TOTP

Top Of The Pops, the Brit music show, will make its last broadcast soon. The Guardian interviewed musicians that played on the show. The following is from Paul Ryder, bassist for the Happy Mondays.

When we played Hallelujah in 1989, we never realised that us and the Stone Roses appearing on the same Top Of The Pops would become a seminal moment. But I do remember getting back to Manchester and people telling us all the bars had set up screens specially to watch it, so it was a big deal. I'd wanted to be on Top Of The Pops ever since I was eight and saw David Bowie performing Starman with a blue acoustic guitar. I remember bumping into Tina Turner. We'd been given £1,000 each by the record company to buy new clothes; I spent £300 and pocketed the rest. I think everyone was heavily "sedated". I vividly remember being sat in the BBC garden and Shaun [Ryder] and Ian [Brown] were chuckling, plotting to swap drummers. I think the BBC rumbled it.