Yay! A weekend beckons, and it has every chance of being a lovely warm one. TFFT. This week's been a drag [and not in a feather-boa-mascara-and-heels sort of way]! Speaking of which...
Ever wondered where Michelle Visage - RuPaul's "right-hand woman", unofficial "sixth member of Steps" and BBC Radio 2 DJ - started?
Here! [She's the blonde one.]
Thank Disco Madonna-wannabees It's Friday!
Fuck. How much more Eighties could that possibly be?
Have a great weekend, dear reader!
And so, we discover from her comment on Monday's post that Ms Scarlet eschews all things Northern Soul and is in fact a "rock chick"! Who would have guessed it? [So nothing like Ms First Nations portrays her at all.]
Maybe she'll like this one?!
More brilliant work by Bill McClintock!
Another day, another shudder goes down my spine as I realise how old everyone is getting (including me).
For today it is the 75th birthday of Mr Dennis Leigh - better known of course as synthesizer aficionado, original vocalist and founder-member of Ultravox, John Foxx!
It seems like only yesterday that I almost fell off my chair - electronic music freak that I was (am) - when I first heard this, his magnificent debut solo hit [and almost immediately had to go to Roxcene Records in Newport to buy the 7" single! I still have it.]:
On investigating his career [prompted by the fact he had been cited several times by none other than my idol Gary Numan as being as great an influence on him as Kraftwerk], I came across - and immediately fell in love with - this [the best song Ultravox ever created, in my opinion]:
Somehow we drifted off too far
Communicate like distant stars
Splintered voices down the 'phone
The sunlit dust, the smell of roses drifts, oh no
Someone waits behind the door
Hiroshima mon amour
Riding inter-city trains
Dressed in European grey
Riding out to echo beach
A million memories in the trees and sands, oh no
How can I ever let them go?
Hiroshima mon amour
Meet beneath the autumn lake
Where only echoes penetrate
Walk through Polaroids of the past
Future's fused like shattered glass, the sun's so low
Turns our silhouettes to gold
Hiroshima mon amour
Nostalgia. It ain't what it used to be... Sigh.
Many happy returns, John Foxx (born 26th September 1948)!
You know you're getting old when...
...you discover that former heartthrob Ian Ogilvy (aka "The Saint" in the 1980s revamp series), the effervescent Miss Toni Basil, and the "great Spanish seducer" Julio Iglesias are all 80 years old! Gulp.
It is (inevitably) to the latter to whom we turn for today's "wake-up call" this Tacky Music Monday - and this number from his 1970s telly show certainly is a complete mindfuck! Enjoy...
Whatever the hell was going on there, I am pretty certain some very heavy psychedelic drugs were involved.
Have a good week, dear reader...
The champagne amphetamine's been flowing throughout 2023 in celebration of the legendary Wigan Casino Club, which launched its very first "Northern Soul all-nighter" fifty years ago - at 2am on Sunday 23rd September 1973, to be precise.
Auntie Beeb's certainly been heavily featuring this remarkable genre - the meld of obscure non-chart uptempo American black music and an underground scene that saw punters travel across huge swathes of the North of England in the middle of the night (after conventional pubs and clubs had closed) to dance their tits off until dawn! Indeed, it is a recent BBC article that has prompted me to locate and play for you the tracks on their "Wigan Casino classics" list...:
And "three before eight" - three closing songs played before 08:00:
"And what do we say, Malcolm?"
"We say 'Keep the Faith', Paul!" **
Notes:
Our little gang is gathering once more - in another of our fave haunts The Perseverance near Great Ormond Street today, by way of a (late) celebration of The History Boy's 50th birthday.
Much jolly japes, and maybe even a film or two, to look forward to, methinks!
Here's a most appropriate party number, knowing our friends...
Sláinte mo cara!
