gav
Veteran Rocker Rollin'
Posts: 2,025
Favourite Quo Album: On The Level
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Post by gav on Sept 30, 2021 20:42:33 GMT
Here's an interesting thing i stumbled upon. It turns out that BBC Transcription discs were produced for TOTP performances - actual vinyl LP's!
This one here has Quo's performances of "Ice In The Sun" and "When My Mind Is Not Live", and further down the page it states, presumably from the liner notes of the record, 'Status Quo recorded at BBC Studio, London, UK 1968-July-29', which would tie in with the first broadcast date of "Ice In The Sun" on 1st August 1968 that you've listed above hershie.
So, there's also this:
"When My Mind Is Not Live" is featured on this clip from Belgian TV broadcast on 10th December 1968, which i found a bit odd, being a B-side. Obviously it's dubbed over some other Quo footage if you watch it, but could some of the performance here that plays underneath the song maybe be taken from that TOTP performance of "When My Mind Is Not Live" filmed on 29th July 1968? Did they just film bands performing both sides of 45's so they could license the footage to other companies in those days? Or what?
Or were they just in Belgium doing some random miming at a TV studio somewhere, as there's some sort of story going on in the video, in a club maybe, Alan dancing with a girl, girl smoking fag.....
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Post by hershie on Oct 1, 2021 3:23:31 GMT
"Top of the Pops" was, for some reason that's presumably largely just to fuck with archivists and researchers 50 years later, also the name used for a weekly(?) hour-long broadcast of BBC radio sessions, presented by Brian Matthew.
Basically it was, as far as I can tell, a mix of new and past sessions from various shows, packaged together for broadcast and sale abroad.
In this instance, the Quo recordings are the "Saturday Club" recordings, originally broadcast in the UK in August '68 (but recorded late July).
Almost certainly, the vast majority of the early BBC radio recordings that survive and have been released are because of such repackaged "compilations". They're also why some things are missing or trimmed; the original sessions could be 5-6 songs long but only a few would make the copies for syndication (and to strict time limits) and they're all that survive. It's rare for there to still be any tapes/discs of the original sessions, sadly.
In short, the "Top of the Pops" transcription discs are nothing to do with the TV series, but are at least very valuable to us as they've preserved a lot of early radio sessions!
Also that footage is definitely excellent but again definitely nothing to do with TOTP; the "performance" parts just aren't in the style. As you suggest, it's likely some bits of random shot footage of them playing something, overdubbed to make a promo of some kind. Whether or not it's produced by the band or by the TV company here, I'm not sure.
Fwiw, TOTP TV clips were commonly sold and used abroad; the only Quo performance to exist for this reason is In My Chair, as far as I know. It is also however the reason why some surviving episodes exist with mute presenter links - they were essentially kept for potential overseas sale as inserts and so to keep them "clean" the DJ was mixed out.
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Post by sqcollector on Oct 1, 2021 23:30:40 GMT
Here's an interesting thing i stumbled upon. It turns out that BBC Transcription discs were produced for TOTP performances - actual vinyl LP's! This one here has Quo's performances of "Ice In The Sun" and "When My Mind Is Not Live", and further down the page it states, presumably from the liner notes of the record, 'Status Quo recorded at BBC Studio, London, UK 1968-July-29', which would tie in with the first broadcast date of "Ice In The Sun" on 1st August 1968 that you've listed above hershie. So, there's also this:
"When My Mind Is Not Live" is featured on this clip from Belgian TV broadcast on 10th December 1968, which i found a bit odd, being a B-side. Obviously it's dubbed over some other Quo footage if you watch it, but could some of the performance here that plays underneath the song maybe be taken from that TOTP performance of "When My Mind Is Not Live" filmed on 29th July 1968? Did they just film bands performing both sides of 45's so they could license the footage to other companies in those days? Or what? Or were they just in Belgium doing some random miming at a TV studio somewhere, as there's some sort of story going on in the video, in a club maybe, Alan dancing with a girl, girl smoking fag.....
Interesting to see that Rick has had that tic of scratching is head quickly since at least this time. Thanks for sharing! |
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Post by hershie on Nov 12, 2021 16:53:25 GMT
A couple of things have turned up! Not the holy grails of lost items, but two missing Down Down (of a fashion anyway, as I'll explain) Firstly, the Pan's People routine from January '75 (when Quo were #1) has turned up on YouTube in recent weeks/months. Secondly, this morning I stumbled upon a little clip on Soundcloud. 11 minutes or so of the 12-12-1974 show. Proper off-air microphone pointed at the TV stuff. Background voices and all. It includes the whole track but I'm just gonna try and clean up the introduction from Jimmy Saville - do we really need to hear a shit quality copy of the song? Here's hoping there's more out there.. Here's Pan's People and here's a little clip of audio from '74 (it sounds rough but I've tried to improve it) |
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Post by hershie on Nov 18, 2021 17:10:37 GMT
At some point soon I promise to update all the links too; I've been slacking for too long.
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Post by hershie on Jul 17, 2022 21:34:57 GMT
Apologies again for the lack of updates; I'm aware that there are a lot of dead links right now. On the plus side, I can confirm that Quo's appearance in '69 performing "Are You Growing Tired Of My Love?" exists as off-air audio. Here we go! |
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