Time to dig out your Official Buzz Aldrin ‘Space Sneakers’ and prepare for blast-off… it’s the latest instalment of the Talk About The Passion ‘Audio Collage’ podcast The TATP Years, and this time it’s 1969, OK, all across the, erm, T-A-T-P! Yes, get yourself ready for forty five minutes of Moon Landing mayhem with Monty Python’s Flying Circus, David Bowie, Jethro Tull, Syd Barrett, Randall And Hopkirk (Deceased), Clangers, Bill Oddie, The Upsetters, Badfinger, Chigley, Nick Drake, The Dave Pike Set, Doctor Who, Kasenatz-Katz Singing Orchestral Circus, Frank Zappa, The Secret Service, Colosseum, The Magic Christian, The Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band, The Bed Sitting Room, Alf Garnett, ‘Dinners’ McCartney, Topo D. Bil, Tommy James & The Shondells, Edwin Starr, The Equals, Mary, Mungo, Midge, Dave Lee Travis On The Moon, and what to do if you’ve got a burst pipe and are so useless at dealing with it that even the voiceover man gives you grief. “Well done Sir! What a pity you let it happen in the first place…”
This was quite an interesting one to put together, and also a bit of a pilot-stroke-experiment thingymajig, as it’s the first year we’ve covered that neither of us actually remember. However, rather than going the Peter Kay route and doing that pretending-to-remember counting-off-an-imaginary-list-on-your-fingers-thing, there was a bit of discussion about stuff we liked that hails from 1969 and it was concluded that, although it often gets painted as a sort of apocalpytic end-of-days year (mainly on account of Altamont, Charles Manson and The Beatles disintegrating, all of which - at the risk of straying into Carmody territory - involved white rock musicians), there actually seems to have been a lot of positive stuff going on too. Loads of absurdist comedy, upbeat children’s shows, and even some joke-heavy Public Information Films (pretty much the dictionary definition of a contradiction in terms). Then from a more musical angle there’s a ton of pretty good bubblegum pop, and the rise of both Ska and Progressive Jazz, neither of which genre seemed at all interested in what was going on over at those troublesome Rock Festivals. Even the Prog-Rockers still seemed capable of cracking a smile or two at that point. So hopefully it should all make for interesting listening! If it does, don’t forget to say so via Twitter…
You can download it directly here, or subscribe via iTunes, and don’t forget to check out 2000, 1979, 1984 and 1992 while you’re at it. Hurrah!
