➢➢ Shapers of the 80s ➣➣ (original) (raw)
WELCOME ➤ TO THE SWINGING EIGHTIES
In 1980 a youth movement began reshaping Britain.
Its stars didn’t call themselves New Romantics, or the Blitz Kids – but other people did. This writer was there and these words and pictures tell the tale.
◼︎ As a decade, the 1970s spelt doom. British youth culture had been discredited by punk. A monumental recession followed the Labour government’s “winter of discontent”, threatening the prospect of no jobs for years ahead.
Yet from this black hole burst an optimistic movement the press dubbed the New Romantics, based on a London club called the Blitz. Its deejay Rusty Egan promoted the deliberately un-rock sounds of synthesised electro-pop with a beat created for the dancefloor, while drumming in a studio seven-piece called Visage, fronted by the ultimate poser, Steve Strange. He and other fashionista Blitz Kids were picked by Bowie to represent their movement in his 1980 video for Ashes to Ashes (above). But the live band who broke all the industry rules were five dandies with a preposterous name: Spandau Ballet.
As the last of the Baby Boomers, the Blitz Kids were concerned with much more than music. In 1980 they shook off teenage doubt to express all those talents the later Generation X would have to live up to — leadership, adaptability, negotiating skills, focus. Children of the first era of mass TV, these can-doers excelled especially in visual awareness. They were the vanguard for a self-confident new class who were ready to enjoy the personal liberty and social mobility heralded by their parents in the 60s.
For Britain, the Swinging 80s were a tumultuous period of social change when the young wrested many levers of power away from the over-40s. London became a creative powerhouse and its pop music and street fashion the toast of world capitals. All because a vast dance underground had been gagging for a very sociable revolution.
★++++++★++++++★
“From now on, this will become the official history” – Verdict of a former Blitz Kid
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❏ Below: View Blitz Club host Steve Strange in all his poser glory in the promo video for Fade to Grey (1982), also starring the club’s cloakroom girl, Julia Fodor, aka Princess
➢ CLICK HERE to run the anthemic 80s video ♫ ♫ from Spandau Ballet and feel the chant:
July 2, 1981: Shooting the video for Chant No 1 at Le Beat Route club in Soho, “down, down, pass the Talk of the Town”. Photograph © by Shapersofthe80s
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Posted in art, Chronology, Clubbing, Culture, Fashion, History, journalism, London, Media, New Romantics, photography, Pop music, Social trends, Swinging 80s, Tipping points, videos, Youth culture, zeitgeist
Tagged Ashes to Ashes, Blitz Kids, David Bowie, Julia Fodor, Rusty Egan, Spandau Ballet, Steve Strange, Visage
2024 ➤ Andy Polaris reminds us of Quincy Jones’s legacy as a titan of 20th-century showbiz
1984: Quincy Jones with Michael Jackson at the 1984 Grammy Awards, where they won eight
❚ The cross-cultural pioneer Quincy Jones died this week aged 91 in Los Angeles. In tribute, we republish Andy Polaris’s appreciation of his genius when he brought a huge orchestra to London’s O2 arena on 25 Jun 2019…
Excerpt from the review at the Polaris music blog: Quincy Jones Jr is a titan of 20th-century entertainment whose creative talent has spanned decades as composer, multi-instrumentalist, singer-songwriter, arranger, producer and publisher. He has received the most Grammy nominations, a staggering 80, and won 28, plus seven Oscar nominations, and a Jean Hersholt Humanitarian award in 1996 amongst other industry accolades. He has worked with superstars from Aretha Franklin, Frank Sinatra, Count Basie, Miles Davis, Dizzy Gillespie to Michael Jackson. In 2018 a Netflix film Quincy won the Critics Choice Documentary award.
As a teenage prodigy Quincy Jones had been tutored by Ray Charles and mentored by Count Basie, by 19 was touring Europe with Lionel Hampton for three years, at 24 studied at the feet of the godlike Nadia Boulanger in the American School at Fontainebleau, and soon after became a troubleshooting vice-president for Philips Records of Holland.
This week [_in 2019_] sees the 10th anniversary of Michael Jackson’s death and despite the controversy and those clamouring on social media to cancel his music, the audience at this O2 concert showed that, whatever your feelings, it’s nigh on impossible to crush the joyous memories and mood of his repertoire. In addition, we were treated to the formidable playlist of our youth unfolding before our ears thanks to the savvy musicianship of the band and huge orchestra, which even included a harp, all conducted and hosted by Jules Buckley… / Review continued at Apolarisview
2024 ➤ Original outlaws celebrate their blasts from the past
Outlaws: superb gallery of the exhibition – Photos at Facebook © Franceska
❚ HERE’S A REVIEW OF THE NEW OUTLAWS SHOW, written by Franceska Luther King at Facebook yesterday…
<< Fabulous night at the private view of Outlaws: Fashion Renegades of 80s London at the Fashion and Textile Museum on Thursday evening. Curated by the amazing Martin Green and James Lawler and NJ Stevenson with amazing mannequins by David Cabaret. It was a very special night, a gathering of all the fashion crowd from the mid 80s, celebrating club culture and true creativity. Such good times!!!
So great to be included with a piece of my collection for Joseph back in the day, silk sari shirts. Post Demob designs and after my backing with Tanya Sarne and Jane Whiteside, I ventured on with my own collections sold to Jones, Whistles , Brown’s etc then my own little retail outlet in Kensington Market. So great to see all the familiar faces and see beautiful blasts from the past.
40 years later! And so sad that we have already lost so many… Great to see Joan Burey, Corinne Drewery, Greg Davis, John Richmond, Sue Tilley, Eve Ferret, Mark Moore, DarlaJane Gilroy, Simon Reeves, Daniel Conway, Derek Ridgers, David Johnson, Andrew Logan, Hamish Bowles, Sophie Parkin, Dean Bright, Tolan Hüseyin-Halleck, Paul Gorman, Robert Leach, Vivienne Austin, Richard Kaby.
Amazing clothes by Richard Torry, Rachel Auburn, BodyMap, Pam Hogg, Elmaz Huseyin, Sue Came, English Eccentrics, John Galliano, Katharine Hamnett, Kahn & Bell, Whittiker Malem, Dean Bright, Judy Blame, John Moore, Christopher Nemeth, Mark & Syrie, Leigh Bowery, John Crancher, Franceska King and many more! >>
➢ Click through to Facebook to see all 18 images in Franceska’s Outlaws post
Outlaws: true creativity and amazing mannequins – Photo © Franceska
➢ Visit Outlaws: Fashion Renegades of 80s London at the Fashion and Textile Museum
Posted in Blitz Kids, exhibitions, Fashion, influencers, London, New Romantics, Reviews, Swinging 80s, Youth culture, zeitgeist
Tagged David Cabaret, Fashion and Textile Museum, Franceska Luther King, James Lawler, Martin Green, NJ Stevenson, Outlaws
2024 ➤ Thrill to Amaze now in the West End
Be amazed: Jamie Allan exploiting high-tech illusions
❚ IN AUGUST WAS BOWLED OVER by an evening of 16 (I think!) fresh and original magical illusions under the title of Jamie Allan’s Amaze at London’s Marylebone theatre. This month it rightly transfers to the West End’s Criterion Theatre for a 47-show season. Declared “a master class in magic” by the Chicago Tribune, this superb live event thrills adults and kids alike as Allan blends state-of-the-art technology with timeless conjuring techniques, often involving members of the audience. In August he staged a baffling finale where he produced so many cards from nowhere to cover the stage’s floor, having removed his jacket so we could blatantly see there was nothing up anybody’s sleeves! I’ll be going again.
➢ Jamie Allan’s Amaze runs 18 Oct-23 Nov at the Criterion Theatre, London
Be amazed: magic for all the family
➢ Watch the Amaze trailer at Allan’s own website
2024 ➤ Chris Sullivan re-lives Blue Rondo’s second album at a Soho party
Click on image to treat yourself to this audio track at YouTube, Masked Moods (Long Version)
❚ MOST OF US have fond memories of Blue Rondo a la Turk, the seven-piece jazz/salsa band created by Chris Sullivan in 1981 and their first album Chewing the Fat, which I still consider the most original album of 1982. This yielded two chart singles, Me and Mr Sanchez and Klactoveesedstein. But after the band split and reformed as a trio named Blue Rondo who eventually released a second album in 1984, Bees Knees and Chicken Elbows, not many of us can recall many of its singles apart from Slipping Into Daylight.
Deep breath… Tonight Sullivan throws a party in Soho to celebrate this album’s re-issue by re-release by Cherry Red Records in a two-CD box, the second CD featuring Rondo’s previously unreleased tracks.
➢ Visit tonight’s party 9pm-1am at the Century club Soho, 63 Shaftesbury Avenue, London, W1
Rondo live, Jun 21, 1981: early try-out at a Chelmsford pub. Photography © by Shapersofthe80s
2024 ➤ Welcome to much unseen photography by Duran’s first lensman
❚ ANY FAN OF DURAN DURAN remembers the very first photographs of the band in 1980 as they finalised their line-up which was to win a recording contract by year’s end and secure their first chart hit with Planet Earth. The five musicians were young and handsome and while they emerged as lucky leaders of the New Romantic music and fashion movement based on Birmingham’s Rum Runner nightclub, so local teenager Paul Edmond learned the skills of photography by capturing their frilly shirts. These Pose Age outfits took inspiration from Jane Kahn and Patti Bell’s futurist boutique, but in those DIY days before stylists had been invented, it fell to Paul to inject a sense of cool nonchalance into his images of the budding pop stars as they too practised how best to look a camera in the eye.
Four decades later, after selling 100 million records, winning umpteen music awards, and being welcomed into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, Duran themselves revel in releasing new material and reworking the old, their latest album being Danse Macabre. How appropriate then that the photographic archive of Paul Edmond – which embraces a wider world of youth culture than only that of Duran – is being published this spring. A trio of books filling 200 A4 pages has been initiated by his sister Maggie K de Monde, herself an all-round song-writer and performer. Nick Rhodes makes a contribution. Advance orders for the £90 package are being invited by APS Books of Yorkshire, with delivery expected in June.
Tragically, Paul himself cannot share this poignant moment because he was killed in a road accident in 2015. He and I became great friends working on the monthly magazine New Sounds New Styles in 1981, for which he took an arresting cover picture of Jane Farrimond and the flamboyant Martin Degville, a pair of Brummie style leaders who both ended up in the band Sigue Sigue Sputnik.
➢ Previously at Shapersofthe80s: 1980, Out of the blue, Duran’s first gig pictured at the Rum Runner
➢ Previously at Shapersofthe80s: 1981, Birth of Duran’s Planet Earth
➢ Previously at Shapersofthe80s: 1981, New Sounds New Styles: Will it all be over by next week?
Posted in archive, Birmingham, book launch, Fashion, New Romantics, nightlife, photography, Pop music, Swinging 80s
Tagged APS Books, Duran Duran, Jane Farrimond, Jane Kahn, Maggie K de Monde, Martin Degville, Nick Rhodes, Patti Bell, Paul Edmond, Rum Runner