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    TOTP on BBC4

    The first AATA appearance on TOTP was something special, unless you were a hardcore punk Antz fan with an Antz tattoo, with your mum saying "is this that group you like? That Alan is a nice looking boy". Not me, but I know of the trauma that it caused on the one hand, and the awakened libidos on the other.
    I love it in retrospect, he is so fired up, and Mooney and Marco do the sulky swaggering thing very well.

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      TOTP on BBC4

      I never really thought of Suzi Quatro as the sort of female in pop that men would letch over. See also 1982 Eurovision Song Contest winner Nicole.

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        TOTP on BBC4

        MsD wrote: The first AATA appearance on TOTP was something special, unless you were a hardcore punk Antz fan with an Antz tattoo, with your mum saying "is this that group you like? That Alan is a nice looking boy". Not me, but I know of the trauma that it caused on the one hand, and the awakened libidos on the other.
        I love it in retrospect, he is so fired up, and Mooney and Marco do the sulky swaggering thing very well.
        I remember going to the Futurama 2 festival in Leeds a few months before this. Pretty much every Punks' black leather biker jacket had some form of AATA's decoration on it. Didn't take long for them all to disappear!

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          TOTP on BBC4

          Loving the random having-a-mild-go at 1982 Eurovision Song Contest winner Nicole there. It must be hard to get anyone to agree with you when she's thrown into casual conversation.

          Must be a story behind it, I'm guessing a family member or friend had the hots for her back in day an you just can't get it out of your craw.

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            TOTP on BBC4

            Squarewheelbike wrote:
            Originally posted by MsD
            The first AATA appearance on TOTP was something special, unless you were a hardcore punk Antz fan with an Antz tattoo, with your mum saying "is this that group you like? That Alan is a nice looking boy". Not me, but I know of the trauma that it caused on the one hand, and the awakened libidos on the other.
            I love it in retrospect, he is so fired up, and Mooney and Marco do the sulky swaggering thing very well.
            I remember going to the Futurama 2 festival in Leeds a few months before this. Pretty much every Punks' black leather biker jacket had some form of AATA's decoration on it. Didn't take long for them all to disappear!
            I imagine a Top Five hit did it for most of them. I've not seen any TOTP repeats for a few months, so I'm assuming that this was Adam & co performing Dog Eat Dog. By some distance his finest moment, IMO.

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              TOTP on BBC4

              It was TOTP that did it for most of them. I was in the Antz crew but didn't take it as seriously as many of them, who were looking bereaved for weeks. Honestly, they've never got over it. There's a big difference between the Peel sessions and Dirk but none of them expected that.

              OTOH, it was almost a Starman moment for many 11-14 year-olds.

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                TOTP on BBC4

                Similarly, a couple of girls I hung out with were obsessive Theatre Of Hate fans - and Kirk Brandon and co appearing on TOTP early in 1982 left them devastated. I never fully understood why, as it was a good tune (Do You Believe in the Westworld?), was introduced by Peel, and, more significantly for them, hardly altered TOH's career trajectory (unlike with Adam & The Ants).

                I guess I never had that mentality - the charts being full of 'our' bands was a great thing, IMO.

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                  TOTP on BBC4

                  If they'd got on TOTP with Zerox and the punk attitude or gimp mask, it might have been different.

                  Zerox is a great tune, could have been a hit but the Ants were far outside then. The music press hated them and kept trying to characterize them as Nazi or fascist apologists.

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                    TOTP on BBC4

                    Yeah, I still like 'Zerox mo-chine'...

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                      TOTP on BBC4

                      The "Kings of the Wild Frontier" single still sounds pretty radical to me. Burundi drumming in the charts, definitely a much more interesting and full sound than standard pop. "Stand And Deliver" is more standard, glam-ish pop (very camp) whereas Prince Charming has the ghostly backing vocals. I think overall there's more edge in those big hits that is generally remembered, even though Adam (Stuart) was being plastered all over teen mags as a standard pin-up glam boy.

                      I'm sure the move of New Romantics into mainstream acceptability owed something to Adam. He contributed to the make-up, glam, camp essence of that scene being transferable to TOTP, TISWAS etc even though his sound IMHO is fuller and more dynamic through the drumming.

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                        TOTP on BBC4

                        There's edge and art in everything Adam does, and his lyrics are usually pretty clever; even nonsense / nursery rhyme lines are usually references from films (Kubrick, Anger ... Blade Runner), books (The Futurist Manifesto), history or pop culture.

                        Marco's riffs show his influences (Roxy Music, Mick Ronson, Bolan, Link Wray, Morricone, Leone) and many are blatant rip-offs, but Dog Eat Dog was original, and the S&D "galloping" riff was clever. He's a pastiche / cut and paste man but he did it very well sometimes.

                        I hate much of the mid-late 80s work (I didn't follow them after 81, but bought Kings and love three tracks on it) as it sounds slick and corny but most of it has some depth. I could start an Ants thread although I got moaned at for starting one about the gigs. The gigs thread has details of next year's Kings tour.

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                          TOTP on BBC4

                          Adam and the Ants poster in Germany's Bravo magazine in '81.

                          They did look like they had too much fun with the make-up box.

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                            TOTP on BBC4

                            Miaow.

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                              TOTP on BBC4

                              The crease down that page distorts Adam's beautiful and perfect face. No-one looked at the others, as Marco would confirm, people said "oh, were you onstage?" straight after the gig.

                              https://m.youtube.com/watch?search=&v=wtxuPqjSJDc&mode=related

                              TOTP clip there.

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                                TOTP on BBC4

                                MsD wrote: Miaow.
                                Ha, it wasn't meant to be bitchy. I suppose in 1981 these things were just as bit more experimental than they would be later.

                                And, yeah, pity about the crease. Mr Goddard used to come to a restaurant where I worked, always with his dad. He struck me as extremely shy. I don't remember if he was a good tipper, but we didn't hate him, so he must have been OK.

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                                  TOTP on BBC4

                                  He's absolutely sweet and lovely, unless he's having an episode. Even then, he doesn't pick on people who aren't giving him grief.

                                  He and another band member were attacked at the TOTP studio (by another band) around that time, actually. If that's not been mentioned.

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                                    TOTP on BBC4

                                    Was it The Dooleys?

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                                      TOTP on BBC4

                                      Goombay Dance Band? Tight Fit?

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                                        TOTP on BBC4

                                        MsD wrote:

                                        OTOH, it was almost a Starman moment for many 11-14 year-olds.
                                        Oh believe me, it was!

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                                          TOTP on BBC4

                                          It was the 4be2s who not only started a fight with AatA, but if you watch TOTP on iplayer, right after George Benson's performance, on of the 4be2s can be scene doing a Nazi salute.
                                          Don't think it was Jimmy Lydon, though.

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                                            TOTP on BBC4

                                            They liked a drink IIRC and were just a bit dickish.

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                                              TOTP on BBC4

                                              Bit of an odd one tonight, looked like no live bands in the studio!

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                                                TOTP on BBC4

                                                Fuck me.
                                                That 4be2's lot are unutterably shit.
                                                Have a listen to this pile of toss.

                                                https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=J8lMzAvY8kI

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                                                  TOTP on BBC4

                                                  Watching this week's TOTP from 1980 last night (and what an odd phrase that is), I was struck yet again at how unpolished it all was compared with what one might expect now. Peter Powell seemed totally unscripted and had little idea what he was about to say next, while the guest DJ (whose name I forget) appeared self-conscious, like there was no point his being there. Which frankly there wasn't. The sound was bloody awful as well.

                                                  Are people seriously telling me that the 4be2s found their way onto TOTP?

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                                                    TOTP on BBC4

                                                    The ending of that episode was hideous, with Powell flipping a coin to see which one of the two teenage girls he would take backstage after the show.

                                                    Other than that, there did seem to be a genuine party atmosphere in the studio, rave killed that, didn't it? Before rave, popular nightclubbing in the UK would genuinely consist of balloons, streamers, booze and popular music, TOTP was replacing booze with celebs, which must have been exciting. All of that was irrelevant by the end of the 80s and the thrill of dancing in a BBC studio must have been a poor relation to being off your tits on e in an aircraft hanger.

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