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Sounds Of The 70's - Bbc2
porkpie
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Isolated clips from otherwise missing episodes of Top of the Pops aswell as excerpts from the unscreened (in the UK ) pre 76 editions will hopefully be part of the running time when we get a new run of this series next week on Monday night BBC2
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This may seem like a silly question but if the episodes of TOTP are missing then how can they show us clips of them ?
Elkie Brooks looking like a rock chick should always look like, rough and ready, and dressed like a ten dollar hooker, she's never looked hotter !!!!
A T-Rex performance from 1971 (or 1972) exists from a wiped edition and rather cheekily the German broadcaster who holds it gets credit for it on the T-Rex on tv dvd.
Most recently Bowie's live performance of The Jean Genie was returned by the guy who worked the multi lens camera at the time . He had a copy of that section made but the episode itself is gone.
That was shown on TOTP at Xmas and I believe it will be in the first edition of Sounds of the 70's too.
As with most of the TOTP "live" performances of that era , its seriously underwhelming but its a curiosity just because its Bowie.
TOTP is not unique. Various bits of Dr Who only exist because clips were used in series like Blue Peter , so while the actual episodes are gone , the footage remains because Blue Peter was saved .
Tonights TOTP is a home video recording returned to the BBC by David Hamilton.
Well below broadcast quality its unusual but rather nice that they are airing it. He returned quite a few to them but those dates have passed so perhaps Sounds of the 70's will feature clips from the other Diddy David recoveries
Many other examples ....
There are 10 episodes. The first one is on next Monday
No - this is a new series not a repeat of the old one
They wouldn't have the Jean Genie clip either
The version of "Heroes" that turned up on TOTP a while back was a perfect example of how to make a pig's ear out of a silk purse. Horribly bland and anaemic, it had had all the life battered out of it.
Not entirely surprising when you consider that Bowie would have had to re-record that track for TOTP broadcast purposes without Robert Fripp, Brian Eno, Tony Visconti or any of the other musicians he used on the original track. And the fault for that lies with that idiot from the Musician's Union seen on the 1977 documentary. Who exactly did he think he was? :eek::mad:
Personally, I thought the unearthed 'Jean Genie' clip was fantastic and would gladly watch it again. Horrific to think it was deprived the number one slot by 'Long-haired Lover From Liverpool' ... :eek:
But the documentary also revealed that is was not uncommon for the new backing track to be fake and replaced by one the band wanted in the first place , although the crap sound from many of the live performances would indicate that plenty did use a new backing track
You can't lay the blame personally at the union guy who was only doing what he was told by the union.
But it was one of the many union issues in tv that was a problem during the 70's that came to a head with the ITV strike of 1979.
Within a decade Thatcher had given us C4 and began the casualisation the tv industry thus removing most of the union power - just as she did with so many other union lead industries.
I wonder if the saying "What goes around comes around" was in use back then?