➤ Le Bon takes wing during Duran’s return to Brighton

Posted on 1 Dec 2011 | Leave a comment

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❚ EXTRAORDINARY! IS IT POSSIBLE THAT Simon Le Bon’s voice sounds better than ever??? Even on an amateur concert video (above, posted at YouTube by Soralella71)) there was plenty of power and range to the tenor voice soaring over The Brighton Centre last night when Duran Duran opened with Before The Rain — all the more impressive since it was injuring his vocal chords that halted the AYNIN world tour in its tracks last May. There are 11 more gigs to play on this UK and Ireland leg of the tour, so fingers crossed.

➢ “Fizzing with the insouciant pop-funk of their most famous Eighties material” — today’s review at The Arts Desk

AUDIENCE VERDICTS AT FACEBOOK

❏ Corinna Scammell: Thankyou for Brighton — totally bloody marvellous and you did Secret Oktober!
❏ Lindsay Franklin: Bloody Brilliant Show last might in Brighton boys — it’s been too long! Last time I saw you was in the 80s. Even better now. Outstanding.
❏ Dan Thekebabman Burgess: Really enjoyed the show last night guys. Great job, simply amazing!
❏ Julie Stalford: Last night in Brighton was a fantastic night guys, thankyou so much, what a great great live band. Loved it.

Duran Duran, UK tour, Brighton Centre, John Taylor,video

John Taylor at Duran’s finale in Brighton last night: “That was definitely worth the wait. Thank you!” (Video grab from Soralella71 at YouTube)

A sentimental postcard from
John in Birmingham

➢ Dec 3: John Taylor on a DD family outing — “ You can’t blame the Brum crowd for their sense of ownership of songs like Planet Earth and Rio, they were written in their back-yard. We have lived in a lot of cities over the years and there have been a lot of places I have called home for a time, but you know, there’s really only one, and that’s the city of Birmingham. It beget us and it made us. Thanks to it for a great night. ” / Read more online

➢ Ten killer DD vids to say welcome back to the UK

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➤ UK spymasters set puzzle to recruit the web-savvy — without breaking the law

Posted on 1 Dec 2011 | Leave a comment

code-breaking , GCHQ, competition, recruitment, intelligence,canyoucrackit

code-breaking , GCHQ, competition, recruitment, intelligence, canyoucrackit❚ THERE ARE NO CLUES, just a screen full of letters and digits. If you can work out what the challenge is, then visit the special GCHQ website canyoucrackit.co.uk, submit your solution and you’ll be on your way to a job in government intelligence. GCHQ is the code-breaking department that works with MI5 and MI6 and is looking to hire about 35 people with expert code-breaking skills. Today they set a 10-day deadline when they launched the competition on Facebook and Twitter, and by midday had already received their first responses. Paradoxically, GCHQ says that anyone who is found to have illegally hacked the code will not be eligible!

➢ GCHQ at Facebook

➢ The Daily Telegraph online reports that “a number of people” had solved the seemingly baffling grid of numbers and letters by noon today

➢ Discussion on Radio 4’s World At One

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➤ Daily Mail shock as Palace admits the Ferry gang to see dad accept his CBE

Posted on 30 Nov 2011 | Leave a comment

Chance Meeting: today Her Maj presents Roxy Music’s frontman Bryan Ferry with his CBE for services to music over 40 years. Photograph by Anthony Devlin/PA

➢ Today’s ceremony reported at Daily Mail online:

“ BRYAN FERRY WAS WATCHED PROUDLY by his four sons as he was honoured with a CBE at Buckingham Palace today. But some could be forgiven for wondering if the Queen knew about some of the Ferry boys’ past bad behaviour as they joined their father during his investiture ceremony.
While the four brothers — Merlin, 20, Isaac, 27, Otis, 29 and Tara, 21 — looked undoubtedly smart in their suits, three of them are no strangers to controversy, with one receiving a conviction for drink driving… ” / continued online

Ferry in Mail video: “ The Queen said, Music is important.
I said, I couldn’t agree more ”

➢ The Olympia tour arrives in London at the Shepherds Bush Empire on Dec 14–15

➢ Roxy Music discography at Billboard

➢ Does the miner’s son feel at home in the elite circles in which he moves? — Telegraph interview by Neil McCormick

➢ ‘Sinatra of rock’ — Ferry’s first American tour in nearly a decade reviewed last month

Ready to meet the Queen: Bryan Ferry is joined by his sons (L-R) Merlin, Isaac, Otis and Tara at Buckingham Palace (PA)

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➤ Join Rusty Egan & Steve Norman for music and a pint to help the kids at GOSH

Posted on 30 Nov 2011 | Leave a comment

Rusty Egan, Great Ormond Street Hospital ,Frequency 7, Vintage 80s, dnace music,theblitzclub,

❚ CHRISTMAS APPEAL FROM RUSTY EGAN — The ex-Rich Kids and Visage drummer, and musical co-host at the original Blitz Club in Covent Garden in 1979 now enjoys an international reputation as a society deejay.

Steve Norman, Rusty Egan, theblitzclub, Great Ormond Street, fund-raiserOn Sunday December 11, he and Spandau Ballet’s Steve Norman are inviting readers of Shapersofthe80s to help raise money for charity. Rusty says: “Please support our Vintage 80s night in a nice Mayfair pub this Xmas and join me and friends. I will DJ and I hope some friends from the 80s will show up for a pint or a cuppa. Please buy a ticket even if you are unable to attend.”

The two 80s popstars have reunited in a unique nightclub double act where deejay Rusty spins the discs while Steve improvises on sax. Proud of their clubbing credentials which reach back to the landmark Blitz Club, Steve and Rusty perform a live deejay set of the coolest tunes from the swinging decade. Every performance is unique and reminds us of their own bands’ legacies and of the abundance of new sounds the 80s bequeathed.

➢ Vintage 80s night anchored by DJ Rusty Egan — from 18:00, The King’s Arms, at the east end of Shepherd Market, W1J 7QB … The evening is a fund-raiser to buy vital equipment to treat children in the Cardiac Intensive Care Unit at Great Ormond Street Hospital — and the publican Art Bennett even has a letter from the charity to prove it!

WHAT RUSTY and steve are ALSO UP TO…

➢ View video: Who is Rusty Egan? — Below, we see Egan “Deejay By Appointment” to the future king and queen, Wills and Kate.

Rusty Egan, Prince William, Kate Middleton, deejay,clubbing➢ Join the group DJ Rusty Egan at Facebook for upcoming dates.

➢ Electronic sounds only at Rusty’s new clubnight
Frequency 7 which is held on the first Friday of the month at The Purple Turtle, Camden NW1 1TN, with Jo The Waiter playing dark electro and industrial, plus quality electro bands live and vintage New Romantic visuals, till very late.

♫ Listen to Rusty’s latest mix 2011-11-17 at Soundcloud — a new one-hour mix of reworked classics and new electro which include a True rap… Also, his Chilled Electro Mix Sep 2011.

➢ New Year’s Eve party in Knightsbridge with Rusty deejaying — table reservations only

➢ For news updates about Rusty’s musical ventures visit his official website for The Blitz Club, named after the pioneering 80s London club-night. It also represents the record label, Blitz Club Records, and you can download R.E.R.B. and other releases there.

✉ E-mail bookings contact for Steve Norman — Chills’n’Thrills and Cloudfish

♫ Listen to Cloudfish’s latest track, Star

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➤ Ten killer videos to celebrate Duran’s live return to unfinished business in the UK

Posted on 29 Nov 2011 | Leave a comment

❏ Elegant French production of The Man Who… directed by Jethro Massey, with Faith Anne Gosselin, Sorrel & Massimiliano, Mocchia Di Coggiola

❚ TOMORROW DURAN DURAN RESUME their live British dates on the world tour which had been halted in May by Simon Le Bon’s vocal problems. The All You Need Is Now tour kicks off again in Brighton, and moves on to Europe in the New Year. After a painstaking year-long journey, the Brummie band has regained its status as magnificent international popsters and to celebrate, Shapersofthe80s has selected ten videos which demonstrate the energy Duran’s music has brought to the 20-tweens.

♫ CLICK HERE to view our selection of music videos by independent artists who bring eye-popping interpretations to Duran’s music

All You Need Is Now, UK tour,Girl Panic, pop video, Duran Duran,Naomi Campbell,❏ Duran’s tongue-in-chic new video for Girl Panic! sees Naomi Campbell assuming the role of vocalist (above) in red Austin Powers suit, while the 80s supergroup re-establishes its signature sound for the 20-tweens. Directed by Jonas Åkerlund and photographed by Erik Sohlström [videograb © Jonas Åkerlund/Harper’s Bazaar UK]

❏ iPAD, TABLET & MOBILE USERS PLEASE NOTE — You may see only a tiny selection of items from this wide-ranging website about the 1980s, not chosen by the author. To access fuller background features and site index either click on “Standard view” or visit Shapersofthe80s.com on a desktop computer. ➢ Click here to visit a different random item every time you click

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