Material Girl retrospective at Macy’s LA
➢ Sneak glimpse on the Material World blog of the Material Girl Collection on display at Macy’s Los Angeles – “We just got back from our Material Girl Madonna Pop-Up Fashion Exhibit. Where should we start? From Madonna’s iconic never-before-seen fashion pieces like Jean Paul Gaultier’s iconic corset, to the blasting music, to the amazing crowd of Material Girls and Boys – it was a night we’ll never forget”
❚ TO COMMEMORATE THE 20TH ANNIVERSARY of the web being made available free to all, the international physics laboratory CERN has recreated the world’s first website and posted it today, at its original address and this is it – http://info.cern.ch/hypertext/WWW/TheProject.html The home page provided an explanation of what the world wide web was, and how to use a browser and set up a web server.
The British computer scientist Tim Berners-Lee proposed an information management system in 1989 and had a working version of the web in Dec 1990. The first website built was at CERN within the borders of France and went online on August 6, 1991, but by 1993 some user groups were positioning themselves to try to monopolise the web as a commercial platform. So on April 30, 1993, CERN announced that the world wide web would be free to anyone, with no fees due.
The web’s first home page: click on the image to visit the site at CERN
➢ The World Wide Web Became Free 20 Years Ago Today – By Mark Fischetti, senior editor at Scientific American:
“ You and I can access billions of web pages, post blogs, write code for our own killer apps – in short, do anything we want on the web – all free! And we’ve enjoyed free reign because 20 years ago, today, web inventor Tim Berners-Lee and his employer, the CERN physics lab in Geneva, published a statement that made the nascent “world wide web” technology available to every person, company and institution without royalty or restriction … ” / Continued online
➢ Long live the web: Tim Berners-Lee wrote a treatise for Scientific American in 2010 explaining why the web must remain for ever free: “The web is critical not merely to the digital revolution but to our continued prosperity – and even our liberty. Like democracy itself, it needs defending.”
Tim Berners-Lee at the Olympics opening ceremony (Photo: Getty)
❏ The internet is a global computer system that provides information and communication facilities, consisting of interconnected networks using standardised communication protocols. In contrast, the web is one of the services that runs on the internet. It is a collection of text documents and other resources, linked by hyperlinks and URLs (addresses), usually accessed through web browsers from web servers. A browser is a so-called “graphical user interface” which simply means an accessible visual entry point into the arcane world of computer coding. Mosaic is the web browser credited with popularising the world wide web and today most popular browsers (Google Chrome, Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox) retain the characteristics of the original Mosaic.
In July 2012 Tim Berners-Lee was honoured as the “Inventor of the world wide web” during the Olympics opening ceremony in London where he appeared in person, working at a NeXT computer, the model on which he worked at CERN in 1989. He tweeted the message: “This is for everyone.”
The mighty tweet: Tim Berners-Lee’s message to the world at the Olympics
➢ CERN’s original Public Domain document of April 30, 1993: “CERN’s decision to make the web foundations and protocols available on a royalty free basis, and without additional impediments, was crucial to the web’s existence. Without this commitment, the enormous individual and corporate investment in web technology simply would never have happened, and we wouldn’t have the web today.” – Tim Berners-Lee, Director, WWW Consortium
Posted in Economics, Europe, Media, Technology
Tagged CERN, firsts, Scientific American, Tim Berners-Lee, Tipping points, websites, world wide web
Spandau over Bournemouth, 1 April 1983: Gary Kemp teases the screamers at the Good Friday show in the Pavilion Theatre. © Shapersofthe80s
❚ YES IT’S 30 YEARS SINCE Spandau Ballet scored their only No 1 chart hit single with True, coinciding with their epic “Spandau Over Britain Tour”. By May 3, True the album reached No 1, while the single remained at No 1 as well. The band’s official website is celebrating with a month of recollections from 1983 and asking UK fans to offer their own memories. Naturally Shapersofthe80s was there on the waterfront and has a few inside stories of its own.
The month-long tour ended in triumph at London’s Royal Festival Hall 30 years ago today, on Friday April 29, because True hit the top spot in the UK singles chart and the night before Spandau topped the bill on Top of the Pops – only two weeks after its release. After the London gig there followed a right old knees-up for friends and family aboard a Thames riverboat. As it cast off Shapersofthe80s was onboard and snapped a True romance as Steve “Spiny” Norman took to the dance floor with bass-player Martin Kemp, while Steve’s mum Sheila tried to muscle in. Here are our snaps, never seen before.
The band’s third album True, produced by Tony Swain and Steve Jolley, had preceded the tour and was to yield several chart hits across the world, Gold among them. The tour moved on to Europe in the summer and to North America in the autumn, when Shapersofthe80s will have some wild eye-witness scenes to report – laters…
➢ May 1 update: all five members of Spandau Ballet have agreed to an individual ‘TRUE’ Twitter Q&A session with fans, according to the official Spandau website – Q&A sessions start at 8pm (BST) on the official Spandau Twitter account, not their personal accounts, as follows: Gary May 3, Martin May 6, John May 7, Steve May 9, Tony tbc.
➢ 30th anniversary interview with Gary Kemp
at UK Official Charts website
The Observer OMM Oct 4, 2009
HOW IT ALL BEGAN FOR
THE ANGEL BOYS
➢ Photographer Neil Matthews, another friend of Spandau from their earliest days, has been celebrating with an exhibition of his popstar photos titled My 80s Through the Lens, at The Great British Restaurant, 14 North Audley Street, London W1K 6WE. All images can be viewed online and are for sale in limited editions printed on smart archival paper. As well as Spandau, his subjects include Bananarama, Blue Rondo, Bauhaus, Haysi Fantayzee, Malcolm McLaren, The Jam, Nick Heyward, Bow Wow Wow and more.
Posted in Clubbing, London, Pop music
Tagged Blitz Kids, Gary Kemp, George Michael, Interview, Martin Kemp, Neil Matthews, New Romantics, photography, Spandau Ballet, Steve Norman, Twitter, UK tour
A Terrible Splendour: the eternal themes of rebellion and shame
➢ If you want to support fresh electropop talent here are A Terrible Splendour – two Londoners called Martin Block and MM Lyle, whose heroes include Duran Duran, Ronny, Japan and Alphaville and they sound a lot like many of them. They say:
“ A Terrible Splendour are a London-based duo who weave tales of blackmail and despair, of cruelty and of heartbreak. Drawing from the Silver Screen, Romanticism and the New Wave, their sound is a darkly luxurious synthesised pop, fractured through the lens of a cursed Berlin.
Their live shows are a theatre of love and death, with performances drawing on Weimar-era cabaret. The recent self-made video for their track Victimless Crime displays an aesthetic that references German Impressionist cinema and gothic storytelling.
The band’s debut album Poseurs, is released on the French electronic label Desire, to include a limited edition of 300 copies on white vinyl. It features 11 tracks ranging in style from dissolute disco to sombre cabaret musings. Resolutely modern synth sounds, in turn lush and vicious, combine with lyrics addressing the eternal themes of rebellion, shame and the vagaries of outrage. Plus sparkling new mixes by producer James Aparicio (These New Puritans, Spiritualized). ”
Er, thassabout it.
Posted in London, Pop music, Youth culture
Tagged cabaret, Martin Block, MM Lyle, synthpop, Terrible Splendour
Back 2 The Wild: Click on pic to run video in a new window
➢ Bedazzling music video for the new Basement Jaxx single Back 2 The Wild is directed by Mat Maitland at Big Active & Natalia Stuyk. Salient points at Popjustice:
➢ Dazed Digital has a vibey May playlist alongside its main feature post-punk stars, Savages. It says:
“ We’ve got a whole lot of Jeremih from his Cassie mixape collab to Shlohmo, new Gold Panda, Co La’s experimental single on Software, the first release from legendary London establishment Fabric’s Houndstooth label as well as an exclusive stream from Pedestrian’s new EP and more from our recently featured avant-garde electronic duo Diamond Version. ” Not to mention Jessie Ware.
Electricity Club Showman Rusty Egan: any kind of music so long as it’s electro
➢ Rusty Egan presents The Electricity Club Show every Friday 00:00 till 02:00 BST … Either take this picturesque catch-up route via the Electricity Club which champions the current electropop scene:
“ Eins-zwei-drei-vier… the fourth programme in the series Egan Presents The Electricity Club on Mi-Soul Radio can now be heard on catchup. The show starts with Kraftwerk and the other featured artists are fine examples of the Düsseldorf foursome’s legacy. These acts include Felix Da Housecat, Tiga & Zyntherius, Afrika Bambaataa, The Knife, Omd, Junkie Xl Featuring Dave Gahan, Mgmt, Simple Minds, Sin Cos Tan, Daft Punk, Inertia And The Presets. ”
“ Mi-Soul is a soul music broadcast platform, providing everything soul everywhere – online, on mobile app and in due course on FM and digital, and any other future platform yet to be invented. Launched by the team responsible for creating Kiss FM in the 1990s, Mi-Soul continues to be supported by many of the original DJ team, augmented by high-profile presenters in every genre. Mi-Soul occupies a self-contained wing in the in the Stephen Lawrence Charitable Trust’s iconic building in Deptford, which was designed by the award-winning architect David Adjaye, and opened in 2008. ”
❏ Rusty Egan says: “If you are in Cannes for the film festival I will be there on the Croisette at “Canvas” on the beach opposite Carlton Cannes hotel May 17–19 … then in Ibiza at Nassau Beach Bar with Steve Norman from Spandau Ballet on sax and percussion, from May to Sept every other Friday … I have been very busy writing and recording new music under the title Welcome To The Dancefloor and will be ready to release some stuff very soon. Visit Soundcloud to sample some.”
Posted in Clubbing, London, Pop music, Youth culture
Tagged Back 2 The Wild, Basement Jaxx, Cannes, Dazed Digital, Electricity Club, Ibiza, Jessie Ware, Kraftwerk, May, Mi-Soul, playlist, Radio, Rusty Egan, Steve Norman, Video
✱ Deejay legend Robbie Vincent has returned to JazzFM on Sundays 1-3pm… Catch Robbie’s JazzFM August Bank Holiday 2020 session thanks to AhhhhhSoul with four hours of “nothing but essential rhythms of soul, jazz and funk”.
◆ 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
✱ 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
✱ 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
➢ Search for all on Bowie here
at Shapers of the 80s
✱ “I’m not a rock star” Bowie often said – No, David, you were a messiah – Obituaries and key videos on the godlike one
✱ Prince Rogers Nelson RIP: ‘A funny cat’ and ‘sole authentic genius’ of the 1980s
➢➢ Shapers of the 80s ➣➣ 