With all the dance programmes around these days, Strictly being my reference, I feel we can all judge the standard of Legs & Co a bit better. Blimey......they were amateurish. Was it the choreography or their skill? A bit of both no doubt.
The fun is back! The cheese is back! The disco is back! Wonderful!
What more can I ask for? Liquid Gold, The Dooleys, Gibson Brothers, Brothers Johnson, Fern Kinney... All my kind of music! I loved the Legs & Co routine and the song is one of the best (future) number #1s of 1980. Glad to see Marti Webb again.
Definitely the best episode of 1980 so far and the changes in the studio are now becoming much more obvious... The set, the crowd and the atmosphere.
I remember it well from the time as well. Speeding and on the phone (and possibly sounds like not wearing a seat belt), no sympathy from me, wonder if he is now dancing with the devil.Just relieved he didn't kill an innocent road user.
Cozy Powell's first single 'Dance With The Devil' was produced by Mickie Most for his RAK label which probably explains why his protege Suzi Quatro played the bass on it.
There is a clip on YouTube of Cozy Powell being interviewed by Sally James on Tiswas in 1979 in which he invites budding young drummers to send in cassettes of themselves in action for a competition to win prizes including, inter alia, a ticket to attend a Rainbow concert and sit behind Cozy on stage - it then shows the 9 year old winner and CP playing drums together on a subsequent show.
As I mentioned previously, the UK Subs song could have been much better with a decent vocalist - the double guitar stroke on the 2 and 4 beats reminds me of Television's classic "Marquee Moon".
'Marquee Moon' was one of the tracks selected by Rusty Egan when he was the resident DJ at the Blitz New Romantic club (according to the playlist posted on this thread in January).
Andy Johns, the British producer hired by Television to oversee the recording in 1976 died two years ago next month at the age of 62. He was an occasional talking head on Channel 4's Top Ten clip shows in the 1990s recounting his experiences working as a sound engineer with bands such as Led Zeppelin and the Rolling Stones in the early seventies.
The fun is back! The cheese is back! The disco is back! Wonderful!
What more can I ask for? Liquid Gold, The Dooleys, Gibson Brothers, Brothers Johnson, Fern Kinney... All my kind of music! I loved the Legs & Co routine and the song is one of the best (future) number #1s of 1980. Glad to see Marti Webb again.
Definitely the best episode of 1980 so far and the changes in the studio are now becoming much more obvious... The set, the crowd and the atmosphere.
Yes I agree. I think last night's was the first episode where the change since 79 was more obvious. I like the new stage design and the dry ice is being used more. (Although I don't know what that scaffold was all about). There's something for everyone in 1980, you still got the guitar bands like Police, Genesis, Peter Gabriel, Susie and Banshees, but there's more feel good party music like Gibson Brothers, Liquid Gold, Detroit Spinners, Fern Kinney.
With all the dance programmes around these days, Strictly being my reference, I feel we can all judge the standard of Legs & Co a bit better. Blimey......they were amateurish. Was it the choreography or their skill? A bit of both no doubt.
That's an extremely unfair comment. The preparation involved in delivering just a five minute dance presentation professionally can take weeks, if not sometimes months of preparation. Legs & Co. don't often have more than a day or two to learn a new dance routine, depending of course on the chart position. I have danced myself competitively (not to a fabulously high standard i may add) and it is a pretty meticulous training that's given down to the very last detail over a relatively long period of time.
The girls in Legs & Co. as in the earlier Pan's People cope remarkably well, under very difficult circumstances, and through a wider range of dance styles than most professionals would undertake.
I was too old for Rainbow which was first broadcast when I was eleven but recall watching it on one occasion with a younger sibling during the Christmas holiday in 1972 and taking an instant shine to the brunette singer in the resident folk group.
20 months down the line my hormones were all over the place and I would habitually turn Japanese in her honour after watching Rainbow with my brother during the 1974 school summer holiday.
When Rod, Jane and Freddy replaced them I stopped watching.
Ooh eer Fave St, such a revelation from you! Never again after the past week can I listen to The Vapors in quite the same light. I have got one of my parents old school dictionaries from back in the 50's that each pupil was given at the time. Some of the meanings of words have changed beyond all recognition, unless they were deliberately adjusted for children's eyes. For example, the meaning of the word masturbation for any pre teen schoolboy who looked it up in his dictionary was this very judgemental term - Bodily self pollution. Clearly trying to lay on a massive guilt trip on matters of the flesh in such an unhealthy way. Homosexual for example is - Un-natural and forbidden acts by two persons of the same sexual gender. The good old days never really existed did they. A few of us may fancy returning to the early 80's or 70's but I can't imagine many wanting to return to a 50's country.
I have no recollection of that folk threesome who were clearly before my time. I thought Rod, Jane & Freddy were there from the start.
As I haven't shared thoughts on a full show for a wee while...
I really enjoyed last nights edition. It's been fantastic to get 9 whole weeks of consecutive shows and we're now on a 5 week run after the skipped DLT show!
We so rarely get so many consecutive editions these days it's nice to embrace them. I've sometimes been critical of repeat performances but it's been great to see them as it gives a complete picture of the time. In fact, I wasn't really critical, I just thought that the same performance of 'My Girl' was on a bit too often!
Rush: 'Spirit of Radio'- I always thought of Rush as having a much heavier sound than this but I only have a limited knowledge of them. This sounded really good and was surprised to see it was their biggest hit.
The Dooleys: 'Love Patrol'- For some unknown reason I was getting The Dooleys mixed up with The Darts!?! When I was watching last night I was thinking "boy, they've gone through some lineup changes over the years".
'Love Patrol's great. The girls giving it their best Bee Gees effort! A shame it was their last significant hit.
The Police: 'So Lonely'- Probably not their strongest single. I'm more into 'Invisible Sun', 'Spirits in the Material World' and 'Wrapped Around Your Finger'.
The Detroit Spinners: 'Working My Way Back To You/Forgive Me Girl'- Always been a favourite of mine and reminds me of this time back in 1980. Not into Legs & Co. as 'workmen' though!
Brothers Johnson: 'Stomp'- A nice bit of early 80's funk. They seem like a happy gang in the video!
Secret Affair: 'My World'- Great track. Shame they only had 2 Top 20 hits. Sounds like they had a lot of potential.
Liquid Gold: 'Dance Yourself Dizzy'- Brilliant but it still feels like it would be more at home in 1977. Geez, that drummer again. I had to shield my eyes!!!
Rainbow: 'All Night Long'- One of my faves from this period. Graham Bonnet looking cool and sounding fantastic.
The Vapors: 'Turning Japanese'- So funny reading the comments regarding the meaning of the lyrics. And here's me thinking it had something to do with John Lennon and Yoko Ono!! Great song though. Note to Steve Wright...As an impressionist, stick to the day job!!
Siouxsie and the Banshees: 'Happy House'- I adore Siouxsie Sioux
I remember when I was 14, I had her pin ups all over my bedroom wall. It was in 1983 when 'Dear Prudence' was in the chart. Happy House is fantastic. Siouxsie always seems to steal a TOTP's for me.
The Gibson Brothers: 'Cuba'- That guy has some voice. Really like this. Glad it became a much bigger hit in 1980 than when first released in '79.
Peter Gabriel: 'Games Without Frontiers'- Another highlight for me in this edition along with Rainbow, Siouxsie and Genesis. It was cut a bit too quickly for my liking though!
Marti Webb: 'Take That Look Off Your Face'- I noticed a few posters mentioned that it wasn't their cup of tea back in 1980 but quite like it now. I have to agree with this. It must be an age thing. I was 11 at the time and it probably wasn't aimed at 11 year old boys!!
Genesis - Turn It On Again. Fantastic to see Genesis in the TOTP's studio. (Off to buy one of Phils 'colourful' shirts) The beginning of a long string of hits into the 80's with Phil. I don't have any Gabriel Genesis. My earliest CD is 'And Then There Were Three' from 1978. I especially enjoyed the 1983 output with the brilliant 'Mama' and 'That's All'.
Fern Kinney: 'Together We Are Beautiful'- This was a one hit wonder that I didn't discover for quite a few years. I didn't even know what Fern looked like for ages. A nice wee track. But as most of us know, an amazing chart feat next week will deny Fern any more than 1 week at the top.
Captain and Tenille: 'Do That To Me One More Time'- Caught this on the DLT edition. Nice track. Shame we won't get it again.
Haven't read your comments until I've posted my own ones Highlander Ian, so I can compare how similar or not our take on this weeks TOTP was. ;-)
Here goes;
Top Of The Pops - Thursday 13th March 1980 with Steve Wright.
The very first thing that I noticed as I was watching Steve's 2nd presentation was just how much more confident he looked all round. So much better than his debut. Although he is in no way a natural TV presenter and it shows in comparison to the easy personas of Peter Powell and David Jensen. I don't think even Mike Read yet looked entirely comfortable in his presenting role at this point in time although he grew into it well later with this and other shows.
No23 - Rush, Spirit Of Radio. This intro over the countdown was a new track to me and slightly more friendly sounding that I imagined it to be. I even thought the vocal was by a female at one point. I always think of this group in the same bracket as Gillan, Saxon & Judas Priest from the era. Aged 10 this was the last kind of thing I'd dream of listening to, but I quite liked the clip I heard and may check it out further.
No39 - Dooley's, Love Patrol. It sounded like a group definitely trying to keep up with modernising their sound and it was another new track to me that didn't turn me off and held my interest. Not a patch on the instant hook of their 1979 hits although I'm surprised it didn't do better and no sooner had they had some big hits then their chart career ended. Chart fortunes can flatter to deceive in so many cases over the years. Is this their final TOTP appearance?
No6 - Police, So Lonely. I like The Police but this has to be one of my least favourite of their hits. Although they get the biggest seller of 1980 later in the year I think their return to form for me is in '81 with the singles from Ghost In The Machine. It surprised me to hear Steve do the Sue Lawley gag on the show at the time of the hit. I thought that joke came a bit later.
No20 - Detroit Spinners, Working My Way Back To You / Forgive Me Girl. A great record but a truly weird interpretation by Legs & Co that seemed as far removed from the song as it was possible to get. It was bordering on daft infact. Was this considered a surprise No1 at the time? On paper it would look like it. My own favourite of their's is Ghetto Child from seven years earlier.
No25 - Brother's Johnson, Stomp. Quite possibly my favourite single out of the whole show this week. Absolutely top drawer disco / dance track as good as anything from the great '79 itself. So very funky. This one epitomises the great dance music of 1980 in one single record. I have a 6 minute version on iPod and it is one of my most played singles in the past five years. Stomp is such a great feelgood record. If this track came out as brand new nowadays it would top the charts for at least a month, in the way that Mark Ronson's retro sound has done recently. I'm sure this is the kind of great music, sound and production that people still crave to this day.
No40 - Secret Affair, My World. A much more instant and memorable single than the previous two in my opinion. Not bad but the group seemed to have a lack of charisma that may have not helped their prospects. I see they did a 35th anniversary revival tour late in 2014 just like The Selecter have been doing in the early part of this year.
No14 - Liquid Gold, Dance Yourself Dizzy. Quite happy to do as they say to this record again and again. It's one I never tire of hearing and wish they'd make singles like this a bit more today. D-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-dizzeeeee! The original dizzy rascal was clearly the drummer in the group, although I think I preferred the green shorts look to the loincloth this week from the man who is the partner of Jane McDonald of all people. Ellie Hope the lead singer of Liquid Gold is one of those people it is hard to find out any recent pics or info about. Maybe she is back living the quiet life in Brackley, or maybe still singing this on a few cruise ships here and there.
No5 - Rainbow, All Night Long. Easy to see why this was such a big hit in the top five. It managed to break through to those people who wouldn't normally like or buy a loud rock track by being distinctive with a great vocal and chorus. Hate the boring grainy video's we have to put up with on TOTP with tracks like this though, but at least it's the music doing the selling and not the video. That would soon be changing in 2 or 3 years. Were they considered a "supergroup" in 1980 though?
No8 - Vapors, Turning Japanese. I've consulted 2 music books tonight about this track and in one of them I own it states quite categorically that Turning Japanese is NOT about a subject (jerking off) that many people think it is secretly about. Who know? It reminds me of the denials by The Shamen about the meaning of Ebeneezer Goode in 1992 when they denied it was about ecstasy when any fool knew it damned well was. I'm sure in recent years that singer finally admitted it was indeed. He fooled nobody. But no band admissions about Turning Japanese yet then. Whatever it is about it remains a bloody memorable and great single of the time.
No36 - Siouxsie & The Banshees, Happy House. Certainly a highlight of the show this week. They just look exciting don't they. The intro to the song instantly got me thinking I've heard that somewhere else not quite so long ago on another track. The mid 90's dance group Capella came to mind and I think somebody has mentioned it in a previous post as being them. I presume that they took it as a direct lift from Happy House and it was not one of those "coincidences". Far too similar to be so.
No18 - Gibson Brothers, Cuba. I'd put this one in the same boat as Brothers Johnson. I always used to get these two acts mixed up at one point, having similar types of hit at the same time. Stomp beats Cuba quite easily for me though. I wonder why it got re-released a year after just missing the forty on their charting debut. These brothers sure had a hot 12 months with some memorable to this day singles. Not only are they brothers but apparently triplets! I also discovered that their music is considered Euro-disco. My default setting for music like this is always North America for some reason. They're French, from Martinique in the Caribbean though.
No4 - Peter Gabriel, Games Without Frontiers. One of the best tracks and it gets sliced in half. It looked to me like that was an edit from 1980 itself though. I used to love the international Je Sans Frontiers on TV with the UK up against the rest of Europe and the sound of Stuart Hall's uncontrolled laughter. All tainted now I guess. Back in May 1978 just before I was 9, I went to an It's A Knockout with Milton Keynes v Hemel Hempstead v Stevenage. It was great fun, and they were all there from Eddie Waring, Mike Swann and Arthur Ellis the ultimate referee. My side, MK came last so got no chance on the European show. It was broadcast just 2 weeks later on a Friday night on BBC1 primetime at 8pm and I could be spotted in the crowd. Not that it's going to get shown anywhere on TV again very soon. I do recall that Stuart Hall seemed to like getting his hands all over the females as if it was a given he could do so.
No3 - Marti Webb, Take That Look Off Your Face. Isn't this the third time we have seen the very same clip? 3 weeks at No3 but I think this is her final appearance with the record. Although a great song I'm not under the impression that it is considered a classic. It really is hard to pinpoint what takes a song above and beyond into classic status. Such a memorable performance however.
No35 - Genesis, Turn It On Again. Phil Collins looked middle aged from the very start didn't he. I prefer their pre-1984 output over the latter stuff, although for some reason this era for Genesis and Peter Gabriel was not so successful in the USA as their later output ended up. They were on the same TOTP this week but in July 1986 Peter Gabriel's Sledgehammer went to No1 on the US Billboard Hot 100.....knocking Genesis off the top spot with Invisible Touch! What chance that eh.
Britain's No1 - Fern Kinney, Together We Are Beautiful. The proper recorded single sounds so much better than this TOTP performance. Rather a shame there was not a fresh appearance for when she was at No1. I always used to find that a pity with acts that had been on TOTP at lower positions and when they hit the top did not appear in the studio in that week, or weeks. One of the genuine one hit wonders of the UK charts in the purist sense - one hit reaching number one for one week and nothing else ever again.
This should become the theme tune for Clarkson, May & Hammond regards the Top Gear crisis!
No7 - Captain & Tennille, Do That To Me One More Time. Playing out with a husband and wife duo. Quite a few decent mellow tunes without being overly sickly this week. This one had been at No1 in the States a month earlier. I've got their precious American chart topper penned by Neil Sedaka from 5 years earlier, LOve Will Keep Us Together which was not a huge hit over here.
Queen were never particularly consistently huge in the American charts except for the one hot year of 1980 for them with two No1 singles, and in the week of this weeks TOTP Crazy Little Thing Called Love was in its 4th and final week on top before the UK's 1979 Xmas No1 displaced them for another month, Pink Floyd. A slightly false down at the time for the upcoming British invasion to come. Oh, and if disco was dead in the States by the end of '79 how come Another One Bites The Dust managed Queen their second 1980 US No1 in the autumn to come?
I read a lot of dislike for Steve Wright on here and mention of his ego. I've never really picked up on it like others here seem to have done.
The very first thing that I noticed as I was watching Steve's 2nd presentation was just how much more confident he looked all round. So much better than his debut. Although he is in no way a natural TV presenter and it shows in comparison to the easy personas of Peter Powell and David Jensen. I don't think even Mike Read yet looked entirely comfortable in his presenting role at this point in time although he grew into it well later with this and other shows.
No39 - Dooley's, Love Patrol. It sounded like a group definitely trying to keep up with modernising their sound and it was another new track to me that didn't turn me off and held my interest. Not a patch on the instant hook of their 1979 hits although I'm surprised it didn't do better and no sooner had they had some big hits then their chart career ended. Chart fortunes can flatter to deceive in so many cases over the years. Is this their final TOTP appearance?
No8 - Vapors, Turning Japanese. I've consulted 2 music books tonight about this track and in one of them I own it states quite categorically that Turning Japanese is NOT about a subject (jerking off) that many people think it is secretly about. Who know? It reminds me of the denials by The Shamen about the meaning of Ebeneezer Goode in 1992 when they denied it was about ecstasy when any fool knew it damned well was. I'm sure in recent years that singer finally admitted it was indeed. He fooled nobody. But no band admissions about Turning Japanese yet then. Whatever it is about it remains a bloody memorable and great single of the time.
For me Steve Wright was far more likeable back in his early days at radio 1, because he appeared less pretentious (i didn't detect so many phony americanisms or lofty personal insinuations) and he also wasn't quite so readily willing to assume his every gesture carried some sort of midas touch (as in the impression i get from some of his commentaries from the Top Of The Pops 2 series). I actually felt like you that his confidence had grown rather considerably since his Top Of The Pops debut, and at that point in time, he was becoming a very effective Top Of The Pops host. Sure, he wasn't quite so camera friendly as say Kid Jensen or Peter Powell, but he brought something a little refreshing and different to the show. Confidence is a great thing to possess, of course, and is necessary, especially when being placed in the public eye and media spotlight, as long as it doesn't manifest itself too strongly into a form of arrogance. I think Steve has crossed that line a little since those early days, although his arrogance does perhaps take a more subtle form than some (it is more in the form of insinuation than anything else).
The Dooleys ''Love Patrol'' is perhaps a little less bombastic sounding than the likes of ''Wanted'', but i'm beginning to feel it may be my favourite song of theirs. I have feeling that this song marked their final appearance on Top Of The Pops (although i haven't actually checked). More of those disco orientated songs really do make the world of difference when watching those Top Of The Pops episodes. This week's show had a perfect mix.
Found an interesting clip in relation to the possible meaning behind ''Turning Japanese''.
Yes true!
I really wish I'd been older in the 70s! Genesis of the 70s were so different to Genesis of the 80s & I would've loved to have been old enough to attend their 70s shows!
Instead I was stuck with the Invisible Touch period - which has got to be their worst time I think!
Genesis fans nearly always had an evangelical zeal about the group. A friend of mine nagged and nagged at me to go and see them perform one of the dates on the Lamb Lies Down On Broadway tour. Gabriel had already decided to leave and to be honest it showed,
I was bored rigid.
This 'friend' of mine was also the guy who badgered me into going to see Floyd a couple of years later. Not even a huge pig careering around the place could stop me from literally falling asleep.
A lot of the mainstream progressive stuff that got marketed strongly in the 70s seems very middle of the road to me. Pink Floyd are the best of them I think, maybe they experimented a bit more or just had more edge.
The fact that Fern Kinney only had one hit might suggest more about record company failings in not getting the next record out and doing the marketing to exploit the initial success.
That's an extremely unfair comment. The preparation involved in delivering just a five minute dance presentation professionally can take weeks, if not sometimes months of preparation. Legs & Co. don't often have more than a day or two to learn a new dance routine, depending of course on the chart position. I have danced myself competitively (not to a fabulously high standard i may add) and it is a pretty meticulous training that's given down to the very last detail over a relatively long period of time.
The girls in Legs & Co. as in the earlier Pan's People cope remarkably well, under very difficult circumstances, and through a wider range of dance styles than most professionals would undertake.
I don't think it's 'extremely unfair' at all. I'm making an observation on professional dancers from a certain era. Watch any light entertainment programme from the 70's and 80's that features a routine by professional dancers and then watch one from this era. The standard is far superior today.
I really wish I'd been older in the 70s! Genesis of the 70s were so different to Genesis of the 80s & I would've loved to have been old enough to attend their 70s shows!
Instead I was stuck with the Invisible Touch period - which has got to be their worst time I think!
I saw them three times in the 70s, once being at a festival. I'm not sure that I'd enjoy them now as much as I did then. I never liked anything from the Phil Collins era.
No25 - Brother's Johnson, Stomp. Quite possibly my favourite single out of the whole show this week. Absolutely top drawer disco / dance track as good as anything from the great '79 itself. So very funky. This one epitomises the great dance music of 1980 in one single record. I have a 6 minute version on iPod and it is one of my most played singles in the past five years. Stomp is such a great feelgood record. If this track came out as brand new nowadays it would top the charts for at least a month, in the way that Mark Ronson's retro sound has done recently. I'm sure this is the kind of great music, sound and production that people still crave to this day.
It's terrific, isn't it! every time I hear 'Stomp' it takes me back to a time when we used to go out to dance in crowded little clubs nearly every night. Good times!
I don't think it's 'extremely unfair' at all. I'm making an observation on professional dancers from a certain era. Watch any light entertainment programme from the 70's and 80's that features a routine by professional dancers and then watch one from this era. The standard is far superior today.
The Strictly Come Dancing professionals are very specialised, in Latin and/or ballroom, and every choregraphed routine is meticulously put together, with a great deal of thought, with the object in being able to beat those fellow professionals. The scenario with the Top Of The Pops dancers and choreography, is completely different, because they are not competitive routines/dancers. Those girls are good all rounders, but they do of course lack the finesse of those Strictly Come Dancing professionals within their own specifically chosen fields. However, give those professionals a routine a little more out of their comfort zone, and with very limited time to rehearse, and their performances wouldn't be anywhere near as spot on. Have you ever noticed how bad professional ballroom dancer, Anton Du Beke is at latin?
Genesis fans nearly always had an evangelical zeal about the group. A friend of mine nagged and nagged at me to go and see them perform one of the dates on the Lamb Lies Down On Broadway tour. Gabriel had already decided to leave and to be honest it showed,
I was bored rigid.
.
Whaaaaattt????!!! - Not many people saw The Lamb - nor was it ever filmed. There are 1000s of people who would pay good money to see it now!
I don't think it's 'extremely unfair' at all. I'm making an observation on professional dancers from a certain era. Watch any light entertainment programme from the 70's and 80's that features a routine by professional dancers and then watch one from this era. The standard is far superior today.
True - but I seem to remember & also I think Jed said that Legs & Co literally only had about one day ( or 24 hours) to rehearse for the song each week - depending on what was going up or down the charts! .
Dancers on Strictly & XFactor are probably rehearsing for days if not weeks for their special on air performances!!
I think that was possibly true at the time - but it was pretty clear which market Genesis were targeting with 'Follow You, Follow Me', two years earlier … which is about as far from prog rock as Crystal Gayle. ;-)
Strangely, all the Genesis fans I was stuck with at school (and it was them or Yes whose logos were stencilled on many rucksacks) couldn't seem to recognise that their prog heroes had gone a bit MOR …
Genesis were a popular group in their original incarnation with Peter Gabriel, and even by the 1980 period, many of my friends were rather more engrossed in the more intricate musical/lyrical values of the group in their early period, than what they were doing in 1980 (despite their later commercial success). "Turn It On Again" was a great success of course, but many of my friends were more engrossed by "Selling England By The Pound" and "The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway". That's not to say they were necessarily listening to those songs on the original dates of release back in 1973 and 1974, when they were seven and eight years old, but having stumbled upon them often at a later date, a number found those albums quite illuminating.
Genesis fans nearly always had an evangelical zeal about the group. A friend of mine nagged and nagged at me to go and see them perform one of the dates on the Lamb Lies Down On Broadway tour. Gabriel had already decided to leave and to be honest it showed,
I was bored rigid.
This 'friend' of mine was also the guy who badgered me into going to see Floyd a couple of years later. Not even a huge pig careering around the place could stop me from literally falling asleep.
Would you say the Genesis thing - or prog rock in general - was a regional thing or quite universal across the country in the 1970s?
I ask because I'm aware that through 1976-77 Punk music had areas of concentration in London, the Midlands, the Northwest and Northern Ireland before filtering out, by which time it had mostly died as a movement anyway. Was prog-rock the same? Was it more popular in certain areas than others?
No23 - Rush, Spirit Of Radio. This intro over the countdown was a new track to me and slightly more friendly sounding that I imagined it to be. I even thought the vocal was by a female at one point. I always think of this group in the same bracket as Gillan, Saxon & Judas Priest from the era. Aged 10 this was the last kind of thing I'd dream of listening to, but I quite liked the clip I heard and may check it out further.
If you are going to check out Rush The Albums Permanent Waves (Spirit of Radio is from that album) and Moving Pictures are a good place to start.
Their eariler stuff is quite progy with tracks like 2112 and Xanadu and Cygnus X1. They are very good tracks. Geddy Lee's vocals are an aquired taste for some people though. This is one of their other big tracks from the early 80s.
Back in May 1978 just before I was 9, I went to an It's A Knockout with Milton Keynes v Hemel Hempstead v Stevenage. It was great fun, and they were all there from Eddie Waring, Mike Swann and Arthur Ellis the ultimate referee. My side, MK came last so got no chance on the European show. It was broadcast just 2 weeks later on a Friday night on BBC1 primetime at 8pm and I could be spotted in the crowd. Not that it's going to get shown anywhere on TV again very soon. I do recall that Stuart Hall seemed to like getting his hands all over the females as if it was a given he could do so.
I remember Eddie Waring (or was it Arthur Ellis?) having a great deal of trouble pronouncing Hemel Hempstead - it came out something like "em-ell-emm-sted"!
I remember Eddie Waring (or was it Arthur Ellis?) having a great deal of trouble pronouncing Hemel Hempstead - it came out something like "em-ell-emm-sted"!
I know .... well, Anthony. Nothing wrong with that!
Indeed. I don't think his career would've suffered had he just gone with it. Maybe it's just that world of ballroom dancing. It's full of exotic names.
Comments
Leave Legs & Co alone >:( >:(
The fun is back! The cheese is back! The disco is back! Wonderful!
What more can I ask for? Liquid Gold, The Dooleys, Gibson Brothers, Brothers Johnson, Fern Kinney... All my kind of music! I loved the Legs & Co routine and the song is one of the best (future) number #1s of 1980. Glad to see Marti Webb again.
Definitely the best episode of 1980 so far and the changes in the studio are now becoming much more obvious... The set, the crowd and the atmosphere.
Cozy Powell's first single 'Dance With The Devil' was produced by Mickie Most for his RAK label which probably explains why his protege Suzi Quatro played the bass on it.
There is a clip on YouTube of Cozy Powell being interviewed by Sally James on Tiswas in 1979 in which he invites budding young drummers to send in cassettes of themselves in action for a competition to win prizes including, inter alia, a ticket to attend a Rainbow concert and sit behind Cozy on stage - it then shows the 9 year old winner and CP playing drums together on a subsequent show.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jz579uUXD2I
'Marquee Moon' was one of the tracks selected by Rusty Egan when he was the resident DJ at the Blitz New Romantic club (according to the playlist posted on this thread in January).
Andy Johns, the British producer hired by Television to oversee the recording in 1976 died two years ago next month at the age of 62. He was an occasional talking head on Channel 4's Top Ten clip shows in the 1990s recounting his experiences working as a sound engineer with bands such as Led Zeppelin and the Rolling Stones in the early seventies.
Yes I agree. I think last night's was the first episode where the change since 79 was more obvious. I like the new stage design and the dry ice is being used more. (Although I don't know what that scaffold was all about). There's something for everyone in 1980, you still got the guitar bands like Police, Genesis, Peter Gabriel, Susie and Banshees, but there's more feel good party music like Gibson Brothers, Liquid Gold, Detroit Spinners, Fern Kinney.
The girls in Legs & Co. as in the earlier Pan's People cope remarkably well, under very difficult circumstances, and through a wider range of dance styles than most professionals would undertake.
I read a lot of dislike for Steve Wright on here and mention of his ego. I've never really picked up on it like others here seem to have done.
Ooh eer Fave St, such a revelation from you! Never again after the past week can I listen to The Vapors in quite the same light.
I have no recollection of that folk threesome who were clearly before my time. I thought Rod, Jane & Freddy were there from the start.
Haven't read your comments until I've posted my own ones Highlander Ian, so I can compare how similar or not our take on this weeks TOTP was. ;-)
Here goes;
Top Of The Pops - Thursday 13th March 1980 with Steve Wright.
The very first thing that I noticed as I was watching Steve's 2nd presentation was just how much more confident he looked all round. So much better than his debut. Although he is in no way a natural TV presenter and it shows in comparison to the easy personas of Peter Powell and David Jensen. I don't think even Mike Read yet looked entirely comfortable in his presenting role at this point in time although he grew into it well later with this and other shows.
No23 - Rush, Spirit Of Radio. This intro over the countdown was a new track to me and slightly more friendly sounding that I imagined it to be. I even thought the vocal was by a female at one point. I always think of this group in the same bracket as Gillan, Saxon & Judas Priest from the era. Aged 10 this was the last kind of thing I'd dream of listening to, but I quite liked the clip I heard and may check it out further.
No39 - Dooley's, Love Patrol. It sounded like a group definitely trying to keep up with modernising their sound and it was another new track to me that didn't turn me off and held my interest. Not a patch on the instant hook of their 1979 hits although I'm surprised it didn't do better and no sooner had they had some big hits then their chart career ended. Chart fortunes can flatter to deceive in so many cases over the years. Is this their final TOTP appearance?
No6 - Police, So Lonely. I like The Police but this has to be one of my least favourite of their hits. Although they get the biggest seller of 1980 later in the year I think their return to form for me is in '81 with the singles from Ghost In The Machine. It surprised me to hear Steve do the Sue Lawley gag on the show at the time of the hit. I thought that joke came a bit later.
No20 - Detroit Spinners, Working My Way Back To You / Forgive Me Girl. A great record but a truly weird interpretation by Legs & Co that seemed as far removed from the song as it was possible to get. It was bordering on daft infact. Was this considered a surprise No1 at the time? On paper it would look like it. My own favourite of their's is Ghetto Child from seven years earlier.
No25 - Brother's Johnson, Stomp. Quite possibly my favourite single out of the whole show this week. Absolutely top drawer disco / dance track as good as anything from the great '79 itself. So very funky. This one epitomises the great dance music of 1980 in one single record. I have a 6 minute version on iPod and it is one of my most played singles in the past five years. Stomp is such a great feelgood record. If this track came out as brand new nowadays it would top the charts for at least a month, in the way that Mark Ronson's retro sound has done recently. I'm sure this is the kind of great music, sound and production that people still crave to this day.
No40 - Secret Affair, My World. A much more instant and memorable single than the previous two in my opinion. Not bad but the group seemed to have a lack of charisma that may have not helped their prospects. I see they did a 35th anniversary revival tour late in 2014 just like The Selecter have been doing in the early part of this year.
No14 - Liquid Gold, Dance Yourself Dizzy. Quite happy to do as they say to this record again and again. It's one I never tire of hearing and wish they'd make singles like this a bit more today. D-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-dizzeeeee! The original dizzy rascal was clearly the drummer in the group, although I think I preferred the green shorts look to the loincloth this week from the man who is the partner of Jane McDonald of all people. Ellie Hope the lead singer of Liquid Gold is one of those people it is hard to find out any recent pics or info about. Maybe she is back living the quiet life in Brackley, or maybe still singing this on a few cruise ships here and there.
No5 - Rainbow, All Night Long. Easy to see why this was such a big hit in the top five. It managed to break through to those people who wouldn't normally like or buy a loud rock track by being distinctive with a great vocal and chorus. Hate the boring grainy video's we have to put up with on TOTP with tracks like this though, but at least it's the music doing the selling and not the video. That would soon be changing in 2 or 3 years. Were they considered a "supergroup" in 1980 though?
No8 - Vapors, Turning Japanese. I've consulted 2 music books tonight about this track and in one of them I own it states quite categorically that Turning Japanese is NOT about a subject (jerking off) that many people think it is secretly about. Who know? It reminds me of the denials by The Shamen about the meaning of Ebeneezer Goode in 1992 when they denied it was about ecstasy when any fool knew it damned well was. I'm sure in recent years that singer finally admitted it was indeed. He fooled nobody. But no band admissions about Turning Japanese yet then. Whatever it is about it remains a bloody memorable and great single of the time.
No36 - Siouxsie & The Banshees, Happy House. Certainly a highlight of the show this week. They just look exciting don't they. The intro to the song instantly got me thinking I've heard that somewhere else not quite so long ago on another track. The mid 90's dance group Capella came to mind and I think somebody has mentioned it in a previous post as being them. I presume that they took it as a direct lift from Happy House and it was not one of those "coincidences". Far too similar to be so.
No18 - Gibson Brothers, Cuba. I'd put this one in the same boat as Brothers Johnson. I always used to get these two acts mixed up at one point, having similar types of hit at the same time. Stomp beats Cuba quite easily for me though. I wonder why it got re-released a year after just missing the forty on their charting debut. These brothers sure had a hot 12 months with some memorable to this day singles. Not only are they brothers but apparently triplets! I also discovered that their music is considered Euro-disco. My default setting for music like this is always North America for some reason. They're French, from Martinique in the Caribbean though.
No4 - Peter Gabriel, Games Without Frontiers. One of the best tracks and it gets sliced in half. It looked to me like that was an edit from 1980 itself though. I used to love the international Je Sans Frontiers on TV with the UK up against the rest of Europe and the sound of Stuart Hall's uncontrolled laughter. All tainted now I guess. Back in May 1978 just before I was 9, I went to an It's A Knockout with Milton Keynes v Hemel Hempstead v Stevenage. It was great fun, and they were all there from Eddie Waring, Mike Swann and Arthur Ellis the ultimate referee. My side, MK came last so got no chance on the European show. It was broadcast just 2 weeks later on a Friday night on BBC1 primetime at 8pm and I could be spotted in the crowd. Not that it's going to get shown anywhere on TV again very soon. I do recall that Stuart Hall seemed to like getting his hands all over the females as if it was a given he could do so.
No3 - Marti Webb, Take That Look Off Your Face. Isn't this the third time we have seen the very same clip? 3 weeks at No3 but I think this is her final appearance with the record. Although a great song I'm not under the impression that it is considered a classic. It really is hard to pinpoint what takes a song above and beyond into classic status. Such a memorable performance however.
No35 - Genesis, Turn It On Again. Phil Collins looked middle aged from the very start didn't he. I prefer their pre-1984 output over the latter stuff, although for some reason this era for Genesis and Peter Gabriel was not so successful in the USA as their later output ended up. They were on the same TOTP this week but in July 1986 Peter Gabriel's Sledgehammer went to No1 on the US Billboard Hot 100.....knocking Genesis off the top spot with Invisible Touch! What chance that eh.
Britain's No1 - Fern Kinney, Together We Are Beautiful. The proper recorded single sounds so much better than this TOTP performance. Rather a shame there was not a fresh appearance for when she was at No1. I always used to find that a pity with acts that had been on TOTP at lower positions and when they hit the top did not appear in the studio in that week, or weeks. One of the genuine one hit wonders of the UK charts in the purist sense - one hit reaching number one for one week and nothing else ever again.
This should become the theme tune for Clarkson, May & Hammond regards the Top Gear crisis!
No7 - Captain & Tennille, Do That To Me One More Time. Playing out with a husband and wife duo. Quite a few decent mellow tunes without being overly sickly this week. This one had been at No1 in the States a month earlier. I've got their precious American chart topper penned by Neil Sedaka from 5 years earlier, LOve Will Keep Us Together which was not a huge hit over here.
Queen were never particularly consistently huge in the American charts except for the one hot year of 1980 for them with two No1 singles, and in the week of this weeks TOTP Crazy Little Thing Called Love was in its 4th and final week on top before the UK's 1979 Xmas No1 displaced them for another month, Pink Floyd. A slightly false down at the time for the upcoming British invasion to come. Oh, and if disco was dead in the States by the end of '79 how come Another One Bites The Dust managed Queen their second 1980 US No1 in the autumn to come?
The Dooleys ''Love Patrol'' is perhaps a little less bombastic sounding than the likes of ''Wanted'', but i'm beginning to feel it may be my favourite song of theirs. I have feeling that this song marked their final appearance on Top Of The Pops (although i haven't actually checked). More of those disco orientated songs really do make the world of difference when watching those Top Of The Pops episodes. This week's show had a perfect mix.
Found an interesting clip in relation to the possible meaning behind ''Turning Japanese''.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHb1IFPtlWs
Genesis fans nearly always had an evangelical zeal about the group. A friend of mine nagged and nagged at me to go and see them perform one of the dates on the Lamb Lies Down On Broadway tour. Gabriel had already decided to leave and to be honest it showed,
I was bored rigid.
This 'friend' of mine was also the guy who badgered me into going to see Floyd a couple of years later. Not even a huge pig careering around the place could stop me from literally falling asleep.
How many of the groups members were called martha?
The fact that Fern Kinney only had one hit might suggest more about record company failings in not getting the next record out and doing the marketing to exploit the initial success.
No health & safety in those days.
I don't think it's 'extremely unfair' at all. I'm making an observation on professional dancers from a certain era. Watch any light entertainment programme from the 70's and 80's that features a routine by professional dancers and then watch one from this era. The standard is far superior today.
I'd agree with that.
I saw them three times in the 70s, once being at a festival. I'm not sure that I'd enjoy them now as much as I did then. I never liked anything from the Phil Collins era.
It's terrific, isn't it! every time I hear 'Stomp' it takes me back to a time when we used to go out to dance in crowded little clubs nearly every night. Good times!
The Strictly Come Dancing professionals are very specialised, in Latin and/or ballroom, and every choregraphed routine is meticulously put together, with a great deal of thought, with the object in being able to beat those fellow professionals. The scenario with the Top Of The Pops dancers and choreography, is completely different, because they are not competitive routines/dancers. Those girls are good all rounders, but they do of course lack the finesse of those Strictly Come Dancing professionals within their own specifically chosen fields. However, give those professionals a routine a little more out of their comfort zone, and with very limited time to rehearse, and their performances wouldn't be anywhere near as spot on. Have you ever noticed how bad professional ballroom dancer, Anton Du Beke is at latin?
Whaaaaattt????!!! - Not many people saw The Lamb - nor was it ever filmed. There are 1000s of people who would pay good money to see it now!
True - but I seem to remember & also I think Jed said that Legs & Co literally only had about one day ( or 24 hours) to rehearse for the song each week - depending on what was going up or down the charts!
Dancers on Strictly & XFactor are probably rehearsing for days if not weeks for their special on air performances!!
Can't say I have, but I always have a snigger at his ridiculously pretentious name.
Would you say the Genesis thing - or prog rock in general - was a regional thing or quite universal across the country in the 1970s?
I ask because I'm aware that through 1976-77 Punk music had areas of concentration in London, the Midlands, the Northwest and Northern Ireland before filtering out, by which time it had mostly died as a movement anyway. Was prog-rock the same? Was it more popular in certain areas than others?
His real name...Tony Beak.
If you are going to check out Rush The Albums Permanent Waves (Spirit of Radio is from that album) and Moving Pictures are a good place to start.
Their eariler stuff is quite progy with tracks like 2112 and Xanadu and Cygnus X1. They are very good tracks. Geddy Lee's vocals are an aquired taste for some people though. This is one of their other big tracks from the early 80s.
Tom Sawyer
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=auLBLk4ibAk
Neil Peart though is one the best drummers around.
I know .... well, Anthony. Nothing wrong with that!
I remember Eddie Waring (or was it Arthur Ellis?) having a great deal of trouble pronouncing Hemel Hempstead - it came out something like "em-ell-emm-sted"!
All Eddie Wearing could say was Wigaan.
Indeed. I don't think his career would've suffered had he just gone with it. Maybe it's just that world of ballroom dancing. It's full of exotic names.