Words: Chris Arnsby
Bonus master tape bit: Images from a rewinding
VT. A wide shot of the studio with the Rebel MC gazing out at an indifferent
crowd. A countdown clock. The Top of the Pops logo.
The
picture stabilises on the title sequence countdown clock (backed by Bananarama
singing Cruel Summer '89). Burned in text at the top of the screen reveals the
title sequence is by The Moving Picture Company and at the bottom there's a
telephone number; 01-434-3100 and another number 01 437-3885, which is
identified as CAR. A carphone? How very eighties.
The
countdown clock is held on screen at 10. Crowd noise begins to bleed through
the Bananarama track.
Iain McLean: “Ugh. Looks like we're gonna start in a moment. Got themselves ready. All the technical hitches are out of the way. We can start our show. Sorry about that but bear with us like you have done throughout the rest of the show just get s... ooh.. ooh. It's all sticky. Ooh. What is that? Why is that? Cause there's stuff on it. [New 30 second clock appears on screen and starts counting going down] Alright. We're back again. You're lucky. You're gonna see it twice. People at home can only see it ONCE! YEAH! C'mon let's here you ch [audio cuts out]”.
Anthea
Turner: “Hello and welcome to on television and radio Top of the Pops!! On
tonight's show in this studio we've got the London Boys and Double Trouble!!
Donna Allen!! We're also introducing new Radio 1's newest DJ. Tim Smith!!”
Tim
Smith: “Hello. It's great to be here.”
Anthea
Turner: “So we're gonna get the show on the road!! It's Holly Johnson!!”
Radio
1FM now begins at 5am. The previous week insomniac pop fans had to wait until
6am when the station started with Sybil 'n' Mark. Ugh, imagine waking up
to Mark Goodier at 6am on Saturday. No wonder they changed the schedule.
Two
of the band are wearing ABC suits (that's Atomic Biological and Chemical, not
the kind of glossy suits Martin Fry's band wore during they heyday). An
all-over covering of plastic/nylon is the ideal summer dress for a hot stuffy
television studio. The other guitarist is wearing a silver miniskirt, silver
halter top metal effect bikini, and a peroxide (atomic) blond beehive wig.
Clearly Holly Johnson wants his band to win this weeks “best dressed” award. He
won't.
Holly
Johnson appears to dash offstage at the end of the performance. He bows and
then legs it stage right while waving. A strobe effect is applied to this last
bit of the performance, and also covers the traditional camera pull back to the
host, I wonder if this was done in post-production to try and hide his abrupt
exit. Was he in a rush to be somewhere else due to delays caused by the
pre-show gremlins?
[13]
QUEEN: breakthru. Promo VT. The one where Queen ride a train down the Nene Valley
Railway.
CHARTS
FROM 40 TO 31
[11]
DOUBLE TROUBLE & THE REBEL MC: just keep rockin'. Woo! Yeah! Oh no, now the
crowd are joining in and harmonizing on the Woo! Yeahs!
[10]
DONNA ALLEN: joy and pain. BBC VT. A repeat from 15/06/1989.
BREAKERS:
Tim Smith
is back and is trusted to introduce the Breakers. I thought he'd been shuffled
off out the back with a cover over his head, like you'd put a cloth over the
budgies cage to keep it quiet.
[37]
MONIE LOVE: grandpa's party
[33]
WATERFRONT: cry
[38]
SONIA: you'll never stop me loving you
[20] M: pop muzik. Hmm. I've been doing these write ups for long enough to cover the original release and the 10 year anniversary re-release. Someone more self-aware might reconsider the trajectory of their life; not me. Pop Muzik was successful enough to feature five times on Top of the Pops but I only wrote about the band once.
Two
of the BBC4 repeats were skipped because of the hosts; 19/04/1979 D**** L**
T*****; 03/05/1979 J*mmy S*v*l*. I also omitted 05/04/1979 (hosted by the
inoffensive Tony Blackburn). Did BBC4 miss this one for a reason I've
forgotten? Also skipped by me, the Christmas Day edition. I don't write these
up because it's usually just a bunch of repeated performances.
This
leaves their 17/05/1979 performance about which I sage-like said: “A lead
singer who looks disturbingly like Ted Striker from Airplane cannot distract from the greatness of this song. The
badges M wear are not, as I first thought, their BBC passes. The promo video
for Pop Muzik reveals that the badges are specially made M ID cards.”
Tonight,
lead singer Ted Striker Robin Scott is wearing a suit covered in CDs.
That's less impressive in the wake of the 90s/early 2000s when CDs became
cheap, abundant, and disposable, but it was a real statement in 1989. Meanwhile
the female singer (don't know her name, sorry) is resplendent in tutu and
bright yellow and purple leotard. The drummer sports a Hawaiian shirt. And the
guitarist is wearing a formal jacket and shirt over brightly coloured shorts.
The two backing dancers didn't get the memo and have dressed sensibly, which is
a shame.
CHARTS
FROM 30 TO 11
[22]
GNUS N' ROSES: patience. Promo VT.
[19]
LONDON BOYS: london nights. The London Boys provide the usual value for money performance but
I don't have anything very constructive to add.
TOP
10
[1] SOUL II SOUL featuring CARON WHEELER: back to
life. Promo
VT.
[30]
PUBLIC ENEMY: fight the power. “You have a great night wherever you are!! You've got Philip
Schofield on Radio 1!! Eastenders on BBC1!!” Says Anthea Turner.
For
completeness, here's the rest of that listing.
BBC2, Tennis and Athletics.
ITV
Thames, Perception (no idea what this is).
Radio
2, Wally Whyton, the best in country music.
Radio
3, Szymanowski and Rachmaninov. (The Mark and Lard of their day.)
Radio
4, Ambler at 80. A profile by Michael Barber of the author and screenwriter
Eric Ambler - 'the father of the modern spy story'.
Nicky
Campbell next week.
Performance of the week: M. Pop Muzik.
No comments:
Post a Comment