Thursday 19 May 2016

Mad Eyed Top of the Pops

So we reach October 1981, quite a sad point because it marks the final month of Legs & Co on the show, although they do get off to a flying start...


Anyone for a little chirpy tune?




01/10/81 (hosted Mike Read)

(7) The Tweets – “Birdie Song (Birdie Dance)”

On its way to number two spending an impressive 28 weeks in the charts, and aided here by Legs & Co, who are in for a busy night.

(6) Godley & Crème – “Under Your Thumb”

Peaked at number 3. But edited out of tonight's 7.30pm slot.

(37) Sheena Easton – “Just Another Broken Heart” (rpt from 17/09/81)
A second showing for Sheena but the song stopped beating at number 33. And also edited out of tonight's 7.30pm broadcast.

(25) The Teardrop Explodes – “Passionate Friend”

Third time on the show and now at its peak. And a third one edited out tonight.

(34) The Creatures – “Mad Eyed Screamer”

Here's Siouxsie and the Banshee sort of making their debut on the show with a percussion dominated song that peaked at number 24.

(3) Ottawan – “Hands Up (Give Me Your Heart)”
A repeat of Legs & Co's wild west gun slinging performance to Hands Up, which was now at its peak.

(32) Toyah – “Thunder In The Mountains”

1981 was a great year for Toyah but when this one peaked at number 4 it became her final top ten hit.

(30) Bad Manners – “Walking In The Sunshine” (video)
Following up their big summer hit Can Can, and looking in this video more likely to drown in the sea rather than walk in the sunshine, this tune peaked at number 10.

(48) Altered Images – “Happy Birthday”

Clare Grogan and the band making their debut on the show with what would become their biggest hit peaking at number 2.

(28) Gidea Park – “Seasons Of Gold”
Singer Adrian Baker seems to have lost the rest of the band for this final performance of Seasons of Gold before jetting off to join the Beach Boys on tour in America. But Legs & Co are here to help him out. Top of the Pops seems to be working them hard in their final days.

(19) Dollar – “Hand Held In Black & White” (rpt from 03/09/81)

Number 19 was its peak.

(1) Adam & The Ants – “Prince Charming” (video)

Third of four weeks at number one.

(38) Tight Fit - "Back to the 60's Part 2" (credits)

We play out his week with the follow up to Back to the Sixties, though it wasn't as successful in the charts, peaking at 33.

The next edition is the 8th of October 1981 hosted by DLT. So it won't be shown on BBC4. Instead we will see October the 15th and the return of David Jensen.

36 comments:

  1. A good show this one, and somewhat romantic final third of the show with the likes of Dollar, and the 60s medleys from Gidea Park and Tight Fit.

    The Tweets - I did like Legs & Co's schoolgirl outfits in all white, and their movements to go with it. Who was looking at the Tweets? Not me.

    The Creatures - Siouxie was back with Budgie, and with those same long leggy boots as she had in May with her hit "Spellbound". Yes we do know that she had a good figure, and worked it well once again. In terms of the song, it was quite unusual I must say, but you gotta hand it to her for being different and very effective once again, even as The Creatures this time.

    Ottawan - and more nice legs to follow Siouxie, with Legs & Co doing a nice number on Ottawan's single still at no.3.

    Bad Manners - copying Adam & The Ants by moving to video offering instead of studio performance. This video gets shown a lot on Vintage TV when they do 1981, as we come towards the end Bad Mannners catalogue of hits (thank goodness).

    Altered Images - I must say that when I first saw Claire Grogan on TV, my jaw dropped as to how pretty she was, and I thought it wasn't possible for anyone to be more pretty than her, so whatever she did after this debut single was popular with me.

    Ah, so now for the romantic part of the show - Dollar was always the love couple of TOTP and with costumes inspired by Adam & The Ants (or Queens Park Rangers for Theresa Bazaar), it just had all the elements of a couple very much in love.

    Gidea Park and Tight Fit, on either side of Dollar, brought the rest of the romantic element of the show all those 60s dreamy classics of summer sun, beach, sexy girls, being in love, etc. Excellent show in my opinion, capped by the debut of the gorgeous Claire Grogan!

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    1. The best Siouxie song I've seen on totp, the name change did them good. Interesting rhythms (sound African-like) and the vocal has more attitude than before. The previous stuff by them didn't impress me.

      The Dollar one has a catchy chorus with the production enhancing it. It's quite a simple short melody though, so I think I need to ration listens with that kind of song and maybe be in the mood for it, otherwise it could get annoying.

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  2. Continuing the recent tradition of kicking off a pretty good show with a load of rubbish, and only slightly less creepy than the Animal Kwackers, it's the Tweets. Gill has no one to dance with! I hope Patti was watching at home feeling guilty.

    Godley and Crème with their spooky tale, and Kev doing his mime act in an invisible box, only the glass is actually there.

    Wee Sheena with her heart outfit on, liking this more on second listen, it was nice to hear her try something with more pace on it.

    Teardrop Explodes, still love this though Julian has shown up in his pyjamas and has been banished to about twenty feet away from his band, who were apparently getting really sick of him by then (it's in his book).

    I suppose if you get the singer and the drummer from a rock band you would get a song that's mostly vocals and drums. Right Now is the one I remember, not this one.

    Think Lulu looks a bit manic during this Ottowan routine, probably shouldn't be let near a firearm.

    OK, who was expecting an imminent wardrobe malfunction when Toyah was pogoing? Didn't happen, but another amusing performance in a register slightly too high for her range.

    Bad Manners, a pity they didn't have nicer weather for their filming, which appears to have been inspired by the "Away you go!" bit at the end of We Are The Champions. Bet you get loads of pensioners at their gigs now.

    Another grown woman bouncing around like a three year old high on birthday cake, why it's Claire Grogan, fresh from being Gregory's Girl (the proper girl). Fiendishly catchy number, this.

    Then just as we were enjoying ourselves, Gidea Park to bring us back down to earth with a bump. If he was supporting the Beach Boys, what the hell was his material? How would the crowd react to a medley of Beach Boys tunes before the genuine article arrived on stage?

    After Dollar raise the tone again (not often DVD can do that) we have one of the weirdest number ones of the 80s, I'm really recalling how much I liked this as a kid with these repeats. Although I hadn't noticed how scared Adam looks on his chandelier swing before.

    Then to close, Mike Read demonstrates how difficult it is to clap your hands while holding a microphone.

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    1. I think he was supposed to be a member of The Beach Boys and The Four Seasons, but surely just when they were doing the nostalgia circuit and nothing more.

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    2. perhaps mr baker was on call to replace brian wilson whenever he was too spaced out to perform? in which case would have been most of the time. that reminds me of jeffrey bernard who used to write a regular magazine column for "the spectator". or to be more accurate, an irregular one due to his hard-drinking lifestyle that sometimes rendered him incapable of submitting copy. in which case the magazine had to produce an-otherwise blank page with the legend "jeffrey bernard is unwell". the phrase was much lampooned by "private eye" among others, to the point where a play of bernard's life under that title was actually staged in the west end (with ex-fellow boozehound peter o'toole playing bernard)

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    3. Brian Wilson actually stopped touring with The Beach Boys as early as 1964 - Glen Campbell filled in for a bit while Wilson retreated to the studio, before Bruce Johnston became his permanent replacement in the touring band.

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  3. shaky shakerson20 May 2016 at 10:12

    Its a Mike with a mic this week as Mr Read (sartorially-challenged in a how-the-hell-do-you-put-this-on? blue striped shirt) gets us under way with the awful Tweets. The only bit of interest here is The Leggers adding support in the background in lovely, short sailor outfits. This is the first of three ( count 'em - THREE!) appearance for the gals on this edition. ToTP getting their money's worth as their contract runs down.

    Godley & Creme reprise their previous performance. Virtually identical to last time out so why didn't they save themselves the bother and just repeat that? Like they did with Sheena?

    Teardrop Explodes with Julian wearing slippers and a couple of Che Guvara's men on brass duties.

    A weird, stumbling link into The Creatures next. Budgie gets all hyperkinetic on the drums while Siouxsie shows off her own equally impressive abilty - a fantastic pair of pins. I liked this and its held up quite well. Great drumming, great vocals, decent tune and a sudden stop. Good stuff.

    Leggers part 2 - and its a repeat of their Miss Kitty's Saloon routine to Ottawan. Looking at it again, there is an undercurrent of Pub Stripper in some of their moves here, and it seems weird that the guys in the audience weren't giving them more attention. Oh, and were the gunshots audible on the last appearance? I don't recall them.

    Toyah downs several glasses of Sunny Delight and a tube of blue Smarties before climbing on stage to rampage through Thunder In The Mountains. Now I have been quite disparaging about Miss Wilcox, pretty much from day one but this was good. This was very good. First off she looked tasty with her big Leonine red hair and that dress that threatened to slip down at any moment. Her performance too was more Rock School than Stage School. Her backing band looked suitably cool - the drummer aside. And to top it all the song was the best one of her career. The keyboard run reminded me a bit of The Days Of Pearly Spencer and the chorus had a nagging heard-it-somewhere-elseness about it too, but I really, really enjoyed it.

    As I did Bad Manners' Walking In The Sunshine. More of a properly constructed song than many of their others, it was helped along by a Madness-style video ( through which they must have suffered judging by the weather). This might have been a bigger hit had it been released three months earlier.

    The delightfully Pixie-like Claire Grogan and her band are up next. Had a crush on the sexy little moppet back in 81/82 although I'm not sure I could have put up with her squeaky little girl voice for too long. A nice captivating performance this, though. These were one of many Scottish bands to break through around this time.

    The Leggers part III giving their all behind Adrian Baker dressed in short silk belted thingies. (The girls, not Baker obvs) I'm sure he was off to JOIN the Beach Boys and not open for them, which would make more sense.)

    Read continues the countdown before announcing Dollar with some cryptic reference to Pamela Stephenson being in the papers a lot. Does anyone know what he was referring to? Was it just the popularity of NTNON at the time?

    Adam at number 1 and we play out with another medley. Regarding Prince Charming. If you take out the multi 'ah-way ah-hah' s at the beginning and the multi 'Prince Charming - ridicule is nothing to be scared of' at the arse end, then you are left with less than two minutes of actual song. And it would still be one minute thirty too long.

    Scores. Musically this wasn't half bad. The Tweets, Ottawan and the medleys were the low points; Toyah, Creatures, Bad Manners, Teardrop Explodes, Godley & Creme were all enjoyable. Plus we got three Leggers performances in thigh-revealing outfits, and a bit of thought put into the lighting for several of the acts. A worthwhile use of my time - 8.

    Mike Read. He is usually comfortable in front of the camera, but there were a few links here that stuttered and a couple where he did some weird arm/hand movement thing. A below-par 6.

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    1. Agreed about Siouxie's pins. I could imagine her in a shoe shop selling those sky-high boots, and if anyone was daring enough, they would ask her try them on instead. I think I would buy the entire stock if she could do so for me.

      In the case of Bad Manners, they were not really a video-making band, with the only exception being this one and Lorraine at the beginning of 1981. I don't think the rest of their catalogue had a video apart from these two songs.

      Also agreed about the crush on Claire Grogan. There was something pixie-like about her, which oozed sex appeal, and her music was just as good, especially this debut hit, played on many a birthday, just to be different to Stevie Wonder's overplayed version of the same title.

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  4. I think Legs & Co's Ottawan performance was edited compared to the first showing (removing Gill's solo spot and dancing with Anita at the front of the stage. I wonder if it was due to the fact that Gill's 'bend over' bit was particularly fruity!

    

Anyone know if it's a modern snip, or it had been re-cut in 1981?



    (The edit comes right before Sue does her bit of gun firing - you can see Gill about to cross over to the middle)

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    1. I would also be interested to know the answer if anyone can oblige.

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    2. Its listed I think on One For the Dads as being a shortened version of the routine ~ so it must've been cut at the time in 1981.

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  5. Hurrah for a day off and (for once) to be able to comment early on this one!

    Let's bypass The Tweets to Godley & Creme and I actually thought this was staged much better this time. The extensive dry ice and lighting to make it look like light flashing past a train window plus the (admittedly cheap) train carriage type set helped. So did the fact that we got fewer close-ups of the method acting.

    Sheena Easton's song is OK, it just needs a better singer to front it. And could Julian Cope make it any more obvious that his band was about to split?!

    Not keen on The Creatures song, it was good to see the Legs routine to Ottawan though. I don't remember the gunshots either, but they were very amusing.

    Thunder In The Mountains is Toyah's best song I think. Not that one of my fellow presenters at a radio station I worked for agreed. He walked in when I was playing it and in reply to the lyric 'Can you hear it breaking through?' he replied "No, all I can hear is your dreadful voice!"

    And on that note I think I will split my posts into two for a change....

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  6. Part 2 then....

    Bad Manners - I also think this is their best one. Very underplayed, and I always wondered why they released it outside of Summer. However, the video matches the October weather (probably, I don't remember what it was like in 1981!) even though they clearly had to superimpose rain on one of the shots!
    I wonder which godawful Butlins or Pontins that was filmed at? Did anyone else spy the poster advertising Rose Marie (mystifyingly popular with biddies in the 80s) at the front of the stage?
    Oh, and minus points for hacking out a verse.

    Altered Images - Now, I was another who LOVED Clare (note the spelling, folks!) Grogan. But this is not exactly their finest moment and not a song I enjoy much now.
    By the way, was it me or did it look like there was a whacking great edit between this and Mike Read introducing the charts?

    What Mike Read SHOULD have said when introducing Gidea Park was "If you're wondering where the rest of his band was, he doesn't need them as he's SUCH a big-head"

    Quite right that Dollar got another airing. And after the No.1, a very short spot of dancing over credits this time.

    A good show in all, though Mike Read was a bit all over the place - mind you, he hadn't presented a show for ages had he?

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    1. is that the same rose marie that used to pop up on various daytime telly shows in the 90's?

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    2. Noax - it so happens that the Peter Davison Doctor Who story Black Orchid had its location shoot a few days after this episode was transmitted. Despite the fact it was October, they were filming scenes involving a cricket match and a summer drinks party on the terrace of a posh house. I think the weather just about held for the cricket, but filming of the drinks party was interrupted by strong winds and driving rain!

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    3. wilberforce - I would assume so! She was one of those 'light ent' people who sold countless copies of albums but never had a hit single. If she'd been around in the 70s she'd have been a cert for a Pops appearance.

      John G - Funny you should mention Doctor Who, as Buster & Co rising from the sea reminded me of that famous scene from The Sea Devils!!

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    4. Rose Marie had one top 75 hit, "When I Leave The World Behind", a number 63 smash in 1983.

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  7. host: mr read with his usual "oh, i'm not that keen on this pop lark, you know" routine - which comes in specially handy when introducing acts like the tweets. and he seems determined to make his hair as bouffant as possible, even though it's hardly at the cutting edge (ho ho) of the then-current fashions (but maybe he was inspired by adrian baker?)

    tweets: what a shame they didn't follow this up with the electronica's version. perhaps some telly screens might have been kicked-in as a result?

    godley & creme: did mr godley do his marcel marceau routine the last time they were on? i gave this a bit more attention this time and noticed the track was drum-free, which makes it all a bit eery. but as when it was a hit, i thought the best bits were the synthy interludes at the end of each verse

    teardrop explodes: or is it THE teardrop explodes? i believe that was what the speech bubble actually said in the original marvel cartoon strip julian cope got the band's name from. it's slightly annoying when some bands have the definitive article at some times and not others i.e. the sweet/sweet. still, i don't suppose anybody ever referred to the the as simply "the"? from mr read's intro i actually thought mr cope was performing solo, and it wasn't for some time that i realised the rest of the band were cunningly interspersed in the audience. the bouncing bassist has (i think) been replaced by original keyboard player dave balfe (who looks very much like he's smoked something in the dressing rooms beforehand). who i believe had formally left the band by this time due to differences with mr cope, but somewhat strangely continued managing them...

    (the) creatures: i've never cared much for tribal drumming on pop records, so this was never going to do it for me. all this proves is how important banshees guitarist john mcgeoch was in the scheme of things

    ottawan/legs: i really liked the costumes, and (as i've said before) i find the music pleasant enough these days. so no complaints

    toyah: her other hit singles weren't much cop to my ears, but in their defence at least they had some kind of memorable hook in them. unlike this rubbish. another single from this time whose success could well have been down to the video, where ms wilcox rides around on some sort of chariot in a "mad-max"-style post-apocalyptic world

    bad manners: the song is not one of their best, and the video is very much inspired by madness (as is their entire oeuvre, to be honest). but with none of their panache

    altered images: i never understood the fuss about clare grogan - yes, she had a cute scottish accent, but that apart was somewhat scrawny-looking and (like toyah) obviously couldn't carry a tune in a bucket. and her gang of gorbals slum rats never appealed to me either. the best thing about this was the drummer's checkerboard kit!

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    1. Her dancing is fun in Happy Birthday. She looks better with that hat off. The hat seems to play into the far eastern theme we had with Japanese Boy, though this time I think it's more south east Asia, more Viet style than Japanese.

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  8. Imagination now reached a peak of No.16 this week before the slide, and the two appearances on TOTP were only studio performances. So what of the video which we never saw?

    Suffice to say that surprise surprise, it contained a harem of beauties, in bikinis this time worshiping Lee John and his team. Not bad and a good video for the effort put in, so worth a look, as we say to goodbye to this second hit of theirs:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tsutJtvHHII

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  9. This edition was originally broadcast on the day I turned 2, so it was very nice of Altered Images to come on and wish me a happy birthday, though I strongly suspect I was in bed by then! Unfortunately, it's not a song I care for too much. The musicianship's good, but Clare Grogan's babyish vocals and winsome little girl stage act get on my nerves - I never liked her when she used to pop up (mercifully briefly) as Kochanski in Red Dwarf.

    It was nice to see Patti back in the Legs fold, dancing with The Tweets and Adrian Baker, as the girls embark on their final TOTP furlong. I notice Mr Baker pulled the same trick he did with Beach Boy Gold, in appearing first with a group and then going solo the second time around, just to remind everyone that he was the evil mastermind behind these turgid medleys!

    Following on from Kevin Godley completing his latest method acting class, and Julian Cope modelling his dubious taste in nightwear, The Creatures provide the first new music of the evening. I don't know what prompted Siouxsie and Budgie to launch this side project, but the drumming was certainly hypnotic, even if the song itself was a little underwhelming. Rather to my surprise, given my dislike of her mannered theatricality, I enjoyed Toyah a lot more. This was a stronger, more melodic effort than her previous hits, and I couldn't help smiling at that ludicrous hairdo - perhaps it helped to insulate Toyah from the lightning bolts that were striking her throughout this performance...

    Bad Manners also delivered a song here that was musically a cut above some of their previous offerings, and I guess the weather on that beach fitted the ironic intentions of the video. It certainly looked cold, though Buster is so well insulated that he was probably in no danger of catching a chill however long he stayed in the sea!

    It was good to have Mike Read back after another long absence - had he fallen out with Michael Hurll again? He was his normal laid back and informative self, apart from one dodgy moment when he told us The Creatures had been performing "Mad Eyed Dreamer." His dancing to Tight Fit at the end left a lot to be desired though - I notice a couple of Tweets were joining in again too...

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    1. I find the Toyah one less melodic, the chorus depends on the production to boost it. Up to then it sounds promising, but the chorus surely isn't as catchy as 'I Want to be Free' for instance.

      I liked the break in the Bad Manners but the rest not so much.

      The Creatures song to me seemed to have more edge than what I'd heard from the Banshees, I suppose that could appeal to a different audience (like me). A barer sound maybe, but it gives the music more energy. And I didn't feel the atmosphere that much on earlier hits.

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    2. didn't clare grogan once play a receptionist in "crossroads"?

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    3. I counted three Tweets dancing along at the end, one of them must have had a hissy fit and refused to appear.

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  10. With this being the last appearance by Sheena Easton on this song, and failing to break the top 30 with only two studio appearances and no video shown, the video for it is quite good with three men giving her a helping hand.

    In a way, it was a reverse of Imagination where Leee John brought in three girls for his video. It was perhaps at this point in Sheena's career where Prince started to take notice, and later fly her across to the USA do do some work with him on his videos.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QDgNIUaOqAU

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  11. In that get up Mike Read looks a bit like Nana Moukouri, drop the high-necked striped blouse love, it isn't working.

    The Tweets return for a second performance, not that it was a lot different from the first. My favourite is the drummer because of the dungarees and the way he convincingly bashes the skins. I wonder if any of them are Simon Cowell dressed up? Anyone? The addition of Legs seems a little pointless as most of the audience were doing the dance anyway - "with a little bit of this, and a little bit of that and wiggle your bum - clap! clap! clap! clap!".

    Another new performance from Kevin and Lol. I liked this a lot back in 1981 and bought the single having been a fan since I saw the video for An Englishman In New York on TV in 1979. This is perhaps better than the first performance with Kevin employing better theatrics by clawing at the window and Lol ignoring him. Someone had to clean those finger marks off that glass you know!

    TOTP burps up a Sheena Easton repeat and a very unwelcome one. I especially don't like those strange discordant whistling noises in the middle eight. But perhaps that is the sound of a heart breaking. Or a career stalling?.

    This is more like it, The Teardrop Explodes or is it Copey going solo. No the rest of the band are there but Jools seems to have bad B.O. and is confined to an area behind the crowd who pay him no attention at all and he likes it that way. This is an unusual set up and was probably influenced by some past pop show, possibly involving Scott Walker who Mike read name checks at the start of the song. Drummer Gary Dwyer's flat top was looking really good by this point and not long after this I went to a barbers in Brixton (which was reccomended in The Face) to have a similar cut.

    Then the Creatures with the short-but-sweet Mad Eyed Screamer. I like the fact that two members of a band decided to do a solo project. I didn't buy it but I thought it was good and the follow up.

    Then repeated Legs as gun-toting, rooting tooting Wild West act for Ottowan, the crowd double as cowboys and a few girls and it works apart from the distracting crowd noise. Why do they do that? Are the crowd really talking all the way through this or is it dubbed on for some reason, the reason being to make it sound shit?

    A powerful display from Toyah with some superb lightening effects (but sadly no thunder) and the band posing liker mad but shrouded in dry ice so we can't quite see them posing. Not a bad song but the novelty was starting to wear off a bit by this point.

    Bad Manners on video, albeit edited - brilliant! I don't remember seeing this at the time. Clearly filmed on a cold, cloudy day but that all helps the fun of it and the band are good sports diving in what must have been an icy cold sea. I like the old people dancing in the bandstand at the end. This song is unusual because it has an instrumental middle section which is almost a minute long. The only thing is they have cut of the second verse, possibly because of the bit in the vid where Buster is buried up to his neck in sand. Maybe they thought viewers would copy it although you'd need a beach and a big hole to do so.

    Ah Altered Images. I loved Clare Grogan back in 1981, she was everything that Toyah wasn't. Happy Birthday was a breath of fresh air and one of then highlights of 1981.

    Gidea Park looks wrong without the rest of his band but nice to hear a snatch of Who Loves You at the end which we didn't hear last time. I wonder if this helped kill the sales of Barry Manilow's Let's Hang On or helped it?

    Dollar get another bite of the cherry even though they're a low non-mover, what about showing Star Sound? And this repeat highlights that Theresa had a bigger bulge in her trousers than David and what a rotten mimer the drummer is getting ready to hit the drum every time he's on camera.

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    1. It's cos Claire Grogan didn't have that bloody lisp that put me off Toyah!

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    2. i would have described the creatures as a side-project rather than a solo one. i think siouxsie and budgie had become "an item" by then, so i wonder how the other banshees felt about the pair doing their own thing?

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    3. It seems that The Creatures were an experiment for her and Budgie to show of his fine drumming skills and her fine pins, as she was then to return to Siouxie & The Banshees for her 1982 work before resurrecting The Creatures in 1983.

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  12. Part II:

    The Top Ten and then Adam still at the top spot. I've had enough of that video now. Sad to see Soft Cell and OMD dropping this week.

    Play out with another medley and The Tweets join in with the dancing again.

    All-in-all a superb show apart from Gidea Park and Sheena who I could have lived without. More please!

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  13. Good God, four new editions on the blog since Thursday! This really is becoming more of a job or chore than a dip-in-and-enjoy hobby.

    Mike, I really hadn’t been waiting all week to mime this Tweets shit! Loved the Leggers’ grin-and-bear-it showbiz smiles, and why weren’t they front stage with the Hellspawn of Orville at the back instead?

    Ah, Godley and Creme, with the return of both the shut-eyed vocal delivery (for the most part) and Kev’s mic in a different timezone. Liked the train carriage décor and Kev’s attempt to outdo Marcel Marceau. Loved the song, of course.

    I forgot to say last time round that Sheena’s top should have had just the one heart in the correct biological place, and split in two to match the song title. The thin lyric chorus let down a perfectly acceptable song. Nice to see Sheena’s beaming thanks to the crowd after the song, except probably for thatgurner at 7:24 in the show.

    Talk about distancing yourself from your band. Jules is way back there on the old style seating and, again, a bit of a debate as to who should be at the front in my opinion.

    Budgie’s a superb drummer, and this Creatures effort was like punk meets world music. Siouxsie not wearing all black shock horror and showing those pins off to fine effect again. Second time I’ve seen her recently, as she was shown in earlier punk garb in that “EMI Inside Story” programme.

    Wahay! A re-run of that Bums & Co routine. Shame about Ottawan’s aural tripe.

    Never mind thunder in the mountains, there’s a hole in the ozone layer after Toyah’s hairspray efforts. The best she’s looked imagewise thus far, mind. File music comment under Ottawan.

    Loved the Bad Manners video, complete with the rolling snare drums which must have taken a while to get right, the bandstand oldies in the audience smiling and that kid thinking “WTF?”. I wonder if the band deliberately waited for a rubbish day for filming in order to counteract the song’s lyrics?

    Ah, Clare Grogan, the object of Craig Charles’s desire in “Red Dwarf”. The first Altered Images single not to be produced by The Banshees’ Steve Severin – probably considered too poppy for him after the band’s first two darker singles?

    See notes for Ottawan and The Tweets and you’ll get my views on Gidea Park and the Leggers.

    The booming operatic vocals of Thereze Bazar again. Apparently, David van Day was on the stage too. I didn’t notice him.

    We round proceedings off with Mike impersonating DLT in the “I’ll see you on the radio tomorrow” stakes and mimicking Lulu by singing at the start of the dreadful outro medley. Another ‘bag of Revels’ show for me – some great, some okay, some were the equivalent of the coffee and orange ones!

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    2. I must admit that apart from Siouxie's fine pins, it was good to see her outside of the usual creepy black attire, and in a nice light blue dress (or top by the looks of it) with The Creatures.

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    3. so that's what steve severin was up to whilst budgie and siouxsie worked on their little side-project (in siouxsie's case, obviously so she could just keep showing off her "pins"!)

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  14. Two Glasgow lassies, a Brummie lass, a London lass and lots of Legs.

    The music was quite good as well.

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  15. I admit it, I am hopelessly adrift with these shows but I did ‘watch’ this one the other day… It holds the record for the most FF I have ever done on a TOTP show, so represents for me, an absolute nadir.

    I started off with the Tweets which I didn’t FF as I find it so hilariously funny. There is something about grown men dressed up in costumes and young girls doing all the actions which makes me laugh as much as….well the Parrot Sketch obviously.

    I enjoyed Godley and Crème with Kev looking like he was trying to escape from that cubicle thingy whilst opening his eyes a little more than last time.

    Then came the FF. Sheena Easton (awful song), Teardrop Explodes (trying to break Gillan’s record for the most TOTP appearances with a record that didn’t crack the Top 20), Creatures (awful din and just weird, and Budgie is surely a nod to the Birdie Song?), Ottawan (an insipid and dreadful recording that they couldn’t even persuade legs & Co to perform a new dance to), Toyah (quite a frightening racket), Bad Manners (please……no more!!!), Altered Images (“if I hear one more time how good Clare Grogan was in ‘Gregory’s Girl I’ll thcream and thcream!!”), Gidea Park (another medley!!! again!!).

    I finally called a halt to FF on Dollar ‘cos I quite like this song and Dollar are cool, even if it is a repeat, and btw Trevor Horn joined Yes on stage the other week at the RAH to sing ‘Tempus Fugit’.

    And then it was back to the FF with Adam and the Ants and Tight fit.

    Shortest show I’ve ever watched! Glad to get that off my chest.

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