Tag Archives: David Johnson

2026 ➤ Hockney RIP: How Proust helped him understand cubism

Posted on 12 Jun 2026 | Leave a comment

❚ 1983 – “Have you been to the cubism exhibition at the Tate?” David Hockney enthuses during a trip to London from his home in Los Angeles. “I’ve been seven times! Suddenly I see cubism differently, more clearly.” My interview with probably Britain’s leading contemporary artist becomes an impromptu tutorial for me in which the influential painter tests his new ideas.

It is extraordinary that this fortnight he spent in London in 1983 is omitted from the artist’s official life story. So now in the week of his death aged 88, do read my revealing article based on three long tape-recorded conversations with Hockney, plus my own photos. . . here –
➢ Previously at Shapers of the 80s: Britain’s favourite painter discovers a truer way of seeing, with help from Proust

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2026 ➤ Seven definitive books about the 80s subcultural revolution in the UK

Posted on 1 Jun 2026 | Leave a comment

❚ All you need to know about the New Romantics
revolution of the 1980s is covered in each of these
books which is definitive in its own way. . .

* 78-87 LONDON YOUTH, by Derek Ridgers (Damiani, 2013) – Generous and compassionate straight-up photography at the street level of daily life captures the “looks” that set people apart.

* SOUVENIRS, by Stephen Jones (Rizzoli International, 2016) – Pictures of his playful and compelling hats accompany the life story of milliner Stephen Jones, from St Martin’s School of Art to every key designer runway over four decades.

* BLITZ, The club that created the 80s, by Robert Elms (Faber & Faber, 2025) – “Unofficial catalogue” for the Blitz Club exhibition in September 2025 at London’s Design Museum, according to its curator. The time-travel broadcaster and writer Elms was a key influencer when individualism redefined nightclubbing.

* POP STARS IN MY PANTRY, by Paul Simper (Unbound, 2017) – The columnist and TV writer Simper stumbled across an early Spandau Ballet gig to become an essential part of the British pop scene ever since. He had his own crack at the charts in the ill-fated disco duo Slippry Feet.

* WE CAN BE HEROES: London Clubland 1976-1984, by Graham Smith and Chris Sullivan (Unbound 2011) – The most personal gallery by photographer Smith in an elegant hardback, with insightful text throughout by club host Sullivan, a key Shaper of the 80s who ran the Wag for 18 years and charted with his band Blue Rondo a la Turk.

* If I was…, by Midge Ure (Virgin Books, 2004&5) – This remains a superb and frank autobiography by the weathervane of synth-pop who helped shape the British New Wave with Ultravox as probably the first active player of a synth among any of his clubbing pals. He earned an OBE for being half the brains behind Band Aid’s smash hit for charity in 1984, Do They Know It’s Christmas? the song that became, for 13 years, the biggest selling UK single of all time.

* NIGHTLIFE REBELS: How New Romantics Ignited the 80s, by David Johnson, featuring photographs by Derek Ridgers (self-published, 2025) – Two seasoned eye-witnesses watched Britain’s young ignite a glittering subcultural revolution… As a Fleet Street journalist I explored their intriguing carnival of style-setting cults across Britain, Paris and New York, while straight-up photographer Derek Ridgers captured the libertines in their dark dens, illustrating many of my own reports in The Face mag’s early years. . . Our elegant illustrated hardback NIGHTLIFE REBELS celebrates the 19-year-old hedonists who insisted “One look lasts a day” while becoming the latest British pop stars with more acts in the US Billboard charts than the 1960s ever achieved. Featuring unseen pictures, stats, a unique timeline and Who Really Was Who. . . “Some nights it was like walking into Hieronymus Bosch’s Garden of Earthly Delights,” says Ridgers. And Johnson: “The whole spectacle shouted newness. This chapter was about youthful talent and personal success, not about worshipping rock gods in a stadium.”

[ Order through my online address –
nightlife.rebels [a t] shapersofthe80s.com ]

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2025 ➤ The New Romantics history book currently turning heads

Posted on 7 Oct 2025 | 1 comment

Photography, fashion, clubbing, exhibitions, Social trends, Swinging 80s, Youth culture, newbook, New Romantics, Blitz Club, Blitz Kids,

Nightlife Rebels: my new book published September 2025

❚ DURING THE SWINGING 80S two seasoned eye-witnesses watched Britain’s young ignite a glittering New Romantics revolution… As a Fleet Street journalist I explored their intriguing carnival of style-setting cults across Britain, Paris and New York, while straight-up photographer Derek Ridgers captured the libertines in their dark dens.

Our new illustrated hardback NIGHTLIFE REBELS reveals the candid history of the Blitz Club’s hedonists who insisted “One look lasts a day”. It has gone on sale at London’s Design Museum which is hosting the Blitz Club exhibition. To buy your copy online directly from the author simply email your address to:
Nightlife.Rebels@shapersofthe80s.com

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Posted in 20th century, Blitz Kids, book launch, Britain, Clubbing, Comedy, Culture, exhibitions, Fashion, History, influencers, journalism, live music, London, Media, New Romantics, photography, Pop music, Swinging 80s, Tipping points, Youth culture, zeitgeist

Tagged David Johnson, Derek Ridgers, John Maybury, Kim Bowen, Nightlife Rebels

2025 ➤ Finally a candid insight into the glittering New Romantics revolution

Posted on 5 Oct 2025 | 2 comments

Photography, fashion, clubbing, exhibitions, Social trends, Swinging 80s, Youth culture, newbook, New Romantics, Blitz Club, Nightlife Rebels, Blitz Kids, Derek Ridgers, Kim Bowen, David Johnson, John Maybury,

Contributors to Nightlife Rebels: Derek Ridgers, Kim Bowen, David Johnson and John Maybury. (Photo by David Jenkins)

❚ DURING THE SWINGING 80s two seasoned eye-witnesses watched Britain’s young ignite a glittering New Romantics revolution… Myself David Johnson as a Fleet Street journalist explored their intriguing carnival of style-setting cults across Britain, Paris and New York, while straight-up photographer Derek Ridgers captured the libertines in their dark dens.

Our new illustrated hardback NIGHTLIFE REBELS reveals the candid history of the celebrated Blitz Club’s hedonists who insisted “One look lasts a day”. Featuring unseen photos, stats, a unique timeline and Who Really Was Who.

Last week the book’s four chief contributors gathered for a team picture at London’s Design Museum where an exhibition about Blitz culture runs for six months and our book is on sale in its shop – The Design Museum. To buy your copy online directly from the author simply email your address to:
Nightlife.Rebels [a t] shapersofthe80s.com

WHAT EACH OF US SAYS ABOUT THE 80s

“Some nights it was like walking into Hieronymus Bosch’s Garden of Earthly Delights” – Photographer Derek Ridgers, top left

“A full night-time economy flourished around these clubs where graphic designers, artists, deejays, writers, producers and musicians of every kind refined and developed their skills by working with club-owners” – Stylist and costume designer Kim Bowen, former Queen of the Blitz, second left

“In the shabby Blitz wine bar on Tuesdays precocious 19-year-olds presented an eye-stopping collage, posing away in wondrous ensembles, emphatic make-up and in-flight haircuts. This spectacle shouted newness” – Journalist David Johnson, third along

“Being photographed served as a kind of affirmation that your particular ‘look’ set you apart as a somebody” – Video artist John Maybury, and former Blitz star, pictured right

Photography, fashion, clubbing, Social trends, Swinging 80s, Youth culture, newbook, New Romantics, Blitz Club, Blitz Kids, David Johnson, Design Museum, Blitz Club exhibition,

There’s our book on the second shelf at the Design Museum: Dare we assume the two lads thumbing through the options might have been Blitz Kids back in the day? (Photo by Shapersofthe80s)

➢ Previously at Shapersofthe80s: Here’s an extravaganza of a show to confirm the Blitz Kids’ place in history

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Posted in Blitz Kids, book launch, Clubbing, dance music, exhibitions, Fashion, History, influencers, journalism, London, New Romantics, nightlife, photography, Pop music, Social trends, Swinging 80s, Youth culture, zeitgeist

Tagged David Johnson, Derek Ridgers, John Maybury, Kim Bowen, Nightlife Rebels

2018 ➤ Revealed: The secret role of Shapersofthe80s in the rise and rise of Spandau Ballet

Posted on 5 Jun 2018 | Leave a comment

Spandau Ballet, 1980,Scala Cinema, performance,

A photograph never before published: sharply styled Spandau Ballet in 1980 playing the dramatically lit Scala Cinema gig that eventually brought the record companies scrambling to sign them. Photograph by Steve Brown

◼ FIRST COMES THIS UNAUTHORISED BOOK that tells the world there were two bands called Spandau Ballet back in 1979 and turns over the whole myth about where their name came from. There are a least two huge marmalade-dropper revelations, plus several dozen eye-openers about the birth of Blitz culture, however well you think you knew the early 80s. The author David Barrat even knows John Keeble’s middle name. In fact he gives us everybody’s middle name, just to prove his overdue diligence. Barrat is also very revealing about the band’s legal falling-out that ended in the high court before an apparently congenial judge who quite liked their music.

Then out of the blue I find there are about 100 shockingly well-informed pages not exactly about me, long before this website existed, but following my every footstep through every month of 1980 as the second SB with the stolen name takes its first tentative steps toward a record deal and the UK charts all within a single year – which was indeed good going for a new band by any standards. Very flatteringly Barrat suggests that I am waving some Invisible Hand behind the scenes to make the Spandau magic happen and actually writes that “their success can be pinned on one Evening Standard journalist”. Talk about blush!

So what we’re doing here today is offering a modest extract from Barrat’s book for you to read how he theorises about my ducking and diving as a regular young journalist about town who suddenly fell into five years of rollicking night-clubbing. Then on an inside page you can read my own parallel account of falling under the spell of the real Svengali, Steve Dagger, Spandau’s manager. I blow the gaff on his game called Squeeze the Lemon.

David Barrat says he became “just an ordinary fan of the band” at the age of 16, who two decades later created a cult SB-related MSN group online called Deformation. It focussed on three subjects: 1, origins of the band’s name; 2, whether SB were real “New Romantics” or not, as a friend’s mum claimed; 3, the legal battle that tore the band apart in the late 1990s. He tackles other questions such as “When was Gary Kemp visited at home by a bishop? What was the real story behind Bob Geldof’s idea for the Band Aid Christmas single?” All the while he unnervingly debunks myths put about by celebrities with faulty memories.

He has also dug up a mass of colourful detail about London clubland in the past when the police were as dodgy as the club-owners, the notorious Roxy in particular, which adds quite a bit to the sum of human knowledge.

So tuck into Barrat’s own book in the extract embedded here as a PDF which will open in a new window. Then contrast it with my own account at the link below.

Click on this image to read the David Barrat book extract

WHEN YOU’RE READY FOR MY OWN STORY…

➢ 1980 was one frantic year – Follow my version of Spandau Ballet’s unprecedented rise, penned by the Invisible Hand of Shapersofthe80s

➢ Previously at Shapers of the 80s:
Spooky or what? When two bands went by the name of Spandau Ballet – the most amazing revelation made in Barrat’s book

Waldorf Hotel 1980: seated at centre, Spandau Ballet, house band of Covent Garden’s Blitz Club, home of the New Romantics movement, plus support team of Blitz Kids who helped put their first single To Cut a Long Story Short into the UK singles chart at No 5, on 6 December. Average age 20, everyone had a specific role to play in staging and promoting the band: seven musicians, six designers, three media and management, three club-hosts, two DJs, one crimper and 22 egos.
Commissioned by Yours Truly and photographed on 16 December for the Evening Standard © by Herbie Knott

➢ Click to buy New Romantics Who Never Were: The Untold Story of Spandau Ballet, by David Barrat, from Orsam Books, 330pp, £16.99

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