Family Stand

TOTP 19 APR 1990

Posted on December 4, 2020 by 80stastic

I tell you what, having to write about two BBC4 TOTP repeats week in week out is proving to be a relentless schedule to stick to. Fortunately, this particular show only has nine acts as there are no Breakers again this week and six of them have been on before so I might be able to get away with saying not very much about them. Fingers crossed!

It’s Jakki Brambles in the presenters hot seat this week and talking of hot, she does seem to have a constant need to wrap up warm when she’s on. She’s got a black overcoat on this time which she seems to be hugging into herself giving the impression that she’s freezing in the TOTP studio. She did this the last time she was on as well I think. Mark Goodier on the other hand complained about how hot it was when he was the host last time but then he didn’t help himself with a jacket, shirt and tie outfit. Whatever – let’s hope for some ‘hot’ acts on the show tonight….

…not quite what I was hoping for as we start with Sonia and her latest single “Counting Every Minute”. This was just the musical equivalent of watching paint dry. I tried staring at the walls once to try and slow down time when I really didn’t want to go back to work – it didn’t help. I should have just listened to Sonia as this garbage seems to go on forever, endlessly filling the silence with its own pop vacuum – counting every minute indeed. When asked in Smash Hits for her take on the state of the charts at this time, she replied that as well as liking all her SAW stablemates like Kylie, Jason and Big Fun, she’d also just bought the Phil Collins album. What was I saying about watching paint dry?!

Another song that we saw just last week now as “I Don’t Love You Anymore” by The Quireboys gets another airing. Apparently, such was the band’s riotous reputation that before their first TOTP appearance (they were actually the very first act on the show in the the 90s), the producers contacted their management to see if the rumours that they would vomit over the cameramen and set fire to Bruno Brookes were true. Of course they weren’t and the only reason their video is being shown instead of the band in person is because they were touring Japan. At least that’s the story Jakki Brambles has been told to tell and she’s sticking to it.

“I Don’t Love You Anymore” peaked at No 24.

For all the terrible, terrible records that 1990 has given us so far in these repeats, it has also given us some of the decade’s most seminal and creative works as well. After Sinéad O’Connor and Happy Mondays comes Adamski and Seal with “Killer”. I say ‘and Seal’ but he wasn’t actually credited officially on the record despite his obvious input. It’s seems strange to acknowledge in 2020 given the career that Seal has had in the intervening years but there was a time when the world didn’t have a clue who he was and that time was now. We knew who Adamski was – that odd little DJ bloke who’d had a hit with the dance track “N-R-G” earlier in the year but “Killer” didn’t sound anything like “N-R-G”to my ears. It was almost devastating the first time you heard it. The hypnotic bassline that builds until that voice enters the fray. Given his latter canon of work is very much more of a soulful bent, it was an unusual route into the world of music for Seal – supplying the vocals for an out and out dance tune.

As well as his obvious singing talents, he also supplied the visual focus for the record which I don’t think can be underestimated. With his striking looks – aided by his scars which are the result of an autoimmune skin condition – and his mid length dreads, he cut an imposing figure. Having said all of that, you can’t ignore the power of the actual music. Did I expect it to be a No 1 record? I’m not sure but it was always destined to be a big hit. In the end it was one of two massive records to soundtrack the Summer of 1990 with the other one being “World In Motion” by New Order – I’m disqualifying another No1 record (“Sacrifice” by Elton John) on the grounds that it was crap.

By the end of the year, Seal was a major star in his own right notching up a massive hit in “Crazy” which peaked at No 2. By the time that his debut album came out in June of 1991, he was huge and it topped the album charts. Said record included a re-recorded version of “Killer” which meant he did get his overdue star billing and credit for the song in the end. His version peaked at No 8 and its M. C. Escher themed video won British Video of the Year at the 1992 Brit Awards.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hQAgaBVxMds

George Michael performed a version of “Killer” at the The Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert in 1992 which was included on the “Five Live” EP and took the song back to No 1 in 1993.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t2-YIGZas_8

It’s The Blues Brothers up again next with “Everybody Needs Somebody To Love”. I really should make the time to watch the film from start to finish one day. Actually, there’s probably a whole load of ‘must see’ films that I’ve yet to get around to watching. Let me see….there’s Das Boot, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Cinema Paradiso and perhaps the biggest crime of all (and very timely) It’s A Wonderful Life! Alright, alright – I know! I’m a film philistine and a terrible person to (das) boot. Still, that’s added a bit to the word count for this post. Is that enough for The Blues Brothers? No? OK, well in 1998, an ill advised sequel came out called Blues Brothers 2000 without, obviously, the sadly departed John Belushi. It received mixed reviews. I’ve never seen that either.

Alannah Myles is on the rise with her single “Black Velvet”. It’s up top No 2 this week which requires not just a re-showing of the promo video but an actual in-the-studio appearance by Alannah herself! Presumably her record company thought that this would give the record that extra push to get it over the line and score her a UK No 1 to add to her Canadian and US chart toppers. Sadly for Alannah the marketing ploy didn’t work and she would remain tantalisingly one place short.

There are a few theories as to what the song is about. It seems pretty obvious to me that it’s about Elvis given the lyrics include lines like

“Love Me Tender leaves ’em cryin’ in the aisle”
“Up in Memphis the music’s like a heat wave”
“The boy could sing, knew how to move ev’rything”

However, according to some of the comments posted on the Songfacts.com website it could also be about any of the following:

Led Zep’s Robert Plant (unlikely)
Cheap Canadian whiskey (possibly)
A woman’s crotch (WTF?!)

However, my favourite post is from one Ashley Jade from Cleveland who just says:

“This song scares me“

Blimey! I hope Ashley never gets to hear any of experimental industrial noise makers Throbbing Gristle’s work – she’ll never sleep again!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Z3rv62alU8

Finally a dance record that I remember…though sadly not one that I liked. “Dirty Cash (Money Talks)” by The Adventures of Stevie V was a huge crossover hit being massive in both the clubs and the pop charts where it would peak at No 2. The intriguing sounding act were put together by producer Steve Vincent (the titular Stevie V) and also included Mick Walsh and singer Melody Washington. I seem to recall the press getting very worked up about this record and declaring it ‘hiphouse’ and that the music world would soon be falling at the feet of The Adventures of Stevie V. It didn’t quite work out like that despite Vincent himself stating that he wanted to be “bigger than Salman Rushdie. As big as The Pope”. They had just one more Top 40 hit and Vincent teaches music technology at Bedford College these days.

As for the single itself, it reminded me of “Ain’t Nothin’ Goin’ On But The Rent” by Gwen Guthrie which I hadn’t liked either. The backing dancers in this performance look like they might have been getting some tips from The Blues Brothers when it came to their moves whilst their baggy pants look was clearly inspired by MC Hammer.

Ooh some US rock now but not the AOR stuff that the likes of Heart were peddling but what some critics were calling ‘alternative metal’ at the time – a fusion of alternative rock and heavy metal. Given that genre description, then we can only be talking about Faith No More right? Look, I have to come clean and admit that I don’t really know what I’m talking about here. If I had to describe Faith No More’s sound I’d have maybe gone for ‘funk metal’ but I’m sure that will sound like heresy to their loyal fan base.

I knew of the band via their major label debut single “We Care A Lot” a couple of years before this but that was the extent of my knowledge. This single, “From Out Of Nowhere” was taken from their third album “The Real Thing” and was actually a re-release after it had completely bombed on its first outing in October 1989. However, after the band breached the Top 40 (albeit in a minor way) with No 37 hit “Epic”, it was re-issued and consolidated their chart success by peaking at No 23. “Epic” itself would be re-released before the year was out and made it a worthwhile exercise by peaking at No 25, twelve places higher than its original chart placing and becoming possibly their best known song.

Actually, scratch that, a lot of UK pop fans will know the band for their pretty straight cover of ‘Easy” by The Commodores which made No 3 early in 1993. Quite why they chose to release a cover of that song I really don’t know nor do I know why music fans felt they needed the Faith No More version in their lives rather than the existing Commodores original but that’s the great British public for you. I recall that the original release of parent album “Angel Dust” didn’t have “Easy” on it but it was re-issued with it added to the track listing hoping to trick some mainstream pop fans into buying a rock record. Too cynical? Unlike Faith No More, I don’t care a lot.

Madonna is still at the top of the charts this week with “Vogue”. The black and white video caused some controversy due to ‘nipple-gate’ when MTV initially refused to air the promo because of the sheer lace blouse Madonna wears at one point through which viewers got a big flash of the Ciccone chest and specifically, if you peered close enough, her nipples. Crikey!

We also got a first view of the iconic ‘cone bra’ in the video which would come to be the lasting image of her 1990 Blond Ambition World Tour. That tour was chronicled in the documentary Madonna: Truth or Dare (known as In Bed with Madonna outside of North America) which spawned the infamous scene below or, in the spirit of ‘nipple-gate’, neat-gate’ if you will…

The play out video is “Ghetto Heaven” by The Family Stand. Apparently Jeffrey in the band could play any musical instrument and at school was so far ahead of the rest of the class that his music teacher would let him go into another room and do his own thing. All of this reminded me of a similar situation in our music lessons at grammar school.

There was a guy called Nick who could play piano whilst the rest of us were complete doughnuts musical ability wise so Nick was allowed to go and practice piano in a side room. What did the rest of us get up to? Well, memorably Paul Dukes managed to convince our frankly wet behind the ears music teacher Mr Wilderspin to play “Friggin’ In The Riggin” by The Sex Pistols as part of musical appreciation! I think we maybe got to the end of the first verse before Wilderspin raced over to the turntable to yank the needle of the record. To be fair to him, even just the first verse was maybe slightly pushing the boundaries of what was acceptable for a bunch of school kids to be listening to in class…

It was on the good ship Venus
By Christ, ya should’ve seen us
The figurehead was a whore in bed
And the mast, a mammoth penis

For posterity’s sake, I include the chart run down below:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v-QV9r3JXVY

Order of appearance	Artist	Song	Did I Buy it?
1	Sonia	Counting Every Minute	Huge no
2	The Quireboys	I Don’t Love You Anymore	…don’t think I ever did
3	Adamski	Killer	No but I had the Seal album with his version of it on
4	The Blues Brothers	Everbody Needs Somebody To Love	No
5	Alannah Myles	Black Velvet	Nope
6	Adventures of Stevie V	Dirty Cash (Money Talks)	Not for me thanks
7	Faith No More	From Out Of nowhere	I did not
8	Madonna	Vogue	Not the single but it’s on my Immaculate Collection CD
9	The Family Stand	Ghetto Heaven	Nah

Disclaimer

OK – here’s the thing – the TOTP episodes are only available on iPlayer for a limited amount of time so the link to the programme below only works for about another month so you’ll have to work fast if you want to catch the whole show.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m000pr1z/top-of-the-pops-19041990

I make no claim to the rights of this show and all ownership and contents including logos and graphics belongs totally to the BBC or copyright holder(s).

All opinions on the music and artists featured are my own. Sorry if you don’t agree.

Some bedtime reading?

https://michaelmouse1967.wixsite.com/smashhits-remembered/1990-issues

TOTP 29 MAR 1990

Posted on November 24, 2020 by 80stastic

Welcome to Britain 1990. The furore about the hated Poll Tax is about to erupt when 393 people get arrested after violence broke out at a 200,000 strong protest in Trafalgar Square. These events happened two days after this TOTP aired and the day after that, the Strangeways Prison riot in Manchester began and would last 25 days as prisoners protested against conditions there. It’s pretty grim stuff. Meanwhile in TOTP land, the increasingly unlikeable Nicky Campbell is in the chair for this particular show and he seems to have gone to town on the hairspray to ensure his bouffant hair remains in place for the whole 30 minutes.

Guess what we open tonight with? Yep, another unremarkable dance tune. This one is by Bizz Nizz and is called “Don’t Miss The Partyline” which I barely remember at all. Turns out they were Belgian and this annoying track was their only UK hit. It’s based round an annoying keyboard riff that allied to some rudimentary rapping reeled in enough record buyers to send it all the way to No 7 for some reason. The keyboard riff is a double whammy of irritation for both sounding like an early ringtone and being mimed in this performance on a keytar! If we thought this was the pinnacle of annoying that these pillocks could create then look out as Bizz Nizz shout ‘hold my beer’ and return in a couple of years having put together that well known antidote to quality music known as 2 Unlimited. For shame!

From an infernal racket to some excruciating lyrics next as the video for Heart‘s “All I Wanna Do Is Make Love To You” gets an airing for a second consecutive week. I’ve already dissected said lyrics in a previous post so let’s have a look at the video this time. Surely it can’t be as bad as those song words? Well, it’s basically a literal retelling of the song’s plot interspersed with footage of the band miming in a studio setting with the obligatory power lighting and smoke. It was directed by Andy Morahan and Mike Southon. Here’s the latter from his own website on the making of the video :

“The record company were worried about Ann Wilson’s weight. They suggested she wore black, that I’d photograph her against black and just light her face with a spotlight. I said that that would look ridiculous and that such a powerful singer and performer did not need trickery to sell her image. In the end they relented and let Andy and I do it our way.”

As misogynistic as their stance was, it seems to me that the record company still managed to get their way in the end as the promo is very heavily edited so that singer Ann Wilson doesn’t actually get much screen time at all. She is only shown for the waist up and there seems to be much more focus on her sister Nancy. Even when she is on screen, the camera only stays on her for a couple of seconds at a time. Southon still seems pleased with how it turned out though:

“It’s a pretty classic vid of its genre. Rain, downtown LA cheap motel, smoke, beams of light, beautiful couple making love. What’s not to like?”

Hmm. Give me the much pilloried “Rio” video anytime over your effort Mr. Southon. “All I Wanna Do Is Make Love To You” peaked at No 8 in our charts and No 2 in the US.

Back in the studio, the increasingly snidey Nicky Campbell advises us “Here’s what we’re all going to be wearing this Summer – well you maybe – dig those flares…”. You can just tell that he desperately wanted to add the word ‘plebs’ after ‘you’ and before ‘maybe’ in his intro. And who were the flares wearing act up next? Candy Flip of course with their danced up version of “Strawberry Fields Forever”.

Apart from the obvious flares that Campbell was referring to, what else was this new strand of fashion that we would all be wearing? Well, look I’ve never been any sort of fashionista but even I know something of the baggy style that the ‘Madchester’ era ushered in. Alongside the flares there were brightly coloured or tie-dye casual tops (probably bought from Joe Bloggs) and possibly a bucket hat to top the look off as per The Stone Roses drummer Reni. Is this what those Candy Flip boys are wearing here? Sort of although it’s hard to see quite how wide their flares are because of all the dry ice. They do have their own version of Bez on maracas behind them though. We’ll get to see the real thing on these repeats soon enough.

As for the actual record, it seems remarkably dull and lifeless to me listening back to it now and I can’t quite see what all the fuss was about.

“Strawberry Fields Forever” peaked at No 3. and was the band’s only UK hit.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-w_FmC9IKkA

Ah now then. Here’s the real deal. After the faux bagginess of Candy Flip come a bona fide ‘Madchester’ band. Inspiral Carpets are back on TOTP for a second time with their hit single “This Is How It Feels” but…hang on a minute…. apart from singer Tom Hingley’s ridiculously oversized red duffle coat complete with toggles, the rest of them look pretty nondescript; not even one ‘Cool As F**k’ T-shirt on view anywhere!

Ah yes, those T-shirts. A few month on from this I relocated to Manchester and you could hardly move down Market Street for youths in Inspiral Carpets T-Shirts with the cow logo on them. In an innovative marketing campaign, their record label arranged for a quarter of a million milk bottles in the Manchester area to be emblazoned with an advertisement for their album “Life”. Despite those initial numbers, they’re pretty rare these days but you can still pick one up online for around £30 if you are so inclined. Moo!

The band revisited the milk bottle campaign
for the promotion of their 2003 Greatest Hits album

Now supposedly when the band travelled down to London on the train for this TOTP appearance, they sat opposite some girls from Manchester who were also going to the TOTP recording to be a part of the studio audience. Crushingly for the band, the girls didn’t recognise that their fellow travellers were Inspiral Carpets but did ask them what they thought of The Stone Roses though! You should have gone more heavy with the baggy togs lads!

“This Is How It Feels” peaked at No 14 making it the band’s second biggest hit ever behind 1992’s “Dragging Me Down”.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJmsIRcd1iM

Next up is little Jimmy Somerville with his single “Read My Lips (Enough Is Enough)”. In this performance he’s wearing an ACT UP T-shirt to promote the direct action gay rights organisation he was a member of and whose causes the song’s lyrics espouse. In a Smash Hits interview later in the year Jimmy wondered if his being so outspoken on gay rights had stopped him from becoming more commercially successful. Apparently his record company commissioned a survey to find out who liked him and why. Here’s Jimmy taking up the rest of the story:

“They found that a lot of boys between 15 and 23 like the music but won’t go and buy the records because they think people will think they’re gay. So I’m sure if I kept my mouth shut I would have higher singles. But then again, it’s also a little victory because it means these people know what I’m about. The survey said that really young school girls like what I do – they know that I’m gay and they just wish I’d shut up!”

I’m not sure that I appreciated what “Read My Lips” was about at the time although I knew Jimmy was gay and a gay rights activist. With lines like…

‘Here we are and standing our ground, and we won’t be moved by what they say‘

and…

‘Finding cures is not the only solution, and it’s not a case of sinner absolution‘

…I probably should have cottoned on earlier.

Right, it’s all dance tunes from here until the end of the show (no Breakers this week) and we start with “Ghetto Heaven” by The Family Stand. Not to be confused with JT And The Big Family who were in the charts at the same time, this lot were a trio from Brooklyn although the singer Sandra St. Victor was from Dallas originally as Nicky Campbell states in his intro. If you asked me before this repeat aired what they sounded like I wouldn’t have had a clue but hearing “Ghetto Heaven” back it does ring a few bells. Like Bizz Nizz at the top of the show, the employed a keytar player (urgh!) but unlike Bizz Nizz (whose single must have seemed dated even back in 1990), The Family Stand’s sound just about still stands up today. This single was remixed by Soul II Soul’s Jazzie B and it certainly sounds like it with that familiar ‘thumpin’ bass’ and cool groove vibe.

After splitting in 1997 they reformed in 2007 and are still a going concern to this day although St.Victor has also had a parallel solo career and has toured with the likes of Freddie Jackson and Chaka Khan. She also once recorded a song called “I’ll Never Open My Legs Again”. Blimey! And I thought Heart song was risque!

Moving on to Jam Tronik now and their unspeakable version of “Another Day In Paradise”. This was just proper dog shit, real gruesome stuff. Who the hell was dancing to this in the clubs back in the day? Having said all that, back in 2013 I went on a friend from work’s stag weekend in Leeds and after a night of drinking we all ended up in a club called The Cockpit. It was a right dive. God knows what the DJ was playing but it sounded awful. To my utter amazement the next track he ‘dropped’ (that’s what you’re meant to say these days isn’t it?) was “Easy Lover” by Phil Collins and Philip Bailey! And there were people (young people I may add) dancing to it! WTF?! Apparently they were being ironic the youngest person in our group advised me. And again I say WTF?!

Back to Jam Tronic though and the singer up front is called Nikita Warren but apparently, according to Wikipedia, like so many before her, she wasn’t the actual singer on the track! Well I never! Incidentally, in later life she would go into artist management and one of her clients was Jimmy Somerville! How weird is that as they were on the same show together back in the day? Nikita was just the front for the act but the whole Jam Tronik project was put together by one Charlie Glass. No, not the goal scoring Carlisle United keeper. That was Jimmy Glass. Who you say? This is Jimmy Glass….

Literally a schoolboy error from Nicky Campbell next as we get to the new No 1 from Snap! with “The Power”. Name checking the members of the band he says the rapper is called Turbo D when it’s actually Turbo B. Come on Campbell – it’s as easy as ABC! The other person that he mentions – Jackie Harris – wasn’t the person who did the actual singing, she just appeared in the video. That was ex Chaka Khan backing singer (another one!) Penny Ford whose musical pedigree is pretty impressive – her father produced James Brown, her brother founded Kool & the Gang, and her sister was the singer Sharon Redd. So who was Jackie Harris then? A random woman the record’s producers found at the German army base where Turbo B had been stationed for his national service in the US army. Hmm. As a back story it’s not really up there with my father produced James Brown is it?!

The Big Brother / 1984 imagery at the start of the video helps to crank up the intensity of the track I think. And if you were in any doubt of…erm… the power of “The Power” check out this anecdote that I found on the Songfacts website:

On July 5, 2011, the top 19 stories of the 39-story building housing the Gangbyeon branch of the Techno Mart shopping mall in Seoul shook violently for 10 minutes, causing the building to be evacuated for two days. Instead of an earthquake, it was found that an exercise class on the 12th floor was playing “The Power,” which happened to match the building’s resonant frequency and caused it to violently shake.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j1BNcSBApOU

The play put video is “Mama Gave Birth To The Soul Children” by Queen Latifah and Del La Soul. In addition to his Turbo B error, Campbell also mispronounced Queen Latifah’s name as Queen La-fit-ah in the chart run down earlier. Didn’t Gary Davies make a similar mispronunciation the other week as well? How many times have I said this? “You had one job…”

For posterity’s sake, I include the chart run down below:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LhjrSP9tCoU

Order of appearance	Artist	Song	Did I Buy it?
1	Bizz Nizz	Don’t Miss The Party Line	Miss it? I gave it a massive wide berth!
2	Heart	All I Wanna Do Is Make Love To You	It’s a no from me
3	Candy Flip	Strawberry Fields Forever	Nope
4	Inspiral Carpets	This Is How It Feels	No but I’ve got their Greatest Hits I think
5	Jimmy Somerville	Read My Lips (Enough Is Enough)	No
6	The Family Stand	Ghetto Heaven	Nah
7	Jam Tronik	Another Day In Paradise	NOOOOOOO!!!
8	Snap!	The Power	Not for me thanks
9	Queen Latifah and De La Soul	Mama Gave Birth To The Soul Children	It’s another no

Disclaimer

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m000pjdn/top-of-the-pops-29031990

I make no claim to the rights of this show and all ownership and contents including logos and graphics belongs totally to the BBC or copyright holder(s).

All opinions on the music and artists featured are my own. Sorry if you don’t agree.