"Sho-Waddy-Waddy!"

I've managed to finish reading the rather impressive and irreverant account of
Top of The Pops where it also looks at some of the lesser regarded, even lesser remembered moments such as uncomfortable links in the songs such as Dave Lee Travis introducing a record by The Village People alongside Roger Daltrey who admits that he hates disco.

Unlike the moments with John Peel presenting which were meant to be tounge in cheek without directly insulting the bands, that's just awkward uncomfortable viewing and it was more or less the same when they had guest presenters hosting the show with
Fearne Cotton in 2005/2006 with Jeremy Clarkson being one such an example.

There was also a section looking at the "non-entities" who hosted the show in the late 80s/early 90s where to start with they kept all the fresher Radio 1 DJs such as
Simon Mayo, Mark Goodier and Nicky Campbell and got them to present with non Radio 1 DJs such as the late Caron Keating, Anthea Turner, Jenny Powell and even those who escaped from the Broom Cupboard such as Andy Crane and Simon Parkin.

I would consider this to be a high point of the show as back then I had nothing to compare it too despite being only 3-4 years old, although it there was a mention one of
Simon Parkin's rather corny links out of R.E.M's "Orange Crush" which went along the lines of "Lovely on a hot summer's day!".

Then again he could be forgiven for saying such a thing considering his hair colour.

Even worse was when producer Stanley Appell moved the show to Elstree and got a new set of presenters such as Tony Dortie, Mark Franklin and Claudia Simon, who barely anyone knew who they were.
As mentioned in an earlier post I recognised Claudia from hosting BFT in 1990 with Phillipa Forrester who joined around the same time. Phillippa of course went from strength to strength with her presenting career whilst the rather wooden Claudia didn't get as far.

She was good looking mind, and I'm pleased there's a photo of her inside the book.

The 1991 re-vamp really was a joke as they wanted the show to be hip and aimed towards a younger audience whilst focusing on the album charts on pre-released records at the same time.
That didn't work at all as I can very clearly remember Neil Sedaka for christ's sake, performing his new single on the show that wasn't successfull at all and luckily by 1994, they got the Radio 1 DJs back presenting.

The book also looks at other infamous incidents such as Gary Davies introducing 808 State as "Bob State" and one involving Oasis on one of their earlier appearances in 1994 where during rehearsals Bruno Brookes introduced them as "an indie band" resulting in Liam going up to him saying "We're not a fuckin' indie band, we're a rock 'n' roll band".
That definitely proves that even in the early days the Gallagher brothers were annoying pretentious twats.
Well Liam at least.

There's also the tale of how both Jim Lea off of Slade and Ray Davies from the Kinks got banned from the BBC bar, the story of which I mentioned a couple of years ago near the time when the show made it's bow from our screens.

And for once I agree with something Pete Waterman has said, when he comments that it was a mistake moving the show from Thursday to Friday nights in 1996 which was nonsense and was for me when I started to lose interest in the programme.
An opinion also echoed by Jarvis Cocker.

Overall the book is a very good read for anyone with an obsession with either television or popular music.

Whilst reading I've been listening to PY on Jazz FM where there have been some really good tunes from the likes of Cedar Walton, a brilliant tune by Angie Stone from her 2007 album and one from a woman who has to be one of if not the most underrated female jazz vocalist in the world, that being Carmen Lundy and a tune from her 1991 album "Moment To Moment" which oddly enough is missing from my set of her albums although it has that superb "synthy" early 90s jazz sound that arguably defines the genre for me.

It was actually a Carmen Lundy record that turned my attention to Peter Young all the way back in 2003 when he was at BBC London 94.9 and I found his show on Listen Again where he opened his show with "Time Is Love" from her 1985 debut "Good Morning Kiss" which was absolutley stunning.
Little did I know that it was more or less the beginning of discovering a wider range of soulful and jazzy music that has lasted well over 5 years and has shot by.

Normally I would spend Sundays listening to Robbie Vincent, although tomorrow he's plannning a Marvin Gaye special and as I've mentioned before, I've tended to find most of his recordings to be rather bland. I was going to go to Soul Brother to buy some records but as the Met Line's out of action this weekend I may wait until Monday and have a lie in tomorrow.

There's nothing I can do really this week until Friday in terms of interviews although I hope my jewellery maker interviewee is still available after returning from holiday.
As I've said before I really hope it doesn't go balls up.