Squeezing into the charts
08/10/87 (Gary Davies & Mike Smith)
Jellybean featuring Steven Dante – “The Real Thing” (29)
Making his studio debut and peaking at number 13.
Kiss – “Crazy Crazy Nights” (12) (video)
Became their first of two top ten hits when it peaked at number 4.
Jan Hammer – “Crockett’s Theme” (5) (rpt from 24/09/87)
Peaked at number 2.
Erasure – “The Circus” (21)
Became their third of sixteen top ten hits when it peaked at number 6.
LL Cool J – “I Need Love” (9) (US TOTP clip)
Went up one more place.
Steve Walsh – “I Found Lovin’” (22)
Became his only top ten hit when it peaked at number 9.
M/A/R/R/S – “Pump Up The Volume” (1) (video/credits)
Second and final week at number one.
Back to BBC4 next week with October 15th. Phew!
A great big thanks to the uploaders Robert Thompson and Neil B for the four missing episodes. Great work.
ReplyDeleteI'll second that.
ReplyDelete* Adds his appreciation and buys Robert and Neil a virtual pint each, with the promise of making it a real one should we ever meet *
DeleteSteve Walsh made a relatively good performance of I found Lovin', although not as good as The Fatback Band's version in the same chart. According to Wikipaedia, Walsh died the following summer in July 1988 after a car crash in Ibiza while filming a music video, when he suffered a heart attack following surgery back in Britain, at the age of only 29.
ReplyDeleteFirst of all, I would like to add my thanks to Robert and Neil B for supplying these downloads so swiftly, and to Angelo for his normal promptitude in posting the links. Thankfully we should never find ourselves having to skip so many shows again, though there are still seven more that BBC4 will have to jump over before we finally see the back of Smitty. He and Gazza hardly spent any time on screen together this week - perhaps by now they were sick of the sight of each other! Gazza encourages his co-host to do his silly voice again, but Smitty's heart doesn't really seem to be in it this time. Still, overall they proved to be an effective duo over these four shows, with Smitty's excesses reined in notably.
ReplyDeleteHaving been instrumental in Madge's rise to fame, as well as being her lover, John "Jellybean" Benitez now made his own grab for the limelight, though his chart success would be short-lived. He shows himself to be quite a charismatic performer here, with more than a hint of Terence Trent D'Arby about him in hairstyle and fashion sense, if not so much in his voice; it looks as if he foxed the director by lying down on the stage at one point, as the camera didn't move with him and he ended up obscured behind the backing singers! This is a decent pop-dance tune as well, with a small touch of house to the production, and it's an early example of the soon-to-be-ubiquitous "featuring" credit. I don't really know anything about Steven Dante, but presumably he's the guy on the keyboards - according to Wikipedia, he later provided vocals for the dreaded Lighthouse Family...
Kiss next, a band who had hitherto not made much impact in Britain and wouldn't do all that much chartwise thereafter. An obvious inspiration for the hair metal bands, it was perhaps appropriate that they should score a big hit at this point, though this attempt to evoke the excitement of a live show feels too calculated to press all the right buttons for the listener to appeal much to me. The video is your bog-standard pretend concert affair, though suitably so in this case, and it shows that the band were no longer using make-up by this point - shame they couldn't keep their tongues in, too! Wisely, the repeated Jan Hammer performance gets some Miami Vice clips spliced into it this time, which makes you wonder why they didn't do that two weeks earlier.
Erasure next, with another of their lesser-played hits. It's not bad, but never quite catches fire, and I think the circus-style sound effects have something to do with that, detracting from the serious, socially-conscious lyrics. Andy looks a little uncomfortable standing on the spot with that squeezebox, but perhaps he and Vince felt the subject matter of the song meant it wasn't appropriate for him to be prancing around on this occasion. We then get a taste of TOTP USA, whose Stateside host Nia Peeples was a singer and actress who had previously appeared in Fame. This LL Cool J hit is from the softer end of the rap spectrum, making it more bearable as a result, and you have to hand it to Mr Cool J, he has that audience eating out of the palm of his hand. The nodding posse behind perhaps detract a bit, as they look faintly comical, though I'm sure they thought they were being "street."
LL Cool J apparently stands for "Ladies Love Cool J"
DeleteLadies Love Cool James (for that is his name) actually, I recall.
Deletei wonder once the lighthouse family started having hits, if the sales of mogadon drastically dropped accordingly?
Deletethe "featuring" credit reminds of of the tom browne hit "funkin' for jamaica (ny)" a few years earlier, where he got sole credit despite not doing any singing on the record. or even a proper trumpet solo for that matter, just a bit of parping at the beginning and end! as such i wouldn't be surprised if the actual singer (whom most people never knew the name of - i certainly didn't until many years later) was a bit miffed about it? so although putting stuff like "featuring so-and-so" does make things a bit of a mouthful, i agree with the old saying "credit where credit's due"
DeleteSteven is the singer. the guy on keyboards is Jellybean,
DeleteSteven had nothing to do with Lighthouse Family, That was Tunde and Paul, and they have just got back together.
Delete...everybody get their jim jams on then!
DeleteMorgie, as I understand it Steven did provide additional vocals for The Lighthouse Family, though as you say he was not actually a member.
DeletePart 2: It had been very common back in the 50s for two or more versions of the same song to be in the charts simultaneously, but much more rare by this time. By rights we should probably have heard the Fatback Band version of I Found Lovin, as it was higher in the charts, but Steve Walsh was doubtless much more readily available. No surprise to learn that he was a DJ, as he certainly doesn't look like your average pop star, but like LL Cool J he can work the crowd, albeit in a more irritating, in-yer-face kind of way. I can't say his version of the song did much for me, but I suppose he was pointing the way towards the superstar hit-making DJs of the future here. Sad to learn he died not long after this appearance, though given his unhealthy girth here it is perhaps not altogether surprising that he suffered a heart attack. MARRS get relegated to the playout once more - not sure why they never actually performed in the studio, given that they did turn up on short-lived rival ITV show The Roxy.
ReplyDeleteIncidentally, I see the Full Metal Jacket theme never got a play on the show, even though it reached number 2. A quick listen on YT confirms that is no great loss...
ReplyDeleteYeah, I don't know how it got to No.2, cos it is mainly a drumkit sound, with no video for TOTP to show, so no wonder it got no play:
Deletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1OmIYK7k03Y
I'm very glad indeed that they haven't bothered with that awful 3 minutes of shouting. For that's what it is, you can't call it a tune....
DeleteAw, how can you not enjoy a hit with R. Lee Ermey on lead vocals?! RIP Mr Ermey. Abigail Mead was the daughter of Stanley Kubrick, who directed Full Metal Jacket.
DeleteHey John....I wrote my review today (30/04) in complete ignorance of your words....but I see that we're in perfect accord!
DeleteThanks to the uploaders and to Angelo for making these available on one of the few weeks where I've been fortunate enough to have time to get through them all. Now, do we get a 'I survived the Mike Smith marathon' T-shirt?
ReplyDeleteJellybean / Steven Dante - Jellybean managed 4 hits that all peaked at roughly the same position in less than 12 months! I like this much more now than I did at the time - I recall Steven Dante being much hyped but sadly (as he's got a good voice) he only managed one solo hit.
Kiss - I remember there being a big hoo-ha about the make-up being removed. Having had some terrible rock on the show recently, I must say that I do really like this.
Erasure - Probably the best of the singles from the album of the same name, just as political as all of The Style Council's browbeating tunes but because they weren't 'cool' they got zero credit for it.
LL Cool J - Sickly and horrid.
Steve Walsh - YOU WOT? Ironic that he was covering a Fatback Band song given the size of his gut. I remember this being a big deal at the time, not that I was old enough to go to clubs.
Phew. Now time for a long rest.
jellybean/steven dante: all i could remember of his "solo" efforts was his cover of "jingo", but although this still rings no bells with me it's a more-than-okay bash at what was becoming known as the chigaco house sound (even though i think jellybean was actually a new yorker), with a decent tune to boot. i wonder who's idea it was for jellybean to emerge from behind the keyboards to take the spotlight to do some air-cabasa - his, or the producer's? as someone else here says, mr dante has an impressive set of pipes. so why was he a flop whilst the inferior luther van dross cleaned up in the late 80's/early 90's soul crooner stakes?
ReplyDeletekiss: they always intrigued me when they presented themselves as made-up superheroes (didn't marvel or dc actually briefly publish a comic book series with them as the protagonists?), but musically what little i'd heard did little if anything for me. so once the panstick got removed there was nothing of interest left (btw does anyone else remember that they all released a solo album in blighty on the same day, even though unlike in their homeland they struggled to shift units even as a band?). however i've always found gene simmons a magnetic personality (regardless of his hardcore republican stance), and really enjoyed watching him in those "rock school" reality shows he did a few years back
erasure: oh look, it's yet another of their many hits that no one remembers now
llcoolj: ladies may love cool james, but i don't! rap is crap to me whether it's the in-yer-face variety as by the likes of run dmc, or more laid back stuff like this
steve walsh: it's becoming a sign of the mass-producing times when recent shows have featured porker pop stars such as los lobos, levert and (of course) the fat boys. here mr walsh adds his considerable weight to that recent phenomenon with his note-for-note copy of what i thought was an excellent 80's club/dance track by old funk favourites the fatback band back then (apart from the excruciating live spoken bits, he even sounds like the original singer). by chance i found out recently that the original cretinous soulboy "woh-oh" chant (modified here as "you what") was from a late 70's effort by none other than larry "codpiece" blackmon and his chums
marrs: i'll just say here that although it's not in the same league as the best of disco and early/mid 80's club/dance music, this is still much more preferable to anything dominated by (c)rappers
Looks like I got Jellybean and Steven Dante mixed up - whoops...
DeleteThe Fatback Band were not fat at all, and will at last be in the TOTP studio on the next show, ie, 15th Oct '87 which will get played by BBC4. It is a bit odd that TOTP invited Steve Walsh first, considering that both versions were climbing up the charts at the same time!
DeleteKISS did indeed have a Marvel comic, which had the unique selling point of including the band's blood in its ink!
DeleteThey also did a TV movie called KISS meets the Phantom of the Park, which is about as kitsch as it's possible to get, and supposedly embarrasses the band to talk about. Good.
That said, the official KISS movie Detroit Rock City is surprisingly enjoyable, maybe because the band aren't in it that much, and bravely gets a dig in at their anti-disco stance of the late 70s - just before releasing their own disco hit. Hypocrites!
without looking, am i right that in the kiss comic strip movie the villain was played by anthony zerbe?
Deletei was also wondering: when kiss came out with their egotistical folly of each member releasing solo albums on the same day, what were the percentage splits of sales (however few there might have been)? my guess would be:
gene simmons 50%
ace frehley 24%
paul stanley 24%
peter criss 2%
Anthony Zerbe, absolutely correct! Though he might prefer if you forgot about his participation...
DeleteJellybean was a celebrity producer of the 80s, but he was kind of SAW looking back in that he had a formula he stuck to, especially on his solo hits like this one. This is OK, I suppose, pretty production line, though, and Mr Dante elects to take a rest halfway through - if we're keeping you up, don't mind us, Steve.
ReplyDeleteKISS with their big UK hit, though they had been a phenomenon since the 1970s in the US. It was all very panto even without the makeup, and too high for Paul Stanley, sorry, "Starchild" to sing comfortably, making it a bit of a strain to listen to. As for the video, all I recalled was the tongue. Around this time Gene Simmons had starred in US James Bond rip-off Never Too Young to Die as a hermaphrodite villain wearing Cher's old costumes. Ever the showman, I guess.
Jan Hammer, with the reason people bought this - the TV show clips. It certainly wasn't because they thought Jan was an irresistible hunk of man. Incidentally, don't pass up a chance to watch Death Drug starring Tubbs, aka Philip Michael Thomas, it's unintentionally hilarious. Don still has a successful acting career, Phil, erm, not so much...
Erasure, at last Andy has something to do with his hands. An oompah band sound was the last thing anyone expected from this pair, but they pull it off thanks to the serious intent and commentary on Fatcher's Britain, it shouldn't succeed, but it does. Best as a one-off experiment, mind you.
LL Cool J, well it's a long way from Mama Said Knock You Out, no wonder his hardcore fans booed him when he would try to perform this live. This was the first rap single Peter Powell liked, he would play it at every opportunity on his weekend show. As it is, watching the footage here is more amusing for the wrong reasons - J has a big fan in the audience, I notice, she knows all the words! It's not very good, no wonder it isn't revived, but it did make me laugh, so that's entertainment I suppose, and at least he's respectful towards his girlfriend in the lyrics - not every rapper was that affectionate.
Steve Walsh, yes, a shame he died so young, but his records were horrendous, he could sing but insisted in interrupting the song with his crowd baiting and demands for call and response. I suppose it would be all right in a club, but for pity's sake nowhere else!
M/A/R/R/S to end on, reminding me of the 1990s late night TV show The Trip which ripped off this video and added dance music to the soundtrack in much the same way. As I suffered insomnia back then, it was a good watch (and listen) in the wee small hours of Sunday morning, and I bought the tie-in CD too. Jacques Peretti was behind it, now of incisive TV documentaries fame. Funnily enough, Armand Van Helden's video for Coochy was very similar, and sampled and scratched the riff from Gary Numan's Cars which we saw in this run of Smitty episodes. But that's in the future...
Lastly, many thanks to the sterling work of the uploaders for filling these gaps!
thx thanks for letting us know about those schlock movies featuring gene simmons and tubbs - i've bookmarked them to hopefully check out later as i'm partial to a bit of 80's film cheese. the gene simmons one also featured prince's protegee vanity, who never made it over here as a pop star despite that connection. plus rather amusingly, one of the support cast has a part as "sacrificed punkette"!
ReplyDeleteas for tubbs' partner: yes i suppose don is still working, but at a considerably lower level since his "miami vice" days (i think like david caruso and a few others he tried to re-launch his movie career as a result of being the star of a popular tv series, but failed miserably). i remember he later churned out some dreary by-numbers cop series titled after his character that i tried watching when it was broadcast on late-night itv about 15-20 years ago. that was certainly a good cure for insomnia!
I think Don was Nash Bridges? Sounds like a dental complaint. But he's been doing very nicely for himself as a sort of second division Kurt Russell. Dead Bang is not a bad action thriller he starred in during his heyday, quite eccentric in an enjoyable way, though as you say, not a hit.
DeleteWell I whizzed through most of this! Thanks again for the download however.
ReplyDeleteJellybean etc – The Real Thing – I could get by without this so I did…
Kiss – Crazy crazy Nights – First time on ToTP? They’ been trying to hype this lot for years with all their gaudy make up but they look just like any other long haired rock band here. The song is Ok, nothing special but above average for this particular show.
Jan Hammer – Crockett’s Theme – Doing what they should have done the first time; interspersing some Miami Vice footage with Jan and his keyboards. Best track on here.
Erasure – The Circus – Curious song that I’m never really sure I like that much. Above average here.
LL Cool J – I need love – Simply awful.
Steve Walsh – I found lovin’ – Was he as popular as it appeared? I preferred the Fatback Band’s version actually without all that ‘do what’ stuff narrated over the top.
Mars – Pump up the Volume – Nobody has pointed out that this was actually listed as a double A Side with ‘Anitina (the first time I see she dance)’. I have no idea whether that is better than the familiar noise, but I haven’t got the willpower to find out.
‘Full Metal Jacket (I wanna be your drill instructor)’ by Abigail Mead and Nigel Goulding (no2 in this chart) seems to be getting the Billy Joel treatment. I realised I hadn’t even heard it before so I gave it a spin…. No loss.
Ah well back to BBC4 and the Bee Gees next week. What a marathon reviewing few days this has been!
You'll be pleased to know that the Fatback Band will be appearing on the next TOTP show (15th Oct), and yes, also in the TOTP studio, a week after Steve Walsh's appearance. Could you imagine if they were invited onto the same week's show instead of keeping them apart on different shows?
DeleteSteve Walsh used to present the Saturday night dance show on my local radio station in the mid eighties. He'd long gone by the time this track came out, but it would probably explain why they gave the song so much airtime.
DeleteTwo in a row from Gary and Smithy and 2 in a row doing the ironing this morning.
ReplyDeleteJellybean. Hooray. I did like a lot of his stuff at the time and this means we are well on the way to "Just A Mirage" which is one of my fave 80s songs.
Jellybean was much bigger in the US and I assume the singer is there version of Haddaway. 😀
KISS with the very radio friendly Crazy Nights. A bit like Valerie last week, heard it too many times to get excited about it.
Why why why have they asked baldy synth guy back. At least they have mixed it up with footage of the TV show. Sorry TOTP but this is playout material only. My word Miami Vice was massive wasn't it. On too late for me as a kid so never watched it but all the cool kids did (or the kids with Dad's who didn't care what their kids were to to, as my Dad put it)
Help me out here group. Steve Walsh. Who???
ERASURE. Odd little tune this. Never quite got it at the time but has grown on me over the years. I can see ALF singing this as part of Yazoo. Wonder if she's ever covered it. 😀
Hello Nia. Welcome to the UK TOTP. Now rap music I can take it or leave it. I like some of it, I hate a lot of it. I think when done well it can be really good "Eminem with Stan is an emotional roller-coaster" but there is a LOT of cRAP out there.
This is one of the better ones. Very chilled out. Great performance as well.
LL Cool J such a big US star. Rappers never quite as big over here.
OMG. Its Steve Walsh. Where the bloody hell did he come from. He even has flags in the audience. 😀 Not short of confidence is he. 😀 😀 😀
This is cabaret. Why is he miming when he has a live mic. Oh dear. This is shit. Get me out of here..
MARRS still at the top but no sign of the number 2 record. I'm sure there was a video for this...
Well that was an interesting show. Hmmm.