Let's get out of this life

Oh. My. Gawd!

Talk about "cream yer knickers time" - after all these years, for the first time two of my absolute fave bands of all time have teamed up to release a single, which premiered today! It is every bit as fabulous as I would have hoped:

Soft Cell & Pet Shop Boys - Purple Zone

I love it...

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Speaking of musical passions, there is one "instrument" that has forever been behind the music I love (not least that of the artistes above), so let us have a bit of a celebration of...

...the Synthesizer! From its roots in such esoterica as the Theramin to today's minimal technology, and betwixt or between, it has become the basis for the huge variety of sounds that form much of today's music.

It is actually 65 years this year since the first programmable synth [the RCA Mark II] was installed - a "room-sized array of interconnected sound synthesis components", indeed. In 1957 it must have appeared like something from another planet...

Any excuse, really, for another little selection of music that owes its legacy to the early pioneers of musical technology:

Samaran - Paris Madness

The Cure - The Walk

The Knife - Heartbeats

Kylie Minogue vs The Human League - Slow-ly Being Boiled (Parralox Remix)

Trans-X - Living on Video

[See my previous post here for more "Synth-tastic" choons.]

Someone told me this was just a dance

On Thursday we celebrated Bananarama singer Sara Dallin's birthday with their hit song Look On The Floor, which I pointed out was a tribute to an earlier Hi-NRG/Italo classic.

So, today let us indulge in the original - and an absolute fave here at Dolores Delargo Towers:

My Mine - Hypnotic Tango

Look on the floor and all is spinning round
Someone told me this was just a dance
And take a chance I ain't met before
Do you think I really have a chance?

Hypnotic tango tango tango

The 80s. Oh, how I love that decade!

My Mine

Beau gosse du jour

Gratuitous photo of French totty

Errm... "un moment Timeslip"?

It's a day of big celebration across the channel - Le Quatorze Juillet, or Bastille Day.

To celebrate, our machine de temps has dropped us in the middle of the "pomp-pop" 80s - and from this very week in 1986, it doesn't get much more "pomp" than the summer hit across France of that year:

Images - Les Démons de Minuit

Ooh-la-la!

Read more about the song on Wikipedia

Stop - is this reality?

The world is awash with technology, most of it the size of a bar of soap these days - yet it is barely forty years since the first mobile phone call; thirty years since the first Apple Macintosh computer; twenty-eight years since Windows 3.1 (the first version in colour); twenty-five since GPS satellite technology, Sim City, Lotus Notes and the Nintendo Game Boy; and a mere twenty years since the official launch of the free "World Wide Web", with its (then only) browser Netscape.

Google is only sixteen years old, Blogger is fifteen, Wikipedia is thirteen, Amazon and Facebook are ten, eBay and YouTube are is nine, and Twitter is only eight...

To divert us from thinking about all this, let us embrace the far more comforting futurist visions of the fantabulosa Trans-X - with their only hit, from way back in the early 80's - it's Living On Video:

Trans-X - Living on Video

Give me light
Give me action
At the touch of a button.
Flying through hyper-space
In a computer interface.
Stop - living on video
Stop - integrated circuits.
Stop - sur un faisceau de lumieres
Stop - is this reality?

Travelling in a light beam
Laser rays and purple skies.
In a computer fairyland
It is a dream you bring to life.
Stop - living on video
Stop - integrated circuits

Living on video - sur un faisceau de lumieres
I see your glittering blue eyes
You look at me with a smile.
It's a computer fantasy
It is waiting for you and me.
Living - living on video
Living - living on video

Living - living on video
Living - living on video - stop

I adored this song then, and I adore it now - which is more than I can say about the pace of technological progress!

Let me know what happens here tonight

Continuing our countdown to Gay Xmas this Saturday, I thought I'd step into the Time Machine, and take us back to the heady days when all European dance music seemed to be aimed at us Boys Who Like Poppers.

So here to push all your gay buttons is a classic slice of kitsch from the year I came out (1984), a thumping ItaloDisco/Hi-NRG number by Mr Ken Laszlo (and whatever happened to her?) - Hey Hey Guy.

I love it...

Ken Laszlo - Hey Hey Guy

Let me see what you have done
Let me know what happens here tonight
Love for hire is dangerous
Let me know what happens here tonight

Hey hey guy (Shall I get you)
Hey hey guy (Oh yeah)
Hey hey guy (Stay any longer)
Hey hey guy (Oh yeah)

Steps to heaven, three steps to me
Let me know what you are doing tonight
You love me, but sorry I don't love you
Let me know what you are doing tonight

Twirl those fans, boys!

Gay Pride in London 2013

Mind. Opened

The Moog

Timeslip moment again...

Twenty years ago, the world of dance music had been through its US-led "shake-up" thanks to House and Garage [though I always wondered what happened to "Conservatory", "Shed" and "Bungalow"], and it was obvious that the Europeans were about to bat it all back again across the pond, much altered and, in the case of this irresistible Italo classic from the chart of this week in 1993, much improved.

Open Your Mind, peeps...

U.S.U.R.A. - Open Your Mind

U.S.U.R.A.

People dancing on the other side of a rainbow coloured disco

"A lot of the records we like are Italian. The thing about Euro Disco records it that they always sound like they're dead cheap. I think that's their appeal. They're a bit like punk records - they go in and get very excited by the most banal sounds... I think I genuinely like it, actually. I like it because it's obscure and also because it's fantastically unfashionable." - Neil Tennant

I have been in a particular mood this evening - and that mood is Italo Disco!

I have no idea why, but for some reason I had an urge for the buzzing sound of 4/4 electronic drum beats and "boom-booms", the cheesy and strangely translated lyrics, the godawful hairstyles, the dry ice, the glitter, the kitsch... I loved the 80s - enjoy!

Martinelli - Cinderella

MoonRay - Comanchero

Miko Mission - The World is You

Ivan - Fotonovela

Radiorama - Chance to Desire

Boom-boom!