Chart Music: the Top Of The Pops Podcast - #71 (Pt 2): 19.3.81 – Shaky Of The Dorm

Episode Date: June 22, 2023

Neil Kulkarni, Taylor Parkes and Al Needham commence their odyssey into the March 19th 1981 episode, and are horrified to discover that the Top Of The Pops Orchestra are still knocking about, and The Kids – who are supposed to be dressed up as nouveaux dandies – are wearing visors and doing the Blockbusters hand-jive. After a visit from Comrade Shaky – the Everlasting Gobstopper of Chart Music – it’s a frigid blast of Dad-Synth. Oh dear… Video Playlist | Subscribe | Facebook | Twitter | The Chart Music Wiki | PatreonGet your tickets for Chart Music at the London Podcast Festival HERE 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-crazed youngsters, and welcome to part two of episode 71 of Chart Music.

I'm Al Needham. That's Taylor Parks. Not a lot. And here comes Neil Kulkarni. I'm here, I'm here. And we are about to embark upon the episode of Top of the Pops from March the 19th, 1981, which was a very magical time, wasn't it, chaps? Oh, yeah. What a wonderland it was that we were living in.

Yeah, we all put on our pier costumes and threw bricks at the police before waving Union Jacks for our dashing prince and his lovely new wife before being made redundant. I mean, without question, chaps, 1981, stank of unwashed cock. And the only good thing about it was the music. Yeah, I think you're probably right. As we'll find out. All right, then, pop- pop craze youngsters it is time to go way back to march of 1981 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. Hello, welcome to yet another edition of Top of the Pops. It's 20 past seven on Thursday, March 19th, 1981, and Top of the Pops has entered its ninth month under the reign of Michael Hurl, and business is booming. It's been knocking on the door of the top 10 most watched broadcasts on all three channels all year. And while this episode will pull down a mere 14.9 million viewers

on a par with Crossroads, Open All Hours and The Professionals, next week's episode will bag 19 million on them, which is Coronation Street numbers, and I have no idea why. A third of the population pretty much. Yes. It was all we had, that's the thing. It was all we had. Yeah.

I bet it was raining that night. Pop music TV wise it's currently the only game in town with only the old grey whistle test and a few late night regional efforts knocking about and the only new music programme that ITV have in the works at the moment is Moondog's Matinee,

which is another Muriel Young Kids programme hosted by a band from Northern Ireland, which featured the likes of Chaz and Dave, Rockpile and Andy Fairweather. No! Not only that, but Top of the Pops is also going through a very rare period where it's not being coated down in the media.

Even Clive James found time to mention this episode in his TV review in next Sunday's Observer and said that one of the acts on tonight's show, quote, uncorked the best pop single in years. It should make you feel good about life for about three and a half minutes. I'll leave it there for now. A mystery from the Godfather. Is it as good as dog

shit in my garden, I wonder? The period of guest presenters, pop news and surprise micro interviews that flared up after the technician strikes is long behind us, but chaps, we're still a long way from the yellow hair era. And judging by this episode, the show is absolutely crying out for a revamp, don't you think? Very much so.

It's not looking 80s yet. There's frequent moments in this episode where if you'd have been told, you know, this was from 76 or something, you could have well believed it. Yeah. Yeah, there's a few attempts to make a few little changes. It's not really happening yet, is it? So your host tonight is Peter Powell, who is now three and a half years into his career with the BBC and nearing the peak of his career there.

He's currently firmly embedded into the drive time slot from half past four to 7pm on weekdays at Radio 1, which means he gets to break down the new top 40 in full every Tuesday. That was important, wasn't it? Oh, it was, yeah.

I've banged on many a time enough about nipping out to spend it on my lunch break on Tuesday afternoons to get the first news from gallop but later on we're going to hear massive chunks of the new top 48 which was really important man wasn't it very important yeah i mean let's be honest 81 i mean this for me was a time before the big emergence of commercial stations on the radio so it was radio one constantly and this was a big deal yeah i mean his voice peter powell's voice is as associated

with that rundown as it is for me in 81 with his advert for um chart hits volume one and two which is a big memory of power from 81 as well tonight he finds himself as the meat and a hairy sandwich as his show takes over from Travis's afternoon slot and then hands over to Wheels, the hour-long show about motorbikes presented by the living Nashabaj himself. Not only that, but tonight's episode, which is being broadcast right now on Radio 1,

features Dave Taylor, the wheelie king himself, putting a new motorcyclist through his paces Now on Radio 1 features Dave Taylor, the wheelie king himself, putting a new motorcyclist through his paces and giving him tips on how to break into the sport of motorbike racing. A certain Peter James Bernard, pal. Fucking hell. All up in your area. He's already been lined up for a stint on the Radio 1 roadshow, including an appearance at Collingham Bay in Cornwall,

where the advertising in the local press will announce that there's also free access to the Polgever Naturist Bay. Thank God it wasn't Travis's week to do the roadshow. And along with Dave Lee, Travis and Simon Bates, he'll be holding down a summer DJ residency at Tiffany's Ballroom in Blackpool, going head-to-head with a rival discotheque who will be hosting DJ slots this summer

by Martin Shaw, Lewis Collins and Dennis Waterman. Taylor, you'd go to Professionals Disco, wouldn't you? Oh, yeah. Imagine the calibre of ladies he'd be turning up at that. With Cowley at the bar fucking moaning that they're not playing anything ever. Yeah, all those ladies either wearing designer jeans or car flint skirts and kitten heels. All of whom died before the end of the night to terrorists, no doubt. Yeah, but, you know, whatever, there'll be another one along in a minute.

the end of the night to terrorists, no doubt. Yeah, but, you know, whatever, there'll be another one along in a minute. By the way, chaps, do you know who officially opened Polgev and Naturist Bay in 1971? I found out during my research. I was quite delighted. Ooh, 71. Someone in the entertainment realm.

Reg Varney. Ooh. Your mmm indicates that Taylor was close there. Bob Grant. No. Arthur Lowe? Freddie Star. Oh, Jesus Christ.

Of course it was Freddie Star. Sadly, he didn't go about as a nudie Hitler with a comedy swastika painted on his bollock. He was in a nice 70s leisure tracksuit. Not Freddie Star hid my hamster freddy star smuggled my budget this is pal's 35th appearance as a host of our favorite thursday evening pop treat and he reached the summit of his profession when he hosted the 1980 christmas day episode and is still the youngest member of a talent pool currently consisting of

Richard Skinner, Mike Reed, Tommy Vance, Dave Lee Travis and Jingle Nonce OBE and there's been an attempt by the BBC to place him squarely within the ranks of the dishing. Only last week he appeared in the pages of the Sunday Mirror Women's section as that week's action he appeared in the pages of the sunday mirror women's section as that week's action man posing in the very latest off the peg casual wear quote britain's most popular dj peter powell tells me that after three years of having no special girlfriend he is now in love alison is a dancer a model and i'm both possessive and proud of her he says i've never been happier and you don't know her she goes to a different school how could a guy like peter age 29 5 foot 8 inches with sexy dark eyes square jaw and fine brown hair. Stay unattached for so long.

Answer, Peter really stays still long enough for him to catch up. He's on Radio 1 every weekday afternoon. He's a regular on Top of the Pops. He's forever scurrying around Britain doing live DJ gigs. He recently received an award for his popularity from prince michael of kent what's the baseline for that being more popular than prince michael of kent's missus and when he's not working he's playing football squash tennis or sailing windsurfing or skiing but i did manage to pin him down long enough to model his top of the pops among the latest in men's casual fashions two-tone beige nylon anorak by adidas from top man of

burton's cotton shirt and stretch denim jeans by vito sassoon from way in at harrods so yeah everything's coming up, pal, but it's the last episode he'll ever present in his 20s. Article in the telly pages of today's Daily Mirror, hitman Peter turns 30. Disc jockey Peter Powell is trying to grow old gracefully. Peter, who introduces Top of the Pops tonight, will turn 30 on Tuesday. I am facing

being 30 like an ostrich with his head in the sand, hoping it'll go away quietly, says Peter. So, chaps, from next week, there will be no presenters in their 20s until they're drafting Gary Davis and Pat Sharp at the end of next year.

Oh, dear. Yeah. Gosh. End of an era. Yes. I love that article where at the start it said, so how can a man like this be single? He's five foot eight. He looks like a pre-chewed bolus of bubble gum. So desperately ingratiating that his face is folding in on itself oh tightly folded bud

the flowers of evil yeah i mean it's weird him turning 30 he's going to be 72 this year i mean he is 72 this year now peter powell which is mental um but he's still looking good at this point he's still um you know looking like the party crasher killer from the hard way. He's very, very ambitious, isn't he, Powell? Oh, yes. I mean, I read an interesting quote, which might have been mentioned on Chart Music before. Of his early ambitions, in this interview that I read, Powell said,

I've always been interested in business. When I was 17, I was a salesman for expanded metal dung passages for piggeries. It was my dream to be a salesman for icis so there you go you know icis loss is our game reach for the stars and then i noticed somebody across the stein masturbating a pig and he got me into radio one he knows where the bodies are buried does powell i mean think about yeah think about who he represents now particularly right now at this moment that we're recording this podcast the whole Chiswick

Mafia the whole Schofield thing oh yes yeah he knows where the bodies are buried but as far as presentation goes chaps we know that age brings maturity and we can see that in Powell can't we the poem has been replaced by a sensible haircut and this is no longer the mr woo hay of 1977 you know songs are no longer ace they're excellent and the feet are going to stay on the floor throughout this episode aren't they yeah but you can tell he's still got his enthusiasm by the way he starts off hello welcome to yet another edition of top of the pot which i like because it has a sort of desperate death haunted world weariness which is a little bit at odds with his upbeat demeanor and kind of you know he's like a slaughterman smiling ruefully as he slots a bolt through the 45th cow brain of the day just sealed inside a

meaningless endlessly repeating sequence of episodes of top of the pops we'll be there one day it's hard to imagine i know oh yeah but i mean he could have looked at his elder peers at radio one and slotted into one of their kind of categories, like DLT, for instance. But I think he's taking cue from Jensen in being a safe pair of hands at this point. It is weird with Powell, though, isn't it? I mean, he's a man who hasn't aged well. I don't mean personally. Last time I saw him, he was holding up reasonably averagely for a man with a face that's essentially internal, bundled in like a Brussels sprout.

But then he was an early adopter of what was then called Keep Fit, wasn't it? Yes, he was. What I mean by not ageing well is that his legend has grown tatty because he's remembered as a sort of second-tier DJ, isn't it? Yeah. But he was a huge name at the time but he's not really up there in the collective memory with well-loved figures like travis or bates or or mike reed or even gary davis right but at the same time he's not down in that third tier

of cultural amnesia with paul burnett or adrian john or dixie peach or no me mark page he's on that sort of middle shelf with people like richard skinner yeah or or maybe diddy david hamilton the tony gubber of music presentation and with peter powell it's partly because he's not got his own thing you know in the 80s they had music djs like peel and and janice long and ranking miss p robbie vincent andy kershaw loathe him or hate him um and then they had the supposed personality djs like steve wright but it's the fools who tried to straddle that gap who've actually fallen into it in the collective memory because nobody thinks about these in-between blokes who, on the one hand, were entirely image-orientated,

but that image was just, hey, I'm a regular young guy who quite likes his music. It was just too bland to be memorable over time. But back then, Peter Powell was huge. He was a massive star. I mean, he never had the weekday breakfast show, but he must have opened more fates and guested at more provincial Dickie Bo Dorman nightclubs

than most cunts in history, and was considered dishy with his beady eyes and pushy manner. And all of that is now gone, as though it had never existed, like the contents of a broken hard drive after the heat death of the universe you can say that but also you can say that he got out in time yeah you know he was never going to be lumped in with the u-tree era of radio one djs because he just said right okay i've done this now i'm going off to do something else and be even more successful at that. It's true, yeah.

Although the thing about Powell as well, when you look back, he does represent a very specific subset of British men from this period, right? It's the kind of bloke who's very well aware that he's now living in the 80s, even if he's not quite sure yet what that means, beyond having shorter hair and straight leg trousers right and maybe a tight white t-shirt promoting sandwell valley nature reserve or something like under the bomber jacket but he's ambitious and he's positive in a way that didn't really exist in the 70s that kind of slightly obnoxious but moderately discreet kind of ambition right like i don't know his politics although i can fucking

guess you sense that he would not see a contradiction between like the go for it positivity of the jam and the upbeat vibe of early thatcherism right like he operates in the cultural sphere but he never really thinks about what culture is or what it means like apart from telling john peel not to play hip-hop because it was the music of black criminals yes because when did they ever make any good music he's got no ideas but he respects himself for getting on and making it happen yeah do you know in summary he is exactly the kind of person who would describe the record vienna by ultravox as magnificent yes well he's a businessman northern uh a personality in a way um i mean you get the

feeling even through his radio one career that he ultimately what he's doing is networking yeah you know he doesn't really want to foster a future career as the kind of voice of britain like fucking noel evans or something i think he just yeah he he's a businessman who happens to have spent some time in his youth, in his salad days, doing this, presenting the most popular pop programme on television. Yeah, he played his hand very well, didn't he? It's just a hook. Like, nowadays, he's like, hey, remember this face?

Yeah, yeah, like a Brussels sprout. But it's amazing, isn't it, when you look it up, the amount of people that he managed, what they musically call talent management. He's managed Simon Cowell, Adam Deck, Philip Schofield, and good God, Richard and Judy. The television of white criminals. But I looked him up at Companies House, right? And it's quite the patchwork quilt, his record there.

I'm not really a business guy you'll be shocked to hear but the list of companies that peter powell has co-founded or been the president of and resigned from that list is longer than the string of a stunt kite one of those stunt kites that somebody else with the same name put their name to hello welcome to yet another edition of top of the pops and we got a great show lined up we got the who we got roxy music we got duran duran and if you can handle that lot then hopefully you can handle this because live on top of the pops tonight is is Sharon Red and Can You Handle It? We get hit with the merest flicker of the Top of the Pops white on black logo with a blue square border layered atop each other,

a conceit they have been using since August of last year and will continue to use until July of this year. And the strains of the instrumental bits of Can You Feel It by the Jacksons, sadly not on this episode. That cold open style that they're going for here, really unsatisfactory. It's brutal. It's got an emergency broadcast hint to it, hasn't it? Or back in the day when the adverts came on and the regional logo

would flash up. Yeah. That's not good, man. You need a theme tune. You need a clarion call to bring all the youth together. Yeah, completely. It ties in with what you were saying. The 80s hasn't really started yet. They've decided that a whole lot of love isn't going to cut it in their thrusting new era. But they've not replaced it with anything.

No! No, you need a theme tune so you can turn it up and wait for the thunderous footsteps coming down the stairs yeah then the screen fills with powell in a lemon yellow wind cheetah with the sleeves rolled up a jazzy blue mustard and wine striped shirt with the collar turned up and powder blue slacks. Oh, new sounds, new styles, eh, chaps? Powder blue slacks with a thin brown belt. Of course, yes. You've got to have an eye for detail with this sort of thing. And introducing the next record with some of the slickest,

sexiest dance moves ever busted out by a man in a lemon yellow and a cheetah in powder blue slacks. It's a bit startling, this convulsion of youthful exuberance from a man dressed like Paul out of ever-decreasing circles. He tells us we've got a great show lined up and then spoilers half the acts on offer, telling us if we can handle that lot, then hopefully we can handle this.

Can You Handle It? by Sharon Redd. Born in Norfolk, Virginia in 1945, Sharon Redd was the daughter of a producer at King Records, James Brown's original label. United Artists in 1968 and put out a few singles before being headhunted a year later by a couple of Australian stage producers who cast her in the Sydney production of Hair. She became an overnight success over there, appearing in adverts for Amoco petrol stations and landing her own TV special, but she, along with other black cast members, had their work visas unrenewed by the Australian Immigration Department and she found herself back in America in the spring of 1971. A year later, she was recruited into Bette Midler's backing singers, the Harlettes, and stayed there for six years, during which time she and fellow harlette Charlotte Crossley popped up on an episode of

as Johnny Ventura's backup. In 1978, she signed to RCA, and a year later, under the name Front Page, put out the disco single Love Insurance, and by 1980, she had moved to Prelude Records, the New York disco label who had D-Train and Jocelyn Brown on their books. This is her first single release as a solo artist since her cover of Easy To Be Hard from the Hair soundtrack, which got to number 32 in the Australian chart in 1969. It entered the chart three weeks ago at number 60, then soared 17 places to number 43. And this week it's jumped four places to number 33, which has necessitated a big fly across the Atlantic for a top of the pops debut.

And all dear chaps, it's safe to say that this is the most disastrous welcoming party for an American since that episode of Dad's Army, where Captain Manorin gets chinned twice. Fucking hell. Before we get into it, chaps, the first thing that needs to be pointed out is that immediately after introducing this,

the camera sweeps across the studio floor. Powell, still in vision, breaks into a lumbering dad at a wedding dance. Oh, dear. He's not doing the running, pal, just yet, but he's more one of those, you know, them thumb toys or push puppets or whatever you call them. You know, when you've got a zebra or something

and you push it underneath and it flops. Well, he's dancing like he's a push puppet and someone's just applied a tiny bit of pressure. A flicker. By some distance, he's not the worst dancer. Oh, applied a tiny bit of pressure. A flicker. By some distance, he's not the worst dancer. Oh, no, no, no, no, no. What we see here in the studio, not only from Powell, but from the audience, is there's no other way of putting it apart from in a racist way.

It's the whitest dancing I have ever seen. Shall we talk about the single first? Shall we get that out of the way? Sure, sure. Because that'll take off a minute. Because it's a fucking tune, isn't it? It's a great single, but what we're hearing here is not the single.

No, no, no, no, no. If you actually bought it as a single or heard it on the radio, you'd get a prime example of New York post-disco. Hell yeah, yeah. You have to listen to the 12-inch special extended version, which is nearly 10 minutes long, and it fucking mints.

The recorded version is this crisp, kind of glitter nearly 10 minutes long, and fucking mint. The recorded version is this crisp, kind of glittering... I mean, it's perfect. It's one of those early 80s funk tunes. Every single detail is perfect. What we have here is not that. I mean, like most singles of its Elkin era, it would have completely sailed over my head at the time.

You know, that combination of hardcore funk and showtune flamboyance, but the performance we get, fucking hellfire. It's as if Michael Hill's trying to prove a point by lumping together everything that he wants rid of from Top of the Pops. I mean, I reiterate what we said earlier with regards to plenty of bits in this episode.

If you'd have told me this was from 76, come on. It looks like 76. There seems to be this powerful idea in the 70s in particular that if you give a crowd of young people the task of sitting down and doing an annoying series of hand gestures to do they'll be delighted and like cathol they will join this herd of idiocy yeah and this is what we get here if we've just talked about the record we now have to talk i think about how the top of the pops orchestra play this record i thought this was all done by 1980 no no no the sound of philadelphia cheese indeed i mean it's a typically shonky start right before they actually settle into the song

um there's a few bass mistakes and stuff the use of the top of the pop orchestra dates it because simply put they never really got their heads around disco no i mean we keep saying disco but what we hear is not disco no i mean the point about disco whether it's been made by chic or whether it's made by acdc who i think makes some great disco records is that the kick drum is a regular thump throughout and not to get too musicological the kick drum the bass drum hits not just in between the snare hits but on each snare hit that's really key to disco the top of the pop's orchestra they play it with a normal sort of kick snare pattern and it instantly dates the song yes it dates the song back to the early 70s and as ever with the t.a.t.p

orchestra you know it can't help but have that we've had a what these parties seven each in the green room feel to it as well you know so oh it'd be arctic light by now yeah yeah or breaker it's a shonky start but they make it into a soul slash funk record not a disco record so it's weird what we're hearing the big question here i can't work out what she's singing into right because she's not holding a mic yeah yeah and she doesn't appear to have one clipped to that weird body suit that she's wearing and i've never quite seen this before on top of the pops wherever the microphone is it's too far from her mouth because the acoustics of the vocal are horrendous so i can't tell is she singing into like a boom mic off screen like what they would use to record dialogue on a sit maybe surely not do you reckon it was a hastily done sort of pre-recorded version

that she did with the top of the pop's orchestra i thought of that yeah i thought of that but i don't think so and i'll tell you why because obviously it's not the record it's certainly not the record the record being a perfectly weighted production that sounds like a helicopter shot of some skyscrapers um as opposed to this this this two-on-the-floor nonsense. So I was looking for any suggestion that it was that and that she'd recorded the vocal earlier while not dancing. But in fact, not only does it look like she's singing live while dancing, it fucking sounds like it too. Because every time she bends off in one direction, the level drops.

Right, right, right. So it's very confusing. This clip is up on YouTube, but it's got the record dubbed over it. Of course. That's surprising. But at least you can say that the audio fits the chaos of the scene. Oh, God. With all these kids rowing the boat like they're in school assembly. It's like you might as well have had girls tie in plaits into the hair of the girl in front as sharon red sings about how

she's apparently so good in bed it's intimidating yes i mean the kids are all sat around on an elongated platform and they're doing a fucking group blockbusters hand jive years before it was such a thing man it's appalling it is appalling there's this particular young lady who i don't want to pick on but she does look like she could be in her mid-60s to be honest with you but she's doing it so stiffly and so confusedly and bewilderedly you know that because there's finger points involved in this thing that they're getting the kids to do and the point she does is so fatally just not right on the beat. I mean, it's interesting watching any group of British dancers, to be honest with you, ever.

Because you can see the people who actually do dance to music. Yeah. They've sort of just got it in their shoulders and their groove, you know. But some people are just incapable. I don't know how they live. And there's plenty of those in the audience here. It should be mentioned that a small modicum of satisfaction is provided by Legs & Co in the background.

Yeah, Legs & Co are there as well. I mean, they are still doing that rubbish I've-just-trod-in-dog-shit move. They're in the Doric Kytons again, looking like they're doing a keep-fit demonstration before some Christiansians get fed to the lions yeah and also like legs and co nearing the end of their working life yeah quite literally left on the shelf here oh yes time in their lives relegated to this distant bookcase thing and then

a bit later in the song they're let down from the shelf but they're still not allowed out of their technical area they've got a little painted off bit in the corner and still having to wear industrial knickers in defiance of this obsessively upskirting cameraman why else are they on a raised platform yeah um it must have got tiresome even for game girls like legs and kind of in fact this here is the last ever appearance of pauline peters oh left the legs this week right to be replaced for the final six months by anita chelamar the doug yule of fixed grin hoofing actually no no it's more like when ron wood joined the creation because that was also for a very brief period right at the end and because they're both better

known for what they did afterwards in ron's case the faces and the rolling stones and in anita's case toto coelho oh yes she ate cannibals It was incredible. And as a founding member of the Toto Coelho Ultras, I am the bloke holding the megaphone with his back to the performance. I won't have anything bad said about it. By this time, Legs & Co are pulling double shifts almost every week, you know, doing their own routine and backing up some band. And I always assumed it was because, you know, Michael Hurl wanted to jack up the daddy's faction.

But now I think, were their contracts on a performance basis and Hurl wants them gone as soon as possible? So he's just squeezing maximum value out of them before they're off. Well, instead of saying you signed up for 52 weeks, you signed up to 52 performances. Ah, I see. So we get you in two at a time and knob you off early. Yeah. Also, lest we forget, providing a visual contrast to two-man sound. Of course, yes. Serves neither party.

You know, legs and co. are being pushed off to the side, and, you know, no-one puts legs and co. in the corner. Meanwhile, Sharon Redd, she's there slinking about, telling everyone she's just the best shag ever, and she's doing it while standing next to lots of younger women yeah there is that in shorter skirts but to be fair i think sharon is the star here um not just because it's her record i think she looks great and she's got this great sort of black spangly dress on she moves great her performance background that you

mentioned you know being in hair and things like that is clearly there and she puts it across i mean with this lumbering fuck awful arrangement um which has its pleasures don't get me wrong like all top of the pops orchestra stuff it has its interesting slightly beard up pleasures but um yeah she comes through it okay the audience do not know it's a great opportunity for us to see the youth of 1981 and a fucking hell yeah dear me the dress so appallingly that if he had had the time steve strange will be standing in their own front doorways and refusing them entrance to the outside world no sorry this is not for you there's a couple of little punkers though in there isn't there there's less like yes there are yes dotted about and they're actually some of the best dancers to be honest with you yeah the punks that are dotted in this

audience they provide some nice sort of moodiness later on in this episode as well but yeah is there anything more dispiriting than seeing british children forced into the block but the fucking dance um it's well cheggers plays pop isn't't it? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, they should have just given him an inflatable to jump up and down on. I mean, in fairness, nobody's going to look cool doing that school assembly. I mean, rarely has Top of the Pops felt more like a church hall dance and sausage sizzle, which at heart is what it always wanted to be, complete with Stranger Danger, but without the sausages, which were the best bit you know when you watch these old top of the pops is on a downloaded file and it's straight from the bbc

vt so sometimes at the end they run on past where the tv broadcast yes cutter so after the credits you get the whole of the closing song with the audience dancing. And then at the end, when it stops, you hear the floor manager barking at the kids to leave the studio. And it really does slice through the jollity like an oxyacetylene torch. Like you're supposed to be at the greatest party in the world. And then the second the music stops, some old bloke's bellowing, like, thank you for coming. Now please leave the studio instantly.

And it's a bit of a jolt, you know. Ladies and gentlemen, you now have nine seconds to vacate the building before we uncage the hyenas. They will be laughing. You will not. Good luck, children. This clip has got that same atmosphere. But while the fucking show is going on

yeah what needs to change and i think her realizes it pretty soon is that this thing of piling the stage with the kids yeah that's got to change for a fucking start off i mean if you're going to rebuild a set and make it like a nightclub put the kids out in the nightclub put zoo cunts up on the platforms and yeah just don't let shit like this happen again because even though the record itself even in this iteration is not a bad start to the show the staging of it's pretty awful shaman does come through okay though apologies for repeating myself pop craze youngsters but when we covered department s in our live show last year i quoted their interview in smash hits in may of this year when they were on Top of the Pops, and I'm quoting it again.

Seven o'clock on a Wednesday evening, and in Studio 3 at the Television Centre, a hundred teenagers are milling about beneath the white arc lights of Top of the Pops. Flick Colbert, the American choreographer of Legs & and co gets up on stage to tell them what comes next and how to dance to it the next one's by department s and that's a real blitz kid number i want some intense meaningful movements none of this silly disco stuff so yeah by this time flint colbert's telling the kids what to do and telling them they've got a pain in sweat right now. Because by this point, Hull has clearly had enough with the kids just standing there

or chatting to the mates about lads and shoes and what they like the look of in Chelsea Girl at the moment or making rabbit ears behind the mates' back while Dean Freeman's trying to emote and has enlisted Sergeant Major Colbert. By the look of this, it's an experiment that's doomed to failure and zoo are imminent.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Those kids here, you can see, are just ashamed of this enforced jollity and they just don't want any part of it. The most shocking thing to my mind is the return of the top of the Pops Orchestra and whatever the Maggie Streder singers are calling themselves these days and you know

it's clear from the first note that they can't handle it. This might do for Seedside Special or the Yorkshire TV Disco Dancing Championship but you know Sharon's been poorly served here. Yeah she has. If I wanted to go and get it together I'd have gone and get it together. Yeah

or wheel tappers and Shunters or something. Oh, can you imagine? So the following week, Can You Handle It nudged up two places to number 31 somehow and got no further. The follow-up, Love Is Gonna Get Ya, failed to chart, but she roared back in 1982 with never give you up getting to number 20 in november of that year 10 years later dna the toms diner remix hit makers collaborated with red on an update of can you handle it which got to number 17 in february of 1992 sparking what should have been a comeback, but she died of pneumonia three months later at the age of 46.

This is the first radio ad you can smell. The new Cinnabon Pull Apart, only at Wendy's. It's ooey, gooey, and just five bucks with a small coffee all day long. Taxes extra at participating Wendy's until May 5th. Terms and conditions apply. Hey, loads of applause to our audience, Lex and Co, and Sharon Redden,

Can You Handle It? on top of the pot. Okay, he's got an album coming out with the same name as the hit single. His name, Shaggy Stevens and This Old House.

This old house wants new children This old house wants new wives How? How, after listing everyone responsible for the last performance, lies to the kids about a new LP that has actually been out for months before throwing us into this old house by shaking Stevens? Yes, he added a G. Disgusting behaviour. Simon Bates wouldn't do that. Simon Bates knows when to snip off a G. Born in Evansville, Texas in 1908,

Carl Hamblin was the son of a preacher man who founded the Evangelical Methodist Church. In 1931, he relocated to California and became the host of the radio show Family Album, whilst nurturing a career as a country singer-songwriter. And in 1934, he became the first artist signed up to the American subsidiary of Decca. He rapidly became the most popular radio personality

in Los Angeles, but the fame got to him and he became a rabid pisshead and gambler. But in 1949, he turned up at a Billy Graham crusade in LA, an event which Graham later claimed was a turning point in his own popularity and bank balance. But when Hamblin subsequently tried to ban beer adverts off his radio show, he got the sack. In 1954, according to legend, Hamblin was on a hunting exposition with his mate John Wayne when they came across a dilapidated hut in the mountains which contained one mangy dog and a human corpse, which inspired him to write this song, which got a number two in the Billboard Country Chart. Later that year, it was covered by Rosemary Clooney

and put out as a B-side to Hey There, which got a number one in America. But when it was released over here, the sides were flipped around and this whole house became her first UK number one in December of 1954. The song lay mouldering for a quarter of a century until it was recorded by the Kentucky band NRBQ, who recorded it rockabilly style for their 1979 LP Kick Me Hard. And it's this version that has been covered by the ever-victorious, This version that has been covered by the ever-victorious, iron-willed,

highest incarnation of the revolutionary comradeship of heterosexual rock and roll. It's a follow-up to Shooting Galleret, which only got to number 46 in October of 1980, and is the third cut from his third LP, Marie Marie, which came out five months ago. his third LP Marie Marie which came out five months ago it's entered the chart at number 64 three weeks ago then soared 35 places to number 29 he was immediately invited into the top of the pop studio which helped it soar another 22 places to number seven this week it's jumped another five places and stands at number two in the chart and here's a special film broadcast from overway cottage a dilapidated coach house in nalton park near berry st edmunds so shaky can elaborate on his five-year plan to address the social housing crisis yeah pal fucked up there when he said it was from an album that was coming

out because epic of retitled marie marie to this old house in the wake of this becoming a hit right right you know what i don't think i've ever have i ever talked about shaky before on show up music i'm not entirely sure i am which is remarkable really that is yeah because for the rest of us it's got to the point now where every time he comes on it's like your brother-in-law's drop round without texting first but oh hello it's like an easy familiarity but without a great deal of affection and yet if you saw him in trouble in the street you'd feel duty bound to help out yeah not that shaky would ever find himself in trouble in the street no no

but he was everywhere in my life in 81 i think this video was probably my biggest first memory of shaky and and i think the start of my liking of him he's got that insanely good looking dad dave bartram look he's even better looking and that jet black coiffure is all important but in 81 he's everywhere you know i mean yes yes there's o'connor he's on cannon and ball on swap shop i mean two of my most serpentine memories of him is that he's on jim will fix it oh yes two appearances really stuck in my head i mean there may well be more of them but the two ones that really stuck in my head there was one where two kids just right in and they and they want to dance with him basically and that's it jim can you fix it so they dance with him doing this whole house and you know the jingle noncer tells the little girl that she's very pretty and the little boy that he's a great

mover um it's a bit grisly but there's a bizarre fate memory i have that perhaps a pop craze youngster can confirm or find where a girl she wanted to stay in a posh boarding school for the night that was her wish right so she goes she does the kind of posh boarding school stuff they have a school disco to japanese boy actually right then later on there's just a really bizarre moment where all the girls are in the dorm you know waiting for lights out and um shaky just turns up to kind of check if they're all okay and yeah you dream that neil shawley no i i swear down i have not dreamt that shaky just turns up he turns up in the dorm he checks them all okay he don't tuck him in or anything but um they're all sort of very excited to see him shaky of the dorm man it sounds like a stripping gin tea or something but yeah i mean you know it's appearances like

that that obviously by 81 uh turned him into a household name giving him the commercial momentum to make this a big hit after quite a long journey obviously you know he's been doing rock and roll revivalism since the since the days of fucking sha-na-na really he was the only other guy doing it he's shay-nay-nake indeed but in the late 70s you know he's actually he's kind of cool john lyden at the end of an interview at the height of the sex pistols fame says he's off to see shaking stevens that night in that late 70s period danny baker at the time wanted to call a kind of punk versus a rockabilly summit to diffuse tensions and he wanted shaky there you know as the sort of boot tross boot tross stevens there but i mean all the tv appearances obviously make him way more mainstream and he's hitting right this year

you know you've got the stray cats in the charts even alvin stardust has a hit again this year with with you know rockabilly revival in full swing and he's the perfect idol really for the for the sort of under nines you know so you know i mean if i was old enough in 81 to feel spiritually behind new pop his presence this kind of retrograde presence probably would have angered me but um no i loved him and this song as you point out i mean you know now sort of at our age everything we watch or hear sounds like death you know even a center part but i mean this is a this is a kind of song about death and it's quite macabre in a way but it was an eight-year-old kid i just thought he had a bit of a knackered house and he needs to fix it this is the first opportunity we've had to

actually look at a shaking stevens video right which was the second one he ever made after marie marie and you know by 1981 chaps the promo video seen as an opportunity for an artist to expand upon their creative manifesto and harness the elements of multimedia to round out their artistic statement so what does shaky do here he sings it in front of an old house yeah he starts with him leaping from the veranda over a camera giving the audience a tantalizing denim upskirt shots and then there's a bit of panther-like jiggling about in front of this dilapidator's house until he seizes the means of production and drives the acts of revolutionary socialism into the rotting stump of capitalism. They really missed a trick though they should have stayed true

to the spirit of this song and put a corpse inside the old house yeah and his dog still stood there guarding the door bloke dressed up as john wayne and then eating his face at the end of it yeah the terrible thing about that story is the fact that the dog was still alive yeah suggests that the bloke only died recently which in a way is more creepy than if he'd been there two years but you know when you're going down a B road in the country somewhere and you see an overturned car in the ditch and you just assume it's been left abandoned there for days. When in fact, for all you know, it could have gone off the road 90 seconds ago

before you came around the corner and the wheels might only just have stopped spinning. But yeah, they don't do it. They don't do it. There's a corpse in an armchair and a starving dog behind the green door. No, instead, his mates turn up, don't they? There's like a brotherhood of man foursome who've just walked out of a Kay's catalogue.

And it cuts back to Shakey giving him a lean and hungry look while still clapping, of course. And, you know, to my mind, the video starts to take on sinister video nasty like connotations yes this surly youth brandishing an axe and four people come walking along all happy and couple it never ends well does it no and it looks like a video nasty as well yes it does because of the strange way it's lit yeah because it's not shot on video it's shot on 16 millimeter film which is less forgiving in gloomy conditions so on some of

these shots there's a an eerie glow with a very dark shadows behind because it was obviously such a miserable day that by the time they were filming shaky posing upstairs in the old house yes by the window pane he says he's not gonna mend yeah there wasn't enough light so they've had to turn a big arc light on him and it creates that slightly unearthly post-apocalyptic look but it's cheap lighting so it gives it the feel of a very low budget horror film yeah halloween blood on white shoes also aggravated by the fact that these days all the copies of top of the pops in circulation come from these supposed restorations yes done by a private citizen which look like they've just gone through one of those free photoshop filters because you

can't restore or upscale top of the pops to hd because they were made on videotape which is a standard definition medium and even stuff shot on film like this has been telecineed onto video so there is no hd information that is it's not there at source so the confused computer just smooths everything out as best it can and it just sharpens the edges and flattens the shadows and you end up with all the detail wiped out yeah it destroys the image that's there especially small areas of detail like people's faces to the point of it being disturbing so when shakey's catalog model friends come down the path to join his fun at the old house, it looks like Silent Hill on the PS1.

You look at a screenshot of their faces or the concave caverns of Lovecraftian horror where their faces were. It's fucking horrible. But it's also an interesting lesson in photogenia because these ordinary looking extras who were all sort of blandly pleasant looking you put them through the faux upscaling process they come out looking like abattoir sweepings whereas shakey's own face has been subjected to the same process of simplification and approximation

and when you wipe all the detail out of his face he just ends up looking even more like his own viz cartoon yeah he looks great so maybe in the same way that the secret of a memorable and distinctive animated character is that they should be instantly recognizable in silhouette maybe the secret of being a late 20th century pop icon is having the kind of face that becomes stronger and more distinctive, the more degraded and messy the image becomes with the passing of time over generations of cheap reproduction. And this is why, 40 years on,

everyone's still talking about shaking steven not that you'd ever associate shaking stevens with the words cheap reproduction you understand the thing is that sinister thing you identify in the video sort of tipped me the wink as a kid that yeah this song's perhaps not about just fixing up an old house but there was there was always something sinister about shakyiky. And I think that was part of his appeal. And I don't mean sinister in a bad way. Who's he going to spring upon next?

Well, there's that. He's already taken down Maidlet. It could be you. But you never got the feeling that, you know, no matter what chaff he was on, like if he was on Cheggers Plays Pop or something, you didn't think, oh yeah, Sheik is going to go off and hobnob with cheggers

now no no cheggers is going to go and do whatever he's doing which probably you know is completely innocent and full of bonhomie shaking stevens who knew what home he was going back to he was kind of he had this sort of mystery to him and consequently yeah i mean this song it is a song about death and of course as a kid you don't quite get that the black door of death doesn't loom large in your consciousness at that age because it just seems so far away um the lyrics confuse me a little bit you know growing up in an old people's home the line about not having time to fix the shingles really medically confused me but overwhelmingly as a kid this was just a simple fun song to sing and dance to

and the jauntiness of the arrangement of course helps that yeah but so did this video i didn't quite pick up the sinister overtones at the time now watching i can't believe i didn't because it is an unsettling watch so after the axe bit there's a series of cuts where he points at things that are in the song so you know thanks to shake it i found out what a shingle was long before i should have done and then he leaps from the top window to the ground ready to stalk his prey who we later see trapped in the attic being forced to sing out the window presumably in a vain cry for help and then shaky finds a baseball on the floor and i did look at it hard and it is a

baseball it's too odd for it not to have just been there and they thought hey that's great let's use it it's american yeah hey shaky you like american stuff who's got a baseball in berry st edmunds but you know a baseball bat possibly but not a ball and then he picks the baseball up and he tosses it from hand to hand and then he turns around and just lobs it skyward. Yeah, fucking hooligan. Shaking Stevens has thrown a baseball over a house. What have you done? Someone's greenhouse paying the price for that.

There's a happy ending of sorts because the Brotherhood of Man types are let out into the front yard and they instantly transmogrify into 13 people including a child which leads me as a viewer to believe that shaking stevens is actually the leader of a cult who have taken up squatters rights in the countryside which is you know which is nice no one's died yet but yeah going back to the song neil because the original version by stewart hamlin it is your bog standard religious ramble you know it doesn't matter if you're poor and your living arrangements are killing you because you know Jesus has prepared

a new build with all mod cons in heaven for you yeah yeah but like all good benevolent dictators the man of denim as we know him as has painted all that bollocks out of the picture hasn't it yeah yeah that's partly because he delivers the songs in an extremely mushed mouth manner like he was eating a sausage cob but he also alters the lyric in the chorus you know because stewart hamblin says i'm getting ready to meet the saints yeah yeah roseberry clearly sang he's getting ready to meet the saints but comrade shaker he sings she's getting ready to meet the saints which implies that it's a house yeah that's going to die and ascend to the barrett estate in the sky or he's taking his daughter to a meet and greet at

southampton football club yeah because like you know i just thought shake is going oh i'm shaking stevens this house is shit i'm gonna buy a new one that's it a denim house yeah it's had its day it's had a good innings let's move on and get on the property ladder is my kind of overwhelming message from the song yeah or a meet and greet at the tour of the this perfect day hit my like is it hack to say this right i don't know but to me it's perfect whatever this song's actually about it's perfect that the man who took these lyrics to number one went on to be a landlord now he should absolutely have had this as the voicemail on whichever number he gave to his tenant he just left his phone permanently switched off so he's impossible to contact yeah just goes hang up time to fix like all fucking landlords yeah it would just like a normal but more musical except that

in this case he ain't got time to fix the shingles or the floor or the boiler because he's getting ready to meet the saints rather than because he's getting ready to go to Alicante for three weeks again. So why is Shaking Stevens so popular in 1981? 1981 of all years! Look, two things I think, right. He's massively good looking two and i'm perhaps i'm overestimating this but i also detect this in a later record the power of the greece

soundtrack should never be underestimated things that sound 50s ish but have a modern production are gonna hit big yeah yeah it's just lodged in people's consciousness so much so so yeah i i i think that might have something to do with it. Plus he's ubiquitous. He is fucking everywhere. He's appearing on everything. So it's difficult to avoid him. He's generation straddling, isn't he?

I think the only people who sort of hated Shaking Stevens at this point were fierce poptimist advocates of new pop who probably would have seen this as shamelessly retrograde and worthless. But for the rest of us, yeah, it's just a fun record with a very good looking man singing it he was ubiquitous he was the subject of one of ronnie corbett's best jokes of course oh ronnie corbett was talking about something that had scared him and he said i haven't been so nervous since i stood next to shaking stevens in the gents which if you don't get that joke what it's saying is it he's suggesting the image of ronnie corbett being showered with urine as a

an uncontrollably gyrating welshman pissing like a horse insists on standing right next to him at the urinal, despite the fact that, like an unmanned garden hose, his penis is flapping around everywhere because of the shaking and is sousing the pint-sized discursive storyteller in gallon after gallon of 50s revivalist piss. And Ron is just standing there with waves of piss dripping down the lenses of those iconic black frame glasses, like the windscreen of a Mercedes in a car wash or the rainy windows of a Glaswegian tenement

in his Scottish homeland, wringing out his Lyle and Scott V-neck into the sink. You know? What, imagine if it all went in his mouth and all that. Oh, Christ. I should say, by the way, I did go and check that joke before I quoted it to make sure I got the wording right,

because like all writers, or people who call themselves writers, I know there's nothing worse than someone quoting your work, especially the jokes, and getting it just slightly wrong after you spent a very long time getting it precisely right such is the insatiable perfectionism of the creative genius you know oscar wilde was once supposedly asked oscar what did you do this morning and he said i removed a semicolon from one of my poems and they said how did you spend the afternoon?

And he said, putting it back in again. This is what it's like. We wouldn't know anything about this stuff, of course. But I guarantee you that whoever wrote that joke for Ronnie Corbett will have laid in bed tossing and turning, flipping that sentence backwards and forwards in their mind for hours, looking for the perfect structure, really earning their three-piece suite and cocktail

cabinet and this is why comedy writers are paid such outrageous sums of money because you get the rhythm of the sentence wrong and you lose the gag everything rests on linguistic precision it's like a surgeon your mirth in their hands just one slip and you've got a pancreas hitting the floor with a wet slap it's terrible can you imagine the repercussions if eddie large had ever told a joke that wasn't funny yeah that would have been that career over that's a guy back to living off sid little's dinner money and it needs saying by the way this old house right i think this is best shaky this is best shaky for me it's his best one right not i'm gonna sit around listening to it but um in terms of getting those jitters in your legs when you're eight years old this is the one oh i think this was the single that just turned

me squarely against shaking right right i removed myself from all that Ted shit and here it was again. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And when it got to number one, oh, Jesus. Yeah, but your age difference, that's the thing. You were sick of him by now. Complete age difference because while I was watching Top of the Pops,

if I was allowed to watch it in the living room, this would come on and my dad would be like, oh, fucking hell, yeah, finally. Finally something good and the knees would start going

and everything and it's like, oh, God. Yeah, I can imagine it's not sitting well with a And it's like, oh, God. Yeah, I can imagine it's not sitting well with a young mod. Yeah, yeah. No. It's rocker shit, isn't it? Yeah.

And in no escape, either. You know, I mentioned earlier that episode of Summertime Special that I watched. And Shakey's on that, right? Of course. And it's genuinely fascinating because, for a start, he's introduced by rod hull and emu alas from a safe distance yeah yeah we don't we don't get to see what would have become the

featherweight title bout of early 80s like entertainment but also because shaky performs a live version of this old house oh yes i've heard that summertime special band yeah you make the the top of the pops orchestra sound like booker t and the mg um and he's got the most unnaturally twinkly eyes i've ever seen and he doesn't seem to be able to remember the words very well yes admittedly this old house does have three verses but he's been singing it all year every day over and over again and yet there's moments where he just seems to be doing what you do when you're walking around your flat singing a song out loud yeah and you can't quite remember how it goes so you just make some noises with your mouth that are similar phonetically like the greatest ever example of this being uh jimmy

hendrix's version of all along the watchtower yeah she's a track i listen to quite a lot because in east london there's always a low-flying police helicopter overhead the only way to make that noise sound good is to put on all along the watchtower and pretend you're in the nam but he seemingly recorded that song without knowing the word west nam which which when you're doing a dylan cover he's bordering on mischief but you can hear him he goes uh none will ever on the mine nobody of it is worth it's just gibberish but on that record by the first guitar break nobody cares right but when it's shaky smoldering into the camera and he's going all right and mean i'm all for i had lived right but i think with this song you're honor bound to stick to the text lest you spoil that mood of of john wayne in a bothy staring at a corpse in an armchair

and a starving dog because that's what the kids want, right? Yeah. John Wayne, big leggy himself. Indeed. Got off his horse, drank his milk, looked deep into his horse's eyes. Well, no, he could only see one of them, actually, because he was standing around the side. So he gazed into the deep black intelligence of that one eye, like a snooker ball embedded in a veiny blanket.

And he turns to Stuart Hamblin and he said, Stu, not only do I believe in white supremacy and the ostracisation of gay men, but you know elephants, cute little baby elephants, I say fuck them. Fuck them up the trunk and drink your milk. And then spring arrived and they both went home. It was one of the defining moments.

You might almost say iconic moments in rock and roll history. And without that history, this song is almost meaningless yeah yeah i mean look but the thing is with shaky what what's crucial to me with shaky in this period is he has the appeal of a of almost a cartoon because he's impervious to analysis as a child you don't look at shaky and think oh i know the person behind that yeah oh I know the person behind that. Yeah. Or I know the background behind that. He's just fully formed, utterly impervious to analysis, never really revealing anything about himself in anything that I was exposed to. So he couldn't be demystified.

Look, I'm not saying he's a bewitching kind of self-plaguing figure. It's Shakin' Stevens we're talking about. But there was no sort of background to him. Do you know what I mean? I mean, not that i knew about as an eight-year-old you just got the idea that yeah he was on all these tv shows but that didn't demystify him because you just got the feeling that afterwards he went on being shaking stevens he just walked around being shaking stevens yes his life and and yeah that's really important

jumping off things exactly that's really important as aing off things. Exactly. That's really important as a kid. Just climbing up things and then jumping off them. It would take him half an hour to get to the shops because he'd have to jump on things and climb up them. The pioneer of parkour. But no, you're onto something, Neil, because out of all the mock and roll acts of the 70s and early 80s, Shake is the only one who plays it

without the slightest trace of an element of humour. You know, Show Waddy Waddy never took themselves seriously. Neither did Darts or Rocky Sharp and the replays

or, you know, even Coast to Coast who are currently at number five but sadly not in this episode. But, no, Shakey,

he's not joking, is he? No, he takes his bubble with him, you know, everywhere he goes and it never gets punctured and that's really the mask never slips yeah grown more serious with age as well have you

heard his new song no oh yeah i heard it is it is it ace no it's called all need is greed it's a this is a condemnation of uh of today's money focused culture you know maybe nowadays the shaking is largely involuntary but the social conscience is still glowing white hot you know it sounds like a brian adams 12 inch extra track right it's nice that he gives a fuck i suppose and what a thrill to be lectured on greed by a buy to let landlord yes invigorating yeah but it shows how he's not been forgotten because there was a lot of excitement about that yes you know about him coming back i've detected more excitement about the new shaking steven single than like i don't know susan the banshee is going on the road it's you know people are oh

wow yeah he's back wet leg wet who there's only one leg i'm interested in and it's you know people are oh wow yeah he's back wet leg wet who there's only one leg i'm interested in and it's going and yes new it is only march but you know there is going to be a whole lot of shaking going on in 1981 especially during what the kids are going to be calling the summer of shaker because he's going to be the focal point of Let's Rock, which is Jack Good's latest attempt to do Old Boy again, an 18-part series made by ATV in Birmingham for American television. It's already been out in America,

and God knows how they reacted to it, but it'll launch on ITV in July on Saturday nights, featuring Shake It, Alvin stardust joe brown lulu den hegata and all the original ted singers that are still alive have you seen that i have and and you know what you were saying about me you know what you were saying about not smirking that's the thing that's what mark shaky is different because a lot of people on that show especially joe Joe Brown, smirks their way, it's fucking awful, that programme, man. It's a headache, that show.

It never stops. It starts, and it's just a racket for about 20 minutes. And yeah, it's horrible. Starts off with a racket, and then here comes some more racket

with some other old bloke. Yeah, yeah. But shaky, man. He puts himself about. There's one scene where, I can't remember what the song was, because he didn't do his own songs on that. No, no puts himself about. There's one scene where, I can't remember what the song was, because he didn't do his own songs on that.

No, no, no. But there's one scene where he's doing his pieces, and he's in front of this enormous jukebox that's got a record player on the top. And you see Shaky going up this absolutely fucking massive ladder. You know, the type of ladder they use in a studio to change the lights. Goes up to the top of there holding this massive cardboard record. You just look at it and you just go, health and safety, anyone?

Yeah, yeah, but he doesn't give a fuck, man. No, he doesn't. It's about rock and roll. Does he not jump off in slow motion? No, sadly not. But the standout moment of that series, because there is a compilation of it on YouTube and in the video playlist, they have the rocking shades being joined by the cast and audience for a rousing version of the 1958 Jesse James song,

Salve's Gonna Rise Again, complete with fucking confederate flags aplenty. Oh, God, man. Including one massive one that comes down and obscures about half the audience. And the audience are brandishing pro-rockabilly banners in the same font as the ones that the kids used to hold up in Tiswas. Oh, dear.

If Chris Tarrant organised a Ku Klux Klan rally, this is what it'd look like. Maybe it means South Wales, yeah? That clearly must have been a massive influence on Bobby Gillespie and Primal Scream. Oh, yeah, definitely, yeah. Anything else to say chaps yeah i'm afraid of course there is it's shaking neil you know you said you didn't really know anything about shaking stevens no no i don't can i i'll fill in some of that background because i've recently been privileged to read this book the intriguingly titled shaking stevens um which is

a paperback biography right published by star books ever the mark of quality in 1983 written by paul barrett shaky's former manager paul barrett shaking gold with whom shaky parted ways roughly around the exact moment he hit the big time it turns out his brother as well it's not it's the name spelt differently uh it turns out he's exactly the right man to have written this book because not only does he have access to all those early hardscrabble stories and insider tales from the Sunsets tour van, he was clearly a pivotal figure in Shaky and Stephen's life. Because we can see that while Shaky was being managed by Paul, he was a bit of a rough diamond,

but essentially a nice, simple lad from South Wales. He liked rock and roll, liked to drink, liked the ladies, wasn't above causing a bit of mischief from time to time. And then as soon as he split from Paul, he immediately turned into the world's biggest cunt. Now, that might just be a coincidence, but surely it's far more likely that Paul's steadying hand is what made the difference.

And shaky was led astray by his subsequent, much more high-powered and far more successful manager, who, if this book is to be believed is also a complete bitch very sad what happened to him i now understand um now you can gauge how carefully proofread this book was by the fact that in the course of its 150 pages paul misspells the names of jimmy hendrix the savel theater hanoi pedal steel guitar adrian henry that's all right mama by arthur big boy crud up arthur big boy crud up the town of bastard in sweden really i think that one uh hound dog how do you spell hound dog he didn't put w in did he no he spelled it as one word h-o-u-n-d-o-g oh no yeah clark kent muff winwood and so on and so on i mean

there are some revelations in here right like? Like the fact that Shakey is actually a natural blonde. No. No, that did you. Yes, it's true. Or that his status as Comrade Shakey is really reflected commitment from Paul Barrett. Yes. And some of the Sunsets who were proper commies and organised all those CPGB benefits. But what's most interesting are the little details, like how he wouldn't let his wife come to the pub with him, quote, as her more equality-minded contemporaries might have insisted upon. But sometimes he would take her out on a drive around local social clubs and leave her literally locked in the car.

Oh, no! What, with a bag of crisps and a bottle of Coke with his straw in it? Yeah, yeah. There's a travel mastermind see you in a bit yes yes him and paul barrett went in to organize gigs with the managers of the social clubs and that's the only time she was allowed out of the house jesus um you ain't gonna leave this house no longer there's also that story that we've already covered on this podcast where they play kenneth tynan's daughter's birthday party and shaky cups off with a certain flame-haired irish authoress and guest

on the first ever episode of question time now fuck i wouldn't necessarily have this author down as a rock expert no here's a passage from page 51. It was early November, brackets, 1969, when John Lennon appeared at a peace festival in Toronto wearing a white drape suit and playing a couple of rock and roll numbers. It reached the ears of the rock fans in England as something of a joke. John Lennon had never before expressed a love for their music.

Right, okay. a joke john lennon had never before expressed a love for their music right okay and i'm not 100 sure about his assessment that if the soul of elvis flew anywhere after his death it surely would have flown into the young shaking steven or even that shaking stevens is he exists as a phenomenon however he got there is a matter for the academics to debate he doesn't particularly care that's where we come in exactly yeah you're too kind paul but i love most the actual transitional moment on page 119 when shaky has found success playing elvis in the west end show which was his big break and suddenly paul who's been narrating this story very sympathetically the whole time always taking shaky's side suddenly becomes a third party being quoted by name in his own book and it's a neat post-modernist touch it's a little bit jarring um it says to paul that last gig with shaky had been a huge relief

quote i waved goodbye to years of acting as nursemaid nannyanny, pimp, and official nose wiper that night, he says. And after that, all bets are off, right? We're told about Shakey becoming a horrible, spoilt man-baby monster. We hear about Shakey having a piss against Marty Wilde's house. No! Yeah, while the young Kim Wilde is inside.

No! Oh, yeah. Shake shaky being a complete prick about owing people money shaky moving into his new house and immediately soaring down all the ancient furs and elders in the garden because he didn't like trees and he killed some puppies whilst doing that presumably seriously and best of all the night that the boy playing young elvis in the show oh yeah who was the host of let's rock let's remember oh yeah under the unlikely stage name gbh yes yeah one night he dropped out with illness and his understudy appeared instead right and despite the nerves or whatever the young lad did really well was congratulated by everyone and then

received a summons to the star's dressing room where shaky very drunk started screaming at him don't you ever do that again you were imitating me out there. To which the lad pointed out that, in fact, he was imitating Elvis. And Shakey shouted at him, don't deny it. You were moving your legs like me. That's what I do. Before being physically held back as the child is bundled out of the dressing room. And then, until finally, the last chapter of this book is just flat out bitching. Like the water temperature has been slowly turned up and now suddenly we're being boiled alive.

The last few pages are like Paul Barrett's brain exploding. I'll read you the last paragraph of this book. Shaky is constantly being quoted as having had a hard time of it on the way up the ladder to success it wasn't all that hard actually any sleeping in the van was done either on the way home or if it broke down although paul barrett was affiliated to the efficient rac for many years hotel rooms in europe were of excellent standard paul insisted on it as part of any european deal for a young boy who had left school at 15 semi-literate and without formal qualifications of any kind life as the lead singer in a rock and roll band offered far more glamour and interest

and wages than working as an upholsterer ever could and yet now that he's got his mansion in the country and his big cars he feels angry at the world for making him wait so long for something he feels he deserved a long time ago hence the aggressive attitude to journalists but there's a well-known saying in the entertainment business which goes something like you should be nice to the people you meet on the way up because you're gonna need them on the way down if shaky doesn't continue to defy gravity in his career and one day falls from popularity he'll find it so much harder than most to To quote Paul Barrett, who has been watching Shake His Career with the caring, concerned interest of a colleague who has been a friend,

he's got what he always wanted, but he's almost certainly lost what he had. And what he had, we now understand, was Paul Barrett. And that's a hell of a thing to lose. So the following week, Comrade Shaker, after choosing his enemy, this week's number one, prepared his plans minutely and slaked an implacable vengeance upon them before going to bed satisfied upon the summit of mount pop for three weeks in a row eventually being usurped by a single we're going to hear later on it would finish the year as the fifth biggest selling single in 1981 one place below prince charming and one above vienna the

follow-up you drive me crazy spent four weeks at number two, held off the top spot by Stand and Deliver, but he went back to the rocking up an old tune bag for the follow-up to that and took Green Door to number one for four weeks in August. An overweight cottage still stands today, after it was bought by a local architect and converted and refurbished, offering 2,150 square feet of well-proportioned living accommodation, an L-shaped reception room,

a double-aspect sitting room with an open fireplace, four double bedrooms and a double cart lodge, which went on the market in 2019 at nearly 700 grand i did some of the notes for this one in a cafe on best of green road and right it says here in my notes and i quote two beautiful women in their early 20s at next table laughing sat here on my own trying to think of something new to say about shaking stevens perhaps i should introduce myself that might go well ask them if they can think of something new to say about shaking stevens help what has happened sweet bird you are quicker than a falling star but it's a

tough world nobody ever said it wasn't gonna be a a tough one. And did you? No, of course not. No. Jamie Stevens and this old house is at number two. And it's been some time since Colin Blunstone blessed the British TV scene. But he's together with Dave Stewart, who created his version of the Jimmy Ruffin classic. It's at 30 and what becomes of our broken-hearted?

Without cutting back to power, we're immediately whipped into the future as we witness a pair of hands operating a bank of synthesizers. Powell tells us that it's been a long time since the next act blessed the British TV scene, making it sound like Danny LaRue has returned from Vegas. But no, it's what becomes of our broken-hearted tut-tut-tut by Dave Stewart with Colin Blundstone.

Born in Hatfield in 1945, Colin Blundstone was the son of an aeronautical engineer and a professional dancer who teamed up with Paul Atkinson, Hugh Grunder and Rod Argent to form the Zombies in 1961 while they were all at the St Albans County Grammar School for Boys. Hugh Grundy and Rod Argent to form the Zombies in 1961, while they were all at the St Albans County Grammar School for Boys. In 1964, after winning a beat combo battle of the band's competition sponsored by the London Evening News, they signed a deal with Decca, and their debut single, She's Not There,

immediately smashed into the chart, spending two weeks at number 12 in September of that year. That would be their only top 40 hit in the UK however as they spent much of 1965 in America and in 1967 they signed to CBS to record the LP Odyssey and Oracle the lead off cut of which, Time of the Season got to number three over there in March of 1969, despite the fact that the band had split up in December of 1967, leading to not only

one but two bands to tour around America pretending to be them, one of which featured Frank Beard and Dusty Hill before they formed ZZ Top. Blundstone had quit the music business after the Zombies split and had worked as an insurance clerk for a while, but the success of Time of the Season encouraged him to return as a solo artist, recording a new version of She's Not There under the name Neil MacArthur, which got to number 34 over here in the last week of 1969. In 1971, he signed to Epic and put out his debut solo LP, One Year, and the lead-off single, Say You Don't Mind, got to number 15 in March of 1972. The follow-up, I Don't Believe in Miracles, got to number 31 but when his next single and the next two LPs flopped

he moved to Rocket Records putting out three more LPs that were only released in Europe This year, however, he's teamed up with Dave Stewart the former keyboard player of Egg, Hatfield and the North and Bruford but not the Eurythmics for a cover of the Jimmy Ruffin single, which got to number eight in January of 1967 and number four in August of 1974. It entered the chart last week at number 57 and this week it soared 27 places to number 30. And here they are in the studio.

First question, chaps. Would you have known anything about the zombies at the time? At the time, no. Not in 81, no. No. I'm a bit older than you, so I would have heard she's not there. But more likely the Santana version in 1977 or the UK subs one in 1979. Is this before or after that advert that went,

let me tell you, that is Goose's Cooch. Ooh. Memorable, wasn't it? Yeah. That was the first time I heard she's not there. I remember hearing this advert thinking, this is a great tune. And like my mum or dad going, it's an old song. What was that for?

I remember that about as well as you remember the advert. Oh, well. an old song. What was that for? I remember that about as well as you remember the advert. Oh, well. Some office shit. Well, it's weird, isn't it?

Because we've just started shaky doing an old song and I'd have been delighted about that and I'd have been so angry about this as an eight-year-old.

You know what? It actually makes me angry now. Really? More angry? Well, in a way, there's too many oddities here in a sort of pop cultural history sense in my

head to deal with what we have here we have essentially a sort of prog rocker in a way from hatfield in the north backing a 60s site pop singer playing a vintage motown song electronically while wearing a pill t-shirt i mean i think the key word here is bank raid basically this will this will be a hit among oldies and perhaps for a few youngies who like their sin it's tainted love for dads isn't it this yeah yeah yeah yeah but you know whereas tainted love the thing is you know the differences in the soft sell version of tainted love to the original are delightful the differences with the original here are really key blundstone i mean he has got one of the clearest, most liquid voices in British pop. It's a great voice he's got.

Yes, he has. So that means in this version, you know, there's no oomph or grit here like the Jimmy Ruffin version. And he's not clapping with massive gold bangles on and eyeliner. He's not. But that suits Stuart's arrangement, which occasionally breaks off into these sort of odd passages of nothingness that the song happens but in between there's like these demo of the presets on his keyboard basically you know a journey around his ace keyboard so this would have angered me this would have angered me as much as the sort of spike punk in the front row

um of the audience who clearly didn't have to stand there but just decides to go stand there and look totally disgusted with the whole thing. It is Dad Synth. It's one of those songs. Dad Synth is a genre to conjure with, isn't it? It is. God, what else is going to be in that?

Well, things like Jean-Michel Jarre and things, you know. It's My Party by Doge Duran and Robert Gaskin. Of course, of course. I think the kids would have known of the original. I did at the time. I mean, we've mentioned on Charm Eats before that this is one of the greatest songs ever

when it was done by Jimmy Ruffin. I knew of it by the time this came out and I didn't approve. Look, Bunsdo's got a lovely voice. It's a well-appointed, well-toured voice, but it's not the right song for him, I don't think. You bit of grit with this song it's about having a broken heart so yeah you know um that that's lacking and what stewart fills things out with it's all a bit proggy it's a bit pre howard jonesy it's a it's it's not pleasant i'm honestly not sure who's the worst dave stewart

this one the one from the Eurythmics, or the one who fucked my cousin's hamster to death. Easily done. Yeah, well, I certainly trust you on that. This sideline of taking old songs and doing them in a self-consciously modern style, you know, like a more basic BEF. Yeah.

I don't like it. I didn't like it then, and i didn't like it then and i don't like the modern equivalent which is ukulele trust of arian type you know or some indie band doing hey listen this is a pop hit but we're playing it as though it were real music yeah i worse and it's tired to complain about that stuff but the point is we're still getting that kind of stuff, even now, when complaining about it has become old hat. Yeah. Never mind the stuff itself. So at this point, it's a bit like being an evolutionary biologist and meeting a fundamentalist Christian who says, you believe that one day a fish just turned into a monkey it's like you spent 35 years

developing your understanding of the most arcane intricacies of your speciality and then suddenly you realize the power is with people who aren't just totally ignorant they're frighteningly ignorant and they're looking down their nose at you and they're in charge you know i mean it's like we're sitting at home splitting the pop cultural atom in between counting out two pence pieces and scrubbing mold off the shower and these cunts are basically banging two rocks together and grunting and they've just taken delivery of a new ferrari monza you know cunt i say good luck to him colin he looks very mr lucas in his shiny powder blue suit at first as he's obscured by the spiky hair of that punk youth but that's the best bit because yeah it's the camera trying to swing around the conker shell hair of a 1981 punk because his spikes are

obscuring colin blunston's face or rather the underside of colin blunston's face because it's the usual top of the pops camera angle so it looks like you're giving him a fucking blow job but it's possibly the most authentic image of bog standard 1981, right? As opposed to the curated modern memory version. It's a 60s relic in a sports jacket grinding out a last few grand, semi-obscured by an 18-year-old who's four years out of date. There was a lot of this. Yeah.

What would that lad think of Dave Stewart wearing a pill a pill t-shirt hey maybe i you know what maybe you know when they were coming on stage before the floor you know when the floor manager got him on stage the punk saw that t-shirt and thought i'm winning out of luck but yeah get up the front exactly he looks bitterly disappointed i mean they're both being retrograde obviously because like taylor says this guy's four years out of date this spiky conk punk he literally looks like yeah one of those ones who was posing for japanese tourists for a quid a pop in 1978 you know when it was all over but um yeah it's it's grimness it's good and you know it's weird because you know i was i was having lots of fun listening to Shakey literally 30 seconds ago. And then here's another old song.

And I'm hating every minute of it as an eight-year-old, most certainly. Is that because you could associate yourself more with old houses than you could with broken hearts? It's simple at that age, isn't it? It's just, this has got to be, this hasn't, fuck this. Yeah. But when the camera pulls back and we see mr lucas in his full pump it hang on a minute he's actually come dressed as shaking stevens hasn't he he's got the collars turned up and he's even got white fucking shoes on god just as well it was only

a shaking stevens video this week or uh colin blundstone would be summoned up to a dressing room at the end of the show for a dressing down. It's a neat preview of just how dull synthesizers can be as well. I mean, you know, there was an awful lot of synth excitement in this period. But this was a reminder that, yeah, in the wrong hands, they could just be turned into an even more syrupy version of normal music, if you like. Yeah. And I mean, this is such a good tune, you can't completely kill it. No. if you like yeah and i mean this is such a good tune you can't completely kill it no but there's nothing gained by removing any trace of a groove and replacing it with that on the beat school

assembly piano and this sort of not the nine o'clock news idea of what synth pop was yeah it's not age well because it's neither an honest human statement nor a shiny electronic thrill. It just, like you say, it sounds like a demo of some new equipment that he's knocked up on a wet Wednesday. It's not thought through. It's not really an attempt to create anything. It's completely unserious but also completely humorless. So who cares? The only conceivable human reaction is, so what?

Yeah, so what? I mean, he plays the melody like Wollan did in the instrumental break. And just how much better would it have been if, I don't know, he'd have done it with a dog bark sample or something like that. Total gimmickry. Whereas he's demonstrating the kind of classiness of this kind of instrumentation. And that's what's boring about it.

And that's what's, you know, it's not Top of the Pops, is it? This is Afternoon Plus at best. Oh, yes. And the terrible thing is, they pumped out pipefuls of this shit. Dave Stewart and Barbara Gaskin in their folie a deux.

Like, all through the 80s and 90s even into this century really they kept on getting stuck into these old songs like fred and rose they put out thousands of of pointless cds full of stupid electronic cover versions released as albums just because they could they kept putting out singles too there's a version of the locomotion yeah 1986 yeah a year before kylie minogue's somehow more successful version and it sounds exactly as you would imagine a dave stewart and barbara gaskin cover of the locomotion released in 1986 to sound like. Presumably he owned the studio, because there's no way they made a living from that.

You know, that and working with Victor Lewis Smith, which was the other thing he did. At least it's an arresting contrast. He did the music for most of Victor Lewis Smith's shows. So he did sing If You're Glad To Be Gay in the Doctor Who theme, which was a work of genius. I always imagined that would be his underwear, yeah. But it can't have been a living wage, right?

And yet, I don't recall picking up a newspaper and seeing the headline on page 19, Dave Stewart starves to death, and in smaller print underneath, no, not that Dave Stewart, the other one. Passer-by alerted authorities after seeing 105 bottles of milk on his doorstep and flies pouring out of the kitchen window because nobody cared so you know he must have done better than me at least it's strangely dead

emotionally this song as well for for doing this song it feels, the word is joyless, I think. Joyless in the making of it. Joyless in the performance of it. And you know, what personal satisfaction would you get from being part of this record? None whatsoever.

You've taken a great song and yeah, you've done very, very little with it, bar tart up the equipment a little bit. But you know, there is a lot of this.

I mean, we've got another record in the charts from them, haven't we? And I mean, I'm intrigued as well by apart from dave and colin who else is on stage there well is that barbara gaskin off to the side wearing the sort of jumpsuit prince was fond of drawing around the world in a day it could be the hair threw me off the hair threw me off yes it's not like she's in the video for the other song but um yeah yeah it may well be and you can definitely see this being on the portable telly

in the dressing room of the Q-tips. And their lead singer looking at it and thinking, hmm, old Motown hits, giving an 80s sheen. Wonder what Pino Palladino's up to. Time to nip off to Burton's to get that flecked grey suit I've been looking at. Anything else to say about this? No, and the fact that I've got nothing else

to say about it angers me in itself. So, the following week, what becomes of the broken-hearted soared 11 places to number 19, and a fortnight later began a two-week stand at number 13. Blundstone's follow-up, a synthy

cover of Tracks of My Tears, would only get to number 60 in June of 1982, by which time he'd joined the Alan Parsons Project, and in 1984 he teamed up with David Payton and other APP members to form the rock band Keats. He's still active today, working with Rod Argent and making occasional appearances in manfred man meanwhile stewart repeated the trick when he teamed up with barbara gaskin and put out a cover of it's my party which got to number one for four weeks in october of this year four weeks i won't mind it if they weren't picking such great songs to cover but just they're sucking any resonance that they once had

out of them welcome to the 80s Neil indeed I've been looking everywhere just to find someone who cares and on that note, Pop Craze Youngsters, we're going to step away from this episode, catch us breaths and come back hard tomorrow

because we've got some big names coming up. Don't forget, if you want to see me, Neil and Taylor in the flesh at the London Podcast Festival, do not fanny your bat. Get your arse over to kingsplace.co.uk now and get your tickets sorted. So

until we meet again for part three of Chart Music number 71 and on behalf of Neil Kulkarni and Taylor Parks, this is Al Needham imploring you to stay pop crazed. Chart music. This is the first radio ad you can smell. The new Cinnabon Pull Apart, only at Wendy's.

It's ooey, gooey, and just five bucks with a small coffee all day long. Taxes extra at participating Wendy's until May 5th. Terms and conditions apply.