➢➢ Shapers of the 80s ➣➣

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➤ David Bowie 8 January 1947 – 10 January 2016

Posted on January 11, 2016

All-Bowie search here at Shapers of the 80s

➤ Now David Bowie’s landlady tells her story of the lodger from Mars

Posted on 5 Jan 2016 | 1 comment

David Bowie , Mary Finnigan, book, pop music, biography, Psychedelic Suburbia, 1969, Space Oddity, Beckenham Arts Lab,

David Bowie at home in Beckenham in 1969, where he became the lodger and lover of Mary Finnigan. (Photo by Ray Stevenson/Rex)

◼ AS A STRUGGLING FOLK SINGER David Bowie was 22 years old and living with his parents in south-east London when, by chance, he met journalist Mary Finnigan, eight years his senior, and moved into her flat in Foxgrove Road, Beckenham, where she lived with her two children from an early marriage.

They became lovers and launched a successful folk club which became the iconic Beckenham Arts Lab at The Three Tuns pub (now a Zizzi restaurant) on the High Street. Mary’s new book, Psychedelic Suburbia, offers new insights about Bowie in 1969, the year in which his first single Space Oddity reached the pop charts. Today The Independent runs a fabulously revealing extract:

“ We do not observe landlady-lodger conventions. I am happy with this arrangement – we share tincture of cannabis and Lucy’s deliveries of high-quality hashish. We share the space, cook and eat together. And a few days after he moves in, David and I sleep together.

The seduction is a work of art and takes me totally by surprise, when I come home one Saturday evening after a shift at The Sunday Times (edited in those days by my friend and journalistic mentor, Harry Evans). Usually I return to a messy kitchen and a sink full of dishes, showing evidence of baked beans, fried egg and tomato ketchup. But on this occasion, interesting cooking smells greet my arrival, the kitchen is clean and tidy, with the table laid for two plus flowers, candles and incense. The kids are fed, washed and tucked up in bed.

After a spliff and a nice dinner, David creates a nest of cushions on the floor of his room. He settles me into it and places speakers close to my ears on each side. Then he plays me a selection of his current favourite musical influences. Some are obscure, others well known – Jacques Brel, for example, and mind-blowing stereo phasing from Jimi Hendrix. . . ” / Continued at The Independent online

Friend, lover and landlady: Mary Finnigan and her personal new book about living with Bowie

“ Living from hand to mouth, David also does
casual shifts from time to time at Legastat, a copying office in central London ”
– Bowie as a Brook Street temp ?!?!

➢ Psychedelic Suburbia: David Bowie and the Beckenham Arts Lab by Mary Finnigan (£14.95, Jorvik Press) out now

➢ Previously at Shapersofthe80s: Weird and wonderful new Bowie – his Blackstar man is set to blow our minds, this Thursday

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Posted in books, Culture, History, London, Pop music, Youth culture

Tagged 1969, Beckenham Arts Lab, biography, David Bowie, Mary Finnigan, Psychedelic Suburbia, Space Oddity

2016 ➤ Shakespeare announces tour dates for US comeback

Posted on 4 Jan 2016 | Leave a comment

William Shakespeare, First Folio, US tour, Folger

400th anniversary of William Shakespeare’s death: the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, DC, owns 82 copies of his First Folio! (Photo: Folger)

➢ 400 years after his death, Shakespeare’s First Folio goes on tour, NPR reports:
“ One of the world’s most precious volumes starts a tour on Monday, in Norman, Okla. The Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, DC, is sending out William Shakespeare’s First Folio to all 50 states to mark the 400th anniversary of the bard’s death. Published seven years after he died, the First Folio is the first printed collection of all of Shakespeare’s plays. Of approximately 750 copies of the First Folio that were printed, 233 survive. The Folger has 82 of them — the largest collection in the world. . . ” / Continued at NPR online

“The Folger has 82 First Folios” !!!

➢ Dates for the year-long touring exhibit of the First Folio from coast to coast

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➤ Steve Strange remembered by Martin Kemp

Posted on 27 Dec 2015 | 1 comment

Steve Strange, tribute, Martin Kemp, New Romantics. Blitz Kids,Swinging 80s, London, nightlife

Steve Strange, right, and Martin Kemp at Tokyo Joe’s in London in 1981. Photograph by Robert Rosen/Rex

➢ Spandau Ballet bassist Martin Kemp recalls the Visage frontman, nightclub host and New Romantic pioneer who kickstarted his band’s career – in today’s Observer:

“ It’s lovely being asked to talk about Steve now, because I couldn’t right after he died. I’d start, but then I’d just burst into tears. He was one of my best friends and he created a big part of my personality. He showed me how exciting life could be, but how you could be a decent person with it. I also genuinely believe that everything that the 80s was, he started it. What people wore, how they did their hair, the decade of excess – that was all him. . .

Steve Strange’s gravestone erected 18 December in Porthcawl, South Wales

We were both working-class boys who had always wanted to do something else and here he was, doing it brilliantly. I looked up to him. He’d set up punk gigs back home in Wales, came up to London to work for Malcolm McLaren, and now he was carving out his own path away from punk. . . He succeeded because he was smothered in charisma. It drew everyone to him – the working class and the middle class loved him, but even the most upper-class people were immediately in the palm of his hand.

London made Steve, but it wasn’t good for him. He was a very intelligent man, but he got scrambled and crossed the line with drugs. . . The saddest thing is that I could see the end of Steve’s story long before it had been told. I’d waited for the phone call for years, so it wasn’t a shock. But to go to his funeral in Wales… it was incredibly sad. . . ” / Read the full tribute at the Observer online

➢ Previously at Shapersofthe80s:
Original Blitz Kids say farewell to Steve Strange – read exclusive tributes to the King of the Posers

➢ Read the story of Spandau Ballet, the Blitz Kids and the birth of the New Romantics at The Observer, by Yours Truly

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Posted in Clubbing, Fashion, London, Pop music, Youth culture

Tagged Blitz Kids, Martin Kemp, New Romantics, nightclubbing, Steve Strange, tribute

➤ “How it should be” bombshell from Hadley to Spandau

Posted on 22 Dec 2015 | Leave a comment

Tony Hadley, Lorraine Kelly , Spandau Ballet, reunion, bombshell

Spandau Ballet singer Tony Hadley talking to Lorraine today. (Picture: Rex Shutterstock/ITV)

◼ METRO REPORTS TONY HADLEY talking to Lorraine Kelly today on ITV: “Spandau’s on hold, that’s kind of one of the reasons I did the jungle [TV show],” Tony said of the 80s chart-toppers. With the 2015 world tour ending only recently, he admitted that a future reunion shouldn’t be ruled out. “We’re really great friends and we’ll get back together every three or four years – which is how it should be.”