Two things occured to me on the way to work this morning.
1. Up popped I Can Do It by The Rubettes. A forgotten lesser hit by the band best-known for Sugar Baby Love. It's full of faux-Fifties harmonies and references to jiving and soda pop. And I got to thinking about how the Seventies were obsessed by the Fifties. I have this conversation with people before about why this should be, and we put it down to that 20-year cycle thing, much like today harks back to the Eighties in music and fashion.
The Seventies gave us Happy Days, American Graffiti, That'll Be The Day. Posters of James Dean and Marilyn Monroe were everywhere. Groups like Showaddywaddy, Mud and Darts carried on the theme with their drape suits and doo-wop manque. Anyone got any other ideas why?
2. I noticed an ad for the crap new channel Watch, which is the old UKGTV 2. Richard and Judy - their biggest draw, apparently - are raking in less than 60,000 viewers a night. I've said it before and I'll say it again - NO ONE LIKES THEM. Well they don't do they? Do you? I've met them, and I wasn't keen on what I saw. She's a bloated lush who can barely be heard above his pompousness, and he's a leathery old windbag who thinks he's witty and insightful, and if there was any justice would be presenting Newsnight. Their sense of self-importance is mind-blowing. Well I've got news for you, Richard: you're beyond dumb. Too Alan Partridge ever to be taken seriously ever again. They're over. Long live Phil and Fern.
3. If you've not linked me with the new URL yet, please do! I'm never shutting up shop ever again.
10 comments:
My primary problem with Watch is that although I probably would stick it on occasionally for drama repeats, etc. (not R&J, though), I can't actually do so because it's not part of my standard TV package. Virgin Media, in their wisdom, have made it accessible only to people with their top-of-the-range package, while GOLD and Dave and Alibi are available to folk with the cheaper packages, i.e. me.
It's ridiculous because it's not as if anyone is specifically going to pay more just to watch Watch, although they might have watched Watch if it was already there and watchable.
Anyway, I think this may explain why some of Richard and Judy's viewers have gone...
And it is just a load of old repeats, no matter how glamorously they package them.
I'm dreading the next decade - the Nineties were pretty much a loss to me musically.
Oh, and R&J? I only have Freeview, and they are far from an incentive to upgrade.
There is nothing worth watching on pay TV that won't turn up on DVD or as a torrent. And as for linking to you and never shutting up shop again, what's that word I can hear being cried out? Ah yes, it's wolf. You and your Gladiators obsession...
I think the Rock and Roll revival's roots started in the late sixties - with the Beatles stripping things down to more basic R 'n' R approach on Get Back etc.. and Sha Na Na, a fifties revivalist band appearing at Woodstock.
The movement boomed in the seventies (apparently because of American Graffiti) - with almost all Bands from Bowie, The Sweet, Bolan, Led Zep all doing 50s tunes/medleys for encores.
And even Vivienne Westwood and Malcolm MClaren rode in on this wave of nostalgia - opening their first shop (at 430 Kings Road) Let It Rock - catering for Teds and 'greasers' and later picked up by the punks as one of the only places in London where you could by creepers.
Sid Vicous's favourite 'McLaren and Westwood' T shirt 'Vive Le Rock' was one of earliest M and W designs and featured a Little Richard print made for a 72 Wembley Rock and Roll festival..
Errr ....I'll get me anorak
PS The 80s may be referenced regularly - but they'll never be revived as it was generally more style than substance
I love you, PM, you're such a font. I'm just going to direct any questions to you from now on.
Thanks FC I'd recommend Nick Cohn's Awopbopaloobop Alopbamboom which is Ye Olde Testament of rock written in 1969 (I think)when Cohn was 21 it's an incredible document of the first run of rock and knits together the 50s, 60s and 70s while putting into context a a stack of stuff that get's skimmed over or edited it now it's controversial, precocious and packed with incredible predictions
I saw Richard and Zhuudy (I write it like that because she was soooo sozzled) at the Women In Film And Television Awards a few years ago. Not only did I see (more chins than a Chinese telephone directory*) be-marmaladed hair person Cilla Black in the Ladies re-arranging her horrific polyester leopard and black lace ensemble but I also saw Zhuuudy attempt to leave her table and knock an entire bottle of red wine across it dramatically splattering guests in a drunken stumble. Richard immediately leapt to her elbow to steady her in a chivalric, quivering hair-do type way. Was hilarious.
Oh my asterisk was
* Courtesy of Victor Lewis Smith
The Fifties revival went on well into the Eighties, you know, especially around East London (bet Mondo remembers the Dirt Box!). Fonzie had long since become a figure of derision, and American Graffiti was largely forgotten, but there were Flat-tops and B-Girls aplenty still keeping the spirit alive. *sighs wistfully*
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