Back to Bass
Host
Sally Bailey and Kam Kelly
Broadcast
HTV West (not networked), 24 June to 23 September 1999 (15 episodes)
Synopsis
Pop music quiz in a knockout format, in which sixteen teams of three competed to be the most knowledgeable.
Rounds included:
- Chain Gang: Each team was presented with pictures of four musicians and had to find three conections, between persons A and B, between persons B and C and between persons C and D. Thinking time was used to play one of two tracks, one had chain in its lyrics, but the other was Diana Ross' "Chain Reaction".
- Smartarse or Sucker: In basic terms, Call My Bluff for music. One team read out three statements, one of which was true, if the other team found it, ‘Smartarse’ was revealed, if not then ‘Sucker’.
- The Record Shop: Let’s wheel on a record shop rack and a pile of CD cases. The teams had to categorise them into pop, dance, soul and so on. There were bonus points for finding the one record for the bargain bucket, and also one of the disks had a track from it being played while the round was in progress – place that CD on the ‘Now Playing’ display on the front of the team’s desk for another bonus. This was always the last round before the commercial time-out, with the break used to count the scores, and the answers revealed afterwards.
- The Mixtape: Time to bring in regular guest Merle Weekes. She is a nightclub disk jockey and she would present multiple song mixes, the teams had to identify the tracks being played. This came off an audio tape in the final, but in earlier rounds, she did a live mixing session on twin decks.
- A quick-fire musical knowledge finale.
At the time, Kam and Sally were radio disk jockeys on GWR local radio in Bristol. For those of you wondering, they now present the weekday breakfast show on the other side of the Severn at Cardiff's Red Dragon FM.
