I would suggest that they pack that idea in, like, immediately!

Billy Paul – I remember him toying with Macca’s original, changing the names, and only knowing who “Louis Armstrooooong” was. 35 years later I thought I’d recognise the names but it sounds to me like:

“Polly Wheel was my twin
Elijah Mantle, still our friends
Brother Martin, we can’t forget John
Bobby Mager
Louis Armstro-o-ong”

So I’m presuming that’s MLK and JFK, but otherwise… I thought I’d be hearing names like Angela Davies, but I ain’t got a clue on them. Is it just me? OK, with the magic of the internet I’m now going to try and found who these people are…

And Dr Feelgood – absolutely terrific. Some energy at last. Lonepilgrim at 257, I’m curious to know what “sensuality” you usually find in Pub Rock. If you’re talking about the song, then I think the bad girl Lee’s singing about in Lights Out makes a good transfer from New Orleans (I think Dr John wrote it, for Jerry Byrne) to the Thames estuary. Canvey and sensuality don’t really fit. Knee tremblers, more like.

Honky – All the way from Southampton. A bunch of white blokes attempting funk. Fair to middling effort. Jim tells us it is a “definite” number one. Clunk-Click.

Barbra and Kris – Getting very tactile again. Lovely song, it has to be said. A US number one.

Jim asks a bloke in a suit to introduce the next act, which he does with a cheesy smile. It’s…

Blue – Neat piece of pop. They seem like clean-living boys.

Trinidad Oil Company – How can you possibly not love this, despite the fact that it is absolute rubbish on a Joy Sarney scale? Put your hand down, Marcello!

Savile dons a syrup and introduces himself as Jim’s twin brother Percy. WTF? He presents…

Piero Umiliani – The Gals! But what is this? The first shot is Mucky Sue dressed as a bee. The rest are decked out as flowers. Why didn’t they just tell Flick Colby to fuck off over this? Ridiculous.

10CC – Agree with Lazarus. The only thing of interest here was the girl in the yellow top.

Martin Ford Orchestra – What in the name of all that’s holy was this? Such a cheesy arrangement. James Last was never this grim. It might have been more acceptable had we not seen the performers and particularly MF, who reminded me of my assine geography teacher.

From the ridiculous to the sublime…

Marvin Gaye – “Got to Give it Up” and the Gals return. Simply magnificent. They are not only back in their element after the rubbish with the bee but they produce a routine as good as anything they’ve ever done, as they dance in perfect formation in mouth-watering two-piece blue outfits. GTGIU is (imho) one of the finest record of the entire decade. A phenomenal track, which I well remember buying back in the day. Another US number one and you could see the Gals were loving it. Inevitably, we are only given a taste of it before it is cut short. But this was just fabulous.

Billy Paul (in the studio) – I’m not so sure about this one. I always found this adapted version of Macca’s pleasant little knock-knock song a little too sanctimonious to ever really like it. And also, Mr Jones had still not caught up with Mr Paul for jumping his old lady. There could be crumbs!

Doctor Feelgood – Woooahh! Great stuff! Not so much Lights Out but Lights On for me. A lovely surprise.

“Percy” grabs the same grinning audience member to introduce the number one. I’d like to think that we are all loving both the song and the singer now. But what’s that hiding in the undergrowth? I’m not sure I want to talk about it.

Jim replaces Percy and says his adieu with his trademark “God Bless”. God Bless you too, Jim. Out to Joe Tex. Three night ago, he was in a disco.

Martin Ford reminded me of a cross between Austin Powers and David Guetta, while the singer with the “Music” T-shirt was Derek Smalls of Spinal Tap only a bit hairier. Then again so was The Big Figure from Dr Feelgood – it was a popular look.

Dr Feelgood did have more than one hit but radio only ever plays the one because producers are parasitic and lazy.

And who doesn’t like to see a steel band on TOTP?
hi dere

First up Honky, one of two Honkys (Honkies?) to chart here, the other lot posting a few minor hits in the early 90s (and no doubt they’re one and the same on Chartstats); a rather unappealing exhortation to “come on up and join the party” from a load of blokes with perms and beards. A distant cousin of the Wild Cherry hit from the previous autumn, but nowhere near as good.

Babs: same fillum as the other week. Did she have a thing for hirsute chaps do we know, i.e. was there anything going on with Barry G?

Blue: I still like this, if only because it’s so seldom heard. A bit Gallagher and Lyle-ish really I suppose.

Trinidad Oil Company: I heard Steve ‘Wrighty’ Wright play this late last year, the first time I’d heard it since it was out (and for all his faults he does find oldies you haven’t heard in yonks, he did the same with ‘Mamy Blue’ by the Pop Tops). And who doesn’t like to see a steel band on TOTP? It’s not as if there’s one on every week.

Piero Umiliani: Legs and Co with big flowers on their heads – I was reminded inescapably of Peter Gabriel, and that bloke from Flowered Up.

10 cc: OK song but I think we’ve seen this enough now. Only bit worth seeing again was the girl in the yellow t-shirt, and she was only on for half a second.

Martyn Ford Orchestra: MF reminded me of Steve Coogan for some reason. Forgettable.

Marvin Gaye: a short burst of ‘Got to …’ with another stint from the Legs gals in pleasingly skimpy outfits.

Billy Paul: I really love the original, probably my favourite Wings song … I like what Billy does with the lyrics, and there’s no denying the man could sing, but perhaps too soon after? Nice hat anyway, possibly a fedora.

Dr Feelgood: not a hit, I know (they only had one, didn’t they?). I wouldn’t have liked it then (in ’77 I’d have been into Abba, Hot Chocolate and the Bee Gees) and it didn’t do a lot for me this time I’m afraid. Great live though, I’m sure.

Niecey: very nice, but a short stay at #1 – a zeitgeist-denying monster was lying in wait.

rubyrazzmatazz
DYR newbie
Location: Leeds

Re: Contempt

Hi Jacqueline, I’m pretty much an expert on Contempt as I’m the 21 year old daughter of the then-bass player, Nick Pallett (stripey shirt). I can tell you anything you want to know, I’m in the process of writing a pretty detailed Wikipedia article about them. There’s been a sudden revival of interest since their TOTP appearance (not saying that’s a good thing – most of the interest is just a kind of bemused distaste!).
Don’t be surprised that they passed you by – my mum was also 16 at the time and didn’t remember a thing about them! (They’re married now and she still refused to believe he was telling the truth about his performance until she’d seen it with her own eyes!)
Basically they were invited onto TOTP as an introductory act; their single ‘money is a girl’s best friend’ was due to be released the following Friday morning. If it did well they would have released more singles and an album (which they had already recorded). However, Polydor records didn’t distribute the singles properly and the majority of record shops never stocked it, so people forgot about them and it never charted. The band were back to square one and returned to playing university gigs; meanwhile my dad lent the master tapes of the entire album to the manager, John Scott, who never returned them. One night a few months later my dad and Howard Paul, the front man, came to blows backstage at a gig over (amongst other things) Howard’s repeated boasting about their TOTP appearance.

TOTP Show 1 – DLT: (NB: Why didn’t they show this episode last week instead of inflicting us with the old xylophone loon?)

Contempt – Not a clue. Public schoolboys at play. And the smug frontman reminded me of Jeffrey Archer, which can’t be good.

Rose Royce – Pauline dances alone. She’s lovely but why just her?

10CC – Not one of their finest. Only Eric Stewart seems to be caring less in a shocking video, which is not even saved by the girl bursting through her top.

Joe Tex – I bought this back in the day. It would probably be considered ofensive now. But then the “woman” stepped up and “bumped” Joe at the end. And he’s not exactly Gandhi himself.

Kiki Dee – Lovely and classy.

Billy O – Season ticket holder. Sits in the same stand as Smokey.

Babs and Kris – Man alive, she didn’t ‘arf have a hooter!

Abba into Rod and away.

TOTP Show 2 – Noel:

Rollers – The game is up…

Rod – Doing “First Cut”. I rather fear that through no fault of its own, this record will always be ill-starred for many of us.

Delegation – Absurd.

Mac and Katie Kissoon – Daireylea Lite and they won’t be troubling the scorers again.

Leo – In multiples again. Not so much how much love as how much more.

Joy Sarney – Astonishingly bad. Erithian and the Swede debated whether she looked yummy or not. Whilst personally voting yes on this vital question, I then had second thoughts when I got into my head that she sounded like Nadine Dorres. Plucky performance from Mr Punch.

Frankie Valli – In one ear and out the other. But big things lay ahead for this old Jersey boy!

Gals and the routine to Andrew Gold (avec Floyd). Great effort.

“What’s number one?” Noel asks a vacuous girl.
“Dunno,” comes the reply. I wonder if she remembered “Baby Jump”. The chart-topper is, of course, delightful classy Deniece.

Out to “Sir Duke” – An old record of the week of Noel’s, he reminds us smugly.

Next week’s Pops is nuts, it’s stylistically all over the place including at least three songs that never made the top 30, a spectacularly odd Legs & Co routine and a B-side.

So… anyone heard any other Joy Sarney records?

http://www.45cat.com/record/2058862

I’d be willing to bet that just about every site and blogger interested in the obscure backwaters of British pop is wondering who the hell Contempt were at the moment. At least the 45Cat folk have managed to narrow down a tiny part of their family tree.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PaXzV511Huw

…who we at least know were Canadian and also covered America’s Ventura Highway.

Does anyone have the Contempt 7″ to check the credits? There are a few copies on Gemm but, really, it wasn’t good enough to buy.

Simon, it’s good to see you here!

The thing that struck me about Joy Sarney last night, with the aid of 23 Daves’ blog, is that version was re-recorded. Obviously it was under Musician’s Union rules, but envisioning the orchestra learning the song, the Punch operator having to hit his cues, someone having to tether down all those balloons… actually the director played it beautifully by not revealing the presence of Mr Punch or any of his stall until the end of the first chorus so you’ve got enough time to wonder what the hell’s going on.

As for the rather too English attempt at harnessing SAHB that was Contempt, not even Martin Rushent’s son could find out any more about them, so it appears any more detail is lost.

Furiously, the one time Television did appear on TOTP is one of the few 1977 episodes to get wiped! And no-one seems to remember them being on at all!