Chart Music: the Top Of The Pops Podcast - #68 (Pt 2): 1.5.80 – The Ken Of The Eighventies

Episode Date: December 8, 2022

Neil Kulkarni and Simon Price commence their gleeful rip into this episode of TOTP, egged on by Al Needham. Tommy Vance gets his debut cap, and lords it above everyone else from the confines of his gun tower. Funky Belts! New Musik’s keyboard player making a tit of himself! American Pipou! The Chords disguise themselves as Generation X! And some weapons-grade Dadisfaction…Video Playlist | Subscribe | Facebook | Twitter | The Chart Music Wiki | Patreon Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This will certainly have an adult theme and might well contain strong scenes of sex or violence, which could be quite graphic. It may also contain some very explicit language, which will frequently mean sexual swear words. What do you like to listen to? Um... Chart music. Chart music. Hey, up, you pop-crazy youngsters, and welcome to part two of episode 68 of Chart Music. Here I am, Al Needham, with my dear, dear friend Simonon price hello again and neil kulkarni chaps we've already established that 1980 is seen as the ken of the event is if you will

and that's mainly down to the quality or otherwise of the number one singles of the year because let's not fanny about it i've got a list of the number ones of 1980 in front of me right now there's some cat shit in there the oldens are definitely having their say still but i contend that there were some very decent number ones this year and i'm thinking well would they have been number one in any other year but 1980 i mean too much too young would that have been number one in 1979 or 1981 start would that have been number one in 1979 or 1981 this episode no spoilers has a fucking mint number one and again i can't see it being number one any other year but this one al to answer your rhetorical question or it's not even rhetorical yeah of course it would maybe not 79 but 81 um start by the jam would have been number one because they had they

were having number ones in that year. The specials were having number ones. In 1981, I don't think so, Simon. The jam didn't have a number one in 1981. Absolute beginners in funeral pie. They were in the top three but didn't get to number one. But what does that tell? I mean, isn't that just the quality of the songs?

Because the jam were hugely popular. I don't know. I don't really understand what you're ascribing to the year, that the year has some kind of almost sort of anthropomorphic you know personality that is sort of putting the jam at number one and you're somehow claiming that if they released that that same record a year later the jam fans wouldn't have gone out in their droves and bought it i don't get it and also the specials specials had Ghost Town number one in 1981. So, you know,

I don't really understand what you're getting at. I've got to be honest. I think I know what I was getting at. Oh, thank God. I think what you're getting at is that 1980 is this kind of, how can I put it, it's this kind of gritty year, if you like, before the kind of shiny, more electronic new pop takes over

in 81 a bit more so things like those records that you mentioned might not have gone all the way to number one in 1981 because they've been pushed out of the way yeah i mean you say the grannies are still involved they are still massively involved so these things are huge oddities whereas i think 81 onwards well 81 82 definitely the number of great number ones i I would imagine, goes up immensely. How, Neil, are you interpreting what Al said as meaning that 1980 was so shit that these records got to number one

because there wasn't a lot else around to stop them getting to number one? Is that the point you're making? Perhaps, but more that kind of, you know, we're sort of in between. I mean, we're not in between post-punk and new pop, but things were a bit more up for grabs in 1980, can I put it that way? That things haven't really been sort of, you know, the new romantic thing hasn't taken hold.

That wave of bands hasn't quite cut through yet. You know, we've got to wait for 1981 for Soft Cell, haven't we? So, you know, that kind of side of things hasn't taken over. And there's just sort of not no man's land but there's this middle not middle ground either but there's this interesting period where the grittiness of the times is percolating slightly into the charts and perhaps a way that it doesn't in 81 where things get a little bit more determinately escapist well that's my ass thank you neil i sort of look at 1980 as like a dip between two peaks on a mountain range.

You've got to climb really high to this peak. When you get there, there's this unexpected dip, maybe a volcanic one, you know, but then it's back up again on the other side. But still, even the dip is pretty high. I mean, we can go through the awful number ones, Cowder the County, What's Another Year, Crying, stuff like that. It even feels like I'm in love, like total mum disco.

Woman in Love by Barbra Streisand. Okay, it's kind of a classy record, but it's not for me. And then the end of the year, of course, everything's overshadowed by the death of John Lennon. You've got Just Like Starting Over, and then St. Winifred School Choir, and it just drags over into the early part of 81. You've got John Lennon, John Lennon, then you've got Shut Up Your Face,

then you've got Roxy Music doing a John Lennon cover, and then you've got Shaking Stevens and it's Buck's face. And it's only... It's actually... You get to May 1981 before you get a really fucking decent number, which is Stand and Deliver by Adam Leance. So that's a long old period of 81 as well,

which is pretty bollocks. Yeah. In terms of at least well there we go we could carry on talking about it or we could just do it which is talking about it really so oh fucking hell can i just pick something else up right please do well neil was telling us about the birmingham piss troll yes right and it just raises more questions and answers i sorry, I've got to bring this up again. And the more I find out, the less I know. It's been really preying on my mind. Because, right, just to recap, you're saying that it's a well-known thing 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 in the canal. I never said open his gob. You drank me saying that. I didn't say that. He doesn and opens his gob and tries to get you to piss in the canal. I never said open his gob. You drank me saying that. I didn't say that. He doesn't open his gob. Alright, go on. 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. And he kind of comes up out of the water and lets you piss in it. No, no. Sorry, Neil. He does not come out. He's not... and he kind of comes up out of the water and lets you piss all over him no no sorry Neil he does not come out 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 Bobby Ewing in The Man From Atlantis Patrick Duffy absolute fanciful bullshit because in my mind i'm imagining like you know bobby ewing and the man from atlantis uh you know patrick duffy or or like you know kevin costner and water world you know

because in order to get there in time if there's a pissing incident happening how often uh 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 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 for the golden shower well we need more clarity for my yin yang brethren about this but yeah he the point is most of the most of the descriptions i've read because i also said that he wades away in the water um he actually most of the descriptions i've read he scuttles away so close now 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 dream 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 brummy listeners can, you know, fill us in

then, you know, please get in touch. Oh, definitely. Sorry, carry on. I don't think I can, Simon. It's been on my mind that's all all right then pop craze young cities it's time to get stuck into this episode of top of the pops always remember we may coat down your favorite band or artist but we never forget they've been on top of the pops more than we have well hello there good evening and welcome to top of the pops and we start with the charts and mr leon hayward it's 20 minutes past seven on th, 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 crackerjack 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 but

robin nash doesn't quite want to ever give the charts over to the young he still wants to keep a sizable 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 as a replacement. It just seems scheduled just to enrage us pop fans. A change is needed.

A wiping clean of the slate. The vibe becomes completely different after he's gone. We get these ideas with changes of the calendar. 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, particularly in the early 80s.

It's one of those counterfactual things that, you 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 but um a few sort of uh nice little touches of production that seemed like something that wouldn't have happened 10 years earlier than that yeah and i'll mention them as we go along but you know i i wonder if possibly had nash stuck around he might have made the show uh 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 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 get it together has no black people on it features 10 through 8 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 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 favorite 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, 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 yellow her i would say than it does with nash the vibe of the show with her later is completely different it feels more 80s instantly because more of the crowd are involved and 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, of the 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 BBCbc into making their axe 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 the 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 Valdudica 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 great pop famine of 1980 is is upon us yeah and the top of the pops like was particularly harsh on us young'uns. You know, we're not going to stay up and watch Old Grey Whistle Test or any of that.

This was our half hour and it was gone. But for now, your host is Richard Anthony Crispy and 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 um 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 you like, he's a guy who's got no records in his house. Really?

Yeah, absolutely. The thing is with the Friday Rock Show, because the production team behind the show were so on it, especially in the Wobbahum, the Friday Rock Show became something you'd tape because, you know, they'd get sessions that you wouldn't get anywhere else. You know, bands like Merciful Fate and Diamond Enemy, those sessions are amazing. And, of course, the time slot of the Rock Show was really crucial. 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 of a kind of into nahuamabham 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 prog and a hell of a lot of metal, especially new bands, especially in the Wobbohum 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 um like jimmy hendrix sessions and stuff like that in the early 80s this stuff was locked away and unheard and when he dipped back into metals 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 able to get, you know, Samson and Saxon and all these other bands to do his jingles and stuff. He wasn't the only conduit to nuwabaham 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, it's just a really cool voice 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, tapable 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 some 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 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 mean, this is the fourth episode we've done that features a debut performance by a Radio 1 DJ.

Simon Parkin and Andy Peebles had an absolute mare while Pizza Pal 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 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 TOTP chair. And he's a consummate professional. He's not a slip, but he's, in a weird way, comforting his 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 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 uh when we did a q 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 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, you can't help liking him because he didn't, as far as we know, sexually assault anyone, 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 Tommymmy in the guardian a while ago uh 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 and I mean that it's pretty grim

David Van Day would have fucking sold her he would have sold her with some fried onion and ketchup on top definitely 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 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 you know he had more names than boris johnson um it's like um you know supposedly the story is he turned up at kol in seattle 1964 and he was stepping in for another presenter who was called Tommy Vance who pulled out at 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 what a name fucking hell in in Slade in Flame he should have taken that name and run with it I reckon yes and here we see him um 1980 the new wave era he looks ridiculous in the new wave era but to be fair most presenters of Top of 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 will

come to you later i guess how would tomm Tommy Vance have coped in the Vietnam War? What do you think? Maybe he'd have been the sort of Robin Williams character, but with a much deeper voice. Yes. 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 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 Wow Yes So he was a versatile actor then He played Yes

A DJ A DJ and a DJ Yeah We're hit with the sight of our host in a silvery white bomber jacket

with red trim that makes him look well cheegular 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, 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 two 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 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 & 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'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 yeah the thing with so many disco acts and funk acts from this era is how often you find out that they'd actually been making music since the 50s, you know. They were there at the very birth of soul. But in terms of chart recognition, they had a very slow burn. We were talking earlier about live albums, right? Generally, I'm not a fan, but there are exceptions. One of them is Sam Cooke,

live at the Harlem Square Club, 1963, which is an extraordinary, captivating performance, if anyone's not heard it. Now, sadly, you know, because it'd be really 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 um that was a hit in America um 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 And that's the thing with disco. Disco is a very forgiving genre 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 like the lyrics to Do You Know the Way to San Jose or something. You know, LA is a great big freeway, put under a 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 hayward 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 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 syven 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 for the chart rundown yes um i would say the song shares the same underlying riff as you can do it by al hudson and partners yes from 1979 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. 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 its genre, but it's pretty good.

And if it came out now, out of the blue, and it was by Bruno Mars or The Weeknd or Anderson.Paak or whoever, we'd be falling over ourselves to hail it as the return of The Groove or something. In 1980, we were spoiled for choice and and uh 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 mazophiliac anthem is an absolute banger so yeah fair play imagine legs and coat dancing to that oh my god

yeah this song is 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 muses shall we shall we do the chart oh yes what 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 um and it immediately deflates any suspense or momentum the show might have been able to drum up through its running time um the photos i picked, if you don't mind me going first, Bad Manners. There's such an old photo of Bad Manners that Buster Budvessel 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 weirdly terrifying like he's being played by javier bardem circa no no country for old men

you know i thought bobby thurston was even more terrifying a face from a halloween mask you know 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 i mean maybe you agree with me here. Sky look an absolute fucking state. They look like the Venn. Yes, they do. They look like the Venn diagram intersection of Nambla and Camera. Cambla.

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-810. You said Scowley, Al. I don't reckon there's that many scowley shots. 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. They do. All the pics 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 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 teller 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 so that 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 bell not right it's one of them overlong belts, usually red, where the end used to hang down like a flat, fabric-y cog. 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 Samaritans. Oh my God. So here's a question for the Pop Crazians. What did you call a funky bell in 1980? And was it just a nottingham thing?

Maybe so. Anyway, 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 that it was a foul whiff. And he would always make a point of panning me. So I eventually stopped doing that. And I also eventually realised 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 um be um to one side of or float above tribalism um because nobody in my school was was listening to this they certainly weren't dressing like that there were no funky belts uh in barry i'll tell you that much um 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 20s 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 text as you hear here it's it's kind of pre-electro and it's 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 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 surely happen It's not possible It's not possible It's not possible

It's not possible Thank you. 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 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 of 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 LPp from a to b which came out today enter 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 hallowed 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 uh 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. He thought it was so obviously bad and, you know, just beyond the pale

that they were just being 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 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 but even craftwork you know things like radioactivity it's kind of sinister i don't think you really get that with new. But even Kraftwerk, you know, things like radioactivity, it's kind of sinister. I don't think you really get that with new music.

Even Living by Numbers, you know, breakthrough hit, all about humanity being classified and digitised and enumerated, sounds really cheerful about it, I think. Yes. And even this song, This World of Water, about rising sea levels is, you know, strangely optimistic. You can drown drown but you still survive yeah i'm actually i'm living in a world of water myself at the moment right because uh

the the rubber seal on our french windows is fucked so every time it rains yeah every time it rains the back of the living room carpet gets flooded but um i i still love it as i loved it then um it just kind of sparkles even those um pinky and perky backing vocals which ought to be annoying you know uh you were going to be on the other side that thing somehow adds to it yeah the single after this sanctuary is a work of actual genius should have been a number 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.

So radio stations were reluctant to play it. And also, 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 the main man, Tony Mansfield, looks like Russell 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 a producer. Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, it's funny that you mentioned the optimism of the music. I mean, at the time, they're very much portrayed as quite doomy new music, 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 jays and the foals 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 muses 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, a review of the album by Betty Page. She loves it, but she has to get over an awful lot of stuff

in the first few paragraphs. 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. Tony Mansfield, 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 keyboard player is just a total dickhead.

The band do suffer from over-performative keyboard player. Absolutely. He's kind of jumping around, not touching the keyboard. Loads of wacky zany, you might even say. The band do suffer from over-performative keyboard player. 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 currently 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 keyboardists 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 yeah so he's being boring with his hand in his pocket.

So he's being deliberately wacky. They can't stop the audience looking away from the band and backwards. And yet and yet, I haven't stopped singing this song all week. It's catchy as fuck. Me neither. 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 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 on that piece of paper, I have written, Shakin shaking buggles slash yes shaking trevor horn right yeah 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 so so neil mentioned the buggles and yeah i predicted you probably would because new music had a similar vibe to the buggles on video kill 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 brother of the man isn't a man yeah but

for comparison steve strange who was genuinely part of this new age 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 favorite productions of his are two non-hits actually um 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 Talk.

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 Buggles 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 thatil 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 towner 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 also visual effects um but the sfx start right here with actual water running down a pane of glass through which a camera sees everything yeah the blue screened it haven't there 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 the blue screen them as was the style back then and it's hard to know if that's deliberate you know if 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 i think 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 like to imagine that you know a junior bbc runner was sent out to dash around all the florists to the shepherd's bush area to find one but yeah good start yeah strong so the following, 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. 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 Soundcore World of Water. In just a minute, I thought I was going to drown there,

but luckily I haven't. And now here's a new single by a man who started in America as a jazz drummer. Believe it or not, he's turned his arts in that way into really good disco music. but luckily I have. And now here's a new single by a man who started in America as a jazz drummer. Believe it or not, he's turned his arts in that way into really good disco music. The runner, Michael Walden, and the song called 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 Shoulda Loved Ya by Narada Michael Walden. Oh, as he says it, 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 number 53 when he took divine Emotions to number 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 number 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 4 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 Parsons, everyone, because he had a word or two to say about Soul Train. All right. Parsons, everyone, because he had a word or two to say about Soul Train. 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 cackles 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 uh in the the zoo wankers on soul train aren't wankers they can actually dance yes people up on the podiums yeah and it is 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. So, you know, I understand where he's coming from, but it's never going to 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'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 trawling the clubs isn't it yeah yeah definitely i mean everything on soul train is a 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 color and light and not that oppressive dankness you get from top of the pot yeah i mean everyone on it um particularly in this clip just looks like they're having the best time and 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 you're like fucking brilliant um i think uh 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 Narada, I sort of disparaging, semi-disparagingly sort of described him as shaking Jacko and a poundland 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. But he is obviously just fucking phenomenal. I don't think I even knew when I was a kid that he was a drummer, a 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 yeah yeah 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 but in a good way you know the band just look extraordinary the guy the guy i was obsessed with is a sax player right who is basically as far as i'm concerned here's the of 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. 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 nerada uh production uh these days he he tours with the doobie brothers no and no surprise there you 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 hell. What a tash. What a tash. He's this weird combo of kind of obelisks from the Asterix comic. That's it. And he's got these 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.

But he's really compelling. But the whole band is, you know. The trombonist just is Lester from The Wire, I think. Yes, ah, yeah. 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 my eyes 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 he is chunky fucker you know 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 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. 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-ed isn't he he's a very hench guy and he's nauseating dips into why uh you know wily eastern mysticism via that bullshit pen and shree chimney who also of course yeah yeah santana and john mcclaughlin and roberta flack

there was some quite telling quotes i mean he's 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. 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 the 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 as arrogance is really love power, man. I love the world and 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 Deepak Chopra style bullshit merchant to talk to you about self-actualization to justify it.

There's something a bit glassy-eyed about it. But 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 he's bringing in a lot of sense but again another great it's not the starter but just seeing a bit of soul train and just focusing on that bassist face um was wonderful going back to your sax man i mean they're not at the level of honker 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 my asian mate um when he was growing up in the 80s, Amtabs was the word used for a massive pair of white flares. After the actor Amtab.

Yeah, of course. Oh! Yeah. You'd hear his mate going, Oh, child guy, your uncle was wearing some bad Amtabs at that wedding, guy. Okay, well. So he'd go, Amtabs, welcome into the lexicon of Saxons. Excellent.

I don't think we dw felt 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 like it's jimmy page style and it's got a 12 string and a six string uh 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 he is a genuine italian uh he also played on whitney 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 um which you can tell from the fucking instrument he's holding and it turns out um this shows how prog he is last year he brought out an album called interfulgent 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. Neil mentioned somebody looking like they were on Sesame Street. I thought Narada himself, he's got this yellow shirt and red braces. He looks like he should be presenting Play Away. He really is. 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 stacy lattisor which in many many ways is the same song and even tonight i'm all right is is his other song

is very similar to that there's also a kind of um i should have loved you shalimar there it is and orange juice rip it up continuum all 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 it don't force 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-michel what's his name yeah jean-michel batio 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... 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 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 realized oh i should have loved that hey but yeah for me this song and this performance is just a fucking heady nostril full of fucking fairy dust to quote the

troggs of course the the maddest thing about narada we mentioned before he joined journey in 2020 i think that's a bit beneath him man but um yeah but I also tracked down an interview with him from about 10 12 years ago uh where he was talking about the fact that people don't really buy albums anymore and that the only way to make money is is by performing live and uh he said God's given me a gift that if it doesn't work in a studio it'll work on 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.

I'll be there. I should have loved you. I should have loved you. And that's Noelle and Michael Walden. That'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. There's a million kids out waiting for you They're standing by with nothing else to do Bantz sat on a very wide sofa, suddenly finds himself flanked by four girls with the lank flicked back hair. 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'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 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 oh yeah but in that way when you're at the cinema he's sort of your but um but but the sofa itself is a bit of chkhovian foreshadowing we're going to see that sofa in use quite soon that poor woman, she's probably in therapy now 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 into my head isn't going to be, oh, here's a stroker look 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 Miss by the chords formed in london in 1977 by billy has it and martin mason two cousins who were who and beacles obsessives the action were a loose collective who played youth clubs until they put an advert in the enemy 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 percer of skinheads are magic 69 a month later the enemy 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.

They demanded that they join the Undertones on stage for an encore. Then bum-rushed the stage and took over. Nearly killing Undertone's bassist Mickey Bradley when a lighting tower collapsed. And the band demanded to be freed from their ties with Percy. 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.

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

was he supposed to pause at some point you know here's something called uh you see something's missing i think so yes yes but it's only at number 57 in the charts a fraction of the audience would have known what the song is yeah he's fluffed that one honey 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 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 Hassett, success wasn't proving to be quite what he expected. We were looking at ourselves on Top of the pops 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 were in this terrible b&b the feeling of disillusionment permeates this song doesn't it they seem seem angry about something, but you look through the lyrics and something's missing. They're saying, what?

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. Yes. With their appearance here yeah the lead singer he's wearing this kind of sort of punky leopard print furry jacket yeah it looks well generation x doesn't it yeah i mean that's certainly not

mod revival um 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 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, you know, the size of Pete Shelley's life ultimately, whereas this feels ambitious in a big way. And, you know, I mean, you know I hate The Who, and I feel their influence is mainly a malign one. So I've always got a bit of a problem with Mod Revival,

inasmuch as it seems like a revival of something that wasn't really mod 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, a lot of also-ran Britpop bands, if you like, or a lot of also-ran bands, most of which I've never heard. Name 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 that's just come out of Junk Shop Britpop. God, I saw that, yeah. Yeah, it's all bands like Jock H Shop Britpop God I saw that yeah 6 CDs

I can't remember what they sounded like but yeah I know what you mean all these kind of like Camden Parkway Good Mixer kind of bands that you never actually heard you just heard their name 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 Noel Gallagher said that he really liked the chords

I mean 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 seems big and ambitious and a bit too who flavored for my taste this appears to be a prime example of a band to 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 has it the singer doesn't look very mod at all he's got very uncool sort of feathery hair um he looks like he might be 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 um 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 Mods Julius Caesar haircut. So there were elements of Mods in the way they present themselves. 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. It is sort of the dregs of punk rather than mods, I thought. But the mod revival anyway was... I mean, it was fucking shit, man. It was worse than OG 60s mod, except for the jam. The jam, obviously, is this kind of peak of the whole thing. But once you fall off that peak, it's a long way down. 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 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 the cause, these massive arrows, massive fucking mod arrows made of Perspex or whatever, that can't be cheap. Yeah, 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 like the vapors and the jags who are kind of on the edge of it really as well yeah the thing is with the chords they do that moment though where you just your heart sinks where he does the town's end windmill on his guitars and it's pretending it it's 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. 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, that the Tiz was influenced instrumental. This is what they want. Wow. But I think this is where the mod 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 quick listening to modern rubbish.

He looks really 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 Chorus. And, of course, absolutely nothing once, and nothing ever is when it's legs and company, especially when they're in them. Bruce. 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. 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 stock-still during the silent bits in the song called The Freeze. It entered the chart of Fortnite a go at number 70, then soared 43 places to number 27 which earned

it the honor 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 that then we can move on to the to the good bit yeah the good bit yeah yeah 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 yes it's very similar i love this um oh i i bought it at the time, which...

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 Lover's 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 kind of 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 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. 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. 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

yeah so maybe it's the same dance you know and i'm not sure if it's the same as voguing that Madonna tried to make happen. But anyway, yeah. I remember that 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 do you get to be that good at the age of 21 i don't know i certainly wasn't i packed it in by i was about 15 yeah i enjoyed it but yeah my 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 It's an Aventis wet dream, isn't it? The set appears to be Martin Shaw's bachelor pad And for the dad watching this 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 and and some of

his flouncier shirts it's got that vibe of you know new girlfriend or she puts your 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 have to loosen my collar to let a jet of steam out it's as rude as a hot gossip routine uh i would probably have left the room uh at the time and you know it is yeah like you say it's bodie and doyle's living room isn't it that they're basically in it's missing a few things 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 just turned 12, my reaction to this on the night would have been less, what order am I going to give legs and co-occipient to, and more, fucking hell, look at that sofa. Imagine the bicycle kicks and somersaults i could do on that yeah it's it's an extraordinary sofa it is sort of snaky and curved but um 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 they are

making the 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. Yeah. If it was football, they'd be taken off now as a precaution against concussions. 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 and 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 their daily tv listings some pens a few coins scrunched up grunders etc actually you know though this did give me some daddisfaction. It also gave me some, what, daddy's 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 in. Yeah, my mum wouldn't have approved of that. 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 uh wondering what household items i could use as weaponry in the event of a home invasion um and there's none of that here uh we had you know i think we mentioned it before it's an obsession of mine a really heavy martini ashtray oh 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 my 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 the leader, the pack will retreat. Exactly, yeah. Attack is the best form of defence. Yeah, but you've got Legs and Co using sex as a weapon here. That's all they need. There should be a drinks cabinet built into a globe. Ah, yeah. 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 yeah, there needs to be a nice lacquered cigarette box full of 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 room and basically reenact that Snoop Dogg line.

I've 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 rose 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, 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. 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 lank-haired girls with flicked back hair. And here's what you could have won, Tommy. Yeah, 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. And on that crumpety note, we're going to step away, catch his breath, and go again tomorrow for part three of Chalk Music 68. But don't forget, if you want the whole of this episode right bloody well now without any rubbish adverts, you know what you need to do. Get yourself on patreon.com

slash chart music and pledge your love to chart music. Oh, the live episode is up there as well. A beautiful souvenir of a beautiful day. Anyway, on behalf of Neil Kulkarni and Simon Price, this is Al Needham instructing you to stay pop crazed.