Chart Music Podcast

[Neomod]

It'd be interesting if Al got a couple of musicians who had actually appeared on Top Of The Pops to do a Chart Music with him.

Is David Van Day still in Brighton? Maybe Simon could have a word.

[DrGreggles]

It'd be interesting if Al got a couple of musicians who had actually appeared on Top Of The Pops to do a Chart Music with him.

Gary Kemp listens.
Maybe he could slag off The Hadley Fist?

[Nelson]

Just so everyone knows, that "Wattoo Wattoo" show Taylor mentioned was Wattoo Wattoo Super Bird, a series of short five minute French cartoons which also got shown in the Thames region as well as Border and wherever.

An example episode (in French)

It was on Granada too.

Couldn't agree more with the comment above about the warm appraisal of "Gold" being a good example of why this podcast is so great. And I'm delighted to hear Siouxsie and, in passing, the Bunnymen getting short shrift.

[thraxx]

It'd be interesting if Al got a couple of musicians who had actually appeared on Top Of The Pops to do a Chart Music with him.

That would be good.  As I recall, Simon Gallup for example has some interesting - disappointment with the experience - takes on the TOTP experience from the performers point of view.

Same for cameramen, runners or other members of the production team.

[Brundle-Fly]

This is a good gaff for the podcast should they ever cover this Sept 1979 episode. As Cliff Richard is performing, Suggs is sitting on the other stage at the back of the studio. He suddenly realises he's in shot and quietly shuffles off. Note Cliff glancing round at the end. It was Madness's TOTP debut.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z7UhSC8llLY



Another good Madness TOTP moment was their performance of The Sun And The Rain. This got them in a bit of hot water. When Chas does the Bob Dylan signing he says hello to his brother Brendan who was banged up at the time. There was a prison breakout that night and the governors thought it was a coded message to initiate it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qm4HNImPQgI

It would be great if somebody could loop Savile chanting 'Madness' over and over again. He had the Madness video for It Must Be Love banned from TOTP because he believed it would encourage children to play electric guitars underwater. You see? Jimmy cared. That's why on the Complete Madness video introduction Chrissy Boy gives a solemn warning.

[Uncle TechTip]

I've doubted that - the episode did the rounds back when BBC4 were in the era and it was right there, introduced by Savile with no mention of the sequence. Maybe he stopped future airings but not banned.

[Brundle-Fly]

I've doubted that - the episode did the rounds back when BBC4 were in the era and it was right there, introduced by Savile with no mention of the sequence. Maybe he stopped future airings but not banned.

I'm only going by John Reed's book about Madness. Another Madness observation about TOTP was drummer Woody saying how quiet the playback was in the studio. They stuffed his drums with towels and blankets, apparently, and he was straining to hear anything.

Check out the four-eyed prat in the audience at 2:29 mark.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=npT7fGBPgks

[Epic Bisto]

Neil's been back on Twitter, so hopefully he'll return to CM soon. He's a great contributor - and is a great audience for whoever else is on his episodes.

Absolutely. He admits himself that he was way too serious and pompous back in the MM days, but he's one of the best contributors to the podcast. His hysterical laugh and enthusiasm are absolutely infectious.Hell, I checked out "The Undiluted Truth" by Black Radical Mk.II due to him mentioning it on an episode (it's a great LP BTW). So glad to hear that he's keeping himself busy and hope he and his family are doing alright.


Also, Al seems to have gone down the Joy Sarney rabbit hole in Facebook lately.

[ccbaxter]

Maybe alone here but while loving the podcast, and especially Taylor's mordant tirades - "right?" - and the easy breadth of reference of them all, especially Simon's, poor Al's anecdotes do tend to tail off a little, with nervous laughter from the others albeit the great riposte this time: "*We* stopped talking about the Style Council ten minutes ago, Al."
Then again, I never really found the whole Bummerdog thing that special to begin with, so just shrug a bit at those bits since then.

[DrGreggles]

Then again, I never really found the whole Bummerdog thing that special to begin with, so just shrug a bit at those bits since then.

The original BD story (with the Our Tune music) might be the most I've laughed at anything all year.

[worldsgreatestsinner]

Maybe alone here but while loving the podcast, and especially Taylor's mordant tirades - "right?" - and the easy breadth of reference of them all, especially Simon's, poor Al's anecdotes do tend to tail off a little, with nervous laughter from the others albeit the great riposte this time: "*We* stopped talking about the Style Council ten minutes ago, Al."
Then again, I never really found the whole Bummerdog thing that special to begin with, so just shrug a bit at those bits since then.

I think the editing is a little off at times. Like sometimes someone will be talking and the cut makes it seem like they've just finished making a point that Al ignores to launch into the next section. I think it's just the way it's been edited.

[Ballad of Ballard Berkley]

Yes, I think it's just a case of the edit making it sound like Al's anecdotes suddenly just end before he launches into the next bit. I've never felt that his co-hosts sound like they're laughing out of nervous politeness, his stories often elicit big laughs from Pricey and co.

However, I always feel quite uncomfortable whenever he tells stories about his jazz mag days. Their rather seedy, tragicomic tone jars with the generally upbeat nature of this podcast.

[Vodka Margarine]

I love the way Al has a bit of a wrong 'un past, that he's a bit of an outsider and slightly out of step with the MM old school ties. I wouldn't have it any other way.

[Nice Relaxing Poo]

I love the way Al has a bit of a wrong 'un past, that he's a bit of an outsider and slightly out of step with the MM old school ties. I wouldn't have it any other way.

Very much this. All of the contributors to CM had a working class-ish upbringing but Al's just seems much more harsh and real than the others. Growing up in the rougher end of Nottingham is going to give some rough edges and Al seems to wear his with pride which I like very much.

[Camp Tramp]

Al's childhood seems pretty normal to me. The 70's seem to have been a rough and ready time to have grown up, his experiences don't sound too different to my parent's teenage years in the 70's.

[Ballad of Ballard Berkley]

I wasn't suggesting that Al's working-class Nottingham anecdotes were jarring - I was raised on a shithole Scottish council estate, rife with stray bummerdogs - just that the porn stuff is a bit grim.

[Ballad of Ballard Berkley]

...

[worldsgreatestsinner]

With the porn stuff I think what makes it ok is that it's never leery. Al tends to talk about the women with fondness and respect and the men as complete dicks and paints it all as being a bit grim, especially with that story about the readers coming to the office.

[Ballad of Ballard Berkley]

That's true, it's never leery.

[worldsgreatestsinner]

Of course I meant leering... Anyway...

[non capisco]

I recommend at least a five episode moratorium on Bummerdog mentions now. He's threatening to become Chart Music's Mr. Blobby.

Bollockdog got a raw deal seeing as to my mind he was the true star of that original set of stories. 

[iamcoop]

I know it's a trope but Al casually referring to Childish Gambino as Shakin' Outkast caught me off guard and really made me laugh like fuck.

[Nelson]

I agree, I think it's time Bummerdog was humanely destroyed or at least impounded for a while. I did enjoy David Stubbs' impression of Richard Briers, though.

[kidsick5000]

What a shame Simon Price doesn't post on here anymore. I can't imagine it was just down to the SOTCAA fellas disagreeing with him. They might have been divisive but hardly the mafia. I can imagine someone like him has thicker skin than that or maybe he just thought, "You know what? Fuck this."

If you're not here for a fight, being shouted down for saying you like something can be the fast track to "fuck this"

[yesitsme]

When I was young I used to think the TotP studio was the greatest place on planet earth.  Now when I watch them back I'm gripped with pity for the people imprisoned in the studio.

It looks like there's nothing fun about any of it.

[Chriddof]

I was put off from ever wanting to be part of the TOTP audience from an early age, when my mum told me about some young women she knew back in the late 60s / early 70s doing it once. Nothing of that nature happened to them, but the floor manager was a grumpy sod who kept shoving everyone about, and at one point before recording demanded that everyone look happy and to dance enthusiastically as possible under pain of being ejected from the studio.

[kidsick5000]

The 80s office party era still looks like is was a bit of a laugh. If you like that sort of thing.
How did you get to be in the audience? Half write-in, half walk-in? Surely it must have been a lot of the same crowd over and over.

[EOLAN]

Mr Needham did put a link to Jasper's Carrott stand up album from the 70s "Carrott at Notts", mainly due to a song about the 1976 FA Cup final in it.

However; there is also a fairly good segment in it too about Carrott's experience on TOTP, which basically ties up with a lot of what is said above. With a small audience being bored stiff and then when a performance is on being cartwheeled and moved around by the floor staff to make the crowd seem bigger and having fun. 

[Brundle-Fly]

The 80s office party era still looks like is was a bit of a laugh. If you like that sort of thing.
How did you get to be in the audience? Half write-in, half walk-in? Surely it must have been a lot of the same crowd over and over.

You just wrote in and got put on a waiting list.   The longest waiting list to be in the audience for a BBC show was for The Good Old Days. Three years, apparently.

[Nelson]

On CMs Facebook, Taylor Parkes has linked to a YouTube video of someone driving around Kidderminster in 1980, recording presumably with a home camcorder. I've watched similar ones frpm my own home town and they're fascinating. I had no idea that people were doi g this - just recording stuff they pass on the drive into town. Was this a thing, when home video became more popular? It seems an odd thing to have done at the time, but I'm glad they did.