Tag Archives: Chris Sullivan

2012 ➤ Blue Rondo breathe fresh life into Mr Sanchez a whole aeon later

Posted on 2 Sep 2012 | Leave a comment

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Maestro’s in Glasgow, 1981: suited and zooted onstage are Blue Rondo vocalists Chris Sullivan and Christos Tolera

◼ “HERE’S A NEW BLUE RONDO REMIX — at last we’ve got it right. Recorded in 1981 … remixed in 2012.” So says the Latin-funk combo’s founder and frontman Chris Sullivan on Facebook today, after posting on Soundcloud a pacy instrumental mix of the London clubland band’s first hit, Me & Mr Sanchez, which stayed four weeks in the UK chart in 1981. Wait for the virtuosi to open up in the second half.

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In the topmost pic we see vocalist Sullivan onstage demonstrating his northern soul choreography alongside sidekick Christos Tolera. This pic was taken during Blue Rondo’s promotional tour for their debut single at Glasgow’s trendiest nightspot Maestro’s on 6 Nov 1981, the day of its release. As a former fashion student at St Martin’s School of Art, Sullivan almost single-handedly introduced the zoot suit to Soho’s nightclub scene, and designed styles for both himself as leader of the band and for Tolera and Beat Route host Ollie O’Donnell, among many others.

Under its full name of Blue Rondo à la Turk, the stylish seven-piece was among the first of the Blitzworld’s new image bands to change the musical gear of 1981, in their case towards a tongue-in-cheek collage of carnival rhythms inspired by the Brubeck era of jazz. If you visit Soundcloud you’ll also find a fresh 2012 remix of the single, complete with vocals. “Mark Reilly did the lion’s share,” says Sullivan, referring to Rondo’s guitarist, who still flies the flag for his band Matt Bianco, which he formed in 1983 with the late Kito Poncioni and Daniel White, both Rondo members. The new remixes have been brought about only now because “it has taken us a few years to get the masters back,” Sullivan says. “More to follow as well.”

➢ From the summer of New Romance in 1981, read how the UK charts were bursting with a new generation of pop sounds … Also, view Rondo’s video of Sanchez … Then click through to my eye-witness account of the day that Blue Rondo à la Turk set off on their road to fame — here at Shapersofthe80s

UPDATE SEPTEMBER 18: KLACTO INSTRUMENTALIST

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Posted in Clubbing, dance music, Fashion, Pop music, Swinging 80s, Youth culture

Tagged Blue Rondo a la Turk, Chris Sullivan, Christos Tolera, clubbing, Glasgow, Klactoveesedstein, Maestro’s, Mark Reilly, New Romantics

2012 ➤ Boogie on down, Your Maj, with three British maestros of the club mix

Posted on 29 May 2012 | Leave a comment

❚ A RIGHT ROYAL Diamond Jubilee knees-up courtesy of London clubland’s star deejays still going strong after 30 years . . .

Chris Sullivan, youth culture, Swinging 80s,Beat Route, clubbing

2011, Le Beat Route recreated for one night only: MC Sullivan sharing his sounds

Dj chris sullivan GROOVALICIOUSMIXaiff

“I guess it might be called of groovy disco funk” x 1h 16m

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Le Palace, Paris 1982: Egan aloft, Strange below. Photographed © by Shapersofthe80s

RUSTY EGAN 2012-03-01 Enjoy the silence

Claptone, Deep Mind, Jessica 6, Villa Nah, New Order and more x 60m

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Grace Jones, Mark Moore, Royal Albert Hall, Hurricane

2010: look who got to go back stage – photo courtesy of himself © Mark Moore

Mark Moore 13-5-12 Very Beautiful Lips Mix

“Mixed live on machines but not by machines. I left a couple of (tiny) mistakes on. I like the flaws. A flaw is what makes something beautiful truly interesting” x 62m

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Posted in Clubbing, London, Youth culture

Tagged Chris Sullivan, Diamond Jubilee, DJs, Mark Moore, Rusty Egan, Soundcloud

2011 ➤ Other picky people’s year-ending Best Ofs in music of all styles

Posted on 31 Dec 2011 | Leave a comment

BEST ALBUMS OF 2011 AT ALLMEDIANY

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❏ AllMediaNY.com offers the next step in the evolution of modern journalism — “free media” — an outlet where journalists and readers together decide on what is newsworthy and what is not. Editor-in-Chief Drew Kolar says it was “a great year for real music”, sadly marred by the death of Amy Winehouse.

50 SEVENS THAT REALLY STRUCK ME AT DIS

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❏ At Drowned in Sound Wendy Roby whittles her year’s reviewing down to a top 50 “that really struck me”, starting at Africa Hitech’s Do U Really Wanna Fight, via Metronomy’s The Look and ending on Jamie Woon’s Lady Luck.

POPJUSTICE READER POLL’S BEST SINGLE

❏ Rihanna — We Found Love feat. Calvin Harris.

RUSTY EGAN: WHAT’S ON MY IPOD MIX

❏ An hour’s-worth of vintage sounds mixed by former Blitz Club deejay Rusty Egan: “Some lost classics here plus some bands born in the 80s that sound like they wrote and recorded the songs in the 80s.”

CHRIS SULLIVAN’S TEN BEST MUSIC
DOCUMENTARIES EVER

❏ A Great Day In Harlem (1995) — “A must for any serious black music aficionado,” writes Zeitgeist-Meister Sullivan at RedBull.com. This documentary by Jean Bach tells the story of one summer’s day in 1958 when 57 musicians from jazz history met at 126th Street in Harlem to have their picture taken by Art Kane for Esquire magazine. Keen eyes will spot such greats as Horace Silver, Charles Mingus, Coleman Hawkins, Thelonious Monk, English-born Marian McPartland OBE, Sonny Rollins, Lester Young, Gerry Mulligan, Roy Eldridge, Dizzy Gillespie and Count Basie. Kane called it “the greatest picture of that era of musicians ever taken”.

KATY PERRY’S FIREWORK SHOCKER

❏ The video for Firework not only outraged British TV stations into censoring the gay kiss, but it then won Video of the Year at the MTV Video Music Awards. Result: the single remained in the UK charts for 58 weeks, way longer than in Billboard’s.

J J WHEELER’S JAZZ PICK

❏ A refreshing selection of five CDs and five gigs from 2011 offered at The Jazz Breakfast by a much-lauded British drummer/percussionist currently studying at the Royal Academy of Music after graduating from Birmingham Conservatoire. Listen to clips from his own quintet’s imminent album Unconventional at Soundcloud.

MUSIC BOOKS ROUND-UP

❏ A broad survey of the year’s music books by the Evening Standard’s David Smyth reveals that in his collected lyrics Jarvis Cocker says “seeing a lyric in print is like watching the TV with the sound turned down: you’re only getting half the story”… Le Freak: An Upside Down Story of Family, Disco and Destiny gives us a tour of the fascinating life story of Nile Rodgers [pictured] — conceived when his mother was 13, raised by beatniks who’d have Thelonious Monk over, he joined the Black Panthers and jammed with Jimi Hendrix, all before he wrote a vast collection of mega-hits, virtually lived in Studio 54’s bathroom and produced Madonna and David Bowie.

LADY GAGA: GOOD THING, BAD THING?

❏ PopJustice’s 2011 In Review asks singer Will Young: As a notorious homosexual, did you feel empowered by Born This Way by Lady Gaga?
Will replies: “When it came on the radio I thought ‘She’s basically written this song for me’. Amazing. I actually think I shed a tear as I was driving up to Wales. I stopped at a petrol station and I thought ‘You know what, I don’t care what they think’ and I brought some pink bon bons. Normally I would just go for a Wispa.”

STEVE NORMAN’S HOTTEST DANCE VIDEO

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❏ Tightrope by Janelle Monáe feat. Big Boi — “Amazing. Here’s to a year to remember, like 1981 only better!” says Spandau’s sax player Steve Norman.

➢ Don’t miss: Other picky people’s year-ending
Best Ofs from fashion, TV, web and film

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Posted in Culture, Film, London, Media, North America, Pop music

Tagged 2011, Amy Winehouse, Art Kane, Books, censorship, Chris Sullivan, disco, gay kiss, Great Day In Harlem, Janelle Monáe, Jazz Breakfast, Le Freak, Nile Rodgers, photography, Rusty Egan, Steve Norman, Video, Will Young

2011 ➤ Picky people’s year-ending Best Ofs from fashion, TV, web and film

Posted on 31 Dec 2011 | Leave a comment

BEST TV SHOWS OF THE YEAR

❏ DIY claims to be one of the most visited underground music sites in the UK. Its TV watcher David Bedwell reckons TV in 2011 was arguably stronger than it ever has been, and picks his ten best shows, from Smallville to Being Human [pictured]. Of series three he writes: “Proud to be able to put a UK show at the top of my chart this year — there was no better central cast than Lenora Crichlow, Russell Tovey and Aidan Turner. They all have the ability to make you laugh or cry, sometimes even both.”

ANDREW LOGAN’S ALT BEAUTY PAGEANT

❏ The British Guide to Showing Off was a new movie by Jes Benstock celebrating the 12 incarnations over 40 years of Andrew Logan [pictured] and his Alternative Miss World contest — “Mashed potato for daywear. For evening wear she was a giant chip.”

CHRIS SULLIVAN’S TEN BEST FILMS

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❏ No 4 in ZeitgeistMeister Sullivan’s choice at Red Bull is Almodovar’s stylish thriller The Skin I Live In.

A FEAST OF ART BOOKS

Weather Project ,Olafur Eliasson , Tate Modern , art books,

Weather Project by Olafur Eliasson at Tate Modern, photographed by Dan Chung for the Guardian

❏ The Guardian critic Peter Conrad weighs up the year’s art books discussing the point of galleries and installations such as The Weather Project by Olafur Eliasson at Tate Modern [pictured]. He finds David Hockney enthusing like a teenager about the iPhone and iPad, and genius springing from the man who gave us the shower scene in Psycho.

I-D: A YEAR IN PICTURES

❏ Magazine publisher Terry Jones brought us “32 covers that capture fashion’s diversity” from a year of designer collaborations, and parties such as the i-D and Alberto Guardiani Milanese fashion week rave “which will go down in history”.

PRINCESS JULIA’S TIP-TOP TUMBLRS TO FOLLOW

❏ In her wider wrap-up of the year, the international club deejay and Blitz era icon, Princess Julia, elicits even more fave Tumblrs from the five bloggers she chooses, who include the epitome of all that is beautiful and girly, lingerie-designer and artist, Hannah Metz [above].

DONNY SLACK’S 12 PERSONAL HIGHLIGHTS

❏ The socialite musician, actor and spirit of the night Donny Slack records these highlights of his year at Facebook … Patti Smith’s Mapplethorpe book, Keith Richards’ book,  PJ Harvey’s Let England Shake,  Adam Ant at O2, Last Tuesday Society Halloween Party , The Chap magazine , Metronomy album, Patrick Wolf’s Lupercalia , John Waters at the Festival Hall, Alice Cooper’s Welcome 2 My Nightmare album and I’ll Bite Your Face Off single, A Child Of The Jago collections, and Earl of Bedlam launching.

➢ Now visit: Other picky people’s year-ending
Best Ofs in music of all styles

THE THREE BEST-PAID MODELS

❏ Forbes magazine lists the top earners of 2011 beginning with the Brazilian Gisele Bündchen ($45m, pictured), Heidi Klum ($20m) and Kate Moss ($13.5m)… There is no list of the highest-earning male models because they earn a lot less than female models. According to Forbes: “A top male model may take home anywhere from $200,000 to $500,000 annually, but most make a less glamorous living from catalog work.”

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Posted in Culture, Fashion, Film, London, North America, TV

Tagged 2011, Almodovar, Alternative Miss World, Being Human, blogging, British Guide to Showing Off, Chap magazine, Chris Sullivan, David Hockney, Gisele Bundchen, Hannah Metz, i-D magazine, Olafur Eliasson, Princess Julia

➤ Smith & Sullivan sign off We Can Be Heroes with a sigh

Posted on 23 Dec 2011 | 1 comment

We Can Be Heroes,Unbound publishing, books,Graham Smith,Chris Sullivan,Blitz Kids, New Romantics, Boy George,nightclubbing, Swinging 80s, photography,

Graham Smith: signing advance copies of We Can Be Heroes between coffee and cake today at Soho’s Society Club. Photographed by Shapersofthe80s

❚ THE BOOK OF THE DECADE has arrived and early buyers of the 2,000-copy first edition had it in their hands today. The photo-story of 80s clubland, We Can Be Heroes, felt reassuringly hefty to the touch and we finally discovered the page size to be generous at 235 x 280mm. The five-colour printing gives intensity especially to the black-and-white photography on the high-gloss paper and author Graham Smith’s verdict on the quality was simple: “Stunning.” Collaborator and 80s club-host Chris Sullivan breathed a sigh: “We got there in the end.”

The 320 pages of story-telling and voxpops from perhaps 100 contributors will raise plenty of smiles when the postman delivers the book during the next week. Even if you’ve read Shapersofthe80s from top to bottom, you’ll find as many more quotes and insights from the original Blitz Kids themselves. Deejay Jeffrey Hinton reminds us in the book: “People think this was a premeditated scene but it was not. It was childlike, thrown together. We didn’t do it for the money, we were innocent. It’s all so marketed today.”

Ringleaders who shaped the style of the 80s celebrated in We Can Be Heroes: Chris Sullivan, Fiona Dealey, Lee Sheldrick, Stephen Linard and Kim Bowen — the rebels within St Martin’s School of Art, all photographed by Graham Smith

Bournemouth was the destination on bank holidays: good-natured hijinks brought London clubbers to the south-coast resort, and Smith has included many of their snaps in We Can Be Heroes

While the main images reveal just how small in number was the coterie who initiated the sounds and styles of the 80s, Smith has supplemented his own portfolio of pictures with many snaps from clubland wags themselves whose ambitions were liberated by the spirit of collaboration inspired in 1980. Nevertheless, designer Fiona Dealey makes a valid point in the book: “When anyone has written about the Blitz it has been by the same few blokes giving the same old soundbites with never a mention of what the women were up to. The Blitz was our youth club and I feel they hijacked it.”

Today John Mitchinson, the book’s publisher, said he was reasonably confident that a commercial edition of Heroes might follow in the autumn of 2012. In the meantime a limited number of copies of the first edition are still available only from Unbound Publishing.

➢ 1976–1984, Creative clubbing ended with the 80s — we profile three of the bright sparks behind We Can Be Heroes and how they shaped the decade

➢ View Shapersofthe80s video — Chris Sullivan telling his “ribald tales of excess” from the Blitz era at a launch party for We Can Be Heroes… with Graham Smith and Robert Elms on video too