Sunshine Saturday by New Edition beggars belief. Awful song, toe-curling studio performance, occasional footage of the band living it up at the coconut shy and some obscenely tight trousers on one of the male vocals. Spectacularly shite stuff.
When I heard it it immediately reminded me of that horrible "Friday fun fun fun" thing that was going around on Youtube a few months ago. The two songs are actually pretty similar.
I never thought I'd say this, but I sort of miss DLT on the World Service (sorry: the BBC Wild Service, as he tediously insisted on calling it).
It was a bloody terrible show, as you'd expect, but in those days quite a bit of the World Service's programming consisted of a sort of boiled-down version of Radios 1, 2, 3 and 4 for ex-pats and interested non-Brits, so while you had to put up with DLT, you also got Just A Minute and John Peel.
Nowadays, almost the entire schedule is rolling news for the Thrusting International Business Traveller and endless Speak Your Branes nonsense. Where the sports show used to at least acknowledge the presence of the lower divisions, these days it consists entirely of Alan fucking Green talking about Manchelsearsepool.
I never listen to the wretched station any more and I take great pleasure in noting that Aung San Suu Kyi agrees with me.
the BBC Wild Service, as he tediously insisted on calling it
I can hear his self-satisfied tones in my head uttering that nonsense.
My cousin - an avowed DLT-hater - tells me the guy's C4 news int last night was so bad he (my cousin) had to leave the room. Not seen it myself, but there's a 'secret' recording of DLT knocking about where he blows his top in a very offensive way at some of his studio lackeys. Kind of sums the guy up.
Lovely bit of pathos (bathos? one of those anyway), as after 'Fool to Cry', Tony Blackburn asks one of a bevvy of young ladies 'so, did you see the Stones when they were in town?' (shy shake of head) 'Neither did I... I missed out on that as well... but we're not going it miss out on this! it's Cliff Richard with Devil Woman'
Yeah, and afterwards he said he thought it was Cliff's best ever song. HE IMPLIED THAT EVERYTHING ELSE YOU'VE DONE IS SHIT, CLIFF. SET YOUR GOD ONTO HIM.
I have several questions. Firstly, why was Dion's The Wanderer back in the charts in 1976 and secondly what was that choreography with the girl that went with it all about? The producer had discovered multi-screen and was using it pretty blithely without anything interesting to put in one screen yet alone three.
So you had this weird shot in one of the windows of her disembodied hand clenching and unclenching and another one of just her ankle moving slightly from side to side. I was thinking Boxing Helena I was.
Thirdly, who the hell was still buying Don Mizzell's Jungle Rock after all these weeks. It was still managing to hold on to a Top 30 place and has been in the charts every week since these re-runs began. I mean so has Fernando by Abba but you can understand that one. Abba had a nice video too, Jungle Rock was eviscerated by Pan's People and the soft toy department at Hamley's yet still people continued to buy it.
Boston Tea Party by The Sensational Alex Harvey Band is a curious little song. Good chorus but really plodding and awkward in the verses between. It's got a really unconventional rhythm too, yet the studio audience gamely tried to dance to it as if they were doing an impersonation of Pan's People dancing to Jungle Rock. Alex really didn't know what to do with his hands, there can't have been many artists on the show who deliver a verse with their arms folded. He had them down the front of his trousers at one point too.
Bryan Ferry is a cool fucker. Not only is he in a very small minority of men who can carry off wearing white shoes (I tried and failed myself circa 1985) but he teams it up in a double act with a Portuguese waiter pencil moustache and it still looks cool. I'll never understand why Jerry Hall ditched him for the considerably less suave Mick Jagger.
My TOTP years came a bit later than this when it had moved to a Top 40 and they would break the chart rundown into four segments of ten over the course of the programme. That still seems innately sensible to me compared with the way they dump out the whole chart at the beginning of the programme in the current format before they have even played a single song.
Every week it jars for me, now of course back then you didn't have MTV and people had attention spans greater than a fruit fly but who can take in all that information at once? This was an age where the number one song was considered really important so if you were the producer why would you not delay the reveal until right at the end of the programme. It's premature ejaculation, it's driving your tractor through someone's haystack last night instead of today.
I mean who wouldn't want to crank up the tension when it is The Wurzels at number one after all.
Lovely bit of pathos (bathos? one of those anyway), as after 'Fool to Cry', Tony Blackburn asks one of a bevvy of young ladies 'so, did you see the Stones when they were in town?' (shy shake of head) 'Neither did I... I missed out on that as well... but we're not going it miss out on this! it's Cliff Richard with Devil Woman'
Brilliant.
My grandmother hated his voice and used to complain every time she saw or heard Tony Blackburn that he had hair 'like Frankenstein's Monster'.
That book Nishlord mentioned might be worth a read.
The Hairy Cornflake is completely oblivious to the fact that the entire world thinks he's an absolute cunt and a complete pilchard. You have to admire that.
Simon Bates' big boomy voice and that wanky Our Tune thing he used to do cracked me up. Susan was diagnosed with MS, but she gave birth to a healthy baby boy, that baby boy is now ten and I guess he, er... never really got to know his mum...
I was going to say that Radio 1 at that time could have done with a psychiatric department, but they'd love you to believe they were all totally bonkers.
Bryan Ferry is a cool fucker. Not only is he in a very small minority of men who can carry off wearing white shoes (I tried and failed myself circa 1985) but he teams it up in a double act with a Portuguese waiter pencil moustache and it still looks cool. I'll never understand why Jerry Hall ditched him for the considerably less suave Mick Jagger.
Dirtier Mick Jagger, allegedly. Well, not allegedly, she said in an interview that he's the dirtiest, rudest man she ever knew.
I dunno, "short" is a complete deal breaker for me, and Mr Ferry is very tall and yeh, cool, but I think he may be a bit dull.
I did think that, but I was trying to put myself in Jerry's shoes .. It strikes me that's she's a funny girl and both blokes seem a bit humourless. So maybe she just likes the alpha male success thing.
dalliance's account of this week's doesn't mention Archie Bell & the Drells doing 'Soul City Walking'.
Part of that slightly odd but always interesting period of crossover between black consciousness funk and supperclub soul, complete with formation dancing and glittery evening wear. Great stuff.
Firstly, why was Dion's The Wanderer back in the charts in 1976 and secondly what was that choreography with the girl that went with it all about?
Dion had issued his first album in yonks the previous year - the Phil Spector-produced Born To Be With You - and it had bombed spectacularly. I recall hearing that he was part of some package tour that came to Europe in 1976, so presumably his people needed to get his name back into the spotlight. It worked: the reissued 'Wanderer' made a return to the UK Top 20.
I have no clue as to what that Pan's People/Ruby Flipper dance was all about, however. As I suspect Flick Colby (RIP) also didn't.
Thirdly, who the hell was still buying Don Mizzell's Jungle Rock after all these weeks. It was still managing to hold on to a Top 30 place and has been in the charts every week since these re-runs began. I mean so has Fernando by Abba but you can understand that one. Abba had a nice video too, Jungle Rock was eviscerated by Pan's People and the soft toy department at Hamley's yet still people continued to buy it.
'Jungle Rock' by Hank Mizell was a long-forgotten rock 'n' roll gem that deserved its four months in the charts, is why. The follow-up, 'Kangaroo Rock', was as sh*te as its title suggests, however.
Boston Tea Party by The Sensational Alex Harvey Band is a curious little song. Good chorus but really plodding and awkward in the verses between. It's got a really unconventional rhythm too, yet the studio audience gamely tried to dance to it as if they were doing an impersonation of Pan's People dancing to Jungle Rock. Alex really didn't know what to do with his hands, there can't have been many artists on the show who deliver a verse with their arms folded. He had them down the front of his trousers at one point too.
Alex was on his way out by then - drink and God knows what else had got to him. Still a darned good record though. I bought that one at Canterbury Woolworth's, on 7 inch. And I was right to do so.
I mean who wouldn't want to crank up the tension when it is The Wurzels at number one after all
Noel Edmonds, it seems. He didn't even announce that it was 'the nation's number one sound' on the edition I saw the other night...
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