You know you're getting old when...

...you find out that the pixie-like, spiky-haired little cutie from Kajagoogoo Limahl is sixty years of age!




But how did this sudden revelation come to pass? It's not the former pin-up's birthday (that was in December). He's not been in the news. No, indeed, but I think I may have unleashed a bit of a monster - the lovely Miss Scarlet, hip'n'happening sistah that she is, has taken to calling it a "meme" (whatever that is) and given it a hashtag-thingie #adecadeago - as I have recently been exploring the things I was chuntering on about ten years ago on this very blog.

Just yesterday I "rediscovered" those slapping sissies. Returning today to January 2009, I also found a post I did about Mr Hamill's 50th.

So, by way of a (rather belated) celebration, here are a few clips of the man himself in his prime...

Limahl - Never Ending Story

Limahl - Only For Love

Kajagoogoo - Too Shy

Oh! The fantasies I had about that boy...

Felicitations, Christopher Hamill aka Limahl (born 19th December 1958)!

A Time Machine

In 2009, super-fan Brian McCloskey, an 80’s kid who had hung on to his copies of Smash Hits since youth, decided to rescue his collection from his parents’ attic at his childhood home in Derry, Ireland. McCloskey had the magazines shipped all the way to his home in California, tracked down copies he was missing in his collection from the magazines inception, then took on the painstaking process of scanning and uploading every page of every issue he had to his blog, Like Punk Never Happened. McCloskey’s collection of Smash Hits represents every issue of the magazine from 1979 to 1985.

As he says of his collection, in a recent article on Dangerous Minds:

"Smash Hits took music very seriously, but they didn’t take musicians seriously. A very sensible distinction. I think that people have either forgotten or didn’t realize to begin with that Smash Hits was quite a serious magazine. During their peak years they would receive thousands of letters - handwritten letters! You could read great interviews with real artist like Paul Weller or Ian Dury. After the magazine’s redesign at the end of 1981, the snark really took over. I’m glad that the my archive has reminded, or opened people’s minds to the early days of Smash Hits."

A good enough excuse, methinks, for another "timeslip moment"...

From the UK charts of thirty years ago this week, here's one of the stalwarts of Smash Hits in the 1980s, the gorgeous Limahl and his theme from the movie Never Ending Story:

Limahl - Never Ending Story

Given in the lines, written on the pages
Is the answer to a never ending story.

Indeed.

Visit Like Punk Never Happened - Brian McCloskey's Smash Hits archive

Limahl official website

Hush hush, eye to eye

I was listening to Gaydar Radio today, and they played a tune that really brought back some memories... The disc in question is a dance version of the classic Kajagoogoo number Too Shy by Swedish band Physics - featuring none other than Limahl himself.

Physics feat. Limahl - Too Shy 2008

Back in my closeted early 80s period, I had a massive crush on the lovely Limahl, stupid hair and all! It's the eyes don't you know... And having done a bit of research I find that the spiky-haired one is still looking good, even if he has just celebrated his 50th birthday in December!



Here is the original (and still superior) version of that classic from one of the earliest of all boy bands - just take a varda at the fashions!

Kajagoogoo - Too Shy

Limahl website