Chart Music: the Top Of The Pops Podcast - Chart Music #45 (Part 1): August 2nd 1979 - Treat Dad To Joan Collins For Xmas

Episode Date: November 8, 2019

The latest episode of the podcast which asks: who would win in a stage-show spaceship fight between Earth Wind and Fire, ELO and Funkadelic?It's the final furlong of the Critics' Choice series, Pop-Crazed Youngsters, and Our Simon has dragged us back to the dawn of the Eighventies and pulled out a ridiculously bountiful episode with so much to talk about, making this our BIGGEST EPISODE EVER. It's the middle of the Summer Holiday Of Our Extreme Content, your panel have spent their downtime crying tears of laughter at the sight of nudists in supermarkets on telly, avoiding the Punk House, and having a break from the draconian private school system respectively, but are all clustered around the telly to see what Peter Powell has up his sleeve this Thursday eve, only to discover that he's not wearing any.But so what? Because musicwise, this could well be the greatest episode of TOTP we've come across so far, and a solid case for '79 being even better than '81. The Dooleys are gotten out of the way early doors. Sham 69 have their end-of-term party. Olympic Runners get mithered by Some Bird. The weediest-looking lead singer in Pop history sings with his teeth. There's an actual naked woman playing a cello in a massive pram. Abba slap it about in a disco. Ron Mael stares at us. Legs & Co have a sultry mornge on some sand. And we see the debut performances of The Specials and BA Cunterson.Simon Price and Neil Kulkarni join Al Needham as they just switch off their television set and go and do something less boring instead, veering off on such tangents as pulling your trackie bottoms up around your neck and running at girls, integrity-free reviewing jobs, your chance to have your achievements in the Welsh music scene recognised at last, wearing the wrong-coloured laces in your Docs, having a wazz on a Pop star's back door, and Exciting News For All Listeners. Swearing!Video Playlist | Subscribe | Facebook | TwitterSubscribe to us on iTunes here. Support us on Patreon here. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is the first radio ad you can smell. The new Cinnabon pull-apart only at Wendy's. It's ooey, gooey, and just five bucks for the small coffee all day long. Taxes extra at participating Wendy's until May 5th. Terms and conditions apply. The following podcast is a member of the Great Big Owl family. This will certainly have an adult theme and might well contain strong scenes of sex or violence, which could be quite graphic. It may also contain some very explicit language,

which will frequently mean sexual swear words. What do you like to listen to? Um... Chart music. Chart music. Chart music. Hey-o, you pop-crazed youngsters, and welcome to the latest episode of Chart Music, the podcast that gets its hand right down the back of the settee on a random episode of Top of the Pops. I'm your host, Al Needham, and with me today are Neil Kulkarni. Hello there, mate.

And Simon Price. Hello. Hello there, mate. And Simon Price. Hello. Boys, how are we? Come and sit by the fire and tell me of all the pop and interesting things that have occurred of late. Hey, you know what?

I have actually done some pop and interesting things. Been to see some... Well, I mean, interesting in as much as I've been to see some modern pop music, which was rather good. Good lord. Yes, but I've also gone to see some old pop music that was fucking awful. I had to... It was an integrity-free reviewing job, basically. I had to go and see Lulu at Birmingham Town Hall. Do you mean Lulu?

Did she do that? Did she do... No. Well, to be honest with you... She didn't do everybody's got the club no the thing is

I missed the opening so I must have missed shout I think the reason I missed the opening I've given recommendations before don't fucking drive

to Birmingham don't walk in Birmingham either because it's a bombsite at the moment but anyway I got there late

what have you got to do then hover well yeah hovering 30 feet above the ground would be better than fucking walking because everything's bloody well closed off.

It's a frigging nightmare there at the moment. But yeah, got there late. I quickly twigged that I was kind of the youngest person there. So you can imagine how odd the audience was.

As I walked in, she was, she did, she mixed kind of doing songs with doing like a presentation behind her you know so um she powerpoint and everything was almost a powerpoint she was showing videos and stuff and as i got in she was saying and then i married a bg and the whole crowd sort of melted at that and then she started joining in with herself singing with uh morris on um first of bloody may a song that we slagged oh man it was

awful um it was um it was good did she have a christmas tree that was at once very small and then very tall no all the way around very tall and then very small no but i was sat there glowering at that line um obviously only what it was obviously there were some hyper dedicated fans and it was always it's always entertaining watching old people dance basically. But she, she come, she come across basically like, um,

a sort of 70 year old toy. Um, monstrously, like there's a thought, yeah, really arrogant, but coming across as trying to come across anyway, as just,

you know, we Marie from Glasgow. Um, but, um, yeah, that was a, that was a that was a pretty awful evening all around really um and she did some terrible covers she ended with uh i'm

still standing but you know the elton john song you can imagine what that was like but what particularly angered me was that she covered um teardrops by womack and womack for seemingly no good reason other than to shit on my memories Of that song, so fuck you, Louis Oh, mate Where can we read this from, Neil? No, you can't read it, because as I said It was an integrity-free job

I'm not telling you where it was I've already pissed the money up the wall No truth came out in that review It was merely a kind of nodding of a cent Sell out Yes, yes. I happily sell out at this stage. Yeah, definitely.

So would I, to be honest. Okay. Pop craze youngsters, you know what you've got to do. You've got to find that review for us. Yeah, yeah. Oh, fuck. What have you been up to, Simon? Come on, tell me all.

Well, I've got something I want to plug, actually. And this is mainly only of interest to people in the London area, I suppose, sadly. But I'm going to say it anyway. There's a club night I'm involved in called Late Night Minicab FM. Oh, yes. And it's not my night. It belongs to Alexis Petridis from The Guardian and John O from Bugged Out,

but I'm sort of the third Beatle of the gang. I'm sort of like a permanent guest DJ. You're like Taxi Baz. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah, shaking my maracas in the back of a taxi. Yeah, yeah, basically the concept is songs you hear on the radio at 3am in the back of a taxi when you're pissed and the driver's got like Magic FM or Heart or Mellow Magic playing and you're a bit emotionally vulnerable because of the booze.

So these songs that normally you just wouldn't listen to at all, they just whack you right the fields you know and uh so this so basically we do a whole night just devoted to that so there's plenty of carpenters and lionel richie and celine dion and whitney houston and chicago ario speed wagon you get the idea and people just go nuts for it like fists of pure emotion everywhere you look and uh yeah normally normally uh mean, what do people do? I mean, does anyone actually dance? Yes, actually, they do. It's sort of arms around each other's shoulders, swaying and screaming along to, like,

I try by Maxi Gray. It is convivial, yeah. So normally it happens in Brighton. There's this little pub in Brighton called the West Hill. Of course it does. What do you mean? What does that mean, Al? Apart from the fact that I live here?

Carry on. Anyway. All right, okay. Mr Northern Integrity, Mr Authentic. Don't you... I'm Midlands, mate. How dare you? It's all north to me.

But we're bringing it to London for the first time on the 23rd of November. That's why I'm plugging it. Where? The Social on Little Portland Street. And with special guest katie puckery good lord um off off the telly yeah miss yacht rock herself nowadays i believe well we're expecting a lot of yacht rock in her set indeed yeah so what we're saying is you can get here by

caravan across the desert like an arab man we don't care how you get here just get here if you can what's the fastest song you play in that set, Simon? Well, we speed up a little bit towards the end and like one sort of like actually a couple of big anthems there for the last hour, things like silver lady by David or you're so vain by Carly Simon. So that kind of seventies mid pace stuff where you can have a dance,

but also scream your lungs out. And yeah, it's just great fun. So there, I do like the sound of this i'm that age now you can sneer all you like but if you were no i'm not staring man no i think it's a grand idea you know my age now i don't want to get up i just want to sit exactly for about five hours and listen to music so yeah this sitting club sitting clubs of the future yeah

i want to do one called uh night bus, which is just me sat behind people playing landfill rap on a mobile phone. Yeah, do it in Brighton, man. They'd love it down here because we're so ironic. Well, we have got a bit of news, haven't we? Yeah. There's been a lot of machinations or whatever you call it behind the scenes at Chart Music, and I believe now's the time to reveal all that to the general public.

Well, first things first, from next episode, Chart Music is linking up with Great Big Owl. Now, I don't know if you know of them or not, but they're the people who do things like Smirsh Pod, Ruler 3, Wrestlemare, The One Show Show, just a big load of british podcasts and uh they like the way we work baby no diggity and uh they've asked us to link up with them and i had a bit of a chit chat with them met him in london a few weeks ago and i like the cut of their jib

because what they're gonna do essentially is take all the fucking technical shit off my back yeah which i'm rubbish at so yeah not only that but they're going to help us out with merchandising and even at some point get us in on their live events cool yeah bummer dog t-shirts yes heterosexual rock and roll badges and all that yeah we're essentially setting ourselves up for the next decade and and to keep chart music going uh but there's going to be a couple of changes uh by the way we do things. Number one is that from next episode, the general release will be split up.

So it won't be one big wodge, as it has been for the past 44, 45 episodes. We're going to split it up and put it out on a day-to-day basis. So we'll start on the Monday and we'll finish on the thursday or on the wednesday if it's a 90s one and it's shit and we ain't got much to say about it oh and the day after we run the whole episode in its entirety an encore presentation if you will

yeah you know people complain to us that you know they'd like to listen to chart music but uh it's it's too fucking big to get on their phones. And I just say, well, get a better phone then, you mingy cunt. But that doesn't go down too well. We have a lot of commute listeners. They get a bit put off by the thought of a four-hour podcast, which to me is fucking thick, because that's like getting a book and saying,

oh, I can't read that on the toilet in one go, so I won't bother. I've tried to explain to them, well, you know, if you're a commute listler, you know, fucking walk to work in the opposite direction or get a job in Belgium or somewhere like that, but no, they're not having it. So we're going to satisfy them by splitting up the episodes. And the other thing we're going to do,

we're going to start running adverts i hate adverts as well you hate adverts we all hate adverts but it's what every podcast does nowadays to earn a little bit of cash on the side and you know that's the reason why you've got a 30 second fast forward button on your podcast player conrad knight socks yeah yeah conrad knight socks this is all sounding like the clash signing to cbs we know but but trust me this is what we need to do to ensure the chart music goes on for as long as it needs to but am i right in saying that if you're a patreon well yes let's yeah go on so yeah obviously when this was put to us by great big owl it was like oh yes yes let's have a bit of this.

But then I immediately thought, oh shit, what about the Pop Craze Patreons? They've supported us through thick and thin for the past couple of years and I don't want to see them fucked over. So this is what we decided to do. If you're in the $5 tier, you will get the full episode without adverts on the day it comes out if you're in the three dollar tier you'll get the full episode without adverts on the wednesday so essentially if you are a pop craze patreon nothing is going to change for you you will get pure uncut chart music the other thing i really need to stress as well is that great big owl have absolutely no say on how we do things in chart music world you'll get the same episode it

will be the same people talking the same shit about the same thursday evening related program of all the same amount of swearing and hatred yeah oh god yeah yeah same amount of swearing so crucially for us and for the patreon people nothing will change um and anything that can enable a range of neil kulkarni approved pop star sandwiches is to be approved yes yeah we need to clarify as well that the company we're talking about is Great Big Owl, O-W-L, not Great Big Al. This isn't your stripper name. No, no. And I'm also really pleased that apparently we're going to be on sort of platforms like Acast and stuff like that, aren't we?

Which, you know, most of the podcasts I listen to, usually football things like Top Flight Time Machine and the Gary Lineker and Danny Baker one, they're all on there. Loads of great things are on there. means we'll we'll be found by more people and it'll just spread the word and spread the love and spread spread the community the family of chart music a bit further on it yeah yeah can you believe that there are people out there who don't even know what a bummer dog is that's fucking wrong we're doing all right already though what about these chart positions tell everyone about yes fucking hell yeah uh yeah i suddenly discovered that we're in the uh we're in the itunes charts

for uh for various things music commentary and music yeah and uh yeah it was uh it was quite a thrill for us seeing us go up and down the charts and thinking oh we got up 16 places today that that'd get us on top of the pops. I thought the other week it says, oh, that position there, that would mean that we would get on top of the pops, but Legs & Co be dancing to us. I'd love to see Legs & Co dancing over Taylor. I bet he would.

But yeah, so the adverts, they'll be top and tailed, and I think there'll be one in the middle of an episode, but it'll be in the right place. It won't interrupt any of our bitching or anything like that. And no, we won't break off to talk about ball shaving stuff. You know, we're not going to do them kind of adverts. So don't you fret. It'll be fine, everyone.

The thing that jumps out at me about the chart positions. I mean, obviously, we do all right in English language countries, New Zealand and Canada and so on, and Australia. Yeah, God bless you, former colonials. And in Britain, I think we rose as high as number six recently, which is the same as Mr. Blue Sky by ELO and Open Your Heart by the Human League. So that's the kind of level we're on. What a compliment. But also, it turns out that we've got a listenership in Spain.

Yes. So, hola to our Spanish listeners. Yes. Well, to expats, hearing us swearing about pop music, it must be as reassuringly British as, I don't know, Marmite or something like that. It reminds me of being down the pub in the old days. A can of Long Life. The live possibilities as well.

I'm particularly excited by that. Chart music on ice, you know? Yes. Something to look forward to, definitely. Chart music in Spain, man. Go to Marbella. Whatever we do, we could definitely end it with a chart music club night. If only any of us were DJs yeah

I know I think we've got three DJs haven't we out of the six of us well I've DJed Simon's obviously DJed David has as well three DJs and two MCs or something yes we can just play a half hour extended version of K-Tel America to start the night off

that'd be fucking mint yeah and we'll have a sort of erection section called Taylor Parks' Romantic Moments. Or Simon Price's Pants Taint. So yeah, if you are wavering over joining Patreon, Pulp Craze Youngsters, now is the time. Get them little fingers tapping on the keyboard. www.patreon.com slash chart music. little fingers tapping on the keyboard www.patreon.com www.patreon.com

chart music here are the people who've already done that this month who we are going to say the names of and praise to the fucking skies in the $5 section this month Murray Briggs Thea Bolstad

Gordon Kyle Mark Ripper Tom WH Brown Finley Napier, Circuit 3, Synthpop for the masses, Adam Maluska, Padraig Reader, Michael Pryor, Robin, Jade Bowyer, Ian M. Spillane, Guy Millard, and Pauly Pops of Australia. And in the $3 section we have Ron your dark mate Sims, Sonic Tiller, John

Lynch, Leon Massey and Jez Bernholz. You fucking lovely, lovely people. Legends, we love you all. Morally sound people, but also damn detractive. And of course, one privilege that our Patreon subscribers get is to rig the brand new Chart Music Top Ten. Are we ready, boys?

Hit the music! We've said goodbye this week to Neil Cougar Culcane, your dark mate, and man-to-man meet Al Needham, which means one up, five down, one non-mover, and three new entries. Down from number nine to number ten, it's Sarah B and Rakim.

Up one place from number ten to number 9, Chicken Steven. Dribbling down one place to number 8, here comes Jizzle. Stay in there. Go on. Last week's number 5, this week's number 7, Bomber Dog. That's it. The first new entry this week, straight in at number six, Bombers Like Duran Duran.

Last week's number two drops three places to number five, Dave D, Creeper, Twat and Cunt. It's a new entry at number four for Pig Wanker General. A non-mover at number three, Lesbian Dorfatre. Last week's number one has dropped one place to number two, Jeff Sex. Which means... Britain's number one! The highest new entry.

Straight in at number one. Quo wadi wada. Oh, man. What a shocker that is. I thought Jeff Sex would be up there for fucking ever. He shot his load. He blew his load. He did, yeah. He did.

There went Jizzum. Pig wanker general. I mean, come on. That it i know man i see the the pig bit obviously makes me think a pig bag so kind of tribal jazz funk thing but i don't know i think that's a that's a doom metal band all the way do you reckon yeah well they have one of those uh one of those logos it's made out of thorns and you can't even read what it says. Or Twizzly Round Pig's Cox. Yes, indeed. Well, bummers like Duran Duran, I mean, clearly, we know what they're all about. See, part of the fun of this is like trying to remember

the context in which the phrase originally came up. And I couldn't figure out, is it like Duran Duran are bummers and they are within the category of bummers? Or is it a sentence, bummers, like, as in enjoy, Duran Duran? Oh, no, no, no. It comes from Taylor's mate. All right. Remember when we did Long Hot Summer, Simon,

and Taylor was watching it with his mate? And his mate's trying to convince Taylor and himself that Paul Weller really isn't being gay. He's taking the piss out of bummers like Duran Duran. Well, I reckon they're sort of slightly jokey American emo indie band because of

Gay for Johnny Depp, that kind of thing. That's where I'm coming at. Interesting. And Quo Waddy Waddy just writes itself, doesn't it? So if you want to get involved in this chart and get Jeff Sex back where he belongs www.patreon.com

www.patreon.com well then Pulp Craze youngsters we have reached the final stage of our Critics Choice series it's been a lovely five episodes or so hasn't it chaps it has it's been slightly lovely five episodes or so, hasn't it, chaps? It has. It's been slightly revealing of all the chart music contributors,

I think. Yes. And the revolving stage takes one more turn to reveal, under a spotlight, our Simon. Hello. Your turn, Simon. Yeah, very excited about this one. And tonight, Matthew, Simon,

is going to be? 2nd of August, 1979. Oh, it's the Aventers again. What a surprise. This one, you can see this coming a mile off because Simon, you know, we have, we have had this conversation recently about you mulling over the merits of 1979 over 1981. Is this your attempt to set the record straight, as Reef said? Well, I've been thinking about it,

you know, the relative merits of 79, 81. And yeah, I do think that essentially 81 might have been better for albums rather than singles. It was more about the sort of slightly edgier alternative stuff. But in terms of pure pop with capital P-O-P, I think 1979. And an exclamation mark at the end.

Yes. Pop! 1979 edges it, definitely. Yeah, yeah. Ooh, you've already come to your decision then, Simon. Well, I think they can both share the prize in different ways. I think everyone might as well switch off now. We know the answer to that.

No, no, no, Simon, Simon, we'll go through this episode and then I'm going to come back to you. Yeah, okay. I'm now. We know the answer to that. No, no, no. Simon, Simon. We'll go through this episode and then I'm going to come back to you. Yeah, okay. I'm going to force an answer out to you. All right. Okay, okay. I'll get thinking about it.

But it has to be said well in advance. Simon's picked a very good episode. It's fucking stonking, isn't it? It's amazing. It is. It is. This is the first radio ad you can smell. The new Cinnabon pull-apart only at Wendy's. It's ooey, gooey, and just five bucks for the small coffee all day long.

Taxes extra at participating Wendy's until May 5th. Terms and conditions apply. The first 1979 episode we ever did was your two. Yeah, I've definitely done 79 episodes. Robert the Angel of Death. And it wasn't that good an episode, was it? I seem to recall. No, no.

This one's a bit more like it. Yeah, we're making up for it now. Well, shall we tuck in? Oh, yes. Radio 1 News In the news this week, Nigeria has claimed all BP oil fields in its territory for itself and told Britain to fuck off. Margaret Thatcher has pulled a U-turn on what's currently known as Zimbabwe Rhodesia and admitted that the black people there should run things. Christian Bernard has turned down £100,000

to perform a head transplant on behalf of the National Enquirer. Edward Kennedy announces that he'll fight Jimmy Carter for the Democratic presidential nomination next year. Idi Amin's wife, or one of them in any case, has been telling her story to the Daily Mirror all week. She wasn't keen about him getting married all the time and having to share his bed with all his other wives, but she has to admit he was dead good with the kids.

A man from Southampton who claims to be a direct descendant of Dracula and has changed his name to Count John Alucard, which is Dracula spelt backwards, is fined £4 in court for biting a mugger. Bruce Forsyth and Anthea Redford have split up, and so has Lee Majors and Farrah Fawcett. Etta announced that they're calling a truce on their terror operations on holidaymakers

after killing five people in Madrid. The Monopolies Commission demand that Walls and Lines may cease banning their rivals' products from shop they sell their wares at, meaning you can now buy a funny feet and a lollygobble chalk bomb from the same paper shop. You see, chaps, the free market really does work. It just thatches in, innit? That's what's going on. Yes.

The British phonographic industry have forced TDK to pull an advert for their blank tapes, which have the slogan, for a price of a good double you could have 30 singles Emlyn Hughes is transferred from Liverpool to Wolves for £85,000 and Malcolm McDonald has retired from football after his knee finally caves in, end of an era

Tony Blackburn here's another fucking end of an era Tony Blackburn has been dropped from his afternoon slot on Radio 1 after he coated down a newspaper critic on air who had a go at him. While he'll be moved to the Sunday Top

40 show, durren durren, and a Saturday morning show, dog on a tape recorder, his slot will be taken over by the young and thrusting Andy Peebles. But the big news this week is that

Jonathan King's plans to release the Yorkshire Ripper tape as a single on blood red vinyl and sell it for 33 pence has been blocked. A lot of people will want to hear it, said King, out of the side of his mouth.

It'll appeal to people who go and watch traffic accidents. It'll appeal to people right across the board. Oh, Jesus. Fucking hell. It's a disgrace, isn't it? Dear, I fucking dear. And if you're going to release anything Yorkshire Ripper related, it has to be some sort of remix of the footage

when he was taken to court that was unmistakably on the news. And I remember seeing live where somebody from Leeds just shouts, fucking die, you bastard! Really loud. You didn't really get pitch side cameras, you know, microphone sensor. You didn't hear swearing on telly that much no especially not on the news so that was a glorious moment that that re-rubbed

into a sort of little disco anthem would have been great yeah if he'd been allowed to do it you know you wonder if he would have gone the full like Sutcliffe the musical of Brass Eye yes yeah you know um I oh when when I was I think I was working for Time Out at the time when that Brass Eye series was going on. And Chris Morris used to get in touch with me to sort of like feed me little bits of disinformation or, you know, just stuff about Brass Eye. For example, you know, when there was a little flash on the screen that said, Grade is a cunt. Yes. The reason the world knew about that was because he told me and i put it in the timeout sideline section flagged enough for people to sort of watch it um but anyway in advance

yeah yeah but i remember um a melody maker um and he was going to give us posters of circlet the musical to give out as prizes oh man yeah but they never came through and i was good because i just wanted one for myself yeah yeah but um. Yeah, so, what, Jonathan King, so the tapes, does it mean We're Side Jack? Is that what he means? Yes. Yeah, yeah, right. I Will Kill Again and all that.

Wasn't even Peter Sutcliffe. No, exactly. Just a fucking ringer. It's like Plastic Bertrand and Lou DePrick all over again, isn't it? Yeah, and Jonathan King will come up again in this episode, I will say spoiler-tastically, but we'll come to that. I've just got to say, ever since you mentioned it,

I can't stop thinking about this vampire guy in Southampton. Count John Alucard. Yeah, because there was a sort of vampsploitation film in which there was a Johnny Alucard, wasn't there? I can't remember which one it was, like a comedy vampire movie. But just this story of him biting a mugger, there are more questions and answers with it. I want to know more.

Was he being a vigilante vampire, like hanging around the streets of Southampton looking for... Upside down. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Hanging from a lamppost upside down, just looking out for any troublemakers and then swooping down and biting a mugger? Or did the mugger make the big mistake

of trying to mug the one guy in Southampton that you really don't want to mug this guy thinks he's a fucking vampire yeah break it into his coffin i really want to know more but i'm going to be googling the shit out of that after we finish i tell you on the cover of the enemy this week and the melody maker jimmy page on the cover of smash hits the undertones the number one lp in the uk at the minute is the best disco album in the world. Replicas by Tubeway Arm is at number two. Over in America, the US number one single Bad Girls by Donna Summer.

And the number one LP in America, Bad Girls by Donna Summer. So, dear boys, what were we doing in august of 1979 um right 1979 yeah we've done um 1979 before obviously so i'll keep this brief but just to recap um between the summer holiday 1979 yeah exactly it's a summer holiday it must have been a different you at that time it was it was because i mean it was a bit of a dark time uh as i mentioned before between 1978 and 80 i was at boarding school and whenever i mentioned this i've got to stress that it wasn't because i was posh quite the opposite in fact we didn't have a pot to piss in my mum was a single parent and she put herself through teacher training with the hope of getting a job in wales but instead she answered an ad for a job at a prep

school in sussex and the deal was I had to go with her and get educated for free and it was brutal and draconian and abusive um not in a sexual way but in a physical and psychological way and it left a trauma that I've got to say stays with me four years later the main positive from it was just meeting kids from all around the world um I'd never met a black person till I went to that school. Suddenly I had dark mates, you know. I had friends from Lebanon and Venezuela and Nigeria and Spain and places like that. And we had this kind of survivor solidarity.

We were all enduring this kind of violent and sadistic regime together. And my one lifeline was the radio on which I used to listen to the top 40 on a Sunday night in some hidden corner of the grounds but this as you say August 1979 it was the summer holidays blessed relief from all that dark grim shit so I was back in Wales and reconnected with my old friends playing football every day till it got dark like 11 year olds do or did in those days you know probably not anymore and um and i was allowed to watch top of the pop so i i vividly um remember this particular episode for a number of reasons and uh that's why i chose it um apart from it being an almost absurdly abundant and plentiful episode in terms of quality it's a veritable harvest festival of pop yeah and um

and it's also because um i've been immersed in 1979 world lately i mean there's been a lot of 40th anniversary landmarks um yes i've done some writing work involving a couple of the acts on this episode which we'll come to and um my my club night spellbound did a 1979 special playing six hours of nothing but 1979 music which was amazing fun so i've i've been living and breathing the air of what I maintain is the year the 80s really began. I even watched the rock and roll years. We talked about that before, the episode for 1979.

Oh, it's fantastic. Just a great series. People should get on YouTube and just wallow in that series. It's fantastic. So that was me, yeah. Neil. Like you say, summer holidays.

So I know outwardly a happy kid i was out there playing kirby waiting for the alpine man all the stuff that we've mentioned before but i mean there were two sort of locuses of fear that were opening up in me a little bit one was dogs in general because we're talking obviously about a time where massive packs of feral stray dogs would just roam the streets. With erections. Rabies. Yeah. Yeah. And so occasionally you'd turn a corner. They'd come charging at you.

And my consequent fear of dogs was really growing at this time. That scared me. Also, the punk house, which was down the road. And I think I've mentioned it before, but there was one house in our sort of, you know. I don't think you have. Oh, haven't I? Well, there was one house. Tell us all, Neil.

Tell us all. It's not that exciting, but there was one house down the road. I lived on a street called Oxendon Way in Erdsford Grange in Coventry. And a road off that was called Prince Thought Way. And on the corner, there was this house. And all you knew about it, really,

was that people called it the Punk House. And all you knew about it really was that people called it the punk house and all you saw at this place was skins and punks and people with Mohican haircuts and stuff like this and I'm talking like racist skins as well, you know, NF skins coming in and out in various states of pissness

and just sort of playing near there and seeing that developed in me, yeah, some sort of residual fear of punk rock to a certain extent. Did it have a massive safety pin going through the roof? No, but that was the weird thing. It just looked like any old house.

It wasn't even decrepit. They kept it nice. It was only motorbikes outside, but they didn't have any cars or anything, but it was just a nice looking house but every now and then you'd see an almost cartoon-like troglodyte punk come out with with a can of spesh on the go yeah and um yeah and i just developed a sort of latent fear i think yeah of punk music i associated it with violence and all of that and same with skinhead

culture as well which we'll probably come to talk about later this was really the time when cov skins in particular were banding together a bit more and they were you know i didn't know the signs my sister used to tell me that yeah if they've got you know if they've got red docks on they've got this color laces in then it means this you know um but i didn't know those signs i just anyone who looked skinheady i was kind of petrified of so simultaneousified of. So simultaneous freedom of the summer holidays because summer holidays just seemed to go on for fucking ever back then.

It was like 12 weeks or something. Simultaneous that with a slight growing of fear towards dogs and punk rock. Oh, the laces thing. Yeah, the laces. Yeah, and I'm really worried about this that maybe, because I've started or sort of maybe recommenced dressing in a kind of skinhead way lately.

You know, so I'm wearing massive Dr. Martens and a crombie and Fred Perrys and braces and all this kind of stuff. And I'm a little bit ignorant of all these kind of coded symbols of the colours, and I'm worried that I'm getting it wrong. And I'm walking down the street and somebody's looking at me thinking, oh my god, he really hates I don't know, Vietnamese people or something. You know what I mean? And I was in a pub the other day and I was wearing a Fred Perry and this bloke said to me that the particular

colour combination I had on the Fred Perry he's going, are you one of the proud boys? You know those fucking alt-right twats who they're launched by that wanker Gavin McInnesinnis who launched vice what a shit name for your fucking right yeah you sound like this really fucking awful 80s band yeah yeah yeah exactly like you like you're fucking supporting king on tour fuck off come on racist sort your fucking branding out but yeah and i was like jesus christ no i'm you know

far from it i'm the opposite but yeah it's just it's really worrying that you could accidentally be given off these signs that were never intended no because that reminds me because i had a mate who was thicker than barry white shit on boxing day morning and he started to wear doc martens and so therefore from there on in because this this was early 80s, would have been like 82, 83 or something, he immediately got called Elliot because these boots were so fucking big

and clumpy that made him look just like Elliot on the Atari version of the E.T. game. You know that one that was absolutely shit and Atari eventually had to just landfill fucking hundreds of thousands of them. No, I don't actually. So that's a really niche nickname.

I love it. I love these nicknames that have a tiny little detail. But, you know, it's stiff. So anyway, we go dossing around the shopping centre on the weekends and he's got his fucking docks on again. And on the top floor, that's where all the youths congregate. And every time we walk past a gang of black lads the fucking teeth sucking would be cacophonous and we're just there thinking oh shit you know what have we done yeah and then you know a week or so later someone tells me about the

lace coat and i'm like oh fucking hell because he's he's wearing white laces which means that you hate black people so you know we just told him you were not coming out with this with those fucking laces on because I want to bring some records home in a carrier bag on a Saturday, not my face. No wonder monochrome was fashionable back in the early 80s because it was just dangerous to wear colours. You know, you're either accidentally being racist

or you're telling people that you liked a certain gay practice. Even wearing your earring in the wrong ear, you know. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Why can't people say, look, I'm a big gay racist? On a T gay practice. Like even wearing your earring in the wrong ear, you know. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Why can't people say, look, I'm a big gay racist? On a T-shirt. Yeah. I believe that's the title of the next Morrissey album. Yes.

I was probably massively unfair back then. I probably misinterpreted people's looks, as has happened to Simon. It's just that, for me, if I saw a pair, particularly, you know, the 72 hole 72 whole docs those really long ones if i saw a pair of them i just immediately associated it with things that i'd seen and i'd never seen skinheads like picking on like you say al other black lads who are their same age yeah it was more that you'd see skinheads i don't know picking on an old asian woman or something in town or something like that.

And so because of that association, as soon as I saw that look, as soon as I saw Doc's, to be fair, that was it. That was it, you know. Well done, feminists of the 80s for claiming Doc Martens off racist. God bless you.

As for me, I was properly shitting myself about this time. I'm weeks away from starting big school. Yeah. Which absolutely shit me up. I mean, I think the previous week ago or a fortnight ago, I stayed at my junior school on the last ever day for ages. I think, you know, school kicked out about half past three. I think I was there until half past five

because I just did not want to leave the place. I fucking loved it there. And it got to the point where every other kid had gone home and I'm just still standing there hoping that I could stay there forever. And the teacher's saying, oh, look, you've got to go, mate. And I remember walking through the school gates on my own,

holding my copy of Test Match, that cricket game that had the uh the realistic batting action that looked like jeffrey boycott was holding a hoover is that what you took in on the last day yeah yeah i remember walking out holding that tears streaming down my face because i knew everything was going to turn to shit as soon as i went to that other school because it had mates older than me and they'd gone to the secondary school, and all of a sudden they'd come back through the gates on their way back from it while we're going home,

and their faces had just changed. They'd just, you know, I mean, puberty had a lot to do with it, but it's like, oh, you're a hard-faced fucking nowadays. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it's like, oh, shit, that's going to happen to me. So, honestly, if I could have picked one month out of my life to live in forever, it would either be sort of early 1992 or May or June of 1979. Because I fucking loved it there.

Everything's lovely. And music wise, everything's still up for grabs. You know, like most kids, it wouldn't be until i started secondary school where you get forced into being into in a tribe if you will yeah i was still picking and choosing and it's you know i just started buying records so you know my record my single collection at the time would be things like reasons to be cheerful by ian jure uh uh get up stand up strut your funky stuff by frantique there was no discernment absolutely yeah i i could it's like oh i like that song i'll buy it and i don't

give a fuck what anyone's gonna say and that's gonna change you know possibly during this episode yeah yeah yeah so shall we uh shall we riffle through the box full of old music magazines and pick out one from this very week, chaps? Yes, please. Good skills. Well, this week I've gone for the NME, August the 4th, 1979. On the cover, Jimmy Page in a velvet jacket and a white grandad shirt. Above the headline, Tory rocker speaks out against redundancy

charges oh enemy you and your bloody politics in the news well the top story this week is hot on the heels of their announcement that they're playing nebworth led zeppelin announced their first new lp in three years in Through the Outdoor. A ZEP spokesperson confides that it was recorded at Polar, ABBA's studio, but quashes the rumours circulating in other music papers that Frida and Agnetha are singing backing vocals on it. Or can you imagine? Well, it might have improved it.

It's a terrible record. I only really got the euphemism, the innuendo of the title in Through the Outdoor years later. You know, I just thought it's an innocent title about, you know, how they're... Wait a minute. It is an innocent title, isn't it? What? Oh, Neil. Yeah, it's a quote from a Prince song

that's not going to be released for another six years, isn't it? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Sham 69's farewell gig at the Rainbow ends after five songs when a riot breaks out. Oh, dear. The deeply veiled People's Free Festival is on after a hearing at Manchester High Court. The festival is expected to host

the likes of Spizz Energy, Misty and Roots, John Cooper Clark, Brenda and the Hot Dicks, Martian Schoolgirls and Vibrant Thigh. Strong line there. Thin Lizzy's US tour is being marred

by Gary Moore walking out on the band midway through and people dying at them. At a gig in Miami, where they were supporting Journey, a quote, heavy metal freak drove his car at a police barrier outside and got himself and two

bystanders shot. Then in Cleveland, when they were on a bill with Aerosmith, Ted Nugent, ACDC and SCORPIONS, another fan was shot while someone else drowned in the river outside. Jesus. And people go on about Altamont.

These things come in threes, don't they? Meanwhile, keeping his little Scottish head out of the way of the crossfire, Liz's current fill-in guitarist, Midge Ur, announces that he's not staying with the band and will be starting his new job, lead singer of Ultravox, as soon as the tour is over. Arista have won the bidding war for the hottest unsigned band in the UK,

Secret Affair, and will be releasing their debut single, Time For Action, under the band's new label, I Spy. Tubeway Arme have announced a second date at the hammersmith od in september with all profits including artist management and promotion fees going to the save the whales fund and the electric cheers have sacked their front person wayne counter claiming that he's so wrapped up in his personal change that he is not contributing creatively within the band. County is now working with the band's ex-manager

in order to raise enough money for his ongoing gender realignment. I think this is the time that he started going around the playground, that, oh, have you heard that song? If you don't want to fuck me, baby, baby, fuck off. When I went to Detroit last year, I was so excited that the airport we landed at was called wayne county airport i don't believe it obviously photo opportunities in front of the sign interviews well jimmy page talks to chris salowitz about what he's been doing since the

led zeppelin tour shills his band's album and neb with gigs blathers on about rastafarianism talks about being a tory voter and claims that dire straits are a new wave band oh dear all right dennis bevel talks to ian penman about the success of silly games by janet k producing the slits and his experiences in the sound system scene of the early 70s. The piece also mentions his next project, producing the debut LP of The Specials. Can you imagine if that had come off? Oh, man, yeah. It would have had a totally different sound.

I mean, thinking of him doing Cut that year with the slits. God, what would that have sounded like? I mean, it's brilliant as it is, but I'd love to hear sort of an alternative. Imagine that's a sort of double CD deluxe thing. Pete Erskine conducts the last ever interview with Lowell George, the Little Feet guitarist who died in June. He had a moan about the lukewarm response to his solo LP and talked about his band's final LP, which he was mixing at the time.

Punk is dead, but posing by brick walls is still alive and well, goes the headline of Adrian Thrill's interview with Secret Affair, which consists of Ian Page displaying his hatred of the punk elite, proclaiming that they're the mod band most likely to succeed, and if any punks came to their gigs, they wouldn't tell them to fuck off, but they'd like them to listen to what they had to say, because it's time for action. See, I'm imagining that the young Neil Kulkarni would have approved

of this kind of anti-punk message they had going on. Well, yeah, yeah, yeah. You saw these people less and less, and they were getting increasingly... How can I put it? You know, like in London, people were posing with Mohicans, with policemen for Japanese tourists. You started seeing more punks like that, I would say. And perhaps those people who were punks in 77

were already elsewhere. The singles page this week is reviewed by... Tony Parsons. His single of the week, Las Vegas by American Echoes. He rackles on about gambling in elvis films for 200 words or so without saying much about what the record actually sounds like rock lobster by the b-52s on the other hand is given a thumbs all the way up according to parsons they have the imagination we used to credit Polly Styrene with

and are an all-American Roxy Music. Christ, okay. But actual Roxy Music, and Brian Ferry by extension, are coated down in a review for Angel Eyes, which is described as tinny and tacky. Piss off. TV Is King by The Tubes is described as a hippie burlesque show, while Dollar, with their new single Love's Got a Hold on Me,

could very well be Mickey and Minnie Mouse under the skirting board, enjoying a bit of brie together. After the Love Has Gone by Earth, Wind and Fire is, quote, as enrapturing as reading someone else's horoscope. Fuck off. And the band are the crafty, colourful, diddy-coy mystics of the discotheque. Christ, okay. And Parsons reveals the identity of M.O.D.

and his new single of the same name. It's none other than David Essex. No. Have you heard that song? I haven't, no. Well, it's essentially a david essex song about being a mod 14 years ago all right in the lp section an entire page is given over to the quote best rock and roll album of the week risque by chic danny baker builds a cast iron case for

the band the lp and disco as a whole as something that can stand shoulder to shoulder with anything rock and roll can produce and says that they are currently making some of the most exciting and strongest music available in any field or civilisation. Hear, hear, sir. Go on, Danny. Angus McKinnon handles Street Life by the Crusaders and Raw Silk byandy quarford in one review the former is the band's best lp for some time and the latter is a classic and he coats down

warners for not releasing it in the uk rick joseph on the other hand is disappointed by god bless star jets the debut lp by the belfast based war stories hit makers and he says it was brought into the world by a backstreet caesarian operation the live lp mods mayday 79 featuring beggar squire small hours and the mods is reviewed by roy carr who concludes that a fifth band, Secret Affair, take full advantage and completely dominate the event, being one of the few

mod mark two bands to realise that they're engaged in a renewal programme as opposed to a revival. Secret Affair are getting mad love. The Gig Guide. Well, David could have seen Rockin' Dopsy

and the Cajun Twisters at Dingwalls, The Undertones at the Marquee, Cabaret Voltaire and Spizz Energy at the Depth at Albany Empire Ian Dury at the Blockheads at Hammersmith Odeon or Stiff Little Fingers, Star Jets and the Vapors at Hammersmith Palais

but probably didn't I've seen Dwayne Dopsy Rocking Dopsy's son oh yeah yeah Cajun stuff Yeah it's good fun Anyway carry on Taylor could have nipped out to see

UB40 at Ballsall Heath New Inn Killer at the Mercat Cross The Crack at the Shirley Red Lion Freebird at the Barrel Organ The Small Hours in the Merton Park As at Barbarella's Edison Lighthouse at Thursday's Disco organ the small hours in the merton park as at barbarella's edison lighthouse at thursday's disco or ezra pound at the hopwood caravan club sarah could have witnessed the specials at the whole

wellington club the pretty british at the leeds ford green hotel black slate at the bradford palm cove club and liquid gold at Romeo and Juliet's in Doncaster. Neil could have checked out street lights at Wrighton Bridge in Coventry, pressure shocks at Wolverhampton Civic Hall or gone out to the bright lights of Walsall to see the amazing Dark Horse. No, fuck that. I'm not going to the black country. Al could have seen Gaffer at the Imperial Hotel

Adam and the Ants at the Sandpiper Medium Medium at the Hearty Goodfella or some chicken and guile here at the Imperial no mate and Simon is pretty much fucked this week because the only thing that seems to be

happening in Wales is the Radio Luxembourg Summer Roadshow, which is blazing a trail through Rhyl, Fishguard, Tembe and Porthcawl, which as we all know is the site of the fake moon landings.

In the letters page Steve Kelly of Hornsey has, quote, had enough of your useless music paper. Every week I read it, hoping to see about new rockettes, but all I see is punk, punk and more punk. He lays into the writer Harry George, who he describes as an incompetent fool

for having the nerve to coat down Ricky Lee Jones and the Climax Blues Band. He demands that the NME send a letter of apology to Led Zeppelin and says, and says, believe me, when they play Nebworth, all those people who turn to punk in their absence will find out who the true heroes are. I really think they should have done. I think NME should have sent a letter of apology to Led Zeppelin, but done it like, you know, when Boris Johnson had to send that letter to the EU,

but petulantly refused to sign it. Yes. He also claims that the only punk band with any credibility are the superb police. This guy, Steve Kelly of Hornsey, is clearly waiting around for sounds to happen. Yeah. And also waiting around for Kerrang to happen as well.

A paranoid of the rock against trendies movement is well dischuffed that NME gave over six pages to a Paul Morley interview with Devo. As they are professional trendies. He also thought that John Lydon was dead good on jukebox jewelry. He also thought that John Lydon was dead good on jukebox jewelry. Isabel and Eric are furious at Jimmy Perse for saying that magazine is shit in a recent interview when it's obvious that his 15 minutes are up and Howard Devoto's are just beginning. Right.

Pedro of Norwich claims that punk and The Clash are dead and gone while real working class youth of Newcastle claims that every letter in Gasbag is written by middle-class farts pretending to be a working-class intellect. He's probably right. Finally, there's an open letter to Nick Kent from Bruce Thomas, bassist of the Attractions, who Kent described as, quote,

deliriously drunk and sullenly attempting to get backstage for Chuck Berry's set. He doesn't have the right credentials, but in his torpor, he refuses to understand this. Instead, he whines and looks pathetic in a piece about BB King the other week. Bit fucking rich coming from Nick Kent, calling anybody else deliriously drunk.

There we go. Thomas explains that he couldn't give a toss about Chuck Berry. A bit fucking rich coming from Nick Kent, calling anybody else deliriously drunk. There we go. Thomas explains that he couldn't give a toss about Chuck Berry. Kent had been ignoring him all night, and if the writer stopped slagging him off, he'd tell him something really interesting about Bob Dylan. Kent replies that he tried to get Thomas' attention and help him backstage, but he was so pissed up that he didn't recognize him oh could they just made that a phone call really i don't think the rest of the world needs to see this kind of petty bickering

between mates or whatever yeah 56 pages 20p i never knew there was so much in it did you ever edit a lettuce page when you were in melody maker what was that like all the time yeah i mean i edited the famous uh Dark Mates page. Yeah, it was quite good fun, actually. You just get given a plastic bag full of letters and just wade through them. Most of them were absolute shy. It was quite commonplace to make a few of them up, I think. But yeah, basically, it was just an excuse for us

to take the piss out of the readers. And occasionally, you get something really articulate, basically we it was just uh an excuse for us to uh take the piss out of the readers and occasionally you get something really articulate and sometimes uh um maybe present company included we get we'd actually uh hire some some good writers from that uh but then you know mostly it was just we we would deliberately pick the idiots just so we could like rip into them you never picked out a letter that um that that slagged off the magazine that you couldn't answer? Well, no. No. And frequently, things like that.

It was like doing the singles page to a certain extent because it was an all-nighter. It was the kind of thing that you finished at two or three in the morning. And you got increasingly fractious as you were doing it. Yeah. So by the end of editing Backlash, the letters page in Melody Maker, yeah, you'd be basically slagging off the readers in a big way. I'm still reeling from what that guy said,

Pedro from Norwich, that every letter in the letters page is written by middle class farts pretending to be working class intellect. That zings, man. That was real working class youth of Newcastle. That zings, man, but like Simon said, like Simon hinted, that is how I got hired, so I'm not going to moan about it. A bit to the way we used to uh edit the letters page at

my magazines oh christ probably didn't need rubber gloves for those did you but i suppose pre-internet this was yeah the comment section in a way it was the thread underneath the thing um and it was a similar mix of arseholes and the occasional, very, very rare little good letter as well. So what else was on telly this day? Well, BBC One starts the day at 6.40am with an hour and a quarter of the Open University and then closes down for an hour and a half,

then comes back hard with Rhubarb, Jackanora, CB Bears, the Hanna-Barbera Shaking Hair Bear Bunch, and Why Don't You? Why Don't You? I'm not going to do the full thing. Okay, thank you. After the penultimate episode of The Flashing Blade...

I love The Flashing Blade. What a theme tune that was. Do you remember that? Yes. Oh, man. You've got to fight for what you want and all that you believe i was i had no idea who was at war with whom it was something to do with spain and france and britain and i couldn't yeah never never figure out what the

beef was between these guys but it was just really exciting and glamorous it was the kind of program that you'd hang around for just for the theme tune and then you'd start flicking around the the channels to see what else was on yeah i suppose and then try and get back for the theme tune and then you'd start flicking around the channels to see what else was on. Yeah, I suppose. And then try and get back for the end bit. After the flashing blade, they closed down for 25 minutes, recommencing at 11.25 for the first day of the second test against

India. That's the one where Ian Botham goes mental with the ball skittling out 5 for 36. Then it's playboard with Christopher Lillicrap, the midday news a 10-minute interval and then more cricket until 18 minutes past four when it's regional

news in your area then it's play school Scooby-Doo play away and Captain Pugwash after the evening news it's nationwide and we're led up to the main event with a repeat of part four of the pirate planet the doctor who story starring tom baker or bet taylor was well up for that

what a one two for the young taylor parks bbc2 also started 640 with an open university mega blast and then closed down until 11. Then it's play school. Then they're closed down again for two and a half hours, coming back at two, with two and a half hours of racing from Goodwood, before picking up the cricket. Then it's salvation and politics from the Open University, and they're just about to finish classic curling,

where Bob Nicholls of Superior, Wisconsin, faces off against rick folk from saskatoon in a do or die can am stone clash itv commences at half nine with the wildlife series naturally scottish then writers workshop paints along with nancy there's another one there's another fucking mint theme tune that you hang around for spider-man gardening today with cyril fletcher lucan the drama series about a wolf boy looking for his mom and dad animal quackers where rory rory tells us a story of little sitting drum and once upon a time shaking jackanora with peter davidson after Emmerdale Farm it's news at one regional news in your area Crown Court afternoon plus at home with Mary Berre then it's the Benson and Hedges

International Golf Open from Cornwall followed by Johnny Quest the American Drama Series Project UFO news at 5 45 crossroads and they're two thirds of the way into Sapphire and steel. Oh, look at all those aces going down. Some classic shows there, man. I know,

man. I just want to watch that day of telling, you know, nevermind the top of the pops, a quick, a quick cunt alert by the way, because he's been mentioned. No beefy.

Both of them. Cunt. Yeah. Yeah. Want to elaborate on that? Well, no. I mean, I have it confirmed by my wife who served him tea during a cricket match during the break. Apparently he was a right

wanker. But anyone that altruistic who's constantly doing charity walks, I always have my doubts about them. What are they trying to hide? What are they making up for? Around about the early 80s, there was much debate in the playground whether Ian Botham was a raster or not. What, because he smoked a bit of weed or whatever?

Well, no, no, because the red, golden, green sweatbands he wore on his wrist, like all the other kids who were of that persuasion were in on the playground at the time. I see, yeah. I needed to check the colour of his laces. That's what I was talking about.

GreatBigOwl.com Rule of three. Where people who make funny stuff talk about something funny that they love. Because I remember as a kid thinking that's a really good old fashioned gag but it's also nasty. The actual VHS, this is clearly sufficiently important to me,

that this went through house moves as well. There is that joy and that slight fear as well about who's going to say what. Everything from airplane to bottom. From when Harry met Sally to the Muppets. Trying is good, aiming high is good. Being ridiculous and not being afraid of failure is good. I think that joke is so fucking funny. Again, I just think this is hysterical.

It's beautiful stuff. Rule of three from Great Big Owl. 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.