+++ ❚ JUST LISTEN TO THE POPSTAR AS SEER, Pulp’s singer Jarvis calling a grey wall heroic, “It says a lot, that wall, to me”, and calling himself “a workshy fop” who has never done a proper day’s work. This South Bank Show from 2007 [above] is compulsive. Just read the comments people have posted beneath it! Now Britain’s most prestigious publisher has asked pop’s national treasure to become its editor-at-large, a broad commissioning role similar to that filled by the 20th-century poet T S Eliot…
❏ Home to 12 Nobel laureates and six Booker prize winners, venerable publisher Faber & Faber is now looking to bring a little Britpop magic to its list after hiring Pulp frontman Jarvis Cocker as its new editor-at-large. The appointment will see Cocker given an open brief to acquire books for a small list at Faber from January 2012.
“Jarvis felt like a natural fit with the Faber sensibility, both as author and editor, and I’m sure the small list of books he will develop will represent his eccentric and yet popular touch,” said publishing director Lee Brackstone. “We now have an excellent portfolio of authors from the pop world and our intention is to develop these relationships and continue to build a reputation as the home for exciting and original writing on music.”
Sullivan and Smith at last night's exhibition: man in the middle is king of the posers and Blitz Club host, Steve Strange. Photography by Shapersofthe80s
❚ THE HEROES SHOW IS ON THE ROAD. As of last night the Smith/Sullivan definitive history of 80s clubbing We Can Be Heroes had raised 36% of its “crowd-funding” target required to ensure publication goes ahead. Hence last night’s selling exhibition of Graham Smith’s photography from 30 years ago, most of which has never been seen. His family and friends joined the slebs at the party (video below) hosted by Inside Events in Notting Hill.
Smith said his favourite image on sale last night was on the cover of the book: showing Blitz Kids Clare Thom and a scene-stealing George O’Dowd claiming centre stage by gesturing with both hands and competely masking the face of the second girl beside him, designer Michele Clapton. (Prints are priced from £150 to £450 according to size — inquire by mailing to grsmith [@] mac.com)
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Smith was in the thick of the New Romantic underground taking photos as London nightclubbing revolutionised British pop music and made stars out of Boy George, Sade, Spandau Ballet and scores more new bands. Sullivan was a key player as stylist, host of Soho’s infamous Wag club for 19 years and leader of Blue Rondo à la Turk who had a 1982 chart hit with the soundtrack to our video, Klacto Vee Sed Stein. Broadcaster Robert Elms has written an intro, and there are forewords by Boy George, Steve Strange and Gary Kemp.
The 21st-century way to publish high-quality, short-run numbered editions is to secure sales in advance of publication. So visit Unbound Publishing to place your order which will secure your name in the first edition — and other perks.
Graham Smith in selling mode: can he persuade 22-year-old Bill de Melowood to buy his print of Steve Strange drinking with a bunch of Cardiff dockers? Photography by Shapersofthe80s
Partying family: Graham Smith and wife Lorraine at right, with their daughter Carla and boyfie John. Photography by Shapersofthe80s
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The Great Escape, 2011: Judith Frankland prepares to break out from Newcastle at dawn this morning within the 20kg baggage allowance. Photograph by Joanne Lodge
❚ MOST OF BRITAIN MAY BE SWELTERING in a historic autumn heatwave. Yet Judith Frankland, the ex-Blitz Kid fashion designer, flew out of Tyneside this morning to establish her business in Germany swathed in vital garments she couldn’t pack within the 20kg baggage allowance. “This is my idea for getting as many clothes onboard as possible,” she said. “I’m wearing three topcoats: first a black full-length fake-fur, then stuffing myself inside a black lightweight down to the ankles, then the grey mountain-goat shortie. On top, loads of jewels of course, and in the pockets loads more bling. Down below, I’m in leather biker’s pants, heavy and warm, plus Harley Davidson boots.”
Biker leathers, darling??? “No of course I’m not going bikey, don’t be daft! They are simply so warm and cost only 50p brand new in a car-boot sale. I know I’m going to get beeped at security for my jewellery — changing planes last time at Schiphol, my steel-tipped stilettos set off the alarm. But if they stop me, I’ll be prepared for them, like Maria von Trapp. I’m going to say I’m anorexic and feeling the cold.”
This is how an upstart style princess prepares herself for Berlin, plus new-look hair, cut last night and freshly rinsed pink. She means business. A modest container is already being shipped by Voovit, bringing Judith’s sewing machines, her dramatically retro promotional collection for The Woman Who Likes To Say Hello shown this year in Newcastle upon Tyne, plus a ton more bling (she does have a way with black baubles and gilded chain). Yes, this is the great adventure to build a new life for one of the wild children of the Swinging 80s whose best break came the month she graduated from Ravensbourne art college when David Bowie dropped in at the Blitz Club and chose to put her and her clothes in his landmark video for Ashes to Ashes. [And which Shapersofthe80s displays as the picture heading this website. The New Romantics were utterly in thrall to Bowie.]
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Having taken the temperature of Berlin on an exploratory trip this July, Judith has been scouting the smart district of Prenzlauer Berg for a workshop-cum-living quarters, with another eye on up-market boutiques through which to retail in the short-term.
Judith says: “My main plan is to create high fashion for women who love clothes that are beautiful but avant-garde and might even be called art. I’ve left England to seek fresh inspiration and shall be presenting my outfits next season in Paris in order to re-establish links with buyers who don’t visit London — from Japan and the Far East, for example.”
Judi’s lesson learnt in July: in Berlin an umbrella is no protection from the elements. Photograph by Shapersofthe80s
It is eight years since Judith’s previous bespoke design business blew up in her face. She has described on her blog at The Swelle Life how the American backer behind her Paris-based atelier suddenly got cold feet and hot-footed it back to the States, leaving Judith as the designer holding the baby. This more or less coincided with her mother’s health failing, whereupon Judith returned to Tyneside to care for her.
In Berlin, Judith has not been short of advice from friends made during her ten-year spell in Milan in the 90s designing and hosting nightclubs. Several friends are now relocated to Berlin, including photographer and videographer Sandro Martini. The Dutch costumier Eppo Dekker, who has a boutique called Prêt-à-Couture in Friedrichshain, has also been helping Judith make contacts in the city. Immediate plans include designing stage-wear for the underground performer Antal Nemeth.
“Meanwhile,” Judith says, “this weekend I’m heading down to a vintage Zupermarket run by the Sameheads brothers — they say rich ladies bring in their sparkly clothes for sale and nobody goes away unhappy.”
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The Playboy of the Western World: Robert Sheehan makes his stage debut as Synge’s anti-hero Christy Mahon, seen here with Ruth Negga as the vindictive Pegeen Mike. (Photography Manuel Harlan)
❚ THIS THURSDAY LUNCHTIME songwriter Gary Kemp becomes a theatre critic in a live a panel discussion taking place onstage at the Criterion Theatre on Piccadilly Circus in London. Critics at the Cri is a live monthly review, featuring Britain’s leading critical voices who will debate three recent theatre openings in and around London. As a joint initiative by the Criterion and What’s On Stage, each discussion takes place on the first Thursday of the month at 1.15pm, lasting for 45 minutes. The session aims to open up the conversation for the audience to engage with the guest critics.
Gary Kemp: popstar, songwriter and acclaimed autobiographer
On October 6, the opening panel includes theatre critics Michael Coveney and Patrick Marmion, BBC Culture Show theatre presenter Clemency Burton-Hill and special guest Gary Kemp, reviewing three very different openings: Mike Leigh’s latest play Grief at the National Theatre, the Broadway transfer Rock of Ages the Musical at the Shaftesbury Theatre, and J M Synge’s Irish modern classic from 1907, The Playboy of the Western World at the Old Vic Theatre. Tickets cost £7.50 in person from the Criterion box office but Kemp fans will find that Spandau Ballet’s website has a special offer. Critics at the Cri Two is scheduled for Thursday Nov 3 at 1.15pm.
❏ Update: On Tuesday Gary Kemp collected a BMI Multi Million Award for his hit True with Spandau Ballet in 1983. This makes the song one of the most played songs on US radio and TV, which is rare for a recording from the 1980s.
The London cast of Rock of Ages: the musical is set in 1987 on the Sunset Strip, where a small-town girl meets a big-city rocker in LA’s most famous rock club
NUMBER CRUNCHER
❚ Last year sales of UK programmes and format ideas generated revenues of £1.4bn, up from £1.3bn in 2009
❚ North America represented 42% of total UK export revenue in 2010, with Europe 31% and the rest of the world 27%
❚ Sales to Canada rose from £61m to £73m in the year to 2010, a 20% increase
❚ Revenue from ready-to-screen TV sold abroad in 2010 raised £657m, up 15% [UK Television Exports Survey]
“ THE CATCHPHRASE ‘Fire up the Lada’ could soon be sweeping Russia. The BBC has licensed the hit TV series Life on Mars, which turned actor Philip Glenister’s politically incorrect DCI Gene Hunt into one of the nation’s best loved characters, to be set in the former Soviet Union and the action relocated from 1970s Manchester to communist Moscow.
“ The BBC’s announcement comes as figures from the UK Television Exports Survey show that the world’s appetite for British television is booming. The success of formats such as Strictly Come Dancing and The X Factor, as well as the dramas Downton Abbey and Sherlock, have led to a 13% rise in export revenues to more than £1.4bn in the past year…”/continued at Guardian online
Next stop, Moscow: The US version of Life on Mars, starred Jason O’Mara as Sam Tyler and Harvey Keitel as a quieter Gene Hunt (photography: FX)
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MORE INTERESTING THAN MOST PEOPLE’S FANTASIES — THE SWINGING EIGHTIES 1978-1984
They didn’t call themselves New Romantics, or the Blitz Kids – but other people did.
“I’d find people at the Blitz who were possible only in my imagination. But they were real” — Stephen Jones, hatmaker, 1983. (Illustration courtesy Iain R Webb, 1983)
“The truth about those Blitz club people was more interesting than most people’s fantasies” — Steve Dagger, pop group manager, 1983
PRAISE INDEED!
“See David Johnson’s fabulously detailed website Shapers of the 80s to which I am hugely indebted” – Political historian Dominic Sandbrook, in his book Who Dares Wins, 2019
“The (velvet) goldmine that is Shapers of the 80s” – Verdict of Chris O’Leary, respected author and blogger who analyses Bowie song by song at Pushing Ahead of the Dame
“The rather brilliant Shapers of the 80s website” – Dylan Jones in his Sweet Dreams paperback, 2021
A UNIQUE HISTORY
➢ WELCOME to the Swinging 80s ➢ THE BLOG POSTS on this front page report topical updates ➢ ROLL OVER THE MENU at page top to go deeper into the past ➢ FOR NEWS & MONTH BY MONTH SEARCH scroll down this sidebar
❏ Header artwork by Kat Starchild shows Blitz Kids Darla Jane Gilroy, Elise Brazier, Judi Frankland and Steve Strange, with David Bowie at centre in his 1980 video for Ashes to Ashes
VINCENT ON AIR 2026
✱ Deejay legend Robbie Vincent has returned to JazzFM on Sundays 1-3pm… Catch up on Robbie’s JazzFM August Bank Holiday 2020 session thanks to AhhhhhSoul with four hours of “nothing but essential rhythms of soul, jazz and funk”.
TOLD FOR THE FIRST TIME
◆ Who was who in Spandau’s break-out year of 1980? The Invisible Hand of Shapersofthe80s draws a selective timeline for The unprecedented rise and rise of Spandau Ballet –– Turn to our inside page
SEARCH our 925 posts or ZOOM DOWN TO THE ARCHIVE INDEX
UNTOLD BLITZ STORIES
✱ If you thought there was no more to know about the birth of Blitz culture in 1980 then get your hands on a sensational book by an obsessive music fan called David Barrat. It is gripping, original and epic – a spooky tale of coincidence and parallel lives as mind-tingling as a Sherlock Holmes yarn. Titled both New Romantics Who Never Were and The Untold Story of Spandau Ballet! Sample this initial taster here at Shapers of the 80s
CHEWING THE FAT
✱ Jawing at Soho Radio on the 80s clubland revolution (from 32 mins) and on art (@55 mins) is probably the most influential shaper of the 80s, former Wag-club director Chris Sullivan (pictured) with editor of this website David Johnson
LANDMARK FAREWELLS. . . HIT THE INDEX TAB UP TOP FOR EVERYTHING ELSE
“Jarvis felt like a natural fit with the Faber sensibility, both as author and editor, and I’m sure the small list of books he will develop will represent his eccentric and yet popular touch,” said publishing director Lee Brackstone. “We now have an excellent portfolio of authors from the pop world and our intention is to develop these relationships and continue to build a reputation as the home for exciting and original writing on music.”
➢➢ Shapers of the 80s ➣➣ 