Sits back.

...but I'd be interested to find out if any of the (previously little-played) tracks featured in these repeats have enjoyed a sales resurgence.

as long as my fast forward button works.

http://www.wordmagazine.co.uk/content/totp-1976

Some sort of thread-meld is called for.

Oh, and there was this one too!

http://www.wordmagazine.co.uk/content/totp-1976-punk

Given we're going to be talking this through until long after retirement (assuming Chris Patten doesn't axe BBC Four), this thread could run and run and run.

good or bad. It's a time piece. I had email correspondence with Noel Edmonds last week re: the Suprise Sisters too. I'm totally immersed in it.

I was so taken aback by how awful they were I felt the need to research them. Apparently they were protegees of Tony Visconti.

On the whole I think trawling through these programmes is like looking through the bestseller lists of any given week. If you were to look at say 1976 you'd learn that Wilbur Smith or Arthur Haley were at No. 1 but it would tell you next to nothing about the literary scene of the time.

I'm watching them all too. 1976 was the year before I was born.

What gets me is the complete lack of atmosphere in the studio, it looks like it's music night at the morgue.

Also, my heart sinks when you see bands you've never heard of who look and carry themselves like they may well be really good. When they start playing however, it turns out they're just Brotherhood of Man with better gear. Slik, Flintlock, I'm looking at you.

Finally, those novelty records like The Wurzels and JJ Barrie? At number one? Wow. What a world it must have been in those days.

hypothesis put to the test:

tx: 77/07/07

(49) THE RAH BAND – The Crunch
(6) OLIVIA NEWTON-JOHN – Sam ®
(NEW) SMOKIE – It’s Your Life
(25) BROTHERHOOD OF MAN – Angelo
(23) BOB MARLEY & THE WAILERS – Exodus ®
(14) ALESSI – Oh Lori (video)
(48) BARRY BIGGS – Three Ring Circus
(5) BONEY M – Ma Baker (danced to by Legs & Co)
(26) ANDY GIBB – I Just Wanna Be Your Everything ®
(1) HOT CHOCOLATE – So You Win Again
(15) DONNA SUMMER – I Feel Love (and credits)

Thanks Bob, Donna, but let's just give it another year before we go back in there:

tx: 77/07/06

(2) FATHER ABRAHAM & THE SMURFS – The Smurf Song (and charts)
(NEW) BUZZCOCKS – Love You More
(5) MARSHALL HAIN – Dancing In The City (video)
(11) SHOWADDYWADDY – A Little Bit Of Soap
(22) A TASTE OF HONEY – Boogie Oogie Oogie (danced to by Legs & Co)
(24) ELECTRIC LIGHT ORCHESTRA – Wild West Hero (video)
(14) SAN JOSÉ & RODRIGUEZ ARGENTINA – Argentine Melody
(25) CLOUT – Substitute (video)
(64) STEEL PULSE – Prodigal Son
(59) CITY BOY – 5-7-0-5
(68) JUSTIN HAYWARD – Forever Autumn
(1) JOHN TRAVOLTA & OLIVIA NEWTON-JOHN – You’re The One That I Want (video)
(29) BOB MARLEY & THE WAILERS – Satisy My Soul (and credits)

hmmmmm.....three?

tx: 79/07/05

(22) CHIC – Good Times (and charts)
(45) MANFRED MANN’S EARTH BAND – Don’t Kill It Carol
(6) AMII STEWART – Light My Fire (video)
(54) THE KORGIS – If I Had You
(9) THE SEX PISTOLS – C’mon Everybody (video)
(12) EDDY GRANT – Living On The Frontline ®
(18) VILLAGE PEOPLE – Go West (video)
(21) THE RUTS – Babylon’s Burning ®
(41) THE KNACK – My Sharona
(27) THE DOOLEYS – Wanted
(30) PATRICK HERNANDEZ – Born To Be Alive ®
(1) TUBEWAY ARMY – Are ‘Friends’ Electric?
(29) DAVE EDMUNDS – Girl’s Talk (and credits)

NOW YOU'RE TALKING!!!

It wasn't on last Thursday and I can't find it in this week's RT.

I thought it was mostly crap at the time and catching the odd repeat, yep, it's still mostly crap. I wish they'd rerun the Whistle Test. My rose tinteds say it was mostly great. I wonder if it was? Looking at lists of who was on I bet it was mostly triffic.

...some dreariness/over-earnest interviews, but also lots of gems. And a lot of the OGWT gems - unlike, it seems, from the TOTP archive (where we've seen all the good stuff in documentaries/clip shows ad nauseum, leaving only the dross which we're all now seeing in its unexpurgated lack of glory for, in some cases, the first time) - WILL be rarities, things unseen for aeons.

I've long hoped to see the 1972 piano/vocal OGWT session by James Griffin, of Bread but its never to my knowledge been repeated, though it still exists. I advised my pal Brian O'Reilly at Hux to license the audio of the two tracks (including his Bread masterpiece 'Just Like Yesterday') as bonus tracks for a forthcoming James Griffin reissue of his 2 long-neglected 70s solo albums, but alas the BBC wanted an unaffordable advance.

Hey ho.

The problem with the OGWT was not the amount of prog noodling - there was rather too little of that, if you ask my 14-year old self. It was more 'Bomber' Harris's god-awful interest in Americana, Jesse Collin Young, Capricorn Records specials, the Atlanta Rhymthm Section, 'the new one from Jackson Browne... nice", "here's an interview with David Crosby", and lazy 'Felix the Cat' clips with album tracks. About 10 years ago some great OGWT DVDs came out, and the earlier ones were jolly good - but it was live in the studio stuff. But what's been released has been quite patchy since - presumably legal issues or the tapes beign wiped for the 1974 TUC conference.

I watched it when I was 9. It was mostly shit then. I still trust my juvenile opinion so have not felt the need to waste any more of my life with the repeats.

Now if they put Max Headroom back on that would be a different matter....

Oh, and back to the OP, Byron Ferrari's weedy "Let's stay together" sounded as feeble then as it does now compared to the mighty Canned Heat's version.

Fighting talk. Presume it was either Breakaway, Heart On My Sleeve or I Want To Stay With You. Love them all. Nice record the G&L "Breakaway" album. And there's nothing wrong with "nice" records, as part of a rich and varied musical diet.

Maybe I was simply bemoaning the lack of prog; here's some choice moments:

Can't see for a moment why punk happened...

How about a rerun of the brilliant So It Goes presented by the much missed Tony H Wilson. Magnificant. Thank goodness I was lucky enough to be back in Granadaland in the summer of 1976.

http://youtu.be/C8szRgIcYlY

I love watching it. 1976 is just about a year before I started watching it each week as I was 8 years old. But my main memory of TOTP was that is had loads of trash which made the great songs stand out. I thought that was common knowledge? Are people feeling cheated because they thought it was wall to wall classics? I doubt the next year will be wall to wall punk either. It was never cutting edge. Great viewing though, and as for knocking rare footage of the bopping elf...well maybe DLT was right. I've heard I Love To Boogie loads on the radio the last few years. Wasn't it a big part of Billy Elliot?

I didn't see any TOTP. I went to a local youth group from six 'til eight on Thursdays.

In 1978, I went up to the next group. Which met on Tuesdays. And I could worship once more at the magic box. This was also, coincidentally, when I discovered Radio 1. And Smash Hits.

a fantastically evocative piece of television that has nothing to do with the quality or not of the music. These are the songs that we were buying whether we want to admit it or not and DLT, Edmonds and co were huge stars of the day, this is our past and we cannot deny it. Framptons wah wah thing was wonderful, did anyone else use it, does anyone have one or know what it's called? Oh by the way Brotherhood of Man? Ignore the sound and look at the clothes and the look, my sister and brother-in-law could have been in BoM and I had a rush of memories looking at their silly dog song that was hugely welcome and unexpected, brilliant idea and I will try and catch them all, my life unfurling in front of my eyes, 1982 is going to be emotional.

I may have been misunderstood. Mr Fade says "[TOTP] had loads of trash which made the great songs stand out. I thought that was common knowledge? Are people feeling cheated because they thought it was wall to wall classics?"

No, I certainly didn't think it had wall to wall classics, but you must understand that - and I'm sure I'm not alone here - I was 8 in 1976 and hardly ever saw the show at the time. In subsequent years I became heavily interested in, and involved in, the world of music from times past. But to an extent - for all the vintage vinyl abnd CDs one may hear - one's view is influenced by what vintage TV/film material is available (on rebroadcasts, clip shows, DVDs, bootleg videos etc) of an era.

Our collective visual 'memory' of the 60s (the early 70s to an extent, but a lesser one) is undoubtedly skewed by the fact that, for example, there is very little surviving TOTP hence we see endless repeats of Status Quo's 'Pictures Of Matchstick Men', Procul Harum's 'Whiter Shade of Pale', Brian Auger Trinity's 'This Wheels On Fire' and the Rolling Stones 'Lets Spend The Night Together'. I'm sure there's a few others - but not very many. If the entirety of the TOTP 60s archive were still intact, I promise you we'd not have seen the above clips anywhere near as often.

I'm not harrumphing "Hey, why aren't there more classics?" - rather, I'm amazed at how poor the general standard was at the time: a drabness of presentation (when it had clearly been somehow brighter and more engaging to the viewer, in TV production terms, in the early 70s, as seen with oft-repeated clips of Bowie, Roxy, Jethro Tull, Slade, T Rex etc), and also a 'flatness' to the music (which may well be in part down to some MU-rules re-records as mentioned above - but only in part) and, frankly, what appears to be an acceptance of blandness and mediocity among the pop fraternity in that part of the 70s.

Listen to, say, Picketywitch or Middle of The Road or whoever (the pop lightweights of their day) from the very early 70s and compare them to Flintlock, Gallagher & Lyle, the G Band et al of 1976. The comparison is striking: the supposedly banal of 5 years earlier had verve, sprightliness, hooklines, something about them that sparkled; while the 1976 lot are as boring and dreary as hell.

"as for knocking rare footage of the bopping elf" - well, okay, it's rare - it's rarely been repeated (certainly I'd never seen it before. But could that be because he looked and sounded bored and second-rate? You would never in a million years play that clip to anyone who came up to you and said 'hey, I've heard Marc Bolan was exciting and camp and outrageous - a glam-pop pixie who simply ignited the 70s: have you got any visual evidence?'. No. But if someone said, 'hey, I believe Bolan had run out of ideas by 1976 and could hardly be bothered disguising the fact on national TV: got any visual evidence...?' that'd be the clip you'd dig out.

Alas, when Dave suggests "Framptons wah wah thing was wonderful" I can only disagree! It's bloody annoying. Regrettably, as has been said already, Jeff Beck used it briefly (till he wised up) [check out 'She's A Woman' from a 1974 show on youtube for the hideous truth of it].

To conclude: I'm 100% there for the period-piece fascination of it, but can't quite believe JUST how awful the state of pop music and pop music broadcasting was in 1976. That was and is my point. It had slid massively since 1971-2 on both counts, and was nowhere near as exciting and vibrant (certainly vis a vis the musical aspect) as it became, to my certain memory, by 1979.

I don't know if Jeff Beck gave up using this for the same reason, but Frampton complained that the vibration from having one of these in your gob night after night made all his fillings drop-out

..I've just had a filling replaced earlier today. But I can assure you that I've never once had dealings with this puffed-up non-musical windbag.*

(* Unintentional reference to the vibrant Andy Kershaw thread going on elsewhere.)

.....for Dave Clark to dust off those 'Ready, Steady, Go!' episodes.

...about why-oh-why he doesn't allow them out of his lock-up! :-D

I have seen Benny and Graham TWICE in concert in the last 9 months; they appeared at the Barrfields Theatre in Largs last October, and at Glasgow Barrowlands a few weeks ago. Both these concerts were in support of local charities, but it is rumoured that they may undertake a reunion tour of Scottish venues. I'm one of the duo's most devoted followers, and have even been photographed with them.

How can anyone describe 'Heart On My Sleeve' as turgid and dreadful? I also adore Liverpool Express's 'You Are My Love'; I have fond memories of one of my neighbours singing his own version of that beautiful ballad in his front room.

Colin H can emigrate to Antarctica as far as I'm concerned.

Top of the Pops ... not Top Of The Critically Acclaimed in Retrospects
And it was BBC1 evening viewing for the whole family - not for solipsistic 14 yr olds - so DLT introducing Echoes by 'Which one's Pink?' Floyd would always have been highly unlikely...

Edit: or Saville ... 'And deep beneath the rolling waves in labyrinths of coral caves, now then now then...'

...'being there at the time' had/has to do with one's appreciation of a lot of this music?

I mean this in a very specific, hard to articulate sense - the thing being that when one is basically looking at the show and hearing the music for essentially the first time, from the perspective of all the developments in music and TV production/presentation that have happened in the intervening years, it will have a different effect than that had on a listener/viewer who is experiencing a jolt of nostalgia (who was there first time around). In a way, the latter individual isn't having to make the gargantuan 'allowances' that the first-time 35-years-on viewer is having to make, be that consciously or subconsciously.

Maybe Bolan's tired-looking performance of what seems to be a very flimsy song really WAS an exciting way to start the show back then? But it seems hard to comprehend now, when you're subconsciously waiting for 'something to happen' in the song, and it never does. Gallagher & Lyle may be another good example: maybe their music had a welcome and accessible place back in the day, in the context of everything else at that time; maybe it sounded fresh and different. All I can say, on one viewing, was that 'Heart On My Sleeve' sounded like it was a first-gear plod-along with an underdeveloped chord structure (I kept WILLING them to go to that seemingly obviously fourth chord in the chorus... but they never did!).

But I'm going to give G&L another go, because I'm increasingly thinking that there's something claustrophobically 'flattening' about the TOTP in-studio performances, possibly because of MU re-record obligations or just the dreary TV production of that period (TV production which had been a lot more engaging 5 years earlier, so it wasn't just 'the technology of the day'). Interestingly, even the SAHB performance of 'Boston Tea Party' last week looked perfunctory and unengaging - like they'd been told 'on no account move off those spots on the floor'. It was their second performance of it on TOTP, and intriguingly their first one (with Alex seated with beard and straw hat) seemed somehow more gripping and characterful. Curious...

..& last week's episode with the buffoon DLT at the helm was particularly cringe-inducing, from the eye-stabbing intro schtick reading his medallion (yes it would be a medallion) upside down to making a nuisance of himself with the hapless Mud drummer - oh for the spirit of Keith Moon to have posessed the sticksman to ram his bass drum over the hairy one.

I saw DLT making a personal appearance at the late lamented 'Frenchman's Motel' in Fishguard in the late '77 where he had a rant about wishing punk had stayed in the closet before introducing '2-4-6-8 Motorway' as 'proper music'. I'm sure Tom Robinson would have rejoiced at the blessing. The highlight of the night was the entrance of local DJ 'Charlie' into the club on a white horse, to be inevitably acclaimed by DLT as a 'nutter'.

You had to be there..

...from the way you describe it, I'm glad I wasn't!

I've long believed that 1977 was the year when the record companies stopped being hippies and started to regard the whole thing as a business. The year before, virtually anything could be released and might be a hit, or might not. The labels were still riding on a wave of hippy altruism. There wasn't much A&R. I think this left the goalposts wide open for whatever was ready with an aggressive marketing strategy, such as punk, or Fleetwood Mac.

In the UK the summer of love never quite happened, and all the peace and love stuff was falling back to the default setting of light entertainment, with brass bands never far behind. Medleys of chart hits sung by Peter Glase and Don McClean on Crackerjack. It was a bit like the time in the US between Buddy Holly & The Beatles.

I have only caught one or two of BBC Four's TOTP episodes but this thread has brought to mind the German Beat Club DVD set I have at home, covering every episode that has survived from 1965-1968 (nearly all of them, in fact).

The thing I was most surprised about, while going through each half-hour installment transfixed with amazement, was the amount of mainstream pop mixed in with artists from what we regard now as the canon. It gives a very true picture of the then-contemporary beat/pop scene in Germany - one minute you have a snarling adolescent Who, the next local garage rock wannabes The Lords complete with shocking medieval page-boy haircuts, goofing about on stage. It removes the rose-tinted filter and is all the better for it, in my opinion.

And guess what? DLT is there in many episodes as co-host , acting the twat.

It seems wrong to use TOTP as any kind of barometer of quality for music in 1976. I was 18 at the time and absolutely no-one I knew would go out of their way to watch it, though in those days of 3 channels if you were indoors, you'd see it. It did change when the punk/new wave thing brought back more focus on singles but in the period being shown by the BBC at the moment, forget it, it had become dismissed as mainly something for parents and younger children to watch, with the occasional watchable item. Looking back at the television of 1976 generally, let alone TOTP, is a poor way of finding out what was happening musically at that time.

I think I drifted away from music for awhile sometime around '75 after Slade seemed to dissapear.. Looking back there was a lot of great stuff around, just not much for a 12/13 year old.. Looking back at these shows I can see why my interest waned..then sometime around 76 a mate introduced me to a Rockabilly compilation and I was sold.. Excitment was what I wanted and here it was.. Course Punk came along just after.. but I was already on my journey.... I think I had a lot of mates from that time who started looking back at music from the past cos the stuff around then seemed so bland..

My word, did anyone see last week's TOTP 76? Easily the worst so far.

Diddy Dave. (Who to be fair is a very nice man, I used to work with him. But carrying a teapot around with him? and those jokes? Oh dear)

Pilot's song about Canada, a laughable effort. I've rarely heard anything so half arsed, especially now I've done some research and found out they were Scottish.

Ruby Flipper carrying each other on their shoulders.

Diddy to young girl: Do you like Lee Garrett? (bemused look)

The only bit that wasn't a total disaster was The Real Thing claiming No1 off The Wurzels. Despite it being a mainstay of the Heart FM/wedding disco scene, it was a great performance of a great song. Sensational Alex Harvey Band were a bit different as well.

...is just wretched, isn't it? My wife - not from the UK and who never saw, it seems, any BBC style light entertainment shows in the 70s - simply can't understand what all this group dancing stuff is for or about, and how anybody, at any time ever, thought it something worth having on TV. And that includes the cataclysmicly pointless and awful New Edition with their sub-Peter-Kay-going-to-Amarillo moves a few weeks back. And, I have to say, I have no answer. It's like an emperor with no clothes. it's just silly. Why did nobody point this out at the time?

...of combovers going around the pop world in those days. Most of the Sutherlands & Quiver, from memory, and various others. It was never a good look.

Bump for yesterday's edition.

Blimey. I wasn't there at the time, but I like to think I know a lot about music, but it turns out I know nothing at all. I have honestly never in my life ever heard even a mention of Sunfighter (quirky), Glamourpuss (attractive but rubbish) or Jimmy James and the Vagabonds. I know and enjoy the work of Status Quo, but have never heard that song (I don't think Noel told us what it was called unfortunately, It was pretty good). I'd heard of Liverpool Express, but only because they were on a couple of weeks ago.

It just goes to show, every day is a school day.

The info bar thingy on Sky said there would be a band called 100 Ton & A Feather performing, but they were nowhere to be seen. They must have been edited out, not sure why. ;)

Song of the show for me? This below. Have you ever heard anything like it? This is surely the embodiment of being suffocated slowly in blancmange. Love the girl in the front row in the stripes dancing like it's a Tiesto show or something!

...just watched last Saturday's episode and Tony Blackburn manages to say this word no less than seven times in the half hour. Admittedly two or those relate to the 'Sennnnnnnnn-sational' Alex Harvey Band, but the rest refer to acts which are generally some way short of being sensational or anything of the sort.

If anyone thought the Blackburn/Sensational thing was a bit of an urban myth like the Barry Norman/'And why not?' thing, this was the TOTP episode to reveal the horrible truth...

.....possibly the most interesting track so far in this year of Guilty Pleasures. A real shame.

Of course the late night repeat is full length with no edits but that version is never available on the BBC Iplayer.

Just a shame I thought. I mean, we got Aker Bilk and an animated Chi-lites video instead and way too much Ruby Flipper (hurry up Leg's and Co.)

Whoever edited this edition down needs to be covered in blancmange. Hurrumph!!!

But Eddie and the Hot Rods have! Straw in the wind...

Agnetha was brilliant in Dancing Queen. Not just pulchritude, but investing meaning in what I've always thought were good, offspring-of-Petula-Clark's-Downtown, lyric. She wants to hear them play the rock music...

Honestly. The repeats. Was it always like this?

I'm sure Blinded by the Light has been on the last 3 weeks.

...I assumed it was the same performance clip being repeated every time (hence fast forwarded through the 2nd, 3rd, etc times around). There's something about that song/their performance I find a bit irritating - probably the vocalist's pronunciation of certain words - 'Strooong up like a dooooce anoootha rooooona in the night'. I mean, for a start what the hell does that mean anyway?!?

http://www.egigs.co.uk/index.php?b=1491

.....first tune up on both the 7.30pm and midnight repeat. No edits now as the show is only 30 minutes long.

Be nice to see the performance of Can though which will this time be available on the iplayer after its broadcast. previously the BBC only showed the edited version on Iplayer.

who I've infected ceasellessly with great 70s toons commented

'This is all rubbish isn't it Dad?'

I had to sadly agree...

Well, I really enjoyed this week's TOTP. Despite Travis being even more rancid and futile than ever, consider the billing:

- One copper-bottomed all-time classic from Abba, with a perfectly decent video
- One left-field zinger from Can, studio-bound but acceptably presented (love the bowed guitar)
- Tina Charles, who must have been about 4'10", but put plenty of heart, and a unique voice, into a pretty duff song. I LIKE Tina Charles (and I put it to you, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, that there is no better song to be played at a fairground than I Love To Love)
- Sherbert - yes, you enjoyed Pilot, and the Starland Vocal Band, so here's another damned catchy (inane) tune. Sherbert themselves looked old enough to have started their careers working with Joe Loss - "this is it fellas - at last, we've cracked the bigtime!"
- Randy oh-so-sensitive Edelman. Well, it was of its time. The thinking man's Barry Manilow. Leo Sayer's hair but with the added value of not having Leo Sayer's voice. That sort of thing.
- Poor old Ruby Flipper (not long for this world). The costumes were still silly, but at least they could just line up and disco dance. Much the best way.

A couple of others passed me by, incl the Roussos follow-up, but overall I probably enjoyed more of this than I did when it was new.

Take them for what they are - the past is another country...

Can - What!? that's not Michael Karoli in a wig. Is it?
Randy Edelman - drip
Sherbet - why?
a Ruby Flipper moment - avoided
Tina Charles - fap (back then, not now… although)
Jesse Green - '‪Nice and slow‬, that's how yon flute should be inserted into you Jess
Demis Roussos - stick to progressive rock fat bloke
Ab-Ba - Jeeziz! Nope, don't get them. Not big, not clever, fuck off!

and DoLT was a cock as per his contract

SCENE: The TOTP dressing room, October 1976. At one end of the room, the late Flick Colby is rummaging through her dressing-up basket, looking for props; at the other, the DJs are chained up in their cages, waiting to be let out to perform on the wireless or (joy!) present another edition of Top... of the Pops!

FLICK: The girls were great this week. Hope we get another chance to do Disco Duck, I've got some great new ideas. But... what's this? [She pulls a crystal ball from the depths of her basket.] Interesting!

SAVILE: Now then, now then, now then. What have we here, Miss Flick Colby?

FLICK: Well, fellas, if I peer into this thing, I seem to get a vision of the future.

HAMILTON: You mean, there's a future?

FLICK: Not for you, unless the endless repetition of the labors of Sisyphus sounds appealing. But I can see... 2011. There are men - old men [the DJs get excited, for they themselves are already old men], and some chicks too [the DJs start to howl], and they're watching this year's Top of the Pops, every week, on BBC Four.

EDMONDS: That would be my own personal channel. I''m so damned personable, so clean and presentable, the BBC will put me in front of everything.

FLICK: No, no, the old men are watching us, like wraiths from a distant past, and they're talking about us on... on... Well, it would appear to be a television with a typewriter and a telephone attached. And a computer.

EDMONDS: But that would be amazing. I could front Tomorrow's World talking about that. You'd need a lorry for all that kit. I could front Top Gear and talk about that.

TRAVIS: A lorry? A truck? 10-4, rubber duck, looks like we've got us a convoy! [The other DJs throw insults, faeces etc at Travis.]

FLICK: No, the old men are talking about us. They're analysing every show in absurd detail. They're taking it all very, very seriously.

HAMILTON: But a lot can change in 35 years, surely. When I was setting out on my light entertainment career, 35 years ago...

FLICK: The Japs hadn't even bombed Pearl Harbor yet. Yes, it's a long time ago. But they're analysing our every move - us and the pop stars.

[The DJs look momentarily baffled. With the exception of Blackburn, they had forgotten that pop stars appeared on the Top of the Pops. They thought it was their show.]

TRAVIS: Well, if I'd known I was creating a lasting body of work, I'd have been zanier, whackier - I would have given the viewers a true insight into my soul. [FLICK shudders delicately.]

FLICK: And they're talking about Steely Dan, Neil Young and Pink Floyd. At some length. [The DJs look baffled. They are not familiar with these names.]

BLACKBURN [pulling himself together, it doesn't do for the DJs to suffer reflective moments]: Well, I don't know about you fellas, I'm going to spend the next 35 years doing exactly the same things as I do today.

FLICK: You will, Tony, you will. And you will be strangely admired for it.

OTHER DJs: Me, me, what about me, what does the future hold?

FLICK: Well, Sir Jimmy... [The DJs preen themselves.]

TRAVIS: I expect we'll all be knights and lords. I'm going to dedicate myself to the cause of freedom-fighting in south-east Asia. And snooker on the radio.

HAMILTON: I'm going to look for more daytime work in commercial television.

FLICK: Well, boys, I'm sure you'll all have long and successfuul careers at Radio 1. But [scratches head, looks baffled], beware of the Bannister!

[The DJs grunt, pick nits out of their fur and dig around in their straw for Radio 1 Roadshow souvenirs, and Flick goes off to create Legs & Co. Somewhere in the night, Johnny Rotten is gobbbing.]

CURTAIN

...masterpiece! :-D

I thought they were great on this week's show. I would not have given them the time of day in 76 but I really enjoyed 'Hurt".

I don't remember a time when he didn't have the corkscrew hair...

that thinks Jimmy Saville seemed mildly retarded in this week's episode?

The final farewell, at the end of the show. Savile is doughnuted by girls-next-door, as ever, and announcing that Abba is still #1, and a mysterious grinning little bald man in a brown suit materialises on his left. Very curious.

he looked great. That jacket was awesome. really cool.

song on the show, Detriot spinners, Rubberman, over the best video, paul nicholas and it's like an OGWT special.It's the same flippin beat I swear!!

I could be a producer already.

Here's what you need:

and scroll forward to PN at about 19.45

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b01692kw/Top_of_the_Pops_07_10_76/

Play them together mind!

I thought Tavares were great! And it was nice (?) to see the Pussycat video again, though once will do.

Otherwise, another grim selection. David Essex was always a song-and-dance man, bless him. Hamilton was selling carpet tiles (he had one displayed on his head).

And who or what was Simon May? The poor man's John Miles? Utterly dire, unredeemed even by the lovely Lulu.

A few weeks ago, I clicked on the 'info' button on my remote to see who was appearing on TOTP 1976 that evening. Rather tickled to see that 'Bryan Ferry and The Wurzels' were set to appear. Any you think Lou Reed and Metallica is a strange combo?

...with Ed Stewart repeatedly referring to 'the lovely girls' in both the audience and the simpering line-up of women with fluffy hair in the yet-to-be-named Legs & Co.

The Climax Blues Band Couldn't Get It Right. And they weren't alone in that. Nobody on that show could get it right if there was a huge big arrow saying 'Right' with flashing lights around it, showing them the way...

.....great performance. I was tapping my feet along to that one. Not sure if they re-recorded the song or had just vocals but it sounded even better than the studio version. Best tune of the night.

The Rod Stewart video was awful for that song. Just footage of him looking moody and showing off Britt Ekland.

The Paul Nicholas tune, Dancing With The Captain was hilarious. Awfully bad but funny. Pussycat I can't help singing along with everytime.

And the competition to think of a name for the new dance troupe. Ruby Flipper didnt last long. 6 months at best. Legs and Co, although including some members of Ruby Flipper looked rather lovely to my eyes.

And Illuminatus has stolen some of my best lines. Oh well, here goes:

...because, for my febrile mind, there was so much to enjoy in this week's Top... Of the Pops!

In the countdown, Lalo Schiffrin smoking his pipe. Channeling Bing Crosby? But where are today's pipe-smoking stars?

- Steve Harley and his silly scarlet suit (I fast-forwarded through his silly song.)

- Andy Hamilton's priceless impression of Demis Roussos.

- Rod'n'Britt: in the Navy! (Or was it hungover, backstage at an awards dinner?)

- John Miles playing something without a tune, sitting behind a piano that appeared to have been pulled out of a skip...

And suddenly I take back anything unkind I may have said about the DJs - even Travis, even Edmonds - having been exposed to a plank of wood shaped like Ed Stewart, stitched into his Bri-Nylon suit. And Planky's competition! - be still, my beating heart, but the answer is Legs & Co. What, Ruby Flipper? They never existed. You can read about it at the Ministry of Truth. There were never any blokes in the lovely new Top of the Pops dancers, just the girls. Just Patti, Sue, Rosemary, Lulu, Jill and Pauline. You want to debate that? Personally, I'd wrestle a cheetah any time for Lulu. On with the motley.

"We've got quite a soul feeling to the show tonight," said the Plank, introducing the Climax Blues Band, clearly heirs to the legacy of Aretha Franklin and OV Wright.

And to cap it all - Joe Bugner!

Kids today don't know they're born.

Edmonds chooses his words with care, fails to name Legs & Co and then drowns the poor girls in dry ice. The song is Steve Miller's Rock 'n' Me, from the "Fly Like a Beagle" album (I think I've got that right) which certainly soundtracked a big part of my late 1976.

Prior to that, the Manhattans, in one of those rough promo films (did they all look that bad originally, or has the film stock deteriorated), and before that, Showaddywaddywaddy. God, I hated this record when it was new - HATED it. The Rubettes, Mud and Alvin Stardust had all been sent to the pop graveyard (some of them still kicking, but add a couple more screws to the coffin lid), and then, dammit, more bloody rock'n'roll revivalists making Cliff Richard look dangerous. (About time we discussed Harry on the Word blog; maybe some other time.) Now, I find I love the daft confidence of this lot - the costume changes (did I just see that? Oh yes), Mr Cool on the timpani, and the doo-wop guys who look like bookies' runners. And that misheard line: "your ass shining so brightly." I guess having an on-vacation Steve Tyler on vocals helps, but these guys knew they had a Number One.

Then, the High Numbers with Extra Bloody Swearing in Substitute. "I look all white, but my dad was black" - not sure that line would wash in 2011. Interesting story behind this reissue: the 'Oo were already on their third greatest hits, following on from the patchy Direct Hits and one-of-the-best-hits-albums-ever, Meaty Beaty Big and Bouncy.

Following the Tommy movie, and in the absence of new material, it was time for a double retrospective, The Story of the Who, complete with TV ads and an exploding jukebox on the cover. Failure to include the original Brunswick hits (I Can't Explain, My Generation etc) meant that this was a second-rate and tawdry cash-gathering exercise, but Substitute was put out on a 12" single, with I'm a Boy on the B, and in the absence of other interest, it soared into the chart.

Anyway, oh yes, Top of the Pops. Doesn't Bonnie Tyler look young, before they invented the Steinman mullet?

"Five gentlemen from America - Tavares - and they don't stop the music for anybody." Do you see what Noel did there? Another fuzzy video, but the song holds up as strong mid-period disco.

The anticlimax Blues Band plodded through their pedestrian number, then Edmonds tried to talk wiggy, charismatic Chicago to number one (he succeeded). Pussycat? That joke's grown stale. Which pier was the video filmed on? Give me Showboat any time...

Rewind to watch one more song again. "Let's go for a little walk..."

....that the new dance troupe is called Legs and Co.

Aint going to happen. The next two episodes were wiped by the BBC including the following week which was the first ever presented by David Kid Jensen. BBC4 is showing the next available episode which is presented by the late Sir Jimmy Saville next Thursday. We're getting more upto date now and on schedule.

...didn't those guys look like extras from an episode of The Rockford Files: beige/brown suits, bad haircuts, burger-bellies... I've never seen a less rock'n'roll looking trio... and what a cheesy song too (only the subdued brass arrangement saving it from the abyss...)

Now that Legs and Co. are about to be sworn in to perform their sacred duties as the ‘Queen’s own interpreters of pop lyrics and tempos through the medium of dance’, I must admit that I’m missing Ruby Flipper. Not for their dancing, because I’m in no position to say whether or not their dancing was bad, good or mediocre. When dancers are on TV, I usually just concentrate on the movement of the ones I fancy the most. It’s hardly a sophisticated response, but it does at least allow me to have grounds for stating a preference. When the re-runs started and I was re-introduced to the delights of Ruby Flipper, I found, curiously, that I still liked the one that I used to fancy when I was a lad, all those years ago. That probably means something significant, unless it doesn’t.

All of which reminds me of a joke that was popular when I was at school.

A little boy says to his mum: “Mum, are Legs and Co. robots?” to which mum replies: “No, why do you ask that, son?” “Because” says the boy, “daddy said he’d like to screw the arse off one of them.”

To the jaundiced modern eye, the TOTP dancers and their all-too-literal interpretations of pop lyrics look somehow irredeemably naff. Sadly, it’s not just a comedic aspect that is noticeable; now that we’ve become accustomed to simulated sex as a virtual staple of ‘dancing’ in modern pop videos, those old-school routines look so impossibly innocent. It’s hard to imagine that there might have been time when these routines would have been considered suggestive, or perhaps even raunchy. The routines and the costumes were designed to leave some things to the imagination. Imagination, in those days, worked a lot of overtime. Imagination was busy filling in the blanks and embellishing ‘reality’, because reality was obliged to work to a pretty rigid set of rules. Nowadays, when you watch someone like Rihanna performing, your imagination is waiting in the wings, twiddling its thumbs, hoping in vain to be called into action. When you observe the leap that ‘reality’ has taken from 1976 to 2011 and consider the probability that the same kind of leap might be taken over the next couple of decades, you can only conclude that imagination is very shortly going to be out of a job.

... if someone had missed a show, let's say the 9th December 1976 edition from last week ("Diddy" David Hamilton presenting), would anyone here have a copy and be prepared to share it? Hypothetically, of course... ta.