BBC – ➢➢ Shapers of the 80s ➣➣ (original) (raw)
Category Archives: BBC
➤ Captured in 1983: the Westwood-McLaren showdown
Over two weeks I watched fashion gurus Westwood
and McLaren go their separate ways. Daggers-drawn,
they both talked exclusively to the Evening Standard…
Mine were the final pix of them together
Their last dance, Paris 1983… Westwood says: “Malcolm has one more chance to be good.” McLaren says: “I’m not incapable of designing the next collection myself.” Photographed © by Shapersofthe80s
First published in the Evening Standard, 4 Nov 1983
➢ Obituary for Dame Vivienne Westwood 1941-2022 at The Guardian
➢ BBC’s in-depth tribute to Vivienne – the godmother of punk
Posted in BBC, Fashion, History, interviews, journalism, London, obituaries, Paris, Pop music, Swinging 80s, Tributes, Youth culture
Tagged Evening Standard, Malcolm McLaren, The Face, Vivienne Westwood, Worlds End
➤ Duran reveal secrets behind their songs
Primed for action in 2021: Roger, John, Simon and Nick
15 APRIL UPDATE: These Duran40 shows were originally planned for broadcast in April. They are now planned for broadcast on Radio 2 at 9pm on Saturday 8 & 15 May.
40
YEARS
ON
❚ NEXT MONTH Duran Duran talk in depth to super-fan Claudia Winkleman about their biggest hits and best-loved tracks, to celebrate 40 years together as a band. Each member of the group reveals secrets about the songs and Simon Le Bon gives a rare insight behind the lyrics that he has penned. The guys take us through their catalogue along with chat from Mark Ronson, Nile Rodgers and more. Tune into BBC Radio 2 on Saturday 8 May at 9pm and again Saturday 15th for another hour’s worth.
Duran Duran was formed in Birmingham by keyboardist Nick Rhodes and bassist John Taylor in 1978 and in 1980 happily joined the New Romantic Scene. The group have sold over 100 million records and have had over 14 singles in the UK Top 10. They recently dropped a tribute cover of David Bowie’s Five Years with Mike Garson on piano, none of them looking a day over whateva.
LIVE SHOWS THIS AUTUMN
➢ Duran Duran’s show at Scarborough Open Air Theatre has been rescheduled to Friday 17 September 2021. Original tickets remain valid for the new date and final tickets are on sale now.
➢ Duran Duran’s show at the Isle of Wight Festival has now been rescheduled to Sunday 19 September 2021. Tickets are on sale now. All existing tickets will remain valid for September so please keep hold of them. If you cannot make the new dates please contact your ticket provider for a refund.
Posted in 40th anniversary, BBC, Concert, interviews, live music, Pop music
Tagged Claudia Winkleman, Duran Duran, Isle of Wight Festival, Mark Ronson, Nile Rodgers, Planet Earth, Radio2, Scarborough Open Air Theatre, Simon Le Bon
2001 ➤ Blitz Kids nail the rites for a Tuesday night out
Before the phrase New Romantics had been invented: Blitz Kids queue for Spandau Ballet’s second pivotal concert at the Scala Cinema in May 1980
20 & 40
YEARS
ON
❚ BBC4 REMINDED UK AUDIENCES this week how entertaining were many of the Blitz Kids who set the New Romantics ball rolling 40 years ago. When the documentary The New Romantics: A Fine Romance was made in 2001, these talking heads were of course 20 years younger than they are today and full of fizz.
However BBC Manchester fell for some faulty memories that had gelled into mythological “truths” to create several laugh-out-loud howlers in the voice-over script as the price of believing odd Blitz Kid fantasies. Another irritation, amid much classic vintage footage, was the repeated montaging of film footage irrelevant to the Blitz club-night run by gender-bending Steve Strange and electro-deejay Rusty Egan, mainly because no more than about 11 minutes of live footage inside the Tuesday-night Blitz exist, and only one of which was used in this doc. That’s history for you. Set in video.
At least we can enjoy the many gnomic quips tossed out by the stars of 1980’s clubworld during the 48-minutes of A Fine Romance…
St Martin’s designer Fiona Dealey on the New Romantic credo: “Dressing for the Blitz was REAL THEATRE. It wasn’t just another uniform.”
Blitz Kid Stephen Linard’s trade secret: “Make-up was the big thing: make-up and Elnett. We used to get our make-up DONE FOR NOTHING down at Selfridges at half-past five and the girls there would do a makeover on you.”
Steve Strange on the term New Romantics: “I’d rather call it THE CULT WITH NO NAME, because the papers can never put one finger on it.”
Rusty Egan on gender confusion at the Blitz: “By the end of the night you’d hope to go home with someone – same sex, opposite sex, NO SEX AT ALL, you were never quite sure.”
Spandau manager Steve Dagger on their music: “Over the period 78-79 in the rehearsal studio the band gradually changed from a rock-pop sound to a modern SYNTHESISED TYPE DANCE SOUND.”
Duran’s Nick Rhodes on first seeing Spandau Ballet live in Birmingham in 1980: “We saw them play at the Botanical Gardens and when we left we were smiling. We just said: WHAT’S THAT ABOUT?”
Happy even to work “New Romantic” into their lyrics: frilly Duran Duran’s debut on Top of the Pops in March 1981
“Boy” George O’Dowd: “Duran Duran brought the FRILLY SHIRT through to the masses.”
Gary Kemp on shooting Spandau Ballet’s video for Chant No 1 at the Beat Route club in 1981: “That was our LAST HOORAH – Spandau being part of this movement.”
Spandau manager Steve Dagger on the early 80s: “There was this COLOURFUL BANG which revitalised pop culture and fashion and London as a swinging city.”
Robert Elms on the clubbing revolution initiated by the Blitz Kids: “It introduced one-off nightclubs, warehouse parties, the deejay as the centre of attention, clubs where they tell you you can’t come in UNLESS YOU LOOK RIGHT. None of that had existed before.”
George O’Dowd speaking as an old Boy: “Strange and Egan were the gruesome twosome of the time – the HINGE AND BRACKET of New Romanticism.”
➢ View A Fine Romance (BBC Manchester 2001, last shown 2015, on iPlayer now for another month)
Posted in anniversary, BBC, Blitz Kids, interviews, London, New Romantics, Pop music, Reviews, Swinging 80s, TV documentary, Youth culture
Tagged A Fine Romance, Blitz club, Duran Duran, Rusty Egan, Spandau Ballet, Steve Strange
➤ Second time unlucky as fire ravages former Camden Palace nightspot
Koko nightclub ablaze last night: 60 firefighters extinguished the flames within five hours
◼ TWICE IN 40 YEARS Camden Town’s most renowned theatre has been set ablaze. Last night the 119-year-old former Royal Camden Theatre, currently known as the nightclub Koko, burst into flames at about 9pm during the course of renovation work. Video footage showed giant flames devouring its historic copper dome. London Fire Brigade reported 30% of the roof to be alight and despatched eight fire engines and 60 firefighters to tackle the inferno.
The venue was also damaged by fire during its last gasp as the post-punk Music Machine, soon after a Theatre of Hate gig in December 1980. Subsequent restoration saw it reopen in 1982 renamed the Camden Palace as Steve Strange and Rusty Egan made this the flagship for their New Romantic movement when they took it mainstream. Madonna played her first London date there by Rusty’s invitation.
Click any pic below to enlarge all in a slideshow
Koko’s gloriously baroque interior: an intimate space for live music
The Royal Camden Theatre in 1901: crowned by eight statues of classical figures around the dome
Madonna at Koko in 2005: revisiting the stage where she made her London debut. (Photo: Getty)
The rave scene saw Camden Palace through its second decade until it closed in 2004. Koko emerged after major refurbishment of its richly ornate interior by new owners who established a cool reputation for live music and with clubbing capacity for 1,500 people. However during further refurbishment in September 2018 surveyors deemed the building unsafe so the venue was forced to close.
Theatre historian Matthew Lloyd reports: “As of 2017 the theatre was to undergo a full restoration, including the replacement of the cupola on the roof. The Hope and Anchor at the back of the theatre was projected to become a boutique hotel at the same time, and would be a part of the whole complex, including a restaurant on the roof.” This £40-million state-of-the-art redevelopment was scheduled to finish in April this year but the latest fire is likely to impose a delay.
Opened in 1900 by the celebrated actress Ellen Terry, the theatre has enjoyed a dozen or so reincarnations as playhouse, music-hall and until 1940 as the Hippodrome and Gaumont cinemas. In 1945 the BBC revived the Camden Theatre name as its studio for recording variety shows and most famously The Goon Show (1951-60), starring Spike Milligan, Harry Secombe and Peter Sellers. Their Last Goon Show of All was recorded for radio and television at the studio in 1972, the year the building was awarded a Grade II listing. It had lain empty for several years and faced demolition, so the listing at least postponed that fate. English Heritage drew attention to the original architecture by W.G.R. Sprague, celebrated for his many West End theatres: a pillared façade “in baroque pastiche style”, and cantilevered dress circle and balcony with plaster work by Waring & Gillow in a mixture of baroque and rococo ornament.
Let’s hope Koko’s owners can wave a wand to revive the lustre of this iconic play-place.
POSTSCRIPT IN THE TIMES
➢ Another iconic building wrecked by fire during renovations – Richard Morrison in The Times’s arts column writes on 10 Jan 2020:
“ It’s striking how often historic buildings go up in smoke when there is renovation work happening, as there was at Koko… Recent examples are the 2018 fire that ripped through Charles Rennie Mackintosh’s superb Glasgow School of Art building as a £36-million restoration was being completed after a fire in 2014. Incredulous MSPs of all parties asked a series of questions that mostly cannot be answered… And the fire that devastated Note-Dame in Paris… rebuilding doesn’t appear to be going smoothly either… ”/ Continued online
Steve Strange in 1982: invariably being filmed at Camden Palace
➢ Previously at Shapers of the 80s: 1983, Posing with a purpose at the Camden Palace
Posted in Architecture, BBC, cinema, Clubbing, Heritage award, History, live music, London, New Romantics, renovation, rock music, theatre
Tagged BBC radio, blaze, Camden Palace, Camden Theatre, Goon Show, Grade II listing, Hippodrome, Koko, Matthew Lloyd, Music Machine, Rusty Egan, Steve Strange, WGR Sprague
35 years since Band Aid’s monster Christmas single and the 80s ceased to swing
The Band Aid band, Nov 25, 1984: most of the pop stars who performed, plus artist Peter Blake who created the record sleeve for Do They Know It’s Christmas?
◼︎ TODAY WAS THE DAY IN 1984 THEY RECORDED the song that became, for 13 years, the biggest selling UK single of all time. Do They Know It’s Christmas was released four days later, stayed at No 1 for five weeks, sold over three million copies and raised significant funds for famine relief in Africa. The project lead naturally the next year to Live Aid, the biggest globally televised rock concerts ever, viewed by two billion people in 60 countries, who coughed up still more dollars…/ Continued inside
Posted in Africa, BBC, Economics, History, London, Pop music, singles, Social trends, Swinging 80s, TV documentary, zeitgeist
Tagged Band Aid, Bob Geldof, Do They Know It’s Christmas?, Gary Kemp, Live Aid, Michael Buerk, Midge Ure, Reviews, Swinging 80s, Video