* 'Celebrate Summer' - Marc BolanAxe Victim says 1973 is the summer of summers. But for me, the top pop year will always be 1977. It's an overlooked classic - and the year sound and vision went Concorde shaped and Skylab sounding - Bowie released 'Low', 'Heroes' (and clonked out 'Lust For Life' and 'Idiot' as hobby projects), Giorgio and Donna gave us deep space disco, there's Space - 'Magic Fly', Meco - 'Star Wars' and JMJ 'Oxygene' - see what I mean? And then you've got Close Encounters, 'Calling Occupants', Bond's Lotus Esprit, Saturday Night Fever, Star Wars, Punk wars, the deaths of Marc Bolan and Elvis - you just don't get designs, dynamics and dramatics like that in many other years.
My personal obsessions during the summer of 77 were...
Sharks (I saw Jaws 5 times).
Skateboards (Fibreflex boards and Kryptonic wheels were the kiddies, Skudas were cool and affordable, but Surf Flyers? That's a no-no )
Starsky and Hutch.
Admiral football togs.(the Coventry kit being my fave)
Lord Anthony clobber (but never had a Parka)
Dayvilles Ice Cream Parlours(32 flavours)
Krazy Comic
And as I started to make the move from pick 'n' mix singles to adult size albums the record I wanted, really wanted - and got for Christmas was K-Tel's blistering 'Disco Fever'. You can enjoy the full track list here, and for MOR eye popping madness have peep at the cozy cardie coloured charts from 31 years ago - both of which are almost entirely untroubled by any punky doings.
Top 50 singles week ending 30/07/77
Top 60 albums week ending 30/07/77
So a few songs from the 1977 jukebox then...
RAH Band 'The Crunch' (as featured on 'Disco Fever')
There's a TOTP appearance too
Bond goes disco 'Bond 77' (from 'The Spy Who Loved Me')
Original trailer for 'The Spy Who Loved Me'
Elvis 'Way Down' ( Alt take with added piano at the coda)
If you fancy a few more sounds from the summer of 77 hop on over to...
Track Lister for Giorgio Moroder - 'From Here To Eternity' (single version)
Davey H for Donna Summer - 'I Feel Love' (12" version)
My selection for Book Of The year 1977 - Man Eating Sharks
Always wanted one of these G and S Fibreflex boards (and a trip to Skate City or the South Bank), but never managed to get either.
19 comments:
My obsessions then were the Six Million Dollar Man, Planet Of The Apes, Dracula comic (with Blade!), Spiderman, Morbius, and a Beach Boys album.
The Spy Who Loved Me is my favourite Bond, with my favourite Bond girl - Caroline Munro as Naomi the helicopter pilot. Ah.
I can't hear God Only Knows without thinking back to those days.
Naughty Alan had that Disco Fever LP - we particularly liked 'Magic Fly' as I remember.
I share your love for all things summer of 77 - and how I wish I'd kept those back copies of Skateboard! magazine. We lusted over OJs and Gullwing trucks and the California lifetsyle but had to settle for cheap boards from Woolies : (
Simon - Six Million Man (and Bionic Woman) were more 76 for me - But big on the POTA, Spiderman, Mighty World Of Marvel - UK releases. Barbara Bach has to be my favourite Bondie, but then there's Britt in a bikini in 'Golden Gun' *sighs*
Davey
I've still got a stack of Skateboard mags and books all loaded with ad's for Bones Wheels, Alpine Sports padding and tips on how to 'Hang 10' I never had a really fancy board either.
Have you seen Dogtown and The Z Boys? It is Skateboard! mag come to life(check the trailer) - interviews and footage of the 70s California Skate scene.
check out this blog and book..... slightly of topic but still rammed with 70's sci-fi loonies all the same.....http://wifflelevertofull.wordpress.com/
top blogationism mr mondo....
great days mate.. POTA (mainly the TV series and the cartoon at that point), six mill Dollar bloke, charlies angels, star wars, citizen smith, carry on films... POTA toys, skateboards and how about 'slime' that ganky stuff in a pot?
Surely the biggest miss in your list for 77 HAS to be ABBA the movie??! or maybe Airport 77??!
Oh god - 76 and 77 were my favourite summers. We watched the Wimbledon final in the garden in 76 - it was so hot the top of the telly melted but we were so engrossed in the game no one noticed. Happy Days. Aaahhh Happy Days - how much did I love Chachie? And I had a skateboard - it came from Slick Willies in High St Kensington - just down the road from Kensington Market where everything smelled of leather, hashish and incense. I used to read Disco 45 and live for Top Of The Pops. I still have the K-Tel Album as pictured. Fabulous.
B - that's a top site good find (were you a member of the Southend Skateboard Club - I was)
P - I had slime and the follow up purple stuff with worms. Couple of other films from that year were Viva Knievel! and Tentacles
I saw both at the pics
RM A telly that melted how exciting, all I got was nose bleeds - and Slick Willies (didn't it have a rainbow colour logo?), I was soooo desperate to visit and Alpine Sports. Have you got 'Disco Stars' - follow up to the 'Fever'
At that age I was big into Six Million Dollar Man, Planet of the Apes, and G.I. Joe. I turned 7 at the end of 1977. Musically I listened to whatever my parents listened to, so that was mostly disco.
I saw a copy of Disco Fever in my local PDSA charity shop today, what a coincidence. (I trawl the charity shops regularly and surprisingly don't remember seing it before so it is really a concidence).
Doing a quick tot up I have about half of the records in the featured top 50 singles!
TKOC - my mum was into Motown, disco and pop, dad was strictly Frank and not much else (apart from Jeff Wayne's War of the Worlds)
Darcy - Spooky, I may start a thread on best comps
JC - I had Tommy cooper's Golf Game - but canned it off when we smashed a mates kitchen window by mistake, playing it
Anyboy remember those wonderful Spiderman movies?
Wasn't Jaws released in '76?
I have a skateboard in my loft with almost original 70mm red Kryptonics. I say almost because these are the mark two versions with the thicker rim. Do you remember Bell Air Lip Bombs? They became the wheel of choice after Kryptonics. Oooh and Gullwing and Tracker trucks. Happy days!
AV - I saw the first Spiderman film at the pics, there's a second one based in Hong Kong (I've got both on VHS if you want a lend)
VS - I think it had a re-release in 77, well round our way anyway. I had Kryptonic reds and blues, but not sure of the tech' spec - if you click on the Kryptonic link in the post - it gives you a stack of Krypto-info. Green 'slalom' ones were always Holy Grail of wheels for me - and what were those boards that were natural wood finish but with dark and light stripes (like a mowed lawn style)?
Weren't they Benji Boards? They had a gold logo in the middle. They did a really ridiculous long one. about five feet!
May have been - but were like a slightly dandier version of this I think matey's on one here
And remember Sims, Park Rider and Road Rider wheels?
when it comes to 70's sharks; What no "Hook jaw" from ACTION , normal sharks not being scary enough for late 70's brit kids, no our shark had a anchor through it's jaw so it would eat and stab you at the same time! best scene a severed leg floating to the sea bottom and this was for 9 years olds. My gran bought us action when we visited what a joy a glass of D&B and ultra violence!
I never got Action (there's some info here), but sounds top fun though I did get something similar from 78ish which may have been called Fireball , and came with a large red pendant and also Scoop comic.
PS- does Gums from Monster Fun qualify as a comic shark?
It was full of knock tie-ins of popular films "rollerball 2000" a hard man cop which was the sweeny, football violence etc. alot of the writers moved onto 2000 ad and battle
let's not forget the "pathetic sharks"
Post a Comment