29 May 1986: Presenters: Janice Long & John Peel (Liverpool Double Special!)
Gerrin La!
(10) ROBERT PALMER – Addicted To Love (video)
I always end up slightly hypnotised by the oscillating breasts of Julia Bonino (the lead guitar player). Julie Pankhurst (the keyboard player) appeared on the single's sleeve and returned for the video for Recipe for Love and Palmer's Simply Irresistible Pepsi ad. Patty Kelly (rhythm guitar) also returned for the video for Recipe For Love. I feel sorry for Kathy Davies (the drummer) as we hardly see her.
The video was directed by fashion photographer Terence Donovan (who also directed the video for Simply Irresistible). All the ladies were from the books of the Models 1 agency in London (Kelly and Mak Gilchrist, the bassist, had worked with Donovan on adverts previously). During filming, to satisfy the MU 'no non-musicians miming' rule that Danny DeVito fell foul of, there was a band of real musicians behind the camera playing along as a guide to show the models what to do,
(22) THE REAL THING – Can’t Get By Without You
Hot on the heels of the 'Decade remix' (i.e. 10 years since if had been released) of You To Me Are Everything we get the 'Second Decade remix'(as in the second in the series instead of 20 years since it's release) of Can't Get By Without You. Their 70's label PRT would continue to mine this seam with a remix of Can You Feel The Force, which prompted the band to record two new singles for Jive Records, both of which failed to make the Top 40. Chris Amoo then returned to breeding his Crufts-winning Afghan Hounds.
(21) NU SHOOZ – I Can’t Wait
I fucking love I Can't Wait.
The video is mental though; you can tell someone got a Paintbox for Christmas.
I love this one too. This is the 'Dutch Mix', made by Peter Slaghuis for the Dutch Injection Disco Dance label (the people behind Mai Tai). The
original single was released on the band's own Poolside label in 1985 to promote their second album That's Right, but didn't make much of an impact outside their native Portland. When Hot Trax imported copies of the Slaghuis remix back to the US and it became a club hit, Atlantic offered them a contract and picked the remix up for an official release and included it on first album under the deal, The Point Of No Return (later renamed Poolside before release).
The 'Oh' sample used to replace the original synth riff is from the Emulator's sample library and appears on a lot of 80s records (Slaghuis used a similar effect in in his remix of Whistle's Just Buggin'). Injection Disco Dance offered him a percentage or a one off fee for the remix. He didn't think much of the track it so took the £150 one-off fee.
The video was directed by Jim Blashfield, the artist behind the animated video for Talking Heads' And She Was. He was also a Portland resident and knew Valerie and John so made it as a favour. It was a totally improvised shoot, using items he'd brought from home, bought from a thrift store during the 2 days of filming, borrowed from friends (such as the dog, and the animations when Valerie opens the box at the end were borrowed from his friend Roger Kukes's short film Up) and from the crew (the toolkit came from one of the crew's cars).
At the end of the 2 days he then went back to his studio, shot some animations and took all the footage to Michael Quinn, who owns a post-production house in Portland called Mission Control. He then assembled the footage and did the compositing work with Blashfield directing. Just the opening scene with the items dropping onto the perforated steel took 8 hours to render. Quinn became Blashfield's go-to editor for his future projects on the basis of his work on this video.
(BTW, it's the Quantel Harry that does compositing - Paintbox just does still images).
(20) PETE WYLIE – Sinful
Come round and break wind in your kitchen
The famous Peel prediction and the dancing nuns, which garnered a complaint from Mary Whitehouse. Unfortunately this is the last appearance of Wylie on TOTP, as it was his last attempt at 'playing the game' (He'd dropped the Wah! moniker, but his then-girlfriend Josie Jones is still present).
As with It's Immaterial and BlacK's early singles, this was released on Liverpool-based indie Eternal and distributed by WEA offshoot MDM. On the basis of this, Wylie was offered an album deal on Virgin offshoot Siren (who Eternal had shifted their allegiance to), which failed to chart. He had one further Top 40, when he teamed up with The Farm in 1991 for a 'baggy' remake Sinful!
