80s Arena

Chasing The Eighties

Sat, 09 Aug 2008 08:25:00 -0500

They call it ‘the ultimate ‘80s binge’. They travelled 30,000 miles and did 25 interviews in an attempt’ to rediscover the ‘80s! And then they wrote a book about it.

Recently, three men careering hopelessly towards the end of their twenties decided to undertake a ridiculous romp of sheer nostalgic indulgence.

It was to be one last look back to the glorious past before they decided to be grown ups and think about the present and the future. But first, it was all about Ghostbusters, Goonies, Guttenberg, blood, sweat and Corey Haim.

The tour lasted three months and began and ended in Toronto, home of Police Academy. Over the 12 weeks, they met Chunk from the Goonies, Hightower, Hooks, Harris and Callahan from Police Academy, Jesse Ventura, Oscar the Grouch, Howling Mad Murdoch, Mr. Belding from Saved by the Bell among many others.

To find out what it’s all about, go to their site, watch some videos, browse the forum or buy the book - all on “Chasing The Eighties” http://www.chasingthe80s.co.uk

Billie Jean Is The Top Dance Record

Thu, 17 Jul 2008 15:17:00 -0500

Michael Jackson’s 1983 hit, ‘Billie Jean’ is the best ever dance record - according to listeners to BBC Radio 2. I don’t want to be controversial here, but I must say that I can’t figure out how the heck Billie Jean won out over Donna Summer’s 1977 disco classic, ‘I Feel Love’, which came in at number 2.

OK, so I Feel Love may be a ‘70s song but, in my view, it really set the trends for the ‘80s by blending a hard core synth track (which had hitherto been the province of techno bands such as Kraftwerk) with crooning disco vocals (which had previously normally been sunk to a funk band or orchestral backing). In fact, ‘I Feel Love’ was not only the greatest disco song ever but was also one of the most influential pop songs. So, while Jackson may have won the vote, I am going to play Donna Summer’s wonderful I Feel love...

BBC Story HERE

ABBA will never perform again!

Sun, 06 Jul 2008 09:15:00 -0500

After the huge success of the Mama Mia musical and the incredible interest in the Mama Mia movie - not to mention the various ABBA tribute bands that continue to fill theatres - you might think that ABBA would be considering the possibility of getting back together again.

Not so! According to Bjorn Ulvaeus, they will never tour again...

“We would like people to remember us as we were,” he said in an interview in The Telegraph newspaper, “I remember Robert Plant saying Led Zeppelin were a cover band now because they cover all their own stuff. I think that hit the nail on the head."

Read the rest...

In the meantime, to help you remember them the way they were, here is ABBA singing Take A Chance On Me...

And here is the Erasure version of the same song...

Bros Reform - Tour Planned

Tue, 01 Jul 2008 16:06:00 -0500

Thanks to the BBC for this...

Bros could become the latest boy band to reform and go on tour, singer Matt Goss has revealed.

Goss, together with twin brother Luke, on drums, and bassist Craig Logan, enjoyed huge success in the late 1980s with hits including I Owe You Nothing.

"If we can make the numbers work and the venues work, then we're all up for it," said Goss, now 39.

He was speaking at the film premiere of his twin brother's latest film Hellboy II: The Golden Army.

Full Story...

Smash Hits 80s

Thu, 29 May 2008 15:59:00 -0500

This new 3 * CD set contains some of my very favourite 80s hits so - even though it’s named after a ‘rival’ magazine (back in the ‘80s I was writing for Flexipop! and Number One rather than Smash Hits), I’m prepared to make some allowances...

There is a good smattering of the ‘obvious’ hits - Culture Club’s Karma Chameleon, The Human League’s Don’t You Want Me, Bros’s When I Be Famous - plus a nice selection of some of the less well remembered hits - such as Dollar’s rather good Oh L’Amour (at the time I wouldn’t have admitted to liking Dollar who were seen as desperately uncool, but I must say that listening now, so many years later, it doesn’t sound half bad) and Strawberry’ Switchblades’ Since Yesterday.

I won’t bore you with the whole track listing. See for yourself on Amazon.

Suffice to say, this is a damn’ fine collection. Just to get you in the mood, here’s the video for track 5 on disc one - Haircut 100’s wonderful, Favourite Shirts (Boy Meets Girl).

John Taylor - No Glastonbury Shock, Horror!

Thu, 15 May 2008 14:57:00 -0500

I just noticed that the BBC has an interview with Duran’s John Taylor.

John on an ‘average day’ on the road: “We like saunas and steams.”

On partying: “I'm not a big party head. It takes so much energy.”

And on whether Duran Duran has been asked to do Glastonbury: “No.”

Read it all.

And just to get into a Duranie mood, here’s Hungry Like The Wolf...

Sonia - the unstoppable...

Wed, 14 May 2008 16:20:00 -0500

Following on from my last post, I note that the ever fabulous Sonia will be performing at Birmingham Gay Pride Main on 24th May. Disgracefully, I don’t think we’ve ever had a Sonia video here on The 80s Empire. I shall rectify that right away. Here she is (practising judo, by the looks of it, with a peculiar bloke with strangely bendy arms) - Sonia: ‘You’ll Never Stop Me Loving You”....

Bucks Fizz Back Together Again?

Sat, 10 May 2008 16:35:00 -0500

Since their heydey in the early ‘80s, Bucks Fizz has performed in a variety of mystifying incarnations. Jay Aston was the first of the classic line-up to leave (in 1985), to be replaced by Shelley Preston. Various other members came and went in the succeeding years and, for a while, David Van Day (formerly of Dollar) joined. later David left, teamed up with ex-Bucks Fizz singer, Mike Nolan - and suddenly there were two Bucks Fizzes!

The current line up of ‘The Original Bucks Fizz’ http://www.myspace.com/originalbucksfizz is Cheryl Baker, Mike Nolan and Shelly Preston. According to another Bucks Fizz site on MySpace ‘Buck5Fizz recently starred in the Comic Relief video with Peter Kay & Matt Lucas..."It's the first time Cheryl & Jay had been in the same room for 20 years. We are all hoping to put all our differences aside and tour later this year as a five piece. We are all very excited at the prospect" ‘....

Interesting to see if that really happens. In the meantime, your next chance to see the ‘Original BF’ is on the Gay Pride Main stage on 24th May in Birmingham. The group will share a bill with Sonia, Brotherhood of Man and Scooch. Sounds good to me. And here, to get you in the mood, is the ever-popular Making Your Mind Up...

Quentin Crisp - The Return!

Wed, 30 Apr 2008 10:54:00 -0500

That fine actor, John Hurt, will be returning to our TV screens soon playing a role he ‘created’ way back in 1975. That was when he played the part of the extrovert British gay man, Quentin Crisp in the dramatisation of Crisp’s autobiography, ‘The Naked Civil Servant’. in that piece, the young Hurt (naturally) mainly played the young Crisp. In the new drama, named ‘An Englishman in New York’, Hurt will play the older Crisp during his years in America in the ‘70s and ‘80s.

More from the Beeb HERE

Meanwhile, here’s a clip of Hurt in the Naked Civil Servant...

And this is Gina X with her song, ‘No GDM’ (No Great Dark man) - dedicated to Quentin Crisp...

Blondie Tour

Thu, 10 Apr 2008 10:39:00 -0500

Blondie will tour this summer to mark the 30th anniversary of their album Parallel Lines. The tour kicks off in the USA this June. In July, Blondie will perform in Glasgow, Liverpool (they will do two shows with the Stranglers) and the Guilfest festival. More shows will be announced later...

Nicolas Cage is No Chihuahua Thief!

Fri, 04 Apr 2008 08:22:00 -0500

Breaking news: fans of the actor Nicolas Cage and lovers of small wrinkly dogs with big staring eyes will be overjoyed to hear that Cage is not guilty of stealing a Chihuahua....

According to the BBC...

US actor Nicolas Cage has accepted a public apology from Kathleen Turner over claims made in her autobiography....

Cage took action against Turner after she alleged he was arrested twice for drunk-driving while they were making the 1986 film Peggy Sue Got Married.

You see, there is an 80s link to this story.

Turner also alleged he was arrested for stealing a Chihuahua.

... Cage's UK solicitor Simon Smith said the Oscar-winning actor was "extremely pleased" with the outcome of the case "since he has never been arrested for drink driving, dog theft or anything else".

Read It All

The Edge Of the Eighties

Tue, 01 Apr 2008 15:08:00 -0500

There are so many 80s music collections being released these days that I must admit to being more than slightly bored by most of them. The trouble is, so many of them are either padded out with singles that are so obscure that I can’t even remember them or they have the same repetitive handful of hits from the likes of Culture Club, Duran and Dead Or Alive. If I get one more CD with ‘You Spin Me Round’, I swear I’ll tear up my leotard!

I’m glad to say that the newly released Edge Of the Eighties (3 CD) set is a good deal better than the average. It begins magisterially with two of the truly great songs of the early ‘80s, Ultravox’s Vienna and Visage’s Fade To Grey… But then it branches out into some less obvious highways and byways of 80s music. There’s Soft Cell singing the wonderful ‘Torch’ rather than the more frequently anthologized ‘Tainted Love’. There’s David Bowie singing the far from obvious ‘Up The Hill Backwards’ - and there is, inevitably, Dead Or Alive but (for a nice change) singing one of their other hits - ‘That’s The Way (I Like It)’.

There is a pretty good mix of 80s music here, as a matter of fact - ranging from the super well-known performers such as Adam and the Ants and Siouxsie and the Banshees to the unjustifiably forgotten (by all but their fans, that is!) bands such as Telex and Swansway.

Get over to Amazon for a look at the full track listing.

Meanwhile, as a tantalizing taster, here is a live recording of a great track from the album, Our Daughter’s Wedding (ODW) singing Lawn Chairs... I remember seeing ODW once. In the Hammersmith Palais, I believe. If my memory serves me well, they were then support act to Classix Nouveaux. What a great line-up!

Telex - Moskow Diskow

Sat, 29 Mar 2008 17:05:00 -0500

Somehow Telex passed me by in the ‘80s, which is odd as I am a huge Kraftwerk fan and Telex’s music bears more than a passing resemblance to Kraftwerk. Telex are a Belgian group and they are still going strong. Their web site is at: http://www.telex-music.com/

The ‘80s Telex track, ‘Moskow Diskow’ is one of the songs on a new triple CD set called ‘The Edge Of the Eighties’, which I’ll write about in more detail shortly. In the meantime, here is that Telex track...

Flying Lizards - That's What I Want!

Sat, 08 Mar 2008 15:57:00 -0500

Yesterday I posted a video (not the original) of The Flying Lizards’ best known song, Money. YouTube does, in fact, have the original video on site but the sound quality is pretty ropey. However, I have been doing a bit of research and found original Fling Lizards videos for two other songs, which I give you below...

These are wonderful. In my view, just as good as Money. Why, then, did The Flying Lizards never have another major hit? I suspect it’s because they were just a bit too strange. The first video below, TV, is practically a mini David Lynch film. But if David Lynch seems reasonably mainstream now, after the TV series Twin Peaks and films such as Mulholland Drive, the same could not be said back in 1979 when this Flying Lizards video was made (Twin Peaks wasn’t even broadcast until 11 years later!). ‘Coquilles Saint-Jacques indeed!”

The second video is a rather unusual cover version of the 1958 rock’n’roll song, Dizzy Miss Lizzy. What can I say - sheer genius.

More on The Flying Lizards here: http://www.markallencam.com/theflyinglizards.html

Ashes To Ashes Soundtrack

Fri, 07 Mar 2008 16:25:00 -0500

Regular readers of this blog cannot fail to have noticed that my favourite TV series these days is the BBC’s wonderful Ashes To Ashes. With a name taken from a Bowie song, this follows on from two earlier series with a name taken from a different Bowie song - Life On Mars.

Ashes To Ashes is a time-travelling copy show set in 1981. It’s both dramatic and funny - and, as an added bonus, it features a terrific range of songs. Some of the best will be on the soundtrack album due tor release on March 17th. This is the full track listing:

1. Introduction - Dialogue: Alex Drake
2. David Bowie - Ashes To Ashes
3. Visage - Fade To Grey
4. The Human League- Love Action
5. Duran Duran - Girls On Film
6. Dexys Midnight Runners - Geno
7. OMD - Souvenir
8. The Stranglers - No More Heroes
9. The Clash - I Fought The Law
10. Heaven 17 - (We Don't Need This) Fascist Groove Thing
11. Interlude - Dialogue: You're Nicked
12. Edmund Butt - Gene Genie (Gene Hunt's theme from `Ashes To Ashes')
13. The Passions - In Love With A German Film Star
14. Altered Images - Happy Birthday
15. Joe Jackson - It's Different For Girls
16. Flying Lizards - Money
17. The Beat - Doors Of Your Heart
18. The Ruts - Staring At The Rude Boys
19. The Teardrop Explodes - Reward
20. Tenpole Tudor - Swords Of A Thousand Men
21. Bryan Ferry - Let's Stick Together
22. Ultravox - Vienna
23. Edmund Butt - Title Music from `Ashes To Ashes'
24. Epilogue: Dialogue: Fandabydozy

At the risk of venturing slight away from our usual ‘80s theme, I think I’ll pick track number 16 for today’s retro-video. From 1979, it’s the very wonderful Flying Lizards... (not the original video - but pretty good all the same)

Thriller Bollywood-style

Sat, 01 Mar 2008 11:48:00 -0500

Thanks to Freddie Valentine for bringing to my attention this very wonderful Indian musical video which, I venture to suggest, bears more than a passing resemblance to a certain other well-known pop video of the ‘80s... actually, I have to say I prefer the Indian version ;)

Electric Dreams - Clubbing 80s-style

Tue, 26 Feb 2008 15:04:00 -0500

Here on the ‘80s Empire the 1980s is the decade that never ends. I’m glad to see that we are not alone. Electric Dreams is a London Nightclub dedicated to living the ‘80s nightlife to the full. It describes itself as

“A London nightclub for eighties new wave and synthpop. Bringing over 11 years of eighties new wave, goth, industrial and electronica to London...”

- which sounds pretty good to me. Apart from the fact that i no longer live in London so probably won’t have the chance to go there

For those of you who do have the chance, the next Electric Dreams nights are:

- Friday 14th March 2008
- Friday 11th April 2008
- Friday 9th May 2008
- and every second Friday in the month thereafter...

http://www.electricdreamsclub.com/

And here is the song that gave the club its name...

John Foxx - Europe After The Rain

Sat, 23 Feb 2008 16:19:00 -0500

No reason for posting this other than it’s a great song. Foxx was the original Ultravox singer. In the early ‘80s he went solo and recorded a groundbreaking hard-electro album, Metamatic. This song comes from 1981’s more acoustic, melodic alum, The Garden.

Foxx still records and performs regularly and has his own web site here:

http://www.metamatic.com/

His MySpace site is here:

http://www.myspace.com/foxxmetamatic

Great stuff!

Visage, Steve Strange, The Blitz, Ashes To Ashes

Tue, 19 Feb 2008 16:01:00 -0500

In my last blog entry, I posted a video which includes a recreation of The Blitz Club from the TV series Ashes To Ashes. That clip didn’t include the original soundtrack of Steve Strange singing the Visage hit, Fade To Grey, however. Some nice person has now posted a better Blitz clip - complete with Steve Strange. As I’ve said Ashes To Ashes does a pretty good job of recreating The Blitz in all its sardine-packed splendour. I don’t remember the toilets being quite that clean though. And did Visage really ever perform Fade To Grey there? I rather doubt it. But if anyone has information to the contrary, please let me know...

Ashes To Ashes Gets Blitzed

Sat, 16 Feb 2008 15:53:00 -0500

This week’s Ashes To Ashes (the BBC’s time-travelling ‘80s detective drama) ventures into The Blitz Club - the squalid little club which was once at the heart of the whole New Romantic thing. The recreation of The Blitz on the show wasn’t bad - it managed to convey the grimy, sweaty claustrophobia of the place. The show got one thing very wrong though - the rich geezer in the white jacket would never have been let into the place. The dress code was stricter than Lady’s Day at Ascot - and middle-aged men in white jackets were definitely not on Steve Strange’s list of desirable clientele.

Anyway, for those of you who missed it, here are almost 8 minutes from this week’s show (the Blitz segment comes about 5 minutes in - though, for some reason, minus the ‘Fade To Grey’ soundtrack - yup, that really is Steve Strange singing on the stage there)...

And, for the sake of comparison, here’s a glimpse of the original ‘80s Blitz...