But the last day of summer
Never felt so cold
The last day of summer
Never felt so old
The last day of summer
Never felt so cold
Never felt so...
Autumn's almost here.
Dammit.
You know you're getting old when...
...you realise that "Hutch" was 80 years old on Monday!
In the interest of recycling, here's a tribute I did for him on the occasion of his 70th.
Confession time. I have to admit that despite his perceived "naffness", I have always loved David Soul - for his classic 1970s music as much as his groinage.Guilty pleasures, I suppose, but these two alone are great songs:
Facts about Mr Soul:
- He was the UK's best selling artist in 1977, and Starsky and Hutch was one of the most popular police drama series of the decade.
- David has been married five times and has five sons and a daughter.
- He starred (in French) with Anne Giraudau and Line Renaud in the television miniseries Les Filles du Lido in 1995.
- As well as playing the original lead in Jerry Springer The Opera, he also starred in the West End revival of Mack and Mabel.
- In September 2004, David became a UK citizen.
Many happy returns, David Soul (born David Richard Solberg, 28th August 1943)
Aaaaargh! The alarm's gone off for the first time in twenty days, and I am not ready for all this shit again...
Here's a song that just about sums it all up, from one of the films I watched at John-John's the other day, Deadpool 2:
Have a good week, dear reader. I won't.
Oh, dear. Poor old Dame Elton John's in hospital after a fall at his villa...
As it is my last day of freedom before the madness of work kicks in again tomorrow after a lovely nineteen-day break, we need something sparkly and joyful on this Tacky Music Bank Holiday Monday!
Fitting the bill in a most appropriate manner, here's the estimable combination of Cher and the Pointer Sisters with a "get well soon card" for Sir Elton!
Have a great day, dear reader, whatever you do - it's the last bank holiday till Xmas!
Finishing off this busy month of 60th birthday celebrations, including the DIVA exhibition, La Cage Aux Folles, and of course our faboo trip to Amsterdam, today should have been our traditional picnic in Regent's Park - but there were dramatic thunderstorms yesterday and there is a risk of more rain later, so we are instead "gathering the clans" in the grandest of all Wetherspoons, the converted City bank The Crosse Keys near the Bank of England. Should be fun!
Meanwhile, about that angel...
I have no idea who the fuck Sarah McLachlan is (and I have never heard this song before in my life), but I bet my shirt she does not, and will never have, a voice like this!
Trust our "house band" to get the best divas in town on board:
Perfect "Sunday Music".
A chance discovery from scanning the "death notices" on Wikipedia, as is my wont, throws up a rather obscure name - but one who was integral to a genre of music that I (and myriad queens worldwide) went nuts over in the mid-80s, Hi-NRG!
Mr Denis LePage (for it is he) emerged from the unlikely music scene of Quebec in Canada to become not only a key member of disco favourites Kat Mandu (whose The Break, written by Mr LePage, was a worldwide club hit in the late 70s), but later with his wife formed the electronic duo Lime, responsible for many key dance choons in that heady, hedonistic era. Denis was also a gifted multi-instrumentalist and producer with hundreds of credits ranging from Carol Jani to France Joli.
This brought me to recall a post featuring Lime that I did on this very blog (gulp!) fifteen years ago.
For your delectation, dear reader, here it is again. Somebody pass the poppers!
Madam Arcati has just found this faboo little gem of a megamix featuring our Great Earth Mother Divine:
Of course, revisiting this kind of music always sets me off on a Hi-NRG kick - and so here are few other gems from the heady gay music era of the 1980s. First up the brilliant Lime, with a video evidently filmed in November somewhere in Norfolk:
Next, a pair of "uber-butch" queens, Patrick Cowley...
...and and Paul Parker:
And finally, winning the award for possibly the worst mime by "badly made-up drag" ever, here's the superb Flirts!
Whew...
FOOTNOTE: Interestingly Mr LePage transitioned to "Nini Nobless" in the final years of their life.
It's another warm and muggy day out there, and we're heading into the last (albeit long, with the bank holiday on Monday) weekend of my holiday. I'd better make the most of it...
Of course, the best way to greet any weekend is with a bit of a party mood - so to that end here is another new discovery from our trip to Amsterdam, featuring one of Germany's top female pop stars together with Puerto Rico's "Mr Despacito" himself. Thank Disco(?) It's Friday!
Have good one, dear reader!
["Vamos a Marte" = "Let's Go to Mars" in Spanish]
I'm off to John-John's today for another film day, most likely involving superheroes...
Happy 85th birthday today to Mr Roger Greenaway!
Who, I hear you ask?
Well, with songwriting partner Roger Cook he was not only part of the short-lived 1960s singing duo "David and Jonathan", but he was responsible for a huge number of MOR "classics" - such as these:
[Could that be any more "early 70s" if it tried?]...and, best of all, he co-wrote this!
Many happy returns to a greatly overlooked talent, Roger John Reginald Greenaway OBE (born 23rd August 1938)
"And so we're back. From outer space..." well, Amsterdam actually.
What a fantabulosa time we had, too!
We (Madam Arcati, Baby Steve, Houseboy Alex and I) always "do it large" when we spend a long weekend in fair "Mokum" - but this time, as an ongoing part of my 60th birthday celebrations, we literally "pushed the boat out"...
...for the Madam had only gone and got us a trip around the grachten in our own private vessel!!
Mooi!
To top it all, we disembarked at the private jetty of Amsterdam's premier grand Hotel Americain afterwards, where we were entertained by a lovely band playing Jazz/Swing standards and had a slap-up steak dinner. I felt even more like a Queen than usual...
Other than that special Sunday, the weekend was a whirlwind of meandering this beautiful city, taking in the wonders of the wonky canalside buildings, the historic Red Light District (where our hotel The Anco is located), the magnificent architecture of my beloved Tuschinski Theatre, the shopping streets, the Dam, the brown cafés on De Spui square, and (of course) visiting our favourite gay bars - Café 't Mandje, Spijker Bar, the Queen's Head, Amstel 54 and the best of 'em all, Montmartre - as well as doing as the locals do by eating mainly at FEBO and Van Dobbens [not a shred of roughage to be had!].
Ending with a bang, on Monday - our last day while waiting to get our flight home - we actually managed to catch the camp-as-tits Hartjesdag parade of men-dressed-as-women and vice-versa:
I could not have asked for more for my milestone birthday!
Did we miss anything while were away?
The journalistic and broadcasting world mourned the loss of a national treasure, the greatest chat-show host this country ever had, Sir Michael Parkinson, whose eponymous BBC show was a peak primetime hit that spanned all the way from 1971 to 1982 and again from 1998 until its final iteration (by then on ITV) in 2007. In that long, long run he interviewed myriad top stars including Bette Davis, Dame Edith Evans, Kenneth Williams, David Bowie, Peter Ustinov, Muhammad Ali, Liberace, Fred Astaire, Orson Welles, James Stewart, John Wayne, Mickey Rooney, David Niven, Gene Kelly, James Cagney, Robert Mitchum, Billy Connolly, John Lennon, Tina Turner, Madonna, Dame Edna Everage, Shirley MacLaine, Robert Redford, Joan Rivers, Oliver Reed, Helen Mirren, Ingrid Bergman, Dustin Hoffman, Bette Midler, Luciano Pavarotti, Peter Cook, Miss Piggy, and many, many more besides. And was sometimes upstaged by some of them:
Needless to say, the big news for football-loving Brits (and British media) was the fact that the women's team lost their World Cup attempt to Spain in the final; there was acres of coverage (as there has been for months) of the horrific trial of child serial killer nurse Lucy Letby, which ended in her imprisonment for life; the furore over the (probably) criminal fire and subsequent demoltion of The Crooked House pub in the Midlands continued to enthral the meejah; and there was a rather dramatic turn of events in the ongoing war in Ukraine, with the destruction of a high-tech Russion bomber way inside its own territory. Good.
However, as always when we come back from holiday I hear you cry, dear reader, "But what did you bring us back, Jon?!"
How about this?!
You do, of course, need to be fairly tanked-up on lager and Flugel shots to really "get" it I suppose. Try this one:
If that one doesn't get you going, you are just going to have to come along with us next time and experience the sheer buzz of a crowd sing-a-long to songs like this in Café Montmartre on the Amstel to see exactly why we adore it so...
Is it good to be back?
No!!!
[* "Ja als ie maar groot is, twee vingers hoog is" = "Yes if it is big, two fingers high!" - an extract from the lyrics of Viva Cerveza]
By the time you see this, dear reader, we should be winging our way to my favourite city on earth [after London] - Amsterdam! What better way to mark the occasion than with this glittering version of one of that city's greatest "anthems"?
Aan de Amsterdamse grachten
heb ik heel mijn hart voor altijd verpand.
Amsterdam vult mijn gedachten,
als de mooiste stad in ons land.
Al die Amsterdamse mensen,
al die lichtjes 's avonds laat op het plein.
Niemand kan zich beter wensen
dan een Amsterdammer te zijn.
How utterly fabulous!
["Normal" service will resume after we get back on Monday night, dear reader!]
It's the final day of the countdown to our break in Amsterdam, dear reader and, no matter if I have posted it many times before [not least a year ago], and no matter that De Toppers provided my Tacky Music Monday joy just last week - I make absolutely no excuses for featuring this absolute epitome of "Dutch-ness" yet again!
It's becoming one of my many "it's traditional" moments:
Tracklist:
Magnificent. We love De Toppers!
We love Amsterdam!
As we continue our countdown to our much-needed break in "Mama Mokum", Amsterdam, it would not be complete without a showing from at least one of that country's innumerable 1970s/80s girl-bands [cf. Luv, Dolly Dots, Babe, Risqué, Maywood - most of whom I have featured regularly on this very blog]!
Enjoy..!
Facts:
We love the endless tackiness the Dutch can muster - roll on Thursday!
As we count down the hours to our sojourn to the magnificent city of Amsterdam this Thursday, what better way to kick off proceedings on this Tacky Music Monday than with one of our house favourites here at Dolores Delargo Towers, the fantabulosa Jasperina de Jong?
All together now..!
Wij willen geen nicotine, wij willen de mandoline
Van je pingelepingelepingelepingelepong
Picknicken is zo fijn
Niks pikken voor de lijn
Dat mag voor ons overbodig zijn
Jo met de banjo, en Lien met de mandoline
Kaatje met 'r mondharmonikaatje
Truitje met 'r luitje, je moet dat cluppie zien
Dol op een man, dol op een man
We zijn zo dol op een mandoline
Indeed.
Have a good week, dear reader.
Apropos of nothing at all - merely because I hadn't heard it in ages until Clare Teal played it on her Jazz FM show - an old favourite, indeed!
Perfect "Sunday Music"...
It's a Friday that, for once, does not necessarily have that sense of "relief" that comes with the impending weekend - oh, no! I closed that laptop on Tuesday evening...
Nevertheless, there's always an excuse for a bit of a party. Not least when the craziness of this lot is around!
Thank Disco It's Friday!
Have a great weekend, my leetle chums!
As it's my 60th birthday today, I thought I'd indulge myself with some of my favourite music...
How about six decades' worth?
1960s:
1970s:
1980s:
1990s:
2000s:
2010s:
Then there are the songs that transcend decades. The likes of Soft Cell - Tainted Love [and just about anything Marc Almond has ever done], David Bowie - Queen Bitch [and just about anything Bowie ever did (check out the "Queen Bitch" link for my week-long tribute to the man on the news of his death)], Kate Bush - Running Up That Hill [and an endless list of beloved works by her], Grace Jones - Private Life [and, again, just about anything else in her repertoire], Raffaella Carra - Do It, Do It Again, White Town - Your Woman, Visage - Fade to Grey, Patti Smith - Because The Night, Liza Minnelli - Mein Herr, Erasure - A Little Respect, Shakespear's Sister - Stay, Tom Robinson - War Baby, Dead Or Alive - You Spin Me Round...
...and gazillions of others from the likes of Doris Day, Eartha Kitt, Bette Midler, Dalida, Sophie Ellis-Bextor, Divine, Style Council, Gary Numan/Tubeway Army, All Seeing I, Petula Clark, Ofra Haza, Dinah Washington, Laura Branigan, Ian Dury, Lisa Stansfield, Frankie Goes To Hollywood, Nina Simone, Three Degrees, KLF, Gladys Knight and the Pips, Cilla Black, Associates, Caro Emerald, Régine, Postmodern Jukebox, Talking Heads, Elaine Stritch, Simple Minds, Celia Cruz, Beautiful South, S-Club 7, Carol Channing, Sam Brown, Jimmy Somerville, Vikki Carr, Donna Summer, Blossom Dearie, ABC, Mika, Etta James, Duran Duran, Lou Reed, Scissor Sisters, Cher, Pearl Bailey, Fangoria, Hot Chocolate, Rocio Jurado, Queen, Klaus Nomi, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Mitzi Gaynor, B-52s, Loleatta Holloway, Adam and the Ants, Gina G, Gina X, Eurythmics/Annie Lennox, Roisin Murphy, Chaka Khan, Conchita Wurst, Edith Piaf, Human League, Rose Royce, Dolly Parton, Depeche Mode, Faithless, Monica Naranjo, Ethel Merman, Alison Jiear, Ysa Ferrer, Divine Comedy, Peggy Lee, Steps, Ella Fitzgerald, Mamas and The Papas, George Michael/Wham, Baccara, Yma Sumac, New Order, Puppini Sisters, Take That, Ultra Nate, Bananarama, Isabel Pantoja, Heaven 17, Diana Ross, Kirsty McColl, Roxy Music, Tina Turner, Flying Lizards, The Cure, Marianne Faithfull and so on. And on. And on...
[All searchable on this very blog]
Then there are the musicals - including Sweet Charity, Chicago, La Cage Aux Folles, Gypsy, Cabaret, Little Shop of Horrors and everything by Stephen Sondheim [that link takes you to the week-long series of tributes I did when he departed for Fabulon] - and the classical and operatic stuff [too numerous to mention].
However, dear reader, I still have one more beloved song by one more - the ultimate - diva to play. It's rather appropriate, you see:
Just one more day in work, then I am off for nineteen days... Yay!
As I grit my teeth and concentrate on tying up loose ends and work out what I need to hand over to my lucky colleagues, something relaxing is in order, methinks.
Here's a video from the geniuses over at Soft Tempo Lounge that was originally out in January 2023, then pulled from the interwebs almost as soon as it arrived (presumably for copyright reasons, and it's now been re-done):
Oh, that's better...
[Music: Edwin Astley and Orchestra - Halo (music from The Saint TV series)]
Let's move to… the home of hipster wankers and yuppies. This week: Shoreditch
What’s it about?
Shoreditch endured pre-war decline and developed a reputation for crime, until it became a byword for ‘gentrification’ in the 90s. Nowadays residents are more likely to be arrested for not eating organically, with on-the-spot fines for men without bushy beards and skinny jeans.
The former theatre and manufacturing hub, located in the East End borough of Hackney, is also known for its innovative use of space, from rooftop bars to squeezing four 20-something professionals into a two-bedroom flat, each chipping in £800 a month.
Any good points?
Shoreditch High Street offers a range of organic and ethical grocery stores for those who place high importance on being kind to carrots.
For nightlife, spend an evening at The Queen of Hoxton, a self-proclaimed hipster paradise bar and club. Chill on the sofas or go to the rooftop bar to take in stunning views of the city and soak up the vibe of the dying hipster subculture that was pretty naff in the first place.
Old Spitalfields Market, the original Victorian East End marketplace, is now home to a wide variety of yoga classes, art fairs, sustainable fashion events and street food vendors. On Thursdays there’s a special antiques market and a bi-monthly vinyl sale, so make sure you remember which days they’re on to avoid those wankers.
Beautiful landscape?
Not really, but you have got Brick Lane Vintage Market, a hustling, bustling jamboree of second-hand goods, vinyl records and kitsch ‘collectables’. Young arty types on the hunt for clothing most charitably described as ‘quirky’ will definitely find it here. The fun of the market is you never know what you’re going to get. Could be cholera, could be scabies, could be flea bites.
For flora try Columbia Road Flower Market, held every Sunday come rain or rain and invariably packed with hordes of hyacinth-clutching tourists. Turn up just before it closes to snap up a bargain and pay only 50 per cent more than you would have done at a regular garden centre.
Hang out at…
Take your pick. The area is awash with pop-ups, cocktail bars and ‘speakeasies’. Well, who doesn’t long for a return to the gangland murders and alcohol blindness of the Prohibition era?
There’s a surfeit of theme bars like Trapeze and trendyish clubs like Lighthouse, but if you fancy something more highbrow try Shoreditch Town Hall, where you can see small, innovative, arty performances by people who are a disappointment to their parents.
BOXPARK, so important it’s in capitals, is a pop-up venue turned Shoreditch institution, an eclectic fusion of trendy clothing brands, up-and-coming retailers and vegan, gourmet, artisan and global street food sellers – all in converted shipping containers. Great if you’ve ever wondered what it’s like to be a box of imported Chinese plastic goods.
And don’t forget Instagram-friendly hipster hang-outs like Ballie Ballerson, the idiotically named bar where drinkers can frolic in ball pits, and the London Shuffle Club, where young people play a game more usually associated with cruise ships and retirement homes, yet inexplicably believe this makes them #cool and #blessed. Would-be entrepreneurs should get in now before someone opens up a hipster brunch-and-bowls venue.
Where to buy…
There’s plenty of choice, from grand period buildings if you’re rich, to more modest new-builds if you’re also rich.
With the area catering to both artistic types and young, upwardly mobile professionals working in corporate jobs nearby in The City, the area provides an unprecedented opportunity to live alongside both nutters and bastards.
From the streets:
Gideon Jones, 27, organic kaftan artisan: “See you for after-work drinks in a ball pit?”
Of course.
Ironic as it is, after the grimness and greyness of recent days weeks, this morning it's sunny with blue-skies-a-plenty. Just in time to go back to the grind...
Never mind, eh? I'm only in for three days - because Thursday is my 60th birthday - and then it's the countdown to our pilgrimage to the fantabulosa city of Amsterdam the weekend after next!
On this Tacky Music Monday, what better way to begin with the unlikeliest megastars on the planet, our favourite OTT band, Netherlands' finest De Toppers!?
Heerlijk! Have a good week, dear reader.
It's been a very lazy couple of days here at Dolores Delargo Towers - a chance to catch up on some much-needed rest after what has been a hectic few weeks.
In keeping with the mood, here's rather sumptuous number from our "house band":
Their performance is sublime, but that clown is rather sinister...
Wednesday was a dreadful, wet, miserable one - some of the heaviest downpours of the summer so far. So it was, with trepidation, that we (Madam Arcati, Baby Steve, Alex and I) - cagoules, brollies and all - made our way to Regent's Park to meet up with John-John, Sally, Hils and Crog to see if that evening's performance of the new (fortieth anniversary) revival production of La Cage Aux Folles at the Open Air Theatre was going to go ahead...
...and lo and behold, the clouds faded away and we were indeed able to take our seats! [Having wiped them down with kitchen roll, of course.]
So over-the-moon.
What a show!! [Unfortunately, as this is merely week #1 of the run, there is no footage of our production, so you'll have to make do with videos from other performances...]
La Cage the musical is, of course, based upon the classic 1970s French film of the same name (which was later remade in English as The Birdcage) and is the product of two of theatre's all-time greats Jerry Herman and Harvey Fierstein. A pair of ageing queens Albin and Georges, who run a drag club on the French Riviera, have their lives turned upside down when "their" son announces his engagement to the daughter of a right-wing politician, and farce follows...
We saw the sumptuous Menier Chocolate Factory production way back in 2007 (and again in its West End transfer in 2008). This new production by the Open Air Theatre's outgoing director Timothy Sheader is every bit as stunning, but in a more down-to-earth fashion - not so much the glitz of the Riviera, more like a club in a British regional seaside town in all its "faded glory".
Albin aka "Zaza" (played to perfection by Carl Mullaney) is heavy-set, has a broad Northern accent, and certainly gives off "Elsie Tanner/Bet Lynch" vibes as he/she throws diva flounces and almost disrupts the nightclub's show for the umpteenth time, then reluctantly gives in and gets ready - with this, just one of the gay anthems in the show [here performed by Australia's Wayne Rogers]:
The uber-talented Cagelles are all a bit - ahem - common under those flouncy, sparkly costumes, and can often be spotted in the "wings" eating chips or smoking a fag. The owner of the quayside cafe regularly frequented by our protagonists, Jacqueline (Debbie Kurup) is a Geordie, and so on.
All this makes for splendid entertainment, of course, amongst the sheer magnificence of the chorography, the glitter and the accomplished performances themselves. As the plot thickens however, and Georges (Billy Carter) reluctantly gives in to the selfish whims of his son Jean-Michel (Ben Culleton) and agrees that in order to hide the truth of their sexuality from the "future in-laws", the apartment - and Albin - need to be cleared out, he reflects on their long relationship with a love song that never fails to make the Madam and I cry [here sung by the original "Georges", Gene Barry]:
Oblivious to all these machinations, Zaza and the Cagelles make sure the show (finally) goes on! [Denis Quilley, George Hearn and the original West End cast version.]
The joy soon turns to defiance when Albin discovers the truth, however - and that's where this all-time-classic number comes into its own [Carl Mullaney was brilliant, but here's Walter Charles' version]:
Now that is how to close the first half of a show!
After the interval, the opening scene has Albin/Zaza playing up brilliantly to type, all "widow's weeds" and funereal veil, bemoaning her lot, as Georges tries to placate her with a compromise proposal - perhaps Albin might make an appearance after all, but as a man? This is one of the funniest scenes in the original film, the remake, and in this production. Trying to butter toast "in a manly fashion", trying to "walk like John Wayne" (with the help of some lesbian "sailors"), trying not to squeal and flap her hands; Albin/Zaza almost manages it, but is uncomfortable. Knowing Albin's humiliation, Georges decides to remind Jean-Michel of a few home truths with another tear-jerker [here sung by Robert E, Wills]:
At the eleventh hour, however, Albin runs off - and "Maman" makes an appearance to greet the nasty bigot Edouard Dindon (played amusingly as a Scot by the estimable John Owen-Jones) and his wife! As they all get along famously, so it's time for a show-stopper... [Denis Quilley and George Hearn again]
Of course, once "Maman" gets over-excited, her wig falls off and the whole charade is revealed, it could all go terribly wrong - but for the scheming Jacqueline, who has tipped off the paparazzi that Dindon is lurking around a drag club of the sort he'd pledged to close if he came to office!
So, to the dénouement - "nasty Mr Dindon" is forced to awkwardly don a wig and a frock to mingle with the Cagelles and make his escape, the boy gets the girl (with a reprise of Look Over There, directed at the shamed parents-in-law) and all live happily every after with the rousing finale - and a much-deserved standing ovation.
We laughed, we cried, we utterly, absolutely loved it!
La Cage Aux Folles runs at the Open Air Theatre until 16th September 2023. Worth every penny.
STOP PRESS:
RIP, Walter Charles.
It's been a busy week - Saturday we were at the fabulosa DIVA exhibition, on Sunday we braved the elements to go to Kew Gardens, and on Wednesday we saw the superb 40th anniversary revival of La Cage Aux Folles at the Open Air Theatre in Regent's Park (more on that later, no doubt)!
I'll be very glad for a rest...
...but first, it's time to whop out yer castanets, wiggle yer maracas - and Gracias Disco ¡Ya es viernes!
Vamos a jugar en el sol
Todos los días son días de fiesta
Vamos a jugar en el sol
Todos los días son días de fiesta
Something about camisoles in a Ford Fiesta, I think.
Have a good weekend, dear reader!
And so, farewell then Mr Carl Davis CBE, who has departed to compose a suitably extravagant theme tune for Fabulon - like these?
...and here's the great man himself, dealing with a couple of real divas!
RIP.
It's like a bloody monsoon out there! Topping off a truly miserable July, August's started in much the same depressing fashion.
To top it all, this evening our gang is booked to see La Cage Aux Folles...
...at the Open Air Theatre in Regent's Park!
Here's a most appropriate song for the day:
Keep your fingers crossed, dear reader, that it clears up this evening for the show!
