Meldrew moment: I don't f***** believe it!

[JimN]

I remember the record's release and bought my copy (which I still own) in the record shop in whose basement the Beatles (then k/a Quarrymen) had made their first recordings. But I wouldn't learn of that little historical footnote until several decades later.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-19807418

For a member of that particular generation - what you could call the X Factor generation - [0.52] to say "Yes, kind of boring because they keep repeating the same stuff over and over again" must count as being straight out of the deepest slough of irony.

On the other hand, some things never change. At 1:08, one girl remarks, in best Janice Nicholls mode: "It's alright. It's got a good beat to it".

JN

[cockroach]

You'd have got a similar response to playing a hit song from 1912 ("Come into the Garden Maud"??!!' ) to us when we were teenagers in 1962!

Face it JIm, we are now BLOODY OLD!

[George Geddes]

I still remember a school friend coming in on Wednesday morning in 1962 and saying he had seen this weird group from Liverpool on tv. The singer had a funny thing round his neck to hold a harmonica. After a brief discussion, we concluded they would never make it and they posed no threat to the No.1 group, The Shadows.

George
(who does not have a single Beatles 45, EP, LP, cassette or CD in his collection...)

[neil2726]

Thay didnt pose any threat - instumentally!

[JimN]

You'd have got a similar response to playing a hit song from 1912 ("Come into the Garden Maud"??!!' ) to us when we were teenagers in 1962!

Face it JIm, we are now BLOODY OLD!

I know what you mean, but there is a difference, which is that every moment of the past fifty years (and well beyond that) has been covered and recorded for posterity (in varying levels of detail). That was not even physically possible in 1912 - even WW1 has limited footage available.

[donna plasky]

That was a very entertaining but shocking little interview. It made me feel really old. Remember this picture shown below? I guess the humour would be totally lost within that group of young people. Who is imitating whom? And he's right-handed,what do you mean?

Kind regards,
Donna

McCartney_Marvin.jpg (6.59 KiB) Viewed 7623 times

"Coming Up" video on Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cDBkySeyiDo

[David Martin]

I still remember a school friend coming in on Wednesday morning in 1962 and saying he had seen this weird group from Liverpool on tv. The singer had a funny thing round his neck to hold a harmonica. After a brief discussion, we concluded they would never make it and they posed no threat to the No.1 group, The Shadows.

George
(who does not have a single Beatles 45, EP, LP, cassette or CD in his collection...)

We came to the same conclusion on that Wednesday too... Was the programme Magpie with Fred Barker, Ollie Beak and Muriel Young?

[Mike Honey]

no, Magpie didnt start 'til 1968

mike

[JimN]

In 1963, the predecessor to "Magpie" was "Tuesday Rendezvous" (neé Lucky Dip"), which later changed name to "Five O Clock Club". It's probably best remembered for the regular appearances of Bert Weedon and Muriel Young, but I have an idea that Ollie Beak (voiced by Wally Whyton?) might have been in it as early as 1962.

I'm not so sure that George remembers a Beatles national TV appearance from 1962, though. They certainly appeared several times (two, maybe three) in late 1962 on Granada TV's local magazine programme "People And Places" (fronted by Gay Byrne and Bill Grundy), but that was not shown on Scottish TV, or anywhere else outside the Lancashire/Yorkshire (and adjacent counties) region. Neither was it recorded for syndication.

There is a large amount of data available on the Beatles' career and it is generally accepted that their first national TV appearance was on the (Saturday) 19th January 1963 edition of "Thank Your Lucky Stars" (networked by ABC from Birmingham). The spot was booked with the producer by Dick James (the publisher of Please Please Me), sufficiently impressing Brian Epstein that he got the group to sign up to a long-term publishing deal with James. Their BBC TV debut came later.

So, during 1962, The Beatles appeared on TV only on regional programming, and the TYLS broadcast didn't happen until after the 11/01/63 release of Please Please Me.

But...

In early January 1963, in what must have been absolutely horrendous weather conditions during the worst winter in living memory, The Beatles did five live dates in Scotland. They stayed on for an extra couple of days to appear on the Tuesday January 8th edition of Scottish TV's pop music programme "Roundup" (which a few months earlier had produced the now-familiar clip of Jet Harris miming to Main Title Theme). That show was broadcast in Central Scotland, but nowhere else unless Grampian TV took a feed for it, and, I would suggest, is the programme fondly remembered by George. It was certainly the first opportunity that Scottish fans had to see the group on television.

JN

http://www.beatlesbible.com/1963/01/08/tv-roundup/

http://www.beatlesbible.com/1963/01/13/television-thank-your-lucky-stars/

[anniv 63]

Jim can I possibly correct on the Scottish Television clip of Jet miming to
Man With The Golden Arm.
It is a show called Studio Downbeat introduced by somebody called Raymond
Boyd and was part of a fifth anniversary celebration of the station in August
1962. It was broadcast from the then studio Theatre Royal in Hope Street
Glasgow.
Boyd is seen on the introduction on some clips featuring studio dancers as well!!
This information came from some written source at the time of the 50th Anniversary
so it seems to be a local pop programme of the time (1962)

Mike