1975: Here's a curio of the time. In the 1976 shows we saw Flintlock, who had two children's series based around them and still only cracked the top 30 once. Arrows were slightly more successful but still couldn't convert later televisual fame into major chart stardom, contract disputes with Mickie Most and RAK Records meaning even though they had two fourteen week long runs of an ITV show with their own name as the title, clips of which you stumble across on YouTube if you're looking for bits from those years. (Oh, and two of them wrote I Love Rock 'n' Roll, which they left on a B-side) Looking at this, you'd argue that the kids needed more than doe-eyed balladry as sustenance.
1986: This one's easy, The whole show, in glorious distorted video camera pointed at screen-vision, has just turned up. Note that as Mike Smith introduces The Alarm (clearer version here) their roadie Gaz Top is behind his right shoulder. No idea why Paul Jordan asks if you've seen Smith's face before, Smith had already hosted the show the previous November (of "my first time on Top Of The Pops and it's their first time - Wham!" fame)
1992: So what do you do if you're an underemployed singer in a two frontwoman setup? If you're Marcella Detroit of Shakespear's Sister you grip onto a barely used guitar. If you're Siobhan Fahey, as you'll see at 2:46, you make some odd hand signals. And if you're Flavor Flav of Public Enemy, you do those punching downward movements you always do. Brilliantly shot performance, all in one continuous crane shot with live vocals and brooding, immoveable S1Ws patrolling the sides, while the short-haired pale youths down the front look uncomfortable.
1998: Ian Brown's debut solo single saw the innovative use of eggs as mellotron. Ian looks bemused at it all but soon enters into the spirit by chucking them at his own image. There's some Freudian symbolism there.
2 comments:
I think Paul Jordan made his comment about Mike Smith as a joke, as the latter was seemingly on TV very regularly at this point. He had been on the Late Late Breakfast Show every week and was also on Breakfast Time - although wasn't on Radio 1 at this point.
Agree about that Public Enemy clip - I love that it was all done in one take with the same camera. All the songs on this edition were in the Top 40, which was rare at this time.
"blocked in my country" (that'd be the U.S.) for the 1986 content;can't say I'm pleased with that, but I've been appreciating this blog overall as reminiscence or catch-up for me, depending on the song.
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