“I don’t think there’s ever been such a rush towards insignificance in the name of the historical future as we’ve seen in the last 15 years.” — Robert Hughes concluding his TV series The Shock of the New in 1980
➢ War: the 20th-century way to build a new world — Robert Hughes laments the effects of war in The Shock of The New
Judi at Spandau’s 1981 Sundown show, pictured by Shapersofthe80s
David Bowie spotted Steve Strange, of 1980s group Visage, wearing one of Judith Frankland’s creations, a black wedding dress, and asked if he could use it in his video. Judi says now: “Steve and I became firm friends. The Blitz was the place to be seen. It wasn’t big and could only hold 200 people, but you could never be too outrageous and only the wildly dressed got in. Those who stood around never met anyone… I can’t remember going to *meet* men in the Blitz. In purple, black and white make-up you felt like death anyway.”
✱ James Edward Quaintance III, better known to his friends as Jimmy Q, is the leader of the tattooed male model brigade. i-D online captures the Venice Beach born model-skater stalking the streets of East London, where Andrea Vecchiato snaps an almost masonic single shin-show down at ground level. Watch for this fashion forward detail appearing on a street near you
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✱ “The latest Trash Fashion issue of Dazed & Confused explodes with new fashion director Robbie Spencer’s Trash & Burn manifesto”
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✱ i-D 325 The Time Is Now Issue gives one of its May covers to Sudanese supermodel raised in Kansas City, Grace Bol, here photographed by William Baker. Other options feature 19-year-old American model Lily McMenamy, Xiao Wen Ju and The Great Gatsby
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✱ Another happy Hadley-Kemp reunion! As part on the ongoing 30th anniversary True celebrations, Tony and Gary are taking part in a special acoustic show and Q&A session about the album. On June 20 at the BBC Maida Vale Studios in London the duo are performing as part the Radio 4 Mastertapes series. Click link to attend
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✱ A new show Sundays at 7pm (BST) on Absolute 80s radio – presented by Matthew Rudd, Forgotten 80s features the best under the radar hits of the decade
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✱ The “Face of 68” supergroup guitarist and songwriter Peter Frampton follows his album Thank You Mr Churchill with a rare UK concert at London’s Camden Roundhouse on Nov 5. Tickets at kililive
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✱ “If it moves, funk it.” Catch the global webcast weekly, more than 150 shows since the re-launch of Jazz FM in October 2008 — Robbie Vincent’s Essential Rhythms from the pioneering 70s & 80s deejay every Sunday 10am–1pm BST... This Sunday the new George Duke album has the only track completed for a Teena Marie jazz album, plus others from the new Duke album called Dreamweaver ... Retune digital radios in the UK to find National Jazzfm on radio & on TV or listen
live online and later on demand at Jazzfm.com ... Shapersofthe80s tells how Robbie influenced the shape of British musical taste in his 35 years as master of hot cuts
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✱ The two big UK Rewind Festivals unite 24 acts at Rewind in Perth (July 26–28) ... and another 24 acts for Rewind at Henley-on-Thames (Aug 16–18)
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✱ Remake Remodel claims to be “The Nation’s Saving Grace of Alternative, Rock’n’Roll” — pure indie every Monday at South nightclub, Manchester M2 6DQ ... Every Tuesday Student House pushes cutting-edge house music through South’s renowned Funktion One sound system
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✱ Blacklight every Weds, Stonelove every Sat at Factory251 – house, RnB, hiphop, Rock n Roll, Soul and indie disko over three floors designed by Ben Kelly ... At Princess St Manchester, a programme of clubnights and live bands
◆ Until Sept 1, New York’s Whitney Museum is showing a video installation entitled The Jugglers (below) by David Hockney, shot by 18 HD video cameras and screened in one mighty panorama... Hockney spent last summer on the country roads of Yorkshire videoing more of the eye-popping series of “cubistic” multi-screen movies that concluded his Royal Academy show in London — and which he proposed to Shapersofthe80s in his 1983 landmark interview when he revealed “Suddenly I see cubism differently, more clearly”. Read it inside, along with his latest adventures on an iPad
✱ After 2010’s Grammy Award winning Soldier Of Love LP, Sade went on to release The Ultimate Collection. The 29 tracks on two CDs included three new numbers, plus a version of Moon & The Sky featuring Jay-Z . . . In 2011 the band won a Grammy award for Best R&B Performance By A Group for the track Soldier Of Love
✱ 2010 — Shapersofthe80s finds comeback Shard comfy as ‘Auntie Sade’
✱ 1981 — Pix of Sade’s Demob designs during the first Blitz invasion of the US
✱ 1982 — Pix of Sade helping backstage during Steve Strange’s fashion show in Paris
➢ 1980, Three key men in Boy George’s life
➢ 2010, Ex-Blitz Kids give their verdicts on the TV drama Worried About the Boy (pictured)
➢ 1979 — Unbelievable! The voice of sweet reason in George’s TV debut
➢ 2010, Ex-jailbird George takes his first trancey steps on the path to sainthood
➢ June 14, 2011, Boy George celebrates the big Five-0 and tells the world, yes, finally he has “lots of regrets” ...
◆ Tony Hadley at Facebook: “My wife and I are pleased to announce the safe arrival of our beautiful baby daughter born on February 6, 2012” ... But for Spandau, Tony dropped another bombshell on ITV’s Loose Women on May 16
◆ Shapersofthe80s tells the story of Spandau Ballet’s comeback tour after two decades apart — Videos, interviews, free downloads, links and background articles from the 2009-10 Reformation tour ... That’s all folks, possibly for ever
◆ Story behind the making of Spandau’s Olympic Gold, remixed by deejay Paul Oakenfold and turned into a slick vid
✱ 30 years ago the 80s supergroup’s debut single Planet Earth peaked at No 12 in the UK chart . . . Shapersofthe80s tells how Duran’s road to stardom began in the Studio 54 of Birmingham, UK, in 1980
✱ Catch up on 2011: Highlights of Duran’s round-the-world adventure ... and DD’s delayed return to the UK ... Plus ten killer videos other people made as tributes
to Duran’s return to creativity
➢ How three wizards met at the same crossroad in time — a brief scene-setter on the forces shaping the Swinging Eighties
➢ 1980, Strange days, strange nights, strange people: at The Blitz a decade dawns
➢ 1980, One week in the private worlds of the new young: London blazes with creativity
➢ 1980, Shapersofthe80s tells how Duran Duran’s road to stardom began in the Studio 54 of Birmingham, UK
➢ 1981, Birth of Duran’s Planet Earth ... when other people’s faith put the Brummies into the charts
➢ 1983, The Making of UK Club Culture — definitive Face cover story seen here in the Wham Rap! video
➢ 1976–1984, How creative clubbing started and ended with the 80s
➢ 2010, Comeback Shard comfy as ‘Auntie Sade’
➢ 2009, Onstage, Spandau’s Hadley and Kemp finally get huggy: a mighty Reformation
➢ 40 years since “I picked on you-oo-oo”! July 6, 1972 saw the seminal pop moment — David Bowie’s first appearance on Top of the Pops as Ziggy Stardust, the day he created the next generation of popstar wannabes
✧ ... except of course everybody claims they were the first
✧ Steve Strange remains the forlorn Lost Boy of pop after falling out with Rusty Egan and Midge Ure over use of the 80s band name Visage ... Follow Steve’s daydreams at Facebook: Steve “Visage” Strange
✧ Blitz Club co-host and deejay Rusty Egan still going strong
✧ Follow the adventures of an international deejay at The fabulous World of Princess Julia
✧ Judith “frankly” Frankland blogging at The Swelle Life
✧ Boy George dates and official news
✧ The World of Animal Nightlife
✧ Gary Kemp blogs on his own website
✧ Danilo Monzillo’s exhaustive Blitz Kids compendium
✧ The official line on Duran Duran
✧ New Romantics on video
✧ Landmark pop videos from the 80s and all crucial points before — on the Shapersofthe80s channel at YouTube 
✦ READ this QR Code with your mobile, or CLICK HERE to visit a different random post at Shapersofthe80s every time you click
❖ Welcome to our latest visitors from 198 countries and dependencies — not forgetting our visitor in the world’s southernmost city, Ushuaia in Tierra del Fuego, Argentina (54°48′S, 68°18′W), only a smidgeon further south than our readers in Río Grande and Punta Arenas... Our northernmost visitor lives at Hammerfest in Norway (70°39′N, 23°40′E), a nudge nearer the Pole than others in Finnmark, and at Murmansk in Russia (68°58′N, 33°05′E). A special Hello to our one visitor in Greenland!
