Pop Gear

Let me start by saying that I went through all my old vids and maybe only one or two weren't on YouTube already.

Having said that, I recently watched Pop Gear again. This movie has some phenomenally oddball performances. Annnnnd....90% of them were in fact on YouTube. So- I gleaned 'em and here's a bunch well worth a look.

It's introduced by Jimmy Savile - possibly king of the jerkoffs. (Okay, okay, great guy etc., etc.- but hey I ain't English!)

HOWEVER- first up is something from that film that wasn't on YouTube: the gold pants dance sequence - if you like gold pants like I do, then this video is for you. You're welcome for the upload, massive fan base!



Comes next, (as my son used to say when he was a baby) is the Honeycombs singing Have I the Right, which is notable for two reasons:
The friggin' mentally-challenged-cousin-type on rhythm guitar, and the fact that the drummer, I'm pretty sure, is a dude in drag....



Tommy Quickly gives a performance of Humpty Dumpty that can only be described as excruciating. I want to punch his face off every time I see it. If I didn't have such a nice TV, I might punch it. This video infuriates me so.......

I'm punching you in my mind Tommy Quickly! In fact, I'm punching punching itself!!



UPDATE could this be another version of a sort of cultural idiom? Help me, massive fan base!!!


The Four Pennies doing Where Did you Sleep Last Night ain't no Leadbelly, but their interpretation is such a screamingly loud (for the era) go at it, sort of an end-of-folk-Dylan-at-Isle-of-Wight event, that it's quite enjoyable.



Billie Davis singing Whatcha Gonna Do? is like watching a live Thunderbirds character singing. Exquisite. Dee-lish. Helium-y. Puppet - puppet - puppet.



Steve Winwood in the Spencer Davis Group stands as exemplar of some of the great performances from this film (The Animals, Herman's Hermits, et al) so I'm including it.



Last is the creepy butt dance being done by the Roger Daltrey clone in this performance of Tobacco Road by the Nashville Teens (whatta name!) The Butt dance is mesmerizing in a scoliosis/back brace/uncontrolled intestinal problem kinda way. The performance is good tho.


All the great performances, with the exception of Matt Munro, a super boring lounge singer, will be watched over and over by me.

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Not So Timely Tribute

I feel I should add that the original B&W image came from BBC's Top of the Pops wallpaper page - wow. It's worth a visit just to see a giant version of this Jimmy Saville photo:

The UK is another dimension

Here' a curious little chicken/egg phenomena: Bend Me, Shape Me, - a massive hit by The American Breed in the US when I was a little kid, but at presumably the same time a hit in England by another group, Amen Corner. The weird part is that the vibe is completely different for each song. When I was in the UK I saw they were always doing this - a commercial (an advert) for "Hits of the 60's" would come on, and it would be all, "King of the Road by Rory Flanksbury! - Streets of Laredo by Rupert Clive! Devil in a Blue Dress by Larry Lawrence and the Lads! - AND MORE!!" It was like (sometimes) the US didn't exist, then next minute life would be a hailstorm of Marilyn Monroe, James Dean, Humphrey Bogart and Elvis memorabilia


- Giva lissen.

PS: Listen to just the left track of the American version, and Voila' You've got Karaoke....