Fra Hammerfest (From Hammerfest), 1851: painting by the Norwegian artist Peder Balke
❚ YESTERDAY A NEW RECORD WAS SET for the northernmost visitor to Shapersofthe80s who lives in Hammerfest in Norway with the coordinates of latitude and longitude 70°39′N, 23°40′E, as logged for us by Revolver Maps. The municipality is fractionally more northerly than Tromsø in Norway which has held the record for many months at 69°41′N. Hammerfest is an important tourist destination in Finnmark, which is a county in the extreme northeast of Norway, bordered by Troms county to the west, Finland (Lapland) to the south and Russia (Murmansk Oblast) to the east. Hammerfest is experiencing an economic boom from the exploitation of natural gas.
And the latest weather forecast for Hammerfest predicts strong breezes and rain during the Christmas holiday, although webcams show plenty of snow on the ground in the neighbouring region of Vasskogen.
Our southernmost visitors live at Río Grande, the industrial capital of the Tierra del Fuego province in Argentina (53°47′S, 67°42′W), where Motorola manufactures up to 90 per cent of its mobile phones. This is only a smidgeon further south than another reader in Punta Arenas, the capital city of Chile’s southernmost region, Magallanes and Antartica Chilena.
❚ EPISODE 4 OF DALSTON SUPERSTARS, Vice online’s “structured reality” series about hipness in Hackney, is a Christmas special, which means sex, drugs and sausage rolls. Will the wildest Christmas party Dalston’s ever seen solve the gang’s problems, or just add to their hangovers?
✰ Stefan: “Dad found my Tumblr and freaked out and he cut me off”
✰ Sam considers whether it’s right to throw a recession party
✰ Maeve becomes a working girl and discovers what “the Occupy Wall Street thing” is all about
✰ Anna thinks she wants to do fashion styling
✰ Stefan and Maeve transition to the working class
✰ Vital vocab: get gaddafied, satanic Mean Girls, ghetto-fabulous snacks
❏ Vasilisa Forbes, Photography and Multimedia “This was a really emotional one.”
❏ Charlie Mass, European Institute of Design “I’m from australiaN.”
❏ Laura O’Reardon, Senior College “Maeve, get a job you user.”
❏ Daniel Heronneau, Wallington County Grammar School for Boys “Vee looks like Kreayshawns dj Lil Debbie.”
❏ Jimmy Dallas, Preston, Lancashire “thisiswanknow”
❏ Jack Van Cooten, CEO at Banana Hill “Awesome”
❏ Huw Williams, Central Lancashire “I just envisage a coked up editor screaming at staff: It IS funny! They’ll get it eventually, you’ll see!”
❏ Robsta Hendricks, London “Brilliant. From living West travelling East to living East working West Gastro part time, I get it. Well done.”
❏ Thibaud Guerin-Williams “In Richmond VA this is real.”
❏ Pierre Chambaud, London “how can I be a part of dis gang?”
❏ Grant Armour, Sarfend High School for Dudes, Uni. Sussex, da blud behind da wkd #christmasmixtape “these outta town muthafuckas in efes think they run the game, they going to get it in the knees. we about to blow the roof off alibi in 2012 mane. smokin big damn dank.”
❏ Sean Otley, Manchester “dalston s.s = toss.”
❏ Rich ‘Catface’ Brooks, UCLAN “Chris Morris did this seven years ago, but much better, and aimed at Vice.”
AND NOW THE #christmasmixtape
❏ Update Dec 24 By popular demand, here’s a mere taster of the download featuring largely Grant Armour [see comments] available at, like, #christmasmixtape
❏ Subcultural decryption: Dalston is the area of east London that UK hipsters regard as, like, paradise. Unless they live a mile away in Shoreditch, then it’s Shoreditch. (Hoxton is SO yesterday.)
❏ Subcultural analogy:Nathan Barley was a UK television series featuring hipster role models for Dalston Superstars, like, six years ago… Not to mention the even holier Mighty Boosh (2004–7).
Wendy Kirby aged 19: as Freddie Burretti’s flatmate, she met the Bowies at the Sombrero club’s trendy Sunday feasts in Kensington — “We were the people always round David’s house”
❚ “I WAS AT THAT TAPING,” said Wendy Kirby on Facebook earlier today. “But I never got to see the video,” she told Shapersofthe80s by phone later. She was talking about the longlost recording of David Bowie singing Jean Genie on Top of the Pops in 1973 — 38 years “Missing Believed Wiped” — and due to be screened tonight on BBC2 for the first time since.
Wendy was one of a posse of Bowie’s friends he’d asked to accompany him to BBC TV Centre because, she says, he was feeling nervous — “If you can believe that! He comes across as very confident, but he was always very shy and didn’t really want to go on Top of the Pops. Angie was the one with all the energy.”
Wendy Kirby this year: “Amazing to see myself on Top of the Pops after all this time!”
When we spoke today Wendy was mildly surprised at all the fuss over the video she’s never seen, but then, even as a 14-year-old schoolgirl she was a regular in the audience for Top of the Pops so had grown pretty blasé.
About five years later she’d become one of Bowie’s “piss-elegant champagne-drinking” entourage after meeting David and Angie at the Sombrero disco (strictly speaking, called Yours or Mine, beneath the restaurant El Sombrero in Kensington High Street) during the Hunky Dory period when he was wearing the Mr Fish man-dress and had long cascades of blond hair. All that was lopped and dyed red by Suzi Fussey for the Ziggy persona which made him a star. On Jan 3 1973, Wendy donned a black fishtail dress “with an exceedingly low back” plus a long blonde mermaid wig, and stepped into Studio 8 and onto the dancefloor for Top of the Pops in company with her flatmate Freddie Burretti (Bowie’s costume designer for whom Moonage Daydream was written), Angie Bowie and panda-eyed Daniella Parmar whose constantly changing hair colour had convinced Bowie “of the importance of a synthetic hair colour for Ziggy”.
Wendy said: “We were the ‘young dudes’ who shaved off our eyebrows just for camp, because you could paint them on higher up — that gave us a strange unearthly look which David adopted. He was always open to suggestions and went through our wardrobes like a magpie!”
Bowie name-checked his friends in the lyrics of the glam-rock anthem All the Young Dudes in 1972: Wendy’s stealing clothes/ from Marks and Sparks/ And Freddi’s got spots/ from ripping off the stars from his face/. When David told her, she replied: “You could at least have made it Harrods!”
She added: “Thing is, the fame happened seemingly overnight. People had thought of David as a one-hit wonder with Space Oddity, then suddenly in 1972 Starman was a hit and everything went from ordinary to unreal. Nothing was the same again.”
Wendy had no idea whether the cameras had caught them dancing in the Jean Genie video newly discovered and due for broadcast tonight. “Pan’s People had done their dance number and were heading out of the studio when David went onstage. They all stopped to watch his act and were mightily impressed. I remember a couple of them were wearing red fox-fur coats…”
Freddie Burretti and Daniella Parmar photographed by Mick Rock
❏ Update at 8pm: “Yes, that’s me between David and Mick, the girl with a ton of make-up, huge eyelashes and the red flower in the hair — we piled on tons of everything then. That’s Daniella dancing next to me. Amazing to see myself on Top of the Pops after all this time! I’ve never seen this before. And I haven’t seen David perform live since… Those were great days and I was too young to appreciate them.”
Of Bowie’s Sombrero posse, today Wendy lives in West London and Daniella in Worthing. Freddie Burretti (born 1951, raised as Frederick Robert Burrett in Hackney) was also aka Rudi Valentino while fronting Bowie’s 1971 phantom band, the specially created Arnold Corns. His talents were better expressed as Freddie Burretti, making Ziggy Stardust’s outfits from the first quilted jumpsuit onward. He died while living in Paris in May 2001. The male escort Micky King recorded the Bowie song How Lucky You Are, among others, and according to Bowie was gruesomely murdered by a client some years later.
Very Swinging London, early 70s: Wendy Kirby in a black wig. Her friends among Bowie’s young dudes included Daniella Parmar, hairdresser Antonello Parqualli and Sombrero face, Micky King
❚ THIS IS AS FAR AS any Christmas gift guide is gonna go at Shapersofthe80s. How can you beat your own Bowie Paper Doll for £7.50? In fact, two cut-out dolls plus many outfits worn by Bowie himself. Exclusively designed by I Love Mel and available through stockists across the world and online at Shopbop (or Google for others).
As well as the Bowie version, Mel Simone Elliott showcases Paper Dolls for Lady Gaga, Beyonce, Adele and others, among a novel range of gift ideas on her charming website. These include prints, paintings and tongue-in-cheek temporary tattoos.
Mel says I Love Mel started out life as a few badges that were made and handed out to make her feel better after her boyfriend dumped her. On graduating from the Royal College of Art in 2007, Mel began designing fun, printed products such as colouring books and paper dolls and I Love Mel became less of a badge and more of a brand. She has a range of colouring books but Shapersofthe80s readers will love the CMG’80s title to take them down Memory Lane.
❚ HOT NEWS OF A CHRISTMAS TREAT for Bowie fans. They have waited for almost 40 years to see his only Top of the Pops performance of The Jean Genie with The Spiders from Mars in January 1973 — shirtless, though clad in an open satin jacket. The tape was long thought to have been wiped or lost.
However a former BBC cameraman recently discovered that he possessed the only broadcast-quality copy in pristine condition, and today Bowie Wonderworld announced that entertainment boss Mark Cooper has arranged to have it included in this Wednesday’s 90-minute collection of classic Christmas hits (TOTP2, 7.30pm). The intention had been to unveil the clip in the BBC4 documentary Tales of Television Centre in the New Year, but enthusiastic fans persuaded him to bring forward its screening, even though you won’t see the track listed in the online billings.
As executive producer of Top Of The Pops 2, Cooper said: “I can’t imagine what other piece of TOTP from the early 70s would be as extraordinary a find.”
Bowie’s performance of The Jean Genie was recorded on Jan 3, 1973 and transmitted the following day for the first and only time. The “lost” recording — copy on 2-inch broadcast videotape — was screened last week at the NFT’s Missing Believed Wiped event. BowieNet’s news editor enthused: “A shirtless David looks amazing as he shakes maracas and blows on the harmonica. It’s clear David and the Spiders were at their peak when this video footage was shot, just a few days before David’s 26th birthday.”
Andy Barding, another privileged witness, added: “The first screening of the newly rediscovered clip of Bowie, Ronson, Woodmansey and Bolder performing The Jean Genie on Top of the Pops saw a packed National Film Theatre struck agog at the majesty of Ziggy in action: in pristine, full-colour TV quality. David, with deep-red hair, shaved brows and bafflingly wide trousers, looked every inch the epitome of what we recall as glam.”
The Jean Genie single had been released in November 1972, and the January 4 transmission on the BBC’s flagship pop show boosted it to peak at Number 2 in the UK singles chart. The track was remixed for Bowie’s sixth album Aladdin Sane in April 1973 which divided critics over his genius. The Jean Genie surfed in on the inspirational wave caused by the arrival of Ziggy Stardust and the Starman in July 1972, when Bowie’s Top of the Pops appearance years later passed into legend as the glam-rock moment that shaped the imaginations of a teen generation who were to become the popstars of the 80s.
❏ The retired cameramanJohn Henshall, now 69, has been speaking of how he came to own the footage of David Bowie’s Jean Genie which was thought to be lost. In the early 70s, long before the days of digital effects, Henshall ran a company called Telefex which made star filters, multi-image prisms, fish-eye lens attachments, kaleidotubes and picture rotators. Encouraged by TOTP producer Johnnie Stewart, he used the fish-eye to create the optical effects seen in the Bowie recording.
Afterwards he asked Stewart for a personal copy on 2-inch tape to include in his company’s showreel.
Today he is an expert in digital imaging, who pioneered the now ubiquitous lightweight television camera mounted on a long boom arm that we see sweeping above artist and audience at concerts. He also directed photography on hundreds of early music videos for artists including Paul McCartney, Kate Bush, Blondie and Elton John.
Henshall only discovered how “rarer than rare” the clip was when he mentioned it in a radio interview. He said: “I couldn’t believe that I was the only one with it. I thought you wouldn’t be mad enough to wipe a tape like that. They’d been looking for it for years.”
➢ Choose “View full site” – then in the blue bar atop your mobile page, click the three horizontal lines linking to many blue themed pages with background article
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
✰ Stefan: “Dad found my Tumblr and freaked out and he cut me off”
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