As we depart at the crack of dawn tomorrow (3.30am!) for ten days in the sun, I thought it best to leave everyone with a last little "taste" of the music of Espana. I am sure we'll come back with many more delights to torture, sorry, entertain you with, but...
First up are what can only be described as a couple of extras from a Spanish TV version of Planet of the Apes. Words fail me...
Next up a genuine tranny - La Prohibida:
Now this man is not - repeat after me, not - gay! OK? Hahahahahahaha!
And, just because I am away for not one, but two Tacky Music Mondays - how about this rare gem? The costumes! The choreography! Its, so, wow...
Saturday, 24 October 2009
Thursday, 22 October 2009
Oh, Fluck!
"They asked me to change my name. I suppose they were afraid that if my real name Diana Fluck was in lights and one of the lights blew..."
It would have been the 78th birthday today of Britain's answer to Jayne Mansfield, Miss Diana Dors.
Born in unprepossessing Swindon - it's grim today, imagine what it would have been like for an aspiring glamour-puss in the 1940s! - by the age of sweet sixteen, Miss Fluck was already under contract to Rank Studios and was appearing in small parts in their films. By the time she was 20, she was famously the youngest registered owner of a Rolls Royce in the UK.
Yet despite this promising start Diana Dors never quite achieved the huge success of other famous blondes with whom she was often compared (Jean Harlow, Marilyn Monroe). Eventually she became typecast in either tarty roles, or later, as a bawdy rotund maneater. Not so far for the truth, in real life, actually. Her infamous drunken parties and alleged orgies were manna from heaven for the tabloids, and discredited her completely in Hollywood. She only sold modest numbers of her (now cult) album Swinging Dors - a shame as it is rather fabulous.
In Britain however she became, and remains, one of our best-loved characters in the world of entertainment. Numerous TV appearances (Morecambe & Wise, Two Ronnies, variety shows and even her own comedy series Queenie's Castle) reinforced her popularity, and inevitably she became a camp cult figure - famously appearing as the Fairy Godmother in Adam & The Ants' Prince Charming video.
The whole country mourned her untimely death from ovarian cancer in 1984. I remember feeling like I had lost a relative, a naughty auntie perhaps - the one your Mum doesn't talk about. A fabulous and legendary woman! RIP.
Diana Dors official website
Viva prima donnas
Today's focus on Spain turns (inevitably) to the divas. Spain produces many of them, particularly since one of the most popular musical forms is the Copla - a dramatic vocal style that combines the fire of Flamenco with histrionics of which Dame Shirley Bassey would be proud. Over the years, many of these grande dames have commanded incredible adulation, none more so than Rocio Jurado.
Big-haired Andalucian uber-Diva Rocio Jurado's career started in the 60’s and never went away. There was mass hysteria in Spain when she sadly died of cancer in June 2006, with crowds lining the streets at her funeral.
According to a travel reviewer in Notes on Spain:
A more modern diva is one of our current favourites, Monica Naranjo, whose histrionics and melodrama hit a whole new level, crossing pop and Copla with operatic styling. For Spanish gays, she is even more popular than her French diva-equivalent Mylene Farmer!
I have blogged about both ladies before, but I could not resist posting this duet between the older and the newer diva, for your delectation...
Big-haired Andalucian uber-Diva Rocio Jurado's career started in the 60’s and never went away. There was mass hysteria in Spain when she sadly died of cancer in June 2006, with crowds lining the streets at her funeral.
According to a travel reviewer in Notes on Spain:
"Universally loved by everyone (passports can be officially revoked just for saying a bad word about her), and known as La Más Grande (that’s "The Greatest", and not "The Biggest" as I originally thought they were rudely calling her!), this woman’s voice has been known to shift small planets from their orbit. Despite her death, her celebrity lives on."Más Grande indeed!
A more modern diva is one of our current favourites, Monica Naranjo, whose histrionics and melodrama hit a whole new level, crossing pop and Copla with operatic styling. For Spanish gays, she is even more popular than her French diva-equivalent Mylene Farmer!
I have blogged about both ladies before, but I could not resist posting this duet between the older and the newer diva, for your delectation...
Wednesday, 21 October 2009
New-fangled sounds
I am feeling in a musical mood today, as we warm up (not literally - it's bloody freezing!) for the hols.
So, just in case anyone labours under the misapprehension that my entire musical taste consists of long-dead big band singers, tacky Eurodisco, showtunes, New Romantics and obscure foreign divas (well, admittedly 99.9% of it does!), here are a few current tracks that have well and truly caught my ear...
Thanks to the weird and wacky people over at The Hospital Club for alerting me to the hypnotic charms of Vitalic:
Bizarrely (considering their usual mix of Madge, Sugababes and Taio Cruz remixes with hands-in-the-air handbaggy vocal house tracks on a loop), I first heard this marvellous new single on Gaydar Radio! The Editors seem to capture something very reminiscent of that early 80s sound - a hint of Classix Nouveaux maybe, or pre-pomp-rock Simple Minds perhaps...
Another surprising find on Gaydar Radio (I think someone is hitting the electro clubs lately - DJ Simon Le Vans, maybe?) is this magnificent remix of a newish song Plans by The Christophers. More than a hint of New Order here, I reckon...
[They currently have no video available so I just made this one quickly.]
Buy their EP from their website
And then there's this hypnotic remix of this choon by French artist Yelle, which I recently stumbled upon. Despite its hilarious video which features what appears to be three skinny lesbians emulating Mr C of the Shamen, once you get the hook into your head it is nigh-on impossible to shift it!
Enjoy!
So, just in case anyone labours under the misapprehension that my entire musical taste consists of long-dead big band singers, tacky Eurodisco, showtunes, New Romantics and obscure foreign divas (well, admittedly 99.9% of it does!), here are a few current tracks that have well and truly caught my ear...
Thanks to the weird and wacky people over at The Hospital Club for alerting me to the hypnotic charms of Vitalic:
Bizarrely (considering their usual mix of Madge, Sugababes and Taio Cruz remixes with hands-in-the-air handbaggy vocal house tracks on a loop), I first heard this marvellous new single on Gaydar Radio! The Editors seem to capture something very reminiscent of that early 80s sound - a hint of Classix Nouveaux maybe, or pre-pomp-rock Simple Minds perhaps...
Another surprising find on Gaydar Radio (I think someone is hitting the electro clubs lately - DJ Simon Le Vans, maybe?) is this magnificent remix of a newish song Plans by The Christophers. More than a hint of New Order here, I reckon...
[They currently have no video available so I just made this one quickly.]
Buy their EP from their website
And then there's this hypnotic remix of this choon by French artist Yelle, which I recently stumbled upon. Despite its hilarious video which features what appears to be three skinny lesbians emulating Mr C of the Shamen, once you get the hook into your head it is nigh-on impossible to shift it!
Enjoy!
Hola Guapo! ¿Cóma está?
Further down the line in our countdown to our holiday, I feel it is time to focus on pleasures of the flesh!
Beautiful out-gay hunk José Galisteo is a huge pop sensation In Spain, inevitable really since he rose through the ranks of their top reality TV show Operación Triunfo.
He has quite understandably wowed the Spanish scene with his artistic model poses and performances at Europride 2007 in Madrid and other gay events and venues.
Here he is trying desperately not to look too camp (and failing) in a cheesy video for his cover of Nik Kamen's I Promised Myself:
And gawd only knows why the bints even bothered to turn up in this video for his brand new single Logicamente No, as he sure as hell doesn't seem particularly interested... I am, though - he is one fit Spaniard!
Señor Galisteo's first album Remember is available (bizarrely) via Amazon Germany. His new album Luces y Sombras from which the single is taken, is released on CD on 26 October but is apparently available to purchase from iTunes now.
Visit José's MySpace page
Tuesday, 20 October 2009
"Margaret Dumont, we thought you were dead"
Discovering that today is the 120th anniversary of the birth of the classic character actress Margaret Dumont (the larger lady who always provided a foil for Groucho's jokes in the Marx Brothers movies) provides me with a perfect excuse to post one of my favourite scenes from one of my favourite movies - the hilarious Terrence McNally film The Ritz:
All about the real Margaret Dumont
For those of you who haven't seen the film yet (why not?!), it is available on Amazon
Monday, 19 October 2009
La lalala lalala lalala...
Continuing this week's countdown to our hols, on this Tacky Music Monday my thoughts wander inevitably towards Eurovision, and the weird world of the creatures who inhabit it. Spain is a country that has no fear of tackiness whatsoever, so it is inevitable that when you combine the two, you can come up with some real corkers! Enjoy...
¡Hala!
¡Hala!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)