Pop Gear

An end-of-'64 round-up of fab numbers introduced by Jimmy Savile, sung one after another under conditions of extreme commercial duress, and bookended with Beatles clips. It's the moment when the Beat Boom has just been co-opted: each pancake-encrusted group pouts and plays to the camera, allowed only neutered movement and looking confused all round. For hipster and historian alike it's fascinating (The Four Pennies perform Leadbelly's Black Girl, which they've obviously just discovered for themselves; Tommy Quickly does a novelty version of early ska classic Humpty Dumpty; Eric Burdon looks menacing among the Christmas decorations; and Stevie Windwood is obviously under the age of consent). It also demonstrates to the rock fashionmonger of today the reactionary context from which those stilettoes and stretch pants really evolved.