Chart Music: the Top Of The Pops Podcast - #68: May 1st 1980 – The Ken Of The Eighventies

Episode Date: December 11, 2022

The latest episode of the podcast which asks; have any of Chart Music ever had to deal with a Hard Lovin’ Woman?As listeners to the World’s Greatest Podcast About Middle-Aged Hacks Banging On About Old Episodes Of Top Of The Pops, you’ll be fully aware of the general consensus on Nineteen Eighty, Pop-Crazed Youngsters; that it was the trough between the stratospheric peaks of ’79 and ’81. But in this episode, the case for the defence is comprehensively laid out, and if you’re here for the coat-downs, you’re going to be disappointed, because this episode is a bit SKILL.We’re on the cusp of the Great Pop Famine of 1980 – which cost us six issues of NME and MM each and nine portions of our Favourite Thursday Evening Fizzy Pop Treat – and into the final month of the reign of Robin Nash. But although he’s on his way out, he’s already attempted to drag the show into the Aydeez by raiding the petty cash till for a new set – including a gun tower – and giving a debut cap to the Vicar of Rock himself, a 39 year-old Tommy Vance, who immediately puts himself about and makes a good account of himself, with one or two exceptions.Musicwise, it’s a broad and diverse spread of 1980 fare. Leon Haywood gives the youth some timely advice about pegging. New Musik finally get their moment on Chart Music. There’s a chance to see American Pipou on Soul Train. The Chords represent the Mod Revival by disguising themselves as Generation X, before we’re hit by a megablast of Dadisfaction broadcast live from Bodie and Doyle’s living room. Then it’s a one-two-three punch of RRRROCKK from Whitesnake, Saxon and Motörhead, interrupted by Errol Brown’s mashed potato-mountain of a single, an obligatory dollop of the Nolans, another chance for us to drool over the Beat, Kate Bush being a clingfilm foetus, and a thrilling Number One where the Kids get hit in the face with a holdall, which they deserve for being so sullen and bovine.Simon Price and Neil Kulkarni join Al Needham for a rampage through the middle of the Eighventies, and the tangents come thick and fast, including the correct way to modify a Harrington, the Nagasaki Hellblaster, Skinhead Discos, which living room accoutrements would make the best weapons against a home invasion of Street Punks, how Sham 69 got their name, tales of Machete Max, was Lemmy the Father Seamus Fitzpatrick of Metal, and the introduction of The BPT. SWEARING!Video Playlist | Subscribe | Facebook | Twitter | The Chart Music Wiki | Patreon Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This will certainly have an adult theme and might well contain strong scenes of sex or violence, which could be quite graphic. It may also contain some very explicit language, which will frequently mean sexual swear words. What do you write, isn't it? Um... Chart music. Chart music. Chart music. Hey! Up you pop-crazed 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 flanking me today are Neil Kulkarni and Simon Price. Oh, Jesus and Buzz, about to embark on another crazy adventure, I'll be bound. adventure I'll be bound. So, boys, allow me and, by extension, the Pop Craze youngsters to suckle upon your pop and interesting

teeth. Pop and interesting dugs, yeah. You know, usually I use the pop and interesting bit of the podcast to indulge in some light and occasionally heavy moaning about the squalid minutiae of my life.

But this time, it's big changes this time. Big, big changes. Sophia's started college. She's doing a music course in Stratford-upon-Avon, which she seems to be settling nicely into. Although, as a parent, I was frankly appalled at the song they got them to learn and play during induction week. What? Oasis, rock and roll style. Oh, for fuck's sake. the song they got them to learn and play during induction week. What?

Oasis, rock and roll style. Oh, for fuck's sake. I'm not going to report it as a safeguarding issue or anything, but I'm going to keep a close eye. I hate crime. What course is she doing? She's doing music, music performance and technology. Right.

It's the first time she's been able to play with a band and stuff, so she's learning Superstition by Stevie Wonder at the moment and all all sorts but that's how they start them off with rock and roll star i guess to make them feel like a rock and roll star or something set them up for a massive fall early eh yeah i was distressed to hear that but i mean perhaps more importantly big big change i've moved house oh yes man oh man stressful everything they say about it being the most stressful thing in your life it is probably correct the move itself the moving day you know that was a hellacious shit storm of hand injuries and swearing you know um and also somewhat emotional i was moving from the house that i lived in on and off for 40 years to the house that i lived in for the happiest and kind of naughtiest 15 years of my life between 96 and 2010.

So just being back here makes me feel a bit more prone to daftness, which is not a bad thing in the year that I've just turned 50. The day itself was nuts. I've got a piano, obviously, and I'd hired a couple of dodgy geezers to move it.

Mr. Shifter. Exactly. And I was sitting back and forth trips. I'd moved all the big stuff, the furniture, and I'd come back to my old house and i was sitting back and forth trips i've moved all the big stuff the furniture and i'll come back to my old house and i was just getting the little stuff like the musical instruments and records and things like that and um the piano guys were already in the house in fact they've already got the piano out so i sort of said yeah i said how'd you get it out how'd you get it in how'd you get in in fact and they said oh the new owner's already here

the fucking guy the money had changed hands at two o'clock he was already there at three o'clock what a cunt what a cunt and not only that

he comes out and he goes you've left all this shit here this is my property now get off my property I'm gonna sell all this stuff on fuck off so seriously

for five minutes I was like trembling you know fucking hell but he was one of those weird guys you know he was really aggressive seriously for five minutes i was like trembling you know fucking hell but that he was one of those weird guys you know he's really aggressive and then five minutes he comes out he goes i'm so sorry mate blah blah blah blah blah and he lets me but you know what that drew actually a nice line under living in the house it was like fuck it you know if this isn't the name but you know i saw the move anyway it's a chance declutter, obviously not records or CDs or books, but everything else.

So now my life is this dizzying swirl of giddiness in shops thinking, yeah, what colour soap dish bog brush set should I get? And stuff like that. But I'm back in the old neighbourhood. I'm back where I belong in a kind of class sense, in a family sense, because all my grandkids are nearby in a friend's sense which is which is why I've seen more of my grandkids and more of the inside of pubs in the last two months than I have in the last two years you know so I couldn't be happier and it's odd being content I'm always thinking what am I forgetting you know overlooked very

much not used to it but because I made a tiny little bit of money on the move I might finally get the time to write the book that I am my publisher i'm open to ideas about what the fuck it should be about crisps yes yes seems to be the prevailing force at the moment uh the only other big news is that i am now the owner of and it horrifies me slightly to say this a beard no um i'm sorry it's basically because my girlfriend likes it and that plays into you got a girlfriend and a beard no um i'm sorry man it's basically because my girlfriend likes it and that plays into you got a girlfriend and a beard fucking hell it's all happening mate i mean partly i do feel this is a betrayal of all the values i have ever held dear so i'm staying vigilant the moment i catch i don't know beer froth in my beard or feel the inclination to get a sleeve tat or anything it's

off i think you need to describe it to us so neil i mean is it neat is it neatly kept is it long is it you know what what sort of no it's not long i'd like to stress that it's not a big beard you could lose that lose a badger in it it's kind of just beyond stubble so it does count as a beard but every time it gets kind of tangly and going in different directions. And, you know, in any way, getting close to a thing where I think about topiary or wax or any of that shit, then it's gone. So we're talking kind of Thierry Henry in his coaching career, but not Roy Keane. Indeed. Indeed. Thierry Henry. That's great that you said that, Simon. Thierry Henry was one of those many men that my wife could just admit that she totally fancied and absolutely

wanted to fuck so yeah i'll take that the beard looks okay moved house and in a strange way yeah i'm kind of happy lord simon well i've just had my covid booster jab like literally in the last hour or um as i prefer to call it bill gates's new world order microchip. So, you know, if I start trying to lure the pop-crazed youngsters into some kind of global paedophile ring while wiping crumbs of very expensive Washington pizza from my lips, don't blame me, blame Hillary. No, it's been such a long time since I've done a chart music that you'd think for a go-getting, exciting guy like me, there'd be loads to report.

But mainly, no, I've had my head down writing, writing, writing, working on this book that's coming out next year and has turned into an absolute fucking monster. But it's also really good if I say so myself, but it's been sort of, you know, the launch date's been put back. It's about the cure if people aren't up to date with, you know, previous podcasts. And also, you know, just teaching. So I teach the history of pop at LCCM in London

and DJing, you know, Spellbound and Late Night Minicab FM, both going well. I didn't go to any festivals this year. I don't think I've seen any gigs even except Wet Leg back in the spring. Right. Who were brilliant, by the way. Fuck the spring right who are brilliant by the way fuck the backlash i'm still on the front lash i mean last night i finally turned our spare room into a bedroom instead of the box room it's been for the last 12 months and that yeah that is as exciting as it gets lately which is kind of tragic well that's an achievement man i know it's it's it's

weird that you know in middle age this is how you get your kicks you get your satisfaction however back in the summer and the wife Janie and I escaped this shitty fucking racism infested shithole of an island for the first time since Covid and since Brexit we went on a belated honeymoon to Orléans which is the the OG old Orléans, after which New Orleans was named. And it was just so liberating and refreshing to breathe the air of free Europe. I mean, I know France has its own problems with the atavistic, nativistic far right, but even so, on the first night there, we went for a fondue, which is so 70s, isn't it? But we got talking to the table next to us who are germans and it just struck me you know here we are a welshman and an english woman at a swiss restaurant in france speaking to german people in a mixture of french and german and english and i nearly

wept at how beautiful that was and how different it was from the fucking small-minded shit show that the uk has become Orleans is great uh anyway it's it's a unesco world heritage site because of it's got this insanely stunning cathedral and half-timbered cobbled medieval streets but places like that can often be a bit boring so for example Chartres which we went to a couple years earlier um is almost as pretty but it's fucking boring all i aren't isn't it's got the whole it's got the whole joan of arc thing going on they're obsessed right and that's kind of fascinating in itself because joan of arc was a mentally ill teenager let's not you know who suffered from delusions that she was on a mission from god nowadays i

couldn't stop thinking nowadays joan of arc would would get counselling, right? In the 1400s, first of all, they give her an army, and then they burn her at the stake. I mean, the whole story is this incredibly potent parable of the absurdity of religion. The whole time I was there, obviously, OMD in my mind. By extension, David, and his dancing. Yeah, yeah, of course. Yeah, David, the OMD denier, and the ABBA denier.

I mean, when's he going gonna get around to the holocaust is all i'm saying there's that bit in joan of arc by md where where it goes i gave her everything that i ever owned i think she understood though she never spoke which to me really sums up the one-way relationship between the believer and the deity or saint because i imagine uh andy mccluskey just you know he's praying to this fucking stone statue and the stone statue just sort of stares back blankly because it's a fucking piece of stone. And that's the whole thing with religion.

I love that song for that. But the other thing about All In All is it's got this great bar culture, which, like I say, you don't always expect in these pretty little medieval towns. We spent most of the holiday shit-faced, to be honest. There's this one bar called La Bouvette, which might be the best bar I've been to in my life,

or certainly the best in France, maybe Europe. I don't know if you do this when you go on holiday, right, or even if you just go into a city for several days on work. Do you usually end up having a sort of home bar, so the place where all your evenings start or the end or both you know it's a place you might sit for a while to gather your thoughts and decide what to do next or just the place to stay for the whole night if it's that good you know not really watching the clock well you know la buvette was that it was this small sort of intimate arch off one of the cobbled

streets there was no wi-fi right and there was a sticker explaining that saying we're not in paris as if having wi-fi was this kind of sort of modern hipster affectation um but it had this thing you know lots of bars try to fake a sense of heritage by buying in loads of old tap or having like new prints of old posters in frames right la buvette was genuinely old school i felt in a way that lots of bars tried to fake. All the stickers and the posters on the wall were really genuinely faded. It had this feeling of accretion, of heritage, you know? Right.

That it all kind of built up on the walls over years. And the music was incredible, right? When we walked in, they were playing some amazing vintage blues track, which is good enough already. But as soon as they sussed out we were British, the landlord, Hugo, started playing all sorts of British stuff from Tom Jones to the Rubettes. So like screaming along to Sugar Baby Love

in a medieval French city was like really like something I never had on my bucket list, but I'm glad it happened. But my favourite moment was when I mentioned Jacques Dutronc because I love a lot of French music, especially the 60s stuff. And Hugo stuck on Les Cactus by Jacques Dutronc. And the entire place stuff and hugo stuck on les cactus by jacques du tronc and the entire place including people sat out on the pavement suddenly we're just shouting

and it's a it's a moment i'm going to remember as long as i live so we we just sat there every night drinking ricard which is a pastis like Pernod, and getting shit-faced, right? One night, we got so shit-faced that we went on a bit of a rampage around Orléans, and we ended up in a different bar doing karaoke in French. Good Lord. What song? Me and Janie, right?

We were Serge Gainsbourg and Brigitte Bardot, and we did Barney and Clyde. Ah, of course you were. Barney and Clyde, and the locals looked at us utterly bemused. These British pissheads doing an old 60s duet in French. I mean, that was what they thought was going on. The next day, I went out and bought the LP of Bonnie and Clyde in Fnac, which is their kind of WH Smith thing over there. So anyway, yeah, all I know,

not the most obvious holiday destination in France, but highly recommended. You're the Judith Chalmers of chart music, Simon. Thank you, yeah. Well, I'm still fucking reeling from the aftermath of our live show, which was, oh God, nearly a couple of months ago, but it still resonates with me. Fucking hell, what a day that was, chaps.

Well, you weren't there, so I'm telling you now. What a fucking day. Great venue, king's place and king's cross prince has played there you know no prince has performed there yeah so you're on the same stage as prince you know when he did those hitting how when he did those hit and run gigs uh about seven years ago whenever it was he did a thing for the guardian there at king's place so of course he did because the guardian's offices are next door aren't they yeah so you trod the same boards anyway sorry yeah but yeah we got absolutely love bombed by the pop craze youngsters Of course he did, because the Guardian's offices are next door, aren't they? Yeah, so you trod the same balls. Anyway, sorry, hang on.

But yeah, we got absolutely love-bombed by the pop-craze youngsters that were there. Now I know how it feels to be Claire Grogan every day of her life, being hugged by middle-aged men you don't know. But yeah, I was stressing like a bastard beforehand. And when it was done, I just hit the wall and was properly not bandied by the love that was shown to us on that day. I mean, you know what it's like, chaps. You do a podcast or write articles or a blog or whatever, and you see nice things written about you online,

but then something like this happens and you just think, fucking hell, this actually means something to some people. How can I avoid fucking it up? You got stage fright. Oh, my God, you lost your mojo. Shit, hell. I don't know if I mentioned, I i mentioned to you that um that same night because it was a spellbound night down at brighton um at least two different pop crazed youngsters came down having been at the

show and they they came all the way to brighton they weren't even brighton people they were from somewhere else they came down just just to sort of do a double header and uh yeah so you know respect big shout out to those two wherever they were and um you very kindly sent me um a care package of some of the merch that was available yeah i got one too uh and uh straight away i put on one of the um pot crazy t-shirts and uh i was in a pub in brighton and someone come up to me said i just want to say bummer dog yes and uh so yeah i i don't know maybe because i'm a bit more visible with a stupid hairstyle but i i do constantly get this feeling that chart

music is a thing in the world that people have heard of but we're not going to let it go to our heads you know we do what we do and if anyone else likes it that's a bonus yes so thank you to all the people who came down from all over the shop man all over the country even one lad flew down from dublin uh sticked around for a bit and then flew back again yeah insane people from glasgow edinburgh newcastle preston everybody's talking about chart music and we all had a lovely piss up afterwards i do recall uh leading a chorus of jubilee rumba in a beer garden a couple of days before the queen's funeral so yeah fucking mint it's what she would have wanted yeah but let me just say thank you to all

the people there who thanked us for getting them through lockdown but come on now you did the exact same for us and especially for me if it wasn't for your lot i'd have been fucked during lockdown so let's you know let's move on from all that now shall we can i just ask though al did you get a rider yes did taylor insist on his um you know orange opal fruits or whatever no there was a green room and a fucking dressing room we had two fucking rooms to ourselves. It was mint and the selection of crisps were, I think they were pipers.

Oh, pipers are good. Posh. Exactly, exactly. Only the best for chart music. A nice fridge full of booze and yeah, crisps and toffees and even fruit. Oh, lovely. Yeah, King's Place tretters lovely.

As for merch, well, simon you've converted your um crap room into a bedroom yeah i've converted my back bedroom to a crap room because it is it's kind of weighed down with bomber dog t-shirts they didn't sell so well can't imagine why but if anyone does want them under plain wrapper with discretion guaranteed I can sort that for you it takes big balls though doesn't it it takes some big swinging Labrador balls to walk around in a Bumadon t-shirt definitely yeah so I'm gonna

sell off what merch I've got left but I'm gonna keep it to Patreon for the moment because it's just easier to deal with moves will be taken in the new year to get merch up nice and properly and they may well I, not to jump the gun, but there might be other live ones, wouldn't I, in the future. Funny you should say that, Neil,

because we are looking around for venues in a minute. And I'm hoping, and I don't want to get anyone's hopes up, but I'm hoping that we've got a venue nailed down in the cradle of pop. In the cradle of pop. Nottingham. So hopefully there'll be another live show pretty soon. And yes, it will be your two under the spotlight. Well, you say that, but I'm not doing it.

Let's get my own dressing room. I'll share with you scumbags. Fuck that. Basically, I want us to be like the Eagles when they tour these days. You know, you've got a separate red carpet for each member leading to the stage. So yeah, last word on this. Sorry it's taken so long to get back on the chart music horse. And thank you to the London Podcast Festival, King's Place,

and especially Mark Haynes and the man like Matt Abysmal. And thanks to all Pop Craze youngsters in attendance and the Pop Craze universe for their patience. We're back let's move on oh before we move on did you have a nice queen death fortnight yeah yeah it was all right but i mean you know all of the mad drama of this year changes of prime minister death of monarch etc i've had to actually go back not not i was happy about the queen's death particularly i couldn't i wasn't really asked either way but um you know i was in joy during that just wonderful couple of weeks where every day there was just loads of delicious schadenfreude to have um about

tories go but now fucking brave men's in the home office and all of that all of that joy is just dissipated i actually found myself the other night going back on news night just to feel some pleasure again um about it all but yeah no it's been a weird old summer yeah braverman the moment when the tories have literally lost their dog whistle so they're now just they're just coming out straight out and saying we're being invaded yeah well where they're just shouting and slapping their thighs at us yeah yeah as for the queen's death um like my wife jamie's a school teacher and for us yeah yeah as for the queen's death um like my wife janie's a school teacher and for the last two years obviously the queen's looking very frail and uh you know janie was saying look she better die during term time because i want a day off

and i think i think most teachers felt the same thing and you know bless her if she'd done nothing else for us the queen did die during term time so you know there was a there was a day off. Fucking Charles, who I will not call King, because there ain't no King in me. You know what I mean, Simon? He's still Prince Charles to me, and he's lucky to have that. Yeah. If I'm still calling him Marathons and Opal Fruits, I ain't calling him anything different than what he is.

He's Prince Charles, and he ain't even got a city beat band. Now, he can go fuck himself. The thing is, his coronation, as I understand it, is on a fucking Saturday, so he don't even get there fuck you and his fucking son he's not Prince of Wales either no one's a Prince of Wales

no one's a fucking fuck this principality shit no one's the Prince of us fuck off if he must be king let's just stick to King Tampax and leave it at that

exactly yeah oh and by the way thanks mum for cancelling the rail strike just before the live show you did us a favour there, Ducker. I mean, the weird thing about the Queen snuffing it is, like, for decades,

I've sat and wondered what it's going to be like when she goes, am I going to be in the same room as my non-Auron grandpa when there's an announcement on the telly? Am I going to be with my parents? Am I going to be at school or college? How's it going to pan out and everything? And the way I found out about how the Queen died was I was folding some pants on my bed and I play a conk town. And that's when I knew that the Queen had died.

What a fucking letdown that was. Anyway, let's stop talking about the fucking royal family. I've had enough of them. Let's talk about the true legends and heroes of this fine country and beyond. The latest batch of pop craze Patreons and oh, it's a big list this time. In the $5

section we have Dr. Billy Smart, Chris, Bella Lugosi's dad, James Med, James Orton, Michael Med, James Orton, Michael Price, Antonio de Paula,

Mark Gillies, John James, Ian Hughes, Paul Gill, L.W. Beaumont, Duncan Wood, Jonathan Fox, Andrew Billings,

Helen Lawless, Matt D, Jonathan Winstanley, Michael Edmondson, John Davies, Murray Tiptop, Oliver, Mark, Tony Inglis, James Dawes, Neil Curray, Paul Stilwell, Jet Haggis, Jade Bowyer, Billy Stanton, Stuart Woolen, Damien, James and Mrs. I'm Not A Cat, Mrs. Cat Cat. I just want to salute Bela Lugosi's dad. That is a fantastic name. That's a good one. All the way through that list, Al, I was just thinking you were going to break into Bill Brewer, John Stewart, Peter Gurney. Yes! Oh, no, Tom Copley and all! In the $3 section, we have Matt Jay,

Ian Coulter, Tom Crabb, Tom Lancaster, Dan Ogood, Mark Wilson, Pornheart, Colin Jackson-Brown, Rocksoft, Lindsay Duff, Richard, Owen Pugh, Nick Venables, Matthew Harpum, Martin James, Orion Gear, Barry Murphy, Joni Strikes Up The the band and Hugh Monculus unleashed. Oh, we love you. It's the power of life

performance, Sal, isn't it? It really is. And not doing an episode for ages. That helps as well. And, oh yes, James Wharton, Doug Grant, Stephen Metcalf, Daniel Sullivan. Oh, you went over and beyond and up and away, didn't you?

And my God, I thank you for it. We love the Pop Craze youngsters, don't we? We do. We do. We love them. So apart from getting the latest episode of Chart Music in full with our adverts ages before everyone else, the Pop Craze Patreons also get to tinker and a tanker and a fiddle and a faddle with the brand new Chop Music Top Ten.

Are you ready for it, chaps? Yes. Hit the fucking music! We've said goodbye to two Ronnies, one cup. Arse to mouth. That dog's dead now. Cliffy White Boy and DJ Mr. Bronson, and rock expert David Stubbs! No way!

Which means two up, three down, two new entries, two re-entries, and a brand new number one. Holy fuck. It's a re-entry at number 10 for Jeff Sex. Yes. New entry at number 9, Legs and Cunny. Another re-entry at number 8, Crosby, Stills, Nash and Glitter. Down two places to number 7, Here comes Jizzeth. Last week's number

two, this week's number six, my fucking car. Into the top five and it's up one place for the banked cunt who aren't fucking real. He's up three places this week from number seven to number four.

Bomber Dog. Yes. this week from number seven to number four, Bomberdog. Yes. Last week's number one drops two places to number three, the Airbnb 52s. And there's a new entry at number two for Eric Smorgshaw of Eccles, which means... Which means Britain's number one The highest new entry Straight in at number one The provisional

Oorooare Oh boys What a chart that is Absolutely Re-entries are plenty Re-entries I'm very shocked about The dropping out of

Rock expert David Stubbs I know Yeah I thought that was like Bat out of hell Or you know Back in black This album. Yeah, I thought that was like Bat Out of Hell or, you know, Back in Black. This album's going to be there forever. The new entries then, Legs and Cunny. What are they about?

Can we not go there? Okay, fair enough. Moving on. Eric Smallshore of Eccles, of course. Needs no explanation. The new hero of chart music, I believe. And the provisional O-R-O-R-A. Well, that's a mixture between, I don't know wolf tones the words and public enemy yeah i'm probably gonna get

cancelled down st austell way now but for me i just kept thinking of uh mebin kerno is that it yeah yeah especially somebody who's like come around to the welsh independence movement of late it's a bit hypocritical of me to be taking the piss out of those guys. So, if you're on the outside looking in on all this exclusive chart-related excitement, you know what you need to do. Get that keyboard and clatter out patreon.com slash chartmusic and pledge what you can. Remember, it's the pop craze patreons who pay for all the

equipment it's the pop craze patreons who pay for all the research and it's the pop craze patreons who pay for our lovely arses if it wasn't for them char music wouldn't be where it is today. And oh, we're so grateful to them. Come and join them, you minge bags. So this episode, Pop Craze Youngsters, takes us all the way back to May the 1st, 1980. Now then, we've picked at 1980 a few times now, haven't we, chaps? And the general consensus seems to be is that 1980 is very much the ken of the aventies but you could say chaps that the episode of top of the

pops that we're about to tuck into this time is a very strong case for the defense don't you think yeah i mean 1979 um the greatest year for pop singles and I believe, statistically, it was the year of the greatest sales of singles. 1981, of course, all those classic albums, Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret and Dare and all those great records. So, yeah, 1980, by comparison, feels like a little bit of a dip

in the middle. But yeah, without too much spoileration, perhaps this episode does show us that it wasn't quite as much of a slump as uh we sometimes believe it to be yeah yeah there's this weird rub in this episode as if the 80s you know they really want to start but they haven't quite been given permission by the 70s yet yeah at least not in top of the pox land but actually the charts when you look at the charts for this week they're very very 80s yeah i, I always think that the 80s started in mid-1979.

So, you know, the election of Thatcher in the spring of 79 and then Tubeway Army performing Our Friends Electric on Top of the Pops in July 79 is when the 80s really start. But there was a little bit of a kind of Revenge of the Grands in the 80s. If you look across the very top line, the very top line of number ones so it's things like coward of the county by kelly rogers and there's no one quite like grandma by st winford's uh school choir that kind of stuff it does give the impression that suddenly there's

this movement almost to sort of drag things back this sort of uh reactionary movement but there was so much good stuff bubbling away in the top 10 that maybe the reputation of 80 as being a dip is somewhat exaggerated oh yeah it's a cracking episode this there's two big things happening in pop in 1980 one of them's bad one of them's kind of good the bad thing of course is that there's going to be a top of the pop strike in the very near future and of course other elements of the pop scene are going to be taken away from us in a few weeks time as well but we'll get to that later the big shift in pop in 1980 is that things are beginning to splinter again and the pop craze youngsters are beginning to form into tribes luckily for anyone out there

who's confused about this the reading evening post swung into action a fortnight ago and produced a guide to the new pop landscape entitled a quick guide to the boot boys the boot boys ruled at easter it wasn't just chocolate eggs which got broken open, but heads as well, as young thugs, high on drink and pills and too many showings of the movie Quadrophenia, battled on sea fronts up and down the country. Those who remember the Mods vs Rockers battles of the 60s must have wondered why today's kids wanted a rerun the fact is that pop music and youth culture has always split teenagers into rival camps from swing versus bop to disco versus punk yes we all remember those disco punk battles on the high street don't we so in case you're innocently wandering the beaches this summer

and see some kids doing the seafront scuffle up ahead, here's a survival guide to the latest pop factions. The punks. Yes, they do still exist. Distinguished by spiky, sometimes coloured hair,

chain-link jewellery and badly fitted trousers. The girls wear a lot of leather and make-up, which gives them the appearance of suffering from a black eye. Most like their music fast, loud, punchy and adrenaline-filled. The mods. punchy and adrenaline filled the mods a fast-growing lot thanks to the music of the jam the resurgence of the who and a certain film called quadrophenia some soul can regret they weren't old enough to experience the first coming of mods others make do with today's sounds quick question chaps um how did Sham69 get their name? From some graffiti that had been partly rubbed away

that said Herstrom69. Yeah, that's what I used to think as well, Simon, until I was educated by the Reading Evening Post guide to the skinheads. Now that Sham69, the group's title stands for skin heads are magic with 1969 being the year for the moon i just got a picture of a shaven headed cell when frog getting some braces giving the thumbs up appear to have reformed and are heading for the concert halls again. The skins are back. They don't seem to like the mods,

and some, unlike the Scar fans who dance side by side with the black kids, are seemingly National Front supporters. The rude boys. The boys wear pork pie hats, brightly coloured clothes, and they follow the music best known as ska or blue beat. Some are hard to distinguish in appearance from mods, but the two groups often don't get along with each other. Oh, man.

Yeah. Break out the madness, modness, badgers. Bring them all together. Well, that was the main scrap of Barry Island, was mods against Rude Boys. Really? In that era, yeah. The other factions didn't really get a look in.

It was just those two. So, Simon, you didn't have factions known as the Headbangers? Some are today's hippies, although generally these are a rougher lot. Another growing faction. They have made possible a resurgence of heavy metal music. possible a resurgence of heavy metal music denims long flowing locks and badges which read quo rule are the uniform and big patches on the back of the denim jacket saying quo are not fucking repetitive yeah too right but of course there's also the Men, with a K. These youngsters don't really have a name, but they're easily identifiable. Their favourites are the modern music makers like David Bowie, Gary Neumann and John Fox.

They wear plastic and try to look like androids and robots. Their dancing is a series of quick jerks like Clockwork and David Stubbs. There are many other factors too. The black community have their own, from those who like pure reggae and reject the commercial styles to those who dance to Scar. Then there's the vast gathering of youngsters

who every Saturday night and most Fridays crowd into their local disco and dance the night away to the Bee Gees and Gibson Brothers. Of course, none of this explains why supporters of one lifestyle and music want to beat the daylights out of another

group. It was all going on, wasn't it? Oh, I'd love to know who wrote that. Was it Nick Conn? Was it Anthony Burgess who wrote that? I think it was Philippa Collum again it's quite interesting it is quite interesting I'm very

that Music Men thing yes I mean I'm guessing pre-New Romantic era isn't it so they hadn't really found the name yet yes

so midway through 1980 yeah and that phrase New Romantics doesn't seem to be in common currency yet but nobody is saying post-punk or anything like that

you know these are all yeah I don't think anybody said post-punk at the time. They might have said New Wave, but that was a slightly different thing. But I think that was all over and done with. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, of course. So, yeah, obviously there is a lot to get into here

and in this episode of Top of the Pops. 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. Let us not

fanny about. Forward! Radio 1 News In the news this week Radio 1 News In the news this week, Operation Eagle Claw, the attempt to rescue the hostages in the American embassy in Tehran, ends with Delta Force absolutely spunking on their jumpers when three of their eight helicopters conk out in the Iranian desert and then another helicopter crashes into a transport plane, killing eight soldiers. King Khaled of Saudi Arabia has cancelled a visit to the UK

in the wake of ITV screening the docudrama Death of a Princess three weeks ago. Cynthia Payne has been jailed for 18 months for keeping a brothel in Streatham, which accepted luncheon vouchers as payment. Eton School has announced the end of fagging from next term. Police in Barlow have lobbed tear gas at Swiss punks who are attempting to march on a villa where the Queen is staying,

brandishing banners telling the Brits to get out of Northern Ireland. brandishing banners telling the Brits to get out of Northern Ireland. The government have agreed to pay a £1.8 million transfer fee to Lazard, the American investment banking firm, in order to poach their chairman, Ian McGregor, and put him in charge of British Steel. McGregor, the former chairman of American Metal Climax, goes on to fuck everything up before he does likewise to the mining industry and puts a carrier bag over his face and looks through the fucking hole at the top like a twat.

McFisheries, which used to be the biggest fishmonger chain in the world, has announced it's closing down its remaining 55 shops in the UK due to the popularity of frozen food trisha ray the 12 year old girl from sutton coldfield who's been in the news for sneezing non-stop for six months has finally stopped after 124 days thanks to a holiday in switzerland nice i remember her she was on record that's right yeah and she was on midlands today and uh atv today all the fucking time alfred hitchcock has died at the age of 80 prince charles has been kicked in the face by his polo pony men only revealed their new advice

columnist david wilker paul raymond magazines have been keen to point out that the olympic swimming champion won't be telling readers how to give their missus a scene too but he'll be focusing on fitness tips and the like instead but the big news this week is that we're in the second day of the iranian embassy siege in london with the democratic revolutionary front for the liberation of Arabistan taking over the embassy rival groups of demonstrators kicking the shit out of each other

some non-Iranian hostages being released, the area becoming the biggest tourist attraction in London and we're four days away from the SAS going the fuck off on live telly, Boy, surely remember that. Oh yeah, completely.

We'll show you how to do it, Yanks. Even though it's in our own capital city and therefore a bit easier. On the cover of Melody Maker this week, nothing, because there isn't one. And then UJ Strike shut it down last week and it won't come

back for another five weeks. Apparently, writers on the mag had had enough of being paid a pittance and started lobbing their typewriters through the office windows. Fucking hell. That seems remarkable now. From our vantage point now, it just seems amazing that music journalists were once part of a unionised workforce that could withdraw their labour. Right now, any of that, and you'd just be replaced

by interns who'd work for the experience or probably some sort of AI bot that could generate an awful lot of the copy that passes through music journalism now. You see, lobbing typewriters out the window, it sounds really dramatic, but you've got to remember Melody Maker was only on the first floor. I bet they were big typewriters, Simon.

They were big, but we were on the 26th floor. You hear these stories of at the NME, Charles Shaw Murray and Nick Kent lobbing their typewriters out the window just on a whim because they were angry with something about the Rolling Stones and yeah it might have hurt you if it landed on your head

but it wouldn't kill you but if you chucked it out of the Melty Maker window that we worked in it would destroy half of central London yeah yeah but I mean even when I started you know If you knocked it out of the Melty Maker window that we worked in, it would destroy half of central London. Yeah, yeah. But, I mean, even when I started, you know, there wasn't this encouragement to join a union. There was actually a pervasive atmosphere from sort of publishers down that what you did wasn't real journalism anyway.

Oh, totally. You know, and we were, I mean, I remember sort of the tail end of the night is we were being encouraged to sign all kinds of things by whoever we were, for EMAP, IPC or Bauer, that signed our rights away for syndication and because everyone was terrified they did yeah and they assumed to this day that we all did sign those forms because you know whenever you get those nme originals come out there'll be loads of our work in there that we didn't agree to because we used to get paid on the pay slip it would say one use right we would be paid for one for one use of that article and that's what they wanted us to

sign away they wanted us to sign away that one use clause yeah and that's why that you know um these companies just think that anything we did in the past is theirs forever nope it's ours yeah too i never signed that because i mean beyond anything else it would have disgusted me for any of my work to appear under the enemy banner banner. Oh, God, yeah. On the cover of the NME this week, fuck all, because they're in the same boat as Melody Maker, coming out on Strike 2. New music news, a mag launched by Felix Dennis to capitalise on The Vacuum.

He's on its second issue, but copies of that are as rare as rocking horse shit, and it folded as soon as the heavyweights came back i would like a flick through one of those so maybe one day new music news is the paper that that famous photo appeared in of the six um front women right of punk bands actually one of them wasn't the front woman but yes susie sue chrissy heim debbie harry polly styrene pauline black and the non-singer viv albertine but yeah that that kind of um historic photo by michael putland yeah so that's the only thing worth remembering new

music news for is the historic sort of summit meeting of of those those female punk or new wave legends on the cover of smash hits suze on the cover of record mirror john cooper clark the number one lp in the country at the moment is greatest hits by rose royce duke by genesis is at number two over in america the number one single is another brick in the wall part two by pink floyd and the number one lp is the wall by pink floyd for its 15th and final week fucking hell amer, come and join us in the 80s why don't ya? So me dears, what were you doing

in May of 1980? I was in that brutal and abusive school, Hollingbury Court Preparedness School in Sussex that I've spoken about before, where my mum had got a job and that meant that I had to go with her to be educated for free, oh lucky me. We have talked about this before,

but it was the sort of place where you would be beaten for wearing the wrong coloured plimsolls in the wrong part of the ground. And it left me with a much worsened stutter and a nervous habit of cracking my knuckles and a lifelong distrust of authority and a visceral hatred of the English upper classes. I was nearing the end of my two-year sentence there. We wouldn't have been allowed to watch Top of the Pops, I'm sure of that.

But I was fully across what was going on in the charts because of the radio cassette recorder on which I used to listen to the Top 40 run down on a Sunday evening in the grounds if it was sunny or in the games room if it was raining. There was a games room, you see, which had a snooker table and a table tennis table. And that games room is connected to a memory which still makes me cringe of saying the wrong thing at the wrong time.

It was about six weeks, I suppose, after this episode of Top of the Pops would have aired when I was leaving the school for the last time. And I went into the games room to say goodbye to a few of the kids who were still knocking around. And as I left the room, instead of just saying bye, I said, see you and and after i shut the door i walked down the corridor about three seconds later i heard them

all burst out laughing because i wouldn't see them where was i going to see them that was it forever and i was developing shame and embarrassment at that time as well in 1980 i was kind of i would have been nearly set uh well seven knocking on eight. And this was the first year I wore glasses, which might seem like a little thing. Not when you're that age, mate. Oh, good God, no. You know, I was always sat at the back in class and it was basically becoming totally obvious. I couldn't see the blackboard at all. So, you know, got sent for an eye test and I got the usual NHS specs, you know which now were cool i guess but back then

just looked horrific were the tortoiseshell ones exactly exactly those yeah that's what i had yeah and immediately you know the piss taking was immense at school and i think i mo i didn't i wasn't like going home crying or anything but i think i mentioned it to my mum and unlike sort of any other time she did that thing she went into school and you know indeed she went and spoke to the headmaster I think it was the headmaster or might be my teacher and of course that necessarily ensued that horrible moment where you're sent out of the class for some pointless task and then obviously when you're out the teacher speaks to the whole class and says, you know, stop taking the piss out of Neil. So inevitably after that, yeah, the piss taking ramped up immensely.

Of course it did. Of course it did. So yeah, that was my sort of time in 1980 really. Well, it's my 12th birthday today. Can't remember what I got, but it was probably money and it definitely got spent on records and mod ramble as I was fully pop crazed by now. So my week round about this time would go as follows. Tuesday dinner time, me, Gormy, Dorney and Jovo nipping out of school to the shopping precinct, choffing a cone of chips from the chip pan, then nipping in to save it, the tat shot, to knock back a can of Saudi Arabian cola and hover around the radio for the brand new top 40

and then nip back to school and tell everyone. Wednesday night, Youth Club at the school for their disco. Thursday night, well, Top of the Pops, obviously, and then straight off to Top Valley Community Centre for their disco. Saturday day, into town to hit up Fox Records and Pendulum in Vicky Centre for singles and clankin ins then a bit of a march to broad march center with the other plastic mods have a look around the hmv have a march back back home for me tea and then off to show whatever skinny tie and badges i'd

bought that day at rise park community center for their disco see me walking around i'm the boy about tan that you've heard of youth clubbing i'm youth clubbing i'm what's happening i'm at that glorious age chaps where i'm still young enough to binge on kid stuff but old enough to start dipping a toe into teenagerdom so you know i'm still reading comics i'm still playing sabutio i'd just been to the city ground the other week with my dad to see forrest batter ix in the european cup semi-final everything in may of 1980 is both mint and skill wow what kind of music were you into at the time chaps i was on this kind of crossover um similar to your kind of lifestyle crossover between childish things and adult things so prior to 1980 my favorite music would

have been abba and the bgs and boney m and stuff like that but uh then i heard gangsters by the specials and you know i suppose if it was a tv drama version of my life that'd be the moment everything changed yes and i sort of shaved my hair off and walked dr martin's everywhere but life isn't ever quite like that really so there's this kind of crossover and i still liked abba but um i also loved madness and the specials and the beat and all of that and i think i mentioned it before but i've got proof of this which is a stamp album yes where um on the inside cover i've stenciled like abba vu le vu on one side and madness one step beyond on the other so yeah i was at a crossroads how did your parents

feel about you buying some dogs well they were they were four hole um sort of you know shoes rather than boots so i managed to sort of pass it off as being school wear because you're allowed to wear them at school so that was all right i mean i was always trying to do that you know um the school uniform had certain provisos and you'd always try and within those rules game the system yeah pick something that you could maybe wear on a friday night as well you know what i mean so like you try and make sure that your black school trousers were stay pressed and yeah you know and that your white shirt was a button down and of course stuff yeah yeah obviously simon your parents might have been a bit worried that you were in doc martins would meant you were a violent

racist but you bought a pair of shoes that are going to last you for a long time, so they would have been happy about that. Yeah, that's it. I think skinhead fashion or rude boy fashion was practical above all else. Yes. Long-lasting, unlike the movement. I was about seven, so I was pre-pop, really. I was still listening to pop, obviously.

But my favourite record, age seven, was probably Hello, My Darling by Charlie drake so it's just weird mix of kind of being aware of pop but all these old records that we had getting into those as well and it's probably the peak of me being a poncy cunt and listen to classical music as well so me dears i do believe that this is the part of the episode where we retreat to the chart music crap room riffle through some boxes and pull out an issue from the music press of this week and this time i've been forced to go for sounds may the 3rd 1980 oh never done a sound before have we no no i don't think we have did you ever buy it yourselves yes i did in 1981 when uh my mate got a paper round and slipped me cobbers in the music press, I would get Melody Maker, NME and became better than enemy but sounds was very much like

if everything else was gone in the news agents i would buy it just out of desperation or it would have to be somebody phenomenally good on the front cover but usually i just i just thought it's a bit shit it was always third play but a lot of writers that i then came to love started there and that's true you know like chris roberts started there and also you know we wouldn't have i mean for better or worse we wouldn't have things like karang and the whole growth of the metal press in the 80s without sounds yeah and they were first to a lot of things like the first time street preachers on the front cover of anything right was sounds that was john rob who did that one and you know so they it provided useful function but i wasn't a metaller i wasn't into the kind of always street punk stuff that they also covered it's very much like

I've got like a pound burning a hole in my pocket and all the other good papers are gone it'll do for me so on the cover The Cure in front of a headstone shaped like an angel going about thinking the Joy Division do you know what's weird about that photo

of them on the front Lowell Tullis right at the front Robert robert smith right at the back barely see robert smith i tell you what he wouldn't let that happen for many of the times i don't think in the news the main story this week is the return of the nebworth festival with the headline nebworth turns to the old guard. According to sounds, the full, and it must be said, deadly boring running order is expected to be the Beach Boys, Mike Oldfield, Elkie Brooks. With all the looks. Santana, Lindisfarne and the Blues Band. Fucking hell.

It's interesting they could editorialise in a news piece. Yeah. Deadly boring. You couldn't do that later. I quite like it, actually. Yeah, yeah. At £9 a ticket, the price is 50p more than last year, which the promoters say compares favourably

with the increase in the rate of inflation. Hey, rock and roll, everyone. They've also promised special undertakings to local authorities, local residents and you, the punter, such as a 100,000 crowd limit, a bond of 25 grand to be paid to a charity of Hertfordshire County Council's choice if the music runs one second after midnight, unless Pongy lose.

The beat, Eddie Grant, Iron Maiden, The Body Snatchers, The Q-Tips, Janet Kaye, Saxon, Rush, Simple Minds, The Only Ones, The Au Pairs and Suzy Cuatro have all announced tours, but sad news for fans of Stalin's organs, as all of their forthcoming gigs are cancelled owing to the departure of guitarist King Lee Gutter, who was accused by the rest of the band of being, quote, too hippie.

Oh, wow. I've never heard of Stalin's organs, but having read that, I'm going to investigate that. Sham 69, sorry, Skinheads are magic 69, have had to cancel the last two gigs of their short UK tour, but no one knows why. Sounds reports that the tour ground to a halt after a bad night in Birmingham,

which saw another outbreak of violence, which caused Jimmy Percy to walk out. But Sham's manager, Tony Tony Gordon insists that it's just a nasty bout of glandular fever that has forced the band off the road. Still in yim-yam land local police are reported to be leaning hard on local record shops over the sale of crass LPs to young kiddies. According to sounds the source of the fracas is one complaint from one irate mum whose offspring have been playing either Stations of the Crass or Feeding of the Five Thousand. Hugh Cornwall of the Stranglers has just been released from Pentonville Nick

after his eight-week drug sentence was cut short for good behaviour. eight-week drug sentence was cut short for good behavior it's the most depressing demoralizing inhumane place i've ever spent any time in he said and he's been in a van with the rest of the stranglers yeah neil here's a question right um a sandwich made by the stranglers or um a regulation standard sandwich from pentonville prison yes Yes, good call. Great question. I could never eat a sandwich made by the Stranglers. Look at them. Look at their genes. No, no. They always look so

grubby and filthy, the Stranglers. So no, Pentonville, I'm sure do you good, Sarnie. You sure, Neil? I've seen that episode of Oz where they ground some glass up and put it in a sandwich. I'd still rather have a sandwich, yeah, with ground seen that episode of Oz where they ground some glass up and put it in a sandwich. I'd still rather have a sandwich, yeah, with ground glass and maybe a sachet of spice in it than Hugh Cornwell's pubes. There was a concert at the Rainbow in Finsbury Park

to sort of free Hugh Cornwell around this time. Do you know about this? Yeah, there's a kind of solidarity movement among fellow musicians to try and not spring him from prison, but, you you know so it's basically the rest of the stranglers but with differently singers including robert smith from the cure oh really because i think the stranglers were already booked to play a gig at the rainbow theater right which they couldn't fulfill of course obvious reasons so they just played it but with this sort of um all-star band of new wave heroes instead.

Fucking hell. Yeah. There's an album of it. There's a bootleg of it. In the gossipy section of the news pages, entitled Jaws with a Z, and unmistakably written by Gary Bushell, we learn that Iggy Pop's European tour is not going well at all, with support bands pulling out left and right at the quote chronic nature of

the tour seems he was playing every german carzy known to man and only two-thirds filling them even worse is the revelation that he's being referred to as gloria by the roadies due to his uncanny resemblance to bombardier beaumont in it ain't our fault mom you know what i never thought of it that is fucking spot on isn't it i know around that time particularly and also what a shame we can't i mean post dray we can't use chronic anymore as a phrase for something shit um Used to use that all the time. Squeez have been left very distressed at the excessively heavy bouncing at a recent gig in Baltimore

where a female fan had her eye gouged out for trying to get backstage. Fucking hell. And Bushel also gleefully tells us that skinhead rocking attained a new high of political consciousness last week with two street-level attacks on prominent Conservatives. First off, former Prime Minister Lord Hume was belted by skins at Piccadilly tube station last Monday.

Then on Friday, former Tory-ite Labour Foreign Minister and all-round reactionary Lord Chalfont was given a beautiful shiner down the King's Road. Lord Chalfont was given a beautiful shiner down the King's Road. Apparently, Chalfie complained when a skin kicked his car, so the lad done him, to the extent of one black eye, some lacerations and a batch of bruises. There you go, skinheads. Not just there for the nasty things in life, they can be violent to other people too.

I mean, between them and Prince Charles' polo horse, you know, there's quite a lot of violence against the upper classes happening there. You know, class war was clearly on the agenda. I've actually got former Prime Minister Lord Holmes' autograph. Why? Right, I expect Neil did this as well. When we got records we didn't want at Melody Maker,

we would take bags, huge bags of them, to the record and tape exchange. Of course. The music and tape exchange. Of course. The music and video exchange. To people like me. Yeah, right. What, did you work there? Yeah. Oh, fucking, what, the London one? Yeah, early 90s.

Just a bit before your time. Whereabouts, which branch? Notting Hill. Notting Hill, yeah. Where was the other one? It was Camden and there was one in Soho as well. Yeah, it was Notting Hill and Camden. Yeah. Well, I was actually in the Notting Hill branch with a big bag of crap from IPC that I didn't want.

And if I was all right for cash, I would tend to swap them for the fake Monopoly money that Music Video Exchange gave out because you get double your money for that. And I would just sort of, you know, go through all the cheapo record racks and fill up my collection that way. And I was going through one of the ultra cheapo boxes where it's just absolute shit that they can barely sell it's like a pound each yeah and there was an lp

called conservatives in big blue letters right and it was um this sort of lp history of the conservative party and whoever put it in there obviously didn't notice what was written on it because there were two autographs on the front of that LP. One of them was Lord Holme, the other, Margaret Thatcher. No! And I thought,

for a fake quid, for a monopoly quid, I'm having that. Yeah. So I had it. Obviously, there's no certificate of authentication, but whatever the fuck

that means anyway, you know, it's a fucking certificate so you get an autograph. It's only one person's word against another but i thought yeah you know one day in my life this lp signed by thatcher and home is going to be worth something so i've still got it i've still got it yeah and malcolm owen vocalist for the ruts has phoned sounds to confirm that he's recently been addicted to heroin but he's now off it i went around my mums and she locked me in for a week i stayed in bed shivering and moaning but it worked i'm

totally free of the filthy stuff now he said two and a half months before dying of a heroin overdose in his parents bedrooms oh man 1980 fucking grim year for music deaths yeah in the interview section well phil suck cliff joins the cure in new york who are touring the new lp 17 seconds and he joins in on their on the road game where they describe the perfect place they'd like to live matthew hartley desires a vegetable garden that he could eat his way through forever Simon Gallop wants to live in a town where everything is made of leather like a BDSM Mr Soft advert

Lol told her stream location is a long street with a sweet shop, then a pub, then a toilet then the same again and again into infinity and Robert Smith's Utopia would be full of people in separate rooms sitting and staring at the walls. Cheer up, Gough. When Sutcliffe finally gets to speak to Smith alone

he discovers a downcast, fractious front man. If I wasn't in love being in a group would be an ideal existence but for me it's getting more and more difficult. Really schizophrenic, he says. On the road, I shut down all my emotions. That's why I don't enjoy company. I'm walking around in a daze.

Often I would be perfectly happy to leave the group, but there's a responsibility on me because I know if I stop, the cure stops. Fucking hell. He hasn't stopped. Being in a band, shit. Dave McCulloch nips over to the Rainbow to link up with Paul Weller after a jam gig and is told that Going Underground is, quote,

mainly about the nuclear thing, but it's an ambiguous title. It's about going underground from the whole of this poxy society. After telling McCulloch how rushed the Setting Suns album was and how their recent US tour was a damp squib, Weller bangs on about how mint and skilled Two-Tone is and then spells out the limitations of punk. The Clash trying to break up fights and then singing White Riot as an encore.

What's the point of that? If you want a riot, you can't say what sort of riot you want. The Clash are all Americanisms now. We've achieved more than the Sex Pistols did. We've affected just as many people and we do get through to people without that poxy crusading bit

we were asked to go on nationwide and talk about the mod riots capital radio wants us to go on and talk about the mod explosion but all that spokesman for a generation stuff is crap why didn't the jam go on the fucking jub Song Contest then, Paul? That spokesman for a generation thing obviously rankled with him, didn't it? Because on the sleeve of Café Blur, the first Star Council album, there's some little joke. What is it? Former spokesman for a generation now into a bit of jazz or something.

I can't remember what it says exactly. Paul Souter witnesses a stormy gig in birmingham by samson which culminates in a mighty explosion from a misplaced flash pot that burned singer bob cately and set the drum kit on fire guitarist tony clarkin who was seen tottering around in stack heels and tight leather trousers dismisses the praise flying about for their soon-to-be tour mates death leopard well i bet they're not as fat as me he sneers before saying we just dress how we want to dress in a voice straight out of jasper carrot's bovril sketch reports suitor david mccullough takes himself to whopping to crash round crash round Jar Wobbles' house and listens as he bitches about Virgin Records' mistreatment of Pills Mecklebox

Then he goes on to talk about how he met John Lydon and Sid Vicious and how the group are floating in their own bubble nowadays We're unique, but we have no brazen political theories I think sometimes we border on psychosis. I'm not using that word lightly. I really mean psychosis. In other words, we lose touch with reality. And Gary Bushell goes to Dundee to catch up with Mensa of the Angelic Upstarts and finds him on the phone with Warner Brothers, their label. Upon discovering that their new LP,

We've Gotta Get Out of This Place, has dropped 16 places to number 70, he demands that whoever is in the arty-fufkin position at Warner's bends over a record rack this very minute so Mensa can put the trainers to the anus they promised us big displays big promotion everything and what did we get fuck all well you can print this we are looking for a new company when asked if punk is dead he counters punk rock is a form of working class rebellion, and there's still plenty to rebel against. How can punk be dead when there's new blood all the time?

It's realer now than ever. The pistols turned out to be a bunch of wankers, and so many of the others were posers. Now you've got us and the rejects up there in the limelight adding more fuel to the fire. When asked about the infiltration of British moving skinheads at upstarts gigs, Menci gets all protective. Half these BM kids aren't really Nazis. They've got grudges against blacks, but it's just gang war with skin colour instead of areas. The BM kids are looking for an identity. They are being used by people who aren't working class and who are against the working class. The interview concludes with fond reminiscences about the band's former manager, who happened to be Menzies' brother-in-law.

about the band's former manager, who happened to be Menzies' brother-in-law. One time he locked us all in a room and told us to write a song supporting the IRA. We refused. We sacked him, and then he and his cronies threatened my mother, burnt down my sister's stable containing a horse and four grand worth of equipment. He got paid a visit with a sawn-off shotgun, and one of his henchmen got shot in the legs. He's inside for four years now. Blimey!

Fucking hell, 1980! Yes. You know that Samson gig you mentioned? Yes. I think that was at the Hummingbird, right? In Birmingham. Right. Which reminds me, just of a little urban legend,

of something that happened, well, it used to happen quite a lot. I don't know whether this still exists. In the canal near the Hummingbird, because you know Birmingham, it's the Venice of the Midlands or whatever. It's full of canals. Of course it is, yes. And, yeah, one of the common sightings in the canal near there was the Birmingham piss troll.

What? Yeah, the Birmingham piss troll. If you ever speak to a yim yam or a brummie they will tell you about the birmingham piss troll i've never heard of yeah well birmingham piss troll was a legend of the 80s and 90s and i think he went all the way up into the noughties i don't know whether he's still with us maybe a brummie uh pop craze youngster could help us out on this but basically if you went for a slash in the canal right you'd unzip and you'd start pissing and then slowly as you were pissing a guy would come out of the canal and just let you piss all over him well he wouldn't

stay there whilst you pissed all over him and then he'd retreat back into the water and sort of swim away um and this is a real thing this i'm not making this, I didn't dream this, honestly. Yeah, the Birmingham piss troll, as seen near the hummingbird, as seen around the Birmingham area.

Can't believe he wasn't part of the Commonwealth Games opening ceremony, to be honest with you. Yes. Yeah, there we go. Birmingham piss troll obviously going straight

into the next chart music top ten. That's the next episode's number one right there and then, man. Let's not even fucking bother. Yeah, I mean, if you're

looking for the Birmingham piss troll, obviously, you've got of it. Yeah, I mean, if you're looking for the Birmingham piss troll, obviously, you've got to go to Birmingham, you've got to go to Canal and have a piss, and it's got to be

under a bridge, hence the troll thing. And the BBC made all them fucking episodes about peaky blinders, man. I know, I know.

Fuck's sake. Missed opportunities, man. Yeah, pissy blinders, isn't it? On the single reviews page, well, in the chair this week is Sandy Robertson. And his single of the week is A Certain Girl by Warren Zeven.

A vintage piece of obsessive delirium. It's loud, it's excited and it hits. Hear it and believe it, desperados. Graham Parker has ditched the rumour and signed to Stiff and his new single, Stupification, is dead good,

according to Robertson. After 15 seconds, you call it dull, but after a minute, you're scanning the charts and seeing if it's in there yet. The much maligned foreigner turned out to be loud

but pleasantly mid-weight as they catalogued those female types who scare their audience, says Sandet about their new single, Women. An album cut, but an acceptable album cut. See, this caught my attention. I thought, female types who scare their audience. Have you seen the lyrics to this song? Women by Fona.

Right, it begins. Women behind bars. Women in fast cars. Women in distress. Women with no dress. Women in aeroplanes. Women who play games. Women in uniform.

See that woman with her clothes torn. And so it's really fucking creepy right uh it goes on like that and then the album is from head games has got a really dodgy sleeve it depicts it's a photo of a 14 year old girl and i know she's 14 because she's went on to become a quite famous actress and film producer in like um a mini skirt and a bra top um crouched over a urinal in a male toilet with a toilet roll in her hand sort of scrubbing away at some graffiti, which I don't know what it's meant to be symbolic of.

But combine that with the lyrics of women. I mean, it's no wonder that Lou Gramm still wanted to know what love is when it came to this. No one's going to fucking go near him. And that's why he fucking waited so long for a girl like her as well. I'm just surprised in that selection of women couplets there wasn't the golden one

that always used to crop up in metal records and rock records at the time. Women who both pump the gasoline but also keep the motor clean. Yes. There is a bit. Women who can't be beat get that woman in the back seat. So. There is a bit, women who can't be beat get that woman

in the back seat. Right. So it does have that kind of automobile thing going on there. Yeah. But towards the end,

it's like, women you dream about all your life, women that stab you in the back with a switchblade knife. Oh. Treacherous.

No fucking wonder you asked for it, you cunt. Yeah. Fucking treacherous stuff all over again, isn't it? Yes.

But it's a coat down for messages by orchestral manoeuvres in the dark. The sleeve's more artful than the predictable science pop inside. I didn't know David Stubbs wrote for sounds. Fucking hell. It's a great single. Truly great single, Mess Juice. Magnificent. I'd anticipated something less agreeable,

says Sandy of Rescue, the second single by Echo and the Bunnymen. Agitated and modernist, but in the final analysis, quite conventional rock and roll with clean guitars shimmering away over a slightly Bowie vocal. Peter Gabriel became a chart concern earlier this year with Games Without Frontiers and his latest release, No Self-Control, looks like it's going to keep him there.

Harsher and less nimble than games, No Self-Control finds Gabriel nearly sliding chaos, right in the middle of the enterprise, pulling back from the brink of excess with more fevered chanting. Robertson is more interested in asking us if we knew that their new bassist, John Bentley, played with throbbing gristle for a bit, before telling us this sounds nothing like throbbing gristle and will be a hit. Do you know where that got in the charts? I'd be outside the 40, I'm sure. Yeah, 42. I could not believe that.

I used to hear that all the time. It's about fingering, that song. You don't get many pop songs about fingering. I't think of any other ones of course it is that's never occurred to me simon thank you squeeze do songs about fingering and there was something called the birmingham piss what an education chart music is motorhead have rushed out the live ep the golden years and sandy reckons it. It's the loudest single of the week, enough to make your tweeters run for cover. Play at 4am and get evicted, no bother.

Reggae is still alive and kicking in May of 1980, but the only releases that cross sounds as deaths this week are made by whiteys trying to put a rock slant on it. The Pat Travers band's cover of Is This Love is a competent and distinctly unheavy retread of Smarmy Bob Marley's M.O.R. Reggae. Well listenable.

But it's a coat down for one of the most popular bands in Sweden Dag Vag and their new single Wipeout. These Swedes are true turners. It's probably Dag Vag, isn't it? But sorry, I'm English, and I've got that kind of mindset.

That brings up disgusting images. Because we all know what a dag is, and we all know what a vag is. And the two of them together... You flaming gullar! Isn't a dag a sheep's arse with all bubbles of shit around it? It's all with dangle berries on it, isn't it? I didn't know that.

I thought it was just an Australian insult. But then, you know, there is a lot of sheep farming in ours. So maybe that's where it comes from. That's number two in the charts next week. Make it real by scorpions sounds like the lead singer is giving orders to a battalion of blonde psychopaths. Stiv Baiters is the nicest ex-punk in the world, but his new single Not That Way Anymore

is not suitable for UK tastes. Mercenaries Ready For War by John Cale will do you if you're into gun love at high volume. And Two Triple Cheese Side Order of Fries by Commander Kode by John Cale will do you if you're into gun love at high volume and two triple cheese side order of fries by Commander Koda comes on like the Ramones covering Eddie Cochran. I've just looked up

Dag Vag or Dag Vag on Google Translate. Sadly, in English it means day vague or I guess vague day. Spoil spot eh? In the lp review section the lead-off review this week is given over right for layer to base culture by linton quasi johnson a radical style of dj album in the tradition of king stitt a scorcher of a reggae album rather than a self-conscious studder in racial sociology, writes Eric Fuller. What with police asking for wider powers to stop and search,

no planned repeal of the sus laws, a government plainly committed to making the poor poorer, and blacks completely excluded from any of the bureaucracy that makes decisions about their own lives. Burning and looting on a grand scale is plainly festering, not very far below the surface. Oh, different times, eh, chaps? Buying a copy of bass culture won't make it go away, but you can't say you haven't been well-worn and George Lindo was innocent.

What a fucking outstanding album that is. It's a great album. I mean, thinking about that review, yeah, I mean, obviously not different times, but you could do that, you know, actually reflect the times

that you were living in in an album review. You wouldn't fucking do that now or you can't see that now, you know. Racist, anti-vax, junkie cunt, Eric Clapton has just shit out the live LP Just One Night,

which is hailed by David Lewis as a strong and balanced showcase of Clapton on stage, recorded at what is fast becoming everyone's favourite public studio, Tokyo's Budokan Mega Venue. Then Lewis remembers he's not much of a fan of live LPs. Despite Clapton's moments of inspirational guitar virtuosity and captivating vocals, no live album can ever hope to match the recording sharpness of its studio counterpart,

and no amount of whistling and cheering crowd atmospherics can begin to convey the true excitement of actually being there i kind of agree with that yeah me too although whenever i do express that opinion i kind of then remember quite a few good live lps yeah i mean they tend to be the fake ones like finn leesy live and dangerous you know the ones where where it's kind of confected live who live at leeds is another fake one isn't it so yeah all the ones that get hailed as the great ones are actually completely fake anyway with punk receding into the distance pete shelly feels it's safe enough to release sky yen the experimental electronic curio he recorded in 1974 with a purpose-built oscillator, and Dave McCulloch approves. A reminder that punk and its great early protagonists

were never about starting or ending or aimlessly carrying on the Alf Garnett three-chord thrash. I hope some of them, Shelley included, will soon go on from where they left off, in the garage with an oscillator, back in the dim days of 74. Which I suppose he did, because, you know, stuff like Homo Sapien,

and then later on Telephone Operator, is very sort of tech, very synth-based, and, you know, his work with Martin Rushen. So I guess he did kind of pick up where that left off. I've not heard this Sky Yen, i want to that and the lkj this this is great i'm getting loads of things on my sort of discogs wants list now but it's a coat down for growing up in public the 10th solo album by lou reed who else but lou reed would have the balls to exploit his past as a culture hero through eight years of mainly wretched solo products all the while

nullifying his senses with various pharmaceuticals that bounced his spunky little body into any number of grotesque shapes ranging from pasta fat to dacquoise thin offset with innumerable vile hairstyles and after giving us the big finger for so long, dare to invite us to weep at his recorded personal confessions, asked Sandy Robinson. This has not the clipped brilliance of his first solo LP,

nor the camp wankery of Transformer, the maudlin vaudeville of Berlin, or the conceptual outrage of metal machine music. This dancing dwarf will occasionally quarrel out of the garbage can and leave off interviewing drag queens about dipping spam in shit to make a record that shows that he can still cut it the way he did back in the Velvet Underground days. But this album sounds like James Taylor,

Graham Nash and AOR half-hard rock. The Beast is back in Sheep's clothing. What song did Lou Reed make about dipping spam in shit? I don't know. Neil, would you? It was good to hear or read that review because it's kind of how I feel about the myth of Lou Reed as well. And it's good to know that somebody way back in 1980

was calling out his bullshit. I mean, obviously he's done loads of amazing stuff, but the whole kind of fucking heroine chic around this supposed kind of damaged junkie genius has always turned me off. He's somebody who thought he was a lot cleverer than he was. I mean, are you with me on this? Am I just going out alone?

Yeah, I mean, he's patchy as fuck, Lou Reed. Maybe three good solo albums, and that's about your lot, really. All I've got to add to this is he thought he could do a cover of Soul Man. Fuck Lou Reed. And in terms of dipping spam and shit, no, I'm strictly a pure luncheon meat man.

Just to clarify actually i've been consulting with my birmingham piss troll team and and i just want to clarify that if anyone does want to go and you know micturate over a bridge uh to an appreciated troll uh it's not the hummingbird it was a nightclub called subway city in birmingham that is now called the tunnel club so right, go there for all your piss troll needs. I wonder how many other cities have got these kind of folk demons. I mean, obviously, in Liverpool, there's Purple Aki. If you don't know who he is, just look him up. But was there anything like that in Nottingham? We had the Nagasaki Hell Blaster in the 50s, according to my mum,

who's now going to be number three on the next chart. Yeah, he was a war veteran obviously didn't come out of it too well. He'd go about all the coffee bars and not in them open the doors and shout I am the Nagasaki L blaster and then you know everyone in the coffee bar to a person

would shout fuck off I mean I know the crazy world of Arthur Brown struggled to find a follow-up single, but come on. In the gig guide, well, David could have seen Cabaret Voltaire, Red Crayola and Young Marble

Giants at the Clarendon Hotel. That would be street there, wouldn't it? Magazine and Bauhaus at the Lyceum, Splodgenus Abounds at the Victoria Venue, Saxon and Tigers of Pantang also at the Lyceum, Splodgenus Abounds at the Victoria Venue, Saxon and Tigers of Pantang also at the Lyceum, and rounded off the week nice with Black Sabbath at the Hammersmith Odeon, but probably didn't.

Taylor could have seen the au pairs at the Birmingham College of Food and Domestic Art, Joy Division in a certain ratio at Birmingham University, the only ones at Romeo and Juliet, or nipped out to Wolverhampton to see Judy Zouk at the Civic Hall, or even Magazine and Bauhaus at Digbeth Civic Hall. Neil could have seen Shitkov Punk's Chainsaw at the Climax Club, or Desmond Decker at tiff niz sarah could have got the coastliner bus to see the cure at whole you there sky at sheffield city hall

roy harper at leeds you there or martha and the muffins at sheffield polytechnic al could have seen ub40 at trent pollard or the Drifters at Heart of the Midlands, the bakery that was converted to a chicken-in-a-basket venue before it became Rock City. Also the site of the final of the world's first ever professional dance championships, don't you know? Simon could also have seen UB40 at Newport Village. The Stylistics at Carefilly Double Diamond. UK subs at Cardiff Top Rank. And fuck all else, because it's Wales. It is.

But, you know, apart from me and Wales getting the shitty end of the stick, that's one of the best gig guides we've ever had. I think there's so many in that. I thought, fuck yeah, I'd love to go and see them. Judy Zook. In the letters page this week, the main topic of conversation this week is Rob Halford of Judas Priest

deciding to get his kit off on stage at the Rainbow last week and sounds treating its readership to a good look at his cock and balls. Thank you, thank you, thank you for printing that marvellous picture of Judas Priest Rob Halford exposing himself so triumphantly

at the Rainbow recently, writes Louise from Fallowfield. I think she's barking up the wrong tree. I do hope more bands and not just heavy metal bands follow Rob's example at their live gigs by allowing their frontman to remove their leotards,

tights, underpants and all. Trust Rob to be the first to have the guts to peel off his tights and pull down his knickers in front of all those people. I wonder if Paul D'Anno of Iron Maiden wears knickers under his tights on stage. Why not let's have a look, Paul? Let's have lots more nudity, please. More priestly support comes from the sinner from Portishead. I think the two letters you printed from ex-Priest fans were unfair.

Priests are really nice blokes who care for their fans. They're not in it for the money. If they were, they would only play a few nights at big venues like Rainbow, Van Halen, and ACDC do. P.S. More nude pics of Priest, please.

Annie Nightingale took metal to task in a recent article for the Daily Express, and two of many female HM followers from Cleve Forbes are well dischuffed about it. Has she nothing better to do than sit in a poxy air-conditioned office, drink cups of coffee, and insult people's taste in music?

Is that her brain, or is she breaking it in for an idiot? If Miss Nightingale does not like writing about HM, then we suggest she gets herself another job, the sooner the better. In her so-called write-up, she stated that HM is music aimed at boys, and the concert audiences are totally male-populated. We would like to inform her that of all the concerts we've been to, a good third of the audience has been female. Shock, horror,

gasp. Yes, it's true. Some girls do like HM. As for her comments about HM being out of fashion since the days of Led Zepp, we would like to say that as far as we know, Led Zepp are still going strong with more followers now than they had in the early days. Not all HM groups prance about the stage bare-chested and tight trousers and sing about sex in a way that infuriates women's livers. We will be sending Miss Nightingale a turd in the post. Not all HM groups prance about the stage bare-chested

and tight trousers, sing about sex in a way that infuriates women's livers, but the best ones do, really. Oh, Neil, I don't know about you, but I was in a reverie there. That was so nostalgic, where there was that bit, sit in a poxy air-conditioned office, drink

cups of coffee and insult people's taste in music. Man, that was the 90s. That was my life. While Rob Halford has been lusted over this week, it's a coat down for Debbie Arre for not making an effort anymore.

In the latest Blondie video, Debbie looks rather like a bleached Gary Moore, but without the playing ability, says perverse pig from Gotham City. Also, all my followers agree that fucking hell, is he on Twitter or something?

Yeah, what's going on there? All my followers agree that Debbie's haircut has given her looks a turn for the worse and that her orange boiler suit makes her look like a dustbin man slash woman. She's not going to fancy you, mate. No. No. That's proper negging, that is.

Yeah. Genesis are currently the darlings of the daytime DJs. Peter Powell, Andy Peebles, Mike Reed, Kid Jensen and Noel Edmonds are all falling over each other to lavish them with over-the-top and totally uncritical praise, says Jim from Pool. But he reckons their new LP, Duke, is a right sellout. Genesis seem to approach their music in a totally unenthusiastic and business-like manner, with the exception of Phil. If they continue to plough their currently profitable little rut, they seem bound to fail,

just like ELP. The readers with their prophetic powers, you know, Led Zeppelin are going from strength to strength. Going back to punky lust objects, a Luton Town fan who doesn't like sexism, ignorance and sounds ignoring the louse takes issue with a recent news piece on the plasmatics. A lot has been written about sexism lately, so I thought I would add my views. Since I was 13, I have observed the way men look upon women as bits of tit and embarrass and degrade them.

I am disturbed and shocked at the media's treatment of women. So I couldn't believe it when I saw the seedy page three type article and picture of the plasmatics in the April 12th issue. If the plasmatics vocalist wants to strip off all day, every day, that's up to her. But by giving it media coverage, you are arousing men sexually and embarrassing and offending some women. Fucking hell, Wendy O. Williams with her fanny out, Rob Alford with his cock and balls out. I never knew there was so much nudity in sounds, did you? Fucking hell. Is there any intelligent life which reads sounds asks derrick hitchcock then why insult it the jokes in your recent column entitled roscoe's moscow adventures

made me want to crawl into a corner and vomit they were cheap naive, ignorant and insulting to anyone with a minimum of intelligence because of their blatant mocking prejudice. Jokes about bending over backwards and homosexual space monsters are insulting because of their cheap datedness, lack of originality, insulting to lesbians as they assume they don't exist, insulting to gay men because of its mockery and its weird ideas of what a gay man is. I wouldn't take it so seriously if it weren't so very clear what the general line of sounds is on sexism, feminism and homosexuality, i.e. they don't really exist except in the weird imaginations of a small minority. Why don't you take the same attitude to Jews, socialists, the Irish and racial minorities?

Then you can claim to be completely ignorantly prejudiced. You could also not print this letter to get the full set against freedom of speech too. Yours, disgustedly Derek Hitchcock and Rob the HM fan from Romford is appalled that sounds haven't even bothered reviewing Jethro Tull's

latest shows and finally in the back pages is the following advert. Notice to skinheads! This is to inform you of the opening of London's first regular skinhead disco, which opens on Friday 2nd May at the All Nations Club for Martello Street E8, and every Friday after that.

Admission is £1.50, doors open at 8pm and there's a drinks licence to 3am. Now we all know that skins have got a bad name for certain things and all the trouble you have trying to get into places, so now you've got a club where you can go without being stared at or treated like animals. A place where you can meet your mates and have a laugh and hear your kind of music and see the occasional band. So the club's there, the music's there, and so long as everything stays cool, it'll stay there. So forget about football and politics and be there on Friday. It's your club, so use it.

Fucking hell. I wonder how long that lasted. You take football and politics out of skinheads, what the fuck have you got left? Glue. That's what you've got. I wonder if it's the same club in that combat 84 documentary a couple of years later which starts with them playing a song and then ends up in absolute

fucking chaos with people picking up barstools and chucking them each other there's a lot about skins in this sound isn't there yes partly because of bushel i think i mean he really does editorially gonna dominate the paper he's got an awful lot in there i'm gonna be a bit sort of humorless and spoil sport about this though and insist that it's very likely that this skinhead club wasn't the sort of place that combat 84 um uh would would have been or any any sort of skinhead bands because the all nations club um was a black owned reggae club club. Really? Yeah, the venue was. Yeah, because I'm always... Fucking hell. To this day, I'm somebody who's still, you know,

flying the flag for left-wing anti-racist skinheads, which, you know, was always the original idea until it got hijacked. And such people do still exist. You know, I've got a skinhead mate who's a lot younger than me who's very sort of anti-racist and all that kind of stuff so yeah this place the all nations club in in hackney it was a black owned reggae club third world played live there steel pulse played live there right there was a room in the basement

which was the lover's rock room which oh my god i would love to have gone in there i think the club carried on the the venue that is carried on until 1987 so i was just about in london the right time i never went there but um they still have reunion nights um which have to be somewhere else because inevitably london being london um that property in hackney has been converted into a block of flats but i just think it's unlikely that it would be your fascist skinheads um being invited to hold a night in a black ownedowned reggae club in Hackney. Wow. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

I mean, maybe the people putting the advert in could have explicitly stated that, maybe. I don't know. I'm demanding stuff from the past. Yeah. But it's weird, isn't it? I mean, this is the period, like you said. This is colossal fragmentation and factionalism within factions, you know. And skinhead culture is kind of splitting apart at this point as well.

56 pages, 25p. I never knew there was so much in it. This was Sound's chance to snatch a few readers from NME and Melody Maker. How do you think they got on, chaps? Well, I think what they're doing, they are putting music in that other magazines probably laughed at. There's a lot more metal in there.

Yeah. And as we'll come to see in the episode, that's actually a fairly decent reflection of what's going on. Yes. I think what,

not did for Sounds, but it's a shame they couldn't keep metal in the magazine, if you like. Yeah. Sounds became another kind of enemy

Melody Maker type magazine. The split that led to the formation of Kerrang! is, I think, what might have eventually done for it. You know, in the same way that when there was a BBC strike in the 70s, which meant that a lot of disco records got into the charts because what was popular in clubs was sort of coming to the fore. So things like Rock Your Baby by George McRae was a beneficiary of that.

I don't know if it's sort of fanciful to wonder if a similar thing happened here with this strike in the music press. So the more kind of indie or alternative things are no longer getting catered for in terms of the press. And if you want to buy music paper, you've basically got to buy a paper that's really into metal. And then you do get several bands, without spoiling it, in this

this week's chart and this this week's top of the pops who are on the metal end of the spectrum do you think sounds would have put the cure on the front page in 1980 if the enemy and melody maker weren't on strike i was quite shocked by their choice of cover yeah i think they would but that's because the cure were not the cures as we now think of them. They were still seen as quite a sort of tough, sort of post-punk band. And there was actually loads of aggro at their gigs. They always used to get skinheads coming to their gigs, The Cure. Why? Because don't forget, well, do you know what their first single was called?

Yes. Yeah, Killing an Arab. Right, so they would always get people coming to their gigs expecting it to be some kind of national front rally. And, I mean, in a way, The Cure were asking for it by, you know, stupidly calling the song that when it's based on The Outsider by Camus. And the actual ethnicity of the person who gets killed isn't really relevant.

But by focusing on that it caused them no end of trouble but yeah they used to get skinheads turn up their gigs there's one gig uh at some um punk venue in london where a whole bunch of skins turned up for a ruck but the leader of them some guy called eagle you know he was sort of pushing everyone around and sort of slamming and sort of causing trouble but then the cues would start playing Boys Don't Cry and this guy suddenly decides oh I like this one and starts dancing about and he sort of calls off the dogs and says to all his tough mates

hey you know they're alright this lot let's leave them alone so yeah they were pacified by the jolly pop punk sounds of Boys Don't Cry. The power of music yeah. I think the poncier these bands get the less likely they're going to be on the cover of Sounds Sounds is kind of in this period i think it's setting itself up as i guess you call it like yeah it's a street level magazine if you like and and and the people

covered in makeup who are going to cover the covers of the enemy and melody maker in coming years are not going to appear on the front cover sounds they're going to stick with the kind of the punky and obviously the metal end of things. Oh, and before we step away from Sounds Chaps, allow me to draw your attention to a couple of Twitter accounts. At Sounds Clips, who's scanning and ping out cuttings from Sounds. And at Nothing Else On, which does the same thing for Melody Maker and the NME.

If you're regularly plunging your head into the shit bucket that is Twitter, give them a follow because they are doing God's work. Oh, they are, yeah. Full singles pages and stuff like that. It's fascinating. Those accounts, again, at Sounds Clips and at Nothing Else On. So

what else was on telly today? Well, BBC One commences at 6.40am with the triple bill of testing infants, renaissance spectacle and conflict in the family in Open University. There's another gig poster for you. And then closes down for one hour and 52 minutes. At 13 to 10, it's an orgy of schools and colleges programmes before it closes down for another hour and 20 minutes then it's the midday news pebble mill at one mr ben arses about with a balloon you and me

a couple more schools programs and then another close down for 15 minutes after oh dear sorry simon in advance dekral kanu nope go on what is it it dekai kani dekai kani dekai kanmal which is uh it's songs of praise basically in welsh it started in 1961 you know so it's before songs of praise it inspired songs of praise wow wow yeah after that it's regional news in your area play school the all-new popeye show, a repeat of Graham's Gang, John Craven's Newsround, Blue Peter, and then the Evening News.

Nationwide features their new signing Reginald Bozenkay as he examines the aristocracy and then Rod, Han and Prenderville look at the latest developments in sound reproduction in tomorrow's world that um that bosun cave view on the aristocracy i want to i'm sorry i want to hear the skinhead view on the

aristocracy from what we've heard about what's been going on or or the polo pony view on the aristocracy you know this thing of um prince charles getting booted in the face by his polo horse right which is obviously 1980. I looked into this, right? It happened again in 1990, and then it happened again in 2001. Fucking horses hate him, man. It's the wisdom of the equine there. They know things.

And I found this amazing story that in 1981, when Prince Charles was visiting New Zealand, But in 1981, when Prince Charles was visiting New Zealand, he wrote an angry letter to an unnamed friend back home. I think we know who that unnamed friend is, don't we? Complaining about all the grief he was getting from New Zealand people. Because apparently everywhere he went, they were taking the piss out of him for falling off his horse and getting kicked by it.

And it really riled him up. But yeah, yeah. BBC Two also kicks off at 6 40 a.m with an open university triforce and then closes down for three hours and five minutes then carol leader and don spencer let us into play school and then closes down again for another three hours and 45 minutes before whipping us over to the crucible for the semi-finals of the embassy world snooker championships then it's more open universitaire they're more snooker and they've just started the mid-evening news itv opens up at half nine for a

schools and colleges avalanche followed by gammon and spinach which turns out to be another jackanory clone presented by roy can air stepping stones gardening today with cyril fletcher news at one and regional news in your area at half one it's the first episode of the romantic terminal illness drama series for Maddie with Love. Then Mary Berry pops up on Afternoon Plus. Then we're front march to Newmarket for the 1000 guineas. That's followed by Windows, whatever the fuck that is. It's only five minutes long.

Fang Face. Then Salvage One. The American series about a scrap dealer who builds a space rocket so he can nick all the gear left on the moon by NASA. Then it's the news at 5.45, regional news in your area, Crossroads and their 20 minutes into Emmerdale Farm. Chaps, is there anything leaping out at you there? Well, shit Scooby-Doo rip-off Fangface, for starters. No, never heard of that. Oh, it's terrible. If you're seeking out shit Scooby-doo ripoff fang face for starters no never heard of that oh

it's terrible if you're seeking out shit scooby-doo ripoffs by the way butch cassidy and the sundance kids is much much better oh really great music in it from the 70s yeah um their tune looking for someone is is an absolute banger it's a great cartoon that beyond that just remembering the sinking sense of tedium when racing would be on the fucking telly oh god yeah i love horses too simon but it's just instant boredom isn't it there was something incredibly sort of dulling of the senses about those days when you were off school ill and the only things to watch on telly were crown court at lunchtime and and the horse racing and it was just the sort of the the dull sort of thud the rumble of the hooves and the horse racing and it was just the sort of the dull sort of

thud the rumble of the hooves and the kind of monotonous commentary would make you feel like you were in some kind of

alternate reality but a really dull alternate reality everyone involved in horse racing just seems like a cunt John McClellan was that the

London ITV listings you were reading no ATV I always do ATV whenever I can ah right it's where my heart's at simon there was on the thing you sent us there was htv as well as harlech television's the welsh of course and at um 7 30 which i guess is going up against top of the pops the incredible hulk

and it says banner is the target of a voodoo healer i thought fuck me that's all i want to watch now i wonder if you know that welsh all I want to watch now. I wonder if, you know that Welsh Songs of Praise show? I wonder if people have always played the Songs of Praise game with religious shows like that.

Go on. You know, where you watch the congregation and figure out if you'd want to fuck any of them. I used to love watching Songs of Praise with me granny

because she was fucking dead against religion. She'd just sit there and just say, oh, look at all these fucking bastards. I bet they're not there next week. And the vicar would turn up. She'd always say, I bet he's got a tie with a nudie woman on it. Can I just pick something else up?

Please do. Well, Neil was telling us about the birmingham piss troll yes right and it just raises more questions and answers i'm sorry i've got to bring this up again because the more i find out the less i know it's been really preying on my mind because right just sort of recap you're saying that uh it's it's a sort of well-known thing uh among brummies that if you go for a piss in the canal late at night some bloke swims up and opens his gob and tries to get you to piss i never said open his gob you drank me saying that i didn't say that he doesn't open his gob well that's not all right go on he just no and crucially i should have clarified one other thing it's not just pissing in a canal.

You've got to piss over this bridge, this particular bridge. Right. Yeah, and he kind of comes up out of the water, lets you piss all over him. No, no, no, sorry, Neil. He does not come out. There is no, he's not. I'm merely reporting a legend, Simon. I wasn't there.

I'm interested in the status of this. Is it one of these things where it's a real person that everyone knows about, or is it some kind of absolute fanciful bullshit? Because in my mind, I'm imagining, like, you know, Bobby Ewing in The Man from Atlantis. Patrick Duffy. Or, like, you know, Kevin Costner in Waterworld. You know, because in order to get there in time,

if there's a pissing incident happening, how often can it possibly happen that yim-yams are getting their cocks out and slinging them over the edge of the bridge you tell me but like he'd have to be really fucking quick he'd have to be the torpedo to get there he's there isn't he he stays under the bridge and and what he's got water he's sort of like um just sort of uh kicking about he's sort of like treading water waiting waiting for it to happen. Waiting for the golden shower. Well, we need more clarity from our yin-yang brethren about this.

The point is, most of the descriptions I've read, because I also said that he wades away in the water, most of the descriptions I've read, he scuttles away. He's a crab, is he? What the fuck?

Which suggests to me that perhaps, you know, he gets in the water for the piss, and then, you know, for the piss stream, and then, you know, he gets himself up on the canal bank and scuttles away into the dark shadows of Yardley or wherever. I mean, it sounds like absolute bullshit to me

but I think if any of our brimmy listeners can fill us in then please get in touch sorry carry on I don't think I can Simon it's been on my mind that's all alright then pop crazy young cities it's time to get stuck into this episode

of Top of the Pops. Always remember, we may coat down your favourite band or artist, but we never forget, they've been on Top of the Pops more than we have. Well, hello there, good evening and welcome to Top of the Pops, and we start with the charts and Mr. Leon Hayworth. It's 20 minutes past seven on Thursday, May the 1st, 1980, and Top of the Pops is cruising through its 16th year as BBC One's flagship music show. And its eighth year under the stewardship of Robin Nash,

the old-school BBC lifer who looked a bit like a posh Dickie Davis. Under his policy of changing absolutely fuck all since he took over in 1973, Top of the Pops is still pulling down upwards of 16 million viewers a week in 1980, but changes are afoot. Nash, who has been plate-spinning like a bastard throughout the 70s as a producer of The Basil Brush Show, Cracker Jack and The Generation Game, was also promoted up to BBC Head of Variety in 1978, and something clearly has to give.

We don't know it yet, pop craze youngsters, but this is the beginning of the end of his reign as the executive producer of Top of the Pops, and it's going to end sooner than anyone expected. Panel, as seasoned observers of Top of the Pops from 1973 to 1980, as we are, we can safely say that apart from a rotating cast of acts presenters and crumpety dancers nothing has broke and no one has fixed it so do you think that top of the pops could have carried on how it is now all the way through

the 80s and beyond i think it would have started looking increasingly ridiculous it is that kind of if it ain't broke, don't fix it. But Robin Nash doesn't quite want to ever give the charts over to the young. He still wants to keep a sizeable part of the show to keep old folks happy. He's a light entertainment man, isn't he? This is it. And like you say, give or take the change in the acts. I mean, this particular episode, I mean, it could have been broadcast back in 73 when he started.

There's very little difference. The soon coming strike is heartbreaking. And, you know, episodes of are you has anyone seen my cunt served? You know, as a replacement, it just seems scheduled just to enrage us pot fans. A change is needed, you know, a wiping clean of the slate. The vibe becomes completely different after he's gone. You know, we get these ideas with changes of the calendar that, you know, a new decade needs a new vibe.

I mean, I'm not sure that's particularly why, but yeah, I think it would have started looking increasingly ridiculous and also just not up to the job of reflecting how exciting pop becomes you know uh particularly in the early 80s it's one of those counterfactual things that you know we'll never know but it's it's fun to debate um whether things would have stayed the same had we not entered the age of yellow hurl yeah i don't know i felt just watching this episode that there were a few little not radical changes changes, but a few sort of nice little touches

of production that seemed like something that wouldn't have happened 10 years earlier than that. And I'll mention them as we go along. But, you know, I wonder if possibly had Nash stuck around, he might have made the show evolve rather than revolve. Let's say that. In a forthcoming issue of Smash Hits, evolve rather than revolve let's say that in a forthcoming issue of smash hits three pages were given over to the state of music tv in 1980 which is a common bit of space filler um throughout the

years this one was written by our old friend tony parsons according to him the old grey whistle test is quote as indispensable to smash hits readers as a moth eaten pair of stars and stripes loom pants with presenter annie nightingale resembling the runner up in a glamorous grandmother's contest oh fuck off get it together has no black people on it features 10th rate bands who haven't realized yet that this is going to be the highlight of their careers And Roy North is as weird as Gary Newman wants to be, but isn't The Kenny Everett video show is pitiful and irritating And hot gossip a castigator for not having any white men or black women in them

Swap Shop is okay Tiz Was is amateurish offensive refuse and the Saturday Banana with Bill Odie was the best kid show ever Chinny Wreck On while the cast of Oh Boy should quote have their blue suede feet nailed to the floor

and be made to watch Grease 50 times but what did he have to say about our favourite Thursday evening fizzy pop treat well he said top of the pops is by far the best music program on tv because it is content to see its role as a reflection of the charts and nothing more and so top of the pops works well right now because the charts are in a remarkably healthy state at the moment, healthier than they have been for years. Every fad and fashion of the last ten years soaked up, assimilated, restyled into something fresh, flash and fun.

I know there's rubbish around like Lena Martell, Pink Floyd and Elvis Costello, but a few one-hit wonders can't spoil it for us, can they? God knows the concoction of youth, dance and music frequently jar, grate and grind with each other on top of the pops, but still, nobody does it better, not in this country. Pains me to say it, but he's right. Yeah, I mean, he makes a few valid points there, actually. But the fact that it's Tony Parsons just pisses me off. But yeah,

yeah, he is kind of on the money with quite a lot of that. But, I would say that, you know, the fresh, flash and exciting thing, that just happens much more in the Ella Hurl era, I would say, than it does with Nash. The vibe of the show with Hurl later is completely different. It feels more 80s instantly because more of the crowd are involved.

And, you know, it couldn't be held in this kind of sepia holding pattern it has had for so long. It had to change. However, unbeknownst to the pop craze youngsters, or at least the ones not scouring page two in the newspapers for updates on industrial disputes, there's an elephant in the room. It's been there for months and it's

wearing a bow tie and brandishing a double bass with its trunk. In November of 1979, the still new Thatcher government imposed a television licence fee of £34 a year, which was less than the £41 the BBC were asking for in order to support its existing services and plans. So on February 28th of this year, the BBC announced their response, £130 million worth of cuts to its budget for the next two years, which included 1,500 staff members being made redundant, the axing of the Radio 2 soap opera Wagoner's Walk and the disbanding of five of the 11 orchestras run by the Beeb, including the Scottish and Northern Ireland Symphony Orchestras,

the Northern Radio Orchestra, the Midland Radio Orchestra and the London Studio Players. One month ago from this date, the Musicians' Union, which got into rows with Top of the Pops the minute it started broadcasting and eventually forced the BBC into making their acts mime in 1965,

gave their response when they ordered their 41,000-strong membership not to play one note for the BBC until it reinstated the five orchestras by the date of May 1st, this very day. That deadline has come and gone without incident, but the threat is still looming, and it casts a shadow over the forthcoming tapings of the Lena Zavaroni show, the Valdunica music show,

the old grey whistle test, and Top of the Pops. So chaps, no music press, and now the possibility of no Top of the Pops. It's like living in this unwiped house of a century, isn't it? What a hellscape.

I chose a good time to be locked away in a preparatory school, let's say that. The pop famine of 1980 is is upon us yeah and the top of the pot slack was particularly harsh on us young guns you know we're not going to stay up and watch old grey whistle test or any of that no this was our half hour and it was gone but for, your host is Richard Anthony Crispian Francis Prue Hope Weston, otherwise known as Tommy Vance, who is 18 months into his stint on the Friday Rock show on Radio 1 on Friday evenings, with Money and Trespass in session tomorrow night, and is currently holding down Rock on Saturday in the late afternoon with Sad Cafe Live this week. Yeah, you'd like that, wouldn't you, Simon?

I love Sad Cafe. Bring it on. Yeah. And he is making his Top of the Pops debut tonight. Oh. Having found himself as a de facto gatekeeper for a whole new movement, the new wave of British heavy metal, his stock has obviously risen in the BBC, and Robin Nash has called him up for his debut appearance on Top of the Pops,

meaning he's making his first appearance as a television presenter since the last episode of Disco 2 in 1971. Tommy Vance, come on down. I love Tommy. Saxon's Denim and Leather is perhaps the greatest tribute song to being a metalhead ever. And one of the key lines in it is, did you listen to the radio every Friday night? Which just shows the rock show's huge importance. But what's funny about Vance is that famously, in kind of metal circles, if if you like he's a guy who's got no

records in his house you know really yeah absolutely the things with the Friday Rock Show because the production team behind the show was so on it especially in the Wobboham the Friday Rock Show became something you tape because you know they'd get sessions that you wouldn't get anywhere else um you know bands like Merciful Fate and Diamondhead. I mean, those sessions are amazing. And, of course, the time slot of the rock show was really crucial. Friday night, the night when, you know, normal functioning people are out, but the geeks and the freaks and the weirdos who were kind of into the Wobbam probably weren't out.

I love Tommy Vance, mainly because he was able i mean in a sense to con us into thinking he had a genuine fondness for heavy metal i don't think tommy vance is that fussed about music he loves radio but he he repositioned the rock show in as much as you know with alan freeman you kind of got the feeling that essentially he was a prog classical head who could be forced to play some metal whereas whenever tommy vance was in the church you really did get very little prong and a hell of a lot of metal especially new bands especially in the wobberham alongside the big names and he started doing stuff that i don't know you know later on in the 80s that there comes that period where old bbc sessions start getting heard again

like jimmy hendrix sessions and stuff like In the early 80s, this stuff was locked away and unheard. And when he dipped back into metal's past, he dug into archives that kind of nobody else had. Right. You know, so it was certainly pre the period where sessions got repackaged. So hearing original sessions for like Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple, you know, that was amazing.

Oh, yeah. And it's testament to how respected Tommy Vance was in the scene that he was ableelin deep purple you know that was amazing oh yeah and it's testament to how respected tommy vance was in the scene that he was able to get you know samson and saxon and all these other bands to do his jingles and stuff um he wasn't the only conduit to nuwabahum i mean it got on the airwaves in various ways peely played a lot you know alan freeman played even andy peebles played the odd maiden track but it was the crucial thing is with Vance it didn't matter whether he's into the music or not he put it over the best you know that's crucial his voice is just you know it's just a really cool voice

yeah for playing rock music but you know the credit really for the Friday Rock Show needs to go to the producer I think Tony Wilson who's very in touch with the New Albion scene. Vance just had the coolest voice to put it across. But it did become a weekly, you know, tapeable event. It defined, if you're a metal fan, what you buy, and it defines your whole week. And he'd get fucking amazing stuff. I remember him getting, like, acetates from Metallica, you know,

sent over by Metallica. To have him on top of the Pops is huge. And we shouldn't be under any illusions that British heavy metal bands or the new wave of British heavy metal bands rather. For them, Top of the Pops was not just something to smirk about or joke about. These are guys who basically, they had their lives changed by glam rock. You know, when you dig into these people, Def Leppard, Maiden, etc. They're massive glam rock fans in the early 70s these people death leopard maiden etc they're massive

glam rock fans in the early 70s and top of the pops is a huge show for them it's a big moment for them yeah crucially because tommy's got this wide experience with music if you like when he steps into pop when he does the you know when peely does top of the pops he kind of takes the piss when tommy vance steps into pop his experience means he never looks down on it yes so you know i always love tommy uh not only in the friday rock show but yeah he's always a good totp presenter as well i think i mean this is the fourth episode we've done that features a debut performance by a radio one dj simon parkin and andy peebles had an absolute mare while Peter Powell hit the ground haying. And it won't surprise or spoiler anything if I say that Vance gets up to speed right from the off,

almost as if he's been doing this shit all the way through the 70s. Well, yeah. I mean, dig into Tommy Vance's life. I mean, he bought singles out in the 60s, Stones covers and stuff. He's been heavily immersed in presenting and radio and all of that for a long, long time before he actually steps into the TATP chair. And he's been heavily immersed in presenting and radio and all of that for a long long time before he actually steps into the t.o.t.p chair and he's a consummate professional he's a not a slit but he's as in a weird way comforting as kid jensen he's just on it yeah

simon would you have known who tommy vance was when he popped up on top of the pops if you'd have seen this episode no i don't think i would, because he was very much... I mean, he was TV on the radio, wasn't he? He was the radio guy, and I wasn't up on a Friday night listening to heavy metal, because I was out partying at the age of 12. But, yeah, or should we call him Rock Expert Tommy Vance? But the thing is, this is really interesting, because he's not a rock expert, is he, from what Neil's saying? I didn't realise that.

That is interesting. Yeah, we talked about Tommy Vance in Chart Music 31. And I remember I said I liked him for saying that the greatest moment of his life was going on stage at Donington and the entire crowd chanting, Tommy is a wanker, which I think speaks well of him. And we also had a good laugh at his brass eye appearance. And when we did a q and a um i named him as one of the totp presenters i most like to have a pint of foaming nut brown ale with and um yeah and i stand by that you know the thing with tommy vance is he is a sleazy old

dinosaur right the king of the orgies oh bloody hell well um you can't help liking him because he didn't as far as we know sexually assault, which is a very low bar for likability, isn't it? But, you know, here we are. He did plenty of sexism, of course. Michael Hann wrote a piece about Tommy in The Guardian a while ago when he mentioned A Top of the Pops from October 1980, in which Tommy said to a red leather clad suzy quattro i like you in that gear um to which suzy muttered weird guy and then he tried he tried to buy therese bizarre from dollar off david van day like she was his property he goes how much yes i mean that it's pretty grim david van day would have fucking sold her as well

sold her with some fried onion and ketchup on top definitely um it's uh it's easy for men like us to laugh for that kind of sexism from a position of male privilege but it is hilarious at four decades distance in a sort of real life partridge way because he is quite partridge also i i reckon he'd have been good value for a pint because as neil was sort of alluding to he had one of those mad lives that the djs of his generation all seem to have you know working on pirate ships and going to work in america and all that for start there's that whole thing where tommy vance isn't his real name as as you mentioned yes i'm sure we dealt with this before, but he had more names than Boris Johnson. It's like, supposedly the story is he turned up at KOL in Seattle in 1964

and he was stepping in for another presenter who was called Tommy Vance, who pulled out the last minute and the jingles had already been recorded. So Richard said he'd become Tommy and he said, for that kind of money, you can call me what you like, mate. And he only ended up back in the UK to dodge the draft of the Vietnam War. And, of course, he's Ricky Storm. Ricky Storm, what a name, fucking hell, in Slade in Flame.

He should have taken that name and run with it, I reckon. And here we see him, 1980, the new wave era. He looks ridiculous in the new wave era. But to be fair, most presenters of top the pops looked ridiculous in the new wave era his hair literally looks like a bell here and he's wearing the the foster grant glasses and and white blues on wind cheetah of a 60 year old divorced nan on a cruise holiday. But he is in his element for once on this episode for musical reasons, which we'll come to later,

I guess. How would Tommy Vance have coped in the Vietnam War, do you think? What do you think? Maybe he'd have been the sort of Robin Williams character, but with a much deeper voice. Good morning, Vietnam. Fucking hell. He's also been inducted into Kenny Everett's

worst records of all time show on Capital Radio last month, getting to number 17 with his cover of Summertime. He's in very illustrious company there because Here Today Gone Tomorrow by Tony Blackburn's at number 20, Just Like That by David Hamilton's at number nine, and of course at number one is Dance With Me by Reginald Bowes and Kay.

And later this year, he's going to deploy every erg of his expertise when he appears on an episode of Metal Mickey as a DJ, when the robot overlord of Saturday Tea Time launches a music career, but gets ripped off by his manager who's played by James Smiler who went on to be the plastic surgeon in Return to Eden and the nice lawyer in Prisoner's Soul Blockade.

So yeah, it's all happening for Tommy right now. But I like that about him. It's not that so much that he gives anything a go but he'll give anything paid a go. That's completely different to the kind of greasy careerism of somebody like Edmonds. I think Tommy Vance,

he's got no over-inflated ideas about himself and he will work for food, basically, which means him cropping up on all of this stuff. But he's been doing this, yeah. He's been picking up work here and there for a good 20 years. So I like that kind of attitude. Yeah, I kind of respect that as well, yeah.

Yeah, rather than the kind of pomposity that you get from other TOTP presenters. Do you know the other sitcom that he appeared in as a DJ? No. The Desperate Hours, the Steptoe and Son episode with Leonard Rossiter. Fucking hell. Oh. Yeah. Wow.

Yes. So he was a versatile actor then. He played... Yes. A DJ, a DJ and a DJ. We're hit with the sight of our host in a silvery white bomber jacket with red trim that makes him look well-chegular,

leaning on a rail, flanked by a backlit sign over his shoulder that looks like a carving of a pumpkin and appears to read Tommy Vons. Yeah, someone's fucked up on that after an introduction which yields nothing in the way of nonsense we're lobbed into the top 30 rundown and don't push it don't force it by leon haywood born in houston in 1942, author Leon Haywood learned to play piano at the age of three, played in a local band in his teens, was a regular member of Guitar Slim's band,

and moved to Los Angeles at the age of 18, where he linked up with the saxophonist Big Jay McNeely, played in assorted session bands, put out a solo single, and ended up playing keyboards in Sam Cooke's band. When Cooke died in late 1964, Haywood recommenced his solo career, passing through several regional labels before signing to Atlantic in the late 60s. But it wasn't until the mid-70s that he finally scored a major hit, But it wasn't until the mid-70s that he finally scored a major hit. When I Wanna Do Something Freaky To You got to number 15 on the Billboard chart. This single, the follow-up to Party, which failed to chart here like all his previous releases, got to number 2 in the American R&B chart and number 49 on the Billboard chart.

And when it came out here in the middle of March, it entered the chart and number 49 on the Billboard chart and when it came out here in the middle of March it entered the chart at number 56 then soared to number 35. A week later when it moved up another five places to number 30 it was used as a play out music on Top of the Pops and a week later it was emoted to by Legs and Co. After it was played over the chart rundown a fortnight ago, it moved up two places to number 12, and this week, even though it hasn't moved, it's been wheeled out as the rundown music again for its fourth go-around on top of the pops.

Whoa, four times, and we still haven't seen the poor son. Well, the thing is, that means we had no idea what he looked like. He could have been young, he could have been old. And the thing with so many disco acts and funk acts from this era is how often you find out that they'd actually be making music since the 50s, you know.

Yes, yeah. They were there at the very birth of soul. But in terms of chart recognition they had a very slow burn um we were talking earlier about live albums right um yeah generally i'm not a fan but there are exceptions one of them is sam cook live at the harlem square club 1963 oh it's extraordinary captivating performance if anyone's not heard it now sadly um and you know because it'd be really neat neat if Leon Hayward was on that record. He did not play on that album.

But, you know, as you say, he was in Sam Cooke's backing band. And the fact that Sam Cooke died in 1964 tells you how long Leon Hayward had already been around by the time we'd heard of him in the UK. I would say we didn't really hear of him in the UK in the 70s

unless you were a real solo aficionado. Because you mentioned, I want to do something freaky to you. That was a hit in america and of course later sampled by dr dre on nothing but a g thing oh imagine puns people dance into that yeah exactly oh fucking hell um but by the time don't push it don't force it came out his ky jelly classic um he was 38 his pegging anthem yeah he was 38 by the time this comes out but because we haven't seen him yet on top of the pops you you could have told me he was 21 and i'd have believed it until i researched it for chart music and that's the thing with disco disco is a very forgiving

um genre um age-wise if you had the pipes and you had the chops you were allowed to be a disco star however old you were pretty much i mean it's a nice story haywards because it's it's like the lyrics to do you know the way to san jose or something you know it's kind of la is a great big freeway put under down he goes there aged 18 with the car wash job and all the rest of it and he gets mistreated really by an awful lot of record companies until he has that hit with i want to do something freaky with you pete i remember reading the interview with with pete jones who was one of grandmaster flash's big dj inspirations and he spoke in interviews about how much leon haywood he would play play an awful lot um it was just really suitable for those kind of parties um i think this is a great record by

the way i mean it's been sampled a lot i suspect but maybe in those pre-sample clearance days that don't show up on who's sampled because yes there's so many textures here that i've heard um this might be well this is his last hit age 38 like simon said but he actually then i mean there's a kind of happy ending because he then settles into a kind of happy writing production career including writing she's a bad mama Jammer in 81, and dies peacefully. Yeah, absolutely. And dies peacefully in his sleep in 2016.

So a nice sort of rags to riches tale. It's a good record though, this. Perfect for the chart rundown. Yes. I would say the song shares the same underlying riff as You Can Do It

by Al Hudson and Partners from 1979. It really does. It's two notes very close together, semitone interval. And you could argue that that is just a staple trope of funk or R&B. But it does sound like a blatant rip-off to me. But maybe he was doomed to a life of imitation in a way. As you mentioned, his real name was Other Leon Hayward,

as if his parents were setting him up for a life of underachieving and being overshadowed. He's not even the main person with his name he's not the new zealand field hockey player he's the other leon hayward but self-deprecation was hardwired into him right the follow-up to this single was if you're looking for a night of fun look past me i'm not the one which you know it might have been intended to signify his credentials as you know long-term husband material but it basically screams i'm a crap shag you know and also it has the same two note interval by the way it's very much his dance the kung fu so i would say don't push it don't force it is not an outstanding example of his genre but it's pretty good and

if it came out now out of the blue and it was by bruno mars or the weekend or anderson park or whoever we'd be falling over ourselves to hail it as as the return of the groove or something in 1980 we we were spoiled for choice and and you know as as neil said you know he he did sort of contribute his fair share because she's a bad mama jammer. She's built, she's stacked by Carl Carlton. The Mazofiliac anthem is an absolute banger. So, yeah, fair play. Imagine Legs & Co dancing to that.

Oh, my God. Yeah, this song, it's very post-disco and also a very anonymous artist to a British audience. So there's only three places this is going on top of the pops. At the end of some shots of the lights, in the middle over some shots of legs and co's arses, or here over some pictures of some scowly musos. Shall we do the chart, Pigs Chaps?

What did we find this week? I'm never keen on the chart rundown, can I just say, being right at the top of the show. No. It immediately deflates any suspense or momentum the show might have been able to drum up through its running time. The photos I picked out, if you don't mind me going first,

Bad Manners, there's such an old photo of Bad Manners. Yes, it is. The Buster Bud Vessel had hair. What the fuck? Bad Manners in a photo that's been so badly tinted that they look like they're floating in a tank of formaldehyde in an art space. Johnny Logan looks weirdly terrifying, like he's being played by Javier Bardem circa No Country for Old Men.

I thought Bobby Thurston was even more terrifying, a face from a Halloween mask. I know there's a bit of a Rosa Parks situation with UB40, all the black members being forced to stand at the back. I thought it was a bit odd. But the one that really stood out for me, I don't know if, I mean, maybe you'll agree with me here, Sky.

Sky look an absolute fucking state. They look like the Venn diagram intersection of Nambler and Camera. Cambler. I've got them as looking like they've been queuing outside WH Smith's all night to be the first to buy a Sinclair ZX-80. You said scowley out. I don't reckon there's that many scowley shots.

Well, there's... The body snatchers for me. Yeah, body snatchers look really fucking pissed off. They've all come round your arse and standing in your fucking doorway waiting to have it out with you. Oh, yeah. That's committed non-smiling. B.A. Cunterson is pointing

and shouting as if he's recreating the cover of Tell Us The Truth by Sham69. Sad Cafe being hugged by a giant Tommy Boyd lookalike. Someone in the band is fucking huge. Sad Cafe revealing their new bassist Robert Wadlow.

Straight from the Guinness Book of Records indeed all the picks have been wedged into a box that's been placed at top right with the names and numbers

flaring off into the distance like when you point a camcorder at the telly yeah which is a bit disorientating really it's not the kind of thing you want on Thursday Tea Time

and it does feel very 70s doesn't it you're right yeah it really does. Now, chaps, we've discussed in the preamble the tribalism of the pop craze youth around about this time, which was borne out every time I went to one of the many youth clubs I patronised. The older kids were almost exclusively punks or punk adjacent.

There were loads of plastic mods like me. There was a load of rude boys in arrington's but there was also a smattering of youths who were into what we now call post disco and seeing as there wasn't much in the way of leon haywood and tom brown badges or patches or comb holders at pendulum records their only way of indicating their fealty to the groove was by wearing what was known on our estate as a funky belt does that ring any bells with you no funky belt not right it's one of them over long belts usually red where the the end used to hang down like a flat fabricy cock and they were known as funky belts round our way

because everyone who's into funk wore them and i tried to discover the proper term for them belts on google but i typed in belt with hanging end and google directed me to the phone number of the samaritan so oh my god so here's a question for the pop crazy and says what did you call a funky belt in 1980 and was it just a nottingham thing no maybe so, I had a mate, Stephen Burbage, rest in peace, and he was well into this sort of stuff. And every time it came on at the youth clubs, I would always make a point

of saying words to the effect of funky and waving my hand in front of my nose to denote there was a foul whiff. And he would always make a point of panning me. So I eventually stopped doing that. And I also eventually realized

that this sort of music kind of won out in the early 80s in the end didn't it of all the music we're going to hear on this episode of top of the pops it's stuff like this that's going to percolate and permeate the rest of the 80s a bit more than the other stuff that's true it's true and it seemed to sort of be um to one side, or float above, tribalism, because nobody in my school was listening to this, they certainly weren't dressing like that, there were no funky belts in Barry, I'll tell you that much, but, you know, obviously somebody was buying these records, I think, I always assumed it was older brothers and older sisters, it was people in their late teens, early twenties, who were actually of the age to be going out to nightclubs whereas you know it didn't have much currency in the in the playground we all know now with hindsight we've all seen documentaries about that kind of essex soul scene yes which we'll come to later so we know that there was a subculture but it didn't percolate down to to sort of my my generation in school i don't know about you. Yeah, the textures you hear here, it's kind of pre-electro,

and it's quite nicely tooled. So these are the sounds that will crop up as the decade goes on, a lot more than perhaps some of the other things we're going to hear. So a week later, Don't Push It, Don't Force It dropped seven places to number 19.

The follow-up, If You're Looking For A Night Of Fun, Look Past Me, I'm'm not the one failed to chart and he never pushed or forced anything else into the uk chart again a year later he wrote and produced she's a bad mama jammer she's built she's stacked for carl colton which got to number 34 in august of 1981 and he spent the rest of the decade splitting his time between diminishing returns on his solo career and setting up his own blues label.

And yes, he died in 2016 at the age of 74. I love you all over. Don't push it, don't force it, let it happen naturally. It won't necessarily happen if it's not happening. let it happen naturally. What will surely happen? Thank you. These waters have frozen, can't break the ice no more As is the style of Top of the Pops in the mid-80s, the number one act fades out and we're immediately plunged into the first band with no introduction, so I'll give them one. It's This World of Water by New Music.

Formed in Wimbledon in 1977, New Music were a group consisting of Nick Straker, who had been an original member of the reggae band Mutumbi in the early 70s and a backing musician for Limmy out of family cooking when he went solo, Tony Mansfield, who was originally Limmy's roadie, who formed a musical partnership with Straker, and Clive Gates, who was in a prog band with Mansfield who was originally Limmy's Roadie who formed a musical partnership with Straker and Clive Gates who was in a prog band with Mansfield

in the early 70s in 1979 the group gained a record deal with GTO but lost Straker who formed his own band which Mansfield chipped in with every now and then their debut single Straight Lines entered the chart at number 70 in October 1979,

and two weeks later, while it was bobbing around at number 61, they were gifted an appearance on Top of the Pops, but it only ended up at number 53. The follow-up, Living by Numbers, fared much better thanks to loads of Radio 1 airplay and got to number 13 in February of this year This single, the third cut from their debut LP from A to B, which came out today entered the chart at number 59 and this week it soared 31 places to number 38

and here they are in the studio and chaps finally new music enter the hallow portals of chart music welcome in lads i've been listening to that album from a to b quite a lot recently in preparation for this good i remember once reading an interview with saint etienne or simon reynolds where reynolds asked them you know what kind of things they were listening to that may be a bit off the beaten track and they mentioned from a to b by new music reynolds thought they were joking he thought it was so obviously bad and and you know just beyond the pale that they were just being uh arch and being kitsch but they were really sincere about it and it is a really good album. What I loved about New Music

was that they sounded so optimistic about the future. You mentioned Straight Lines. It's the opening track on the album, and it has a verse that goes, it's part of the service that carries you on ahead. There's only the one way. The ticket is on your head. With robot precision, we're going to be doing just fine.

So here we are, here we we go moving in one straight line right and you know how you're always expecting a twist with anything that depicts the future you know a dark dystopian undercurrent which somehow is meant to make it more valid there's only the very slightest traces of that with new music and i think if you choose to listen to it in a certain way there's none of that there's another track called science that goes and you generate and you radiate solutions everywhere it's also scientific which is almost craftwork like and even craftwork you know things like radioactivity it's kind of sinister i don't think you really get that with new music no even living by numbers you know breakthrough hit all about humanity being classified and digitized and enumerated sounds really cheerful about it, I think.

And even this song, This World of Water, about rising sea levels is strangely optimistic. You can drown, but you still survive. Yeah. I'm living in a world of water myself at the moment, right, because the rubber seal on our French windows is fucked. So every time it rains, the back of the living room carpet gets flooded.

But I still love it as I loved it then. It just kind of sparkles. Even those pinky and perky backing vocals, which ought to be annoying, you know, you were going to swim to the other side, that thing, somehow adds to it. The single after this, Sanctuary, is a work of actual genius.

Should have been a number one. one instead it got to number 31 yeah and and i can only put that down to the abrupt ending uh which they put on it which makes disc jockeys look like twats it's the twat maker yeah so uh radio stations were reluctant to play it and also um i suppose my theory for why they never became really massive with the best will in the world, and with the proviso that I realise people who are no oil paintings themselves shouldn't throw stones in glass houses, there's a reason why new music never became pop pinups and, say, Depeche Mode did. They look like boffins in their white lab coats.

I think boffins is the word. And their main man, Tony Mansfield, looks like Russellsell grant who's been on a diet that has semi worked he doesn't look like a pop star because he isn't one he's he's he's a producer yeah yeah yeah yeah i mean it's funny that you you mentioned the optimism of the music i mean at the time they're very much portrayed as quite doomy new music um you know by the critics but this is it it's the thing i mean you know us music critics and i'm fairly sure i speak for pricey here too we love having theories

about pop about what works and what doesn't but of course pop is far too variegated a form to ever slot neatly into those theories and usually the exceptions are so numerous that they disprove the rule with new music they kind of fall into one of my theories well it's not my theory necessarily i have a rule that you know far too much pop is left to fucking musicians in my ever insatiable hunger for the hand that feeds i am waiting to stop teaching one day so that i can write the piece about the major malfunction of music teaching in this country that it's based around musicians. And, you know, this is why we get the fucking Alt-Js and the Foles

and all of these horrifically competent bands who always seem to emerge from educational systems around music, those places that make the criminal sort of tactical error of putting musicians in touch with other musicians without introducing any kind of risk or non-musical impulse into things now this is a problem that's picked up by contemporary reviews of new music at the time the muse owners of them because they are you know they're musos in a david hetworth interview in smash hits earlier in 1980 the band are hugely taciturn about their past they don't want to reveal what sessions they've

worked on and stuff which is odd because now you know session work would be a calling card almost yeah um although they do admit the buggles connection hetworth ends up taking against them precisely because of their doominess and their professionalism and there's also a review in the sounds issue that we were talking about um a review of the album by betty page she loves it and she but she has to get over an awful lot of stuff in the first few paragraphs you know don't hate them because they want to get in the charts don't hate them because they're musicians and like simon says visually they're not exactly captivating here no tony mance feel clearly the main guy here and he and the drummer play it pretty straight the bass player just has this kind of shit eating grin on and the drummer play it pretty straight. The bass player just has this kind of shit-eating grin on.

And the keyboard player is just a total dickhead. Yes, the band do suffer from over-performative keyboard player syndrome. Absolutely, absolutely. He's kind of jumping around, not touching the keyboard. Loads of wacky, zany, you might even say, expressions. Lots of swimming motions. Yeah, yeah, that as well. I mean, as it is, this slightly sort of, what, smug conflation of prog and pop

played by super competent, dull-looking people, in a weird way, it's oddly reminiscent of both what current indie pop sounds like and also how Howard Jones et al would come and sort of spoil new pop with their competence in a few years. And it's very revealing how even the keyboardist wacky isms which i think might be a response to previous criticism of him and the previous appearance um until he just be boring

in his pocket right so he's being deliberately wacky you know they can't stop the audience looking away from the band and backwards and and yet and yet i haven't stopped singing this song a week it's catchy as fuck. Me neither. You know? And what Simon said about the album means that I must investigate it. I mean, it's good when pop theories fall apart. I sort of came to this thinking, oh, what a bunch of musos.

This isn't going to work. But no, it really does work. I have in my hand a sealed envelope like Derren Brown. And I'm going to rip it open now. Hang on. And inside the envelope, there's a folded piece of paper hang on and uh on that piece of paper i have written shaking buggles slash yes shaking trevor horn right yes because i reckoned i reckoned if i didn't say that one of you was gonna and yes that was the next thing i was gonna say say. So Neil mentioned the Buggles, and yeah, I predicted you probably would,

because new music had a similar vibe to the Buggles on Video Killed the Radio Star. In both cases, it's people heralding the new age, who were a little bit too old to truly be part of it. Trevor Horn was 30. Tony Mansfield was 25, which isn't that old, but he looks older. He's a bit of a Martin out of Brotherhood of Man, isn't he? Brotherhood of Man, yeah. But for comparison, Steve Strange, who was genuinely part of this new age, his coming age, was 20. And those five years made a massive difference. But in terms of,

you know, shaking Buggles, shaking Trevor Horn, Tony Mansfield wasn't that far behind Trevor Horn in terms of quality. My favourite productions of his are two non-hits, actually. Aztec Camera, Walk Out to Winter, and Vicious Pink, Can't You See? But his mortgage and his pension would probably have been paid by Aha! Take On Me and Captain Sensible Happy Tour. So go on now, what were you going to say about the whole Buggles bit? Well, I was going to say that they were uncharitably seen at the time as shaking bottles and there are similarities

but to my mind new music are miles better than the buggles well can i just clarify i was under the impression that phil towner did play drums on video kill the radio star oh that's interesting tony mansfield put this band together it's a kind of confection in a way he was doing everything but he wanted to get out of the studio wanted to start playing live and making appearances because he wanted to get in the charts and hired these people phil tanner i think was a session guy but he did play drums on video killed the radio star and he's also the drummer here and he's up front do you notice this yeah and not for the last time in this episode having a drummer up front yes it's a bit of a running theme in this episode i remember when the jam stuck rick buckler up front for their final ever top of the pops appearance with beat surrender

it was a big deal everyone talked about at the time but only three years earlier every fucker was doing it it turns out yeah oh yeah you mentioned the keyboardist he is acting up too much isn't he fucking gurning and mugging and prancing about he fancies himself as a bit of a new rick wakeman i think but the thing is i think i might have enjoyed it at the time as a child yeah much as much as it pisses me off now um unlike the song which you know loved it then love it now another thing that i noticed um and i sort of alluded to this when we were talking about the robin nash era that there are a lot of special effects in this episode and and also visual effects. But the SFX start right here,

with actual water running down a pane of glass, through which a camera sees everything. Yeah, they blue-screened it, haven't they? Because it shows up on their white suits. The band are all wearing white suits, really cheap-looking white suits with pink shirts. And yes, they blue-screened them, as was the style back then.

And it's hard to know if that's deliberate you know if they knew that the little raindrops are going to show up on the clothing or if it's a happy accident but it looks really cool yes even the uh bird of paradise flower on the keyboard is a nice touch because that references the sleeve of from a to b maybe the band brought it with them but i'd like to imagine that, you know, a junior BBC runner was sent out to dash around all the florists to the Shepherds Bush area to find one. But yeah, good start.

Yeah, strong. So the following week, this world of water jumped seven places to number 31, but the week after that, it dropped one place to number 32. The follow-up, Sanctuary, also got to number 31 for two non-consecutive weeks in late

July, early August of this year, and although they released two more LPs and five more singles, none of them came anywhere near the chart, and they split up in 1982. As mentioned in an earlier episode of Chart Music, Tony Mansfield buried his head into the operating manual of the Fairlight CMI and ended up behind the keyboards or whatever instead of faders for the likes of Captain Sensible, the B-52s, After the Fire, Vicious Pink and Jean-Paul Gaultier. Oh, and A-Ha, of course. Paul Gaultier. Oh, and A-Ha, of course. But yeah, that says it all, doesn't it? You know, Trevor Horn produced Relax by Frankie Goes to Hollywood. Tony Mansfield produced a Relax cover by Captain Sensible.

And that's new music on the sound of World of Water. Just a minute, I thought I was going to drown there, but luckily I have. I should have loved you. We're hit with a close-up of Vance under some green spotlights on his own as he tells us of his relief that he didn't spoil his Top of the Pops debut by drowning during the first performance. Then he tells us about a jazz drummer who turned his arts in that way into some really good disco music it's i should have loved you by narada michael walden or as he says it i should have loved you yes it's a really weird intonation it's like when the bloke from cheap trick says i want you to want me at the start of that live single you know he did tell an awful joke in that preamble as well just just for a moment he goes i thought i was going to

drown there but luckily i haven't uh he reads it with all the conviction of your auntie reading out the joke from a christmas cracker when she's left to buy vocals at home. I mean, fuck me. We've already covered NMW in Chart Music No. 53 when he took Divine Emotions to No. 8 in May of 1988, but this single from the former drummer of the Mahavishnu Orchestra is the follow-up to Tonight I'm Alright, which got to No. 34 in March of this year. It's the second cut from his fourth solo LP, The Dance of Life, which came out in America last year,

and it got to number four in the US R&B chart in late 1979. It entered the chart last week at number 35, and this week it soared 16 places to number 19. He's currently in America working on his next lp so here's a clip from his appearance in soul train last year and oh chaps any chance to see soul train on top of the pops is always welcome isn't it oh indeed absolutely although i mean the actual amount of audience we get is kind of heart-rendingly brief really let's go back to that smash hits article by tony paulson's everyone because he had a word or two to say about soul train all right

top of the pops should be moving towards where soul train a show for black music in america is already it's slick polished and sharp the live acts are good and the young people dancing in the studio don't look like they're supervised or herded around like cackle so they don't get in the way of camera three or so that Ken Dodd's got an audience. They look as though they're having a good time and they act like the program belongs to them. Top of the Pops heading in this direction would be the promise of perfection. A multi-racial pop slot. He does go on to mention that Top of the Pops is currently the only place that you can see black musicians on British television at the moment.

So yeah, fucking hell. Two for two, Tony Parsons. What's going on? He's right. The zoo wankers on Soul Train aren't wankers. They can actually dance. There's people up on the podiums. And it is quite exotic and exciting to see this clip of America.

You know what I mean? But that's the point. I mean, we are Britain. We can't have nice things. No. So, you know, it's never going to happen. I understand where he's coming from, but it's never gonna happen because I mean

of course the kids in the Top of the Pops studio every week have watched Top of the Pops all their life and they know what you do you go and you watch what's on stage

rather than dance with each other yes get out of the way of the cameras indeed Channel 4 in a few years time had a go at doing their own

Soul Train presented by Geoffrey Daniel and it just didn't work yeah but I always wonder with Soul Train what was the vetting procedure for being

in the audience because they look so fucking cool dancing to this record and it just didn't work. Yeah. But I always wonder with Soul Train, what was the vetting procedure for being in the audience? Because they look so fucking cool dancing to this record. And it's just, they all look cool. Yeah, it can't just be randoms off the street. There must have been a bit of a sort of Studio 54 situation. They're trawling the clubs, isn't it? Yeah, yeah, definitely. I mean, everything on Soul Train is the complete opposite

to Top of the Pops in 1980. Everything's bright and open. There's a wide stage. There's a huge studio there's loads of lights on both band and audience and basically loads of space for everyone to dance and cavort and put themselves over

yeah and colour and light and not that oppressive dankness you get from Top of the Pops yeah I mean everyone on it particularly in this clip just looks like they're having the best time and it is infectious I mean when this song came on when I was watching this clip, just looks like they're having the best time. Yes. And it is infectious. I mean, when this song came on, when I was watching this episode,

I was just like, fucking yes! Yeah, it was just one of those moments, occasionally when we're doing chart music, you're watching the TLTP in question, and just a song comes on, and you're like, fucking brilliant. I think, you know, you guys, Neil and Sarah had that with Dead Ringer for Love.

Yes. And I kind of had a little taste of that with this. I really did. It just really gave me a lift, you know you guys uh neil and sarah had that with dead ringer for love yes and i kind of had a little taste of that with this i really did it just really gave me a lift you know um i know previously on chart music 53 when we talked about um narada yes i i sort of disparaging semi disparagingly sort of described him as shaking jacko and a pound land niall rogers which is more to do with kind of how i perceived him at the time because i didn't really know much about him yeah but he is obviously just fucking phenomenal uh i don't think i even knew when i was a kid that he was a drummer singing drummer because i didn't see this episode at the time i just thought he was you know a singing guy but this this record it's just a

fucking banger isn't it yeah i mean when we saw him on that episode in top of the pops in 1988 him and his live youthful mates were going about in baseball caps and black spandex like they were in Janet Jackson's step class. But here it's a bit different, isn't it? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, the 80s haven't really arrived for this band just yet, have they? But in a good way, you know, the band just look extraordinary. Yes, they do. The guy I was obsessed with is a sax player, right, who is basically, as far as I'm concerned, he is the pee-poo of the whole Narada Michael Walden set up.

He looks like the leather man from the Village People who has borrowed Farrah Fawcett Major's hair. Yes. It's just extraordinary. And he's got these sort of silk trousers like one of Charlie's Angels. He's Mark Russo of the Sea America Horns. And he was in the jazz fusion band, the Yellow Jackets, for a while. And he played on I Want to Dance With Somebody by Whitney Houston,

which, of course, was a Narada production. These days, he tours with the Doobie Brothers. And no surprise there. Just look at him. He looks like one of the fucking Doobie Brothers. And Chicago. But when he just came on i thought fucking brilliant what a 70s looking man in the best possible way what a moustache fucking what a touch what a touch he's this weird combo of kind of obelix from the asterix comic and he's got these sort of yacht rock clothes on with this

big porn star tash the kind of face really that you only see on ogres in Children's Illustrated Bibles. He's really compelling. But the whole band is, you know? The trombonist just is Lester from The Wire, I think. You know? And the guitarist also caught my eye. I mean, like Walden, he's dressed like a kind of sleazy Sesame Street presenter. But for me, I couldn't take notice off the bassist

because he's just doing the greatest bass face ever. He's constantly in that moment when things are going so funky, he's practically kind of wincing himself inside out, starting his arsehole. He's a chunky fucker as well, isn't he? He is a chunky fucker. You know how BDSM folk talk about, like, exquisite tenderness, that moment of the most intense pain and pleasure the bassist here he yeah he's just in this constant

paroxysm of exquisite funkiness whereby his face his face can't quite believe how funky things are getting it's like he's constantly oh god that's too much why can't i stop being this funky i love that guy yeah i love him more than Walden, to be fair. I mean, I've always got a thing for Walden. He seems a bit smug. I've been reading kind of contemporary interviews with him from the 80s. And beyond his fitness regime, because he's barrel-chested, isn't he? He's a very hunched guy. And his nauseating dips into wily Eastern mysticism via that bullshit pen,

Sri Chimnoy, who also, of course course got to Santana and John McLaughlin and Roberta Flack. There are some quite telling quotes. I mean, he's a little snotty. He says he doesn't want to make shake your booty music, but this is precisely what this is. What's wrong with that? I know, but he's also slightly frustrated. I read in one interview that he's

not been entirely accepted by black music fans, which he feels is holding him back. And when he finally wins a Grammy, he says, you know i've been great for ages this is long overdue but then he explains that he goes you know what people see is arrogance is really love power man i love the world and i i love myself so it's odd where now people use the narratives of sob stories or identity to justify being arrogant about their achievements back then you just needed some uh some deepak chopra style bullshit merchant to talk to you about self actualization to justify it there's something a bit glassy-eyed about but yeah this is a great slice of kind of fusion disco oddly behind the times there's no kind of because think about what

herbie hancock's doing in this period you know know, he's bringing in a lot of synths. But again, another great, it's not the starter, but just seeing a bit of Soul Train and just focusing on that bassist's face was wonderful. Going back to your sax, man, I mean, they're not at the level of Honke in the previous episode, but he's got a generous flair in them white trousers. And can I introduce another word to the lexicon of Saxons? Please.

Amtabs. Amtabs. Amtabs. My Asian mate, when he was growing up in the 80s, amtabs was the word used for a massive pair of white flares. After the actor Amtab Bakunan. Oh! Yeah. You'd hear his mate going,

oh, char guy, your uncle was wearing some bad amtabs at that wedding, guy. So he'd go, amtabs, that wedding, Guy. Okay, well. So he'd go, Amtabs, welcome into the lexicon of Saxons. Excellent. I don't think we dwelt enough on the guitarist, actually, right? No, because he's got one of them double neck jobs, and he only bothers with one. Yeah. I always hated seeing that. If you've got a double neck guitar, you play both of them.

Yeah, it's Jimmy Page style, and it's got a 12-string and a 6-string on on the same guitar but you say he only bothers with one of them some of the time he's not even doing that he's just like giving the overhead hand claps you know yeah so he's corrado pat rustici and uh the only corrado i've come across other than him is corrado soprano aka uncle junior these motherless fucks um so yeah but, but he is a genuine Italian. He also played on Whitney's stuff, like How Will I Know? He played on We Don't Have To by Jermaine Stewart. Again, like, basically, it seems that anything that Narada did,

he brought half his band with him. But Rustici was a prog musician, which you can tell from the fucking instrument he's holding. And it turns out this shows how prog he is. Last year, he brought out an album called interfulgent um interfulgent is an adjective which is used to describe light shining through the gaps between objects such as clouds or leaves interfulgent yeah very prog um neil mentioned uh

somebody looking like they were on sesame street um i thought narada himself he's got this yellow shirt and red braces he looks like he should be presenting play away but somehow he can carry it off i think yeah and there's a female singer with a big handful of seashells in her hair oh true yeah yeah i think he was ahead of his time narada also in terms of recycling because he did recycle this on jump to the Beat by Stacey Lattisor, which in many ways is the same song. And even Tonight I'm Alright, his other song, is very similar to that. There's also a kind of I Should Have Loved You,

Shalimar There It Is, and Orange Juice Rip It Up Continuum, those same two chords over and over. But fuck it, it works. If it works, don't, you know, if it ain't broke, don't fix it. Don't push know ain't broke don't fix it don't push it don't force it don't push it don't force it yeah yeah by the way al you know you were saying about the double neck guitars you don't like them when they're not being used to their full capability you must seek out um this is much later in the 80s but a song called freight train by a band called nitro um yeah because the guitarist for them jean-mich, what was his name?

Yeah, Jean-Michel Batiot. At one point, right, it goes to the solo, and this four-necked guitar comes down on a winch. Fuck me. It's like four necks pointing in different...

Yeah, it's like a cross. Do you know what I mean? Oh, no. I've seen this. And he starts playing all four necks in a completely stupid way. Freight Train by Nitro is just one of the insanest, daft, poodle rock videos of the 80s. Fuck.

But yeah, if you want some, not double neck, but quadruple neck action, that's where to go. And I do. I feel like that's somebody's logo. It's on the tip of my brain. A guitar with the fretboards pointing out in four different directions. Who is it? Maybe the Pop Crazy Youngsters. The Nazis.

Yeah, the Nazis, exactly. But I sense that you two didn't get quite the same rush from this song that I did. But, you know, I really did. No, I like this. Yeah, I like this. But it's just one of many songs this year that are in that kind of pocket, if you will. And it's like, oh, here's another one. Great. Brilliant. I guess so. I wasn't anti this

kind of music. If it was on, I'd listen to it. It was only a bit later on that I realised, oh, I should have loved that. But yeah, for me, this song and this performance is just a fucking heady nostril full of fucking fairy dust, to quote the Trogs.

Of course, the maddest thing about Narada, we mentioned before, he joined Journey in 2020. I think that's a big belief in him, man. But I also tracked down an interview with him from about 10, 12 years ago, where he was talking about the fact that people don't really buy albums anymore and the only way to make money is by performing live.

And he said, God's given me a gift that if it doesn't work in a studio, it'll work on a stage so I don't have to shine shoes. That's what he said. But I'd have thought he's probably not hard up for a few quid. Do you know what I mean? Well, quite. All those Whitney records. Jesus.

So the following week, I Should Have Loved You went boing, boing, boing, all the way up to number 11. And the week after that, it got to number 8, its highest position. The follow-up, The Real Thang, failed to chart over here, and he'd have to wait eight long years before returning with Divine Emotions. with divine emotions. I'll be there. I should have loved you. I should have loved you. Now, that's the word about the water.

It's number 19 in the charts at the moment. It's called I Should Have Loved You. Who's a lucky boy, then? Here's the chords and something called, well, you've got it. Here it is. Let's be you, kids, I'll wait for you. Vance sat on a very wide sofa suddenly finds himself flanked by four girls

with the lank flicked back here who's a lucky boy then he says into the head of the girl on his left what is going on with that bit on the sofa yes i mean beyond anything else it makes you think there was some sort of process whereby those girls were decided upon to be part of that and it it's just grisly, isn't it? Yeah. I don't know if it's meant to be somehow sexy. And, you know, again,

like I say, people in glass houses, but they are four quite frumpy young women. And, you know, he's got his arm around one of them because those are the rules. You know, if you're the top of the pops presenter,

you've got to have your arm around. Well, he's got his arm around the back of the sofa, isn't he? He's not, he's not actually touching it. but in that way, when you're at the cinema,

he's sort of yawing. Yes, he's definitely, isn't he he's not he's not actually oh yeah but in that way when you're at the cinema he's sort of your yes he's definitely isn't it but um but but the sofa itself is a bit of chekhovian foreshadowing we're going to see that sofa in use quite soon that poor woman she's probably in therapy now that whole like who's a lucky boy then i don't know about you chaps but if i was sat at a bus stop and four girls of that age sat either side of me, the first thing that's going to come into my head isn't going to be, oh, here's a stroke of luck then. You know, because nothing good can come out of this situation. And I'd be sitting there praying for the bus to come

and just hoping that no one who knows me walks by and notices me. I'd be sat there with a fucking carrier bag over my face like Ian McGregor. Yeah, I know what you mean. He then attempts to introduce the next single and fucks it up somewhat. It's Something's Missing by The Chords. Formed in London in 1977 by Billy Hassett and Martin Mason, two cousins who were Who and Beakles obsessives,

the Action were a loose collective who played youth clubs until they put an advert in the NME in early 1978 and acquired Chris Pope, a guitarist and songwriter. In 1978, they found out that there'd already been a mod band called The Action, so they changed their name to The Chords. They sent a demo tape to The Who, who were looking for bands to appear in the film version of Quadrophenia, and heard nothing back, so they placed another advert, this time

in Melody Maker, for a Keith Moon-type drummer, resulting in Buddy Haskett joining the band. In March of 1979, the chords played their first gig in a pub in Deptford and immediately attracted a following amongst the burgeoning mod revival movement. And a month later, in a pub gig in Waterloo, they were watched by Paul Weller and a few people from Polydor. And before the week was out, they were recording a demo for JP Records, the Polydor offshoot run by Jimmy Perse of Skinheads Are Magic 69. A month later, the NME introduced the mod revival to the general public in a special mod-themed issue which listed the chords alongside the likes of Secret Affair and the Purple Hearts

as the new breed. A month after that, the band not only signed a deal with JP Records and had a debut single in the can, but found themselves supporting the jam at the Rainbow, and then bagged a support slot with the Undertones, who they immediately bonded with. However, the band immediately started making that Marge Simpson noise when Percy started pushing them fully towards the mod revival and when he turned up at their gig at

Guildford Civic Hall with his new mates Steve Jones and Paul Cook and a gang of about 40 skinheads he demanded that they join the Undertones on stage for an encore then bum rushed the stage and took over nearly killing Undertones bassist Mickey Bradley when a lighting

tower collapsed and the band demanded to be freed from their ties with Purse. Back at square one and standing by while the Merton Parkers recorded the first Mod Revival single, their career was back on where they did a peel session a couple of months later, sparking managerial approaches from the managers of Sham, The Undertones and Paul Weller's dad and a label bidding war which ended when they signed to Polydor properly. Their debut single, Now It's Gone, was put out in September of 1979 and only got to number 63 but their first single of 1980, Maybe Tomorrow, made single of the week in Sounds, NME, and on Kid Jensen's Radio 1 show, and when it got to number 44 in February, they made their debut on Top of the Pops,

which kicked the single up to number 40, but no further. This single, The Follow-Up, is taken from their new and first LP, So Far Away, which comes out in a fortnight. It entered the chart last week at number 73, and this week it's jumped 16 places to number 57, but no matter, here they are in the studio. That introduction by Tommy, oh dear. Here's the chords and something called well you've got it here it is was he supposed to pause at some point you know here's something called uh you see something's missing do you know what i mean so yes yes but it's only a number 57 in the charts a fraction of the audience would have known what the song is yeah he's fluffed that one honey badly i mean i have the feeling, chaps,

that this song may have something to do with their debut performance on Top of the Pops last February, because according to the sleeve notes for the compilation CD The Mod Singles Collection, written by Chris Hunt, quote, the following night, after their Top of the Pops session, the group were in the northwest of England for a gig just outside Chesterfield. They watched their Top of the Pops session, the group were in the northwest of England for a gig just outside

Chesterfield. They watched their Top of the Pops performance with animated enthusiasm in the TV room of their hotel, but their behaviour alienated the locals in the small, family-run establishment. In the early hours of the morning, they found themselves evicted following a visit from the police who arrested one of the road crew on drugs charges for billy has it success wasn't proving to be quite what he expected we were looking at ourselves on top of the pubs and then looking around and saying that's not our life it's completely different on tv we look like stars but off it we're in this terrible B&B the feeling of disillusionment permeates this song doesn't it? They seem angry about something

but you know you look through the lyrics and you know something's missing they're saying what you know they never quite get to the point it's like in the city they fuck all they want to say to you basically perhaps I mean I'm not saying they're saying something's missing in the mod revival, but they are, in a sense, trying to distance themselves from it a little bit, I think.

Yes. With their appearance here. Yeah. The lead singer, he's wearing this kind of sort of punky leopard print furry jacket. Yeah, he looks well Generation X, doesn't he? Yeah, I mean, that's certainly not mod revival. And the drummer's wearing an Elvis t-shirt. You'd assume, wouldn't you, that that's not Generation X, doesn't it? Yeah, I mean, that's certainly not Mod Revival. And the drummer's wearing an Elvis T-shirt. You'd assume, wouldn't you, that that's not very Mod,

but it's actually based on a badge that Keith Moon was wearing on his white denim jacket. I see. I mean, visually, in terms of the way they move, that is, this is massively in hot to the Jam and the Who. But sonically, it's more of a Buzzcocks Undertones thing, which I actually don't mind. I mean, the difference is that this song, I think it's more of a Buzzcocks undertones thing, which I actually don't mind. I mean, the difference is that this song,

I think it's attempting to be anthemic in a way that those two bands weren't. Both the undertones and especially the Buzzcocks still felt like music that was kind of written in a bedroom and was the size of Pete Shelley's life ultimately, whereas this feels ambitious in a big way. And you know I hate The the who and i feel their influence is is mainly a malign one so i've always got a bit of a problem with mod revival and as much as

it seems like a revival of something that wasn't really mob in the first place you know were the who and the small faces mods or just rock bands that exploited the look of that subculture pretty soon what would actually sort of make sense much more as a revival of mod ideas two-tone is going to make all of this seem quite dated and parochial i mean they're not helped also by putting the bassist at the front of the stage like simon said there's a lot of front of the stage stuff in this episode yeah he looks like he's come halfway through the stage in some kind of malfunctioning trap door, he just looks really short. I mean, the thing is I didn't mind this, but it kind of reminded

me of, remember the 90s where a lot of also ran Britpop bands, if you like, or a lot of also ran bands, I mean, most of which I've never heard, you know? Names, Neil, come on. Oh God, well I don't know what Thousand Yard Stare or Kingmaker or Sixty Foot Dolls sound

like. I wrongly think they sound like this well there's a whole compilation has just come out of junk shop britpop god i saw that yeah it's all six cds or something who i can't remember what they sounded like but yeah i know you mean all these kind of like camden parkway good mixer kind of bands that you never actually heard just heard their name that's it and in the noughties when the chords reform and go on tour again i've read an interview where one of them says yeah it's because you know noel gallagher said that he really liked the chords i mean i'm not i'm not using that as a stick to beat them with but i am sort of actually but you know i like the song but it but it it seems big and ambitious and a bit too who flavored for my taste this appears to be a

prime example of a band who immediately get lumped into a movement, in this case the Mod Revival. And, you know, they are Mod adjacent, but they're not the Lambrettas. Yeah, well, this is what confused me when I saw this clip, because, you know, I assumed that they were ultra-generic Mod. And as Neil's pointed out, Billy Hassett, the singer,

doesn't look very mod at all he's got very uncool sort of feathery hair um he looks like he might yeah a bit cooler shaker isn't it i thought he just looks like you know a member of racy or something and um yeah and yeah that that leopard jacket that he's wearing it's as if the harrington was designed by julie goodyear and um and the drummer not only the Elvis thing I don't know if you notice he's wearing a backwards baseball hat yes he is yes now I will say that the guitarist had some nice kind of pop art graphics on his guitar which I liked yes and I think it's the bassist who's up front does have that kind of mod Julius Caesar haircut so there were elements of

mods in the way they present themselves and but there was some other stuff going on which kind of threw me a little bit and they do sound quite sham funnily enough i thought yes you know it is sort of the dregs of punk rather than yeah rather than mods i thought but the mod revival anyway was i mean it was fucking shit man it was it was worse than og 60s mod except for the jam like the jam obviously this kind of peak of the whole thing but once you fall off that peak it's a long way down yes possibly you hit secret affair halfway down who were okay but then it's a long fucking drop to the bottom just recently i was listening to some 80s playlist or other and um and the truth came on there with confusion hits us every time. Utter fucking dog shit.

Really, it's worse than I remembered it being. So I don't feel quite as kind of conciliatory towards this band or this performance as you do. But I noticed something about this which backs up my idea that Robin Nash was throwing either some money or some ideas or both at this because the backdrop behind yes these massive arrows massive fucking mod arrows made of perspex or whatever that can't be nice isn't it that could

not have been cheap either i mean it makes you wonder which other bands who played spiky pop would have been lumped into the mod revival if they hadn't come out as early as they had i mean the undertones for example yeah and you've got bands like the Vapors and the Jags who are kind of on the edge of it, really, as well. The thing is with the chords, they do that moment where just your heart sinks, where he does the Townsend windmill on his guitars, and it's pretending it.

It's play acting. I didn't mind the song, but yeah, the mob stuff, leave it out. One thing I found quite funny was when the camera pans across the backs of the heads of the audience, because I don't know if you noticed yes loads of woolly hats loads of woolly hats in the audience which tells us what's coming later yeah either that or the flumps are in the studio next door and they're on a break i don't know anyway this single i bought it silence explain yourself i bought this on the following Saturday with my birthday. I just thought, well, I'm into the jam now.

This is a bit jammy. And they're on the back page of the new Smash Hits in their new Fred Perry jumpers. Yeah, I'll have some of that. Yeah. I only played it a few times. I think it lasted about two weeks on my turntable, which was a very short time for a 12-year-old's record collection.

I like the B-side, the Tizwa's influence instrumental, This Is What They Want. Wow. But I think this is where the mob revival fell down, because people like you would have been lured on board by the jam, and you would have been looking around thinking, well, what else is there? And when you find what else is there, it's really not very good. And this is why the revival kind of fizzled out, really. Yeah, you're right,

Simon. Top of the props have done them proud with a massive arrow backdrop, but the effect that they're going for is ruined at the end with a wide shot where we can see Tommy Vance standing on the race platform with his head bowed, looking as if he's about to throw himself off it for being caught

listening to mod rubbish. He looks really solemn solemn doesn't he yes he really does so the following week despite me buying it something's missing nudged up a mere two places to number 55 then dropped right out of the chart the next week the follow-up british way of life only got to number 54 in july and after they rounded off 1980 with In My Street only getting to number 50 in October, lead singer Billy Hassett was sacked. Although they limped on through the first half of 1981, their next two singles also fell to chart, and they called it a day in September of that year.

Something's missing, and that was by the forwards, and of course absolutely nothing was, and nothing ever is when it's legs and company, especially when they're in. Vance on that platform tells us what the song was called and then insists that nothing's missing on top of the pops, especially the crumpet. but nothing's missing on top of the pops, especially the crumpet. And here they are, ready to get down to the groove by Rodney Franklin. Born in Barclay, California in 1958, Rodney Franklin started playing jazz piano from the age of six and by the age of 14 was leading a jazz funk band called In One Piece.

In 1978, he signed a deal with CBS, and this tune, the follow-up to I Like The Music Make It Hot, which failed to chart in 1978, is the lead-off single from his second LP, You'll Never Know, which came out earlier this year. Although it received little to no radio airplay, it was picked up on by the club scene of the South East, particularly by the DJ Chris Hill, who inaugurated the swing revival of the mid-70s, gave the world the singles Rent-A-Santa and Bionic Santa, and was an instrumental figure in the rise of Brit-Funk. And it was he who popularised and encouraged a dance where the jazz-funk-crazed youngsters would stand stand stock still during the silent bits in the song called The Freeze.

It's entered the chart of Fortnite to go at number 70, then soared 43 places to number 27, which earned it the honour of being the chart rundown music on top of the pops last week. And this week it's moved up six places to number 13, better call legs and company to use Vance's term. What do we talk about first chaps, the song or the performance? Song just because you know

then we can move on to the good bit. It's well fucking teletext isn't it this? It sounds also I mean obscure defunct console chat but it sounds uncannily like the music from tennis on Wii Sports. I just wanted to say that. Oh, yes.

It's very similar. I love this. Oh. I bought it at the time. Did you? Yeah, I did. It might seem strange for a 12-year-old. What a sophisticated young man you were.

Well, this is the thing. I think I've mentioned this before, that there are a few things I bought around this time that are oddly mature including After The Love Has Gone by Earth, Wind & Fire and When Will You Be Mine by Average White Band so I was clearly up for a bit of this jazz funk fusion stuff

Simon Nice yeah yeah if we were on a Zoom call right now I could show you that I'm wearing white socks as we speak, I could show you that I'm wearing white socks as we speak. I genuinely am. Lovely. So, yeah, I think partly it might have been to do with the fact that the evil Stalag boarding school that I was in had a piano.

Right. And I wasn't having lessons, but I was sort of mucking about on it, thinking maybe I would like to learn. And I ended up having lessons when i got back to wales um and this sounded like something that would be just mind-blowing to sit down and play this it's all about those stops those interruptions those caesuri that happen in the song uh which i guess uh what helps sort of lends itself to this dance craze the freeze that you you talked about do we know by the way is that the freeze that that freeze we're referring to in the song southern freeze yeah that came out in early 1981

didn't it yeah so maybe it's the same dance and i'm not sure if it's the same as voguing that madonna tried to make happen but anyway yeah i remember that um the the cutout record sleeve that it came in was very shiny black, shiny black paper, almost like PVC, which I thought was kind of cool and kind of sophisticated at the time. The thing that I've learned researching this that blew my mind is that Rodney Franklin was 21 when he made this, which is insane. To be that good at the piano,

how did you get to be that good at the age of 21? I don't know. I certainly wasn't. I packed it in by the time I was about 15. Yeah. I enjoyed it, but, yeah, main focus was was on what i was watching um indeed yes let's get this out of the way first i feel so guilty that we're doing this without taylor because this entire tableau is is it's an aventure's wet dream isn't it the set appears to be martin shaw's bachelor pad and for the dad watching, he can just sit back and imagine

that he's managed to cop off with all of Legs & Co at once and they're slinking about in his living room in their pants and some of his flouncier shirts. It's got that vibe of, you know, new girlfriend, oh, she puts her shirt on and slinks around the house in it, which is really good for a few days,

but then you start thinking, oh, I've got to fucking wash that shirt again now, thanks. It is indecent, you know, this. It's indecent. At one point, I mean, I had to loosen my collar to let a jet of steam out. It's as rude as a hot gossip routine. I would probably have left the room at the time.

And, you know, it is, yeah, like you say, it's Bodie and Doyle's living room, isn't it? They're basically in. It's missing a few things, though. Well, it's a very minimalist living room, isn't it? I mean, all there appears to be is a stupidly long and massively snaky sofa. And I have to say that as a child who had just turned 12,

my reaction to this on the night would have been less, what older am I going to give legs and co-ocene to, and more, fucking hell, look at that sofa. Imagine the bicycle kicks and somersaults I could do on that. Yeah, it's an extraordinary sofa. It is sort of snaky and curved, but it's broken up into segments like a bender in a bun at Wimpy. Yes.

It looks like it belongs in the house in a clockwork orange. Yes. And, yeah, they are making the most of that sofa, aren't they? They're rolling over backwards over the sofa, taking turns. I don't know if you noticed, there's a clash of heads at one point. Right. Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

If it was football, they'd be taken off now as a precaution against concussion. Yes. But maybe their fluffy crimped hair softened the impact. I don't know. Oh, God, yes. It's also a bit where there's a few of them behind the sofa and they're bouncing up and down like they're on a Sibian, you know, with ecstatic smiles on their faces.

And then there's a bit where they're just down behind the sofa entirely but just putting their hands up and waving like a fucking puppet show. Yeah, it would have been brilliant if they had sooty and sweep on each hand at the end that would have been perfect i mean it is a thorough exploration of everything you can possibly do on a sofa yes over the years i'm fairly sure i've achieved a lot of these positions i mean i would have liked a little bit of verite realism for the dawning of the 80s. You know, a few crisp crumbs on there, Daily Mirror TV listings, some pens, a few coins, scrunched up grundies, etc. Actually, you know, this did give me some daddisfaction. It also gave me some, what, daddisfact disappointment as well.

I was appalled when one of them, yes, started jumping up and down on it with her shoes on. Yes. Disgraceful scenes to be put into. Yeah, my mum wouldn't have approved of that. It would have been nice, coffee table maybe, tartan ice bucket. Yes. This is 1980, so it's not the 70s, so that pineapple-shaped ice bucket would have been jettisoned by now.

And, you know, I don't know about you, but when I used to sit around my home in the early 80s, I was always wondering what household items I could use as weaponry in the event of a home invasion. And there's none of that here. We had, you know, I think we mentioned it before, it's an obsession of mine, a really heavy martini ashtray.

Oh, yeah, yeah. Oh, yes. A great one that could have really done some damage and cave the head in of the leader of the imagined group of street punks who burst into the house there's none of that here because you know once you've wounded the leader the pack will retreat exactly yeah it's the best form of defense yeah if you've got legs and co using sex as a weapon here that's all there is there should be a drinks cabinet built into a globe all right

there needs to be one of them really chunky and just as deadly lighters oh yeah just basically a lighter bolted onto a curling stone yeah onyx if you're going to get really classy exactly yeah and uh yeah there needs to be a nice lacquered cigarette box full of um john player special and a decanter or two but yeah you're right it is basically this whole thing is an invitation for the dads in the audience to basically place themselves in that play a special and a decanter or two but yeah you're right it is basically this whole thing is an invitation for the dads in the audience to basically place themselves in that room yeah basically reenact that snoop dog line i got bitches in the living room getting it on and they ain't leaving till six in the morning you know that is basically the whole vibe yeah

and it has to be said like a lot of legs and co performances round about this time there's a fucking lot of knickerage on display, isn't there? Very saucy indeed. There's a standard pose where they kind of like all bend over and show the knickers, which happens on more than one occasion on Top of the Pops, as I've come to discover and not deliberately look for honest. Yeah. I mean, there's one bit where Rosé, with her hair all crimped up,

in a style that would dominate the playgrounds in 1981, she bends right over and then there's a bit of a crossfade and all of a sudden the screen is filled with knickered arse. Well, there you go. I mean, there's also that bit, there's a bit of twerking in a sense. I mean, pre-twerking twerking and a lot of jiggling about. A lot of proper jiggling as well. I was surprised, you know, some full-on dancehall style daggering

didn't start happening. Yeah. I mean, I'd forgotten how rude these routines could be, actually. Yes. This is one of the rudest ones I've seen, I think. Oh, yeah. Oh, there's worse, mate. Or better, depending on your point of view. But yeah, poor old

Tommy Vance. He was sat there with four lanky girls with flicked back hair and here's what you could have won Tommy he's not invited to the real party is he bless him not so lucky now are you mate so the following week

the groove jumped six places to number seven its highest position the follow-up in the centre failed to chart and he never darkened our charty door ever again. I wish that was my living room, never for me, Franklin, in the groove. At number 13 in the charts, and of course it was Lex and Co. Now here's Whitesnake in a Fool for Your Lovin'. I wish that was my living room, says Vance off camera as he immediately pitches us into Fall For Your Lovin' by Whitesnake.

Born in Saltburn-by-the-Sea in 1951, David Coverdale spent the late 60s and early 70s fronting local bands such as Vintage 67, The Government and The Fabulosa Brothers. 1967 The Government and the Fabulosa Brothers. In 1973, while leafing through that week's Melody Maker, he read that Deep Purple were looking for a replacement for Ian Gillan, who had fallen out with Ritchie Blackmore and wanted to quit music and go into the hotel business. Fucking hell, what is it with pop stars and the hotel business? Him and Bruce Foxton should have set up together. Seeing as he knew Deep Purple after the government had supported them in 1969,

he threw his hat into the ring and was unveiled as the new frontman at the end of the year. In 1974, Coverdell found himself leading a band that had not only put out two LPs that year, but also made his American debut in front of 200,000 people at the California Jam Festival. But his soul and funk influences were beginning to seep into the band, which pissed off Richie Blackmore no end, leading him to quit in June of 1975 after telling the band, go ahead with your shoeshine music I'm off while the remaining members of Purple were inclined to disband Coverdale encouraged them to stay together and they put out the LP Come Taste the Band but the drugs took hold of two of them diminishing sales were kicking in and when coverdale walked off in tears at the

last show of their 1976 tour and put in his resignation he was told by john lord and ian pace the last two original members that they had already decided to split the band up coverdale immediately launched a solo career teamed up with guitarist Mickey Mude, formerly of the funk rock band Snarfoo, and put out the debut LP White Snake in February of 1977. A year later, by the time his second LP Northwinds was out, he'd already formed a band named after that first LP. By 1980, he'd even recruited Lord and Pace from his old band and put out three LPs under the Whitesnake name, and this single, the follow-up to Long Way From Home, which got a number 55 in November of 1979, is the lead cut from their third LP, Ready and Willing, which comes out in three

weeks' time. Like many Whitesnake songs of the era it's about the breakup of Coverdale's first marriage and was originally written for BB King. It came out a fortnight ago, entered the charts last week at number 51 and this week it soared 21 places to number 30 and here's the first video of the night featuring the band in concert and all cheer up tommy here comes the rock yeah this is right up tommy street isn't it oh yeah firstly i feel like i should divulge a kind of close encounter that has some relevance to this um the year was 1991 i was at university in york and I was having a weekend staying at a mate's house in Scarborough

and I'd sort of done the town I was sort of goggling at the fact that at the stage door rock club I noticed members of the fuck awful little angels swanning around so I was already quite star struck on the Saturday afternoon we were tooling around the town centre before the inevitable pilgrimage to Hairy Bob's Cave

which of course it necessitated a trip to our price and i was in our price and i think i've had a public enemy t-shirt i wanted and i was in the queue and my mate who's like a serious serious metalhead he suddenly like turned really white even whiter than he was and practically trembling you know very wide-eyed and i was like you know what the hell's up with you and he started frantically darting his eyes to the guy in front of me in the queue who I hadn't really noticed. This chap was wearing a very expensive-looking leather coat, and he had a fistful of Beethoven symphonies on CD in his hand.

And my mate informed me it was David Coverdale. No! Yes, indeed. In our price? In our price in Scarborough. Fucking hell. And, I mean, I must admit, I really couldn't give a shit at the time. Because by then, I mean, Whitesnake had had their big monstrous hits.

Yeah. And they were firmly, in my head at least, I was a Sepultura Metallica head. Whitesnake were everything that was wrong with metal, you know, for me. That encounter was only topped by the way a year later when i stood behind sky blue legend peter unlove in the q um ball hill kfc in coventry he got himself a three-piece chicken meal and a diet coke by the way i'll never forget that um yeah yeah i was close to cover there but i mean at this point in white snakes trajectory they're way more of a blues rock thing.

And they're hugely, hugely dated, even in 1980. Right. They're sort of feeding off the extra energy that the Wobberham has brought to heavy rock. Yes. And the Wobberham, unlike punk, it never sought to kind of slay the old heroes. You know, it never dissed the old bands. But this is pretty awful, man. This song. it never dissed the old bands but this is this is pretty awful man um this song um basically because of i think because the cover dale unlike those other front men that leave big bands he's not really sufficient enough of a visionary um not to talk about fire and ice like derrick smalls or

something but to sustain himself you know gillan goes off and does gillan ronnie james dio is left rainbow by now. He's just about to drop Heaven and Hell with Sabbaths, one of their best albums. Ozzy is about to drop Blizzard of Oz, which has got some of his biggest solo tunes on it. Coverdale here, he's really reconvening Deep Purple without the crazy egotist who made it interesting,

i.e. Richie Blackmore, and doing this rather dull blues rock, much as he did with the cover of Ain't No Love in the Heart of the City. Ian Pace and John Lord have been recruited by Coverdale, and the band aren't overly happy about that. I think, is it the bass player, Bernie Marsden? He starts wearing a subtly adapted T-shirt, like John Lydon's Pink Floyd one.

It's a deep purple T-shirt that says, No, I wasn't in deep fucking purple. It must have been good for Coverdale, though, to fucking turn the tables and say, oh, you're not doing very well at the minute, lads. Tell you what, why don't you join my band, seeing as you kicked me out of yours? It's a very Coverdale move.

I think he inherited a lot of egotism from Richie Blackmore. But unlike Richie, richie blackmore's kind of hilarious whereas coverdale often isn't oh i don't know about that his appearance in rock family trees is fucking amazing yeah yeah yeah but but the sheer turnover in whitesnake in the band i mean you know they go through like nine different lineups in the subsequent decade you know shedding the skin well coverdale's inherited that kind of ego and bossiness i think from blackmore um you know i mean richie blackmore famously forced dio to sing romantic songs and coverdale to sing about mystical stuff when he was in purple but i think coverdale's actually perhaps even a bit more arrogant and brutal than

richie blackmore was you know he fires marsston and moody because they're not taking it seriously enough in a few years he starts quite soon after this being heavily influenced by his new manager john kolodner who's who john kolodner is an interesting figure he's kind of ex-music journalist and photographer becomes one of the most brutal a and r people at gethin he signs Asia and White Zombie and Madness and all sorts of bands. And Peter Gabriel and Phil Collins, he claims that he signs ACDC. But when he gets involved with Coverdale in a few years, he encourages him to absolutely start dominating Whitesnake.

I mean, later on, like the keyboardist Mel Galley, that I think we see in his video, you know, he has a horrible injury, breaks his arm, has this metal thing put in his hand to enable him to play and and it's true that when coverdale saw this he said you can't play a white snake with that on you'll look like a spastic this is what covered says to him you know it's very hard to find anyone with a good word to say about coverdale he's kind of pompous about what he does with very little self-deprecation or humor um i was reading a sounds piece actually from 78 and he says in this you know the quotes are

unbelievable i mean he says you know it seems the media become alienated from my music which comes from the heart they call it heavy metal not even human not even flesh and blood and he keeps that pomposity up i mean even by 2008 he's still up his own ass massively he says about ex-band members moaning about him he says sometimes i just felt it necessary to redecorate the house of snake oh and i read a brilliant interview actually by gavin martin i think it was in the enemy 81 ish uh where you know he's asked about his r&b influences he says i find colored boys seem to be able to come out the closet easier and sing exactly what they're thinking about rather than do a cosmetic job like you spanned

out ballet yes ever since i was knee high to a chinese waiter i've been listening to r&b because coverdell rapidly builds up a sort of reputation as being almost a laughable kind of cock rock figure and quite sexist in his lyrics. You know, he says a lot of the songs that have been called blatantly sexist are about my daughter, which is a bit Trump-banker-ish. Yeah, he said,

I did a song called Girl, which went, you treat me like a dog and I shake my tail for you because she's the only girl who ever had me on all fours doing impressions of horses um he says it's better than bottling up i never pretended to be a sperm bank um there's a lot of tunes where the male is dominant which the fucking female militant journalists pick up on i'm just writing about it if i was a faggot i'd write

about geezers but i'm not um and then his politics come out actually in this interview sorry to keep on coming i mean he says he's asked about you know his distance in a sense from his roots and he says i bust my bollocks what i do i get paid for it incredibly well paid for it but it's 24 hours a day 52 years weeks of the year non-stop a lot of people want something for nothing in this country and he's asked about thatcher and he says the closest thing we've got to churchill in that she can unify the country but she's got front and leadership and i would probably be in the young conservatives so yeah i have problems with cover down which isn't helped

by this song because i find this song pretty dull, to be honest with you, and I wish he would have just left it for B.B. King today. We're going to see a lot of denim and leather in the back half of this episode, because 1980 is the year of both the new wave of British heavy metal and the return of some rock dinosaurs. Why is that? Ooh, well, I mean, Nawabaham needed to kick up the arse of punk, I would say. It's starting to get discovered.

It's starting to get covered in the press more. And, you know, it's definitely the year where it comes across, hits the charts with the bands that we're actually going to see soon in this episode. In terms of the old dinosaurs coming back, I just think it's part of the cycle. They've kind of, they've had their 70s flair at moments. It's all fallen apart thanks to drugs and ego and they now just want back in so you hear gillan making music you hear coverdale making music with white snake ronnie james dio is back with sabbath ozzy's gone solo these big big names just as perhaps the biggest name led zeppelin are falling apart

are coming back with new stuff and and that's that's the sort of reason why simon were the grabs starting to surface at your school round about this time not many before i go any further i've just got to say california jam festival i hate sebastian co if you know you know um yeah there weren't metallers, but my best mate was one. I've mentioned this before. My best mate and my next-door neighbour, Andrew Rapousis. Hello, Andrew. The executioner of Action Man.

The executioner of Action Man, yeah. And I would hear this crap while playing Subutio, and I grudgingly grew to enjoy a lot of it by osmosis. And the same thing happened for him in reverse with Two-Tone when he came round my house. And I saw white snake live with andrew at cardiff st david's hall on the 7th of march 1984 because i got free tickets off my dad right um and we were right down the front by david coverdale's thrusting crotch and and and to give you an idea of what a Whitesnake gig was like at that time, I actually consulted Setlist FM to refresh my memory

and it tells me that the seventh song was called Keyboard Solo, John Lord. The eighth song was called Drum Solo, Cozy Powell. That's the seventh and eighth tracks of the gig, for fuck's sake. The album they were promoting at that time was called slide it in of course it was yes yeah yeah um the not even slightly cryptic title track of which goes i'm gonna slide it in right to the top slide it in i ain't never gonna stop slide it in right to the top i'm gonna slide it in slide it in um so yeah i mean he had he had previous for this of course

uh you mentioned his um 1977 solo album white snake which as you say eventually gave the band its name the title track from that goes got a white snake mama you want to shake it mama got a white snake mama come and let it crawl on you just enough to see you through and there's a load of snigger some stuff about a backdoor man like you know you through. And there's a load of sniggersome stuff about a backdoor man, like, you know, like Led Zeppelin's Whole Lotta Love

and indeed all the blues songs that Led Zeppelin ripped off. Yeah, I mean, White Snake might as well have been called David Coverdale's Lovely Cock. Well, exactly right.

The sleeve of Slide It In had an actual snake writhing down a woman's cleavage, like a real-life spinal tap sleeve, which makes me convinced that White Snake must have been one of the many inspirations, along with another band we're coming to later. And he had previous for that as well, in terms of artwork. The 1979 White Snake album, Love Hunter,

it had fantasy art by Chris Achilleos of a naked woman straddling a massive snake yes it's like it's like dave we get it you've got a large penis you know i mean the cover of this single is a belt coiling like a snake right with the buckle being all fanger he calls himself a swordsman doesn't he does he's a thing he says he says on state he's famously said on stage, times are hard for a swordsman such as I. The thing is, until literally five minutes ago, I found David Coverdale very likeable because I didn't know all that stuff that Neil's just told us. I didn't.

And for all that kind of unreconstructed chauvinism and cock swinging that I mentioned, I did find him strangely likeable. He's no Ian Gillan, but he was still somebody I would like to have had a pint with. Yes. I thought he had that kind of agreeable suaveness, like a kind of James Bond with the hair of a King Charles Spaniel.

And a friend of the show, Richard Ogood, once said that all he wanted was for... Hail Richard. He said that all he wanted was for David Coverdale to call him Ricardo. And I get that. Yes. Like he called Richie Blackmore.

Is that right? Yeah, right. Yeah, yeah. In Rock Family Trees. Right, yeah, yeah, yeah. The Deep Purple one's fucking brilliant. And David Coverdale, he's so fucking effective. There's something about rock stars from the Northeast.

They just put it on big style, like Brian Ferry and Sting. I want my heavy metal front men to be ridiculous. Yeah, completely. I think that's kind of the deal. My dad actually interviewed David Coverdale for CBC Radio in Cardiff. Oh, did he now? Yeah, that's how I got the gig tickets.

And I think my dad was expecting this kind of spaniel-haired dumbo. But they actually got on really well and they just talked about blues all night because as you mentioned that is where he was coming from Coverdale I can only imagine they didn't talk politics because my dad's a massive lefty you know

but Fool For Your Lovin' is one long blues trope about a woman who's done him wrong isn't it you know yes so it's a different kind of sexism here from the tits and serpents variety. It's basically the old women, eh? You just can't trust them.

The posh grebs from the nicest day are not quite surfacing in our school just yet, but they wouldn't be far off. And it was pretty obvious that, along with Rainbow and REO Speedwagon and fucking Styx, Whitesnake was seen as very much a girl's band you know what i mean you didn't see many white snake patches on a lad's denim jacket but on a girl's arse on her jeans yeah there'd be that coily snake interesting well what simon said about

his experience of seeing white snake live that is why you know the wobham was exciting i think to young rock fans because there were no solos. There were no sort of 70-minute drum solos with that kind of nod to the blues rock of the early 70s. In fact, bands deliberately set out not to jam and not to do solos and were far more influenced by glam and stuff.

So, yeah, that's why Nawabahum was exciting to a lot of kids, precisely because it wasn't as self-indulgent as Whitesnake. And look, I find David Coverdale hilarious and i want my rock stars to be hilarious the politics thing yeah it did kind of put me off him a little bit because i wasn't aware of that before but if we're gonna have you know these these leonine rock gods let them be as preposterous as coverdown i mean this single and the video demonstrates what a girls band Whitesnake were. You know, melodic band, not unattractive.

And yes, Leonine Frontman. And loads of songs about crying over women who's done David Coverdale wrong. And hard-loving women in particular. Have you ever encountered a hard-loving woman, by the way? I mean, yeah, probably. Yeah, I have. Because I haven't written songs about it. Odd going, man.

She was a nightclub bouncer in London and she ended up giving me a nerve pinch on the neck and frog marched me into a cab so she could give it to me all night long. And her idea of foreplay was to bite chunks out of me lip and ask me if I've ever had a go at cock and ball torture. I told her I'd thought about it, but I just couldn't get past the torture bit.

You know what I mean? Cock and ball messing about with and having a laugh with. I'm all for that. Torture, not so much. But the video, it's your standard rock trope of, you know, the band miming live in concert intercut with a crowd head banging away yeah i mean you call him leonine and hair wise i guess he is but his nose is aquiline that's a hell of an evil bleep he's got going on there you notice it when he throws

his head back in anguish you know and yes yeah it's classic cock rock isn't it he stands with his legs apart in that george osborne theresa may tory power stance and yes uh the the lighting rig is very of that era it's that standard heavy metal rig of two banks of red yellow and blue spots and uh line it wise you've got yeah you've got ian pace on drums wearing a bucket hat for fuck's sake yes right you've got it's like fucking renny his dad, isn't he? I know. And you've got the aforementioned John Lord on keyboard. So it is basically Deep Purple minus Ritchie Blackmore.

And of course, yeah, he only left Purple because he didn't get along with Ritchie Blackmore. Seems like nobody gets along with Ritchie Blackmore. No, no, no. No, that's why I left. But the mere mention of this slot and Pete Frame is sharpening his pencil and getting his ruler out, isn't he?

Because the whole Deep Purple diaspora is insanely incestuous. There's that convoluted family tree of Whitesnake, Rainbow, Gillen and Sabath. And each branch of that tree had its moments, I think. I mean, it ought to go without saying that Here I Go Again is an absolute fist in the air monster. Here I Go Again is an absolute fist-in-the-air monster, specifically the 1986 version with his future wife, Tawny Kitane, writhing around on a car bonnet in the video. My favourite thing I found, though, while reading up on Whitesnake for this was this sentence on the Wikipedia entry.

Coverdale is known in particular for his powerful, blues-tinged voice as well as his vibrant, caring and loving stage persona. Vibrant, caring and loving. I mean, I don't know who wrote that, but I'll be a fool for your vibrant, caring, loving no more, David Coverdale. Fucking hell. It's mad, actually, that John Lord's in this band.

I mean, John Lord's going to turn 40 next year, you know, in 81. John Lord's locking on so seeing him on stage with him and what is ian pace wearing um he never he never dressed like that in purple and i know purple was a long time before this but i don't know what look he's aiming for at all there but i think it's telling it's not all denim and leather that's the thing it's this kind of allman Brothers band kind of look almost. There's a sort of Southern rock feel to it. And I think that reveals the influences behind the band as well.

Yeah, I mean, the band, apart from Coverdown, they look fucking old and tubby, don't they? But the one thing that did excite me, did you notice the guitarist and his red sweatshirt? No. He's got a slogan on his T-shirt. Here comes. And the rest is obscured by his guitar so you can imagine my feelings on i'm looking at this but sadly i looked at the bits of the video

that top of the pops cut away from and disappointingly the obscured word is trouble right and of course as mentioned in a previous chart music, Slade really nicked off this for Lock Up Your Daughters didn't they? Yeah I think you're right Anything else to say? Oh just one last quote from Dave he's asked about Prince Oh god where's this going?

Oh fuck me He goes, the coloured chappy from Michigan Oh no and then he says it's all a bit too nice for me. You've got to remember, I was weaned on Sly and the Family Stone, Jimmy Brown and all that. Nothing stands up to it nowadays. So there you go.

So the following week, Fall For Your Loving jumped nine places to number 21. And two weeks later, it got to number 13, its highest position. The follow-up, Ready and Willing, got to number 43 in July of 1980, but they'd roar back in 1981 when Don't Break My Heart Again got to number 17 in May of 1981. And they'd have seven more top 40 hits throughout the 80s,

including top ten places for Is This Love? And Here I Go Again in 1987. Rock! No more, I'll be the fool for your love and no more. It's also nice to see some heavy music back on the charts. They've covered out along with White Stock and a song called Foo Fee Love. It's also nice to reintroduce this man to our country, Mr. Jimmy Ruffin. Vance, nodding sagely, says, ooh, nice to see heavy music back in the charts. Then he tells us what else he thinks is nice The return of Jimmy Ruffin with Hold On To My Love

Born in Collinsville, Mississippi in 1936 Jimmy Ruffin was the son of a sharecropper Who was a member of the gospel group The Singing Nightingales With his little brother David In 1961, he linked up with Motown as a session singer, only to have his career interrupted by the draft. When he got out of the army in 1964, he was offered Elbridge Bryant's spot in The Temptations,

but recommended his brother to Barry Gordy instead, saying that he looked more like a temptation than he did, Gordy instead, saying that he looked more like a temptation than he did, and continued to record as a solo artist for the Motown subsidiary, Soul. In 1966, he got wind of a song which had been demoed for the Detroit Spinners, and begged the songwriters to let him bagsy it. When they did, the single, What Becomes of the Broken Hearteded got to number seven in america and number eight over here in the first week of 1967 the success of that single set him up to become one of the most prominent motown artists of the 60s in the uk which peaked in 1970 when he scored a pile of top 10 hits with Farewell is a Lonely Sand, I'll Stay Forever My Love and It's Wonderful and he resurfaced in 1974 with a re-release of What Becomes of the Broken

Hearted getting to number four in August of that year. By then he'd already left Motown and put out two LPs for Polydor which were only released in the UK and failed to chart, and he spent the late 70s in the wilderness until he was picked up by RSO Records last year. This is the follow-up to Falling In Love With You, which failed to chart in 1977, and it's the lead-off cut from his 11th LP Sunrise which came out last November and was produced and written by Robin Gibb with songwriting assistance from Blue Weaver formerly of Amen Corner and The Straubs. It's entered the chart this week at number 36 and here's the man himself in the studio for the first time since September of 1971

having a lend of Tommy Vance's Observation Tower. It's been a good year for Motown acts in the British charts, hasn't it? I mean, the Detroit Spin has got to number one last month, still at number seven in the charts. The Jacksons are about to roar back with a triumph LP. Marvin Gaye's back on tour. Stevie Wonder's getting hotter than July Reddit. And here's Jimmy Ruffin,

who had far more success over in the UK than he did in America, seemingly on the comeback trail. Yeah, it's interesting that the cycle of nostalgia was a lot quicker in those days. And it did feel around this time that there was a kind of wave of fondness for 60s Motown.

And, you know, it's only 10 years in the past. What becomes the Broken Hearted becoming a hit twice? I mean, twice isn't enough. No. Because I've just got to say, that is one of the small handful of songs that when you're hearing it, you are thinking, OK, this is obviously the greatest record ever made. You know, it's one of those that's got that power. And I actually saw Jimmy Ruffin at Hammersmith in 2009,

and it was part of some kind of tawdry David Guest package show with millions of singers just coming on, doing a couple of songs. But even in that kind of context, Jimmy Ruffin doing his greatest hit still had that power to send shoes down my spine. It's incredible. This song, though, I mean, it's slight but pleasant. I haven't heard it, honestly, in 40 years.

I know. But I could sing it in my head as soon as I saw the title written down. What I didn't realise at the time is what you said, is that it's basically a Bee Gees record. The album it came from, Sunrise, had the Bee Gees hands all over it. Robin Gibb co-produced it and co-wrote this song. Barry and Morris turn up as songwriters and backing vocals elsewhere. They're members of the Bee Gees' live backing band on several of the tracks.

And as you say, it's on RSO, which of course was the Bee Gees' label at that time. But that itself was kind of a contentious issue. Right. Because this very year, 1980, the Bee Gees filed 200 million dollar lawsuit against RSO and the owner and manager Robert Stigwood claiming mismanagement now a bit of context for that this was the aftermath of that disastrous Sergeant Pepper move that they made in 1979 and Stigwood basically issued a 3310 million counter suit alleging libel and defamation of character, an extortion.

So they settled out of court for an undisclosed sum and patched up their differences, which is bizarre. So there's that connection, the whole Bee Gees thing. There is, as you say, a Cardiff connection because Blue Weaver, the co-writer on this song, plays keyboards as well, is from Cardiff. And also Dennis Bryan on drums. He was another former

member of Amen Corner. So it's a half Welsh record. Basically, if there was a sole World Cup, this song would qualify for the Wales squad. But the thing with it is, despite the pedigree of the musicians involved, the Bee Gees and the Welsh lot, and of course the Motown

background of Jimmy himself, the production on this single the Welsh lot, and, of course, the Motown backgrounds of Jimmy himself. The production on this single sounds really cheap and toy-like to me. And it's a real contrast with Jimmy Ruffin's musical past. I went on a bit of a voyage of soul vinyl rediscovery during lockdown. I was just digging dusty old LPs out of my collection, stuff that I'd acquired but never played. And one of them was I Am My Brother's Keeper by the Ruffin Brothers, so David and Jimmy together.

And that's from 1970. And the standout track from that being the bridge suicide heartbreaker, Got to See If I Can't Get Mommy to Come Back Home. Oh, that title, fucking hell. But the production on that, 1970, as you'd expect, peak Motown, the the production on that um 1970 as you'd expect peak motown the funk brothers on fire yeah and then 10 years later jimmy sounds like this and i i did wonder if it's

one of those things that we've seen before on top of the pops where a soul singer gets screwed over by the top of the pops orchestra no i'm about 80 sure that this is the top of the pops orchestra because on the original there's some bells and you can't really hear them on this performance. And the backing singers are definitely different. And I believe they are the Maggie Streder singers who took over from the Ladybirds in 1977. And Jimmy's singing live, I believe, because he does a few bits at the beginning,

you know, like singers do on top of the Pops to prove that they're singing live. You might be right. I played them on A and B back to back and the only difference I could make out was just the speed of it. So in that case, if it was the orchestra, then they didn't do them a disservice.

It really does sound that cheap. I don't know. It sounds dated, perhaps deliberately so. Yes. You know, that they're aiming for something like that, for that kind of sound and he's definitely singing live here because he sounds rough at times he sounds slightly hanging whilst you know dressed in this kind of Giacomo shirt that's far too big for him

oh yes would you call that Hawaiian shirt it's a little bit too tasteful for an Hawaiian shirt in 1980 not quite Hawaiian no no more of a hawaiian tabard perhaps yeah and i sort of don't like the fact that jimmy's stranded up on that platform away from the kids yeah he looks lowly doesn't he well he is isn't it yeah he's far too high up i don't know why they did that what's that song called simon someone try and bring jimmy back from the observation tower his feet are obscured by dry ice as well so you can't even see it's like he's just sort of floating there yeah he's doing his best and he's giving it the air grabs and he's trying to deliver it but yeah i don't know i i

just think it was it's nice to see a genuine motown star on british tv that in itself would have i imagine at the time had a bit of a novelty factor to it yes he was a bit like edwin star in that respect um and a bit like Geno Washington, although, of course, Geno wasn't on Motown, in the sense that he came over here for quite a while and made his living in the UK, Jimmy Ruffin. So I think because of that, he looms disproportionately large

in the imagination of British soul fans. But he hadn't had a hit for a while when this came out. But around this time as you say at the turn of the 80s there seemed to be this wave of nostalgia and affection and fondness for these old Motown acts so you had the Detroit Spinners reaching number one with Working My Way Back To You this year and then the following year 81 you've got the Four Tops having a big hit with When She Was My Girl yes and in the middle you got this. And it's interesting that in all cases, they're not trying to reinvent themselves.

They're not, you know, it's not like somebody like Jermaine Jackson going for quite a sort of modern funk sound with his material around this time and Michael as well. But with these acts, they're very much harking back to the golden age. Yes. It's not a classic, this, but you sort of don't begrudge the three minutes of your time that it takes up i think

no it's proper chicken in a basket disco soul but it's it's grade a poultry meat and it's a well crafted basket but you know it doesn't taste like soul food but it'll do for us british cunts indeed in the heart of the midlands yeah and his voice is always just wonderful to listen to especially yes which is why i don't know why he's up on that platform like he's got a restriction order on him or something very odd so the following week hold on to my love soared 22 places to number 14 and a week later it got to number seven its highest position the follow-up night of love failed to chart and he never did again, although in 1984 he was recruited by Paul Weller for the Council Collective to chip in with the single

Soul Deep Part One, the benefit single for the minors, which got to number 24 in December of that year, and he died in 2014 at the age of 78 now we play to you some David Coverdale. Let's play you some heavy music by a newish band. This is Saxon. They're well in the charts with Wheels of Steel. As the camera dollies back from Jimmy Ruffin, grinding out the last of Hold On To My Love, we see Vance overseeing a gaggle of the kids and mumbling about the last song that I couldn't quite catch, Soz. He then tells us that we've had some David Coverdale,

soz he then tells us that we've had some david coverdale and now it's time for some metal from a newish band who are well in the charts as some girl off camera giggles he introduces wheels of steel by saxon formed in barnesley in 1975 son of a bitch played the yorkshire rock circuit in the mid 70s with a drummer called frank gill a former member of the glitter band changing their name to saxon in the summer of 1978 when they signed a deal with career records in france they supported motorhead and gillan and put out their eponymous debut LP in 1979. This single, the follow-up to Backs to the Wall, which failed to chart, is the lead-off cut from their new album of the same name, which got to number 5 in the LP charts last month, and is currently at number 13. It came out in mid-March, entered the chart at number 66, soared 25 places to number 41, and just when it looked like it would go over the top, it dropped four places to number 45.

But the week after that, it rallied and entered the chart at number 37, and they were rewarded with a slot on top of the Pops. rewarded with a slot on top of the pops after climbing 12 places to number 25 it dropped to number 28 but this week it's jumped eight places to number 20 they're midway through their first headlining tour of the uk at the moment and are about to knock the crowd out at checkers in barnstable this evening so here's another chance to see that performance from three weeks ago chaps i've got a feeling that a lot is going to be said about saxon and this performance but before we do that just to set things in context here's an article in music week from a fortnight ago which tells a tale or two it reads reads, Heavy Metal hitting back with a bang! Heavy Metal music is enjoying its biggest boom for years

with albums selling apace and concerts selling out all across the country. Often written off as a minority music of interest only to mindless headbangers, Heavy Metal is now providing a lifeline for the industry. Along the established names such as Status Quo, Ted Nugent, Rainbow, ACDC and Rush, a new generation of bands are making their impact on the UK market.

on the UK market. Saxon, Iron Maiden, Girl, Sammy Hagar, April Wine, Riot, Crocus, Def Leppard and a host of aspiring HM bands are shifting vinyl and selling out hauls. Last week, Saxon's album Wheels of Steel went straight into the Music Week album chart at number 10 with no big promotion or TV advertising. Careers A&R manager Peter Hinton comments, We signed Saxon two years ago when the UK company was first formed. They were our first UK signing and it came as quite a culture shock when I first saw them performing in Sheffield as it was in the middle of the punk boom. Phonogram product manager Alan Phillips is not surprised by the current interest in heavy metal music. I think the real reason for the popularity of heavy metal music is that if you

get into the music as a kid then you stay with it as you get older unlike more fashionable styles of music think a bit of a nail on head situation there isn't there there's going to be a lot of old fuckers listening to this sort of stuff and a lot of kids as well yeah it's not because career the record label they originally wanted saxon to be called anglo-saxon right which the band didn't go along with like the uk saxon gb it's a great name though isn't it because like all the best heavy metal names you can't just call them saxon it's got to be saxon well tommy really gives it some doesn't he it's like scorpions i mean bless him it's it's nice for tom i feel happy for tomm for Tommy by this point in the show.

We've had Whitesnake. Now we've got Saxon, and he's going on about how it's good to see some heavy music back in the charts. And then he gives it the full Tommy, doesn't he, on wheels. He goes, wheels of steel. I mean, you sort of imagine he's got, if not a boner, then at least the stirrings of a semi going on by this point they are the one band on the show so far who definitely aren't wearing saxons saxon yeah i know that their legs shocking isn't their

legs are as straight as their sexuality no question about it but um yeah he describes them as a newish band and and they were um but they i think they were not quite the first Newobham band I was aware of because Running Free by Iron Maiden came out in February 1980. That was a hit and I remember that. But in terms of Saxon being new-ish, here's how quickly music moved in the olden days. Saxon released four albums in their first two years and there were just four months between the second and third album,

both released in 1980 right and the title track of the fourth album which was denim and leather from 1981 is nostalgic for 1979 yes right it goes where were you in 79 when the dam began to burst did you check us out down at the local show right and their their fans are probably thinking of course i remember it's only two years ago i haven't even changed my underpants since then being metal cheap digger metal is there i'm just going to say that it feels like a very south yorkshire thing the the new wave of british heavy metal what with sax and a deaf leopard um you've got that whole connection with heavy industry and metal anyway um yes, Black Sabbath being from the West Midlands, and that's where it all begins. And also places like the North East and the Welsh Valleys

being real heartlands of metal fandom. Saxon, as you say, from Barnsley. In terms of Barnsley icons, there's basically Michael Parkinson, you've got Brian Glover, Arthur Scargill and Biff Byford. He's right up there. Have you looked into his life before Saxon? It's unbelievably grim.

His mother died when he was 11. His violent alcoholic father first of all lost an arm in an industrial accident and then died when Biff was 13. And then Biff got his girlfriend pregnant when he was 15 um i mean fucking hell then uh he he works in the coal industry but he was told he was too tall to go down the mines so they kind of put him in the pump house or something could

have got a job as a prop yeah yeah right exactly so when when you know that stuff you sort of wish him well you sort of think it may not be my kind of music but fair fucks to you you know that stuff, you sort of wish him well. You sort of think, it may not be my kind of music, but fair fucks to you. He seems like a likeable doofus, which you often get with heavy metal bands. Do you know what I mean? Yeah, that's absolutely part of the appeal of Saxon. The northernness is a big part of it.

I mean, the slight humour. And there's a moustache on stage here that's very Seth Armstrong, isn't it? Yes, yeah. We'll come to that later. But before we go any further, Neil, can you provide a casting vote? Because Simon just called the lead singer Biff Byford, and I always assumed it was Biff Bifford. What is it?

I think it's Bifford, you know. Although it is spelt Byford. But yeah, I think it's Biff Bifford. I mean, because, you know, that trend of 80s metal singers having names that were just daft and sounded like wrestler's names. Yes, yes. Biff Bifford sounds like the mortal enemy of Roger the Dodger

and he's going to give them an absolute bashing after school for conning a bag of sweets out of him. I'm sticking with Byford only because that's how it's pronounced in a little bit of documentary footage, which I'm going to allude to later. Oh, OK. I'm right. OK. But, yeah, you're right.

Saxon, like all heavy metal bands of this era, well, most of them anyway, they all look like grafters. They look like they've just come off the lathe and put a guitar on. You've seen the um judas priest documentary haven't you um dream deceivers about their trial in america yeah yeah and there's a scene where they're all standing there waiting for the verdict and they all look like a a load of miners that got involved in a fishing weekend that's gone horribly wrong you know what i mean and and to bands like this you know top of the

pops is hugely important yes um and and it's not just usually important in a promotional sense they've had their minds blown by sweet and bowie and all of that in the early 70s so they they make a show yeah of being on top of the pops and fuck what a sight we get here yes i mean also thanks to the the stage again you know um i think the production values on this show like simon mentioned are occasionally spot on those big spiral circles within circles that are above the band yes um even if they look a state and it's a great state a massive stack of amps even though there's no need for them oh yeah like the stone roses doing falls gold but yeah i mean it it's a perfect stage set for him yes and a signifier of that massive crossover though there's no need for them. Oh, yeah. Like the Stone Roses doing Fool's Gold.

Yeah, I mean, it's a perfect stage set for them. Yes. And a signifier of that massive crossover, really, between glam, and you mentioned the Glitter Band connection, that kind of connection between glam and gayness and campness and the Wobboham at this point. Yeah, the way they're set out on stage is odd. Yeah. Because you've got Pete Gill, the drummer, up front,

and this is a recurring theme, isn't it? gill the drummer up front and this is this is a recurring theme isn't it it's the drummers to the front episode of top of the box i was uh complaining before or mocking uh ian pace for wearing a fucking bucket hat your man from saxon here he's wearing a saxon t-shirt which is so uncool you're not meant to do that having said that i am wearing a pop crazed youngster t-shirt so so i i shouldn't cast the first stone possibly a few other visual observations before we get to the main one which i know you're dying to talk about um the the guitarist um i'm not sure if it's paul quinn or graham oliver because they're two guitarists but one of them's playing a gibson flying v of course he is because that

was the fucking metal guitar at that time and he's wearing tiger print leggings and again i can't laugh because i've got those exact leggings so basically i am a member of saxon and then you've got biff at the back and it's like it's like a school photo where the tall kids get sent to the back of the row you know what i mean but this song chaps i was absolutely shocked to discover that they're singing about a car instead of a motorbike. Yeah. It's Grease Lightning for Grebo, isn't it? Yeah.

And it's forced me into comparing and contrasting with the other big car song of the 80s, You Need Wheels by the Merton Parkers. So what we know about Saxon's car is it's a 68 Chevy with pipes on the sides. Yeah, right. In Barnsley. it runs on aviation fuel it goes up to 140 miles an hour and more it's capable of blowing away a transam from a standing start it helps biff bifford slash byford take no jive from the motorway pigs, and has wheels of steel, which is a bit fucking thick, really, because you can just imagine all the sparks flying up

and people going, oh, fucking hell, here's Saxon again. He's talking about his rims, man. This is proto-hip-hop. Yeah, because to me, wheels of steel is always Grandmaster Flash and the wheels of steel. You know what I mean? Don't forget that on the album Wheels of Steel, there is a song called Motorcycle Man.

So they do have the biker angle. Oh, yes. Oh, yes. We'll get to that in a minute, Neil. But the Merton Parkers car, it's a low slung sports car finished in red. It's guaranteed 100 miles from nothing dead. It's got heated windscreens front and rear. All the latest things.

It even pours you a beer. There's a seven-band radio stereogram. There's only one previous owner, but he was a stuntman. Value, £500 now, and the rest next week. Which one of those two is appealing to you, chaps? Well, to be honest with you, both of those descriptions, as a dad and a buyer of cars in my past well yeah where's the talk about reliability affordability parts what's the mileage here you know what both of those songs are lacking is you know it ain't

no shit you'll be getting lots of tit yes you know that i ain't bragging it's a real pussy wagon yeah it's funny you mentioned that you assumed wheels of steel was about a motorbike because i assumed you need wheels by merton parkers was about a lambretta exactly a 68 chevy the pipes on the side what on the a628 yes i don't believe you i don't believe you but yeah they were obsessed with the biker thing because as well as that track you mentioned from the same album, on the first Saxon album, there's a track called Stallions of the Highway, which is about being a biker.

So yeah, it's kind of upgraded, I suppose, from two wheels to four. I mean, Saxon at the moment, they do have an American car that they go about on tour with. Oh, like the KLS? Yes, yeah, but it's an automobile 99. Yeah. What a shame it wasn't a 98 automobile. They could have aligned

with Public Enemy. Bring the noise with Public Enemy and Saxon. Oh yeah. Would have been miles better than fucking Anthrax. I hate that song.

I love it. But I mean the thing is with this song you can tell immediately this is the Wobboham. You can immediately tell the difference between this

and those dinosaurs that we've already seen like like covered ale and white yes saxon had a few rules when they were starting or that bifford used to talk about no covers that was an important one for that and no jamming right um you know he said in an interview that we want everything to build to a crescendo all the time. By the way, in the same interview from Sounds in 79, the bassist Steve says, At the end of most gigs, I want to throw my arms wide and say to the audience, I love you. Thanks for letting me play.

I'd open my bowels for them. Nawabaham. And his bowels on them, yeah. Yeah, I mean, partly here here you could say that that kind of no covers no jamming policy that's kind of

slightly the influence of punk but I actually think the influence here massively as we see a lot in the Wobbam is ACDC

there's a lot of ACDC-alikes around in this period from Saxon themselves to as you mentioned the Swiss band Crocus yes

Crocus fucking hell Long Stick Go Boom by Crocus. Yes. Crocus, fucking hell. Long Stick Go Boom by Crocus is one of the best ACDC sort of rip-offs ever. Right. But Crocus, fuck it, because they did a song called Smelly Nelly, which is literally, honestly, I'm not, you know, just Google the lyrics. Don't listen to it. Video playlist, everyone.

It's one of the most unpleasant songs ever. It's a horrible, hateful song. But anyway, you get that mix of ACDC, also a bit of glam rock, the northernness that we've mentioned. They're not po-faced. No. Or pretty, to be honest with you. No.

You know, and they're like a lot of these bands. They're having a laugh at the moment. Paul Quinn, the guitarist, is just late 79. He's got his cock and balls out on stage at the Sunderland Locarno, and the bouncer puts an axe through their bat line. You know, the guitarist Paul Quinn, at this point, has one of those rotating things to spin his guitar. Yes.

Oh, yeah. And he often smacks himself in the mouth. And like Simon said, yeah paul quinn i think it is paul quinn who's got the the the leopard print spandex on in this performance i particularly like the fact that most people's legs are wide apart yes um but but quinn doesn't he has he kind of stepped it reminds me massively of once i was told i was watching metallica live and i was told i was watching metallica live and i was told by their press officer you've got to go behind the stage to watch him because when you watch what lars or rick's doing it's amazing right so i'm i was standing backstage watching him

doing his double kick drum stuff and immediately the only thing i could think of was you know you know whenever sooty ran you know what i mean whenever sooty or sweet ran and you saw that sort of little pause it is exactly like that and that's what paul quinn's doing on this appearance but there's a lot of a likeness if you like in some metal bands i mean the drummer you mentioned with the saxon t-shirt on looks uncannily like phil taylor at a motorhead I think and he's chewing gum clearly because he's nervous but yeah there's a lot of ACDC-ness here

but this is an amazing year for Saxon yes I mean the first band really the first Wobbleham band I think that got signed and it is odd

that they get signed to that particular label who were really a disco label yeah exactly more of a sort of Italo disco label famously you know, when

Saxon go over to sign for Carrera, it's that classic thing. They get on a train at Doncaster. They go down to London. They're given 80 quid each to buy clothes. They hair around Carnaby Street, tighten themselves up. Then they go to Paris. Get some jam shoes.

No, no, no. I mean, wherever metal wear was available at that time. And then they go up to Paris. They sign the deal. They're leaning on a big glass table in the penthouse office of this very, very moneyed-up record company. And one of them leans on it too far, and it smashes into a thousand pieces.

They're mortified, and they head back home. But it's an amazing year for them well put it this way nil saxon's first gig of 1980 the assembly hall of oakham high school in mansfield one pound to get in the last gig of 1980 headlining at hammersmith odian three pound 25 a ticket a meteoric rise indeed and yeah absolutely and this is the year where of course they're on the bill at the inaugural monsters of yes right hosted at castle donnington on august the 16th with alongside judas priest and scorpions and headliners rainbow you know so so this is a huge year for them a big year for them and and it's mental because wheels of steel with as we've

mentioned not that much radio support or anything else it does sell 250 000 copies yeah it's all happening for them this year yes it's all right this song but it's no 747 strangers in the night no because that right so that's that's a true story about a potential plane crash and you can't get any more metal than that no and that's got an amazing riff and it's got real excitement and drama to it you know this is scandinavia 101 for god's sake get the ground lights on and all that i fucking love it but but wheels of steel it's a bit sort of one note and plodding but it's all right but the most alarming thing about wheels of steel is the artwork have you seen it no it's a massive nazi eagle clutching oh we all see it's like

it's complete like it's not just by chance it's not any old eagle it's definitely that nazi eagle any any any old eagle yeah it's fucking iron eagle yeah yes or steel yeah instead of a swastika yeah but that was it that was their motif all the way through, wasn't it? Because Strong Arm of the Law had that eagle holding a police badge. Right. Well, yeah. Fucking hell. There is that dangerous congruity between these kind of bands and Nazi imagery, to be honest. Yeah, yeah.

Which will come too later. As we see. Exactly. Indeed. I would have completely ignored this or sulked at it or tuttered. You know, I was a mod, man. I'm not giving metal any fucking house room and it wasn't until 1986 that i allowed metal in my life through the medium of hip-hop when i listened to raising

hell and uh license to will i mean i remember one time at college right about 1988 or something like that i got into a huge argument with chart music luminary mad phil uh the rush obsessive that i mentioned earlier and you know he was going on hip-hop shit what you fucking what you're listening to that for and i said what you listen to fucking metal for and rush and all this shit and he demanded to listen to what i had on at me walkman and i played it and it was by all means necessary by boogie down productions second track you're slipping and it comes on and he just looks at me and he's just said, that's fucking smoke on the water, you thick cunt. And I had no idea.

And in order to make this musical exchange, your bedrooms were next to each other and you smashed through the wall with a microphone stand. Do we address the elephant in the room now? Yeah, come on. Let's have it. All right. I mean, it's the bassist, isn't it?

We've got to talk about the bassist. Steve Dawson, the Trevor Boulder of New Albom. You can't take your eyes off him. No, you can't. But you want to. You can't. You want to take your eyes off him, but you can't. He looks like Paul Rutherford's dad, doesn't he?

Yes, it's incredible. His look is quite something. Or Freddie Mercury, sapped of all self belief. I mean, look, me and Simon, we've got no reason. But he's got a right slap head on him, hasn't he? He's balding, yeah. In a genre which prizes hair above most

other things. Yeah, so he's balding, but he's compensating with the massive moustache. Yes. And he's got the spandex leggings, he's got white daps on, and he's got a he's got the spandex leggings he's got white daps on and he's got a black jacket over a bare chest he looks like a politician visiting a farm or something doesn't he with a white fucking booty things on and of course he's got his legs very wide apart but the thing that i found unsettling what i found unsettling is his hips rocking metronomically from

side to side it makes me feel a bit wrong. It's too sexual. Fair play to him. While the less liney members of Whitesnake were covering their hairless shame with bucket hats and cowboy accoutrements, Steve Dawson doesn't give a fuck, does he?

And I don't know what either of you are on about. I think he looks fucking great. But I think that is partly down to the short hair thing. I think that's partly down to Rob Half hair thing i think that's partly down to um rob halford from judas yes when rob halford did that that was quite a big move it kicked open the door didn't it yeah and what you see in subsequent years is yeah um saxon guy you also see i don't know i'm thinking of a band like except one of the worst award german metal bands uh balls

to the wall oh you've got to get that video on the playlist as well. Yeah, of course. They have a really sort of, you know, a singer who you expect to come out with a massive peroxide perm, and yeah, closely cropped. I think it was a thing that certainly front men started doing.

Here we've got the bassists doing it. There was the ball guy in Gillen as well. What did he play? Was he a guitarist? But he was amazing as well. Ball guy with mirror sunglasses oh um who played with john ducan or don't be a dummer oh did he yes apparently harry shearer acknowledged uh steve dawson from saxon as the inspiration for derrick smalls in spinal

tap yes um projecting strength yeah um pointing at the audience and all that malarkey as dawson put it um there's thiskey as dawson put it um there's this quote from dawson where he's actually quite magnanimous about the whole thing he goes harry's lovely i'm proud to be an influence on spinal tap they're taking the piss but that's part of the game isn't it so fair play to him um i also think frankie of the darkness owes a little bit to steve dawson's whole vibe by the way oh definitely yeah yeah i can definitely see that i mean it's interesting that harry shearer kind of connection because it captures this time where these bands like saxon maiden etc they are having such a big impact on

the other side of the pond um perhaps more so than here i mean it catches a time i think just before american bands took on the wobbleham and repackaged it and basically did it bigger i'm thinking of bands like motley crew and metallica that they all say that they're massively influenced by saxon um whereas these bands kind of they just happen in the uk and they don't really lead anywhere because what's going to happen next in uk metal is a more deathly kind of darker thrashy yeah yeah um but but in America, these bands are hugely important to people like Lars Ulrich and people like Tommy Lee

and people like that. In showing them that these things can get in a chart. Yeah. You know, this is the thing. They're signed, Saxon. Not because I think they want to, you know,

get on top of some new wave of British heavy metal. It's because they've got chart potential. If you listen to a track like, I don't know, Big Teaser, it's like power pop. It's, you know, so... In that article from Music Week,

the bloke from Career Records said they were signed simply to be a German chart act. They didn't expect any chart success in the UK, so it's a bonus for them. That's interesting, because Career is the label of dollar and sheila and be devotion that's right saxon sit very strangely on that don't they and crucially they're not pompous or po-faced about this and biff uh byford slash bifford is asked you know about their look he says yeah we wear tight pants why not the tighter the better i say

that appeals to the female part of the audience anyway you can't ignore them can you he then says blokes in the audience couldn't give two fucks whether you wear any fucking pants and your bollocks are just swinging i mean i beg to differ to be honest yeah well quite but there's a very telling quote in that interview which is also from sounds actually later on this year, where he says, I think heavy metal and heavy rock in general, this is Biff still, he says, it's the new circus.

You don't put sea lions on stage, but you are an entertainer like a vaudeville entertainer. And that's kind of where they see themselves. And that's certainly perhaps in this episode, the most interesting thing to look at so far before we turn away from saxon chaps let's not assume that they're turning their backs on the standard meccal motor transport in 1980 article from the pop talk column in the aberdeen evening express a few months from now join the saxon search for the best biker Nearly everyone has something to say about motorcyclists

And it's invariably uncomplimentary Although bikers would be the first to admit there are some in their midst who are black sheep In general they would say that as people go they're not that bad And it's something that the heavy metal band Saxon would like to prove is true they want to clear the bikers names they are concerned about the poor image of bikers and are offering a special Saxon crash helmet

for the person who can best show the better side of bikers with the help of Radio Aberdeen DJ Jeff Jones we are running a contest to put a stop to the slagger biker syndrome jeff has already announced the contest on his show and asked listeners to put their heads together the special prize of that saxon helmet goes to the biker who can fit that bill and the winner will be presented with his or her helmet at a special heavy metal disco. Whoa.

Amazing. You know, I've already got a Judy Zook satin tour jacket. I now want a Saxon motorbike helmet. Oh, can you imagine that combination? Imagine the sex that would fall upon me the following week Wheels of Steel stayed at number 20 and would remain its highest position

the follow up 747 Strangers in the Night did even better getting to number 13 in July and they finished the year with their next OP Strong Arm of the Law getting to number 11.

Diminishing Return set in in 1981, however, as Nwobham's star fell, but while they were on tour in America, they were joined for three days by someone they thought was a journalist who actually turned out to be Harry Shearer, who was doing some research for the forthcoming film Spinal Tap. Despite the band splintering in the late 90s an illegal battle between biff bifford and two former members trying to register the band name as a trademark david van day saxon if you will they're still going today

and are beginning a tour of the uk as we speak. Fucking hell, you can't kill Saxon. Yeah, I mean, you do still see their name on festival bills. And because of that, you assume that they've kind of been able to make a living throughout. But that's actually not the case. In the late 90s, Biff actually had a job as a furniture salesman in West Yorkshire. Fucking hell. Obviously, there have been ups and downs they've had various attempts at making a big comeback and do you all know about the thing that happens

at a football match? no sit down make yourselves comfortable this is amazing this was in January 2007 Saxon were brought on as the half time entertainment at Sheffield Wednesdaynesday versus sunderland

with barney al the mascot and what it was it wasn't just to play a song they were trying to and this was harvey goldsmith's idea who was i guess their promoter at the time right what they're trying to do was to break the world record for air guitar for the most people playing air guitar at one moment um the record at that point was 4 000 people um there was a crowd in the ground of 30 000 so they did the math and they thought well this should be fairly easy right but harvey goldsmith clearly didn't understand football fans because what happens is because the footage is out there on youtube stick it on the on a playlist what actually happens is one small child joins in with the air guitar and everyone else is booing them going who are you who are you and you're absolutely rubbish you're absolutely rubbish while biff and a couple of

other members are out there on the pitch with their guitars not plugged in but with their real guitars of like whittling away trying to get get the crowd air-guitaring with them. And it's not even one of their big songs, it's playing over the tannoy, I don't know what it is. And the clip finishes with Harvey Goldsmith leading the band back down the tunnel, and Biff saying, that was the worst three

minutes I've ever fucking spent in my life. Oh, that's heart-rending. And in the tunnel, Norris McWhirter shakes his head and puts away his stopwatch he was undeterred though you can't keep a good man down do you know this thing about in 2010

he tried to get heavy metal recognised as a religion on the census form it was some kind of collaboration with him and Metal Hammer magazine bless him I don't think he succeeded. Oh. That's the moment in the chart for Single by Saxon and their album, which is also called The Interspeelers, doing very well.

And here's somebody who always do it well. Hot chocolate. After some balls up, where the camera fades on Saxon and is replaced by a still of Saxon at an extreme Dutch angle, we cut to Vance, surrounded by every black kid in the audience. All five of them. It is literally all the black kids, isn't it? In the crowd. Do you think that's deliberate?

Oh, God, yeah. Do you think that's deliberate? No doubt about it, Neil. Yeah, I did wonder that. I don't get why they've done that at all. It's odd and it's noticeable. He tells us that Saxon's new lp is doing well in the charts then he introduces us to a band who always do it well hot chocolate

and no doubt about it we last covered hot chocolate in chart music number 47 the last supper of show waddy waddy when they trotted out So You Win Again in the 1977 Christmas Day episode of Top of the Pops. Since then, they scored a number 10 with Put Your Love In There on Christmas week of 1977, number 12 with Everyone's a Winner in April of 1978, and number 13 with I'll Put You Together again in January 1979. But diminishing returns rapidly started to set in,

with their next two singles, the appropriately titled Mindless Boogie and Going Through The Motions failing to break the top 40. But then, in January of this year, the songwriters Steve Glenn and Mike Burns, two songwriters affiliated with Rack, Hot Chocolate's label, were on their way to a meeting at the Rack studio when they saw what they believed to be a flying saucer malingering over the Finchley Road in North London, which they followed for 90 minutes. which they followed for 90 minutes. When they finally got to the studio, they told a third songwriter, Dave Most, about what they'd seen, and he believed them, as he claimed to have seen one too.

They immediately set to work to report this phenomenon through the medium of pop, which was snapped up by Errol Brown and the Chaps, and was put out a fortnight ago as the follow-up to Going Through the Motions, which got to number 53 in August of 1979. This week, it's smashed into the chart at number 31, and here they are in the studio. And, oh, Chaps, we get some proper spacey effects for this one, don't we?

Yeah. Some kind of white-out thing at the beginning that makes the kids look like a frothing ectomorphic mass. Yeah, the weirdness of the song is accentuated by the production here. Indeed. Top of the Pops people. They kind of start off in negative in a way, don't they? Yes, they do, yeah.

A bluey negative. It's very otherworldly. Very otherworldly. And it's a kind of mental decision letting the whole weird alien intro of this song play before the groove comes in i mean it might have been more sensible to start the performance where the beats start but we've got this weird floaty minute of just synth texture really and the kids just thinking what the fuck is going on here because it's an amazing

song this i mean it's possibly the weirdest most futuristic thing we'll hear in this episode yes yeah the verses sound like i don't know mid-period can or something the lyrics are like this sunra afro futurist stuff and then the chorus lifts off into this almost northern soul place but the love and the testifying is about an alien visitation. It's mental, this song. And it's perhaps the last of Hot Chocolate's weird hits, if you like. You know, it recovers the oddity of something like Emma. And yeah, the weirdness is completely accentuated

by the top of the pop's production here. I mean, here's an example of a band who could not be any more 70s looking around for a future in the not be any more 70s looking around for a future in the harsh landscape of the event is and on this showing it looks like they're going to do quite nicely thank you yeah you're right they've got those silky flared trousers and the sequin tops and they could be forgiven for that the 80s have only just barely started and they maybe didn't get the memo but yeah they they do look a little bit out of place they do but it doesn't matter errol's in this fucking amazing shirt that looks like there's

a laser show going off on his chest and yeah some incredibly shiny silver trousers yeah this kind of black it's almost like a blues on that he's tucked in it's got it's got like this peacock sequin rhinestone pattern on the front and those trousers man those are trousers of the future they're amazing i'm also quite enamored with the basis powder blue velour trousers they look like they're crafted out of the interior of a particularly jazzy austin but you have to feel sorry for errol here because you know here he is telling these youths about his close encounter and and instead of giving him the rapt attention he deserves, they're either gassing away to each other about lads and shoes or trying to chat each other up

or turning away to see themselves on the monitor so they never get to find out if he took a probe up his arse or something. Fucking kids, man. What's wrong with them? This audience is very sullen, isn't it? Very sullen, very naughty. They need sending into the corridor with their fingers on their lips. Yes.

I think at the time, I didn't realise that Hot Chocolate didn't write all their own songs. So I thought this was literally Errol Brown out of Hot Chocolate telling us, the kids, that he'd had an alien visitation. It's like when David thought that Terry Jacks had a terminal illness in 1974 and the minute that Seasons in the Sun stopped being number one he would die. Exactly. I took it very literally and I wanted to believe because I'd had

a UFO experience myself as a child. Only a couple years before this. It would have been about 1978. I was playing football in the street with the aforementioned andrew in those days of course this is real sort of jumpers for goalposts stuff almost literally it was lampposts for goalposts you know you you would play until it got dark in fact beyond it getting dark because there weren't many cars around so one of us booted

the ball off down the road and i remember running after it and just getting the ball, looking up over the Bristol Channel and we both saw this red and white sphere revolving and moving erratically in a way that just didn't seem normal for a plane or a helicopter or anything like that. And it was really odd. And we both saw it. And the next day we went into school

and we made the mistake in Romley Juniors of telling a teacher about it. And the teacher said, oh, tell me more. And we told them everything. And this was sort of, you know, registration or whatever. And then when it came to assembly, we're all sat there across the floor. And the headmaster said, I hear that Simon Price and Andrew Rapoussis have got something they want to tell you. I said, I hear that Simon Price and Andrew Rapousis have got something they want to tell you.

Oh, fucking hell. They may just get up and tell a story, but they completely cunted us off and mugged us off and made fun of us for it. Bastards. And I just felt so humiliated, right? And I only felt slightly vindicated that evening when I got home and put on the local news show,

which was called Points West, because our TV aerial pointed west rather than to wales and there was actually a policeman from somerset um which is pretty much the direction we were looking at who said he'd seen the same thing it was a news story in in the west country that there had been this red and white thing hovering over there and i thought fucking hell you know i'm not saying you can always trust a policeman a cab and all that or scab as i prefer to say some cops are bastards um but but yeah um if if only our head teacher had seen this fucking policeman he might have believed us it really pissed me off but yeah and then your headmaster went back to his study and took his mask off and revealed his

lizard himself had a good laugh to himself yeah he sort of wiggled his 30-foot tongue about it. I've got to ask Simon, were you frightened? Were you scared? Were you thrown into confusion? No doubt about it. It was from other skies, that's for sure. Yeah, English skies. That's amazing, Simon.

I believe and I want to believe in UFOs. I really want to see one, so I'm always delighted to hear testimony from somebody who really has. I think as soon as you start talking about this, people immediately start curling their lip because they think that you're stupid and they think that what you're saying is, I believe that aliens have visited the Earth. Because it's not that.

I think you've got to separate the two things. You've really got to separate the two things. First of all, UFO literally means unidentified flying object. Although these days they've rebranded it as UAP, haven't they? It's an unidentified aerial phenomena. That's what NASA call it now, or the Pentagon. So there's that. UFOs, literally unidentified flying objects.

Obviously, that happens all the time. If you see something in the sky and you can't identify it, it's, to you at least, a UFO. and then there's a separate issue of alien life now mathematically it is as near to a certainty as you can get that there is life on other planets but it's also almost as certain that those planets are so fucking far away that it's literally impossible for those uh beings to make it here so i don't combine the two i don't think that if you see a ufo it means you know close encounters of the third kind which of course was very recent when this record came out yeah yeah so that that would have been in everybody's mind indeed and i think even if it is experimental aircraft or unusual meteorological phenomena, that to me is interesting.

I don't know. That's fascinating. Oh, it's worth writing a song about, isn't it? Definitely. And actually Wales, in particular South Wales, is a bit of a UFO hotspot. Is that right? Oh, yeah.

Oh, yeah. I only seek the most unimpeachable sources, as you're well aware. Craig Charles' recent UFO conspiracy series on Sky History talks about an event in the village of Pentwick, South Wales. Interestingly enough, listening to your description, Simon, it did talk this episode about what people see is this vast triangular UFO appearing in the night sky, but it ejects smaller red and green craft from its from its thing so um yeah no it's a bit of

a hot spot around there yeah i love the film close encounters by the way i was almost quite partisan about that i thought you were either a close encounters kid or a star wars kid yeah i thought star wars was for cretins i really did i'm sorry and i thought close encounters was for the cleverer kids. I loved that film. There's so much going on in there. I mean, it gives plenty to an adult view as well. It's not just a kid's film. Just the guy having a mental breakdown about it

and the whole conspiracy theory business and the domestic situation where he's creating that mountain, first of all, out of mashed potato on his plate, and then later on out've just mud and junk and crap in his in his garage i think my favorite bit was um there's some guy who's um he's driving at night and he's stuck at a level crossing and there's somebody tailgating in this there's these bright lights behind him his rearview mirror and he's like okay pal you know and then suddenly these lights just lift up and go over here i love that bit richard

draper yeah yeah yeah i mean the thing is though obsessed with ufos as i probably was in 1980 i'm not sure i'd have noticed that this song was about ufos because i had this bad habit of not listening to verses or at least not noticing the lyrics and by the time it gets to the chorus this hot chocolate song it could be a love song yeah yeah that's because he puts it over so well, doesn't he? Yeah, yeah, completely. The verses are quite low key. He sings them quite sotto voce. So that if you're not listening carefully,

by the time he gets to the chorus, it could absolutely be a love song. And it's credit to Errol that he's able to put it over with so much emotion. I suppose it's like a sort of visitation of the Virgin Mary that a Catholic believer might have, you know. He just puts that kind of passion into it. No, no, this really happened.

Even though it didn't happen to him, it happened to someone else. Anything else to say about this? I think that they did do some great stuff in what is seen as maybe not their golden period. You mentioned I'll Put You Together Again, which I thought was a beautiful song, a kind of gospel-tinged ballad. and even some of their other 80s stuff like girl crazy and are you getting enough and of course it started with a kiss you don't remember me do you and all of that just really great singles and didn't they hold some kind of record some chart record at the time

the band who'd been in the top 40 for the most consecutive years something like that yes which which i loved and really deserved i thought yeah so the following week no doubt about it soared 22 places to number nine and a fortnight later it began a three-week stand at number two held off the summit of pop mountain which had been sculpted out of mashed potato by Roy Neary no doubt by a tune we're going to hear later on and theme from MASH Suicide is Painless The follow up Are You Getting Enough of What Makes You Appair

got to number 17 in August of this year and they'd have three more top ten hits throughout the early 80s before splitting up in 1986 Hot chocolate and no doubt about it Now here's Motherhead from the Chart EP Leave it here Hey fellas, I'm here to mute Said the women of the town have been misused

Before Errol and his mates get to finish their tale of extraterrestrial mither, the whiteout effects kick in again, the camera doll is back, then pans right to the stage at the other end of the studio and the effects fade away to reveal the dingy reality of 1980 and Motorhead with Leaving Here. Born in Stoke-on-Trent in 1945, Ian Kilmister was relocated to Newcastle-under-Lyme and then the Isle of Anglesey after his parents' divorce

and picked up the nickname of Lemme, allegedly due to him going up to people and saying, Lemmy a quid until Friday at school. After knocking about in a sort of band in Wales, he moved to Manchester in the early 60s, put himself about on the North West beat combo scene, and regularly saw the Beatles at the Cavern, including one gig where John Lennon went out into the audience and head-butted someone for calling him a queer. After playing guitar for the Motown sect in 1962, he joined the Rocking Vickers in 1965 and stayed there for three years before moving to London, flat-sharing

with Noel Redding of the Jimi Hendrix Experience, becoming their roadie while he looked for another band, but stints with Sam Gopal's Dream and Opal Butterfly didn't last long. However, in 1971, he was recruited by Michael Dick McDavies in his band Hawkwind as a bass player, even though he'd never played the instrument before. Davies just wanted another band member who was into their amphetamine. A year later, Kilminster found himself singing on an overdub of a live recording of their single Silver Machine,

which got to number three for two weeks in August of 1972. In May of 1975, during a tour of North America, the band was stopped at the Canadian border where Killmister's stash of amphetamine was found. The police assumed it was cocaine and arrested him, although he was released without charge the next day. This was the impetus the rest of the band needed to knob him off and he was fired when they got back to the UK. to knob him off and he was fired when they got back to the UK. Kilmister immediately set to work putting together a band in his own image and he recruited Larry Wallace, formerly of the Pink Fairies, and his mate Lucas Fox forming the band Bastard,

which was quickly changed to Motorhead when their new manager told them that a band called Bastard would never get a booking on top of the Pops. After Wallace and Fox were replaced by Fast Eddie Clark and Phil Filthy Animal Taylor they signed to Bronze Records and put out their debut single A Cover of Leaving Here. The 1963 Holland Dozier Holland song that Eddie Holland took to number 76 on the Billboard chart and London R&B band The Birds took to number 45 over here in June of 1965. Motorhead's version failed to chart but their third single Motorhead got to number 68 in September of 1978 and thanks to some string pulling by label boss Jerry Braun they found themselves on top of the pops but the single dropped straight out of the chart the week after they're currently spending

1980 finding themselves as the elder statesman of Newobham have just finished a UK tour supported by Saxon and put out the Golden Years EP, a collection of early period tunes recorded live as the follow-up to Bomber, which got to number 34 in December of 1979. It came out last week and instantly dive-bombed into the charts at number 23, and here they are in the studio to play the first cut on that EP, their first ever single leaving here and chaps it's very telling that motorhead got their name because they wanted to be on top of the pops and it's also pretty obvious that top of the pops are very happy to have a band like motorhead on because this is their fourth appearance now and it's only mid 1980 wow i've got no memory of this

you know whatsoever um i guess obviously i wasn't watching a lot of Top of the Pops at the time. But even though, yeah, this EP, the Golden Years EP, apparently reached number eight. I think the first I really knew of Motorhead was Ace of Spades, of course. Yes. And this is a really surprising record in a lot of ways. I mean, as you say, 1963 single by Eddie Holland, written by Holland, Dozie Holland,

not a hit in the UK in its original form. So in Motown terms, this is a deep cut, you know? I mean, I'm not saying I can imagine Lemmy doing spins and drops at the Wigan Casino. And let's face it, if he's shaking out the white powder, it's not going to be Talcum, right? But you need to know your soul music to even have heard of this the original anyway well it was one of those standards that british r&b bands played yeah also i mean lemmy's trying to align himself a little bit here i think with with kind of the ramones and things like that that that touching back into 60s but but i think he's majorly heavily influenced in this choice of song by the birds version yeah you know pre ronnie wood they did get ronnie wood in their ranks eventually but when you listen to the birds

version it's actually quite similar to the motorhead version in a way that the motown version isn't and isn't it funny how the metal bands of 1980 appear to be more influenced by 60s r&b than the mod bands at the time yeah i mean david covered out he was an old soul lad wasn't it well i mean don't forget that the crazy thing i mean phil filthy out he was an old soul lad wasn't it well i mean don't forget that the crazy thing i mean phil filthy taylor was a skinhead right way back in the day um it actually actually became a skinhead late 60s early 70s due to a hair cutting accident you know from his girlfriend he stuck with it and he used to go to blue beat clubs and he used to go to scar clubs so there is that connection there wow i mean nobody's born a metaller and nuwabum in

fact metal itself was still a sort of fairly new genre so obviously everybody involved in it is going to have a backstory yeah they're going to have things they're into when they were young and the birds as in birds spelt with an i version is the the thing that leads to lemmy covering this and he was a fan of theirs and and them once. But I think the telltale thing is something you said in the intro, Al, that he was in a band called the Motown Set, doing Motown covers. And Motorhead had previous, I suppose, for this kind of thing. Obviously, leaving here in its studio form was their debut single. but the first Motorhead record I actually own was a blue flexi disc from Flexipop magazine right following year 1981 of the Train Kept a Rolling right which was the final

track on their debut album back in 77 and the Train Kept a Rolling was originally a jump blues track from 1951 by Tiny Bradshaw but in that case there is at least a fairly easy pathway to it becoming a motorhead song because that had previously been covered by by the yardbirds led zeppelin and aerosmith so basically it was a bit of a rock chestnut by that point yeah but leaving here even though yeah you know 60s beat groups like the birds might have had it in the repertoire it feels like it's coming way out of left field to find itself in motorheads set and um it's there's something really pleasing about it i think that you know this this this band seemed like the least likely motown cover band in

the world but i mean i think it is that it's crucial that looking back with those sort of elderly statesmen of irvin the wobberham as i refer to what Motorhead are engaged in always I think I mean like ACDC it's an attempt to take rock away from its pompous ambitions and return it to this thing of a 50s thing really of simplicity and noise and adrenaline and I think with Motorhead that even extends to how many members they have having just three members is a statement power trio yes I mean Lemmy said the reason it was three because there was no room for anyone else and what he means by that isn't you know room on stage he means sonically there's no room he's got his bass so overdriven constantly that it's this perfectly

locked in wall of noise and as such i mean much like acdc motorhead of this band that are going to be loved by punks and metal kids alike. But like ACDC, they kind of don't fit into either. I mean, later on in the 80s, Lemmy becomes very very good at slagging off metal bands. Every time he's interviewed, I mean, I read

an interview where he said, I'd rather be sealed in a pit of my own excrement than listen to metal. And he watched No Palm Death on a documentary and he says it was like talking to two skirting boards. People think we listen to metal and he watched napalm death on a documentary and he says it was like talking to two skirting boards people think we listen to anthrax when i'm at home i listen to the carpenters you know so he's very much kind of although in the wobbleham figure head he disowns it almost completely yeah yeah i agree with neil that um motorheads are one of the base elements of rock and roll. They are like ACDC.

They are like the Ramones. They are irreducible. You can't break Motorhead down into its component parts. They are the component part. And the thing with bands like that is there's usually no point in buying anything past the first four or five albums. Because once they've perfected their thing, there's nowhere to go. So basically when motorhead released ace of spades that's it they were done really but oh by the way there's been a lot of

talk about the young ones recently yes um the 40th anniversary fuck me 40 years jesus um and the greatest musical moment of the show obviously i'm sure we all agree all civilized people agree it is motorhead doing ace of spades for those i've seen it's in the episode called bambi uh it's where the four students are rushing off to get the train to represent scumbag college and university challenge and it is amazing but yeah motorhead stood implacably opposed to the idea of progression which is funny because you could say that hawkwind were kind of a progressive rock band, but Motorhead weren't going to change and mutate. They were not, no one's going to call Motorhead the chameleons of rock, you know what I mean? They were going to go soft and release a ballad,

you know, unless, I mean, Neil, you may know better than me, I don't think they ever released a ballad. No, no, they never did a ballad, no. Does his duet with Wendy O'Williams stand by your mind? Does that count? Not quite. Well, no i mean even yeah even the motorhead and girl school duets don't no absolutely not um they they were going to bring hip-hop into their sound although they they did do a single with iced tea at one point but motorhead were motorhead that was it you cannot break them down and no matter how many records they released they existed mainly as a live band if if you went to see them live which you know i did a number of times i don't know about you guys but you you knew exactly what you're going to get there's no fucking around yeah and that's where they were in their element

and maybe that's why records like this keep coming out they kept releasing live records this ep it's all live tracks recorded on i believe the same european tour as some of the no sleep till hammersmith album that album by the way went to number one which i i still think is a really startling feat for an uncompromising fast thrashy metal band yeah yeah i mean do you know how many live albums motorhead released by the way no i don't actually 16 fucking out motorhead released 16 live albums they only released 22 studio albums. Fuck. They loved a fucking live album. Yeah, they were never about studio craft.

They saw the studio in a weird way, like the 40s and 50s people did. It's a snapshot of what we do live. And obviously his voice, it's like filth. It actually sounds like engine oil that's been there for months and it's full of grit and dirt. And his bass tone, that overdriven tone that you mentioned, is fucking thrilling, isn't it? Yeah. sounds like engine oil that's been there for months and it's full of grit and dirt and his bass tone that overdriven tone that you mentioned is fucking thrilling isn't it yeah so i know we've

had some hard rock and some metal already but this is a real blast of adrenaline isn't it oh yeah it's funny that you mentioned the young ones actually because alexi sale used to have a motorhead joke that he used to do live i went to a motorhead concert once someone shouted out sexist crap and they thought it was a request but in actual fact i mean oddly enough like acdc there is strangely female positive band um motorhead when lemmy lends support to the wonderful girls school i have to say i love hit and run and singles like that you know it's genuine even though it becomes to be an albatross for girls school and when you listen to i mean their finest album i think um aside from the live ones is probably overkill it's just such a fucking amazing record that and when you listen to a track like i'll be your

sister they're genuinely odd lyrically and sexually let me never does that i'm gonna put it inside your thing no he's not coverdale yeah no he's not coverdale leaving here this this track it's not one of their greatest i don't think think. It isn't off one of their greatest records. It's no Ace of Spades or Iron Fist. But we do massively get a sense of how thrilling Motorhead must be live here. And for me, you know, as a very young kid at this time, no chance of actually seeing Motorhead. This appearance is amazing.

Everything's in place. Phil Taylor, like this kind of naughty schoolboy, always a frenzy always lunatic fast but he's always got that kind of tis was friendly grin on his face i'm amazed he got that t-shirt past the censors yes well he's got a t-shirt that says whale oil beef hooked yes he has yeah i can't believe that went unnoticed i know know. It's the sort of thing you can imagine Tommy Saxondale's girlfriend selling in her shop. Along with, you know, I like the Pope, the Pope smokes dope and all that kind of stuff. It's one of those, isn't it?

Yeah. But did you notice the actual swear word on that set? No. What? On the speaker behind LeMay, there's a Nevermind the Bollocks sticker. Oh. Yeah, Motorhead said bollocks on top of the pops. I mean, there's a Nevermind the Bollocks sticker. Yeah, Motorhead said bollocks on top of the pops. I mean, it's

a rock and roll. I mean, Fast Eddie's exactly what you want from a guitar. God. Lemmy, mic angled down. He always said that he did that so he could hit the high notes. I'm unconvinced, but it's a good look. It's a good look. I think I'd have been scared by Lemmy as a kid if it wasn't. Oh, totally. If it wasn't for Tiz Was.

But Tiz Was a kind of made them not cuddly as well they on there a lot then i i didn't really watch tiz was i i seem to recall them being in that cage getting buckets of stuff going at them quite often yeah but i mean crucially any metalhead appearance on top of the pops it really does feel here as if the metalheads have taken over the audience as well yeah there's some scary looking people those three guys down the front actual headbangers yeah yeah three of them they probably all got early onset dementia now sadly but yes yeah well the problem with them lads is they're you know they're having a good go and they're introducing the new dance craze to the nation but their hair's not long enough yeah

yeah yeah it's not thrashing about enough it's probably like collar length for school isn't it it's like being a wrestler you know if you're a wrestler you're always told back in the day have your hair as long as possible because when someone pretends to hit you in the face and you jerk your head back your hair's gonna go right up and people at the back are gonna see the impact yeah yeah yeah but like um you're asking if there are any metalers at my school are going to see the impact yeah yeah yeah but like um you're asking if there are any metalers at my school and now i'm thinking about it yeah there were but they all had that kind of hairdo where it grew sideways and upwards but not down because the teachers would

tell them it had to be like above the collar so they'd end up just looking like mushrooms you know yeah but there are some scary looking i mean there's a guy just seemingly swigging from a can of lager you've got this kind of mix of it what looks like bikers and acid heads and headbangers there's a little bit of hawkwinds audience here i think as well who look as if they've been there since the last episode of disco 2 but it gives this performance you know that thrill you occasionally get from top of the Pops performance of our bands, whether that's indie or rock or just weird. Yeah. Yes, the Top of the Pops production people are in control, but they're in control only in terms of allocating a space where this band can perform.

Yes. In that space, the band are in control. Yeah. And, you know, we actually get that from a couple of the subsequent performances in this fantastic episode too. That thrilling kind of rub between bands that are too exciting to be contained and the usual kind of dick tacks of the Top of the Pops space. They're here to promote a live EP, chaps, but is this a live performance? Who knows, because the record's a bit of a mess. This is a bit of a mess.

I was pretty convinced at the time that it was. And I was up until the other day when I looked at it again. And I noticed that Filthy Animals got some pads on his drum head. So that leads me to believe that it's mimed. So they're miming. I mean, are they miming to a live performance? And is that a first on Top of the Pops? It's a weird head fuck, that, isn't it? I know.

Miming to a live record. Which raises the question, well, if they are miming, what are they miming to? Because it's not the track on the EP, for obvious reasons, and it's not the original either. So, yeah, a mystery. I mean, like Saxon, they've got a wall of speakers set up, which must have cheered up the fucking floor manager and the crew,

no end, to hump these fuckers about. Yeah, and also there's this kind of scaffolding around them which separates them from the crowd but also makes them into this crazy spectacle. Yeah. Because it's got a noise to it. It's got a noise to it that doesn't seem, you know, it's certainly not the top of the box orchestra.

Yeah. About those speaker cabinets, it's entirely possible that they were empty. Because ACDC were famous for that. They had these enormous kind of Great Wall of China-sized banks of Marshall amps behind them, but apparently they were all just empty, quite lightweight wooden cabs. I don't know. Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, I do think that Filthy Animal Taylor is the most watchable member of the band I always like how he looked like a Mexican baddie from a western and I like how he had a drum kit with shark's teeth in the front of it which was quite fun I thought

Lemmy though right he does this thing there's obviously a woman in the front row who's caught his eye because he crouches down and flickers his tongue lasciviously at her yes

yeah yeah yeah it's a bit unsettling I mean for all we know she loved it I don't know but wow did you ever get a chance to speak to Lemmy Simon

oh I met him at the Mojo Awards once but what do you say to Lemmy he's just fucking Lemmy I just thought hey Lemmy yeah yeah you're right if I'd known I was going to meet him I He's just fucking Lemmy. I just thought... Hey, Lemmy. Yeah, yeah. You're right.

If I'd known I was going to meet him, I might have thought of something, but no, I had nothing. How about you? I chatted with him on the phone once. It was for a Melody Maker special feature about Halloween, and I had to interview him

about his haunted house experiences. Who the fuck, you know? Not much of which I can remember, but yeah, I mean, basically, he told me he spun a good yarn, and it was just mental, you know, just hearing that voice down the phone. There's nothing like a Halloween stew. I never met him, but he used to go drinking in the garage, the club I preferred going to in Nottingham in the late 80s.

It's not like he lived in Nottingham, but he'd just pitch up every now and then. And my mates would go, fucking hell, Lemmy's at the bar. And I'd be like, oh yeah, great. That's it. Because you're right, what can you say to him? At this time, I would have been watching this with a curled lip and a sneer of disgust

because I never got on with Motorhead at the time. Possibly because of a resemblance between Lemme and someone I used to see every Saturday. I mean, we've already talked about local characters. Allow me to bring another one into play. He was known around Nottingham as Axeman, but that wasn't his real name. I knew his real name,

and I always used to pull people up about it. Basically, he was this massive sweaty greb who used to wear a headband it basically it was this massive sweaty greb who used to wear a headband and a cut-off denim jacket he looked like a morbidly obese lemme and he'd hang around the badge stall at pendulum records and read out the slogans on the badges and scoff at the modern two-ton ones and just basically terrify us young sharp mods and rude boys with his tales about how he was welling with the local Wales Angels and how

he knocked over a line of scooters outside a pub the other night and you know him and his gang set fire to some parkas before he got a blowjob on his motorbike while he was riding through town and then he'd say yeah you've heard of me my name's Machete Max

Machete Max. Machete Max. And every week without fail, I'd run into this cunt. And he'd be there standing at the stall going, oh, look at this one. Mod is news, punk is history. Fuck off. And we'd just be standing there waiting for the event that happened every week,

which was always a gang of older mods or skinheads who would just turn up and hover around him and stare him out and he'd make his excuses and leave. He was still knocking about Nottingham until about 10 years ago with a walking stick looking absolutely fucking rattled as fuck with the same headband on, which had probably knitted into his flesh on his forehead.

Fucking hell. It's funny funny isn't it because like metal is a lot of it is about expressing male rage and male aggression and all that stuff and it's about power fantasies and all that kind of business um but you often find that the people who are into it first of all they're quite soft you know they they might have like leather jackets and loads of studs and spikes, but they're actually not very tough. But also, you find that they're often really gentle souls. Not this guy, obviously, but I'm sure Neil can back that up.

Oh, yeah, I've got my daughter. My daughter, for instance, she's immensely gentle and covered in Man O' War style spikes on an almost constant basis. Just to pick up on something you said earlier neil about um overhead being strangely kind of female positive just choosing this song itself um the lyrics to leaving here right first verse hey fellas have you heard the news yeah the women in this town have been misused yeah i've seen it all in my dreams last night girls leaving this town because you don't treat them right right so basically um eddie holland saying detroit is becoming the anti nottingham

so like you know if we buy into the myth of course that nottingham has this kind of massive excess of women to men which is bullshit nowadays yeah i know i But basically, yeah, Detroit is becoming Doha, where apparently the population is 81% male because of all the transient workers. Of course, that figure itself fluctuates according to how many of them are dying in the construction of sports-washing arenas. Bit of politics there. Yeah, fuck the World Cup.

I'm about to ask this question. Did Lemmy get away with murder? Isn't he just Jeremyarkson with warts i mean as we all know he's very keen on collecting nazi memorabilia and just like father seamus fitzpatrick in father ted he's not interested in the allied things at all funny that in 2008 he was investigated by the german authorities after a photo of him wearing a cap with the SS Death Head logo appeared in a local newspaper. And when the subject cropped up in an interview, he said, I'll tell you something about Istra. From the beginning of time, the bad guys always had the best uniforms. Napoleon, the Confederates, the Nazis, they all had killer uniforms.

I mean, the SS uniform is fucking brilliant they were the rock stars of their time don't tell me I'm a Nazi because they have uniforms I had my first black girlfriend in 1967 and a lot more since then I don't understand racism I never thought it was an option well you know just as well he wasn't editing Loaded in the late 90s, eh? Well, yeah, James Brown, the godfather of Loaded got sacked from GQ for publishing an article to that effect, didn't he? And Brian Ferry basically

got cancelled for expressing that kind of view. Yeah, it's funny with these guys, isn't it? These people who say, well, I'm just interested in history. Well, yeah, they never collect stuff by the front from the peace corps or the international red cross do they it's just yeah also the confederates uniforms were shit man yeah so that's where his argument falls down

well he used to wear a confederate cap didn't he yeah but then again so did new edition so you know where does that leave us i mean by the by not to say that lemmy's woke or anything but there is that famous clip of him responding to a letter from a black fan um which you've probably seen i don't know um he gets a letter from a black metal fan who's just asking him you know loads of people take the piss out of me because i'm black and i'm into metal blah blah and his response is beautifully done um because he talks about not only his experiences with Jimmy, but also that rock and roll is black music ultimately.

And, and, you know, you know, good on Lenny for that. Even the lighting rig for last year's bomber tour was a reconstruction of a Heineken Mark three, which absolutely ruins the legend that he once pointed to it at the beginning

of a gig in Germany and said, good evening, Dresden. I bet you haven't seen one of these in a while. I'm kidding. I should laugh at that. And seeing as Dresden was still part of East Germany and off-limits makes the story double bollocks, alas. He is war-obsessed. He is war-obsessed. But, I mean, it's a perennial thing.

He's a typical 70s bloke, isn't he? As we've mentioned before, the 70s were absolutely sodden with swastikas in the UK. Oh, God, yeah. Usually in 24 parts with a free binder. Yes. You know, and the thing is that it's a frequent thing with rock and rollers from Bowie all the way through to Marilyn Manson

that they are fascinated with the prettiness, if you like, of fascist imagery. Yeah. Is that an excuse? I'm not entirely sure. Yeah, I mean, it's about the power dynamic as well because it does mirror and mimic the dynamic of being a rock star so much. And I think that's what Marilyn Manson was picking up on and satirising so much.

I know Marilyn Manson is now persona non grata, but I just think the way he just sort of exaggerated that kind of fascist element to rock and roll was was magnificent well that goes all the way back to 1969 when albert goldman did a gig review of the rolling stones and compared it to the nuremberg rallies you know there's a lot of stuff in um the dick hebdige book subcultures about the use of the swastika in punk and basically he exonerates them um as if it's his place to do the exonerating i admit of anti-semitic intent because he says it's completely to do with shocking the parents

because if you think about it punks were mostly born in the i guess late 1950s or in the 1950s that that was the era that people of the punk generation were being born. So basically, they're the arse end of boomers. So their parents were people who probably fought in the war. And if you want to piss your parents off, you dress as the baddies. You dress as the baddies. I mean, there's that Man Alive documentary about Hells Angels and skinheads from about 1970, I think.

And it begins with a Hells Angel wedding in a pub in Birmingham this girl gets married to a boyfriend who's known as Hitler and he's got a swastika flag wrapped around his shoulders so in the 70s if you wore a swastika you're basically saying I'm fucking hard and evil I am yeah yeah you know what I mean but the downside of that is when punk came along uh i got a mate who's a bit older than me and he said yeah any lad who drew a swastika on his hold all or his satchel or anything just all the black kids used to beat the shit out of him until they stopped doing it so the black kids knew what it was all about yeah i guess it's uh analogous to that

situation with matchbox using the Southern Rebel flag, as they would call it. The only thing with that is it's a bit harder to draw on your rucksack. But yeah. Yes. Yeah, I went for the much more safe and politically, actually, no, it's not less dodgy, hammer and sickle every time. And the CND logo as well.

Yeah, of course. Of course, yeah. And let me just add an interview in 2017 with Mickey D, one of his former drummers who was asked about what lemmy would have thought about the riot in charlottesville which ended in a right-wing cunt plowing his car into some people protested against a statue of robert e lee and he said oh he would have hated it i can totally speak for him there he hated that shit a lot of people judged him on collecting war stuff but he

hated fucking nazis he hated stupidity and he was fascinated by the stupidity of the human race he would probably write some incredible lyrics about it he thought it was so ridiculous well yeah i think i'm willing to give him benefit the doubt on that i i buy that i will also look lyrically into the lyrics for one of their best sort of later lps 1916 he he's talking about the stupidity of war and conflict throughout that and the stupidity of the rise of kind of um didactic leaders so yeah he gets a pass from me anything else to say my favorite fact about this single is that there was a lapse of quality control at the pressing plan which meant that a number of the seven-inch singles

slipped through the net that had Kate Bush on the A-side. Right. So I love imagining all these fucking greasy rockers getting home from the record shop, dropping the needle on the record, expecting Lemmy, and getting Kate Bush screeching away, like, what the hell is this? Amazing.

Neil, I've got a question for you now that we've seen the three heavy bands yeah this show white snake saxon motorhead yeah right where would you place them on the sandwich scale right so basically just to do to do a reset for for brand new listeners um ne Neil has previously judged bands according to whether he'd let them make a sandwich for him. The Stranglers, for example, being a hard no. So, yeah, basically, Whitesnake, Saxon, Motorhead. What's the order? Right, OK, the order is as follows.

I think the last person that I'd have a sandwich of is David Coverdale's Whitesnake. They look awful. I don't know where his hands have been, you know, Coverdale. No, no, I wouldn't have one of them. Saxon would make a delicious sandwich, I think, full of stout Yorkshire ingredients, I'm sure. But, you know, the one I'd want the most is Motörhead.

Reason being, I remember going to festivals in the 90s, not knowing anybody, and going backstage and going to festivals in the 90s not knowing anybody and going backstage and going to the bogs and there's just a layer of speed and cocaine over everything that you could just harvest for yourself um and i reckon a motorhead sandwich would have that much loose amphetamine in it i'd be buzzing for fucking days so yeah i'd go for the motorhead sandwich please hardcore horseradish going on when he was interviewed in the decline of western civilization part two that was in his kitchen wasn't it looked quite clean oh no hang on that was ozzy forget i spoke everyone i'm a thick cunt

carry on i know there's shots of him in denim sort of uh tiny pants yes most unsavory that's it but i think his hygiene would be impeccable in the kitchen albeit with a bit of amphetamine added in which is fine the fucking short shorts man this is something that comes over in uh have you seen lemmy the movie no oh it's yeah it's a documentary like uh it's really good actually yeah dave grohl is in it quite a lot and um he talks about the fact that lemmy would walk around la wearing these tiny little denim hot pants. You know, like metalers normally wear those kind of big knee-length shorts. No, no, Lemmy was going the kind of...

Aussie rules footballer. Yeah, or the Leopoldo Luque Mario Kempez Argentina 1978 length of short. You know, fucking hell, that just a an unsightly image for the mind my favorite bit in that though is uh when um I think I've got this right but but Grohl tells his story of being at LAX airport and and Lemmy's there and this car pulls over and it's a fucking stretch limo and the tinted windows wind down and it's little Richard and like they're all really excited to see little Richard but little Richard's kids are there and they um made him pull over because they're really excited to see lemmy wow and uh yeah i i love that yeah yeah yeah what a time

if you're a metal fan to be alive 1980 i mean if you're like a i don't know 13 14 15 you've got all this exciting new music but you've also got a huge back catalogue going back 10 years of similar shit yeah yeah i mean paranoid gets into the chart soon doesn't it true yeah yeah and it's at that crucial point before ntv gets hold of it and before the americans get hold of it and blow it all stadium sized yes it's still in that sort of excitingly, thrillingly close place. There's probably not another Nawabaham-friendly episode like this episode. No. The combination of both these bands, but also, of course, Tommy Vance presenting, it's an absolute fucking bomb for Metalheads this episode.

So the following week, the Golden Years EP soared 15 places to number 8, its highest position. The follow-up, Ace of Spades, got to number 15 for two weeks in November of this year. They had an even better 1981 when two more EPs, St Valentine's Day Massacre with Girl School and Motorhead Live, got to number 5 for two weeks in February and number 6 for two weeks in february and number six for two weeks in july respectively the band continued with an ever-changing lineup with lemmy as the one constant member all the way until december of 2015 when he died in los angeles at the age of 70

but this very month an avatar of him was one of the headliners of a virtual oz fest on that their tinter net did you see that um i caught a glimpse what the fuck so you need yeah that is definitely all yeah it was very playstation 2 wasn't it very much so very much but i mean lemmy is kind of cartoonish anyway. Yes. So yeah, kind of suitable. Well, you heard of the Great Wall of China. That's the Great Wall of Noise. That was Motohead and Leave In Here. Hi, girls.

Hi, Tom. Great singers, but not as good as the Nolans, who don't make any way. Vance, surrounded by even more appallingly bouffant and young ladies, tells us that we've had the Great Wall of China,

but now we've witnessed the Great Wall of Noise. He then sings, Hi, girls! And they respond with, Hi, Tom! So that Vance can coat them down when he tells them they're nowhere near as good as the next act, the Nolans with Don't Make Waves. Jimi Hendrix, Public Enemy, U2, Joy Division,

Marvin Gaye, Elvis Presley, Public Image Limited, Bruce Springsteen, Sly and the Family Stone, Bob Dylan, Led Zeppelin, James Brown. None of those have ever been covered on chart music, but we're about to talk about the fucking Nolans for the fifth time. This is the follow-up to I'm In The Mood For Dancing, which got to number three for two weeks in February of this year. It came out a month ago and entered the charts at number 58

and when it soared 24 places to number 38 the following week, they were ushered into the top of the pop studio, which gave it a nine place leg up to number 25. This week it stayed at number 25, but

no matter, it's the fucking Nolans. They're oh god at last yes at last we've done the nolans as you say so many fucking times and it's almost become a running joke when i'm on the show yeah it's a shame it's not don't make waves well yeah at fucking last it is don't make waves yeah you better like it, Simon. Yeah, nice shit. I want to talk about it in terms of disco evolution, okay? Because this subclade begins with a common ancestor of Rock the Boat by Hughes Corporation,

produced by John Flores, who was obviously of Hispanic descent, but from Los Angeles. But then Rocky Baby by George McRae, produced by Casey and the Sunshine Band, Miami. So it's got that kind of Latino feel that both those records have. So you've got that as the ancestors. Then most importantly, I think in this case,

Dancing Queen by ABBA, because that was ABBA's attempt to make their own Rocky Baby and to take that kind of Latin syncopation and Don't Make Waves is post-ABBA not that I'm by any means placing Don't Make Waves on the same level as Rocky Baby or Dancing Queen

but it's got the DNA of that Latin disco sound filtered through Northern European mum-pop sensibilities. What I love about the structure of this song is that the intro, vocally, kicks in halfway through the chorus. That bit that goes, So let our hearts roam free If you wanna love me It's like halfway through.

That's a really clever little songwriting trick because it's, because it's the most exciting bit of the song. And it's a really clever way to get you hooked in to do like half of the chorus before you actually do the song. Yeah. It's produced by Ben Finden and co-written by Finden with Robert Pusey and Mike Myers, not the Austin Powers one,

probably not the baddie from Halloween. You never know. They were all established journeymen and hacks of middle-of-the-road pop, right? Their fingerprints are all over the Dooley's, for example, who are very much the John the Baptist to the Nolan's Jesus. Fyndon did loads of schlager and Europop prior to this, which you can kind of tell. But he did also produce and co-write

Lovely Hurts Without You for Billy Ocean. And even better than that, Red Light Spells Danger, which is literally one of the greatest records ever made. So this guy, he's a hack who knew what he was doing and capable of flashes of genius. For me, this song is a tiny flash of genius and by far the best thing the nolans ever did right the performance here is is bog standard nolans

doing their symmetrical sororal choreography in silver jackets and salmon tops and black slacks and bright pink belts with i thought a slightly phallic dangle on the end of each funky belt that's it is it that's the belt yeah yeah they're wearing funky belts i mean they look as if all the women in greece were outfitted by the k's catalog you know i mean i'm so glad what we cleared it up in the same episode we cleared up what a funky belt was this is really good um but yeah the whole thing it's total cruise ship there's no sex no sleaze just wholesome entertainment um although looks can be deceptive which maybe we'll talk about in a minute i'll hand over to neil now well i mean it's interesting you say this is like one of the probably your favorite nolan i mean i i kind

of wish this was any of the other singles off the making waves album because right because sexy music oh um i i'm fairly sure that might have formed the melodic inspiration behind my sister's game of disco lights by the way oh um might have been made for a better performance or the mighty you know who's gonna rock you um co-written by billy ocean funnily enough there's that connection but i would love who's gonna rock you um co-written by billy ocean funnily enough there's that connection but i would love who's gonna rock you to be on this episode because they might have played the video which starts with one of the greatest sight sound gags ever um linda nolan starts the song on the recorded version with a kind of disco yowl and in the video to to make that believable she's running a bath

about to hit the town and then she puts her foot in this hot bath and she does this loud yeah which is worthy you know it's like baby face finlesson or something oh my god that's like there was this tradition in the local cinema in barry I don't know if I've talked about this before. No. But, you know, cinemas in those days, probably not so much anymore, would have local adverts in the trailers as well as sort of national ones. And there was one in Barry for a local kind of carpets and flooring retailer. And what it was, there was a woman getting up in the morning in her dressing gown

and she's walking down um lovely thick plush carpeted stairs um until she gets to the bottom and it's cold tiles and when she puts her bare foot on the cold tiles everybody in the cinema would scream and it's just this thing that became a local tradition and i i fucking loved it i wonder if there's anything else out there like that just these like weird little local things that grow up but in response to the advert the woman in the advert doesn't scream she just sort of flinches a bit but people would scream and yeah yeah you just reminded me of that it's a nice memory to have the thing is the thing is with this song it sounds like it was written at a much slower pace and has been kind of a little bit artificially discoed up i think that doesn't really suit the kind of rather dreary anthemic

melody i don't think they benefit from what they're wearing no as has been mentioned i i know they couldn't wear the same thing as they did on the lena zavaroni show but when they do this on the lena zavaroni show they wear these sort of purple pantsuits that are way more flattering what this really made me think about that i was reading a thing with a video director an interview with a video director from the early 80s and he was talking in general about when he's got in trouble with his videos and he said that in one of the nolan's videos he does maureen nolan looks tearfully at a picture of her old boyfriend and then throws it in a river. And this video was banned in case it made people throw litter.

For fuck's sake. So there you go, Nolan's kicking out the jams. Yeah, bit of a low spot for me in this show. I mean, like Bucks Fizz in a few years' time, the Nolans are trapped in that limbo between actual pop stardom and the cabaret circuit as

reviewing the stage a few months hence bears out right the image of the nolans has been given a glossy veneer of late a fact that was reflected throughout their recent show at wembley surely not the stadium no there were the smooth and sexy costumes, provocative and exhausting dance routines, a material that will go down a treat on the disco floor. These contrast somewhat disconcertingly with the clean-cut, girl-next-door giggles, but no matter. By the enthusiasm shown at this concert, there is a place in the hearts of many middle-aged, middle-class mums and dads for this kind of entertainment. Like the Osmonds, they are family life on parade. Middle-of-the-road classics, ancient and modern, abounded with the newest and youngest of the group, Colleen, leading the way

with Touch Me in the Morning. She's 15, everyone. A medley of songs from the last few decades provided a range of styles from a neat Charleston number to rock around the clock, and, much to the astonishment of the audience, a quick blast of punk. What? Yeah, and I'd love to know what punk. Well, the thing is, in terms of their sort of um family friendly

wholesome image obviously that that was deceptive i think we we have to talk about what happened backstage at this very episode of top of the pops yes motorhead and the nolans did meet up and uh there was an attempt by lemmy to cop off with one of them um and i've found interview quotes from both sides to confirm this happened oh right so here is from lemmy's side right he says no there was no fling but it wasn't for the want of trying they are awesome chicks people forget those girls were on stage with frank sinatra at the age of 12 they've seen things twice. We were on top of the pops at the same time as them and our manager was trying to chat up Linda, the one with the bouffant hair and the nice boobs.

He dropped his lighter and bent down to pick it up. Linda said to him, while you're down there, why don't you give me a dot, dot, dot? It blew him away. We didn't expect that from a Nolan sister. None of us did. We were supposed to be the smelliest

loudest motherfuckers in the building but we more than met our match we were in awe wow you couldn't mess with the nolan sisters that's from lemmy's point of view um in colleen's version it was lemmy himself not the manager who dropped something on the floor and bent down to pick it up only to be given the while you're down there love treatment from Linda. And Colleen says the look of shock on his face was priceless. He thought he'd have to watch his behaviour in front of the Von Trapps. Yes. And there was Maria Von Trapp being so crude.

From that point on, he realised we were ordinary people and we got along great. Colleen also says Lemmy was the nicest, most intelligent, philosophical person you could ever meet. He'll probably be turning in his grave now I've said that. Though I was terrified when I met him for the first time in 1981. She's got the year wrong there. I was a Nolan sister and he was this scary looking heavy metal guitarist.

Colleen continues, but he found out that the Nolans weren't that innocent either. When we did Top of the Pops, he bent over to pick something up in front of us. And Linda said, while you're down there. So there we go. It's confirmed by both sides.

Wow. So the following week, Don't Make Waves soared 10 places to number 15. And two weeks later, it got to number 12, its highest position. The follow-up gotta pull myself together got to number nine for two weeks in october and november of this year by which time linda and new member colleen nolan teamed up with mickey moody of whitesnake bob young a songwriter

for status quo cozy pal and lemme in the young and moody band for the single don't do that well which is one of the great incongruous hookups in pop history along with shawadi wadi supporting einster's end annoyed about but yeah it's just a sort of um standard kind of blues rock knees up very much in the same vein as uh uh who was it who did uh hold me it was maggie bell and b.a robertson yeah that kind of feel to it that's that's what it's like yeah and not the only collaboration between the nolans and motorhead as we'll discover later But then don't, don't, don't make waves I'm missing, baby Don't, don't, don't make waves

Poor ladies who started in Ireland, now they're totally international. The Molins are 25 in the charts and don't make waves. Now, let's go into the bathroom and see the mirror and the beat. After telling us how international the Nolans are, Tommy, on his own this time, invites us into the bathroom and guides us towards the mirror and introduces the next band, The Beat, with Mirror in the bathroom. We've wanged on about how fucking skill The Beat are many a time and off on chart music and this, their third single, which was written before they'd even got a deal with Two-Tone or anyone else,

is the follow-up to Hands Off She's Mine, which got to number nine in March of this year. It's also the third cut from their forthcoming debut LP, I Just Can't Stop It, which comes out at the end of the month. It's automatically entered the chart this week at number 58, but that is not going to deter Top of the Pops from ushering them into the studio. Two words, boys.

Fucking yes! Oh, God, yeah. This is amazing. Yes. And it's another moment in the show where I feel like pulling some of the audience up by their lapels and just snarling. Oh, yes.

What the fuck are you doing? How are you staying still? This is fucking astonishing. Yeah. You know, the beat, whenever they're on Top of the Pops, they're always dazzling What the fuck are you doing? How are you staying still? This is fucking astonishing. Yeah. You know, the beat, whenever they're on top of the pops, they're always dazzling because they're just a band that have so much. They've got two absolute stone-cold heartthrobs in Dave and Roger.

Your sax has just been the coolest motherfucker on earth. Oh, yes. I mean, this song had particular resonance in my household at the time because it put my sister Mira through that thing that no kid wants having their name mentioned in a popular song and it's sung at her level Mira in the bathroom yeah and and I mean I got this I got the same a year or so later when Dollars little known b-side Neil Kulkarni is a wanker got some radio play for a while this song massively wound my sister up and as her little, I felt that residual resentment too. But my God, what a record.

I mean, as you say, Al, I mean, what a year for albums and singles 1980 is. Suzy Banshee's coming out with Kaleidoscope, Diana Ross, Diana, the Linton, Kweisi Johnson, Albie Mention, Warm Leatherette, Remain in Light, more specials. It's just an amazing year for albums. You've got to put I Just Can't Stop It in that company and in the nme 50 tracks of the year for 1980 the beat have three singles in the top 30 which no other band does yeah two top 10 singles already this year it's only may the first and and this has the words nailed on hit written all over it oh without a doubt and

they've been sitting on it as well that's really crucial yes it reminds me of a quote from not dave wakeley and the other dave where in an interview that year he says i think there are three things you should have in a band you should be sort of poppy weird and you should be able to dance to it and that is this record to a t it's such a weird little record in today's issue of smash hits which I would have had close to me while watching this, the singles page absolutely frothed at the gash over this song. In short, their best yet wrote A Small Creature in Shorts. Pumping rhythm, clipped guitar, a song that is the very model of simple insistence, and the whole thing is topped off with some marvellous sax playing that weaves in and out of the structure. Hear it twice and you feel like you've known it for years.

And fucking hell, that small creature in shorts was not lying. Oh, too right. I don't think this was the first time I heard the song. I think I heard it on the radio a few times. But yeah, the minute you hear it, it's like, fuck me, point me in the direction of the record shop now. Which is mental for a record with, I mean, really no chorus, bar repeat of the title. But eventually the lack of a chorus becomes its own chorus,

this incessant repetition. Yes. And this hovering around, this very sort of downed minor key pattern. But it's massively danceable rhythmically. There's these long lines of lyrics where the lines grow into these sinister insistences on, you know, watching yourself whilst you're eating and stuff it chilled me as a child it still chills me now and watching this performance you get the sense with the way that the beat put this across just how much they've waited for this moment not only is this song an old song that's more reflective of them as personalities than

perhaps the covers were but it's you know it feels like the first moment where this band are able to exert some autonomy over what they put out and it's a really important statement they're brilliantly served as well i have to say by the antics of the backroom boys at top of the pops with some excellent mirrored split screen action and stuff yes appallingly served by the audience but fuck me what a moment in the episode this is yeah um it's not just the um sort of computery stuff they do with the split screen horizontal and you know dave wakening being mirrored it's literally the handheld looking glass that the roger has isn't it and he does that thing where he angles the looking glass just perfectly so he can stare into it and see down the camera that's a lovely little touch isn't it this song as you say was always in their locker they had it at their sleeve

um i interviewed dave wakelin um a couple years ago now and he was telling me about this that well basically it all began in the summer of 78 when he and andy cox went down to the isle of white to earn a bit of money fitting solar panels to houses. And they were staying in a house in Lhagang, China, which has since fallen into the sea. And while they were there, they just started playing in local bands for something to do. But they decided they wanted to start up their own thing, and they advertised locally for a bassist.

That's how they found David Steele. Could have had Mark King. Mark King could have been in the beat fucking hell. Paolo Universe, yeah, jeez. But yeah, David Steele, the man that Wakelin describes as the Mozart of the band, he's the one on this performance and pretty much every performance who does that mad ankle-tangling dance, which Saxa called The Shuffle. And Dave said that they all tried to copy it, but none of them could do it.

Sony can do it. A lot of the songs on that first album, I Just Can't Stop It, were written down in the Isle of Wight while they were fitting these solar panels, including Mirror in the Bathroom. David Steele was training as a mental health nurse. Yes. But he decided to move to Birmingham

with the other two, and they went back and carried on to give the beat a chance. And songs like this are all about his bass lines, really. Yeah. And it was, yeah, it was always up their sleeve. As they started playing live and their reputation grew, there was a sort of watershed moment

where they played John Peel's Roadshow at Aston University, which is their first gig with proper PA and lights. John Peel went fucking apeshit for them. Right. He out-introduced them as the best band in the universe after the Undertones. Right. So their reputation was spreading

and Jerry Dammers came along to check them out because he'd heard rumours about them and saw them as kind of competition, I suppose. Obviously, he was blown away and he offered them a record deal with Two-Tone. And he said to them, I mean, he already had in mind, he said, that mirror in the bathroom for the first single, right?

And they said to him, yeah, yeah, that's probably the one. But then when Dammers showed them the paperwork, the contract with Two-Tone and Chrysalis, and it said that Chrysalis would keep the song for five years and they couldn't have it on their album, right? So they said no. And the way they got around it quite diplomatically was they said, all right, you can have Tears of a Clown

and you can argue with Smokey Robinson about whose song it is. And also Tears of a Clown or, you argue with Smokey Robinson about whose song it is and also Tears of a Clown or you know the first beat single whatever it may have been was coming out at Christmas so they said just watch it'll do better if we hold on to this one you don't want a song about one of Dave's nervous breakdowns save that for the new year when everyone's thinking about killing themselves in February which is really smart because you know they're sort of leading Two-Tone along, sort of implying that, yeah, you know,

we'll stick with you and we'll put that single out. But of course, what they had up their sleeve was they're going to quit. So they do Tears of a Clown slash Rankin' Full Stop on Two-Tone and then they leave.

And in a way, surprising, but also very canny that this isn't even the first single on their own label. As you say, Hands Off She's Mine comes first, which is a brilliant song, but it's a bit more lightweight very canny that this isn't even the first single on their own label as you say hands off she's mine

comes first which is a brilliant song but it's a bit more lightweight and a bit yeah sort of less substantial than mirror in the bathroom so they were just sort of finding their feet and building their audience uh and it was it was a superb move to set up their own label go feet rather than just signing directly to arista because in a way it became their mirror, if you'll pardon the pun, of Two-Tone. Yes. They had their own identity, that the parent label, the big, you know, in Two-Tone's case, it was Chrysalis.

The big bad label is hiding behind this kind of independent looking front. And it's really important as well that the beat had a girl as their logo, the beat girl. Yes. Dave Wakelin's talked about this as well, about they wanted to provide a counterpoint to the kind of blokey thing of two-tone having walt jabsco

is in the hope that girls would feel more welcome coming to their gigs yeah you know apparently that that did work that's my next tattoo by the way the other thing about this already it's not scar because um tears of a clown rankin full stop very very Stop, very, very high-octane, sped-up Scar, even Hands Off She's Mine, although that's almost got a kind of Afrobeat element to it, it's got an African thing going on. But by this point, I don't know what it is, I guess it's funk, it's paranoid funk,

it's funk having a nervous breakdown, as Dave puts it. It's a dance record about mental illness, for fuck's sake, which shouldn't work, but it's about ag record about mental illness for fuck's sake you know which shouldn't work but it's it's about agitation and paranoia and it sounds agitated and paranoid so in that sense it is musical onomatopoeia even the thing about having a glass table where you can watch yourself while you're eating as as an adult you you think of reflective surfaces and you think of cocaine you know so there is that kind of cocaine paranoia or keith joseph it is funk but i think sax is up there anti a little bit um in in terms of the way i mean what dave's playing on the guitar

it's almost jazz he's playing some really quite weird shit on his guitar so yeah it doesn't neatly fit into any pigeonhole you'd care to shove it into it's just this unique little thing and i keep saying little thing it's a fucking massive thing yeah sax is very much the joey the lips isn't he of the beat i love him because whenever he's interviewed at the time people want to know you know what have you learned from this and he just keeps saying nothing i'm not learning anything from these guys but he loves them i love how dave wakeling and rankin roger do uh reflect the subculture that they are part of by wearing harrington yes and they just really look the part yes but saxa has saxons yes um but you know he's he's old yeah but he's he's old he's he can wear what the fuck he wants he's old

you know yeah god yeah you don't want him in a bomber jacket like Tommy Vance do you as with the specials of madness and with a band that we're going to see later on there was endless playground debate amongst the fourth and fifth year contingent over if you could be a mod and like this sort of thing

but for a newly minted 12 year old like me and my peers there's no qualms whatsoever this is fucking mint. Well, it is a little bit more mod than a lot of the ska bands. There was a bit of argument in the music press over whether the beat were mod or not. Well, it's because it's so sharp, what they're doing.

It's got that kind of nervous energy that a lot of the best stuff by The Jam also had. So, yeah, I don't think it's too much of a leap for jam fans to be beat fans and beat fans to be jam fans put it that way we're having to go at saxon for wearing band t-shirts um dave wakelin's got not one but two beat badges yes yes on his arrington yeah and of course talking about the beat girl there will be the second most plastic mod badge ever after madness modness no probably the third because there was the other one wasn't

there there was the secret affair badge with a nutty boy looking through a keel well fucking plastic plastic cut out badge of walt jabs go and the beat go on a scooter oh i've got it i've got that one yes i actually had an even more shonky beat badge than any of those, which was, it was just a round button badge. But, you know, the logo was the letters all kind of wonky next to each other. But the B was like the flat symbol for music from Staves, you know. But on this one, they just put a normal capital B, for fuck's sake. But I still wore it. Of course you did.

Because I'd spent 25p on it. Pathetic. It's a very mod lyric in any case with apparent nods at narcissism. Obviously, it's a bit deeper than that. But yeah, I would be watching this and absolutely champing at the bit for my Saturday afternoon excursion into town. And it goes without saying that whenever this hit the decks at the community centre or the youth club,

it would go the fuck off. Absolutely. I mean, we all do a bit of DJing, right? You know, and I run my own club night, Spellbound, 80s night. And obviously we play the beat. When I stick this on, people absolutely lose their shit. It's just such, you cannot fail with this track. Yeah.

I mean, no matter what you were into round our way, practically everybody danced the same. That rhythmic leg his track. Yeah. I mean, no matter what you were into, Round Our Way, practically everybody danced the same. That rhythmic leg-kicking dance. Yeah. The only difference was what you added to it. So the punks would kick their legs, but also windmill their arms around. The mods and the rude boys would kind of like pump their fists

close to their chest. And the skinheads would just try to kick the punks and the mods. So, yeah, just one one dance but so many variations a council estate can can it's funny though the mod the mod confusion because i mean i remember reading an interview dave waitling when he says that at the time they're playing gigs and literally the mod revival crowd would be in the audience like just shouting mod they'd shout mod until they heard some mod music um and he'd say you know this was big hit and um you know uh sort of back in the 60s and the people would lose their shit but i mean the thing is this is closer to that mix of black musical obsession

and artiness that is mod um far more than the fucking merton parkers or something you know chords yeah oh god yeah the whole album um i just can't stop it it's totally a dance record start to finish it's just incredible and i think um the beat have kind of slipped through the cracks of history a little bit and i think we've talked about this before when we've dealt with a beat but in a similar way that you know you've got your blur versus oasis but really the best band out of that lot was Pulp. It was always, oh, who do you prefer, Specials or Madness? Well, actually, maybe The Beat.

You know, they just don't seem to get a look in in those conversations. And they really should. I suppose some of it is to do with the fact that they never fully got back together. Well, there was one gig. They played at the Royal Festival Hall. But even then, Steel and Cox were missing from that. Yeah, yeah, it's such a missed opportunity. But the sound of that album,

it's hard to tell whether one is just projecting this onto it because you know the fact, but it was the first album that was produced digitally. Bob Sargent. Right. Bob Sargent was, yeah, on that album. And it's very neat and clipped and sharp and you think is that because it's recorded digitally or is that just completely irrelevant

i don't know but it's an interesting fact about it anyway yeah but it is an album that does seem to be left out of conversations about what the best album 1980 is for instance and it should be in every conversation about that because it's it's really up there so the following week mirror in the bathroom soared 41 places to number 17 and a week later began a two-week run at number four and at the end of the month i just can't stop it smashed into the lp chart at number three the follow-up the double a side best friend slash stand down margaret only got to number 22 in september but they righted the ship when too nice to talk to got to number seven for two weeks in january of 1981 They're in the bathroom They're in the bathroom APPLAUSE

All the makers of great British records now, and that's one of them. OK, what's in a name, girls? Show them. And here's another name to conjure with. This is Kate Bush. country with this is kate bush fans standing above three more tricia yates types in black harringtons tells us that there's some great British records about and that was one of them. He then instructs the girls to turn around to reveal that they have Kim, Linda and

Sharon printed on their backs. This is supposed to be an acceptable way to introduce Breathing by Kate Bush. We last encountered Kate Bush on chart music number 58, and this, her sixth single, is the follow-up to the Kate Bush on stage EP, which got to number 10 in October of 1979.

It's going to be the first single taken from her next LP, Never Forever. It came out a fortnight ago and entered the charts last week at number 44 this week it's risen 15 places to number 29 which gives top of the pops the opportunity to whack a video on but let's put kate bush to one side for a moment just let's talk about harrington's eh because 1980 was the year of wearing clothes with your name on i, practically everyone at our school who had an Arrington would do the following. You get your Arrington, almost certainly from the market, and then you take it to another bloke in the market who did printing, and you get the name on the top rocker,

get a T-shirt transfer of whatever you fancied underneath, and then you get a clanker in on the front left hand side and you're good to go you're 1980 compliant nobody did that in my town you're joking everyone did that in my town maybe it's a Midlands thing Al

did they do the transfer as well Neil what they did was iron on kind of or so on letters in the back I've said before there was a choice Ion kind of or so on sort of letters in the back. I've said before, you know, there was a choice. I had specials or you could have madness. But you didn't have your own name on it. The own name thing, that wasn't as common. In the heat of two-tone, it was kind of between specials and madness

as to what you had on the back. But I mean, you know, I was, what, seven going on eight and I still had that. It was something that everyone felt part of around here anyway. going on eight and i still had that it was something that everyone felt part of around here anyway it would be walt jabs go or a specials transfer or uh the madness m that was pretty big but you could have all sorts on it i knew one lad who had blonde on the back of his wow yeah and i've of course i've mentioned gormy dorner who had omd on the back of his arrington a year or so down the line i I feel like I haven't lived, because I would totally have had the Madness M if I'd been able to.

Of course. I just don't think there was a shop in Cardiff that did that. Yeah. But what bothers me about these three girls is that their names are in different fonts. Yeah. Yes. Two of them have got this sort of Wild West handbill kind of font.

Yeah, it's very cowboy font, isn't it? Yeah, yeah. And the other one's just got a sort of sans serif font. I don't know what it is, but it's like, come on, girls. Yeah, isn't it funny how there were different fonts for different areas? Because around our way, it was all Cooper Black. You know, the Dad's Army font. Ah, it was Cooper Black around our way as well, yeah.

Yeah, there you go, Midland style. But, oh, man, once again, the market sorting you out. The decline of the market has resulted in the decline of pop culture I feel in this country yeah now it's all fucking street food

and all that shit indeed use your markets people yeah or you'll lose them anyway big year for Kate Bush 1980

she started off by regaining the best female singer title at the Daily Mirror Rock and Pop Awards in February and three weeks ago Pamela Stevenson did her on Not the Nine O'Clock News. You know, you buy my latest tits because you like my latest tits.

She's just written a letter to Faith Brown thanking her for her impersonation of her. And, you know, would you like to meet up for a drink? There's an unauthorized biography that's coming out very soon, which claims that she's a mystical pothead dominated by appearance and that poster of her with all the nipplage dominates every record shop in the kingdom and is gawped at by yous like me when we think no one's looking so yes she's all over the shop in 1980 i can't believe that our generation ignored kate bush at the time yes and it was only the Stranger Things generation who finally gave her any credit, glanced a camera.

No. And here she is in a video presenting the disturbing tableau of, you know, what happens when you lose the end of the cling film. Yes. Yes. It's an odd video, this. But, I whenever as i said before where i've done kate bush before on chart music and mentioning the terrifying wideness of her eyes etc i can't help but think of my missus whenever i hear kate bush not only because my missus kind of looked like her but also because she was a huge kate bush fan and these albums were a big part of

our life together and actually my wife she was kind of emblematic i think of who kate bush fans were in this period that we're talking about here she was a bit too young to feel part of punk my wife but she'd grown up in households that were full of music and you know her dad was a cliff fan and her stepdad was a kind of prog fan who had like dark side of the moon and genesis albums and all kinds of prog so ultimately she was someone who responded to kind of a slight bit of originality singularity and this fully realized musical visions kate bush had that appeal to a definite set of people i'm not saying she had no fans in london but what i mean is she appealed to the suburban loner, I think.

Kids who feel a bit solitary. Kids whose folks had Floyd and Genesis albums. Kids who loved Bowie. Kids for whom punk wasn't really going to cut it. And, you know, perhaps, I mean, notwithstanding the annoyed female heavy metal fans of the Sounds Letters page earlier, fans who weren't interested in the fantasies of metal, but did want some lushness and musicality and fantasy to their pop music

and for those kids especially girls to find a pop star who had this look to aim for but also that sense of building pop from their kind of bedroom imagination outwards yeah that literary imagination as well a very readily imagination i think this is really important and you know we're looking at this video my days what an odd weird thing to have on the nation's top pop show yes this song that sings about chips of plutonium twinkling in every lung um you know it's crazy i mean everything else this show, you can kind of connect to something else. But this only really connects to Kate Bush. And I think that's why it connected to these kind of suburban loners out there.

Was your wife a misty reader by any chance, Neil? I suspect she was, yes. Kate Bush is so misty, it's not true. Yeah, this single, partly inspired by side three of Pink Floyd's The Wall, but mainly inspired by a documentary about nuclear war that she watched earlier this year, which I'm pretty certain is If The Bomb Drops, that episode of Panorama about the government's preparations for nuclear war, i.e. the fucking isn't any.

It was the first chance the British public got to see clips of the Protect and Survive public information films. But it's best known for the interview with the market trader who was asked by Jeremy Paxman what he'd do if he heard the four-minute warning and replied, it's a waste of time, isn't it, going anywhere. You've had it, ain't you? You've had it, ain't you? No messing about. You've had it ain't ya you've had it ain't ya no messing about you've had it ain't ya and yeah the song sung from the perspective of a fetus rather in the manner of belly button window by

jimmy hendrix in a smash it's interview earlier this month she says it's about a baby still in the mother's womb at the time of a nuclear fallout but it's more of a spiritual being. It has all its senses, sight, smell, touch, taste and hearing and it knows what is going on outside the mother's womb and yet it wants desperately to carry on living as we all do of course. Nuclear fallout is something we're all aware of and worried about happening in our lives. And it's something we should all take time to think about. We're all innocent. None of us deserve to be blown up. And this baby wants a cigarette as well because it sings about the nicotine.

It's a weird little song, isn't it? I didn't really pick up on the meaning of it at the time. I've got to be honest. You just think, oh, a song about breathing. That's fucking boring. Look, I'm doing it now. Yeah, I probably thought, well, is Kate Bush doing a slow song? So it's basically another wow or the man with a child in his eyes.

You know, I just, I probably bracketed it with those and didn't really listen very closely. But when you sort of dig into it, she was kind of obsessed with obstetric matters, right down to, you know, her first album being called The Kick Inside. Yeah yeah but all that stuff about chips of plutonium twinkling in every lung fucking hell yeah and she was concerned with events in the middle east um according to an interview i found presumably 1980 she's talking about the russian invasion of afghanistan yeah and what might come from that but the record company didn't get it either. They were apparently concerned that the in-out-in-out bit was pornographic.

Oh, no! Yes, exactly. They thought it was pornographic. They thought it was shagging. But the thing is, she's so confident at this point, not just as an artist, but in terms of how secure she is with the record label, that she's able to make this the lead single from the album.

When, you know, the more obviously commercial Babushka was ready and waiting, and even Army Dreamers, I suppose. Of course, you know, later on, she'd go way out on a limb and make an album as experimental as The Dreaming, which didn't have any massive hits at all, even though Sat In Your Lap, which was a mental berserk record, got to number 11. And then later still, she finds the kind of perfect balance

of the populist and the avant-garde on The Hounds of Love. But this single at this time is a bit of a flex for Kate. She's showing her muscles saying, you know, I can do this. So the video, only the second one we've seen so far, isn't it? It's, yeah, like Neil's mentioned, it's Kate wrapped up in cling film inside a plastic bubble. Basically, it looks like she's mentioned, it's Kate wrapped up in cling film inside a plastic bubble. Basically, it looks like she's about to go zorbing in a nudist colony.

Yes, she's invented zorbing. All in soft focus so we don't see out. So sorry about that, Dad. Yeah, she's attached to that plastic umbilical cord with the amniotic fluid represented by polythene. It's very cheap, isn't it? Like, to modernise, it looks very cheap isn't it like to modernize it looks very cheap if someone like billy eilish did a song like this now you can imagine the cgi production values of

the video be mind-boggling but i quite like the inventive sort of make do and mend almost blue peter like approach to representing what's what's going on and to be honest a plastic bubble's got to be just as safe as a fucking door taking off its hinges and leant against your wall. Yeah, duck and cover, fuck that, yeah. I mean, we don't see the end of the video, which sees Kate coming out of the bubble. Yeah, Top of the Pops cuts it off before it gets really harrowing.

So we don't get the male voiceover, which I believe is Roy Harper, I don't know, describing the effects of different tonnages of nuclear weapons. And then you've got Kate and her band in hazmat suits staggering about in a field after a blinding flash or wading through a lake looking traumatised with the backing vocals saying, we're all going to die. I mean, eat your heart out, Robert Smith.

And then there's this weird happy ending where a nuclear explosion is shown in reverse. And then you've got Kate and all her mates all recreating Edgar Degas' Dégéné Soleil, which was also, of course, recreated by Bow Wow Wow on their album sleeve. So yeah, an odd video and maybe a slightly cowardly decision by Top of the Pops

to cut it before it gets really bleak. But then I suppose they were pressed for time. Yeah, there is cheapness there. But even in this two minutes that we get, she's totally compelling and draws the eye. And I can't think of many other pop stars at that time who, yeah, thrown into a load of cling film would have made it quite so absorbing in a way. It's an amazing trick. Yeah, she was always a little bit, I'm a and now she's i'm a fetus yeah it's still that kind of slightly amdram thing going on there yeah so the following week breathing nudged up three places

to number 26 and a fortnight later got to number 16 its highest position the follow-up babushka returned her to the top five for the first time since wuthering heights in april of 1978 getting to number five in august of this year and when the lp never forever came out a month later it smashed into the chart at number one making her the first woman in uk chart history to do that is this the first big song of the 80s about nuclear war well i mean more specials is about to drop in it and that's got man at cna so yeah that wasn't a single though was it no that's really interesting to me as well that um a lot of the other bands were much more route one in their nuclear fear like man at cna literally starts warning warning

nuclear attack and you've got kate bush sort of doing this narrative from the point of view of a fetus she's always got a slightly different twist on these things yeah yeah which which kind of is one of the reasons they sort of passed me by at the time because i probably needed it sort of absolutely rammed down my throat yes um but yeah in coming um at nuclear war from the position of a fetus it's oddly reminiscent of the very last image in threads the horrifying image which you don't see of course yeah yeah haunting as fuck man i don't know if i've mentioned this before right but i'm going to chuck it out anyway about the last scene of threads right so it's a girl who was born after nuclear war yeah giving birth to a baby and she's screaming and you can see a filling in her mouth

right was that an actual fuck up or was it the director keeping it in to say look it's not real i don't think it was the latter i think it's a must have been a fuck up because the rest of it is so consistent yeah i watched threads again the other day and that startling thing the way the language simplifies towards the end and people can only speak in real it's just astonishing so i reckon that was a fuck up i've never noticed that before you know um the image that everybody remembers from threads is um the woman pissing herself yes when she's out shopping right that woman she's on imdb as urinating woman yes um and that's her only acting job imagine that being your only acting job where can you go from there man yeah yeah oh she's etched in the memory of a generation what else

is there to achieve yeah i still can't believe they haven't built a fountain in sheffield of the pissing woman with it all trickling down her leg and that'd be a great place to meet wouldn't it oh yeah i got my first date tonight with this girl where are you going well we're going to meet at the pissing woman's leg obviously yeah never mind the left lion what's number one i'll tell in the charts and the song is called Breathing. What's number one? I'll tell you. This is and it deserves to be Gino! Gino! Gino! Gino!

Gino! Gino! Gino! Gino! Gino! Gino! Gino! Gino! Gino! Gino! Gino! Gino! Vance, crouching on a rostrum at the back of the studio, tells us that Kate Bush is one of the most original singers in the world. Then he jabs her thumb at the main stage and tells us that the band we're about to see,

who are lumbering on with holdalls, towels and a steely determination are this week's number one and deserve to be. It's Gino by Dexys Midnight Runners. We dealt with Dexys Mark II in chart music number 60, but this is their second single and the follow-up to Dance Dance, which got to number 40 in february of this year it was written as a backhanded tribute to william francis washington the evansville indiana native serving on a u.s air force base in east anglia who would slip out to front assorted r&b

bands in greater london becoming the front person of the Ram Jam Band, who released two live LPs, which made the top ten in 1966 and 1967, and got to number 39 in the singles charts in March of that year with Michael the Lover. Although their label, EMI, leaned on them to make it a B-side, preferring their cover of Breaking Down the Walls of Heartache, the band stuck to their guns and it came out in the middle of March, entering the charts at number 61. Two weeks later, when it was at number 37, they were ushered onto the top of the pop stage, which moved it up to number 29.

Then it soared to number 12 12 soared again to number 2 and this week it's tapped Call Me by Blondie on the Shoulder and said excuse me please but you're standing in my space and here they are in the studio making a very memorable entrance

oh indeed chaps say what you see well I mean first off Tommy's spot on with his intro yes he says this is number one because it deserves to be yeah and that's exactly how i felt at the time because i'd never heard a song that had so much in it all of it good and i think this appearance might have been my first encounter with this band oh and this band who i think me and simon actually have discussed it previously,

Dex is this brilliant mix of kind of manifesto and magic. But you can tell this appearance seems like it's another militarily planned thing by Roland. The way that they strut on like boxers to the ring and they march on, they throw their coats off like it's a soul review. All of them deep in their sort of Johnny for Mean Streets look well they do a bit more than that neil they chuck their fucking towels and a couple of holdalls into the audience right and the audience aren't expecting it and they're real back in shock oh it's a hell of a way to come on when you're you know when you're number one i mean i think the reason this song appealed to me and still appeals to me and i think you know dex is obviously still appeal to me but perhaps in particular appeal to music journalists

a lot is that like so much of their work this song is about what being into music feels like you know you fed me you bred me i'll remember your name this is a song about how music can sustain you and raise you and how keeping the memory of that alive can become a badge of faith a bit of a lodestone you need in an increasingly transitory world it's number one and it's one of the best fucking things on the show the way they come on is amazing yeah at this point i do want to once again plug our back catalogue you mentioned chart music 60 and if you want to know how much dexys mean to me and to neil it is all there in chart music 60 where you know i talk about being a lonely teenager staring at my

bedroom window but dexys making it feel all right to be alone and made it feel essential to be alone in fact i talked about that sense of inner strength and self-reliance and self-discipline they gave me and the conviction that even if the entire world doesn't agree with you doesn't mean you're wrong and how they chime with this kind of puritanical streak i had and all that kind of pent-up emotion and angst i had within me so that's all there in sharp music 60 as well as neil's thoughts on dexys if you want to hear that go there but to talk specifically about this era of dexys and this song. First of all, to me, the way they storm the stage, it's like a hooligan firm taking the away end. You know, Dexys have taken top of the pops here.

And it's a great way of circumventing the awkwardness of the beginning of the single because, you know, you've got crowd noises, you've got the chanting and all that kind of stuff. It'd be an awkward thing to start miming to. So by doing that... It's as if it's really happening, the chanting. And of course that, the chanting and all that kind of stuff. It'd be an awkward thing to start miming to. So by doing that... It's as if it's really happening, the chanting. And of course that, the chanting,

was something that would happen at Gino Washington gigs, the Gino, Gino thing. Yes. So, yeah, I wonder how much negotiation it took between Kevin and the Top of the Pops producers to say, look, we're not going to just stand there. We're going to storm on the stage. But obviously they had their way.

He's a very persuasive man. And yeah, the towel thing, it echoes the lyrics. You know, that man took the stage, his towel swinging high. So yeah, it actually kind of act out what the song's about. How would it have felt to be a member of Dex's Midnight Runners and you're marching onto a stage that's got a massive number one hanging above you? Yeah, because all the best

shit from the previous performances in this episode is now suddenly on stage at the same time so you've got you've got the round kind of things that saxon had you've got the kind of scaffolding that motorhead had and you've got this wonderful big number one logo so it's a fucking amazing moment obviously um the song owes a lot to zoot money's big roll band you're one and only man you've all heard that right yeah yeah and uh the vocal tics the obviously general johnson from chairman of the boards although apparently kevin has denied that being the reason right but that but he's a bit like that you know whatever whatever the obvious source of something is he'll misdirect you say oh no no it's not that but i think just being what they were at this time was a stroke of genius because subculturally they appealed to your scar kids and your mod kids

but they're not a mod band they're not a scar band they're not a punk band they're a post-punk soul band which is an absolute stroke of genius at this time soul was there for the taking in terms of that big brassy stacks atlantic southern you know as in the southern states of america version of soul that kind of otis redding version of soul it was there to be grabbed and to be used and to be repurposed and they did it fucking brilliantly and to be a member of dexys at that time you must have just felt such kind of self-confidence and self-belief particularly when this record hits number one you think you know all this shit we've been put through of of

of rehearsing in freezing cold sheds with uh you know a two bar electric fire in the corner freezing our bollocks off and earning no money and all having to wear the same donkey jackets and hats because kevin says so suddenly it must all pay off you must think yes this is why we're doing it you know yeah with with absolutely no sacrifice of ambiguity that's the whole thing if the whole dex's project is in a way an experiment of seeing sort of how punk's diy idea could be applied to other music i.e soul then gino i mean gino could have become just a homage a love song to an old singer yeah but it's not that the ambiguity the lyrics is really key you know look at me as i'm looking down at you yes i'm not being flash it's what i'm built to do that suggestion that the only way of actually paying homage to these gods is to topple them in a way and and there's this weird thing

you know they never knew like we knew me and you we're the same yeah it's almost like chapman and lennon yes it's a real odd thing and now you're all over your song is so tame the the thing that pricey mentioned it is really important and i i do realize it probably is a homage but it felt like when you're watching it that that was a vocal tick that was his own and it wasn't an ooh or an uh or some resurrection of some old soul motif it was it was his it was something new something like it was blowing a raspberry yeah but it's his it's spontaneous but i don't know part irish part brummie just part just nutty i agree with what you were saying about the song being backhanded and what Neil was saying about the importance of those lines,

now just look at me, I'm looking down at you, and all that stuff, you know, your song is so tame. Because if he doesn't do that, you know what this song becomes? Just a tribute, a straight tribute to an old soul singer. It's When Smokey Sings abc yeah and that's just no good and it's precisely because of that sort of psychological intrigue of kevin turning the tables on his hero that the song works i think it also leaves it hanging in the air that in 1992 someone's going to be singing about kevin roland and saying the same thing yeah and what really

comes across on this performance i mean it seems like a simple and obvious thing to say but the horns on dex's records that they're the kind of the most strident thing in the mix but they're also a true statement of intent it's the horns that play the riffs that a punk band or guitar band might have put in and it's the horns that surge you into those moments where dex is just just lift off into this blissful groove particularly on the academic inspiration bit and the thing about horns is they do that thing of just avoiding all the pitfalls of a white rock band there's no guitar phallocentrism there's no soloist ego there's this collective feel and that is ever important with dex's yeah yeah i think big jimmy patterson jimmy is really important on this track for exactly that reason because it's that hook isn't it it's so memorable the horns on that it really really drives the track because tempo wise it's

not fast it's yeah yeah without that hook it would plod a little bit but it does it's more of a kind of marching thing it's it propels you i mean if there's one thing you can say about robin nash at the end of his reign he's very up for taking a punt on a new band i mean dan stance their first single it was only at number 60 when he invited dex's on and that got it up to number 40 so you know who knows what would have happened to him we're not for that top of the pops performance and this is already the fourth earring of gino on top of the price yeah so in studio performances and a play out or over the chart rundown right yeah yeah and this is a song where every time it's going to appear on top of the pops it's going to draw loads more people in because i'd honestly i'd never heard

a song with this many hooks in it with this this much going on, and it was just thrilling. You wanted more of it. You wanted more and more of it. And as you said earlier, Simon, you know, what band are they? Are they Mod? Are they Scar? Again, like the beat, there was debate over Dexys, but no, this had come on at the U Club.

It got danced to. And for this, we'd do our other dance, which was called the Rude Boy Dance. You basically clenched your fists and crossed them over at the wrist and put them in front of your chest and then bended at the knee up and down imagine if you've been putting handcuffs and you were dying for a piss it looked just like that and yeah we dance like that to this uh message to you rude and anything by ub40 so there you go i sort of feel like the Chart Music video channel

needs some dance instruction videos now. It does, doesn't it? Yeah. The other thing is, I mean, you know, I didn't know the lyrics to this song for 20 odd years, really. You know, but it didn't matter. Are you saying he doesn't sing in a clear manner? But of course, you know, when you get to find out what Dexie's lyrics are,

the songs actually get better. They get even more impossibly better when you know, when you get to find out what Dexie's lyrics are, the songs actually get better. They get even more impossibly better when you know the words. Yeah, I wonder how Gino Washington felt about this at the time. I mean, he's getting a massive plug, but he's by some bloke saying, yeah, you're old, I'm better. Much like the lyrics, I'm sure he felt ambiguous. I've been to see him live, and before he comes on, his band get a chant going, and they actually go... So he's obviously decided to embrace it.

As mentioned before, I saw him in 1986 at the Hippo Club in Nottingham, and it was the first time I'd seen anything remotely approaching a soul review, and I fucking loved it. And yes, he came up to me afterwards and said oh i see a lot in you you've got a lot of potential and all this kind of stuff and i just walked out floating on air just thinking oh my god gino washington thinks i'm skill not realizing that he was doing the same thing all over the country picking out lads on their own in the audience and just saying you're fucking brilliant i could see a lot in you.

Because he did it to Ian Brown at the same time. Yeah, but it was you. It wasn't your mate. It was you. You can have that. Exactly, yeah. Completely. Yeah, I'm not a fucking anti-vax monkey cunt.

And this performance has elements of what would go on to be Dexie's projected passion review, where he's doing that kind of testifying thing. He falls to his knees at one point. It's kind of weird that he's got a guitar around his neck, because that just doesn't seem a very Kevin thing. But obviously at that moment it worked. But yeah, just the falling to your knees thing,

that brings such a drama to that moment in the song. Top of the pop sort of consider themselves lucky that Dexys didn't start the song the way they started at gigs just standing there in total silence waiting for everyone to shut up and then having a go at people and telling them to fuck off to the pub they're not prepared to listen amazing i mean yeah this could have gone on for fucking ages this song being number one actually i can vividly remember it took me by surprise me too i was delighted it was number one for my birthday it just felt right you know what i mean well it really knocked me sideways because what happened

with me was um i was at the school of horror that i mentioned earlier on in the episode and uh for some reason one week i didn't get to listen to the top 40 run down uh i think we've been set on a fucking freezing cold cross-country run or something like that that evening so when when it came to it this week i remember listening to the top 40 on sunday evening and thinking oh i wonder what's happened to that that song that i like uh that that gino song just waiting for it and you get to the top 10 you think oh well i oh well okay and it's had its run it's probably fallen out of the charts uh what i didn't realize was it had soared the previous week to whatever it had and now it had soared to number one. I had no idea.

So, yeah, and it was like, what? Hang on, what? You're kidding me? Yeah. Yeah, I'll never forget that moment. It's so exciting. Chaps, you know that when we research, we roll deep, and we've pulled out a quote or two from the Nolan sisters already,

but I want to go back there, because Anneolan's book a few years ago wrote about dex's midnight runners um quote for our first time on top of the pops with the song spirit body and soul we could wear what we wanted now i cringe at the spandex trousers we picked surrounded by punks we were like fish out of water a sex pistol spat on our dressing room door presumably because that's what he thought a punk ought to do we didn't care we had a great time i must interject there because sex pistols were never on top of the pulse in person maybe it was one of the skids who was on or maybe one of the doolies i suspect the doolies but she goes on

years later we got a letter from kevin roland of dex's midnight runners he was going through counseling and wrote to apologize for saying nasty things about us none of us could remember him saying anything unpleasant but part of his recovery program apparently was that you said sorry to anyone you'd insulted when you were in the grip of your demons yeah i think this is the only time dex is midnight runners and the nolans are on the same episode of top of the pumps chance so it must have been backstage of this episode maybe maybe he said he didn't believe them when they said they liked frank sinatra who knows well? Well done. Well played. So, Gino would stay at number one for one more week

before being stood down by the next single we're going to hear. It would become the seventh best-selling single of 1980. One Below the Tide is High by Blondie, One Above Together We Are Beautiful by Fern Kinney. The follow-up,

There There My Dear, got to number seven in August, and the LP Searching for the Young Soul Rebels got to number six on two non-consecutive weeks in the same month. Great album. Oh, amazing album. The only thing about me and my relationship

with that album is, when I first got it, I was totally confused about the cover did you think it was him worse than that neil i mean we all know what the photo's about don't we well it's basically the ethnic cleansing of part of belfast isn't it yeah well yeah we know that now but at the time i looked at that photo of that lad holding his suitcase being rushed into a car thinking oh look at that poor sod he's got to go on holiday and he doesn't want to. He's thinking about all the telly he's going to miss. No.

Fuck's sake. English people are such ignorant cunts about Northern Ireland. It's embarrassing, man. Al, that is pure Partridge. That's where Alan Partridge goes about Sunday, bloody Sunday. It really does encapsulate the frustration of a Sunday. Next is Midnight Volleys, and that's the number one record. It's called Oh, Gino.

Say goodnight, girls. Goodnight! Goodnight, everybody. See you soon by a shot of the disco ball, we pan upward to find three more girls on Tommy Vance's gun tower, with Vance himself standing in front of the rail, with his leg awkwardly crooked around the bar. Fucking hell. Health and safety, everyone.

Oh, yeah, I thought he was going to go over. Yeah. I mean, you know how it is when some men, not all men, but when some get to a certain age and the daughters start bringing their mates home. And it's not like they're coming on to them or anything, but, you know,

they're desperate to put over that, hey, dad's still cool. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. There's no way that would be allowed on BBC nowadays. I mean, can you relate to this, Neil? Do you start sort of swinging your leg over chairs or balconies or balustrades? I can't say I do. I mean, I'm constantly sitting astride chairs, talking to, you know, the kids in class.

Yeah. Oh, are you that teacher yeah i call them yeah you're banging your cane on the floor calling them guys you know yes and those um those jeans that vance is wearing that are they saxons they're definitely boot cut yeah they're a bit like the ones that travolta wears in greece or uh maybe maybe the fons so they've're a bit like the ones that Travolta wears in Greece, or maybe the Fonz. So they've got a bit of flair on them, because that's the era. Yeah, just a bit of a kick. Yeah, just a little bit, absolutely.

By 1980, they would have been well on Saxons, wouldn't they? Yeah, yeah. He then gets the flower of the nation's youth to say goodnight, and bids us farewell without even plugging the Friday Rock Show or the next track, What's Another Year? by Johnny Logan. Born in Frankston near Melbourne in 1954, Sean Sherrod was the son of an Irish tenor who was relocated to the old country at the age of three. After learning to play guitar and dabbling in songwriting as a teenager,

he became an apprentice electrician while working nights as a club singer and playing the lead role in a production of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat In 1978 he changed his name to that of the love interest in the 1954 Joan Crawford western Johnny Guitar, signed with the French record label Vogue and put out the single No I Don't Want To Fall In Love, which failed to chart. After being immediately dropped by Vogue, he signed with the local label Release Records in 1979 and his next single, Anger, was his first go at the Eurovision Song Contest, coming third in that year's Irish National Final. This single, the follow-up to Angelina, which I think is the retitled version of Angie but don't listen to me,

what the fuck do I know, was written by Shea Healy, a former cameraman at RTE who became a TV presenter and spent the 70s writing parodies of ABBA songs and a musical about Elvis which came out two months after the King's death. It was written for the 1980 Irish song for Europe, originally offered to the show band singer Glenn Curtin, but when he turned it down, it was put Logan's way

and rearranged by Bill Whelan. After absolutely battering the competition in the national heat, it was on to the Hague, and 12 days before this episode was broadcast, it became Ireland's second Eurovision winner after Dana 10 years previously. Rushed out across Europe in the wake of his victory, it smashed into the uk chart this week at number 15 the highest new entry and here's another chance to hear about 40 seconds of it over the usual kaleidoscopic sweep of the studio lights and even in the 40 seconds i guess

you can almost hear why he won. This is this insipid kind of Chris Cross style ballad. Yes. Christopher Cross, I should say. It's as if this year someone's decided that Eurovision has to grow up. So no more silly performances. On the actual show, he was, as I recall, sort of sat on the stage, very downbeat. In terms of who should have won this year, I think perhaps Telex's Eurovision,

which came 17th, where they wanted to come last, I believe. Or, you know, Papa Penguin. Of course! By Sophie and Magalie from Luxembourg. A sad story, what happened to them. Really? Go on. Oh, God, yeah.

One of them committed suicide, and then the other one did not leave their house until she died basically oh fuck sort of about 10 years late they were very very tied together well penguins do mate for life what happened to papa penguin though i have no idea what papa penguin what he presumably swam south you know always eaten by a polar bear perhaps perhaps i mean this song it's kind of it's about kind of grief and lost love but it layers it with that arrangement in so many stratums of syrup yes it just never gets dark or anything it just becomes this very lovelorn you know ewan mcclove nonsense yes you know although i should, hats off to the Bat Room Boys this week

for lots of reasons, but I had a massive spliff on the go the other night and I watched this Asian wedding style manipulation of the light. Cool dad there. Got some serious 2001 Space Odyssey vibes. It's a good one. It's a good kaleidoscope this week.

Yeah, according to those who value the Eurovision Song Contest, Johnny Logan's pretty much seen as the man who saved it in his darkest hour because you know as we can recall israel had won it two years on the bounce and they just said no we're not fucking having it this year we can't afford it and also it was scheduled during one of their religious holidays so no not interested mate sp Spain and the UK knocked it back because they were being minge bags. And although the Netherlands stepped in at the last minute, they did it on the absolute cheap, using the same video sequences as they did in 1976 when they last hosted it.

So it was getting pretty important that the next Eurovision had to be won by some country that actually wanted it. And here comes Ireland yeah yeah Johnny Logan saves the day with his maudlinness yeah I was going to say it's quite rare for such a miserable song to win the Eurovision Song Contest but then I remembered two years previous as we've mentioned before on Char Music a Barney B's about kids getting beaten up so yeah poor old Johnny Logan sounded sad upon the radio moved a million hearts yeah because we've just heard um an anglo-irish spin on pop deck season but here's what actual

irish pop sounded like at the time i think with eurovision it has become a gay thing because gay culture has always been finely tuned to appreciating camp in the susan sontag sense of failed seriousness and it's become quite a young thing i think these days uh due to bands like maniskin winning it and and you know hipster acts like daddy freya entering it but it definitely wasn't young or gay in johnny logan's day oh. There's only one audience who are buying What's Another Year and it's the mums. And it's not just mums, it's mums at their wits end, numbed out on Valium and Gordon's gin,

contemplating divorce or already divorced, I reckon. This record, it's not getting played by Radio 1, as I remember. It would be on Radio 1 precisely twice a week, Tuesday lunchtime, Sunday evening, for the duration of its chart run. That was it. The place you would hear What's Another Year is Radio 2, and specifically Wogan would have been playing it.

John Logan, Terry Wogan, got to have a system, right? So we don't see Johnny, as you say. Yeah, instead we get that fisheye kaleidoscope view of the lighting rig and credits like vocal backing the maggie streder singers costumes and lou bass floor manager jeff warmsley lighting don babbage um but if if we'd seen the um the eurovision performance we'd have seen a dreamboat he's 25 years old and he's a moist-lipped blue-eyed beautiful boy in the donny osmond david cassidy mold and uh this isn't like daniel o'donnell where the fans want to mother him they definitely want to shag him right right so what you're saying simon is is donny osmond disney

so shit leave it in you gotta leave it in i. I've got to disagree with you both, I think, in that I think it's actually a very good song in its own ruthlessly manipulative way. It's a very appealingly romantic idea to its target audience that this beautiful but heartbroken man is so besotted that he will wait for you for a fucking year if necessary. Oh, I think he's gone way past that. I think he's accepted that it's not happening.

And that's it now. He's fucked. Yeah, maybe. But I don't know. I just think women like that idea of power over a beautiful man. It's quite a romantic thing. And yeah, I can imagine Karen Carpenter singing.

But he could be a widower as well, Simon. did you interpret it that way i interpreted it that way i thought it was about grief but um you know i could be wrong i i see where you're coming from though simon he's a good looking fella yeah i'm gonna make my third attempt to say that i can imagine karen carpenter singing it because i can but the best known cover version is by shane mcgowan from 1998 have you heard that? No. Because the thing with Shane McGowan's version, he sounds pissed off and bored with the waiting,

as if he's singing to the driver of a bus he's been waiting for. I think Shane is playing it for comedy, which is a shame, because I reckon 10 years earlier, because Shane sang it in 98, I reckon in 88, Shane would have done it straight and really done it justice. So as you say, you know, the production's Bill Whelan, who, by the way, wrote River Dance.

The less said about that, the better. And you mentioned Shea Healy, who died only last year, the songwriter. Really? Best known as the host of a satirical TV show in Ireland called Nighthawks, which was kind of involved in Ireland's own Watergate scandal when there was an interview with the Fianna Fáil politician Sean Doughty,

which exposed a phone-tapping scandal, which led directly to the resignation of the Taoiseach Charles Hockey. So, yeah, fucking everything's connected, man. But yeah, those comedy songs that Shea Healy wrote for Billy Connolly, mostly. Yes. I listen to them. The Shit Kickers Waltz, and there's another one called The Orient Express,

A Tale of Intrigue and Cross-Dressing. They're both about as funny as a drone strike on a kindergarten. No. But when he pulled a serious song out of the bag, like this one, I've got to say, I think he's done pretty well. So the following week, what's another year soared 14 places to number two and the following week it deposed gino to assume its position at the very summit of mount pop staying there for two weeks before giving way to theme from mash suicide is painless It would go on to be number one in Ireland, Belgium, Finland, Israel, Norway, Portugal and Sweden,

but the follow-up in London failed to chart, and he entered the wilderness familiar to Eurovision winners, popping up to write Terminal 3 for Linda Martin which came second in the 1984 contest however he made a reappearance in 1985 as part of the crowd the collective who got to number one in June of that year with a cover of You'll Never Walk Alone for the Bradford City Disaster Fund alongside Motorhead and the Nolans there it is and two years later he had another go at eurovision with hold me now which he won becoming the first person to win it twice and the single got to number two in june of 1987 held off number one by i want to dance with somebody who loves me Dance With Somebody Who Loves Me by Whitney Houston. And in 1992, he wrote Why Me for Linda Martin,

which won that year's contest, cementing his title of Mr. Eurovision. You know what? I've got no memory at all of Terminal 3, the one he wrote for Linda Martin in 1984. I've got no memory of Hold Me Now, which, you know, his historic second winner, number two in the UK.

I can remember that. Once voted, by the way, the third best Eurovision song ever. Really? Yeah, yeah. But probably I don't remember it because, like rock expert David Stubbs, I was too busy listening to the Young Gods in that place. I was too serious. Oh, leave David alone!

No, seriously, man, I was. And I've got no memory of why me either, the Linda Martin winner from 92. I was too busy listening to Suede and the Manic Street Preachers. But I know enough about Eurovision to know that over that period, between his first win and his sort of win by proxy in 92, the competition did become steadily more self-aware and more knowingly kitsch and i

found an interview with johnny logan from an estonian paper because he doesn't give many interviews he doesn't trust the press where he he complains that eurovision had lost its edge since his day lost its edge yeah yeah um yeah eurovision was losing its edge to better-looking song competitions with better ideas and more talent, and they're actually really, really nice. One for the hipsters there. He said that winning Eurovision was a double-edged sword. He says, you enjoy your success at Eurovision

and the success of the winning song, sure, but then you also become the Eurovision winner, and that can be very unfashionable, certainly in England. So he sounded a bit bitter there, and I thought, well, what's all that about? Yeah. I wondered what he meant. Why do you think you're on top of the pops, mate? Well, yeah, exactly.

But it turns out he tried to be fashionable. In 1982, he had a new sound on a song called Becoming Electric. Yes. Which was a total flop. He had a new sound on a song called Becoming Electric. Oh. Which was a total flop. Now, you can imagine how I reacted to this discovery. I had to hear it. Yes. But it's not out there anywhere on YouTube or any streaming services,

whether legally or illegally. I might just have to buy it. Johnny Logan, Becoming Electric. I mean, fucking hell. It could be absolutely outstanding one way or another. Didn't he change his name to just Logan? Did he? Yes.

Oh, nice. Maybe that's where you're going wrong, Simon. It could be his Wired for Sound, couldn't it? Yeah. Or his Me and My Girl Nightclubbing or something like that. Oh, we've got to track that down. Because, of course, in 1982, Brotherhood of Man changed their name to BHM, didn't they? Right, yeah, yeah. In a doomed attempt to go a bit new romantic.

There's probably a whole playlist or compilation album to be made of middle-of-the-road acts going a little bit new romantic. Yeah. Like when Manhattan Transfer did Twilight Zone and stuff like that. Oh, yes. I did wonder what life must be like for Johnny Logan after his 12-year Eurovision imperial phase. And I kind of imagined either a quiet retirement

or, you know, maybe a modest living on the cruise ship and cabaret circuit. But no, he's always got something on the go. He must be minted, right? For one thing, he loves an advert. He's done McDonald's and Centre Parcs. So he's not short of a few quid. Between 2009 and 2011,

he performed in a Celtic rock opera called Excalibur. Ooh. Excalibur. Which I've had a look at it so that you don't have to. And even as a Celtic man myself, I can report that it's fucking shocking. No. even as a Celtic man myself,

I can report that it's fucking shocking. And this year, he was in the Belgian version of The Masked Singer as the Red Deer. And there's a film coming out about him called Mr. Eurovision. So I guess once you've done the, you know, the Freddie Mercury story and Elton John, there's only one left to do, isn't it?

It's got to be Johnny Logan. He wants to keep entering it until he wins it a third time Eddie Mercury's story and Elton John. There's only one left to do, isn't it? It's got to be Johnny Logan. He wants to keep entering it until he wins it a third time so he can keep the Eurovision Song Contest. Yeah. The Jules Rimet Eurovision Song Contest, as it's called. Yeah. And that closes the book on this episode of Top of the Pops. But two weeks to the day after this episode a secret ballot held by the musicians

union revealed that 83 percent of its membership were in favor of a strike against the bbc and the writing was on the wall a week later before a performance of fidelio by the english national opera at the london coliseum which was to be broadcast live on Radio 3, members of the orchestra announced that if any of the BBC's microphones were set up by the time they arrived in the orchestra pit, they would down tools and walk off, forcing Radio 3 to announce the cancellation of that broadcast and put on a very big record instead.

The day after that, the MU announced that it would officially go on strike on June 1st, meaning that no BBC musicians or any other MU members would play a note for BBC TV or radio, forcing Top of the Pops off the air. As the great fizzy pop TV famine of 1980 dragged on, As the great fizzy pop TV famine of 1980 dragged on, Robin Nash took the opportunity to step down as executive producer of Top of the Pops and pass the baton to the current producer redundant a fat bonus and a five-year guarantee of freelance work, the strike was off. And when Top of the Pops returned on the 7th of August after a nine-week layoff, Hurl was in full control and change was most definitely afoot. Nine fucking episodes of Top of the Pops didn't happen, man.

That's so upsetting upsetting isn't it yeah i wonder which great singles didn't get their chance to be on there you know what i mean yeah yeah what great singles just hovering outside the top 40 didn't get their break it's heartbreaking but but at the same time i mean perhaps as a way of getting you know nash out and hurling the strike was necessary as a kind of moment well it gave them a lot of time to fuck about and flesh the new top of the pops out. Do you reckon, right? If they tried to carry on making top of the pops with sort of scab workers,

you'd have had scab pop stars. Yeah. Some pop stars standing shoulder to shoulder with the strikers, like maybe like, you know, the beat and you'd be 40 and Dexys or something, but then you'd have, I don't know, maybe... B.A. Robertson.

Oh, B.A. Robertson. He'd be through there like a shot, definitely. Well, B.A. Robertson did that test broadcast at Top of the Post with Peter Powell, didn't he? You know that one where they got camera crew and floor staff to step in to pretend to be pop stars? We've got to do that one day. Yes, please. I wonder which presenters would be scabs as well. Most of them, I suspect. Yeah. Do wonder which presenters would be scabs as well.

Most of them, I suspect. Do you know what? Do you reckon Tommy would? Bates wouldn't, because he's, well, I mean, he's turned out to be a bit of a lefty. Yeah. Yes. Yeah, DLT and the rest, they'd all be totally scabbing it up. So what's on television afterwards?

Well, BBC One drops in on the Sunshine Cab Company as Alex and Chums try to keep lacquer in the country by marrying him off to a prostitute in Tax Air. I watched a lot of Tax Air during lockdown. Delighted to find out that Alex, Judd Hirsch in Tax Air, proper rude boy. If he's not wearing an Arrington, he's wearing one of them MA1 green flight jackets.

Fucking proper, man. Louis de Palma knows, don't argue. Then it's part two of Hannah, a dramatisation of the novel about a spinster in Bristol between the war. After the nine o'clock news is part one of the drama series Bull Week about a factory in the Midlands starring Mark McManus. Then Paradise in a Dream, a documentary about the Coleridge poem Kublai Khan. Then it's the news headlines, question time, the weather, and they close down at midnight.

BBC Two is just about to finish an examination of America's inflation problems in Newsweek, then In the Making, a series of films about arts and crafts in modern Britain, follows the theatrical designer Pamela Howard about as she works on the RSC's production of Othello, starring... Who do you think is going to play Othello in 1980,

chaps? In 1980? I mean, is it a black guy? Please, please let it be a black guy, first of all. Donald Sinden. What? What the fuck? Donald fucking Sinden. You know, there were black actors available by this time.

Yes. This is unbelievable. Donald Sinden. But I mean, Donald Sinden's a great actor in a Shakespearean sense. I mean, he enunciates well. I'm sure he did a good job at that now. I mean, it puts David Baddiel and Jason Lee into perspective.

Well, quite. Phil Drabble and Eric Halsaw are witnesses to Istre as the first ever woman takes part in One Man and His Dog. Then it's part four of A Question of Guilt, the drama series about Mary Blandare who was hung in 1752

for poisoning her dad. Man Alive nips over to America to investigate how science is helping couples choose the sex of their baby, followed by highlights of The Snooker, and they rammed off the night with a Newsnight special on today's local elections. ITV is currently halfway through Charlie's Angels followed by TVI then it's the sitcom The Nesbits are coming followed by Shellaire, The News at 10, highlights of the FA Cup semi-final third replay which Arsenal won, regional news in your area and they finish off with local election returns closing down at 20 past midnight.

So, boys, what are we talking about in the playground tomorrow? We're talking about Dexys, The Beat, Motorhead, Saxon. I mean, I think I'll be talking about just how cool Tommy Vance's voice is. Because it just is really cool. I mean, I doubt I actually saw this episode because we weren't allowed to watch Top of the Pops in Stalag, Hollingbury. I doubt I actually saw this episode because we weren't allowed to watch Top of the Pops in Stalag, Hollingbury. But if I had,

obviously, yeah, you've got the excitement of Dexys and the beat. But in terms of WTF, did you see that weirdness? It's Kate Bush being a Clint film fetus and maybe the bloke from Hot Chocolate who saw UFO. Yeah. What are we buying on Saturday?

Dexys, beat, Kate Bush, moat head, Hot Chocolate and new music. I have a very factual and accurate answer to this because I bought The Beat, Dexys and Rodney Franklin. But in later years, I mean, I acquired nearly all of them. New music, Narada Michael Walden, Hot Chocolate, Nolans, Kate Bush. In fact, honestly, it'd be easier to list the songs I didn't buy at some point from this episode.

And what does this episode tell us about May of 1980? I think it says that contrary to sort of 1980 being seen as this in-between a year, it's got a shit ton of delight to itself. And it's actually a year where I think we can legitimately feel it's the UK charts that are pointing the way that 80s music is going to go way more than the us chart oh yes you know in a way this episode is so good it almost makes me

feel like i wish we could have had i don't know another 1980 before 81 and 82 came in and changed everything forever you know um it's an amazing episode this and and looking at this episode and also the charts yeah we must not undervalue the 1980s an amazing year yeah i agree with that and uh also you know even though this isn't my favorite ever top of the pops i do think it's a wonderful representation of the show at its best if a young person asked me what top of the pops was all about i could just show them this yes it's got everything literally from motorhead to the Nolans and all points in between and it's got the

multitude of genres and subcultures that were prevalent at the time from metal to ska to disco it's all there

I think it's a fantastic episode and that Pop Craze Youngsters concludes this episode well sorry hold on a minute could

there's just an important piss troll update. Oh, yes, come on. This is like Crime Watch update, mate. It's kind of a slight update, a late-breaking plea, really. I've been talking to my dear friend, Hayley Jordan. Hello, Hayley, if you're listening. The person who first alerted me to the Birmingham piss troll.

And, you know, I'm shocked to discover a couple of things about the BPT, The person who first alerted me to the Birmingham Piss Troll. And, you know, I'm shocked to discover a couple of things about the BPT, as I'm sure all the cool kids will now be calling it. For starters, it is rumoured, and it has been rumoured, that there may be more than one of him. No! Yes. That perhaps even there's a whole sort of Shawnee Bean-style family of piss trolls scuttling about the canals of Birmingham

in search of that sweet, salty, yellow gold. It's like the Loch Ness Monster. There's that theory that the Loch Ness Monster is actually several generations of the same monster. But perhaps more poignantly, BPT, he's not been seen for nearly a decade. The last reported sighting that I can ascertain

is a friend of Hayley's who swears down the Birmingham piss troll ran past his flat in 2012. He's got a flat by the canal and he swears down the Birmingham piss troll

or legged it past his flat window in 2012. So he seems to have disappeared off the scene a little bit. It would be wonderful if any Birmingham-based pot-crazed youngsters could confirm this or establish whether, you know, whether the Birmingham pistol is gone,

whether the family have moved elsewhere. The canal system in Birmingham is big. So, yeah, any kind of info from the pot-crazed youngsters would be much appreciated. Let's solve this mystery. Most definitely, yes. Let's get this mystery. Most definitely, yes. Let's get this man. He really is a shit.

Also, Al, I'm thinking, sharp music, Birmingham Piss Troll, merchandise by Christmas. Yes. What the Pop Craze yum-yums who are listening to this need to do now is all arrange to meet up on a bridge at a certain time and have a massive wazz off it to draw him out. You know what I mean?

The only thing I can think is, you know, eventually piss might have just not hit the spot for him and he's moved on to something else. But if there's a, yeah, I mean, if there's now a Birmingham shit troll about, we need to know. Good Lord. And on that note,

this is the end of this episode of chart music promotional flange www.chart-music.co.uk facebook.com slash chart music podcast reach out to us on twitter if it's still there by the time you hear this at chart music t-o-t-, money down the G-string, patreon.com slash chart music. Thank you, Simon Price. Goodbye. God bless you, Neil Kulkarni. Oh, thank you. No worries. My name's Al Needham.

Who's a lucky boy then? Chart music. What will you remember the 80s for? The Falklands? The 87 Hurricane? A certain Prime Minister? Or will you remember the 80s for the Falklands, the 87 Hurricane, a certain Prime Minister? Or will you remember the 80s for the music? The 80s was the decade that gave us the miners' strike, the property boom, and then bust.

Do you remember all those royal weddings? The revolutions in home entertainment and mobile phones. And then the stock market crash on Black Wednesday. But above all, the 80s were a decade of great music. and then the stock market crash on Black Wednesday. But above all, the 80s were a decade of great music. And now you can have the greatest hits of the 80s on one special collection delivered right to your door. The greatest hits of the 80s contain 64 top 10 hits and 30 big number ones.

On four cassettes for just $27.99, or four CDs for $29.99, plus $2.50 postage and packing. You can't get The Greatest Hits of the 80s in the shops, but we'll rush it to you if you call 0800-700-600 now to place your order. Allow 21 days for delivery. The Musical Story of the 80s. Order The Greatest Hits of the 80s by calling free on 0800-700-600 now. Rock expert David Stubbs. Rock expert David Stubbs. Hi, my name's David Stubbs. Rock expert David Stubbs! Hi, my name's David Stubbs.

Rock expert David Stubbs. Rock expert David Stubbs! Rock expert David Stubbs! Bringing you a hard-driving mix of hard rock and hard facts. As I record this, it's exactly 25 years since the death of Michael Hutchins of Inexist, undoubtedly the finest rock band ever to come out of New Zealand. He rocked hard. He lived clean. Take it from the rock expert, the man who knows.

He never took drugs. Just ask his wife, Paula Radcliffe, who never took them either. But I'm not here to talk about Paula Radcliffe. I'm here to talk about Whitesnake. Iconic, hard-driving. If they were a stick of rock, they'd have the word rock running through them. And let me tell you, in 1981,

it took balls of thunder to rock like this, as once true rockers deserted the metal faith in droves to dance under the disco lights to David Van Day's Dollar. Thanks a bunch for turning us off, Larry Grayson. He's a rollin' and rockin' and rockin' and rollin' rock expert

David Stubbs. Thank goodness, help arrived in the form of that 80s heavy rock movement whose acronym drips so easily off the tongue. I'm talking about... New Wave of British Heavy Metal. Whitesnake had already laid down a marker three years earlier with their iconic feminist anthem, Lie Down, a modern love song. A woman who truly respects herself, respects a strong man who tells her to lie down, and has some sex done to her.

She doesn't knee me in the groin. Bogus! Anyway, let's get down to Don't Break My Heart Again. Catalogue number E-C-6-5-4-3-7-G-S-2-9-X-4. Damn, damn. That should be E-C-6-5-4-3-7-G-6-3-9-X-4. Stupid, stupid,

sick, stupid. Who could forget the bass line? Doom, doom, doom, doom, doom, doom, doom, doom, doom, doom, doom, doom, doom, Who could forget the bass line? I'm standing with my back to the wall, sings Mr. Carbondale. I feel his pain. He's on his guard. If you've ever been taken from behind by a woman, you know what I'm talking about. Mr. Coverdale sure as hell does.

Which is why I sent out this message to women to quote Mr. Coverdale right here on this song. Make no mistake, it could be your last because there's nothing like a maudlin empty death threat to convince a woman who just won't lie down to lie down and that's modern take it away Al rocking and rolling rolling and rocking

rocking and rolling and rocking if you want to hear more from me rock expert David Stubbs, subscribe to me on YouTube. Address, HTTPS, full colon, slash, slash, www.youtube.com, slash, watch, question mark,

V equals Q-K-L-E-H dash O-O-F-D, 8 amps and T equals 134S. 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. Tax is extra at participating Wendy's until May 5th. Terms and conditions apply.