Tag Archives: Kahn & Bell

2022 ➤ Finally, a blue heritage plaque to honour the Rum Runner

Posted on 20 Dec 2022 | Leave a comment

heritage plaque, Richard Whittingham, DJDick, Birmingham, nightlife, Swinging 80s, Rum Runner,

At the unveiling: Richard Whittingham beside the new plaque. (Photo by Adam Regan)

❚ NOT ONLY WAS A PLAQUE unveiled this month before the Lord Mayor of Birmingham to underline the importance of its key nightclub during the Swinging 80s, namely the Rum Runner. . . But the star of the occasion was clearly its deejay, judging from the immediate stream of affection from fans and friends that is appearing online alongside his bearded photo at the event, now aged 62. They said he’d flown in from Lapland especially.

At the age of 19 Richard Whittingham – aka, DJDick – was one of Britain’s most savvy club deejays, reading the tastes of Britain’s second largest city and trying to broaden them to embrace the new dance music like Duran Duran’s which was rapidly filling the post-punk vacuum. For my Nightlife column in the magazine New Sounds New Styles, Dick told me back then: “I’ve been trying to break the funk here for ages but nobody’s into it. The customers aren’t into it and the owners aren’t into anyone taking over their own night. I’m just buying the funk for the day when I have more freedom.”

Click any pic to enlarge:

Richard Whittingham aka, DJDick: talking to the 2011 Rum Runner One Show (© BBC)

heritage plaque, Maureen Cornish, Paul Berrow, Birmingham, nightlife, Swinging 80s, Rum Runner,

At the unveiling: Maureen Cornish and (we assume) Paul Berrow with Rum Runner plaque. (Photo Neil Drakeford)

heritage plaque, Maureen Cornish, Birmingham, nightlife, Swinging 80s, Rum Runner,

At the Rum Runner plaque unveiling: Lord Mayor Maureen Cornish with guests. (Photo by Debra Warren)

He found all the glamorous dressing up led by Birmingham’s Kahn & Bell boutique crazily entertaining, but he admitted what so many clubbers in the Eighties also did about not feeling safe on the streets. When the BBC’s One Show asked in 2011 what he would have worn at the Rum Runner, he replied: “Zoot suits, the odd frilly shirt, winklepickers of course – I had to hide them, to take them out of the house in a bag, and then put them on, because my mother thought they were trouble shoes.” [See interview in video clip below.] Today Dick describes himself as a carpenter and joiner, though he still deejays for occasional events.

Also at the plaque’s preview for the Lord Mayor of Birmingham, Councillor Maureen Cornish, and members of the sponsoring charity the Birmingham Civic Society, we see many local characters pictured at Facebook’s website The Rum Runner – Birmingham, which curiously fails to identify anybody by name! We’ve already guessed that the bearded one is DJDick. Another in the green coat caught wielding a mic and parting the curtains has to be Paul Berrow, one of the brothers who owned the Rum Runner, formerly of Wandering Star Pictures and Tritec Music in the Eighties.

The new plaque is attached to a modern building called Rum Runner Works, set back off Broad Street where the entrance once stood, today located between the Solomon Cutler pub and the Walkabout sports bar. In the Eighties the council planned to turn Birmingham into a major conference city with developments including the ICC and Symphony Hall. The Rum Runner was demolished in 1987 to make way for the Hyatt Regency Hotel, which opened in summer 1990.

Click any pic to enlarge:

heritage plaque, Birmingham, nightlife, Swinging 80s, Rum Runner,

Rum Runners: naughty party invitation from Glyn Rickards

Rum Running: today’s RR Works set back from Broad Street

Rum Runners: membership card from Paul Woodyatt

Rum Running: original entrance to Birmingham’s legendary nightspot

➢ Visit The Rum Runner – Birmingham website at Facebook

Photos displayed here were taken by Neil Drakeford, Debra Warren and Adam Regan who said: “Lovely to see this legendary Brummie club getting a much-deserved blue plaque. The club launched so many careers but none more relevant to me than this great man” [DJdick].

LISTEN TO DJDICK LIVE AT THE RUM RUNNER:

At Dick Whittingham’s website we can listen to two recordings of him deejaying at the Rum Runner in 1983. These were donated on his 40-something birthday by Mark “Mack” McDonald, an old friend from way back.

VIEW THE BBC ONE SHOW FROM 2011:

➢ Previously at Shapersofthe80s:
1981, Birth of Duran’s Planet Earth

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2021 ➤ New photos to rekindle the spirit of Brummie icons Kahn and Bell

Posted on 23 Jul 2021 | Leave a comment

Fashion, Swinging 80s, Gary Lindsay-Moore, Kahn & Bell, Birmingham Rag Market, Damien,

Photographed by Gary Lindsay-Moore for his show It’s Not Unusual: Damien models a vintage Kahn and Bell dress

❚ ART PHOTOGRAPHER Gary Lindsay-Moore was a teenager when he caught the bus from Tamworth to Birmingham city centre to search out a boutique he had been hearing rumours about. Heading on to Hurst Street, he stepped into the emporium created by designers Patti Bell and Jane Kahn – and discovered a whole new world.

“I had no money,” he says, “but went in and there was Patti although I didn’t know it was Patti at the time. I just saw this seven-foot Amazon with massive blonde spiked hair, a massive set of heels and leather and chains. And it was ‘Oh, my goodness, this is amazing’. I felt I’d found my cultural home – this was the kind of excitement I was looking for. The significance for me was profound.”

Together, in the late Seventies, Kahn and Bell revolutionised the city’s fashion scene. They were at the vanguard of punk and new romanticism, creating hand-made clothes for a host of pop icons including Birmingham’s own Duran Duran, Eurovision winners Bucks Fizz and music and dance group Shock.

Talked of as Birmingham’s Vivienne Westwood, Kahn and Bell gave people the opportunity to dress to express. And now, 45 years after their shop opened in 1976 in the city’s emerging Gay Quarter, Gary is paying homage to their innovation with a photography exhibition featuring some of their original flamboyant clothing. The exhibition is called It’s Not Unusual as a nod to Patti’s close relationship with music stars of the era including her friendship with singer Tom Jones.

Gary set about capturing the spirit of experimentation and freedom which Kahn and Bell encapsulated in a series of new images of their creations worn by some equally dramatic models. Between July 27–30 the free show runs at Birmingham’s Rag Market, where Patti also ran a stall.

i-D Magazine,Fashion, Swinging 80s, Gary Lindsay-Moore, Kahn & Bell, Birmingham Rag Market,

Kahn and Bell profiled in i-D Magazine No 5, while Shock’s Tik & Tok are seen modelling

One challenge lay in the clothes themselves. “A minor issue was that all these clothes were quite small, like sizes six or eight,” Gary says. “A lot of the photography I do is about body positivity, acceptance and individuality and I didn’t want to just use a skinny model. I wanted people who were modelling them to have the Kahn and Bell spirit.”

Gary tracked down local models with an individual sense of flair including some of the region’s best-known drag artists such as Birmingham’s Twiggy, who had a personal reason for wanting to be involved, having worked for Kahn and Bell in the past.

“I’m not trying to update pictures of Kahn and Bell which already exist,” Gary says. “It’s about putting my spin on the show, so all the models I’ve pictured did their own make-up although we talked about it beforehand to make sure it reflected the make-up of the time. There is lots of make-up, glitter and stick-on gemstones. They all look amazing.”

“I like pictures that work with sub-levels, so I’ve included some references people might spot. Patti and I are both big fans of the film Blade Runner and in one of my favourite scenes in that film there are lots of mannequins so I’ve added mannequins to some of the pictures as a tribute.

“I’m going to be there in the Rag Market and am happy to chat to people, especially those who don’t already know Kahn and Bell who can ask questions and then do a bit of research themselves. We have so much information at our fingertips now but 45 years ago it was all word of mouth.”

Gary has created a book around the project and has already presented Patti with her copy as a recent birthday present.

Birmingham, Fashion, Swinging 80s, Kahn & Bell,

Kahn and Bell in their early years, courtesy of Patti’s son Dylan Gibbons

➢ Prints of his images will also be available to buy on Gary’s website

❚ It’s Not Unusual runs July 27–30, 9am–5pm, at St Martin’s Rag Market, Edgbaston Street, Birmingham B5 4RB (tel 0121 464 8349)

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2011 ➤ Wham!’s cunning plan for a Christmas No1 as climax to the 80s revival

Posted on 15 Nov 2011 | Leave a comment

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❚ TWO REASONS TO CELEBRATE. Mother-of-two Shirlie Kemp has just exhumed a load of fab clothes from her heyday with Pepsi Demacque as the all-jiving all-singing girls in Wham! She has piled a load of glam photos of her stage clothes on to her otherwise sedately titled blog, No Place Like Home. We see her Melissa Caplan sheath from the 1982 Top of the Pops debuts of herself as Shirlie Holliman and of the clubland group’s single Young Guns in the lucky TV turning point [above] that broke the group after their first single Wham Rap! had initially failed to take off.

Shirlie Kemp, fashion, Kahn & Bell,Wham!

Shirlie’s bling leather top for Wham! It bears the Kahniverous label. Photo from shirliekemp.com

Shirlie also shows the cowgirl fronded suede top from American Classics in Endell Street, worn in an earlier incarnation of Young Guns.

Most eye-catching of all are those skimpy, gilded, blingy black leathers by the Brummie design duo Kahn & Bell who had shops in Birmingham and Chelsea. However, after a deep search through Wham’s YouTube videos as the first Western pop group into China, we find no footage of Shirlie’s claim that she wore them onstage there in 1985 — see below for Everything She Wants filmed live in China by British director Lindsay Anderson (which is wrongly dated). By then they had achieved three number-one singles in a row in the US with Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go, Careless Whisper and Everything She Wants, while the Billboard year-ending chart listed George Michael’s Careless Whisper as the US number-one song of 1985.

➢ Click pic for the fizzing Wham Rap! video in a new window

Above — “Man or mouse” Andrew Ridgeley establishes the group’s clubbing credentials in the opening shots of their Wham Rap! video by reading The Face cover story, The Making of Club Culture, written by yours truly in the February 1983 issue

❏ The reason why we’ve been catching glimpses of Pepsi & Shirlie around the media is the second reason to celebrate. An explosive 25th anniversary comeback by Wham! themselves takes the shape of a 27-track 2-CD anniversary edition of The Final, their farewell compilation album from 1986, with its minimalist Peter Saville cover design. Embracing all four years’-worth of output, it contains six UK No 1 hits, plus both George Michael solo singles (Careless Whisper and A Different Corner). A deluxe edition includes a DVD of 13 restored videos.

Wham!, The Final, albums, Peter Saville The Final is such a double-whammy of greatest dancefloor hits that its November 28 release is a calculated pitch for the top spot in the Christmas chart. And with Duran’s magnificent comeback year all but spent musically, Wham!’s cunning plan will represent the last major chart assault by the 80s revival that has warmed our cockles for a full two years.

Wham! went out on a high 25 years ago with an eight-hour grand finale of a concert at Wembley Stadium which coincided with their farewell single The Edge of Heaven hitting No 1 in June, 1986. Pepsi says: “A lot of thought went into stopping when we did — we were at our peak, it was such a high and that’s why we can celebrate Wham! The Final now, because we all still have great memories and we’re all still great friends.”

➢ “Maybe George was going through a cowboy phase” — this week’s interview with Pepsi & Shirlie for RealMusic Blog

➢ Rich List puts George Michael top of the popstars
from the un-lucrative 80s