Pump up the volume, turn out the light, everybody's gonna dance tonight

The end of another week is in sight, dear reader. Of course, that means little to me as I am still on leave, with happy memories of Amsterdam still in my head...

However, with another gathering of the clans tonight by way of a send-off to Our Sal [who will be leaving London for her native Newcastle in a couple of weeks, but this is the last opportunity Hils and Crog, and John-John too, will have to say their farewells as they are all on - separate - hols in September] tonight, the weekend does indeed start with a party!

Who better to provide the entertainment than an - ahem - exceptionally talented Dutch girl-group [with a load of help here from Stock Aitken and Waterman]? Grab your best wipe-down shiny leatherette, back-comb your hair until the static could power a small city...

...and Thank Disco the Dolly Dots It's Friday!

Dolly Dots - What A Night

Have a great one, dear reader!

Of iguanas, the Hit Factory, presidents and Tina

It's another snippets post, dear reader:

• Killer reptile news: A chilly cold snap in Florida has led to an unforeseen hazard - iguanas, unable to warm up enough to move, falling out of trees! It sounds amusing until you find out that adult male Green Iguanas can reach five feet in length, and weigh up to 20 pounds. I wouldn't want one falling on my head, thanks...
• History lesson: the tiny Somerset vllage of Barton St David (population 600) has a major claim to fame - its historical links to no fewer than five American presidents! Not Trump. He's German.

• Pop legends news: Stock, Aitken and Waterman - one of the most successful songwriting and producing partnerships of all time, with more than 100 UK Top 40 hits, including thirteen UK No. 1 singles (and three US #1s), who launched the musical careers of the likes of Our Princess Kylie, Dead or Alive, Mel and Kim, Jason Donovan, Rick Astley and Bananarama [or made the latter into superstars, at least] - have unveiled a Historic England blue plaque in their honour, at their old studio in Southwark that became known as "The Hit Factory".
• Basic biology news: A US court has ruled that elephants are not people. Well, there's a surprise!
• And finally - a posthumous discovery from an icon: A never-previously-heard track by the sadly-missed Miss Tina Turner, believed to be lost, was premiered on BBC Radio 2 this morning. And here, for your delectation, it is!

Tina Turner - Hot For You Baby

And the weather? Miserable. [But thank heavens we're not in Northern Ireland or Scotland!]

Together forever with you

Heavens! You know you're getting old when you discover that the toothsome Mike Stock (of Stock, Aitken, Waterman fame - on the left in the pic below - before they split up) is seventy years old today!

There is only one thing for it - to get the party started in preparation for a cold weekend ahead; let's have a double-bill of favourites from that dynamic trio to dance away our aches and pains [and apologies in advance for the double-helping of Sinitta; shit happens]!

Stock Aitken Waterman Megamix #1

Stock Aitken Waterman Megamix #2

Thank Disco "The Hit Factory" It's Friday! Have a great weekend, dear reader!

#1 tracklist:

• Kylie Minogue - I Should Be So Lucky (Extended Mix)
• Rick Astley - Together Forever (Lover's Leap Extended Remix)
• Bananarama - Love In First Degree (Jailers Version)
• Sinitta - Cross My Broken Heart (Cupid's Avenging Mix)
• Sonia - Never Stop Me Loving You (Extended Mix)

#2 tracklist:

• Kylie Minogue - Hand On Your Heart
• Hazell Dean - Who's Leaving Who
• Jason Donovan - Hang On To Your Love
• Donna Summer - This Time I Know Its For Real/li>
• Mel & Kim - That's The Way It Is
• Bananarama - I Can't Help It
• Sinitta - Cross My Broken Heart
• Rick Astley - Whenever You Need Somebody
• Sabrina - All Of Me
• Debbie Harry - In Love With Love

I Might Explode, Baby

Speaking of 1989...

...as we hurtle towards possibly the most welcome of weekends in ages [this first week back in the office after two glorious weeks away has been excruciating!], why not dip our toes into another of those all-conquering Stock-Aitken-Waterman hits that dominated that end-of-a-brilliant-decade era?

It's Miss Donna Summer's "comeback" single, after all!

Donna Summer - This Time I Know It's For Real

What would I have to do
To get you to notice me too
Do I
Stand in line
One of a million
Admiring eyes

Walk a tightrope way up high
Write your name across the sky

I'm going crazy just to let you know
You'd be amazed how much I love you so, baby
When I get my hands on you I won't let go
This time I know it's for real

Should I write or call your home
Shout it out with a megaphone
Radio, TV news
Got to find a way
To get my message to you

To say I love you with a neon sign
Anything to make you mine

I'm going crazy just to let you know
If I wait too long for you I might explode, baby
I've been around the block enough to know
That this time I know it's for real

Thank Disco It's Friday!

Have a great weekend, my darlings...

Factory boys

I listened last night to a fascinating interview with that marvellous musical maestro Pete Waterman (of Stock Aitken Waterman and PWL fame), as part of BBC Radio 2's Paper Cuts series. Among the gems of gossip, and the insight into a career led hugely in the bitter gaze of the tabloid press, I was reminded that as well as providing a star vehicle for some of our faves - Kylie, Bananarama, Mel and Kim, Hazell Dean, Dead or Alive, Divine and the rest - the boys of The Hit Factory were also accomplished musical performers themselves.

As we lurch, thankfully, towards another weekend, let's get a bit funky with the only solo hit by Stock Aitken Waterman (the original song upon which the more famous Pump Up The Volume by MARRS was based) - Roadblock, and... Thank Disco It's Friday!

Stock Aitken Waterman - Roadblock

Have a good one!

Stock Aitken and Waterman on Wikipedia

PWL official website

Especially (not) for you

And so our bloody awful British summer has ripped the fun out of another major event - the great "Hit Factory Live" concert to celebrate the 25th anniversary of Stock Aitken and Waterman has been cancelled!

Most anticipated for the well-overdue reunion of Kylie and Jason to duet on stage for the first time in two decades, this extravaganza was also to include other greats from the PWL stable such as Bananarama, Sinitta, Dead or Alive, 2 Unlimited, Steps, Sonia, Rick Astley, Pepsi and Shirlie and Brother Beyond. Another world-class event ruined...

Here's a most appropriate song from Our Princess - No More Rain [please!!!]:

Kylie Minogue - No More Rain

Have you ever thought that the sky was just endlessly dark
And then look up and see a million stars?
Have you ever been scared of the water and stuck on the edge,
And then you dive in?
how quickly you'll forget you fears that kept you awake at night
Now that I'm back in the light, so warm
I feel it like a...

Wave of love coming over me
Got a glitter drop fall and I’m on my knees
Got the sound of you ringing in my ears
Sun coming up on another day
Got a second hand chance gonna do it again
Got rainbow colours and no more rain

No more (rain)
no more (rain),
no more (rain),
no more.

[Thanks to the lovely Marky Marc for breaking the news to me]

I won't give up the fight for you

Many happy returns (yesterday) to the eternal teen heartthrob Mr Jason Donovan!





As we celebrate the great news that Princess Kylie has confirmed she will indeed duet with Jase on Especially for You on stage at the Hit Factory Live mega-concert in Hyde Park next month, so let us remember the golden boy's most uplifting moment...

Jason Donovan - Too Many Broken Hearts

Happy Birthday, sweetie!

Jason Donovan official website

You put the boom boom into my heart

Oh my heavens! Shirlie Holliman (of Wham! and Pepsi and Shirlie fame) celebrated her 50th birthday last week...

To mark this terrifying fact, here are the girls together on their biggest hit Heartache:

Pepsi and Shirlie - Heartache

Facts about Shirlie:

• Since 1988 she has been married to Spandau Ballet's Martin Kemp [lucky bitch!].
• Pepsi and Shirlie provided backing vocals on Geri Halliwell's Number 1 hit Bag It Up.
• Before Pepsi, Shirlie's partner in the Wham! backing vocal section was Dee C. Lee, who went on to marry Paul Weller and have a solo singing career.

Pepsi and Shirlie are stepping back into the musical spotlight as part of the Stock, Aitken and Waterman Hit Factory Live concert in Hyde Park on 11th July 2012.

I hope they don't creak.

No heavy metal, rock'n'roll, music from the past

Twenty-three years ago this month, it seemed that the Stock Aitken and Waterman rollercoaster of hits was unstoppable, with Kylie'n'Jason-mania as well as Sonia, Sam Fox and Donna Summer all in the charts.

Until, that is, they launched The Reynolds Girls...

Today I have stumbled across this masterful resurrection of the girls' rather embarrassing I'd Rather Jack mashed-up with none other than "Britain's great white hope" Adele's Set Fire to the Rain.

This mix is cleverly titled I'd Rather Set Fire To The Reynolds Girls, and I love it!

Adele vs The Reynolds Girls - I'd Rather Set Fire to the Reynolds Girls

About The Reynolds Girls

Get Ready

As London prepares to go once again go Stock Aitken and Waterman crazy - there is a massive reunion concert planned for Hyde Park in June, with Steps, Jason Donovan, Rick Astley, Bananarama, Sinitta, Pepsi and Shirlie, Sonia, Dead or Alive, Brother Beyond and the rest being wheeled out, and rumours abound that Princess Kylie will appear to duet with Jason - I thought it apposite to revisit one of my lesser-known faves from the Hit Factory era.

Miss Carol Hitchcock was by far the butchest act in the PWL stable. As well as a stint in modelling she had in fact been a nightclub bouncer in Melbourne before she started a recording career, and she certainly looked scary! However, even this startling image and fabulously aggressive cover of The Temptations' Motown classic Get Ready did not bring her the success of her stable-mates. The single only got as high as #56 on the UK chart in May 1987 - twenty-five years ago!

Carol Hitchcock - Get Ready

I wonder where she is now?

Good lovin' and devotion

This has a been a weekend that has been topped and tailed by Pete Waterman - from Friday's Eurovision: Your Country Needs You to the rollicking dance finale to Crystal DeCanter and Kelly Mild's new extended Sunday afternoon drag cabaret. A fab weekend (with a trip to the country, well, Dorking in between)!

So it only seems fitting on this Tacky Music Monday to showcase one of PWL's finest discoveries, the sadly Mel-less Kim Appleby... Enjoy!

Kim Appleby - G.L.A.D. (Good Lovin' and Devotion)

Hee hee! Sophisticated, Singer, Liverpool, Great, Scouse

It's the post-Xmas Tacky Music Monday! Yesterday I sat through the marathon that was "Every Number One of the 80s". As a friend wittily said, "there must be some "number twos" amongst that lot". True, there is only so much Cliff, Tiffany, Nick Berry or Shakin' Stevens that you can take, but there were some good ones amongst them.

This being the last week of the Noughties I thought I'd focus on the charts at the end of two decades hence, 1989 - but as the chart-topper was a choice between Jive Bunny or Band Aid 2, I decided instead to check out some of the choons that didn't make the top of the UK charts twenty years ago. And for today's selection, I came across a really tacky corker... Heeeeeerre's Sonia!!

Sonia - Listen to Your Heart

And lest we forget, here's that classic French & Saunders sketch "featuring" the diminutive Scouser in all her glory...

Can't Shake The Feeling

Monday arrives again, and who better to cheer it up with a truly tacky number than the "not gay at all" Big Fun...?

Big Fun - Can't Shake the Feeling

Oh, that brings back memories of travelling down from Wales to Studlands Bay in Bournemouth with our large friend Fifi, singing along to a collection of Stock Aitken & Waterman classics for the whole journey. Bliss.