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Your Friday Night In… June 1984


Friday, 29th June 1984

PICK OF THE DAY

6.55pm MIKE READ’S REPLAY SELECTION, BBC1
The then Czar of Saturday mornings pops by for the second of his hand-curated pick of the Saturday Superstore-featured pops (and, here’s a mea culpa – the above image is actually from the end of episode one, last week). Or, as the Daily Mirror billed it: “Saturday Superstore host gets more mileage out of popular songs”. Tonight’s curated line-up goes like this: Heaven 17’s  ‘Crushed by the Wheels of Industry’ , the Style Council’s ‘My Ever Changing Moods’, Howard Jones’ ‘New Song’, Tracey Ullman’s ‘They Don’t Know’, Slade’s ‘Run Run Away’, Men Without Hats’ ‘Safety Dance’, Will Powers’ ‘Smile’, Shakin’ Stevens’ ‘A Love Worth Waiting For’, Queen’s ‘Radio Gaga’, Duran Duran’s ‘The Reflex’, (confusingly followed by) Re-Flex’s ‘The Politics of Dancing’ and – to take us into that Chris Bellinger caption card, Billy Joel with ‘Uptown Girl’.

ALSO SHOWING:


8.00pm THE MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S TUBE, BBC2
In contrast to the General Manager’s contemplative pop rummage, C4 throw everything they’ve got at this five-hour music bash, including “the naughty version of ‘Relax'”. But, doesn’t that title sequence take an age? And isn’t the pink neon tube logo weirdly redolent of the contemporaneous one currently spotted behind Janet, Peter and Simon on Blue Peter? Once we get passed it, some achingly ‘now’ elements, including Nigel Planer with his first-of-umpteen Neil revivals following The Young Ones finale the previous Tuesday, and Spitting Image’s Mark and Maggie Thatcher puppets. All of this, plus Paul Young, Sade and Hall & Oates!

9.25pm WOMEN OF OUR CENTURY, BBC2
Back to the Daily Mirror, who listed this complete with a ‘box-out’ ‘story’: DORA AND THE SEXY SHOCKER! Justifying that screamer: “‘There was this idea that women didn’t enjoy sex, they just put up with it,’ she says in the programme”. There we have it. First of a new series, and Bel Mooney meets the author and campaigner, (also  the second wife of Bertrand Russell) at her home in Cornwall to talk about her life and work.

14 Comments

14 Comments

  1. Glenn A

    July 1, 2017 at 10:46 am

    I’d much rather watch The Tube, better presenters, no ban on Relax and a bigger budget. While TOTP was decent enough, The Tube was always the better show, running for an hour, not being afraid to break the rules and good for breaking new acts.

  2. Glenn Aylett

    June 18, 2022 at 1:54 pm

    I always felt sorry for Heaven 17, the spin off from The Human League, who were briefly very popular in 1983 with the hits Temptation and Come Live With Me, but whose career foundered quickly and struggled to get their popularity back. Glenn Gregory, the lead singer, was the very tall blonde man at the back of the photograph on the Band Aid single, so could say of three Heaven 17 members, he had the biggest hit, even if he is in the background.

  3. Sidney Balmoral James

    June 18, 2022 at 8:07 pm

    Didn’t the other two members of Heaven 17 get a small cut of all future Human League royalties (and made a lot from Don’t You Want Me)? Also, Martyn Ware produced Tina Turner when she was at the start of her comeback.

  4. Glenn Aylett

    June 18, 2022 at 8:44 pm

    Martyn Ware had this income to fall back on, but I’d imagine Glenn Gregory would have struggled. I do recall living in Sheffield in 1987 and Radio Hallam really bigging up the Heaven 17 comeback, which sadly achieved little and their latest single failed to go Top 40.

  5. Richardpd

    June 18, 2022 at 9:45 pm

    I have a Heaven 17 compilation which has quite a few hidden gems on that didn’t trouble the charts.

  6. Droogie

    June 19, 2022 at 1:17 am

    I love Heaven 17! Their name alone is wonderfully cool, being taken from A Clockwork Orange when Alex goes record shopping. Martyn Ware also presents a fabulous music podcast called Electronically Yours where he interviews his early synth pop contemporaries about Electronica.

  7. Sidney Balmoral James

    June 19, 2022 at 9:19 am

    I’ve always wondered what pop stars do for a living once the hits have dried up, if they’re not on the nostalgia circuit, or generating significant income from the back catalogue. You do occasionally read about former pop stars doing other jobs – didn’t Jah Wobble go back to driving tube trains? – but I bet there’s a few that don’t face reality and live in straightened circumstances just keeping their head above water. Not that I’m implying Glenn Gregory is in this category.

    • Glenn Aylett

      June 19, 2022 at 12:21 pm

      @ Sidney, Hilton Valentine of The Animals became an insurance salesman when the band split up and he couldn’t continue his music career. Not very rock and roll, but he had no money left by the seventies and he needed to survive. Also there was a local rumour in Whitehaven that the members of Pickettywitch had settled in the town, possible as they were very much one hit wonders and survived by playing venues in small towns. Then one of my university friends had a sister who was married to David Parry of Oceanic, best known for the rave hit Insanity and not much else.

  8. Richardpd

    June 19, 2022 at 2:23 pm

    Early Deep Purple member Rod Evans became a doctor, & was tempted back into the music industry by their manager to front a sham lineup of Deep Purple a few years after the official band broke up. This was quickly stopped thanks to some legal action & Evans went back to medicine. He wasn’t invited to their induction to the Rock & Roll hall of fame.

    Cathy Dennis, Karen Poole & Betty Boo all turned to songwriting for others when their own careers faded away. Songwriting along with music production & session work seems to be the usual thing to do for members of the music industry when they stop having hits for themselves.

    A few years ago I remember Martin Fry of ABC being interviewed on the radio, saying how he had been savvy enough to invest the money he was making to tide things over as he knew he wouldn’t be a big star forever.

  9. Sidney Balmoral James

    June 19, 2022 at 10:24 pm

    The Rod Evans / fake Deep Purple fiasco is fascinating but rather sad – although there are some groups doing the rounds with virtually no original members (REO Speedwagon, Foreigner, Guns N’Roses for a time, although now reformed properly).

  10. Richardpd

    June 20, 2022 at 10:31 pm

    From what I remember drummer Ian Paice is the only member of every official Deep Purple lineup, normally they have been fronted by either Ritchie Blackmore or Ian Gillan or occasionally both.

    Foreigner has often been Mick Jones & others, like many long running bands with only 1-2 constant members.

    The current 10CC only had Graham Gouldman from their classic lineup from what I remember.

  11. Sidney Balmoral James

    June 21, 2022 at 12:52 pm

    The version of Yes now in existence consists of NO original members, and only Steve Howe from the 1970s. Come to think of it, I can’t think of any popular groups which have been going more than forty years uninterrupted which have all original members present, with exception of U2 – although there are probably some metal groups I’m not familiar with.

    • Richardpd

      June 21, 2022 at 10:15 pm

      ZZ Top had the same line-up for 50 years only ending with the death of Dusty Hill.

      I think Rush had the same line-up for years.

      Chris Squire was often the only original member of Yes until his death a few years ago. Sometimes some ex-members got together but couldn’t use the name. This has happened with a few other groups.

  12. Glenn Aylett

    June 21, 2022 at 7:34 pm

    Deep Purple had David Coverdale as their lead singer when Ian Gillan left and then Glenn Hughes in the last seventies version of the group without Richie Blackmore. Coverdale, of course, had enormous success after Deep Purple with Whitesnake, while Ian Gillan had moderate success with Gillan.

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