Those of you who like watching celebrities dance on TV may well be horrified to have learned that the new Strictly host is Josh Widdecombe. Not a patch on the former host, old Wink' (Claudia Winkelman).
It can't have escaped your notice that Doctor Who celebrated its 60th anniversary last week, blasting its way back onto screen with an old face and a Disney+ budget. Like most British kids, I grew up with The Doctor, and your first Doctor will always be your favourite. Which means you can't beat Tom Baker in my eyes.
Still, I have a great fondness for most of the other Doctors, including the modern incarnations (although Huddersfield lass Jodie Whittaker was let down during her tenure by terrible scripts). They say we spent large parts of our youth hiding behind the sofa to avoid the show's scarier bits... and I do have vivid memories of being behind that old red leather sofa in our living room on a Saturday night... but I'm pretty sure I was acting out the adventures I'd just seen on screen rather than escaping in terror.
Here then is a special edition of TV On The Radio dedicated to all the Doctors.
Search for songs that include the words "Doctor Who" in that order and you're on a hiding to nothing. Unless you want to hear a load of tunes that have nothing to do with Timelords such as this...
She sent me to the doctor who sent me straight to bed
I had far more luck searching for words that were unique to the Whoniverse. Such as TARDIS (Time and Relative Dimensions in Space, as I'm sure you will recall).
Here's someone who would look right at home in an episode of Doctor Who... Thom Yorke.
I'm stuck in the TARDIS Trapped in hyperspace One minute, snake charming The next in a motorcade
Step outside the TARDIS and you may encounter some of The Doctor's greatest enemies. For reasons explained above, I didn't bother looking for The Master, and only found the odd song that mentioned Cybermen... but the Daleks were all over the place.
Dave Balfe and Alan Gill from The Teardrop Explodes formed the most famous band to be named after the psychotic pepper pots, possibly my favourite science fiction bad guys (the Daleks, not Balfe and Gill).
Despite my difficulties in searching for "Doctor Who" songs, I still found quite a few that mentioned the Timelord by name (or, not actually by name, since Doctor Who isn't actually his name, is it?). Although many of them fall into the category that causes serious musos to gnash their teeth to the gums... comedy or novelty records.
Frazer Hines was a minor Yorkshire celebrity due to his role on Emmerdale Farm in the 70s and 80s (back when my dad used to watch it because they had actual farmyard scenes). Prior to that, Frazer was an early Doctor Who assistant when he recorded this...
Once All About Eve were done, lead singer Julianne Regan formed Mice. Here's a little timely advice for any of you who might be considering running off with a stranger in a blue police box...
He's my blue sonic boy I believed in his watery lies And his half-arsed scheme to rule the world But you know it isn't easy hanging out with the timelords When you're a Dalek and can't even climb up the stairs So when you wake tomorrow, stick a bell in your van
There were lots of artists I discovered during this search who looked like they'd only ever get a gig at Comicon, but these guys deserved a special mention, for enthusiasm, if nothing else...
But there was only one song I could choose to close this post, from the insane genius of Bill Drummond and Jimmy Cauty, The KLF, The Justified Ancients of Mu Mu and The Timelords... with a little help from The Sweet and (whisper it now) Gary Glitter. A Number One smash that Melody Maker described as "pure, unadulterated agony" and "excruciating", while Sounds called it "rancid" and "a record so noxious that a top ten place can be its only destiny". What's not to love?
In the vast infinity of space, there appears to be an endless number of bands who have chosen to call themselves Space. Here is a selection of the ones I could find... before I ran out of space.
SPACE #1
We start with a songwriter called Sterling Storm who began his career as a member of Californian surf rock band Eddie & The Showmen, and who would later go on to join 80s New Wave band The Humans. Here he is in 1968 with his sole release as Space.
SPACE #2
Next - how about a whole album of Latin psychedelic rock from 1970... because I can't find individual tracks? They were from Puerto Rico, where they also went by the name The Living End. It's only 38 minutes, I'm sure you've not got anything better to do with your time.
SPACE #3
In 1975, the Tremeloes, long after Brian Poole had buggered off to pursue a solo career and the hits were but distant memories, released an album with the rather desperate title Don't Let The Music Die. Perhaps to distance themselves from the past, the record was originally credited to Space... although it was reissued later under The Tremeloes name. Here's the sole Space single...
SPACE #4
1977. Disco. French disco. Didier Marouani (aka Ecama) and Roland Romanelli. #2 in the UK charts. And a video that was cutting edge at the time. Daft Punk were clearly taking notes.
SPACE #5
No date on this one, or any information I can find (Ernie might know better), but it's jazzy... and a hell of a lot better than the next offering, which is also jazzy. If you like this, there's one copy going for £240 on discogs.
SPACE #6
Jazz. Hardcore free jazz, that is, from 1984. Roscoe Mitchell, Tom Buckner, Gerald Oshita were Space... and if this is what passes for conversation first thing in their house, I'm glad I skip breakfast.
SPACE #7
If you thought the free jazz was bad, imagine how bad a techno version of Purple Haze would be. This is why 1990 was not a good year for music. The best I can say about it is that the vocalist is called Doreen Waddell. There's not enough Doreens in pop music.
SPACE #8
The Scouse Space, who I saw live a few times during the high times of the 90s, looked like the archetypal Britpop band with their shaggy moptop hairdos that recalled their 60s predecessors far more than those lunkhead brothers from Manchester. Their music veered off on weird tangents though, with echoes of Brel, Gainsborough and other less conventional 60s acts. Lyrically, they were more adventurous than many of their peers too, though this was sometimes hard to swallow for the anthem-craving masses. Two of their biggest hits, The Female Of The Species and the tune below, didn't sound like anything else on the radio... and they were clearly Lloyd Grossman fans. Who lives in a house like this?
SPACE #9
And so we reach The Final Frontier!
Australian singer-songwriter Jason Smith now lives in LA, where he goes under the name Space. Here's a song about Brian losing his last battle...
Which ones would you find Space for in your record collection... and which ones deserve to be shot into space?
For a Top Ten Spider Songs, here's three Spider-Men. Rumour has it they may all appear together in the same film at the end of this year. That probably won't mean much to you, but to me it'll be like all my Christmases come at once.
Anyway, some web-spinning songs...
10. Not the French band.
Last week we featured the French band Space. This is the Liverpudlian band who stole their name.
I won't spoil your Saturday morning by explaining the connection too graphically, suffice it to say their names all come back to the same point of origin...
Last week's post on Infamous (real life) Murderers was really only a warm up for this, my Halloween special for 2018. I spent far too many Friday and Saturday nights when I was growing up watching gruesome horror movies about some very unpleasant bad guys. And despite what Mary Whitehouse said, it never did me any harm...
...or did it? Mwuh-ha-ha-ha-haaaa!
Here's ten songs dedicated to the bloodthirsty "heroes" of my youth...
The greatest trick the devil ever played... was getting you to listen to a song by the Bloodhound Gang.
Did you ever read Voltaire's "Candide"? He says live life at Benny Hill freak out speed Not a quote of what he wrote but a paraphrase Make it up as you go, Keyser Soze
The Ramones were evidently fans of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and its gruesome killer Leatherface. Though he doesn't get mentioned by name here, he play a big part in the song. For an actual Leatherface namecheck, check out The Wonder Years - Suburbia.
The Ramones also had a song called Pinhead... long before this dude arrived on the scene.
Patrick Bateman wasn't all bad. He was a big fan of Huey Lewis & The News, for one thing.
By the way, if you've never seen it before, I seriously recommend watching Huey's response to that scene (along with Weird Al Yankovich). No, seriously. You owe it to yourself.
No, I'm not suggesting that the Welsh Wonder is a serial killer on the side, but Cerys certainly accuses Tommy Scott of being a scary psycho...
You're worse than Hannibal Lecter, Charlie Manson, Freddy Krueger
1. The Meteors - Michael Myers
Pure psychobilly from the early 80s, paying tribute to the daddy of all movie murderers... the one who famously wears a William Shatner mask... Michael Myers. Happy Halloween!
Now I'm just going down into the cellar. Don't worry, I'll be right back...
