive Bunny the album, have announced the release of their first TV advertised indie album, Product 2378, featuring in Spiral Carpets, New Order, Pixies, The Wonderstuff and Morrissey.

There's a bit of a calm down for them, isn't it? In other label news, the enforced ramage of CDs down our throats continues, as WEA announces that 1,205 vinyl album titles are to be dropped from their catalogue, approximately 40% of the company's current listings. 205 vinyl album titles are to be dropped from their catalogue. Approximately 40% of the company's current listings. When did you get a CD player? I got one when I started at Melody Maker because I needed one to review the CDs that everybody kept sending me. I didn't have one before that. Couldn't afford it.

No. I don't remember, but I definitely had. I had one of those all-in-one stereos that looked like a sort of stacker system but wasn't it was all integrated and i did have it's an interesting yeah i have no idea but i definitely had one of those and then when i started at melody maker i had this blue cd walkman for some reason and just listening to cd singles on the tube fannying about like changing them in my lap it's a palaveraver. But I was really glad because I was a music journalist and I was in London and I had a CD Walkman.

So, you know. 1995 for me. Yeah. Well, I would have got one earlier, but I couldn't play any of my albums on it. Exactly. And I ended up buying loads of CDs that are sitting in big shopper bags

in the crap room at the moment. Oh, yeah. Thanks, music business, you cunts. Over in America, hundreds of fans were locked out of a public enemy gig at the Hollywood Palace after the promoter oversold tickets. Police in squad cars and helicopters were called out to disperse the crowd, and the gig was later halted

at the request of the LA Fire Department, as the crowd had been counted as double the legal limit of 554. It didn't help that Public Enemy's performance started with Professor Griff giving a 10-minute speech where the arcaler of the S1Ws had a go at the media and talked about an AIDS conspiracy against minorities. Who the fuck is booking Public Enemy in a venue that only holds 554 people, man? Fuck's sake. Meanwhile, Def Jam supremo Russell Simmons, who recently banned Griff

from Def Jam's New York offices, is reported as stating, My disliking Griff has nothing to do with my friendship and aberration for Chuck D, Flava Flav and other members of Public Enemy. But Griff's wildest imaginary Jewish conspiracy could not have done more damage to Public Enemy than Griff has himself. Yeah, it's horrible to remember all that stuff, isn't it? All the conspiracies, all the racism and the science denial and Farrakhan and all that stuff, isn't it? All the conspiracy, so the racism and the science denial

and Farrakhan and all that. I know. You look about there like the Black Morrissey. And sadly, the writing is on the wall for billed posters, as Westminster Council confirmed that they are to crack down on fly posting in the city,

with Epic receiving warnings of legal action if they don't remove posters advertising the current single by the godfathers i'm lost and then i'm found the new move is part of a council cleanup campaign but with the new tactic of ignoring the people who slap them up and going directly for the ones who gain benefit from the advertising. Oh, man. I used to love seeing old gig posters up on walls in London when I was watching Minder and whatnot. Yeah, yeah. You see why they were clamping down on them, though,

because they do spoil the beauty of those green corrugated iron fences. Yes. Yeah, I mean, there's like, you know, like when they did out the tube a while ago and there was suddenly they peeled back some of the sort of sedimentary layers of posters and you could see all these really old ones. It was brilliant. And it's like, yeah, I kind of wish that, you know,

you just keep slapping them on and slapping them on and then future generations will be able to like get some little tools and peel them away and go, wow, holy shit. The pavements would be about a foot wide though, wouldn't they? In the interview section, well, Guru Josh is in the chair for the material world section, the former portrait of the artist as a consumer, and as predicted, he's got a lot to say for himself. He claims that the rave scene is turning from the love children to the hate children. They're going to go ahead and introduce legislation,

and the kids are going to say, fuck you lot, and go ahead with it anyway. If the government turn up, we'll just petrol bomb them. Yeah, because fucking Willie Whitelaw's going to turn up at a rave, isn't he, telling people to be quiet. After being asked about being kidnapped by his parents as a child he says i think a lot of people have been through that haven't they i just had that sort of childhood it was a right pain in the ass right how do you get kidnapped by your parents if your parents take you on holiday and put you in a car and drive you to a caravan park in skag

ness and you didn't fancy it isn't that that kidnapping? I would have thought, like, one parent, you know, if they, you know, people, like, steal when they don't have custody, but they just nick off with their kid anyway. So, like, if his parents didn't have custody of him, maybe that's how it worked. But, yeah, I think he may have a slightly skewed idea of a normal childhood.

I had a paranoia when I was a kid that my parents were going to kill me what yeah i don't like they were just waiting for the right moment just only for about six months but i can remember how old were you i don't know about seven or something i remember walking through a steam fair somewhere in worcestershire and thinking maybe today's gonna be the day sort of half hoping it would be that I wouldn't have to look at any more of those engines. Well, they were just going to throw you into a furnace,

like grab you by the scruff of the neck and the waistband and just hoi you in there. And dust off their hands like, oh, glad we don't have to feed and clothe him anymore. That was worth going through a two-year adoption process we could have just picked one off the street he concludes by stating i'm a modern thatcherite i'd vote for her policies but i prefer someone else to instigate them there's a lot of serious problems in the world and one of the minor ones is acid house parties they haven't got enough

manpower to solve murders and meanwhile they're arresting people for dancing it's a very sick world we live in why does he want somebody else to uh i know that's just because he hates a man yeah just because he's got terrible views and is also sexist. Paolo Hewitt nips over to Carson, California, for a natter with the latest group of fun-loving rappers, the Booyah Tribe. They give him a demonstration of their rigorous martial arts training regime, and then Booyah's leader Ted Davoo talks to Hewitt about how rap saved the tribe from almost certain death in the la gang scene while

his brother george tells us he used to be an accountant earning 110 grand a year before joining the crew there's a bit of chat about how being in prison showed them how to be tough and that their debut album new funky nation is quote for the kids so they will never have to say, I couldn't do this before gangs brought me down. Meanwhile, Gavin Martin nips up to the black country to have a word with Robert Plant about his frankly randy new LP, Manic Nirvana. What an amazing title, predating two massive bands of the early 90s there. What a seer robert plant is talking about the prolific sexual references in his new material the yim yam thank you mam rock

god insists i mean it's been one of those times for me if you ejaculate and you like it what are you going to do sit on it forever he reassures martin that his return to atv land in recent years has brought him down to earth and back to music at a time when his old band stock has risen it's quite mind-boggling to be so out of favor that no one would mention the band for five years and suddenly ian asprey wears a zeppelin t-shirt and it's all okay what the fuck is all that about he says the people who are my age and have got mortgages and stuff aren't exposed to music other than the mainstream to them Chris Rea is what's happening nobody knows about Big Black or what Faith No More were like with the old singer for For me, Husker Du's Bed of Nails is an anthem,

so I'm impossible to live with. I'm still raving about music. Most people probably think I'm a wanker. Well, if you will drink with coppers in the Queen's head. But at least you're not sitting in it, Robert. Because it's 1990 and it's the NME, the Stone Roses get a quadruple-page spread entirely focused upon the adjourned hearing of the case of Birch vs. Brown, Squire, Minefield and Wren

at Wolverhampton's Magistrate Court, which involves the band, well-disjuiced at their old label FM Revolver for re-releasing Sally Cinnamon with an accompanying Mad For It video, liberally dousing the label's officers, boss Paul Birch, his girlfriend, and several cars including a Mercedes with paint. With the bulk of the spread made up of a court report from Stuart McConaughey, it's left to James Brown to actually talk to Monkey Twat and his mates, who moan about the video.

It's shot in Manchester, and it's got this bloke sitting in Piccadilly Station reading the face he screeches. It's fucking insulting. But the biggest insult, according to Brown Eye, is when Birch asks the Roses to make an appointment to see him. That's when it all kicked off. He's earning a lot of money off us, and he tells us to make an appointment. He thinks we're not real people. We're just fucking puppets,

performing monkeys that he can make a buck off. So then we painted him and his office and his motor full tins. I art beyond good and evil. Americana critical darlings, the Cowboy Junkies, tell Sean O'Hagan that they're really into BDSM and Satanism and expand upon their theories about the alien origins of Sasquatch. They say some other things as well, but it's dead boring. And Stephen Wells gets a whole page to investigate American Rock's backlash against gays

in advance of the Channel 4 show out on Tuesday, devoting an episode to it, which is directed by Viv Albertine. The piece covers Axl Rose's lyrics for One in a Million, Jon Bon Jovi getting booed off stage in Dublin after dropping the other F word after his beloved New York Giants lost a game against the San Francisco 49ers. A member of Skid Row wearing an AIDS kills F words dead t-shirt.

And Chris Doherty from Gangrene saying AIDS is a scary thing, but it's kind of good in a way. It kind of shows people what they're assholes for being a member of gangrene for example john savage frankie knuckles and paul rutherford get to represent the right side of history whilst wells conducts a survey with 20 metal fans from quo heads to glamours of the 12 interviewees who claim to be Guns N' Roses fans, 11 said that they thought Axl was full of shit,

writes Wells. Crusher from Kerrang! weighs in as well. The shit that these bands come out with is totally indefensible, totally pathetic. I mean, this idea of the metal audience as sun readers is way out of date. Yeah, good

old metal fans there. Yeah, well, they're usually nice blokes, aren't they, metal fans? That's always way out of date. Yeah, good old metal fans there. Yeah, well, they're usually nice blokes, aren't they, metal fans? That's always a thing you discover, you know, as a young mod. Most mods are wankers, and most metal fans are really nice. In the single reviews, well, in the chair this week is Edwin Pouncey, and his single of the week is I'm Going Straight to Heaven by MC 900 Foot Jesus and DJ Zero, which he tells us will shake your spine, but also make you look over your shoulder as though some presence older than the earth itself has just entered the room.

Also getting the thumbs up is single of the week two, Popcorn Double Feature by The Fall, in which Marky Smith delivers his vocal like a tired Lou Reed, aghast at the banality of life in a recording studio, while the rest of The Fall lumber along as though the song is a rotting albatross round their collective necks. Take it off in disgust, only to find yourself playing it again mere minutes later. You're hooked.

Damn the fall for being so sickeningly gifted. But it's a coat down for all or nothing by Milli Vanilli. Slush puppies Milli Vanilli throw a couple of spanners into the album mix and pout out something that sounds a lot lumpier than their usual wet manure production style, says Pouncey. He's similarly unimpressed

with Real Real Real by Jesus Jones. What sounds like three dots scoring 180 on your skull kickstarts this latest mini-miracle by Jesus Jones, with the great man himself weaving through the effects like an ace skateboarder. As clever as it is, it still fails to convert me. The Dinosaurs of Rock return with multiple singles this week,

and it's a very mixed bag. Pouncey says J.J. Cale's Hold On Baby is pretty damn good. Remarkably asserts that Gary Moore's cover of Old Pretty Woman is wholesome stuff but is less convinced by Cliff Richard's Stronger Than That. Instead of gracefully slipping into old age, as indeed he should, Cliff informs us that he's getting stronger. I think he's pretty creepy. Dave Edmonds' King of Love is described as

in which Dave gallantly proves that you can't keep an old rocker down, unfortunately. And he greets the Who's Live version of Join Together by saying, Wowie, really dig the Jew's Harp opening, lads, the only plus in this otherwise dreadfully recorded snippet

from The Who's recent comeback tour. Who asked them to come back anyway? Not me. And finally, the beloved's Your Love Takes Me Higher really brings out Pounce's curmudgeonly side. This record sounds like you've just walked into a party that's in full swing. The coats are stacked to ceiling height in the bedroom. There's nothing left to eat except scotch eggs,

and someone seems to have taken up permanent residence in the toilet. Still, the atmosphere's great, isn't it? I hate parties. In the LP review section the lead review this week belongs to violator by depeche mode and although helen mead reckons it's a preposterous title more suited for a heavy metal album or a hardcore porn comic it sees la mode as filling a gap in a current musical climate of electronically produced music. Comparing the album to its predecessor, 1987's Music for the Masses, Mead observes that Violator seems almost a step back, cleaner, sparser, more clinical.

And herein lies the contradiction, as that should mean they also get pervia, but they don't. Either way, Radio 1 won't ban it, just titter Riley, because Depeche Mode are nice boys and thankfully don't seem to have anything to do with drugs or the acid house scene. Hand to chin. I forgot they did an album called Music for the Masses.

That's obviously some kind of joke but i can't work out what kind of joke it is the david bowie compilation changes boa gets applauded by andrew collins as long overdue as bowie's finally become an end of the pier show greatest hits machine a man touring without a new album is an honourable man indeed. Thus, Changers Bowie is a tour souvenir, a t-shirt you can play at 33 and a third, and it's brilliant. Its existence is a huge apology for Dave not dying in a drug-related car crash in 1984. There had to be one bad apple to spoil the barrel load, and it's called Fame 90 Remix,

an unnecessarily clumsy rape of a perfectly smashing song. Oh, and he notes that the NME's current campaign to stuff the ballot on Bowie's phone in vote to determine his set list in order to get him to do the laughing gnome has been ignored in the track list. That's an odd phrase, isn't it? This unnecessarily

clumsy rape. Yeah, let's not even. Yeah, I've never heard those words put together in that order before. Is this an LP? Is this an EP? Is it a redundant zombie pantomime dame once more dragging his wormy cadaver onto the stage and squeezing the puss for pennies?

As Stephen Wells have just say, Ozzy, the live LP by Mr. Osbourne, capably assisted by Giza Butler. It's a chapter of my musical career I can now close, Ozzy tells me. musical career I can now close, Ozzy tells me. Leave it out, Oz, I said. That's like John Cleese not doing his silly walk every time he makes a party political broadcast for some nasty little right-wing party. Can't be done. Beauty by Ryuichi Sakamoto has naive nip and charm, according to Betty Page. Caution horses by the cowboy junkies as Terry Stoughton recommending that we light that cigarette, fill that glass and get ready to be heartbroken. That Telstar indie compilation product 2738

has Andrew Collins frothing that it's about as alternative as Ben Elton but just as dependable. And the Urban Classics 3 collection of 70s soul gets sniffily derided by Ian McCann. Drawn from Polydor's Soul Vaults, this is a selection of nearly-hits, later-to-be-collectors' items. Fans of Barry White,

and I am sorry to say there are many, will be very happy with the inclusion of Johnny Bristol's You and I and Isaac Hayes, the original Crazy Baldhead, offering a bedroom 3B. These songs are very much album tracks aimed at a very small retro market. If you're living for today, avoid. In the gig guide, well, David could have seen Creaming jesus at the leicester square hippodrome gil scott heron at the town and country club lush at subterranea chapter house and slow dive at the camden falcon the jungle brothers and a tribe called quest also at the town and country club

or ruptured dog at the king's head for. Jesus Christ, is that the worst bad name ever? Taylor could have seen the Steve Gibbons band at the Irish set. They're still going, Taylor, fucking hell. Wow. Still human beings as well, disappointingly. Yeah, yeah. The Sand Kings and Carter the Unstoppable Sex Machine at Birmingham University.

Benny King and Eddie Floyd in the This Is Soul show at Birmingham Town Hall, the Georgia Satellites at the Hummingbird, Nigel Kennedy at the Hippodrome, or Bath Chair Suicide at the Hare and Hounds. Fucking hell. Neil could have seen Lush at Coventry

Polytechnic, The Darkest Wish at Alice's Restaurant, Cud at Warwick University or Gdansk at the TikTok. Sarah could have seen Brother Beyond at Sheffield City Hall, Thunder at Bradford Queen's Hall, The Fall

at Hull Uni or Curiosity Killed the Cat at Leeds Uni. Al could have also seen Brother Beyond at Nottingham Royal Concert Hall, Saxon at Rock City, the Libido Boys at Oysters, or nipped out to Leicester to see Ned's Atomic Dustbin at the Princess Charlotte,

or Curiosity Killed the Cat at Derby Assembly Rooms. No, fuck that, mate. And Simon could have seen Cud and the Chrysalids at Swansea Uni, Thunder at Traforest Wells Polytechnic, or Nosferatu at Cardiff New Bogies. That's Thunder and Cud following each other around the country there. I'm just thinking, like, if you had a Cud covers band, it would have to be called Cudden't, wouldn't it? Or Cow Shit.

In the letters page, well, Andrew Collins is overseeing the angst page this week and the readers have rock royalty in their sights this letter is aimed at the asshole i got talking to me on the tube the other day writes tron of essex we only traveled together for one stop and i had to get off at woodford so i didn't get the chance to tell him that all Irish people do not adore U2 just because they're Irish. I hate Bongo and his I am a new God attitude. I hate David Evans and his stupid stage name. I hate that Clayton walked from a Dublin court, referring to Clayton's 1989 prosecution for possession and supply of marijuana,

Referring to Clayton's 1989 prosecution for possession and supply of marijuana with a paltry fine when my mate got six months for a fraction of the amount because he's not rich and famous. And I hate Larry on principle. Their music is awful. I've heard dodgy stories concerning their minders and the way publications like Hot Press crawly bum lick them every inch of the way pisses me off immensely if i ever see you again you know who you are you red-headed twat it's kicking time

hold me back everyone please look back to stewart mcconie's primal scream interview in your 5th of august issue of 1989 when bobby gillespie is asked wasn't there a temptation to introduce a dance element into primal scream to which he replied absolutely not we're not stupid we couldn't do it if we tried writes andy mosley from birmingham well it seems that mr gillespie has obviously become stupid in the six months since the interview and has tried and couldn't make a dance record. Ian McCann coated down the creature's new single, Fury Eyes, the other week and Lee Godfrey of Manchester is incandescent with rage. with rage. Dear Ian McCann,

you are a disgrace. To be given the job of reviewing the singles and then turning it into an egotistical outing of banal nonsense is a waste of everyone's time. How you have the audacity to say that the creatures, quote, have absolutely nothing whatsoever going on in their skulls is beyond me. It's distressing that someone such as yourself has nothing more to say than drivel about your cat.

Criticism, yes, welcome any time. But mindless scribbling is the unacceptable face of inadequate music journalism. You should be shot and the tedious politico sums up the go ahead optimistic spirit of the age when he writes is it my imagination or have i lived the last 10 years of my life under a non-too-wholesome bourgeois leadership intent of stripping me of every right I ever believed fundamental to everyday life. The reason I ask is because when I read your apparently well-informed paper, I wonder if we live in the same country. Whereas one might expect growing resistance in pop circles, instead it seems as though politics has become a dirty word. As the Tories

bang the poll tax, clause 28, water and electricity privatisation, bans on Sinn Féin supporters, etc. through Parliament, what do we get in the NME? Sycophantic articles on wanky overpaid musos with expensive equipment making dance records. Boring conservative twats like the Stone Roses, still living in the 60s like the Inspiral Carpets et al. Sad proof that indie music has become as conservative and unadventurous as heavy metal, punk or any other safe middle class rock genre. Acid inspired nonsense verses, not the stuff of revolution. When there's NME covered, reels off a long list of deservedly obscure bands. Perhaps it's just because those bands are too political

and individual for the NME. Pop music's own cosmopolitan. Oh! Yeah. Oh! Yeah. Burn! We should go back to the fiery politicised lyrics of the punk bands who did so much to prevent the rise of Margaret Thatcher. Yes.

It's weird, though, isn't it? It's like people who think that impotent rage is more constructive and more subversive than finding an alternative and pursuing it, you know. It's like this black thing, it's like a Billy Bragg gig would cause shockwaves in Conservative central office, whereas 400 illegal acid house raves every weekend was just light entertainment and just made the government smile contentedly

at the placid, law-abiding youth of Britain wasting their golden years on meaningless enjoyment. Get on one, mate. It's the 90s. He's right about the spiral carpets, mind you. So if the NME is pop music's own cosmopolitan, what does that make Melody Maker? New Woman.

Arpers and Queen. Or Four Women. Do you remember that? What was that? It was a wank mag for women oh nice it had knobs in it and everything it came fresh from dickie desmond's wank factory wow close down in the i want to say late 90s the running joke in the office was for women was the uh circulation so al you uh i believe worked at scarlet magazine as did i yeah that's how we met yeah yeah of course yeah um i was a sub editor there for for a time and i remember somebody uh someone else who had

worked on similar you know magazines for women one of which was fairly bristling with dick but it was all nestled behind sort of modesty items for legal reasons. You can have tits, but no dick, you see, because these are double standards. You can have dick, but it can't be erect. Yes. I mean, you know about the Mullican Tire Law, don't you? What does it have to do with... The Mullican Tire kind of like juts out from Scotland at a certain angle. And if a cock is displayed and it's a bit higher up than the Mulliken Tire,

then that's not allowed. We're such a weird species, aren't we? Did men have to pose naked next to someone holding up a map of Scotland just to check? And here's the weather. Or maybe the Mulliken Tire rule could also be applied to the the technique of playing the wing single to achieve detumescence that would do it actually i think for yeah yeah it would anyways anyway cock cock so there was there was a you know a whole mess of cock in this uh this magazine and uh it would in in uh the designers a junkyard, was it? It was a fair old junkyard in there.

I can't remember what this magazine was, probably just as well. It was, this would have been pre-emoji days, so they wouldn't be hidden behind, like, big aubergines, but maybe bananas or little stars or whatever. That kind of, stars are a bit tacky, aren't they? But whatever it was, the designers would overlay, would lay them gently atop the cock where i went to press and one time the whole magazine accidentally went to press with cocks completely out oh no someone had to like run down

there stop stop there's dick everywhere we'll all go. Yeah, they had to pulp quite a lot of genitals that day. Sorry, I've got to go in that carry-on style. I think the most prominent piece I ever did for Scarlet was, I got into a conversation with the editor, who's like one of my best mates in the world. We were talking about sex toys and how they'd managed to sort them out for women but men's sex toys were fucking shit and she said well why don't you do a review of some

sex toys and i said fuck it i've got a weekend to myself yeah why not a couple of days later a cardboard coffin arrives at the front door rammed with sex toys and she said yeah look there's 12 of them here can you do full reviews on all of them and i did and yeah by the end of it my bollocks look like christmas balloons in april the thing is about male sex toys that they've only just started to grope towards is when the rabbit came in it was brilliant because there was no envy if If your girlfriend had a fucking 12-inch dildo, you wouldn't be that happy about it. But with a rabbit, I know my knob hasn't got prongs going off on the side

and it doesn't rotate in the middle, so it's no competition to me. But with male sex toys, it was always, this has to look like a woman or a part of a woman. And no, no. I mean, there's a wank, there's's a shag surely there's got to be a third way for men don't you think i was one of the first people in the uk to have a bang on a flashlight you know that's something for the cv let me tell you if i was a bloke i would i would definitely want to go on one of those they they seem like they've been very well designed they're all right

you can't get over the feeling that you're you're shagging a pringles tube something that should be in a garage somewhere you know what i mean and they're a fucker to wash how do you clean them yeah i mean you unscrew it at the back yeah and then you pull out the uh the the pink bit and turn it inside out and run it under the tap yeah but you can't be bothered with that so sometimes you just shove the end of the tap into the fanny and turn it on. And the thing is, if you turn it on full blast, you get a big backwash of jizzy water all over your shirt, which defeats the object entirely.

There's also the fear that there's going to be a blackout and whoever you're living with is going to be looking around for a torch. And if you haven't washed it out, they unscrew it and go, oh, fucking hell, these batteries have leaked. It's one of those things where you look at it and you think, that's an ingenious design.

And it's only when the cleaning occurs. Like a George Foreman grill. Or a wrap, too. I got loads of bits of porn stars. I got Jenna Jameson's tits. You were supposed to get a soapy tip wank off it which was all well in theory but if you think about it you actually need someone else's hands around the tits so you can get a purchase on them and i couldn't exactly ask my mate so do

you mind laying down here and putting this on your chest so i can get a soapy tip wank you know here's a napkin for your chin that's not going to go down too well but it did end up being used as the letter rack in my old house so you know didn't go to waste yeah no i couldn't believe it what else was there no no i don't forget i even there was one that was just like a tube that jutted up and down so you felt like you were in an industrial milking machine sounds great i was just using it and I just thought to myself well fucking hell I am a man not a cow

and there was loads of things you could shove up your arse the world is full of things you can shove up your arse a disappointing film but a great Bonnie Tyler single as long as it's got a flared base go for your life somebody I knew who worked on a dirty magazine once gave me a...

It was like a midriff of a woman. Right. Just that. Yeah. And it had a supposedly anatomically accurate representation of the vagina and anus of a well-known porn star. Which, frankly, I don't believe that the woman in question had a vagina and anus that were both so small

you couldn't get your little finger in. I don't know what the thinking was when they made this. But it was the most grotesque thing you've ever seen. It looked like something they found under a pile of straw in Ed Gein's barn. You know what I mean? Really unpleasant. They brought it round.

I was having a housewarming party, and he just sort of put it down and went, in Ed Gein's barn. You know what I mean? Really unpleasant. He brought it round. I was having a housewarming party and he just sort of put it down and went, do you want to serve nibbles out of it? 64 pages. 60p. I never knew there was so much in it. So what was on telly today? Well, BBC One commences at 6am with a half hour CFAX

data blast. Then it's two hours and 25 minutes of BBC Breakfast News with Nicholas Whitchell and Laurie Mayer. After regional news in your area, it's open air. The points of view with phones programme hosted by Eamon Holmes. There's an argument about the Anglo-Irish agreement on Kilroy, followed by the news headlines, the New Fred and Barney show, Play Days, Henry's Cat, 5 to 11, the poetry giaconori for grown-ups, and more open air. After more news headlines, it's Daytime Live, the pebble mill at one in all but name and

time, followed by regional news in your area, the one o'clock news, neighbours and then it's over to the Cheltenham Festival to see Desert Orchid let everyone down and give the bookies a new Ford Granada each. Then Andy Peaches wedges himself into the broom cupboard and hits us off with Charlie Chalk, Banana Man, Jackanora, The New Yogi Bear Show, Dizzy Heights, Newsround, Blue Peter, a repeat of Dinner Time's Neighbours, The Six O'Clock News and they've just finished regional news in your area. BBC Two kicks off at 6.45 with an open university programme about shirts and coal, followed by the news, then Westminster, 45 minutes of yesterday's thrilling highlights from the Houses of Parliament, then a 20-minute CFAX data blast. After the schools and

colleges programmes cunningly rebranded as Daytime on 2 in order to suck in any unsuspecting housewives, the oldens and dollies, it's Finger Mouse, then a bit more Daytime on 2, then the news and then even more Daytime on 2. After more news, it's 45 minutes of non-stop red hothot live coverage from the House of Commons. Then they pick up the late afternoon session of the Cheltenham Festival. Des Lynham shows us how nice Tenerife is in holiday outings. Then Alan Corrin picks out some BBC Archive clips with Emma Freud in Plunder. That's followed by the fitness programme It Doesn't Have To Hurt, presented by June Whitfield, where she shows us how to keep in shape

in a workplace where robots and computers are doing everything. Then a mad American bloke in a plane follows Hurricane Gilbert as it cuts a swathe across Jamaica, and they're currently an hour into The Lavender Hill Mob, the 1951 Ealing comedy starring Alec Guinness and Stanley Holloway. ITV begins at 6 with TVAM, then it's After 9, The Pyramid Game, Regional News in Your Area, an argument in a provincial TV studio in The Time, The Place, This Morning, The Riddlers and Home and Away. After the news and regional news in your area,

Wish You Were Here takes us to Warwickshire and Maastricht. Then it's a country practice, win, lose or draw, regional news in your area and sons and daughters. Children's ITV piles in with Hot Dog, The Adventures of Teddy Ruxpin, Press Gang, and then it's time to watch the dullest teenagers ever do that cuntish hand jive in Blockbusters. After the news, it's a repeat of This After Those Home and Away, regional news in your area, and they've just started Emmerdale,

where Henry Wilkes is accused of murder murder channel 4 opens up at 6 with a channel 4 daily followed by 2 hours and 35 minutes of schools programs after the parliament program business daily and sesame street it's the film life begins at college the 1937 american football comedy film starring the Ritz brothers. That's followed by The Animal Movie, a cartoon about a lad who dosses about with some lions and that. Then It's Not on Sunday, the religious magazine show presented by Brian Redhead.

Countdown and a repeat of Treasure Hunt, where dads get to stare at Anna Carice's arse as it traverses through Northumberland. After Neat and Tidy, a comedy short about an Elvis fan on the run for a murder he didn't commit, it's a repeat of Kate and Ali,

and they've just started Channel 4 News. Oh, chaps, what's springing out at you there? What the fuck is Charlie Chalk, for starters? He was a little puppet clown. Oh. I was on the dole in 1999.

Yes! Henry's Cat was a good one. Yes. Finger Mouse was just nightmare fuel, wasn't it? There's just something really wrong about Finger Mouse. Oh, you reckon? Eh. You were an 80s child, Sarah.

You wouldn't understand it. I think by 1990 there was a sort of a layer of cobwebs on that programme that might have made it look a bit sinister fragments of some of these programmes do pop up in my video collages that I used to make at the time

I used to sit there late at night and in the day time basically whenever my mum and dad weren't around if I had nothing to do i'd make uh fragmented video collages of all the shit that was on tv uh since digitized can lend you one for the video playlist oh please do covering 1990 um yeah other than that i've got nothing to say about any of that because i heard nothing after the, there's an argument about the Anglo-Irish agreement on Kilroy. Yes.

I wouldn't even have put that on BBC minus one. Well, my dears, I do believe that we've laid a table of sorts for the episode of Top of the Pops we're about to get stuck into, don't you think? I'd say so. So I think we should leave it there and come back hard tomorrow and get stuck into it properly. So I'll just say thank you very much, Sarah B. Cheers. God bless you, Taylor Parks. I think we should leave it there and come back hard tomorrow and get stuck into it properly.

So I'll just say thank you very much, Sarah B. Cheers. God bless you, Taylor Parks. Yeah. My name's Al Needham, and I implore you to stay pop crazed. Chart music.