➤ Crucial leaders of the musical pack
SCROLL DOWN FOR AN
ABUNDANCE OF ♫ MUSIC LINKS
Duran Duran in 1981: first into the charts from Birmingham
YEP, THIS IS PRETTY MUCH HOW BRUMMIE BANDS LOOKED COMPARED WITH THE SUPER COOL OF LONDON POSERS LIKE RONDO, BELOW
Clubworld shapers Christos Tolera and Chris Sullivan: two faces of the seven-man Blue Rondo à la Turk who popularised Latin rhythms in 1981. Photographed for The Face by Mike Laye
➢ Click here to read the first feature about Blue Rondo from New Sounds New Styles
ON THE OTHER HAND, SOME WOULD SAY THE REAL COOL DUDES WERE WAY OUT IN ESSEX (ESSEX = HOME COUNTIES SAVVY) …
Depeche Mode 1980-81: Martin Gore (keyboards, guitar, vocals), Vince Clarke (keyboards, songwriter), Andrew Fletcher (keyboards), Dave Gahan (lead vocals)
THEN AGAIN, THE BOYS FROM BUSHEY (HERTFORDSHIRE = HOME COUNTIES SMART) BROUGHT ANOTHER KIND OF SUBURBAN COOL INTO TOWN…
Young Guns, Sep 1982: Wham! introduced Andrew Ridgeley and George Michael who put a new kind of Oh! into disco. During their four years together with Pepsi and Shirlie they sold 25million albums
WHILE THE DIEHARDS AMONG LONDON’S NIGHTLIFE ANIMALS WERE THE ONES WHO DROVE THE MUSIC OVERGROUND AND OUT OF CLUBLAND
Animal Nightlife’s lineup in 1982: the style-conscious London clubbers who became inspired by the emerging scene to form a group then persuaded Beat Route deejay Steve Lewis to manage them… Sadly, their first jazzish single Love Is Just The Great Pretender didn’t chart. It took three more singles and a slimmer five-piece before the band scored their first hit with Mr Solitaire. Here L–R, Steve Shanley, “Flid”, Chrysta Jones, Billy Chapman, Andy Polaris, Declan John Barclay, Leah Seresin, “Mac” and Paul Waller
THEN YET ANOTHER ST MARTIN’S CLOTHES DESIGNER DECIDES TO STEP ONSTAGE AS A SMOOTH OPERATOR
Sade’s debut with her own band in Aug 1983 at the Yow club, London, Paul Denman to the fore. By 2012 she is being hailed as “the most successful solo female artist Britain has ever produced”. Photographed © by Shapersofthe80s
NEVER FORGETTING THE GODLIKE PRESENCE
➢ HEAR ♫ THE MAN WHO …
Click image for an immaculate and possibly the most inspired rendering of The Man who Sold the World: David Bowie with the bizarre German punk Klaus Nomi as a backing singer during a performance on Saturday Night Live, Dec 15, 1979. Wearing red on the left is American performance artist, Joey Arias, who became a regular act at Club 57 in New York’s East Village. During 2013 this exquisite video itself and Bowie’s huge tubular costume have been chief highlights of the exhibition, Bowie Is, at the V&A in London
MORE BANDS TO COME …
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Deejay Rusty Egan’s set list for Return To The Blitz reunion party, Jan 15, 2011
❏ The Knife – Pass This On
❏ The Stooges – I Wanna Be Your Dog
❏ The Blue Nile – Headlights On The Parade
❏ The Human League – Being Boiled
❏ Tom Tom Club – Genius Of Love
❏ Kraftwerk – Neon Lights
❏ David Bowie – Sound+Vision
❏ Iggy Pop – Sister Midnight
❏ Kraftwerk – Trans Europe Express
❏ David Bowie – Fashion
❏ Gina X Performance – No GDM
❏ Simple Minds – Changeling
❏ Liaisons Dangereuses – Los Ninos Del Parque
❏ Blondie – Heart Of Glass
❏ Shock – R.E.R.B.
❏ Ultravox – Visions In Blue 2010
❏ ABC – Tears Are Not Enough
❏ Yoko Ono – Walking On Thin Ice
❏ Bryan Ferry – Let’s Stick Together (’88 remix)
❏ David Bowie – Ashes To Ashes
❏ David Bowie – Boys Keep Swinging
❏ Spandau Ballet – To Cut A Long Story Short (long mix)
❏ The Human League – The Sound Of The Crowd (12in mix)
❏ OMD – Enola Gay
❏ Soft Cell – Tainted Love (12in mix)
❏ The Cure – In Between Days
❏ Joy Division – She’s Lost Control
❏ Depeche Mode – See You
❏ Ultravox – Hiroshima Mon Amour
❏ Visage – Mind Of A Toy
❏ Duran Duran – Planet Earth (night version)
❏ Iggy Pop – The Passenger (12in version)
❏ The Associates – Club Country (12in version)
❏ David Bowie – Helden
❏ Kraftwerk – Das Model
❏ Visage – Fade to Grey (club mix)
➢ Click through to Steve Strange and Rusty Egan’s official website for The Blitz Club
MEANWHILE, ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE DANCEFLOOR GOTH WAS BEING INVENTED
Peter Murphy of Bauhaus, photographed for Smash Hits in 1981 © by Antoine Giacomoni
❚ ABSOLUTELY UNCONNECTED with the New Romantics, Bauhaus were a determinedly a post-punk rock four-piece band formed in Northampton in 1978, with chisel-jawed Peter Murphy as vocalist until they split in 1983. Named after the German Bauhaus design movement of the 1920s, their stance was distinctly arty which made them heroic leaders of what new-wave fans began to dub “alternative” music. Bauhaus’s debut single Bela Lugosi’s Dead (1979) won them a John Peel session in January 1980 which boosted their credentials. Bela gradually established itself as the goth-rock anthem by lurking in the indie charts for two years, before limited pop chart successes such as a cover of Ziggy Stardust (No 15 and hence Top of the Pops exposure in 1982) and other singles in lower positions, 1981–83. What constantly eluded the commercial music business was Bauhaus’s pole position as the cult inspiration to everyone in the post-punk era who did not subscribe to the New Romantic electronics of the Duran and Depeche Mode camps. In any cool nightclub outside London, Bauhaus’s distinctively punk-glam-krautrock style drew a clear chalk line between the doomy dance faction and the rest who are often forced to share clubnights in the sticks. At first the music wasn’t called Goth, but eventually Bauhaus were acknowledged as originators of the genre, characterised by Murphy’s dark voice and the jagged guitar and dub bass of Daniel Ash and David J. By 1982 Murphy was annoying his bandmates by becoming equally famous in the TV commercials for Maxell cassette tapes, and they split after a fouth album. Bauhaus reunited again in 2005 for Coachella then toured North America and Europe.
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♫ MAKE YOUR OWN MUSIC
✱ Wolfram’s way to invent your own musical universe
✱ Ron’s online keyboard for creating sounds of the Eighties
✱ RSM composer tools for DIY musicians, commissioned by Culture Online for HM Govt
✱ Sound toys by audio visual artists
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EVEN MORE ♫ MUSICAL LINKS
✱ Absolute80s pop radio on Switch London in DAB or nationwide through digital TV channels Sky 0200, Virgin Media 951 and Freesat 726
✱ Pinglewood’s selected beats for the 20-tens
✱ Nopaininpop: new bands, producers, art, record label – oh yes, and parties
✱ Two Brit pop-slags scour the net daily to uncover the most up-to-the minute pop news
✱ Listen to London’s land-based pirate radio stations and download the Pirate Radio toolbar
✱ Peter Robinson exacting pop justice with attitude
✱ Pop news and reviews from Sean Adams in London W2
✱ Neo-80s electronica from Barcelona-based Oblique
✱ Echoes of the 80s attuned to 2010 ears at Pinglewood: Silk Flowers, Ashra, and Cashmere
✱ Free videos direct from artists across the music spectrum
✱ Compare radio stations to see who’s playlisting your favourite tune now
✱ If you liked that, you’ll like last.fm
✱ 3,000 free internet radio stations from Shoutcast
✱ The roots of world music
✱ All colours of music from Mondomix
✱ Juno, the world’s largest online dance music store
✱ The British Music Experience is a permanent exhibition in south-east London. It says: “Our purpose is to advance the education and appreciation of the art, history and science of music in Britain.” Wince. And it’ll cost you £15, now reduced to £12, but still a ker-ching!
✱ A musical walk through the Biba store in 1975, plus soundtracks to other formative scenes
✱ Classic Cat is the catalogue of free downloads for the other world of music. Sample the Rite that shocked 20th-century ears in 1913
✱ Five minutes of Ravel in blues mode. Or is it Dada? Sonata for violin and piano in G major, from 1927, played by Duo Montefiore (JMC)
✱ Composer of the Week on the BBC iPlayer
✱ The Official UK Charts
✱ Shapersofthe80s videos at YouTube
Amazing site, love it, really takes you back to the good times – just a brief note to say the guy next to Klaus in the red outfit/hair in the SNL Bowie ’79 performance is none other than JOEY ARIAS (Wigstock, etc.)
Shapersofthe80s writes: Thanks for the extra detail, Gregg – much appreciated.