29 May 1973

Show

Name

• Top Gear

Station

• BBC Radio One

YYYY-MM-DD

• 1973-05-29

Comments

• Tracklisting below is from Volume 3 of the Decktician Logs. Many thanks to Decktician, Ken Garner for copying and additional information, and Rocker for acting as central HQ.
• The show is notable for the first play of Mike Oldfield’s Tubular Bells, although it appears that only the first side was played, rather than the whole LP. In a message to the Peel Mailing List, Ken commented:

”Decktician's notes suggest the BBC documentation here is correct - which I used for my item on p80 of THE PEEL SESSIONS: Peel did not tear up his script and play no records but Mike Oldfield's, and, comparing the total needletime in this shows to others it looks like he did just play side 1, not the whole album as the myth has it. My calculations suggest he could not have got in all 49' of the album AND these other records Decktician clearly heard. The total duration of all music played here, including side one of Tubular Bells, comes to just over 100', leaving about 18' for all of Peel's links between 23 tracks, which for the mid 70s sounds about right to me.”[1]

• It may also be noted that the Gong track was actually the first Peel played from the initial batch of Virgin LP releases.

• Eight segments of the show were uploaded to YouTube in May 2012 by user RobEmbleton. These include the intro and outro to Tubular Bells and provide evidence that only Part One was played on the show.

• Tracks included in the recording are marked §.

Sessions

• Amon Duul II #1 First broadcast. Recorded 1973-05-05.
  • Released on Manana (CD, 2000, Strange Fruit).
• Jack The Lad #1 First broadcast. Recorded 1973-05-14.
  • No known commercial release.
• Boys Of The Lough #2 Repeat. First broadcast 13 March 1973. Recorded 1973-01-29.
  • No known official release.

Tracklisting

• Don Nix: Black Cat Moan (LP – Hobos, Heroes And Street Corner Clowns) Enterprise
• Amon Duul II: Manana (session)
• Boys Of The Lough: Shetland Wedding March (session)
• Faces: Around The Plynth (LP – The First Step) Warner Bros
• Jack The Lad: Boilermaker Blues (session) §
• Gong: Radio Gnome Invisible (LP – Flying Teapot (Radio Gnome Invisible Part 1)) Virgin
• Mott The Hoople: Drivin’ Sister (LP – Mott) CBS
• Amon Duul II: Green Bubble Raincoated Man (session)
• Country Joe & The Fish: Silver And Gold (LP – C.J. Fish) Vanguard
• Boys Of The Lough: Wee Croppy Tailor / Boy In The Gap / McMahons’ Reel (session) §
• Jack The Lad: One More Dance (session) §
• Tangerine Dream: Circulation Of Events (LP – Atem) Ohr
• Boys Of The Lough: Erin I Won’t Say Her Name / The Whinney Halls Of Leitrim / Joe Ryans Jig (session) §
• Amon Duul II: Dem Guten, Schonen Wahren (session)
• Jack The Lad: Rose Lee (session) §
• (JP: '...and this being the last Tuesday in the month is the last opportunity we have to celebrate Annette Funicello together...')
• Annette: Mister Piano Man (LP – Annette Funicello) Buena Vista
• (JP: '...and (that) was called Mister Piano Man, which seems like an appropriate thing to play before we hear Mike Oldfield's Tubular Bells, at least the first part of it, on which he plays... So, this is the first part of Mike Oldfield's rather remarkable Tubular Bells.')
• Mike Oldfield: Tubular Bells (Part One) (LP – Tubular Bells) Virgin
• (JP: 'I've been introducing Top Gear for six years now, but I think that that is certainly one of the most impressive LP's I've ever had the chance to play on the radio. Really a remarkable record from Mike Oldfield and one of the first releases on the new Virgin label. An incredible start for them certainly. It's called Tubular Bells, and that was Part One. ... a remarkable record, and we'll try to play the second side of that in a week or so.)
• Linda Jones: Your Precious Love (LP – Your Precious Love) Turbo
• Amon Duul II: The Trap (session)
• Boys Of The Lough: Flowers Of The Forest (session) §
• (JP: '...and the last now from Jack The Lad. It's called Draught Genius ... I said Genius')
• Jack The Lad: Draught Genius (session) §

File

Name

• Top Gear 1973-05-29 (edited extracts).mp3

Length

• 00:31:34

Other

• Thank-you to YouTube user RobEmbleton for making the file available

Available

• [2]

Footnotes