❚ FRANCIS WHATELY’S DOCUMENTARY FILM David Bowie, Five Years: The Making Of An Icon has a transmission date – next Saturday on BBC2 at 9.20pm and next week’s Radio Times is publishing a cover feature. Beautifully edited, in both sound and vision, the 90-minute film explores five pivotal years in the singer’s career – 1971, 1975, 1977, 1980, 1983 – and features interviews with Bowie’s collaborators. Here’s the trailer: +++
➢ Update May 26: Catch up on iPlayer with David Bowie, Five Years – A consummate TV documentary with unseen footage in pristine quality adds lustre to the current golden age for music docs … Watch Bowie’s musical collaborators on camera showing how they created their classic riffs… Wakeman on piano! Carlos on everything! Nile saying “I was as nervous as hell” Deeply satisfying.
Roland Klein vintage coat, YSL Rive Gauche orange skirt
+++ ❚ WHERE IS THE COOLEST OXFAM charity shop in the land? At Dalston Junction, naturally, where the coolest superstars chillax. Where are your smartest designer fashion bargains to be found next Sunday afternoon? At the Oxfam Dalston Vintage Designer Sale in London’s trendy E8. Who’s the local Mary Portas with an eye for a bargain, who has spent months selecting the right labels from donations to make this Christmas shopping event really hot? Step forward Andy Polaris, known to all 80s pop fans as the lead vocalist with pop-jazz combo Animal Nightlife.
“So far we have found 85 designer brands to pull in the discerning shopper, and many outfits are as new,” Andy says. “You’d have to go to Stratford Westfield to find this many under one roof. Even so, we’ll beat them on price. We’ve some nearly new Vivienne Westwood Red Label trousers, originally priced at £275, now going for £100.” Look at the highly collectable names pictured above, selling for between £20 and £100. There are Marc Jacobs, Rifat Ozbek, Katharine Hamnett, Dolce & Gabbana, Yves St Laurent, Betty Jackson, Roland Klein for women – and for men Gieves & Hawkes, Prada, Burberry, Ted Baker and such.
As the volunteer who evaluates the donors’ bags, Andy and his aficionado’s eye hunt down the most fashionable labels. He is convinced that the 1,000 garments up for sale from noon on Sunday will walk out of the door. A similar event last summer had a queue forming before the shop had opened, and along with donations for light refreshments, the sale made a packet for charity.
What a great way to spend your Sunday. Awesome fashion. Menswear too. Mince pies. Christmas tunes. With Andy floorwalking and signing autographs, if you ask him nicely.
➢ 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 articles.
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
➢ WELCOME to the Swinging 80s ➢ THE BLOG POSTS on this front page report topical updates ➢ ROLL OVER THE MENU at page top to go deeper into the past ➢ FOR NEWS & MONTH BY MONTH SEARCH scroll down this sidebar
❏ 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 2022
✱ Deejay legend Robbie Vincent returned to JazzFM on Sundays 1-3pm in 2021… 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
LANDMARK FAREWELLS. . . HIT THE INDEX TAB UP TOP FOR EVERYTHING ELSE
➢ David Bowie, Five Years – previews at Uncut’s blog
➢➢ Shapers of the 80s ➣➣ 