❚ PINCH, PUNCH, FIRST DAY OF THE MONTH. You decide: is Stuart Hughes’s YouTube promo (below) the world’s most ludicrous reality TV event? Or what? Blingier than any Essex soap-star could ever be, Liverpool luxury gadget designer Hughes is the scalliest Scally joker of them all. His is the blingiest of shopping lists for Christmas…
iPhone 4 Diamond Rose, with 500-plus diamonds
◆ iPhone 4 Diamond Rose, “The world’s most expensive phone”, price £5m — Customised by Stuart Hughes, this iPhone 4 has a bezel handmade from rose-gold, and studded with 500 flawless diamonds (100ct). The rear has a rose-gold Apple logo set with 53 diamonds. The main navigation is a 7.4ct pink diamond set in platinum. Edition of two, from goldstriker.co.uk
◆ The Aquavista Dinosaur gold edition aquarium, price £3m — Crafted by Stuart Hughes for Aquavista, the only fish tank made from 68kg of 24ct gold and T-Rex dinosaur bone, upwards of 5ft wide. Edition of three. From aquavistauk.co.uk
◆ MacBook Air Supreme platinum edition, price £320,000 — This laptop special edition of five has a housing cast from solid platinum, weighing 7 kg. Find this and many more modestly priced trinkets at stuarthughes.com
❚ HIT ACT, HOT VIDS SHOT BY YOURS TRULY. Here’s the first public sighting of livepop band of the moment Paradise Point, in concert on Friday at Steve Strange’s club-night in Soho. Those crazy Neo Romantics were larging it at The Face, along with a bunch of proud parents from the previous showbiz generation. These concert vids capture two of PP’s four debut singles, Run in Circles, and Tears, all tracks downloadable at their MySpace page. Aren’t the kids doing well!
“…The singer swivels 90 degrees, one hand grips his thigh, his legs are a-tremble, his arms stretch to there measuring the extent of his despair, his entire body emotes its socks off. He’s intense, handsome and fit, as his gymnastics confirm. He is the vocal storm at the centre of a pool-table-sized stage at the club Punk in central London, and the energy beaming off it is fierce…”
“… PP’s music is the magnet and their lyrics are your reward. Wait till you get home and play the band’s downloads and pay attention to the words. They prick the teen heart and they pull at everyone’s. These lyrics share some of the emotional intelligence of Morrissey & Marr, who can reduce you to jelly in a phrase, yet PP avoid the confessional mode and so spare us the Mancunian melancholy.”
Paradise Point in rehearsal, above: Roman, Johnnie, Cameron, Adam
❚ “I’M THRILLED FOR ROMAN’S BAND. It’s one of the most exciting bands I’ve heard for a while. They’ve been rehearsing downstairs in my games room for the past year and they’ve turned out really well. Their sound reminds me a lot of Duran Duran, but the singer Cameron looks like Tony Hadley when he was younger and he’s got the vibe of Tony. He’s got a great voice, very expressive — he’s got a long way to go this boy.”
OK, if that sounds like a doting father, yes it is. Martin Kemp is best known as one of British TV’s most popular actors after his stint as a villain in the leading soap, EastEnders, but the past year of course was spent touring as bass player with Spandau Ballet, his reformed 80s supergroup.
This Friday, the fourpiece called Paradise Point is unveiled at London’s coolest club-night, The Face, and Martin’s 17-year-old son Roman Kemp follows his father by opting to play bass. This group’s claim to novelty is that they all play their instruments live and their music is pop. They are the vanguard for a return to real Brit pop.
Martin says: “I’m just pleased for Roman that he’s in a proper band, rather than a boyband where five people stand up singing while working out when they’re going to sit on the stools. His band is very polished. If I think of the level Spandau had reached at their age, they’re well ahead of us, much more polished than Spandau were then.
“They look fantastic as well. It’s a band that’s made for girls to pin on their walls, which we haven’t had for a long time. That’s what needs to come around again.
“The whole thing of saying ‘Let’s be famous’ before you have a reason to be famous has meant being in a boyband is much easier than putting in the time and effort, learning to play your instrument, then finding mates who can play bass and the drums, bringing round the gear. That whole thing is a slog. But what you get out of that setup is a bonding experience with your band, which you’ve all been through. And that has disappeared at the moment. For me, it’s nice to see Roman inside a band where he’s got some real mates.”
Paradise Point are determined to return credibility to teen pop music by playing their own instruments live onstage. They offer a determined farewell to the X-culture inflicted on the singles charts by Simon Cowell and his cloned songbirds. PP have had enough of manufactured pop idols and prancing boybands
Spandau Ballet had already broken up by the time Roman was born but with a pop-star mother too — Shirlie Holliman from Wham! — there was always music in the house. Martin says: “I taught him to play guitar when he was about six, then he got into rap for a while. Like all kids, this killed learning any kind of instrument, because they’re into the gangsta rap words.
“Then he picked up his guitar again and now he’s playing bass. He’s doing all right. He’s got a much better ear than I have, it’s brilliant. To tell you truth, when I was going back on tour with Spandau, after 19 years out, I couldn’t work out how I used to do some of the riffs. So I got Roman down to listen to the Spandau track to work out the fingering.
“He’s turning into a good bass player, a lot like John Taylor. Yes, from Duran! I don’t mind who he wants to turn into. If your kids go into the entertainment business, success isn’t about how much money you make — it’s about turning your hobby into your job. For me, that is success. If he can do that fantastic.”
So, Martin, are you coming down to The Face to see Paradise Point? “Absolutely. I’ll be roadying. Back to my original job with Spandau.”
One of Ben Ashton’s unique Princess Julia hand-painted plates on sale at the House of Voltaire pop-up shop. Image courtesy of Simon Oldfield Gallery
❚ PRINCESS JULIA, deejay, former Blitz Kid and a work of living art in daily life, has now been immortalised in the form of a pair of hand-painted ceramic plates. They are newly created by 27-year-old Slade graduate Ben Ashton, a painter and performance artist whose themes include celebrity and voyeurism. The plates go on sale priced £1,250 each in a pop-up shop being run by Studio Voltaire, a not-for-profit independent arts organisation that provides education and studio space in London. Throughout the month, familiar faces from the arts and fashion worlds will be fronting the shop. Julia herself plans to attend on Sunday 21st.
An exclusive edition of canvas bags with leather details, £120, by Stefania Pramma is available through Studio Voltaire online
The House of Voltaire is a fund-raising outlet open until Dec 4 in the heart of Mayfair selling a diverse selection of limited editions and original pieces by leading contemporary artists. Gift notions include creative Christmas cards by Cary Kwok, editioned T-shirts by Clunie Reid, lambswool blankets by Renee So, a David Noonan screenprint and splendid canvas tote bags by Darbyshire & Spooner.
Studio Voltaire produces portfolios and affordable editions (£50-£100 per print) of such artists as Linder, Cerith Wyn Evans, Spartacus Chetwynd, Mark Titchner, Dawn Mellor, Daniel Sinsel, Ryan Gander, Hilary Lloyd and Mark Leckey. These are on sale through the Studio’s online gallery.
For Ashton himself the portraits of Julia are the start of a year-long collaboration with other creative talents in The Bloomsbury Studio, a subsidised space opened in 2008 by Simon Oldfield, a 32-year-old former lawyer turned gallerist. Part of his gallery’s profits go to support charitable organisations such as the Whitechapel Gallery and the Contemporary Art Society in its centenary year.
❚ DURAN DURAN ANNOUNCE THEIR 13th ALBUM, the Mark Ronson-produced, nine-track All You Need Is Now, to be released via iTunes on December 21 and in stores on CD and vinyl in February 2011. Keyboardist and original member Nick Rhodes says: “It’s the best record we’ve made in over two decades.” Fingers must be very tightly crossed in view of their last album attempt.
Nick Rhodes: “videos for every track”
True Shapers of the 80s will recall the glory days of Duran Duran — Rio, Girls on Film and Hungry Like the Wolf — when the Brummie New Romantics were one of Britain’s half-dozen supergroups among the MTV generation. Their champagne lifestyle videos such as Rio, shot on 35mm film, set new standards for extended pop promos during the British invasion of American charts — over the years Duran have claimed 21 singles in the Billboard Hot 100.
Rhodes says of the new album: “We will be making videos for every track, which is something we certainly haven’t done since the very beginning.” This week Duran’s Taylors, Roger and John, were pictured in Katharine Hamnett T-shirts (in an echo of her Choose Life message in the 80s) in Roger Dekker’s photo shoot for the album.
“Humpty” Le Bon during the 2008 Massacre
The venture results from a 2008 collaboration in Paris between Mark Ronson and all four original members of DD — John Taylor, Roger Taylor, Nick Rhodes and Simon Le Bon. In Ronson’s words this is the “imaginary follow up to Rio that never was”. The band also promises a spring world tour to promote the album.
Well, they’re going to have to do miles better than the tedious Red Carpet Massacre album a couple of years back which was an utter chart failure. The tour saw a portly Le Bon gallumphing breathless around the stage in his skinny-fit outfit like a trussed-up Humpty-Dumpty, well past it. The obvious lack of chemistry between singer and musicians was an embarrassment all round, sadly recorded for posterity by VH1. Unsurprisingly, Duran’s five-year contract with Epic Records was not renewed in 2009, and they are currently fending for themselves.
Facebook commenters are already calling for Le Bon to shed his current beard. What about some weight too? Even then, the old fella will need a shot of Viagra.
♫ Hear a clip from Duran Duran’s single Being Followed,
which is set for release a week ahead of the new album
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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
PRAISE INDEED!
“See David Johnson’s fabulously detailed website Shapers of the 80s to which I am hugely indebted” – Political historian Dominic Sandbrook, in his book Who Dares Wins, 2019
“The (velvet) goldmine that is Shapers of the 80s” – Verdict of Chris O’Leary, respected author and blogger who analyses Bowie song by song at Pushing Ahead of the Dame
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A UNIQUE HISTORY
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❏ 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
VINCENT ON AIR 2024
✱ Deejay legend Robbie Vincent has returned to JazzFM on Sundays 1-3pm… Catch Robbie’s JazzFM August Bank Holiday 2020 session thanks to AhhhhhSoul with four hours of “nothing but essential rhythms of soul, jazz and funk”.
TOLD FOR THE FIRST TIME
◆ Who was who in Spandau’s break-out year of 1980? The Invisible Hand of Shapersofthe80s draws a selective timeline for The unprecedented rise and rise of Spandau Ballet –– Turn to our inside page
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UNTOLD BLITZ STORIES
✱ If you thought there was no more to know about the birth of Blitz culture in 1980 then get your hands on a sensational book by an obsessive music fan called David Barrat. It is gripping, original and epic – a spooky tale of coincidence and parallel lives as mind-tingling as a Sherlock Holmes yarn. Titled both New Romantics Who Never Were and The Untold Story of Spandau Ballet! Sample this initial taster here at Shapers of the 80s
CHEWING THE FAT
✱ Jawing at Soho Radio on the 80s clubland revolution (from 32 mins) and on art (@55 mins) is probably the most influential shaper of the 80s, former Wag-club director Chris Sullivan (pictured) with editor of this website David Johnson
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