ASK MOJO

Let us bring clarity to your rock doubts and answer your musical questions.

I saw a 1995 Top Of The Pops performance of Oasis playing their hit Roll With It, when Liam Gallagher pretended to play the guitar and Noel sang. What are the other good examples of groups changing their line-ups to freak out TV viewers?

Andrew Pell, via e-mail

MOJO says: The does-not-compute factor has always been a rewarding phenomenon watching bands on TV. There are lots of good examples from Top Of The Pops: how can we forget John Peel miming Ray Jackson of Lindisfarne’s mandolin part when Rod Stewart played Maggie May in 1971? Other instances include a roadie standing in for Can guitarist Michael Karoli when they played 1976 hit I Want More; The Specials and The Beat switching bassists when they both appeared on a 1980 episode, and all of Squeeze swapping instruments when they did Up The Junction in 1979, with Glenn Tilbrook as singing drummer (The Stranglers did the same when they did No More Heroes on Dutch TV show TopPop in 1977, with Dave Greenfield starring as vocalist/bassist and Jet Black on guitar). And it may be a video, but a particular MOJO favourite is the clip for Status Quo’s Rockin’ All Over The World, when absent-in-Australia bassist Alan Lancaster was replaced by a strange life-sized puppet resembling Peter ‘Where Did You Go To My Lovely’ Sarstedt. Of course, we need to know your choices, please!