https://we.tl/2T4QjKa868
Darn it - Yewtreed yet again!
06/08/81 (hosted by Jimmy Savile)
(16) Dexys Midnight Runners – “Show Me”
At its peak now in the charts.
(8) Sheena Easton – “For Your Eyes Only” (video)
Sheena's third and final top ten hit, now at its peak.
(36) Tenpole Tudor – “Wunderbar”
The follow up to Swords of a Thousand Men, made it to number 16 but was their final top 40 hit.
(27) Lobo – “The Caribbean Disco Show”
Again there are three medleys on this edition, Legs & Co take on the first of them, making pretty much their own video for the song, and it was obviously quite hot on set....
The record by the way made it to number 8 and was the band's only hit.
(29) The Human League – “Love Action (I Believe In Love)”
We've been so unlucky this year with the Human League constantly appearing on these yewtreed shows. One of the songs of the year, this became the band's first top ten hit when it made number 3.
(25) REO Speedwagon – “Take It On The Run” (live clip)
Nudging up to its number 19 peak.
(20) Gidea Park – “Beach Boy Gold”
The second of this week's medleys, still heading towards number 11.
(10) Tight Fit – “Back To The ‘60s” (rpt from 23/07/81)
And here's medley number 3, heading towards number 4.
(1) Shakin’ Stevens – “Green Door” (video)
Second of four weeks at number one.
(21) Visage – “Visage” (audience dancing/credits)
We end with Visage at its chart peak.
So next up then on BBC4 will be August 13th 1981 with Simon Bates.
Thanks again to Darnall for putting this on WeTransfer. In truth this is a pretty underwhelming show for the most part, with few new songs on display amidst the medley avalanche. Jim'll, sporting an enormous cap and very short shorts, appears to be thoroughly bored and is on auto-pilot throughout, displaying zero interest in the music on offer - it's a sharp contrast to his performance on the 900th edition. At one point he mentions that he had just been talking to Keith Chegwin's brother, but that was presumably in a link lost to the UK Gold ad breaks - not too long now before we start seeing Cheggers' sister presenting the show! Interesting that, in the chart rundowns, Jim'll tells us how many places the climbers have risen but does not do the same for the fallers.
ReplyDeleteAt least we get a new Dexys performance to start with, though it isn't particularly different from their previous appearance - I assume the next time we see them now they will have transformed into their fiddle-laden gypsy incarnation. Ed Tudor-Pole looks rather scary in that white make-up, but for all the flamboyant staging Wunderbar is a mediocre follow-up to their previous hit, seeming largely to consist of shouting out the title over and over again, in the hope it might become some kind of terrace anthem.
As Angelo mentions, the Legs routine this week felt more like a video than a simple dance to the record. Nice use of CSO backdrops, but this felt very bitty, and all I could remember about the choreography afterwards was the frequent carrying around of that giant banana! As for the record itself, it seems there was an evil group of masterminds out there trying to create a medley out of every genre. I suppose alighting on calypso was another way of extending the reach of the never-ending 50s revival, too.
The Human League, naturally, are the best thing on the show, and I was amused by Adrian Wright's dinky little synth - I wonder if he actually played anything on the record? I've mentioned before that this is probably my least favourite track on Dare. I've always found it a little dull, but it's still a glossy and accomplished record, and I do like the "this is Phil talking" line.
No surprise to see a green door feature prominently in Shaky's video, and interesting to see that Adrian Baker didn't bother to bring along the rest of the band for this new performance of Beach Boy Gold - were they unavailable, or did he just want the limelight to himself?
Shakin's Green Door, and now in the midst of a fantastic 1981 for him so far, and first airing of the video on TOTP. You could imagine that all hell would have broken loose if the door in video was anything but green. Suffice to say that when the door did finally open, it revealed a deep orange piano. Wow, what a relief!
Deletei think i've mentioned this before, but when adrian wright was asked in an inteview what exact musical contribution he made to the "dare" album, he replied "i pressed the button that triggered the explosion noise on "seconds"!
Deletei can't find any hard evidence to back this up, but i always thought that adrian baker WAS gidea park in that he recorded everything himself. if so, then he was only using the other bods last time to create the impression of an actual band, and maybe he (or his record company) didn't want to foot the extra wages for a bunch of ringers this time?
DeleteWilberforce - I do remember you mentioning that amusing Adrian Wright quote, though I guess it could be a self-deprecating exaggeration!
DeleteOn Beach Boy Gold, Adrian Baker may well have recorded everything himself, but I still think ego was a factor here. After all, he could have decided not to bother with another studio appearance and left the Beeb to show the first one again, so I suspect he wanted the world to know he was the mastermind behind the whole thing...
It was really strange seeing that Beach Boys medley with just one person on stage.
DeleteYeah, what happened to the rest of the Gidea Park group members that we saw on the show two weeks earlier?? It was a bit weird to see them missing in the group's second TOTP appearance on this week's show.
DeleteDexys Midnight Runners – just love this one, especially the brass section that carried them through all their early hits. I especially liked the final big Brrrrrrrr from Kevin Rowland at the end. Brrrrrr yes yes yes yes! I think after this one, Mr Rowland will be dropping the Brrrrrrrr from his tongue, as go through an image change for 1982.
ReplyDeleteSheena Easton – getting another play of her video, and I must admit I really like her style on this one, and her voice is just great and bellows out really well. A well-deserved top ten hit for her.
Tenpole Tudor – really didn’t like this one, especially by the fact that the lead singer forgot to change from his pyjamas.
Lobo – Legs & Co carried the fruit very well in those tropical island outfits, and I wouldn’t have minded being their Tarzan for all their lovely Jane outfits. As pointed out by Angelo and John G, it was like their own video in the absence of a Lobo video, and why not ladies?
Tight Fit – another showing of this July performance, and the only thing I can fault on this is the lead girl chewing that awful bubble gum when sitting on her lead singer’s lap in the second half of the song. The Pops has standards young lady!
That girl, she was mimicking someone's appearance wasn't she, was it Sandie Shaw or Lulu?
DeleteThey might as well have repeated Dexys' previous performance too for all the difference it made, but good to hear again, esp when it's not Come On Eileen for the millionth time.
ReplyDeleteSheena Easton with her creditless credits, I think it's the grand piano flourishes that make this song more than her rather reedy vocals.
Tenpole Tudor, I really liked this at the time, it has a laddish idiocy to it that's a lot of fun. No idea what Eddie is on about, though I did note he mentioned nuclear war because it was the 80s.
Lobo, eesh, when will it stop? Only Legs & Co giving us their Carmen Miranda/Gang's All Here act lightens a deadly trudge through records better done by Harry Belafonte thirty years before. If he hated Stan Freberg's Banana Boat Song, what did he make of Lobo?
Human League, I too treasure the "This is Phil talking!" line, gives a bit of character to a plaintive tale of what love can do, all accompanied by the ever-present synths. Best thing on the show along with Dexys.
REO Speedwagon at least get their name pronounced correctly this time. How far apart are Mr Speedwagon's legs?!
Funny how Shaky did a lot of slow motion jumping in his videos, wasn't it? What was he trying to prove?
apparently mr oakey ripped-off the "this is phil talking" line from some old soul record he owned in his youth
DeleteThe jumping I think is for a younger image of Shaky.
DeleteTenpole Tudor on a downgrade from their previous song for me, very simple chorus for instance.
There was something to the body language of Jim'll as he pronounced REO Speedwagon (correctly, this time) - made me laugh.
DeleteThis Lobo's a bit confusing, as there'd been a pop / folk singer with the same name who'd had two big hits ("Me And You And A Dog Named Boo" and "I'd Love You To Want Me" in the mid-70's.
ReplyDeleteThe 70s lobo was American the 1981 lobo was Dutch
Deleteaha - this gives me the opportunity to ask contributors to name more than one chart acts of the same name! i'll start the ball rolling with space:
Delete1 - 70's french disco/prog rock act ("magic fly")
2 - 90's indie scousers ("the female of the species")
How about Mr Big:
Delete1. Brit group who did Romeo in 1977
2. US group who did To Be With You in 1992
1. Sisters of Mercy were a 80s group
Delete2. The Thompson Twins had a hit called Sister Of Mercy in the 80s
Right said Fred a 60s novelty hit for English actor/singer Bernard cribbins
DeleteRight said Fred a 90s dance/pop trio
errrrrr... some of you haven't got the hang of this hame yet. you have two name two separate chart acts of the same name - NOT a chart act and a hit of the same name! when it comes to the latter, according to the guinness book of hot singles there were two titles that were hits around 25 times, but i cant' remember what they were.
Deleteanyway, back to the game - here's another one with nirvana:
1 - UK 60's pysch
2 - US 90's grunge
come on, i know there are more of them!
Slightly tenuous, but what about The Drifters? American soul vocal group and also the original name of The Shadows.
DeleteThere is also Blue. Originally you had the minor Scottish hitmakers from the 70s, and then the noughties boy band. The original Blue did try to sue their namesake, but failed.
DeleteSweet Dreams - the notorious duo featuring a blacked up Polly Brown and, I think, also the name of one of our Eurovision entrants.
DeleteOh I give up, can't think of any.
DeleteHow about Oasis?
DeleteObviously the Gallagher band....
But also a very nice one off album (released pre-Gallaghers, in 1984) called 'Oasis' featuring Peter Skellern, Mary Hopkin, Bill Lovelady, Julian Lloyd-Webber and Mitch Dalton. YT shows them performing 'Who knows' on 'Pebble Mill' and it's a nice performance.
Hah! just read below and Paul Major beat me to this one!
DeleteEnigma a British disco aggression (Ain't no stopping)
ReplyDeleteEnigma a German/Romanian duo (sadness pt 1)
Just discovered Lobo followed this hit up with a gospel medley! It didn't chart over here.
ReplyDeleteBilly ward and and the dominoes
ReplyDeleteDerek and the dominoes
The spinners
ReplyDeleteDetroit spinners
Grace - 90s UK dance act (Not Over Yet)
DeleteGrace - Current Australian songstress (You Don't Own Me)
Oasis a group of singers in the 80s Oasis a 90s madchester indie band
DeleteH20 a Scottish pop act (dream to sleep) H20 a US rap act
DeleteDave Stewart (Eurythmics tourists Vegas )
DeleteDave Stewart it's my party
The jets a uk rockabilly trio (yes tonight Josephine)
DeleteThe jets a US family act ( crush on you)
Laurel and Hardy (Stan and Ollie) - The Trail of the Lonesome Pine.
DeleteLaurel and Hardy (ragga duo) - Clunk Click.
He Who Can't Be Shown is this week's host attired in giant comedy cap and easy-access shorts. What was the relevance of the '26-2' on his shirt?
ReplyDeleteIt's the last hurrah for Dexy's Mk 1 with another excellent piece of re-booted Northern Soul complete with frankly indecipherable lyrics. Still sounds weaker than I remember though.
Tenpole Tudor. Thankfully the giant screen helped the audience members to singalong with the intricately worded chorus there. A rather humdrum follow up to 'Swords' and no surprise that it didn't do as well.
The Human League gird their loins to take over the airways on both sides of the Atlantic later in the year with a decent enough pop tune. Regarding the 'This is Phil talking' line, I am sure there were a few other records where the singer namechecks himself. Martin Fry definitely does on one of their singles.
And the rest of the show is just interminable medleys. Is the male singer in Tight Fit the lead singer from Rocky Sharp? Looks like.
Scores. Hard to fully score the host because of UK Gold's transmission breaks but from what we can see, 4 would seem to be adequate.
The show itself gets 4. Human League and Dexys being head and, indeed, shoulders above the rest.
The one good thing about this doubling up of episodes is that this damned medley craze will die out twice as quickly as id did back in 81!
Ah yes, "The Look Of Love" by ABC. Brilliant song.
DeleteHope BBC 4 keeps the reruns of the shows into the 1990s if it gets that far
ReplyDeleteSearch Calvin Henderson n YouTube- he has put up a load of TOTPs from the 1990s,Personally i don't think BBC Four will be on the air long enough to reach that far (if we get to 1986 i'll be happy !!! )
Deletethe shark-jumping moment for me (if we get that far) will be the end of 1984 and the "band aid" single...
Deletethe 2 1984 Christmas shows are good fun,especially the December 27th 1984 show with host Lenny Henry
DeleteNot too s abut the 26.2 on jimmys shirt,could be something to do with the bible(Psalm 26.2 is "Test me, Lord, and try me,examine my heart and my mind" which is pretty apt now with what we know )
ReplyDelete26.2 miles is the length of a marathon - which was something he did for charity back then.
DeleteCan people stick to commenting on this week's show please?
ReplyDeleteOK Dory, will do!
ReplyDeleteThe less said about Savile's appearance, the better. Very weird for him to mention movements in the chart at all, so it's extremely odd that he did it for the ones going up only.
Good 1st half, bad 2nd for this one. Dexy's did another good job to kick off. Not too bothered about Sheena Easton, it's adequate is the best I can say.
Not much love for 'Wunderbar' then? Shame, I'm always up for a bit of silliness. Yes, it's very slight but still enjoyable.
Lobo - well, it's another terrible medley of course. But at least we get a decent Legs routine for a change - pre-recording it helps with the comedy nonsense. Giant bananas and Rosie with some coconuts - the jokes write themselves....
Then the best Human League track. I just adore 'Love Action', it presses all the right buttons for me - or rather Adrian Wright does (possibly) - so it's really annoying that we won't get to see it.
Downhill from there on, and as I skipped through Gidea Park, I didn't even notice that it was Adrian Baker on his own!
Dancing to 'Visage' at the end made a nice change from the usual disco stuff.
Love Action is nice, great production and synth hook and I like the contrasting middle section vocal....but Open Your Heart and Mirror Man are my favourites, immensely catchy and powerful.
Deleteyes, i agree that "love action" is one of the great synth pop tracks. the only problem for me is that i can't sync in with the bleeping pulse at the beginning, so when the drum roll comes in i'm in the wrong place! perhaps it's best if i listen to the 12" version that has "hard times" preceding it?:
Deletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qy5ICQ87Mlw
by the way, i was going to post another version of this, but it had a bloody advert in the middle!
Re Human League songs - check out You Remind Me Of Gold (the b-side to Mirror Man) which is superb and the later single Soundtrack To A Generation. When they performed the latter at the Diamond Awards in 1990 Joanne had broken her arm and it was in a sling - a gold lamé sling of course - but she still performed - what a trouper!
Deletethanks bama - this is not bad, and certainly better than the "a" side or most of what they released post-dare. although perhaps it should be re-titled "this reminds me of kraftwerk's the robots"!
DeleteFollowing Dory’s missive (if we just kept to critiques of the shows the comments total would be nearer the 20’s each time), I was tempted to start a thread about old TV shows or long forgotten sweets, but here goes...
ReplyDeleteJim’ll in a shockingly tight pair of shorts in which dancing wasn’t allowed...as there was no ball room. Boom boom tish! The OCD in me noticed he gave no ‘up’ movements for Bill Wyman, Lobo, Tight Fit, The LPO or Stevie Wonder, and maybe he was being kind or respectful by not saying how many positions the ‘downers’ had fallen?
Interesting to see the Dexys livery change over time from predominantly black to predominantly white. I still haven’t got a clue what Kev was singing or even what language it was. Could someone ‘show me’? See what I did there?
What was Tenpole Tudor’s song called again? And who was that extra band member? Or what is it two? Unless my eyes deceived me, we were missing the old bloke with glasses from the last hit. I noticed a mistake on the Toppatron as the middle section of the chorus has 4 ‘Wunderbar’s whereas the screen only showed 3. Tsk.
Surprised no-one else has mentioned Patti had just dyed her hair a lighter shade of brown, as seen when she danced and mimed to ‘the Lobo record’.
Ooh, look! An extra keyboard player in The Human League, and almost co-ordinated dancing by the gals! And Susanne’s done a Patti and lightened her hair! Class song, but “Heart Like A Wheel” was the one for me. Yes, I know, outside shot. Watch me cash in on the Grand National with my tips! Er, that would be a first.
Loved the moving flatbed truck logo at the end of REO Speedwagon, as that’s exactly what the vehicle was. It was invented by Ransom E. Olds, hence the initials. Also pleased we got the start of the song, plus the crap guitar solo got cut. Kevin Cronin’s still an unlikely lead singer heartthrob, mind you.
I’m afraid after that, as far as I was concerned, in “Sesame Street” style the last four songs were sponsored by the letters F and F. Still, big thanks to our archivist friends for the chance to watch this show.
if comments made on the shows lead to other relevent areas of interest, then i have no problem with that at all - in fact i prefer that as it gives a chance to remenisce on the era in general. and i think (unlike in most threads where they end up being completely irrelevent to the original subject matter) i think most if not all the contributors here know when to draw the line...
DeleteGood call Arthur, I love 'Heart Like A Wheel'. I remember being inordinately excited when they played it at the 'Here & Now' tour - I was probably the only one in the audience who had even heard of it I expect.
DeleteLike wilberforce above, I also really like 'Open Your Heart' too.
Oops, not wilberforce. It was starry!
Delete"open your heart" was the one duffer "dare" single for me!
DeletePS - Dory, no harm meant. ;-D
ReplyDeleteI know, it's just that it was turning into a trivia circus, and we were forgetting about this week's excellent show, albeit with a not so excellent presenter, but still....
DeleteWe have also done the artist = track title before, not so long ago. Admittedly we may have some contributors here who weren't around for that.
DeleteShow Me. This was of course the second incarnation of Dexys featuring just two of the original members - Kevin Rowland and Big Jim Patterson (AKA 'The Celtic Soul Brothers') the others having all departed after the row over the release of Keep It Part 2 at the end of 1980 to form The Bureau who disbanded after releasing one album and two singles with no chart success. This is a rip-roaring single, with superb lyrics about Kevin's childhood in Birmingham. There is a follow up to the song on the 1982 album Too-Rye-Ay called I'll Show You which continues the story (this is why Kev says "This is part one, part two soon" at the end of the song although we don't hear that bit on TOTP). This was produced by Tony Visconti and he did a good job.
ReplyDeleteMore crazy trousers from Tenpole Tudor who shares vocal duties with the eye-liner wearing guitarist. I like the way Eddie mimes the violin playing and then just throws the fiddle and bow away regardless of where they land.
The Lobo medley was just dreadful and he was lucky that they did such a good job with the Legs dance routine which helped sell it a lot.
I absolutely loved The Human League to bits in 1981, this was even better than The Sound Of The Crowd and should have got to number one. The "old man" mentioned in the lyrics is Lou Reed who did a song called I Believe In Love and the "This is Phil Talking" line was nicked from an Iggy Pop song. The guy playing the synth at the back is Jo Callis of course who was last seen on TOTP with the Rezillos.
I too skipped through Gidea Park and didn't realise it wasn't the same performance.
I note Evelyn King is still holding on in there at number 30 as a non mover but despite other acts such as REO Speedwagon and Visage either being non movers or slow risers they get played but she doesn't.
Nice to see the Shaky video even if it is a bit disappointing as we don't actually get to see what was going on behind the mysterious green door. Supposedly the song is about a real club in Columbia, Missouri although some people claimed it was about the lesbian club Gateways which was featurerd in the film The Killing Of Sister George. It isn't.
Play out with non-mover Visage, why not pick a song that was going up the charts, eg Hold On Tight by ELO, or repeat one from last week like they often do?
You're right Bama, Hold On Tight by ELO had stormed up from No.40 to No.19 this week, and they still could not find a place for it on the show for it's first showing, not even the end credits!
DeleteJS wearing shorts on this one – not a pretty sight!
ReplyDeleteDexys – Show me – A bit more ‘shown’ this time around and we get treated to Kevin’s characteristic ‘rrrrrrrrrr’ near the end of this, for me, average track.
Sheena Easton – For your Eyes only – Cut short here, but that may just have been UK Gold.
Tenpole Tudor – Wunderbar – Anyone who has learnt German will know that the correct pronunciation is ‘vunderbar’ but there again I don’t think the song nor the performance is taking itself too seriously.
Lobo – Caribbean Disco show – Once upon a time in the early 70s there was an American singer who released two great songs called ‘Me and you and a dog named boo’ and ‘I’d love you to want me’, and scored highly in the charts here with them. (another great song ‘How can I tell her’ missed out and instead was plonked on the B side of ‘Don’t expect me to be your friend’ which bombed). What this nonsense here is, I don’t know, but it sure ain’t the Lobo that springs to my mind. Not one of Legs & Cos best outings either.
Human League – Love action – I gave ‘Dare’ a spin the other day and it still sounds great. The two girls here have a ‘unique’, sort of exaggerated dance style. As AG observes, the BBC4 masses keep missing the Human league which is a shame.
REO Speedwagon – Take it on the run – JS has finally got his ‘Rio’ sorted out and correctly introduces the band (and calls out E.L.O. rather than ‘elo’ on the chart rundown!). We see the opening verse of the song here which was missing on the first showing but Gary Richrath’s guitar solo has been snipped out instead! REO’s next single from the fabulous ‘Hi Infidelity’ album was another good song; ‘In your letter’, but that didn’t trouble the UK charts.
Gidea Park – Beach Boy Gold – Oh no…not again…..please no more medleys!!
Tight Fit – Back to the 60s – Aghhhhhh…..another one, hot on the heels!!!
Shakin’ Stevens – Green Door – We finally get a showing of the video for this hit which must have pleased cat lovers.
Visage – Visage – Good one to end on and no extended dancing from the UK Gold showing.
All in all, BBC4 viewers didn’t miss much on this show, but thanks to Manorak and Darnell 42 for giving us the opportunity to judge it.
maybe the lobo here is short for lobotomised?
Deletelobotmised -it's a no brainer!
DeleteFlicking through digital stations earlier today, J was reminded of Adrian 'Gidea Park' Baker's other chart crime, trying to impersonate The Four Seasons on a by-numbers cover of "Sherry' released under his real name in 1975
ReplyDeleteThat's not his only Four Seasons-related chart crime Arthur, as we will see on BBC4 in a few weeks...
DeleteHow come I seem to be the only one on here who can't download this. A message just says Sorry this download isn't available anymore. What am I doing wrong?
DeleteMikey, in general the WeTransfer service only holds information for about 4 days I think, so this is the reason you cannot download it now, as it was made available on 4th April, so you need to download it fairly soon after it was put up.
DeleteThanks for the advice Dory - guess what... I did a Phil Collins (I Missed Again)! But I think I've seen all that matters on YouTube, namely Tenpole Tudor (but I think this was repeated?), Lobo/Legs & Co, the Human League and solo Gidea Park (clearly enjoying himself but he looks so 'pre-punk', doesn't he?). And a couple of clips, being posted A Long Time Ago, even featured Jimmy Savile's intros!
Delete20th Century, the 6th Aug show was no great shakes in my opinion, cos the best show so far this year was the 13th Aug show with Simon Bates which BBC4 did show in between the two Yewtreed episodes of 6th & 20th Aug, so we were lucky to get the best one of the August month, cos of the two masterpiece videos played in full for RPO and ELO, as well as Legs & Co's Gillian plucking a lucky fella from the audience on Startrax Club Disco, and then Lulu ogling over Shakin Stevens on the No.1.
DeleteI mean it just seemed to have all the magic ingredients for one of those truly unforgettable shows and magic moments, and it was actually shown last week on BBC4!
Oh dear no, I'd forgotten Adrian had had two bites at the Seasons cherry, with a third when he joined them over a decade later!
ReplyDelete