◼ THE VERY DAY THIS WEEK WHEN HM THE QUEEN put a smile on the face of the British fashion industry, by attending London Fashion Week for the first time, also brought the sad news of Judy Blame’s death, aged 58. He (yes, he) was one of those self-taught iconoclasts who was acquiring a luminescent reputation in the electric 1980s when Fashion Week came into being, driven in part by the streetwise youth culture that Shapers of the 80s celebrates.
Blame shared friends with the charismatic Ray Petri whose flair gave kudos to the word “stylist” by injecting attitude and dash into the role of the humble gofer who gathered props and make-up for a photo shoot. This was the generation of creatives who asserted their urban savviness and shifted the word style itself from meaning a suspect and second-rate lure with which marketeers sold their wares. By the end of the decade, style and fashion had become distinct goals in their own right, the first announcing individuality in consumer choice and mainstream media, while fashion confirmed convention.
Blame’s own talents as an image-maker were celebrated in 2016 at an Institute of Contemporary Arts exhibition titled Never Again which displayed his DIY jewellery, objets trouvés, clothing, photomontages, sketchbooks and T-shirts, and gave insights into working with Neneh Cherry and Massive Attack.
Born Chris Barnes in 1960, Blame died on 19 February 2018 and the tributes flowed in. Dylan Jones, editor-in-chief of GQ, wrote: “He was an artist, a genuine one, someone who could cherry-pick cultural detritus and then mix it all together to create something new, something lasting.”
Nick Knight, photographer and director of SHOWstudio, wrote: “Always totally unique, always a champion of the underdog, always fiercely anti-fascist and anti-establishment, always inspiring, always so immensely talented and always one hundred % brilliant.”
Scarlett Cannon, Blame’s dearest friend and partner in fronting the Cha-Cha club-night 1981-82, said: “I’m heartbroken but so happy to have had him in my life all these years. He left such a rich heritage of inspiration and touched so many people.”
Judy Blame with his long-standing friend Scarlett Cannon, and little Maude
◼ 1983 PROVED TUMULTUOUS for British youth culture. By December, London’s leading club deejay Jay Strongman declared “This was the year of Go For It”, after 17 new British pop groups lorded it in the US top 40 chart that autumn, while our spirited fashionistas were making waves around the world, with Princess Diana playing ambassador for the classic designers, and Boy George pushing the wilder extremes of street style. Among major features I wrote for The Face was February’s cover story The Making of Club Culture, and in the Evening Standard Posing with a purpose at the Camden Palace, a centre spread on the runaway megaclub hosted by Strange and Egan.
Nightlife was a burgeoning story as black beats took over dancefloors everywhere and Manchester’s tearaway megaclub was the Hacienda, despite the oppressive clean-up being imposed by the city’s infamous Chief Constable. Clubbers from across the nation swarmed in to create a grand coalition of all the cults – “your complete i-D line-up, minus the Worlds End spendthrifts”. In my January report for The Face one inmate bemoaned Hacienda music as “too funk-based” though another, a flat-top lad called Johnny Maher, revealed his secret, despite having launched some new indie rock band minutes earlier. “I schlepp to funk,” he said.
In July The Face published a major piece of reportage, Art on the Run, prompted by numerous friends in fine-art education, and billed it as a “shock report” on the Conservative government’s debilitating squeeze on the art schools. Ironically in the same issue my regular Nightlife column identified the four hottest clubland teams as a Who’s Who in the New London Weekend: “Not since the Swinging Sixties had London nightlife reverberated to such a boom.” These clubs were the unofficial job centres that kept a generation in freelance employment and introduced the verb to vop into the language (derivation: “What are you up to these days?” – “Oh, a Variety Of Projects”). Some of that effort was fuelling the rise of computer games which in the June issue Virgin assured me was “the new pop industry”!
Brighton hotspot 1983: Ian, Oliver Peyton and Kate hosting The Can (Photo Shapersofthe80s)
My Nightlife column in The Face’s October issue featured Brighton’s trendiest hotspot (seconds before the very word trendy passed its sell-by outside the Greater London stockade). The Can was presided over by a young Oliver Peyton with Andy Hale as the deejay breaking funk there. Years later Oliver thanked me for this exposure and said he would never have come up to London and started opening restaurants without The Face’s prompt! (One of the few people who have ever thanked me for writing about them! Cheers, Oliver.)
Jay Strongman in 1983: ruling London’s three hottest turntables
By this fertile year’s end I had FIVE indicative pieces of reportage published in the December issue of The Face including a detailed rundown on the new dance music by club deejay Jay Strongman, plus news of the imminent Westwood/ McLaren break-up which I’d scented from body language backstage at their Paris runway show.
The launch of the first London Fashion Week that same October confirmed that British street style was being feted in the international spotlight, yet it begged the question how on earth had this suddenly come about? Click through to our inside page to read the feature investigation that set out to answer such questions, by asking decision-makers in the industry to identify the best of Britain’s young designer talent under the headline Eight for ’84. . .
Prince exhibition: chain-hat to conceal his identity in The New Power Generation and lyrics for We Want 2 Let the Funk Unwind (Getty)
◼ Hold your breath! An exhibition that could so easily have been a lightweight commercial ripoff about the myth of Prince Rogers Nelson proves to be a surprisingly affecting tribute. Scores of artefacts have been loaned out for the first time direct from Paisley Park, Prince’s lush Minnesota estate, in a dazzling rush of bling and sentiment for My Name is Prince, his official exhibition which runs in London for the next ten weeks.
It seems a strange idea to visit seven galleries packed with video screens and to stand clad in earphones watching them play out the most vibrant highlights from the American pop icon’s uniquely anarchic imagination. Yet the very impact of so many screens disseminating so much talent only magnifies the intensity of the moment.
This one-man band’s genius is all too evident in every direction you look. In turns, you’re gasping at the audacity of Dirty Mind, smiling at the ingenuity of Sign ‘o’ the Times and shedding tears of envy for his sheer virtuosity in While My Guitar Gently Weeps.
Above all, the entire immersive experience is very, very lovesexy. The attention Prince lavished on his many lubricious costumes is revealing: so many apparently plush brocade garments are woven on light see-through black mesh that reveal the sinewy muscles of his tiny but taut 5ft frame within.
Prince the dandy also took any opportunity to shed his garments and flash his intimate zones, including his bare buttocks in orgiastic videos such as Gett Off, shot amid scantily clad girls and boys (“23 positions in a one-night stand”) at the 1991 MTV awards. Indeed one of the exhibition’s biggest draws is the video for Thieves in the Temple, from the 1990 Graffiti Bridge album, in which cutaway jeans reveal his bum and thighs and bouncing crotch capped with a glittering gold lamé jockstrap, in some of the most frenetic team dancing ever in high heels. The choreography is shamelessly horny.
The sheer range of Prince’s musical gifts during a 40-year career is well recognised – 70 albums, 2,000? songs, an Oscar, a Golden Globe, eight Grammies, 100 million records sold, and a ranking at No 28 among Rolling Stone’s 100 Greatest Artists of All Time. But to assemble in a three-dimensional venue 200 tangible examples of his workaholic creativity as an all-round showman results in an affectionate multi-media tribute. For us to devour the close-up detail in his guitars, his hand-written notes and drawings, and his jewelled accessories becomes a truly moving privilege. And for a fan, the power of his achievements is reaffirmed as you bask in his subversive glow.
Prince exhibition: stage costumes from his Purple Rain tour (Getty)
Prince exhibition: bass guitar that inspired his trademark Cloud and diamond-studded cane from 2015
PRINCE’S PURPLE REIGN STILL EXERTS ITS PULLING POWER
London’s Eighties pop star Andy Polaris visits the Prince exhibition to assess the enduring impact of the black performer who in his day challenged the norms of sexuality and race. . .
“ The first time Prince triggered my radar was a review in the music press of his concert at the Lyceum in London 1981, part of his Dirty Mind tour. He was featured in the accompanying review wearing a trench coat covering a lithe brown body and wearing black briefs and leggings, topped by his mop of black hair and pretty face. I was miffed to have missed his only show but before the internet niche events could slip by easily without social media to flag them up.
It was obvious from the start that this was a black artist who, despite the flamboyance of disco/funk stage-wear and album covers, was taking it a little bit extra with some sexual ambiguity. The lyrics of the funky album track Controversy (a bass-driven early dance-floor favourite) set the tone:
I just can’t believe all the things people say
Controversy
Am I black or white? Am I straight or gay?
Controversy
I was fascinated to see the parade of Prince’s petite outfits complete with matching coloured heeled boots that covered Purple Rain, his purple metallic frock coat through to a crystal-encrusted cane and Balmain waistcoat he wore for W magazine. The materials are colourful, sheer and shimmering and in some cases boldly designed. He wasn’t interested in the toxic masculinity that permeates so many black artistes, one of the reasons he flew the freak flag for those who were not interested in paying £50 to see artists dressed in denim and T-shirts. . . ” / Continued at Andy’s own website
Jacquie O’Sullivan, vocalist partner in hot popsters of December 1993 Slippry Feet, with ‘Scoop’ Paul Simper
◼ FRIEND OF THE STARS (1980s division) Paul “Scoop” Simper threw a launch party for his book Pop Stars in My Pantry (PSIMP) at London’s Union Club on Thursday. He was delighted to be in Greek Street, of all the streets in Soho, because that’s where his story began, at the legendary Le Beat Route club directly opposite…
Simper with his special Bananarama Award for inspiring their gold album Tea at Mrs Simper’s, presented at the book launch by their manager Peter Loraine. Who can forget Robert De Niro’s Baking, and King of the Crumble? (Photo by Shapersofthe80s)
Buddies who found fame in the Swinging 80s: deejay Gary Crowley with singer Andy Polaris at BBC Radio London today
◼ WOOOH! JUST COMING DOWN from a breathless hour of lunchtime radio today as Andy Polaris very nearly talked the hind leg off deejay Gary Crowley – which is quite a feat! The BBC Radio London host was inviting former Animal Nightlife singer Andy to reminisce about his life in the metropolis and to pick six landmark tunes that still matter to him. Of course his teen years were dominated by pop, but apart from the obvious gods such as Bowie, Andy surprised us by bigging up those feisty strong female bands of the late 70s who were muscling in after punk imploded. Andy spent weeks following Siouxsie and the Banshees round the country to catch her gigs.
He says: “The women singers like Poly Styrene, the Slits and Siouxsie were way ahead of the guys. The guys were doing more clichéd macho stuff. The women were doing more arty things.
Siouxsie Sioux at the Vortex in October 1977. (Photo: Romany WG)
“Siouxsie you would see at a Bowie concert, and at a Roxy concert. The Slits you’d see at reggae concerts. Their music was fantastic: those albums Cut and The Scream and the X-Ray Spex first album – they’ve stood the test of time.
“Imagewise as well they were way ahead of everybody else – I loved that stuff to do with cinema, Poly Styrene with The Day the World Turned Day-Glo, and talking about recycling. She was well ahead of her time.”
ANDY’S SIX KEY TRACKS
Dr Buzzard’s Original Savannah Band – I’ll Play The Fool, 1976
David Bowie – Golden Years, 1975
Siouxsie and the Banshees – Hong Kong Garden, 1978
Sylvester – You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real), 1978
Grace Jones – I’ve Seen That Face Before (Libertango), 1981
Michael Kiwanuka – Black Man In A White World, 2016
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
An “invaluable website” — historian Dominic Sandbrook, 2012
A UNIQUE HISTORY
➢ WELCOME to the Swinging 80s ➢ THE BLOG POSTS on this front page report topical updates ➢ ROLL OVER THE MENU AT TOP to go deeper into the past ➢ FOR NEWS & MONTH BY MONTH SEARCH, see the sidebar below
❏ 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
✱ Get up close and personal with Prince’s life and work at the limited 21-day retrospective My Name Is Prince at the O2 Arena in London from 27 October to 7 January.
SEARCH our 700 posts or ZOOM DOWN TO THE ARCHIVE INDEX
NEWS — OLD FACES, NEW MIXES FOR THE 20-TEENS
✱ One Nation Under the Groove – Wag club legend Chris Sullivan now resident at Mau Mau, 265 Portobello Road “which looks like a New York rhythm ’n’ blues soul bar.” Playing rare funk and disco from the likes of Mantus, Father Time,The Kinsman Band plus familiar tunes by Parliament, Bohannon and Larry Young – sample him at Mixcloud. . . Sullivan’s book Rebel Rebel, “a riotous history of people and things that broke the mould”, is due from Unbound in April. Get your name in the first edition by subscribing from £10
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✱ Haircut’s singer Nick Heyward is touring the UK from 24 May at Concorde in Brighton, for 13 dates including 02 Academy Islington in London
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✱ Roxy Music’s groundbreaking self-titled debut album was released in February as a 4-disc Super Deluxe box set of rare and unreleased music plus 136-page book. DVD includes TV appearances and 5.1 Surround Mix. Order from the Official Roxy Store
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✱ Morrissey’s ten-date tour of UK and Dublin runs from 16 Feb 2018 in Aberdeen ending with three London dates 7 & 9 March plus the Palladium on the 10th. . . His album Low in High School is on Amazon Music
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✱ Tonight Belongs To Us is ex-Spandau singer Tony Hadley’s European Tour from February 2018, tickets on sale via his website. See complete Hadley events list at Facebook, up to 6 July Chilfest at Tring, Hertfordshire, for An Evening with Tony Hadley and his Orchestra
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✱ Three new dates booking for next year: Steve Norman Live & Personal will be an intimate encounter including an acoustic performance at PizzaExpress Live in London 25–27 May 2018
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✱ FINALLY! What has proved to be the definitive appreciation of the style bible that shaped the 1980s. . . Cultural guru Paul Gorman tells The Story of The Face from the magazine’s launch with £3,500 of Nick Logan’s savings in 1980 to its sale to Emap in 1999, in between “paving the way for the digital delivery of visual culture in the 21st century”. – From Thames & Hudson £35, 352 pages, 379 illustrations!
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✱ Pop Stars in My Pantry is showbiz hack Paul Simper’s memoir of the early days of one of pop’s most successful eras: the 1980s. It’s an account of how a wide-eyed lad landed in London just as the capital’s club scene went into orbit. Available from Amazon… Read an extract here at Shapers of the 80s – Sade’s first foray to New York City
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✱ The original Blitz Club deejay Rusty Egan still plugging his excellent first solo album capturing the spirit of 80s electronica, Welcome to the Dancefloor – read a full review of its 14 tracks here at Shapers of the 80s. . . Hear WTTDF via the Mixcloud player. New live dates for an Audience With Rusty include 7 Mar London, 17 May Birmingham, 21 April Maidstone
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✱ Now in its 12th year, Soul Survivors Magazine issue 73 features William “Bootsy” Collins, Mike Vitti, The Floacist aka Natalie Stewart, Jean Paul Maunick (aka Bluey) and part 2 of an interview with Shirley Jones. Under Fitzroy Facey, the mag created an interactive website and a weekly events email while Facey plays all things jazz funky and soulful old and new 9pm every Monday on Soul Train Radio and then on Mixcloud
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✱ Quids In Mons, FCK Thurs, #FRI251, Big Weekender Sats at the legendary Factory Manchester – clubnights, cocktail masterclasses and live bands – chart, dance, EDM, RNB, house, garage, hiphop and indie over three floors designed by Ben Kelly on Princess St, Manchester M1 7EN – @factorymanchester
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✱ Manchester’s Remake Remodel claims to be “The Nation’s Saving Grace of Alternative, Rock’n’Roll” — Mondays at Soup Kitchen M1 1DF & every 1st Saturday at The Ruby Lounge M4 1QB – @RemakeRemodel1
