Is it a mockumentary? Spandau brothers reveal all to a Times Magazine journalist. (Photo: Mark Harrison)
◼ WE’VE SEEN A COUPLE OF GOSSIP ITEMS about the Kemp Brothers from Eighties supergroup Spandau Ballet making an oddball TV documentary, but now comes a cover story on a colour supplement no less, to spill more beans about it. Polly Vernon makes a neat job of interviewing the Angel bros, now aged 58 and 60, in Saturday’s Times Magazine, teasing out their lifelong sibling rivalries, keeping them on their toes as much as they return the challenge, songwriter Gary “less inclined toward affability”, she reports, and bass-player Martin “as gentle and affable as he is handsome”. Oh, by the way, did Polly mention he was handsome…? Here are some vital facts about the film satirically titled The Kemps: All True in an extract from her article…
“POLLY VERNON WRITES: We have met so that Gary and Martin might promote the 60-minute film made for the BBC in which they play themselves – except, not really – going about their everyday lives (except, not at all). It’s a confusing proposition; part scripted, part improv, part biopic, part nonsense fabrication. Half-truths about the Kemps’ actual characters, histories, relationships and physical attributes meld with overblown fantasies about multiple kidneys and long-lost half-brothers called Ross Kemp.
UPDATE: Exclusive preview of new album cover (BBC)
By definition, All True has none of the honesty of 2018’s Bros documentary, that heart-breaking, cringe-inducing, nostalgia-triggering film that documented Matt and Luke Goss’s real attempts to navigate their fraught sibling relationship, on which I’d assumed All True was based. (Gary is keen I know it definitely isn’t – All True was written before Bros: After the Screaming Stops was released – and he, Gary, hasn’t even seen that film. Martin has, mind. “It’s brilliant. That’s who they are, you know? I know them really well, and that’s who they are.”)
Furthermore, I can’t even really tell to which genre All True belongs. What are we calling it, I ask. A mockumentary?
“Hmmmm,” says Gary.
“Yes. That’s what it is,” says Martin, who is rapidly proving as gentle and affable as he is handsome.
“Oh, I’m not sure… Is it?” asks Gary, more interested in being perfectly, completely understood. “I don’t know. What else could you call a mockumentary?”
Uh, a comedy?
“Yeah, a comedy,” says Gary.
(“A comedy. Yeah!” says Martin.)
To be fair, despite it defying reason and categorisation, All True is very funny. Not all of it lands, nor is it precisely as Gary Kemp says he intended: “Like Larry David’s Curb Your Enthusiasm. Like the Steve Coogan-Rob Brydon thing [The Trip], you know.”
Some of it even ventures into comic genius territory… All True was conceived by director, writer and comedian Rhys Thomas (of Star Stories, The Fast Show and Nathan Barley). Thomas had worked with Martin Kemp, so when he approached Martin and Gary with a script for a show depicting a preposterous version of the brothers that, at the same time, wasn’t entirely removed from the truth, they said they’d do it. It seemed fun, they tell me – an opportunity to play with the world’s perceptions of them.
“French and Saunders do Gary and Martin Kemp,” says Martin.
“Our traits, but highlighted,” says Gary.
“Us, but on steroids!” says Martin… ” / Continued at Times Online
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.
ALSO THE FIFTH ANNIVERSARY OF
STEVE STRANGE’S DEATH
◼ WHEN MY PHONE RANG IN JANUARY 1980, little did I realise its message meant: “Put out the cat. You’re coming to the party of your life.” The voice on the other end spoke without pausing: “My name’s Steve Strange and I run a club called the Blitz on Tuesdays and I’m starting a cabaret night on Thursdays with a really great new band…. they combine synthesised dance music for the future with vocals akin to Sinatra, they’re called Spandau Ballet and they’re going to be really big. . .”
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 aboard 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
➢ Choose “View full site” – then in the blue bar atop your mobile page, click the three horizontal lines linking to many blue themed pages with background article
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 Shapers of the 80s to which I am hugely indebted” – Political historian Dominic Sandbrook, in his book Who Dares Wins, 2019
“The (velvet) goldmine that is Shapers of the 80s” – Verdict of Chris O’Leary, respected author and blogger who analyses Bowie song by song at Pushing Ahead of the Dame
“The rather brilliant Shapers of the 80s website” – Dylan Jones in his Sweet Dreams paperback, 2021
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
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
◆ 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
SEARCH our 800 posts or ZOOM DOWN TO THE ARCHIVE INDEX
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
✱ 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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