Lift Off Ayshea

[Deleted]

The holy grail of 70s pop shows only three known to be in existence and never before repeated but thanks to
youtuber Cleops who has uploaded an impressive amount of rare stuff to his youtube channel a complete edition
from 15th October 1974 is on youtube for the first time.

[popchartfreak]

my reply from t'other website....

Awww thanks for the link Mark, a small part of my cultural history has been rescued! Most of it has been wiped by the TV companies, Top Of The Pops, Dr Who and Lift Off With Ayshea.

TBH the show was less crucial in 1974 than 1972, when it had the first TV appearance of Bowie doing Starman, among many gems. Prob why it got replaced by Supersonic as the new Kids pop TV show, but still some great moments for me in this one:

Ayshea was fab, not only glamming it up in spandex in Gerry Anderson's UFO scifi show, not only going out with Roy Wood in his Wizzard hey-day (and appearing on TOTP with them when my hero was Roy Wood), but also she sang a lot of tunes and interviewed a lot of pop stars.

Barry Blue is forgotten these days, but he was a good songwriter with hit songs like Storm In A Teacup, Sugar Me & others (with Lynsey De Paul) and sort of fell into an accidental glam pop star job for a couple of years, and was entirely endearing. I loved the variety of sounds in his singles: Greek-sounding Dancing On A Saturday Night, Gary Glitter-sounding Do You Wanna Dance (only you can still play this one and it's much better than 1973 Gary Glitter), School Love all 50's Back To The Future-sounding, and this kitsch Russian-chorus Hot Shot, camp as a row of tents.

I loved 1971/2 vintage Bay City Rollers, the new pre-teen-aimed line-up got increasingly more annoying as they got more successful, but the earlier singles like the fade-out Shang A Lang were OK. All Of Me Loves All Of You was the turning point for me, though, it was mundane. Didn't the very skinny lads wear tight pants though! Didn't we all?! Yes we did. Teenage boys, like the Rollers, habitually had their hands in their pockets to avoid embarrassment. Oh yes we did! It also looked surly and cool till the teachers shouted at you to take your hands out.

Jigsaw were good too. The first band I ever saw in concert, at Lincoln Uni Teachers Training College (as it's known now). I went back 2 months ago, and the student union building and College is mostly intact, if expanded. Jigsaw did their hits Who Do You Think You Are (for Candlewick Green/Sainte Etienne) and the glorious Sky High. Sadly, this one's not in the same league, a shame!