Mine is the last voice you will ever hear

Childhood fears and “Two Tribes” song defined a memorable summer

Cover of Frankie Goes to Hollywood's twelve-inch version of Two Tribes
Two Tribes 12″

When I was a child, and once I understood what an atomic bomb was, the nuclear attack public information films were some of the scariest things I saw. Fortunately, we didn’t have any way to see them often unless they were shown on television, and I don’t think anybody scheduled them in children’s programming.

Add the ‘Don’t Die of Ignorance’ films from the middle of the 80s, and you have the perfect recipe for a frightening decade. I was only just a teenager. They were scary to watch in the moment, and then I played Wham! and forgot about taking a door off its hinges and hiding under it with the curtains closed.

I’m nearing completion of Trevor Horn’s book, Adventures in Modern Recording, an insight into the life of a music producer who created some of the biggest hits of the 1980s. In particular, I just finished the chapter on Frankie Goes to Hollywood: Relax and Two Tribes. In the book, Trevor discusses the Annihilation twelve-inch mix of Two Tribes. I looked it up and played it on the train on the way home yesterday, and it brought back many memories.

Back in the early summer of 1984, my family was preparing to move from Lancashire to Shropshire. Those were my last weeks at school with a group of friends, some of whom I wouldn’t hear from again until Friends Reunited connected us twenty years later. Two Tribes was the UK’s number-one single for what seemed like most of the summer.

I am trying to remember who in my friendship group had a radio cassette player, but I can’t recall it now. The machine they brought into school may have been called a ‘boom box’ at the time, or that name might have come later. My memory tells me it was a big machine. It was the kind you’d imagine New Yorkers had on their shoulders while they strutted around The Bronx or wherever. We didn’t strut, we were 13. Somebody had a cassette version that featured both the single mix and, what I think was, the Annihilation Mix of Frankie’s Two Tribes. It was being played—on the radio and by others with their cassette machines—everywhere, especially on the school grounds at Standish High School.

A group of us sat in the sunshine on the grassy bank behind one of the school buildings, listening to Two Tribes repeatedly. We might have taken our lunches out there. As I write, I can’t recall lunch at that school for some reason, but I remember sitting on the grass with music blaring quite clearly. We played Two Tribes loud so the air raid siren was audible across the school grounds. We liked the song, but we also thought playing it again and again was rebellious. Of course, nobody would believe it was an actual air-raid warning, would they?

When you hear the air attack warning
You and your family must take cover

Looking back, what’s most surprising is that nobody ever asked us to turn it down or off. They let us do it every break time for days. We even did it when most of the school had bunked off to the Radio One roadshow. It was my last week at the school. I thought I should be there to say goodbye. Looking back, I wonder why I didn’t go and watch Simon Bates & Janice Long. Who would have noticed I was absent? I wasn’t coming back next term.

At the time, I was also presenting a top 30 music show on the local hospital radio station. It’s only now that I wonder what patients must have thought about a child playing a song—albeit an anti-war song—with an air-raid siren as its introduction. Many patients would have lived through the real thing. What was I doing reminding them of the horrors of war while they were in a hospital bed? I thought it was a good song and played it more than I should have.

But when I played it yesterday, I kept my headphones on and didn’t subject the other passengers to that sound.

Weeknotes #63: A musical weekend

Airport time change, events, food quest, rail chaos, family celebration, musical, Bananarama.

Week commencing Monday, 1 April 2024

Bananarama on stage at The Palladium
Bananarama at The Palladium

Quantified Self

  • This week: Stand 6/7; Exercise 3/7 and Move 3/7. (57%). Total steps: 64,405

Life

  • Last week’s notes were written in a departure lounge. This week’s in my lounge. Mine does not operate a one-out, one-in policy.
  • Never arrive at an airport at the precise moment the clocks go forward. The loss of an hour on the way home was unnerving.
  • I was a day out of sequence. Last Sunday was Esther’s birthday lunch and a Beatles night at The Crazy Coqs.
  • The quest for a ‘hot cross Bunettone’ (Panettone meets a hot cross bun in a spiced Italian cake) took us to Wimbledon. We are still looking for one.
  • There was nothing but rail chaos on Tuesday at Euston. We ended up taking the longer route from Marylebone, but it wasn’t much fun arriving over two hours late. The return train on Thursday was swift and efficient.
  • Mum and Dad’s Diamond Wedding lunch was great, and I made a short speech that got laughs in the right places. I’m glad I prepared something; nobody was expecting it. The card from the King and Queen had pride of place. I’m so happy that it worked out.
  • Related, I didn’t need the loaded fries in the bar in the evening. They were delicious.
  • Back at work on Friday. I don’t think people realised I’d be back before Monday. It gave me some time to go through everything that happened while we were away. The project I’m working on deployed our software, and everything ran smoothly.
  • Frank has a collection of dresses from divas across the years—think Judy, Dusty, Julie, and Agnetha (with a dash of Ethel Merman and Karen Carpenter thrown in)—which he is forced to give to a museum so that he can marry Alan. That’s the plot of Frank’s Closet, a musical we saw on Friday night. It was fun.
  • Saturday at The Palladium: Bananarama. The show ran continually for the allotted time, so Karen and Sarah did not chat. That’s sad, as they can be funny, and some stories from their 40 years in the business would have been interesting.
  • Related, there’s never enough time for all the hits, but the show was built around their greatest hits album, and I am not sure why they skipped some big numbers to play covers that are not part of their catalogue: Atomic, Lost in Music, and You Spin Me Round.
  • For the second week running, we went to The Crazy Coqs presents. Tonight, the songs of Disney and Pixar were performed. Eleanor Hudson also performed a medley of the big tunes from Frozen dressed as Elsa. I don’t think I have seen a costume at one of these nights previously.

Media

  • All of Us Strangers: It takes some time to work out the timeline of the characters and that they are being presented at different points along that line. And I am still trying to figure out what to make of the ending. I’ve been thinking about it since Thursday.
  • Radio Geek Out with three episodes of Crunch and roll: Dirk Anthony, Dave Kelly and Ben Jones. All wonderful but Ben’s story about leaving Absolute Radio and the subsequent dark times is really interesting to hear. People on the radio are not always upbeat.

57 days until you know what

When the clocks go back it means another – and much more fun – annual tradition: Christmas songs.

The clocks have gone back. The mornings are now a little lighter and the commute home is a little darker. I wrote all about this last year in It’s Not (All) About The Farmers.

The days are getting shorter which means Christmas is getting closer. We’re already starting to see festive articles being published; if you are looking for the 10 of the best Christmas cards or 10 Best Women’s Christmas Jumpers then there’s already an article for you.  

But I’m not reading about those. When the clocks go back it means another – and much more fun – annual tradition: Christmas songs. As I said last year, “If you love Christmas songs and have never read the Fizzy Pop festive blog then you should go and do it right now”.  And, as last year, if you’re on Apple Music I am going to try and keep updating the Apple Playlist of the musical selections made.

Every day is like survival

The post marking 20 years is a lovely example of blogging 15 years ago. Short and to the point, with nothing superfluous. Let’s examine it:

I’m riding a wave of nostalgia at the moment, aren’t I?  My last piece was about something written sixteen years ago.  Today, I sail in a much more modern boat and I’m looking back at a newer post from just fifteen years ago.  The only trouble is, that post itself referenced an event 20 years earlier. Wow, it was 35 years ago, Culture Club was number one with Karma Chameleon.  

I’m sure lots of people write about that feeling of time speeding up. You know, the whole “it only feels like yesterday” view. It’s true, but if you weren’t there then you won’t care. Trust me kids, it may seem important to you now, but nobody born this morning will much care about the British rappers Dave ft. Fredo’s Funky Friday except as a footnote telling them it was number one the day they were born. What do you mean, you don’t care either. Kids of today, huh.

But I digress. The post marking 20 years is a lovely example of blogging 15 years ago. Short and to the point, with nothing superfluous. Let’s examine it:

It’s twenty years since Culture Club’s Karma Chameleon was the UK’s number one selling single (full list).

We’ve already hit a problem. The ‘full list’ link I originally used is no longer accessible. Thankfully, it’s on the wayback machine so I’ve updated it in the original. The list in the version I linked to stops in 2003 when Blu Cantrell feat. Sean Paul reigned with ‘Breathe’.  The current version of this page from the Official Charts site is surrounded by a monstrous noise of cookie alerts and advertising. But, it is up to date with the aforementioned Funky Friday as the latest UK chart topper.

I really remember the video set in Mississippi (but I don’t imagine it was actually filmed there).

Back in 2003 could I have looked up that the video was filmed at Desborough Island in Weybridge? Wikipedia tells me that – so maybe I could have done.  Anyway, it’s not that far away from where I live. One day I should plan a visit but I promise not to reenact the video for you. I can’t believe anybody fell for it being Mississippi. However, it was the 80s and music videos were all new. And I was 13 and would have believed anything.

I suspect it would be very dated now …

Well, in the intervening years, a little thing called YouTube arrived which means I can now watch the original video and confirm it’s datedness or not. And I can embed it in the post itself for you to make up your mind. The pace of change, huh? You get to see how much like a cloudy day in England it appears to be. That’s the British weather for you.

all together now, “Every day is like survival, You’re my lover, not my rival …”

Back when Karma Chameleon was top of the charts, did anybody know the ‘You’re my lover’ was a reference to Jon Moss? I know a 13 year old that certainly didn’t.  I wonder if I would have reacted differently had I known?

 

It’s Not (All) About The Farmers

The clocks changed. Here comes festive fun.

The clocks went back last night. Thanks to the marvels of jet lag I missed it and saw no benefit to the extra hour in bed. I’ll spend the rest of the week trying to determine which devices don’t automatically reset themselves and I’ll find my kitchen clock out by an hour until next weekend. Then, when I realise, I’ll struggle to synchronise the clocks on the top and bottom ovens. Admittedly, nothing compared to the 379 clocks that need to be adjusted at Windsor Castle. I wonder who adjusts HM’s bedside alarm clock? Truly, first world problems.

Timezones are fascinating. I’ve spent my life trying to remember if it’s during the ‘spring forward’ phase or the ‘fall back’ time that we don’t adjust the clocks at the same time as my colleagues across the Atlantic. I never remember. But, I think it’s now. I do know that all of our meetings are messed up for a week now and nobody is in the right place at the right time.

I feel that, for as long as I can remember, it’s been assumed that we in Britain change the time because of farmers or school children. Lighter mornings mean fewer accidents, or something like that. It always sounded plausible but I am not sure I was convinced. Today, the Telegraph notes that, back in the early 1900s, William Willett “wanted to stop Brits from wasting valuable daylight hours” by staying in bed in the summer months and introduced the concepts of daylight savings time. So, really, it’s all about combatting laziness (or, to put it another way, our health and well-being). What I never knew was that the concept of British Double Summer Time, helpfully, BDST, was introduced to help save fuel during the post 1940 war years. by making Britain work on a 2-hour offset against GMT. It seems we are always tinkering with time.

Do You Hear What I Hear?

With the nights drawing in and the world donning a Halloween mask, my thoughts turn to Christmas. Although I have not seen that many Christmas treats in the supermarkets yet, I did spend some of yesterday in the local B&Q DIY superstore looking at Christmas lights. As the Most Wonderful Time of Year is rapidly approaching, it’s time for me to start hunting out the Yuletide musical delights uncovered at My Festive Fizzy Pop. It’s a bit of a guilty pleasure. With just 57 days until Christmas, it’s time to start building this year’s playlist of new Christmas music and My Festive Fizzy Pop is the perfect place to start. If you love Christmas songs and have never read the Fizzy Pop festive blog then you should go and do it right now.

I am unashamedly a fan of Christmas tunes. I do, however, limit my consumption to only the newly released songs in November. Come 1st December, however, the Christmas back catalogue will be playing for the majority of my listening hours. Look at my Last.FM stats for 2015 and 2016 and you’ll see the December spikes. Most of these tracks are songs from the my ever-growing festive archive. The most limited version of the archive (which contains the material I will actually listen to) is running at almost 48 hours of total listening time. Better start now.

The year I am sharing the 2017 new Christmas music collection (which is, mainly, new versions of the old songs) via Apple Music. I think you find it here: https://itunes.apple.com/gb/playlist/my-festive-fizzy-pop-2017/idpl.u-d89AZtMG155g

And let me be the first to wish you a very Merry …. (maybe not).

#SOLS

Sermon of the last Sunday is my weak attempt to make sure I a am not thawing the hosting fees for this site away by ensuring there is some new content every month (yes, I’ve turned all modern media and refer to this a content). The #SOLS tag helpful links to the others (although I must remember to go and tag the missing one).

Anything You Can Do

The latest advertisement from Mercedes is one best-timed and well-pitched pieces of advertising I have seen for a long time.

I haven’t written much here for a while. I don’t really know why but I haven’t gone away – perhaps I am just spending all my time moving my Windows Media library across to iTunes. Yes, I gave up and switched to an iPod Nano. And, after all those trials and tribulations with other music players, I am very happy. I even bought the Nike+ kit so that I can track how far I have run at the gym. Seriously, I’ve tried many of the music players and they just don’t have the ease of use and integration that the iTunes has. It’s the seamless interaction that makes it all work so well.

Still, that’s not why I picked up the keyboard today. Earlier I watched the European Formula One Grand Prix; and boy what a race that was. But I don’t really want to talk about the race itself (I am sure you can read all about it here) but I did want to talk about one of the best pieces of advertising that I have seen a long while.

Even if you are not a petrolhead follower of Formula One – and especially if you are British – you can’t have failed to have read some piece about the Championship scrap between Lewis Hamilton and his McLaren team-mate Fernando Alonso.

The latest advertisement from Mercedes (which is of course the team they both drive for) plays on this rivalry beautifully. Anything you can do, I can do better:

I just think the whole thing is really well pitched and they seem to have had some fun making it.

But What Was The Year?

No matter how many times my media player tells me JoBoxers (and their classic, Boxerbeat) is from the 2005 compilation (Teenage Kicks) I know it’s a true pop treasure from 1983 (top ten in February no less).

Oh how I despair at all those compilation cds that are gracing my cd collection. Over the years I have collected a fair few. I think it’s something to do with being a pop fan. True pop is a three and a half minute tune mimed to some falling glitter snow surrounded by Pans People and introduced by The Hairy Cornflake.

To that end, the long player was never really on my turntables as a child. Thus, my musical memories are really quite happily contained across a collection of compilations.  This is all well and good until you come to rip them all so that you can add your youth to your mp3 player. For, lo, compilation cds neither sit well on mp3 machines nor do they rip well. The artist may be in the title box while the artist is just listed as ‘various’. I can live with that (I lie, I can correct that) but I can’t stand that the dates are incorrect. No matter how many times my media player tells me JoBoxers (and their classic, Boxerbeat) is from the 2005 compilation (Teenage Kicks) I know it’s a true pop treasure from 1983 (top ten in February no less). Thus, I must spend my evenings correcting each cd as it gets ripped.

My life will be over before this project is complete. My sanity will be gone sooner. But my mp3 player will know hits of 1978 are very different from those of 2002.

Listen on Apple Music

Memories Of The Walkman

I was a avid singles collector at the time and the little Walkman unit wasn’t ever going to play vinyl 45s. So, at this point in my life I became a compilation tape wizard.

When I was younger my Sony Walkman was one of my favourite things. Today, you would probably think of it as a first generation device but I think this was 1982 and it was a WM-4 (or the like). There’s a picture of it on this page. My brother and I were at an age where we wanted to listen to our own music all the time so I suspect my parents thought it would be a good idea to get us one each so we could listen to our music in the car while they had Radio 2 on. And it stopped the arguments.

I was a avid singles collector at the time and the little Walkman unit wasn’t ever going to play vinyl 45s. So, at this point in my life I became a compilation tape wizard. I would spend hours putting tapes of my records together to listen to in the car. There would be the odd album track from one of my parent’s records but most of the tracks were from those singles of mine.

I would spend hours listening, rewinding, forwarding and listening again to my soundtrack to the 80s. If it had been number one in the charts during that period then it would have been on those tapes.

And so to – what I thought was going to be – the point of this little wander down memory lane. During that time in the early 80s I used to carry a small stock of batteries around. If the Walkman stopped working I just replaced the battery (although I did learn over the years not to use the rewind functions a great deal as they drastically reduced battery life). My cheesy 80s pop was always with me.

Fast forward to 2005. This afternoon I was heading to the gym and thought I’d take my new century Walkman-equivalent with me only to find the battery was drained. Except this time I can’t just swap out the batteries – I have to charge it. So I wasn’t able to walk with my music.

And they call it progress.

On a side note, my parent’s loft probably still houses the Walkman – the cassette part gave up years ago but the radio still works and the stereo sound from it is still one of the best I’ve ever heard. Those 80s hits singles are all stored in boxes in the same loft space but the compilation tapes have long since gone. It would be amusing to try and recreate one of them through the wonders of digital music but I shan’t be setting myself that kind of goal.

Spooky side note. When I wrote the words above I had no idea that the entries on this day in 2004 and 2003 were both – in some way – music related. I wonder was it is about today?

Birthday Boy

Stephen GatelyStephen, it’s your birthday and all of us – by which I mean me – at Hello Curns (the blog for Britain – I’m thinking it might be a good slogan) would like to wish you all the best for the coming year. I’m sure it’s been a fun year – that Child catcher costume alone must have made you laugh each day and, perhaps, put memories of that Technicolor dreamcoat behind you. But when, dear boy (and I say that as a term of endearment rather than as some comment on your person) will you be back in the studio recording some pop tunes for us? I was most disheartened that there was no further material after the last album. Truthfully, I was one of those who thought it was great. So, I don’t think you need any brother-of-some-bygone-popstar to be your new front man. No, stick with the solo material. Oh, and don’t drink too much tonight. Happy Birthday. [Stephen Gately was Man of the Moment at some point in the past when we did that stuff]

And in case that’s not enough, Stephen is 29 and today is Thursday, March 17, the 76th day of 2005. There are 289 days left in the year. This is St. Patrick’s Day [source]

Erasure: The Nightbird Tour

From the moment Andy Bell appears on stage with angel wings you know they are back on form.

erasure_show_logo.gifI’ve seen Erasure a couple of times in concert. The last time was the Other People’s Songs tour. While I enjoyed the album I wasn’t so sure about the concert: they seemed to be going through the motions a little more than previous times. So, it was with some interest that I got by tickets to The Nightbird Tour at Hammersmith Odeon (erasuregig.com).

Andy Bell from ErasureFrom the moment Andy Bell appears on stage with angel wings you know they are back on form. The Nightbird material fits very well into the overall set; the feeling of a ‘show’ is back and the audience was – most definitely – behind Vince and Andy. The first number ‘No Doubt’ leads into ‘Hideaway’ which I don’t recall seeing performed for a very long time and is one of my favourites. But we also got ‘A Little Respect’, ‘Who Needs Love Like That’ and ‘Blue Savannah’ plus a Vince performing ‘Rapture’.

The concerts are recorded so that you can get a copy of the show you went to see. I shall be having one of those for I had a superb time.

Forgotten Projects?

Time to revisit a forgotten project: boybands!

So yesterday’s on this day link took me off on a memorable journey to the Forgotten Project of the ultimate boyband CD – which, as a side diversion, for the stress of my working life at the moment I have decided to invest some time in.

For those of you late to the party here was the aim two years ago: construct a CDs worth of music from boybands of any decade that will go attempt to show that there is some logevity in the product. If you will, it’s an attempt to show that it is possible to have classic tunes that come from the manufactured world of boyband pop. This is what we had last time:

  1. N’Sync – Pop
  2. Take That – Relight My Fire
  3. Take That – Could It Be Magic
  4. F5ive – If Ya Gettin’ Down
  5. Backstreet Boys – Everybody (Backstreet’s Back)
  6. A1 – Same Old Brand New You
  7. A1 – Caught In The Middle
  8. Blue – All Rise

And you are – most definitely – not allowed to call me shallow!

Previously: Ultimate Boy Band CD (1)The Ultimate Boy Band CD (2) Aka The I Am Shallow Project

Madonna

I went to see Madonna at Earls Court.

my ticket to see madonna at earl's courtSo I went to see Madonna at Earls Court.

That statement does not make me a huge Madonna fan – although I am partial to many of her hits and, unlike some of my friends, I think American Life is a great album (then again I also like some of Blue’s material so who am I to judge musical tastes?) and she is most certainly a performer.

So, when commenting on a Madonna concert what should you say? Earls Court is a huge venue. For those of you who haven’t been you should be aware that it’s very stadium-like. We sat in the back left corner so it was like she was at the opposite goal post. And it’s in that context that you will understand why I didn’t think it was that good.

Madonna can put on a show. She is the undisputed queen of showmanship. And therein lies the problem. She performs a West End show of the variety that you need to be able to see. And she performs them at West End prices but to stadium-sized audiences. The audio is show-like and you doubt that she’s singing live the whole time – although I suspect a lot of it is live. It’s just very well produced and sounds like her CDs and, for me, that isn’t the point of going to see live music: somehow you need to believe that they are performing live. Add to that the fact that you can’t see the spectacular and you have a fun but, ultimately, a disappointing evening.

Digital Download Chart

Is the new digital download chart a good thing?

A year ago I wrote about ringtones and the large amounts of money to be made from them (as well as one of the current boyband stars of the time) and asked when we would see the first ringtone only hit? Well, maybe not ringtones but the music download industry in the UK is taking a step towards being able to produce download only hits when Radio 1 introduces the download chart from the start of next month. I think this is fantastic news and I will be interested to see how the record companies react.

Also about a year ago, I wrote about my first experiences with downloading music from the MSN Music Club. Well, I can tell you that a year on I have bought, perhaps, ten tracks – mainly the odd chart hit jumps out at me. I’ve tried several services and find them all a little frustrating in one way or another.

Many download services don’t let you have the latest singles from an artist until they are falling down the regular charts. I assume to this is to ensure that those fans who want the track will actually buy it and contribute to a chart position before the downloads (which don’t contribute to a proper chart position). So, although I do think this chart is a superb step forward, digital music will only be legitimised when it’s included with the full chart.

Maybe in twelve months I’ll be writing about that.

Defining Your Own Space

The BBC is reporting on an interesting piece of research about the way people are using personal music players to claim back something personal from a world where we are surrounded by advertising messages:

Through interviews with Walkman owners and now iPod buyers, he found that listening to music acts as a shield, aura or cocoon … Using headphones helps to keep the world at bay and reclaim some space.

BBC: More than just a pretty interface

Yesterday I listened to my own choice of music in the gym rather than watching one of the televisions hanging from the ceilings. It was a very different experience and – to be honest – I almost caught myself singing along. I had purposely chosen a lot of upbeat pop/dance to keep me going and it worked. While my usual fare of Sky News and Chart Show TV are interesting, this time I knew my whole musical selection would be good and I would find the whole hour interesting and commercial-free.

But what about the aspect of the Walkman or iPod as a space definer? I think this is probably very obvious. I often ride the London Underground listening to music to cut me off from the rest of the people there. In the morning, it does give you a sense of your own space when you are sardine-squashed into a carriage. In the evening it keeps you occupied – less likely to be engaged in a conversation with somebody who you might find threatening.

A few weeks ago, cityofsound pointed me to Traffic Island Disks – an interesting radio programme looking at the music people are listening to as they wander around an area of London. It is very interesting listening to how people define their own spaces through the music they are listening to (it’s also a pretty good idea for a radio show).

Hi We’re Your Weather Girls

Humidity is rising – Barometer’s getting low, According to all sources, the street’s the place to go.

The Weather Girls,
The Weather Girls said “It’s Raining Men”

I have been recovering from my trip to the USA by spending a great deal of today asleep and generally caching up on the mail, the christmas cards, the washing and all the other things you need to do when you’ve been away for a week. It’s almost Saturday night and I am going supermarket shopping (you see, dear reader, I have a very exciting life).

While I managed to listen to the radio and some CDs I did, eventually, resort to music television so that there were some pictures to provide an alternative visual while I drank my tea (real tea, not a USA-style tea, is one of the greater comforters in my life).

The Hits is showing some so-called classics this afternoon. The video for It’s Raining Men (The Weather Girls) looked so dated that it made me wonder what those brought-up entirely on the sophistication of the modern day music video would make of these dated images.

Interestingly, it occurred to me to that it’s the video that looks a lot older than the music sounds. Allowing for the fact that It’s Raining Men is part of the soundtrack to my youth, I still think it’s the video technology that has made the noticeable leaps in the last 20 years.

And it’s 20 years next March since It’s Raining Men was a hit for The Weather Girls. Originally charting in the UK in August 1983 it eventually made number 2 in March 1984. It’s one of those songs that I would have sworn topped the charts but, apparently, not. I would imagine that a combination of Nena’s ‘99 Red Ballons‘, Lionel Richie’s ‘Hello‘ and Duran Duran’s ‘The Reflex‘ kept it from the number 1 slot.