Category Archives: London

➤ Hottest Shapers during 2022

Posted on 31 Dec 2022 | Leave a comment

Andrew Ridgeley , Wham Rap, video, Face magazine, Club Culture,

Click pic to open the Wham Rap! video in another window … “Man or mouse” Andrew Ridgeley establishes his group’s clubbing credentials in the opening shots of the Wham video by reading my cover story on Club Culture first published in The Face in 1983 and in recent years the No 1 read at Shapers of the 80s!

❚ OVER THE PAST 14 YEARS Shapers of the 80s has received 2.2 million views, according to year-ending stats measured by our host, WordPress. Our 850+ published items total half-a-million words, which is several times more than most books, so it pays to explore the various navigation buttons. Here are the half dozen posts which remained among the most popular with readers during 2022…

➢ Photos inside the Blitz Club, exclusive to Shapers of the 80s

➢ 69 Dean Street and the making of UK club culture – evolution of the once-weekly party night (1983)

➢ Why Bowie recruited Blitz Kids for his Ashes to Ashes video in 1980 from the club-night founded by Steve Strange and Rusty Egan

➢ 20 gay kisses in pop videos that made it past the censor

➢ First Blitz invasion of the US —
Spandau Ballet and the Axiom fashion collective take Manhattan by storm (1981)

NYC,Axiom,Melissa Caplan, Sade, Elms, Tony Hadley, Ollie O'Donnell

At the Underground club in NYC 1981: Melissa Caplan rehearses Bob Elms, Mandy d’Wit and Sade Adu for the Axiom runway show. Right, Ollie “the snip” O’Donnell goes to work on singer Tony Hadley’s hair. Photographed by © Shapersofthe80s

➢ Posing with a purpose at the Camden Palace — power play among the new non-working class (1983)

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Posted in Blitz Kids, Clubbing, Fashion, journalism, London, New Romantics, nightlife, photography, Pop music, readership stats, Swinging 80s, zeitgeist

Tagged 69 Dean Street, Andrew Ridgeley, Ashes to Ashes, Axiom fashion, Blitz club, Bob Elms, Camden Palace, David Bowie, gay kisses, Mandy d’Wit, Melissa Caplan, Ollie O'Donnell, Rusty Egan, Sade Adu, Spandau Ballet, Steve Strange, The Face, Tony Hadley, Wham!

➤ Captured in 1983: the Westwood-McLaren showdown

Posted on 30 Dec 2022 | 1 comment

Over two weeks I watched fashion gurus Westwood
and McLaren go their separate ways. Daggers-drawn,
they both talked exclusively to the Evening Standard…
Mine were the final pix of them together

Paris fashion, 1983, Vivienne Westwood, Malcolm McLaren, Worlds End, post-punk

Their last dance, Paris 1983… Westwood says: “Malcolm has one more chance to be good.” McLaren says: “I’m not incapable of designing the next collection myself.” Photographed © by Shapersofthe80s

➢ Click here to read my enhanced version about the day
the King and Queen of Outrage realised
the end was nigh, in 1983

First published in the Evening Standard, 4 Nov 1983

➢ Obituary for Dame Vivienne Westwood 1941-2022 at The Guardian

➢ BBC’s in-depth tribute to Vivienne – the godmother of punk

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Posted in BBC, Fashion, History, interviews, journalism, London, obituaries, Paris, Pop music, Swinging 80s, Tributes, Youth culture

Tagged Evening Standard, Malcolm McLaren, The Face, Vivienne Westwood, Worlds End

2022 ➤ Snatch your own Rondo moment at Sullivan’s solo show

Posted on 6 Dec 2022 | Leave a comment

❚ HOW CAN ANYONE RESIST Chris Sullivan’s quirky, cheeky take on Vorticism in his personal caricatures and portraits? “I’ve always been a big fan of George Grosz,” says the legendary Wag club host who first showed his painterly skills on the record-sleeves for his band Blue Rondo a la Turk back in the Eighties and more recently has returned to producing fine art (never forget he set out at St Martin’s School). This week he has a lively solo exhibition showing in Soho, at Cuts in Frith Street, on top of which he’s hosting a vodka & gin sponsored soiree tomorrow Wednesday 7th to shift his catalogue – and all are welcome.

I must of course declare an interest. A few years back Chris was fundraising for his book Rebel Rebel and first prize for the top donation was to have your portrait painted by Chris so I jumped at that. The result, after a lo-o-o-o-ng gestation period, proved compelling. More the rebel Bomberg than Grosz and utterly F.A.B. Never look for flattery in a good portrait, though many friends have said “He’s caught the eyes very well” and who am I to disagree?

➢ Urban Heads & Other Images by Chris Sullivan,
at Cuts 41 Frith Street, W1

➢ Previously at Shapersofthe80s: 2019, My own Rondo moment immortalised by Sullivan, the grand Wag of Soho

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Posted in art, caricature, exhibitions, London, portraiture

Tagged Blue Rondo a la Turk, Chris Sullivan, Cuts Soho

2022 ➤ Rock god Frampton comes home to make his final farewells

Posted on 4 Nov 2022 | Leave a comment

On the road for the finale, 2022: Steve Mackey, Rob Arthur, Frampton, Dan Wojciechowski and Adam Lester

❚ SIXTIES ACE FACE and prolific British guitarist and composer Peter Frampton arrives this weekend in the UK for Finale, the Farewell Tour which includes the Royal Albert Hall on Tuesday, postponed from 2020 by the Covid lockdown. A degenerative muscle disorder means that, at the age of 72, he will be seated on stage during his final European performances. “Standing,” he told GuitarWorld.com, “would be dangerous for me now, because I get so carried away when I’m playing that I’m liable to fall over.”

Having gone to high school in Bromley with David Bowie where they fronted rival bands, Frampton became the lead singer and guitarist in The Herd, his good looks being celebrated on the cover of the trendy Rave! magazine as The Face of ’68. He then formed Humble Pie with Mod “little” Stevie Marriott from the Small Faces. Major international success came as a solo artist in 1976 with the block-busting live album, Frampton Comes Alive!, from which came the self-penned arena rock singles Show Me The Way, Baby I Love Your Way and Do You Feel Like We Do. The album stayed for 55 weeks in the Billboard top 40 as the top-selling album of that year.

Peter Frampton, , rock music, Frampton Comes Alive, Rave magazine, Face of 68,

Stardom: 1968, Rave! magazine cover as The Face of ’68… and 1976, Frampton Comes Alive! to sell 17 million copies

Platinum albums and a Grammy award have proved his talent as a survivor, working with Jerry Lee Lewis, George Harrison, Ringo Starr, Bill Wyman, David Bowie, BB King and many more legends. Rolling Stone named him its Artist of the Year, claiming that Frampton “was loved by teenage girls, and their older brothers” and in its 2012 poll of all-time favourite live albums, FCA! was voted No 3. In 1979, Frampton received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

In 2021 he released the instrumental album Frampton Forgets the Words, the second since announcing his retirement. The Finale tour embarked on its American-Canadian dates before lockdown – “The most moving tour I’ve ever done,” Frampton told Guitar World. “It’s very emotional for me saying goodbye to anybody, let alone ten thousand people a night.” Now he’s braced for Stoke, Glasgow and London: “My band and I have been chomping at the bit to play and can’t wait to keep our promise to play for you again.”

➢ Search for last-minute tickets

JUST LISTEN TO THAT GIBSON!

➢ Previously at Shapersofthe80s:
2011, How Bowie changed my life at Bromley Tech

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Posted in 1970s, Concert, Glasgow, live music, London, North America, rock music, Rolling Stone, swinging 60s, tours

Tagged Do You Feel Like We Do, Face of 68, Finale Farewell Tour, Frampton Comes Alive!, Humble Pie, Peter Frampton, Royal Albert Hall, Steve Marriott, The Herd

2022 ➤ Out of chaos comes forth Grace Jones

Posted on 20 Jun 2022 | Leave a comment

Grace Jones, Meltdown, Royal Festival Hall

Grace Jones’s finale at Meltdown: 20ft above the stage in Keith Haring printed dress

■ WHAT AN O-T-T SPECTACLE Grace Jones made of her finale last night as the annual Meltdown Festival’s curator over ten days at London’s Royal Festival Hall. Backed by an eight-piece band (which includes her son Paolo), plus a magical accordionist during Libertango, Grace’s own set reached back through her entire catalogue of reggae, dub, soul, new wave, pop and disco. As her supporting act, the evening had showcased the black British singer and percussionist Eska (who Radio 6’s Gilles Petersen has called “one of the most important singers in the UK”).

Grace as Meltdown logo

Grace was on-stage for 1h45m while she changed costumes for virtually every number and was visibly fortifying herself during the changes with red wine, an apparent spliff and who knows what else. Let’s face it, at 74 years old, this was a helluva lot of stage minutes to cavort through in her uniquely burlesque style without break!

The show opened to reveal her singing the trip-hop This Is, mounted like a mannequin atop a massive 20ft “dress” bearing a Keith Haring print and wafting as if animated within by vigorous dancing feet. The witty chaos that followed didn’t falter, and never overshadowed the music.

Click any pic below to enlarge all in a slideshow

Grace 2022: surfing through Pull Up To the Bumper. (Live pix Shapersofthe80s)

Meltdown, Royal Festival Hall, Eska Mtungwazi,

Meltdown: Eska Mtungwazi as powerful support. (Photo Victor Frankowski)

Grace 2022: Love is the Drug

Grace 2022: hula-hooping through Slave to the Rhythm

Grace 2022: fortifying herself with red wine

Telling us “I feel like the wicked witch,” Grace proceeded to destroy two sets of side drums, spin her famous hula-hoop throughout Slave to the Rhythm while tweaking her bare nipples, surf her way up through the stalls during Pull Up To the Bumper buoyed by an eager audience, then returning to the stage to fight her own full-on Hurricane from a wind machine, the whole time proffering her sensually painted torso to us, led by a curiously masculine bulge over the crotch of her black corset. All of which exhausted many among the sell-out standing audience across the generations who had to sit down at frequent intervals to recover their wits.

Grace’s legendary creative chaos endured to the end: the band had taken their bows and exited past the scheduled finish time, when Grace lit a cigarette and told us “I can sing a cappella” only to linger alone to give us La Vie En Rose. Then, er, that done, she walked off. Here’s to Grace’s 75th!