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Lord Evan Elpuss
Joined: 10 Dec 2006
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Colin
Joined: 26 Sep 2013
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 Posted: Sun Jan 11, 2015 11:43 am Post subject: Re: 1970s Rock & Roll |
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| Lord Evan Elpuss wrote: | | The best thing is that, though some are very well known acts, it isn't always the obvious track that is featured. And the obscure acts are jjust as great and you can't help but wonder why they didn't achieve greater success. |
Yes, I agree. It was down to one thing: "exposure" on Tv and radio. That is - with a couple of exceptions TV and radio producers and execs didn't have a clue what was happening on the ground and didn't want to know.
I've been watching too and what struck me was that I saw most those early-mid 70s rocks bands several times and look fondly back on at a period which was generally badly represented by TV and radio. There was more to the music of the time than was represented on a generally-appalling Top Of The Pops.
Several bands like Man, early Mott The Hoople, Alex Harvey Band, The Heavy Metal Kids (featuring Gary Holton) etc were really busily touring at the time and played superb gigs, but you'd never know it from looking at old TOTPs. Their exposure came only from the Old Grey Whistle Test on BBc2 and the likes of John Peel and others on late-night radio.
Even The Sweet were a much better, and completely different, band live on stage to the band we saw promoting their singles in such a self-mocking, tongue-in-cheek manner on TOTP.
I wish I'd thought to save these programmes as they're really good! Happy memories. |
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Helen May
Joined: 10 Dec 2006
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| Posted: Sun Jan 11, 2015 11:55 am Post subject: Re: 1970s Rock & Roll |
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| Colin wrote: |
I wish I'd thought to save these programmes as they're really good! Happy memories. |
How many times have I said that to myself after deleting programmes........ 
H
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88 - 91 FM this is Radio 2 from the BBC!
I said it live on air in the studio with Jeremy Vine on 10/3/2005 |
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Colin
Joined: 26 Sep 2013
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| Posted: Sun Jan 11, 2015 3:19 pm Post subject: Re: 1970s Rock & Roll |
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| Helen May wrote: | | Colin wrote: |
I wish I'd thought to save these programmes as they're really good! Happy memories. |
How many times have I said that to myself after deleting programmes........ |
Indeed. I've now just worked out a way of getting HD programmes off my satellite recorder and into an HD video file format. I need to do this with the recent BBC4 documentary on Marshall Amps that I contributed to and I think I've cracked how to bypass the HDCP copy protection. It's OK storing them on the sat box but one day it will fill up!  |
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Helen May
Joined: 10 Dec 2006
Posts: 19299
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| Posted: Sun Jan 11, 2015 3:51 pm Post subject: Re: 1970s Rock & Roll |
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| Colin wrote: | | It's OK storing them on the sat box but one day it will fill up! |
Or its hard drive will fail, it's happened to us twice, about every 3 or 4 years.
H
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88 - 91 FM this is Radio 2 from the BBC!
I said it live on air in the studio with Jeremy Vine on 10/3/2005 |
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Lord Evan Elpuss
Joined: 10 Dec 2006
Posts: 3414
Location: Cloud Cuckoo Land
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| Posted: Sun Jan 11, 2015 4:27 pm Post subject: Re: 1970s Rock & Roll |
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| Colin wrote: | | Lord Evan Elpuss wrote: | | The best thing is that, though some are very well known acts, it isn't always the obvious track that is featured. And the obscure acts are jjust as great and you can't help but wonder why they didn't achieve greater success. |
Yes, I agree. It was down to one thing: "exposure" on Tv and radio. That is - with a couple of exceptions TV and radio producers and execs didn't have a clue what was happening on the ground and didn't want to know.
I've been watching too and what struck me was that I saw most those early-mid 70s rocks bands several times and look fondly back on at a period which was generally badly represented by TV and radio. There was more to the music of the time than was represented on a generally-appalling Top Of The Pops.
Several bands like Man, early Mott The Hoople, Alex Harvey Band, The Heavy Metal Kids (featuring Gary Holton) etc were really busily touring at the time and played superb gigs, but you'd never know it from looking at old TOTPs. Their exposure came only from the Old Grey Whistle Test on BBc2 and the likes of John Peel and others on late-night radio.
Even The Sweet were a much better, and completely different, band live on stage to the band we saw promoting their singles in such a self-mocking, tongue-in-cheek manner on TOTP.
I wish I'd thought to save these programmes as they're really good! Happy memories. |
In 1971 Top Of The Pops did dabble in album tracks for an all too brief time. In the first link there is a Faces track called 'Bad & Ruin' from an album of theirs called Long Player. This site shows that it was one of two tracks played on the show of 29/4/71. The other was a stunning instrumental called 'Richmond': http://z6.invisionfree.com/popscene/ar/t8674.htm. That would seem to have been an interesting time for Top Of The Pops. I do see what you mean that things did seem to go downhill as the decade went on.
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Lord Evan Elpuss, Your ideal job is a Lumberjack. |
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Colin
Joined: 26 Sep 2013
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| Posted: Mon Jan 12, 2015 11:10 am Post subject: Re: 1970s Rock & Roll |
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| Lord Evan Elpuss wrote: |
In 1971 Top Of The Pops did dabble in album tracks for an all too brief time. In the first link there is a Faces track called 'Bad & Ruin' from an album of theirs called Long Player. This site shows that it was one of two tracks played on the show of 29/4/71. The other was a stunning instrumental called 'Richmond': http://z6.invisionfree.com/popscene/ar/t8674.htm. That would seem to have been an interesting time for Top Of The Pops. I do see what you mean that things did seem to go downhill as the decade went on. |
Yes, I consider 1964-68 to be TOTP's halcyon years (when it was still originated in B&W, too). The early 70s decline stems from the fact that the music-buying public split into two distinct groups - singles buyers and albums buyers. The best bands (in my opinion) were those who produced albums and toured them. They were best represented by the late-night R1 DJs in the "Sounds of the 70s" slot (John Peel, Annie Nightingale, Pete Drummond, Bob Harris and co) and of course the wonderful Old Grey Whistle Test which was shoved into a late-night but open-ended graveyard slot on BBC2.
Although the success of several bands like Status Quo and Deep Purple was credited to their promoting singles on TOTP, this was secondary to the success of albums like Deep Purple's "In Rock" and "Machine Head". Seeing Purple and Quo miming to tracks on TOTP was always a laugh - especially when they were such great live bands! Deep Purple was the first proper rock band I saw in 1971, after which I saw many many bands that never appeared on TOTP because it was deemed very uncool at the time (unless they had a single to promote!). In fact, if a "cool" rock band did have singles success and appeared on TOTP they were then deemed "uncool". This happened to Mott The Hoople after Bowie helped them to stardom with "All The Young Dudes". I never saw them after that, great though the single was.
I guess that's why I prefer listening to Radio Caroline to Radio 2 these days. Caroline has been an "albums station" since the 1970s and supports new bands as well as playing a lot of classic (and not so classic) album tracks. Most R2 DJs wouldn't have a clue about many of the acts Caroline features! |
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Lord Evan Elpuss
Joined: 10 Dec 2006
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| Posted: Tue Jan 13, 2015 10:11 pm Post subject: |
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I'll correct myself here. I've just watched 'Richmond' by The faces and it isn't an instrumental track, there are vocals, not provided by Rod Stewart. But I still think it's brilliant with some excellent slide guitar: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RLLKPuuNu5M
Here's the other track that made up that Top Of The Pops album spot. 'Bad & Ruin': https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IPfqnsm38EE I suspect this footage was culled for that BBC4 British 70's Rock'n'Roll compilation as the captions look very familiar!
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Lord Evan Elpuss, Your ideal job is a Lumberjack. |
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