Top of the Pops on BBC Four - Thread Three

[steveh]

According to the BBC production guidance, programmes can still individually licence Doors tracks should they have the budget for it.

Journey, some Michael Jackson, Neil Young and Mark Knopfler are also not covered by the blanket licence.

[Norton Canes]

Anyone know how much it would have cost to clear the Doors track for TOTP, out of interest?

[steveh]

From what I understand, it's negotiated individually for each track and the rights holder would have to approve it in advance, which just isn't going to be worth the hassle for a repeat showing of TOTP.

[gilbertharding]

They should have broadcast the episode but with *generic 60s library music* plonked over the top, like they use for those cheap documentaries on Yesterday.

[Norton Canes]

From what I understand, it's negotiated individually for each track and the rights holder would have to approve it in advance, which just isn't going to be worth the hassle for a repeat showing of TOTP

I just wondered if it would be thousands, or tens of thousands, or whatever.

[steveh]

Because they're outside the standard agreements, the rights holders are free to charge whatever they want and that information won't be public, so we have no idea what they would ask for in this case.

[gilbertharding]

More fascinatingly tangential Doors pieces from the Guardian:

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2020/jan/08/doors-drummer-john-densmore-it-took-me-years-to-forgive-jim-morrison Morrisson was an arse, says Doors drummer (2020)

https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2002/aug/12/artspolicy.artsfeatures Doors drummer: Jim was great. The rest of the band are keyboard player is a breadheads, man (2002)

[Pauline Walnuts]

I just wondered if it would be thousands, or tens of thousands, or whatever.

But Shirley 100% of the standard BBC fee is better than nothing of standard BBC fee+20%?

Wonder how much sales boosts a repeat on Top of the Pops does for an act these days?

[non capisco]

I really loved Jim Morrison's vocals on that live clip but the music on Light My Fire still sounds like Dracula chucking a tantrum.

[KennyMonster]

I reckon we'll be seeing Jim Morrison singing on these TOTP repeats before the 1991 run of repeats is over, don't worry guys.

[non capisco]

I reckon we'll be seeing Jim Morrison singing on these TOTP repeats before the 1991 run of repeats is over, don't worry guys.

Oh yes. I see what you did there.

Spoiler alert

Carter USM?

[close]

[KennyMonster]

Yes Non-Capsico.

Spoiler alert

IIRC they play out with Sheriff Fatman video on an episode soon then the 2nd episode after the start of The Apopcolypse has them live doing After The Watershed (fresh from Les decking Pip Schofield at the Smash Hits Poll Winners Party).
Also IIRC we should have seen a clip of them at the Radio1 Big Weekend series of concerts earlier this year but probably got cut because they were introduced by Jonathan King as his favourite band at the time.

[close]

also

Spoiler alert

In other Carter USM/Jim Morrison news, they would have played Reading in 1991 and sold a souvenir T Shirt[nb]

Spoiler alert

Of course it was a another T Shirt, this is the era of Carter and PWEI after all.

[close]

[/nb] saying "Come on baby, light my fag"

[close]

[DrGreggles]

I liked Carter at this time. Looking back they were pretty limited.
They seem decent enough chaps though, and certainly had a bit of self-awareness.

[Pauline Walnuts]

After going through all these years again, it's seems odd how forgotten the Grebo/Stourbridge scene/whateva is, they were on Top of the Pops more than the hallowed Madchester lot.

[Icehaven]

After going through all these years again, it's seems odd how forgotten the Grebo/Stourbridge scene/whateva is, they were on Top of the Pops more than the hallowed Madchester lot.

I think overall the music hasn't stood the test of time as well (although I still like it), dated pretty fast and there aren't considered to be any long standing 'classics' from it in the same way a lot of Stone Roses and Happy Mondays et al is, which a few generations too young to be there at the time have still grown up hearing all the time. Perhaps unfairly it seemed to fall out of fashion and favour quite quickly (well by the late 90s anyway) while arguably Madchester never really has.

I was 11 in 1991 so I'm just about too young to remember properly but I daresay the music press had something to do with it too. There was a real build 'em up, knock 'em down mentality in a lot of music mags throughout the 90s so I can well imagine it didn't take long for them to start mocking a bunch of long haired West Midlanders who sold more tshirts than records. I'm sure they probably had a pop at the Manchester scene too but it was more established and had wider appeal so it'd have had less of an effect.

[KennyMonster]

I liked Carter at this time.

Yes

Looking back they were pretty limited.

No

They seem decent enough chaps though, and certainly had a bit of self-awareness.

Yes

Loved them back then, (ever since I heard TOTP play out with the video of the re-released Sheriff Fatman) and still love their music to this day[nb]PWEI too.[/nb].

They are both still going today.

Jim Bob is an author as well as musician these days, his solo act has been going longer than Carter and can still sell out the Shepard's Bush Empire[nb]and similar sized venues in the other major English cities[/nb], not the biggest venue, I know, but still pretty decent.

[KennyMonster]

I think overall the music hasn't stood the test of time as well (although I still like it), dated pretty fast and there aren't considered to be any long standing 'classics' from it in the same way a lot of Stone Roses and Happy Mondays et al is, which a few generations too young to be there at the time have still grown up hearing all the time. Perhaps unfairly it seemed to fall out of fashion and favour quite quickly (well by the late 90s anyway) while arguably Madchester never really has.

I was 11 in 1991 so I'm just about too young to remember properly but I daresay the music press had something to do with it too. There was a real build 'em up, knock 'em down mentality in a lot of music mags throughout the 90s so I can well imagine it didn't take long for them to start mocking a bunch of long haired West Midlanders who sold more tshirts than records. I'm sure they probably had a pop at the Manchester scene too but it was more established and had wider appeal so it'd have had less of an effect.

I think some writers in the music press who hailed from the Manchester area[nb]Stuart Maconky[/nb] have never really forgiven Carter for being successful at the same time The Mondays and Factory records were falling apart.

I wonder if they still have control over BBC4's music output?

Carter have been, so far, written out of history by BBC4.

Did you know The White Stripes were the first duo to headline The Pyramid stage at Galsto?
BBC4 does.
 

[A Hat Like That]

I, for one, cannot imagine why a bunch of vaguely crusty lads with dreadlocks from the midlands were looked down upon by the UK music press.

[monkfromhavana]

A guy I used to work with was the head of the Carter USM fanclub or something, he told me this at a works party, but I lost interest when I heard him say "Carter USM".

[KennyMonster]

A guy I used to work with was the head of the Carter USM fanclub or something, he told me this at a works party, but I lost interest when I heard him say "Carter USM".

I've experienced tons of criticisms from music snobs over the years ridiculing why I like Carter, that has to be the dullest anecdote so far.

[Norton Canes]

Carter USM at the Sugarhouse in Lancaster was one of the sweatiest, most boisterous I've been to. Good fun. Liked a lot of their singles but never got into the albums. Always felt it would have been good for them to see if their drum machine had more than one setting. 

'Boisterous'. Get me, what a grandad.

[sweeper]

Carter are probably the best awful band I've ever been into.

I still enjoy listening to some of their dreadful songs.

[Jockice]

I really like Lenny And Terence. As the review in (I think) MM said, it's the only number of theirs in which they sound like they actually want to hit the people they're singing about. I like Rubbish too. Because it isn't. And Lean On Me I Won't Fall Over. They were okay really, even if very of their time.

[Sebastian Cobb]

I like Carter USM.

Before they gave up for good in 2014 they did a live concert on 6music it was great.

[Icehaven]

WHAT'S GOING ON
Why was the top 39 done like that?

[Icehaven]

[Icehaven]

Was that Keanu in the Paula Abdul video?

[Icehaven]

30 Greatest Hits of 1991 on C5 at 10.30pm tonight.

[bigfatheart]

So in I Wanna Sex You Up they sing about 'making love until we drown', what is it they're drowning in? Is it cum? It's cum, isn't it?

[non capisco]

"We can do it til we both wake up" is the real head scratcher in that farrago. Are they the least sexy boy band in history, do you reckon, Color Me Badd? That little finger kiss in the dance routine is giving me the right boke. Larry from the Three Stooges, a bloke who looks like he's had his entire facial features tattooed onto a blank canvas, what George Michael looks like to a dog and the other one.

When that 'People Are Still Having Sex' song was on the radio in 1991 I assumed that "Hellooooo, lover" vocal sample was meant to be some beckoning old crone so a bit of a disconnect having it mimed to by one of the women out of Bombalurina, looking slightly adrift dancing to a song that doesn't go "Ah, yeah!" every sixteen seconds. Load of rubbish.

I usually don't skip anything in these but fuck off am I watching Bette Midler just after some Andrew Lloyd Webber shit, and then Color Me Christing Badd again. Raise your game, 1991. Lenny fucking Kravitz was the cutting edge highlight of that pair of episodes.[nb]Jakki looked lush though. Was that her last episode? Break it to me gently, daf.[/nb]