Fresh and lovely

Yayyy! It's almost the weekend!

Let's take a mini-timeslip, dear reader, back 40 years to December 1984. In the headlines: heavy snow causing disruption up and down the country, the Bhopal disaster, the future of Hong Kong signed away in the Sino-British Joint Declaration, the privatisation of British Telecom, and of course Band Aid's Do They Know It's Christmas?. In our cinemas: Gremlins, Ghostbusters, Dune. On telly: Dallas, The Box of Delights and the last ever series of Crackerjack!

I had only just come out, and I remember the charts of the time like it was yesterday. Frankie Goes to Hollywood's third mega-hit The Power of Love was at #1, and in its wake were Jim Diamond, Nik Kershaw, Eurythmics, Our Glorious Leader Madonna, Limahl, Paul McCartney, Chaka Khan, Shakin'-bloody-Stevens, and (erm) Alvin Stardust.

Among the meld, however, were those ever-reliable purveyors of party choons Kool & The Gang with this catchy number - Thank Disco It's Friday!

Kool & The Gang - Fresh

[Could the video be more 80s if it tried?!]

Have a great weekend, folks!

Wasn't it good? Wasn't he fine?

Mate! [click to embiggen]

Monday, Monday, Monday. Sigh...

On this Tacky Music Monday - spurred on mainly by the combination of the terrifying thought that Bjorn & Benny's post-ABBA magnum opus Chess (the concept album, released before the show was ever staged) is forty years old this year, AND the discovery of the bizarre and unexplained array of "naked chess pieces" in the photo at the head of this post...

...here's the ultimate in camp duets - with all its high hairdos, neon, dry ice and shoulder-pads - to serve as our wake-up call. All together, now!

Elaine Paige and Barbara Dickson - I Know Him So Well

Have a good week, dear reader.

You came up from behind me and I knew

Sad news of the departure of the dance-floor diva Evelyn Thomas for the "Rush Poppers Room" in Fabulon yesterday sent me hurtling down a time-slip-wormhole...

...back again to the year when her only major hit was everywhere - the year of strikes, of Yuppies, of Space Shuttles and of Band Aid, the year of "Frankie Say" t-shirts and Hi-NRG music, the year I came out - 1984!

For me, this year forty years ago was one of the very best for music in that (or any other) decade!

What other year can you name, dear reader, that saw the debuts in the Top 40 of a clutch of world-beating and eternally influential artists of the calibre of Madonna, Cyndi Lauper, Jimmy Somerville [with Bronski Beat], Gloria Estefan [with Miami Sound Machine] or Prince, or indeed the arrival of class acts like Scritti Politti, The Smiths, ZZ Top, Nik Kershaw, Sade, Alphaville, Van Halen, Propaganda, and of course Frankie Goes To Hollywood?

Making their first foray in the upper echelons of the charts in 1984 as solo artists were George Michael [although Wham! had a great year of hits as well], Alison Moyet, Freddie Mercury [Queen also had a huge resurgence that year], Philip Oakey, Limahl, Billy Idol, Malcolm McLaren and Ray Parker Junior. It was also the year that saw massive commercial success for a number of established stars such as Stevie Wonder, Chaka Khan, Paul McCartney, Kenny Rogers & Dolly Parton, Tina Turner, Lionel Richie, Deniece Williams, Billy Joel, Pointer Sisters, Spandau Ballet, Elton John, Duran Duran, Thompson Twins, The Specials (Special A.K.A.), U2, Eurythmics, Kraftwerk, Bananarama, The Cars, Style Council, Billy Ocean, Culture Club, Bob Marley and the Wailers and Depeche Mode.

So much of the very "gay-gay-gay" theme that year - be it Boy George and Marilyn's "gender-bending", an unapologetic drag star singing You Think You're A Man on Top Of The Pops, the Age of Consent LP, Pete Burns and Dead or Alive, or Relax - was forever underpinned by the aforementioned musical genre of Hi-NRG, with the likes of Hazell Dean, Divine, Maria Vidal, Fancy, Laura Branigan, Sheryl Lee Ralph, Fun Fun, The Weather Girls and their ilk all dominating the clubs and the airwaves.

So let's conclude with Miss Thomas's mega-hit, a classic if ever there was one - I can smell the Kouros and amyl nitrite as we speak:

Evelyn Thomas - High Energy

RIP, Ellen Lucille "Evelyn" Thomas (22nd August 1953 – 21st July 2024)

When you want to come

As we in London continue to endure the succession of crap winter throws at us - today alone, we've gone from frost to chilly winds to depressing drizzle and back again - it's worth a mention that 2024 is another year of milestones...

This year it will be the 80th anniversary of D-Day, the 60th of BBC2 and Mary Poppins, half-a-century since Abba's Waterloo, and the 40th anniversary of my coming-out, as well as that of the "Zola Budd controversy" at the Los Angeles Olympics, the assassination of Indira Gandhi, of Band Aid, This Is Spinal Tap, Purple Rain, The Reflex, Like a Virgin, Ghostbusters...and this lot!

For it was indeed on this very day in 1984 that "saintly" DJ Mike Read declared Frankie Goes to Hollywood's Relax to be disgusting, and refused to play it (swiftly followed by an "official ban" by the BBC)!

Here's how I first featured it, way back in 2011:

"There’s nothing that great about sex - never was. What usually comes from it? Sweat, fatigue, and dirty linens, then later unwanted pregnancies, and, of course, today there’s the health angle.

As for gay sex in particular: Nothing’s really that great about it. It’s very uncomfortable and many times vastly more complex than lovemaking in heterosexual counterparts.

When a boy and girl decide they are going to have sex, they roughly know what to expect. But before two men have sex, they practically have to hold a board meeting in order to figure out the agenda of what they’re going to do." - Quentin Crisp

Really?

Frankie Goes To Hollywood - Relax

Not according to Frankie...

However far it seems

We here at Dolores Delargo Towers are flattered, nay, humbled to be featured as the latest exhibit in the "Infomaniac" Garden Photos event, currently being hosted at Inexplicable Device's place - however, over here it is another timeslip moment again, peeps!

We've been unceremoniously beamed down by Captain Kirk and the crew of his stolen Enterprise into the heart of the big-shoulder-padded, Yuppie-strewn, strike-torn, Space-Shuttling world of 1984 - the year of the Brighton bombing, Torvill and Dean, the Bhopal disaster, the Miners' Strike, Soviet Chairman Chernenko, Frankie Goes To Hollywood, Terms of Endearment, the Bishop of Durham, Libyan Embassy siege, Footloose, Zola Budd, Diggi-Loo Diggi-Ley, Daley Thompson, Carl Lewis, The Company of Wolves, Hezbollah, Robert Maxwell, Spitting Image, famine in Ethiopia, Band Aid, Greenham Common, Robin of Sherwood, Hilda Murrell, Indiana Jones, Colin Baker, Tamil Tigers, Threads, Joan Hickson, Howard Jones, Like a Virgin, crack cocaine, The Jewel in the Crown and my coming-out; the year of the births of Prince Harry, Scarlett Johansson, Olly Murs, the Thames Barrier, Thomas the Tank Engine, Crimewatch, Mark Zuckerberg, Duffy, Katy Perry, Claire Foy, Calvin Harris, Little Boots, Katie Melua, Gareth Gates, Kelly Osbourne, the Apple Macintosh, Dizzee Rascal, Brunei, Avril Lavigne, Kim Jong-un, Theo James and Tetris; and the year that Ethel Merman, Eric Morecambe, Sir John Betjeman, Indira Gandhi, Alexis Korner, Marvin Gaye, Jack Howarth, Tommy Cooper, Diana Dors, Jackie Wilson, Richard Burton, Dame Flora Robson, Truman Capote, J. B. Priestley, Count Basie, Johnny Weissmuller, James Mason, Leonard Rossiter, Jon-Erik Hexum, François Truffaut, Sam Peckinpah, Binnie Hale, the halfpenny and Triumph cars all died. 

In the headlines in November '84:  British Telecom shares went on sale in the biggest privatisation ever; President Ronald Reagan won his second term in office at the US election; a fire at Oxford Circus tube station caused chaos in London but no serious injuries; miners began their return to work after the strike, but the murder of a taxi driver by the dropping of a concrete block from a bridge onto his cab exacerbated the tension; and a wave of massacres of Sikhs swept across India in the wake of the assassination of Mrs Gandhi by her Sikh bodyguards. In our cinemas: Ghostbusters; Gremlins; Dune. On telly: The Box of Delights, Dallas, and the first ever season of The Bill.

And in our charts this week thirty-six years ago? [aaargh!]  The fantabulosa Chaka Khan I Feel For You ruled the roost at #1, and in her wake were Wham!, Duran Duran, Paul McCartney, Julian Lennon, Alison Moyet, Billy Ocean and Limahl..

...and this one! To my absolute chagrin I missed celebrating the sixty-fifth [double aaargh!] birthday last month of the triumph of art over nature that is Mr Phil Oakey, so let's make up for it with this magnum opus:

Philip Oakey & Giorgio Moroder - Together in Electric Dreams

I only knew you for a while, I never saw your smile
Till it was time to go, time to go away (time to go away)
Sometimes it's hard to recognise, love comes as a surprise
And it's too late, it's just too late to stay, too late to stay

We'll always be together, however far it seems (love never ends)
We'll always be together, together in electric dreams

Because the friendship that you gave
Has taught me to be brave
No matter where I go
I'll never find a better prize (find a better prize)

Though you're miles and miles away, I see you every day
I don't have to try, I just close my eyes, I close my eyes

We'll always be together, however far it seems (love never ends)
We'll always be together, together in electric dreams

We'll always be together, however far it seems
We'll always be together, together in electric dreams

How can that possibly be almost FORTY YEARS ago?!

Sob.

So why don't you use it? Try not to bruise it

It's the start of "Pride Month" worldwide, and there's a flurry of milestones to be celebrated - not least the fact it is fifty years since the infamous Stonewall Riots in New York; it's also 50 years since the Campaign for Homosexual Equality (CHE) was founded in the UK, the 45th birthday of Gay Switchboard, and the 30th of the UK's Stonewall campaigning and lobbying organisation.

Also, fittingly, for today's "timeslip moment" we've been transported down to a year that has significant meaning to me - 1984, the year I came out. A milestone, indeed...

It's also the year of Torvill and Dean's "perfect ten", the IRA's attempted assassination of Maggie Thatcher and her government in the Brighton hotel bombing, the Bhopal disaster, the Bishop of Durham, Thomas the Tank Engine, the murder of WPC Yvonne Fletcher and the siege of the Libyan Embassy, Footloose, the miners' strike and Arthur Scargill, Diggi-Loo Diggi-Ley, Zola Budd, Robert Maxwell's takeover of The Mirror, the Michael Buerk BBC report on the famine in Ethiopia, Ghost Busters, the US crack cocaine "epidemic", Hezbollah, Hilda Murrell, the Tamil Tigers, Terms of Endearment, the Thames Barrier, Like a Virgin, privatisation of British Telecom, Starlight Express, the Sino-British Joint Declaration to transfer Hong Kong to China, Gremlins, Diego Maradona, the assassination of Indira Gandhi, Do They Know It's Christmas? and The Bill; the births of Prince Harry, Mark Zuckerberg, Katy Perry, Calvin Harris, Kelly Osbourne, the Apple Macintosh, Gareth Gates, Scarlett Johansson, Kim Jong-un, Avril Lavigne, Tetris, Burkina Faso and Cirque du Soleil; and the deaths of Marvin Gaye, Tommy Cooper, Ethel Merman, Diana Dors, Richard Burton, Truman Capote, Count Basie, Johnny Weissmuller, James Mason, Arnold Ridley ("Private Godfrey" in Dad's Army), Sir John Betjeman, Leonard Rossiter, Jon-Erik Hexum, the halfpenny and Tit-Bits magazine.

In the news in June '84? British schools faced a shakeup as the O-level and CSE exams were replaced by the GCSE, the Indian government launched a military attack on the Golden Temple of Amritsar, and President Ronald Reagan visited Ireland; in the ascendant (literally) were Richard Branson's Virgin Atlantic Airways (with its maiden flight from Gatwick Airport to Newark), and Bruce Springsteen (who released the album Born in the U.S.A.); but we bade a very sad farewell to "national treasure" Eric Morecambe (whose funeral made the headlines). In our cinemas: Police Academy; Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom; Splash. On telly: Crimewatch, Leslie Crowther's The Price is Right and Cilla Black's Surprise Surprise.

...and what was in our charts this week thirty-five years ago [gulp!]? It was as if the world were calling to me "come out, come out, wherever you are!" - for in the Top 40 all at the same time were Frankie Goes to Hollywood Relax, I Want to Break Free by Queen, Smalltown Boy by Bronksi Beat, Sister Sledge, Bananarama and the Pointer Sisters, and in our Top Ten were Evelyn Thomas High Energy, Deniece Williams Let's Hear It For The Boy and Hazell Dean Searchin' (Gotta Find Me a Man)!

Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go by Wham was at #1, and also present and correct were The Smiths, Howard Jones, The Style Council, Spandau Ballet, Ultravox...

...and this one!

Duran Duran - The Reflex

The reflex (flex, flex, flex)

You've gone too far this time
But I'm dancing on the valentine
I tell you somebody's fooling around
With my chances on the dangerline
I'll cross that bridge when I find it
Another day to make my stand
High time is no time for deciding
If I should find a helping hand

Why don't you use it?
Try not to bruise it
Buy time don't lose it

Why don't you use it?
Try not to bruise it
Buy time don't lose it

The reflex is an only child he's waiting by the park
The reflex is in charge of finding treasure in the dark
And watching over lucky clover isn't that bizarre
Every little thing the reflex does
Leaves you answered with a question mark

I'm on a ride and I want to get off
But they won't slow down the roundabout
I sold the Renoir and the TV set
Don't want to be around when this gets out

So why don't you use it?
Try not to bruise it
Buy time don't lose it

Ya see its a frightening thing when it dawns upon you

As I said way back in 2010, "International Coming Out Day"...to me sounds like (yawn) yet another American construct and and excuse for the greetings card industry to go into overdrive". It apparently took place a few days ago.

However, it is, completely coincidentally, a singularly important week pour moi. All this year on this very blog - as my regular reader may have observed - I have featured recurrent "timeslip moments" in music, mainly harking back to a certain milestone year, 1984.

For, sometime this week thirty years ago (gulp!), I finally put into words, out loud - in the middle of a drunken horde of fellow students (and to anyone who'd listen, to be honest) - that I, too was gay.



By way of celebration of this (slightly terrifying) milestone, here's a song that made its debut in the UK charts in this very week in 1984 - Shout To The Top, with its somewhat apposite lyrics:

I was halfway home, I was half insane
And every shop window I looked in just looked the same
I said, "Now send me a sign to save my life
Cause at this moment in time there is nothing certain in
These days of mine."

Ya see its a frightening thing when it dawns upon you
That I know as much as the day I was born
And though I wasn't asked, I might as well stay
And promise myself each and every day

That when you're knocked on your back and your life's a flop
And when you're down on the bottom there's nothing else
But to shout to the top, well we're gonna shout to the top
We're gonna shout to the top, we're gonna shout to the top
Hey, we're gonna shout to the top!"

And, because I couldn't choose between versions, here first is the original by the (then) cute Paul Weller and Style Council:

Style Council - Shout to the Top

Followed by a pounding House re-working of the song, featuring none other than the late, great and eternally-missed diva Miss Loleatta Holloway!

Fire Island featuring Loleatta Holloway - Shout to the Top

THREE DECADES?

Where do they go?

Guilty feet have got no rhythm

Another timeslip moment, dear reader, and one very close to my heart.

This time thirty years ago, I was on a little weekend trip to Bath (Georgian idyll) with a female friend. Having drunk all afternoon (some things never change), we retired for a "siesta" before the evening jollities (separate rooms, needless to say). I had, however, spotted earlier that day at the bus station kiosk a certain type of magazine that had intrigued little closeted moi...

And so it came to pass that I sneaked out of that hotel and purchased my very first gay wank mag publication Vulcan - and (ahem) the rest is history!

The music playing - or rather, being sung very loudly by a raucous group of young ladies passing the hotel window - on that auspicious occasion?

George Michael's Careless Whisper (the Number 1 hit in the charts this week in 1984)...

George Michael - Careless Whisper

Ah, memories.