Thursday 11 December 2014

Day Trip to Top of the Pops

December the 13th 1979, the penultimate regular edition of Top of the Pops of the 1970's, and the last one we will get to see on BBC4, but Christmas has come a little bit early nevertheless......

Didn't we have a luverley time..
 
 
13-12-79: Presenter: Mike Read

(23) DAVID BOWIE – John I’m Only Dancing (Again) (and charts)
(26) FIDDLER’S DRAM – Day Trip To Bangor (Didn’t We Have A Lovely Time)
(20) PAUL McCARTNEY – Wonderful Christmastime (video)
(4) THE TOURISTS – I Only Want To Be With You
(21) ABBA – I Have A Dream (video)
(31) THE BEAT – Tears Of A Clown
(18) STATUS QUO – Living On An Island (danced to by Legs & Co)
(60) THE INMATES – The Walk
(13) BLONDIE – Union City Blue (video)
(63) THE BARRON KNIGHTS – Food For Thought
(30) THE PRETENDERS – Brass In Pocket
(1) PINK FLOYD – Another Brick In The Wall (Part 2) (video)
(24) ROSE ROYCE – Is It Love You’re After (and credits)
 
 
David Bowie ~ plays over the credits with a remake of a song that had reached number 12 for him seven years earlier, and this new one would peak in exactly the same position.
 
Fiddler's Dram ~ with a brilliant drinking song for big hair Xmas parties everywhere, this was there one and only hit.
 
Paul McCartney ~ and this year's biggest festive song - and although other members of Wings appeared in the video, it was Paul who played all the instruments on this record, and this ding dong tune marked the beginning of his 80's solo career.
 
The Tourists ~ now at their peak of 4 in the charts with this the first of two top ten hits for the group.
 
Abba ~ with their 5th top 4 hit of 1979, and another song from their Voulez Vous album.
 
The Beat ~ make their debut as a 2-Tone act, though like Madness they would soon sign elsewhere. Their excited leaps at the end show how much this meant to them.
 
Legs & Co ~ dance upon a map of Britain to Status Quo's Living on an Island, dressed up as various female British historical figures. If only all history lessons were like this.....
 
The Inmates ~ do their best Mick Jagger impressions but can't walk into the top 30.
 
Blondie ~ reaching a peak of 13 in the charts with Union City Blue, but their next three singles would all get to number one.
 
The Barron Knights ~ someone had to be cut from the 7.30 repeat and it was this band of comedy Christmas regulars, though this one failed to make the top 40.
 
The Pretenders ~ are back to perform what was to become the first new number one of the 80's.
 
Pink Floyd ~ a surprise number one, and it couldn't be less festive if it tried, but what a fabulously bleak record, and video, with which to bring the 1970's to a close.
 
Rose Royce ~ roll over the credits this week.
 
 
The last regular edition of Top of the Pops of the 70's, the 20th December 1979, is hosted by Jimmy Savile and so of course will not be broadcast on BBC4. So our next show will be the Christmas Day 1979 edition, hosted by David Jensen and Peter Powell, to be shown on BBC4 at 9.30pm on Christmas Eve (so Santa might be late this year, he'll be staying in first to watch it).
Then, on the 2nd January 2015, it's The Story of 1980, followed by Big Hits 1980.

68 comments:

  1. As the countdown to Xmas continues, this show had a number of interesting tunes ready for the festivities ahead.

    Fiddlers Dram - This was more of a summer song, considering day trips are usually made in the summer season, so it's a little bit strange to bring out this song at Xmas time. Nevertheless, a brilliant tune for its time.

    The Barron Knights - you got to hand it to them, that they did not give up after their 1978 debut hit that made top 5, and then this one at the end of 1979 did not even make top 40. Goodbye boys.

    Pink Floyd - at the time I found this quite demotivating at school, considering I was just finishing my first ever term at grammar school, only a couple of months before my 12th birthday, but thinking about it as a middle-aged adult in 2014, it's definitely a classic, made possible thanks to the memorable video.

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  2. Barron Knights debut in 78 ?!!! They had numerous hits in the sixties as well as their hits from 1977 onwards

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    1. I stand corrected, thanks Chris. I can only remember the charts properly from 1978, as I was born in 68, and so I don't remember the 60s.

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    2. I don't remember the 60 either Dory ! I don't think we'll be seeing this B Knights offering on BBC seeing as the middle third will be considered pretty racist these days

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    3. I thought that the last sketch which was sexist, would have been more offending to BBC4 than the Chinese sketch, which may have squeezed through the censors, but I wonder which of the sketches took most offence with a 2014 Beeb, compared to a 1979 Beeb which was keen to get this record on the show!

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  3. I haven't seen either edition (critique from me late in the weekend as is now the norm), but I'd doubt very much The Barron Knights would have been shown. Their food-related medley included a mickey take of an ethnic race ("talking" like Chinamen and doing those fingers-making-slitty-eyes faces). We will actually see the lads again next year, though. They managed four more top 75 hits, of which one made the top 20 at Christmas '80 and was given a TOTP showing on its way up.

    Excellent news about TOTP 1980!!! Who would have thought we'd reach a fifth year of repeats? And on a channel which will remain terrestrial for the time being, unlike BBC Three by the sound of it. No idea how they'll fit the shows into the schedule, what with a mid-year strike and 11 editions hosted by him and him (one of which was DLT partnered by Kevin Keegan - please say there's an edition of that floating around somewhere!), but we WILL be treated to the dawn of a new TOTP. Indeed, an early Christmas gift.

    Now all I hope is that our web host doesn't decide to give up and leave us scrabbling round for a fourth forum. Keep up the fine work, Angelo!

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    1. Cheers Arthur ~ I wouldn't want to miss 1980, it's one of my favourite years in music :-)

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    2. In terms of the regular shows, we will miss out 18 weeks in 1980 overall thanks to the strike and Yewtreed editions. This is the same amount as for 1979, so I imagine BBC4 will do the same as this year and rest the repeats during the Proms season. Sadly both Christmas shows will be Yewtreed too...

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  4. By the way, The Barron Knights debuted on TOTP in 1964, and visited the studio 12 times with 3 performance repeats. They made six visits from 1964-7 and six more from 1977 to 1980.

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  5. If you wanted to see the Barron Knights' Food for Thought, there was a clip of it in the Channel 4 documentary which tut-tutted at the attitudes of yesteryear a couple of Saturdays ago. It also revealed why they were also cut from the extended repeat this week (massive racism). You can hear the record on YouTube (though not see the TOTP performance) and it's a bit rubbish.

    Anyway, to what was shown, don't recognise this version of Dame David Bowie's John I'm Only Dancing at all, so surprised to learn it did OK in the charts.

    Fiddler's Dram, argh, one of the all-time hard to shift earworms, I still find this popping into my head occasionally. Impressive ginger afro there if nothing else, though why did he keep shaking his head? Anyone recall which TV advert used this tune?

    Paul McCartney, I actually prefer this to Lennon's Christmas ditty, it's a nice bit of synth pop, a bit silly but not too heavy on the ear. And the special effects in the video are nothing short of stunning.

    The Tourists, bang that drum, Annie.

    Abba crossing the streams about four years before Ghostbusters. Sort of a Spanish-flavoured ballad, fairly anodyne but it does remind me of the time my mum borrowed an Abba Greatest Hits cassette from the library only to discover on playing it that it was all sung in Spanish, bizarrely.

    The Beat, not a bad cover at all, but what makes it is Ranking Roger, who doesn't look particularly sad when he's singing, contrary to the lyrics, but is such a cheery presence you warm to the whole record.

    Legs & Co, good grief, acting out the lyrics again but going too far even by their standards. I don't know if that's the kind of "high" Status Quo were talking about.

    The Inmates, the Walk doesn't sound all that exciting for a dance, though presumably a bit more energetic than the Nice Sit Down. Can't remember who did this originally. Sort of OK.

    Blondie, hey we get the end of the video this time, which appears to indicate they hung around all day for those night time shots, though seeing their half arsed choreography you wonder why they bothered.

    Pink Floyd and the anti-Ramblers in the chorus. Might have been fitting for the way the country had been going in the 70s, but my it's a dour ending to the decade.

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    1. "the walk" was written and originally recorded by jimmy mccracklin at least 20 years earlier, although probably like many i never knew it was a cover version at the time

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    2. oops - should have read the rest of the entries before i responded!

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  6. Neil B. has uploaded this episode with the Barron Knights included.

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    1. Just watched this, and it was probably the last sketch about the female hitchhiker that caused the chop from both showings including the late night repeat, cos the rest of the sketches did not seem politically incorrect a la 2014.

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    2. Do you not think that doing the slitty eyed thing with your hands and saying that all Chinese people look the same could be considered a teeny bit offensive, no matter how much in jest the song was done?

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    3. this reminds me of a scene in the "ham radio" episode of "frasier" where bulldog makes fun of a character called mr wang (including doing the "slitty-eyed thing") in frasier's radio play "nightmare inn", and roz responds saying "whoa - chinese embassy on line one!"...

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    4. In response to Old Applejack - no. And if somebody said something highly derogatory about the English race then I wouldn't find that offensive either. Distasteful perhaps, wrong most likely, but not offensive. Now if somebody said something derogatory about me or somebody close to me then that's offensive.

      The 'professionally offended' are destroying our society in which free speech is paramount, and need to be put in their place in my opinion.

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    5. Careful now - remember what happened to Father Ted.

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    6. Totally agree with Relic. I have the full ITV series of Mind Your Language on DVD from the late 70s, and these fun sketches were the vital ingredients for the show, and yes, we all laughed out loud, whether male, female, black, white, chinese, indian, etc,

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    7. When you say full series, do you mean all four? The programme was resurrected by an independent company in 1986, but only three ITV regions showed all 13 episodes of the fourth series and three more regions showed a handful.

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    8. Arthur, I mean the complete LWT series of all 29 episodes ever made, all put on one 4-dvd (disc) set as a single purchase on the 'Network' label.
      Therefore in one DVD 'pack, you have 4 discs, each with about 7 or 8 episodes to make up the total 29 episodes. you can look this up on Amazon or Ebay, and it's so good and funny. I never thought it racist at the time and nor do I think it now.

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    9. I remember I wasn't so interested in the comedy at the time - I was more focussed on Francoise Pascal!

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    10. I think we all were, myself included.

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  7. The version of 'John I'm Only Dancing' played over the credits was recorded in 1975, but not released as a single until 1979.

    That dreadful song by Fiddler's Dram (one of my Dad's favourites!) was used to advertise Anchor butter. The band was actually a quintet, but was augmented on TOTP by a keyboardist, a drummer and a choir of four that appeared to consist of either roadies or regulars from the folk club in Whitstable where the band was formed.

    Legs' literal interpretation of 'Living On An Island', with Patti dressed as legendary aviatrix Amy Johnson, was necessary in this case - to disguise the true meaning of the lyric for a prime-time audience! It beats me how this song, along with Lindisfarne's 'Meet Me On The Corner' (with its opening phrase 'Hey, Mr Dream Seller'), slipped through the BBC censors' net.

    The Inmates were very accomplished but, like most other hardcore blues bands - including Nine Below Zero, Dr Feelgood and The Blues Band - found themselves unable to break into the big league. 'The Walk' was composed and originally recorded by bluesman Jimmy McCracklin.

    How ironic that as the 70s drew to a close, with punk already passe, an 'old wave' band should reach No.1 with the ultimate anti-establishment song!

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    1. Anchor butter! Of course it was, thanks. And to prove it, here it is:
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SFum1v3_BJ4

      Synths aren't very folky, but it does sound like the same singer. Anyone know?

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  8. We begin this week with a re-make of David Bowie's John I'm Only Dancing. Loved the original - abhorred this version.

    Our host this week - Mike Read. One of the better presenters and - as befits one of the creators of Guinness Book Of Hit Singles- full of little nuggets of facts. Unfortunately he begins with a mathematical error. There were 12 Fiddlers Drams performing rather than the 11 he claims. Or was one of them an interloper? If there was then it sure wasn't the ginger guitarist who couldn't have looked anymore of a Folkie if he tried. My prime suspect would be the backing singer furthest away from the camera and the microphone. Anyway, as mentioned above, strange time of year to have a hit about a summer day out. Still, thats the British public for yer. Also it seems weird to me that a song about a, presumably Lancashire, Mill workers day trip to Wales should sound like it was written with a Cockney patois all over it. Turns out the writer, Debbie Cook, later went to write for Eastenders!

    Next up - Macca's Christmas pension fund. I guess it's now considered a classic; chirpy melody, warming video and all of that, but for me it comes a long way down my Christmas playlist.

    The Tourists and a new studio performance with singer Annie performing the one-handed drum crunch that would find favour thirty five years later with Bastille's singer doing the same on 'Pompeii'.

    Abba performing I Have A dream on vid with Frida taking lead duties. Not a patch on their classic work although their next single would be a belter.

    The Beat re-work Tears Of A Clown in a Two Tone stylee. Rather liked this in 79, but it hasn't aged well.

    Legs literally dancing to Quo. Not one of their best for either outfit.

    The Inmates cover The Walk. Which if you include Bowie's re-imagining and The Barron Knights cut-up-and-paste job makes it 5 cover versions for the second week running. Mr Read claims that the Inmates 'will be around for a long time'. Nope. Unless he was being funny - Inmates. . . doing a long time?

    Blondie's vid gets another outing, The Barron Knights pay the price for being horribly incorrect, and the Pretenders perform the song that will become the first number one of the eighties.

    And we finish up with the sinister Another Brick In The Wall. We'll see you next week, sleep well, and please don't have nightmares.

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    1. Thanks, Shaky - I stand corrected, as does Mike Read. The Pops line-up of Fiddler's Dram was indeed a 12-piece; I had overlooked the session bass guitarist. The guitarist, banjoist, fiddler, bassoonist and lead singer (Cathy LeSurf, who subsequently joined The Albion Band) were the official members of the band - which hailed from Kent, hence the pronounced Southern English accents. There is a regional rhyme in the last verse: 'Wouldn't it be grand/To have cash on demand', which doesn't rhyme if you're from the South.

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    2. The one in the middle of the stage I could have sworn was a Jeff Lynne lookalike, as ELO were still in the higher end of the charts with Confusion/Last Train to Bangor (I mean London), so it was quite timely!

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  9. So, the Barron Knights become the latest victims of the Beeb's rewriting of history to suit delicate modern sensibilities, though the song itself is no more than mildly amusing. In general I thought this was a very strong edition, with the great exception of Macca's execrable yuletide ditty. He has been responsible for some musical atrocities over the years, but this one is near the bottom of the barrel as far as I'm concerned - I like to think that when he got imprisoned in Tokyo shortly afterwards it was because of this song rather than his marijuana stash!

    By contrast, I really like the Fiddler's Dram song, which may be a novelty record but is infectiously catchy. It looked as if they were trying to rival Earth, Wind and Fire for stage personnel too! The Beat also impressed with their cheerful version of a Motown classic, even if the tempo was slightly at odds with the lyrics. I enjoyed the Inmates too, despite the Mick Jagger impressions, but quite what possessed Flick to interpret Living on an Island in that fashion beats me - I wonder if she was getting high herself...

    Credit meanwhile to Mike Read for an excellent hosting job - I think he has arguably been the best presenter during '79, and was at the top of his game here. Shame the pre-Christmas show is a Jim'll affair, but hopefully Neil B will come to our rescue once more...

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    1. I have to agree regarding The Barron Knights. I'm sure that this group know that BBC4 are doing the weekly repeats of TOTP 1979, and so I wonder what they themselves are thinking this week to the chop, and I don't think that the BBC should re-write history, but rather let us see how things were in those days as accepted by a less complex public, and let us decide for ourselves.

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  10. full show on tomorrow night [sun morning] @ 01.20 am - 01.55

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    1. Be interesting to see if the full version's put on BBC iPlayer.

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  11. I don't think I've heard that version of the David Bowie song before - and as it sounds a bit 'disco' it actually sounds more at home in 1979 than it would have done in 1975. I'm amazed it got to No.12 though.

    Fiddler's Dram - I loved this as a kid, and I can still cope with it. Nice to see such an amusingly large line-up on stage as well, plus the lovely afro of course.

    For some reason, I've always had a dislike for 'Wonderful Christmastime' although I can tolerate it now whereas I once couldn't bear it at all.

    A better performance by The Tourists this time, then ABBA with the live version which may have been quite exciting now but as they show that concert all the time these days I'm now bored of.

    The Beat's song is one of those that isn't actually top drawer but is nice enough. And is it me or does Mike Read go a bit 'daft racist' when he mimics Ranking Roger? If he does, that's a bit double standards given that we're being protected from seeing the Barron Knights lest we all get awfully upset.

    That's a weird looking map of the UK that Legs are dancing on. If that were real, you could jump from the South Coast to the Isle of Wight.

    As for The Inmates, well.....if he did just one of the following - look like Mick Jagger, sing like Mick Jagger, do actions like Mick Jagger...that might have been OK. But doing all 3 is a bit much. Average.

    At least the editing out of the Barron Knights was done reasonably well, although Mike Read starting a sentence with '...and' was a bit of a giveaway.
    I do wonder whether it would have even happened had that Channel 4 programme not included it. Although it's not their best set of parodies I must admit that I do rather like the 'If I jumped into the back of your lorry' bit.

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  12. This latest piece of censorship is getting a bit sinister now and is slightly hypocritical as well. A performance of a mildly offensive (and not all that funny) song I shouldn't think anyone remembered (I certainly don't) until C4 aired that "Alright In The 70s" programme is cut from a 35 year old show on a minority digital channel yet a rape of one of the characters in one of the Beeb's flagship shows on primetime BBC1 is deemed acceptable?

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  13. earlier this week i was emailed by a guy who was in the 6th form with me in the late 70's, and he reminded me that myself and others would go through the "record mirror" top 75 chart in the common room and give marks out of 10 to those tracks we were familiar with (and also that a lot of "zero's" were recorded!). so as a one-off exercise/piece of fun i'm going to give each song a mark as i would have done then and how i think of it now...

    bowie: i always found it of interest when rock stars tried their hand at disco, but although this was one of the better efforts i felt it promised more than it delivered (and i was a dame fan as well as a disco bunny)
    then: 7/10, now: 6/10

    fiddlers' dram: awful then, awful now. quite amusing to watch though. did anyone else notice the air-bassoonist at the back? i think he may have been involved with a similar folky ensemble (maybe even the same one) that attempted to break the totp record for most performers on stage at the same time a couple of years back...
    then: 0/10, now (a grudging) 2/10

    macca: i recall quite liking the futuristic synth noise at the beginning, but when nothing else seemed to happen i got bored rather quickly. i notice a lot of (air) acoustic guitars being played in the boozer, but heard none whatsoever on the soundtrack. like most xmas pop records, familiarity has not endeared this to me
    then: 4/10, now: 3/10

    tourists: i agree a better performance than last time, but huge crunching noise apart it still does little for me
    then: 5/10, now: 4/10

    abba: i hated all abba songs at the time. i like a fair few of them now to some degree, but this is not one of them
    then 0/10, now: 3/10

    beat: i liked the physical vibe of the band, but wasn't impressed with this cover of a tune i thought so-so in the first place - much better was to come from them. yes, mr read seemed to be limbering up for his ukip calypso effort 35 years hence by informing us it was called "tee-yars of a clone" in mock ranking roger stylee. i found it much more amusing that roger (or should i call him "ranking"?) had nothing to do other than play some air-tambourine until the last few seconds. by the way, has anyone yet mentioned the sniggering at the back of class induced by the thought of him being introduced by jonathan woss?
    then: 5/10, now: 4/10

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  14. contd:

    quo: they and i had long since parted company as i leapt aboard the disco express whilst they continued to churn out ever-weaker versions of their brand of boogie. but i was quite impressed with this change of pace, and especially the harmony vocals at the end
    then: 6/10, now 6/10

    inmates: as someone watching this with me remarked, they look far too clean-cut and middle-class to have been anywhere near the chokey. it's another "stick the drummer at the front" again, but this time the one in question made the most of what was to be his five minutes of fame (mr read was way off the mark there, although apparently a version with a couple of original members is still gigging today). this was always okay but only really grabbed me with the guitar solos that were (for a change) alas all too short. i note that this is is the third "left-handed" guitar player to appear on this show after macca and the beat's dave wakeling - i'm left-handed too, but when i learned to play guitar i always felt the conventional way was more natural, as most of the hard work with the chord fretting was being done by the left hand!
    then: 7/10, now: 6/10

    blondie: not one of their better efforts. at the end the guys are all jumping and throwing their arms up around a static ms harry as if to say "it's not just about her you know!", even though they could all have been replaced and most wouldn't have noticed. yet ironically when she started a solo career after the band imploded she completely flopped!
    then: 5/10, now: 4/10

    barron knights (or barren knights as far as i'm concerned ho ho): i don't remember this and of course haven't been given the opportunity to hear it this time, but if their previous efforts are anything to go by i'm not missing out on much (had i heard it back then it probably would have been marked 0/10!)

    pretenders: always a bit of class thanks to james honeyman-scott's guitar stylings, this has grown on me more and more over the years and is far and away the best thing on this show. purely by chance i grabbed a copy of the manchester evening news yesterday, and on the cover was a photo of chrissie hynde looking exactly the same now as she did back then!
    then 6/10, now 8/10

    floyd: this was probably the first thing of theirs that i'd heard, and although it was okay i used to think (what with the "we're not worthy" status they had) "that all there is?" it certainly never persuaded me to check their stuff out further. i particularly disliked the shouty schoolkids choir which presumably was inspired by recent hit records like "matchstalk men" and "the sparrow". i'm not saying that things were right beforehand, but i now believe that the success of this record helped begat the slippery slope to schools being in the dire state they are now with the kidz getting away with murder and teachers powerless to do anything about it...
    then: 6/10, now 3/10

    rose royce: any pretence at being funky was now obviously at an end with this formulaic disco effort
    then: 6/10, now: 5/10

    looking at my scores, it seems overall i have a lower opinion of tonight's music now then i did back then! for all that though still an enjoyable show to watch: 7/10

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    1. Debbie - sorry, Deborah - didn't completely flop with her solo career, she had a fairly substantial success with French Kissin' in the USA and a top 20 hit with I Want That Man. The rest underperformed, mind you, though I remember quite liking In Love With Love, which I haven't heard since it was out. To YouTube!

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    2. OK, just checked out In Love With Love after nearly 30 years, and... hmm, thin Stock Aitken and Waterman-esque hi NRG. Should have stayed in my memory. Terrible video, too.

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    3. thx i'm thinking in particular the "koo koo" album and related singles - you know, the one with the knitting needles through her face. that bizarre cover (by hr geiger i think) and the fact that she grew out the peroxide at that point may have been factors in the lack of success? also her producers the chic organisation were also going through a thin patch themselves at the time which may not have helped?

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    4. Oh, sure, the Koo Koo record didn't do much, you're right about that. Never heard anyone call it "underrated" or "due for a renaissance" either.

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  15. It seems that Neil B. has uploaded the 20.12.79 edition with Jimmy Saville hosting, but minus the chart rundown at the beginning and the No.1 at the end, but it's better than nothing.

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  16. Neil has also uploaded a fair chunk of 13.12.79 as well including the "contraband" Barron Knights!
    http://www.4shared.com/video/GhYnQqr8ce/TOTP_13_12_79-Title1.html

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  17. "Chinese, Japanese, dirty knees, look at these! " Hands up who didn't do this as a child in the '70's ?! Obviously now termed 'casual racism', this episode is full of it! Sort of. If anybody thinks this content is offensive then try nipping in to your local downtown takeaway on a friday/saturday night. The barron's effort wasn't as funny as the childish rhyme but to cut it out completely? The thin end of a very thick wedge ('wedge' being slang for money).

    Xmas 1979 was quite typical for this 9 year old, apart from being the first one without our beloved Nan, so there was a tinge of sadness. However I remember enjoying 'wonderful christmastime' er, at the time and it really lifting the mood somewhat. 'Brass in pocket' is still a fave and seemed to be everywhere, as did 'Brick...'.

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    1. i don't remember this saying at all, although in my junior school in the early 70's kids went on about "chinese burns" (inflicting pain by twisting someone's arm) and "chinese chops" (as in karate chops, although karate is as much a japanese thing) - presumably that would now be considered racist?

      oh, don't forget that "turning japanese" will soon be upon us - will that get the (karate) chop?

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    2. The Vapors should be fine unless they did Benny Hill "bruddy iriot!" racist impersonations throughout. Which they didn't.

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    3. Especially as the song is nothing to do with the Japanese at all really. I'm assuming here that most of us know what it is *actually* about (snigger!)

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    4. Allegedly. Apparently David Fenton used to crank up the media by confirming and denying it in alternate interviews!

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  19. First of all, can I apologise for initially mentioning the one song omitted from the show and, in the process, causing the remainder of the artists to become a mere footnote in this thread? Not my intention, and sorry if this ruined it for everyone else.

    I bet Steeleye Span heard Fiddler’s Dram and thought “Bugger!” I’ve never been a fan of the song, but you can’t deny it’s catchy, and why not release a song in winter reminiscing about those long hot summer days? Besides, there are usually more singles bought around Christmas time. Smart move!

    “The Fountain” is a pub in Ashurst, near Steyning in West Sussex. Brickwoods was a Portsmouth brewery whose founder also founded Portsmouth football Club. Brickwoods sold up to Whitbread in 1971. That’s all I’d like to say about Paul McCartney’s effort.

    Terrible start to The Tourists, with the drummer not ready to mime and Mike Read crashing the vocals and failing to namecheck the act early doors. Still, a vigorous ‘performance’ and I liked Annie’s sartorial tribute to Dusty Springfield.

    I always wondered how those two chaps in The Beat and Fine Young Cannibals were able to play bass and guitar while doing that weird out-of-time shuffle? The Beat went on to release a couple of cheeky, risqué singles, like “Save It For Later” where Dave Wakeling deliberately pronounced the last two words of the title as “fellater”. Still, wasn’t he pleased to be there?

    I’m glad Mike told us Pauline Legger was meant to be Mary Quant. I wouldn’t have had a clue. Who on Earth drew that map and designed the set? Looked like something you’d have seen on “Play School”.

    I think “The Walk” might have been a bigger hit if Doctor Feelgood had given it a go, with a bit of Lee Brilleaux harmonica thrown in for good measure. At one stage, the singer’s Jaggerisms reminded me of Freddie Starr’s impersonation. I think The Inmates were the only act on Radar apart from Elvis Costello and Nick Lowe to make the chart.

    No, Mike, we won’t tune in to you in five minutes’ time, and we won’t see you or whoever next week – at least, not on terrestrial. Luckily, we have a friend in the know. Cheers, Neil!

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    1. arthur, thanks for the info on brickwoods brewery (did you know that beforehand?) - the friend i was watching this with once owned a real ale off-licence and was curious as to where they were based!

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    2. I knew some of the Brickwoods history but had to check online first before mentioning the details. I'm quite partial to trying a new ale in a pub if I haven't seen it or tried it before. Bit of a problem now my nearest pub is CAMRA affiliated! :-)

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  20. a few more thoughts on "john, i'm only dancing": there were in fact three recordings of this made - the 1972 original which sounds very lo-fi/demo-like, a similar arrangement but more polished production recorded (i think) the following year (with added sax and presumably sessioneers instead of the spiders), plus this soul/disco version that was recorded as part of the "young americans" sessions in 1975. bowie was so partial to the chorus chord sequence that he actually used it again on "stay" (from the 1976 album "station to station"). also, the somewhat blatant homo-erotic nature of the lyrics would still have caused a stir even in 1979 - as our only (openly) gay commentator, maybe bamaboogiewoogie will give us his views on that if and when he submits a review of this show?

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  21. If anyone actually watched that Channel 4 two-parter, could anyone confirm the beauty contestant Terry Wogan thought big for a 16-year-old was THAT Denise Gyngell out of Tight Fit?

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  22. The beauty contestant interviewed by Wigon was THE Denise Gyngell who later was in Tight Fit and also a future Mrs Pete Waterman.

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    1. denise gyngell has been active in a re-formed tight fit in recent times with her colleagues steve grant and julie "chopper" harris - in my opinion she looks better now than she did 30 years ago!

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    2. Ah, Julie "Chopper" Harris, the Sharon Davies lookalike. Now, all they needed in my opinion was a Suzanne Dando doppelganger....

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  23. I have deliberately held off saying anything about this until the 'full' version was broadcast. Well, the iPlayer people have now put up a version in the correct aspect ratio but it's still got the Barron Knights hacked out. It seems a bit of an over-reaction to me - are we sure that this was the reason or was there a clearance issue?

    Anyway, my thoughts were that this show started off with a high 'yuk' factor before settling down into the music which makes this era such a 'golden age'.

    Fiddlers Dram - plastic folk with daft, soppy lyrics, sorry, I've never rated this very highly. It's also the wrong town, but "didn't we have a lovely time the day we went to Rhyl" doesn't scan.

    Paul McCartney's Wonderful Christmastime would be OK if it wasn't for Christmas compilation CDs. And Christmas compilation CDs would be OK if they were banned from being played in shops. As things are I get more and more sick of the whole flamin' lot as each year passes! Interesting promo though with a proper old country pub as they used to be and those primitive video effects. The Fountain Inn is a Grade II listed building and probably an expensive foodie place these days (it's the only way for country pubs to survive, sadly). And it looks like Ron's Coaches are still operating as well.

    The Tourists - this is more like it! For those who thought this was lacklustre they're now miming to the record (albeit what sounds like a cassette copy) and Annie has been given a drum to bash, for some reason. But then more 'yuk' from ABBA and those kids.

    Now we're into the good stuff! I think I once read that Dave Wakeling is actually right-handed but as a big Paul McCartney fan he learned to play guitar the 'wrong' way round. That's if tuning the thing to a chord fits the definition of 'learning to play guitar'. It's tempting, though!

    Been a while since Legs & Co have done a 'gimmicky' one, but this kind of thing really belongs with novelty records. But at least we get to hear the song right to the end - I say that it ranks alongside the Eagles' 'Already Gone' as one of the coolest key changes ever!

    Mike was well and truly wrong about the Inmates - good effort but Doctor Feelgood they weren't!

    Not the strongest Blondie single but still a memorable contribution to 1979's music scene.

    The Barron Knights (thanks Neil B!) - I had completely forgotten about this, thinking it was the one with the line "Christmas turkey, you can stuff it" to the tune of Another Brick In The Wall, but that was of course the following year. Somewhat ironically, it's from an album called 'Teach The World To Laugh' - I think a few lessons are in order here in 2014!

    And finishing with two classics - the next and the current No. 1s. Yes, we are talking seriously powerful imagery in this Pink Floyd promo. That big, swinging effigy of the teacher, the teacher's head turning into a hammer, the marching hammers and all the rest of it is the stuff that childhood nightmares are made of, although by this time I had grown out of the nightmare stage. Time hasn't lessened the impact, although I now think that the shot of the alleyway with the lad immediately in front of the camera doing that stupid swagger just looks naff!

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    1. Completely agree about overplayed Christmas songs, as time marches on I'm beginning to think the CIA has a hand in the same ten songs getting played ad nauseam.

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    2. Smooth Radio has a Christmas station which commenced on November 1st!!! As far as I'm concerned, Christmas only begins when I've heard The Waitresses and Greg Lake.

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    3. I suspect I'm probably alone in having The Wombles and Chris De Burgh as the purveyors of my favourite 2 Christmas songs....

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    4. A Spaceman Came Travelling is a great record, and may well be one of my two favourites. I'm also very fond of We Sing Hallelujah by Richard and Linda Thompson.

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    5. If I had to pick two Christmas faves (in other words, two that haven't worn as thin as the others), I would go for Elton John's Step Into Christmas and The Waitresses' Christmas Wrapping.

      The latter is interesting in that its popularity is almost entirely due to the 'compilation CD factor'. Although I had heard it (and indeed had bought a copy) by the mid-'80s, it was only a very minor hit and I have no recollection of hearing it at all when it was first released.

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    6. I'm afraid The Waitresses wore out their welcome with me about the time The Spice Girls covered Christmas Wrapping, I remember it from its original release and have just heard it too many times, great as it is. Also quite poignant in that the lead singer died around Christmastime a few years ago. They never even made a video for it.

      I fear Low's equally great Just Like Christmas may be going the same way into Yuletide ubiquity. Can't think of many really good Christmas songs this century, to be honest, most acts seem to rely on covers.

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    7. i have a dim memory of "christmas wrapping" being played on the radio at the time it was a non-hit (i always get this band mixed up with the motels... or is it the photos?). no one yet seems to have mentioned another minor yuletide hit/cash-in with a similar title: kurtis blow's "christmas rapping" (ho ho... or should that be "ho ho ho"?), back in the days when rap was still just seen as a here-today, gone-tomorrow fun/novelty thing...

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  24. Having watched Neil B's upload of the Barron Knights again, I wonder if I've hit upon the real reason for its omission (like I said, I thought it was a bit of an over-reaction to a reference about the Chinese). During the third song in the medley there are a couple of references to 'Jeremy'. Could this be Jeremy Thorpe (who was on trial - and acquitted - in 1979 and has, of course, only recently passed away)?

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  25. Anyone note 'Wonderful Christmas Time' was in pristine quality, compared to Totp 2 & music channel repeats thesedays?

    Shame it was truncated else Totp 2 couldve lifted it instead of the grotty vision version!

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  26. Doubt if anyone is still reading this discussion, but in case they are the Barron Knights revisionist thing irritated me so much that I edited the song from Neil B's version back into the BBC4 broadcast:

    http://www.4shared.com/video/Tg9jJhqPce/TOTP_13-12-79_full.html

    I realise Neil B's version contained most of the rest of the show too, but it was missing the opening rundown, the No. 1 and a few links (and picture quality was so-so) so it made sense to try and put the show back together as close to originally broadcast as possible.

    FWIW my opinion on the Barron Knights is that it is pretty offensive (and by their standards not terribly amusing either) but, you know, it's part of the show. We can't just keep rewriting the inconvenient bits of history. Sorry, rant over!

    (If there's any other TOTPs that are incomplete and could do with re-assembling from more than one source then let me know and I'm happy to give it a go if the bits are out there...)

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  27. I noticed! Lovely editing into Neils version when the Blondie track starts to fade out..its seemless! I had the BBC4 edited version on my sky plus and Neils on my ps3 and have since deleted them both and replaced them with your excellent version.Nice work and although I'm very grateful to have a chance to see the skipped episodes it's such a shame so many of them have either the chart rundown or end credits missing so it's lovely that 13/12/79 is now complete again! Good work!

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