Chart Music: the Top Of The Pops Podcast - #67: June 9th 1977 – God Save Chart Music
Episode Date: August 26, 2022The latest episode of the podcast which asks; are the Wurzels going to float in an eternal hellscape of bodily waste and toenails for singing about turning bulls gay?This episode would have been perfe...ct for the other month while Shakin’ Jubilee was occurring – but no matter, Pop-Crazed Youngsters, because we’re going right back to the apogee of the Silby Joobs, which no-one ever said in 1977 because people weren’t as rubbish as they are today. Flags! Bunting! Street parties! Massive patriotic Yorkshire puddings! Blatant chart-rigging! Your hosts are a) giving thousand-yard stares over some sausage rolls and praying that their father isn’t going to run off with a Characterful Dad in a dress and some balloons up their shirt, b) communing with nature with a Jubilee coin in their grubby paw and c) watching some Caledonian ultra-violence outside a pub and pretending to be asleep under a Union Jack listening to their Dad banging on about Elvis again, but they all unite on Thursday evening to witness a Tony Blackburn – who has just invented Fathers 4 Justice – introduce a decidedly mixed bag of Pop treats. Musicwise, it’s a veritable trifle of Pop, layered with West Midlands Safari Park Hi-Life, Ormskirk Americana, Southampton Funk, and a thick, satisfying custard of Black American Pop. Frankie Miller pulls a mic stand about. The Pips warm up for a night at the rollerdisco. The Stranglers piss about and stomp on someone’s fingers. Demis Roussos lies to us about an island. Neil Innes drags TOTP into 1982. Legs & Co have to make something up on the spot. Bob Marley celebrates Jubilee week by telling us that Britain is rammel and we should clear out as soon as possible. The Wurzels bring us another unflinching examination of rural life. And we get ‘treated’ to Little Rabbit Arse. But there’s an elephant in bondage trousers in the room, isn’t there?Neil Kulkarni and Taylor Parkes join Al Needham for a gargantuan street party of critical analysis, with tangents ahoy – including a trawl through the Nationwide Jubilee Fair, 35 hours of Triangle, Demis Roussos’ £30,000 bed, Retirement Pop, the dark link between the Wurzels and the Radio 1 Roadshow, and cycling tips from Simon Bates’ massive floating head. If you’re a fan of the Monarchy, best skip the first hour – and yes, swearing a –plenty…Video Playlist | Subscribe | Facebook | Twitter | The Chart Music Wiki | Patreon*** Get your tickets for our live show HERE *** Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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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.
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?
Chart music.
Chart music.
Hey! Up you pop-craze 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 firm with me today are Neil Kulkarni and Taylor Parks.
Team ATV Land once again all up in the area, if you will.
Indeed.
So boys, the pop things, the interesting things, gizm.
Yeah, nothing pop and interesting. I've got a bollockingocking from the doctors so i've had to eliminate chocolate and crisps for my already joyless
existence oh no oh no man what am i going to do you're made of about 70 crisps on you i don't
know what's going to happen to me um because healthy alternatives no they're not going to
hit the spot so i've just had to eliminate them in a catholic sense um so yeah somewhat joyless at
the moment i've had a bit of work on bit of interviewing been employed unbelievably as an
expert advisor to a museum oh yeah it's bizarre south asian music museum in manchester um they
sent me all their exhibits and asked for my expert advice as if i know what the fuck i'm doing um but
that was interesting but to be honest with you the pop and interesting has been displaced by the sheer pornographic joy of watching the fall of Boris Johnson.
And, you know, I mean, round here, the sudden online rise of binly mega chippy to international prominence.
Yes.
Is that any good?
No, no.
It's mediocre chippy at best.
The Marina Fish Bar in Willanall, about a mile down the road,
or the Poseidon that serves the pig people of Charlesmoor are both much better.
But yeah, that was seriously fucking mad.
I mean, you know, City of Culture, which we've had for the past year,
had no impact whatsoever.
No.
Shifting public perceptions of commentary.
Binley Mega Chippy, biggest global sensation we've done since Wheelie Bin Cat Lady, really.
Oh, Lord. So lord so you know people seem
freaked out and delighted that we have a neighborhood called binley i mean thank christ
they didn't find out about mount nod or spawn end or paradise or any of these other weird
neighborhoods in coventry but yeah pop and interesting stuff thin on the ground to be
honest with you for me no taylor well graham green said that success is more dangerous than failure
which is easy for him to say after all those hits with the goodies but if it's true then all i can
say is few so i've been mostly at home you know finally filling in the gaps in my cultural education. So I've been watching some Game for a Laugh.
Right.
And let me tell you, they shot the wrong Kennedy.
And also I thought it was finally time to tackle one of the great long works.
I'm not getting any younger.
Well, I am, but not temporarily.
So I thought, okay, now's the time.
And so it was between La Recherche du Temps Perdu,
Le Mort d'Arthur, Joseph and His Brothers by Thomas Mann,
and Triangle, the ill-fated early 80s BBC soap opera.
Yes, sailor!
Sailor Passenger Ferry.
So I tossed two coins and spent the last month or so really trying to savor the
nuance of triangle it's a series that's become a kind of one joke aside in shit lazy tv programs
about shit lazy tv programs and i thought well there must be more to it than this. So I watched the whole of series one, which was 26 episodes.
Now on the series two of three of this nautical odyssey.
And basically it's everything you'd expect from a program shot on video
aboard a ferry that sails between Felixstowe, Gothenburg and Amsterdam
over and over again.
You've got non-actors shouting over the sound of the ship's engines,
curtains drawn against the glaring grey void outside,
high drama in parked estate cars on rainy, wet dockside concrete in Suffolk,
all shot like an Aventis management training video
or the dialogue scenes in a Learn French programme
that went out at 7.40am on a Sunday,
but presented as primetime entertainment,
like practically every scene starts off like,
hello, Mr Exposition, hello, Mr Infodump.
So what's been going on then?
It's amazing.
After 35 episodes of this, just nothing in the universe seems to matter anymore
except this life on the low seas.
Knock it all you want, Taylor, but no triangle, no El Dorado.
And where would we be as a nation?
It's true.
I mean, people are familiar with triangles an easy gag right like everybody knows like the first episode starts with kate
omara super milf um seven years younger than i am now i think it would practically be cradle
snatching taylor faircloth sunbathing in a bikini on deck which obviously sounded great in a production meeting
but of course they're shooting in the middle of the picturesque north sea in late autumn and they
still had to go through with it it all became a running joke for terry wogan and all this sort
of stuff but it's like once you get past that you discover the deeper truths concealed within
like the archaeologists sifting through the Roman rubbish dump.
You know, you get that true insight into this world of blue blazers and grey slacks,
you know, where a lettuce and radish salad with thickly buttered white bread
and a glass of just juice is health food.
and a glass of just juice is health food you know your lunchtime routine might be uh light ale bacon rolls and a game of squash it's britain trying to soup itself up you know away
from the the shabby egalitarian 70s and into uh an exciting euro-american future but finding that
it had nowhere to go it was always for me let down by
the actual boat itself that show yeah because kate omara undeniably glamorous but the boat just
looked like a herring trawler or something yeah it didn't look in any way kind of somewhere you'd
want to be yeah and it's a shame because as a kid i loved cross-channel ferries like the loved is
too weak a word they were magical to me it because it was a rupture in
everyday life getting on one of those things especially if you're from kidderminster which
is like virtually the furthest point in britain from the sea but you get on one of those things
and set sail it was like going into space that this this boat might as well have been apollo 11
you know i mean if apollo 11 had had a track and field machine.
It's like your entire experience of the world
just changed the moment you stepped aboard
into this alternative universe.
Yeah, I would have liked a bit more of that spirit
in Triangle, to be honest, really.
But anyway, it'll all be in my forthcoming book,
Triangle, the Unfolding Text. really you know but anyway it'll all be in my forthcoming book triangle the unfolding text
but having basically having now absorbed close to 35 hours of triangle i can say with some
measure of authority that they should have called this program ship of cunts or possibly the boat
that sucked um it's just never go. Just never go back.
Never, never go back.
But it's, no, no, I know.
Do you remember that thrill of standing on deck
and the North Sea wind was blowing so hard
you could just lean into it
and it would keep you upright.
Oh, beautiful.
Just happier, simpler times, you know.
The pleasure you could take from simple things
like 30 tonnes of floating metal with triple controllable pitch propellers, three Solzer ZA40s and an inaccessible club class lounge sloping towards Boulogne. being on a ferry off the coast of Scotland. And seeing the proud prow of this boat completely bisect a jellyfish in the water.
What a delightful sight that was.
It was so satisfying.
Yeah.
I tell you what, though,
Series 2 of Triangle was much worse than Series 1.
For a start, Kate O'Mara's not in it.
So, like, I mean, what's...
What? No!
They've got a new character, which is like a rich old lady.
Does she troll up about in a bikini?
Alas, no, but she's got a...
Well, what's the point of it?
She's got a little yappy dog.
And the point is that she lives on the boat.
She's like a permanent passenger.
Like, as if it's a cruise liner.
Imagine being rich and choosing to live on a boat
that sails between Felixstowe, Gothenburg and Amsterdam.
Like, she just loves that bluish-grey half-light
and she's got a thing about sleeping in very narrow beds.
I don't know why she's got a dog on there as well.
She's got this fucking dog running around.
Yeah, yeah, bounces ball on deck, bounces over the railingsings oh well i've got something that's very pop and extremely interesting in case you've not
heard chart music is making its first ever live appearance at the london podcast festival fucking
hell we announced it first to the pop craze Patreon people and the day after we sold it right out on day one.
It's not that.
But the good people at King's Place have opened up the balconies
and tickets are still available.
So sit tight, listen keenly.
King's Place, King's Cross, Saturday, September the 17th at 2pm.
Ticket price £12.50 plus 10% booking fee. And
it's going to be me and the London
contingent of Chart Music. So that's
David, Sarah and Taylor.
And yes, we're going to attempt to break
down an episode of Top of the Pops in
90 minutes because we're
fucking stupid.
I won't mention which one it is yet, but
we've looked at it and it's doable
isn't it Taylor? Yeah, thanks. Back to the early days it and it's doable, isn't it, Taylor? Yeah.
Thanks.
Back to the early days where the podcast was about an hour and a half long.
Yeah.
What are you going to do about all the sort of bootleg merch shitehawks who are going
to be outside, you know, with their split up scarves and stuff?
Well, arms are going to be broken, aren't they?
Yeah, we've reanimated Peter Grant.
He's just going to just stride around in an open neck shirt,
patting a baseball bat against his open bum.
Yeah, afterwards, because it finishes at about half past three,
we can all go to the pub, and if you're really nice,
I'll let you have a feel of me Judy Zook sat in tour jacket.
How's that?
Pop crazy youngsters.
How can you resist?
A couple of questions that need to be answered.
Yes, we will be recording it and putting it on
patreon as for a live cast don't know yet and yes we will be attempting to sell merch our own merch
official chart music yeah none of these t-shirts with the chart music logo over a picture of
stewart mcconaughey and andrew collins as far as tickets go,
there's,
I don't know,
let's ask future Al,
shall we?
Greetings,
people of chart music
slightly past.
This is Al
of the near future.
At present,
I can report
that there are
three seats available
in the stage balcony and available in the stage balcony
And 37 in the main balcony
So I command you to buy all the remaining tickets
Before B.A. Robertson and Toya do
And they lock balloons full of piss down on us
Oh, an owl of the past
Well done for doing all the merch in the wrong dimensions,
meaning I have to spend the entire weekend doing them properly, you thick twat.
Anyway, chart music live.
Tickets still available.
You can do it right now, please.
You can do it right now, please Well, thanks very much, Al of the very near future
And fuck you too, you guys
What's the weather like?
So yeah, here's what you need to do right now
Get your arse over to bit.ly slash chartmusiclive
And you, yes you, could be in the same room as some of us for a bit.
It's going to be mental, because you've got people travelling.
I know.
A long way for this, it's brilliant.
I know, and it's frightening.
I'm not going to lie to you, mate, I'm shitting myself.
What happens when they see me?
And they've got this image in their head of what I look like,
and just be totally disappointed.
I'm terrified that the fucking audience are just going to get up after three minutes
and go to the bar at the back and ask for angela and you're going to look up whilst you're doing it
and there's going to be like a sea of phones out there all taking photos and stuff yeah i want to
say that now don't hold your phones up all the way through it please just live in the moment
but yeah it's something we've we've put off i put off for fucking ages. But you know what, sod it.
Let's just do the fucking thing.
And yes, Neil, the next one we do will be in the provinces.
And yes, you and Simon will get your go.
Oh, fab.
Great. Oh, the other pop and interesting thing of late is that I have treated myself to my first bike since 1981.
And I'm fucking loving the shit out of it it's great brilliant yeah i just
got bored of being a fat cunt sat at a fucking desk looking at a computer like i'm doing right
now and i wanted to lose a bit of weight but you know me i'd rather go to a scat club for the
elderly than go to the gym and one of my biggest regrets of lockdown was that why didn't i get a
bike and claim the empty streets of Nottingham for myself?
You can say it's my midlife crisis,
but instead of arsing around in a sports car
and trying to relive the 20s that I didn't have and wouldn't want anyway,
now I want to be fucking nine again, man.
I just want to go out and just bomb around the streets all day long.
What sort of bike is it, Al?
Is it, like, well, chunky?
Or is it, like, well, racer-like?
How many gears has it got and all that?
It's an e-bike, of course.
You still have to pedal.
Yeah, yeah.
But you can touch a button
and you can get up hills
without having to get off your bike
and push it up
and have people laugh at you.
Has it got, like,
eight massive long wing mirrors
on each side coming out?
No.
No, no, not yet.
Now, obviously,
because it's been so fucking long and the roads
are so fucking dangerous i've been very nervous to go i'm not going to be one of these cunts who
ride on the pavement because i fucking hate them but i've been really worried about going out on
the road and been casting about for advice and what better pool of experts are there to teach me the ways of two wheels than the Radio 1 DJs of the mid-eighties?
Chaps, I'm going to send you something right now.
Okay.
Say what you see.
The Radio 1 Guide to Pedal Power.
A poster which was issued by the Department of Transport,
which was sponsored by Motorcraft Ford transport which was sponsored by motocraft
ford illustrator by sandy james of tiger with the real johnny cougar's face at the bottom
and packed with tips on bicycle safety from some of the radio one djs of the era who
happened to appear as ghostly disembodied heads who float over which i think is a bit dangerous but let's go through it
shall we so kid jensen the modicum of common sense as always tells us to keep that bike in proper
shape you know check the chain and the spokes and the lights and the tires and accompanied by an
image of what looks like billy dane sorting his bike out which is nice mike reads in his reactor light repeat phase here isn't it
yeah yeah telling kids to read the highway code mike smith what's he saying to the youth don't
risk it the typical mike smith message isn't it just don't risk it whatever it is
no chances instead of moving to the center of a busy road to turn right
it's often safer to stop on the left-hand side
and cower on the pavement like a bitch, essentially.
Which is completely wrong now, apparently.
I think the highway code encourages you to go in the middle of the road.
No, I think you're right there.
Mike Smith also says,
remember, a helicopter is actually a safer way.
Yes!
Or, on to the next image.
Why is Peter Powell in full in full woo hey mode isn't
he yeah he's delighted isn't he practice cuts out all sorts of wobblers basically telling kids to
just fuck about on the playground get off the fucking road and out of my way essentially i saw
peter powell in a 1983 top of the pops the other day he didn't half look
middle-aged fast it's like yeah because you know like he's all sort of bubbly and curly in the late
70s ones someone from 1983 looks like grant shapps oh he's always had a bit of grant shapps about him
which is weird actually because grant shapps also looks like anthea turner yeah on to the next panel why it's steve wright telling us to dress up
and get crazy with fluorescent or bright clothing and of course who else but pig wanker general
that's a really disturbing image isn't it yeah yeah why uh am i wrong i've not seen him without
glasses on before that i'm not used to that look at all no he almost looks like
he's leering he's telling the you let's have lots of good clear signals telling others exactly what
you're going to do but that doesn't fucking matter to the driver behind the bike because
he's looking at the terrifying sight of simon bates's massive edge veering for him man yeah he
does not suit not wearing spectacles, that man. No.
That should never happen again.
On to the next one.
Andy Peebles tells us to watch your backs.
Yeah.
Check behind.
That's essential.
Whenever you start or make a turn or move out to overtake,
watch your back.
Andy Peebles here looking like a pornographer.
Yes, he is.
Very seedy picture of Andy Peebles. He's always looked seedy, hasn't he, Peebles here looking like a pornographer. Yes. Very seedy picture of Andy Peebles.
He's always looked seedy, hasn't he, Peebles?
Yeah.
And finally, who else but John Peel,
who tells us that the others may be crazy,
but there's no need for you to be.
Get yourself fully trained to ride a bike properly.
And that's accompanied by an image
of what looks like a really satanic looking Dracula in a Volvo.
About to plough into poor old Billy Dane.
Yeah, it's like a small scale sort of remake of Spielberg's Jewel going on.
Yes, without the tarantulas.
Draculas like Volvos.
Department of Transport, Motorcraft Ford, Johnny Cougar,
and Radio 1.
Putting the youth right.
It's interesting to note who isn't on that.
I'm putting this at about 1984, 1985,
don't you think?
Yeah, yeah.
No Travis.
He fucking hates cyclists, obviously.
No Janice either.
No, we don't.
No, because what would she say?
Get some nice pink tassels on your handlebars and boys will like you, no doubt.
Do you think any of the people in this poster have actually ridden a bike since they got out of short trousers?
I don't know if any of them have ever ridden a bike at all.
The important advice for bike riders at that age and at that time is how to avoid the saddle hitting your head when you come over the crossbars and stuff like that.
There's none of that here.
No.
Can you do wheelies on your bike, Al wouldn't dare try it's become a sort of male
right now it's just a thing boys do they just ride around with a constant wheelie it's like
pre-epism in bike form yes i think bikes are designed to do that whereas i don't know hefting
a grifter wheel off the ground oh no if you weren't jeff capes you couldn't do that oh yeah
notes and corrections
from the previous episode we mentioned when we talked about the inspire of carpets how they were
in the dance charts and we cast dispersions and scoffed at it well yeah obviously it was a remix
of this is how it feels isn't it and if it's the one that i've heard it's fucking cat shit really
yeah it's just some generic biff boff
and you have to listen for about five and a half minutes before um tom hingley comes in and does a
bit of singing so yeah and secondly when we covered new kids on the block we assumed that
that t-shirt that ken out of new kids on the was wearing, was South Today as a tribute to the BBC regional show.
No, no, no, no, no.
You're saying it wasn't?
It was actually, and thanks to an unknown pop craze youngster who chipped in when he was given as a five-star review,
which you can also do, pop craze youngsters, it's Youth of Today, the hardcore band of the late 80s, early 90s.
One of the forerunners of the straight edge movement.
Oh, I thought you meant it was a promotional T-shirt
for the musical youth single.
It's a judgment time, sang bong, bong, bong, ayo.
Anyway, it's time as always to give thanks and praise
to the true heroes of chart music,
the new batch of pop craze Patreons.
And in the $5 section this week, we have...
Leighton Crook.
Bongo Inferno.
Matthew Trash.
Bexter.
Michael Murphy.
Peter Moore.
Pete Boardman.
And Phil Robinson.
Thank you, babies.
Cheers.
Lovely people.
And in the $3 section, we have Matt D, Hannah Wood, Simon Banner,
Jeff Lloyd, Duncan Condé, Two Meter Wingspan,
Jim Tomlinson, Mark Colclough, and Matthew Evans.
Oh, you are the wind beneath our wings.
You are the wind beneath our wings.
Oh, and Gavin Montgomery, Denise King, Kat and Clive Parry just jacked it right up this month.
Oh, bless their hearts.
You get special treatment.
And of course, one thing that all Patreon members get to do that you cheapskates out there can't is jig and a rig and a reconfig the brand new chart music top ten.
Shall we, boys?
Yeah.
Hit the fucking music!
We've said goodbye to mini whores, the worst dressed homosexual in the Castro,
The worst dressed homosexual in the Castro Heat big cunt and semiotic trousers
Which means two up, four down
Four new entries and a brand new number one
Whoa, bloody hell
The former number one drops seven places from number three to number ten
Two Ronnies, one cup
New entry at number nine for Arse to Mouth.
Down two places from number six to number eight,
Rock Expert, David Sturlabs.
It's a three-place drop from number four to number seven for Bomberdog.
But it's a three- place jump for this week's
number 6. The Banked
Cunts Who Aren't Fucking Real.
Into the
top 5 and they're up three places
from number 8 to number
5. Here
comes
Jizzum.
A new entry straight in at number
4 for Cliffy White Boy and DJ Mr. Bronson.
Top three time and it's a one place drop for That Dog's Dead Now.
Straight in at number two, my fucking car.
Which means...
The highest new entry straight in at number one, the Airbnb 52s.
Oh, my days, boys, what a chance.
What a time to be alive.
Exciting movement up at the top there.
Let's just go through those new entries, shall we?
Arse to mouth, and that's a Roman, too, of course.
Like soul to soul, but a bit fisty.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Cliffy Whiteboy and DJ Mr. Bronson proves once again
that there's always been a dance element to the chart music top ten.
Yeah.
My fucking car is obviously a 90s indie landfill.
And the Airbnb 52 speaks for itself really, doesn't it?
It does.
So, Pop Craze youngsters,
if you're still holding back on dobbing in your subs to chart music,
now is the time to get things right.
Now is the time to see the light.
You get them fingers, you set them up on the keyboard,
you mash, mash, mash patreon.com slash chart music and...
Hang on, let me demonstrate.
You get that money.
Hear it?
You pull open this G-string right here.
And you hear that?
I'm jingling, baby.
This is the first radio ad you can smell.
The new Cinnabon pull apart only at Wendy's.
It's ooey gooey and just five bucks with a small coffee all day long.
Taxes extra at participating Wendy's until May 5th.
Terms and conditions apply.
It's for you.
So this episode, Pop Craze Youngsters, really should have been the last episode,
but it didn't cross my mind until it was too late,
due to me being a big thick bellend of a man.
Because this time, we're going all the way back to June the 9th, 1977.
Yes, Pop Craze Youngsters, Jubilee Week.
Proper Jubilee Week.
Because when you say the Jubilee, you always mean the silver jubilee
you know i mean yeah yeah just like the war is the war that jubilee is the jubilee yeah and it
wasn't this fucking shitty recent one that got in the way of everything indeed indeed so how did you
spend shaking jubilee because you didn't mention it in the pop and interesting things. Can't imagine why. Just
tramadol, I think. I mean, the
difference is, with the
platyjewbs... Oh, that word's
banned. That phrase is
banned, Neil. Okay, okay. I don't recall
anybody calling it the silbyjewbs
in 1977, because
we're a proper people and not cunts.
A country of adults. Yes!
Like fucking thick adults, but adults nonetheless.
I mean, the thing is, of course, with the Platinum Jubilee, you could ignore it.
Yes.
And only let it percolate in for you to take the piss out of it.
Whereas when you're a kid, it wasn't quite so simple.
I mean, what I caught, you know, is as usual, you know, this myth that we have in this country,
oh, we do pageantry well yeah
it's the old myth we don't actually we do it fairly poorly we do it in a way that reflects
our national character really kind of half-assed and totally embarrassing yes and and what kind
of disgusted me about the bits that i did see was the blending in of all that bloody wokeness
yes kids pretending to be a river with flags emblazoned with their worries about climate
change i mean for fuck's sake i would rather have had yeah that's a north korean style statement of
mass fealty to the crown really perhaps a procession past the queen and and king tampax
and prince nonce with with kids crawling on the knees yeah nonce andrew and it was just way too
touchy-feely and the only genuinely genuinely moving moment was Boris Johnson getting booed.
Yes.
Oh, that made me proud.
That was sweet.
But, you know, I mean, during the original coronation in 52,
when the cameramen and the presenters went on lunch that day,
they didn't bother putting anything on.
They just had a shot of the uni and Jack flapping for an hour in total silence.
Part of me would have slightly preferred that
or something similar you know like just just a flag just for three days on bbc one yeah with a
faint face on shot of the queen looking like a miserable cow bag as normal but with infinitesimal
slowness yeah it going from the center of the flag right up to her eyeballs um that would have
been much better than this sort of mawkish,
cringeworthy weekend of national shame.
But hey-ho, yeah, I avoided it because you could.
But 1977, oh, no, no, no, no, no.
Proper jubilee went on all fucking year.
And this is the absolute pinnacle of the cap doffing, isn't it?
We're two days removed from the official day of celebration
and the street parties and the non-stop ramming of the Royal S days removed from the official day of celebration and the street
parties and the non-stop ramming of the royal scepter up the arse of the nation i mean i was
nine years old when all this went down and it was the first time in my life where patriotism had
reared its ugly head seeing union jacks everywhere seemed like an absolute novelty as opposed to
nowadays where the union jack's just a fucking logo
on a bag of carrots.
You know what I mean?
Yeah, yeah.
It wasn't the idea so much that,
oh, we're a great country
and all this kind of stuff.
It was like, oh, it's the mid-70s.
Let's have some kind of a celebration.
Let's do something.
Yeah, I know what you mean.
It's like when Argentina used to win the World Cup
and everyone was cheering.
They were going like, but aren't you worried the It's like when Argentina used to win the World Cup and everyone was cheering. They were going like,
but aren't you worried the dictatorship
views it as propaganda and all that?
And they're like, yes.
No, yeah, it's our football team just won the World Cup.
People are able to separate that a bit more.
I'm not sure if you can do that in Britain now,
unfortunately.
It doesn't seem possible to do, you know.
No, no.
And that flag has just become completely corrupted by BNP, NF, FRAJ,
whoever's been waving it.
Yeah.
Razorlight included.
It's funny, though, isn't it?
Like, a few years ago, it seemed like it had become old hat
and almost embarrassing to talk about how appalling the royal family are
as an institution and as a reality because it was
pretty much taken as read yeah but you know yet another consequence of the upper middle class
colonization of culture that's gone out of the window now you know and people can't see it for
what it is which is basically the kind of uncivilized illogical idolatry the existence of which in other countries the
british used as justification for conquering half the world to civilize them out of these uh
backwards ways but who will civilize the civilizers it's uh i wish i could say that it astonished me
that we're still having conversations like this you know but what can you
i mean what's that quote you can tell a lot about a country which has a royal mint and a national
debt um you think people would catch on but it doesn't really surprise me because it's part of
the erasure of class consciousness or class awareness and people now seem genuinely unaware of the fact that the purpose of the royal
family is to enshrine and personify the british class system and to nail the entire country by
the bollocks to the church of england you know which is a an appropriately made up religion
which only exists in the first place for the convenience of a narcissist psychopath serial
killer who's also one of the great icons of our nation and it's just another thing you're expected
to pledge loyalty to as if it were real and people wonder why post-truth politics caught on so quickly
in this country when the the basics have been embedded in
the national psyche for centuries you know this solemn faith in things that are self-evidently
not true like the inherent superiority of what clearly some of the worst people in the country
it's like you know how in most countries where fascism took off it was effectively the
political arm of the catholic church um because fascism needs a mystical glue to hold it together
to persuade people to participate in their own degradation and it has to be something that's already wedged deep into the
national psyche right something pre-existing and the quasi-mystical blind faith aspects of
catholicism work for that in latin countries and in germany they use like blood and soil myths and
ancient germanic horseshit well if you listen to followers of mosley in this country the
old buf people there's a great radio documentary called um potter is fascists about uh mosley
supporters in stoke-on-trent and they went and interviewed a load of old geezers who were you
know and the one thing they all said was oh he was a gentleman sir oswald he wasn't like us we had
faith in him because he was a gentleman because the british equivalent of these fascist enabling
myths is the class system yeah and it never ends you know it never ends because even in times of
mass cynicism the royal family is the one institution about which the media is just expected to lie.
It's not optional.
Like Michael Fagan broke into the Queen's bedroom.
And for years, we're told that she was amazing.
She was so brave, so utterly calm and composed.
So ruddy, bloody brave.
She just talked him down.
So ruddy, bloody brave.
She just talked him down.
And yeah, it's just like how Kim Jong-il got a hole in one the first time he played golf.
All those ancient Eastern rulers where historians say, well, all we know about him from the historical record is that he was nine feet tall and he once ripped a tiger apart with his bare hands.
You know, it's like maybe not and i feel embarrassed to say this stuff because for people of my generation it's so fucking obvious but
it's barely said these days and this perception persists of the royals is purely a ceremonial
thing as well with no power you know or like even a bulwark against extreme politics taking hold in
this country which you know would you want a president blair then yeah whereas of course
anyone who knows anything about history could tell you exactly what would have happened if
the fascists had taken hold in this country i don't think the royal family would have been
a bulwark against them as far as i can see the only extreme viewpoint against which the monarchy is a
bulwark is the viewpoint that we should abolish the monarchy and of course you know when you
actually look at it it's not purely ceremonial there's countless examples down the years of the
royals abusing queen's consent you know where she has to wave through every law that goes through
parliament to secure exceptions for themselves especially to equality
and diversity laws anybody who was not white was not employed by the palace in any role in which
the royals themselves had to see them until surprisingly recently and they tampered with the
2010 equality act along those lines as well which was also something barely reported in the papers
you know and that's before you even get to a fucking jug-eared half-wit of a son with these
these henry root level letters you know leaning on various public bodies about architecture and
the value of homeopathy you know because of course like all pampered celebrities they're enthralled
to quacks and too fucking stupid to read a book is another consequence partly of the upper middle
class colonization of culture yeah this idea that it's a harmless lark or something to be proud of
in some unspecified sense you know like recently all the the posh kid pubs and cafs around where i live in london
all had the union jack bunting up you know here it is fucking bunting um and it's like wannabe
cool kids you know like celebrating the platy jubes my life fucking i did leslie crowther die
for this taylor stop that first public Taylor, stop that. First public warning.
I do think there is a class split in this, though, Taylor,
because like you were saying about the sort of middle-class kids,
you know, unironically waving Union Jacks and stuff,
I do think for a whole load of kids at the moment,
it is a protection racket set up around the nonce.
That is the way that they think about the royal family.
They think about Andrew.
I think that Andrew thing has cut through a bit on social media quite a lot so i think that's an awful lot but the idea
of not having a royal family just does not occur um at the same time do you know i mean it's just
they do so much for business and tourism because no one ever goes to fucking cairo or paris anymore
since they got rid of their royal family yeah and people go on about that oh they do so much
for tourism and it's like what that oh they do so much for tourism
and it's like what so do they stand in the fucking arrivals lounge at heathrow airport giving out
fucking lemonade and a sticky bun singing here we are again like the cast of i.d.i no fuck off
you get more tourists if they weren't about because it could stop the night in buckingham palace
yeah yeah i told i was watching the other day uh do you remember that thing monarchy the nation decides it was a big studio debate on itv in uh 1997 probably the peak of the
of the unpopularity of the monarchy so they have a big studio debate and a phone-in vote whether
you should have a monarchy or not and the people of britain voted in the yeah you should have a
monarchy but it was only like 60 something percent it was i think a lot closer than it would be now
and as uh something in the papers at the time pointed out yeah look at what was on the other
side food and drink brookside and harry enfield show or something so there's probably not that
many people watching it but it was famously a complete debacle i mean people should watch this to be reminded that social media makes things worse
and more visible but it doesn't change what britain has always been like was it full of angry
loud people who don't know what they're on about so there's this massive out of control studio
audience on this program all bellowing and making animal noises
like from both sides all of them just waiting for the internet to be invented so they don't have to
leave their homes anymore and it's all in this 90s nuclear brightness as well sort of like terry
venables sports jacket eye assault you know brash new britain and it's all exactly what you would expect from
a fucking pantomime like this right like there's people like frederick forsyth you know just
lecturing and barking at the mob like literally just pointing at the audience and shouting at
them you know like people like peter hitchens and bernard ingham trying to be a blunt overbearing
yorkshire patriarch,
but he's just too squeaky and he's got a big Muppet foam face, you know.
And then on the other side, you've got like,
sort of a few sort of beard and tie socialists, you know,
like some like lunatics shouting.
And there's this guy, he's like Captain Tom, OG, you know what I mean?
Like, after the war, he met with some Russians
and they explained it all to him, you know.
Jesus.
It's just horrible.
Max Clifford turns up to add a bit of gravitas.
Oh, gravitas.
Geoffrey Archer comes on, right,
trying to do the Boris Johnson bit,
but with no charisma, right?
It's like a dry run for johnson
he's doing this are you you boring gray republicans you all hate fun off with your heads you know but
while looking like the least fun mammal on earth it keeps coming up on screen ring this number for
yes and this number for no you know it's like I'm not saying they're trying to destroy all nuance
for a sensationalistic TV experience,
but it might as well have been, you know, which is better, red or blue?
Yes.
Call or text now, £19 a second.
And it's just, yeah, it's just Burke's screaming, right?
And as you can imagine, all the pro-roy royal ones are completely unheeded but it's
the point is you watch it you see these absolute lunatics screaming and you think okay a lot of
these people are now dead but if you restage this today it'll be exactly the same but just with
these people replaced by a load of old punks and new romantics you know it's like
even after all these years people still act like the next generation is going to be the one that
saves the world and puts everything right you know as the old fools die off yeah how's that been
working for the last hundred years anyway the final result of this is like yeah we should have
a royal family it's been decided
and the way they big it up and they've got newspaper editors coming on live links telling
you what the front page is going to be the next day like as if it's legally binding as if it had
gone the other way the queen was going well it is with great respect that we bow to the wishes of
the itv viewers but the right always set up the debate like that,
that they have a joy for life and the left hate life.
Yeah, it's the whole thing.
It's exactly the same as what happens now.
It's just in those days,
everyone involved was a little less sophisticated at being a cunt.
And of course, it's going to get sticky when the Queen dies because...
Oh, man, the psychological blow to this country is going to be fucking immense.
You know those posts that people share on Facebook
where people take the dogs out to the beach
and then feed them a massive Flintstones-sized steak
with all the trimmings before they go off and put the dog down?
That's what the Platinum Jubilee was like.
You know what I mean?
It was.
She's going now.
This is her last chance.
And she didn't even turn up either.
No.
Couldn't even be asked.
I don't blame her.
Yeah.
But it's going to be really tricky
because despite all the racist remarks
and the paedophilia
and the fact that the Queen is shortly to receive
tens of millions of pounds from the public purse,
even in the middle of the current
cost of living crisis because of a law that david cameron made that said the queen's income cannot
decrease regardless of the economic state of the nation just delightful things like that but despite
all of this there's still this idea that the queen at least is somehow fundamentally a good person yeah she's
the good one yeah yeah you hear people saying this i don't like the rules but i do respect the queen
just based on thin air right it used to happen with the queen mother like a viciously anti-semitic
quasi-fascist with a sincere belief in bloodlines as the measure of human worth i think oh isn't she lovely though
lovely old lady and this still goes on with the queen you know do you remember after brexit you
heard like liberals and and saying oh maybe the queen will step in to save the country from this
oh she actually wore a blue and yellow hat no it's the same queen who oversees the extra private education given to
young royals and young people marrying into the family where they have to go and sit in a room
with these specially brought in hand-picked very right-wing historians to tell them imperialist
lies about royal history and the importance of the crown in the greatness of the nation something
i only found out recently during the miners strike wives of striking miners petitioned the queen
because they just assumed that she would be on their side because of their perception of her
fundamental belief in fair play and decency we wonder why we live in a country that's infantilized at every
level do you know what i mean so we live in a country where people respond to their sports team
winning by pulling a face like someone's just shot their nan and they're out for revenge it's just a
weird place isn't it yeah i think the royal family's got a big part to play in this i say bring back the days when these fuckers died
at 31 from eating a surfeit of lampreys but we have one chance we fucking blew it fucking cromwell
isn't it like oh thanks for that yeah let's cancel christmas and outlaw fun would really make people
think republic's great yeah it's a shame that in it
it's such a shame you bought encrusted lunatic still the music's all right in this episode isn't
it well some of it it's a proper mixed bag in it a proper grab bag yeah a lot of stuff on this
episode's not even in the charts yet and and some of it won't be can't understand that it's a really
weird episode of top of the pops and i kind I kind of think the producers sense that, you know,
Jubilee fatigue was perhaps setting in,
especially among young people.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So, yeah, they sort of swerve it a little bit,
include it a little bit,
and consequently a very, very odd mix of music.
Yeah.
As tonight's host said in a Daily Mail interview
a couple of years ago,
the best thing about Top of the Pops was you couldn't get on it if you weren't in the charts.
Hmm.
Onward!
Radio 1 News
In the news this week,
the train siege outside the village of De Punt in Holland by South Moluccan nationalists is in its 18th day,
ending two days later with a counter-terrorist attack, which kills two hostages and six hijackers.
Idi Amin has threatened to gate-crash the Commonwealth Conference, which is taking place this week in london with the home office declaring he'll be
detained at whatever airport he arrives at and sent back on the next plane after he tries to
get a crog on president mabuto of zaire's plane and he's turned down he gives up and crashes around
colonel gaddafi's house instead a group of six-form girls in Leicester who were caught drinking in a pub have protested against sexual inequality by writing a letter to the county education board which accused their headmaster of contravening the Sex Discrimination Act by not caning them, like he did to their male counterparts. an estimated 10 000 scotland fans go mental after they beat england 2-1 in the home international
at wembley ripping down the goal posts and causing 18 000 pounds worth of damage to the
pitch fucking hell that was the most punk thing i ever saw in 1977 oh great days great yeah yeah
meanwhile england have gone straight on to their summer tour of South America
without manager Don Reaver,
who has gone to Helsinki to see Finland lose 3-0 to Italy.
But while England hold Brazil to a goalless draw,
he's secretly nipped off to Dubai to take a big fat check off the United Arab Emirates
to manage their national team.
A Led Zeppelin gig in Tampa is cancelled after 11 minutes due to torrential rain.
And when it was announced that the band wouldn't be returning,
an estimated 4,000 fans stormed the stage and go all Scotland.
George Harrison and Patti Boyd have got divorced today.
Kevin Keegan has been transferred to Hamburger SV for half a million pounds.
Agnetha and Bjorn of ABBA have announced that they're having a second baby.
But the big news this week is that the country has gone jubilee mad.
Chefs at the Jester Hotel in Leeds have made a record-breaking Yorkshire pudding
measuring 16 foot by 3 and 3 quarter foot, which has been dyed into a Union Jack.
Oh, God.
There's something grotesque about that.
That ain't right.
A Mr. and Mrs. Lee have named their daughter Juby.
Spelt J-U-B-I.
It'll never date.
The winner of a competition for the best way to commemorate
the year in nationwide has suggested that we tow massive chunks of great britain out to sea
and terraform the country into the shape of the queen's head
bonfires are going off all across the land the sunday mirror has started a campaign to reward the European Cup winners by
renaming them Royal Liverpool
FC.
Of all the fucking clubs. And even the
Queen's gone a bit mad by deciding
to make Derby a city
for a laugh.
Royal Liverpool
FC. Good lord.
Because man you, that year's
cup final they went out with Jubilee
didn't they
on their shirts
I seem to recall
did they
yeah
just below the
Man U logo
on their shirts
for the 77 cut final
it said
yeah it had like
they'd sewn in
some silver Jubilee
emblem
sycophants
yeah no doubt
under immense pressure
from the
equally
royal crazy
people of manchester
but yeah this is it this is the absolute pinnacle of all the jubilee nonsense and we've been
fortunate enough to have a taste of that trifle if you will haven't we oh we have oh yes we went
on the dark web and we pulled out the nationwide Jubilee Fair.
It's so good, isn't it?
It's a remarkable document of those times.
Broadcast two days previously, just before all the royal balcony waving shit.
Let's go through it.
It's mad.
It's mad.
The moment I started watching it, I mean, I did get that familiar feeling of looking for an exit,
you know, wondering how long this was going to last,
the pull to see that it's like 90 minutes of this shit.
But I started finding it strangely compelling.
It's a different country, isn't it?
Sort of.
It is.
And not just because steadily I found myself totally seduced and falling in love with Valerie Singleton for the first time, but partly because of the juxtaposition of the show.
You know, it's got these strange studio pieces.
Big chunk of pride time with so
many audience members milling about yes but i started enjoying it for when it went to the streets
and just spoke to these grassy eyed flag shagging pricks it was actually strangely reassuring to see
that the great shittest public who celebrate these things they've always been these docile
chirpy cunts much as they are now so, it's a mental hour and a half.
Yeah, it's got to be one of the finest things
ever broadcast during the golden age
of British television.
It's a fitting tribute
to our bejeweled superiors.
Yeah, it's 90 minutes of,
it's like a studio full of scum,
like real bank holiday peasants.
And it's like most celebrations of royal occasions,
it really ends up being a festival of a certain kind of Britishness.
Yeah.
Plain cotton underwear, curled up white bread corned beef sandwiches
and coppers who look like Graham Gooch.
It's that world, you know what I mean?
So they're all milling about in the studio,
and it's like the boys and girls from Nationwide
are holding it all together.
Yeah, it's hosted by Frank Bath.
Of course.
Who I notice isn't sitting down.
But he is dressed like Brian Jones for some reason.
Yeah, he is, isn't he?
Yeah, but in this unchanging England,
he's a reassuring
reminder that we do still have progress of a sort because back then Frank Boff's presence and manner
and look were ideal for prime time television but his private life almost finished his career
whereas nowadays his private life would be celebrated, but his presence and manner and look would get him banned from television.
So he's in this giant studio full of these flag-waving now-deads
introducing guests like they've got Humphrey Littleton of all people
in the studio with his band,
because nothing says monarchy like new orleans jazz um
queen's favorite music i'm sure uh but it's because like most patriotic occasions it's
really a nostalgia trip so that's there for the that middle-aged generation of wool and pullover
wearing national service doing goon show listening public school homosexuality dabbling pre-beatles
british men you know and god bless humph but listening to this it really is hard work it's
like i remember louis armstrong said to me he said who do i sign this to and they go around
the country like on like ob stuff to to meet the people out and so there's
like some piping fools at edinburgh castle yeah it's a proper shortbread tin of an ob isn't it
yeah and then they go to wales and nobody says in wales like how do you feel about the fact
that all the castles of wales aren't actually welsh castles they're fortifications built by the english to uh
subjugate wales and they're so impressive because the english wanted to strike fear into your hearts
and remind you of your place in this country they don't say that they go to cardiff castle and they
say to some kids what do you like best about the queen? Yeah. To which the answers are, she likes dogs
and I like the way she waves.
I dug the,
there was total Wicker Man vibes
when they do go to that castle in Wales.
There was a stunning aerial shot of Diane,
the presenter,
in the middle of a maypole dance.
You can almost smell the singed pubes
and, you know,
John Stapleton cutting some capers and
using his bladder the stapleton of knowledge but the weird motif as well throughout the show
wherever they go outside or inside the studio is they've encouraged audience members to bring in
objects that they think summate the last 25 years of british history and and it's just so bizarre it's grotesque to see
how many the fucking old dears are perfectly happy to fall into every stereotype of just
confused old racist nan whether it's a woman saying that her object is her artificial hips
some daft old cow from harrow on the hill talking about churchill
and then there's that woman who says you know quite darkly she's quite old she starts saying
quite darkly now what a pity some people can't enjoy england and the presenter senses that she's
going to embark on some rant about the darkies so she moves on that inner enoch is festering under
the surface of a lot of the stuff here yeah i. I mean, the whole tone is, oh, weren't things better then?
Yeah.
Oh, yeah, completely.
Yeah, and there is quite a lot of imperialist bilge as well, right?
There's somebody comes on talking about the Commonwealth,
and they say, like, as a boast,
well, we made all these countries independent.
Yeah!
Well, that's one way of looking at it.
Did you notice that paul burnett the kind of this lanky gormless knob who looks a bit like prince charles yes at the
beginning yeah he gets interviewed keeps his hands in his pockets of course doubtless his fingers
don't look like a 10 pack of richmond sausages sizzling and singing in a pan so we wanted them
hid but yeah oh man some mad mad moments. And they go to Edinburgh
and Wales
and Cardiff,
sorry.
Or was it Chepstow?
I can't remember.
But you know.
They go to Northern Ireland
don't they?
No.
No, of course not.
There were some great moments
featuring people
who simply don't exist anymore.
And I don't just mean
that they're dead.
I mean,
those sort of people
don't exist anymore.
I was particularly struck
by Mrs. Duncan
who's introduced in Edinburgh who has kept a royal scrapbook going for over a hundred volumes
and she speaks with this kind of cut glass poshness that's a really careful construction
yeah she's well higher synth in show very much so and you can detect this sense of old fuckers
thinking that the values that that they were taught you know total loyalty
to king and country have absconded in some way so that's a faint thing to the whole show yeah you
know it's very telling that you know they look back at the 50s and they look back at the 60s
with fondness but there's no sort of yeah that this sense that today right now things are horrible
and you know we need to bring these values back.
But fuck me.
They should have tried to lighten it a bit.
Mrs Duncan, out of interest, are you Rangers or Celtic?
Just raises one eyebrow and it looks like.
But yeah, lots of looking back to the 60s.
Maybe this is where it all begins.
Maybe the mod revival starts right here on Nationwide Jubilee Fair.
Lots of Union Jacks.
But look, back at the 60s is so, I mean, obviously,
look, this isn't a critical piece, this show,
but it's so fucking shallow, isn't it?
It's like Miniskirts, The Beatles.
There's an astonishing bit.
I think my favourite, well, there's too many favourite bits in this,
where two of the presenters, for some reason,
they go down this thing called the Tun of love in oh yeah in the studio and what flashes or i mean there's
two bizarre things about it firstly it's just a collage of various famous couples from the past
25 years so you got i think you got you got paul and linda haven't you and you got mick and marianne
and then straight after mick and bianca. But they keep the presenters there as if they're travelling
through this journey of love.
Yes, and they're cuddling up to each other, aren't they?
It's just bizarre.
And there's too many amazing bits.
There's also a chef, a French chef, a comedy French chef.
A French chef, how dare they?
Who cooks like, he's these um ridiculous dishes to one of
the queen it reminded me very much because they're so literal these dishes it reminded me very much
of an episode of great british menu i watched when they had to cook something to mark the 100th
anniversary of the end of world war one and that all the chef's creations were pretty much you know
like two spherical mounds of raspberry coulis foam on a bed of chocolate dust representing the shot-off genitals of an infantryman in Verdun or something.
It was just so fucking literal.
There's all these bizarre tableaus.
And the chef, oh my God.
I mean, Taylor, can you describe the food he makes?
I don't know.
Yeah.
Well, I mean, first of all, this bloke is like a hee-hawing caricature.
I was really suspicious that he's not actually French at all.
But he comes on and he's like,
yeah, he goes, I have been to feud for the Queen.
And it's like, it's just repulsive things sealed in Aspen.
Which, being French, he's almost certainly pissed in, right?
I mean, you know, we can think,
well, okay, maybe this proud frenchman
is here to celebrate the the queen of england or maybe he's just done what's come naturally
straight into the salmon royale um yeah he's got like a glazed ham that that has got brown
piping on it and that description of much of the audience of this as well.
Yeah, it's glazed ham.
It just looks like a big sort of football,
but just covered in like some sort of weird opaque white stuff
and brown piping on it that says E2R.
And he's got, yeah, you just got this idea that if you eat that,
you're just gonna instantly vomit
it all straight back up again but it doesn't matter because in my country that is a great
compliment his best dish that he's got is um duck a la range which couldn't even be bothered to do
swan a la range i guess he couldn't get her permission but his duck à la Ronge
appears to have an impromptu
Flanders gravestone
sticking out of it
you know those little like
simple little gravestones they put where they don't know
where the body is
it's one of those like so reading you know
R.I.P. Duck
R.I.P. Mr. Wadley
but you've never seen such a feast of congealed glue in fact i don't
believe he's a chef at all his accent is obviously fake and his beard and all that i think he's a
disguised anarchist bomber at any moment he's gonna rip his large-nosed mask to reveal a little thin moustache and a wide-brimmed hat
and a cape and a stubby, flat, filterless cigarette,
and then the duck explodes.
But that's the thing.
There's lots of ideas in this show
that read on the page might have made sense,
maybe a kind of sense,
but when they achieve realization
the result is just that's occasionally in the show there's just genuinely
mind-meltingly surreal moments they tie a message to a pigeon um yes they do the message it's a
three two one clue or something it's just bizarre and then it cuts to this guy playing you know a sort of
fanfare for the queen with this massive legend on the screen airborne the tribute nationwide
our affection and it's just where the how did we get here and that bloke looks just like fred
quilly bent jockey but yeah generally the main thought you have while watching the nationwide Jubilee Fair is how strange that the most enthusiastic supporters of our national insanity should be actual mad people.
It's always a danger for royal reporters throughout time.
Like wherever you find them, when they're out in the mall or outside the palace of whoever's just died.
Like, whenever they have to interview the crowds for royal occasions.
Like, well, let me just speak to this lady and gentleman here.
Arr, arr, arr.
Oh, dear, they're actually insane.
OK, let's speak to this person over here.
Arr, arr, arr.
Oh, no, he's insane too.
And the artefacts that people have sent in, that they've made as well,
just reveal a national insecurity. Oh, yeah, a load of artifacts that people have sent in that they've made as well just reveal a national insight oh yeah the load of shit that people have made but as a gift for the queen
yeah a tiny little crown and also a massive crown more befitting you know a colossus queen or
something it's just there's just so much strange shit in it and a fucking enormous welsh love spoon
yeah and there's that radio that, obviously,
there's loads of companies trying to get a free advert.
And they've done a radio, which is just a big silver brick
that's worth thousands of pounds.
Also, I was really disgusted to note
that there were a load of really amateurish paintings of the Queen
by Henry Mellish Infant School,
who were the Rodney Bennett to my school's grain gel.
Oh, no. You look at them, you go, yeah, your parents have done that, and they're still shit. henry mellish infant school who were the rodney bennett to my school's grain gel oh no you look
at them you go yeah your parents have done that and they're still shit and one would think in in
a show so jam-packed full of insanity that the the music sections would introduce some normality
into proceedings but but they don't really no i mean beyond anything else at one point i think
the kids are given woodwind instruments or something, because I swear down, when those, you know that big royal pie gets bought out and Frank Boff has a bit?
Yeah.
They bring out a selection of royal food, don't they?
At that point, it sounds like Albert Euler's Spiritual Unity is playing in the background. It's fucking demented.
They bring out a load of ladies dressed up as Emer um emery the apes knockoffs still with their heads
on obviously yeah bringing out things in aspic and just enormous stupid pies i think the goal
of all the food sections in this program was to make you feel a bit more uh grateful for
yeah the sausage rolls you were gonna get yeah yeah yeah buffet this afternoon yeah but yeah all
the way through i mean because the musical passages that there's a bit where new edition the dance troupe yeah sadly not
bobby brown and his mates no unfortunately um dance to some jubilee girl you used to run half
the world yeah well they dance to some 50s stuff they do the twist yes with this really palpable
sense of sadness of what's lost empire Empire deprivation trauma in full effect.
It's like being in a care home, isn't it?
It is.
It really is.
Are we going to talk about Alan Price's song?
Yes, we are.
Alan Price sings a song all about the 60s.
It's a kind of proto, we didn't start the fire, isn't it?
Yes, it is.
Cherry picking certain moments. what moments does he cherry
pick again i think i he mentions the beatles he mentions those two pandas getting it on yeah he
does do the chatterly band and the beatles first lp that's right oh my god he doesn't mention his
appearance in bob dylan's don't look back drinking vodka and orange by taking a massive swig out of a bottle of vodka
then a massive swig out of a bottle of orange and doing the mixing in his mouth pretty awful song
searchers are also on oh yeah and actually you know what the searchers i mean look it's a shit
show i think they're the least shitty in the whole thing because they've got a nice little
jangle to them it's already that thing of the 60s it was the last
time we were any good and we are just declined as a world power now because there's a bizarre
tableau at the end where yeah like taylor says all the countries that we supposedly you know
out of the beneficence of our heart gave them independence scroll up the screen the union jack
gets lowered it's it's so weird um but you know if i was sending someone something to diagnose
the mental illness that is being british i probably would send them this yeah absolutely
it's fucking amazing to watch all these old fools and think my god these people won the war
because look we all spend a lot of time criticizing that tedious british self-deprecating
sense of humor you know that like all the endless tiktoks of the general public dancing you know
and all that sort of comedy shows where the only joke is that someone who looks awful does a dance
dressed up as someone who looks good, and you just laugh.
Just that shit British self-deprecating bollocks,
that mindset where it's like to stop people getting above their station, you know,
where like, it's that, oh, well, at least they don't take themselves too seriously.
Who do you think you are?
Why don't you join in with the fun?
It's this thing that where they won't be happy until we're all walking around with clown noses on with our trousers around our ankles
right but i'm never going to criticize that again because watching the nationwide jubilee fair
it dawned on me that if we hadn't had that in our darkest hour we'd have been bigger nazis than the
nazis and madder.
Yeah.
And of course it ends on a thrilling denouement, doesn't it?
Oh, God, yeah.
The winner of the nationwide Jubilee Song Contest.
What a thing that is.
An event of such monumental musical arse lick that we decided that we just can't toss it away here.
So we're going to do a very special
bonus podcast about it only available on patreon yeah you are not going to want to miss this
no no so now is the time to get on patreon if you want that fucking hell so on the cover of
the enemy this week a massive mushroom cloud on the cover of record NME this week a massive mushroom cloud. Hooray!
On the cover of Record Mirror
the Sex Pistols. Fucking hell, first time
we've mentioned them. It's like they've been
censored. The number one LP
in the country is Arrival by
ABBA. Over in America
the US number one is
Sajouk by Stevie Wonder
and the number one LP
is of course Rumours fleetwood max so boys
what were we doing in june of 1977 well i remember it being a reasonably big deal at my school i'd
literally just started school it was my first year of primary school i think and the first two things i remember about school are
the local rector came in to give us a talk about god every week thankfully hands off and then this
peculiar assembly for the silver jubilee where we all had to queue up to be presented with a jubilee coin yes i got one of those yeah it's like some
base metal medallion you know now worth £1.79 on ebay no doubt just to leave us in no doubt as to
our place in the jubilee picture you know um and all the union jacks were up everywhere and
hideous potato print portraits of the Queen by the slightly older kids.
And at the time, it never struck me as odd that both these things, the rector and the queen, were essentially compulsory and considered a valid and important part of a child's education in a free post-war society you had to be there
and you weren't allowed to snigger or talk back and i wonder sometimes whether it was that kind
of upbringing that made our generation such piss takers right so yeah so widely atheistic and
and cynical about the royals it's like in america you can't mention god in schools
at least until the current supreme court gets to grips with that but there's there's immense
social pressure in a lot of the country to go to church and all that sort of stuff but then they
look at britain with when we were growing up compulsory christian prayer every day and americans are astonished that the result of that
is a nation of atheists and apatheists when in fact that's part of it you know you grow up
associated in the certainly the church of england with boredom pomposity yeah um the shit experience
of school people you don't like droning on at you in cold wooden halls um and you see straight
through it and you can't get away fast enough it's not some magical thing that exists in your
community outside of the imperfect state you know offering you salvation you can see it for what it
is it's part of the apparatus so maybe it would have been a good thing in the end to uh
you know if they'd made us bow down to her majesty yeah a little bit more you know really rub it in
might have made it seem less of a jolly lark you know taylor's right it was sort of mandatory
in 77 unlike now i mean there's photographic evidence of what i was doing for the for the
silver jubilee you know i was sitting in a garden in oxendon way earnst for grange commentary pretty much appalled by everything i was seeing hearing
and experiencing i mean you know i was only five probably like i i think i had a dim awareness of
the jubilee and also an unsureness about it and whether i mean the worry of course of whether i
was expected to be part of anything i mean shock horror that would have been fucking awful we were given a big coin um older kids in our school got given
jubilee sweets what um yeah a little tin of sweets fucking hell um and some were some were
given a leather bookmark as well yeah yeah um but i do also remember the sort of cowardly likes of
the bino in 77 having special jubilee covers, you know, plastered in the Union Jacks.
The newsstands, you wouldn't see that many Union Jacks until, you know,
the rise of Britpop, basically.
As an adult...
Did it have Dennis the Menace on the cover slapping his arse and saying,
Socrates, go home?
It should have.
But as an adult, you know, you could have avoided it, I guess.
Because these things always bring all the cunts out the woodwork but as a kid you were plunged into all this nonsense
and like any public event involving that horrible hateful idea of participation for a small shy
child i loathed every moment of it i've seen the photo of your face now it just says everything
well one of my major terrors my whole life is a fucking lp cover waiting to
happen one of my major terrors my whole life as i may have mentioned in the past on shark music
is characterful dads yes you know and things like the jubilee much like comic relief now
it just seemed to be an excuse for these wannabe sort of new faces cunts wannabe it's a knockout
dads to come out the woodwork put on a, put on some unsuitably ribald entertainment for children.
And as far as I can ascertain from the photographs I have,
I'm in someone's back garden and there's two characterful dads,
both bearded.
Cause it was after all 1977.
Expecting us kids to watch their pratfalls and be amused.
And shockingly,
it seems most of the kids were,
I was wary of one of those
chaps his name was uncle john just like everyone we knew was called uncle something um and he'd
always put himself about on special occasions you know i mean so at the old people's zone when we
live there whenever there'd be like a special day like christmas or something like that he'd be there
dressed as something i remember him doing santa i remember him doing drag and jokingly
coming onto my dad at a show sitting on his lap and flirting with him which everyone in this old
people's own found fucking hilarious because my dad was quite straight laced but obviously you
know no one needs to see their dad going through that it angered me um because i was just grateful
that i didn't have a character were you scared that your dad was gonna run off with him
not at all but you know you don't want to see your dad get hurt and you don't you scared that your dad was going to run off with him not at all but you
know you don't want to see your dad get hurt and you don't want to see your dad laugh that no and
and there's this and you also don't want to see your dad lamping someone in a dress
but there is this photo al yeah you're right of me sitting in a tent with a plate of jubilee food
before me looking as i normally did at occasions whether with family or friends any occasion you know like I just wanted it to end when can I go home please well this week really sticks in my mind because on
the Saturday before the entire family as we did on a Saturday night round about that time we went out
to the Meadows to have a drink in the Queens with me non-or and grandpa and they'd let me and my
seven-year-old little sister sit in the corner or
hang about in the doorway which was a fucking massive upgrade from having to sit in the car
outside a pub without the radio on like i used to do with my dad but on that night scotland had just
ravaged wembley that afternoon and practically every scottish person in Nottingham had just come out to get absolutely battered and
the landlord refused point
blank and rightly so
to let kids witness the carnage
that was going to unfold.
But of course it didn't stop me dad and grandpa
and me nanos staying in there and having a drink
so I remember for
hours sitting on the back seat
of me dad's car watching some
absolutely graphic violence,
like three feet away from me.
And it got to one point where there's two blokes
just practically fighting with pint glasses with each other.
And my mum in her best white trouser suit
trying to lean over the back and cover my eyes.
And me dodging out the way
and anticipating my status as king of the playground when we went
back to school on wednesday were you scared are you scared no because i was in a car and i was
with my parents i thought oh nothing could go wrong here yeah yeah i mean actual jubilee day
like you i've been given a jubilee medal but also we got given a jubilee mug which had the official logo on it and lots of filigree and
gold all around yeah yeah but it also had a massive logo of bbc radio nottingham and pork
farms which was a local sausage roll and pork pie factory but the actual day it had been decided
upon pretty early in the day that to my disgust no one on our street could be arsed with a street party.
And that ruined my fucking VE Day fantasies.
Because I was really looking forward to a proper street party with, you know, bunting and all that kind of shit.
So we just put up my grandpa's blue enzyme on the garage door.
And some massive swirly red, white and blue banners by the side of the house.
And then we went to the Lammy's next door and their dad played loads of boe my dad played loads of elvis and i was just absolutely disgusted that i wasn't having my ve day moment so by the
end of it i can remember lying flat on the settee, it absolutely bored and angry, with a union jack over me pretending to be asleep
and just seething while my dad and Lamy got pissed up
and took turns to say,
fucking Elvis is the fucking king, isn't he?
That was the day that I became completely anti-monarchist.
Lamy, the bloke next door, absolute fucking vision rare.
Two weeks before this episode i was around his house being babysat and we were watching liverpool going through the streets holding up
the european cup on the top deck of a bus and he turned around to me a nine-year-old boy and he
said you see that two years time that's going to be forest wow and i looked at him as if he'd fucking gone out
but my god he was so right yeah an unwise prediction at that point it has to be said
this is what forest were in the second division yeah just got promoted right i mean music wise
i'm still into show waddy waddy and playing the shit out of elvis and little richard and buddy
ollie on a tape to tape player that my dad had liberated from his round as a removal man, and not yielding to Punk at all, because
I hadn't heard any yet. You know, the only thing I knew about Punk was what I was seeing
in the Sunday papers, and they all looked very scary, and I was just worried about ever
seeing one, which I hadn't yet. I would have definitely been on the side of the Teds in
the forthcoming king's road
wars but you know forrester just got promoted judge dread is fighting call me kenneth and the
robot rebellion in 2008 the six weeks holidays coming up you know it's all good there's going
to be a lot of subutio that's going to be played over the next six weeks or so but that's all it
when you're a kid that's the thing though you don't have any affection towards the royal family,
so just one bad day,
that's all you need,
to turn yourself into a committed anti-royalist.
For me,
it wasn't this day,
it was Charles and Di's wedding,
where I just got fucking sick of it,
and decided to hate the monarchy as a result.
You know,
that's all it takes.
I mean,
a few weeks after this episode, I actually saw the Queen and Prince Philip,
and I was standing in the exact same spot
where all those Scottish people were beating the shit out of each other.
Wow.
Yeah, luckily they'd stopped by then.
Yeah, yeah.
And my jaw just swinging wide open
because it was the first time I'd ever seen a famous person.
Yeah.
They're the people on my grandpa's T-track.
There they are in front of me.
And I was absolutely awestruck.
But to be honest with you,
if it had been Rod Hull and Emu,
I would have had the same reaction.
And then, you know, afterwards,
I'm walking about in a daze,
and I thought, hang on,
I waved at them,
and they didn't wave back at me.
Bastards.
How dare they?
That is star power, isn't it?
There's no denying it.
I mean, I even felt it once like in 2010
when when gordon brown visited where i worked but you know yeah famous people oh i've only seen you
on the telly before fuck me you're in real life there's nothing between us but air that's always
a mind-blowing moment in it well chaps i do believe it's time to retire to the chart music crap room
and rip open a box or two
and peruse an issue of the music press from this very week.
And this time, we've gone for Melody Maker, 11th of June, 1977.
Would you come and have a riffle with me?
Oh, yeah.
On the cover, while the NME get into the party mood With a mushroom cloud
And the headline
A hard rains are gonna fall
The new musical express
Consumers guide to the nuclear age
Melody make a focus on
What's really happening in the world of music
This week
The earth shattering news that Martin Carthy
Has rejoined Steel Ice Band
The cover is dominated by a great barry
plumbershot of bob marley from his recent sellout shows at the rainbow in the news wow unsurprisingly
the main story is the sex pistols and their current single god God Save the Queen, which is selling like a bastard,
despite a total nationwide TV and radio ban.
Under the headline, Pistols Beat the Sensors,
the maker reports on the blanket ban on the single by the media.
Quote, A statement issued jointly by BBC Radio and Television says
the corporation has no intention of playing the record because it
is in gross bad taste and they intend sticking to this edict even if the single gets to number one
in the charts. Radio 1 spokesman James Conway said we're not pretending the record isn't there
we mention it when announcing our chart listings but we refuse to play it if it
reaches number one our top 20 show will finish with the number two record the compere will say
what's at the top and then it'll be straight into the news headlines over at bbc tv center
robin nash is asked whether they'll be allowing john Johnny and the Chaps on top of the Pops
and he says the single is
quite unsuitable
for our Thursday evening pop treat
A BBC spokesman is also quoted
admitting that it was
unfortunate for the Sex Pistols
that their chart success
coincided with Jubilee Week
What bad luck
Terrible timing on their part.
If it had been at any other time in the year,
we might have given it the occasional play.
Oh, would they bollocks.
Would they bollocks.
And the IBA and ITV have not only followed suit,
presumably denying the band the opportunity
to play the single on Get It Together,
Run Around and The Sooty Show,
but they've also put the block on Virgin's attempts to buy advertising time.
The piece concludes by reporting that Radio Luxembourg
have taken the issue a step further by ignoring the single completely.
As far as they are concerned, it simply does not exist,
and God Save the Queen does not feature anywhere in their top 30,
nor will it at any time.
Ooh.
Good job they didn't do a song about the Queen of Luxembourg.
Yes, the fascist regime.
The rest of the news is dominated by gig and tour announcements,
including Blond Air, City Boy and the Curzel Flyers.
But the big news is that the Beach Boys are coming to Wembley
and they're bringing along the fragrant Romeos of pop themselves.
Dr Hook as support.
While promoter Ken Campbell is mooting the very unreal possibility
of Richie Blackmore's Rainbow and the Steve Gibbons Band headlining an open-air concert at Salford Rugby Ground.
The gig never materialises.
There's a party going on at Alexandra Palace.
A communist party.
The 12-hour People's Jubilee Festival, organised by the CP,
will feature Soft Machine as what and none other than the
white shot commissar of heterosexual rock and roll shaking steve yeah man brothers and sisters we
should keep fighting until the only bands allowed to perform here are those personally approved by
moscow which we are sure will include the Soft Machine and Aswad.
While everyone else who plugs in electric
guitar will be taken to a
5 foot by 5 foot concrete cell
with a metal grill in the floor
for the blood to drain away.
And don't let decadent western
propaganda trick you into thinking this is
not desirable. If you don't fancy
that, then top promoter
Richard Wrigley has announced a series
of Jubilee concerts in
a circus tent next to Tower
Bridge from mid-July to
October. They include the likes
of Lindsay DePaul, Perry
Como, Cliff Richard and
The Shadows, John Lord
performing his latest solo album
Sarah Bands with the Royal Philharmonic
Orchestra and the New York City
Ballet and reunion
shows for Deep Purple
and King Crimson.
On second thoughts, all power
to the Soviets.
Meanwhile,
Malcolm McLaren and Bernie Rhodes have announced
plans for a two-day punk
fest on the outskirts of Bristol
featuring The Pistols, The Tubes, The Clash, Iggy Pop and The Ramones.
As you can imagine, we're running into all sorts of problems with the local council,
says Rhodes to the Maker,
but the site is fairly isolated and hopefully won't lead to any protests.
In more flared news, CBS have announced that Punter's paying the £1 admission fee
and turning up before 7.30 for any show on the upcoming CBS promo package tour,
which features Crawler, the band which had Paul Kossoff in it before he died last year,
Moon, and Boxer, will be presented with a free EP, whether they like it or not.
It features all three bands
and is part of CBS's ultimately futile promo push
for three shit-bricked cock-rock acts.
The maker reluctantly confirms, however,
that Steely Dan will not be touring Britain in September,
contrary to reports elsewhere.
But Johnny Thunders and the heartbreakers are shaking off their recent arrest in birmingham on suspicion of breaking into a
telephone box by announcing that they're going to bring 1 000 pounds worth of fireworks to their
july the fourth show at an as yet unannounced location. This does not come off, unfortunately,
but they do spend that evening playing The Vortex on its opening night with Buzzcocks, The Fall,
and John Cooper Clark.
A thousand pounds worth of fireworks, fucking hell.
Can you imagine?
In 1977.
That's a lot of fireworks.
Just imagining the heartbreakers, Buzzcocks, The Fall,
and John Cooper Clarke
playing to a room full of mildly disappointed Steely Dan fans.
And finally, under the headline New Beagle Show on Tour,
we learned that a new musical based upon Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club band
begins a six-week national tour later this month
entitled lucy in the sky and directed by michael bogdanov it follows the fortunes of the girl whose
hopes and ambitions are drawn to the magic of the circus with beatles tunes interspersed with
various specialities circus acts yeah they've gone straight to, for the benefit of Mr. Kite,
and gone, yeah, and what next?
Serious question.
Has there ever been anything associated with the Beatles,
but which wasn't actually created by the Beatles themselves,
which shouldn't have been set alight in an oil drum?
Because I can't think of anything.
Apart from the ruttles, yeah.
Oh, of course.
In the interview section, well,
Harry Doherty hits the road with 10cc
in the wake of the departure of Lowell Cream and Kevin Godlair
and reports that the whole band are feeling great about the split.
The old band was like a musical eunuch it had no balls
this one is much healthier says eric stewart i'd resign myself to the fact that life in the music
business just stank but at this stage there's no aggravation nobody's bored No self-consciousness or funny remarks. Oh, get the reggae singles going, Lyle.
See, I would accept this split if they'd renamed themselves 5CC.
Why didn't they?
Actually, that maybe would have been singly inappropriate
since he's suggesting there that Kevin Godley and Lul Cream
each represented minus one testicle.
Yes.
Their departure is a kind of negative castration,
allowing the remaining two members to come up with testosterone-packed
hard hitters like Dreadblock Holiday,
which they just wouldn't have been capable of.
From Rochdale to Ocho Rios.
Still, there is something for all those disappointed Steely Dan fans.
Go and see Aluminiumy Dan, as I like to call him.
Stanley Mises catches up with Ian Hunter in New York,
and they have a natter about his new album, Overnight Angels.
I've done an all-out rock album,
because nothing else moves them in england
any modicum of common sense is ignored there they have to be faced with the national front to be
moved it's so civilized it disappears up its own arse gentility and civility is what keeps them
down the great minds have left The Labour government is in total chaos
and when the Conservatives come in, they don't get on with the unions. They're kicking out the
middle class and bringing in Asians. There's no difference in them as people, but the economic
support is not there. I'm a patriot, totally loyal. I live in New York because what's going on in the UK is stupid.
It drives me nuts.
Oh, did you see the nationwide Jubilee Fair, mate?
What the fuck are we going on about?
What does he mean, they're kicking out the middle class?
No idea.
And bringing in Asians.
Yeah.
He's treading an interesting line there, isn't he?
Yeah, I've heard people make that argument, like, you know,
kicking working-class people out of jobs and giving it all to immigrants.
But what does he mean they're kicking out the middle class?
From what?
Maybe he's been in America a while,
and consequently he's got that middle-class definition that they use.
Right.
And the British definition say perhaps it's that.
He's probably just pissed.
Yeah.
Yeah, more like it.
Rob Halford and KK Downing of Judas Priest sit down with Harry Docter and pretty much predict the wobbum. Yeah, yeah, yeah, more like it. says Halford. Bands like Zeppelin should play more gigs and give the kids something back.
The kids in our audience want to feel the music as well as hear it. They want the floorboards
vibrating. When he asks if he feels his style of music has had his day, he says, I don't think rock
is dead. Punk to me is rock. I saw the pistols and they packed a wallop.
Good raw rock material and it created a reaction.
I like their directness and musical punch.
They haven't left us behind though.
We may have left them behind.
Oh.
And finally Paul Barrere of Little Feet whinges to Roy Carr about his band's inability to score a hit
and indulges in some light bitching about Laul George.
Laul's trouble is that he doesn't do anything by half measures and recently he's been overdoing it,
staying up too many nights in a row, too much booze, too many pills to help him stay awake,
insufficient sleep and in the end he went down with a bad case of hepatitis. Too many pills to help him stay awake. Insufficient sleep.
And in the end, he went down with a bad case of hepatitis.
Perhaps next time he'll think twice, says Paul.
14 months before George dies from a heart attack.
This is not a good way of cementing good band relations, man.
Doing your bitching in an interview like that.
Fuck me.
Single reviews.
Well, in the chair this week is Caroline Kuhn,
who stops being the original female punk journo it's okay to like for a bit
and addresses a slew of distinctly non-punky product.
Single of the week is So High,
Rock Me Baby and Roll Me Away
by Dave Mason,
which is an inspired love song
celebrating dream days of good time fulfillment
the single is commercial without sounding like a cross between peter frampton and the carpenters
a hit reader it wasn't there are two singles out that have been written and produced by
dominic bagatti and frank musker the king tubby Scratch Perry of Coddiness who wrote reggae like it used to be last year.
According to CC, the first, Woman in Love by Twiggy, has definite chart potential.
It's the best musicianship, production and guidance for Twiggy yet, says Cass.
A simple love d'etat, superficially catchy, but hardly inspired.
It failed to chart, but eight months later the song was given to the Three Degrees,
who took it to number three for three weeks.
The other Bugatti Musca single, Heaven on the Seventh Floor by the conquering lion himself,
Paul Nestor Nicholas O.M.,
fares much better.
Paul, an artist who excels in sugary showbiz presentation,
is never less than a bunch of energetic good fun.
But it's a coat down for dandy in the underworld by T-Rex.
The very lovely mark,
I was the first punk,
B, slows it right down
for a deathly dirge,
suitable for the gloomiest of occasions,
like the burial of the album
from which this song was taken.
Fuck you now.
Was Caroline Coon being played
by Jane Asher in this singles page as well?
We'll explain a lot.
Queen's first EP,
a selection of tunes from their last four LPs called Queen's First EP,
is out, but Caroline doesn't understand why they've even bothered.
Staunch fans need hardly bother since they have all the albums
and the packaging is too dull for want for aesthetic
reasons alone if the band is searching out new fans then why release such unlikely bait like
these second rate tracks another ep kirilla by demis roussos fares much better there's a move
afoot to persuade us all to holiday on our own shores this year,
and really, with anything but English being spoken from Brighton to St Ives,
and the King of Benidorm Blues releasing this smashing EP,
who needs the Costa Brava?
A hit!
Forced jollity of the kind some adults imagine will appeal to ten-year-olds,
says Coon of Southern Comfort by Bernie Flint.
The song drifts tritely along,
with Flint obviously trying to do his best behind gritted teeth.
The Small Faces scored a hit last year with the release of Ichiku Park,
and they're having another go by shoving out Tin Soldier.
But Caroline spends a review comparing them to the Buzzcocks
before stating that it's a fine reminder of the fresh rock style which is still admired by young
musicians today. Rose Royce, a follow-up, I want to get next to you with an even better tune,
I'm Going Down, but our Kaz doesn't reckon it.
Good try, people, but it won't work.
It's the third or fourth track lifted from the soundtrack to Car Wash.
Classy and moody, but without the instant appeal of Next To You.
No, no duck.
Slow Down by John Miles is an unimaginative disco sound which reduces everything to the lowest common denominator.
Everybody Have a Good Time by Archie Bell and the Drolls is an uncontrived atmosphere of gay disco abandon.
Dancing in the Dark by Acker Bilk is debonair and suave.
And anything that's rock and roll by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers sees a band that many people are dying to be
a huge success, pissing on
their chips once more.
If this were not another song
with boring lyrics about rock and
roll is rock and roll, etc.,
it would be great. Block out
the words and you have a near-perfect
diamond-hard sound, but it's
not a patch on American Girl.
This band are requiring a second
division aura oh harsh but you know you know what caroline coon right routinely held up as a kind of
godfather godmother if you like of punk writing her stuff when i've read it it's actually not bad
you get the sense she's a music fan you get the sense she knows what she's talking about.
She, I think, can be effectively contrasted
with what's going on at the NME at this point.
Because, you know, I mean,
the NME front cover this week of the Mushroom Clan
looks tremendously exciting,
but I've actually looked at that issue.
And, oh my God, it's terrible.
It's full of Tony Parcell and Julie Birchall just chatting shit.
And, you know, when you read those guys writing,
you genuinely cannot believe they got away with just this unfunny dog shit writing.
You know, the enemy that week, I think the LP reviews page,
it's got Julie Birchall slagging off rock follies of 77 or something.
And you've got all these great names in
there yeah there's some Leicester bang stuff a bit off colour Leicester bangs actually you've got
some yeah which you see sometimes does but you know you've got some Nick Kent stuff in there
that's pretty good but the domination of the enemy in 77 by Tony Parcell and Julie Birchall is
unbelievable they get loads of pages to just write what they want.
Tony Parcell does a whole piece about wanting to drive across America.
And it's just fucking sad.
They've clearly, like, made an impression, if you like,
i.e. generated enough angry readers' letters,
that they're now being given half the paper.
And, you know, when you read that NME from, you know,
I'm sure that Mushroom Cloud cover is probably held up as, oh, wow as a wow wasn't the enemy amazing it put stuff like this on the cover dig into it into the
actual issue itself and the writing it's fucking terrible because birchville and parsons were
were always terrible terrible writers so yeah i massively disagree with a lot of what caroline
coombs says in this singles page but she's a thousand times a better writer than them to imagine not
being able to make nuclear war fun and interesting fuck's sake enemy but i mean look at what caroline
coons had to review man fucking demis russer aca bilk in 1977 as the clash said no russos
bilk and flint in 77 clearly not the case that's it the punk records themselves a few and far
between it's still quite a live
phenomenon
rather than a recorded
phenomenon
so you're going to see
them on the live pages
but maybe not on the
singles pages
and certainly not on
the album pages
yeah you have to feel
for any idiot
who have to try and
think of something to say
about Demis Roussos
and Bernie Flint
in the LP review section
the lead review this week
belongs to Peter Frampton's I'm In You.
The follow-up to the massively selling in the USA Frampton comes alive,
and the dagger is handed to Chris Welch.
But after pointing out that it doesn't quite have the magic of its big-selling predecessor,
he concedes that it's pleasant, unpretentious,
and there is no reason to suppose it won't be another giant smash.
Golden age of music journalism, right?
Oh yeah, it's a toe-tapping smash.
David Coverdale has struck out on his own,
and his debut LP, White Snake,
is received more than favourably by Brian Harrigan.
Of course.
In a nutshell, he he surpassed all expectations.
It's easy with the benefit of hindsight to suggest that Coverdale wasn't really at home
with the Deep Purple musical concept, but here he demonstrates where his musical inclinations
really lie.
The man has already recorded his second solo, and I can tell you now it's even better than
this. his second solo and i can tell you now it's even better than this for good measure harrigan tacks
on a review of the re-release of his old band's debut lp shades of deep purple and deems it a
great start to a career and a valuable collector's item imagine if you started a metal band in this
period and brian harrigan didn't like it, you'd be screwed.
If Brian Harrigan and Tommy Vance both thought you were crap,
it'd be like being an American fascist now
who Donald Trump had a personal problem with.
It'd just be like your career's over before it's begun.
Coverdale's just another one of those people
fleeing from Ritchie Blackmore
because Ritchie Blackmore just antagonizes everyone he works with
although I think Richie Blackmore is delightful and delicious I think he's hilarious but yeah
you know the amount of people who just part company with that guy whether it's Ronnie James
Dio from Rainbow or David Colwood from Deep Purple it's just there's something about Richie
Blackmore that is truly hilarious like Dolly Part, Tanya Tucker has realised that it's possible for a country singer to cross over,
but her latest LP, Riding Rainbows, sees her falling between two stools, according to Michael Oldfield.
The bulk of the album is dreary pop songs on which Tanya wastes her superb country voice.
Brian Harrigan reckons that bringing in Barry Blue as producer
will kick Moon up into the first division
with their new LP, Turning the Tides.
It doesn't.
Michael Oldfield reckons that Two Can Do It Too
by Amazing Rhythm Aces
is a great album that could have been a masterpiece
if they'd spent more time on the lyrics.
But Fundamental Role, the debut lp by walter
egan is a bit cat shit according to harrigan he really needs to work harder than this if he's
going to bring out a memorable album and if you're wondering where all the punk is it's in the live
section where blonde air television and the cortinasinas in Bristol gets bouquets and brickbats from Simon Kinnesley.
It is with bands like television and talking heads
that the more wholesome future of 70s music lies, he says,
and he praises the Cortinas for musically extending themselves further
than the more usual Holocaust punk-arama.
But Blondie performed with
detached indifference as
Debbie Harry went through a series of
laughably lame martial arts poses
as the band plodded
along behind.
And Caroline Kuhn goes to Ramones
Talking Heads and the Saints Triple
Header at the Roundhouse, which she
calls one of the most exciting
good fun shows of rock
to be remembered for a long time to come thank you william mcgonigal
in the gig guide david could have seen the jam at the winning post twickenham or if he'd rather
at chelsea football club hawkwind at the music Machine, Sarah Vaughan at Ronnie Scott's,
Georgie Fame and the Blue Fames at Dingwall's,
Mike Harding at Victoria Palace,
or Eddie and the Hot Rods at The Rainbow,
but probably didn't.
Taylor could have seen
Clodagh Rogers at Billingham Forest,
The Damned and the Adverts at Barbarella's,
Muscles at Sloopy's Birmingham,
or Strider at Dudley JB's.
No, no, it's Clyde Rogers.
She's going to bounce up and down on her spring.
She invented pogoing, didn't she?
Neil could have seen Mealticket and Lou Lewis Band
at Coventry College of Education.
Oh, yoffie.
Or nipped out to Wolverhampton to check out trapeze at the Lafayette, and
fuck all that.
Sarah could have gone right out to see Lin Paul at the Aquarius in Chesterfield, Stranglers
at the top rank in Sheffield, or caught up with the Damden adverts at Outlook Doncaster.
Al could have seen Lou Lewis Band at the Boat Club in Nottingham or ventured out to catch Johnny Nash at Bailey's Club in Leicester
City Boy at the Retford Porterhouse
or the fabulous Poodles at the 76 Club in Burton-on-Trent
and Simon could have seen 5cc at Sophia Gardens in Cardiff
bombed over to Bristol to catch the jam at Bristol Pollair
or darts
at the old Granary, then nipped back to catch Ian Hunter and the Vibrators at the top-ranked
Cardiff.
Not many decent gigs knocking about.
It's 1977, what's going on?
Too hot.
But, I mean, judging by the news section, most of the managers are just making up gigs
that aren't going to happen just to get in the papers, you know, it's a bit crazy.
In the letters page, well,
this week's mailbag kicks off
with an impassioned letter from Malatis de Ville
from Dere, Northern Ireland.
To all the angry young punks out there,
Joe Strummer may look awfully impressive
in his battle fatigues,
but he and his playmates prance about,
pretending to be urban gorillas.
Over here we have had seven years of urban gorillas, only we call them terrorists,
which I'm afraid isn't quite as glamorous. It sticks in my gullet to see Strummer clowning
about, glorifying the kind of bastards who have wrecked the lives of thousands of people
and left a country in ruins. There wasn't anything dashing about the men in the shades and parkas
who would roll up to your house to blast you away because they don't like your religion or politics.
I hope this puts a new angle on the new punk chic for you. I'm so bored of the uda ira dup uvf uff etc etc what does he know i'm sorry but i have
to say that's very naive in more contentious news caroline coon dared to coat down the new genesis
ep spot the pigeon the other week and s eggingtonggington, P.G. Robbins and J.C. Hume,
all studying at Grey College, Durham University,
have drafted a combined response directly from the common room.
What on earth did Caroline Coombe mean
when she wrote that the new Genesis single is, quote,
a prehistoric attempt at reviving interest in a strange band.
The whole phrase is a collection of misguided, if not false, statements,
taking it piece by piece.
A. Prehistoric implies outdated and simple.
However, this band have been constantly changing
and influencing modern rock, and still are still are b how is it possible to
revive interest in a band that sell records by the million and incites thousands of fans to queue
out overnight to get tickets for their concerts which sell out at every venue admittedly punk
rock has its place and although we don't like it we wouldn't put it down unnecessarily
in the way cc puts down genesis say these three spots you wouldn't expect pernickety condescension
from genesis fans no meanwhile simon kinnisley made a fatal error in his live review of Queen by suggesting that Brian May was never a wildly gifted guitarist.
And now he has to deal with Alison Maloney from Heddington, Oxford.
This must come as a great surprise to anyone who has ever seen Queen live or heard them on record.
He is a highly sensitive and mature musician with a rare gift in that he has no
need to bring his music to the front of the band to reveal its brilliance maybe queen as a unit is
becoming jaded and in need of a change but to condemn one of the best guitarists britain has
seen since hendrix is nothing short of criminal.
Twelve-inch singles are starting to become a thing and Kevin Botting from Budde Cornwall is not having it.
Is it right that such quantities of vinyl
should be used for just a few minutes of music?
Haven't we forgotten the infamous vinyl shortage of not long ago
which sent the prices of albums rocketing?
Let's save resources for the future and keep prices down
by not wasting vinyl.
Or when can we expect to see 24-inch albums that play at 45 RPM?
That'd be amazing.
Yes, but imagine having one of those under your fucking arm
coming out of Wolves on a Saturday afternoon, though,
or getting it on a bus.
Kate Constable of Dorchester made the mistake of
watching the nation's top pop show the other week and was appalled by the sight of brendan
having sat through another edition of top of the pops i wonder how the beep can show pathetic
little people singing something called rock me good grief they obviously don't know the meaning of the word. The programme was saved
by the brilliant Stranglers. Thanks to John Peel, the only DJ giving groups like Stranglers and The
Clash some exposure, it might just keep the music industry alive. And finally, there's a pat on the
back for Alan Jones for his piece on John Otway, and in particular his mention of Pete Townsend as an early champion of the new wave.
Townsend, regularly pilloried as the epitome of jaded old-wave flatulence in less discriminating journals,
was in fact the first person to discover punk, to see its potential,
and may his shallow detractors eat humble pie
though never having met
him in my nine years of knocking round the
edges of the music business
I get the solid impression that
he is one of the very few rock
stars who cares
writes Pete Frame of
Yeoman Cottage North
Marston yes that Pete Frame
that Pete Frame bless his heart I Crane. Bless his heart.
I wonder how the letter was laid out.
Was it one on a massive sheet of A3 with all branching offs and everything?
Yeah, he's right, though.
It's like the only problem with Pete Townshend was, unfortunately,
he cared just slightly too much, which you wouldn't think was possible.
But, yes, it is.
48 pages, 15p.
I never knew there was so much in it so what else was on
telly today well bbc one commences at 20 to 7 with a double barrel blast of open university
with programs about peer gint and embalming then they close down for four hours and five minutes. Yeah, imagine taking that for your degree.
Then they close down for four hours and five minutes,
springing back to life at noon
with live coverage of the Queen on a boat in the Thames
and walking around the Tower of London.
Then after closing down for another 15 minutes,
it's on the move, the midday news,
then ragtime with Maggie Henderson and Fred Harris
and closes down again for another 10 minutes.
At 5-2, we're whipped over to the park in Nottingham
for the second round of the John Player Grand Prix,
the men's warm-up tournament for Wimbledon.
After regional news in your area, it's play school
with Julie Stevens,
Brian Kant and Christopher Lillicrap, White Horses and Scooby-Doo. Then Blue Peter checks
in on the progress of Rags, the trainee pony for disabled riders who was paid for with 800
tonnes of old wool and cotton collected by viewers two years ago after captain pugwash it's the news nationwide and
they've just finished tomorrow's world where the power trio of baxter woolard and rod have been
augmented by judith han for the screamy high-pitched bits no doubt the rod of correction
it's what they used to call it down in Sodom and Gomorrah.
BBC Two opens at 6.40 with a triple bill of organisation development,
organosilicon compounds and viewing the invisible in Open University.
There's a gig poster right there, isn't it?
Then shuts down for three hours and five minutes before coming back hard with play school.
Then he shuts down again for another four hours and 25 minutes before picking up the tennis.
Then it's two hours of more Open Universitaire, news on two,
and they're a quarter of an hour into having a baby.
The series about everything to do with pregnancy, apart from the shoving it in bit.
ITV kicks off at 10 to 10 with Woobinder, Animal Doctor,
the Australian kids drama series of the late 60s
involving kangaroos with their arm in a sling and such like.
Then Ron Ely rescues a load of kids from the jungle in Tarzan.
After a repeat of survival about some snow geese, it's the Woody Woodpecker show,
followed by Granny's Kitchen, where one of the old uns gets a musical box to play
aching drum, and then makes some cream cheese and pastry men. Jefferey takes a couple of puppets and
a man in a bear suit to the seaside in Rainbow. Then it's the first in the new series of Treasures in Store,
which looks at a sort of museums and what's inside them.
After the news at one and regional news in your area,
it's the drama series Rooms, followed by Women Only.
Then the 1950 Alastair Sim and Margaret Rutherford film
The Happiest Days of Your Life.
Then The Cedar Tree, more Australian kids drama with The Lost Islands sim and margaret rutherford film the happiest days of your life then the cedar tree more australian
kids drama with the lost islands and the evil stamp collector colonel gum gets a biffing in
batman huey green is the special guest in the latest episode of moon movies where a celebrity
is asked to name what films he'd take with him on a journey to the moon yeah nothing like desert
island dishonest what are you saying that's followed by the news at 5 45 and regional news
in your area then david hunter finds himself in the shit with his casino debts in crossroads
and they're currently 20 minutes into the magnificent showman the 1964 john wayne and
rita hayworth film about a circus that was known everywhere else as circus world boys what is
jumping out at you there anything not a lot apart from my my very very first crush oh yeah woody
woodpecker what yeah woody woodpecker i would say um not not he wasn't arousing in any way but yeah probably my
first crush woody woodpecker we can discuss this perhaps in a separate podcast now but yeah i think
we need to man taylor anything um no stunned silence no i was listening to all of that and i
was astonished at how little there was to comment
on but i mean it was all you know entertaining to hear but i couldn't think of anything to say
about any of it i'm afraid so great no wonder they're queuing up to see us live
all right then pop craze youngsters it is time to go way back to june of 1977 always remember we may coat down
your favorite band or artist or moniker but we never forget they've been on top of the pops
more than we have apart from the monarchy bit hello and welcome to Top of the Pops.
It's twenty past seven on Thursday, July the 9th
1977 and British
television is still basking
in the afterglow of a jubilee
splurge. There's been a
special episode of Mr and Mrs
ITV have put on
a gala of 100 stars
featuring the likes of Patrick Allen
Les Dawson, Sir John
Gielgud, Barbara Windsor
Cleo Lane and Charlie Drake
Saturday night at the
Millers asked Frank Windsor and Kenny Ball
and his jazz men what they were doing
during the coronation
a shitload of documentaries and dramas
about the past 25 years
have been on and last night's
Coronation Street had the
residents of Weatherfield
dressing up as a sort of British
icons as part of a parade
with Annie Walker as Elizabeth I,
Bette Lynch as Britannia,
Ina Sharples as Queen Victoria,
Ernie Bishop as Walter Raleigh,
Fred G as William Shakespeare,
Ken Barlow as Edmund Hiddlery,
a blacked-up Albert Tatlock as Sherpa Tenzin,
and Eddie Yates as a caveman.
That's a great
episode. Alas, the wagon
loan from Newton and Ridley developed
a flat battery when Stan Ogden left
the lights on overnight and
Reanie Roberts had a go at Albert Tatlock
in the Rovers for dressing up as Idi Amin.
But tonight, it's
the turn of our favourite Thursday evening pop treat as it enters its fourth year
under the kindly reign of robin nash who continues to keep a firm and unchanging hand on the top of
the pop's tiller but oh dear the boat is beginning to rock as the charts become more unpredictable and adulterated and captain
nash is discovering that the job is becoming less of a doss article in next week's music week chaps
13 is a difficult age every parent has to face the problem of how much their adolescent offspring should know about forbidden
things. When the 13-year-old is a television program, it seems the answer is no easier.
A sex and punk rock have laid siege to the singles chart. Top of the pops is finding life
a little less than straightforward. The Sex Pistols, of course,
could hardly be expected to be welcomed with open arms, but in the same week that they rocketed
embarrassingly to number 11, the Rock Follies single OK, already shown on ITV to an audience
larger than Top of the Pops' was edited out of the show at the last minute after producer Robin Nash had listened more closely to the words.
He has been producing Top of the Pops on and off for four years
and believes in changing nothing when you're on to a winner.
Its audience goes from about 8 million to 15 million between summer and winter
and Nash is responsible for deciding what they
see. Yet he could justify he is more sinned against than sinning. The BBC rarely bans a record unless
it is inconsiderate enough to chart. A doubtful disc will just not be played in the hope that it
will go away. But while radio can argue that a record
does not fit in with its programming, Top of the Pops is there to put on the hits,
and if it does not, it will at some stage have to say why not. As the Sex Pistols, for example,
clearly have the power to offend some people merely by existing there was a case for discretion with god save
the queen aside from which top of the pops was only following suit in the blacking by other media
nasha's problem in arbitrating between good and bad taste is complicated by the fact that sex
stares out from all over the top 50 kenny rogers easy listening lucille is openly adulterous
carol beyer sega lives with someone who has a rubber hose and nasty bedtime habits and joy
sawn is naughty naughty naughty is just that if you want to think that way all have appeared on
top of the pops but sadly pop craze youngsters not in this
episode before you get your hopes up the new wave bands pose a similar problem though they are
really anything but explicit the line is easier to draw nash has booked the jam and the stranglers
when they came up with a lyric that was inoffensive and will do so with other new wave acts.
Although one dodgy thing gets to slip under the radar
in this episode, as we'll discover.
Chaps, filth, sex, punk rock, what's going on?
Well, I mean, the major thing that comes across in that article
is that although we might think of Top of the Pops
as, you know, a sort of palace of dreams,
it really doesn't sound much fun producing that show. No, not at the moment. No, the things that he has to balance, you know a sort of palace of dreams it really doesn't sound much fun producing that show no not
at the moment no the things that he has to balance you know not only potential content with the songs
but just the record companies the fact that more american acts are becoming more popular and
consequently much more difficult to get them in the studio sounds like a nightmare yeah and it also
sounds so fraught because the time of sort of like deciding what's going on and actually filming the thing is so,
the little window they've got is practically only a day.
It just sounds like a frigging nightmare.
It's amazing that Nash stayed in the job for that long
because it sounds immensely stressful being top of the pops producer.
And at this time, even more so because the charts are fucking going mad.
You know, things are going down and then up again.
As we're going to see uh at the top end
of the charts there's been some definite tinkering going on that's going to have an impact on the
charts for at least a month to come so yeah poor robin nash man he gone are the days when he could
book an entire episode of top of the pops from a phone box in italy when he was on his holiday
your host this week is Tony Blackburn,
who has just reached his fourth anniversary
as the sitting tenant of the Simon Bates lot
from 9 to 12 on weekdays on Radio 1.
Two days ago, on Jubilee Day,
he linked up with Paul Burnett and his foul nemesis Noel Edmonds
to present the nation's all-time top 100.
A six-hour
rundown voted upon by
Radio 1 listeners.
Chaps, would you care to hear the top ten?
Oh, yes, please. Alright. Hit the fucking
music.
Number ten.
I'm Still Waiting, Diana Ross and the
Supremes.
That's not good. Number nine. Alright Now, Free. Alright. Number 10, I'm Still Waiting, Diana Ross and the Supremes.
Number 9, Alright Now, Free.
Number 8, Seasons in the Sun, Terry Jackson.
Number 7, Sailing, Rod Stewart.
Number 6, Hey Jude, The Beatles.
Number 5, Bridge Over Troubled Water, Simon and Garfunkel.
Number four, Bohemian Rhapsody, Queen.
Number three, Without You, Nielsen.
Number two, Maggie Mae, Rod Stewart. Number one, I'm not in love
10cc.
Says a lot, doesn't
it, that? Yeah, it does. It says
a little bit about the previous sort of
you know, 10, 15 years.
But it says a lot about 77 actually.
That 10cc's at number one. Yeah, it also
says just write a self-conscious
anthem. They will fall for it.
His demotion from the breakfast show has
not diminished his star power one jot and he's already spent the first half of 1977 putting
himself about on celebrity squares being in the rotating judges pool on new faces and he even made a tv appearance on jubilee tuesday in a repeat of goodies rule okay the 1975 christmas
special taylor you've got the box set refresh our memories as to what he got up to in that episode
yeah it's uh typically uh zany goodies scenario the new government of outlawed fun just like in the republic of jeffrey archer's ever fertile
imagination um so the goodies go underground and drive around in a car collecting all the now
redundant entertainers uh with the intention of building a resistance movement and putting them
back at the top where they belong so they drive all over london or in fact if you look closely all over ealing
where they used to make comedy and first thing they do they see tommy cooper and they grab him
and they chuck him in the car and they see rolf harris and they grab him and they chuck him in
the car and we see tony blackburn standing on a street corner reading the paper uh the goodies
car pulls daily mail no Mail, no doubt.
I wouldn't be surprised.
Tony walks over to the car, waves,
and just as he gets there, it speeds off.
And you must see Tony standing in the street crying.
Again.
And in two days' time,
he'll be co-presenting the first
in the third series of Seaside Special in Eastbourne,
having seen off Noel Edmonds and Dave Lee Travis,
and bagsie in a permanent slot with his wingman David Hamilton,
who will no doubt be continuing their ongoing banter war,
which has been dragging on for years now.
Article in the Sunday Mirror in March of this year
about the current fashion of
celebrities knocking each other in public. A couple of game lads, outsiders but full of stamina,
a top of the pops compares Tony Blackburn and David Hamilton. Of the two, I find David the
crisper puncher. See if if you agree Blackburn on Hamilton
the only reason he got engaged
this week was so he could have
someone to carry his white handbag
for him
Hamilton on Blackburn
a burglar broke into Tony's library
and stole both his books
and he hadn't even finished
colouring one of them in yet
but if they ever get matched against Jimmy Tarbuck and he hadn't even finished colouring one of them in yet.
But if they ever get matched against Jimmy Tarbuck,
there'll be a lot of needle,
because Jimmy can't stand either of them.
They are the most unfunny people I've ever heard.
Tell them to leave the jokes to the pros. As well as introducing the nolans janet brown and ronnie corbett
they'll be overseeing the first heat of the 1977 miss seaside special natural beauty contest
because chaps as we all know what better judge of natural beauty than Tony Blackburn and David Almont? Absolutely.
But it has to be said, chaps, behind that smile lies pain,
as I do believe we're coming to the culmination of Tony's career of Britain's most famous cookhold,
a title which he bestowed upon himself in the autumn of 1976
when he broke down in a press conference to announce his split from Tessa Wyatt,
and Tony played with Thrown It All Away by R&J Stone and If You Leave Me Now by Chicago
over and over again. His 1977 started with Wyatt appearing as Richard O'Sullivan's stage
girlfriend in the ITV sitcom Robin's Nest, which was followed by rumours in the itv sitcom robin's nest which was followed by rumors in the press that o sullivan
was on wyatt's nest and in a few weeks time blackburn would give an interview where he moved
to the next stage she's turned the weans against us headline in the daily mirror next to a photo
of him with his headphones around his neck looking absolutely tramadol to fuck headline
breaking up is hard to pay disc jockey tony blackburn wants a men's lib movement to protect
spurned husbands tony 34 is now suing his actress wife tessa wired for divorce on the grounds that his marriage is irretrievably broken
down. Tessa left Tony last October after five years of marriage, taking their son with her,
and he opened his heart about the breakup in today's Woman's Own magazine. He said,
this is the worst year of my life. To this day, I shall never know how i managed to keep up the chat and corny jokes
i even thought about taking the easy way out oh tony listen to chris needham there's no easy way
out put your hands in the air and shout doing going to capital radio tony also said after my
experiences of being a loser in marriage,
I'd be quite interested in starting a men's lib campaign
like they have in the USA.
I really feel quite strongly about this.
Why should a man have to go on paying for the privilege
of having someone walk out on him, yeah?
He's gone full Fathers for Justice there, hasn't he?
He's not entirely wrong about this
in terms of the way men get shafted in divorce cases but in typical blackburn fashion he has
made it as difficult as possible to sympathize with him it's like the phrase men's lib or men's
rights he's never gonna win anyone over it just makes you think that when he dressed up
as superman in roller yes he was actually on his way to scale big ben made out of a bed sheet
which is not easy to do in uh slip-on shoes no bit of a heel the thing about tony is that you can
never quite hate him for his stupidity and banality but
equally you can't
quite feel sorry for him when things
go wrong. He makes it very
difficult. Even in the sort of tiny
five second segment in which
he introduces this episode
even if you were a kid who didn't know
about all of these shenanigans and what
he was going through that year there's something
incredibly even more forced than normal you can sort of simultaneously see why he's so emblematic
for so many people of this sort of anodyne superficial nature of pop radio and pop television
but you can also see why out of all of the radio one djs at that time he's perhaps
sort of psychologically most compelling in a way that that that smile i mean is that an expression of true emotion or is
that a reflex of kind of avoidance of real emotion you always find yourself in this episode are we
watching an adult man or are we watching a kind of painfully withdrawn child playing his games of
pretense at being normal in an adult body when i think of the smiles of the other DJs, like Savile's smile, that's a leer, you know?
Travis's smile is a bug-eyed kind of Colin Hunt-style proof of zaniness.
Simon Bates always looks like he's posing for a brochure.
And Noel Edmonds' smile is just pure careerism.
But Blackburn, what's behind that smile?
You know, it's something I've been thinking a lot about recently,
because I've shifted my radio habits of a Saturday morning of late.
I'm radio 3, 9 till 12, but 7 till 9,
I'm now listening to Sounds of the 60s with Tony Blackburn,
you know, pottering around, having my tea and my facts.
I was kind of initially angry that he got that gig
because the Coventry-born Brian Matthew made the programme very much his own
and turned it into something of a cult for several years, you know.
And I was a bit annoyed
when when tony took over tony blackburn has definitely editorialized this show it's very
reflective of him it's got a northern soul section now and a motown a to z and a do what feature it
clearly reveals his obsessions in pop but still after what nearly on sort of 50 years really of
dealing with blackburn in my life i've still got no clue really what he does with music
and what it does to him
he likes music I'll give him that
but I think he just likes music that lets him
be Tony Blackburn smiling
and dancing and essentially self
pitying so his
smile here yeah worst year of his life
and there's just an extra tincture
of forcedness
and facadeness to Tony in this episode
that I found really compelling, actually.
He would have been well chuffed about
I'm still waiting to get to number 10
since it was him that got it released by Tamla Motown.
Right, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, I'm sure he wouldn't have failed to mention that.
I think all music for him is just,
it's a spiritual thing.
It's part of the sort of the ceremonial reanimation in his mind of Tessa Warren.
It's just her, like, incorporeal form.
I know she comes from Woking, and you say she's a fool,
but her heart is in the city where it belongs.
Well, at least Tony will be able to console himself this weekend by linking up with an unnamed
dancer in new edition the regular troop in seaside special who's been knobbing for the past two
series really oh yeah i mean this is the thing about tony blackburn he goes on about being the
jilted husband and everything but you know he also mentions that oh yeah i was i was being a
massive slag at the time as well why is she left me oh yeah let's not forget that what broke up their happy home
was that he slept with what he referred to as a lovely oriental person and i quite like oriental
people so you know i was watching the top of the pops from 1983 a while ago. Not the same one with Peter Powell looking like proud earner of five O levels,
disgraced liar,
grand chaps.
It's a different one.
It's where Jonathan King's wretched interlude.
Oh yes.
Entertainment USA.
Yeah.
But he was in Paris this time and it was outroed by Tony Blackburn with the words,
that was a gay Jonathan King in Paris.
To which Gary Davis says, I think you mean Jonathan King in gay Paris.
To which Tony just grins silently.
So, on top of everything else a pioneer of outrage not only that outing people when he
wasn't gay himself which i think shows real dedication to the cause we're hit with a cold
open of tone air in a light blue short-sleeved shirt with all waves on it and some sort of animal that i can't work out what it is on
it tucked into beige saxons sporting an exceedingly lank hairstyle in his trademark smile which makes
him look like the joker played by terry wogan after nailing two critical pieces of information. Hello and welcome to Top of the Pops.
He hurls us into the top 30 as the clarion call of whole lot of love
by the Top of the Pops orchestra blares out.
And chaps, it's a return to those pictures.
Oh, what caught the eye this time?
The first thing that caught my eye was the Eagles.
Yes.
Looking like five versions of the statue of christ
that carrie has in her under the stairs they look fucking terrifying one of the eagles on the left
hand side he's been perfectly bisected by the picture crop hasn't he just like that jellyfish
yeah indeed but there's i mean the thing is with the eagles there's actually a lot of bands here
who kind of explain why punk had to happen i guess lots of bearded beden and totally
indistinguishable bands elp genesis blue they all kind of look the same yeah not that blue
hasten to add yeah not that blue not that blue but um i mean the other one that stuck out to
me is brian ferry yes he looks like roy of the rovers teammate blackie gray also wearing a one comedy mr spock ear unless that's his real ear which would make me wonder
whether he had his eyes surgically moved closer together to distract anyone from ever noticing
yeah and the only other one i noticed was yeah boz skaggs nonce estate agent
well equally terrifying is the base city rollers who've been airbrushed into the realm of the
uncanny they're like the base city real dolls although it has to be said that the so-called
restoration that someone has done on this particular file has made pretty much everyone look kind of disturbing.
They all look like the pictures you get if you type their names into Dal E.
A timeless reference there that will never date.
That is the Liverpool football team in a very dark, creepy photograph in front of some flock wallpaper,
A very dark, creepy photograph in front of some flock wallpaper,
which looks like it was taken at the scene of a spontaneous human combustion.
The heat from which has melted off the faces of the players. I don't think too many children would have pinned that poster up on their bedroom.
No.
And it's immediately out of date because Kevin Keegan's on it.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
What else is there?
10cc.
A spiteful Eric Stewart, having shrunk godly and cream to the size of bodkins,
displays them hidden in the palm of his hand to a delighted Graham Goldman.
Caption.
Yes.
Lol.
Get it?
Gladys Knight and the Pips.
The Pips jackets patterned after the first half second of the then current Tyne Tees ident.
Niche but accurate.
Well spotted, Taylor.
Honkair look like they're watching a stripper at a working bench.
Go back and look at that picture.
You'll see it.
Genesis. Phil Collins has got his face right glommed onto tony banks's neck making him look like the world's
hairiest conjoined yeah and also the one that no one knows what his name is has got this sort of
fair old pullover and scarf thing going on yeah the four of them look like ford prefect
slarty bart fast yes they fall beagle brocks in a public
school production of hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy pierrot umilane is depicted as a plastic
mushroom with a face and springy horns but maybe he is maybe that's what he is oh and rock follies
are entitled julie covington char Cornwall, Rule Lenska.
Yeah, yeah.
Because the BBC aren't about to advertise
an ITV television programme.
Right.
They're not going to call them rock follies.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, Rule Lenska,
the patriotic Polish song. As the wiggly guitar reaches a crescendo and the canned applause kicks in,
we're immediately whipped into the image of some congas being bashed
as the first act appears.
It's Ossie Bisa and the Warrior.
Warrior, come out to play!
We've already covered Ossie Bisa,
the Ghana-Nigerian-Caribbean collective in Chart Music 29
when they took Sunshine Date at number 17 in january of 1976
and this single the follow-up to dance the body music which got to number 31 in june of last year
is taken from their seventh lp ojar awake it was originally put out by the band as a single in 1975, but failed to chart,
and is the cover of a song taken from Ipitombe, the 1974 South African musical,
about a young man who leaves his village and goes to work in the mines of Johannesburg,
which made it to the West End last year before transferring to Broadway.
On the back of the success of the stage show, it's been dusted off and put out again.
And while it's not in the chart yet,
Robin Nash clearly doesn't give a toss,
as here they are in the studio.
And chaps, Ipi Tombe,
being good and upstanding citizens of ATV land as you are,
we all know the title track of that musical,
as well as we know our own mother's faces don't
we is it from the advert for the west midlands safari park
only during the research of this song for chart music did i learn that they aren't english lyrics
because i'd listen to that advert for the West Midlands Safari Park
and just think,
they're saying something,
but what the fuck is it?
And I just assumed it was
a really thick Birmingham accent.
You know the second bit where it goes,
hee-yuh-oh-ee-yum,
me-oh-ee-yum.
That bit.
I worked out that the last line must be,
it's on the um.
And I just assumed that there was a river um that i that
was somewhere in birmingham and that's where the west midland safari park was on the um strangely
plausible maybe next to the river tom where tickle town is in fact it's right next to an area of
common land called rid covert right which is where we used to go camping when i was in the cubs
and the best thing
was because it was right next to the safari park you'd be sitting around the bonfire at night like
eating your marshmallows or whatever and they'd be trying to get you to sing those stupid songs
and in the distance you could hear lions roaring wow yeah even better than the bit where you all
had to queue up outside a tent and go in get naked and be washed
by the people no yeah yeah yeah and it was kind of unpleasant because they had a a light bulb on
inside the tent so if you stood outside the tent you got one hell of a shadow play putting that
aside um forever any notion that this episode of top of the pops is going to be
an orgy of flag shagging is immediately dispelled isn't it i wonder if that was deliberate i don't
think it was i mean it's a cracking song to start an episode with but there is this odd dissonance
with this performance it's presented and also to them that you know to their credit actually
present it as a kind of upbeat holiday anthem. Yes. But, you know, slowly the lyrics, if you notice it, start snagging on you a little bit
and you wonder what the hell it's all about.
I mean, we've already mentioned one of those deeply gratifying scenes
in the nationwide Ghibli special.
I've got to admit, that Ghibli special now haunts my dreams.
Wait for the bonus episode, Pulp Crazinesses.
Get your sense signed up to Patreon.
You don't want to miss it
but you know
it's a weird thing to put
in a Jubilee episode
of Top of the Pops
it's a very upbeat tune
yes
it's got these weird lines
about you know
the vultures fly
the wind is high
the warrior fights
the battle of power
it's not
exactly celebratory
of Britain
or British
the scavengers wait, each find their space.
Death is late, the battle of power.
You're not going to notice those lines.
It's not people who should have run to the hills, isn't it?
You're not particularly going to notice those lines,
perhaps, when you're a kid.
And you're just going to see it as a nice, sunny,
sort of very danceable tune.
And you wonder who you're going to be chucking the spares at.
It could be our brave boys.
But it's both simultaneously a start that makes sense
because it's upbeat,
but the lyrics, you know,
tell of something completely different.
Yeah, there's nothing wrong with this,
but I don't generally get on with African pop
that sounds simultaneously this jolly and this shiny.
Either one is okay, but the two together i'll
switch off a bit i wish that there was a little bit more of that uh bloodshot eyed terror in the
actual music as well i mean it's very slick as you might expect from an afro rock band produced by
eleanor bron's brother right um who also did manfred man and uriah heap
and the bonzo dog doodah band so a pro but not someone who's necessarily going to capture the
grit and the heat that you hear on the best afro rock stuff never mind the actual african based
rock bands who i always prefer to the british ones. But I mean, it could be done because some of this stuff is great.
Like there's brilliant and well-recorded records by like Ofo, the black company, right?
Lafayette Afro rock band.
But part of what's great about the bands who were playing rock and soul and funk influence stuff in Africa was that they had to use relatively crappy old studios yeah which really suits the
music in the same way that it suits the velvet underground or whatever you know you you hear the
amps hissing and the heat haze and it really brings out the the power of it then also beats
would always sounded fairly slick so that if you listen to their early albums it's kind of afro prog right yeah yeah yeah
roger dean covers didn't they yeah yeah they're fantastic like roger dean's only ever good covers
like if you listen to their first album with the cover of the elephants with butterfly wings on it
i mean that's you know produced by tony visconti it's as slick as this track but it weighs about
15 times as much.
You know what I mean?
Yeah.
Oh, and also the cover of Heads, which I should say,
Heads, the greatest ever title for an Afro prog LP,
inspired Roger Dean to his greatest and most grotesque work ever.
He's obviously trying to be influenced by Bitches Brew cover and stuff like that,
trying to go a bit afro but his
own style is so absurd that you can just add anything to it and it you know it looks completely
crazy and of course ossebisa end up using matty clarwine don't they who did the bitch's brew cover
really i think they yeah they start using him straight after they sort of they don't dump
roger dean essentially they start using matty clarwine so soon after but yeah there's no dirt here yeah and the polish i mean the polish is actually something
that's picked up in reviews the review of this the album that the warrior is from um is by chris
welsh in a melody maker and and he actually praises its clean guitar lines and all of this
sort of stuff he talks about cleanliness and and it does make you think i mean what a shame
in a way talking of afro rock that
comes from england if you like or comes from london you know what a shame a band like i don't know
demon fuzz um who came up you know this is the same time as ossebisa in the same kind of scene
their africa album from 71 is fantastic and dirty and filthy and that's why it's sampled so much by
so many hip-hoppers um they never made it because they're a bit too weird osabisa were always going to get ahead because they're clean and their sound
provides no kind of barrier if you like it's just very clean and palatable yeah although i mean like
that first album was a hit record it was a top 20 album in britain right no so it just makes you
think they could have done something a little bit crunchier for a hit yeah yeah yeah i mean also i mean this is basically high life in it the way it's like
yeah and there's always the temptation is to put too much gloss on highlight and because it's
already super bright and when the band can really play like this one you want to hear them i like
the breakdown bit in this where you get like a hint of funkiness all of a sudden.
And then when all the band come back in again, it sort of spoils it.
I mean, it sounds like trying to be cool or worse, you know, saying, you know, I want my Africans recording in a sweltering shack in Zambia.
You know, putting out their records with Letraset front covers.
But Taylor, those records sound better.
I mean, the Zambrock records from coming around about this same period,
you know, from bands like Witch and stuff,
who are recording in pretty poor scenarios.
Amonaz.
Yeah, they're fucking amazing records
precisely because of the dirtiness.
And I don't think those things
were necessarily just foisted on those bands.
They love that dirt
and they love that distortion and that sound.
Osso Bistro is a different thing entirely.
But it's a great,
I think it's a good start to the show.
I mean,
it's upbeat at least,
yeah.
It's just that,
you know,
you listen to their
first few records
and compared to that stuff,
this is a bit like their
You Better You Bet.
It's like,
if your strengths
as a band
are adventure
and drive
and like red hot
ensemble playing,
that's what you want to hear on the records right yeah yeah
yeah and in a way it's i can understand why they're first on this program to kick it off
but in a way they they suffer for coming first on this program because this is so much better than a
lot of what's coming up later and if you heard it halfway through the show you you would sit up
soon enough yeah but that's the funny
thing i mean tying it in with the nationwide ghibli special that that classic bit when you know
it scrolls up the scene all the colonies we've lost we are pretty much by this time in 77 we
haven't got anything left that we still got belize maybe i don't know but you know we've got nothing
left and that's accompanied by the lowering of the union jack and this ghibli episode here
starts with an anti-colonialist song
played by an African group.
It's really odd, isn't it?
But it's totally, of course, unnoticed by the audience
and also Tony Blackburn, inevitably.
I don't think the general public's ready for the Burundi beat just yet.
That would happen a few years later with
I Eat Cannibals and The Lion Sleeps Tonight.
You know, the true sound of africa as a nine-year-old
this is the only africa music i'm gonna hear apart from you know the opening credits of tarzan yeah
and the aforementioned uh west midland safari park advert yeah yes although it you know instantly
provides tony with a chance to fuck up yes we'll come to that in a minute okay okay so the following
week and for every week after that to this day the warrior failed to chart the follow-up living
loving feeling was also given the rub of a top of the pops performance in december of this year
but that failed to chart as well and they never bothered the top 40 ever again.
But they made a nice living on the festival circuit throughout the late 70s,
playing at the Zimbabwe Independent Celebration gig with Bob Marley and the Wailers,
and living out the rest of their careers as a strictly world music concern.
But wait, guess who appeared the other week on Mike Reed's Heritage Chart Show?
What?
Only Ossibisa.
What?
Oh, yeah, they got a new record out, which isn't very good,
but it made it into the only chart that counts.
Yes.
I was just thinking how long until the first angry letter to Mike,
dear Mike Reed.
Yes.
I was under the impression this was meant to be the Heritage Chart Show,
not the African heritage chart show
and
knowing old muck read he might
even read it out
I'll give you a quick update on this
because I decided to read
it and weep the other night
with a drink to
fortify myself against the soul
attack and I caught up Nick kershaw was at
number one still hasn't grown any taller guess who else turned up your friend and mine dean
friedman oh alas saying nothing of interest but i did notice something about the new record by
katrina of well katrina of katrina and the waves as she's now killed in
case anyone thought that she was a hurricane yeah hurricane katrina's got a new record out
but her song goes every day is like a holiday and i thought wait a minute is this demographic
targeting is this a song about being retired yeah like how great would that be rock and roll songs
about being retired yeah how many of them have it been i don't know but how cool would it be
thumb in their nose at the working stiffs you know it'd be like a wham rap but about being retired
i might not have a job but i have a good time with the girls that i meet daily mail below the line
o-a-p-o-r hey everybody take a look at me i got a scooter for mobility
oh and the other thing that caught my eye is one of the rubettes now looks exactly like larry david
it's really kind of yeah you must get it all the time,
people coming up to him and saying,
hey, bald asshole.
And he goes, yeah, yeah, yeah, like out of Curb Your Enthusiasm.
And they go, like out of what?
But at least that's one band where you can't snigger
when they all turn up wearing hats.
There it is.
That's a sound there of Asa Bisa and an album called The Warrior.
And that's a good way to start our sort of jubilee edition,
I guess we would call it, at the top of the pots.
Hope that you had a really lovely holiday
and let's keep the holiday atmosphere going
with the Electric Light Orchestra and Telephone Line.
Tony, off to the side, tells us that Ossie Beeser was a good way to start the Jubilee Top of the Pops.
He then expresses his hopes that we had a good Jubilee Doss,
and tells us that they're going to keep the holiday atmosphere going with a
song about extreme loneliness and borderline stalking yeah yeah yeah he says let's keep the
holiday atmosphere going yeah with this song about a desperate man who's lost his dignity
endlessly ringing his ex even though she won't pick up well that's how tony spent his jubilee
holiday anyway and let's face, we've all been there.
That and not watching the summer repeats of Series 1 of Robin's Nest.
No.
And let's face it, we've all been there too.
Anyway, the song Tony's talking about is Telephone Line by ELO.
It seems that we're contractually obliged to talk about the Electric Light Orchestra
every fucking time we do a late
70s top of the pops and this their 13th single released in the uk is the follow-up to rock aurea
which got to number nine in march of this year it's the third and final cut from their 1976 lp
a new world record which is still putting itself about on the LP charts and is currently
at number 11. It entered the chart three weeks ago at number 42, then soared 14 places to number 28,
and this week it's moved up five places from number 18 to number 13. As Jeff and the Chaps
are currently in Munich recording their next album, Out of the Blue,
and have already drawn a line
under making in-studio performances on Top of the Pop
since Knight Rider in April of 1976,
here's a still new innovation for the time,
a promo video.
And Chaps, here we have 70s video cliche number one,
the fake live performance,
which was pretty much the only game in town in this era, wasn't it?
I mean, even Bohemian Rhapsody, when you look at it again,
is a fake live performance, but with extra overlays of fire,
like a coal-light advert.
Yeah, yeah.
I mean, ELO on film always look like they're on another planet as well.
And I'm never able to work this out.
It always looks like footage from Apollo 17.
You know, like Gene Cernan collecting dust samples, you know.
And yet, they're such earthbound people.
So, yeah, ELO, they don't do top of the pops anymore.
Yeah, how come?
Is it beneath them?
Well, because they're massive now.
Yeah, yeah.
And probably something to
do with jeff lynn
being the most
reticent man in pop
at the moment you
know when out of the
blue comes out in a
few months time he
tells the record
company that the
only press interview
he's going to do for
it is with the
birmingham mail
because that's the
only paper that his
mom and dad read
so yeah it's a bit
of a control freak
which reveals itself
in this record actually i quite like this song it's lovely this yeah it's a bit of a control freak which reveals itself in this record actually i quite
like this song it's lovely yeah it's firmly in the in the you know let's rewrite the beatles
something area of elo's work but it is a it's pristine it's perfect the harmony is a really
choice and it's got that kind of pacific coast suggestiveness in the baccarachi chords that i
mean it always comes naturally that kind of thing to people living in the most landlocked bit of the uk so yeah i mean it's a
really good song and actually they benefit i think like taylor says it does have this sealed in
space age kind of vibe this little clip yeah it's a song about technology a bit odd i mean
is he talking to an operator yeah it sounds like he's trying to leave a phone message or something.
But then he talks to an operator.
I mean, phones were the music streaming service of the day, of course, with Dial-A-Disc.
That was getting 100 million calls a year.
Real money spinner.
Even if people had started figuring out to press the B button before the end of the record and get a refund.
Maybe Tony spent the Jubilee talking to the Dial-A-Disc playing of this song.
Just adding an extra level to it well I mean I remember people
phoning dialer discs
and saying they could hear other people
what?
in between the record
yeah in between
you know because it was
I think it changed
how many songs were on it
but in between each song
people that I spoke to
especially if you did it
from a phone box
could hear little bits of
they might have been bullshitting me
but that's what they could hear certainly but the annoying thing i mean it's one
of those things that as a songwriter you know old technology it provides better rhymes to be honest
with you phones calls radio in 2022 we're still at that point really where even in hip-hop mention
of i don't know instagram or followers or feeds it
still sounds in a weird way more dated yes because instantaneously it's kind of superannuated by
being mentioned in the song whereas the phone call is something that will immortally be in pop
yeah because it puts you in that position an interesting lyrical position um of being able
to talk and perhaps also listen to someone who's not there with you and that's kind
of the pull of this song and it is as taylor said it's a dark despairing kind of song yeah as well
the other sign that they've been kicked up into the big league is the dial tone which is an american
one yes yes indeed apparently they rang up an american number at random and hoped no one would
pick it up you know partly so they could record, but also partly so they wouldn't get a massive phone
bill and then run it for a moon.
Yeah, they know all the tricks of
transatlantic pop from A to Z.
And yeah,
you're right, Neil. You know, people talk about
films that you couldn't make shot for shot
nowadays because of technology's
rendered the plot unworkable. Well,
you know, that kind of applies to this as well because, know there wouldn't be an operator involved nowadays you'd have to
call the song 5g mast or 700 unanswered text messages i don't like how when you type elo
in the youtube it auto completes as elon no I mean, it's an easy mistake to make.
It's two ugly rich men with spaceships.
It's just a good thing they didn't call themselves
Electric Toaster Orchestra.
Right.
Or it would auto-complete as Eton Musk.
Oh!
The sweet smell of success.
It's a pungent fragrance of old meat,
masturbation and somebody else's sweat this is one of my favorite elo singles though i always go on about how elo records are on or off with me
there's some that i love and some that i can't bear but this is great it's as much of a weird artificial underwater neon world as all the best elo records but it's
also a genuinely emotional ballad that you can believe in on that level too and they work together
like the strange unearthly atmospheres created by the production enhance the meaning of the song yeah and enforce it so you don't get the feeling
that you sometimes get from elo that the record is a giant impressively sculpted uh blue glass
abstract which has function but no meaning which is perfectly okay but it's just it's nice to have
some sort of contact too like jeff lynn is not what anyone
would call a soul man no but he can create sounds which trigger peculiar emotions so
all the better if he matches them to an appropriate song yeah and this is the slowest
yellow single so far isn't it yeah you'd have to wait until wild west hero for another one like it
and that's nowhere near as good as this, to my mind.
Although it is the usual mixture of late Beatles and pre-Beatles style.
But the 50s or early 60s type bits here aren't just decoration
or like a beery nostalgia trip like they are on some of these records.
They're integrated into the song and it works.
They wring a bit of tragedy
out of the do-what bits you know it's like they're all behind perspex as usual but you do feel
something when you hear them because the song has properly set you up to well yeah i mean it's
interesting you say the 50s and 60s because for me the harmony is like straight from the everly
brothers and and the song's like quite beatlesy but the lines themselves the lyrics are definitively 70s i mean i'm living in twilight
it's just such a fantastic payoff in that hook that i think is a very 70s thing so they're
combining those things to make something contemporary it's good yeah i like it reminds
me of me in the winter when it always seems to be either 4 p.m or 4 a.m yeah i mean it's it's
certainly not an original song that's for sure there's bits in here that are essentially identical
to other songs yeah the long and winding road for that piano and the way he goes yeah yeah yeah yeah
all the young dudes for the chorus although that chord sequence wasn't new when Bach used it,
never mind the L-O.
And most obviously, Hello by Lionel Richie for the opening line.
So that's two from before this record existed and one from after.
So on balance, that's a deficit.
Oh, and you haven't even mentioned Hello, This Is Jonah.
Oh, yeah.
A year or so later, which ramped up the technology even more
because there's an answering machine and you can hear Jonah.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Even though she's dead in a car crash.
I miss all those story songs.
Yeah.
I do like Jeff Lynne, but it's just the way it feels like for him.
His whole life was just leading up to joining the Traveling Wilburys.
Yeah.
You just get the impression that he's more of a fan than a visionary.
Do you know what I'm saying?
Which is, you know, even though David Bowie had already shown
that you could be both.
But it's just that fuzziness of purpose, you know, as well as of face.
Also, he's the only person in the world where you don't recognize him
until he puts a pair of dark glasses on.
Oh, it's Geoff Lynn.
You know, he's just another browser in the pornographic bookshop
until he sticks the literature under his coat,
pays and leaves, steps outside, slips on a pair of shades,
and, oh, hey, Geoff, all right?
Hey, Geoff, don't bring me down.
Gruce.
He loves that.
And it's a quick thumbs up, and he's backing his allegro speeding back towards spaghetti junction i also like the way that the orchestra if you like
the string players in this they don't do that normal thing of like dressing them up like they're
playing in the abbott hall or something they just sort of like jobbing musicians and they seem like
part of it all they don't feel
like oh look we're making ourselves a bit posher um they feel like musicians as well so it's
actually a really successful video in a way even though yeah it's cliche to have those kind of
performance videos but this is actually a really good one and and the face on kind of shot of jeff
that dominates most of it is spot on i think he looks great i mean the thing is
it could be argued as we were saying when we were looking through those photos to start this episode
of top of the pots an awful lot of people look like this in terms of big hair big beard big
shades but jeff does it really well i think i think he looks fantastic yeah i think he does
too i gotta be honest although in the west midlands in the 1970s if
you were in your 30s or even late 20s and you wanted to look kind of cool but not too cool
this was very much the look you'd go indeed yes i've met so many people who look like
why don't we ever see him on the heritage chart, eh? He thinks he's too good for it.
Honestly, I might read over Zoom in the kind of visual quality
that people watch live streams of 9-11 on, on QuickTime, you know.
Did I ever tell you when I was a kid, by the way,
that I was in the car and we were driving somewhere near Birmingham
and we were following a big car with the registration number Bev1.
Oh.
Which I thought, that has to be Bev Bevan, surely.
Cool.
That's my claim to fame.
Although, you know, probably a Vauxhall Viva or something.
Because at the time you had no idea.
It's like when me and my mates thought we must be delivering the local paper to robert plant's house so i never tell you that one
because on my paper round there was like one big detached house you know right so obviously it was
owned by like an estate agent or something uh but because it was the the only big sort of posh
looking house on our paper round we used to speculate perhaps that's where Robert Platt lives.
It wasn't just that we didn't know how the other half lived,
it's that we couldn't even imagine it properly.
So the following week, Telephone Line moved up five places to number eight,
then dropped two places to number ten the week after,
but moved back up two places to return to number 8 the week after that,
its highest position.
But over on stateside US of A,
it got to number 7 on the Billboard chart,
their first top 10 placing.
The follow-up, Turn to Stone,
was put out in November of this year,
and, with the assistance of legs and co shaking it
all about while trying not to knock over
some wobbly polystyrene stalagmites
and stalactites got
to number 18 the following
month Oh, oh, telephone line
Well, I don't want to put a hold on you as Bernie Flint's very first record,
and of course he was a smash hit.
He's got a brand new one out, and this, I think, is even better.
It's going to go even higher.
It's called Southern Comfort.
I was brought up in the country
I was taught to have respect.
And at home I learned the words to every song.
Born in Southport in 1952, Bernard Flint was a former sailor and window cleaner
who was working as a van driver for a laundry in Ormskirk in November of 1976
when he went with his best mate Dave Mead,
the little brother of Sid Little,
to Manchester to audition for Opportunity Knocks,
the long-running Thames TV talent show.
The panel was so taken with his singer-songwriter stylings
that they wanted to immediately rush him on the show,
only to discover that he'd only written down
the name of his street
in his application form, which led Huey Green to contact Fleet Street and spark a manhunt
that was instantly successful.
Fucking hell, if only they'd got in Huey Green to look for the Yorkshire Ripper.
He made his debut appearance on the show in January of 1977 and became an instant success winning 12 episodes on the bounce and retiring
undefeated breaking the record of new world who won nine weeks in a row in 1970 thanks to over
18 000 fake postcard votes partially organized by janie jones's husband He was immediately signed to EMI and his debut single, I Don't Want To Put A Hold
On You, went all the way to number three in April, spending six weeks in the top 10. And this single,
taken from his first LP, is the follow-up. It's not in the charts just yet, but Top of the Pops
knows a hit when it sees one and i mean that most sincerely
folks it's only the second or third time that we've come across someone who's been on opportunity
knocks chaps and you know that's a collective which includes peters and lee mary hopkin middle
of the road lena zavarone neil reed the jam bobby crush millican and Nesbitt, Paper Lace and Max Boyce.
Yes, and I did say The Jam.
Paul Weller's girlfriend at the time applied to Opportunity Knocks
on behalf of the band in late 1974
and they were invited to audition in August of 1975
at Surbiton Town Hall doing a medley of Beakles covers
but they failed to impress.
What a shame, man man i think we'd be
living in a different world if the jam went on opportunity yeah yeah i used to watch opportunity
knocks at my nans yes it was an extreme nans show wasn't it yeah well i remember even then
two things were agonizingly obvious firstly there was something not right about huey green and secondly the clapometer
did not appear to be the complex piece of highly technological sound measuring equipment
we were led to believe actually a bit of cardboard moved by a hidden hand which uh yes
struck me as both worryingly imprecise and potentially open to corruption.
But that's what's remarkable about Flint.
12 weeks.
I mean, the staggering thing about that is that people wrote in, you know, to vote for him.
Letters, stamps, get into the post box.
Ted into lock Middlesex.
To get this hateful fucker in.
Yeah.
Because bloody hell, this is awful.
Well, you do wonder how Mr. Charie flint won it for 12 weeks straight but
i mean you'd be happier about spending 12 weeks in flint michigan than 12 weeks listening to
but then you think well he was almost certainly up against identical septuplets with stylophones
playing sometimes i feel like a motherless child and you know an old bloke who smashed
himself in the face with a baking tray over and over again while screaming and a bearded group of
popular northern entertainers with their trousers rolled up over their knobbly knees so they could
break off in the middle of the song and kick each other in the kneecaps for comic relief
i bet if you watch the
shows that he was actually on he looks like nick drake even though you watch this you just think
oh i see your uncle bernie finally got to make his record he never gave up always believed in
himself yeah it's nice for him i I remember Opportunity Knocks extremely well.
I mean, it was on the telly at me mam's house
and me nanar's house right through the 70s.
And both Opportunity Knocks and New Faces
were a massive deal at the time.
But the great thing about them was,
unlike the talent shows of today,
Opportunity Knocks would pitch up on a Monday evening
and then it would just fuck off for the rest of the week
and not bother you.
It wasn't rammed up your arse non-stop like pop idol or any of that shit so yeah i knew of mr
flint quite well but you know going by this performance it is hard to work out why he won
every week for three months it's just dog shit in it i mean for starters i mean the title bugs me
because he's yeah has he just basically chosen that as a drink he's heard of as, as I don't know,
some kind of proof of his Americana roots.
Maybe.
And it's an awful drink anyway,
immediately brought back emetic memories for me.
Only rivaled by,
I don't know,
diamond white or Thunderbird blue.
It's not a session drink.
No,
no,
no.
But I mean,
there's no way of proving it.
I'm fairly sure that his 12 week reign,
I think Brummie's had a big part to play in this.
And he's just hateful.
He's not particularly good looking.
His voice is horrible.
I don't know.
But 1977, he was all right.
Yes, right.
But his voice is horribly mediocre.
He looks like a defender for Liverpool.
Yeah, he does.
But his voice is mediocre.
He pushes it into the choruses like kids in a choir
who've been told to enunciate clearly.
I mean, as a kid, I would rather have had, yeah,
Bob Blackman singing Mule Train and bashing his head
with a tea tray or something like that.
Yes.
His song is really pretty awful.
The audience can't dance to it.
No.
And really, if it wasn't for his religious leanings,
he'd already basically be looking ahead at a future of pontins.
Yeah.
Supporting the Grimbleweeds or Roy Spook Slither Jay
in between the bingo, you know.
He's not got a lot going for him.
Well, hang on, let's look at this.
His song is, I'm going home to southern comfort.
He's from fucking Southport.
Exactly.
That world-famous Skelmersdale hospitality.
Sitting on the porch with a mint julep.
A battered sausage and a kick in the balls.
In terms of what he looks like, he's got this feathered hair,
like, flicked back, but manageable,
with a neat, unthreatening moustache and sideburns,
which almost touch the tips of the mustache but not quite yeah less
that hinted diabolism or the permissive society and he's got that hair shaped like an upside down
strawberry like strafed with cossack and yeah what's weird is that today, even if he was trying to look ultra-conformist like this, it might be a moderately attractive man.
But 1977-styled Bernie may as well be a different species.
I mean, at least he's made the effort in his grey leisure top.
Yes.
Accessorised with caramel-coloured boots.
It's a beautiful combination going perfectly with the
the off-white trousers and the the yellowish wood of his acoustic guitar it takes quite a man
to make natural colors clash you know there's something irresistibly british about it he
he ends up looking like like like dickie davis dreaming
about being back on his speedboat and he's also got a tattoo of a swallow on his right forearm
which was the 70s signifier of being a wronger yeah yeah well he was a salty sea yeah wasn't he
it was a pretty part of some yeah some hazing i'm unfamiliar with it on the arm.
I'd normally see those kind of tats on the neck.
It's a dead giveaway and it's like a spider's web.
And he's Bernie with an I.
One of those spellings which makes you think,
oh, well, his name must not be Bernard.
You know, sometimes people try and signal to you
that it's not the shortened version of the name you're thinking.
That's why they've spelt it differently.
It's actually Bernardino or Bernossus. Yeah, bernossus yeah bernoffel or something it's like but it's not it's bernard
so why name yourself in a way that in 1977 only means one thing moderately priced steakhouse yes
you know i mean there used to be a bernie in in kidderminster to be fair in blackwell street
in the town centre there's a place called the riverboat which for me always lends some extra
magic to the first verse of neil young's ambulance blues because it was like a heavenly grotto to me
as a kid yeah luxury beyond compare a complete break from the everyday almost as much as going on the ferry out
of triangle yes you disappear into this tall dark building dimly lit with lights designed to look
like candelabras and everything was dark wood and red velvet yeah seating in alcoves and there's
like medieval look wooden doors through which would emerge unimaginable delicacies.
Scampi and breadcrumbs cooked from frozen.
Prog cocktails.
Yeah, gammon with pineapple ring.
Good Lord.
With chips done to a brown dry turn.
Yeah.
Yeah, big fat chips.
Black Forest Gato for afters.
Oh, lovely. yeah yeah big fat chips like forest gato for afters obviously had the same relation to a
proper american steakhouse as this record as to johnny cash but it was all we knew you know
and if only this record could be described as a complete break from the everyday yes i don't think
so the bernie in that was round our way that uh my mom and dad took me and my sister to a time or two he had
these these big windows and dickensian urchins looking in on us he always used to make me feel
really fucking guilty i just wanted to invite him in and give him some of my chips so thatcherized
so so bad isn't it it's like it's not even that bad that's the worst thing about it but it doesn't belong on
top of the pops man this ain't pebble mill yeah not not least because it's not in the fucking
chart it's like i don't want to put a hold on you was a big hit you can sort of see why when you
listen to it it's yeah it's not bad it's like yeah glenn campbell's condensed mulligan tawny
you know it's a proper old school radio 2 record you know. It's a proper old-school Radio 2 record.
You know, it's like a soothing soundtrack for root canal work
or, you know, potato peeling in the sink on Valley.
But it's incredible how quick he's run out of steam in such an easy line.
It's like you hear the twittering woodwind on this record,
like badly imagined birds.
It's first line, time-pressed, hack, prettification.
It's a dead giveaway, that sound.
Just nobody has tried with this record.
That's the thing.
And it's just left Bernie high and dry.
Is this the first shift at the top of the Pops Orchestra tonight?
I think it is.
Yeah.
Well in the comfort zone here, aren't they?
In the southern comfort zone, if you will.
Well, I mean, it is doomed because Tony's already predicted confidently that this will be a bigger hit.
Yes.
Than his previous ones.
Yes.
Inevitable.
The thing I hate the most about this song is that it goes, my father taught me working.
Yes.
My mother taught me love. It's glo no wonder his dad didn't like him then
yeah but it's autobiographical isn't it because he wins a talent show and gets loads of votes and
oh and he's a success yeah i didn't listen that far. He talks about being made a star, doesn't he?
Yes.
So it's quite self-reflective.
You know, he goes on about how he's a massive success now
due to Opportunity Knox, without mentioning Opportunity Knox.
But, you know, he's a massive success,
but all he wants to do is get back to the Everglades of Ormskirk
and sit a spell, if you will.
Yeah, and drink a horribly sweet booze yes yeah well
soon he will get his dream because never mind a fucking bernie this is like something from the
bird's eye steakhouse crushed up stale breadcrumbs and someone's unsuccessful racehorse oh yeah yeah
press that in pontins is a beckoning without a a doubt, at this point. And, you know, I'm gutted that I couldn't find any episodes of Pop Gospel,
the show that Bernie Clinton did shortly after this.
The belated, kind of wary ITV response, if you like, to See You Sunday,
which was a BBC show from 73 to 75.
There was a few shows, actually, in in this period leading into the 80s as well
that try to combine pop and religion see you sunday was a bit of a weird show from bbc in
the early 70s presented by alistair perry who ends up on razzmatazz yes and and you know the
bbc described it as a weekly reflection of the religious world of a new generation, which meant, you know, 10cc, Colin Blundstone,
Cat Stevens, Medicine Head,
you know, Randy Newman,
with discussions about the children of God
and transcendental meditation and
young Methodists and things like that.
But Pop Gospel starts in about
1979, and I think
basically it starts because of Cliff Richard,
who seems to appear on it every week.
And Joe Brown. Yeah.
And in a sense, it grows out of the kind of late 60s, early 70s Jesus music movement from the States, which is the whole start of the multi-billion Christian contemporary music market.
The producer Muriel Young of that was also involved in a few other pop shows like Breakers and Get It Together at that time.
Shang-a-lang.
Yeah.
I mean, I think pop gospel killed religious
pop telly until of course the bbc came back with the rock gospel show which you might not remember
but sheila walsh alvin stardust were the host yes and they'd talk to people like mike and the
mechanics and you'd be living in the news and they'd talk to kajagoogoo you know about their
christian beliefs but yeah i cannot find an episode of pop gospel probably for the best
because i've already sort of vaguely hold bernie in contempt and i think that would probably just
increase it so two weeks later southern comforts enter the chart at number 48 and immediately
dropped out a week later beginning a 45 years and counting period of bernie flint not troubling the
chart undaunted by the sudden end of his chart career,
Flint put out two more LPs and plied his trade on the cabaret circuit,
popping up on the telly as the host of Pop Gospel,
which was one of Mickey DeLensa's first TV directing jobs in 1979.
He went on to be the co-host of the ITV kids show moon cat and co in 1985 no wonder moon cat was
green and is still active today well he became uh as you would expect a music and comedy cabaret act
right i mean that's what he was last time his act was recorded on video, which appears to be 1993, if you check out YouTube.
He's there with shoulder pads and an estate agent beard like Beedle.
Doing variations on the old embassy club standards, like the one about the black man who walks into a pub with a parrot on his shoulder.
Oh, no.
Where'd you get that thing, etc.
I'm sure he kept everyone's
spirits high backstage at this top of the pops and also be so laughing along good sport yes um
but then he punctuates his off-color gags about homos by uh strumming idly a round-backed
ovation guitar which is almost worse you know he's like he's the last twat standing in
the old britain you know in that world where you all you do is you just go out there and do what's
already popular which is jokes so offensive you can't repeat them and songs so inoffensive you
can't remember them and that's his act more recently, he started his own YouTube series,
Bernie Flint's Pallet Palace.
What?
Yeah, he goes into his shed and breaks up old wooden pallets
and builds a TV stand out of them.
And he's all smiley and creepy, sort of chuntering.
Fuck off, you're making this up.
No, no, no no 200 views so
obviously followed by all the bernie bros hopefully in a couple of years he's equally adept at breaking
up old wooden pallets and making them into a dialysis machine because you know for what is
summer without summer's end uh but for now he still needs his public so now on the YouTube
it goes
yeah yeah
shitting hell
it fucking is
Bernie Flynn
fucking hell
he's not lying
Neil
god damn
how many views
200 odd
200
2
0
0
it's 201 now
yeah
fucking hell
Taylor meant that
most sincerely, Neil.
Home to southern comfort.
Home to southern comfort.
Home where everyone will be.
To comfort me.
That's lovely, isn't it?
That's the sound there of Bernie Flint.
Frankie Miller's Full House has come straight in at number 27 this week
with The Good To Yourself.
Say goodbye.
Touch me deep inside.
Baby, I hope it's not farewell.
Tony, not fannying about this week,
immediately pulls us away from Bernie Flint
and pushes us towards Be Good To Yourself
by Frankie Miller's Full House.
Born in Glasgow in 1949,
Francis Miller spent his childhood burrowing into his
family's record collection and started writing his own songs at the age of nine. And one song
he wrote when he was 12, I Can't Change It, would later be recorded by his mum's favourite singer,
Ray Charles. While still at school, he became the singer in his first band, the Deljacks,
and after stints with Glasgow bands West Farm Cottage and Socket to Em JB, he joined his first
professional band, the Stoics. In 1971, after he moved down to London, he linked up with Robin
Trower, who had just left Procol Har Horum and they formed a band called Jude which
garnered much acclaim from the heavyweight music press but split up a year later without recording
an LP but Miller who lived near the Tally Ho public house where he would get up on stage from
time to time and sing with the band Eggs Over Easer who was seen as the founders of a movement
called Pub Rock immediately signed a solo deal with Chrysalis
and was teamed with Brinsley Schwartz to record his debut LP,
Once in a Blue Moon, which came out in 1973.
After making a guest appearance on the Thin Lizzy LP Nightlife,
dueting with Phil Linner on the track Still in Love With You,
Miller relocated to New Orleans for his second album, High Life, becoming the first white artist to be produced by Alan Toussaint, the first person to record Shoo-Ra Shoo-Ra, best known as a hit for Betty Wright, and garnering a reputation as a de facto white soul singer of the 70s who was so good he made Otis Redding's widow cry when she heard him
for the first time. None of this buttered any parsnips with the UK charts however and by 1976
Miller was seen by the music press as a perennial also-ran who would never reach division one due
to his inability to transfer his pub act to the big stage
and his habit of hitting the self-destruct button,
having only released four LPs in six years.
But he's teamed up with members of Ace to form a new group, Full House,
and put out his fourth LP of the same name, which comes out this week.
And this tune, which was written by andy fraser the basis
of free is the lead off track from it two weeks ago the day before it was released he made his
first ever top of the pops performance which put it into the charts at number 41 and this week it It soared 14 places to number 27. So here's another chance to see that clip.
First question, chaps, would you call this pub rock?
Because that's pretty much the label that was tagged onto him.
I wouldn't, actually.
No.
I do kind of find the term pub rock a little bit offensive sometimes.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
You know, but...
Tagging the word pub onto things tends to downgrade it, doesn't it?
You know, pub singer, pub team, pub grub.
The implication is that they're good enough to fill out the Hope and Anchor on a Tuesday night,
but not good enough to fill out a proper venue.
Yeah, which I don't think is the case for Frankie.
I think he's got a great voice.
I mean, the thing is, you're right.
He gets a lot of press support throughout these years.
And almost all that press is talking about how he's
almost of a piece with the likes of i don't know joe cocker and paul rogers and rod stewart and
you know one of those regional singers who comes good but he never comes good i mean there's a
really interesting piece actually from 1979 where penny valentine is interviewing rod stewart and
rod stewart says that the only singer he's really worried about is frankie miller yeah and the only singer he's really worried about is Frankie Miller. And the only thing he's pleased about is that Miller isn't good looking.
But when I think about other regional singers, if you like,
who came good and became pop stars like Robert Palmer,
you can kind of see in this performance on Top of the Pops
that Frankie Miller, he's kind of limited.
He's kind of dated already.
I mean, basically, it's a track, and this is precisely what I like about it.
It sounds almost exactly like The Faces, circa 71.
You know, and he's clearly obsessed
with Wilson Pickett and Otis Redding.
The drinking is a problem for Frankie Miller.
In an NME interview, so it might even be this week,
he says the last time that he touched a drop
was at the aforementioned England-Scotland game
that you mentioned.
But I don't think he's got enough musical versatility
to kind of make the moves that people like Rod Stewart are making.
And in an era where black pop is kind of moving into disco,
he's sounding very, very dated.
I am dubious about his claims that he's not drinking on the head.
Because in similar interviews with Cream magazine in the States at the time,
he talks about how he scored some great heroine in detroit whilst
touring and about how you know sort of brian robertson being unable to join the fin lizzy tour
that year is as a direct consequence of brian robertson getting glassed while defending frankie
and the speakeasy club in london in spring of this year but it's precisely that datedness that i like
and and i never knew that this was written by Andy Fraser.
Because this is fluid and funky like Prime 3.
And the riff at its heart is really nice.
It's almost ACDC-ish.
But this is music that even though I enjoy it, I can tell in 77 this ain't going nowhere.
And unless he can find a way to shake it up or move on a little bit, it's going to be the same for him.
I mean, at the time as a nine-year-old,
I would have looked at this and gone, oh, this is dad music.
Yeah, yeah.
Not necessarily my dad music, but it's like, well...
Yeah, Frankie Miller's full house.
He had to show Reef how it's meant to be done.
He is a bit of a phantom, isn't he, Frankie Miller?
Yeah.
Considering the relative success he's had over the years,
you'd be hard-pushed to find too many people nowadays
who knew who the fucking Elliot was.
I mean, I only knew the name.
I wasn't really familiar with any of his stuff.
You know, and I'm embarrassingly well-informed
on things that don't matter
before I was born or shortly afterwards.
But I think that could be
because he's so exactly the same
as other people who are well-remembered.
He's standing right behind them
and he fits perfectly into their shadow.
So from here, you just can't see him
because let's face facts, this is Twig Stewart.
If Rod Stewart had walked on stage, castrated himself,
and then booted both testicles into the audience,
Frankie Miller would have gone out and done it the next day.
This song is almost exactly the same as Stay With Me,
but the face is almost identical.
And the band are 50% faces and 50% free.
They should have called themselves cheap almost free and
there's literally nothing here that isn't sourced from one or the other of those places you can tell
his roots are the same as those groups and he likes all the original people that they but there's
nothing here that isn't sourced directly from those groups and despite the fact that he's a
really good singer in his own right and authentically scottish yes so the sheer tonight
matthew energy is it's a bit uncomfortable although i wouldn't say that to his face at
least not in 1977 so i wouldn't fancy my chances in a dust up Clydeside
rules I get
the impression Frankie was
at least the real deal
first and for it wise
Frankie say stitch
that
and in fairness you know he was
sort of the real deal musically
even if it was somebody else's real deal
I mean as neil says
ross stewart himself is on record numerous times as being a a big frankie miller fan he doesn't
consider him to be like some croaking donovan you know what i mean he considers him a respected
contemporary which like that wouldn't be the case if he had nothing going on and it it's not going to be down
to generosity which is a trait rarely associated with rod stewart so it's like if erno rubik
was going around saying hey i love this taiwanese made cuboid logic puzzle fascinating color block
maybe you can find one in your local pound shop fiendishly difficult let me tell you
and it's a bit of a shame isn't it because he's obviously a talented bloke yeah i think he just
needs a big monster hit he needs a song that is a hit this isn't it but if he's gonna break out of
the ghetto that he's in and cross over he just needs a really big hit and this isn't it this
is just it's kind of album tracky yes. And I wouldn't have appreciated the lyrics either.
It sounds like your mum done it all.
Get yourself a girlfriend, sort yourself out.
He's basically saying to someone,
hey, you're a complete fuck-up.
Why don't you drag some woman into your life
and make her life a misery?
Which is what I didn't want to hear when I was nine.
It's just, it's a funny thing to say about someone we're seeing right here on Top of the Pops
and who's written enough American hits to presumably make him a very rich man.
But there's always something a bit uncomfortable
watching someone who wasn't anywhere near as successful
as you would expect them to be for no apparent reason.
I mean, there's more egregious examples than this
where the forgotten guy is actually better than the people who made it expect them to be for no apparent reason i mean there's more egregious examples than this where
the forgotten guy is actually better than the people who made it because you know in most areas
of creative art and media and frankly everything else bland and fundamentally talentless people
will succeed and will take over and will close ranks to squeeze out anyone who's not like them which
is how so many things end up like they do and sometimes it's just dumb luck or bad fortune
like you know when you're watching crackerjack crackerjack and you see peter glaze and you think
fucking hell man by 1978 you should have been living in bever Hills next door to Moe Howard Yes. Only leaving
your poolside to be flattered
by Dick Cavett
and instead here you are playing
second banana to Ed
Shitpot Stewart. Yeah.
Making plans for Nigel. I mean
fucking hell yeah you know
entertaining a bunch of runny nosed
Cub Scout cunts. Yes.
Holding a precarious stack of MB games with a cabbage balance.
And Frankie isn't quite on that level,
but he's talented enough that you know that when he was starting off,
all his friends, contemporaries, girlfriends, family,
they would have found it utterly implausible that he could possibly have failed
yeah it's like in the same way that any premier league footballer even the donkiest donkey if he
came and joined in your kickabout in the park he looks like a 24 year old leonel messi you know
what i mean because it's you know levels yeah it's the same when you're up close with someone
who can really sing and can do it live night after night.
All you can see is the gulf between them and the rabble.
And you think, oh, I'm in the presence of a future superstar.
But it doesn't always work like that.
And although in the grand scheme of things, Frankie Miller is not a failure.
Don't you think that deep down in his own mind he kind of was yeah yeah he's
in a white shirt a tight black waistcoat and even tighter jeans so he looked he looks like a cross
between Francis Rossi and Hurricane Higgins more importantly he would look like those Scottish
people who were beating the shit out of each other and glassing each other outside the pub on saturday night of course yeah yeah yeah car window yeah look like yeah the other thing i wouldn't like
was that his guitarists are doing that really over egging of the playing of their instruments
you know it looks good from the back of the hall but on telly it looks like they're wrestling with
an anaconda and it's like all you're doing is just plucking a string mate surely it doesn't take that much effort yeah with legs immensely far too far apart yes yeah yeah yeah what tory power
stuns yes yeah exactly it's just they get so many things right but ultimately there's just nothing
here to bother you or delight you do you know what i mean i sat watching this scribbling down notes
and i'm looking at that page of notes now and it just says so drunk and so used to it
like having piss in your ears ears oh piss actual killer of coal bridge water question mark Killer of Carl Bridgewater? Question mark.
Liechtenstein is Switzerland taken to its logical conclusion.
Harry Maguire dash Stan Ogden stunt double.
Paul Heaton dash Alf Roberts stunt double.
And Rummy Cub World Championships live from Mogadishu.
So I think it's fair to say that Frankie Miller's Full House didn't quite succeed in holding my attention all the way through.
But then, inattentive type.
My advice to Frankie is try harder,
or better still, don't try quite so hard.
That's all gold though, Taylor. When's the solo album out?
Poor old Frankie Miller.
He was usurped
by Rod Stewart
musically
and his game show
got taken off him
by Bob Monkhouse.
And he ended up
less famous
than his brother,
Windy.
So,
the following week,
be good to yourself,
dropped two places
to number 29,
but, like ELO, nipped back up two places the week after, but got no further.
A year later, Miller's latest producer, David Mackay,
nudged him towards doing a cover of a flop single by a band called Poacher,
who had been on New Faces, and he fared much, much better when he took Darling all the way to number six for three weeks in November of 1978,
and got to number one in Norway.
The follow-up to that, When I'm Away From You, only got to number 42 in January of 1979,
and bar getting to number 45 with Caledonia in March of 1992,
he never troubled the chart again.
But he had a go at acting in 1979 as the star of the Play For Today episode
Just A Boy's Game,
where he attempts to live up to his beloved grandpa's reputation
as the hardest man in Greenock,
and spent much of the 80s writing and performing songs for films such as
all the right moves act of vengeance and bill and ted's excellent adventure have you seen that play
for today yeah i can't say i have no fucking brilliant in it very good yeah the ending of
that is just fucking brutal isn't it taylor yeah video playlist everyone his career unfortunately came to an
end when he suffered a brain hemorrhage in 1994 went into a coma for five months and underwent
extended rehabilitation oh and his number one in norway inspired chrysalis to rush out his first
compilation lp for that country alone in 1979 entitled
Frankie Who, Frankie
Fucking Miller, That's Who
laughter
love one another
till your dying
day
may the sun shine down
your way
yeah yeah
applause applause There you go. It's an hard life when you're working on the farm
Down on the farm, I don't need no alarm
I rise from me bed at 5.30
After we get to contemplate the overhead lights for a couple of seconds,
we return to Tony, who warns us that it's ooh-ah, ooh-ah time.
And then, out of nowhere, the two members of the next band
who don't look like a kindly Fred West,
hove into view and whistle in his ear.
It's Farmer Bill's Cowmen by The Wurzels.
At last.
We chanced upon The Wurzels in chart music number 35,
where they trotted out their prized number one single, Combine Harvester,
in the 1976 Christmas Day episode,
dead lambs being shoveled into plastic bags, etc, etc.
This single, a cover of Iowa's Kaiser Bill's Batman,
the single recorded by Whistling jack smith which
got to number five in april of 1967 is the follow-up to give me england a self-penned single
where they go around europe and aren't impressed because they don't have scrumpy or bingo realizing
their mistake they reverted to the winning formula of taking a well-known tune and
fermenting it in a still, and put
out this from their latest LP,
also entitled Give
Me England. It's not in the charts
yet, but the BBC
fucking love the Wurzels
for reasons we'll go into later,
so here they, who are,
in the studio.
That's the only bit of interaction tony's had with anyone
so far in this episode why do you think he's being kept away from the kids it is around about this
time that the uh top of the props presenters get a bit more isolated yeah they usually start off
on their own in their little fortress of solitude and then over the course of the episode they're
gradually reintroduced to society yeah
like a godzilla film isn't it it's just the same godzilla's always on his own and then about an
hour in godzilla's surrounded by a load of kids and he's introducing the wurzels well i mean as
we'll see later there's there's a bloody good reason tony's not allowed near the kids at the
moment yeah as we'll see later the wurzels, chaps, it's easy to forget,
but they were fucking massive in 1976, 1977, weren't they?
A cursory skim of the newspapers of the era
reveals the following article
from the West Britain and Royal Cornwall Gazette.
Headline,
OOAAA!
It's strange how folks go for Wurzels.
The merits of the pop group the Wurzels and the New Seekers
were discussed by members of Carrier Council's Amenities Committee last week.
Mr Ashley Horley, Deputy Manager of Corn Bree Leisure Centre,
said the centre made a loss of just under £900 on the New Seekers concert.
Mr Jim Hamm asked how the sale of tickets for the Wurzels concert,
due to be held on Saturday, were going.
Mr Hawley said that nearly 1,000 tickets had been sold.
Why can't the new Seekers create local interest like the Wurzels?
asked Mr Hamm.
It was suggested that reports that one of the New Seekers
girl singers had left might have put
people off. Mr
MJ Gale said his daughters
were not interested in the New Seekers
but were going to see the
Wurzels. It was just the
matter of choosing the right
people to appear. I think that is the
most granular I'll ever get
on a bit of research
fucking council meetings from nearly 50 years ago everyone well they were massive and the thing is
you could not avoid them especially in the year of no characterful dads you know here that here
they are and and and the thing is even if they stopped having chart success as they soon do
it doesn't matter they've got the battle brush show to go on they've
got chagas plays pop to go on they've got all the summertime seaside specials so there's just so many
shows that they can fill in on and that's why they're kind of a big part of 77 but that's
certainly a big part of my memories of this period because they were just fucking everywhere you're
right new people are turning out for that somerset sound, even when the Wurzels aren't appearing. Here's another article, this time from the Litchfield Mercury,
a fortnight from this episode,
entitled A Night For Some Wurzling.
Pop group the Wurzels have obviously had a great effect on Litchfield people.
Out of about 300 people who attended London Cricket Club's Wurzel Night
at Seedy Mill Farm.
At least 60 joined in the spirit
and went dressed in smocks
and other rustic gear.
The grand Wurzel Night
was inspired by the Wurzels,
famous for their country-style
inspired versions of pop songs
and the evening went with
a Somerset swing.
A challenge to sing a Wurzel song was not taken up,
but there was a prize for the worst-dressed couple.
The event was in aid of club funds.
So this is people turning up,
even though the Wurzels aren't going to be there in any way, shape, or form.
Exactly.
It's mental.
It's incredible, isn't it?
It's just the concept of the Wurzels has drawn them there.
Yeah.
They're like living Wombles at this time, aren't it? It's just the concept of the Wurzels has drawn them there. Yeah. They're like living Wombles at this time, aren't they?
And this summer, this puts a tin lid on everything.
The Saffron Walden Weekly News reported on a visit at the local Baptist church
by two strolling gospel minstrels
who performed a Wurzels hit with rewritten lyrics
entitled, I've Got a brand new holy Bible.
So yeah, it's Wurzel time, man.
It is.
I mean, this song, Farmer Bill's Cowman,
this performance,
I mean, this is golden era Wurzels, isn't it, really?
Before the jokers warm completely thin,
which is fair.
I mean, I think it probably reached its unfunniest nadir
on the I hate JR and I shot shot jr singles yes but this is
the words i remember i don't remember the adge cutler years and and and i don't think i ever
caught an episode of the great western musical thunderbox because it was only on htv so of course
so this is the words i do remember this this kind of permanent too ronnie's sketch of a band yes
i mean it's just a permanent preemption
of Spinal Tap's sex farm,
and I'm astonished to learn that they covered that.
Yes, extremely well.
It's a fucking great version.
But yeah, you're right, Neil.
You know, life after Aj Cutler,
that makes the Wurzels the new order
of the late 70s, doesn't it?
So, the single, as we've pointed out, it's a rewrite of a hit the kids didn't give a fuck about which
is good and as always they lean heavily on imaginative reinterpretations of the lyrical
motif who are in the last single that made the charts i am a cider drinker they went for
which does sound to me like a West Country paramilitary organisation.
The provisional OOAR OOAR A have played responsibility for the tractor bomb outside the Woodpecker factory last Saturday.
The silage bomb.
And this time they've opted for OOAR OOAR R, which sounds like something Scooby Doo would say to Shaggy when a Frankenstein was lumbering up behind him.
So, not as good, but, you know, still good enough.
As a kid, Neil, what did you think of this?
Well, you've already laid your cards on the table, re-Brigas and Rastrick.
I'm assuming that you'd like this.
Well, I did like this.
I mean, I liked the Wurzels anyway, because of their cartoonish kind of aspect.
I mean, their faces are like they're drawn by Hanna-Barbera.
They do have this horrible habit in a way a lot of comedy records do this um in this period that they've got a in a sense thief from contemporary culture and and blend it in if you like do you
remember that kind of comedy music that just uses everything in combine harvester i seem to recall
there's an ad lib where he goes who loves your your baby? Yes. And it's kind of this code.
During the performance.
Exactly, yeah.
On the single.
Yeah, yeah.
But on top of the pubs, yeah, certainly.
I remember that Kojak ad lib.
And here, in this performance, I think they nick John Inman's line from Are You Being Served?
I think there's a moment where they go, I'm free.
I fucking hate moments like this.
But they have pushed, at this period, completely beyond local beyond local fame i mean it's astonishing when you
look at those old singles drink up the cider yeah it sold like 100 000 copies in the west country or
something insane like that but isn't it at the same time though i enjoyed their appearances on
all the different shows that they were on they're pretty much on all the different pop shows you can
sense already here that they're running out of songs to parody, really, aren't they?
So, yeah, the writing's on the wall,
but I would have loved this being on.
I mean, the lyrical content, as always,
is an uncompromising examination of rural life.
So there's scatology, violence, alcoholism, sex,
and, yes, bovine homosexuality.
Pete Boog gets so pissed up on cider that he milks a ball
does a bit of simon bates in on it and that ball gets turned that's what the i'm free thing is about
total joke would have gone over my head i reckon as a kid not me i got it your uh your heritage
is hindu isn't my heritage is hindu yeah would fundamentalist hindus be
offended by record where a ball gets wanked off yeah they probably would you know i mean you know
over there it's nuts in mumbai you know if a cow is walking down the street as they do and just
sits on its arse you can't do anything the cars have to avoid it you know you can't move it on
very very very holy about cows and um then when the vegetarianism kicked in with my dad couldn't have beef burgers for four years
man i was gutted yeah no this this might not go down well in india particularly now with the hindu
hindu fundamentalist nutters in charge so yeah so yeah people would be floating in a world of
shit and piss and spunk when he dies
and toenails
and snot
and yeah
pretty much everything else
well there was a diversion
yeah certainly
didn't expect to be
talking about that
but the audience reaction
is kind of revealing
in a sense
I think you know
it's only little kids
who are going to be
digging this
there's a handful
of kids amused here
a hell of a lot more
totally unamused
just with their arms crossed.
So, yeah, the writing's on the wall.
It's going to be over soon in a chart-topping sense,
or in a chart-crushing sense,
but there's still going to be a going concern
for several years hence in kids' imaginations
and on Cracker Jack and everything that they could ever appear on.
Taylor, in you come.
Come on, tell me some Worsley stories.
Yeah, well, I mean, if you got 100 people at random
and you asked them,
who's your favourite pop group of all time?
I think most of them would probably say
Anderson, Bruford, Wakeman, Howe.
But if you then asked them,
who's your second favourite group?
Undoubtedly, almost all of them would say the Worsles
because even today, these icons of Britishness
make all of us feel so proud of the landscape and traditions of our country.
I mean, you know, that's a joke, right?
They're about as good an advertisement for the British countryside as straw dolls.
But there's a kernel of truth there.
You know when you go into the british
museum and you walk through all the galleries of like ancient art and artifacts from all around
the world and there's all these perfectly smooth jade amulets on leather chains and glittering
bird statuettes sculpted from solid gold with sapphires embedded all the way around and then you go into the room
with british stuff from the same period and it's like some mud with a stick in it you know what i
mean like science saying early british figurative art and it's a bit of rock with a parsnip for a
nose you know i mean it's not our fault it's because it's so cold and wet here you just have
to concentrate on survival and once we invented buildings we managed to catch up but yeah there's still something in the british
psyche that will revert to that when under stress and you know in its way with its mixture of cowpat
brain simpleton primitivism and slick showbiz.
This is a form of authentic English country music.
You know, give me England indeed.
Yes. I mean, yeah, it's like if the trogs had been shit.
But, yeah, it makes me a bit sad because I used to really feel the countryside.
You know, I lived there for a bit as a kid and it was really in me.
the countryside you know i lived there for a bit as a kid and it was really in me i used to feel nature deep down with a really intense and yeah almost inexplicable seriousness nature boy taylor
parks and nowadays it's just something i see in the distance from trains passing by you know it's
like looking out of a window at youth or social democracy. It's like familiar, but far away, made into flats, you know.
So I sort of thank the Wurzels for reminding me of what it's really like
and why I shouldn't go back.
You know, here we are, it's Jubilee Week.
Professional surf.
I mean, at the time, I'd have been well up for this.
I didn't know I was Kaiser Bill's Batman,
but I fucking hate that tune.
It's just proper Carnaby Street cat shit.
Yeah, my mate hates that more than anything else in the world.
You're good.
Late night, they used to show repeats of Beat Club,
and there's that clip of whistling Jack Ketch on Beat Club doing this.
And it's not even him whistling on the record.
It's just some bloke dressed up in, like, a guardsman's outfit.
My mate, his steam used to come out of his ears at how smug this guy looked,
considering he's miming to I Was Kaiser Bill's Batman.
It's not even him.
No, I can't hear that tune without seeing that fucking mini with Zoom written on the side.
You know what I mean?
Yeah, well, those blokes picking out Red Guardsman's jackets off a rail.
Yeah, yeah.
But yeah, you're right, Neil.
They are practically full-time BBC employees at the moment, aren't they?
They've been on Swap Shop.
They're regular guests on the latest series of That's Live.
They're on Seaside Special. Kent Dodds' World of Laughter,
Ronnie Corbett's Saturday Special, Cabaret Showtime,
The Basil Brush Show, Sunny Time Saturday,
regular guests on the Radio 1 Roadshow,
and, of course, Top of the Pops.
And, you know, while I was watching this, I started to think,
why the Wurzels? Why are they on the BBC all the all the time well let me take you back chaps to 1972 when johnny berlin the controller radio
one was on a camping holiday in france and he chanced upon a mobile variety show on a stage
that was towed from site to site on the back of a lorry and when he returned back to work he set
about doing a wholesale nick
of the idea but then he discovered that the bbc didn't have anything suitable in their garage to
put it on with so he cast around looking for advice and he ran into a producer from bbc radio
bristol who put him in touch with a chap called john miles not that music is my first love hit
maker but the manager of a local band who bought an old
furniture van and amended it so it could open out into a mobile stage which was then taken to fairs
and festivals and when beerling got in touch he was told that the van had already been sent off
to the knackers yard because it kept breaking down but he'd be happy to build another one on
the condition that radio one had rented out for for the summer and after he made them a scale
model of what he wanted made
out of Weetabix boxes, Beerlin
gave his approval. So
Miles located a suitably
sized chassis, did a drawing of what he
wanted and he gave both to
a local coach builder and let him get on with
it and the result was a portable
stage that was able to
be towed around the country by a Range Rover,
which was driven by his brother, Tone, or Smiler, if you will.
And, yeah, that's how the Radio 1 Roadshow came about.
And would you happen to know the name of the band that Miles managed?
Yeah, the fucking Wurzels, mate.
Really?
I see, I see.
Because the BBC looks after
its own, doesn't it?
Indeed.
It all makes sense.
Anything else to say about this?
It's always a bit glum when you look at a
band's official website.
You start at the news section
and the most recent story is from
last year and it says one of the bands died of
Covid, although he was 80.
I'm sure at his funeral, they led his empty horse
with his wellies backwards in the stirrup.
Yes.
But in the lyrics section, they include the words to this song.
Right.
The first verse of which ends,
Out in the pen, there's a broody old hen.
She is as wild as a tiger you try to touch her
egg and she'll bite off your leg i feeds her on faggots and cider yeah and depending on your
worldview it's either a good bad or hilarious thing that the wurzels have felt the need to put an asterisk next to the word faggots, leading to a footnote which clarifies
faggots, a dish of chopped liver, etc.,
made into balls,
lest any of the woke snowflakes
misconstrue these lines
to mean that Pete Budd entraps homosexuals
and feeds them to his carnivorous hen.
It's just helpful. It's like the little pride flag you know i'm just just but except that the very next verse goes i felt such
a fool tried milking the bull yes he must have enjoyed it somehow man now every day at three
he comes and says i'm free that's why i'm farmer bill's cowman it's every
red-blooded hayseeds nightmare accidentally pulling on a bull's penis him liking it yeah
and it making him a gay like john inman yeah fucking i can imagine oh i, I only got half a bucket of milk, but it weren't half creamy.
Oh, yeah, I love drinking that bull spunk.
I mean, it's an occupational hazard, isn't it, I suppose.
It floats on top of your tea, man.
It's not good.
I think, I mean, us being the ATV land people,
we've got a natural kind of predilection towards this stuff to a certain extent. Because, you accents are a mix of west country and then and other stuff your accents perhaps so but yeah there's a little
bit of uanus around here i'm very close to like worcestershire and places like that and it's on
the downward slope towards that area and you know faggot and pea batches are very very popular around
here in a rich west country sort yeah so you know um i've always
wondered what a west country source is i think taylor's just described how you do it
maybe so but mate i mean maybe that's why i had a sort of slight affection towards this but yeah
i must admit i've been moaning about character for dads there is something deeply unpleasant
about the way tony introduces this record and the leering looks on the faces of the Wurzels
as they practically pretty much nibble his ears.
Yes.
It's pretty gross, isn't it?
They're whistling in his ears.
I can't remember the names,
but the one who looks like a potty thistle defender
and the other one who looks like Rennie's dad.
Yeah, Tommy Banner and Tony Bayliss.
The two redshirt Wurzels, basically.
Yeah, they converge on tony whistling
and he backs away he looks absolutely riven with pain what he backs away grimacing he reacts as if
they've just started whistling the theme tune to robin's nest well what it's meant to be he backs
off grimacing to suggest that they stink, right? Like they got bad breath.
Or they're horrible.
I'm just saying, we know that unlike Richard O'Sullivan,
Tony couldn't act.
And that is a very convincing halitosis recoil.
It was a really good introduction because they hove into view
and Tony kind of like withdraws.
And then all of a sudden Pete Budd rises up from under the screen
pointing into the distance. It looked brilliant. I a sudden Pete Budd rises up from under the screen, pointing into the distance.
It looked brilliant.
I do like Pete Budd.
He does look really friendly.
He's got a lovely voice as well.
He is like an old Amororo Dave Bartram, isn't he?
They've got that same kind of bell-shaped haircut.
Well, the secret of the Wurzels, I think, is their believability.
I mean, everyone concentrates on Pete Budd, the leader of the Wurzels I think is their believability I mean everyone concentrates on Pete Budd
the leader of the Wurzels because he looks like a beano drawing come to life yeah but the whole band
are genuinely unnerving right any one of them away from the stage you could imagine
meeting on a rural walk and it would be just him standing there smiling vacantly next to another bloke
who does all the talking who looks at you suspiciously and he's holding a shotgun and he
says occasionally cocks his head towards the wurzel and says he don't much care for newcomers
sometimes he forgets his manners i'm thinking here mostly of tony bayliss uh nature's cruelest and
most powerful mistake he crushed a tender young bloom in his fist but it was his way of loving
it's terrible though isn't it you see the words was here and they're all rosy cheek smiles but you know chances are one barren autumn
one moonless night around the back of the grain silo shoot the dog first goodbye my lovely
bang and leaving a scene of carnage back at the farmhouse and then it will be 12 bore in the mouth
no hesitation and he'll decorate the galvanized steel behind his head with the
valueless jelly that he'd been keeping in it and somewhere in the distance there's seven new people
born there is a slight terror of the countryside which is part of the Wurzel's appeal I think I
mean they're here in a big smoke but yeah but you don't know the darkness that they're going back to
I think that that that is part of it it the west i mean i spent about a weekend recently um in east anglia which
i've never been to before and it was spooky as fuck the countryside has always terrified me
but this you know the east anglia is particularly terrifying but this is it who knows what the
wurzels are going back to exactly you know if the west country was
I'm not saying it's a mysterious zone but it did exert that kind of mystery to it
um whenever I got down to Devon or Cornwall on holiday it was a bit spooky and um the Wurzels
keep that in their faces basically you don't see faces like that in the city they could only be
born in Somerset or from that area.
So, yeah, there is that slight darkness to what the hell are they going back to
once their pop business is done in the big city appearing on top of the pops.
You know, that long drive back to Devon.
Their farmsteads and homesteads.
All of that still spooks the shit out of me.
And they are realistic.
They're not city boys dropped into farming schmocks.
You do sense that much as,
you know, most burgers
that you have at Glastonbury
have animal feces in them.
These guys probably have got
a bit of shit on their shoes.
You know, there's that realism to them,
which I think appeals.
It was terrible.
By the time they found him,
his neck stump had been licked down
to almost nothing.
Okay. Yeah, they're spinning a
total myth about the bucolic lifestyle of the farm because about a year from now our class in
junior school gets took out for a trip to the farm and of course Wurzel's songs got sung on the coach
and you know there was kind of like great anticipation amongst the youth that although
we might not see the Wurzels there that day, we were going to see people just like them in smocks and pitchforks.
But, oh dear, those illusions were totally shattered when we got there to realise that everything fucking funked animal shit.
And it goes without saying that there were no Wurzels or Wurzelikes in attendance, just some chunky blokes who looked absolutely fucked off
about being stared at by some junior school council cunts.
And my teacher thought it'd be a great idea to take a tape recorder
and hand it round the kids so we could record an oral diary of the day,
and he played it back to us the day afterwards.
And what was heard on that tape was me
refusing point blank to walk through a barn and then try heaving and fighting not to cry when sir
dragged me through it and then us looking at some cows in a field and one of them rearing up and
landing on the back of the other and michael hall shouting ah sir Look at them cars bumming!
Bummer cow.
Yeah, bummer cow.
And the tape concludes with us standing next to the pigsty,
which was properly rank.
By this time,
you can hear on the tape
that I'd absolutely fucking lost it.
Now, this is the era of Prince the Dog
on That's Life,
and you can actually hear me
manhandling the tape recorder off some youth
going up to the pigs and
shouting sausages
sausages
sausages
and by
this time I'm lying completely
face down on the desk with my arms over my head
totally shamed up
and I've never been to a farm
since so yeah thanks Wurzels no i mean the
realities of the farm are something that the wurzels don't really talk about their idea of
farming it's not the brutal inhumane angry business that is actually going on you know
which would probably lead to entirely different type of music yeah it's just getting pissed
moving some shit from one end of the barn to the other, and then getting K-Lied on scrumpy and trying to get your end away.
That sounds appealing, whereas, I don't know, having a job where you get a box of freshly hatched chicks
and throw them into some machine that destroys them would lead to, I don't know,
some proto-industrial murk in the mid-70s, I guess.
But yeah, the world wasn't ready for it.
Ah, you're a bunch of soft city boys.
So two weeks later,
former Bills Cowman entered the charts at number 45,
then entered the top 40 at number 39,
and a week later got to number 32,
its highest position.
The follow-up,
a tune for their favourite football team
called One for the bristol city
failed to chart but they went back to the formula and put out a cover of the push bike song called
the tractor song which also failed to chart and this remains their final appearance on top of the
pops probably for the best just just a warning by the way to the pot crazy youngsters do not
seek out the b-side to the tractor song Funky Farmyard.
Oh, it's so disappointing, isn't it?
It is. It's just not funky in any way whatsoever.
Disappointing.
Yeah, I was expecting a bit of Bill Oddie style.
Yeah, or a bit of... What's that meter's track?
Seahorn's Farm or whatever it's called.
Yeah, something like that.
But no, it's resolutely unfunky.
After trying once again to do a bit of Euro bashing
with I'll never get a scrumpy ear in 1979
and then jumping on the Dallas bandwagon
with the double A side, I hate JR, I love JR in 1980,
they got all urban in 1983 with Wurzel rap,
but all failed to chart.
Have you heard that?
No, I actually avoided it.
I did see it, but I just thought...
Video playlist, everyone.
Yeah, I'll check it out.
However, they resurfaced as a student union act
in the early 90s, and a re-release of Combine Harvester
got to number 39 in November of 2001,
and their cover of Don't Look Back in Anger
got to number
59 in December of
2002.
Neil, have you?
No, of course I've bloody... I bet it's better than
the fucking Oasis. I mean, presumably
they've adapted the lyrics
in a Wurzel style-y. No, no.
It's just a straight cover.
Why the fuck would I want to do that to myself?
After putting out Make Hay Not War for the Stop the War movement in 2003,
they went back to basics with a re-recording of I Am A Cider Drinker
with guest vocalist Tony Blackburn,
which got to number 57 in May of 2007.
They're still active today
and share the same manager with which other band?
Ooh.
White House?
The Stranglers.
Blimey!
Neil?
Yeah?
You know what I'm going to ask?
I think I do.
Something about the catering.
The Wurzels or the Stranglers?
Who would you have a sandwich of?
Oh, man.
I mean, they're both gross.
But, yeah, with the fear of genuine fecal contamination from the Wurzels.
Bread all soggy with cow placenta.
I think I've got to go Stranglers.
Wow.
Fucking hell.
You've got to consider, though, from the Wurzels,
it's going to be Farm Fresh.
Yeah, but Farm Fresh is often gross,
to be honest with you.
With that West Country sauce.
Yeah, I'd have brains faggots
in a West Country sauce
off the Wurzels,
so long as they assure me
that they're just putting it
in a microwave.
Anything that they've touched.
No, they're farm folk.
They don't know cleanliness.
Neil!
No, you know, it's the country way way i feel so apologetic to our rural no no no your stomach hardens to that stuff this is it years
this is bacteria just die like dogs in there yeah my air con in my car right is fucked so um when i
was driving through the countryside on my way to norfolk, of course I was hit by those gusts of chicken shit and pig shit.
You know, the really bad stuff.
And, you know, because my aircon's full, there's no point closing the window.
So I just had to, you know, brave it.
But these countryside folk, you know, you just get used to it, don't you?
They are completely inured to that stuff.
So, you know, during sandwich preparation,
who knows what the fuck will be going in there
who knows whether they've cleaned oh look i'm not saying everyone in the countryside is a dirty
disgraceful bastard but the words are committed rural folk and yeah i'd be dubious about proper
contamination from animals uh animal shit basically so yeah although the stranglers are grubby bastards
as well um i don't think they've got um you know pigs in their back garden or anything so yeah although the stranglers are grubby bastards as well um i don't think
they've got um you know pigs in their back garden or anything so yeah i've got to go got to go
stranglers i'm afraid so pop craze youngsters if you read in the news about a cow being thrown off
a bridge onto someone's car on the outskirts of coventry soon that'll be watching when he does that pitch walk, I tell you.
Just have a look at this.
Guess who it is.
You're absolutely right.
Glad it's not in the bits.
And this one, called Baby, don't change your mind.
Tony, alone again, naturally,
decides to turn the show into an episode of Who's Baby?
As we see a photo of a toddler who's so obviously the front woman of
the next group followed by a photo of her and her mates with ed sullivan as he finally introduces
baby don't change your mind by gladys knight and the pips we covered gladys a brother bubba
william guest and edward pattern in chant music number 18, when they took Midnight Train to Georgia to number 10 in June of 1976.
Since then, there's been a steady presence in the lower reaches of the top 40 over here,
but this single, the follow-up to Nobody But You,
which got to number 34 in January of this year,
written by Van McCoy and the lead cut from the LP Still Together,
sees the group sniffing the wind, recognising the gamey tang of disco and scampering after it.
It entered the charts for Fortnite to go at number 33, then soared 11 places to number 22.
This week it's only nudged up one place to number 21, but no matter, because here is the video.
I really like Tony's link here where he says, I'll be watching what he does with that pitchfork, I'll tell you.
Because although it's not a very clever or funny remark, it does make you think how incredibly exciting and memorable it would have been if Tommy Banner had actually leapt off the stage, pushed through the audience and rammed his pitchfork up Tony Blackburn's arse, causing Tony to throw back his head and scream with pain.
So both prongs of the pitchfork emerged, tearing through his exposed throat and showering the cheering audience with
blood and tissue and uh tommy banner whispers you was right to worry young and as he performs a
unspeakable pagan right on the body and up in the gallery they're getting calls tell them to
cut the feed and robin nash is screaming don't cut don't cut we're staying live
this is sensational stuff no at home tessa wyatt is watching it with richard o'sullivan and
they're both laughing anyway that's what tony was worried about i think he needn't worry quite so
much have you been watching a lot of italian folk movies of late, Taylor? No more than usual.
So anyway, this video, it's 70s video cliché number two, isn't it?
The band having fun in the studio.
Even though the entire film is just set in a massive couple of boxers,
you still get that American vibe off it.
And, you know, by this time, 1977 1977 any bit of film about america even if
it's just a studio is thrilling oh without a doubt to the youth isn't it i mean by american standards
this is actually kind of a budget video you know yes but after the wurzels my god what a magical
other world america looks like yes i mean i love this song the van mccoy production tilts them
towards disco like you said it's not wholeheartedly disco yet, I don't think.
No, but it's getting there, isn't it?
It's getting there.
And it keeps the Motown-ness and the soul.
And it's just a great track.
And fundamentally, I mean, as ever with black American pop from the 70s,
I'm not saying CMP contributors have to stand down in a sense,
but it's tricky because the sense of relaxation that happens with American artists
when a camera is pointed at them is just totally different.
British bands in a video like this would feel the need to prove their relaxation by sort of gamely sort of grinning along.
But Gladys Knight and the Pips, they just have it.
They're Gladys Knight and the Pips for fuck's sake.
And good on them, really, in a way, for sending a video.
Because I think by now the Pips and Gladys had twigged
sort of just how odd the British are.
And I think it would have been that they kind of always
dressed down a little bit for their TOTP appearances.
And I think, you know, it would have been, frankly,
undignified for them to follow the Wurzels.
No.
So this video is a delight.
But it's accompanied for me watching it with a sense of Christ
what to say about this, but it's accompanied for me watching it with a sense of Christ what to say about this,
because it's just wonderful.
It's just a wonderfully produced record
with a great little budget video with it as well.
Yeah.
Yeah, luckily this was before anyone had heard of homosexuality,
except the Wurzels.
And it was unexceptional.
And it's only mildly fabulous to see grown men with moustaches
wearing tennis shorts and dancing in formations and doing exercises together.
Yeah, with the t-shirts all rolled up and everything, exposing their midriff.
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
Socking each other on the arm, no doubt.
Talking about the ladies when Gladys is out of the room.
I love those shorts.
I love those shorts.
Those Jimmy Connor shorts are really strong
yet as taylor said highly camp look at the beginning we see them kind of like doing a bit
of a dance routine being taught by someone standing behind them in a vest and yeah they
do look like they're about to go roller skating afterwards aren't they yeah but they look like
they're having so much yes yeah like nobody that age or nobody who looks that age ever has that much fun
without a bit of an edge on it.
Do you know what I mean?
But the pips look like they don't have a care in the world.
Only blue skies for the pips.
And Gladys looks really cool in her sportswear as well.
And it's a shame because then she gets sort of frumped up a bit for the main bit,
you know, where they're in civvies in the studio and all that. Whereas whereas the pips you're kind of grateful when they're back in the slacks yeah
yeah i mean to a nine-year-old like me it was obvious that being gladys knight and the pips
was the fucking best dos in the world they have a bit of a sing then they have a bit of a dance and
then you know there's a couple of blokes lingering in the doorway watching on, and then we cut to the other side of the glass,
and there's two blokes behind a mixing desk,
one of whom is the absolute dead spit of Ron O'Neill in Superfly.
And they're watching Gladys Knight and the Pips perform,
and they have a bit of a chat to each other.
I mean, I don't know what they're saying,
but it's bound to be words to the effect of,
fucking hell, this song is mint and on our life skill.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And they've got the best headphones in the world.
Oh, yes.
Massive red headphones.
Yes.
And I don't know whether they've been told to hold the headphones in a certain way,
because they all kind of hold, not over their heads, but kind of under their chins.
Yes, like a giant telephone.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
The kind of phone that Busby had on top of that telegraph pole.
Indeed, but they're instantly, deeply covetable, these objects, these red headphones.
They really catch the eye.
But the whole look of it, it's just instant.
You're propelled to this magical land called America.
And after the Wurzels, fuck me, you need that.
Yes.
I mean, they're on the way out here, really.
They've got one foot in a chicken basket.
Yes.
They've got a couple of sunset hits ahead.
Yeah.
But that's about it.
I mean, this is sort of
their last hurrah but this is so great yeah it's just one of those records that sounds like it came
off a production line in the best possible way yes you know like everyone involved knew exactly
what they were doing and just did it without any fuss you you know. And it's another one of the few 1977 records
that I think I remember from the time as well.
It stuck in my head because of that moment
where half the instruments drop out on the chorus
and the vocal melody is doubled by the string section,
which is a trick they used to use on a lot of American records at the time,
just underlining the hook
we talked about the same thing on silver lady by david soup i seem to remember it really does
weld a chorus onto your brain yeah and the chorus sort of needs it because it's not an especially
strong tune but it sounds heavenly because it's done with that effortless American sophistication and gloss,
which 70s British records could never replicate.
British records could do cold, dry strings in a way that you would never, ever hear on an American single,
which is brilliant.
But they also could never get that brimming over pearly gate sound that you get from yeah philly
soul and late 60s early 70s motown and stuff like this yeah and these moments are important in any
episode of top of the pops because they're just transportation away at midway through this song
you know you've forgotten about the fucking jubilee you've forgotten about top of the pops
and tony blackburn to be honest with you and you know you're completely immersed in it so it's magical and it's the first bit of proof in this
episode that there is life after motown for a lot of acts yeah as we're going to see again later
so the following week baby don't change your mind jumped seven places to number 14 and three weeks
later got to number four its highest position the follow-up home is where the heart later got to number four, its highest position. The follow-up, Home Is Where The Heart Is, got to number 35 in October
and they'd make their last appearance in the top 20
when Come Back And Finish What You Started got to number 15 in August of 1978.
That's a fucking tune.
Very much so, yeah.
By which time the group had fallen out with their new label, Buddha Records,
and were forced to record as two separate entities until their deal ran out.
They eventually signed a new deal with CBS in 1980,
but their hits dried up over here and they parted ways in 1989. Baby, don't change your mind Don't change it You know my love is in your mind
Baby, don't change your mind
Don't change it
Well, there you are.
You're probably wondering what this little bit of string is here.
Well, I'll tell you what will happen.
If I pull this bit of string, two things will happen.
First of all, some balloons will fall down on Neil Innes,
who will then sing a number, Silver Jubilee.
Let's see if it works.
Sure.
Queen Elizabeth, Queen Elizabeth, Silver Jubilee.
Queen Elizabeth, Queen Elizabeth, God save you and me.
Tony, standing next to a tatty bit of string, tells us that when he pulls it, some balloons will fall down from the ceiling and the next act will do their bit.
He does, and by God, we're thrown into Silver Jubilee by Neil Innes.
Born in Danbury, Essex in 1944,
Neil Innes was a fine arts student at Goldsmiths in the early 60s
when he joined the Bonzo Dog Dada Band,
a rotating collective of art school sorts
who took the piss out of trad jazz cover versions in local pubs and college balls.
As the only trained musician in the group,
he whipped them into some semblance of a band, and they made their TV debut playing Won't You
Come Home Bill Bailey on Blue Peter. They signed a deal with Parlophone, but after the success of
the new Vaudeville band, a group of session musos put together to record Winchester Cathedral,
the Bonzos were invited to inherit the name for a tour,
which they all turned down by their trumpet player Bob Kerr,
which gave Innes the opportunity to convince the band to drop the old stuff
and steer them towards the new sounds of the mid to late 60s.
On December 23rd 1967,
they became the resident band on the new Thames television kids show Do Not Adjust Your Set, which introduced them to Eric Heigl, Terry Jones and Michael Palin, and three days after that, they appeared in the Beatles film Magical Mystery Tour on BBC Two.
After myriad TV appearances and a string of sessions for John Peel's Radio 1 show Top Gear and a punishing gig schedule, they finally made it big in late 1968
when Urban Spaceman, written by Inez and co-produced by Paul McCartney
got to number 5 for 3 weeks in November
After touring America in 1969 they decided it wasn't any fun anymore and they split
up in January of 1970 and Inez and Viv Stanchel spent the early 70s in bands such as Freaks
with Keith Moon on drums and Grimms a collaboration with members of the Scaffold
and he also put out his debut LP How Sweet to Be an Idiot in 1974. Later that year he reunited with
Idol, Jones and Palin as a filling of sorts for John Cleese in the final series of Monty Python
and wrote songs for the film Monty Python and the Holy Grail. In 1975 he and Idol starred in the
BBC2 sketch show Rutland Weekend Television
which featured a song called I Must Be In Love
which was performed by a band called The Ruckles.
By 1977 he's working up a film script and a soundtrack
for the forthcoming Ruckles film All You Need Is Cash
and has just put out his second LP Taking Off this April.
But while being interviewed by the BBC World Service,
he was challenged to make up a song on the spot about the Silver Jubilee,
and this is it.
It's been rushed out by his label, Arista Records,
and it's not in the chart yet,
but Robin Nash is clearly looking for a hook
to hang his oversized Jubilee hat on,
and this will do very nicely leading to
innis's first appearance on top of the pops since he wore a ball gown to perform urban spaceman
nearly nine years ago and all chats were instantly thrown into the top of the pops of 1982 aren't we
without the zoo wankers i mean if michael hurl had been asked to organize a
national front demo it would probably look like this wouldn't it yeah this almost cancels out
the ruttles i mean obviously the key factor the main characteristic of this record and also the
main problem with it is that you watch it and even if you're very familiar with Neil Innes and his work,
it's impossible to work out how it's meant
or how you're supposed to take it
because clearly he's not hailing the Queen
with an expression of murderous intensity.
But it doesn't sound like he's having a go either.
No.
And as usual, he's just standing there looking underwhelmed, a little sheepish and incorrigibly morose. So you won't find any clues in his facial expression. And generally, I'm broadly in favour of not being able to tell how sincere somebody is on a record because it allows discussion and it encourages you
to think a bit but here it's it's a bit annoying yeah and i mean a big part of neil in this is
aesthetic and the bonzos and to a certain extent mon, which creates this kind of perpetual satire.
But at the level of a lack of seriousness and an inability to be po-faced about anything,
which people never tire of pointing out is a very comfortable middle class old world way of seeing things because you don't have the
complication of any of those things being a direct threat to you even though that wasn't the
background of everyone involved in those groups but it was the reality of their lives and in the
context of comedy that can work very well you know like the best satire of the ruling classes tends to come from the children of the ruling classes uh or used to but i'm not sure it works so well in
the song because this isn't comedy it's just whimsy and so all the protections and defenses
that comedy has just fall away and and you're just left thinking yeah but what are you doing
it's like your your half raised eyebrow
as you sing a deliberately trite song about the queen silver jubilee suggests that you don't
really care either way perhaps you don't dislike royalty but you're aware of the the silliness of
the whole palaver but it doesn't work even as a sort of dryly equivocal take because you're doing it
right here and now in this content which tips you over into unironic celebration because that's the
way the current is moving and you've decided to step into the current and not swim or his record
labels decided he's going to do that oh yeah but yeah. But the end result is, there you are on TV,
waving a very small Union Jack.
And it's kind of upsetting.
I mean, it's fucking shit, this record.
I don't like the equivocation of it.
But, I mean, you know, I do think,
I mean, Innes is a great hookmeister.
He can knock out a pop song.
I mean, I know he said he did this as a bet,
but fuck me, we just did not need this.
Yeah, it's a bet that we lost.
Well, yeah, and he does great cod reggae.
You know, if you listen to the section about medieval open field farming systems in Monty Python's The Background to History, he does great cod reggae.
And I guess some of the rhymes here are kind of pleasing.
You know, saluting with highfalutin and that.
But I love Neil Innes.
But this, you know, he was part, actually, Neil Innes, mean i love neil innes but this you know he was
part actually neil innes sidetrack of one of the best gigs i've ever seen i went to see yola tengo
at warwick art center once and they had a couple of guests on stage with them one of them was sonic
boom from spaceman 3 and the other one was neil innes and he was wonderful he was playing their
songs he was also playing spaceman 3 songs songs. He even did Urban Spaceman.
But this is surely an idea.
I mean, thinking of ex-bonzos,
if you want a picture of class at this time in British society and culture,
probably dig into Viv Stanchel's Sir Henry at Rawlinson's end LP that comes out the year after this, and maybe the film from 1980.
But Taylor's exactly right.
There's this equivocation in this song.
Is he taking taking he's not
quite taking the piss you know at any other time i guess i tolerate it but in the thick of the
jubilee it's a time to call sides in a sense and he hasn't done so no and i don't like seeing neil
innis do this because i like neil innis a lot yeah i mean you'd see how this would work on the
end credits of rutland weekend television
or the innis booker records where you can actually control the visuals but here on top of the pops
yeah yeah yeah and the crowd's frenzy and the flags and the balloons and stuff do not help it
they make it look like he is yeah in celebration whereas the the lyrics are a little you know more
nuanced than that and he's not dressed up either i I mean, if he'd have turned up dressed as the Queen,
that might help.
He looks very Paul Simon, doesn't he, in his dress.
He's got this baggy suit jacket on and a white flat cap.
And, of course, we've got the heavy-duty discipline
of the top of the Pops Orchestra.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
The cap is to hide evidence of a hair transplant.
Oh, right.
Unfortunately, he was the donor. Right. The thing is, hide evidence of a hair transplant. Oh, right. Unfortunately, he was the donor.
Right.
The thing is, it's not surprising that this is where Neil Innes has ended up,
sort of, kind of, almost, sort of, celebrating the Queen,
because spiritually a big part of his work was a kind of melancholic distrust of progress.
And, you know, he was like terry jones out of monty python he liked natural things and old stuff and like you know real ale and things
he was distrustful of anything too organized or too cerebral or too manufactured and in his book
of records is full of that all this sort of little man in the modern world, you know, retreating into magic and imagination,
which can be lovely, but in the wrong context,
it can easily seem reactionary,
or at least in sympathy with a reactionary position.
This is the first time he's been on Top of the Pops in seven years.
It's like, oh, fuck, where's the Dollybirds on the gantret?
Who are these kids?
It is weird, isn't it?
And there's not many other performances
in Top of the Pops in this period
that I can think that are,
not the performances,
but the crowd dynamic
that are quite like this.
You're very right to point out
that it's prophetic of kind of
an 80s Top of the Pops in a way.
And it's unbelievable
that none of them Ruttle songs charted
because they were fucking brilliant.
Yeah, he never made a penny
out of any of them, of course. Yeah yeah but he did make a ton of oasis yeah i'm ripping off how sweet to be an idiot
along with gary glitter yeah good old no giving a peter bone a million pounds well played yeah i
tend to prefer neil innes's uh collaborative work right to his solo stuff, partly because that sort of vague whimsy
and distracted sweetness doesn't really do that much for me.
Like, he was brilliant in the bonzos
because he provided the platform and the guardrails
for Vivian Stancher, you know,
and he was great working with Monty Python
because of his grasp of the detail of music
and what sounds like what and what should go where to create this or that effect.
Which went brilliantly with Monty Python's least discussed superpower, which was the incredible eye for the detail of, for instance, English archetypes or styles of television presentation.
People forget this now because TV doesn't look like this anymore but in 1969 1970 monty python's parodies of tv looked as uncannily almost unbelievably precise and
accurate as the day-to-day did in 1994 so when they added music to that they needed someone with
the same observational skills and it's like yeah it's like Neil just mentioned, the best bit of Monty Python's matching tie and handkerchief LP
is that sketch, which if you haven't heard it,
the only joke is that it's like an open university broadcast
or like a highbrow radio lecture
about the medieval open field farming system.
And they introduce various eminent history professors.
Professor Tofts of the University of Manchester
puts it like this,
and each one sings their bit to a different kind of pop tune,
and there's a reggae track, a glam rock track.
Raw, raw.
Sort of...
Framework.
Framework.
And it's just an obviously contrived Palin and Jones sketch
where you put two incompatible things together
so they spark and
undermine each other's
seriousness and then the sketch
writes itself. But it's not even a funny
idea. It's only funny
because of how convincing
and well judged
and well observed
Neil Innes' music is.
And it sets up Michael Palin as
the professor of medieval studies at cambridge
doing a uncannily accurate impression of a stoned rock star being interviewed on the old grey whistle
test which is possibly his greatest ever acting performance but the point is there aren't any jokes
it's just playing with formula and context and neil innes one of the very few musicians you could trust to get all of that
precisely right which you need to or the whole thing dies and it's just not funny you know which
is obviously also why he ended up doing the ruttles but his own material i mean the only
song of his that i like you know that i love that I love, let's say, in that sort of slightly sad, whimsical style, is How Sweet to Be an Idiot.
All the other songs of his I like are dead straight, you know, the Ruttle songs.
And, you know, I watched it in his book of records a few years ago, and God bless him, it dragged a little.
I didn't like it as much as I really wanted to.
Because, again, a lot of it is stuff where you can't quite work out the point
or what he's trying to do,
which should be interesting.
But too often, you just end up with the impression
that actually there is no point.
And he's not really trying to do anything at all.
He's just singing a song,
which, you know, is fine.
It's fine.
But this is not a pretty sign.
Sailing on the yacht Britannia, no one in the world would ban you well i can think of a few pubs on the falls road that might have issues
and nowadays a few schools might turn her son away yeah it's a line that's been left behind
by time a bit hasn't it that line so the following week silver jubilee failed to chart and never
would the follow-up the bob dylan pastiche protest song also failed to chart and he never troubled
said chart ever again two years after this performance he returned to bbc2 with three
series of the innis book of records a collection of music videos of his own songs,
and then spent the 80s as the host of the ITV kids' show The Book Tower,
played the magician in Puddle Lane,
and wrote and narrated the cartoon series Raggy Dolls.
And he died in 2019 at the age of 75.
Dolls like you and me, don't you know?
Made imperfectly.
Queen Elizabeth
Queen Elizabeth
Still my Jubilee
Queen Elizabeth
Queen Elizabeth
Well, I hope you're all having a really lovely Jubilee week.
We're having a fabulous time here at Top of the Pops.
Hope you're enjoying all the music.
We've got to change tempo a little bit right now.
We're going to have a bit of that sort of...
a bit of rock for you now in the shape of the Stranglers.
And this one...
Working!
Working!
The boys and the girls are dancing around
Tony, still in his realm of solitude,
suddenly notices that the camera's on him again
and he expresses his hope that our Jubilee week
hasn't been a crashing disappointment
ruined by your dad constantly going on about
how Elvis is the fucking king.
He then warns us that a change of pace is imminent
and tells us we're going to have a bit of that sort of,
uh, bit of rock for you
because he can't even bring himself to say punk.
Yeah, that's exactly what's going through his head.
Yes.
To Tony Blackburn, saying punk is as good as saying fuck.
Yeah, it's sedition.
You can't say punk.
No.
That's exactly his thought process.
I mean, and as ever with Tony, not hiding his disgust.
He introduces Go Buddy Go by The Stranglers.
We've dealt with the happy-go-lucky, squeaky-clean former Guildford Stranglers on numerous occasions,
and this, their second single, is the follow-up to Get A Grip On Yourself,
which got to number 44 in March of this year and should have done better
were it not for the British Market Research Bureau,
the compilers of the official chart,
somehow mistakenly taking a chunk of the Strangler sales
and lumping them onto everyone's talking about love by silver convention,
he said, placing his hand on his chin.
It's actually a double a side with peaches
which features on their debut lp ratus norvegicus which came out in april and is currently at number
seven in the album charts but seeing as the subject matter is about hugh cornwall dosing
on the beach looking at women's arses and the cover of the single depicts a hand pulling at the back of a pair of pink knickers that have been put on a peach, Radio 1 forced them to put out a radio edit
and don't want it on Top of the Pops. It entered the chart three weeks ago at number 37 and only
nudged up one place to number 36 a week later, but that didn't stop Top of the Pops from issuing an
invite as long as they played
the song on the other side which involves john jack burnell encouraging his mate to stop being
a warflower at a club and get stuck into all the punky crumpets and being delighted to see him with
a chicky on his knee at the end of the song which helped it jump nine places to number 27 this week it's moved up four
places to number 23 and here's a repeat of that performance a fortnight ago chaps let's deal with
peaches first because to my mind that's the far superior song yeah the only thing about it it
reminds me of that hp sauce advert that frankie howard did with the uh couple in the seaside
postcard with a fat bloke with a tash perving on women while his wife doesn't know it.
Oh, HP, you've got to admire their sauce.
I mean, it would have made for a better Top of the Pops appearance.
Yes.
Whether it was the band.
Imagine Legs and Co doing that.
That's exactly what I was about to say, yeah.
Probably dressed up as giant peaches.
One of them dressed as a massive banana
running round after them no doubt played by dave lee travis this song is less good it's interesting
though this i mean listening to the demo of this song from 76 right because the before you know
the stranglers even got signed the demo this song and it's totally different it's like a slower pace
a sluggier sound because it's a demo
but you can at least hear an attempt uh with the hand claps and the harmonies on it to sound i
don't know professional yeah um this has been it's kind of been professionally scuffed up yeah it's
been punked up a bit hasn't yeah because of punk completely much like the whole band has that there
is um a deliberate fuck you amateurism to their performance here.
Yes.
Because they swap instruments
and they take all the strings
off their guitar.
Ah, yes, yes.
I was wondering about that.
I think it's JJB, isn't it?
He's playing guitar
and other fellas playing bass
and he's playing quarter U.
Yeah, that's right.
He's playing chords on the bass
like he would on guitar.
No one's playing
the guitar solo at all.
There's a couple of good moments
of kind of
spikiness if you like towards the end when his guitar lead starts tangling him up um jjb has a
nice pull there's a lovely moment as well did you see the bit when um i think somebody's got their
hands on the stage yeah and he stamps on it um he goes to the front and stamps on them it's kind of nice but as ever with stranglers um although
yeah they're punked up but dave greenfield's keyboards yeah are the kind of thrillingly
problematic spanner yes in the works he's not changing instruments with jet black is a
i mean and he's always you know far too good a player in a sense to be a punk and he always
confers this instant 60sness to what he
plays not just in the sound of his keyboard but in the lines and the melodies but that said you
know even though it's not as good as peaches in the context of this episode of top of the pops
this is weird and thrilling and i think it would have been to any punks or kids tuning in this is
the moment when that wedge is in and when mums and dads are probably talking
about sticking them in the army or something yes um which makes jankers which makes i mean it makes
the crowd's reaction kind of inexplicable i don't think top of the pops audiences at this point
have figured out how to move to music like this no um because the inevitable consequence of moving
to a record like this is is probably something like a mosh pit.
And The Stranglers, unlike the bands that are coming in a few years,
they haven't bought their little coterie of fans with them to Top of the Pops.
In an ice cream van.
There's not a couple of hardcore devotees down at the front to show the way.
So the crowd's reaction is a little bit odd.
But in the context of a pretty, I'm not going to say awful episode of Top of the Pots,
but there's been precious little excitement,
this is one of the most exciting moments of the show.
Yeah, I don't dislike this record.
I mean, it's just a garage punk tune, isn't it,
with just enough of an edge left on it to pass.
Yeah, it's more pub rock than Frankie fucking Miller.
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
But, I mean, you know, I'm no fan of the Stranglers, really,
but when you look at the pantheon of 77 punk tracks,
like the non-heroic ones,
that's some pretty floppy competition, really.
And the Stranglers are actually up there,
although, like you, I'd rather have Peaches,
which is musical trolling, you know.
Peaches is just a musical shit posting
but i sort of like it because it's like if the doors were as stupid as they actually were
but knew it do you know what i mean and also the problem with it being this song is that is it just
me who doesn't like to see groups on top of the pops and it's not the
usual lead singer singing like i know you know it's it just sets bad bells ringing because
yeah all the a sides where someone other than the usual lead singer is singing has there ever been a
good one i can't think of one ever i mean guns of brixton wasn't a single, was it? No. There's nothing.
And I don't count XTC, where the one
who wasn't the main singer was better than
the one who was the main singer and wrote
all the best hits. There must be one.
Doesn't really leap out at you, though.
That wasn't a single, was it? K-Sara Sarar by
Sly and the Family Stone. Right, right.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. But it makes sense having
JJB as the front person,
because before Generation X pitch up,
he's the only one who's going to be on the centrefold of Jackie, isn't he?
Yeah, yeah, with his Trotsky T-shirt, which...
Yes, yes, it is.
He's had to half cover up, like the Flying Pickets tea towel.
Yeah.
Trotsky's still stuck in the number two slot on the commodified communist top ten behind Che Guevara, the
everything I do, I do it for you
of oblivious consumerist
irony. JJB's wearing a
t-shirt with the pastiche of the Ford logo
but it says Trotsky. Yeah.
Yeah, this all started in January of this
year when Hugh Cormor was spotted
at a gig by the member of the GLC's
public committee wearing a Ford logo
on his t-shirt that read,
Fuck.
The GLC went on to force the Rainbow
to put a clause in their contract with the Stranglers
when they were about to open as support to the Climax Blues Band,
which forbade them to either say or wear obscene language on stage.
And on the night of the gig, Cornwall had the same T-shirt on,
which he either chose to
wear or he was just living in at the time and a glc inspector spotted it from the back of the
hall with some binoculars and they just cut the power on them blimey so yeah if you'd have been
in the know you'd been looking at that t-shirt and going no they haven't oh i see what they've
done there but they're doing a nice bit of subversion on this episode,
as you pointed out,
with the swapping of the instruments
and the removal of the strings.
But also, it appears that the BBC
is so preoccupied with T-shirt slogans
that they've failed to notice
that Burnell's kept in the line,
I'm with my friend, with Bob, having a good time.
I got me some speed and I'm doing fine.
Yeah.
They probably thought he got a motorbike or
something yeah no exactly 10 or 15 years earlier you could definitely imagine them getting away
with singing about speed because the straight and narrow people might think oh he must have
been prescribed it by his doctor for weight loss or listlessness or a general sense of malaise you know uh trying to mill spanchules
but probably not by now but then again probably nobody who listened to this with a censor's hat
on could understand any of the words you know i mean but the thing is historically references to
speed do tend to slip past the sensor in a way that references to other drugs don't. There's a lot of records that were never banned that are obviously about speed.
The Small Faces got away with singing about their dealer.
Yes.
He's always there when I need some speed.
At a time when you could get banned from the radio if your song had the word smoke in it,
even if you were actually referring to a senior service untipped yeah dexes
were named after dexes yes and had a number one hit whose lyrics helpfully explained what that
meant i know we have a band that was then if you can't understand what the stranglers are singing
here good luck deciphering gino i mean the thing is is this punk rock probably not the stranglers never really were
jjb he is though he's punking it up in his delivery of this song he's jumping about
like almost like jimmy percy or something and there's a slight discomfort there it don't feel
right because it's almost like a cartoon approximation of what punk rock is i guess
because they're not quite and they never do
quite fit in with punk rock so it's a little forced but anything i mean we've just fucking
kneeling and singing that song you know i mean anything will do at this point so so it's pretty
thrilling to just have a yeah just have a rock and roll band doing what they do but i would
encourage by the way people to seek out that demo from 76 because it's totally different different. A lot of people, a lot of Stranglers fans, prefer it.
I don't.
But it indicates the kind of process that's going on with the Stranglers,
in a sense, that before 77, they had a lot of material.
Now they're figuring out ways of punking it up
and making it sort of current and making it feel contemporary,
rather than just being another rock and roll band.
Well, this is the thing about punk.
I mean, bands like the Stranglers, they're years behind the the curve and a lot of the punk elite just look down on them because look
you're too old and you're too proficient but punk's giving them the keys to the charty kingdom
hasn't it it's like okay we'll do these songs but we'll be yeah yeah the arrogant aggressive
bastards that we are anyway and here we go into the charts yeah but i think what i don't like
most about the stranglers apart from the the beer breath ambience in general is that feeling that
they're putting it on or taking it off you know like you know they're all about 56 and they could
play better than they let on you know and i completely understand why older, proper musicians would enjoy power and simplicity over anything else
and would find it genuinely refreshing and exciting
that suddenly everyone was playing fast and quick.
And I just would like it more if they'd used their experience
to create a different way of doing the same thing
rather than doing exactly what a group
of untutored 18 year olds would have done except they're playing all the right notes i mean yeah
at this point they were probably the only punk or punkish band in britain who could write a song
with a hook line based around a circle of fifths which is this um and they're almost certainly the only one where you can imagine at least one of the members might know what a circle of fifths which is this um and they're almost certainly the only one where you
can imagine at least one of the members might know what a circle of fifths is even though they
probably refer to them as the hey joe chords just like everybody else does and they're also the um
the only punk adjacent band who are having no problems getting gigs they're about to announce
their tour and there's a bit of fury in the local papers but
it's never comes to anything they they never get banned so yeah everything's coming up stranglers
but the thing is with the stranglers i mean as letters to the music press kind of reveal
um although aligning themselves with punk they are liked by proper music fans you know and and
that's the thing with the stranglerslers i like the stranglers but i know
that they are satisfying whereas the damned and the pistols are thrilling and and those are things
that the stranglers never really are you know they're satisfying they're filled out but then
they'll never be as thrilling as the great punk records that are coming out this year and just
before we close can we just have a little word as usual for dave greenfield they're always the
hero of the stranglers never has he looked more inappropriately named than in this clip
you would believe it if somebody told you that he was something they dug up the night before for a
laugh and got him moving with puppet strings and electrical charges and the reason this song is so
short is that his jaw keeps dropping off
so they can't take any chances.
No, he looks just delightfully half rotten.
He's in a green boiler suit.
He looks great.
Yeah, it makes him look like someone's just
snipped the top of a body bag
and just sat him down in front of the keyboard.
Exactly.
And also, a quick word for Jet jet black who i do like because he looks
like what he is a coach driver that you definitely wouldn't want to speak to while the vehicle was in
motion or afterwards one word out of place and we're like to ask him where the bucket of sand was
your classmates threw up in the aisle one word out of word out of place, and he'd fell you with Richard Burton drunk karate.
You ever seen that?
It's one of my favourite clips on YouTube,
when Richard Burton was really drunk,
like literally almost dead in the mid-70s.
He did this film called The Klansman,
where he was in America battling the Ku Klux Klan.
There's a clip on YouTube of this where he has to
have a fight where this good old boy starts on him and his and his missus and he has to kung fu him
but because he's so drunk he can hardly move he just has to walk up to him with his fixed grimace
with a bright purple face and then he just kind of raises one flat hand up and the bloke goes,
and flies through a window, you know.
It's like you've got to, yeah, yeah,
put it on the playlist.
Of course it will.
Worth a watch.
So the following week,
Peaches slash GoBuddyGo jumped four places to number 19
and continued its slow pull up the charts,
eventually getting to number eight three weeks later.
The follow-up, Something Better Change, got to number 8 three weeks later the follow up, Something Better Change
got to number 9 in August
and they close out 1977
with No More Heroes
getting to number 8 in October
and the LP of the same name
getting to number 2 in the same month
held off number 1
by 20 Golden Greats
by Diana Ross and the Supremes
imagine the party that the manager of the Stranglers
and the Wurzels has every Christmas.
Can you imagine what the buffet's like?
Lots of finger food. Well, I guess it's holiday time at the moment,
and if you go to Greece and you look for an island called Carilla,
you won't find it, actually, because it's in the imagination of Demis Roussos.
But for the wonders of Top of the Pulse,
we'll conjure up a lovely island and demise for you right now.
Tony, still alone, reminds us that it's holiday time,
but takes the opportunity to warn us about unscrupulous Greeks trying to tempt us towards islands that don't actually
exist as he introduces Kyryla by Demis Roussos. We first encountered Artemis Venturis Roussos
in chart music number 35 when he reprised Forever and Ever which got to number one for a week in
July of 1976 and this tune the follow-up to Because which got to number
39 in April of this year is the lead track from the EP of the same name. It's been taken off his
recent LP Kirilla in Selde Trauma a German only album and it along with a few other tracks have been englished up and shoved out for the
bevs and angers of albion to slink about too it's not in the charts just yet but the bbc are fully
expecting it to be so so while demis is in the country they've winched him into the studio and
what a spectacle oh it is i mean no expense spared on the holiday vibe no from the bbc props department
um no what a couple of palm trees i think yes but it but it would have impressed me you know i mean
the blue caftan would certainly have impressed me but it looks great i mean i i just think for
the longest time as a kid i was just impressed by russos simply because of his size i mean much as
much as you know in the middle ages like fatness
was seen as a signifier of wealth and status and all that i did look on him not as rotund but but
a winner you know somebody who could presumably have as many goblin burgers and scampi and chips
and chris and pop as he wanted you know and of course that contrast between his physicality and his high fluted sort of John Anderson style voice provided a bit of novelty value.
By this point, 77, he's already well into the kind of being parodied years.
You know, the sure sign of making it, Benny Irwin and, you know, always did an anonymous score.
I remember a Freddie Star routine as well, where Star was, was doing the Demis Rousseau song in the higher voice, and then he walks across the stage and suddenly his voice drops, and you notice that behind him there's a bloke with a pair of pliers.
He's getting parodied a lot.
I think he is the first solo artist who was born in Africa to get a number one in the UK.
I know about Manfred Mann and Freddie Mercury and stuff.
It's odd how he's covering this Cameroonian song.
The original by It Can Be Brilliant called Ilongi is a lot more interesting in its arrangement.
Oh, really?
Yeah.
And if you stumble across, by the way, any mid-70s It Can Be Brilliant records,
hoover them up.
They're great Afro-funk records.
But this song, Kir carilla both in its recorded
version and in this uh slightly sloppier iteration by the bbc orchestra oh yes it's aiming for this
kind of yeah fernando style world music feel because he's got a great voice it kind of works
there's there is that bring your package holiday home yes feel to this you know to my mind it's
massively unfair that the germans heard about this mystical island before us
because, you know, that means they've already got their towels
on the best sun line.
But seeing as Tony has told us that the island doesn't actually exist,
well, that's the Germans' fault, isn't it?
That meant a lot in 1977.
I mean, 1977 was the year of the fake island, wasn't it?
Because, you know, two months earlier,
the Guardian devoted eight pages
of its april the first edition to a supplement on the island of sansa reef all right this didn't
exist either yeah it really went for it but this song well there's a question we can ask about a
lot of the songs on this episode what's it doing on this show it's a non-chart record
why is that happening what is it about the jubilee that has made this happen
yeah um and this ain't very jubilish oh very much no no unless it's for the queen's husband of course
and of course you know another question what the fuck has he got on his feet oh
oh lovely yeah shiny red knee boots with a cheeky heel basically it looks like if superman one day said oh to hell
with a lot of you mcconnell's aggro boys kick to kill yeah it's this weird combination of platforms
and kind of ronald mcdonald shoes um yeah the very pigeon street yeah he cuts quite an impressive figure doesn't he all around yeah not so much a dash more of a gouge
i'm sort of half certain that this is the clip i saw as a kid actually because that stuck in my
head it's exactly how i remember first seeing demis roussos and you know yeah i appreciate that
in terms of his presentation he was very much the non-chameleon of pop but there's something
familiar in a very deep way about this particular combination of sound and picture and
the fronds because he made a mark on the very young me you know i was half disturbed and half
intrigued by the sound and the look and the movement, the way he always had a fan on him, you know, the foreign sound.
And I remember asking my mum, why does he wear those clothes?
And she said, because he's so fat.
And I got it into my head somehow, linking it in my brain
with another clip that had fired my imagination and worried
me a little bit that perhaps demis roussos had jumped up and down on the tacoma narrows bridge
and that was what sent it wobbly and so maybe these two unnerving things were connected i mean
i didn't actually think that had happened but in in my head, those two things got mixed up
to the point where it was all I could think about.
And yet here he is, still smiling beatifically,
despite having wreaked so much terrible destruction.
Do you know how old he is at the time?
Ooh.
I'm guessing 36, I'm gonna say 31 oh that changes things he's not looking great then
is he no but you know it's 31 in 1977 money yeah yeah yeah but i mean to me demis roussos you just
saw him and just went oh yeah that's demis roussos you didn't think oh my god look at that enormous
fat man no no, no, no.
You know, there was plenty of people knocking about
who looked like Demis Rousseau.
Oh, yeah.
Mainly men.
But, yeah, yeah, no, yeah, the blokey soldier,
a brown paper bag full of plums probably looked like Demis Rousseau.
Exactly.
My only problem is that whenever I hear a song by Demis Rousseau
that isn't one of the famous or good ones
and isn't by Aphphrodite's child
all i can think of is the film ultimo treno della notte also known as uh night train murders
and also known as don't ride on late night trains it's a classier offering than most of the don't
movies right these are instructionally titled horror films right
which urgently advised us against going into the basement looking out of the window going into the
house and so on yeah but what if you live in the stockbroker belt and this film's only on at the
west end and you didn't want to bring the car out yeah yeah you're fucked aren't you good point
but yeah look this film is a bit grubby it's a blatant
remake of wes craven's uh last house on the left as acknowledged in the original title
the last train of the night but the english translators just work too fast to spot that
you know even though last house on the left itself was a blatant remake of igmar bergman's
the virgin spring which itself is a implausible story that's centuries old um and it doesn't get
much more believable when as in l'ultimo treno della notte you put it on a train in europe in
the 70s but incredibly enough the first thing that you experience
when you watch this very unpleasant film,
the key events of which are too gruesome to detail,
even on a broad-minded podcast like this,
and which was actually banned in the UK
until relatively recently
under the absurd video nasty moral panic laws,
which made it a crime to sell or purchase it,
and any copy of your possession could be confiscated by the vice squad.
It's just a low-budget horror film.
But the first thing that you hear is the theme song,
A Flower's All You Need, by Demis Rousseau.
Oh, no.
Co-written by Oscar-winning composer Ennio Morricone.
Whoa.
Which gives you some insight into relative British and European attitudes
to low-budget exploitation films at the time,
even those that are so transparently desperate to shock
that the opening scenes show the baddies attacking a department store
for the Christmas, which happens more often than you might expect,
including in L'Ultimo Treno della Notte.
But there he is singing the theme to this vomit splurge
of sexualized violence and elementary emotional switch flicking.
The Rousseau phenomenon himself singing this song that goes,
tell the world I saw a man fall in the street and die and just where he fell for love grows a flower a big red flower like the
blood he shed for love and peace wow find a way to live your dreams you'll make it if you try for love can't be wrong your dreams will come true if you don't
want to die before you get a bed of love you never had with your love beautiful words man right which
might seem oddly inappropriate lyrics to any viewer of this film no although the main refrain
goes sing a song sing an everlasting song which does feel quite appropriate when you're listening
to it but the thing is i may just be showing my ignorance here of middle of the road greek pop but
that song is almost indistinguishable from this song at least in my memory so when i hear this
i subconsciously brace myself in preparation for traumatic sights,
which, in the context of this episode,
is actually quite fortunate, as we'll see shortly.
Yeah, I mean, they've obviously got him in early
because he's in the country,
but, oh, they've served him poorly here, haven't they?
They've just got a few trees from fucking Habitat
and bunged them in the studio,
and they've got some kind of yellow moon and in a blue
sky in the background and yeah that's pretty much it one of the motifs of this episode of top of the
pops there's a lot of sweeps of the camera behind things whether it's trees or bits of the set so
there's times when we don't see anything for about two or three seconds yeah it's like someone's
stalking top of the pops and also i mean this whole episode feels not like a bodge job but it's a bit cheapskate to be honest
with you it's like they've shat all their money bbc entertainment budget has just shat it all on
that nationwide on the nationwide jubilee special obviously but of course yes yeah well money well
spent but yeah i mean at the time and even now greece might as well be mars to me and my
family because our holidays were chapel st leonards and i think this year we went to mabel for golden
sands oh get you my nana uh got an earwig in her ear and uh turned her half deaf really and yeah
we got charged 50p for a broken cup which we hadn't broke and my mom tried to bite off them
so she could smash it
in front of them so they couldn't rip off anyone ever again i got one of them big cat's head things
made of uh toffee apple whatever to lick on the way back and i ended up throwing up all over the
back of my dad's neck so yeah not the best holiday that year golden memories but i want to wanted to
go to kiriola anyway,
because, you know, he's singing about the sky and the sea
and all that boring shit.
Where's the amusement arcade?
Where's the chip shops?
Where's the clubs that kids were allowed into
where they had blue comedians on?
No, mate, not having it.
So the following week, Kiriola entered the charts at number 50,
that soared 17 places to number 33, but got no further.
The follow-up, Life in the City, was given a run out on Top of the Pops in April of 1978,
but did fuck all, and he never troubled the charts again. But he remained an endless subject
of fascination in the tabloids. Here, chaps, is a tasteful article in the Daily Mirror
that doesn't allude to sizism in the slightest. From this November, £30,000 winks in the mink.
For Demis Roussos, the glamorous Greek, money is just a big, big yawn. To prove it, the 17-stone singing
colossus trundled into
a London store yesterday
and bought a giant mink-lined
bed for £30,000.
Gross.
Does it actually say gross?
Yes.
That's £35,000
in today's money.
Perhaps even more.
The falsetto-voiced pop star plans to take the Super Bowl,
fuck knows what they mean there,
on a world-warbling tour.
And since it measures a jumbo-sized 8ft 6in by 8ft,
there should just be about enough room
for his pretty eight-stone wife dominique to climb aboard too
clearly they're sure to enjoy setting off on a luxury snooze that's actually about 142 338
pounds today wow on a bed that's impressive yeah i like how the subtext of that article basically is
but how do they actually do it?
Yes.
And also making it seem as if, you know,
when Demis Roussos goes on tour,
he has to be, like, winched into a cargo plane or something
to get anywhere.
Yeah.
17 Stoner, that's not that much nowadays, is it?
No.
I know, but, I mean, these were the days
before high-fructose corn syrup.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, only pop stars could afford that.
Well, we have two ladies here who, well, you come from Blackburn, don't you?
What a very sensible place to come from.
And I'm sure you've had a street party,
so why don't we join the party now with Honky.
You know your body is grooving
But you might want to give it a chance
Don't worry about a thing
Just feel the music and dance
Toner is finally allowed to mix with the maidens of the studio audience.
All flicked back hair and paper baseball caps that have been pushed back so far,
they look like cast members of the Young Doctors.
He tells us that he has two ladies here,
but he only bothers to talk to one of them,
as she comes from Blackburn.
Presumably the other one lives in Bury St Edmunds, I don't know.
He's convinced that they had a street party
without even asking if they actually had,
and then awkwardly winces at his tenuous link
and waits for the video machine to kick in and play
Join the Party by honker
formed in southampton in 1975 on care a fucking honker this appears to be their debut single on
creole records and came out in march of this year catalog number cr137 uh the label is orangey brown at the top with a 50 graduated fade
into a goldy color seriously chaps that's pretty much the total result of my research on these
bastards i couldn't find anything else well first off i just want to say something extra about what
tony does oh please do i mean am i wrong did mishear this? He says Blackburn's a very sexual place.
Does he say that?
I think he says a very sensible place.
Does he say sexual?
It's right on the edge.
And he gives this little sort of grimace
before it cuts to video
where he realises he might have put his foot in it.
He's thinking about them 4,000 holes, isn't he?
There's a little deflated sort of...
And his posture sags.
It does.
It's a real sort of, that didn't go well.
But that does set us up nicely for honky.
After a couple of months in general circulation,
they were drafted in to perform it on Top of the Pops
almost a month ago.
And two weeks later, it entered the chart at number 43,
then jumped 12 places to number 31.
And this week, it's only moved up one place to number 30.
But what does that matter to Robin Nash,
who's clearly putting any old shit on this week?
So here is a repeat of their previous performance
and fucking hell, the state of it of it yeah this is a band that
seems to have slipped through a hole in everybody's memory and yeah as your intro suggests are now
essentially google proof but if nothing else they do make you sit up oh yes like ect i mean basically I mean, basically, this is two-man unsound. Yes.
We have to start off by talking about what they look like,
i.e. breathtaking and horrifying.
It's a stage full of misshapen uncles in full flight
going for the check of flight.
The singer has got a face that makes you think you might need glasses,
or if you wear glasses, a face that makes you think you might need glasses or if you
wear glasses a face that makes you want to take them off his black throat singing is so absurdly
exaggerated that oh it would have made sandy shore a bit uncomfortable yeah it is proper 90s pot
noodle advert black voice isn't it yeah, I'll have a baby sham.
And he dances like he's wearing stilts,
which is very suspicious,
as he also dresses like he's wearing stilts.
He's got some massive billowy white Saxons on, hasn't he?
Fucking hell. Yeah, and his constant violent and rhythmic crotch thrust
makes you feel like you're being threatened with
a licorice comfit it's not comfortable then there's the horn section of watson keegan and hodl
in the kind of socks people wear in lieu of having a personality yeah they're mad cat woman socks
aren't they oh god yeah there's a drummer who looks like the secret brother
that John Travolta keeps in the loft.
A bass player who actually appears to be Pete Townsend,
brandy edition, in a joke shop wig,
a genuinely uncanny and unsettling likeness,
but not half as uncanny or unsettling i think you know what i'm
about to say as the fact that on lead guitar is the yorkshire ripper yeah yes hiding in plain sight
i guess nobody recognized him without the tuxedo and dickie bows or the blanket over his head
if he'd been driving in a laura waving a crisp five pound note yeah i mean i know
it's not nice but this can't be ignored this man beat dave lee travis in the second place in a
peter suckcliffe look-alike contest lends a certain visual menace to honky which quite frankly they
were not in need of yeah the brass line they just look like a packet of fruit pasta they actually look
like hector or uh any other third division glam band and it's like oh come on daddy get with the
program it's 1977 yeah yeah i couldn't actually notice much of the rest of the band because the
lead singer oh his face right oven i mean he looks like sort of brian tilsley's cling-on brother
and it's i mean it's no accident actually whilst we're on a sci-fi thing he also looks like charles
napier aka adam the singing leader of the hippie group in the way to weed an episode of star trek
but the problem is i mean beyond the slight vocal black face of you know black throat of his vocal
as taylor's identified with
his crotch movements he's trying to be sexy and in fact when he twirls his totally inconsiderable
packet in a sort of vaudey simulation of stand-up sex inevitably i mean perhaps it's just me but
it makes you visualize just horrible stuff you know three things for me one him looking down at you grinning
maniacally as he plows into the vinegar strokes two oh with his lad in his hand this is wanting
you to degrade yourself yeah or number two him looking up at you good men cleavage pop
crazy youngsters or him looking up at you as his nasty afro chafes your thighs or in a scenario that i must admit i perversely and masochistically
spun myself into um him andy mccluskey and roger daltrey all staring at me in a club a lascivious
leer creeping over their face as they plan to pull the ultimate intercity repellents train on me
um he's just vile he's just vile watch your backs now yeahile. Watch your backs, Neil. Yeah, bummer Cerberus.
I mean, the problems start really with the name.
I mean, you know, I mean, the average shite band.
There's this sense in the name.
Yeah, they are Panda Pops Wild Cherry, aren't they?
They are.
But there's a lot of that about at the time.
I mean, just like AWB, they're heading off accusations of cultural appropriation from the off, I guess.
But, you know, what next? white motherfuckers here with their song.
Honky, Taylor, has anyone called you Honky?
No, I've been called a white cunt, which was preferable, really.
I mean, Honky, to me, means Fingers Girlfriend in Nuts in May.
She should have been on the side dancing to this.
Hey, Honk, look at them bleeding bluebells.
Bleeding millions on them.
There's a fair few artists who call themselves
Honky over this. I remember a
Midnighters hip-hop troupe called Honky.
Right. Who did an album called Cold You,
I think, which was actually fucking ace.
No. But it's a repeated
trick. It got thrown about at the playground
but it just bounces off, doesn't it?
That was a really frustrating thing, though, Al.
You know, as somebody who needed, obviously, words to combat with
for stuff that I was called, there weren't many.
Honky was one.
Bird shit was another.
Oh, that's a good one.
You know, but they weren't satisfying in the way that the racial epithets
throw my way, presumably, were to the people who said them.
I mean, out of the honky songs
you know
actually
you know
inevitably
like Taylor says
they're very google proof
and you can find
scant sort of
tracks by them
anywhere
Can't Sit Down
was their other single
I think
and that's a better
call in the gang rip off
slightly
I would also
if you get a chance
and you're on YouTube
and you're intrigued
by the honky phenomenon
there's a video called
Join the Party TV Television Special 76,
which is basically, it's like, it's Join the Party, this track,
with accompanying visuals.
It seems like a home video in a way, which is odd for 76, obviously.
It's weird because obviously, you know, they're a funk unit,
but they've filmed a video like an indie band from the mid-80s.
It's all done down the park and they're on swings and there's sort of comedy bits reverse bits
totally sexist bits as well they've managed to persuade a couple of dolly birds to dance with
them and they occasionally carry them off to the woods in a caveman way it's actually a really
poignant snapshot of something um it's a it's a snapshot of a band who are about to in a sense
make it you know they sell 40 000 copies of this record and they're all necking champagne and stuff
it's just a nice little snapshot of those times yeah it's just some super eight film edited
together to this song but yeah for a start it makes it clear to the point of utter desolation
that in mid-1970s brit, even being a successful pop group,
could look about as cheerful and glamorous
as having your sub-post office robbed by Donald Nielsen
at Black Panther.
It's all unwashed wranglers and creosoted garden fences
and a plain grey judgmental sky, you know.
And this is the six-week period when honky were all the rage
you know yeah remembered by them like it lasted a decade i'm sure mostly spent i would imagine
drinking warm beer out of small cans in a artex ceiling room at the back of southampton
politet dressed in singlets and dried sweat those cans
with a really fucking hard ring pulse to get off yeah yeah yeah two lads with a spiral bound
notebook hanging around saying now do you get the name honky you know glory day
i just think that they they should actually call themselves hanky. Yes. Plain, square, tucked out of sight.
And then when you retrieve and unfold it,
you're staring at the gross waste product of humanity
ready to be swept away in the wash.
And the terrible thing is they're really good musicians.
And they've obviously rehearsed loads and loads and
loads and should they ever have passed through alberta canada they might reasonably have been
able to call themselves the funkiest band in medicine hat tonight but in the grand scheme of
things it's a bit lacking in it there's a bit in this song where he starts to lecture us on what soul is about.
Because when a band can all play this way
and are clearly marinated in funk and soul music
and yet sound as stiff and as pale as honky,
there's some explaining to do.
This is one of those records that would sound a lot better if it was
worse do you know what i mean if it had been this peppy and had this much front but it was as
malformed and broken and semi-functional as their big english faces you could get with that that would be interesting but it's that cellophane layer of slick competence
that just seals this up and renders it literally useless in five years time they could have been
level 42 and just dressed up as themselves and got on with it and people would have accepted it
but because it's 1977 if you're playing this kind of music you've got to try to look the part
at the very least and have a jokey name that alludes to your whiteness yeah unlike say level
42 who are using funk i don't know i'm not saying mark king was talking about his situation but there
was no attempt to sound american in his vocal no necessarily whereas this is yeah this is pure
this is pure black throat yeah as tay as Taylor says, it's fairly worthless.
I think it's been undiscovered, though, of course, by hip-hop producers,
because it's got a groove.
Yes.
They can summon up a groove, the bass and the drums and everything else.
It works.
But, yeah, as a performance, it's actually grotesque.
I mean, if you're looking for positives, the backing vocals are great good work there by the
two peats and i like the synth squiggles that they've plastered all over it in a semi-successful
attempt to liven the thing up a bit and good for them that they just did this and then melted away
you know they weren't like right said fred you imagine when i'm too sexy came out if someone
said to you in 30 years time they'll still be controversial why oh because of their dangerously
arrogant stupidity right why so why are they still getting attention because of their dangerously
arrogant stupidity all right i don't understand this new century. No, neither do we. Right and Set Fred have got a new record out,
getting play on Mike Reid's Heritage Chart Show.
Of course.
With a cartoon video about how we're all being spoon-fed disinformation
by the MSM, like robot sheep.
There's a bit where a TV appears and it says on it,
Tell-I-Vision.
Oh. Think about it. Tell-I-Vision. Oh!
Think about it.
Yeah.
Google Operation Northwoods.
Look, this time traveller has a mobile phone in a picture from 1906.
You're all so blind.
So blind.
I bet you don't get any of that from the surviving members of Honky.
No.
If any.
No, they just want to throw up
videos of their old photos on youtube when they're stripped at the waist and a bit too close to each
other put the caption we weren't gay yes yeah important in case was there in super drug today
picking up their prescriptions some homosexuals might rush in and attempt to fuck them up the
ass yeah it's a bit protest too much
in it yeah but you know at the end of the day they may look like the contents of a crate marked
for euthanasia in a section of the wonderland zoo that's closed to the public but at least their
only message to humanity was come on get up and join the party them and the late dr gerbil it's pretty obvious at
this point that robin now she's just bonging anything oh yeah this is a repeat of a performance
from a month ago a month what's going on robin it's a rush job it feels yeah episode at times
it's a rush it's like oh jubilee jubilee jubilee oh there's nothing we go we can't use that we
can't use that oh party yes chuck it in. Oh, party. Yes, chuck it in.
Yeah, anyone would think there's a currently popular record in the charts
that for some reason they can't use.
So the following week, Join the Party moved up two places to number 28
but would get no further.
The follow-up, Give All You Got, failed to chart
and they were never seen or heard of ever again. David Bouchard. Burn! About four weeks ago, I went to Las Vegas,
and one of those hours saw the Osmonds, who were sensational.
In the audience were the Jacksons.
They've got a record out called Show You the Way to Go,
and here to dance to it are Legs and Company. Tony brags on to us that he went to Las Vegas the other week,
but because he's Tony Blackburn, he went to see the Osmonds.
In 1977, everyone.
And who did he see in the audience but the next act,
who are going to be emoted to by, in his words,
legs and company, the Jacksons,
which show you the way to go.
I've got to say, I misheard Tony's intro the first time I watched this.
Right.
I thought he'd accidentally called them legs and cunning,
which is a bit rough, but it actually might be an advance
on their real name because it does at least refer to two parts of their bodies instead of just one
it's a little bit more feminist you know as a step forward you know legs and other bits yeah
tops and bottoms lady love your legs and coat we've wallowed in the glory of the Jackson 5 many a time and oft,
most recently in chart music number 63,
when they assisted Michael in a live performance of Rockin' Robin
in the 1972 Boxing Day episode.
Since then, they notched up three chart hits in 1973,
with only Doctor My eyes breaking the top 10
getting to number nine in march of that year but diminishing returns set in and their first release
of 1974 dancing machine failed to chart over here that failed to chart fucking stupid british
cunts you deserve brexit in 1975 after a stint in Las Vegas,
Joe Jackson discovered that his lads were only getting 2.8% of royalties
from their Motown contract and instructed them to down tools forthwith
while he shopped them around to other labels.
He eventually settled upon epic records in June of that year,
even though they were still under contract to Motown until March of 1976, and after Motown sued them for breach of contract, they eventually allowed them to leave on the condition that they change their name, which was owned by their old label.
Epic immediately went into a joint venture with Philadelphia International Records in an attempt to update and season the group.
And in November of 1976, the newly titled Jacksons, minus Jermaine who stayed at Motown,
but plus Randair, the youngest brother in the family,
not only put out their family variety show on CBS,
but also released their new LP, The Jacksons,
which was produced by Kenny Gamble and Leon Hough,
the overlords of the Philly sound.
The first cut to be put out as a single, Enjoy Yourself,
got to number six on the Billboard chart,
but only got to number 42 over here in April.
But this, the follow-up written by Gamble and Hough,
entered the chart last week at
number 23, and this week it soared 17 places to number 6. Although they've already appeared in
the top of the pop studio three weeks ago performing the single live, as they were in
the country for the first time since late 1972, to join the likes of David Soul, Lena Zavarone, Dolly Parton, Eric Sykes and Hattie
Jakes and Sari Lewis and Lamb Chop at the Royal Show in Glasgow in front of the Queen, Robin Nash
has opted to give the song to Legs and Co this week and oh chaps I had a look at that Jackson's
performance the other day and and what did I come across? None other than Kid Jensen wearing the exact same shirt
with a Queen's head on it that he wore on chart music number 65
over five years later.
Fucking hell.
That explains a lot.
Legs and co first, I think,
because they've completely recycled Demis Roussos' bit, haven't they?
Yeah, same set.'t they yeah same set
pretty much the same set
apart from the floor
Demis' floor was a bit
silverer
and Legs & Co's
a bit more wooden
yeah and those plants
are now
sort of providing
furtive cover
for members of the audience
to look at
Legs & Co with
and not only that
but they've also cut up
Demis Roussos'
muumuu
and made six outfits
for Legs & Co
haven't they
with some green feathery bits
and some gold tinsel on it.
So yeah,
make do and mend
top of the course.
The routine itself,
I mean,
as usual with Legs and Co.,
it suffers with that
simultaneous need
for it to be a dance
but also that infantile
storytelling of a dance.
So every time it's a me
in the lyric,
it's a thumb towards themselves
and every time it's you, they point at you's a thumb towards themselves and every time it's you
they point at you and every time they they come together in the lyrics they link arms sometimes
i wonder with legs and co routines how much better it would have been to just i don't know
get them a bit tanked up take them to a club and just film them dancing to this music
but actually in i know i've said it's moaned it's a kind of cheapskate episode the combination of
camera work the subtle way of knowing the moments
when the hook and the chorus has come in and stuff like that,
it's one of the more successful moments of the episode, I'd say.
It doesn't feel randomly timed.
So, yeah, pure satisfaction, really.
Yeah, I mean, the routine is a cursory flounce about it.
It does make you wonder if this has been another last-minute job.
Yeah, as we know very
well by now there are legs and co routines that are unfathomable and intriguing there are legs
and co routines that are hypnotically catastrophic there's legs and co routines that are just
appealing and casually sexy in an unthreatening way. And then there are legs and co-routines like this,
which are barely there,
and all too obviously cooked up and rehearsed
in front of a giant egg timer
that is tapped by Flick Colby.
Where ultimately the most important thing
is not the steps they dance,
but just that they dance at all.
Yeah, yeah.
That Music Week article about robin nash
mentioned the fact that flick colbert had to scrap two routines that spent a week on last month
one was due to a single going down instead of up and the other okay by rock follies being binned
off at the last minute going back to that piece it says the rock follies single okay had been played
admittedly rarely by radio one and had already been shown on itv to an audience about the size
and range of top of the popsers having failed to secure either the performers or the thames tv clip
nash had set flick colby and legs and co to work out a routine for the song a week before screening. At 6pm on
Wednesday, June the 1st, Nash had decided to take the song out, having listened at someone's
suggestion more closely to the words and checked that Radio 1 had received complaints. A combination
of this, the Sex Pistols ban and the fact that the performance were ladies, the song begins, you want to do me
persuaded him to hold
off for a week. So yeah, 6 o'clock
on Wednesday evening and they start recording
at what, 7, 8?
They ended up doing Got To Give It Up
by Marvin Gaye and they put on a repeat
of their routine to The Shuffle by Van
McCoy and OK
dropped two places from number 10 to
number 12 this week so you know we never got to
see legs and co wiggling their fingers as disapprovingly so i think we can deduce that
this routine's been cobbled together at very short notice yeah and other than that it's it's the usual
study in contrast it's the the smiley cutesy lady display versus the fact that if you banged a spoon off Legs & Co.'s legs,
it'd sound like whacking a spanner against an aluminium pipe.
But, you know, it works.
But the song is fucking mint, isn't it?
Yeah, yeah.
Another example of a Motown act kicking on,
and a proto-boy band showing us that there is life after the dropping of the balls.
Michael's going to be 19 in a couple of months.
So this is his transformation into adulthood, this song.
Yeah, it's another Sublime Jackson single in a Sublime run of singles.
But yeah, they are demonstrating that there's life after Motown.
And they sound just, obviously they're getting older, but they sound so relaxed.
It's so odd that it's only once they're on Epic and they're with Gamble and Huff
that they start picking up gold records and platinum records because yeah i mean not because
they haven't sold before but because motown had never submitted sales to the riaa no that's mental
it is mental so yeah it's just another great jackson's single and the perfect people to team
up with in 1977 it's an interesting pair in the jacksons and gambling because you know they are the absolute
masters of mature love songs aren't they you know married people coming to the end of the line
either trying to cling on to what's left or giving up and having illicit relationships with other
married people in cafes you know gambler huff songs are all grown-up songs and so is this in a
way yeah you know it's either about a couple getting ready to put some serious work into a relationship
or it's an older man initiating a younger woman
and swearing loyalty to them.
And it's clearly touched a nerve
with the people who grew up with the Jackson 5.
Yeah.
Being a gambling huff record,
do you think that is partly almost like a jab at Motown?
You know, well, you were the big deal,
but we hear that these are the big deal now.
And it's also appropriate,
because Jackson's leaving Motown
involved both a gamble and a huff.
That's such a cunt, Mr. Huff.
I'm sorry.
I've had a difficult month.
No, bravo, sir.
And of course, Gamlin' Huff also wrote
I'll Do Anything He Wants Me To
for Doris Troy,
which was recorded a year from now
by Lenny Gamble,
who is
Tony Blackburn.
Ooh.
Yes, Tony Blackburn's
Northern Soul song.
Whoa.
It was the roadblock of the day
because they were going round
shopping it round
saying, oh, look at this Northern Soul classic
we've just dug up from a fucking warehouse in Miami.
And you listen to it
and it's clearly Tony Blackburn singing.
Backing vocals by Arnold.
Yes.
The thing is, if the Jacksons had stayed with Motown
and I try to imagine what songs
they would have been given by Motown,
it would have gone too adult.
It would have gone too the other way, I think.
The thing that Gamble and Huff do is they do smooth, but without schmaltz.
And I think that separates them from Motown in a big way.
Motown would have given them big, I'm still waiting style ballads, perhaps.
And, you know, try to, I don't know keep them there it's
it's definitely a good move for them yeah yeah Jermaine no longer with the group stayed with
Motown of course yes because he married into the Gordie family yes not the only artist whose career
was affected by doing that for better or for worse and it's something I've never understood
because however well we got on I don't think that I could A, marry a close relative of my boss,
or B, marry someone with a facial resemblance, however slight, to my boss.
Yes.
Because you could just be sat there one day clinking cocktails on the patio, or worse,
and suddenly the sunlight hits their face at a particular angle
and oh god it'd be like if you married stella mccartney do you know what i mean just a bit
uncomfortable but this is the jacksons just approaching that changeover moment in terms of
the tone of how the jacksons present themselves isn't yeah this is still the period
where they're releasing albums with covers that are just a picture of them maybe smiling goofing
around until suddenly they go big and blustering and start putting out records called destiny
and victory and triumph like these bizarrely over heroic covers and videos where they're they're looking
down on humanity even as they deign to become its ultimate saviors is a development i never
quite understood especially as that happened when they were something of a low ebb commercially yeah
yeah and suddenly it's gaze upon us mortals you know what i mean
it's like like the front cover of destiny looks like the titles of life of brian if they weren't
meant to be funny do you know what i mean i don't know enough about the personal lines of the
jacksons in this period to know whether there was some reason why that might have happened or if it
was just on a whim but it's like one minute they're
these warm chummy family entertainers and then suddenly you're being addressed like the shepherds
on the hill you know do not be afraid it's like the funky enunciation oh just wait till we get to
the video for can you feel it for oh that video fucking hell but that's interesting you say that
totally because i mean you know that big promethean thing they do on the sleeves coming up contrast
that with you know off the wall which is only two years down the line yeah um you know yeah and of
course i mean at this point 77 none of us could have predicted off the wall no i mean that that
you cannot compute that that is two years from now god it's just remarkable i mean
it's still 1977 so it is the pre-video age for 99.9 of the general public so it is odd that robin
nash hasn't dialed back the uh live performance that he did a few weeks ago but yeah i managed
to look at that and you know like rocking robin is live but they're not as assured and polished
as they were in rocking robin uh but
it is the first time that michael starts doing his breathy whoopee verbal tics and yeah carry
him through the aventures and beyond so yeah that is it's all bubbling up yeah also don't forget
i'm assuming that they were backed by at least some members of the top of the pops orchestra
true something's happened to the top of the pops orchestra Orchestra. True. Some things happened to the Top of the Pops Orchestra since 1972.
Yes.
I don't know what it is, but it has happened.
Yes.
Because we heard them doing Rockin' Robin.
Yes.
And it was halfway through before you knew for sure
that this was not a band they'd brought with them.
So the following week showed you the way to go,
nipped up three places to number three,
and then deposed
lucille by kenny rogers from the summit of mount pop staying there for one week before giving way
to so you win again by hot chocolate their only number one single in the uk as either the jacksons
or the jackson five which is mad yeah fucking mad the follow-up dreamer got to number 22 in september
and they close out 1977 with the title track of their next lp going places getting to number 26
for two weeks in november in 1978 they ended their relationship with gamble and huff re-signed to epic
and were given full creative control.
And it paid off big style when
Blame It On The Boogie and
Shake Your Body Down To The Ground
returned them to the top
ten.
Here's a group now who are literally known worldwide.
Everywhere you go, they've had smash hits.
They've got a brand new one out called Exodus here of Bob Marley and the Wailers.
Exodus
Well, all right
Movement of the people, yeah, yeah, yeah
Tony, sitting in the gloom of the corner of the studio,
tells us that the next band are the Rupert the Bear of the reggae world
because everyone knows their name.
Why? It's Bob Marley and the Wailers and Exodus.
We last covered Jamaica's answer to Paul Nicholas in Chant Music 64
when his posthumous career began in full with a re-release of one love
and this the follow-up to who the cap fit which failed to chart in the autumn of 1976
is the lead cut from his new lp of the same name which came out last week after the attempt on his
life in december of last year bob and his chums have relocated to London,
where they've finished off the LP,
and they've just finished a tour of Europe,
which culminated in a four-night stand at the Rainbow in London last week.
Cut down from its original seven minutes and 40 seconds
to a slightly more radio-friendly four and a half minutes,
it was put out last week and is not in the charts yet but robin nash's
ital and azusha the band into the studio making their first ever in-studio performance on top of
the pops and their first appearance on the show since no woman no cry was played out to some
studio lights and the credits in October of 1975.
Chaps, Bob Marley arrives for real on chart music.
We ripped into the Leninification of Bob Marley a few episodes ago,
so here's a much-needed chance to see him as a living, breathing entity.
Quite reggae-influenced, this one, isn't it?
I mean, it's interesting you say that lenonification that we talked about in
the 84 episode i mean reading the music press on reggae in this period is quite interesting because
yes because bob is already kind of deified by most of the writers and even those sort of non-believers
um see him as important as someone as someone to focus on uh that of course already enables
disregarding the
rest but but there's it's interesting that in the music press at this time there still persists this
debate about reggae as to whether i don't know not whether it's proper music but whether it's okay to
not like it and to actually not like the entire genre with the faint suggestion that the kind of
groove of reggae is a kind of one note
groove and the space that it takes up is is really limited so in the live reviews of the rainbow
shows that you know last week then that were pictured on the front of m&m with that great shot
um there is a sense in the reviews oh he's legitimizing this form and he's proving that
it can happen live the same kind of condescension was sent towards Public Enemy when they figured out how to do hip-hop live.
But reggae's in this interesting place,
not to aficionados,
but just in the general kind of music press idea this time.
Yeah, it's not, is this proper music?
But can we admit we don't like this?
Although the Wailers have notched up a mere one single
on the UK charts,
therefore Bob Marley's definitely known about
in the non-music media,
but it's mainly for being someone else's knockoff.
I refer you to an article in the Daily Mirror dated November the 20th, 1976,
headline, Miss World's Wild Man.
They look an odd couple.
Call Cindy Breakspear the new Miss World,
and Bob Marley the wild man of pop.
But they're in love, according to Cindy, 22-year-old Miss Jamaica.
Bob, a 31-year-old Jamaican, is a reggae superstar with a lust for life.
He says he has fathered nine children by seven girls.
He says he smokes a pound of pot a day. And as a member of the
mystical Rastafarian movement, he believes it is morally wrong to comb his hair.
Cindy, a health-loving vegetarian, said she would like to marry and settle down with children.
But getting Marley to marry and settle down with her might be difficult right now as he
has no plans to divorce his legal wife rita meanwhile molly is laying low a friend said in
kingston the nation's capital bob seems to have vanished from his usual haunts i bet he's off
enjoying himself somewhere is bob molly the wild man of pop? Yeah. In 1976?
Come on.
Yeah.
I mean, they're basically painting him
as the new Jimi Hendrix there, aren't they?
Yeah, there's a definite similarity in tone.
Yeah, they must have had something in common.
I mean, fair play to Robin Nash for putting him on,
but it's weird that it's this single
and not one of the love songs,
because, you know, in a Jubilee episode,
Exodus is basically saying, hey, black people, this country's shit, of the love songs because, you know, in a Jubilee episode, Exodus is basically saying,
hey, black people, this country's shit,
get the fuck out.
Probably would have gone down well at a blues
organised by the National Front, don't you think?
But it's nice to hear it
because the last time that chart music covered
Robert Nestor Marley,
Robert Aaron Marley,
Robert Patrick Marley, Robert Cougar Marley, Robert Aaron Marley, Robert Patrick Marley, Robert Cougar Marley.
Last time Shark Music covered Robert Frogman Marley.
It was the hit single which best represents the fluffy, prettified, ultra-commercial end of the catalogue.
Yeah, social worker Bob Marley.
Yeah, whereas of all the hits this one
probably best represents the heavier and more hardcore side although it's very smart what this
record does which is to present as roots reggae while also incorporating all the most commercial
musical trends of the period which you could conceivably fit into a reggae record you know you can hear
things from 70s soul you can maybe hear a little bit of disco and it's got that very smooth but
deep production that almost sounds like rumors by fleetwood mac you know it's not rough this record
at all and i think in fairness it works brilliantly artistically as well as commercially
partly because marley knew exactly what he was doing
and partly just because the Wailers are such a good band.
Yeah.
It's always great to just listen to them play, you know,
which they get the chance to here.
But even so, to me personally,
it's not a patch on Duppy Conqueror and all that stuff, you know.
Yeah.
Because to me, reggae is like rock and roll i just like it
better when it's got a bit of a rough edge on it yeah and when it breaks the rules of musical taste
rather than finding ways to work within them but if you are going to make consciously commercial
reggae i don't think it's possible to do it better than this because it doesn't sacrifice anything apart from
the rude edge you know which maybe stuff like one love does and it makes sure that the smoothness
which replaces it is also appealing in its own right it's not just a cop out you know yeah i'm
not overly fond of the exodus album this is probably my favorite track off it. Because the Exodus album, in a sense,
it is that sort of total ironing out of Bob's roughness
that Tony was speaking of.
But this is one of the tracks I do like off that album.
And to be honest with you,
straight after I watched this clip,
I wanted to go listen to the seven-minute version.
Because on the seven-minute version,
it just becomes more and more hypnotic and engrossing.
But it's still one of the most sort of watchable moments of this episode.
And not really because of Bob.
I mean, because of a chance to witness, you know,
Aston and Carlton Barrett in the rhythm section
and also Junior Marvin on guitar.
And is that Judy Mowat and Marcia Griffiths on backing vocals?
I couldn't quite tell, but it might be.
But the Wailers, you know, they're no longer sort of in a sense loads of things to
look at because there was always the attendant danger back in the day that you'd actually find
yourself much more compelled by the the weird unique presence of peter tosh yeah more than
anybody else but you know the thing we have to remember from this vantage point is if you're
black or west indian in 77 this kind of moment this is unforgettable and and it's as
important to you as say i don't know the freaks are later on in the late 70s and early 80s for
an awful lot of other people you know it's something from your home that you thought was
private suddenly brought to the people and go away from this and you you walk into the playground or
the football field or the street the next day with just a little extra pattern of resistance in your armour that this has happened.
So it's one of the best moments on this episode, definitely.
Yeah, I think you can definitely defend the way in which Bob Marley commercialised reggae
and made it into something that sold a lot in, you know, Britain and to some extent America.
But there's always a price to pay.
And there is a reason why on Prince William's recent visit to Jamaica,
he kept quoting Bob Marley rather than Prince Jasbo or Leroy Horsemouth Wallace.
You know what I mean?
It's Leroy Horsemouth Wallace.
You know what I mean?
It's like, it's not Marley's fault,
but if Babylon's gilded representative can use your words for PR
and people stand and clap it,
you know, something must have got twisted somewhere,
you know.
You didn't see him hand-jiving with Kate
to President Mashup the Resident.
You know what I mean?
To some extent, Bob Marley makes me understand why
some people are weirdly ambivalent about the Beatles you know because in terms of simple
old-fashioned musical talent he probably was the best Jamaican actor the 70s in terms of he was the
best songwriter and the best singer and you know the slickest performer and it's obvious why
he made it bigger than everybody else because there's just this sort of quality to his stuff
yeah i'm just not that fussed about that particular type of quality you know in this genre
yeah where a whole lot of other people who couldn't write songs half as cleverly as he could
or sing half as sweetly
were able to make records that were much more interesting
and weirder and more raucous and more wildly imaginative.
I mean, I think the difference is that the Beatles had the craft,
but they also had the mad visionary bit, you know, sort of low-key,
which I don't think Marley did.
He was a great singer-songwriter
with a band who were
agonizingly shit hot when they were on it and his particular talent broke down those barriers
because it was so commercial and could be marketed a particular way which obviously makes him one of
the most important figures if not the most important figure in reggae history and all that it's just that when you listen to bob marley even the very
best stuff it's great but it never sounds like a raw outsider using the freedom of the genre
to create baffling magic which a lot of other stuff from this period does and it's not some
weird snobbery about his records being commercial,
because some of the records I'm thinking of were big British hits too.
People tend to forget this,
that there were millions of reggae hits in the charts all through the 70s.
It just wasn't considered an album genre or a serious genre until Bob Marley.
It's just that for Bob Marley,
reggae was the style through which he could express
and exercise his conventional musical talent, you know,
and express his basic thoughts and feelings,
which is what most music is, what most songwriters do.
Whereas for someone like Lee Scratch Perry,
reggae was an open-ended magic spell
through which new and previously unimaginable thoughts and feelings
could be shocked into existence, you know.
And all the horrors and iniquities of the world
could not just be protested and lamented,
but placed under psychic attack, which might not work but it made for for
wilder music you know can you imagine say lee perry on top of the parts can you imagine max
romeo on top of what these people would have done is they would have put across a pop performance
now bob can write great pop songs but he's not a pop performer he's a serious musician and
consequently he's taken seriously i mean look at look at this, what he does here.
I mean, in a sense,
this feels a bit more like a whistle test clip
or something like that.
And Bob, he's already in that
sort of closed-eyed communion with God
that shuts the audience out, really.
And that's perhaps why he was acceptable.
It's not particularly a top of the pops performance.
I do sort of, yeah, wonder,
you know, put that top of the pops mic in do sort of yeah wonder you know put that top of
the pops mic in the hands of a lunatic like max romeo and what would you get it would have been
fucking amazing perhaps there should have been more of that yeah big youth riding his motorbike
yeah yeah stage yeah singing about communism or yeah dr alimentado or yellow any of these people
it would have been amazing bob isn't that he's not a pop performer he's he's a he's a in a sense almost like a rock performer so i found myself throughout this
performance not looking at him i was just dazzled by the rest of the band i know they're not playing
it live but it don't matter just seeing aston and carton barrett nailing it down you know and
it's just a remarkable sight yeah strangely the strangely, the top of the Pops Orchestra have been stood down for this performance.
As I say, the other thing is that,
even though Bob Marley, in most senses,
is a more conventional or, you know,
in Britain is considered like a more traditional artist,
really, he was the outlier in 70s reggae.
Yes.
You know, because, yeah,
so much of it was not about melodicism in this sense it was
about roughness and a psychotic edge and about the disorientating artifacts of its own production
you know the studio sound like the noise uh the extraordinary exaggerated weight of of the bass
you know all all the stuff that isn't just about the playing
and isn't just about the music.
All these unpredictable ideas.
And wild gimmicks, you know, in the best sense.
A lot of people forget how gimmicky the best reggae music is
because they didn't see it as a bad thing.
It was just about just doing stuff to grab your attention.
And this is all the stuff that just isn't there on Legend.
Some of it is there on some of the earlier Whalers stuff.
But there's nothing wrong with that,
especially on this particular record,
which is, you know, fantastic.
It's not compromised in any negative sense.
It's just that when you've got years of Jamaican music
spread out in front of you,
and it includes literally hundreds,
maybe thousands of records like space flight by iroy you know or wet vision by uroy or heart of
the congos or king tubby or keith has all these amazing oddly shaped pop singles that you get on
tighten up compilations you know like barbed wire by norah dean and
uptown top ranking for fuck's sake you know or the male equivalent three-piece suit by trinity
i'm trying to fill out the video playlist there just so i can put it on one night and just relax
in your diamond socks and ting exactly as usual but compared to that a lot of marley stuff it starts to seem like ready salted crisps by
comparison you know reggae salted crisps apparently the most popular and dependable option but how
often do you want to pick them out you know and this that's even before you get to the impossible
mental adventure playground that is dub you know especially late 70s dub versions of
ultra heavy root stuff like if every household in the world that bought a copy of legend had
instead bought a copy of a compilation like open the gate which would have been tricky as that
wasn't compiled until the 90s but i can't imagine what a difference that would have
made to to music and and to say like open the gate is a is a 3lp trojan box set yeah of um
lee scratch perry dub versions of mostly roots tracks and almost every second of everything on it is totally mind-boggling.
It's got stuff like Sons of Slaves by Junior Delgado
and Open the Gate by Wattie Burnett.
The so-called disco version of Words by Anthony Sanghi Davis.
It's like the heaviest thing you've ever heard.
These amazing exploding flowers and adventures in musical space and none of which is
to denigrate bob marley it's just a shame that this reggae got waved through while that reggae
had to stay semi-underground yeah but how many people would have heard that reggae if they
weren't allowed to hear this reggae first on top of the place yeah yeah yeah it's a gateway absolutely absolutely but i mean i think for bob this pound
of weed that he's smoking every day yeah it's it's not psychedelically inspiring him it truly
is just the holy chalice and as a good raster he's he's doing his duty i guess whereas with
perry and the rest of the people taylor mentioned yeah it opened up things that they then wanted to
reflect in their music and that's why you get so many fucking nutty sounding records
round about this period.
Yeah, he might have been a superstar, but I heard he was very tight.
He'd go backstage at one of his gigs,
see the whole of his band sharing one cigarette.
But no, speaking of which, I was going to say,
I don't know if you're aware, but there is, in Britain,
a group of cannabis growers and
activists who name themselves exodus after this song and album oh really yeah and these days the
trend in marijuana especially since it was decriminalized in most of the united states
is to keep cross-breeding strains and creating new ever more finely tuned types of weed with increasingly
ridiculous names like super glassy cherry og or thunder yeah pittsburgh meow mix you know or like
strawberry dog shit or something like that and people, Exodus, created a very popular variation on the type of marijuana known as cheese.
So it came to pass that currently one of the most common strains of weed in Britain is called Exodus cheese,
which sounds like a character from To Kill a Mockingbird.
Oh, Exodus cheese.
He never believed in mixing with folks what if i was a marijuana grower
at this point in time i would like to create a new strain of marijuana called andy peaball's
don't you think that'd be great sell it in a pack with a cut out of his face on the front or maybe
maybe just that unmistakable silhouette. It's a particularly dank bud.
You'd have to call it Andy Peebles' Space Cush or something like that.
I know, yeah.
Anyway, I like this one better than the Wailers' follow-up single,
Rocco Can, which somehow just never seemed to work for me, that one.
I don't know why.
And the kids seem to like it.
Yeah.
They're bouncing around with their cardboard silver crowns on their head. Yeah, i think reggae by this point has become a music that the british audience is
completely used to completely familiar with yeah and you know i mean it might sound like we're
popping at bob but this is one of his best songs actually i mean from this period and it's a really
hypnotic little window out of this episode in a way you kind of again forget that you're watching
silver the pops i mean if the whalers really wanted to sell out for american and european success they could have
gone for a more dynamic image never mind the old jeans and the adidas tracksuit tops they could
would have had more impact with a bit of a gimmick wouldn't they like they should have called
themselves bob marley and the whalers and all dressed in oil skins thick white woolen polo necks and bobble hats and
carried binoculars and bloodied harpoons how great would that have been call me israel call me they
could have done a version of nantucket sleigh ride fuck me you have to be careful with that stuff
though or you because you can end up like the crazy world of arthur brown you know like he called his record fire he came up with a great gimmick
and it was his only hit so he had to spend the next 25 years on stage with his head in flames
what a fucking bind you know if he'd called that record shoulder massage yeah the rest of his
career would have been an awful lot more comfortable. Or Cornettos. Yeah, but then he'd have been 30 stone, wouldn't he?
Every night, I am the god of Cornettos,
and I bring you more Cornettos.
He's got no teeth.
Expensive, too.
Taylor, I have to bring up the question that me and Neil discussed a while back.
Bob Marley's 80s, what would it have been like?
I want to wake up with you by Boris Gardner.
Would he have done Live Aid?
God, yeah, without a doubt.
I still say no.
I looked into this a bit more.
So just say, not one of my seeds shall sit in the sidewalk and beg bread.
Come on now.
But more importantly importantly he would not
have lifted one finger to help mangisto right a man who let's remember interred the remains of
highly salacious directly under his private toilet so he could shit on it yeah bob molly's not gonna
fucking do out for him on reflection i think you're probably right. Yes, yes I am.
Giving myself a pat on the back there.
So a fortnight later, Exodus enter the charts at number 41,
then soared 15 places to number 26,
beginning a slow pull upward,
which culminated four weeks later when it got to number 14,
its highest position.
The follow-up, waiting in vain, got to number 27 in October and they'd finished their most successful year so far
with the double A-side jamming
slash punky reggae party
becoming the Christmas number 28
and eventually getting to number 9
in February of 1978.
Punky reggae party sounds so barren nice, doesn't it?
It's amazing to think
that Bob Marley, Demis Roussos and the
Wurzels were in the same fucking building
though. Jesus Christ.
Pete Budd claimed
in a Channel 4 documentary that
Bob Marley came up to the Wurzels and said
Who are man?
How you doing, babe?
You know it was just, he said, when you got any bud and they slightly yes yeah he's over there
are you satisfied with the life you're living you know we know where we're going
and we know where we're going And we know where we're from
And we're leaving by the road
That's Exodus there from Bob Marley and the Wailers.
Right now it's number one time on Top of the Pops, and here he is.
He's still there, Rod Stewart.
And the first cut is the deepest.
Tony,
standing alone next to a blue backdrop,
finally gets round to the best-selling single of the
week. Formed in London
in 1975, the
Sex Pistols were a band put malcolm mclaren from out of his
pervy clothes shop on the king's road who signed to emi in october of 1976 and put out their debut
single anarchy in the uk a month later which got to number 38 for three weeks in december
this single god save the queen is the follow-up which went under the
working title No Future and originally contained the line God Save Window Lean and had been part
of their live set since late 1976. It had already been recorded in October of that year and was
supposed to have been the first release on their new label A&M who had
pressed 25,000 copies of the single immediately after they signed to them outside Buckingham
Palace in March but when they were dropped six days later all but nine copies of the single were
destroyed. Only last month the Pistols signed a new deal with Virgin and the single was readied
for release only for workers at the pressing pressing planted down tools when they were told about the lyrical content,
and plate makers for the sleeve artwork to do likewise when they saw the image of the Queen
with her eyes and mouth obscured by the name of the band and the single.
When that was all sorted out, the single finally came out a fortnight ago,
was made single of the week by
melody maker the enemy sounds and record mirror and was immediately banned by the bbc the iba
radio luxembourg wh smiths boots walworths and every single jukebox in pubs in britain
but still sold over 150,000 copies
and crashed into the charts at number 11,
which instantly set the tabloids into a froth,
which was compounded when Malcolm Viv put out a new line of T-shirts.
Article in last week's Sunday Mirror,
Juby Punk, Sex Pistols Pin Up Rocks Palace.
Royal circles were rocking with horror last night at this jubilee souvenir produced by the Sex Pistols pop group.
The punk rockers are offering a three-pound t-shirt bearing a portrait of the Queen with a safety pin through her lips.
Buckingham Palace was far from amused. A spokesman said sternly,
we think it is in deplorable taste. At the office of the Lord Chamberlain, a spokesman said
frostily, our rules do not allow this, but any action we may contemplate to get it banned
would only give the group the publicity they are so obviously seeking. An angry spokesman for the
Silver Jubilee Appeal said, it is really horrible and derogatory and every citizen must be hopping
mad. This week, CBS, who are distributing both God Save the Queen and the current number one
single, have reported to Virgin that the former has been outselling the latter by two to one.
But John Fruin, the managing director of WEA Records,
who is also the head of the British Phonographic Institute,
the trade association of the record industry,
has clearly been worried for some time
that certain record shops who provide the BMRB
with chart returns are owned by record labels and in the
spirit of fair play you understand has issued a secret directive to the BMRB telling them not to
bother counting returns from those shops including the virgin ones two days ago god save the queen
jumped nine places to number two although that didn't stop the band from having a lovely party on a barge
that went past the Houses of Parliament
that people assume is a foreshadowing of today's licking of the Queen's arse
but is in actual fact a recreation of the opening credits
of the current series of That's Life
but no matter because this is the real number one and by god we're gonna treat it as such aren't
we yeah completely yeah and what would have been different if officially this had got to number one
yeah been accepted as such i don't think much would have been different there'd have been a
bit more fish shaking but that's about it isn't it yeah i kind of presume that the way it played
out this this
underdog status that was conferred upon this single um you know which is a single bought out
by a major label you know by a band who had multiple labels interest this is all perfect for
mclaren you know all of it and i think it's crucial to i think to realize that even by the
time this record came out that reaction of kind of appalled recoil that we see among some
music fans and certainly the moral majority towards punk that's never going to be shared
by the commercial record industry the music business is not thinking this must never happen
again it's thinking this must and will happen again and we have to be in on it yes next time
you know yeah so you know it changes that for the music press this also sets something up about about around
being a pop critic this needs to be a profit to see things coming you see that a lot in coming
years but it needs pointing out why does this get to number two why does this get to number one
it's because it's a giant fuck you to the jubilee and a more general fuck you to the future partly
but it's also selling because it's a great pop record. Yes, it is. It fucking is. It's possibly the Pistols' best single.
There's other Pistols songs I prefer,
but it's the best single, I think,
because it's all about Johnny.
You can see him singing and snarling and spitting every line.
And this is obviously, you know,
50 years before he's back in Jacob Rees-Mogg.
But, you know, the lines are fucking great.
The lyrics are amazing.
There's a ferocity that perhaps in pop
hadn't been heard since the early days of Sweet.
And that kind of glam racket kind of feel to it
really helps too.
So it just needs to stay in.
Yeah.
I don't think the industry had to show,
oh, there's some elements of the industry anyway
have to show, oh, this is awful.
They're already thinking, how can we be in on this?
And it's just an undeniably great pop record i think let's say what tony blackburn has to say
about the scene it is disgraceful and makes me ashamed of the pop world but it is a fad that
won't last we djs have ignored them and if everyone else did perhaps they would go away i mean obviously it's
the relaxed mistake like we're not playing the most talked about record so if you want to hear
it you jolly well have to go out and buy it to find out what all the fuss we've made is about
someone should have told him there was already a song with this title yeah it's confusing isn't it
i was thinking about how funny it is that the Sex Pistols were not only one of the most over-discussed bands of all time,
but also one of the most misunderstood, right?
As though they are obscured rather than illuminated by all that discussion, right? discussion right but in fact that's kind of perfect because one thing people get wrong about
the sex pistols is to suppose that they were meant to have any coherent meaning right because both
on the highfalutin art school theory level and on the actual level of songwriting and performance
the point was chaos but not some rock and roll fantasy right chaos as a genuine simultaneously
destructive and constructive force right which involves a lot of heavy serious ideas and a lot
of plain silly buggers and people can't always tell what's what like americans listen to the end of anarchy in the uk and they hear i want to be anarchist
get pissed destroy and they think pissed means angry the whole point yeah is that it doesn't
and that's a very deep misunderstanding yes and it's peculiar that a band that were absolutely all about simplistic shock tactics
and sensationalism and stripping things down
should turn out to be so much more complex than most other groups.
Yeah.
But that's partly why pop music is so interesting, you know.
And it seems to me that all these years later,
the people misunderstanding the Sex Pistols are the people who imagine them
to have been one thing or the other like virtuous or wicked or left wing or right wing or constructive
or destructive or subversive or a money-making scam because of course they were all these things yes and that was the whole point
and in fact now that the dust has settled and covered the sex pistols themselves what is most
valuable about these records and about the band is the expression and the reflection accompanying churn of anger and resentment and egotism and self-loathing,
nastiness and innocence and destructive rage and an unforgivable cuntishness and unforgettable goodness.
Everything that human beings actually experience and how they actually behave
in an environment of enforced poverty hopelessness and anguish in which they're loathed
disrespected ignored spat on and then blamed for their own predicament right this is not an earnest
student activist type record which wants to make a constructive point
on a polarizing topic right it's not a gang of ideological warriors going into battle with this
as their cry you know all puffed up with confidence in their own wisdom and their own moral rectitude
it's something much darker than that and something
much more nakedly human than that i mean out of context you could mistake this as the granddaddy
of all those stupid records that people do now like let's get a song called do a shit in your
own eye boris johnson as the christmas number one you know what I mean? But taken as a whole,
the Sex Pistols,
despite the occasional lapse in a slogan earring,
were the opposite of that kind of glib,
smug approach.
You know,
they weren't meant to be your best mates.
They weren't meant to be your wise older brothers.
Yeah.
You weren't even meant to think they were cool,
particularly, you know, they weren't there with a useful lecture they were a horrible mess of contradictions and
entirely informed by the experiences of being a bright but uneducated working class kid in the
stinking ultra-violent lviolent London of the 70s.
And not only do they not have a coherent message,
they ridicule the very concepts of coherence and easy communication.
And that's what's great about them.
That's the whole fucking point.
Yeah.
The chaos and contradictions are the whole point of the pistols.
They sound like the last band you'll ever need, in a that there's something kind of i don't know i wouldn't say
millennial how can i say they're like lollards or something it doesn't make the world feel to
their stuff they're an impossible band in the best best way yeah and you're right because the way the
tabloids reacted to this i mean the two big baddies of this month and the previous month are the Sex Pistols and Idi Amin.
Maybe they should have got him in instead of Ronnie Biggs.
That would have been fucking brilliant.
But the way the tabloids were reporting the Sex Pistols at the time,
it was as if they were threatening to start rocking the Queen's fucking big pram
and then climb up on it and do his shit on it.
The tabloids were absolutely furious with them for quer querying the pitch of the jubilee yeah yeah and it's like it's why now they come up with this stuff about
you know oh actually i like the queen or actually i like jacob reese mogg or it's you know like
john lyden sat in la drinking tea out of a union jack mug you know i mean cheering on brexit and
yeah donald trump this was something people didn't get about lyden people recognized
that his instinctive intelligence and sense of mischief is the authentic artistic selling point
of the band right this is what makes them different to like slaughtering the dogs or
you know chelsea or stiff little fingers but they don't get how this could have happened to John Lydon
and how he could have ended up like that.
But the point is, this intelligence of his
was never based on the possession of information.
It wasn't based on great political or geopolitical understanding or knowledge.
That's not how he thinks, right?
The reality of Brexit or Trump
informs what he says about brexit and trump
to about the same extent as the reality of the cold war informed holidays in the sun i.e not
very much you know he just sees a still lake of smugness and he wants to throw a brick into it
the only difference is that his experience of life these days is unrecognizable from what it
once was so the rocks are coming from another direction is the andy kaufman a pop isn't it
oh yeah what can i do to wind people up this time yeah keep me in the spotlight and earn me a bit
of money and the pistols are really the last band he's in that actually capture any glee at all i
mean when you think about the the three records
he's going to make soon with pill such a completely different kettle of fish although a similar kettle
of fish in a way but there it's all pretty much despair yeah and the pistols capture that last
moment of glee and we have to remember yeah you know so many people rejecting this record and so
many people throwing up their arms about it the charts charts do not reject this record in a way, you know.
I'm not going to say the kids, the kids.
But even if Top of the Pops and Radio shuts out this record, what we have here, I mean, perhaps I'm putting too much on this single itself.
We could talk about this single for fucking hours, mate.
I think one of the things that's undervalued about punk, and i'm not saying punk was great for the record industry necessarily but punk doesn't just revitalize alternative
musical rock music it kind of revitalizes the chart yes look look at the charts look at what
we've seen in the rest of this episode everything else that's happening in charts quite a lot of it
is is you know bands are not caring about singles much anymore they're kind of promo things for
these old dinosaurs.
So it's not just that punk leads to post-punk and new pop
and pretty much the next decade of music.
I think it brings back an interest and a focus on the seven-inch single as a form.
Yes.
And that focus on smashing the charts.
So, you know, it had loads of positive impacts.
This single just hangs over this episode of Top of the Pops
like an upside-down Christ on an anarchy T-shirt, doesn't it?
When did you actually hear this single for the first time?
Oh, that's an interesting question.
I mean, I suspect it would have been several years after 77.
I'm nine years old when this comes out, and I didn't hear it.
Trevor Dan, when he was a DJ on Radio Nottingham,
he played it once when it came
out before the band's kicked in but that would have been in radio nottingham's john peelslot so
i wouldn't have heard it didn't have an older brother or sister none of my mates had any older
brothers or sisters yeah so you just hear about this song that was just so fucking scurrilous and
evil and you're just desperate to hear it yeah it went around on
our playground that it was a cover version of the national anthem but with more belches and
farts in it yeah then the lyrics came out in the tabloid so you just stare at them and try and
work out what they meant how they'd fit into the song and they're fantastic lyrics oh they're
fucking amazing but i think the two pistol songs that anyone hears before they get to the album
is probably this and anarchy in the UK.
Maybe Pretty Vacant if you're lucky.
But of course, as soon as I picked up Nevermind the Bollocks,
which I think I probably did around about 83, 84,
you know, it's Bodies and Holidays in the Sun that really fucking got to me
in a big, big way.
You should never, with the Pistols, underestimate the production on these records.
It's fucking great from Bill Price.
It's such a big, big-ass sound.
Didn't Chris Thomas produce this album?
Oh!
Or was it the two of them?
I think it was the two of them.
Maybe Bill Price engineered it.
But the sound's fucking fantastic.
Yeah.
Absolute explosion in a guitar factory, but it's great.
This is one of the great pop singles of 77.
Even if the charts don't want it,
even if BBC and Radio 1 don't want it,
and IBA don't want it,
it's one of the great pop singles, the 77.
Taylor, when did you hear it for the first time?
The only Sex Pistols song I'd ever heard was Friggin' in the Rigging.
Because somebody brought it into school on a little tape player.
Obviously that was quite popular.
Yeah, Rugby Club Pistols.
Yeah.
I was old enough when punk was around to hear all about it,
and too young to hear any of the music.
So I just carried it in my head.
Yeah, that it was this incredible, terrible, subversive, dark thing
that was like actual Satan, you know.
This was around the same time as the Video Nasties panic as well.
And two things happened around the same time.
I started going around my mate's house and watching horror films on pirate vhs's yeah and a mate of mine got never mind the bollocks and
started playing it yeah and to find out at the same time that everything i'd read about popular
culture in my mum and dad's first of the sun and then when we class-hopped Daily Mail, was bollocks.
It was all just lies.
It was all wrong.
And in fact, these video nasties were just hilarious,
stupid horror films with people having their rubber arms cut off and a load of red paint shooting out.
And this X-Pistols album was fucking brilliant.
Yes.
It's like, what can you know?
And actually, they weren't this pure force for evil
that went around stamping on kids toys and popping their balloons and you know spitting on old ladies
there's a strangely vintage morality to it yeah yeah yeah i mean it would have been 1981 82 for
me when a mate who was babysitting for a bloke who had the first video recorder on the street
got hold of the great rock and roll swindler.
You wanted to hear it and you couldn't
and you were desperate to.
Even years after the event,
it was essentially the clockwork orange of singles.
God save the Queen.
And it's also the first time that the world's been introduced
to the Mark King of the 70s, Sid Vicious,
whose bass proficiency threatens to bring a funk edge to the band.
I mean, him replacing Glenn Matlock,
that's what really did for the Sex Pistols, isn't it?
It is.
It is.
They did what?
How many songs from Nevermind the Bollocks
did they write after Matlock left?
Is it two?
Something like that, yeah.
I think it's Holidays in the Sun,
which is ripped off the jam which tells
you how far you know even though it's arguably their best single i think and bodies which i
think is steve jones had written already um so possibly the best two songs on the album but yeah
they wouldn't go in anywhere without matlock but i mean it's funny you mentioned body bodies
provided as close to punk rock as I'd get, in a sense.
You know that thing of your parents coming in saying,
what is this fucking filth you're listening to?
Bodhi's was the one.
My parents would have said fucking filth.
But Bodhi's was the one.
When you cranked the volume on that, you were playing with fire.
Yes.
Because it just did feel like that when you first heard that track.
You couldn't quite
believe what was coming out of his mouth um because we heard these things in a pre-hip-hop age in a
way and you know we're just not used to all of those undeleted expletives so bodies was just
and of course bodies illustrates perfectly exactly what we've been talking about with regards to
pistols contradictions could i get on board with that message what is the fucking message it's you know it's a really problematic record but that's precisely what makes pistols so
always thrilling yeah we'll always love the pistols we'll never love the clash i don't think
what it's really about is disordered horror yeah it's a red herring the fact that it's about
this all this is what worries me right for all the progress we've made in various
areas of society in other ways we've gone nowhere right we were talking about after we went through
that period in the 90s where the royals were distrusted and disliked and everyone was saying
is this the end for the royal family we're just basically back where we were in 1977 yeah and
what worries me is the way the Sex Pistols are now remembered.
Because their inherent instability and madness is the hardest concept to process for a lot of people today.
Especially young people who are just discovering the Sex Pistols, right?
Because the fashion now is to think in terms of good and evil.
And what you have to do, the purpose of your life is to perfect yourself or at least declare yourself perfect.
So you can then rain down infinite condemnation on anyone who falls short of your own standards.
Right.
Regardless of any difference between their experience of life and yours.
Or you make allowances for certain things
and not others based on a political checklist right and this is all fine when the question is
you know should you be a fascist or something like that uh where the answers really are that binary
but it's a fucking terrible way a horrifically terrible way to approach anything more complex than that e.g humanity
right which is why the sex pistols when they appear in modern culture they are always rewritten or
reimagined and always oversimplified so you either stick them on a t-shirt and wear it with 400 pound
sunglasses so you can be cool or you reduce them to your own level of complexity like that fucking
ridiculous tv series that's just been on where they're angelic agents of progressive social
change you know because it's a ridiculous middle class rewriting of of the truth yeah because
really the key moment in the sex pistols brief musical career or the moment
around which everything else revolves is that bit in holidays in the sun where the music goes haywire
yeah johnny rotten shouts i don't understand this bit at all yeah and they didn't often express this
directly in a musical way because compared to subway sect or
the fall or even buzzcocks they were basically a boring heavy metal band who couldn't play fast
and a little of them goes a long way i.e you listen to 10 minutes of the sex pistols they
sound like the best group who ever lived isn't there an hour of the sex pistols they sort of
don't um but it's right there it's all right there it's about what happens
to people under pressure yeah it's chaos right we're not into music we're into chaos yeah um
and that's why they're quotes real in ways that make no sense to these people who still sit there
trying to interpret bodies or look at that hmm this does not compute you know well no most
people's lives and minds are not simple or simplistic and it's a fundamental misunderstanding
of and in fact a fundamental inability to comprehend the kind of darkness and confusion
and emotional violence that is the engine of this music and this band yeah the
darkness is absolutely crucial i mean it's like you know obviously with the platy jubes this year
wins sorry there was that usual campaign you know to get god save the queen back in the charts and i
think it got to 42 or something like that showing really that people aren't that interested but you
know it's a complete misreading of this
record if you listen to the closing lines you know no future in england's dreaming if you see that as
a prescriptive didactic thing you're misreading the spiritual pessimism of this record in a sense
because you know he's saying no future in england's dreaming the way lyden puts it across
you get no sense that he feels there will be an end to england's dreaming he's kind of you know he's sure that that fake dreaming of a bullshit britannia will carry on
forever and that's a crucial component of why the sex pistols are such a simultaneously impossible
and confusing band and that's precisely what makes them so good it's so telling that in doa
the punk film when god save the queen comes on it cuts to a scene of a really tatty-looking school playground in London.
And the camera pans across all these 70s kids who are showing off and doing Fonzie thumbs up.
And just the words, no future, no future, no future for you flash up.
And it's like, oh, man, that still hits me in the gut that does when i see that
yeah yeah i mean there are far more scurrilous songs knocking about about the queen yeah i mean
eric burden and war did a cover version of paint it black in 1970 where burden starts going on about
giving the queen a screaming orgasm and then a few years after this we get the queen gives good
blow jobs by peter and the test tube babiesjobs by Peter and the Test Tube Babies.
Good old Peter and the Test Tube Babies.
But this one, it's because it's so fucking impossible for tabloid hacks of 1977 to decipher.
Yeah, exactly.
You know, and they say, oh, you know, you say fascist regime, you're saying the Queen's a fascist and all this kind of stuff.
And they come back with saying, well, you know, if this government wasn't a fasc fascist regime we'd be able to say those words and not get banned so yeah think about it
man yeah a working class kid like leiden can only be one note to these people you know he can only
mean one thing at one time he can't summate contradictions he can't summate what it is to
be in the crossfire of all this both bullshit from the past and also thoughts about the future
he can't do that he's not allowed to do that by the tabloid press and so when they look at the lyrics
that they yeah they don't decipher them they take them at surface value yeah no that's absolutely
that's the that's the thing about lyden that so many people got wrong that and also what so many
of his fans get wrong the idea that like he should be some sort of fount of wisdom and so the sort of stuff he says now
is like some sort of betrayal it's like he wasn't a public intellectual the point is he was an
awkward bloke whose circumstances once rendered that awkwardness meaningful um and now they don't
that's the price of success it always has been so how would top of the pops have done this if
they'd allowed it on if they'd have been forced to play it well how would they have done it oh god legs and coat but
yes just as chess pieces or swastikas on legs i have no idea how they would have done this i mean
we're shy of inviting the pistols into the studio i think they basically didn't expect to get
invited onto you know like liftoff or any of those programs they just didn't
know i think it would have been a blank screen and no music for two and a half minutes which
of course mclaren would have loved yes yeah so the following week god save the queen dropped
two places to number four by which time john through and decided to count virgin shops chart returns again which was
nice of him the follow-up pretty vacant got to number six a month later and they finished 1977
with holidays in the sun getting to number eight in october before it all went wrong in america
and johnny rotten got the fuck out of it and in october of 1980 john frewing resigned as managing director of wea
due to differences of opinion between him and the shareholders on matters of policy
and absolutely nothing to do with the recent broadcast of the world in action episode the
chart busters which focused on the distribution of judy zook sat in tour jackets to record shops in order to fiddle the chart return books.
Shame on him.
He ain't no human being.
So in its place,
we get the officially designated number one single,
The First Cut Is The Deepest by Rod Stewart.
We last covered the king of the Ramadan number ones
in chart music number 13
and this single is the follow-up of sorts to the re-release of maggie may which got to number 31
in december of 1976 and the actual follow-up to his cover of get back which was taken from the
soundtrack of all this and world war ii which got to number 11 in the same month.
It's actually a double A-side,
featuring a cover of Crazy Horse's 1971 LP track I Don't Wanna Talk About It,
which featured on his 1975 LP Atlantic Crossing,
and this, a cover of the 1967 Cat Stevens song,
which P.P. Arnold took to number 18 in May of that year,
which had not only appeared on Stewart's 1976 LP A Night on the Town,
but was also the B-side of Get Back in certain countries.
Despite both sides being already in the public domain,
they were released in April as a stopgap while Rod was putting together his next album,
Footloose and Fancy Free,
and entered the chart in late April at number 48. The following week it soared 35 places to number
13, then leapt up 7 places to number 4, nudged up 2 places to number 2, and finally deposed free
by Denise Williams to assume pole position on the summit of Mount Pop,
his fourth number one in the UK so far.
This is its fourth week at number one,
and has somehow managed to hold back God Save the Queen from its rightful place,
so here's the fifth showing of the promo video featuring Rod grappling with an acoustic guitar.
Oh, God.
Rod's been in the news this week, chaps.
He's made a rare visit to the UK to see the England-Scotland match,
and in tomorrow's Daily Mirror is the headline,
Star Rod pitches in to repair Wembley.
Soccer-loving rock star Rod Stewart had two upsets when Scotland beat England at Wembley. Soccer-loving rock star Rod Stewart had two upsets when Scotland beat England at Wembley.
He was angry when rampaging Scots ripped up the turf as souvenirs and he lost a gold necklace
given to him by girlfriend Britt Eklund. But fortune smiled on Rod and Wembley yesterday.
Rod discovered that the necklace had been found and he sent a donation towards repairing the pitch.
He said,
I just wanted to apologise on behalf of the fans
who were carried away by all the excitement.
Fuck's sake.
Very magnanimous of him.
Yeah.
I nearly fell asleep watching this, man.
The thing is with Rod,
unlike, say, Mick Jagger,
Rod writes himself into his songs, I think,
and into the songs that he chooses to cover as well.
Yeah.
You know?
Yeah, he's like the Carpenters.
A lot of his songs are cover versions.
Yeah.
And I always picture the songs that he performs
almost with him as a central character.
You know, with Jagger,
you can never really quite find Mick Jagger in his songs, in a way but but it's more a sort of dazed reflection of his surroundings in his
milieu but with rod when he sings his great songs like maggie may or you wear it well i don't know
about you but i'll picture him you know with his daddy's cue and all the rest of it so there's a
really simple issue of believability about the first cut is the deepest it's kind of vaguely
believable as a cat steven song because
cat was in his disgraceful partying years at that time the pp arnold version is great and also the
the norma fraser uh reggae version is is a real doozy as well but but rod i'm just not buying it
and by this time i'm not buying into that kind of slightly damaged young boy thing he doesn't
sound hurt he sounds cynical and this song sounds like
a tactic yeah yeah telling someone he's gonna try and love again how many times have you said that
well he's getting too old to be pulling these kind of lies out and the fact that it's an absolute
dreary shit fest plodding dog of a recording with these horrible harps on it um it's not as utterly
fuck awful as you're in my heart or
something like that but it but it's down there and it feels and sounds lazy really yeah and the
tables have turned now haven't they because rod the former super lad of the 70s he's now cast as
a villain of the piece the tax exile holding the new generation down with his reconstituted off course. Absolutely.
He's the enemy.
The whole thing feels lazy and cynical.
I don't want to talk about it.
It's from Atlantic Crossing, which is two years old.
This is from A Night on the Town, which is one year old.
Yeah, who the fuck's buying this?
Exactly.
Four fucking weeks.
I have no idea who's buying it.
It is lazy.
He's changed the lyrics a bit from the PP Arnold version because he couldn't remember them,
I think.
Right.
This is Rod at his most successful.
This is a big smash.
But I think he always benefits
from a bit of roughness around him.
So when he's backed,
as he is here,
by the best session man
and the best arrangers
and all that bollocks,
he just kind of sounds soft.
I like the rough and ready Rod,
you know,
which is essential.
His kind of raspy voice,
it needs a bit of a
raspy setting yeah and although he looks great from the waist up in this video although i don't
like his diamante shark tooth combination necklace i mean the promo video is 70s video cliche number
three the fake top of the pops performance on a stage too big and expensive for top of the pops
you know he's on his own with an acoustic guitar with no
strap in some i noticed they were non-flared gray trousers so you know there is a progression
well i saw with those trousers from the waist up he looks like a kind of pretty glam rock star
but from the waist down he's wearing these horrible shiny gray trousers that look
yeah very burtons yes i would have hated this anyway in 77 as being slow and boring but if i
knew that simply the fact that he's number one is just not cricket.
You know, he cheated.
Well, he didn't cheat.
I can't blame him, I guess.
But I'd hate it even more, yeah.
We've mentioned before that Rod Stewart is ugly sexer by the standards of the mid-70s.
And it's pretty much a straight fight between him and David Soule as the girly lust object of 1977.
But with his head in a jet engine bouffant,
he looks like the sort of woman who keeps getting stopped
by the West Yorkshire police and be forced to listen
to a tape recording of Wayside Jack
and then asked if they'd been in a car with him.
Yeah.
You know what I mean?
Yeah, I find this record and video with its strange focus
on bottoms
and man dressed as a lady, I find it to be in deplorable taste
and it's my policy to ignore it on this podcast.
It won't be getting any kind of airplay or attention from me.
Then maybe it'll go away.
Yeah, that guitar's getting right in the way, isn't it?
You know he wants to collar the mic and emote into it,
but with no strap on the guitar, you know he wants to collar the mic and emote into it but with no
strap on the guitar it means he has to keep hold of it and he he hasn't got the courage to do uh
to do an ashley ingram so he just ends up holding it and halfway through he does this massively
awkward transfer of the guitar to behind his back you know as if his little sister's just coming to
the bedroom and he's terrified that she's gonna put it about that rod thinks he's a pop star yeah and then he turns around so he can pretend to play an
electric guitar solo on his acoustic and he starts giving it some absolutely appalling arse action
doesn't it oh god yeah yeah it's like when father doogle portrayed mid-period elvis in the old
priest stars in their eyes look-alike. I remember watching, maybe not this episode,
but one of the episodes on which it featured with my mam.
And when he turned around and did that,
I can still see my mam tutting and saying,
oh, look at him with his little rabbit arse.
Massively disapprovingly.
And that's who Rod is to me now.
Little rabbit arse.
Yeah, the music playing while he does that
should not be the first cut is the deepest.
It should be...
No, fuck him and fuck this record, to be honest with you.
Having said that, though, the first cut is the deepest.
Johnny Rotten's going to know all about that in a few weeks' time, isn't he?
Poor sod.
Ouch. The following week, the first cut is the deepest. I donten's going to know all about that in a few weeks' time, isn't it? Poor sod.
The following week, the first Cut is the deepest I don't want to talk about.
It was finally dislodged from the number one spot by the hardcore new wave sound of Lucille by Kenny Rogers.
The follow-up, You're In My Heart,
got to number three for three weeks in October-November
while his new LP entered the chart at number three
and stayed there for two weeks.
He'll have a few more decent songs in him, but these aren't they.
No.
Boom.
Thank you. That's the number one sound from Rod Stewart.
Thank you very much indeed for watching Top of the Pops.
We're going to play out with Emerson Lake and Palmer.
See you on Saturday, Seaside Special, Top of the Pops next week.
Bye-bye.
Tony, still exiled on the fringes,
thanks us for looking at him on the telly for a bit and then shills his appearance on Seaside Special
before throwing us at the studio lights
as we're treated to fanfare for The Common Man
by Emerson, Lake and Palmer.
We covered ELP and this single
with the same fucking people in chart music number 47.
It entered the chart of Fortnite ago, then soared 23 places to number 25.
And this week it's jumped another eight places to number 17.
So can anybody manage one more squeeze of this tea bag yeah i'll tell you what elo and elp
has there ever been a top of the pops featuring two groups so close alphabetically
i bet not also i don't like how when you type elp into youtube it auto completes as elpen musk there isn't there isn't even an elpen musk what are they
i don't get it were they tories elp do we know because it seems inconceivable that they weren't
somehow right it's it's hard to pin down but some music just feels tory at a fundamental level and
it's not it's nothing to do with the classical pretensions or
the attempts at highbrow which even in 1977 would be a very old-fashioned idea of toryism
because you listen to like the aforementioned soft machine for instance and they're not exactly
playing music for the people but you can sort of tell that they're commies right if you have a feel
for the time and place
and how things worked in that culture all the signifiers are there and you understand that this
bizarre difficult uncommercial music which does whatever it wants should be the work of adherence
to a philosophy of repression and enforced egalitarianism because it sounds unworldly and academic and anti-social
but also idealistic whereas elp sound like they're all about personal gain and glory and tax avoidance
yeah yeah well it's like they've put themselves at the head of a meritocratic elite, you know,
and yet they don't understand that what they're actually doing is terrible for everyone except themselves.
Yeah.
No wonder Jim Davidson was a fan.
That Tory aspect of ELP is most successfully crystallised, I think,
on the sleeve to their 1978 album.
Right.
It's one of my favourite record sleeves ever.
The album's called love beach
right just go google it just go look at the front cover because it's exactly what toly was just
talking about it's horrible obviously um because it's erp but it's them three basically on a beach
with shirts on all pretty much unbuttoned to the waist with big chunky medallions and it's hugely
aspirational oh i'm looking at it now it's a very
expensive cna advert isn't it indeed it's totally grotesque it's what happens when prog completely
detaches itself utterly from the counterculture and this is where it ends up and that's what you
can hear in this music as well and another way in which they're worse than Soft Machine and more Tory, is that their music is monolithic and intractable, right?
You can't do anything with it.
It just tries to do its thing to you.
The reason I'm talking about Soft Machine,
the other day I was listening to Soft Machine's album Seven,
very much from their later Open University spod rock period.
It's not all of it to my taste but i was listening to the track
carol anne which is actually a kind of limpid jazz instrumental with a synth on it but you hear it
and you think oh this sounds like the theme tune to a slightly melancholy bittersweet late 70s or
early 80s sitcom if you listen to it on time stretching
hallucinogens which it really does by the way if you listen that's exactly what it sounds like
and i'm not aware of any elp music which is that open to the imagination or the idea of potentially
being anything other than just what it is right right? They're the musicians, and you will listen to them,
and you will be in no doubt.
They're more totalitarian than the totalitarian.
I mean, I've spent most of my life avoiding Emerson Lake and Palmer.
The two things that stick in my mind
is the documentary message to love about the Isle of Wight Festival,
when there's all this hippie anarchist mentalness going on and then
all of a sudden they pitch up with loads of cannons and they immediately strike the opening
cord and it's like oh my god here comes the 70s everyone and then the episode of blue peter in
1975 when carl palmer pitched up to show off his new drum kit which he commissioned british steel
to make for him out of stainless steel and then he
got it engraved with foxes and voles and badgers and you know i was only six but i knew even then
that badgers aren't rock and roll the suite wouldn't do that like a lot of the records on
this episode of top of pops it they it very neatly illustrates why the record that isn't featured on
this top of the pops is you know so needed yeah i mean i don't like being too harsh on anyone who ended up committing suicide except hitler but
fucking hell keith emerson started off sticking knives into a hammered organ to see what kind of
noise it made you know like a keyboard pete townsend but the difference is townsend was
disrespecting his equipment partly for show and, but also because it made a statement of frustration and nihilism and the inadequacy of pop music and a personal inadequacy to express, but also to place himself above the instrument.
It's like, I've mastered this and all there is now,
the only place left to go is to stick some fucking knives in it.
I don't know if that was his conscious thought,
but looking at what he did later, that's what it looks and feels like.
And then when you take him out of the marquee club
and put him in a stadium,
that extra space to fill with his virtuosity
seem to validate him again and keep him happy musically whereas you put pete downs in in a
stadium and he just got more desperate and despairing because it broke his link with the
audience which didn't matter to lp because they weren't about two-way communication with the audience even in theory. This is
a recital. You should consider
yourself lucky to be there
with your barbiturates
and your bottle of red wine
sat in a football stadium in
the snow. Yeah, this is a band that
just bought out two albums called
Works, Volumes 1 and 2
I mean, fuck it.
So the following week Fanfare for the common man leapt another nine
places to number eight then spent two weeks at number three then nudged up to number two held
back from soiling the peak of pop mountain by so you win again Hot Chocolate. The follow-up, All I Want Is You, failed to chart,
and this remains their only sullying of the UK charts.
And that, Pop Craze youngsters, is the end of this episode of Top of the Pops.
What's on telly afterwards?
Well, BBC One kicks on with Part 8 of Royal Heritage,
the documentary series where Hugh Weldon noses through all the ramble
that the monarchs of England have been given or nicked off some foreigners.
This week, he's rummaging down the back of Queen Victoria's knicker drawer.
After the nine o'clock news, David Frost has a bit of live chit-chat on the Frost programme,
then we're taken over to the embankment to witness the denouement
of today's licking of the royal arse with michael barrett as your mc raymond baxter on a motor yacht
which was used in dunkirk and richard baker commentating on a fucking massive fireworks
display then they rhymed off the night with john timpson and dennis tooey trying to remind us that
other things are going on in the world in the current affairs program tonight only to be interrupted
by the queen and her husband going home and waving at folk from a balcony oh she does she does it so
well she does a great job i had a look at the telly for today and i love how bbc one's entire prime time schedule is just wall to wall
royal arse washing apart from top of the pops and a david frost interview with david irving yes
perfect a disgraced charlatan who should be in jail interviewing david irving oh shit that actually is the have i got news for you
joke formula isn't it fuck you know so lazy i'm sorry no taylor bbc2 have just come out of newsday
and continues its season of ealing cinema with a gomont newsreel from april 1942 followed by the
1942 tommy trinder film The Foreman Went to France.
Then it's a special report from the world about us about the declining population of the African
elephant. Then it's the drama series Sea Tales, late news on two, the highlights from the tennis,
and they finish off with John Williams playing Cavatina in music at night.
ITV eventually gets round to this week.
Then it's an extended hour and a half news at 10 in order to fit in all the Royal Rammel. And they finish up with Cyril Fletcher and Bob Price in gardening today,
closing down at midnight.
So, boys, what are we talking about in the playground tomorrow?
I think I'll be talking
about the stranglers it's quite an exciting performance that demis roussos always going to
be talked about and probably the wurzels let's be honest yes yeah the terrible truth is that it
would probably be the wurzels bob marley of the whalers take note that could have been you
what we're buying on saturday? Wurzels, definitely.
I mean, from now, Honky, I actually quite dig.
Pistols, Gladys and Jacksons.
ELO, Sex Pistols, Bob Marley,
if by this point the theoretical me had progressed
to puffing on a crooked, leaky spliff that's 99% silk cut,
plus a millionth of a microgram of horrible black plastic
soap bar i miss soap yeah me too sprinkled unevenly through it around the around the back
of the chippy in the garages you know coughing and bug-eyed iry meditation. At the age of five? I said if.
And what does this episode tell us about June of
1977?
They made you a moron.
I think it does tell us a lot
about how punk rock must have
seemed so exciting. And threatening.
It's not that mainstream entertainment
isn't speaking to
kids about their lives or anything.
You know, the words will speak to all of us.
But kids don't really have a problem with mainstream entertainment.
I just think it's when pop seems barely tolerant of kids at all being even part of it.
And much of the pop music we get given here is very grown up and very adult and very slow and very boring.
And kids want energy.
And it is coming but it needs
bearing in mind i think in 77 when we're looking back punk is something i still think that you have
to be looking for if you want to be into it you know it's not on the telly and it's not on in your
living room much so even though there's hints here you know you could successfully put the
stranglers away as a novelty almost shock rock act at this point it's not gatecrash the mainstream in any way but every single thing on this that isn't by uh black
americans in a way or black jamaicans is proof of why we needed it and that brings this episode of
chart music to a close usual promotional flange chart-music.co.uk facebook dot com slash chart music podcast reach out to us on twitter
at chart music t-o-t-p
money down the g-string
patreon dot com
slash chart music
thank you taylor parks
god bless you neil kulkarni
as ever a pleasure my name's
al al who
al fucking needham
that's who.
Chart music. Thank you. Excuse me, are you the producer? Yeah, right on, baby. Are you going to vocalise on this tune?
Well, not exactly me.
Well, who then, little brother?
Prince.
OK, well, where is this cat?
It's not a cat. It's a dog.
Wow! Yeah, that was real cool.
Hey, dog, keep this up when you've got it made.
Bones the size of houses.
Your own customized lampposts.
The wild is your oyster.
Oh, no.
Prince doesn't like oysters.
But he likes sausages.
Okay, what is this?
Can he do it or can't he?
Well, yes, he can. So, what went wrong?
It's not all his fault. It's just that
every time somebody says that word, he says it as well.
What word?
Sausages.
Has he done this kind of thing
before? Oh, yeah. He's even been
on the telly. And I suppose he's been on the mantelpiece, too
Come on, what do you take me for?
Who would be crazy enough to have a talking dog on a TV show?
That's right
Well, really great stuff there
And so, the nationwide special Jubilee message.
Can you lift the pigeon out, Frank?
Well, I'm going to get Ken Seddington to do that,
because he's the expert, it's his pigeon.
Right, as he's doing so, let me just remind you
that our royal flight of pigeons took off exactly a week ago today,
when one of the Queen's own birds flew out of Buckingham Palace
on its way to the Royal Pigeon Loft near Sandringham.
Other pigeons took up the message, adding to it as they flew around the country,
from Norwich to Newcastle, then on to Edinburgh,
back down through Manchester to Cardiff.
And there was actually some pretty awful weather on the way, I might say.
And this fine bird here is the last of the relays.
She took off from Cardiff yesterday and fluttered into a pigeon loft
near the studio just before our fair began.
And these, I'm unrolling them now so you can remember them,
these were the key words in our message before today's bird arrived.
Airborne, the tribute, nationwide our...
And of course now, with Windsor Girl's contribution here,
unstrapped from her leg, the verse is complete.
The final verse of nationwide's jubilee message reads,
Affection and pride, full-blossomed but unseen,
now revealed in homage to our Queen,
with palpitating heart and beating wings,
our final messenger his tribute brings.
Well, there we are, stirring stuff to complete our keyword message to the Queen
from the length and breadth of Great Britain.
Airborne, the tribute, nationwide, our affection.
And now, let's get out and about again.
Let's go over to the English and Welsh border at Chepstow Castle.
Folks come down from London with all their fancy tricks.
Ha-ha, we got trick or two.
We've got milk and we've got wheat.
We've got our Weetabix.
Ah, tis real goodness.
We eats our lovely Weetab And boys, the taste just grand.
Just got the country nourishment.
Good things from the land.
We're not just dancing.
We got brains, too.
Weetabix, have you had your daily wheat?
Oh, wow.