Links? I think they split up last year......
18/08/83 (Gary Davies & Dave Lee Travis)
The Kinks – “Come Dancing” (29)
Their first top 20 hit for eleven years, peaked at number 12.
Wham! – “Club Tropicana” (4) (video)
At its peak.
Kim Wilde – “Love Blonde” (23)
At its peak.
Elton John – brief interview
Elton John – “I’m Still Standing” (5) (video)
Went up one more place.
Modern Romance – “Walking In The Rain” (30)
The band's final hit, it peaked at number 7.
Galaxy featuring Phil Fearon – “Wait Until Tonight (My Love)” (20) (video)
At its peak.
Tracie – “Give It Some Emotion” (24)
At its peak.
Madness – “Wings Of A Dove” (19) (video)
Flew all the way to number 2.
KC & The Sunshine Band – “Give It Up” (1) (rpt from 28/07/83)
Second of three weeks at number one.
Kraftwerk – “Tour De France” (28) (Hula Hoop dancer/credits)
Peaked at number 22.
Next up should be August 25th but would you believe it, Mike Smith.....
Cheers angelo, here is the link for the 18th Aug show in full:
ReplyDeletehttps://we.tl/hj5XrrKQUg
Hello Dory,
DeleteDo you know who uploads these shows to WeTransfer? I ask as I'll want to watch the 29/09/83 episode but I'm going on holiday for a week so I'll be away from any computers until the evening of the 28th and I'd like whoever uploads these episodes to keep that one up for longer than a few days so I have a chance to download it and watch it. (It's just over a week since the episode you linked to there was uploaded to WeT and already it has disappeared, so I can't see any contact details on there for the person who actually uploaded it). So is the uploader yourself or do you know their contact details?
Cheers,
Aidan
I certainly don't know how to upload shows. I just watch them, so it's not me.
DeleteWith regard to anything uploaded to We Transfer, it can only stay up for 7 days, as this a WeTransfer thing I'm afraid, and not an uploader's decision, so we all have to watch any WeTranfer link within 7 days or it will go!
Any chance of uploading this one again as I missed it?
DeleteWeTransfer only keeps uploads for a maximum of 7 days. However, once you download them onto your computer, they remain there, so it is important to keep checking every few days on this blog page, otherwise it will disappear after 7 days.
DeleteI downloaded this episode, bama, so when I'm back with my PC on Friday evening, I'll look into uploading that one to WeT myself (then removing it once you've told me you've downloaded it).
DeleteThanks Aidan. Please let me know when it's up.
DeleteJust as well, as this is one of the very best shows of the year if not the best, and shame that BBC4 would not show it cos of DLT. The show is littered with fun tunes, from the very start with The Kinks, right up to world premiere of the Madness Video and KC & The Sunshine Band well lodged in at No.1.
DeleteWow, what a cracking start to the show, in surely one of the best TOTP shows of 1983 by a mile!
ReplyDeleteThe Kinks back on TOTP for the first time since 1972. This song had some storyline similarity to the video for ELO's Rock n Roll Is King which preceded The Kinks in the charts by about a month. Funny coincidence, in that you could have put the ELO video with the Kinks song, which would have been a better video than The Kinks themselves did for Come dancing!
There was a touch of Modern Romance tromboning at the back of their studio set, but wait, Modern Romance were due on later in the show!
Anyway, Come Dancing was all about his sister enjoying her teenage years falling in love and coming home late to the annoyance of her parents, and then the dancing Palais being turned into a parking lot, and then his sister was now grown up with daughters of her own coming home late. Love it! Welcome back to the TOTP studio.
Wham - already at No.4 with Club Tropicana and the first showing of the video, where the best part was Shirlie Holliman and DC Lee in their swimsuits distracting a 20-year old George Michael (and many other young men for that matter!)
Elton John interview - never mind the video introduction, but the best part of this interview was the bellowing background sound of the TOTP theme tune Yellow Pearl, which was now already or two years the theme tune for the show, and still sounding sooooo good!
Modern Romance - this song marked the end of their chart career spanning two fun-filled years since 1981, with John Du Cruz the giant trombonist sticking it out till the very end, even through lead singer line up changes over the two years.
Galaxy - as sweet as chocolate, the sexy girls at the beginning of the video with the shiny gold minidresses seemed to be the best part of the video, but the song did grow on me as it went along, even though I don't remember this one at the time.
Tracie - now that was one nice summer dress on the show, so here's one lady that really knows how to dress nice. I bet her mum must have been so proud of her on that appearance, even if the song took a while to get going and also sounding very good as it went along.
Madness - wow, what a world premier of the video. I just loved the first notes of the song which really set the scene before before the first lines. The Wings Of A Dove video also made the Church Of The Poison Mind video look very lame with regard to the airplane scenes. Madness were still full of energy with this one, even after four long years of constant hits.
john du prez played the trumpet in modern romance - i don't know if he had a trombone in the first totp appearance as there's no sign of it on youtube, although on the peel/jensen one he's actually posing with a french horn. having dome the gamut of cod-latin and even a touch of cod-jazz, they end their days as a chart act with a bit of cod-reggae!
DeleteIndeed, according to Wikipaedia, Du Prez recently turned 70, and started off in music at Oxford becoming a scholar, and then a full time composer. His greatest accolade was working for 30 years with Eric Idle for all monty python related music and other Idle associated projects.
DeleteThere seems to be no info about him after 2006, so I expect he is now into the golden age of retirement. A great talent that not many people k ow about, and much more talented than the later lead singers on Modern Romance, such as on this their final hit.
A nice, easy rapport between DLT and Gary Davies for this show, and both do a good job. This is Gary's most confident presenting turn up to this point, even if his fashion choices continue to leave much to be desired. Talking of clothes, it is notable that in this Kinks performance Ray Davies chooses to wear a different suit to the rest of the band, no doubt to make himself look more prominent and to really hack brother Dave off at the same time! While not in the same league as their classic 60s hits, this is a pleasing piece of nostalgia, and it was amusing to see the brass section reading newspapers until it was time for them to come in. This song was actually inspired by Ray and Dave's older sister, who loved dancing and died tragically young of a heart attack while out on the dance floor one evening.
ReplyDeleteThe extremely well known Club Tropicana video next, with George stimulating a fairly convincing interest in Dee C and Shirlie, while he and Andrew also manage to look like the campest pair of airline pilots in history! The video does tend to epitomise Thatcherite aspiration, though George was keen to disown such political associations later in his career. Kim Wilde does the now increasingly frequent stroll from stage to balcony and back to stage again, finally joining her band at the end, before DLT interviews Elton, our second future musical knight of the evening. Despite being in the studio, he clearly can't be bothered to perform on this occasion and we get the video again. If as Elt claims it was filmed in just one day, then it is all the more impressive an achievement.
Modern Romance try to reboot their faltering chart career by ditching the latin stylings and going for a more generic pop-soul sound. They would get a temporary reward for doing so with a final Top 10 placing, but this is pretty weak stuff, not helped by the weedy vocals and the bland anonymity of the new frontmen. Phil and Galaxy have a surprisingly lavish video for their forgettable tune, but it doesn't make the song any better. The same applies to Tracie's nice summery dress, though poor as the song still is at least on this occasion she isn't made to flirt with the dancers...
In a show full of impressive videos, Madness perhaps take first prize for the rather spectacular parachuting van at the end of their promo, even if it was just a piece of stock footage that they nicked for it, as our hosts claim afterwards. This venture into gospel territory paid off nicely for the band, and still sounds pretty fresh and lively today. We conclude with Kraftwerk's Tour de France. Perhaps inevitably, this sees Zoo take to some exercise bikes, but less explicable is Michael Hurll's belief that it makes a suitable showcase for the world hula hoop champion - his skills are certainly impressive, but the music is not exactly appropriate for his routine...
Hairy Cornflake time again so its thanks again for the link to watch.
ReplyDeleteKinks – Come Dancing – Surprising good given the Kinks were probably past their best now. Supersonic Rocket Ship was probably their last ToTP appearance in 1972, but this is rousing and catchy and one I had forgotten until now. However it doesn’t half remind of the Mavericks smash hit ‘Dance the Night away’ from 1998.
Wham – Club Tropicana – The famous video with the ‘surprise’ ending scenes. Just great.
Kim Wilde - Love Blonde – Kim ditches the ‘picture sleeve’ black dress for a mini here in this appearance much appreciated by the host… Still don’t care much for the song.
Elton John – I’m still standing – The interview with Reg that precedes this is almost drowned out by the very loud blaring out of the Phil Lynott original theme tune. Anyway, well worth seeing the video again.
Modern Romance – Walking in the Rain – A little dreary compared to their up-tempo hey days. I prefer ‘Walking in the Rain’ by David Cassidy and the Partridge Family.
Galaxy – Wait until tonight – Ah no, not Galaxy again! Please no more of this stuff!..…ah wait, still got another three top tenners from Phil and Co to come. Who bought this stuff anyway?
Tracie – Give me some emotion – Proving she’s a dab hand in the balloon punting stakes, Trace gets plenty of practice from the crowd who are obviously working on the basis that she must be enjoying it! Perhaps that was why she was smiling so much eh DLT?
Madness – Wings of a Dove – I like most of Madness hits, but this one just leaves me cold. Great video..great ending…but just not classic Nutty sound for me.
KC – Give it up – Welcome repeat of KC and his gals.
Kraftwerk – Tour de France – Don’t remember this, but it’s unmistakenly
Kraftwerk. Love the hoola hoops and bikes to accompany the play out.
(Did I miss the chart rundown from 30 to 21?)
If ever there was dance that could rival The Kinks this week it is this footage taken earlier this week in America. This couple would have grown up as young adults in the 1950s, and boy do they still have it sct353. This has really made my week. Nuff said:
Deletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A_6AVlMl8vE
Blimey! Better dancers than I am!
Deletehosts: only a brief glimpse of this pair on youtube, but they seemed quite compatible beyond having hirsuteness in common
ReplyDeletekinks: who actually bought enough copies of this to get them back in the public eye in blighty for the first time in over 10 years? presumably not any remaining members of their declining fan base, and certainly not anyone who was into synth-pop! i am aware (and i think i was at the time) that it's some kind of pastiche/tribute to the swing/jive/dancehall era of ray davies' youth, but that still doesn't make it any more listenable to my ears. as a result of this brief revival they were able to mount a UK tour that a friend of mine went to, where apparently the crowd were baying for the old classics like "you really got me" and mr davies (whose band unlike in blighty were still quite popular in the states, where they continued to release albums on a regular basis) sniffily responded "we don't play those old songs any more"!
wham: have you noticed that a lot of the official videos from this era on youtube are now promoted by something called vevo? sadly as a result of that one has to endure an ad before being able to watch them, and in this case it was for tampons! presumably they are being targeted at those who are most likely to watch the video in question, but surely most if not all wham's once-young girly fans are now past the point where they need any such "feminine hygiene" products? i've never actually watched this video in its entirety before, so never realised it had film-style credits at the beginning (no star billing for dc and shirley though). that was rather naughty of george to tip his glass of red wine into the swimming pool, particularly given he was playing the role of what must have been the youngest-ever commercial airline pilot in the history of aviation. ridgers has brilliant hair here by the way... unlike now!
galaxy: phil's got himself a whole load of different backing singers/dancers for the video. this improves a bit on another listen and moves past "dancing tight" in that regard, although not to the point where i shall be adding it to my 80's dance music collection (currently around 300 tracks!)
madness: almost certainly their weakest effort thus far. no wonder they never turned up in the studio to perform it, as it seems to feature a lot more of a gospel-style choir than the band themselves!
kraftwerk: they were obsessed with cycling (and would apparently often ride their bikes between gigs when on tour), so perhaps no surprise they offered this ditty up without bothering to make the effort to put together an album to go with it. not their best by any means, but the synth melody is quite appealing. sadly it was all downhill from here on as they lost the yellow jersey in terms of leading the way as synth pioneers, and never got it back again!
'Come Dancing' reached No.6 in the US several months before its transatlantic popularity fed back to Britain. It was evident, to my ears anyway, that Sir Ray Davies had absorbed the influences of new wave performers such as Elvis Costello, Nick Lowe, XTC and Squeeze; the single sounded contemporary, with barely a trace of The Kinks' original sound. Less than a year later, 'Basher' Lowe himself scraped the Top 50 with 'Half A Boy, Half A Man', which bore more than a passing resemblance to 'Come Dancing'.
Deletei didn't realise ray davies was yet another pop star knight of the realm - presumably like reg, rod & co, it was awarded for services to himself? i think the whole honours thing stinks anyway, but if i could then i would have given bowie a knighthood for refusing one!
Deleteby the way, was diana rigg made a dame for services to catsuit lovers?
Dame Diana was given the honour because of her services to theatre, and because Prince Philip loves Game of Thrones. Plus she's fab.
DeleteVevo is owned by Sony and Universal, and has the official version of their videos. It sub-licences content to Youtube and other such video sites.
DeleteWilb - in my experience many YouTube ads have the option of skipping them after the first five seconds. If you have one where you can't, simply refresh the page and you'll usually get one where you can - or even no ad at all!
DeleteVevo sucks (useful American term!) because of all the 'electronic graffiti' it adds to the video while you're watching it.
thanks 20th, i'll remember that. it's also just occurred to me that if i can't get rid of the fucking things, then at the very least i should hit the mute button so i don't have to suffer listening to them!
Delete5 shows in one day and getting a lot of repetition now...
ReplyDeleteKinks - sublime exponent of the story in 3 minutes. I actually preferred the thrashy follow up, State Of Confusion, which stiffed.
Modern Romance - yawn!
Madness - great video! Not seen before. Good job it wasn't United Airlines...
Boring reminiscent moment: I saw Madness supporting the Beach Boys in New York's (then) newly opened South Street. Also on the bill were a band called Ministry. At that time they were a club band, but later dramatically changed direction to a grunge metal band...
Surreal payout for Krafwerk...
For a few months in 1992, Ministry's Psalm 69 album was the soundtrack to my life! Jesus Built My Hotrod remains a classic.
DeleteHot rod is one of my faves as well :-)
DeleteThe Kinks Come Dancing only has that guitar solo to remind us of their glory days, but it was such a catchy ditty that it was nice to hear Ray Davies' way with a great melody return to the charts. One of those story songs that hooks you into listening to the lyrics from first verse to final chorus.
ReplyDeleteWham, seen the video millions of times so didn't bother again. Same with Sir Elton.
I thought Kim had ditched her band, but nope, here they were at the end. They're making certain acts go walkabout recently, presumably to make up for instrumental breaks where the singers clammed up.
Modern Romance, dear me this is a bit drippy, but it is about wet weather, so... At first I thought they were trying reggae, then it settled down into very mild MOR pop. Nice cardboard hair, guys.
Galaxy, like Wham, they've been on holiday, I half expected a limbo competition. Liked the back up singers doing the robot, but it's still undistinguished material.
Tracie's been to the stylist, but that's all that stands out for this ho-hum effort.
Now, I remember the Madness premiere, and DLT's explanation for the great video. One of their most joyous singles, and they could get a bit depressive elsewhere, but this is just so exuberant it's irresistible.
Skipped KC, and then Kraftwerk with probably their last great single. When I was little I used to think the lyrics were "Riding on my motorbike, Tour de France, Tour de France!" which would have given any competitor an unfair advantage, you would have said. This hula hoop chap is OK, but to see some superb dancing watch what they do with this track in the legendary Cannon musical Breakin'.
Well this was a bit of a weird one. Whilst waiting for my download I glanced at the playlist and right in the middle of the show is a string of songs I had no memory of. I wonder if they'll come back to me when I watch?
ReplyDeleteFirst up, though, the venerable Kinks with a comeback single 'Come Dancing' (an old girlfriend of mine could do that if she was wearing her tight jeans!). Its another of those slice-of-life vignette songs that Ray Davies did so well, but musically it aint no Waterloo Sunset. He looked happy though, and I even saw Dave Davies smile as well.
Wham with George out-shirtless-ing Paul Weller and Martin Gore from the last edition. They couldn't half pose, these Wham boys, couldn't they?, and it is no surprise their pictures were on a million schoolgirls' walls. And its yet another proper summer tune. Not sure about them being pilots though - think I'd prefer to fly on an overbooked United Airlines flight.
Kim Wilde. I mentioned last year how Ms Wilde was often introduced by the host with a mention of how many hits she has had. That has obviously got old hat now, but Ooh Gary Davies still finds room to mention this is her THIRD album. It's like they are all surprised she is still msking records. This one is a complete blank to me - but it does sound remarkably like The Cure's Love Cats.
Elton John. One of his better tunes, and a decent video featuring, as we all know by now, Bruno off of that Strictly show.
Modern Romance. Another memory blank. Even now after watching it I have no ability to recall it. The very essence of forgettable.
Galaxy. Nope.Nothing.
Tracie. The 4th Shakey memory blank and, again, there are obvious reasons. A nothing song with no discernible hook.
Madness. Possibly the worst of their songs saved, only just, by probably their best video. But another set of pilots that I would prefer to avoid if possible.
So, the scores. Ooh Gary Davies and The Yewtree'd Cornflake are a decent coupling - just enough repartee to get by, a fair old Elton interview and a competent chart rundown, but points dropped for Davies' garish outfit. 7.
Decent songs on display but a whole slew of 'what-the-bejeezus-is-this' in the middle means I can't go higher than 5.
Yewtree editions are slowly fading out now ( to be replaced by Mike Smith embargoes) so time for a joke that I saw on Twitter last week.
DLT, Jimmy Saville, and Johnathon King walk into an Irish pub and the landlord says "What are Yewtree fellahs doing here?". No? I'll get my coat.
shakey i'm not a big fan of "man walks into a pub"-style joke-telling, and particularly those at the expense of the irish for supposedly being simple souls. but i laughed out loud at your yewtree gag!
DeleteThis is another that I'm very familiar with due to keeping a UK Gold recording (which for once doesn't chop anything bar a couple of links) but it's a mystery why I kept it as most of the stuff I like is on video!
ReplyDeleteThe Kinks - However, this one I really do like. It's a good story song and a nice tribute to his sister.
Wham's video is still highly watchable, then another outing for Kim's duffer.
In contrast, Elton's video is overplayed and it's a shame he couldn't be arsed to perform it. DLT does a good job of the interview at least.
Then a hat-trick of garbage courtesy of Modern Romance, Galaxy and Tracie.
The Madness song is great (not much love on here though) and of course the video is too. I do enjoy the 'pshewww' noise as the van falls out of the plane!
I have a feeling that Kraftwerk may have had a wry Teutonic smile at the staging of their (rather good) song had they seen it.
'Come Dancing' is a great song, as befitting the Kinks, but I've always thought that the first verse was a bit dubious. So the Palais was demolished and then a bowling alley and a supermarket both came and went within a generation? Slightly excessive poetic licence there, Ray.
ReplyDelete