On a couple of occasions Mr. Cann have said that he played (or rather mimed) with Buggles on TV. Here's a couple of quotes from Warren:

Hans and I hit it off and immediately became good friends, I ended up involved in one of his projects and thus soon found myself on 'Top of The Pops' playing drums to 'Video Killed The Radio Star' by 'The Buggles'.
http://discog.info/ultravox-interview4.html

The pair had initially worked together via The Buggles, which resulted in the chart-topping ‘Video Killed The Radio Star’. "I just went along as a bod and played drums on Top Of The Pops for them! I played on ‘Living In The Plastic Age’."
http://www.mikedolbear.com/story.asp?StoryID=1841

But those TOTP appearances are now on YouTube and we can see on both of them not our drum hero but another one of the great New Wave drummers, Richard Burgess. Take a look:




So where's the truth? Did Warren really played with them? Maybe it was some other show?

You may find answers here:
http://www.ultravox.org.uk/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/10378/Video_Killed_The_Radio_Star#Post10378

Thanks, but no answer there, unfortunately. Stuff on Lisa Stansfield mightily outweights stuff on Warren. The thing is, I really want to know what's the deal, where did this info about Top of the Pops originated - it's important for my project. The suggestion that there might be another TOTP appearance of Video Killed... is right - there were four of them in all, the first is linked here, the 2nd and 3rd were the video and 4th was a Christmas show - but the Vox were in the USA then. You can check here: http://z6.invisionfree.com/popscene/index.php?showtopic=8918

And "Plastic Age" was only played (mimed) once.

So, no TOTP, I'm afraid. And on European TV shows Buggles played without the drummer.

Hey, wait a moment... "Space suits", Hans Zimmer... So was it Warren who hit the syndrums in the actual video for "Video Killed the Radio Star"?!

According to Warren, he did indeed mime drums to Video Killed The Radio Star on Top Of The Pops (27th September 1979). That is Hans playing synths in the promo' video.

Warren also played drums on Living In The Plastic Age in the studio, but didn't know if his playing ended-up on the final version. Given that Warren doesn't appear to be included in the album credits, presumably not.

Interesting connections from Video Killed The Radio Star are backing vocalists Linda Jardim (Allan), who also sang on Warren and Hans' Helden Spies album with Zaine Griff, and Debi Doss who, of course, sang on A Friend I Call Desire on the Ultravox Lament album.

Yes, with a bit of YouTubing it is revealed that the posted clip is indeed the Christmas edition


So the question is - did Warren edition survive? And if it did, why it's not reaired...



According to sleeve notes for The Age of Plastic, drums and percussion are by Downes, Burgess, Robinson. So Warren's takes were not used, I'm afraid (and very much regret as his contribution to that great album would've been fantastic).

The BBC are showing TOTP 1977 at the moment in a real-time re-run. This means that you'll see it at the end of September 2014 . . .