+++ ❚ THIS SIZZLINGLY COOL STUDIO VIDEO of the single Run In Circles is launched today at YouTube by Paradise Point, London’s teen livepop band who’ve been together now for six months. PP’s first concert review at Shapersofthe80s said of their debut: “Paradise Point are in the wide-eyed realm of Romeo and Juliet. They are great romancers, who cast the vocalist Cam as Romeo putting his heart through the Magimix for his Juliet.” Since then talent-spotter Callofthewyld has added: “Paradise Point are a 2011 take on classic boy bands such as Duran Duran, Spandau Ballet and even ABC. They surely must have been made in some manager’s laboratory … This lot are sex on legs and even if they weren’t actually any good they would still find it hard to walk on stage without being shrieked at. Fortunately their music is excellent too.”
This hot and elegant new video for Run In Circles was directed by the bass player Roman Kemp, who studied film at sixth-form college. It was shot in the family “studio” — “My games room,” insists Roman’s dad, Martin — and the camera lingers so intensely on the singer Cameron’s lips that Boy George is said to have tweeted the sort of compliment we couldn’t possibly repeat here. Compare and contrast the new vid with their live debut before an audience at London’s Punk club last November, shot by Shapersofthe80s, below…
Motormouths back in action: Strange and Egan interviewed on BBC London news last night in the club where they once reigned. Such were members’ powers of self-promotion at the Blitz, Egan said, that it was the 80s equivalent of Facebook Live!
❚ FED UP WITH BEING IMPERSONATED by the many lookalike websites online, Steve Strange and Rusty Egan have resolved their differences to collaborate on a brand-new official Blitz club website at:
The partnership of Strange as greeter and Egan as deejay famously hosted the Blitz club-nights which launched the New Romantic fashion and electro-pop movement in 1980, and opened the door for much more sparkling new music during that decade. Last night the legendary motormouths blagged themselves a couple of valuable minutes on London’s TV news to announce a reunion party actually at the site of the original Blitz, then a Covent Garden wine bar which these days is an after-hours saucy gentlemen’s club called The Red Rooms (pictured above). And though the BBC presenters banged on about a 30th anniversary, any original Blitz Kid knows the club actually opened in 1979.
Then and now: Egan and Strange photographed in 1979 at the Blitz by Derek Ridgers, and yesterday, Jan 7, 2011
Not one to let that stand in the way of a party, Strange says: “The furniture may have changed but there is no doubt we are heading back to our spiritual home.” Next Saturday night the Blitz partners wrap up three celebrations in one shebang, with live entertainment thrown in.
The Return To The Blitz party both celebrates their reunion and launches their website. It is an evening-only event from 8pm to midnight, with Rusty and Princess Julia on the decks while Steve and Rosemary Turner are hosting. In addition, from 7.30pm (doors open 7pm), Jus Forest will be reading from her book Remembering Eden, which is a celebration of Ultravox’s 30th anniversary tour. Jan 15 itself was chosen to mark the day in 1981 when the single Vienna was released — the hit single that established Ultravox as the driving force for the new wave of electronic music. During the previous couple of years their vocalist Midge Ure and keyboard player Billy Currie had also played crucial roles in creating new music tailored to the Blitz club through the studio group Visage, which was fronted by Strange as vocalist.
Quilla Constance photographed by Simon Richardson
Performances on Saturday include a set by the new livepop band Paradise Point, whose bassist is Roman Kemp, son of Martin whose own band Spandau Ballet were launched from the Blitz in 1979. We’re also promised Quilla Constance, an electro-punk singer and lap dancer who will no doubt be taking advantage of The Red Rooms’ dance-poles.
True to the New Romantic ethos that insisted “the band holds a mirror up to the audience”, Rusty says: “The real stars are the people who come, dress up, dance and enjoy electronic 80s music at its best.” He is shrewdly inviting guests to “hit me with your own Top 10 — tunes I would hear in the Blitz club if it were open now … Current acts I like are LCD Soundsystem, Gossip, Muse, La Roux, The xx, Amy Winehouse, Lady Gaga.”
➢ Remembering Eden – 30th Anniversary Tour Book celebrates the return of Ultravox, the synth-pop pioneers, to the live stage in 2009-10. Compiled by Jus Forrest and Helen Waterman, it tells the band’s story from the 80s right through the Return to Eden 2 tour, with interviews by Rob Kirby, fan reviews and many previously unpublished photos.
❚ 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.”
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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
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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
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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
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This hot and elegant new video for Run In Circles was directed by the bass player Roman Kemp, who studied film at sixth-form college. It was shot in the family “studio” — “My games room,” insists Roman’s dad, Martin — and the camera lingers so intensely on the singer Cameron’s lips that Boy George is said to have tweeted the sort of compliment we couldn’t possibly repeat here. Compare and contrast the new vid with their live debut before an audience at London’s Punk club last November, shot by Shapersofthe80s, below…
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