Monday 23 March 2015

Another Nail in my Top of the Pops

Thanks to Neil B for the upload of the 6th March 1980 hosted by DLT, but it doesn't seem so easy to view this file as previous ones ~ if you want to give it a try the link is here

And a new alternative link from Neil B is here at We Transfer

I've not been able to get it to work for me unfortunately, so can't really comment too much on the show other than to say it seems a fairly short edition and some obvious standouts are Squeeze, Martha and the Muffins and the Lambrettas. Anyhow, here's how it lined up (with a few links to youtube clips):

Play me that song....


6-3-80: Presenter: Dave Lee Travis

(19) THE GIBSON BROTHERS – Cuba (and charts)
(44) THE LAMBRETTAS – Poison Ivy
(25) CAPTAIN & TENILLE – Do That To Me One More Time (video)
(42) U.K. SUBS – Warhead WATCH (though not sure if this is right clip?)
 (16) THE BEAT – Hands Off She’s Mine
(39) MARTHA & THE MUFFINS – Echo Beach WATCH
 (30) SHAKIN’ STEVENS – Hot Dog WATCH
 (40) SQUEEZE – Another Nail In My Heart WATCH
(2) FERN KINNEY – Together We Are Beautiful (danced to by Legs & Co) WATCH
(41) TONY RALLO & THE MIDNIGHT BAND – Holdin’ On
(1) BLONDIE – Atomic (video)
(23) LIQUID GOLD – Dance Yourself Dizzy (and credits)

36 comments:

  1. If you have a 4shared account then you can view it as a download, Angelo. Log in, then click on the small download link next to the 'share' button. This should open up a new page with a grey 'Free Download' link. Click on this and your download should begin after 20 seconds.

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    1. Cheers manorak ~ Neil B has also uploaded this edition to We Transfer ~ https://www.wetransfer.com/downloads/3a221256f6e43be581e79a073e75d3b820150322182512/2206b4

      which seems much easier to use :-)

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    2. We Transfer is much easier to load, as I have used it before, and so am familiar with it, so at last I can see this episode, but alas we don't get to see the chart rundown with The Gibson Brothers, and also no Blondie?? But it's the Number 1!

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    3. Unfortunately the chart rundown and number 1 seem to be missing from all of the uploads of shows that were never repeated on UK Gold - clearly whoever recorded them originally didn't want those bits of the show, though at least we do have the bulk of it, including all the new performances.

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    4. John G, you're right but Neil B is the only one coming forward to help us out and deliver the show whenever BBC4 don't show JS and DLT shows, so I guess the fact that we have any of the show is somewhat amazing in the current BBC4 climate, where there is also no UK Gold repeat.

      Unfortunately in 1980, we didn't have a video recorder at home, and we only had one TV, so as a 12-year old at the time, I had to fight to watch TOTP on a Thursday night with the other family members who were into ITV or BBC2 for other shows on at the same time. Who would have thought that 35 years later, we would be sharing this blog on the internet.

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    5. Yes, it is amazing that we are able to share old TOTP in this way, when it would have been unthinkable until quite recently. Luckily I didn't have those kinds of family disputes as a kid in the 80s, as we all watched the show together.

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  2. shame about tony rallo and martha and the muffins. the former almost certainly won't be seen on totp again, and i'm not sure if the latter will too - can anyone confirm of otherwise?

    also a shame that shakin' stevens and the police's "sue lawley" don't appear together on the same show as they have a sort-of "nationwide" link (shaky's given name is michael barrett, and his namesake was another presenter of said programme)

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    1. This was the only TOTP showing for Tony Rallo's top 34 hit. It was released on Calibre, to whom The Real Thing moved and a label which also released a single called "Calibre Cuts", featuring snippets of 16 disco songs on one side (the last three re-made by session musicians as the tracks weren't released on Pye-related labels!) and it spent two weeks at number 75.

      Better news on Martha and the Muffins, as they appear in video form two weeks later - just our luck if it gets cut from the 7.30 showing, though!

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    2. Tony Rallo and the Midnite Band (from France) is a lot more than just a throwaway novelty disco act. The track "Holdin' on", and the LP it comes from, "Burning alive", were produced by one of the most important Euro disco producers, Alec R. Costandinos.

      Costandinos worked with Cerrone on "Love in C Minor", which also reached the Top 40 but didn't feature on TOTP, so this represents his only UK hit. Between the Cerrone and Rallo hits, he released LP after LP of disco epics under various act names, and also provided the theme for the second most famous disco movie, "Thank God it's Friday". His work such as "Romeo and Juliet", which puts the bard's actual words to a disco beat, is now regarded as amongst the most important and influential disco recordings.

      Tony, meanwhile, had been working in the music industry in France for several years, including conducting the French Eurovision entry in 1976, which came second to Brotherhood of Man. However, other than this disco LP, I do not know of any other significant pop/disco recordings.

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    3. Sorry, above should read "this represents his only TOTP performance".

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    4. The Tony Rallo entry in 1980 in this chart, does sound more like the 1976 disco sound, and so Darren's mention of the 1976 Eurovision involvement would explain why DLT is introducing them in March 1980 playing a sound more like 1976!

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    5. Re Sue Lawley - I thought Martha looked a bit like a 1980s female newsreader!

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  3. Does any 1 have the tony rallo performance clip

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  4. though bit not up to stanard well it is 1980 and sum of it missin i saw tony rallos preformance and the video to the ballard do that to me one more by captain and tennile a good song

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  5. shaky shakerson24 March 2015 at 18:31

    Couldn't get the whole show up I'm afraid - but thanks Neil B for the effort. And, if I'm being honest the only two I would be interested in would be Squeeze and Martha & Muffins which I watched via Angelo's links.
    SQUEEZE - One of the very best of their singles and one of the few to feature a guitar solo. Jools must have been a mite pee'd off with the amount of airtime he got here - maybe that was a factor in him leaving shortly after?

    MARTHA & MUFFINS. A defining 80s tune this one although that wasn't how I pictured Martha in my head, as I had her down as a blonde. Faulty memory aside this still holds a place in my heart.

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    1. there were actually two marthas in the muffins: the rather butch-looking lead singer with the dark hair, and the geeky-but-cute blonde who played keyboards. the latter left them not long after their hit, joined the associates (as an associate member) and re-vamped her look (as a vamp)

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    2. I believe the two Marthas got back together later on, became M&M (in the days when they were still Treets over here!) and had a top 50 hit with "Black Stations White Stations" in 1984.

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    3. Martha Johnson, the brunette, was the "Martha" of the band, while Professor Martha Ladly - as she is now officially styled - was the keyboard Muffin. The duo M&M actually consisted of Martha Johnson and the Muffins' guitarist, Mark Gane.

      Toyah Willcox subsequently covered 'Echo Beach' during her spell with EG Records in the late 80s. I remember how she had to bend the sound of the words 'work' and 'clerk' in the chorus to make them rhyme in her Birmingham accent! In North American English, 'clerk' is pronounced the way it is spelt.

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  6. Ah, The Captain & Tenille. Who could ever forget them. Another love couple in the manner of Peaches & Herb, and Billy Preston & Syreeta, not to mention Billy Davis Jr & Marilyn McCoo.

    Here, the Captain looking very much the part, and Tenille, the extremely attractive woman on the beach. Seems like a dream introduction to the video for DLT.

    Do That To Me One More Time does remain one of the 80s masterpiece hits, even though they never appeared live on British TV, and the promo video more than made up for it. We would never again see such a love video on the beach until Kool & The Gang in 1985 with Cherish.

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    1. The Captain and Tenille aren't lovey dovey any more. They went through a messy divorce last year after 39 years of marriage.

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    2. 39 years of marriage, and then a messy divorce? Blimey, you'd think that by now they would be living the rest of their lives together. What a waste.

      I mean my parents have been happily married for 51 years (wedding anniversary was yesterday), and now in old age there is no logic to be alone.

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  7. Shakin Stevens - Perhaps it was a sign of things to come when Shaky ended Hot Dog with a leg lock on DLT, I mean Shaky seemed to feel so at home in the TOTP studio for his debut hit.

    I think he had already made a big impression by now for his first ever hit, because by the time the 20th March edition came round, he was already on his third appearance on the show, for only being at No.24. Go Shaky Go!

    Fern Kinney - how nice to see Legs & Co with their stockings and suspenders in different bright colours. I think they were still on a high after the previous week's colourful carnival costumes on The Gibson Brothers set in the TOTP studio doing Cuba.

    Interestingly also on the Fern Kinney track, we see at the end of Legs & Co the picture of Prince Charles, about a year or so before the Royal Wedding. Charles seemed to be the pride and joy of Britain here as a young 31-year old in 1980, with a 18-year old girlfriend in Diana.

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    1. I don't think the "romance" with Diana had started at this point, though it was certainly underway by the end of 1980.

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    2. to my recollection, the daily mirror (and maybe others) first brought "lady diana" to our attention in the autumn of 1980 via that infamous photo of her in a "see-through" skirt...

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    3. The reason I thought that Charles & Diana were already romancing in March 1980, is because the Fern Kinney song is aptly called Together We Are Beautiful, and so why would they slot in a still of Prince Charles at the end of the Legs & Co performance to such a song title?

      Could it have been that Charles took a liking to one of the Legs ladies as an eligible batchelor with no Diana yet on the scene? Can anyone shed light on the connection of Charles and the Fern Kinney/Legs & Co performance, as I cannot make out the link.

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    4. I thought "Charlie Boy" was more of a Three Degrees fan.

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    5. There had been a lot of speculation over the previous few years about Charles' girlfriends and whom he might marry - indeed, Diana's elder sister had been in the frame as a possible wife a couple of years earlier. I think this photo is just a jokey nod towards all the gossip over Charles' love life, and doubtless reflected the hope many people had that he would get married soon.

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    6. Was I watching a different performance?! It was interspersed with pictures of various couples (such as Maggie & Denis, a Legs & Co member with her husband) and finally, Prince Charles and an unidentifiable woman with a large question mark over her. That indicates the fevered speculation at the time, and as mentioned above, the tabloids wouldn't have too long to wait.

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  8. It's a shame BBC4 aren't showing this one, as there are plenty of good new studio performances. That ultra-weird Legs routine also deserves wider exposure - surely the BBC could have come up with some more couples who actually did qualify as "beautiful"? It was a nice touch to include Pauline's wedding photo, though.

    Poison Ivy will never be a favourite song of mine, though this version is less irritating than the Coasters' original. It looked as if the brass section of the Orchestra had been cajoled into appearing on stage behind the band - I wonder if they had any inkling that their time would soon be up? They were all over the Tony Rallo song too, and were not doing it too many favours. Still, definitely quite a funky sound and despite their unprepossessing appearance it was a spirited performance from the band.

    Not much to say about Echo Beach other than that it is a great song, and I hadn't realised until now that Martha and co were Canadian. Squeeze were also good, though the TOTP directors definitely seemed to have something against Jools, who is yet again largely ignored by the cameras. I quite liked the UK Subs number too, more so than their previous TOTP offerings, though the singer's resemblance to Fred West still puts me off them rather!

    The Captain and Tenille video was too soft-focus lovey-dovey for my taste, as is the song - give me Love Will Keep Us Together any day. A much more energetic performance from Shaky this time around, though the "assault" on DLT at the end looked suspiciously contrived - I wonder if this inspired Shaky to attack Richard Madeley that same year? I was also trying to work out if that was one of the Legs on Shaky's hot dog stand, but I'm not sure.

    Anyway, big thanks to Neil B for providing an alternative download site, as it finally enabled me to watch this show!

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  9. We managed to see it

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  10. Great quality and great upload, first time I'd seen the Sue Lawley video. ah the good old days of Smash Hits reading it to find out what they were singing.

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  11. thanks to neill for the link but if you are having trouble i put it here http://www.4shared.com/video/wv7x80F9ba/800306_DLT.html

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    1. your welcome angelo any time for all the great work you do by the way do you know of any links to 15.09.77 ; 13.10.77 + 20.10.77 or 3 shows from 1978 27th july 3rd aug or 14th sept - I wonder does NeilB have the to share? sorry keep forgetting to sign in Pat

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  12. I downloaded this successfully from We Transfer, don't know what has happened to the other one - it used to work. With chart music being the way it was during this time no show is missable, so many thanks to Neil for making this one available. It's interesting to see how this edition stands out in terms of presentation, as if things were starting to move on from the 'wackier' 1970s style.

    The mod revival continues with the Lambrettas, the drummer using real cymbals for some reason (you can clearly hear the hi-hat at the end). Don't know why the guys at the back were wearing headphones when they were clearly miming (no mics).

    In musical terms The Captain & Toenail (that was Wogan, wasn't it?) have always struck be as a poor man's Carpenters, but I agree with an earlier commentator that Love Will Keep Us Together is an absolute classic. Looks like it did - for 39 years.

    We then have what looks like three numbers recorded back-to-back 'as live', but since they used to put edits in performances, we can't tell for sure. Not the UK Subs' strongest effort (but their next single is good), Saxa is back in The Beat and as for Echo Beach... strangely I can remember not liking it at the time, presumably because I had associated it with something negative. But whatever that was has long been forgotten and ever since I've been able to appreciate it as the sublime power pop one-hit wonder which it is.

    An entertaining effort from Shaky followed by my fave Squeeze single. Legs & Co were in 'bizarre' mode - didn't think much of the shades - and was that the very first photo of Charles and Camilla at the end? She was certainly around at the time - indeed, I don't think she ever really went away.

    And as for the final performance seen here, OK, they can sing, and the orchestra put in a good effort, but I couldn't help wondering if this was some kind of novelty act?

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    1. I remember once seeing a photo of Charles and Camilla that was taken in 1972 - they do go back a very long way!

      As mentioned above, I thought the brass section with the Lambrettas might have been members of the Orchestra - the headphones suggested they might be, and they also looked older than the band.

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