TOTP on BBC4

[Jon]

TOTP on BBC4

Thanks for your detective work, Serge. Just watched the PP link at the end of the song and he does say "Did you see Otway in the band?"

[Jah Womble]

TOTP on BBC4

dalliance wrote: Yes, Stray Cat Strut was the third one but I've never heard of that other track at all.

It was from the fourth album, Rant n' Rave (1983) - made UK #29. The group's trajectory dropped off alarmingly after the debut album.

[MsD]

TOTP on BBC4

Brian Setzer's gone on to do a lot of other stuff, hasn't he?

And the SC influenced Goody Two Shoes (which I've learnt to tolerate, and understand is actually quite clever rather than just being irritating, as it has a mad number of key changes), Adam Ant's biggest money-spinner.

[Jah Womble]

TOTP on BBC4

Yep, the Brian Setzer Orchestra were good fun. (Research tells me that the Stray Cats were a lot bigger in their homeland than I'd previously thought.)

[Jon]

TOTP on BBC4

Yes, it seems they were building up quite a following in the States but then heard tell of a rockabilly revival happening in the UK so moved over here. But as you said on the previous page, by the time they'd got here the movement was kind of on its last legs.

[MsD]

TOTP on BBC4

There was a rockabilly "festival" in Camden a couple of months ago, with The Polecats. Here, it's about the level that it was in the early 80s (and I recognised many of the same faces and hairdos, just a bit older), underground but dedicated. Also, Gaz's Rockin Blues had a night not so long ago, in the same bar it always was.

It crossed over with club culture in the 80s, with The Dirtbox, but it was a Big in London sort of thing. As with so many youth (sub)cultures (and it was "youth" at the time), it was more flexible for girls. I dressed 50s and had a quiff, like my friend in the Shillelagh Sisters, and had a lot of rockin blues, rockabilly and jazz music, but also went to the Mud Club liked soul, electronica and hiphop. It was a bit more difficult for boys to adapt their look even when they had similarly eclectic tastes.

Point is, the Stray Cats didn't make much difference to the rockabilly scene. Rockabillies were mostly listening to old stuff or playing in bands like the Polecats.

[Borracho]

TOTP on BBC4

Brian Setzer made a lot of money from touring the US in the late 1990s. I was idly reading a copy of Billboard years ago and saw his name in the top ten highest grossing live acts in America for that particular year, which caused me to almost fall out of my chair.

[Squarewheelbike]

TOTP on BBC4

Had a few mates well into the Rockabilly thing back then. They went to a weekender or some such, and said the bands started getting ignored when Gripper Stebson from Grange Hill turned up and got mobbed!

[Satchmo Distel]

TOTP on BBC4

The Stray Cats also had a #34 hit in 1981 backing their producer Dave Edmunds on "The Race Is On" (George Jones cover).

[MsD]

TOTP on BBC4

Brian Setzer owns and plays nice guitars. I seem to remember that Marco bought his old Falcon at one point.

[Satchmo Distel]

TOTP on BBC4

IIRC The Stray Cats used a stand-up bass. Did any other major chart act of the period do that?

[Jah Womble]

TOTP on BBC4

Bob Cotton of The Jets - whom I mentioned on the 'identical names' thread - definitely had one. (And probably fella-me-lad from Matchbox.)

Not sure either constitutes a 'major act', however.

The Stray Cats also had a #34 hit in 1981 backing their producer Dave Edmunds on "The Race Is On" (George Jones cover).

They did indeed. Good spot.

[Jon]

TOTP on BBC4

What was that group that were on TOTP maybe a couple of years back from our 1980 time bubble, where the singer (I think it was the singer) jumped quite impressivley off the stand-up bass.

[Satchmo Distel]

TOTP on BBC4

Google search for TOTP double bass brings up this by Can:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E0nfjguTclg

Farther back there's The Seekers:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PSxwqBJLU8A

Some famous hits have a double bass played by a session player:

Penny Lane - Frank Clarke

Good Vibrations (+ Pet Sounds) - Lyle Ritz

[wittoner]

TOTP on BBC4

And of course Herbie Flowers on "Walk on the Wild Side".

Not sure whether or not Herbie played double bass in his TOTP appearances with Blue Mink.

Sting played one - or pretended to-in the "Every Breath you take" video but I think that was a one -off for him.

[Jon]

TOTP on BBC4

Never knew that Herbie Flowers used a double bass on Walk on the Wild Side.

Anyway, I've found the clip I was referring to. It was Matchbox, 1980 - Buzz, buzz a-diddle it. Guitarist plays a few licks while jumping onto the side of the double bass. And the bassist has got some good spinning moves himself.

[Squarewheelbike]

TOTP on BBC4

Jon wrote: Never knew that Herbie Flowers used a double bass on Walk on the Wild Side.

I thought everyone knew that! He was also responsible for Grandad by Clive Dunn!

[Jah Womble]

TOTP on BBC4

Semi-responsible - it was co-written with Kenny Pickett of The Creation.

[Satchmo Distel]

TOTP on BBC4

Herbie used an electric bass in Blue Mink, at least on here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nGw-ciagenk

Walk On The Wild Side was danced by Pans People on TOTP but I suspect that tape was wiped. How did Pans People mime "giving head"?

http://panspeople.com/?q=node/861

Pans People doing Midnight Rider in 1976, seem to be dressed like Jodie Foster in Taxi Driver:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zKtlMp3pU7w

[Various Artist]

TOTP on BBC4

wittoner wrote: Sting played [a double bass] - or pretended to-in the "Every Breath you take" video but I think that was a one -off for him.

I distinctly remember him playing one when he performed When We Dance on Top of the Pops in what must have been 1994, as I'd never seen such a thing done in pop music before.

(On reflection, I'd already seen John Deacon 'play' double bass in Queen's Who Wants To Live Forever video – but that seemed clearly a stylistic thing as he appeared in among shots of an orchestra, I never imagined he actually played one on the song. So Sting doing it 'live' on TV was a different thing; albeit I have no idea now if he played it for real in the TOTP studio.)

[Squarewheelbike]

TOTP on BBC4

Interesting again tonight, The Beat and The Specials swapping Bass players and a rather awkward Legs & Co Lennon thing. Outside of that a Smarming Bates in depth interview with Little and Large!

[Walt Flanagans Dog]

TOTP on BBC4

The Legs and Co thing was a bit strange - if they'd done it for Merry Christmas (War is Over) it would still have been strange but at least a bit more like their usual literal approach to song themes. It looked like they had the set and costumes lined up and had to use them for something.

Aside from the obvious novelties (Barron Knights, St Winifreds and Jonah Lewie*) the line up and the Top 20 weren't too bad (even the Nolans put a decent shift in), considering how close it was to Christmas - I always just think that back then the charts were full of Christmas songs every December.

The episode also unleashed a supressed memory, that I possibly saw the Nolans and Little and Large on the same bill in Blackpool that year. I'll run that past my teenage son and see if it commands the same respect he has for me seeing Nirvana back in the day.

* Not that Jonah Lewie is bad, in the context of the Christmas songs genre.

[longeared]

TOTP on BBC4

I was amused by the Nolans popping up given that one of them is presently the headline name in panto in Rotherham.

[Gangster Octopus]

TOTP on BBC4

I don't remember Christmas jumpers being a "thing" back then. But obviously The Specials did...

[dalliance]

TOTP on BBC4

Looking for Clues by Robert Palmer was a pretty funky track in that icy Emotional Rescue sort of way.

I really liked Gary Numan back then but This Wreckage was a bit of a dirge. Note Simon Bates introducing it as Wreckage.