#065

Style III: Fiéis ao Romance

Alvorava o ano de 1980 e o novo secreto hang out lisboeta era o Yes, na Rua Padre Manuel da Nóbrega, ali para os lados do Areeiro. O estabelecimento era de Rufino pai e filho, que faziam dinheiro sério nuns quantos locais duvidosos pelas bandas da Amadora. Aqui era para verem les beaux gens da capital, que se congregavam nesse pequeno mas cosy “cafunfo”, dançando o Showroom Dummies dos Kraftwerk mixado com os Wailers (ao mesmo tempo) se assim fosse necessário.

Modos e costumes aperfeiçoados a partir da sensação sentida numa visita a Londres em que acabei uma Terça à noite no Billy’s, uma espelunca no Soho que tinha música fantástica para gente que o era ainda mais a dançar. Vim a saber mais tarde que aqueles sons glam e robóticos eram o despertar dos Blitz Kids, “disfranchisados” que não se reviam na ética do punk, hedonistas que estudavam arte ou faziam biscates no mundo da moda e torravam o dole check em roupas vintage assembladas de modo curioso mas tão criterioso que lhes valeu um pouco desses 15 minutos de fama aos quais supostamente temos todos direito. Panteão de pantomina, o ser famoso por sermos somente quem somos. Kim Bowen, Stephen Linard, Christos Tolera, Helen Carey, Tim Dry, John Maybury, Midge Ure, Stephen Jones, os manos Kemp, Chris Sullivan, John Galliano, Princess Julia e George O’Dowd. Mas, a cima de tudo, o leader of the pack, Steve Harrigton que ficou conhecido como Steve Strange.

Sullivan, que viria a formar os Blue Rondo a la Turk com Tolera, para além de ser um bem sucedido empresário da nightlife londrina, conhecia-o desde os 14 anos, ainda no País de Gales de onde ambos eram originários e foi no reencontro numa noite Bowie organizada por Strange no Billy’s que juntos decidiram em conjunto o Hell para depois singrarem rumos diferentes: um faria o Club for Heroes e o Camden Palace, o outro Le Kilt e o Wag. As palavras de Sullivan na despedida do amigo: “We were both flamboyant club-running Welsh dandies but were never rivals. Steve had too much dignity for that. We were friends and remained so for the rest of his life. I spoke to him a lot over his last few years and realised that he, coming from nothing, just threw down the gauntlet and created this being, “Steve Strange”, a rather unique individual, one of a kind and a true maverick who never once towed the party line and always kept you guessing from Telly Tubby Toys to TV shows. Indeed, our lives ran in tandem for decades and, I can honestly say, that I am proud to have been a friend and associate for 40 years of this great British character. I doubt we will see the likes of him again”.

I’ve never done good things

I’ve never done bad things

I never did anything out of the blue

David Bowie – Ashes to Ashes

Strange era com Judith Frankland, Dana-Jane Gilroy e Elise Brazier os estranhos personagens secundários no video de Ashes to Ashes que lançava o disco Scary Monsters com que Bowie salvava o inicio da década de 80. Ao contrário de Jagger, que supostamente foi barrado à porta de um dos clubes de Strange, Bowie era um icon maior para estes dandys, jovens precoces que apresentavam todas as noites colagens de fazer o comum mortal revirar os olhos, “enfeitando-se” em conjuntos maravilhosos, cortes de cabelo que desafiavam a gravidade e maquilhagens que faziam qualquer pessoa sentir que a normalidade era uma espécie de pecado. Hammer Horror meets starlet da Rank, descendentes do legado do rei camaleão, individualistas que acreditavam piamente na “escrituras” de heróis por apenas um dia, divertindo-se na criação de identidades descartáveis, vestindo looks nunca uniformes.

No Yes o ambiente tentava ser de celebração dos modernistas portugueses, Almada era o meu herói, mas o arquétipo da Bauhaus e uma ideia romântica do que teria sido Berlin entre guerras era Zug fährt da estética que admirávamos. Culpa dos Kraftwerk, mas outros também criavam hinos. Como I’m In Love With A German Film Star originalmente dos The Passions mas que aqui escolhi numa versão mais recente gravada por Sam Taylor-Wood com os Pet Shop Boys.

O Yes era um clube “misto”, mas gay talvez na assertividade de sexualidades, engraçado como eram esses clubes que serviam de porto seguro a miúdos que se sentiam na marginalidade da sociedade. Isso, por sua vez, permitia que as miúdas se aperaltassem como muito bem lhes apetecia longe do escrutínio familiar e os machos se vestissem de ídolos de matiné ou beatniks, gentlemen eduardianos ou fogosos  garanhões gaúchos sem se preocuparem se iam ter que bagunçar o cabelo perfeitamente penteado numa briga. Uma mudança de apeadeiro para o Trumps no Principe Real serviu acima de tudo para (e)levar isto tudo ao resto da fauna e flora lisboeta.

Começo com We Move publicado em The Anvil, o segundo disco dos Visage que Strange formou com Egan e uma mão cheia de músicos talentosos que vinham dos Magazine, dos Ultravox e dos Tubeway Army. E acabo com uma versão de piano de Fade to Grey que Chris Payne gravou no album Between Betjeman, Bach and Numan.

Pelo meio fui escolhendo fundações e traves mestras do movimento mas também a pop dos amigos e fãs dessas noites, numa selecção de perdidos e achados desses tempos. Dos Associates com a versão de Boys Keep Swinging de Bowie até ao Einstein A Go-Go dos Landscape de Richard James Burgess, músico e compositor mas também inventor e empresário que ao produzir To Cut a Long Story Short dos Spandau cunhou também o termo “New Romantic”.

Vem-me à memória Helen Folasade Adu, mais conhecida como Sade. Transladada de Ibadan na Nigéria para Essex aos quatro anos de idade, que estudou na St. Martins e que começou a denotar-se enquanto amiga dos Animal Nightlife e cantora na banda Pride. Dela escolhi Nothing Can Come Between Us do seu terceiro album, não inocentemente intitulado Stronger than Pride. E lembro-me da top model francesa Ronny. Oriunda de uma qualquer sombria área industrial do norte de França, saiu de casa aos 14 anos para ir para Paris, onde ia mentindo sobre sua idade, teve aulas de dança até começar a escrever canções. Rusty Egan conheceu-a no Privilège, clube parisiense onde eu também passei muita bela noite. Juntamente com Midge Ure produziu a minha escolha de If You Want Me to Stay, clássico de Sly Stone. Vangelis, Georg Kajanus e Peter Godwin também produziram discos dela. Talvez por causa do nome masculino era garota que adorava vestir-se masculinamente e também pode ser vista na capa do disco Station dos Ultravox.

Rock e funk bem representado com os Haysi Fantayzee de Jeremy Healy e Kate Garner aqui com John Wayne Is Big Leggy; os Funkapolitan onde Tom Dixon tocava baixo com As The Time Goes By; Los Rancheros de Adam Ant, que nunca se reviu nestas modas mas que as vestimentas apiratadas não deixavam sombra para dúvidas que trunfos escondia debaixo das mangas em balão; ou White Boy, single dos Culture Club de George O’Dowd, mais conhecido como Boy George e que era quem fazia o bengaleiro do Billy’s e de onde foi despedido porque supostamente incrementava o que recebia com o que surripiava das carteiras e dos casacos dos clientes.  

Electro e Synth Pop com fartura também. Os China Crisis com Jean Walks in Fresh Fields ou Messages From The Stars da Rah Band; os Depeche Mode com Dreaming Of Me ou o dissidente Vince Clarke num State Farm criado já nos Yazoo que formou a seguir com Alison Moyet. E convêm não esquecer os obscuros Techno Twins de quem escolhi Donald & Julie Go Boating, uma pérola de electronica pop escondida em Technostalgia, primeiro registo do projecto composto por Bev Sage e David Hewson. Composto em modo minimal por um loop, alguns efeitos de piano, uns flutuantes e misteriosos vocalizos contrapostos às estranhas interjeições de um sintetizador armado em buzina. O resultado pode ser melhor descrito como soando a Arthur Russell a fazer uma versão de Vienna dos Ultravox. É definitivamente um treat já que o resto do album é tão choné que só ouvido. Falling in Love Again, single de apresentação saído em 1981, é como se tivesse sido produzido por um Andrew Lloyd Webber com Alzheimer que já não soubesse quem tinha sido Marlene Dietrich ao escrever um musical sobre os 80s.

Isto tudo tem como pano de fundo os usual suspects que fizeram a onda rolar: os Duries com Planet Earth, os Spandies com Chant No 1 (Don’t Need This Pressure On) de You Spin me Round dos Dead or Alive de Pete Burns até um Too Shy dos Kajagoogoo vai só uma descolorada madeixa de cabelo e um arpejo Hi NRG… Esta onda foi pororoca que nos meados dos 80s já se havia desvanecido, não morrendo na praia mas como havia salpicado todo o zeitgeist, da música à moda, acabaria por se integrar no mainstream. Apesar de nos anos em que vivi em Londres se ter falado muito de Romo, um ressurgimento glam que iria mais uma vez misturar o velho e o novo, com o bónus acrescido dos Minty, bando à parte na cena musical que então existia no UK, nem que fosse porque integrava uma peça importante dos tempos do Blitz, Leigh Bowery. Com Richard Torry e mais tarde Matthew Glamorre a irreverência de Bowery e sua troupe era tão notória que o Council de Westminster fechou um clube em Soho onde tinham uma residência alegando comportamentos indecentes. Dos Minty escolhi Useless Man para ficar como ponto de partida para mais um par de escolhas mais recentes: a biónica Viktoria Modesta com Only You e osWe Are Brando,que depois do muito badalado Vegans Don’t Eat Honey editaram em 2018 o EP Modern Witch Hunt de onde retirei Haunted Town.

Bowie inspirou-os, na vida nocturna “soltaram a franga”, voaram alto e alguns até derreteram a cera que agarrava as penas dessas asas, à imagem de qualquer Ícaro os Novos Romanticos foram só mais uma subcultura quando esse tipo de coisa ainda existia e os seus militantes não eram padronizados pois almejavam a distinção pela diferença. Quase tudo gente que iria acabar por moldar o resto do século XX. E que hoje nos fazem sentir uma grande falta…

Que o fim de semana seja de triplo D: dedicado a defender a diferença.

PS: a imagem desta semana tem como ponto de partida uma foto desses tempos onde as minhas sobrinhas Sara e Rita estão no Jukebox com os Spandau Ballet, menos o Tony Hadley que estava de ressaca… 

#staysafe #musicfortheweekend

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The year was 1980 and our new secret Lisbon hangout was Yes, on Rua Padre Manuel da Nóbrega, near Areeiro. The establishment was owned by the Rufinos, father and son, who made serious money in a few dubious places by the bands of Amadora. Here it was more to see and mingle with the capital’s beaux gens, which congregated in this small but cozy “cafunfo”, dancing Showroom Dummies by Kraftwerk mixed with the Wailers (in tandem) if necessary.

Ways and ideas perfected from the sensation felt on a visit to London where I ended up on a Tuesday night at Billy’s, a joint in Soho that had fantastic music for people who were even more so while dancing. I came to know later that those glam and robotic sounds were the awakening of the Blitz Kids, disfranchised young people who didn’t review themselves in the punk ethic, hedonists who studied art or did odd jobs in the fashion world and toasted their dole checks on vintage clothes, assembled in a curious but judicious way that earned them some of those 15 minutes of fame to which we are supposedly all entitled. Like a pantheon of pantomime, being famous for being just who we were. Kim Bowen, Stephen Linard, Christos Tolera, Helen Carey, Tim Dry, John Maybury, Midge Ure, Stephen Jones, the Kemp brothers, Chris Sullivan, John Galliano, Princess Julia and George O’Dowd. But most of all, the leader of the pack, Steve Harrington who became known as Steve Strange.

Sullivan, who would form Blue Rondo a la Turk with Tolera, as well as being a successful London nightlife entrepreneur, had known him since he was 14 years old, still in Wales from where both originated and was reunited at a Bowie night organised by Strange at Billy’s. Together they decided to do club Hell and then went on different paths: one would make Club for Heroes and the Camden Palace, the other Le Kilt and the Wag. Sullivan’s words at his friend’s farewell: We were both flamboyant club-running Welsh dandies but were never rivals. Steve had too much dignity for that. We were friends and remained so for the rest of his life. I spoke to him a lot over his last few years and realised that he, coming from nothing, just threw down the gauntlet and created this being, “Steve Strange”, a rather unique individual, one of a kind and a true maverick who never once towed the party line and always kept you guessing from Telly Tubby Toys to TV shows. Indeed, our lives ran in tandem for decades and, I can honestly say, that I am proud to have been a friend and associate for 40 years of this great British character. I doubt we will see the likes of him again”.

I’ve never done good things

I’ve never done bad things

I never did anything out of the blue

David Bowie – Ashes to Ashes

Strange was with Judith Frankland, Dana-Jane Gilroy and Elise Brazier the odd supporting characters in the Ashes to Ashes video that released the Scary Monsters record Bowie salvoed the decade with. Unlike Jagger, who was supposedly barred at the door of one of Strange’s clubs, Bowie was a major icon to these dandies, precocious young men and women who presented nightly collages that made average mortals roll their eyes, “dressing up” in gorgeous sets, gravity-defying haircuts and makeup that made anyone feel that normalcy was some kind of sin. Hammer Horror meets Rank starlet, descendants of the Chameleon King’s legacy, individualists who truly believed the “scriptures” of heroes just for one day, having fun creating disposable identities, wearing looks but never a uniform.

At Yes the atmosphere tried to be one of celebration of Portuguese modernists, Almada was my hero, but the Bauhaus archetype and a romantic idea of ​​what Berlin might have been between the wars was the Zug fährt of the aesthetic we admired. Kraftwerk’s fault, but others also created anthems. Like I’m In Love With A German Film Star originally by The Passions but here I chose a more recent version recorded by Sam Taylor-Wood with the Pet Shop Boys.

Yes was a “mixed” club, but gay perhaps in the assertiveness of sexualities, funny how clubs lie these served as a safe haven for kids who felt ostracised by society. This, in turn, allowed the girls to dress up as they pleased ,away from family scrutiny and males to dress up as matinee idols or beatniks, Edwardian gentlemen or fiery Gaucho stallions without worrying if they were going to have to mess up their hair perfectly hairstyle in a fight. A change of stop to Trumps at Principe Real served above all to bring all this to the rest of the fauna and flora of Lisbon.

I start with We Move that came out on The Anvil, the second LP by Visage, band that Strange formed with Egan and a handful of talented musicians who came from Magazine, Ultravox and Tubeway Army. And I end up with a piano version of Fade to Gray that Chris Payne recorded on the album Between Betjeman, Bach and Numan.

In between I chose foundations and mainstays of the movement but also the pop of some of their friends and fans of those nights, a “lost and found” selection representative of those times. From The Associates with Bowie’s version of Boys Keep Swinging to Einstein’s A Go-Go by Landscape, project of Richard James Burgess, musician and composer but also inventor and entrepreneur who, while producing Spandau’s To Cut A Long Story Short also coined the term “New Romantic”.

Helen Folasade Adu, better known as Sade, comes to mind. Moved from Ibadan, Nigeria to Essex at the age of four, she studied at St. Martins and began to get herself noticed as a friend of Animal Nightlife while singer in the band Pride. From her I chose Nothing Can Come Between Us from her third album, not innocently titled Stronger than Pride. And I remember French top model Ronny. Coming from some shady industrial area in the north of France, she left home at the age of 14 to go to Paris, where she would lie about her age, took dance lessons until she started writing songs. Rusty Egan met her at Privilège, a Parisian club where I also spent loads of great evenings. Together with Midge Ure she produced my choice of her own version of Sly Stone’s classic If You Want Me to Stay. Vangelis, Georg Kajanus and Peter Godwin also produced some of her records. Perhaps because of the male name she was a girl who loved to dress up like a man and can also be seen on the cover of Ultravox’s album Station.

Rock and funk is fairly well represented with Jeremy Healy and Kate Garner’s Haysi Fantayzee, here with John Wayne Is Big Leggy; Funkapolitan, where Tom Dixon played bass, with As The Time Goes By; Los Rancheros by Adam Ant, who never saw himself in these fashions but whose “piraty” garments left no shadow for doubt what kind of trump cards were hiding under his ballooned frilly sleeves; or White Boy, single by Culture Club, fronted by George O’Dowd, better known as Boy George and who was the cloakroom at Billy’s and from where he was fired because he supposedly increased his pay check with what he pilfered from customers’ wallets and coats.

Electro and Synth Pop galore as well. China Crisis with Jean Walks in Fresh Fields or The Rah Band in Messages From The Stars; Depeche Mode with Dreaming Of Me or dissident Vince Clarke in a State Farm created in the Yazoo that he formed after with Alison Moyet. And let’s not forget the obscure Techno Twins from whom I chose Donald & Julie Go Boating, a gem of electronic pop hidden in Technostalgia, the first record of the project made by Bev Sage and David Hewson. Composed in minimal mode with a loop, some piano effects, floating and mysterious vocals opposed to the strange interjections of a synth that thinks it is a horn. The result can best be described as sounding like Arthur Russell making a cover of Ultravox’s Vienna. It’s definitely a treat as the rest of the album is so weird that I feel like pinpointing just one other song, Falling in Love Again, the opening single that came out in 1981, and that sounds as if it had been produced by an Andrew Lloyd Webber with Alzheimer’s who didn’t know who Marlene Dietrich had been when writing a musical about the 80s.

All this with a backdrop of the usual suspects that made the wave roll: the Duries with Planet Earth, the Spandies with Chant No 1 (Don’t Need This Pressure On), from You Spin me Round by Pete Burns Dead or Alive to a Kajagoogoo Too Shy goes just a bleached hair lock and a Hi NRG arpeggio…This wave was a “pororoca” that in the mid 80s had already faded, not “dying on the beach” as it had already splashed all over the zeitgeist, from music to fashion, integrating itself eventually into the mainstream. Although in the years I lived in London there was a lot of talk about Romo, a glam resurgence that would once again mix the old and the new, with the added bonus of Minty, band apart in the music scene that then existed in the UK, if only because it was part of an important element from the Blitz times, Leigh Bowery. With Richard Torry and later Matthew Glamorre, the irreverence of Bowery and his troupe was so notorious that the Westminster Council closed a club in Soho where they had a residence alleging indecent behavior. From Minty I chose Useless Man, starting point for a couple of more recent choices: bionic girl Viktoria Modesta with Only You and We Are Brando, who after the much celebrated Vegans Don’t Eat Honey put out in 2018 the Modern Witch Hunt EP from where I took Haunted Town.

Bowie inspired them, in nightlife they “found their wings”, they flew high and some even melted the wax that glued the feathers of those wings, like any Icarus the New Romantics were just another subculture when this kind of thing still existed and its militants were not standardised as they craved distinction through difference. Almost everyone people who would end up shaping the rest of the 20th century. And that today is something sorely missed…

May the weekend be a triple D: dedicated to defending the difference.

PS: this week’s image had its starting point in a photo from around those times where my nieces Sara and Rita are hanging out at the Jukebox club with Spandau Ballet, minus Tony Hadley who was hungover…

#staysafe #musicfortheweekend

Visage – We Move (Dance Mix)

Techno Twins – Donald & Julie Go Boating

Eurythmics – Never Gonna Cry Again

The Associates – Boys Keep Swinging

Kraftwerk – Showroom Dummies

We Are Brando – Haunted Town

Classix Nouveaux – Tokyo

Haysi Fantayzee – John Wayne Is Big Leggy (Groovy Long Version)

Culture Club – White Boy

Adam & The Ants – Los Rancheros

Funkapolitan – As The Time Goes By

Spandau Ballet – Chant No 1 (Don’t Need This Pressure On)

Fashion – Love Shadow (Smokey Dialogue)

Animal Nightlife – Love Is Just The Great Pretender

Soft Cell – Tainted Love / Where Did Our Love Go

Toyah – Thunder in the Mountains

Duran Duran – Planet Earth (Night Version)

Simple Minds – I Travel

Heaven 17 – Play To Win

Ultravox – All Stood Still

Depeche Mode – Dreaming Of Me

Kajagoogoo – Too Shy (Midnight Mix)

Japan – Quiet Life (Extended Version)

Dead or Alive -You Spin me Round (12″ Murder Mix)

Minty – Useless Man

David Bowie – Ashes to Ashes

Human League – I Don’t Depend On You

Ronny – If You Want Me to Stay (Dim Zach Mix)

Sam Taylor-Wood feat. Pet Shop Boys – I’m In Love With A German Film Star

Sade – Nothing Can Come Between Us

Blue Rondo A La Turk – Coco

Thompson Twins – In The Name Of Love

Ryuichi Sakamoto feat. Thomas Dolby – Field Work

Landscape – Einstein A Go-Go

Yazoo – State Farm

China Crisis – Jean Walks in Fresh Fields

Viktoria Modesta – Only You (Rusty Egan Mix)

Klaus Nomi – You Don’t Own Me

The Rah Band – Messages From The Stars

Chris Payne – Fade to Grey (Piano)

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