Mac & Katie Kissoon Like A Butterfly
Mac & Katie Kissoon Like A Butterfly
Mac and Katie Kissoon are a pop soul duo, consisting of brother and sister Mac Kissoon (born Gerald Farthing, November 11, 1943, Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago) and Katie Kissoon (born Katherine Farthing, March 11, 1951, Port of Spain). Mac and Katie Kissoon emigrated to the United Kingdom with their family in 1962. Katie began recording in 1965, cutting a total of four singles under the name Peanut, and was later a member of the Rag Dolls, who had a single released in 1967 and another in 1968. Mac Kissoon was a member of the Marionettes in 1966 and 1967, then fronted his own band which played U.S. bases in Europe. Returning to the UK in 1969, he cut a solo record, "Get Down With It – Satisfaction", which became a Top 30 hit in the Netherlands, reaching number 29 in February 1970.
People's Choice - Do It Any Way You Wanna (1975) • TopPop
People's Choice - Do It Any Way You Wanna (1975) • TopPop
The People's Choice was an American funk band formed in 1971 in Philadelphia by Frank Brunson and David Thompson. While they had several vocalists, their biggest hits were instrumentals. Their debut single, "I Likes To Do It" on Phil-L.A. of Soul Records, got to #9 on the U.S. Billboard R&B chart and #38 on the Billboard Hot 100. A short time later Leon Huff saw People's Choice in concert, and told Brunson that he wished the group had recorded "I Likes To Do It" for Philadelphia International Records. Huff (without Kenny Gamble on this occasion) signed the group in 1974, and it was with him that they had another hit single with "Do It Any Way You Wanna", a Philly dance classic. It sold over one million copies in three months, and was awarded a gold disc by the R.I.A.A. in November 1975. This song was used in Fred Williamson's 1976 film Death Journey. Brunson died on November 24, 2007, after a long illness.
Sad Café : "Every Day Hurts" (1979) • Official Music Video • HQ Audio • Subtitle Lyrics Option
Sad Café : "Every Day Hurts" (1979) • Official Music Video • HQ Audio • Subtitle Lyrics Option
Sad Cafe now - It is with great sadness that we have learned of the passing of our great friend Barry James. RIP Barry x
Sad Café are an English rock band formed in Manchester in 1976, who achieved their peak of popularity in the late 1970s and early 1980s. They are best known for the UK top 40 singles "Every Day Hurts", "Strange Little Girl", "My Oh My" and "I'm in Love Again", the first of which was their biggest hit, reaching number 3 on the UK Singles Chart in 1979. The band also had two US Billboard Hot 100 hits with "Run Home Girl" and "La-Di-Da".
The group formed as a result of the unification of rock bands Mandalaband and Gyro. Its founder members were Paul Young (vocals), Ian Wilson (guitar), Vic Emerson (keyboards), Ashley Mulford (lead guitar), John Stimpson (bass) and Tony Cresswell (drums). The band took their name from the Carson McCullers novella Ballad of the Sad Café.
Love's Gotta Hold On Me
Love's Gotta Hold On Me · Dollar Shooting Stars
Dollar were an English pop vocal duo, comprising David Van Day and Anglo-Canadian Thereza Bazar. The duo were successful in the late 1970s and 1980s, achieving ten UK top-40 singles, including the top-10 hits "Love's Gotta Hold on Me" (1979), "I Wanna Hold Your Hand" (1979), "Mirror Mirror" (1981), "Give Me Back My Heart" (1982) and "O L'amour" (1987). Thereza Bazar and David Van Day met at 17 when they successfully auditioned for the pop act Guys 'n' Dolls. The group enjoyed a number of hit singles in the mid-1970s and during this time Van Day and Bazar became romantically involved. By 1977, the group was in decline and the pair complained about the choice of material and musical direction. Van Day and Bazar were asked to leave the group in July of that year, with them publicly stating they had decided to leave to concentrate on songwriting. Van Day originally planned to go solo, but ultimately they agreed to form a duo. They were picked up, by French label Carrere Records, under the name Dollar.
Dollar - Who Were You With In The Moonlight (1979)
Dollar - Who Were You With In The Moonlight (1979)
Sheena Easton - 9 to 5 (Morning Train) - Official Music Video
Sheena Easton - 9 to 5 (Morning Train) - Official Music Video
Sheena Shirley Orr was born on 27 April 1959, at Bellshill Maternity Hospital in North Lanarkshire, Scotland, the youngest of six children of Annie and steel mill labourer Alex Orr. She has two brothers, Robert and Alex, and three sisters, Marilyn, Anessa, and Morag. Her earliest-known public performance as a singer was in 1964 at the age of five, when she sang "Early One Morning" for her uncle and aunt and various relatives at the couple's 25th wedding anniversary celebration. Easton's father died in 1969 and her mother had to support the family. According to Easton's website, despite her mother's heavy workload she was always available for her children: "Sheena always speaks very highly of her mum and the wonderful job she did in bringing up her and her siblings, including teaching them all to read at home before they were even enrolled in school." Easton did not consider a singing career until she saw the movie The Way We Were, with Barbra Streisand. Streisand's singing over the opening credits "overtook" the young girl and convinced her that what she wanted most was to be a singer and to have the same effect on others.
Photo credit and copyright: Sheena Easton
The Sunshine of Your Smile
The Sunshine of Your Smile · Mike Berry
Mike Berry (born Michael Hubert Bourne; 24 September 1942) is a British singer and actor. He is known for his top ten hits "Don't You Think It's Time" (1963) and "The Sunshine of Your Smile" (1980) in a singing career spanning nearly 60 years. He became an actor in the 1970s, and was best known for his appearances as Mr. Spooner in the British sitcom Are You Being Served? in the early 1980s.
Berry was born in Northampton. His parents grew up in Rhodesia but met in England and his mother was an amateur actress and singer. Six months after his birth his mother moved with him to North Wales for two years. The family then moved to Stoke Newington where he attended William Patten Primary School and passed his eleven plus exam, winning a scholarship to Hackney Downs Grocers' School. He left the school aged 16 without qualifications to become an apprentice compositor. Berry was a fan of skiffle and rock and roll music as a teenager and he formed his own skiffle group called The Rebels and then introduced electric guitars as Kenny Lord and the Statesmen. Joe Meek became their recording manager and producer, and he signed up a group called the Stormers as his new back-up band, naming the new group Mike Berry and the Outlaws.[
XTC - Generals And Majors
XTC - Generals And Majors
XTC were an English rock band formed in Swindon in 1972. Fronted by songwriters Andy Partridge (vocals, guitars) and Colin Moulding (vocals, bass), the band gained popularity during the rise of punk and new wave in the 1970s, later playing in a variety of styles that ranged from angular guitar riffs to elaborately arranged pop. Partly because the group did not fit into contemporary trends, they achieved only sporadic commercial success in the UK and US, but attracted a considerable cult following. They have since been recognised for their influence on post-punk, Britpop and later power pop acts.
Despite their "Englishness", the group's fanbase has been more concentrated in the US than the UK. They refused to conform to punk's simplicity, a point that the British press initially criticised. Partridge believed "we were trying to push music into a new area. And so we had to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous name calling because we refused to just play stupid." He recalled that when he played at a jam session with punk bands in the late 1970s, the drummer from X-Ray Spex shouted "Oh, you can fucking play, can you? Oh, listen to him, he can play." In 1988, writer Chris Hunt observed that "XTC have largely not found favour in their homeland. To a nation that judges success in terms of tabloid coverage and appearances on Top of the Pops, the retiring bards of rural olde England didn't really strike too loud a chord with the record buying public. XTC had just become 'too weird' for their own good."
Ian Reid, owner of a Swindon club named The Affair, was their third manager and brokered deals for the group to perform at more popular venues such as the Red Cow in Hammersmith, The Nashville Rooms and Islington's Hope and Anchor. ... what is known is that [Reid] inked a deal with Virgin that wound up working out primarily for Reid, secondarily for Virgin, and not at all for XTC. Throughout their first five years of existence, XTC never saw a penny of profits from either album sales or touring revenue. Reid, on the other hand, took out large loans from Virgin, borrowing against XTC's royalties, to the tune of millions of pounds by some estimates. Even after the band settled out of court with Reid, because of the terms of the contract, Virgin was able to hold XTC liable for the sum. Because of XTC's failure to tour, the likelihood of ever repaying Virgin dwindled further and further away. Over the course of a 20-year contract with Virgin Records, and after achieving gold and platinum status in album sales on a number of discs, XTC never saw any publishing royalties.
The music video shows the band playing servers and a group of men in military uniforms; one of them is Richard Branson, driving a Go-kart and jumping on a bouncy castle. According to Andy Partridge, Branson appeared "because he's a complete publicity hog. He decided he was gonna turn up and keep suggesting that he be in the video. That is the worst video ever made by man."
Shakin' Stevens - Marie, Marie
Shakin' Stevens - Marie, Marie
Michael Barratt, who would later adopt the stage name "Shakin' Stevens", was the youngest of 11 children born in Cardiff to Jack and May Barratt. His father was a First World War veteran who by 1948 was working in the building trade, having previously worked as a coal miner. The oldest of his siblings was born in the mid-1920s, and by the time of his birth some of Michael Barratt's oldest siblings had already married and started families of their own. Jack Barratt died in 1972 at the age of 75. May Barratt died in 1984 at the age of 83. He grew up in Ely, Cardiff, and as a teenager, in the mid-1960s he formed his first amateur rock and roll band with school friends and became its vocalist and frontman. Originally named the Olympics, then the Cossacks, the short-lived band finally renamed as the Denims and performed gigs in the local Cardiff and South Wales area. In the late 1960s, Stevens was associated with the Young Communist League (YCL), the youth wing of the Communist Party of Great Britain through playing at YCL events. At the time the YCL was associated with several leading music industry figures, including Pete Townshend. However, Stevens has stated that this was because the individual in charge of booking the band's gigs was also a member of the organisation. In the late 1960s, his official occupation was a milkman, and he lived in a flat which formed part of an office block in inner-city Cardiff. The office block was demolished several years later.
In the mid-1980s, Stevens re-united with former producer Dave Edmunds to record an album Lipstick, Powder and Paint, and the Christmas smash "Merry Christmas Everyone", which was a number 1 hit in 1985. Its original planned release was put back by a year to avoid clashing with the runaway success of Band Aid's charity single "Do They Know It's Christmas?", to which he did not contribute, having been out of the country touring at the time of recording. In a Record Collector magazine feature, writer Kris Griffiths wrote: "This was Shaky at the very zenith of his powers and, perhaps, the breaking-point of marketing overload from which there is only decline. Such concentrated commercial success and ubiquity came with a price." Despite Stevens's chart domination over the previous few years, he was not invited to perform at Live Aid on 13 July 1985. The hits continued but chart placings declined throughout the later 1980s and early 1990s. However, Stevens was one of the celebrities to appear in an advertising campaign for Heineken in the late-1980s. The slogan "refreshes the parts other beers cannot reach" was confirmed in the advert as he stops shakin' after consuming the product.
Donna Summer - The Wanderer (Official HD Music Video)
Donna Summer - The Wanderer (Official HD Music Video)
"The Wanderer" is a song by American singer Donna Summer, released as the lead single from her 1980 eighth album of the same name, which was the first for her new label Geffen Records after recording her previous albums with Casablanca Records. Despite the label change, Summer continued to work with Giorgio Moroder and Pete Bellotte, who had produced the majority of her hits in the late 1970s. However, it marks a change in style for The Queen of Disco, incorporating new wave styled synth riffs and a shuffling beat. "The Wanderer" incorporates heavy new wave styled synth riffs and a shuffling beat. Vocally, it was a return to her understated 1975 debut sound - soft, whispery phrases were the norm in this song, taking on an almost Elvis Presley effect, instead of the power belt she had used often since her 1977 album Once Upon a Time and 1978 hit single "Last Dance".
Kate Bush - Breathing (Official Music Video) HD
Kate Bush - Breathing (Official Music Video) HD
"Breathing" is about a foetus, very much aware of what is going on outside the womb and frightened by nuclear fallout. The lyrics also refer to the unborn baby absorbing nicotine from the mother's smoking. In an interview that year Bush described the song as her "little symphony", adding that she considered it her best work to date. Bush stated that the information within the song mostly came from a documentary she had seen about the effects of nuclear war, while the tone of the song was inspired by Pink Floyd's The Wall (side three in particular). The track includes spoken words describing the flash from a nuclear bomb. The music video features Bush in a womb portraying a foetus. Bush performed the song live in a benefit concert for Comic Relief in April 1986. In 1985, Bush donated the song as her contribution to the multi-artist compilation Greenpeace – The Album.
New Musik - This World Of Water • TopPop
New Musik - This World Of Water • TopPop
New Musik were an English synth-pop group active from 1977 to 1982. Led by Tony Mansfield, they achieved success in 1980 with the top 20 single "Living by Numbers" which was followed up with the top 40 hits "This World of Water", "Sanctuary" and hit album From A to B. New Musik formed in 1977 in London, growing out of a casual band of South London school friends who jammed together under the name End of the World. The lead vocalist and frontman for the band was songwriter and record producer Tony Mansfield, who was also a former member of the Nick Straker Band, and was joined in the original line-up by Straker, bassist Tony Hibbert and drummer Phil Towner. New Musik made their first appearance on the BBC TV pop programme Top of the Pops in October 1979 with their debut "Straight Lines", which received airplay on BBC Radio 1 from guest DJ Frank Zappa, and also on WPIX-FM in New York. From A to B reached the Top 40 in the UK Albums Chart, and contained four hit singles: "Straight Lines", "This World of Water", "Sanctuary" and their most commercially successful single "Living by Numbers". In 1980, Casio used the latter track as part of a TV advertising campaign for its digital calculators, latching on to the phrase "Such a digital lifetime" used in one of the verses.
Barbara Dickson - January February - TOTP - 1980
Barbara Dickson - January February - TOTP - 1980
I haven't mentioned the family much recently, but thanks to those of you who were kind enough to ask. My eldest Colm is here in Edinburgh visiting, and like me, talking fondly about the tour just gone! Gabriel is in fine form and my youngest, Archie, is in Leeds, working with his band over the weekend. This was me, the two boys and my husband, Oliver earlier today. Bx
Dickson's singing career started in folk clubs around her native Fife in 1964. Her first commercial recording was in 1968. Her early work included albums with Archie Fisher, the first of which, The Fate O' Charlie, a collection of songs from the Jacobite rebellions, was released in 1969. Her first solo album was Do Right Woman in 1970. She became a well-known face on the British folk circuit of the late 1960s and early 1970s, but changed her career course after meeting Willy Russell. He was at that time a young student running a folk club in Liverpool. He showed Dickson the first draft of what later became the award-winning musical John, Paul, George, Ringo ... and Bert and asked her to perform the music. The combination of his writing, the cast (including Antony Sher, Bernard Hill and Trevor Eve, who were unknown at the time) and Dickson's idiosyncratic interpretation of Beatles songs made the show highly successful. In 1984, Dickson married former actor Oliver Cookson, who went on to work as an Assistant Director in television for the BBC, and has three sons. As of 2015, she and her family had lived in Edinburgh for a number of years. She was awarded an OBE in the Queen's New Year Honours in 2002 for her services to Music and Drama.
Sharon O'Neill - Losing You (1983)
Sharon O'Neill - Losing You (1983)
Sharon Lea O'Neill (born 23 November 1952) is a New Zealand singer-songwriter and pianist, who had an Australasian hit single in 1983 with "Maxine" which reached No. 16 on both the Australian Kent Music Report and Recording Industry Association of New Zealand charts. Sharon O'Neill is a self taught musician who learned to play guitar by ear and started composing at an early age, by putting chords to her poetry. She began playing the acoustic guitar around Nelson in the 1960s. In 2018, Sharon performed a duet with Ben Ransom titled "Young Years", the song she co-wrote for the group Dragon. The track is available via digital streaming service Apple Music.
Sharon O'Neill - Maxine (1983)
Australian Crawl - Reckless (1983)
Australian Crawl - Reckless (1983)
Australian Crawl (often called Aussie Crawl or The Crawl by fans) were an Australian rock band founded by James Reyne (lead vocals/piano/harmonica), Brad Robinson (rhythm guitar), Paul Williams (bass), Simon Binks (lead guitar) and David Reyne (drums) in Melbourne in 1978. David Reyne soon left and was replaced by Bill McDonough (drums, percussion). They were later joined by his brother Guy McDonough (vocals, rhythm guitar). The band was named after the front crawl swimming style also known as the Australian crawl. Australian Crawl were associated with surf music and sponsored a surfing competition in 1984. However, they also handled broader social issues such as shallow materialism, alcoholism, car accidents, and cautionary tales of romance.
Upheaval within the band occurred from 1983 onwards. First, Bill McDonough left in 1983, then his brother Guy McDonough died in 1984 and finally, Paul Williams departed in 1985. Their 1985 release Between a Rock and a Hard Place was expensive but sales were disappointing and they disbanded early in 1986. The band's status as an icon on the Australian music scene was acknowledged by induction into the 1996 Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA) Hall of Fame. Hospitalised with lymphoma, founding guitarist Brad Robinson was unable to attend the Hall of Fame induction in person. He died two weeks later.
Pseudo Echo - Listening (1983)
Pseudo Echo - Listening (1983)
Pseudo Echo was formed in Melbourne in 1982 by two high school friends Brian Canham on vocals, guitars, and keyboards, and Pierre Gigliotti (as Pierre Pierre) on bass guitar and keyboards. They were later joined by Tony Lugton (ex-Steeler, James Freud & the Radio Stars) on guitars and keyboards. The group were named for a sound effect available on their keyboards and were initially influenced by New Romantics bands, Duran Duran, Spandau Ballet, and Ultravox. Molly Meldrum, television presenter and talent co-ordinator for the pop music series Countdown, saw the group at a gig and aired them on his show with a demo version of "Listening" in June 1983. Originally the three-piece group had used a drum machine until Anthony Argiro joined on drums in July.
Robin Gibb - How old are you? [Remastered Music Video - 1983][ FHD ]
ROBIN GIBB - How Old Are You (1983)
Robin Hugh Gibb CBE (22 December 1949 – 20 May 2012) was a British singer and songwriter. He gained worldwide fame as a member of the Bee Gees with elder brother Barry and twin brother Maurice. Robin Gibb also had his own successful solo career. Their youngest brother Andy was also a singer. With record sales estimated in excess of 200 million, the Bee Gees became one of the most successful pop groups of all time. Music historian Paul Gambaccini described Gibb as "one of the major figures in the history of British music" and "one of the best white soul voices ever" owing to his distinctive vibrato-laden soulful voice. From 2008 to 2011, Gibb was president of the UK-based Heritage Foundation, which honours figures in British culture. After a career spanning six decades, Gibb last performed onstage in February 2012 supporting injured British servicemen at a charity concert at the London Palladium. After numerous health problems in his final years, including a battle with colorectal cancer, Gibb died in May 2012 at the age of 62 from liver and kidney failure.
Irene Cara-The Dream
Irene Cara-The Dream
Irene Cara Escalera (March 18, 1959 – November 25, 2022) was an American singer and actress who rose to prominence for her role as Coco Hernandez in the 1980 musical film Fame, and for recording the film's title song "Fame", which reached No. 1 in several countries. In 1983, Cara co-wrote and sang the song "Flashdance... What a Feeling" (from the film Flashdance), for which she shared an Academy Award for Best Original Song and won a Grammy Award for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance in 1984. Irene Cara Escalera was born and raised in the Bronx, New York City, the youngest of five children. Her father, Gaspar Cara, a steel factory worker and retired saxophonist, was Puerto Rican, and her mother, Louise Escalera, a movie theater usher, was Cuban. Cara had two sisters and two brothers. She began taking dance lessons when she was five. Her performing career started with her singing and dancing professionally on Spanish-language television. In 1993, a California jury awarded her $1.5 million from a 1985 lawsuit she filed against record executive Al Coury and Network Records, accusing them of withholding royalties from the Flashdance soundtrack and her first two solo records. Cara stated that, as a result, she was labeled as being difficult to work with and that the music industry "virtually blacklisted" her. Cara married stuntman and film director Conrad Palmisano in Los Angeles on April 13, 1986. The couple had no children and divorced in 1991. Cara died from arteriosclerotic and hypertensive heart disease after hypercholesterolemia at her home on November 25, 2022, at 63 years of age; she also had diabetes. At the time of her death, Cara was a resident of Florida, living in Largo and maintaining a secondary address in New Port Richey, where her company, Caramel Productions, was located.
Lene Lovich - It's You, Only You (Mein Schmerz) (1982)
Lene Lovich - It's You, Only You (Mein Schmerz) (1982)
Lili-Marlene Premilovich (born March 30, 1949), known professionally as Lene Lovich, is an American-British singer. She first gained attention in 1979 with the release of her hit single "Lucky Number", which peaked at number 3 on the UK Singles Chart and made her a leading figure of the new wave music scene. Born in Detroit, Michigan, Lovich moved to England at the age of 13, where she met guitarist and songwriter Les Chappell, who later became her long-time music collaborator and life partner. She developed an interest in art and theater, enrolling at the Central School of Art and Design where she took saxophone lessons. In 1975, she joined the band the Diversions and shortly afterwards wrote the lyrics to Cerrone's single "Supernature". After the band broke up, Lovich started looking for another band to join and contacted the radio presenter Charlie Gillett, who got her to record a demo of Tommy James and the Shondells' song "I Think We're Alone Now" and played it to Dave Robinson of Stiff Records, who decided to sign Lovich. The song was released as a single and appeared on her debut studio album Stateless (1978), which produced the single "Lucky Number".
Kim Carnes - Does It Make You Remember (1982)
Kim Carnes - Does It Make You Remember (1982)
Kim Carnes was born on July 20, 1945, in Los Angeles. Her father, James Raymond Carnes, was an attorney and her mother was a hospital administrator. Kim Carnes knew she would be a singer and songwriter from the age of three, despite the fact that she was not born into a musical family. "My mother didn't get my career, and my father, who was an attorney, didn't think singing and writing was even a job." Kim Carnes born July 20, 1945) is an American singer and songwriter born and raised in Los Angeles. A veteran writer of many of her own hits, as well as those for numerous other artists, she began her career as a songwriter and performer in the early 1970s, playing in local clubs. She also worked for several years as a session background singer with the famed Waters Sisters, Maxine Waters Willard and Julia Waters Tillman, who were later featured in the acclaimed 2013 documentary, 20 Feet from Stardom). Carnes' voice has been described as "distinctively raspy" and "throaty", leading to comparisons to the voices of Rod Stewart and Bonnie Tyler.
Rachel Sweet - Voodoo (1982)
Rachel Sweet - Voodoo (1982)
Rachel Sweet (born July 28, 1962) is an American singer, television writer and actress. Rachel Sweet was born in Akron, Ohio, Because she pursued her singing career so young, she dropped out of high school to concentrate on her career, but she was still required to devote time to her studies. Sweet resumed her education via correspondence courses, and she eventually graduated from Columbia University with a degree in French and English Literature in 1988. Sweet began her singing career at age three when she won an electric garage door opener in a local talent contest after singing "I'm a Little Dutch Girl." She began recording commercials at the age of six, toured with Mickey Rooney, and performed in Las Vegas as the opening act for Bill Cosby at the age of 12. She began recording country music in 1974, but with little success beyond one minor hit. Switching to rock and roll, she signed to Stiff Records and released her first album, Fool Around, in 1978, dropping out of high school to concentrate on her career, although she was still required to devote time to her studies. Sweet was backed by The Records on the Stiff Records tour in 1978. The album was a critical success, but sales were poor, although she did have some success with the single "B-A-B-Y" (a cover of the 1966 Carla Thomas song), which was a top-40 hit in the UK. The record label generated some controversy by pushing a Lolita-like image for her. Sweet owned Madonna's former home Los Pavoreales, selling it in 2010.
Charlene - I've Never Been To Me - Remastered - 4K
Charlene - I've Never Been To Me - Remastered - 4K
Charlene Marilynn Oliver born June 1, 1950), better known mononymously as Charlene, is an American easy-listening and R&B singer best known for the song "I've Never Been to Me", which, initially being a commercial flop upon its original release in 1977, became a worldwide hit upon a re-release in 1982 and has remained an enduring adult contemporary music staple. Charlene is also a songwriter, record producer, and author. Charlene Marilynn D'Angelo was born June 1, 1950, in Hollywood, California. In 1973 at the age of 23, she signed with Motown and, using the moniker "Charlene Duncan" (her married name), released two unsuccessful singles: "Relove/Give It One More Try" (M 1262) in July 1973 and in January 1974 a cover of "All That Love Went to Waste" (M 1285) from the film A Touch of Class. Charlene sought to find her niche at Motown by writing her own songs, doing demos for other artists (including Michael Jackson's "One Day in Your Life"), and working with various producers and writers before finally being teamed up with Ron Miller.
Mondo Rock - Cool World (1981)
Mondo Rock - Cool World (1981)
Mondo Rock are an Australian rock band, formed in November 1976 in Melbourne, Victoria. Singer-songwriter Ross Wilson founded the band, following the split of his previous band Daddy Cool. Guitarist Eric McCusker, who joined in 1980, wrote many of the band's hits, and along with Wilson formed the core of the group. They are best known for their second album, Chemistry, which was released in July 1981 and peaked at number 2 on the Australian Kent Music Report. Their song "Come Said the Boy" peaked at number 2 in Australia in 1983. Mondo Rock disbanded in 1991, although they periodically appeared at reunion concerts, and reformed on a more-or-less continuing basis in 2014. According to Australian musicologist, Ian McFarlane, "by way of ceaseless touring and the release of a series of sophisticated pop rock albums, [the band was] one of the most popular acts in Australia during the early 1980s". The band had a national tour in 2019, and continues to play occasional dates.
Fischer Z - So Long [1980] Stereo remastered
Fischer Z - So Long [1980] Stereo remastered
While studying clinical psychology and working in psychiatric clinics, John Watts formed Fischer-Z with Stephen Skolnik in 1977. The first performances took place in English punk clubs and the first Fischer-Z album, Word Salad, was released in 1979 on United Artists Records, in parallel with The Buzzcocks and The Stranglers. The band broke through thanks to John Peel playing their first single ‘Remember Russia’ multiple times and championing the band. Thanks to this, Fischer-Z appeared on The Old Grey Whistle Test and following the European success of their second single "The Worker", they appeared on Top of the Pops in 1979. With his second album, Going Deaf for a Living, Watts cemented Fischer-Z's ability to capture global political themes against the backdrop of ‘quirky’ pop music. The hit single "So Long" was released in 1980. The following year, it found success on the newly founded TV channel MTV. 1981 also brought the release of Fischer-Z’s third and most commercially successful album Red Skies Over Paradise, which featured the singles, "Marliese" and "Berlin". Due to the success of these albums, Fischer-Z played over 200 shows between 1980 and 1981 across the UK, Europe, the US and Canada. Watts dissolved the original Fischer-Z line up in the summer of 1981, believing that the band had moved too far from their original punk ideals.
[Verse 1]
When I read your letter I coudn't believe that you'd gone
I dialled your number but no one answered the phone
I asked your friends to tell me if they knew where you were
They said they thought that you were ill
I hired a detective to try and find out where you are
He managed to trace you, he said, you're living in France
A watchman saw you climb into someone elses car
And drive off laughing in the night
[Chorus]
Why didn't you tell me? Not leave me this way!
You could have told me, not waited for so long
[Verse 2]
I've tried to forget you, but I find myself walking the street
I went to the doctor and he gave me something to sleep
I sent you telegrams, but you haven't aswered one
Your mother told me I best leave you well alone
I hope you're satisfied now you've done this thing to me
I hope you're pleased with what you've done
[Chorus]
Why didn't you tell me? Not leave me this way!
You could have told me, not waited for so long
[Bridge]
(For so long) I never realised just exactly who you are
(For so long) I never realised the girl I had before
(For so long) I hope you're satisfied; you won't hear from me again
(For so long) I hope you're pleased with what you've done
[Chorus]
Why didn't you tell me? Not leave me this way!
You should have told me, not waited for so long...
Johnny Hates Jazz - Shattered Dreams (1987) HD remastered
Johnny Hates Jazz - Shattered Dreams (1987) HD remastered
Johnny Hates Jazz are a British pop band, currently consisting of Clark Datchler (songwriter, vocalist, keyboards) and Mike Nocito (guitarist, bassist, producer, engineer). In April 1987, they achieved international success with their single "Shattered Dreams".
Smack Jack
Smack Jack · Nina Hagen Nunsexmonkrock
Catharina "Nina" Hagen born 11 March 1955) is a German singer, songwriter, and actress. She is known for her theatrical vocals and rise to prominence during the punk and Neue Deutsche Welle movements in the late 1970s and early 1980s. She is known as "The Godmother of German Punk". Nina Hagen was born in what was then East Berlin, East Germany, the daughter of Hans Oliva-Hagen, a scriptwriter, and Eva-Maria Hagen (née Buchholz), an actress and singer. Her father Hans survived the Holocaust, being held as a prisoner at a prison in Moabit between 1941 and 1945 until the liberation by the Soviet Army. Her paternal grandfather Hermann Carl Hagen, who was Jewish, was murdered at the Sachsenhausen concentration camp on 28 May 1942, at age 56. Hedwig Elise Caroline Staadt, Nina's paternal grandmother, was also murdered at Sachsenhausen. Nina's maternal grandfather Fritz Buchholz died during World War II. Her parents divorced when she was two years old. During her childhood, she saw her father infrequently. At age four, she began to study ballet, and she was considered an opera prodigy by the time she was nine. When Angela Merkel ended her 16-year chancellorship of Germany in December 2021, she chose Hagen's song Du hast den Farbfilm vergessen (You Forgot the Colour Film) as one of the three pieces to be played at her Großer Zapfenstreich military leaving ceremony.
The Dugites - In Your Car
The Dugites - In Your Car
The Dugites were an Australian rock band who formed in the late 1970s and went on to record three albums in the early 1980s. The Dugites combined elements of power pop, new wave and electronic, producing songs with strong melodies, hooks and a smattering of politics. With hit singles "In Your Car", "Waiting" and "Juno and Me", they received extensive airplay, appearances on Countdown and toured nationally around Australia. The band's name refers to the brown venomous snake, the dugite, common to Western Australia.
The dugite is a venomous snake, considered dangerous. It is coloured grey, green, or brown. The colours vary widely between individuals and are an unreliable means of identifying the species. Black scales can be scattered over the body; their scales are relatively large with a semi-glossy appearance. The most distinguishing characteristic is the head that can be rather small and indistinct from the neck. A dugite's body is long and slender in build and can grow up to 2 m (6 ft 7 in) in total length (including tail), but the typical size is roughly 1.5 m (4 ft 11 in).
Convicted Irish Fenian and civil rights activist, John Boyle O'Reilly, celebrated a bushman's myth of the "dukite" in his popular poem "The Dukite Snake", which can be found in his 1878 collection Songs, Legends and Ballads:
Now I'll change to a devil—ay, to a devil!
You needn't start; if a spirit of evil
Ever came to this world its hate to slake
On mankind, it came as a Dukite Snake.
Like? Like the pictures you've seen of Sin,
A long red snake—as if what was within
Was fire that gleamed through his glistening skin.
And his eyes—if you could go down to hell,
And come back to your fellows here and tell
What the fire was like, you could find no thing,
Here below on the earth, or up in the sky,
To compare it to but a Dukite's eye!
Now, mark you, these Dukites don't go alone:
There's another near when you see but one;
And beware you of killing that one that you see
Without finding the other; for you may be
More than twenty miles from the spot that night;
When camped, but you're tracked by the lone Dukite;
That will follow your trail like Death or Fate
And kill you as sure as you killed its mate.
The Buggles - Living in the Plastic Age [Live At Top Of The Pops - 24 January 1980][ 4K ]
The Buggles - Living in the Plastic Age [Live At Top Of The Pops - 24 January 1980][ 4K ]
With the Island recording contract having been secured, the Buggles recorded their debut studio album, The Age of Plastic, through 1979. Initially, the demo of "Video Killed the Radio Star" featured vocals by Tina Charles, who also helped fund the project. Although the song was primarily a Woolley composition, he ended his association with Horn and Downes to form the Camera Club before the song's release as a single. Making The Age of Plastic involved several months of tiresome and intense experimentation with studio equipment and techniques, struggling to capture the "magic" of the original demos. Debi Doss and Linda Jardim-Allan, the female voices on "Video Killed the Radio Star", contributed their vocals to other songs on the album as well.
Octopus (Original Mix)
Octopus (Original Mix) · Art Of Trance
Simon Paul Berry, (born in 1970) known by his alias Art of Trance, is an English trance music DJ. Berry is also known as Poltergeist or Vicious Circles, and has been a member of the trance groups Clanger, Conscious and Union Jack. He has been producing and remixing music since 1993. In addition to his work as an artist, Berry was the founder and head of Platipus Records, based in London. Initially his label only released his own tracks. His work was first distributed on vinyl and compact disc and then digital only from 2011.
He was credited for the release to a wider audience of the single "Children" by Robert Miles after its initial release failed to chart. Berry's music has been described variously as progressive trance, psychedelic trance, acid trance and techno. During the 1990s, Berry's music production was focused on his wide array of analog synthesizers. From 2005 on-wards, his work space shifted to the computer. His current hardware includes an Analogue Solutions Nyborg 12, Modal 008, Alesis Andromeda A6, Abstrakt Instruments Avalon and a Moog Sub 37. He uses Logic Pro and Reaktor with a range of plugins.
Art of Trance is well known for the usage of samples of natural sounds (or electronically produced imitations of natural sounds) in his tracks, like bird singing (e.g. "Easter Island", "Kaleidoscope" and "Madagascar"). The songs "Stealth" and "Blue Owl" were featured on the video game Midnight Club II. Various remixes have appeared on the SongBird and Black Hole Recordings music labels. Berry's work is currently distributed through Platipus Music. Berry has described his style as deep trance, explaining his preference for "techno-based hypnotic progressive house with depth, and occasional psychedelic and melodic elements". He cites Depeche Mode, Vangelis, Tomita, Orbital, 808 State, Jean Michel Jarre, Wendy Carlos, Juan Atkins, Derrick May and Jeff Mills as his musical influences.
Lane 8 - Childish (Official Music Video)
Lane 8 - Childish (Official Music Video)
Bucks Fizz - Run For Your Life
Bucks Fizz - Run For Your Life
In late 1980, Nichola Martin and Andy Hill sought to create a new group to enter their song "Making Your Mind Up" in the Eurovision Song Contest. The first member to be recruited was Mike Nolan, who was known to Martin. Together, they recorded a demo of the song and entered it for inclusion in A Song for Europe – the preliminary heats for the contest. Realising that a name was needed for the performing artists, Martin quickly decided on Buck's Fizz, as it was her favourite drink. In January, Martin contacted Cheryl Baker to join them, as she remembered her from the 1978 Eurovision group, Co-Co. Concurrent to this, Martin was holding auditions for another male vocalist and female vocalist, should Baker turn down the position (which she didn't). At the end of these auditions, Martin had found a male singer, Stephen Fischer and female, Jay Aston. Unsure of which female vocalist to use, she ultimately decided to use both Baker and Aston as she felt their vocals complemented each other and Martin stepped down from the group in order to team up with Hill for another line-up as they had two songs in the competition. Fischer then became unavailable as he was appearing in a musical at the time and Martin hired another auditionee, Bobby G for the group. The four members came together for the first time on 11 January 1981. Jill Shirley, with whom Martin had been in a group called Rags who had appeared in the 1977 'A Song for Europe' contest (placing fourth), agreed to manage the group.[
On 11 December 1984, while on tour and returning from a sold-out gig in Newcastle, the group's tour bus was extensively damaged after colliding with an articulated lorry. While no one was killed, several members of the crew were badly injured, including all the members of Bucks Fizz. Bobby G was treated for whiplash, Jay Aston was hospitalised for back injuries and severe head pains and Cheryl Baker broke three vertebrae in her spine, but it was Mike Nolan who suffered the worst injuries. Nolan's head was badly injured with internal bleeding and he fell into a coma. After an operation, he was reported to have died on the operating table but placed on a life support machine. He remained in a coma for three days whilst the British press kept Bucks Fizz on the front-page headlines. Surgeon Anthony Strong at Newcastle General Hospital said that Nolan's condition was critical. On 15 December, it was reported that Nolan awoke from his coma with the words "I'm all right". Following this, Nolan was ordered not to work for the next six months. The effects of the crash remain with him today, including epilepsy, short-term memory loss and a 50% loss of vision in both eyes. Following this, Baker and Nolan helped set up the HeadFirst charity for crash victims suffering head injuries. On 12 December 2009, the original Bucks Fizz (Nolan, Baker and Aston) played a benefit concert for HeadFirst at Newcastle City Hall to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the accident — the same venue they played the night of the crash. The anniversary of the crash was reported on local BBC News, with the members revisiting the crash location.
Jay Aston and Mike Nolan
From Bucks Fizz
Depeche Mode - Get the Balance Right
Depeche Mode - Get the Balance Right
Depeche Mode's origins date to 1977, when schoolmates Vince Clarke and Andy Fletcher formed a band called No Romance in China with Clarke on vocals and guitar and Fletcher on bass. Fletcher would later recall, "Why am I in the band? It was accidental right from the beginning. I was actually forced to be in the band. I played the guitar and I had a bass; it was a question of them roping me in." In 1979, Clarke played guitar in an Ultravox-influenced band, the Plan, with friends Robert Marlow and Paul Langwith. In 1978–1979, Martin Gore played guitar in an acoustic duo, Norman and the Worms, with school friend Phil Burdett on vocals. In 1980, Clarke and Fletcher formed a band called Composition of Sound, with Clarke on vocals/guitar and Fletcher on bass; the pair were soon joined by Gore as a third instrumentalist. Dave Gahan joined the ensemble later in 1980 after Clarke heard him perform at a local Scout hut jam session, singing a rendition of David Bowie's "'Heroes'".
Depeche Mode in 1986..
With the advent of affordable synthesizers and the increasing popularity of electronic music, the group began pursuing a synth-pop direction. The first live concert of Composition of Sound as a four-piece was on 14 June 1980 at Nicholas School, Basildon, England, UK. There is a plaque commemorating the gig at the James Hornsby School in Basildon, where Gore and Fletcher were pupils. Gahan's and Gore's favourite artists included Siouxsie and the Banshees, Sparks, Cabaret Voltaire, Talking Heads and Iggy Pop. Gahan's onstage persona was influenced by Dave Vanian, frontman of The Damned. Gahan has also later credited David Bowie, James Brown, Elvis Presley and Prince as influences on his performance style.
Composition of Sound would become embarrassed about their band name and started thinking of changing it. There were several potential variants, including the name "Musical Moments" that was suggested by Vince Clarke as both a band name and the name of their first album. Starting at their concert on 24 September 1980 at Bridge House, the band changed their name to Depeche Mode, chosen by Dave Gahan. When explaining the choice for the new name, which was taken from a mistranslation of the name of French fashion magazine Dépêche Mode, Gore said, "It means 'hurried fashion' or 'fashion dispatch'. I like the sound of that." However, the more accurate translation of the magazine's name (and therefore the band's name) is "Fashion News" or "Fashion Update". The band made a demo tape but, instead of mailing the tape to record labels, they would go in and personally deliver it. They would demand the labels play it; according to Dave Gahan, "most of them would tell us to fuck off. They'd say 'leave the tape with us' and we'd say 'it's our only one'. Then we'd say goodbye and go somewhere else."