Tag Archives: 1970s

2012 ➤ Diamond Dogs snarl denial over Bowie / Heroes The Musical

Posted on 27 Nov 2011 | Leave a comment

Guy Peellaert’s sci-fi cover for Bowie’s Diamond Dogs album, 1974... That year Elle magazine named the Belgian pop-artist “the Michelangelo of Pop”

➢ Nov 27 Update at davidbowie.com: Following news reports in today’s UK press, such as The Observer, here is the official statement from his spokesman…

“ Neither the David Bowie Organization, nor its co-publishers EMI Music and Chrysalis, has issued a license for this performance at the O2. There are no negotiations pending for a long-running musical featuring the music of Mr Bowie ”

❏ Nov 29 update: Julian Stockton at The Outside Organisation confirmed today: “That statement put out by me at the weekend still stands, there has been no change.” When I suggested that his phrase “long-running” doesn’t actually rule out a one-off show, and asked “Are negotiations pending for a one-off musical?” he replied: “To the best of my knowledge no there are not.”

➢ Dec 1 update: A Guardian blog today surmises that Bowie made “the right artistic call” over this jukebox musical, yet no correction to last Sunday’s report has been published or explanation of whether the reporter checked the facts with Bowie’s management.

SORRY, FANS, THIS HEROES SHOW IS A DEAD DUCK

❏ Despite the official denials expressed above, the website for Heroes the Musical is still announcing a performance on Sunday March 11, 2012… and its Facebook page says tickets go on sale 9am January 5. Meanwhile an email from Shapersofthe80s seeking clarification from the producers remains unanswered.

➢ Original report Sunday Nov 27 by Vanessa Thorpe in The Observer newspaper and still online without retraction Monday Nov 28:

“ PLANS HAVE BEEN ANNOUNCED this weekend for the first full-scale musical based on the songs of the totemic British performer David Bowie. A futuristic fantasy called Heroes: The Musical will tell the story of Major Tom, as well as the starman and a “young dude” called David and will have its world premiere in March at the IndigO2, the nightclub venue with a flexible capacity of 2,400 inside London’s former Millennium Dome.

Bowie, who is one of Britain’s most successful songwriters, rarely gives permission for his songs to be used and has never allowed them to be used in this way before. Deep Singh, a former screenwriter who wrote the musical, believes that Bowie gave consent because he emphasised that his story was set in the future and aimed to show the timeless relevance of Bowie’s lyrics.

The villains of Singh’s story are the patrolling Diamond Dogs and the “ruthless Smart Simon” who has created, and now controls, a dystopian empire set in an indeterminate future… ”/ continued online

➢ A feast of Bowie-ana served in waffeur-thin slices
in Kevin Cann’s new book

➢ Discovered last week, a Bowie smile flashed to an amateur
cine camera in 1965

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1972–2009 ➤ Andrew Logan’s glistening vision of Planet Earth and all its creatures

Posted on 11 Nov 2011 | 1 comment

“As a cherishable example of alternative British culture,
it makes you wonder why this isn’t the orthodoxy”
— Nigel Andrews, Financial Times

❚ ANDREW LOGAN. BRITISH ARTIST. SOCIAL MAGICIAN. Here is one of the giants of the subcultural landscape during the 70s who helped shape the imaginations of the Blitz Kids of the 80s. In 1972, Logan created the anarchic and outrageous Alternative Miss World Show, a spectacular costume pageant and fancy dress party for grown-ups, which has been reborn in 12 incarnations over the years.   In a new film, The British Guide to Showing Off, director Jes Benstock takes us under Logan’s glittering wing to share this joyous and exotic subcultural event.   Raucous, liberating and sexually charged, The British Guide to Showing Off “speaks to the outsider in all of us”, they say. At the ICA cinema from today.

“Makes Salvador Dali look like a painter and decorator”
— Empire magazine

➢ Former Blitz Kid now international deejay Princess Julia introduces us to the world of Logan at i-D online:
“ Andrew’s eclectic crowd has consisted of musicians such as Brian Eno and Divine and Nick Rhodes, designer Zandra Rhodes who has designed all of Andrew’s she-male stage costumes, fellow artists Duggie Fields, Derek Jarman, Grayson Perry and even David Hockney… a cast which includes models, scene stealers and individualists that have made London so vital from the days of glam-rock to the very present… ”

➢ Click for screenings… at the ICA London Nov 11–24, and afterwards at 60 independent cinemas around the UK

➢ Nov 27: Andrew Logan talks to Jarvis Cocker on 6Music about his new film The British Guide to Showing Off (within the first hour)

➢ Nov 13 update: The 10 best show-offs — in the Observer Andrew Logan, founder of The Alternative Miss World, pays homage to the outrageous, outlandish and out of this world

Two of Logan's choice show-offs: clubhost Daniel Lismore (pic from Rex) and the Binnie Sisters, aka the Neo-Naturists

❏ 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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Posted in Culture, Europe, Film, London, Media, Social trends

Tagged 1970s, Alternative Miss World Show, Andrew Logan, Blitz Kids, British Guide to Showing Off, eccentrics, ICA, Jarvis Cocker, Jes Benstock, movies, performance art, Princess Julia, show-offs, Stephen Jones, The Observer, trailer, Video

2011 ➤ Leee Childers interviewed: risqué tales of Warhol, glitter and Iggy’s best feature

Posted on 22 Oct 2011 | Leave a comment

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❚ LAST NIGHT BRITISH PARTY PROMOTER Chris Sullivan sat in a new London gallery cafe to ask Leee Black Childers about his formative years leaving Kentucky for New York City and getting drawn into Andy Warhol’s Factory crowd of the late 60s and 70s. For more than an hour at The Society Club in Soho, Childers confessed all about his formative years when Warhol encouraged him to “say” he was a photographer, after which he snapped many informal early pix of David Bowie, Iggy Pop, Debbie Harry, Lou Reed, New York Dolls, Patti Smith, Jayne County. All the photographs on display are on sale for the next week.

Our two videos catch a few ribald moments verbatim. Other landmarks included Danny Fields and Andy Warhol taking him to see this “terrific new band”. Using the camera his brother had given him on his 17th birthday, Leee produced sensational pix of the young misfit Iggy Pop at the Stooges’ first New York concert. Leee lived for a year with Iggy. “You should know that he had a really great mind. He would talk about Schopenhauer and Nietzsche, and kept me awake talking about philosophy all night. He was also a very kind person and had one of the best penises I’ve seen.”

Lee attributes the birth of the glitter phenomenon in 1970 to Theatre of the Ridiculous director John Vaccaro’s production of Heaven Grand in Amber Orbit which was set in a circus, to which he brought “giant, huge barrels of glitter and he said, Put it everywhere, and everyone onstage was covered in glitter”.

Linda Clark, Leee, Nancy Spungen, Sid Vicious, Dee Dee Ramone. (Photo by Danny Fields)

In 1971 Leee visited London when Andy Warhol’s ground-breaking show Pork took over the Roundhouse with nude scenes that revelled in the recent abolition of theatre censorship in the UK. During this trip he met David Bowie performing at the Country Cousins nightspot in Fulham: “I’d never heard of him but I went because they said he wore a dress, but he wasn’t wearing a dress. We also met Angie Bowie who was not wearing a dress either. That show was pretty lame.” Yet when Bowie later came to play in New York, Leee was asked to be the vice-president of his US company. He subsequently travelled with Bowie through Russia in 1973 and was tour manager for Johnny Thunders and The Heartbreakers when they supported the Sex Pistols on their 1976 Anarchy tour across the UK.

Leee hung out with the Sex Pistols in both London and New York. Asked from the floor “Who killed Nancy?”, Leee replied: “Nancy killed Nancy. She created the situation where it was impossible to go on” — referring to her fractious relationship with Sid Vicious. Though Vicious was charged with her murder in 1978, Leee says: “We all know it was not Sid.”

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➢ Last week’s report: Leee Childers brings his slice of 70s New York to London

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❏ 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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➤ Warhol chronicler Leee Childers brings his slice of 70s New York to London

Posted on 14 Oct 2011 | 2 comments

New York photographer Leee Black Childers seen at last night’s preview of his London exhibition. At left,  Patti Palladin of the 70s punk duo Snatch, at right the original Sex Pistols bassist Glen Matlock who went on to form the “missing-link” band, Rich Kids — over his shoulder, Childers’ picture of McLaren and Westwood. Photographed by Shapersofthe80s

❚ MORE LIKE A “WHO WASN’T THERE” EVENT, than a “who was”, wrote one Facebooker today. At the ripe age of 66, American photographer Leee Black Childers was in London last night to share his memories of Andy Warhol’s Factory acolytes in a selling exhibition of his work at The Outside World Gallery in Shoreditch. Titled Drag Queens, Rent Boys, Pickpockets, Junkies, Rockstars and Punks, the show has been organised by the two British co-authors of Cassell’s 2001 book Punk, Stephen Colegrave and Chris Sullivan. Colegrave rose from playing in various punk bands, famously The Lurkers, to become today the European marketing director of Saatchi & Saatchi. Sullivan’s journey as a clubland party promoter was propelled by the punk explosion of 1976, and most notably inspired the long-running Wag club in Soho.

Leee Childers travelled the length of the US as Bowie and Iggy tour manager between 1972 and 74. He also managed Johnny Thunders and The Heartbreakers when they accompanied the Sex Pistols on the 1976 Anarchy tour. On sale in London are his candid shots of Bowie, Iggy, Debbie Harry, Patti Smith, Johnny Thunders, the Rockats, Sid Vicious, Jayne County, The Star Spangles.

Leee says he loves rock fans who respect eccentric behaviour. In particular he’d like to meet “The new set of crazy, aimless, useless, doomed people like Paris Hilton, Lindsay Lohan and Pete Doherty. I love time wasters. There also numerous dead people I would like to meet, but unless considerable advances are made in science (as opposed to TV) I am doomed to frustration, which fortunately I am very comfortable with.”

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London did its best last night to serve up some punk-ripened partygoers, and afterwards at the nearby George & Dragon Princess Julia was joined by Chris Sullivan spinning suitably retro sounds such as Was Not Was from 1981.

❏ At Facebook Tracy Jenkins reported: “Tonight was a scene for all the old scenesters! It was the old CBGBs / Max’s Kansas City crowd. Galaxies collided in a fabulous mix of friendly familiar faces, from the worlds of art, fashion and Soho, at Leee Childers’ private view… Pam Hogg, Ray Gange, Bruno Aleph Wizard, Stuart Leslie Goddard, Bobby Gillespie, Glen Matlock, Gail Sparkle Moore, Olanski Solanke, Johnny Vercoutre, Vivien Of Holloway, Jenny O’Drag, Mark Powell, Spizz Energi… what an amazing night. Oh, and Steven Severin, I did indeed give Leee Childers a big kiss from you!! (And he of course, gave me one back, which I am to deliver back to you.)”

❏ Andy Polaris enjoyed “A walk on the wild side with Leee Black Childers’ exhibition in Shoreditch tonight. Great photos of Patti, Iggy, Bowie, Divine, Lou Reed etc. A blast to see some familiar faces especially Adam Ant (looking great) and Patti Palladin of 70s punk duo Snatch. Along with familiar faces from Blitz and Beat Route — Karen O’Connor, Fiona Dealey, DJ David Hawkes, Ali King, Suzie Cooke, Barnzley Armitage and original Banshees guitarist John McKay. I come home and switch on TV and some political show is playing Walk On the Wild Side in the background.”

❏ Rhiannon Ifans reports today: “Was a good nite. Me, Jeff Phobics and Gaye Advert went to local bar for a sitdown afterwards. Have already hung up my Siouxsie, Severin and Thunders photo.”

❏ Drag Queens etc runs for a week at The Outside World Gallery, 44 Redchurch Street, E2 7DP. On Friday Oct 21 Leee Childers is in conversation with Chris Sullivan at The Society Club, 12 Ingestre Place, W1F 0JF (tel 020 7734 1433) while his photographs go on show and on sale there till Oct 28.

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Posted in Clubbing, Culture, London, North America, Pop music, Youth culture

Tagged 1970s, Andy Polaris, Chris Sullivan, exhibition, Glen Matlock, Leee Black Childers, Pam Hogg, Patti Palladin, photography, slideshow, Stephen Colegrave

➤ Lest we forget: man has changed his ways since Peter Wyngarde cracked the sickest joke on vinyl

Posted on 29 Jun 2011 | Leave a comment

Peter Wyngarde, Jason King, Department S, The Prisoner,TV series, RCA,

From villainous to tasteless: At the age of 32 Peter Wyngarde was distinguished enough to guest-star as the sinister Number Two in the epic TV series The Prisoner (1967). Two years later he created the novelist-cum-sleuth Jason King in Department S

❚ EMMA PEELPANTS is a keen-eyed blogger who plunders magazine and retail archives in search of 60s clothes and the whole vulgar, vibrant style of that swinging decade. Once in a while, she has a mensday and today she exhumes that male stereotype, “the heel” — the overbearing, amoral lothario who 40 years ago fancied himself rotten and treated women as playthings. Miss Peelpants publishes a hideously recognisable illustration of a heel from a copy of the teenage magazine 19, dated 1972, where one such sophisticat is grinding his heel into a bevvy of scantily clad girls. 19’s Guide to Recognising a Heel shows the just-got-out-of-bed coiffed hair, the bandito moustache, the whisky-and-cigarette in one hand, plus total absence of a smile, which he would have deemed too uncool.

To anybody of a certain age, the dandy in the illustration is all too visibly based on the actor Peter Wyngarde who shot to fame playing exactly this kind of international playboy in two late-night TV espionage series at the dawn of the 70s, Department S and Jason King. These expressed notions of contemporary glamour by being set in airports and beside Riviera pools. Their action-hero won awards as the “Best Dressed Man In Britain” while Sun readers voted him the “Man With the Sexiest Voice on Television”.

What Emma links us to is possibly the most offensive song ever recorded by a star considered suave in his day. The one-off “comedy” album for RCA in 1970 was titled Peter Wyngarde and billed as dwelling on “the darker side of human behaviour”. It was said to have been withdrawn from sale after four days. Unbelievably it was re-released on RPM in 1998 retitled When Sex Leers Its Inquisitive Head with a “Don’t buy this” warning on the sleeve. As a model of appalling bad taste it not only leaves no innuendo unturned, but contains one track actively celebrating rape.

Lest we doubt that political correctness has delivered a few benefits over the years, the Lipstick Thespians have posted this number on YouTube. For those who wish to avoid hearing Wyngarde’s ripe spoken-word rendition, the Thespians have posted the full wince-making lyrics (words and music by Hubert Valverde and Peter Wyngarde). Many people feel that the actor met his just desserts when he wrecked his career in what politicians euphemistically call a moment of madness in 1975. He’s still alive and kicking and signing autographs, now aged 77.

Now feel the pain of date rape

Rhoda Dakar, The Boiler, 2-Tone Records, The Special AKA, ❏ RHODA DAKAR (left), lead singer of The Bodysnatchers, but here as The Special AKA, made The Boiler the strongest single of 1982 in this writer’s opinion, and deeply chilling. Despite being shunned by the safe daytime BBC radio deejays, it was well played by John Peel and spent five weeks in the UK singles chart, reaching No 35. The rare video below has ropey vision but good audio and it pays to listen right to the end.

Jerry Dammers formed The Special AKA, along with Dakar and John Bradbury, after The Specials announced their break up in 1981. Their first single release was The Boiler by Rhoda with The Special AKA (written jointly by the band and produced by Dammers on 2-Tone Records in Jan 1982).