Anyone who knows punk history in the U.K. is doubtless familiar with So It Goes, Tony Wilson’s remarkable program on the Granada network that provided so many vital punk bands, including the Sex Pistols and Siouxsie and the Banshees, with their first TV exposure. The sheer volume of terrific live footage that appeared on the program is mind-boggling, including virtually every prominent British act of the era, as well as a good number from the United States. Wilson obviously went on to found the Hacienda nightclub in Manchester and was one of the key figures in the inception of Factory Records. In the movie 24 Hour Party People, Steve Coogan, playing Wilson, inhabits a re-creation of the So It Goes set. (In addition to being portrayed by Coogan in 24 Hour Party People, Craig Parkinson also played him in Anton Corbijn’s 2007 film Control.)

In this whimsical and brief clip from what must have been the final episode of the show or close to it—Wilson says “Happy Christmas” and the last full show aired on December 11, 1977, so this may have been tacked on to that final show? In any case, this clip seems to be a mashup of two clips, one with the punk poet John Cooper Clarke and the other featuring Tony Wilson’s curious “countdown” of the top punk acts to enhance So It Goes in 1977.
 

 
The title of this video is “Granada so it goes reverse TOTP countdown 1977” which manages to set up the “countdown” as a vague alternative to Top of the Pops, which is fairly plausible. Watching it, it’s hardly clear what the 1-32 ranking is supposed to mean, and the positioning of the Clash as the #32 and last entry suggests that further down the list meant “better,” insofar as it meant anything.

If nothing else, the list (aside from a couple of puzzling entries like “Sooty”) isn’t a bad starting point for an exploration of the galvanizing U.K. music of 1977 and beyond. 
 

1. Van Morrison
2. Buzzcocks
3. John Cooper Clarke
4. Elvis Costello
5. Penetration
6. John Otway & Wild Willy Barrett
7. Alberto Y Los Trios Paranoias
8. Nick Lowe
9. Iggy Pop
10. The Movies
11. Roy Hill
12. Tom Robinson Band
13. The Stranglers
14. Johnny Thunders & the Heartbreakers
15. Free
16. Mink DeVille
17. Sad Café
18. John Dowie
19. The Jam
20. Muddy Waters
21. Poly Styrene
22. XTC
23. The Pirates
24. Siouxsie & the Banshees
25. The Dregs
26. Sex Pistols
27. Dave Edmunds
28. Magazine
29. Sooty
30. Steel Pulse
31. Ian Dury
32. The Clash

 
If you’d like to see the live Clash clip that gets cut off at the end, I think it might be this “embedding-disabled” clip.

 
I miss Tony Wilson. I miss the idea of Tony Wilson. Someone who had an enquiring mind and was full of intelligent enthusiasms, like Tony Wilson. And who also didn’t mind making a prat of himself when he got things wrong. Or, even right.

I met him in 2005 for a TV interview. He arrived on a summer’s day at a small studio in West London. He wore a linen suit, sandals, carried a briefcase, and his toenails were painted a rich plum color - his wife had painted them the night before, he said.

Wilson was clever, inspired and passionate about music. He talked about his latest signing, a rap band, and his plans for In the City music festival before we moved onto the Q&A in front of a camera. He could talk for England, but he was always interested in what other people were doing, what they thought, and was always always encouraging others to be their best. That’s what I miss.

You get more than an idea of that Tony Wilson in this compilation of the best of his regional tea-time TV series So It Goes. Wilson (along with Janet Street-Porter) championed Punk Rock on TV, and here he picks a Premier Division of talent:

Sex Pistols, Elvis Costello, Buzzcocks, John Cooper Clarke, Iggy Pop, Wreckless Eric, Ian Dury, Penetration, Blondie, Fall, Jam, Jordan, Devo, Tom Robinson Band, Johnny Thunder, Elvis Costello, XTC, Jonathan Richman, Nick Lowe, Siouxie & the Banshees, Cherry Vanilla & Magazine….. The tape fails there!

The uploader ConcreteBarge has left in the adverts “for historical reference” that include - “TSB, Once, Cluster, Coke is it, Roger Daltery in American Express, Ulay, Swan, Our Price, Gastrils, Cluster & Prestige”.

So, let’s get in the time machine and travel back for an hour of TV fun.
 

 
Previously on Dangerous Minds

The Best of ‘So It Goes’: Clash, Sex Pistols, Iggy The Fall, Joy Division and more

 
With thanks to Daniel Ceci
 

 
This Channel 4 UK program from the mid-80s compiles some incredible performances culled from Tony Wilson’s late 70s Granada TV series, So It Goes. Includes the Sex Pistols, The Clash, Buzzcocks, Iggy Pop (with horsetail sticking out of his ass and saying “fucking” on 70s TV), The Fall, The Jam, Elvis Costello, Blondie, Penetration, Wreckless Eric, Ian Dury, Tom Robinson, Magazine, John Cooper Clarke, XTC, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Sham 69 and ending with the classic clip of Joy Division performing “Shadow Play.” Many of the groups represented here were making their TV debuts on So It Goes, a regional tea-time program.