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Every episode of The Tube 1982-1987

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Some kind soul has uploaded every single episode of The Tube from 1982-1987 to Youtube. I’ve seen individual clips before but watching full episodes 40 years on is a revelation. I had thought it was a platform for ‘new music’ but seeing the full shows in retrospect it reveals itself as very much a mixed bag.
Series 4 Episode 5 for example has Elton John, a boring turn from the Young Ones cast, a Mark E.Smith/Brix interview with Muriel Grey, Prefab Sprout and something from Soft Cell then back to Elton to end the show.
The archive material here is amazing. Interviews with unsigned bands such as the Bangles and Frankie Goes to Hollywood. Paula Yates visiting a fortune teller. 80s hairdressers explain their craft. The editor of the NME Neil Spencer responding to criticism of elitism. Jill Furmanovsky describing her approach to photography, Pete Frame saying he never gets bored with his rock family trees … and yet there is so much dross. One hit wonders such as King. And acts who seemed popular at the time (Carmel) being eclipsed by those who got a lukewarm reaction in the Tube clips (Madonna).
Fascinating stuff, not sure how long it will remain online … https://www.youtube.com/user/davisxl1/videos

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YWNAv6T2Hmc

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Comments

  1. Remember the one where Frankie appeared well. Because of a guy on my course at Uni called Vincent O’Toole. “Vinny’s brother’s band is on The Tube tonight”

    • Speaking of which can’t get anything to work on my Mac, 4k video downloader was recommended here, worked for a while but it appears no longer. Anyone know of something nice and clean that works ? (no malware)

    • Hi Paul, did you get round to downloading the episodes? If you did would you please share the files with me? I’m absolutely desperate to see every episode and I think I watched the first 9 before it was taken down from YouTube. Happy to transfer cash if that helps.

      • Hey Skelf, me too! I was interviewed by Jouls when he swore (the first time) while demoing The Rhythm Stick. The only clip i can find has the swearing bit cut out – which is a real shame as it’s so funny! Has anyone got the 1984/6 series of The Tube?

  5. Hasn’t aged well, but it’s difficult to overstate how exciting The Tube was if you were young in the 80s and a) TotP was a bit too silly and b) Whistle Test was a bit too serious. The fact that a lot of the acts quite pointedly played live rather than miming into something that didn’t even look like a microphone was very refreshing. It’s strength was its eclecticism – one minute it’s Stump, next minute it’s Colonel Abrams. And Jools being rubbish was still quite endearing.

  6. Many thanks to mutikonka for pointing us towards this treasure chest. I’ve been wishing for this to happen ever since that tantalising DVD compilation was released a few years ago.

  9. Thanks for posting that one. Really enjoyed the brilliant Marc Almond clip singing a song I’d completely forgotten- and the Mark & Brix chat with Muriel. I love it when someone articulates something you have always thought – Mark E Smith says that he doesn’t respond to fan letters because he doesn’t like the kind of people who write fan letters to bands. “Those letters go straight in the bin”.

    I have 40-odd years of devotion to Depeche Mode but I don’t know them personally and I don’t particularly want to. I appreciate and enjoy their music. That’s all there is.

    • Yes, I was thinking something similar then other day. By way of contrast, we now live in an age where people many people avidly follow the pronouncements of their heroes on Twitter. Which is fine, when it turns out that you share all of their likes and dislikes. Not so good then it turns out they are a bit of a dick, or they think that you, or people like you, are a bit of a dick. It has also led to the increasing tendency to think that an entertainer’s views or insights are intrinsically more valuable than anyone elses

      • The internet has just amplified the bogus authority musical entertainers had already gained via the “serious” music press, like Rolling Stone, Melody Maker, NME, Creem etc.

        Celebrity Culture was a thing long before social media appeared.

  10. and as I’m sure we’ve all learned by now in spite of David Hepworth’s insistence that “everything is on YouTube forever” – it ain’t – so don’t sleep on these and download if you wanna keep ’em I can’t see a Tube DVD box set coming any time soon! I think they did one volume on DVD and that was it

        • I saw an ad in the paper advertising for the new presenter role so I applied, not really thinking much about it. Then I had a letter back (this was 1985 or so, pre e-mail) inviting me to an audition in Birmingham. There were loads of these taking place throughout the UK- I was based in Cardiff so Birmingham was the nearest one. I arrived to find roughly 500-1,000 other applicants.

          We were given a little number and told to wait our turn. One of the ones I remember clearly was a girl with a robot. She was nuts but quite impressive. Anyway, when our turn came we were told to go through to a small room where Malcolm Gerrie and John Gwyn (two of the producers) sat behind a desk. I quickly congratulated them on Jools’s New Orleans doc and told them it was one of the best thing I’d seen on telly. Gerrie immediately grinned and jokingly offered me a fiver. Then they asked me the only question they asked everyone- ‘why should we give you the job of presenter on the Tube?’ Now, years earlier, I’d asked for John Gwyn’s autograph because he’d been in a Welsh language band called Bran. So, I said ‘if you don’t then I’ll tell the world that you- John Gwyn- were once the lead singer in a dodgy Welsh prog band called Bran’. He looked a bit stunned, then he asked me if I spoke Welsh. I said of course. So we kind of bonded.

          Two days later, back in Cardiff, I was invited up to Newcastle for a screen test. I’d made it through to the final four. Among us was the late Caron Keating. None of us got the job. It went to that kid who wasn’t even auditioned. Years later I worked with John Gwyn both as a researcher and as a presenter on a Welsh language holiday show. I reminded him of the audition and he told me that the production team hadn’t really wanted a replacement for Jools in the first place.

          I see him quite often round Cardiff and we always stop for a chat. I didn’t get the dream job but I did get a BBC presenting gig on the radio off the back of it and also presented a HTV Wales pop show called Rough Mix.

  14. Revisit another music TV series you remember fondly only to be disappointed at how dull much of it is. Better to watch the selective clips that stand out from the dross than sit through whole editions and feel deflated. See also TOTP and OGWT. The Fall Wonderful and Frightening era Tube performances are very good for example.

    • You’ve got to watch it all – if only to believe your actual f*cking eyes as Gary Glitter (headlining, natch) has – in 1983! – a room of kids eating out of his hand (Al Green-style red rose distribution, notebook-out-Freddy-Mercury stagecraft) during an extended and bagpipe band augmented version of I Love You Love Me Love.
      Sometimes pop music leaves you needing a bath..

    • Old TOTP is still very watchable – whatever episode it is you get the music of the day and a very true reflection of what people were listening to whether it was Laurie Lingo & The Dipsticks or The Specials they can be a joy – and a very honest playlist if nothing else (and the brilliant Chart Music Podcast brings them to life in astonishing clarity – anyone reading this not aware- get in there now and subscribe!)

      Old Tube episodes can be a tough watch as what’s featured is a bit more random – you may get some great live peformances albeit they often sound shit, and those will be interspersed with tedious interviews, comedy bits which have aged very badly and utterly inept presenting by Jools & co which may have been seen as charmingly anarchic at the time and is now just irritating.

      I’ll still be working my way through these but they are very skippable (Two songs by Robert Cray…zzzzzz skip!) -so far with a random dip I’ve seen a very twitchy Macca being quizzed about the critical reaction to Give My Regards to Broad Street, and (what are the chances?) a very uncomfortable Macca being quizzed by that 12 year old Model Felix they gave a presenting job to – a very drunk Ian McCulloch talking about his solo career and a pitiful live performance by The Art of Noise with a very drunk Paul Morely sparring with Jools but off Mic so you can’t hear what he’s saying. And I also saw the inpsiration for Yvonne Boyd the Fashion Designer from ‘Knowing Me Knowing You’ with Alan Partridge. Unlike Whistle Test or TOTP the reason the Tube archives hasn’t been exploited that much is because a lot of it was just shit and not worth the bother.

      Still, I’m glad we can see ’em (in some cases these are the original VT) – and given that there is almost certainly no chance of these being officially made available I shall look forward to mining them for the good stuff

      • You have a lot more time on your hands and patience than I do. I have tried with TOTP. Even with fast forward I struggle to find something of value. What is of interest I have already seen as an isolated clip.

      • I’ve just watched Series 1 Episode 1. It wasn’t really very good.

        S1 E1 was definitely the original VT as it had blanks for the ad breaks and the countdown idents. I know for a fact that the Channel 4 broadcast archives were stored on VHS tapes

        Super-VHS was launched by JVC in 1987, and C4 did upgrade to S-VHS tapes, but not until the mid-90s, by which time The Tube was long gone.

    • Trouble is, when only viewing selective clips you’re subjecting yourself to the taste (and recording skill) of others, which may not coincide with your own.
      At the time I don’t recall loving every single minute of those programmes.
      At least with digitised show clips you can fast-forward through the stuff that doesn’t appeal. When it was on broadcast TV you had to wait (and hope) for a good bit to appear.

  15. One of my favourite Tube memories was 10,000 Maniacs, doing “My Mother The War” in 1984.
    I believe it was their first appearance on any nationally broadcast TV show in any country.

    Natalie Merchant was wearing her cardigan on back to front. Cool.
    She started by singing the first few lines acapella.
    Then the band started up, and Ms Merchant started whirling around like a dervish, her long hair completely obscuring her face.

    Marvellous. I rushed out and bought the “Secrets of the I-Ching” album.

  17. It was a great watch with my Betamax video ready to press record. I’ll have a look at this but not sure I’ll manage a whole episode. It had some marvelous moments though…

    Billy MacKenzie and Lesley Ash. On a boat. In Dundee you. Why not?

  19. I have watched a fair few of these new. Was just about the target audience at the time. From my current vantage point it is evident that it was the antidote to TOTP and OGWT with a smattering of alternative comedy. Certainly full of energy. But looking now I see vast tracts of pretty dire TV. Rank average or worse music. Derivative, tuneless and forgettable. Then there is a shaft of light which illuminates and reveals something genuinely new and exciting. The 90 minutes or so per episode can be a chore and I defy anyone to not fast forward. I think it’s reputation has been burnished by the absence exposure in reruns or extracts. A highlights reel would be genuinely thrilling cutting out the crap. A little like punk it was probably a necessary palate cleanser. Interesting to chart Jools Holland’s edgy amateurism to the current (in my view) staid and predictable Later which his formative self sought to blow up. But 40 years on am I in a position to throw stones. Undoubtedly not!! But music is now much more of a commodity. 1982 was perhaps just in the edge of still being a youth culture with a generational divide. The Stone, Beatles, Dylan all 40 ish. Parents of the youth music generation largely say it as a point of difference and division. Now, broadly we’re all into the same thing. Pervasive streaming makes everything available. A commodity. I remember reading the NME and thinking it made me part of a movement of sorts. Does anyone feel that now? Individually no doubt. But the feeling of being part of a movement. Perhaps not. We’re just consumers being sold to.

  20. Unfortunately I missed the boat on this and, as predicted, they are now gone from Youtube. Anyone in a position to share them with me if they managed to download them all?

  21. HIya, I’m new so hope i’m doing things correctly! [also dyslexic!]

    Does anyone have a copy of teh 1984 Tube series?
    I was on a show demonstrating my invention the Rhythm Stick, it was the first time Jools swore (so did I!) live due to Jools hitting it which kicked of a huge sound!

    That’s why we’re both giggling on the only clip i can find on the net… (that has been edited to remove the swearing).
    I would truly love to find the full clip if anyone hase that year’s video?

    Thanks in advance 🙂 I’m relaunching the instrument and the backstory is really interesting!

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