Live on Facebook: Sheila his mum joins Steve Norman for a guitar duet
■ YOU HAVE TO GIVE STEVE NORMAN a Boy Scout badge for Fun & Games after reaching out to his fans through a live webcast last night, on the day that “Stay At Home” officially became the nation’s motto, thanks to the coronavirus epidemic. Ten minutes after the advertised time of 8pm (so echoing the prime minister’s own slack daily time-keeping!) the Spandau Ballet sax player went Live on Facebook for the best part of an hour, locked down in his Brighton home with his partner and agent Sabrina Winter, and Sheila his lovely old mum (herself a nifty dancer back in the day).
His generally dishevelled look suggested he’d just fallen out of bed (do get that scraggy beard trimmed, Steve – it adds years to you!). He rabbited on in his usual enthusiastic way, name-checking the fans and friends who were leaving their comments and love-hearts down the side of the screen, with Steve blowing kisses and greeting them in Spanish and Italian… Jenny, Cristina, Rita from LA, Michaela, Steve Webster, Gaz de Vere (“my old schoolmate”) and Richard Miller, early Spandau’s second bassist. Other odd celebs looked in, such as Nicholas (aka Nick) Heyward ex-Haircut 100 who readily accepted Steve’s invitation to join him for the next live event (though obvs that cannot happen while we are all Staying At Home).
Live on Facebook: a finale from Sabrina, Sheila and Steve Norman
Half the time Steve was embracing his guitar, strumming some blues grooves, a Spandau riff or a Beatles classic. As he put it: “Only noodlin’ really, but the whole point of this is to come together”. He tried a bit of True on sax but switched back to guitar and then had a senior moment with Bowie’s Absolute Beginners when the right chords strangely eluded him. In between, Mum and Sabrina as director popped into shot too.
700 viewers left comments while watching the 54-minute webcast and by this morning 2,000 more had watched on catch-up, which really isn’t bad. What did disappoint was a shonky soundtrack in parts when every other word kept dropping out, but Steve’s effervescence made the whole show a right old laugh. Best of all was Mum coming in to sit on his knee and neatly duetting on the same guitar. Next stop, Top of the Pops, Sheila!
■ SO HERE WE ARE TWO DAYS LATER and Nick Heyward is also live on Facebook doing his own thing from Florida where he enjoys the sunshine with Sarah, his partner. Nick, sporting summer shorts, takes an age to find his feet in front of his online audience but once he turns to guitar and piano he gets on with delivering his shamelessly romantic recent tunes. Slight audio variations result from relying on what seems like an autotuned internal mic, but hey! Then, as the setting sun evidently darkens his room, Nick closes his eyes and embarks on a short zen-like meditation – “Ommmmmm” – during which the cheeky Jacqui Ruddock comments: “Never thought I’d get to sleep with Nick Heyward.” Toodle-oo, he replies.
Tony Hadley MBE, still on-stage at 59 and proud of his work ethic
◼ THE POP SINGER TONY HADLEY, who came to fame fronting Spandau Ballet in the 1980s, has been appointed an MBE (Member of the Order of the British Empire) in the 2020 New Year honours list. The annual awards recognise the outstanding achievements of individuals across the UK population and two other pop stars named included activist Sir Elton John who was made a Companion of Honour (CH) for services over five decades to music and to charity. The singer and actress Olivia Newton-John was raised from OBE to DBE (Dame Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire) for services to charity, to cancer research and to entertainment.
Big Tone, aka Anthony Patrick Hadley, was honoured for charitable services to Shooting Star Chase Children’s Hospice Care, which provides palliative care to families with children who are not expected to reach the age of 19 because of illness, genetic conditions or incurable disease.
Trust executive vice-president Karen Sugarman tweeted this week: “I cannot be more thrilled or proud that at last @TheTonyHadley has been recognised in the Queen’s #NewYearHonours for his charitable work. We were privileged to nominate him @SSChospices for his work as Vice-President. Congratulations Tony on your MBE from us all.”
In 2017 Hadley tweeted that, due to circumstances beyond his control, he was no longer a member of Spandau Ballet. Having met during their teens at Dame Alice Owen’s grammar school in North London, the band first split in 1990 and worked together during two year-long reunions in 2009 and 2014. At the age of 59, he is the first among them to be honoured with an award from the sovereign.
Tony Hadley in 2014: developing a lager called Gold with the Great Yorkshire Brewery
Tony’s father, Patrick Hadley, worked as an electrical engineer for the Daily Mail, and his mother, Josephine, worked for the local health authority. He is proud of his work ethic, which he says was instilled into him from a young age by his parents. In 2011 he said in an interview with The Daily Telegraph: “Since leaving school I’ve never been unemployed or claimed benefits. My Spandau days didn’t make me rich, or as well-off as people might think. What I was earning went towards buying a lovely family home in Muswell Hill and bringing up my three children. In fact, 2008 was my best-ever earning year. At that point we were doing in excess of 220 shows a year.”
Of the 1999 dispute with Spandau’s Gary Kemp, which resulted in Hadley, John Keeble and Steven Norman suing for royalties, he said: “Spending 23 days in the High Court was a strain and an expensive way to learn about the law. It cost me hundreds of thousands.”
Later, in 2006 Hadley became a co-owner of the Red Rat Craft Brewery which produced Hadley’s Blonde. The business closed in 2013, after which he became associated with The Great Yorkshire Brewery, which issued a lager called Gold and a pale ale called Moonstone IPA. This association has since ended.
These days Tony is a regular live performer with his own line-up, the TH Band who in 2018 gave a superlative performance at the London Palladium. Shapersofthe80s reported: “His evident pleasure on-stage paid tribute to the songs written for his rich baritone voice and which fit him like favourite gloves. We heard familiar Spandau classics fizzing with new energy and melodic detail – numbers such as Chant No 1 and Only When You Leave moved along at a pace. Equally impressive was the other half of his set-list which showcased his own consummate solo album Talking to the Moon and other covers.”
Tony Hadley and his band: making magic at the London Palladium, October 2018
Spandau Ballet’s debut beneath festive bunting: left, Steve Strange in PX frills introduces the new band at the Blitz Christmas party in December 1979… Tony Hadley supercool in collar, tie, waistcoat and overcoat, Martin Kemp in jaunty trilby with Steve Norman beyond. Dagger’s blog seems unaware of these photos and after seeing them here at Shapersofthe80s, Gary Kemp recalls “being terrified while playing the little Yamaha CS-10, that we wouldn’t get away with it. Apart from many of the songs that made up our first album we also played Iggy Pop’s Fun Time and On Her Majesty’s Secret Service”
On the 40th anniversary of Spandau Ballet’s debut
performance at London’s Blitz club spearheading
the post-punk new wave, the band’s manager
Steve Dagger publishes his eye-witness account…
❏ On the 5th of December 1979, Spandau Ballet was born. After a year in metamorphosis and following a successful preview show two weeks before at Halligan’s rehearsal studios, when they were named by journalist and broadcaster to be, Robert Elms, Spandau Ballet emerged onto the stage and into the world at the Blitz on the occasion of Steve Strange and Rusty Egan’s Christmas party in 1980 [1979 surely – Ed].
Much has been written about the Blitz and its extraordinary position as a cultural funnel at the beginning of the 80s. But Spandau Ballet’s two performances there and subsequent meteoric rise to success did much to drive this tiny club and its spectacular cliental [clientele? – Ed] into the headlines and its ethos into popular culture and serve as the template to the 80s.
What happened that night?
No band had played before at a Steve Strange/Rusty Egan event, so the audience was not used to seeing live music in this context. Music was normally provided by Rusty Egan’s DJing, an extraordinary montage of epic electronica which seemed to give a tantalizing glimpse of a future we were all going to take part in.
How would “Spandau Ballet” be received? The preview show had gone incredibly well, so a handful of our friends and key faces on the scene had seen the band already, liked them and spread the word. But it was an impossibly cool crowd. Whether they were fashion students, artists, embryonic designers, wannabe writers, film directors or just London’s coolest of the cool night people, they all had an opinion of themselves and everything else.
The usual crowd was supplemented by a sprinkling of older cognoscenti, a Chelsea crowd who had become aware of the Blitz scene. The likes of Keith Wainwright, uber-cool hairdresser of Smile; artist Dougie Fields to name but a few, plus some musicians who had been drawn to the Blitz. Richard Burgess of Landscape (Spandau Ballet producer to be), Midge Ure of Ultravox and Billy Idol, Steve Severin of Siouxsie and the Banshees and Marco Pirroni of Adam & The Ants.
Spandau Ballet’s second Blitz date, January 1980, despite Dagger’s belief on his blog that this pic shows the band’s debut. Most are sporting bow ties – Gary Kemp on synth at left, Tony Hadley as vocalist, with Steve Norman and Martin Kemp on guitars held high in their anti-rock stance. Churchill gazes out from his photo on the rear wall
So the battle lines were drawn and into the valley [of] death… Actually, the band were much less nervous than they had been for the preview show and also excited about playing in “their” club. When Rusty’s music stopped and they got onto the tiny stage there was a degree of anticipation and curiosity. I think the band realised collectively it was now or never and they seized the moment and started to play confidently and with a bit of swagger. Some of the audience danced, some applauded but almost everyone watched.
Tony sang brilliantly. The set which included most of the songs on “Journeys to Glory” fitted the club. Spandau Ballet fitted the club. “To Cut a Long Story” sounded like a massive hit.
Halfway through the set I was feeling quietly confident and was standing by the mixing desk next to the sound engineer when I became aware of a man standing next to me. He spoke to me.
“Who is this band?”
“It’s Spandau Ballet,” I said.
The new name sounded f*cking great.
“Which record label are they signed to?”
“They aren’t signed.”
“Who is their manager.”
“I am,” I said proudly.
“Well I am Chris Blackwell and I own Island Records, and I would like to sign them.”
First gig as Spandau Ballet… 5-0 up. Another man approached me. He was Danny Goodwin from Peninsula Music Publishing. He wanted to sign them too.
The band finished their set. I could not wait to go backstage into the tiny dressing room to talk to them. We had all worked very hard for this moment. They were about to become a very important band. The only band that could play in the Blitz. The most important club in the world at that time. Everyone in the Blitz that night was hugely complimentary and positive about them.
We owned the space, we had claimed it. We were about to go through the looking glass and our lives were never going to be the same. The next day, I spoke to Chris Blackwell on the phone and arranged to meet him in a pub. He was softly spoken, charming and very cool. He owned the coolest record label in the world – Bob Marley, Roxy Music, Traffic, Free, Spencer Davis – and he wanted to sign Spandau Ballet. Now. He even gave me a list of lawyers he recommended to act for the band.
It all felt a little strange but somehow like it was all supposed to happen like this. I felt unbelievably relaxed and comfortable, empowered, and the band very confident, entitled energised. Uncrowned Princes of pop culture all of a sudden. We turned him down. But that is another story.
Steve Strange’s first interview with the Evening Standard, 24 Jan 1980, telling us of Spandau Ballet’s second performance that day
RARE VIDEO OF THE BLITZ A-BUZZ:
❏ You won’t find much authentic filmed footage inside the Blitz Club because so little exists and many posts claiming to show the Blitz at YouTube do not. The brief but glorious clip we see above captures the visual excess of its dancefloor in Spandau Ballet’s 2014 biopic Soul Boys of the Western World. The interiors come from Lyndall Hobbs’ short doc about London tribes called Steppin’ Out, shot in the summer of 1979. The first half-minute here comes from a TV report showing Blitz Kids gathering outside Sloane Square underground station to celebrate Steve Strange’s 21st birthday on a Circle Line train on 28 May 1980. We hear Martin Kemp voicing the sequence which zooms in on him at 23 seconds. The black-and-white stills collaged into the segment are Shapersofthe80s originals, and the closing seconds are from LWT’s 20th-Century Box.
Heritage award from the Performing Rights Society: In September 2014 Spandau Ballet returned to the site of the Blitz Club to see a plaque installed remembering their debut. The club’s original neon sign was also present for the photoshoot
◼ EX-SPANDAU BALLET VOCALIST Ross William Wild seems to be finally feeling the warmth of the summer sun after weeks of black despair. Without being told his position, it became evident that he had been dumped by the band who recruited him to replace Tony Hadley a year ago. Provoked first by Spandau’s silence and then by an insulting media interview from songwriter Gary Kemp, Ross found a new band and in May announced he was quitting Spandau. Bass player Martin Kemp was next to insult him in a rambling TV interview that made no mention of Ross’s position.
On 28 May Ross told Shapers of the 80s: “I’d put my whole life on hold and was sick of waiting around for them to make up their minds. I told the boys I was quitting and then never heard back from them.”
Suddenly this month Ross has revealed how this tough emotional saga was taking its toll on him. He wrote on Facebook:
“This year has not been an easy one. Last year I was on top of the world and then this year the medical powers that be stuck me on everybody’s favourite mental tourniquet, antidepressants. After quitting Spandau I never even had the time to tell anybody before others were told to get on TV and do some damage control, which made me look like a dick and in turn f***ed me up mentally.
Mercutio at Dingwalls: Ross centre-stage in his second live gig with the metal band
“But things are looking up. Great concert in the West End coming up, couple of international gigs, a green energy company that’s really taking off (more news to come on that soon). And best of all, I’m going on tour with my band Mercutio. We’re really just starting out and I can’t wait to see what our future holds, but mainly, I’m going to enjoy the ride and be present, and get off these goddamn pills.”
His “metal with melody” band Mercutio has played a couple of riff-driven London gigs and released a video for their first single pointedly titled Where the Pain Lives, directed by contemporary dance choreographer Eleesha Drennan. Ross says: “The song is an epiphany. A realisation that some of our best ideas and most creative thinking come from our darkest and most painful places. Where the Pain Lives is an acceptance of this fact.”
Mercutio comprises Fabio Staffieri on guitar, Emanuele Nazzaro on bass and Francesco Lucidi on drums. Their stated aim is to bring mainstream rock music back to the forefront of people’s musical consciousness with a bang. From 28 October they will be supporting Inglorious (“a young Deep Purple”) on four UK dates, and another in Milan.
Ross’s West End event next week stars Jodie Steele (Heathers, Wicked, Rock of Ages) as Daisy Buchanan and Ross as Jay Gatsby, among a cast of eight in three concert performances of a musical take on Scott Fitzgerald’s Jazz Age novel The Great Gatsby.
❏ 30 AUGUST UPDATE VERDICT: As Jay Gatsby, Ross William Wild’s own big numbers were superb, especially The Moon That Never Rose, also Escape the Heat and Broken Wings Broken Dreams with Jodie Steele as Daisy Buchanan confronting her fabled carelessness. Musically Gatsby the Musical proved very promising with Edward Court providing a sensitive accompaniment on piano. The show boasted spirited Jazz Age tunes by Joe Evans, though often touchingly melancholy in keeping with the elusive storyline by Linnie Reedman, plus engaging lyrics, as with I Bet He Killed a Man. Sadly staging concert performances always puts an unnatural strain on the actors so let’s hope the serious shortcomings of the tiny and cramped Crazy Coqs (with a super-loud wall clock ticking throughout quieter scenes!) won’t inhibit this show’s development.
1 Sept update: Ross and Spandau’s saxophonist Steve Norman rehearsing in London today for their appearance together at next Saturday’s Pop-Helden-Festival of 80s Pioneers in Berlin, along with Marc Almond, Paul Young, Wet Wet Wet and Howard Jones
Take That in 1993: cheering to camera for a Smash Hits shoot by Neil Matthews
◼ ANOTHER FAB BOOK OF PHOTOS capturing mainly the 80s pop scene came out this week and it’s a bit of curio. We who were there know how British music and fashion utterly transformed youth culture during the decade from 1980 onwards and among the 110+ new acts who dominated the sales charts in the first four years probably the majority achieved international fame and fortune. But Neil Mackenzie Matthews, in his beautifully printed 192-page book, titled Snap: Music Photography, also reminds us of the names of many acts we have forgotten and who had limited success.
It has become a truism that soon after the Beat Route’s Friday club-night opened in Soho and Spandau Ballet entered the singles chart, both in November 1980, virtually every young guy you met in the club was “putting a band together”, usually managed by another young guy of his own age. For every 110 new-wave acts across the UK who won the standard one-album-and-two-singles deal from a grateful record industry which had lost its way, there were probably 1,000 more who didn’t – yet they too were a vital part of the great collaborative force that was helping to reshape entertainment and media in the Eighties.
At Thursday’s book launch in Shoreditch’s Jealous gallery, Neil described how his own good luck was in attending the same Islington school as the Spandau Ballet posse, Dame Alice Owen’s, and at the very moment he missed getting a first job at the BBC, Spandau invited him to St Tropez on their first foreign booking so he took a camera along and taught himself how to shoot.
Neil Matthews and Nick Heyward photo-bombed by Neal Whitmore of Sigue Sigue Sputnik. Just in shot at left, Heyward pictured in his woolly leggings period with Haircut One Hundred. (Photo by Shapersofthe80s)
Click any pic below to enlarge all in a slideshow
Journo Mike Nicholls plugging his own book to Tony James of Sigue Sigue Sputnik
Neil entertaining old friends from 80s clubland at the book launch
Nick Heyward in suit sporting the scissors logo of his tailor Gibson (which he pointed out is also the name of his electric guitar, the Gibson Sunburst 330 1967)
Flexipop editor Barry Cain and photographer Gerard McNamara
Neil signs his book for Dave Allen, an old school pal from Owen’s
Neil’s pix, L-R top Haysi Fantayzee, Charlatans, Bruce Foxton, Take That; below, Jools Holland, Little Richard, Patsy Kensit, Karl Wallinger
As luck had it, within months Tim Lott and Barry Cain’s chirpy new music magazine Flexipop decided its irreverent role was to prick the egos of their mates, the newly jumped-up pop stars, and Neil as its photographer was expected to rewrite the rules of the game. This appealed to his own wild ways and because he was invariably working against the clock, he injected a note of spontaneity into popstar shoots by inventing a box of larky props with which to confront his celebrity models and expect them to respond on camera. Result: pix of Toyah Willcox all smiles in floppy bunny ears, and Ian McCulloch contemptuously prodding the matching bunch of carrots after he declined to wear the bunny ears. There’s also Edwin Collins canoodling a rubber chicken and Jaz Coleman delivering a blunt message in a book to his rivals.
Impromptu set-ups catch Suggs at a fruit and veg stall on the street, Tim Burgess atop a packing case in Tesco’s, and Malcolm McLaren doing business on the phone. The book features several candid snaps following the rise of Spandau Ballet and the New Romantics including an exclusive of Steve Norman sporting speedos at home in the lounge between his fishtanks and Harry Dog. Neil offers very few live performance pix but the two best capture Little Richard bantering atop his piano and a fleeting glimpse of Nick Heyward closing his eyes in an Albert Hall performance.
Some of Neil’s best straight portraits take a traditional approach and yet clearly capture a shared moment of trust between subject and lensman: we see sexy candid shots of Madonna relaxed, of Betty Boo sultry in leopardskin and of Beyoncé Knowles as a very come-hither 17-year-old before she dropped the surname. For me the two cracking shots in this book show Take That snarling something worse than “Cheese!” at the camera (top), and Jay Aston of Bucks Fizz seated on the loo in her hotel (below). If that doesn’t testify to trust what does?
PS: Sorry, Neil, I have to reveal that I scooped you with the “first” kiss between Jon Moss and Boy George wearing Westwood a full year before Culture Club and your own shot where they both wear Sue Clowes.
Jay Aston 1984: caught at her hotel by Neil Matthews
➢ Neil MacKenzie Matthews’ career went on to embrace fashion, international celebrity and advertising, but his book Snap: Music Photography (Red Planet, £30 in hardback) focusses essentially on the music scene
❏ One incidental pleasure at the gallery was to catch up with Nick Heyward for the first time since I snapped him with his sidekick Les as Wag club regulars a lifetime ago. Today he features in a daffy trio of Neil’s pix of Haircut One Hundred from 1982 and he’s as friendly and talkative as his ever-present smile suggests. He has been on the road this year with his UK Acoustic Tour, a series of intimate dates where audiences were treated to hits from his breezy and escapist seventh solo album, Woodland Echoes, plus others from his entire career. The album is a distinctly musical treat which Pop Matters reviewed as “a timeless, infectious gem”, adding: “He looks like that cool college professor all the students want to hang out with – and he seems to be at peace with his status as a 50-something indie pop legend”. More news at Nick’s own website .
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 Shapersofthe80s to which I am hugely indebted” – Political historian Dominic Sandbrook, in his book Who Dares Wins, 2019
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
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 new 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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