Top of the Pops on BBC Four - Thread Four

[the ouch cube]

God, Stuart Maconie's pathetic jingoism and tall-poppy whining really is the most charmless combination, isn't it

[Norton Canes]

Not even going there. Way too depressing.

[kalowski]

Clare Grogan (swoon!)

The aforementioned Ms Grogan was on Radcliffe and Maconie today and I noted that for gentlemen of a certain age (ie mine) she was always swooningly delightful.

[non capisco]

When I was watching that Bluebells video it seemed like a UK early 80s music video cliche to feature a dishevelled chef in a grotty cafe with all soup going everywhere but then I realised I can't actually think of any other videos where this happens.

[daf]

8 April 1993: Presenter: Tony DOrtie

(10) | SUB SUB feat. MELANIE WILLIAMS – Ain't No Love (Ain't No Use)
(05) | SYBIL – When I'm Good And Ready (video and charts)
(09) | JADE – Don't Walk Away
(LP)| DAVID ESSEX – Here Comes The Night
(06) | ROBIN S – Show Me Love
- - - - - - - - - - - (Breakers) - - - - - - - - - - - -
(24) | DR. ALBAN – Sing Hallelujah (video)
(22) | BARRY MANILOW – Copacabana (At The Copa) (Remix) (video)
(19) | AEROSMITH – Living On The Edge (video)
(17) | DURAN DURAN – Come Undone (video)
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
(23) | THE BELOVED – You've Got Me Thinking
NEW | NEW ORDER – Regret (via satellite)



(01) | THE BLUEBELLS – Young At Heart (video)

[Icehaven]

My first issue of Select! I mainly bought it for the Reservoir Dogs poster tbh.

Mine too, although I bought it for Suede. I've just realised that's why I don't remember a lot of the poppier stuff from the last few episodes of TOTP, I was 13 and turning into an indie kid so had mostly stopped listening to the charts, and I would only have watched TOTP if I knew an acceptable band was going to be on. Bought Select religiously every month for years though.

[daf]

Bought Select religiously every month for years though.

It was my favourite pop mag - still got pretty much every copy between 1992 and 1997 up in the attic.

It was an anonymous Q / Vox clone for it's first couple of years, but they must have got a new editor in around this time, as it started to find it's own distinctive voice - like a groovy older cousin to Smash Hits.

[Norton Canes]

I see Top of the Pops Facts had a day off this week. Well days off are for snowflakes man, we never had days off in 1976

Actually fuck it, my head is still throbbing from too much Coffee Poached Pear Praline Crumble Sour (oh, it's real alright) so let's keep this short


The bar scene from Outland has let itself go


Legend, though

That Barry Manilow appearance was something else. It seems to be forming part of a wider narrative - did he have some kind of jukebox musical out at the time? Like one of the secretaries is called Mandy, right, and after she's been serenaded by Manilow P.I.'s rendition of I Wanna Do It With You the whole thing ends with a spectacular climax in the Bermuda Triangle? Oh hang on, holy shit, that's actually not far from the truth. Or okay then, my slightly more outré take is that the 'secretaries', rather than simply taking down Manilow's particulars (stop it), are in fact the light and dark aspects of his psyche and they're actually writing instructions on how he should behave. Dictating rather than dictating, if you will. Could it be magic..? 

Big chinny reck-on for Sunscreem's feeble excuse given that they went to the trouble of turning up at the studio, but I definitely think The Great British Common Cold is a Bake-Off spin-off that might have legs. Jade with a strong look, all for that. And I did have a split second of trembling anticipation when Tony announced "Number six in the LP charts, here's David..." and the camera panned over the silhouette of a guy in a long coat, I thought I'd got my TOTP Archives search all wrong and Dame David did in fact bring Jump They Say into the studio. Sadly it turned out to be a real "R.E... O Speedwagon" moment.

So Regret is obviously an iconic performance (and not a bad song) which makes me think it's a shame more artists didn't make similarly inspired use of TOTP's ability to feature creative satellite slots. Depeche Mode doing I Feel You from Roseanne's sofa? Sting in Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman's copse? My favourite bit is the extended shot of that guy beaching his canoe. Almost Zen-like. When Mrs Canes and I visited this stretch of beach in 1999 it was unexpectedly deserted, not a soul about. Had a lovely few minutes enjoying the surf all on our own, until a law enforcement officer spotted us and informed us through a loudhailer there'd been an offshore toxic spillage and the whole sea front was closed off. Shades of The Big Spill, huh Baywatch fans?

Oh, one thing about this turn that was bugging me; now this might sound a bit conspiracy theory, but... is David Hasselhoff actually there? I mean obviously he's there at the start and later he saunters over to chat with one of the extras but, surprisingly he's never actually on screen with the band. Best we get is him in long shot near the end where, you know, it could be someone else, just saying. Some Derren Brown level trickery, cutting in some Hasselhoff footage and using a guy in a wig to cover for the fact he couldn't make the shoot. 


"And... close-up on the cunt..."



"No..!"



"That's better!"

[A Hat Like That]

When I was watching that Bluebells video it seemed like a UK early 80s music video cliche to feature a dishevelled chef in a grotty cafe with all soup going everywhere but then I realised I can't actually think of any other videos where this happens.

Brass in Pocket

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0H6re3PCP3E

[non capisco]

Blammo! Justification, ta!

[A Hat Like That]

TECHNO TECHNO TECHNO TECHNO

Top of the Pops, you and I need to have words.

A few weeks ago, you could have put It Was A Good Day in the Breakers.

This fortnight, you've not only got Bill 'Vera' Tarmey in the Breakers but then he actually CLIMBS up the charts. Get him in live.

One Voice is an experience.



An aside - Jack Duckworth's death scene in Corrie is really rather tender.

Everything else in that duo - WAT. 1993 started bright but it is really, really, REALLY starting to flag. Y'all gonna see why Britpop was such a big thing.

TECHNO TECHNO TECHNO TECHNO

[Norton Canes]

Everything else in that duo - WAT. 1993 started bright but it is really, really, REALLY starting to flag. Y'all gonna see why Britpop was such a big thing

Yeah I think it would be fair a massive understatement to say it's lost a lot of critical momentum. In fact 'critical' is now the condition in which it finds itself. It's like the production team, Appel et al that they got in for the Year Zero revamp did the job but didn't realize they'd actually have to stick around full time and make the show week in week out, rather than just snazzing it up and let someone else take over the routine work. Pretty well all the things they threw at the show on the relaunch that were potentially interesting have been jettisoned: the roster of presenters, of course; the interviews (such as they were), trying to use the extra stage space to conjure up a sense of epic performance (remember Shut 'Em Down with the camera swinging to and fro? Something that audacious seems an eternity ago now). I mean no-one's seriously claiming that post its early 80's New Wave/2-Tone/Synthpop high point Top of the Pops was wall-to-wall quality but if you're going to rely on a couple of songs each week to tent-pole the show then you do actually need there to be at least a couple otherwise you've only got one pole and it's not even a tent, more a... yurt sort of thing (do yurts have poles?)

Also it has to be said that the show on any given week was always at the mercy of the Top 40 (EXCLUSIVeS excepted) and to be honest there aren't many weeks in '92/'93 when you pick from the best of the available songs and think yeah, that would make a fantastic show.

Which reminds me I didn't say anything about Sub Sub last week did I? If anything they hit a nice sweet spot, giving us equal measures of pop, dance and indie with a soupçon of S-Express style disco in the sort of song Betty Boo would have maybe made if her second album had been as bright and brash as the first. And they let it play to its non-fade ending! Nice touch.

I know there are like another eight months or whatever before the Radio 1 DJs roll back into town but it would be interesting to know if the show's cards were already marked and it was just being allowed to float in a state of inertia. I wonder if Michael Hurll's few weeks return on holiday cover was a catalyst? Sorry, now I can just imagine Nicky Campbell and Bruno Brookes out on the parched savanna circling a wounded, terrified Tony Dortie and Mark Franklin like in that Big Train sketch where Prince hunts down jockeys.

Anyway, probably going to be watching later on catch-up this evening as it's date night. iPlayer and chill, oh yeah, I'm a keeper. Which reminds me, I need to ask Mrs Canes where she wants to eat

[daf]

Early start for an eclectic chart mix of authentic 90's vibes this week - 7pm

[daf]

Bleagh - Sex music!

[daf]

Christ Alban, what are you doing? This isn't a rehearsal!

"Uhhhhhhhhhh"

[daf]

Null points!

[daf]

Where's the funny improv bit?

[daf]

Oh there it is (Shabba)

[Piles the Beaver]

A posse of sex-pests now.

[daf]

More rancid sex music!

[Icehaven]

Bastids started early! Iplayer it is.

[non capisco]

That Sub Sub tune fuckin spanks man. How did they turn into a band as boring as Doves?

Loved the Janet one as well. For some reason I had it in my head that the post-Rhythm Nation stuff was weak sauce but That's The Way Love Goes is prowling round my head now like a panther on heat.

Terence Trent D'arby looks amazing and sounds like Sam Cooke but there's just something not quite there about him as a pop star. Those sub-Prince moves he was trying to pull off seemed very effortful. Started off alright but then started to look like a tartrazine addled six year old refusing to be collected from their mates' house. Didn't help that the song was hardly Dance Little Sister, let alone Wishing Well.

Starting to begrudgingly appreciate The Bluebells making the most of their surprise resurgence seeing as they immediately split up again after the single dropped from number one. Fiddlechops gives me the undefinable ick a bit though for some reason. You knew he was going to be the one to jump up and have a perv at those dancers. Incidentally, they had a bass player on the first performance, what happened to him? "Fuck this miming to an old record for three minutes on telly lark, too much like hard work." You could always join East 17 mate, half of them get to have a nice sit down when performing.

[Clatty McCutcheon]

.

[Clatty McCutcheon]

Incidentally, they had a bass player on the first performance, what happened to him? "Fuck this miming to an old record for three minutes on telly lark, too much like hard work." You could always join East 17 mate, half of them get to have a nice sit down when performing.

If it was their original bassist Lawrence Donegan, I think he'd established an unlikely new career as a golf writer for broadsheet newspapers by that time (not sure how up-to-date Wiki is, but they have him down as being at The Guardian). So he might've had to miss TOTP to go and write an article about Pringle knitwear or sand wedges or stupid shoes or whatever shite golf correspondents write about.

[non capisco]

IAN BLUEBELL: Here, lads. If we're still number one next week I'm gonna shout TECHNO TECHNO TECHNO TECHNO!

THEIR ORIGINAL BASSIST LAWRENCE DONEGAN: Ah, you know what...I forgot I've got a deadline for this golf piece for the Guardian and I've not written a word yet...

[Dyl Spinks]

The drummer out of the Bluebells (David) taught me how to play guitar when I was 13/14. We played along to Mellencamp, Springsteen, and Steve Earle songs every week until I had my thing down. It was amazing.

I met him in Bothwell main Street a few years later in 1993 and asked him if he was going to the Bruce show at SECC, but he couldn't: "I've got to go down London for Top of the Pops; we're no.1." (You'll note the incendiary "live" Lucky Town on TotP - actually filmed the previous night, on the Wednesday - appears during their weeks at no.1.)

An absolute gem of a guy, btw. Great memories at those lessons/rockin' out sessions. He'd a drum kit and would rock out along to Copperhead Road or Rain on the Scarecrow while I played/learned.

One week, David called to postpone the usual Thursday night session as he'd hit a rich vein writing - he was playing as The McClusky Brothers with his bro (the singer in the Bluebells - known locally as "Stan" since his schooldays, due to Stan Laurel hair, or something. I dunno, they were well older than me). The song was called Lonely Satellite, and it's absolutely beautiful. Played it for me the next week. Said he'd been inspired by the rhythms of Bruce's I'm on Fire. I'm unsure if it's out there on Spotify or whatever.

[non capisco]

Nice one. He does look like he's having a whale of a time miming behind the kit on these episodes.

[non capisco]

Forgot to mention Dr Alban getting away with murder with his vocal effort. "Unggggh."

[Dyl Spinks]

Nice one. He does look like he's having a whale of a time miming behind the kit on these episodes.

Yeah,he was (is?) a fantastic drummer, but his songwriting and sense of melody was quite something. Even then, I got the feeling the whole Bluebells thing was getting him down (until VW picked up the song for an ad - who's gonna turn that down?).

As an addendum, some local scumbag stole their (the Bluebells' drummer and the singer) Dad's dog in the "Nature Walk" in Bothwell - this is where we 14 year old lads looked for jazzmags, inevitably finding them. Their Dad was never the same and died fairly young soon after, heartbroken (or so I was told).

[Egyptian Feast]

Forgot to mention Dr Alban getting away with murder with his vocal effort. "Unggggh."

Highlight of the first episode for me. His live vocals are truly incredible.