Category Archives: London

1984 ➤ Band Aid: The smash hit that earned 47 artists three platinum discs each

Posted on 25 Nov 2011 | Leave a comment

The Band Aid band, Nov 25, 1984: most of the pop stars who performed, plus artist Peter Blake who created the record sleeve for Do They Know It’s Christmas?

◼︎ SPANDAU BASSIST MARTIN KEMP REMINDS US via Twitter that on this day in 1984, he and about 40 other mainly British superstars went into the studio under the group name of Band Aid to record the fund-raising single, Do They Know It’s Christmas? This collabarative gesture in the name of charity held the record for 13 years as the UK’s biggest selling chart single of all time. It raised millions for the Ethiopian famine and led directly to Live Aid, the globally televised rock concerts in 1985. Kemp said today: “It still gives me a tingle when I hear it” and then proudly posted a picture of the three platinum discs he and every other participant received a year later after it had clocked more than 3 million sales in the UK.

➢ Band Aid ’84, when pop made its noblest gesture but the 80s ceased to swing
➢ Ure and Kemp on the shenanigans that led up to Band Aid

Martin Kemp, Band Aid,BPI, Do They Know It’s Christmas

Martin Kemp’s three platinum discs presented by the BPI for sales of Do They Know It’s Christmas?

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➤ Spandau’s Gold enlisted to sell chocolate and boost the Olympic spirit

Posted on 25 Nov 2011 | Leave a comment

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❚ ON NOV 28 SPANDAU BALLET’S 1983 chart hit Gold is re-released as an iTunes download newly remixed by superstar trance deejay Paul Oakenfold. But there’s a twist involving 20 fans who stepped up to the mike to record the chorus of the song that has echoed throughout sporting arenas the world over.

In 1981, Cadbury launched its Wispa chocolate bar with bubbles as a competitor to Rowntree’s Aero. Now that Cadbury is the Official Treat Provider of the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games, the bar is relaunched as Wispa Gold with caramel, retailing at 56 pence. The London 2012 Games offer a billion-pound retail opportunity that is unlike anything Britain has experienced before and a quarter of these sales are likely to be made in the final months of this year. When 25m Brits watched the recent Royal Wedding, total revenue hit £50m, so retailers are keen to capitalise on London 2012.

Cadbury is investing £8m in an advertising and sponsorship campaign plus another £1.5m on marketing, all aiming to support Team GB ahead of the 2012 Olympics with the slogan Keep Them Pumped.

Gold (pop song), Spandau Ballet, Paul Oakenfold, music video,remix,London 2012, Olympic Games,

Fan, commuter bike, shoelaces: all gilded ready for the video of the remixed Gold

Six of pop’s greatest power training anthems have been re-recorded as campaign soundtracks to encourage athletes preparing for the July Games. New music videos have been shot for The Final Countdown, Simply the Best, Danger Zone while an epic video for We Will Rock You [below] has enlisted more than 200 inhabitants of Merthyr Tydfil to cheer on their Olympic hockey player Sarah Thomas.

Spandau’s sleek and glitteringly golden video for the Oakenfold remix features Team GB athlete and BMX champion Shanaze Reade, plus the 120 fans selected in online auditions who then came into the studio to give full voice to the chorus. Below, we see one of them definitely getting into the Olympic spirit. “The song will be equally at home in the charts as it will in the clubs,” reckons the optimistic sax player Steve Norman. Oakenfold has one word for it: “floor-filler”.

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➢ Spandau’s own website is offering a new Gold 2012 range of hats, T-shirts and other merchandise

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2012 ➤ Boy George reunites with Culture Club for New Year’s Eve — and a new album

Posted on 19 Nov 2011 | 1 comment

Culture Club, Roy Hay, Jon Moss, reunion, Boy Geoge, Mikey Craig,New Years Eve,Sydney Resolution,concert,video,interview

Culture Club on Sunrise this week: Roy Hay, Jon Moss, Boy Geoge and Mikey Craig

➢ Click the pic to view video interview with Culture Club on Sunrise, the breakfast show at Sydney’s Seven Television station

❚ HERE’S A PICTURE MANY SAID would never be taken: all four members of 80s supergroup Culture Club reunited. And a live concert imminent. In 1983 the New Romantic band with its gender-bending singer and unique reggae-based rhythms were prominent among the 18 new-wave bands who mounted the Second British Invasion of the US charts. In 1984 the band won the Grammy Award as Best New Artist and along with Princess Diana, Boy George became an international fashion emblem for the new Swinging London.

This week Boy George’s official website announces that the four original members of Culture Club have reunited for the first time since 2002 for a one-off concert in Australia on Jan 1. Before an audience of 30,000 at Sydney’s Glebe Island, overlooking the harbour, the band will play after the New Year’s Eve midnight fireworks on a bill with The Pet Shop Boys, Jamiroquai and other Australian acts.

More surprising is that the photo shows Roy, Jon, George and Mikey in a London recording studio where George said “we’re in the middle of writing for a new album” with their original producer Steve Levine. This first pic of the reunited Culture Club is grabbed from Sydney’s Seven Television in an interview on Tuesday when George said they’d include a couple of new songs in the “hit-packed” Sydney show. When Jon was asked why a reunion has taken so long, an agonisingly long silence followed until he managed to answer “I don’t know!” This did raise the laugh we see above, then he added “I think we have a ten-year cycle. It takes that long to recover from the last time we worked with each other.” Not a flicker of a smile from anyone. The six-minute exchange contained so many sidelong glances between the four and generally awkward body language that you might wonder whether they would survive the flight to Australia together.

Romance blossoms: Drummer Jon Moss gives George a peck at Planets club in July 1981 way before Culture Club existed. Photographed © by Shapersofthe80s

Culture Club’s initial five-year career was blown apart after clocking ten Top 40 hits in the US, which included Karma Chameleon and Do You Really Want to Hurt Me. By 1986, however, George’s addiction to drugs was making tabloid headlines and his secret four-year romance with Jon was growing ever more explosive. A sanitised TV dramatisation titled Worried About The Boy provided an extremely one-sided version of events when aired last year. From 1998 a band reunion over four years yielded two chart hits and a platinum compilation album in the UK.

➢ NY Eve concert tickets are priced from $198 at Sydney Resolution

➢ Update: Boy George’s first live concert in ages, scheduled for Dec 8 in London, has been cancelled without explanation

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Posted in Australasia, London, Pop music, TV

Tagged 2011, Boy Geoge, Concert, Culture Club, Interview, Jon Moss, Mikey Craig, New Romantics, New Years Eve, Planets club, reunion, Roy Hay, Sydney Resolution, Video

➤ Student verdicts on the new Central Saint Martins, contrasted with LCC’s sad home

Posted on 18 Nov 2011 | 1 comment

CSM ,vox pops, King’s Cross , art school, Central Saint Martins

CSM student vox pops on the King’s Cross campus: views range from “good to be under one roof” to “an architect’s ego trip”. Pictures by Matt Writtle for the Evening Standard

❚ THE ARTS AND DESIGN GLITTERATI turned out last night to celebrate the official launch of the University of the Arts’s new home for Central Saint Martins at King’s Cross.

Around 1,000 guests partied in the Grade II listed Granary Building, which has been massively renovated and extended in a £200m scheme that can accommodate 4,000 students and staff. Transvestite artist and university governor Grayson Perry wore full make-up and a vast printed dress-cum-smock while announcing the building officially open. Guests were guided to the party by a colourful light display on the outside of the building, and serenaded as they arrived by Drama Centre London’s Choral Society.

University of Arts , CSM, Grayson Perry, launch party, King's Cross,

Age of the transvestite university governor: Grayson Perry declaring the fab new college open last night

➢ In tonight’s Evening Standard Emma McCarthy tests the temperature on campus: “ After 100 years, fashion’s fledglings have flown the Soho coop. They are coming to roost instead in the heart of King’s Cross, as tonight’s launch party marks the official opening of the new Central Saint Martins campus. The renowned college of art and design — previously spread across six London sites — leaves behind its two most frequented central London campuses in Charing Cross Road and Holborn’s Southampton Row… ” /continued online

➢ Cross Over is the first exhibition at CSM’s new campus, celebrating the work of 2011 graduates, and runs until Nov 24.

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now contrast north of the river with south

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❏ Today the University of Arts (UAL) released this sleek commercial [above] showing us inside CSM’s new building at King’s Cross, talked up in a string of soundbites from celebrity alumni such as Anthony Caro and Terence Conran… In sharp contrast [below], Hollie Cradduck, a third-year journalism student, reminds us in her own video that the London College of Communication in south London — which also belongs to the UAL trust — is in serious need of renovation.

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❏ Meanwhile fashion graduate Oleg Mitrofanov is still hoping to raise funds to finish I Hate My Collection, a film documenting the glorious impact of the old St Martin’s over the past half century…

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➢ Will the magical blasts from the past follow St Martin’s out of Soho? Special feature by Shapersofthe80s

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Posted in Culture, London, Social trends

Tagged art school, Central Saint Martins, CSM, education, Evening Standard, Grayson Perry, Hollie Cradduck, King’s Cross, London College of Communication, Oleg Mitrofanov, UAL, Video, vox pops

➤ Step up Dr Nick Rhodes, honorary scholar at Luton in Beds

Posted on 18 Nov 2011 | Leave a comment

Love the New Romantic outfits! Popstar Rhodes today with the eggheads of Bedfordshire. Photo courtesy Gerard Franklin

➢ From the newsdesk of Duran Duran:

❏ Star names from the worlds of music and cinema joined hundreds of graduates from the University of Bedfordshire at ceremonies today in Luton. Duran Duran keyboard player Nick Rhodes, music producer Peter Asher and film producer Katy Haber were among those being honoured during graduation week at St Mary’s Church. Each received an Honorary Doctor of Arts degree.

Nick Rhodes is being recognised for his contribution to the music industry as a songwriter, performer and producer. Katy Haber, who starred in films such as The Getaway and Cross of Iron and co-produced sci-fi classic Blade Runner, is recognised for her outstanding career in the film industry. Producer Peter Asher is being recognised for his distinguished career in the music industry, working with global stars such as Cher and Neil Diamond.

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