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The Old Grey Whistle Test was a real appointment. | 0:00:04 | 0:00:07 | |
There was nowhere else to get music. | 0:00:07 | 0:00:09 | |
And there wasn't really anywhere | 0:00:09 | 0:00:11 | |
you could see the sort of music that I wanted to hear. | 0:00:11 | 0:00:13 | |
But here you could see people playing it live | 0:00:13 | 0:00:16 | |
and for real in the studio. | 0:00:16 | 0:00:17 | |
You'd go to Top Of The Pops for camp treasure, | 0:00:17 | 0:00:20 | |
you'd go to the Old Grey Whistle Test hoping they'd give you | 0:00:20 | 0:00:24 | |
the obscurity you'd heard about. | 0:00:24 | 0:00:26 | |
You'd never know what you were gonna see, | 0:00:26 | 0:00:28 | |
therefore you wouldn't want to miss it. | 0:00:28 | 0:00:30 | |
There were some dark times... | 0:00:30 | 0:00:32 | |
That means it ultimately ended up with 22-minute guitar solos, | 0:00:32 | 0:00:36 | |
and concept albums about the woods. | 0:00:36 | 0:00:38 | |
Some of it was pompous beyond belief. | 0:00:38 | 0:00:41 | |
But there's no doubt that, in its time, | 0:00:41 | 0:00:43 | |
the Whistle Test was educating an entire generation about music. | 0:00:43 | 0:00:48 | |
These days, music channels are ten a penny, | 0:00:55 | 0:00:57 | |
but back in the '70s, | 0:00:57 | 0:00:59 | |
in the land before MTV, reality pop stars and MySpace, | 0:00:59 | 0:01:04 | |
rock was hairy, and underground. | 0:01:04 | 0:01:06 | |
Blokes played serious music, very seriously, | 0:01:06 | 0:01:08 | |
but for some reason, | 0:01:08 | 0:01:10 | |
they had difficulty getting a gig on national TV. | 0:01:10 | 0:01:12 | |
In the late '60s, variety was king, | 0:01:12 | 0:01:15 | |
and your aspiring pop star soon learnt to host their own show. | 0:01:15 | 0:01:19 | |
Take a bow, Val! | 0:01:19 | 0:01:21 | |
Good old Top Of The Pops was BBC1's catch-all for all things pop. | 0:01:21 | 0:01:26 | |
People who have an audience ought to be heard. | 0:01:26 | 0:01:29 | |
Perhaps it's my fault that I don't appreciate them. | 0:01:29 | 0:01:33 | |
The Pink Floyd. | 0:01:33 | 0:01:34 | |
Now, your more earnest rock fans sought their furtive pleasures | 0:01:34 | 0:01:38 | |
on the BBC's late night arts programmes, | 0:01:38 | 0:01:40 | |
where they gave thanks for the few arcane morsels | 0:01:40 | 0:01:42 | |
that excited their far-out musical taste. | 0:01:42 | 0:01:45 | |
Until the faithful were finally, truly, blessed | 0:01:45 | 0:01:48 | |
with their very own music programme. | 0:01:48 | 0:01:50 | |
The Old Grey Whistle Test launched on BBC2 in 1971, | 0:01:53 | 0:01:56 | |
as a late-night haven where the acts played music live instead of miming. | 0:01:56 | 0:02:01 | |
There was a serious divide between rock and pop, | 0:02:01 | 0:02:04 | |
though there were those who straddled it. | 0:02:04 | 0:02:06 | |
Basically, rock bands who had hit singles | 0:02:06 | 0:02:08 | |
were allowed onto Top Of The Pops. | 0:02:08 | 0:02:10 | |
# Oh Maggie, I couldn't have tried any more... # | 0:02:10 | 0:02:16 | |
MUSIC: "Top Of The Pops" Theme Tune | 0:02:16 | 0:02:19 | |
A lot of it was pretty cheesy stuff, really. | 0:02:19 | 0:02:21 | |
They would get Bowie on, and Alice Cooper, and a lot of Marc Bolan, | 0:02:21 | 0:02:25 | |
which was quite important, but for those who were fascinated by, | 0:02:25 | 0:02:28 | |
and starting to be in bands, I think the Old Grey Whistle Test | 0:02:28 | 0:02:34 | |
was for "serious" music fans and "serious" musicians. | 0:02:34 | 0:02:38 | |
The weird thing about it | 0:02:44 | 0:02:46 | |
was the lack of an audience. Y'know, it was done in a studio like this, | 0:02:46 | 0:02:49 | |
and they're in that amazing atmosphere, | 0:02:49 | 0:02:52 | |
in an empty studio, without people there. | 0:02:52 | 0:02:55 | |
Ah, beautiful song, that, it's Richard and Linda Thompson. | 0:03:03 | 0:03:06 | |
I suppose, maybe what they were trying to do was | 0:03:06 | 0:03:09 | |
not be Top Of The Pops, | 0:03:09 | 0:03:11 | |
and Top Of The Pops, a big thing would be the audience was there, | 0:03:11 | 0:03:14 | |
and the cameras would show them quite a lot, | 0:03:14 | 0:03:17 | |
and people would jump in front of the camera and go, "Ah!" | 0:03:17 | 0:03:20 | |
and all this kind of stuff. | 0:03:20 | 0:03:21 | |
There was a slightly different ethos to the Old Grey Whistle Test, | 0:03:21 | 0:03:25 | |
where, um, almost it became a little bit too earnest in the end. | 0:03:25 | 0:03:30 | |
But it was where people took the music more seriously. | 0:03:30 | 0:03:33 | |
# The decks were stacked The wind blew low | 0:03:33 | 0:03:37 | |
# The wind blew high! # | 0:03:37 | 0:03:39 | |
Back then, it really was like, you had to work hard to get your stuff, | 0:03:39 | 0:03:44 | |
and sometimes The Old Grey Whistle Test would give you the treat | 0:03:44 | 0:03:48 | |
of giving you what you lusted for but seemed so obscure. | 0:03:48 | 0:03:51 | |
It wasn't in the charts, it didn't have a commercial reason to exist. | 0:03:51 | 0:03:55 | |
It had another reason to exist. | 0:03:55 | 0:03:56 | |
# Got to make her roll Got to make her fly | 0:03:57 | 0:04:02 | |
# Upon the My-Oh-My. # | 0:04:02 | 0:04:06 | |
It was new stuff, untried. | 0:04:06 | 0:04:08 | |
People had never been in a television studio before, | 0:04:08 | 0:04:11 | |
they'd never been on television, a lot of the artists, | 0:04:11 | 0:04:14 | |
so that was what made it exciting. | 0:04:14 | 0:04:17 | |
It was very experimental. | 0:04:17 | 0:04:19 | |
You would watch The Whistle Test knowing that there was gonna be | 0:04:24 | 0:04:28 | |
some dreadful noise that you didn't particularly like very much, | 0:04:28 | 0:04:31 | |
but you were gonna discover something new. | 0:04:31 | 0:04:33 | |
Despite their only show being monickered both "Old" and "Grey", | 0:04:37 | 0:04:40 | |
the hairy rockers were seriously happy at last. | 0:04:40 | 0:04:43 | |
But what did the BBC bigwigs | 0:04:43 | 0:04:45 | |
make of this weird little guttersnipe of a show? | 0:04:45 | 0:04:48 | |
Whistle Test kind of slipped under the radar, | 0:04:50 | 0:04:53 | |
as far as the BBC was concerned. | 0:04:53 | 0:04:55 | |
Nobody at that time was doing anything | 0:04:55 | 0:04:57 | |
that looked into a slightly more progressive area of rock music. | 0:04:57 | 0:05:01 | |
And I think the hierarchy of Light Entertainment at that time | 0:05:01 | 0:05:06 | |
didn't want to go there. | 0:05:06 | 0:05:07 | |
It wasn't their roots, they didn't feel it was theirs. | 0:05:07 | 0:05:10 | |
And so I, sort of, in a rather piratical way, | 0:05:10 | 0:05:13 | |
grabbed it, and made it our own. | 0:05:13 | 0:05:17 | |
# No-one likes us | 0:05:17 | 0:05:20 | |
# I don't know why... # | 0:05:20 | 0:05:22 | |
There was this kind of guerrilla group making these programmes, | 0:05:22 | 0:05:26 | |
which probably the rest of the BBC didn't really understand. | 0:05:26 | 0:05:29 | |
Those up top would have been so far removed from it | 0:05:29 | 0:05:31 | |
that they would have thought, | 0:05:31 | 0:05:33 | |
that having Lynyrd Skynyrd on, or Randy Newman or whatever, | 0:05:33 | 0:05:36 | |
was just like Gary Glitter. | 0:05:36 | 0:05:38 | |
It was just music, and these kids seem very enthusiastic about it, | 0:05:38 | 0:05:42 | |
and we'd better have it cos they've got a passion for it. | 0:05:42 | 0:05:44 | |
And the BBC indulged that kind of passion. | 0:05:44 | 0:05:47 | |
# Come on baby... # | 0:05:47 | 0:05:49 | |
Youthful passions may have been indulged, | 0:05:49 | 0:05:52 | |
but the budget was sensibly sparse. | 0:05:52 | 0:05:54 | |
The show was obliged to adopt a simple visual style, | 0:05:54 | 0:05:57 | |
where less was definitely less. | 0:05:57 | 0:05:59 | |
The way the studio was, it was bare, | 0:06:01 | 0:06:04 | |
it was completely naked, in fact. | 0:06:04 | 0:06:07 | |
No television video effects, no flashing lights. | 0:06:07 | 0:06:12 | |
But in a way, that's what kind of gives it a period charm, there. | 0:06:12 | 0:06:16 | |
Those kind of anal people with lots of records, were going, | 0:06:16 | 0:06:20 | |
"Yeah, I mean, look, that's an original Peavey amp, | 0:06:20 | 0:06:23 | |
"and look, they're using the old Arriflex lights... | 0:06:23 | 0:06:26 | |
"It's incredible..." | 0:06:26 | 0:06:28 | |
In a way, that becomes a style. Kind of...anti-style. | 0:06:28 | 0:06:32 | |
# Louis Seize he prefer | 0:06:32 | 0:06:34 | |
# Laissez faire le strand | 0:06:34 | 0:06:37 | |
# Tired of the tango | 0:06:38 | 0:06:40 | |
# Fed up with fandango... # | 0:06:42 | 0:06:43 | |
It wasn't, you know, wacky camera angles and whip pans and crash zooms | 0:06:47 | 0:06:52 | |
and holding the camera upside down. | 0:06:52 | 0:06:53 | |
You know, all these kind of naff, flash things | 0:06:53 | 0:06:56 | |
that music television people do these days! | 0:06:56 | 0:06:58 | |
# Against a boy | 0:06:58 | 0:07:00 | |
# Who is a-whiskey fast | 0:07:00 | 0:07:03 | |
# And a-honey slow... # | 0:07:03 | 0:07:08 | |
Here, you could see people playing, live and for real, in the studio. | 0:07:08 | 0:07:11 | |
And it was a way of discovering new music, | 0:07:11 | 0:07:14 | |
which you couldn't do anywhere else. | 0:07:14 | 0:07:16 | |
I remember seeing Randy Newman, and thinking, "That's great... | 0:07:16 | 0:07:19 | |
"You could just sit at the piano, write a song, and play." | 0:07:19 | 0:07:23 | |
# Let's drop the big one | 0:07:23 | 0:07:24 | |
# There'll be no-one left to blame us... # | 0:07:24 | 0:07:27 | |
We didn't intend it to be that way, | 0:07:29 | 0:07:31 | |
it was really, absolutely, just a kind of needs must. | 0:07:31 | 0:07:35 | |
# A model built for comfort... # | 0:07:39 | 0:07:42 | |
I seem to remember hearing Trampled Underfoot | 0:07:42 | 0:07:45 | |
and some weird, old, black-and-white footage, | 0:07:45 | 0:07:48 | |
synched up in time with the music. | 0:07:48 | 0:07:50 | |
So they were kind of doing their own videos. | 0:07:50 | 0:07:52 | |
So I think that was pretty innovative, in many ways. | 0:07:52 | 0:07:55 | |
# Factory air-conditioned... # | 0:07:59 | 0:08:01 | |
They performed a number of functions, not least, | 0:08:01 | 0:08:04 | |
they maintained a kind of mystery that a lot of the music had, | 0:08:04 | 0:08:07 | |
that they had to do the films for, | 0:08:07 | 0:08:09 | |
because you know, Led Zeppelin, | 0:08:09 | 0:08:11 | |
whatever else the Old Grey Whistle Test could do, | 0:08:11 | 0:08:13 | |
it couldn't get Led Zeppelin into the room! No way. | 0:08:13 | 0:08:16 | |
That's like conjuring up Shakespeare or something! | 0:08:16 | 0:08:19 | |
It became part of the whole idea of the programme, | 0:08:21 | 0:08:24 | |
these nutty films that you could get stoned to very easily, | 0:08:24 | 0:08:28 | |
and gave another kind of texture to what's in the programme, | 0:08:28 | 0:08:32 | |
made it even more peculiar. | 0:08:32 | 0:08:34 | |
Don't make 'em like that any more. | 0:08:40 | 0:08:42 | |
HE YODELS OPERATICALLY | 0:08:42 | 0:08:45 | |
The rise of The Whistle Test did coincide with the early prog era, | 0:08:47 | 0:08:51 | |
what, horrifically, is now known as the first prog era, | 0:08:51 | 0:08:56 | |
which implies there's another one. | 0:08:56 | 0:08:58 | |
There were some dark times. I wasn't so keen on Camel. | 0:09:00 | 0:09:03 | |
I remember seeing a dreadful bit of Camel, | 0:09:03 | 0:09:06 | |
I think it was doing music from The Snow Goose or something. | 0:09:06 | 0:09:09 | |
And they had some woodwind players, | 0:09:09 | 0:09:11 | |
a little sort of woodwind quartet, as I recall, | 0:09:11 | 0:09:14 | |
people playing cor anglais, | 0:09:14 | 0:09:17 | |
and those school orchestra instruments Eddie Izzard said, | 0:09:17 | 0:09:19 | |
it's like blowing into a weasel. | 0:09:19 | 0:09:21 | |
And I remember thinking... | 0:09:24 | 0:09:26 | |
"Nah, this ain't doing it for me at all, this." | 0:09:26 | 0:09:28 | |
# If I leave here tomorrow... # | 0:09:31 | 0:09:35 | |
Lynyrd Skynyrd would probably, to me, sum up that period. | 0:09:36 | 0:09:41 | |
Free Bird, that went on for ever. | 0:09:41 | 0:09:43 | |
# Cos I'm as free as a bird now | 0:09:45 | 0:09:49 | |
# And this bird you cannot change | 0:09:52 | 0:09:57 | |
# Whoah-oh-oh-oh... # | 0:09:57 | 0:10:00 | |
It's like they'd been told, | 0:10:00 | 0:10:02 | |
it was the end of the night and it could just go on... | 0:10:02 | 0:10:04 | |
There's moments where you think it's ending, | 0:10:11 | 0:10:14 | |
then they just decide to keep going! | 0:10:14 | 0:10:15 | |
Theoretically, there was no end to it. | 0:10:26 | 0:10:28 | |
"Maybe we could make it to the morning." | 0:10:31 | 0:10:33 | |
Everyone was going, "My God, this stuff is art!" | 0:10:48 | 0:10:51 | |
Some of it was pompous beyond belief, | 0:10:51 | 0:10:54 | |
but a lot of it did appeal to enquiring young minds. | 0:10:54 | 0:10:57 | |
If you didn't dig the heavy sounds, | 0:10:59 | 0:11:01 | |
there were always the mellow, sensitive singer-songwriters. | 0:11:01 | 0:11:05 | |
# Old-fashioned she might be | 0:11:05 | 0:11:08 | |
# Dated like last year's pop song. # | 0:11:11 | 0:11:15 | |
Typical Old Grey Whistle Test viewer at that time, | 0:11:16 | 0:11:21 | |
I would imagine to be a bloke. | 0:11:21 | 0:11:24 | |
I would imagine to be white. | 0:11:24 | 0:11:27 | |
I would imagine to have longish hair. | 0:11:27 | 0:11:30 | |
I would imagine to have owned an army greatcoat, | 0:11:30 | 0:11:33 | |
or perhaps an afghan coat. | 0:11:33 | 0:11:35 | |
Wearing suede desert boots, | 0:11:35 | 0:11:38 | |
possibly occasionally wearing a raffia shoulder bag. | 0:11:38 | 0:11:42 | |
# What a day, a year a life it is... # | 0:11:42 | 0:11:47 | |
I suppose, typically, bearing in mind, there I am sitting there, | 0:11:47 | 0:11:50 | |
with my long beard, my long hair... | 0:11:50 | 0:11:53 | |
I'm sort of, "Oh, this is so cool, this is so great!" You know... | 0:11:53 | 0:11:57 | |
Um... That's how... | 0:11:57 | 0:12:00 | |
I was, I suppose typical of my own viewing audience. | 0:12:00 | 0:12:04 | |
It's dead easy now to knock it... | 0:12:04 | 0:12:06 | |
But that's what... I looked like that! At 16, I had a bloody beard! | 0:12:06 | 0:12:10 | |
Because you did, you know. | 0:12:10 | 0:12:12 | |
That was the way of differentiating from your dad. | 0:12:12 | 0:12:15 | |
Your dad looked like what ended up looking like David Byrne. | 0:12:15 | 0:12:19 | |
But then, you didn't want to look like that. | 0:12:19 | 0:12:21 | |
A point in response to a number of letters we've had just lately | 0:12:21 | 0:12:25 | |
about the Whistle Test badge. | 0:12:25 | 0:12:26 | |
There, the star kicker. | 0:12:26 | 0:12:28 | |
I'm amazed at the number of badge collectors. | 0:12:28 | 0:12:31 | |
Students loved that show. | 0:12:31 | 0:12:33 | |
They could stay up late at night, they didn't go out in the day, | 0:12:33 | 0:12:37 | |
so all your '70s students and people who went to redbrick universities, | 0:12:37 | 0:12:42 | |
they were absolutely... it was their show. | 0:12:42 | 0:12:45 | |
# It was early Sunday evening...# | 0:12:45 | 0:12:48 | |
Already blessed with a sense or heritage | 0:12:48 | 0:12:50 | |
and a taste for the eclectic, the Whistle Test was a broad church. | 0:12:50 | 0:12:55 | |
# ..Oh, want nobody... # | 0:12:55 | 0:12:59 | |
# ..So much you want... # | 0:12:59 | 0:13:04 | |
It was such a wide variety of music that was being played. | 0:13:04 | 0:13:07 | |
It wasn't just a prog programme. It wasn't a folk programme. | 0:13:07 | 0:13:11 | |
Already, because of the albums, | 0:13:11 | 0:13:12 | |
music in the early '70s was splitting up into tons of genres. | 0:13:12 | 0:13:16 | |
But they weren't yet getting names like they do now. | 0:13:16 | 0:13:19 | |
It was either pop or rock, you know. | 0:13:19 | 0:13:20 | |
Underground music, progressive music, | 0:13:20 | 0:13:22 | |
but within that you'd have Tim Buckley, Beefheart, Randy Newman, | 0:13:22 | 0:13:26 | |
Focus and Alice Cooper and the New York Dolls. | 0:13:26 | 0:13:30 | |
# Flying around New York City so high | 0:13:30 | 0:13:33 | |
# Like he was my baby... # | 0:13:33 | 0:13:34 | |
It was pretty eclectic and pretty brave for the times. | 0:13:34 | 0:13:38 | |
# We just keep on keeping on | 0:13:38 | 0:13:41 | |
# We just keep on keeping on... # | 0:13:44 | 0:13:49 | |
We had people like Curtis Mayfield for soul. | 0:13:49 | 0:13:53 | |
Freddy King, blues guitar. | 0:13:53 | 0:13:55 | |
Bob Marley and the Wailers | 0:14:00 | 0:14:02 | |
making their first major TV appearance in 1973. | 0:14:02 | 0:14:06 | |
# ..Stir it up | 0:14:06 | 0:14:07 | |
# Little darlin' | 0:14:10 | 0:14:13 | |
# Stir it up... # | 0:14:13 | 0:14:15 | |
A very rare moment of these people | 0:14:15 | 0:14:18 | |
and it was because they made these great albums, great songs, | 0:14:18 | 0:14:22 | |
that weren't singles and it didn't matter that they didn't sell. | 0:14:22 | 0:14:25 | |
What was important was the worth and the weight of the music. | 0:14:25 | 0:14:29 | |
# Yeah! | 0:14:29 | 0:14:31 | |
# Me, I really would have liked | 0:14:33 | 0:14:37 | |
# A little bit of tenderness | 0:14:37 | 0:14:40 | |
# Maybe a word, maybe a smile... # | 0:14:40 | 0:14:42 | |
The Sensational Alex Harvey Band, I think, doing Next, | 0:14:42 | 0:14:46 | |
with a string quartet, with rubber masks on... | 0:14:46 | 0:14:50 | |
I mean, unless this is some strange... | 0:14:50 | 0:14:53 | |
Unless I'd had a bottle of cider and two Disprins as a kid | 0:14:53 | 0:14:56 | |
and it's all playing strange tricks on me, I remember that and thinking, | 0:14:56 | 0:15:01 | |
"Who is this lunatic?" | 0:15:01 | 0:15:04 | |
# One day I'll cut my legs off | 0:15:04 | 0:15:07 | |
# Burn myself alive | 0:15:07 | 0:15:09 | |
# I'll do anything to get out of life | 0:15:09 | 0:15:12 | |
# To survive, not ever to be next... # | 0:15:12 | 0:15:16 | |
I'd never heard of the song, | 0:15:16 | 0:15:17 | |
I'd never heard of Jacques Brel, I'd never heard of Alex Harvey, | 0:15:17 | 0:15:20 | |
the guitar player was a Pierrot clown, you know, | 0:15:20 | 0:15:23 | |
it was like, blimey! | 0:15:23 | 0:15:25 | |
# Not ever | 0:15:25 | 0:15:29 | |
# Not ever to be | 0:15:29 | 0:15:36 | |
# Next! # | 0:15:36 | 0:15:37 | |
Unbelievable. It were like that hit me right between the eyes. | 0:15:42 | 0:15:46 | |
The presenters of Top Of The Pops | 0:15:46 | 0:15:48 | |
were middle-aged DJs who were, I guess, safe uncles. | 0:15:48 | 0:15:53 | |
For the Whistle Test, I guess the idea was that the presenter would be | 0:15:53 | 0:15:58 | |
a cross between an older brother figure and a really hip lecturer. | 0:15:58 | 0:16:04 | |
Tomorrow night, the National Film Theatre in London | 0:16:04 | 0:16:06 | |
begins a season devoted to pop in the cinema... | 0:16:06 | 0:16:09 | |
The first Whistle Test presenter was Richard Williams, | 0:16:09 | 0:16:12 | |
who was a writer from Melody Maker, | 0:16:12 | 0:16:14 | |
and one of the best critics of his generation. | 0:16:14 | 0:16:18 | |
If it's Tuesday, it must be Whistle Test. | 0:16:18 | 0:16:21 | |
He was replaced by the quintessential | 0:16:21 | 0:16:23 | |
Whistle Test presenter, Bob Harris. | 0:16:23 | 0:16:26 | |
Their current visit to Britain | 0:16:26 | 0:16:27 | |
coincides with the release of a new LP called I'll Play For You. | 0:16:27 | 0:16:31 | |
But they're playing for us tonight two songs from the LP Summer Breeze. | 0:16:31 | 0:16:35 | |
It's Seals And Crofts. | 0:16:35 | 0:16:36 | |
# See the curtains hanging in the window | 0:16:42 | 0:16:45 | |
# In the evening on a Friday night... # | 0:16:45 | 0:16:48 | |
In the early '70s, | 0:16:48 | 0:16:49 | |
Old Grey Whistle Test and Bob went together perfectly. | 0:16:49 | 0:16:53 | |
It very much became Bob's world, really. | 0:16:53 | 0:16:55 | |
That was really nice... | 0:16:59 | 0:17:00 | |
The style of presentation, the laid-back, late-night thing | 0:17:00 | 0:17:04 | |
which is easy to lampoon now, and has almost become a cliche... | 0:17:04 | 0:17:08 | |
Nice! | 0:17:08 | 0:17:09 | |
Tonight on Whistle Test, we've got Rex Higgins, Steve Flea, | 0:17:15 | 0:17:19 | |
the Wretched Admiral Sphincter, Grunties, Hot Nadgers, Red Buttocks | 0:17:19 | 0:17:24 | |
and Toe The West Sprocket, so it promises to be really good. | 0:17:24 | 0:17:29 | |
Bob Harris was essentially a nice hippy | 0:17:29 | 0:17:32 | |
who introduced nice hippy groups. | 0:17:32 | 0:17:35 | |
It was really nice. | 0:17:35 | 0:17:37 | |
We were talking earlier about the kind of venues that you're doing. | 0:17:37 | 0:17:41 | |
They're really enormous venues you're playing. | 0:17:41 | 0:17:44 | |
Yeah, and they get bigger and bigger. | 0:17:44 | 0:17:46 | |
-How many people came to the concerts? -Five. | 0:17:46 | 0:17:49 | |
-5,000? -No, five. 12 with the roadies. | 0:17:49 | 0:17:53 | |
In its time, it was so original, so clever and so ground-breaking | 0:17:53 | 0:17:58 | |
and he just said, "Give me some of that." | 0:17:58 | 0:18:00 | |
He loved the music, that was important, and he knew about it. | 0:18:00 | 0:18:05 | |
And when somebody loves and knows about something, you listen to them. | 0:18:05 | 0:18:08 | |
For some time now, Ry Cooder has been regarded | 0:18:08 | 0:18:11 | |
as an ace session player. | 0:18:11 | 0:18:12 | |
His record company says he has loaned his identity | 0:18:12 | 0:18:15 | |
to countless artists during the past half decade, | 0:18:15 | 0:18:18 | |
and the list is long, including Captain Beefheart, Taj Mahal, | 0:18:18 | 0:18:21 | |
Little Feat and many others. | 0:18:21 | 0:18:23 | |
He's in this country for a few days | 0:18:23 | 0:18:26 | |
and we're lucky he's visiting our studio. This is The Vigilante Man. | 0:18:26 | 0:18:30 | |
He was like an educator. | 0:18:33 | 0:18:35 | |
But he was feisty too, despite the gentleness. | 0:18:35 | 0:18:38 | |
It was a BBC expert crossing over into the strange new world | 0:18:38 | 0:18:41 | |
of underground rock. | 0:18:41 | 0:18:43 | |
The fact that I introduce all the music on the Old Grey Whistle Test | 0:18:43 | 0:18:47 | |
doesn't mean I recommend all of them. | 0:18:47 | 0:18:49 | |
Some things, for sure, that being one, but not everything - | 0:18:49 | 0:18:52 | |
this next band being a case in point. | 0:18:52 | 0:18:54 | |
Mark Radcliffe, in particular, still holds a grudge towards me | 0:18:54 | 0:18:59 | |
because I said on air that I didn't like Roxy Music. | 0:18:59 | 0:19:02 | |
# Maybe | 0:19:02 | 0:19:04 | |
# If you wanna find a lover | 0:19:04 | 0:19:07 | |
# Then you look no further | 0:19:07 | 0:19:10 | |
# For I'm going to be your only | 0:19:10 | 0:19:14 | |
# The searching... # | 0:19:15 | 0:19:16 | |
Bob, who I'd come to trust as my kind of music buddy, | 0:19:16 | 0:19:21 | |
you know, cos that was all we had, | 0:19:21 | 0:19:23 | |
and I remember him at the end of it, he said, | 0:19:23 | 0:19:26 | |
"Well, if that's the future of rock'n'roll, you can keep it." | 0:19:26 | 0:19:30 | |
I was so disappointed because I thought, | 0:19:40 | 0:19:43 | |
"Oh, Bob, I like you and you're on the telly and you're cool, | 0:19:43 | 0:19:47 | |
"but this is obviously fantastic, Roxy Music. | 0:19:47 | 0:19:50 | |
"We're going to have to go our separate ways here, Bob." | 0:19:50 | 0:19:52 | |
# ..Like he was my baby | 0:19:52 | 0:19:55 | |
# Like he was my baby... # | 0:19:55 | 0:19:57 | |
Everybody who saw it remembers the appearance of the New York Dolls. | 0:19:57 | 0:20:03 | |
# ..Like he was my baby... # | 0:20:03 | 0:20:05 | |
Poor old Uncle Bob could not cope. | 0:20:05 | 0:20:07 | |
This is not why he opened his youth club. | 0:20:07 | 0:20:10 | |
# ..Like he was my baby | 0:20:10 | 0:20:13 | |
# M-M-M-My baby... # | 0:20:13 | 0:20:15 | |
Mock rock. | 0:20:17 | 0:20:18 | |
I think in two words I'd nailed them pretty accurately. | 0:20:18 | 0:20:22 | |
Did I really like them? No, I didn't particularly. | 0:20:22 | 0:20:25 | |
Everybody whose soul contained | 0:20:25 | 0:20:28 | |
a spark of real rock'n'roll spirit immediately hated him. | 0:20:28 | 0:20:33 | |
He basically, er... | 0:20:33 | 0:20:36 | |
He didn't know this, but he was actually kicking off | 0:20:36 | 0:20:39 | |
the whole punk thing when he called us a bunch of rubbish in 1973 on TV. | 0:20:39 | 0:20:43 | |
Who's watching this thing? It's all your next bands. | 0:20:43 | 0:20:47 | |
# I am an anarchist... # | 0:20:47 | 0:20:49 | |
In 1976, punk's blasphemous assault on the old music | 0:20:49 | 0:20:52 | |
was ignored by Bob and his producers, | 0:20:52 | 0:20:55 | |
who seemed to regard rock musicians as superior beings. | 0:20:55 | 0:20:59 | |
I think it was Whistle Test's darkest hour probably, | 0:21:01 | 0:21:04 | |
for people of my age, | 0:21:04 | 0:21:07 | |
was its slow reaction to punk. | 0:21:07 | 0:21:10 | |
I've wondered whether punk rock was anything to do with music. | 0:21:10 | 0:21:13 | |
# White riot, I wanna riot... # | 0:21:19 | 0:21:23 | |
There was music within the punk movement that I thought was good. | 0:21:23 | 0:21:26 | |
And I thought there was an awful lot that was crap. | 0:21:26 | 0:21:29 | |
And, er... | 0:21:29 | 0:21:31 | |
just because you can jump up and down and spit | 0:21:31 | 0:21:33 | |
it didn't mean necessarily, | 0:21:33 | 0:21:35 | |
for my money, that it was worthwhile. | 0:21:35 | 0:21:37 | |
It would have shattered the atmosphere of the programme, | 0:21:37 | 0:21:40 | |
they felt, to have introduced it. | 0:21:40 | 0:21:42 | |
There is a world that Bob's a part of where they like to give something | 0:21:42 | 0:21:46 | |
a good few years before they feel it's entered the canon. | 0:21:46 | 0:21:50 | |
The show's idea of enjoyment | 0:21:51 | 0:21:52 | |
involved sitting in a field or a spartan studio, | 0:21:52 | 0:21:55 | |
but punk was about the sheer energy of the music, | 0:21:55 | 0:21:59 | |
and, more importantly, the audience. | 0:21:59 | 0:22:01 | |
The punk kids who came in just hated me, the programme, | 0:22:01 | 0:22:06 | |
virtually everybody on it. | 0:22:06 | 0:22:09 | |
They were determined to drive a wrecking ball right through | 0:22:09 | 0:22:13 | |
the centre of everything the Whistle Test represented. | 0:22:13 | 0:22:18 | |
And there I am in the middle, going, "But what is there not to like?" | 0:22:18 | 0:22:22 | |
# I wanna be... # | 0:22:22 | 0:22:26 | |
It was the day that the Sex Pistols had signed with A&M. | 0:22:26 | 0:22:31 | |
They'd done quite a bit of damage there | 0:22:31 | 0:22:34 | |
and they roared up to the Speakeasy. | 0:22:34 | 0:22:36 | |
A guy comes over to me and said, | 0:22:36 | 0:22:38 | |
"When are the Pistols going to be on Whistle Test?" | 0:22:38 | 0:22:41 | |
It didn't matter what I said, he took a swing at me. | 0:22:41 | 0:22:46 | |
This was the trigger for all hell breaking loose. | 0:22:46 | 0:22:50 | |
You'd never believe it, | 0:22:50 | 0:22:51 | |
that violence could erupt to such a scale in such a closed environment. | 0:22:51 | 0:22:56 | |
Sid Vicious had broken a bottle, I've got my back to this wall, | 0:22:56 | 0:23:01 | |
and six or seven guys came at me with broken glass in their hands. | 0:23:01 | 0:23:06 | |
I was going, "Listen, guys..." They came at... I was so lucky | 0:23:06 | 0:23:10 | |
because about 10-12 people got in-between them and me. | 0:23:10 | 0:23:14 | |
And I discovered later it was the Procul Harem road crew. | 0:23:14 | 0:23:18 | |
# I was feeling kind of seasick... # | 0:23:18 | 0:23:21 | |
Mm, heavy. | 0:23:21 | 0:23:22 | |
The idea of Sid versus Bob is such a classic idea of a confrontation. | 0:23:22 | 0:23:26 | |
Suddenly there was a huge chasm in British culture | 0:23:26 | 0:23:29 | |
between those that could sink back into complacency, | 0:23:29 | 0:23:33 | |
and it was almost pipe and slippers stuff, | 0:23:33 | 0:23:35 | |
the way they listened to their music, | 0:23:35 | 0:23:37 | |
nice songs about love, doodling about, you know, the pixies, | 0:23:37 | 0:23:42 | |
and Sid, who was like a figure from a kind of '68 revolutionary Paris, | 0:23:42 | 0:23:46 | |
you know, everything was going to change. | 0:23:46 | 0:23:48 | |
It was a wonderful, symbolic moment. | 0:23:48 | 0:23:51 | |
Punk had to happen. It was very important. | 0:23:51 | 0:23:54 | |
What had happened - and don't blame Bob for this - you had pomp rock. | 0:23:54 | 0:23:58 | |
Rick Wakeman would be the first to admit | 0:23:58 | 0:24:01 | |
that doing his show on ice was really going too far. | 0:24:01 | 0:24:05 | |
And everything was gone up its own ass and it was too pompous | 0:24:05 | 0:24:10 | |
and taking itself far too seriously. | 0:24:10 | 0:24:13 | |
When you get that, you think, "Oh, it's finished." | 0:24:13 | 0:24:16 | |
The Whistle Test suffered from that, and I'm sure that Bob Harris did, | 0:24:16 | 0:24:21 | |
because, whatever his musical taste was, | 0:24:21 | 0:24:24 | |
he was never going to be able to reinvent himself as a punk rocker. | 0:24:24 | 0:24:28 | |
He was, quite clearly, old school, | 0:24:28 | 0:24:31 | |
prog rock and could never pretend to be anything else. | 0:24:31 | 0:24:35 | |
As you can see, we have them back tonight with their new image. | 0:24:35 | 0:24:38 | |
Can I present to you, Dr Hook? | 0:24:38 | 0:24:40 | |
I was quoted at the time as saying | 0:24:40 | 0:24:42 | |
I thought I'd become the Ken Barlow of rock. | 0:24:42 | 0:24:45 | |
I, for my own sanity, also felt that I had to step away from it and go, | 0:24:45 | 0:24:50 | |
"Right, I'm going to start again." | 0:24:50 | 0:24:52 | |
Can I introduce you to the lady | 0:24:52 | 0:24:54 | |
who will be with you through the coming months? | 0:24:54 | 0:24:56 | |
It's that ace canoeist, Anne Nightingale. | 0:24:56 | 0:24:58 | |
Road To Ruin... Thank you, Bob. | 0:24:58 | 0:25:00 | |
..is the title of the Ramones' fourth album. | 0:25:00 | 0:25:03 | |
They arrived this morning from touring the Continent. | 0:25:03 | 0:25:06 | |
One, two, three, four! | 0:25:06 | 0:25:08 | |
# You know, it's generally known | 0:25:16 | 0:25:20 | |
# You've got everything at home | 0:25:20 | 0:25:22 | |
# Kisses out of desperation | 0:25:22 | 0:25:25 | |
# Bring you more aggravation | 0:25:25 | 0:25:28 | |
# And you don't come close | 0:25:28 | 0:25:30 | |
# You don't come close... # | 0:25:30 | 0:25:33 | |
A fresh presenter was needed and Annie Nightingale created | 0:25:33 | 0:25:38 | |
a more welcoming atmosphere than Bob would have done. | 0:25:38 | 0:25:43 | |
Hello and welcome to Whistle Test, coming to you from Siberia. | 0:25:43 | 0:25:46 | |
Well, Shepperton, actually, but it's close... | 0:25:46 | 0:25:49 | |
Maybe it was easier with a different presenter and I think, possibly, | 0:25:49 | 0:25:53 | |
some of the punk lot hadn't wanted to be on the Whistle Test | 0:25:53 | 0:25:57 | |
because they associated it with Lynyrd Skynyrd, if you like. | 0:25:57 | 0:26:00 | |
At last, the 1978 show. | 0:26:02 | 0:26:04 | |
Effing and blinding, pogoing and gobbing made its way onto the show. | 0:26:04 | 0:26:09 | |
Well, almost. | 0:26:09 | 0:26:10 | |
The Test finally featured its first punk outfit, the Adverts, in 1978. | 0:26:10 | 0:26:15 | |
# We talk in hope to hit on something new | 0:26:15 | 0:26:18 | |
# Tied to the railway track | 0:26:20 | 0:26:22 | |
# It's one way to revive But no way to relax | 0:26:22 | 0:26:26 | |
# We're just bored teenagers | 0:26:26 | 0:26:29 | |
# Looking for love Or should I say emotional rages | 0:26:29 | 0:26:32 | |
# Bored teenagers Seeing ourselves as strangers... # | 0:26:32 | 0:26:36 | |
Once punk had been welcomed into the Old Grey fold, | 0:26:36 | 0:26:39 | |
the show became a platform for spirited performances with attitude. | 0:26:39 | 0:26:43 | |
LYRICS INDISTINCT | 0:26:43 | 0:26:46 | |
# I don't want to be nice | 0:26:51 | 0:26:55 | |
# I think it's clever to swear | 0:26:55 | 0:26:58 | |
# Best heed some sound advice | 0:26:58 | 0:27:02 | |
# I would look elsewhere... # | 0:27:02 | 0:27:04 | |
There were classic performances, like the Damned. | 0:27:04 | 0:27:07 | |
I stood in front of them to introduce them like I normally did. | 0:27:07 | 0:27:11 | |
I knew something was going on behind me. I knew they were playing games. | 0:27:11 | 0:27:15 | |
What?! | 0:27:15 | 0:27:17 | |
Then they played Smash It Up and thought they'd take it literally, | 0:27:17 | 0:27:21 | |
so they smashed up the entire studio set. | 0:27:21 | 0:27:24 | |
I think they enjoyed themselves. | 0:27:37 | 0:27:40 | |
There was a delightful air of sacrilege about the whole thing. | 0:27:40 | 0:27:44 | |
The hoolies had arrived. | 0:27:44 | 0:27:46 | |
Annie for a moment gave it a little kick, not least the feminine kick, | 0:27:46 | 0:27:50 | |
in the sense of something that, you know, | 0:27:50 | 0:27:52 | |
wasn't necessarily about archiving the music alphabetically. | 0:27:52 | 0:27:57 | |
Yes! The girls got him in the end... | 0:27:57 | 0:27:59 | |
It was quite a jolt to have a woman fronting a rock show at that time. | 0:27:59 | 0:28:03 | |
Almost like a suffragette, really. | 0:28:03 | 0:28:05 | |
I mean, she pioneered it being acceptable for women to do that. | 0:28:05 | 0:28:10 | |
And she was great, she wasn't trying too hard. | 0:28:10 | 0:28:13 | |
Squeeze are in the studio tonight to play two tracks from the album - | 0:28:13 | 0:28:17 | |
It's So Dirty and firstly, Slap And Tickle. Here's Squeeze. | 0:28:17 | 0:28:21 | |
When Squeeze eventually came in | 0:28:32 | 0:28:35 | |
to these 1950s, beautiful acoustic panels - the thing behind me - | 0:28:35 | 0:28:39 | |
came in and saw those, you know, | 0:28:39 | 0:28:41 | |
this is the real studio where they actually do it, it was so exciting. | 0:28:41 | 0:28:45 | |
It was great. | 0:28:45 | 0:28:46 | |
We wanted to liven it up and take the earnestness out, | 0:28:46 | 0:28:49 | |
so they said, "If one of you want to make an announcement, you can." | 0:28:49 | 0:28:53 | |
So we concocted this rather appalling joke. | 0:28:53 | 0:28:56 | |
There's just been a message sent in from reception. | 0:28:56 | 0:28:59 | |
Would the owner of the blue Ford Cortina, registration number PEN 1S, | 0:28:59 | 0:29:04 | |
please go to reception as he's blocking a fire exit. Thank you. | 0:29:04 | 0:29:09 | |
A bit of rather babyish, schoolboy humour. | 0:29:09 | 0:29:13 | |
Cos PEN 15 spells "penis", you see. | 0:29:13 | 0:29:15 | |
Just spelling it out there. | 0:29:15 | 0:29:17 | |
There were a lot of acts who sort of arrived with punk and who were | 0:29:22 | 0:29:27 | |
just carried along in its slipstream. | 0:29:27 | 0:29:30 | |
And, for a programme like the Whistle Test, | 0:29:30 | 0:29:33 | |
which was basically always an establishment programme, | 0:29:33 | 0:29:39 | |
it was probably a lot easier to cope with some of the slipstream acts, | 0:29:39 | 0:29:43 | |
both in terms of, you know, | 0:29:43 | 0:29:45 | |
the amount of complaints they'd generate, | 0:29:45 | 0:29:48 | |
and how they were likely to behave in the studio. | 0:29:48 | 0:29:51 | |
They might have a little sneer to let the punks know | 0:29:51 | 0:29:54 | |
they were something to do with the punk movement, | 0:29:54 | 0:29:57 | |
but they weren't actually going to cause any serious trouble. | 0:29:57 | 0:30:01 | |
Along with the new wave came David Hepworth in 1980. | 0:30:01 | 0:30:05 | |
Yet another music journo with an A Level in rock'n'roll. | 0:30:05 | 0:30:08 | |
And now for something completely different... | 0:30:08 | 0:30:11 | |
Hepworth's old NME sidekick Mark Ellen was also drafted in | 0:30:11 | 0:30:14 | |
to take us into the '80s, | 0:30:14 | 0:30:16 | |
as the show's take on hip, young gunslingers. | 0:30:16 | 0:30:18 | |
..What we've got on the programme tonight. | 0:30:18 | 0:30:21 | |
On tonight's programme, in the studio... | 0:30:21 | 0:30:23 | |
When Ellen and Hepworth took over, | 0:30:23 | 0:30:25 | |
I didn't know who they were, I'd no idea who they were, um... | 0:30:25 | 0:30:29 | |
it turned out they were journalists. Who knew? | 0:30:29 | 0:30:32 | |
This chap on my right actually claims | 0:30:32 | 0:30:34 | |
that this week he was rung up by a look-alikes agency | 0:30:34 | 0:30:37 | |
and asked to play the part of Paul McCartney in a film. | 0:30:37 | 0:30:41 | |
This is your opportunity to confirm or deny this rumour. | 0:30:41 | 0:30:44 | |
It is actually true, but I turned it down | 0:30:44 | 0:30:46 | |
because I didn't feel I looked young enough for the part. | 0:30:46 | 0:30:49 | |
They were a fairly good double act. | 0:30:49 | 0:30:51 | |
And it stuck true to the tradition of not being too showbiz, | 0:30:51 | 0:30:55 | |
not trying too hard | 0:30:55 | 0:30:56 | |
they always looked like they'd tumbled out of some pub | 0:30:56 | 0:30:59 | |
and just kind of rolled in and done it. | 0:30:59 | 0:31:03 | |
When I was offered this job, | 0:31:03 | 0:31:05 | |
they made a lot about the opportunities for travel. | 0:31:05 | 0:31:08 | |
Last week, Shepherds Bush, this week the Regal Theatre in Hitchin. | 0:31:08 | 0:31:13 | |
# Once in every lifetime... # | 0:31:13 | 0:31:15 | |
In the early '80s, the TV landscape was changing | 0:31:15 | 0:31:18 | |
and comedy was now the new rock'n'roll. | 0:31:18 | 0:31:21 | |
# ..Oh, my darling, can't you see? | 0:31:21 | 0:31:23 | |
# Young ones... # | 0:31:23 | 0:31:25 | |
OK, pop music, let's go. | 0:31:25 | 0:31:28 | |
Anyone here like the Human League? | 0:31:28 | 0:31:31 | |
The Old Grey Whistle Test plodded doggedly on, | 0:31:31 | 0:31:33 | |
but the other music shows were moving with the times. | 0:31:33 | 0:31:37 | |
Even Top Of The Pops blew up a few balloons | 0:31:37 | 0:31:39 | |
and partied on down with the decade of excess. | 0:31:39 | 0:31:42 | |
# Wham, bam, I am a man... # | 0:31:42 | 0:31:46 | |
I guess the Whistle Test seemed a little shop-worn | 0:31:47 | 0:31:52 | |
by the '80s. | 0:31:52 | 0:31:55 | |
Channel Four had just launched The Tube, | 0:31:55 | 0:31:58 | |
which was fast, noisy and brash. | 0:31:58 | 0:32:00 | |
The Tube was big budget, live and early evening. | 0:32:02 | 0:32:05 | |
It had a noisy audience and mixed comedy and music - | 0:32:05 | 0:32:08 | |
a combination the Whistle Test had always struggled to master. | 0:32:08 | 0:32:12 | |
Hello and welcome to The Tube. | 0:32:12 | 0:32:14 | |
'I think the spontaneity made The Tube lively' | 0:32:14 | 0:32:17 | |
and it wasn't at all earnest and it was genuinely anarchic | 0:32:17 | 0:32:21 | |
because nobody knew what they were doing. | 0:32:21 | 0:32:23 | |
At the other end here, you've got a suburban living room. | 0:32:23 | 0:32:26 | |
What's going on? | 0:32:26 | 0:32:27 | |
The Tube was very much a post-punk programme, | 0:32:27 | 0:32:32 | |
deliberately made as a reaction to the Whistle Test, | 0:32:32 | 0:32:36 | |
by then looking very old and very grey. | 0:32:36 | 0:32:39 | |
It's currently at number 43 in the LP chart, isn't it? | 0:32:39 | 0:32:42 | |
It was 37 last week, which means it's going down. | 0:32:42 | 0:32:45 | |
The Tube was about the moment, it seemed to represent | 0:32:45 | 0:32:49 | |
the excess of the moment, it was of the '80s, | 0:32:49 | 0:32:52 | |
and the Whistle Test, still this worthy attempt | 0:32:52 | 0:32:55 | |
to give you music that someone had decided was good for you. | 0:32:55 | 0:32:58 | |
There's your man, on stage, Loudon Wainwright. | 0:32:58 | 0:33:01 | |
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE | 0:33:01 | 0:33:03 | |
WHISTLE TEST THEME PLAYS | 0:33:05 | 0:33:07 | |
That tune you just heard, Stone Fox Chase, by Area Code 615, | 0:33:07 | 0:33:11 | |
that's the last time you'll hear it associated with this programme | 0:33:11 | 0:33:15 | |
because, from the beginning of the next series, | 0:33:15 | 0:33:18 | |
which starts auspiciously enough on Friday 13th January, | 0:33:18 | 0:33:21 | |
we've given it the elbow. | 0:33:21 | 0:33:22 | |
Two of the words of the programme's title are to be brutally lopped off | 0:33:22 | 0:33:26 | |
and from now on it's going to be known solely as The Whistle Test. | 0:33:26 | 0:33:29 | |
Good evening, this is Whistle Test... | 0:33:32 | 0:33:34 | |
Classic sign of weakness - you can't even stick to the brand name. | 0:33:34 | 0:33:39 | |
It would take more than new titles, an almost-snazzy new set | 0:33:39 | 0:33:42 | |
and a couple of new, young presenters | 0:33:42 | 0:33:44 | |
for the Whistle Test to stop feeling like the graveyard shift of rock TV. | 0:33:44 | 0:33:49 | |
How do you link a video of Paul Young | 0:33:51 | 0:33:53 | |
with the first live TV performance of a group hailed | 0:33:53 | 0:33:56 | |
as the most controversial band since the Sex Pistols? | 0:33:56 | 0:33:59 | |
Perhaps critics of this programme | 0:33:59 | 0:34:01 | |
who say it's still old and very grey could offer some idea. | 0:34:01 | 0:34:05 | |
I suspect they couldn't, so all I'll say is sit back, hold tight | 0:34:05 | 0:34:09 | |
and enjoy the total noise and summer sounds of the band that | 0:34:09 | 0:34:12 | |
can't get a gig anywhere except on this programme - | 0:34:12 | 0:34:16 | |
the Jesus And Mary Chain. | 0:34:16 | 0:34:17 | |
# Grass grows greener on the other side | 0:34:24 | 0:34:28 | |
# The corn grows sweeter on the other side... # | 0:34:29 | 0:34:33 | |
Things like Whistle Test really should just stick to what they do | 0:34:33 | 0:34:36 | |
because it's kind of its own thing. I think that's where sometimes | 0:34:36 | 0:34:39 | |
people running programmes and channels and things make a mistake. | 0:34:39 | 0:34:43 | |
They make a knee-jerk reaction and say, | 0:34:43 | 0:34:45 | |
"Let's make Whistle Test not so old and grey, | 0:34:45 | 0:34:48 | |
"let's make it a bit more funky to combat The Tube." | 0:34:48 | 0:34:52 | |
But you should probably just carry on doing it the same. | 0:34:52 | 0:34:55 | |
There's only so many ways you can rearrange the furniture, | 0:34:55 | 0:34:59 | |
bring in new presenters, | 0:34:59 | 0:35:01 | |
and generally try and snazz it up | 0:35:01 | 0:35:04 | |
before you have to admit the Old Grey Whistle Test | 0:35:04 | 0:35:08 | |
is your dad's rock show. | 0:35:08 | 0:35:09 | |
..Bruce Springsteen and Jimmy Page. | 0:35:09 | 0:35:11 | |
In 1987, guitar rock was declared officially dead | 0:35:11 | 0:35:14 | |
and the Whistle Test was sacrificed on the altar of "youth TV". | 0:35:14 | 0:35:19 | |
There's no doubt that, by the time it was taken away | 0:35:19 | 0:35:22 | |
by a BBC that was very self-conscious about progress | 0:35:22 | 0:35:25 | |
and Janet Street-Porter's vision of a new kind of television, | 0:35:25 | 0:35:29 | |
guitar rock, the Whistle Test idea of guitar rock, | 0:35:29 | 0:35:32 | |
would have seemed as old fashioned as George Formby and Gracie Fields. | 0:35:32 | 0:35:36 | |
It shouldn't have come to an end, | 0:35:36 | 0:35:38 | |
but I'm sure that it's those fairly arbitrary decisions that are made | 0:35:38 | 0:35:43 | |
by people who want to come in and make their own mark. | 0:35:43 | 0:35:46 | |
Of doing things that are very hyper-trendy and of that moment. | 0:35:46 | 0:35:50 | |
There's nothing wrong with that, | 0:35:50 | 0:35:52 | |
but there's nothing wrong with having what was there as well. | 0:35:52 | 0:35:56 | |
It doesn't need to be either or. | 0:35:56 | 0:35:57 | |
Sorry, sir, you can't park here, it's a restricted area. | 0:36:00 | 0:36:04 | |
Jools sometimes calls Later "Grandson of Whistle Test". | 0:36:04 | 0:36:08 | |
Which is probably about right, actually. | 0:36:09 | 0:36:12 | |
You know, the ethos of Whistle Test did then transfer across into Later. | 0:36:12 | 0:36:17 | |
Later's more like Russian roulette, | 0:36:17 | 0:36:20 | |
even in the way the camera spins round. | 0:36:20 | 0:36:23 | |
Your turn! Then you stand watching all the other bands and thinking, | 0:36:23 | 0:36:28 | |
"They sound good, I bet we'll be shit." | 0:36:28 | 0:36:30 | |
I guess you didn't get that on the Old Grey Whistle Test. | 0:36:30 | 0:36:33 | |
I think it was a bit too respectful to the music, really. | 0:36:33 | 0:36:37 | |
Fantastic! | 0:36:37 | 0:36:39 | |
I'm so pleased that the one-and-only Mr Paul Weller is here too. | 0:36:39 | 0:36:42 | |
# I've got a feeling from the floorboards up | 0:36:50 | 0:36:53 | |
# Call it a calling if you like that touch... # | 0:36:53 | 0:36:56 | |
Later With Jools upheld that great tradition of interesting live music, | 0:36:56 | 0:37:00 | |
but done in a different way, and it's good it's there. | 0:37:00 | 0:37:03 | |
Whether it would be there if not for Whistle Test, who can tell? | 0:37:03 | 0:37:07 | |
So, was the show truly great? | 0:37:07 | 0:37:09 | |
Has the Old Grey Whistle Test stood the test of time? | 0:37:09 | 0:37:15 | |
Do I really need to ask? | 0:37:15 | 0:37:17 | |
When we're done making all the jokes about Bob Harris, | 0:37:17 | 0:37:21 | |
the archive of performances the Old Grey Whistle Test generated | 0:37:21 | 0:37:25 | |
represent the absolute crown jewels | 0:37:25 | 0:37:28 | |
in terms of the rock and pop of its time. | 0:37:28 | 0:37:31 | |
# You've done too much Much too young... # | 0:37:34 | 0:37:36 | |
Everybody got tarred with the same brush, | 0:37:36 | 0:37:39 | |
so if something was going to be interesting, | 0:37:39 | 0:37:42 | |
it was down to the fact that the people in front of the camera | 0:37:42 | 0:37:45 | |
were interesting, be that musically or they had a funny way | 0:37:45 | 0:37:48 | |
of performing or something. | 0:37:48 | 0:37:50 | |
It gave you a level playing field, which we English do like, | 0:37:50 | 0:37:55 | |
so you either shine on it or fall depending on, | 0:37:55 | 0:37:59 | |
you know, your abilities. | 0:37:59 | 0:38:01 | |
Wherever else you see a band, | 0:38:01 | 0:38:03 | |
on Top Of The Pops or In Concert in the '70s, | 0:38:03 | 0:38:05 | |
it just doesn't have the same strangeness as it does | 0:38:05 | 0:38:08 | |
when you see an Old Grey Whistle Test clip. | 0:38:08 | 0:38:10 | |
And the words behind them - Old Grey Whistle Test. | 0:38:10 | 0:38:13 | |
They've become abstract. | 0:38:13 | 0:38:15 | |
And absolutely, Arctic Monkeys would recreate that because, | 0:38:15 | 0:38:19 | |
looking back on it, 30 years later, that's really strange. | 0:38:19 | 0:38:22 | |
Those who are interested in music now would yearn for that. | 0:38:22 | 0:38:26 | |
# ..Like a robot from 1984 | 0:38:26 | 0:38:27 | |
# From 1984... # | 0:38:27 | 0:38:30 | |
There's a kind of retro, '70s food revival. | 0:38:30 | 0:38:34 | |
You know, everybody's saying, | 0:38:34 | 0:38:36 | |
"Actually, I always liked prawn cocktail | 0:38:36 | 0:38:40 | |
"and chicken Maryland and rum baba." | 0:38:40 | 0:38:42 | |
I liked all that and I'd like to have all that again. | 0:38:42 | 0:38:46 | |
I liked the Whistle Test and I'd like to have that again. | 0:38:46 | 0:38:50 | |
# I said I bet that you look good on the dance floor | 0:38:50 | 0:38:53 | |
# Dancing to electro-pop like a robot from 1984 | 0:38:53 | 0:38:57 | |
# I said from 1984. # | 0:38:57 | 0:39:01 | |
Mm, that's what it's all about. | 0:39:06 | 0:39:08 |