Putting the Glamour On: Reclaiming My Inner Goddess. Or, I Just Decided It Was Time to Write Again.
Saturday, December 10, 2016
Originally written 8/10/2010...
The following was my stream-of-consciousness rant that occurred after reading an article I found about how one of NYC’s premier nightclubs of the early 1990’s (and before that, of the mid-1980's) was being turned into an upscale marketplace. Following that, I checked on the status of the birthplace of punk, the former CBGB’s, which I knew had been turned into a clothing boutique, but didn’t realize the “rock” component to its current marketing campaign. To say that I went a little apeshit in my reaction is an understatement.
Rumors of the demise of the independent underground music scene are not greatly exaggerated. They are simple fact.
The scene is dead and buried. Forever. And the shovel was long-since tossed off the cliff. The last handfuls of dirt were carelessly tossed on by Hanson, Missy Elliott, Britney Spears, Xtina Aguilera, N*SYNC, and the rest of the Mickey Mouse Club Graduating Class of 1994, Eminem, Ricky Martin, 2Pac, Puff Daddy/P Diddy/Diddy, R. Kelly, The Blackeyed Peas, Snoop Dogg and Dr. Dre, Avril Lavigne, Jennifer Lopez, Matchbox 20, Celine Dion, Kid Rock, 50 Cent, Linkin Park; tamped in by the bootheels of Miley Cyrus, Taylor Swift, Rihanna, Chris Brown, Kanye West, and Katy Perry; and is now being danced upon by the Jonas Brothers, Lady Ante-Gaga-Bellum, Justin Bieber, the combined casts of Hairspray, Glee and American Idiot, and every single person who has ever had anything to do with American Idol. Even the guy pushing the broom backstage when the lights go down.
Just like the collapse of the Hollywood studio system during the early 1970s, the music industry has now officially devolved into perpetuating a product that's nothing more than a corporate conglomerate of consumer-ready goods with little to no redeeming value. Nice eye-catching packaging at “affordable” prices, but absolutely nothing of substance inside. Kind of like the items that line our supermarket aisles today—no flavor, no discernable taste, no nutritional value whatsoever. And don’t get me started on the mind-numbing first foot inside of a Super WalMart. Your brain is sucked out as the automatic doors open with a hiss. There is a direct scientific correlation.
No more DIY aesthetic, hauling gear in rickety vans loosely held together by duct tape and dreams, playing dank, unknown little dives... eating Ramen and generic Froot Loops 3x a day, not washing your clothes for weeks at a time. It’s over, kids. That word “punk” that you all throw about so loosely? You don’t know the first thing about it.
Just because you paid some trendy salon at the mall to chop your hair into a Mohawk and dump some dayglow shit on it doesn’t make you cool. Unless of course you're using a hair dye like Manic Panic. But chances are, it still won’t make you even remotely cool, because I sincerely doubt you know the origins of Manic Panic. You probably saw a jar of it on a random shelf at Sally Beauty Supply and said to yourself, “Oh, COOL. I always wanted a lime-green streak in my hair.”
Riddle me this, my precious Emo moppets with your ubiquitous unisex black eyeliner and closets full of skinny jeans in a multitude of outrageous colors: Do you know who Tish and Snooky are? And please, please, please don’t ask me if they’re two of the spray-tanned Guidette chicks on The Jersey Shore, or I will choke the life out of you with my bare hands. (Answer, for those still playing along at home: They are the Bellomo sisters, who not only opened the then-outrageous punk boutique Manic Panic in New York's St. Marks Place back in the 70s, but were also part of the original lineup of Blondie and the Banzai Babies alongside Debbie Harry—a group that evolved into the seminal punk and eventually New Wave band, Blondie. At this point, you’re probably asking, “Uh… Who’s Debbie Harry?” or worse yet, “Who’s Blondie? Oh wait, yeah, didn’t they have that one disco song, and that one reggae song..? My mom sings along with it when she hears it on the radio in the car…”) It later became a venue for the hardcore scene and hosted Sunday matinees featuring acts like Murphy's Law, the Cro-Mags, Agnostic Front, Misfits, Bad Brains, et al. That particular scene was busted wide open for all to see when New York Magazine did a cover story about two girls-- one a suburbanite from Long Island, the other, the then-girlfriend of Johnny Gestapo and overall jaded/burned-out twenty year-old-- giving readers an insider's view of the subculture. I remember sitting in class and poring over said article when I was about sixteen.
I once asked an artist friend back in Houston (who is 12 years my junior) if he even knew what CBGB was. He sheepishly replied (as more of a question), “A clothing store..?” Either he was a complete idiot, or else he was clairvoyant. I love him to death, but I’m probably going to have to go with the first option, given the choice of the second. As it turns out, it dawned on me a few years later that he may have gotten CBGB mixed up with BCBG, which is indeed a global fashion house founded by designer Max Azria. You’ll see the irony in the next couple of paragraphs.
If you really want to learn something, if you really want to know the history, you can do yourself a favor and read about it in books like "This Ain't No Disco," "Making Tracks: The Rise of Blondie," or "Art After Midnight: The East Village Scene," just three of my personal bookshelf favorites. (“Wait, books… What are those..? Are those titles available on Kindle..?”), or you can hear it in every pop and crackle in the grooves of a vinyl Ramones LP (“Huh..? ‘LP’? What’s an LP? Vinyl? Oh, you mean like these awesome pants I bought at Hot Topic last week at the mall..?”).
But you can no longer make the holy pilgrimage to The Place Where it All Started, the roach-infested, piss-stained rat-hole at the intersection of Bleecker and Bowery that spawned the likes of Television, Talking Heads, the Heartbreakers, and the Ramones, and even hosted the Police and the Runaways during their earliest tours of America. Because it’s now an upscale boutique touting apparel, leather goods, even signature fragrances and skincare products: John Varvatos 315 Bowery.
Mr. Varvatos has all kinds of rock star testimonials plastered on his sleek and hip website, to lend it a stamp of gritty rock n’ roll street cred. He has featured the likes of Perry Farrell and members of Cheap Trick and Velvet Revolver in seasonal ad campaigns. He has even found himself in the good graces of original punk rockers like Iggy Pop, Blondie's Clem Burke, Handsome Dick Manitoba, The New York Dolls... Even folks like Jimmy Page, Aerosmith's Steven Tyler and Joe Perry, Peter Frampton, Lenny Kravitz and the boys in ZZ Top have lined up to sing praises of Varvatos' taking over the iconic birthplace of punk rock in this latest expansion of his fashion empire. And I'm sure they were paid handsomely to do so.
I’m sorry, but it’s all enough to make me puke. And I don’t mean just a little bit in my mouth. I’m talking raging influenza, from both ends. Followed by a prayer for a quick, merciful death.
I know, I should be happy that "music" is still being kept alive in the same space. But it's just not the same. It's a shameless shadow of what it once was. But then again, the alternative would be like trying to re-capture those 3 mythical days at Woodstock, or a moment from 1965 Haight-Ashbury and bottle it for the masses. You can't do it. It happened. You were there, or you weren't.
(And yes, I am well aware that I wasn't hanging around the Bowery at the age of four, five or six when all of this wonderfulness was hatching and happening. I know. And on the surface, that might make me seem just a little bit hypocritical. But I've read extensively on the subject for many years, and I appreciate the organic nature, the unique alchemy of what happened at that place and time. These stupid kids today couldn't find their asses if they used both hands, let alone appreciate the contributions of those who came before them.)
And to all of you Lady Gaga wannabe club kids who weren’t even a glimmer in someone else’s sperm count during the year 1990: You think you know all about Michael Alig and James St. James just because you watched "Party Monster," that cinematic equivalent to an abortion starring Macauley Culkin and Seth Green (and a miss-it-if-you-blink cameo by Marilyn Manson)? Sure, it was based on St. James’ celebutante memoir Disco Bloodbath(the recollections of which I’m sure were in no way swayed by his unparalleled intake of Extacy and cocaine while simultaneously spiraling into K-holes during that period...). That film sucked ass.
The Limelight, where much of the debauchery in Lower Manhattan circa 1989-92 took place, was a three-story deconsecrated Episcopal Church located at the corner of 6th Avenue (or Avenue of the Americas) and West 20th, a nightlife hotspot that hosted insane theme nights like Club USA, Rock and Roll Church, and Communion. It has since been touted by many as the Studio 54 of the 80's and 90's generations. I’m sure that this lofty comparison makes the former 70’s disco crowd cringe, but as time marches on, the cycle of cringe continues to turn its rusty wheels onward as well, rolling over the bones of those who leaned just a little too far out of the wagon.
It, like CBGB, is now blessed with a second life by being converted into an upscale shopping mall called Limelight Marketplace. Gelato, specialty teas and the wafting scent of gourmet breads beckon. I wonder if the ghosts of anonymous restroom trysts and drug deals past will continue to haunt the place when the lights go down.
And that, my darling ADHD Gen-Next kiddos, is what we call progress. Considering that Michael Alig is still behind bars for the 1996 murder and dismemberment of fellow Club Kid Andre “Angel” Melendez (the drug-dealing Columbian youth who dressed in flamboyant leathers and feathers)-- and let’s not forget former club promoter/raging alcoholic Neville Wells' fall from grace (now locked up indefinitely for the 2004 DWI conviction of 2nd Degree murder, Vehicular Manslaughter, and Vehicular Assault after his car plowed into a minivan at 3:00 a.m. and caused it to go airborne, severely injuring the driver and killing his daughter instantly as they were driving to their family business at Fulton Fish Market)-- I’d say given the present circumstances that there was very little chance for a Limelight “comeback” in the foreseeable future. And it's probably just as well.
I didn’t live in the City, but I was a vicarious Bridge & Tunnel Geek by virtue of the fact that I had some friends who knew the club scene with acquaintances who played many venues in the Village. I remember a couple of visits to the Limelight, during which time Neville Wells appeared to be a very friendly young man, greeting us and leading us to the front of the line, forgoing the astronomical $20 cover charge and handing us complimentary drink passes as we made our way inside… I don’t remember ever seeing Michael Alig, but at the time I probably wouldn’t have known who he, or Richie Rich, or RuPaul, or any of the other future Superstars were. I did see (and was hit on by a few) interesting club kid creatures dancing there. And as for CBGB’s, I made the pilgrimage and sat through an awful set by a band whose name escapes me to this day (the only thing I remember is that in between songs, the lead singer was throwing LP’s at the ceiling with such force that they shattered and rained down on the stage). The place was packed and hot, and stank from three decades’ worth of decay, dog shit (yes, you read that correctly), beer and urine. And I only saw one roach that night, a rather large fellow creeping along a wall. It was pretty dark in there, so god only knows how many thousands more I didn’t see. Still, I was there for the experience. And I definitely got what I came for.
Afterward, I staggered through the Bowery at 3:00 a.m., arms linked with two friends, bellowing the words to “New York, New York” at the top of my lungs. I suppose it was a minor miracle that I was not jumped by any number of muggers in an awaiting alleyway. My friends collected some epic tales down through the years, running into this celeb or that, and once being invited to traipse through the roped-off area at Limelight where the members of Depeche Mode were hanging out. I've heard tales of Dave Gahan being clocked in the face by one girl whose ass he drunkenly grabbed, and another story about someone else starting a fight with Guns n'Roses bassist Duff McKagan when he slurringly inquired where he might purchase some heroin. My own pathetic celebrity sightings included an MTV veejay named Steve Isaacs, in front of whom I embarrassed myself to epic proportions, though not at Limelight or CBGB’s but rather at a seedy basement dive called The Scrap Bar, where heavy metal and glam rockers hung out after-hours. The venue was once the infamous Village Gaslight, where many of the original 1960s Greenwich Village beatniks of the day got their start. Wow—talk about devolving…
So, all in all, at least developers didn’t turn Limelight into an Abercrombie & Fitch, a Barnes & Noble, a mega-Whole Foods, or an Apple Store with a Starbucks tucked inside. But they may as well have.
What’s next—the Hotel Chelsea being converted into spacious luxury condos? The mind reels.
Sunday, December 27, 2015
Say Goodbye to Hollywood: In Memoriam, 2015
One of my earliest blog posts from last year was a year-end listing of those whom the cinematic community lost in 2014, entitled Say Goodbye to Hollywood: In Memoriam, 2014.
Turner Classic Movies always runs a poignant, often three-hanky short-form video depicting those actors, writers, producers, directors and other craftsmen and women of the stage, small and silver screen, who shuffled off this mortal coil. While this year's piece didn't feel as immediately hard-hitting as last year's (it seems we lost an awful lot of folks in 2014, and several in such heart-breakingly unexpected ways), there are still moments in the 2015 listing that smack of nostalgia and a sense of sizable loss to the film industry that tug at my heart and start the waterworks.
I know that not all of the names may be familiar on first glance, while the career longevity and enormous contributions of others will instantly go down in the annals of film history, but I'm sure if you check out everyone's body of work (there is an IMDB.com link for each), you will be sure to recognize something that has touched your life in one way or another, from the earliest days of Hollywood right up to contemporary blockbusters of today.
Chantal Akerman, Director/Writer/Actress
Gene Allen, Art Director/Production Designer
Harve Bennett, Writer/Producer
James Best, Actor
Theodore Bikel, Actor
Judy Carne*, Actress (3 September 2015)
Jack Carter*, Actor/Director (28 June 2015)
Wally Cassell, Actor
Movita Castaneda, Actress
Robert Chartoff, Director
Kevin Corcoran, Actor/Producer
Richard Corliss, Film Critic/Author
Yvonne Craig*, Actress (17 August 2015)
Wes Craven, Director/Writer
Jean Darling, Actress
Donna Douglas*, Actress (1 January 2015)
Betsy Drake, Actress/Screenwriter
Richard Dysart, Actor
Anita Ekberg, Actress
Leatrice Joy Gilbert, Actress/Author
Richard Glatzer*, Director (10 March 2015)
Samuel Goldwyn, Jr., Producer/Director
Coleen Gray, Actress
John Guillermin, Director
Gunnar Hansen*, Actor (7 November 2015)
Setsuka Hara, Actress
Mary Healy, Actress
Edward Herrmann, Actor (31 December 2014)
James Horner, Composer
Marty Ingels, Actor/Agent
Franco Interlenghi, Actor
Saeed Jaffrey, Actor
George Clayton Johnson*, Writer (22 December 2015)
Dean Jones, Actor
Louis Jourdan, Actor
Anne Kirkbride*, Actress (19 January 2015)
Christopher Lee, Actor
Joan Leslie, Actress
Andrew Lesnie, Cinematographer
Geoffrey Lewis, Actor
Virna Lisi, Actress
Robert Loggia, Actor
Patrick Macnee*, Actor (25 June 2015)
Don Mankiewicz*, Writer/Producer (25 April 2015)
D.M. Marshman, Jr., Screenwriter
Melissa Mathison, Screenwriter
Albert Maysles, Director
Anne Meara*, Actress/Writer/Producer (23 May 2015)
Martin Milner*, Actor/Producer (6 September 2015)
Al Molinaro*, Actor (30 October 2015)
Ron Moody, Actor
Dickie Moore, Actor
Leonard Nimoy, Actor/Director
Maureen O'Hara, Actress
Gary Owens, Actor, V.O.
Betsy Palmer, Actress
Amanda Peterson, Actress
Nova Pilbeam, Actress
Luise Rainer, Actress
Roger Rees*, Actor (10 July 2015)
Alex Rocco, Actor
Jack Rollins, Producer
Eldar Ryazanov*, Director/Writer (30 November 2015)
Joseph Sargent, Director (22 December 2014)
Lizabeth Scott, Actress
Omar Sharif, Actor
Sam Simon*, Producer/Writer/Animation (8 March 2015)
Bruce Sinofsky, Director
Stewart Stern, Screenwriter
Rod Taylor, Actor
Nigel Terry, Actor
Fred Thompson, Actor/U.S. Senator
Dick Van Patten, Actor
Jerry Weintraub, Producer/Actor
Colin Welland, Screenwriter/Actor
Haskell Wexler*, Cinematographer/Filmmaker (27 December 2015)
Elmo Williams, Editor
Elizabeth Wilson, Actress
George Winslow, Actor
Harris Wittels*, Producer/Writer (19 February 2015)
Ben Woolf*, Actor (23 February 2015)
Today's "stars" can't hold a single candle to this Universe that has since left us.
Rest in Peace.
*not included in TCM's video
Turner Classic Movies always runs a poignant, often three-hanky short-form video depicting those actors, writers, producers, directors and other craftsmen and women of the stage, small and silver screen, who shuffled off this mortal coil. While this year's piece didn't feel as immediately hard-hitting as last year's (it seems we lost an awful lot of folks in 2014, and several in such heart-breakingly unexpected ways), there are still moments in the 2015 listing that smack of nostalgia and a sense of sizable loss to the film industry that tug at my heart and start the waterworks.
I know that not all of the names may be familiar on first glance, while the career longevity and enormous contributions of others will instantly go down in the annals of film history, but I'm sure if you check out everyone's body of work (there is an IMDB.com link for each), you will be sure to recognize something that has touched your life in one way or another, from the earliest days of Hollywood right up to contemporary blockbusters of today.
Chantal Akerman, Director/Writer/Actress
Gene Allen, Art Director/Production Designer
Harve Bennett, Writer/Producer
James Best, Actor
Theodore Bikel, Actor
Judy Carne*, Actress (3 September 2015)
Jack Carter*, Actor/Director (28 June 2015)
Wally Cassell, Actor
Movita Castaneda, Actress
Robert Chartoff, Director
Kevin Corcoran, Actor/Producer
Richard Corliss, Film Critic/Author
Yvonne Craig*, Actress (17 August 2015)
Wes Craven, Director/Writer
Jean Darling, Actress
Donna Douglas*, Actress (1 January 2015)
Betsy Drake, Actress/Screenwriter
Richard Dysart, Actor
Anita Ekberg, Actress
Leatrice Joy Gilbert, Actress/Author
Richard Glatzer*, Director (10 March 2015)
Samuel Goldwyn, Jr., Producer/Director
Coleen Gray, Actress
John Guillermin, Director
Gunnar Hansen*, Actor (7 November 2015)
Setsuka Hara, Actress
Mary Healy, Actress
Edward Herrmann, Actor (31 December 2014)
James Horner, Composer
Marty Ingels, Actor/Agent
Franco Interlenghi, Actor
Saeed Jaffrey, Actor
George Clayton Johnson*, Writer (22 December 2015)
Dean Jones, Actor
Louis Jourdan, Actor
Anne Kirkbride*, Actress (19 January 2015)
Christopher Lee, Actor
Joan Leslie, Actress
Andrew Lesnie, Cinematographer
Geoffrey Lewis, Actor
Virna Lisi, Actress
Robert Loggia, Actor
Patrick Macnee*, Actor (25 June 2015)
Don Mankiewicz*, Writer/Producer (25 April 2015)
D.M. Marshman, Jr., Screenwriter
Melissa Mathison, Screenwriter
Albert Maysles, Director
Anne Meara*, Actress/Writer/Producer (23 May 2015)
Martin Milner*, Actor/Producer (6 September 2015)
Al Molinaro*, Actor (30 October 2015)
Ron Moody, Actor
Dickie Moore, Actor
Leonard Nimoy, Actor/Director
Maureen O'Hara, Actress
Gary Owens, Actor, V.O.
Betsy Palmer, Actress
Amanda Peterson, Actress
Nova Pilbeam, Actress
Luise Rainer, Actress
Roger Rees*, Actor (10 July 2015)
Alex Rocco, Actor
Jack Rollins, Producer
Eldar Ryazanov*, Director/Writer (30 November 2015)
Joseph Sargent, Director (22 December 2014)
Lizabeth Scott, Actress
Omar Sharif, Actor
Sam Simon*, Producer/Writer/Animation (8 March 2015)
Bruce Sinofsky, Director
Stewart Stern, Screenwriter
Rod Taylor, Actor
Nigel Terry, Actor
Fred Thompson, Actor/U.S. Senator
Dick Van Patten, Actor
Jerry Weintraub, Producer/Actor
Colin Welland, Screenwriter/Actor
Haskell Wexler*, Cinematographer/Filmmaker (27 December 2015)
Elmo Williams, Editor
Elizabeth Wilson, Actress
George Winslow, Actor
Harris Wittels*, Producer/Writer (19 February 2015)
Ben Woolf*, Actor (23 February 2015)
Today's "stars" can't hold a single candle to this Universe that has since left us.
Rest in Peace.
*not included in TCM's video
Thursday, October 22, 2015
A Duranie's History
It was far easier to stereotype a fan of the Fab Five than to actually be one. Obviously, only girls could like them. And if any boys dared admitting to liking them, they were surely "fags" themselves. Which was, again, something to make fun of and terrorize one over back in the 1980's. And the girls, well... Surely they didn't have boyfriends. And likely they were fat. Or scrawny with no tits. Oh, and ugly. And spazzy. Screechy, spazzy, unattractive girls with no social life, who spent all of their hours writing fan letters, dreaming up their fantasy wedding to one of the boys, and crying every time they heard the strains of "Save a Prayer" through their Walkman headphones or stereo speakers. Oh, and a good cross-section of them had to have taken a photo of themselves (some thirty years before the collective viral narcissism of the Millennial Selfie Generation) against the backdrop of their bedroom walls, of which every square inch was plastered in posters and pages from magazines like Star, Smash Hits, and Tiger Beat; extra points if she was a John Taylor fan and was sporting a fedora, or a Panama hat like the one Simon donned during the "Hungry Like the Wolf" video. Duranies were also foremost authorities on the cinematic (big and small screen) career of director Russell Mulcahy, the fashions of designer Anthony Price, and the quintessentially Seventies/Eighties Playboy neo-art deco illustrations of Patrick Nagel. And of course a Duranie would rent the bizarre sci-fi sex-kitten cult classic (and embarrassment to Hanoi Jane) Barbarella, if only to encounter the band's namesake firsthand, the villainous Durand Durand, in a deliciously evil portrayal by the late Milo O'Shea, rivaled only by his deliciously evil eyebrows.
These are gross generalizations, but I really think that's what the general public believed about us. Like all stereotypes, there are perhaps small grains of truth to them. But I believe them to be more exceptions to the rule. Growing up in Bucks County, PA, northeast of Philly and southwest of New Jersey, the fave raves of the day tended to be Bon Jovi, Cinderella, Bruce Springsteen, and burgeoning hip-hop and R&B acts that bordered on pop. And of course the chart-topping heavies like Michael Jackson, Prince and Madonna. Duran Duran, for all of their contributions to that new medium on the horizon, seemed to get pigeonholed for their appearances rather than lauded for their talents.
It's more than thirty years after I somehow contracted this incurable affliction, but I can now proudly claim that I am a Duranie-- then, now, and forever. I think it's something more to do with being in my mid-Forties now, and I just don't give a shit what anyone thinks of me. I'm also tired of the current culture that delights in erasing and re-writing history. In my opinion, one should embrace the good, the bad, and the embarrassing, because if you alter one dyed-and-damaged hair of it, your present would simply not be, period. That's one of the more freeing lessons that Life deals you with the coming of age and a modicum of wisdom.
I honestly don't know how it all happened. But it had a good deal to do with the times in which we lived.
MTV came on the scene on rather unsteady legs in August 1981. Most people didn't know what it was, much less why it was. Up until that time, if you wanted to hear music, you'd put on an album, an eight-track, or a cassette tape, or you went to see a live show. Why would you want to see your rock heroes lip-syncing with these weird, bright backdrops, and strange computer-generated images? But, there they were, the first handful of music videos in constant heavy rotation, until other groups got on the bandwagon, as it were.
MTV became the single-most important and far-reaching marketing tool to transform our cultural landscape, the likes of which had not been witnessed since the advent of the telephone, the automobile, the airplane, radio, television, rock and roll-- or to put it in Millennial terms, since the Internet. It finally came to Cablevision, which served the greater Bucks Co. area, around 1982-3, and it was a MAJOR event. I don't think MTV's creators had any idea of just how revolutionary this ambitious yet ramshackle little cable station would become, in terms of changing the music industry forever, of creating a product that would market both music and fashion to the demographic of ages 12 to 34. It might have limped for a year after its inception in 1981, but when what I like to call the MTV Trifecta-- Michael Jackson, Madonna and Duran Duran-- came on the scene with innovative, charismatic and downright theatrical videos, the entire game changed. Where were you when the nearly fourteen-minute "Thriller" video premiered? Do you remember Madonna dry-humping the stage at the MTV Video Music Awards in a wedding dress? And do you recall seeing those three boys from Birmingham, one boy from Newcastle and one boy from London for the first time as they were sailing on that spiffy yacht in the blue-green waters of Antigua while chasing the elusive body-painted siren named "Rio?" Of course you do. It was a rite of passage, a flashpoint in an 80's teen memory. Video was pure magic, pure sex, pure fashion. Just an extension of pure rock n'roll fantasy.
I always rather thought she was winking at Simon's hiney in those white linen pants. "And when she shines, she really shows you all she can..." |
I remember hearing Duran Duran long before ever seeing them. I even remember people in school referring to them as "fags" before ever watching a video. They were all over WCAU-FM, a Top 40 station out of Philadelphia that I listened to in junior high and part of high school. Between 1982 and 1983, on any given day you could tune in to hear "Rio," "Hungry Like the Wolf," or "Is There Something I Should Know?" right alongside "Borderline" or "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun." The airwaves were also rife with hits by Soft Cell, the Go-Go's, Asia, Journey, Loverboy, Eurythmics, David Bowie (in his fifth or sixth reincarnation since 1969), Human League, Culture Club, even 60's and 70's acts like the Rolling Stones, Styx, Donna Summer, The Tubes, The Police, Kenny Loggins and Elton John were still dominating the airwaves, now peddling their wares to a younger crowd through the medium of video. I found Duran Duran's tunes were catchy and fun to listen to. But the video revolution changed the entire game for me, right in mid-hormonal flux.
*RAWR* |
Ladies, please, if you keep screaming like this, you'll only miss out on my wondrous lyrics... |
Soon, it would be all over for me. I was slain. I was done for. And I was a willing victim. When the single "The Reflex" hit radio and MTV in early 1984, I was broadsided and smitten, particularly by the latter video offering. I think it was the first time that Simon Le Bon and John Taylor were literally in my face, captured in a staged "live" performance (in Toronto, if I'm not mistaken) set to the studio track of the song. And that's all it took to win me over once and for all. Simon with that spiky blonde 'do, those otherworldly sleepy baby blues, crooning and sweating and hopping about the stage in those tight black trousers; John in that now-fairly ridiculous Yohji Yamamoto get-up, brown eyes peering from underneath those softly peroxided bangs, and those leather pants, ohmiGOD, wielding that bass like it was his woman. It was more than a done deal for me at that point. No turning back.
Most boys who came of age in the 1980's can trace their sexual awakenings to the pool scene with Phoebe Cates in Cameron Crowe's Fast Times at Ridgemont High, or else to Jabba the Hutt's palace when Princess Leia wore that metallic bra/slave-girl outfit in Return of the Jedi. I myself had been "boy crazy" since I was five years old. But these Duran boys... this was something else, entirely. I was pulled from shore straight into their waters, much like Simon being yanked from the Rio boat by the end of that blue phone cord, hook, line and sinker.
At some point that same year, I was at the grocery store with my mother, which oddly enough featured an aisle devoted to vinyl LP's, and there it was, their latest release: Seven and the Ragged Tiger. The cover art was simply glorious, depicting a tea-stained map grid littered with mysterious, almost alchemical, symbols alongside rivers and mountains; the front sported a band portrait, with all of them standing around and looking entirely too sexy, swaths of tigerskin peeking through the painted clouds that dotted the map. I parted with some allowance money to meet the approximately $7 price tag, and could not wait to race home and up to my bedroom to unwrap the 33-1/3 r.p.m. masterpiece that was going to change my life forever.
I only knew three songs on the album: "Union of the Snake" and "New Moon on Monday," which had been popular on the radio the year before, and "The Reflex," which was enjoying heavy play on both radio and MTV at that time. But I didn't care. Once I slit open the plastic that sealed the album cover and pulled out the record sleeve, I was stunned to discover all of the lyrics neatly typed on its glossy surface.
I put the album on my turntable, then lay on my bedroom carpet to pore over the words as the music played. My brain changed in ways that I can't rightly describe to this day.
Like with anything else that ever entered my life and left an indelible mark on my soul, I had to learn everything there was to know about said subject. So nearly every cent of my allowance and odd jobs went into the purchase of teen magazines, posters, and books about the band. I had long coveted Duran Duran: The Book of Words, an interesting history of the group featuring Simon's explanations for several of his lyrics, including rare photographs of hand-scrawled poetry from his pre-Duran days. The day I finally brought it home from the mall heralded a new level of obsession. The importance of owning this book was second only to scoring a copy of Duran Duran by Neil Gaiman (who would go on to be known the world over for his Sandman graphic novel series as well as his other works of fiction, and his playing lyrical Muse to Tori Amos); the pages are now falling out, but it is still one of my treasures. Then there was the repetitive rental of a videotaped documentary called Sing Blue Silver, a behind-the-scenes look at their 1983-84 world tour, the very pinnacle of their collective success. World domination had come a year earlier than their original flippant prediction.
Had to wear it backwards for maximum effect. Before the first application of Sun-In * Photo © 1984 |
The album is tight and lush at the same time. The groundbreaking videos, produced by director Russell Mulcahy, captivated the world and set the band well above, beyond and apart from MTV's other artists.
Far-off exotic locales like Sri Lanka and Montserrat became part of the Duranie atlas lexicon, as these were the places where the bulk of the videos from the Rio album were filmed. Everyone knew the stories of Andy contracting malaria after an elephant took a dump on him, and how the five of them stood in what appeared to be solemn reverence before a Buddhist temple during the "Save a Prayer" video, only to beat a hasty retreat off-camera as soon as "cut" was called, the soles of their tender feet burning from having to stand on the sun-soaked stones...
In addition to renting Sing Blue Silver (to the point that I probably could have purchased the videotape itself), I rented Duran Duran, a collection of their first eleven videos, including the naughty "Girls on Film" and the provocative "The Chauffeur," as well as the long-form video for "The Night Boat." This grandiose and sinister little mini-movie filmed in Antigua gave the boys a chance to flex their acting muscles, complete with goopy oatmeal-caked zombies and my first exposure to the "Queen Mab" speech from Romeo and Juliet, a bombastic soliloquy given by Simon long before I had ever taken a course in Shakespeare. I swooned each time I hit rewind, and learned the monologue by heart before long. I somehow cleverly rigged two VCRs together-- the Betamax to the VHS recorder-- and made copies of both for myself until they disintegrated after too much play.
I bought their fourth LP Arena, a collection of live recordings from their 1984 world tour, which featured one new studio track, "The Wild Boys." The strange video did not disappoint, featuring images of Simon tied to a raggedy windmill, his head dragged through a pool of water during each rotation, while John Taylor was strapped to the hood of a car, forced to watch projected scenes on a video screen depicting his earlier years. Something in my teen brain snapped, because seeing JT in such a vulnerable and borderline masochistic position kind of set my adolescent id on fire.
What better fuel for creativity, no? In leather pants, no less. Woof.
I had been writing since the age of four. I'd really never had an "influence" for my musings and literary wanderings, outside of the fairy tales I'd read, or the stories I would dream up out of wishful thinking. After writing stories for nearly a decade, winning little creative writing awards here and there and earning high marks in my English classes, I had briefly tread into the territory of poetry the year before, only I hadn't realized it was poetry that I was writing, because it didn't rhyme. At the time, I didn't know poetry didn't have to rhyme; I knew nothing of free verse. I hadn't known of the words of Simon John Charles Le Bon until I started reading the lyrics on the albums I was now listening to. They were magic. They were marvelous. They were non-linear. On paper, they occasionally didn't make sense right away, at first glance. Coupled with the music, and that voice... they conjured strange images in my still-green, untapped brain. I suppose the moment could be compared to those kids in the 60's when they heard the Beatles' White Album, or those in the 70's who first listened to Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon through the miracle of stereophonic headphones. Only I wasn't even remotely high on pot, shrooms, or acid. I was literally high on the music I was hearing, coupled with the words that I was reading. Of course it didn't help that my father constantly complained about all of the incessant whining, comparable to a "funeral dirge," because that's apparently what Simon's voice sounded like to him. Little did he know that I'd fall in love with The Smiths and The Cure during my college years. Talk about a funeral dirge...
Not long after that, I started scribbling like mad, eventually compiling my first forays into poetry into a red Mead spiral-bound notebook. Inside the cover, I had scrawled the following:
Lyrics, Poems, Words & Excerpts
by Heather Lynn Gibson
compiled of notes from 1983-1984 &
actual orginals recorded in this book
from 1986-1987
dedicated to
dedicated to
Simon John Charles LeBon
of
Duran Duran & Arcadia fame
Thank you for bringing so much joy & meaning into my life
at times when nothing else in the entire world could.
Oh, brother. What was I doing, practicing for future "A Note From the Author" pages in books I thought I'd be publishing in the decades to come? It read like a damned epitaph. Who did I think I was, Emily Dickinson? Edgar Allan Poe? (This was nearly a decade before I ever laid eyes on said authors' works, or delved into music of a more "gothic" nature.) It was all too much. But in that moment, it was anything but too much. It was simply not even close to being enough. Ah, the double-edged sword of being a moody, sensitive teenager given to fits of creativity.
Among the endless reams describing mythological beasts, unrequited love, crushes gone bad, odes to the Poet Laureate of my heart (yes, gag, I know, shut up, little girl), there are a few bits that still survive within the now-struggling synapses of my brain, like this crumb from a poem I apparently penned on January 15 and 16 of 1986:
Images of dragontwine
Stretch along a lonely wire
Woven between two hearts
Whose souls are about to break
The very definition of "good" art is when the artist makes its audience feel or react to said art. A connection, a relation, an emotion. Contemporary music-- at least, up to the point of my generation, at any rate-- works not only with sound but with words to bring about a particular feeling or conjure particular imagery. The double-whammy of the music so readily embracing the words made for a potent cocktail when it came to listening to Duran Duran-- at least it did for me. I felt so much of what I was hearing.
You've built your refuge
Turns you captive all the same
Turns you captive all the same
Because you're lonely in your nightmare
Let me in
And it's barren in your garden
Let me in
Because there's heat beneath your winter
Let me in...
-- "Lonely In Your Nightmare," from the Rio LP, © 1982
***
Lady Ice slips into her soul
Lady Ice leaves a house so cold
Lady Ice did you know
That the world was lonely too
Drifting snows
Searching plains and high
Turning stones as she looks
For the heart somebody stole...
Lady's eyes slip away
To the part she plays in school
She knows of roles and hideaways
Suppose she knows but turns away
She knows where to find
A true heart for Lady Ice...
Lady Ice, step outside your soul
Lady Ice do you know
That the world is frightened too...
-- "Lady Ice," from Arcadia's So Red the Rose LP, © 1985
***
Lady Ice slips into her soul
Lady Ice leaves a house so cold
Lady Ice did you know
That the world was lonely too
Drifting snows
Searching plains and high
Turning stones as she looks
For the heart somebody stole...
Lady's eyes slip away
To the part she plays in school
She knows of roles and hideaways
Suppose she knows but turns away
She knows where to find
A true heart for Lady Ice...
Lady Ice, step outside your soul
Lady Ice do you know
That the world is frightened too...
-- "Lady Ice," from Arcadia's So Red the Rose LP, © 1985
***
How does it feel
When everyone surrounds you?
How do you deal?
Do crowds just make you feel lonely?
What do you say
When people come and try to pin you down?
Acquaintances smile
But that's no understanding
How after awhile
You keep falling off the same mountain
Try to explain it
But nothing really gets them that high...
-- "A Matter of Feeling," from the Notorious LP, © 1986
In the year that followed the release of Arena, the Fab Five seemed to splinter off into two factions. Simon, Nick and Roger went off to work on the dark-and-artsy project Arcadia and record an album (with the help of guest stars Sting, Grace Jones, David Gilmour and Herbie Hancock) called So Red the Rose which resulted in a few hit singles. Conversely, Andy and John got their rocks off-- literally and figuratively-- with their funk/rock n'roll project The Power Station (taking their name from the studio in which they were recording), which featured the smooth blue-eyed soul vocals of Robert Palmer and Chic's Tony Thompson on drums, rounded out by stellar Chic alums Bernard Edwards and Nile Rodgers at the production helm, turning out an album with a couple of chart hits as well. Later that year, John and Andy were featured in a guest spot on one of the hottest TV shows at the time, Miami Vice, playing-- what else-- rock stars, and performing one of The Power Station's hits, the cover of T. Rex's "Get It On (Bang a Gong)." It just didn't get more over-the-top 80's than that.
The future of Duran Duran as a band seemed to hang in the balance, but whenever anyone was asked during interviews if these side projects signified the Beginning of the End, they all had clever ways of evading the question, but assuring whomever held the microphone that they were indeed working on new Duran material.
I spent the entire morning, afternoon and evening of Saturday, July 13, 1985 in my parents' living room, parked in front of the television with a stack of videotapes to record the global phenomenon that was Live Aid. Little did I know that Duran Duran would not perform until after the sun had gone down. Still, they were at Philadelphia's Veterans Stadium, just a half-hour from my house in suburbia. Practically in my back yard...
It was a fairly horrible performance, by most accounts.
The bum note-- and apparent zipper malfunction-- seen and heard round the world by millions. 1985 |
Despite these potentially threatening truisms that loomed large, like any good Duranie, I denied that they could ever split up. The world wouldn't be the same, and therefore, it could never happen. They would overcome the negative press. They would prove wrong the naysayers who waited in the wings with poison-tipped darts, daring them to fall on their faces. The boys had always managed to throw their wit and talent at the paparazzi to keep them guessing and derail their attacks, and surely they would do so again.
Little did we the fans know that the boys had barely spoken to one another during the Paris video shoot for "A View to a Kill," and were not exactly chummy during the Live Aid fiasco. It was the beginning of the end.
Anything and everything British was deemed superior at this point in my somewhat obsessive state-- I suppose it would be akin to Beatlemania that occurred in 1963-64. I would watch episodes of the British soap opera EastEnders broadcast Sunday nights on PBS, and even sent away for a free booklet that served as an EastEnders glossary of Cockney phrases and rhyming slang. The totally mad comedy show The Young Ones made a splash on American shores via MTV, and even though three-quarters of the time I had no idea what was going on, I was hooked. Monty Python Sunday nights on PBS were happening as well. The following year, I watched the documentary The Story of English and expanded my fascination with the evolution of the English language, in all of its countless accents and dialects. Ah, the blossoming of Anglophilia...
I suppose I should admit at this point that I indeed did own a Panama hat similar to those hats John and Simon both wore on occasion between 1982-83. And I often daydreamed about slowdancing with either of them as "Lonely in Your Nightmare" (my then-favorite track from the Rio album) played. I had no boyfriend (the track record of awful blind dates and near-misses was epic, and would continue to be for years), and I indeed felt quite ugly as I had begun to put on weight and fight the seemingly unwinnable fight against cystic acne that ravaged my face and body. So the stereotype I mentioned earlier, as stereotypes often are, smacked slightly of the truth. I had indeed posed in front of my Duranified bedroom walls on more than one occasion to take a photo. I also had a purple half-shirt made at one of those custom t-shirt transfer shops with the boys on the front, and the word "DURANIMAL" in white fuzzy iron-on letters on the back. I still have it in a drawer somewhere-- it is approximately the size of a postage stamp when compared to my now 40-something year-old, majorly-expanded body. I marvel at the fact that it ever fit me at all.
I met my one and only true Duranie friend, Marialice, at a mutual friend's birthday party, on the very eve of Simon Le Bon's 28th birthday, October 27, 1985 (how could that not be fate?). We bonded over this very fact, and we were soon inseparable, as no one else seemed able (or willing) to comprehend our undying devotion to this most magnificent band of gorgeous and talented individuals.
But Marialice was a truly goofy, totally mad fan, whereas my own goofiness and borderline madness was kept carefully under wraps most of the time. She once stole three or four pads of blank ballots from a clothing store at the mall during a promotional contest in which one could theoretically win a pair of tickets to a concert of your choice (three guesses who we would kill to see?), and I begrudgingly grabbed more than a stack or two of them myself. (Needless to say, we won nothing. Duran Duran didn't even tour that year.)
This was the exact photo, except with an autograph... sigh. |
My conscience got the better of me, however, and two minutes after Mari and I'd said our goodbyes to him, I felt the need to come clean about my utterly charlatan behavior. Dave's face wore the pitiful expression of extreme disappointment and embarrassment, and I'd never see him again after that day.
These were both relatively harmless incidents, and paled in comparison to future endeavors. Mari actually called New York City Information several times, trying to be put through to Renee Simonsen's phone (she was the supermodel girlfriend of John Taylor at the time). According to my friend, she was actually put through when she made up some incredible lie about "Renee's uncle Roger" being in hospital, and recounted how a man with a British accent (presumably John) answered the phone, and said, in a puzzled whisper, "Roger..?" perhaps thinking of his bandmate Roger Taylor... I was so pissed at her for making such a breach in the Duranie code, I think I refused to talk to her for three days. You simply didn't harass them, or mess with their personal lives. That was a bridge I'd never, ever cross, no matter how much I adored them. It was all about respect, and I took that so very seriously. It's kind of laughable now.
My fandom was evolving at a slow and methodical pace. If Simon Le Bon had taught me nothing else, it was that words could be thrown on a page much like acrylics or oils to a canvas; you could literally paint with them. Swirl 'em around, and see what sticks. Try what combinations make sense. And even if they don't make sense right away, they could with time-- let them marinate as you ruminate... And who cares if they make sense, anyhow-- what exactly is "making sense," anyway? Maybe someone would read my words and conjure images in their own brain, much as I did when I heard Simon's lyrics. It was my first headlong dive into poetic experimentation, many years before discovering the dark lyrics and poetry of The Doors' Jim Morrison-- whom I later learned was an early influence on Simon's own work.
By now I was switching on and off between free verse and the rhyming form of lyrics. I didn't have the music in my head necessarily while writing them, but I was continuously filling notebooks with plenty of angsty and artsy up-chuckings. I remember taking one of my tatty notebooks to school one day, and in the middle of my 9th grade English class, I passed it to my friend Linda. She in turn shared it with her friend Nicole who was sitting at the desk in front of her. I was initially mortified, not intending these pages for just anyone's eyes, until Nicole came up to me to return the notebook. "These are incredible," she said. "They sound like they could be Duran Duran lyrics." I nearly died. What better compliment could any soul have paid me at that very moment? None. Absolutely none.
I picked up a vinyl copy of the 1972 album The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars, and it was soon spinning on my turntable during the long hours I was spending locked in my bedroom. I had long-since outgrown my childhood desire to be a cartoonist or an animator, and took to drawing portraits of rock stars in my art class sketchbooks, poring over the pages of Rolling Stone and SPIN, as well as studying the models in Vogue, Harper's Bazaar, Cosmopolitan, Elle, Vanity Fair, and any other jet-setting, name-dropping magazine I could get my hands on. I was soon recognizing leather designs by Claude Montana and the polka dots of Carolina Herrera (as well as a young upstart designer named Marc Jacobs) without needing to read their names. My charcoal sketches of the models sat alongside colored pencil drawings of David Bowie, Madonna and Cyndi Lauper. My many art class projects included an acrylic painting of the Rio album cover and a colored paper abstract of John Taylor playing his bass.
I listened to their music everywhere. I listened to it while sketching, writing, or just dreaming while staring at the curling smoke at the end of an incense stick. I listened to it while perched on the bow of my parents' boat, or hanging on to a safety bar at the rear, no doubt pretending behind closed eyes and cool shades that I was in the "Rio" video as the sea spray kicked up and the wind blew back my sun-streaked (or perhaps Sun-In streaked) hair. Wherever I went, Duran Duran were sure to go.
I think the reason they were so important to me far surpassed image or beauty, and went deeper than longing for the unattainable, infectious joie de vivre they inspired. They were often the only thing on this earth that could make me happy.
Let's just say that I was not a happy teenager. I suppose one would be hard-pressed to capture, identify and release such a mythic creature back into the wild, because the fabled happy teenager pretty much doesn't exist, and a generation-and-a-half has not brought us any closer to finding such a rarity. It was an understatement to say that I was pretty miserable. I was blessed to have an intact family unit, but all I did was fight with them. I was equally-blessed to have numerous friends and many acquaintances, but I fought them all just as frequently. I was highly sensitive, increasingly paranoid and anxious, incredibly unhappy inside my body, beyond disappointed with the face in my mirror, and felt trapped inside my own skin 24/7. The only thing to ever lighten my mood or make me want to face another day was the music. I had moments where I truly no longer wished to live; there were more than one or two occasions when I felt that going to bed and simply not waking up the next morning would be preferable to simply being me for another day. But the music washed away all of that pain and provided a backdrop to my creative spirit, further enabling me to paint and draw and write, thus exorcising any demons of self-loathing, if only temporarily in the moment. The teen years are never really a total cakewalk for anyone, but hormones can be a horrid thing for some kids. I must have had the equivalent of 12 teenage girls' in my system.
The Happy Couple, 1985 |
1985 was a banner year for Simon (despite the horrid Live Aid performance); he married his model girlfriend Yasmin Parvaneh (breaking millions of fangirls' hearts around the globe, inciting hate mail-- again, something I found astoundingly disturbing). Prior to their brief civil service wedding, he'd nearly drowned when the sailboat he was on during a lead-up to the Whitbread Round the World Race capsized and trapped him along with some of the crew members underwater until they were rescued just in the nick of time. The following year, he recounted this nearly-tragic tale during a television special entitled Disney's Living Seas, after which he recited the haunting John Masefield poem "Sea-Fever." To this day, it is one of my favorite poems. It just sounded so grand coming out of his mouth.
Puffy John, circa 1986. Lithe or large, made no difference to me, in my ignorant youth. |
Pretty, pretty, pretty... |
For my sixteenth birthday, I got a real electric guitar, gorgeous and shiny black, complete with whammy bar, pickup selector, volume and tone controls, etc.. I promptly named it "Andy." It was built by an older man who was selling them at a craft fair somewhere north of Philly. It looked something like a Fender, and the name on the head was Palmer. I picked up two Mel Bay teach-yourself books, and quickly learned about five chords. But it was not like playing the piano I'd been used to for the past eight years. I grew frustrated very quickly, and soon after, I chucked it into my bedroom wall, which needed to be patched (right after it had been recently coated with new paint...). Strings were not my thing, no matter how much I felt the music in my soul. I still have the guitar to this day. Perhaps one day I'll seriously learn how to play it.
Around this time, Andy Taylor recorded a solo album called Thunder (after poaching the rhythm section of the L.A. new wave band Missing Persons). I bought the album on cassette, as well as the hit single 45 r.p.m. "Take It Easy," featured on the American Anthem soundtrack. That same year, Andy did a guest guitar spot on Go Go's lead singer Belinda Carlisle's solo song, "Mad About You," and was featured prominently during the MTV New Year's Rockin' Eve to ring in 1987. I sat up all night to watch him, and was blown away by his performance, though he was likely wasted at the time. I had never seen him sweat so much. But he sounded fantastic. He got to truly "rock out" without the constraints of the DD image or the demands of the publicity machine. I could appreciate the boys in their individual elements, because they were all equally talented.
My ticket. Yes, they cost under $20 in those days, kids. |
This is how close we got. Needless to say, I was dying. Photo © 1987 |
Later that summer, my friend Laura's family and mine spent two weeks at a rental house near Ocean City, Maryland. I'd been going down there for as long as I could remember. Days were spent at Assateague Island among the wild ponies who roamed the beaches and dunes in search of salty-sweet marsh grass, late afternoons and evenings passed at dinner followed by strolls along the boardwalk in OC, riding the rides, playing skee-ball and arcade games, nearly getting high from chemical fumes in the sweaty, stuffy t-shirt shops, munching on those enormous buckets of french fries from Thrasher's that NO ONE could ever finish, scoping on boys... and once in a blue moon eating those sinfully disgusting, over-the-top gluttonous build-your-own ice cream sundaes at Zipp's.
That particular summer, Laura and I noticed a proliferation of British twenty-somethings working in the restaurants and boardwalk kiosks. One night we went to Harrison's Harbor Watch for dinner with our parents and Laura's little brother, and were amusing ourselves by singing bits of Duran Duran songs (I had recently converted Laura to semi-Duranie status). Our waitress opened up her mouth to introduce herself as Rachel and to take our drink orders, when our jaws hit the table. Another British accent. As soon as she left, we were chittering back and forth about this amazing occurrence. In my unparalleled brilliance (ah, youth), I declared that she couldn't possibly be from Birmingham, as that particular accent-- the Brummie accent-- was quite distinct. When she came back to hand out glasses of ice water, one of us (it might have been Laura's father, since I was far too chickenshit) asked Rachel where she was from. "Redditch," she replied (after which I nearly choked and croaked on my steaming plate of crow), "a little suburb of Birmingham, England" (Yes, YES, ohmigod, ohmigod, ohmigod, YESSSSSSSS) "where those Duran Duran chaps are from-- my sister went to school with one of them," and off she went, gliding away with a twinkle in her eye; she must have overheard Laura and I humming and singing Duran tunes earlier. Bring on the shrieks. I'm fairly sure my parents would have liked to have disappeared in a puff of smoke at this point in the ridiculousness, and what was to come.
When Rachel returned to our table, I was nearly foaming at the mouth. I couldn't believe this was happening. Here was someone who GREW UP in the same place as my beloved John Taylor, whose very own SISTER went to school with him in Birmingham... "So, who here's the Duran fan? Who's your favorite?" Laura tried to pipe up with something about Simon, but clearly I had seniority and shut her up immediately. "Me..." I croaked, raising my hand slightly, and followed with "John Taylor..." I think that was all I managed to spit out.
"Well, my sister attended the Abbey, and he was called Nigel back then. She said he was a real drip!" laughed Rachel, and she disappeared again with our dinner orders. It would be accurate to say that I was in near catatonia at this point.
Postcard from kind waitress Rachel Mooney, postmarked from Redditch,
Birmingham. A coveted Duranie artifact and evidence of conversation.
|
After amassing a collection of original 12" and 45 r.p.m. singles and their obscure b-sides, and after absorbing all of their history and quotes, I felt like I was surely their number one fan. You couldn't be a fan if you didn't know all those obscure b-sides. Late Bar, Khanada, Faster Than Light, Fame, the live version of Cockey Rebel's Come Up and See Me (Make Me Smile) (What Duranie could hold back the tears and inner shrieks for that one, hm?), Secret Oktober... For a year or so I had been dabbling in creating what I would later learn was called fan fiction-- crafting various fictional scenarios featuring members of the band-- and the magnum opus was entitled A Travel Thru Time, a time travel story (as the title would denote-- I had always been a sucker for time travel) complete with love triangle between myself, Simon and John, set against the backdrop of 1980 Birmingham, just as the band members have come together after Simon's audition. I would share pages of this monstrous joke of a literary attempt with my closest of friends in between class periods at school, during study hall, and on the bus. They would often return the pages with the admonition "Give me the parts where you really get to the GOOD STUFF!" ("Good stuff" of course being code for SEX), and I again managed to convert a few more of them to semi-fan status. One of my friends paid me the ultimate compliment-- levels higher than the one I'd received two years earlier in English class-- when she told me that one of the more emotional scenes actually left her in real, honest-to-God tears. At the time, I really didn't grasp the enormity of such an accolade, but today, it almost feels as though it happened to someone else, and that perhaps I had imagined her words of praise.
My musical horizons were a little bit wider now. I was no longer just locking myself in my room and listening to DD, Bowie and the Beatles, but I was also revisiting my childhood favorite Blondie and Deborah Harry's solo music, as well as discovering Cyndi Lauper's pre-She's So Unusual band, Blue Angel. I was also listening to the Sex Pistols (much to my parents' horror) and tuning in to college radio stations WPRB (Princeton) and WTSR (then Trenton State College) to hear hardcore punk acts like The Meat Men and interviews with boys I'd met in high school who had their own new wave band, Vermeer. I almost dated a juvenile delinquent who called me Nancy (and whom I called Sid-- rather a harbinger of doom, don't you think?) who was expelled and shipped off to rehab the very same day I had made up my mind to say yes to his asking if I'd go out with him (true story). And just after receiving a cassette copy of Siouxsie and the Banshees' Tinderbox album for my 18th birthday from my fellow Sex Pistols and only Monty Python-loving friend Melissa (she also had a mad crush on Simon and completely understood my love of the band), I heard "Just Like Heaven" for the first time when it was performed during a cheesy Battle of the Bands assembly in the gym, and headed straight out to the mall to pick up The Cure's Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me.
The coming year brought about many more changes. I left for college in the fall of 1988, and within one semester, I had become acquainted with the full music catalogue of the Smiths, the Cure, Depeche Mode, REM-- all bands I'd heard of in high school (the other Art Major kids had them all emblazoned on their t-shirts and notebooks) but had never ventured beyond my comfort zone to try out-- and other obscure UK bands like the Housemartins and the Mighty Lemon Drops, as well as Siouxsie and the Banshees, Bauhaus, a new Icelandic band called the Sugarcubes, a wacky group from Philly called The Dead Milkmen, and all the cool new stuff that was being played on a new program called "PostModern MTV," which later evolved into "120 Minutes" hosted by Dave Kendall, a deejay at the infamous Limelight club in NYC.
Duran Duran had released a follow-up to Notorious that same fall, entitled Big Thing. It had a couple of decent songs on it, but overall... I wasn't really impressed. I had my new college friend Judy play "Do You Believe in Shame?" on her radio show for me periodically, but I was swept up by a different wave of bands by now, and a little too fascinated with Robert Smith's kohl-ringed eyes and fright-wig spider-nest hair and Morrissey's plaintive moans and bitchy declarations to be bothered much with what Duran Duran were doing these days. Between that and learning to drink vodka straight from the bottle, it left very little time for my boys.
I picked up their "greatest hits" album Decade in 1989 (on CD, no more vinyl albums for me, not even for the Durans...), but after that we sort of parted ways, for better or for worse, for the next several years. I ignored their Liberty album altogether in 1990, as I was in over my head with the Sisters of Mercy, Peter Murphy, Nine Inch Nails, Gene Loves Jezebel, and the inexplicable dive into Guns n' Roses and Poison. And Crosby, Stills and Nash. And the Indigo Girls. And The Doors... Had I known how in over their heads the boys were with personality rifts and drugs, perhaps I might have been more upset...
Through my friend Judy (after she had graduated and returned home to New Jersey), I had made the acquaintance of a young man, and embarked on a pen friendship with him for a couple of years, exchanging stories and observations. One of the first things we had in common was an appreciation of early Duran Duran. I nearly died when I learned he had been in a Duran Duran cover band in high school. And he had a rather John-ish look about him-- tall, rain-thin, floofy hair, occasionally wore glasses like the "drip" Nigel did back in his teen years... Despite the briefest and sweetest of interludes, and the other relationships that would come and go in the decades to follow, he will always be the One Who Got Away. (But that's another story for another time...)
The next Duran album I picked up was in 1993, the self-titled album the fans called "The Wedding Album" (due to the album cover's depiction of the band members' parents in sepia-toned wedding photos) and again, save for the singles "Ordinary World" and "Come Undone," I wasn't all that enthused. They had the most success with "Ordinary World" than they have had with any of their other singles, and while it's a lovely song, I just didn't feel I was in it any more for the long haul, or so I had believed at the time. Duranies eventually grew up, I suppose.
I skipped their next album, this time a collection of cover songs called Thank You, and their follow-up release Medazzaland, which now only featured Simon and Nick as original members; John had departed before recording was complete. I ignored their next few albums, Night Versions, Greatest Hits, and Strange Behaviour (remixes, hit singles, and more remixes). By this point in the mid-90's, I was listening to Enya, Loreena McKennitt, and more Celtic new age-type music, as well as delving into Scottish and Irish folk music and the occasional medieval chant after attending my first Renaissance festival. I was also lighting candles, collecting faeries and corresponding with a musician via the Internet who had expressed a sincere interest in collaborating with me. But since I could never possibly deem myself as worthy of such a compliment, I declined, as did our relationship over a couple years' time, and all I was left with were a pile of letters, several of his demo CDs and cassette tapes he'd made for me of Fleetwood Mac and a copy of the much-coveted 1973 album Buckingham Nicks. I made the mistake of falling for a kid seven years my junior while working in a grocery store, and it was doomed from the beginning. He was a baby Jerry Garcia in many ways. And I found myself listening to an awful lot of Grateful Dead, Neil Young and Crosby, Stills and Nash, even catching the latter two on tour at the tail end of the 90's and 2000.
With the millennium came a bald tattooed barbarian of a boyfriend, and the release of Pop Trash, still sans John Taylor, who had done a stint in rehab and was hard at work trying to save himself from the chemical and egomaniacal excesses of pop stardom. 2003-2004 brought more disappointment, with the release of two more compilations of hit singles from 1981-1985 and 1986-1995 respectively. I felt like a very bad fan, indeed. A true fan would stick with a band through thick and thin, even if the Fab Five were whittled down to Just Two, and even if you didn't really like the new music... I hadn't bought an album of theirs since "Ordinary World" first hit radio. I remember when my mother mentioned that Duran Duran were playing the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo, and I just shook my head.
All of that changed in 2004, some two or three lifetimes later.
2005, during a set on Good Morning America-- I think? |
I was laying on my couch in my one-bedroom apartment in Houston, when my mother called to say that she saw the new Duran Duran CD/DVD was on sale (I think she may have been out shopping at Target), and asked if I would like for her to pick me up a copy. I was rather ill with a headache at the time, miserable about life in general, and said sure, that I would pay her back. She brought it awhile later to my door, and I popped the video portion in the DVD player and curled back up on the couch when she left. After only about ten minutes, the lights came back on again inside my brain and soul, for the first time in what had felt like decades. I called my mother a little bit later, in tears, to thank her again for picking it up for me, that it was the most amazing thing I'd seen and heard in years...
The opening band was a group of young lads from L.A. called Clear Static-- I don't know how or why I have this memory, but we got something signed by them at some point. I have long since lost it, but oh well, I've also lost the specific memory. I think every cell in my body was so hyped beyond the traditional three dimensions, I had discovered another plane completely. For once in my life, I was going into something without the aid of alcohol to face my fear, anxiety and stress. I didn't want anything to be altered; I wanted to experience my boys completely unadulterated, utterly pure. The opening act was pretty good, I had to admit, and out of sheer reactionary nerves, I had already screamed myself nearly deaf. I had to save myself for the real deal. I hadn't been to a big arena show like this since 1987; other bands I'd seen, like the long-ago and faraway Smashing Pumpkins, were in clubs and smaller venues, and while there had been noise at these other gigs, it wasn't within a monstrous space filled with the shrill screams of thousands of rabid fans.
Just as predicted, John was on the left side of the stage, as always, so that's where our seats were. Not general admission, but I could SEE them; I could see HIM. We weren't in the nosebleed section by any means. And I'd left my camera behind in the car, like the chickenshit I was.
My shirt © 2005 |
John, Simon and Andy, 20 February 2005, Houston, TX (lucky-as-shit photographer unknown) |
From the opening strains of "(Reach Up For the) Sunrise," their current hit single and video, and straight through seventeen more songs PLUS three encores, it was clear that the magic was there. The original alchemy that should never, ever have been broken up and distilled over the decades was there. That kernel of their original brilliance, that ember of their original fire, it was all there. They even reached back as far as their very first album and played the non-single "Night Boat," which was the moment when my boyfriend had chosen to go off to find a men's room. When he came back, he was chattering away about a guy he'd met in there who had hung out with Andy in L.A. back in the 80's, even showed him a photo of the two of them together. I was like, "I so hate you right now..." Another two degrees of separation...
To this day, I still don't know how I made it through that show without my heart simply bursting with joy. "Honey, I have never seen you DANCE like that!" my boyfriend exclaimed. I think all I could say in response was "I saw John... I saw my boys..."
38th Birthday Redhead Massacre © 2008 |
Duran Duran went on to release two more albums, but sans Andy once and for all. All sorts of rumors and stories swirl about how and why this happened, and in the end, I suppose it really doesn't matter. It was all about who was in it for the long haul, and people gotta live their lives.
2007's Red Carpet Massacre was something of an odd duck to me. It seemed they were too eagerly embracing their contemporaries from different genres, like rap artist Timbaland and former NSYNC/now solo R&B artist Justin Timberlake, and the resulting recordings left me a little confused. I received it 2 months later for my 38th birthday. My darling fantasy husband of more than 20 years (JT had long-since beat out Simon for that title) would be turning 48 that year, inching toward the big 5-0. It seems when our idols suddenly face mortality, we do a bit of our own soul-searching at the same time. Kind of puts everything in perspective. I didn't bother to see them on that supporting tour.
2007's Red Carpet Massacre was something of an odd duck to me. It seemed they were too eagerly embracing their contemporaries from different genres, like rap artist Timbaland and former NSYNC/now solo R&B artist Justin Timberlake, and the resulting recordings left me a little confused. I received it 2 months later for my 38th birthday. My darling fantasy husband of more than 20 years (JT had long-since beat out Simon for that title) would be turning 48 that year, inching toward the big 5-0. It seems when our idols suddenly face mortality, we do a bit of our own soul-searching at the same time. Kind of puts everything in perspective. I didn't bother to see them on that supporting tour.
2010 brought the release of All You Need Is Now. I grabbed it up and fell in love with it. Even though Andy was long-gone, that mystery recipe was more evident and shining through once again. It sounded like a Duran Duran album made for the millennium that actually matched Astronaut, but it felt even more connected.
To me, it felt like a love letter to the fans, particularly in the lyrics of its first single of the same name:
To me, it felt like a love letter to the fans, particularly in the lyrics of its first single of the same name:
Everybody's gunning for the VIP section
But you're better up and running
In another direction
With your bones
in the flow
Cold shadow on the vine
But your lashes let it shine...
Every moment that arrives You're the greatest thing alive...
And you sway in the moon
the way you did when you were younger
When we told everybody
All you need is now
Stay with the music
Let it play a little longer
You don't need anybody
All you need is now...
With your bones
in the flow
Cold shadow on the vine
But your lashes let it shine...
Every moment that arrives You're the greatest thing alive...
And you sway in the moon
the way you did when you were younger
When we told everybody
All you need is now
Stay with the music
Let it play a little longer
You don't need anybody
All you need is now...
Ironically, I didn't try to see them on this tour, either, as I still had no one with whom I could share in the magic-- no one who would be equally invested, or would just "get it."
The following year, I got JT's autobiography In The Pleasure Groove for Christmas, and I devoured it immediately. Parts of it broke my heart. I knew he and his mother were Catholic, but I had buried this fact in the darkest recesses of my brain, and it brought another flood of memories to follow. I had always, always fallen for lapsed Catholic boys. ALWAYS. I also knew that he'd been an only child, but reading about his childhood and how somber it could be at times with subtle shades of loneliness and resulting creativity, it broke my heart all over again. I sworeI knew on some level that he was sensitive and sweet deep down, and perhaps this is what drew me to him all those years ago. Yes, he had a pretty face, but I continued to adore him long after he'd turned fifty. His dark eyes, even with the lines of age at their corners, still have that twinkle when he's on stage and funking it up-- and his wide smile is every bit as infectious as a Duran Duran hook. He had gone from bespectacled ugly duckling "drip" to sexy five-star Gorgeous seemingly overnight back in the day. And he still made me weak in the knees. He always will.
Over one month ago, Duran Duran released their 14th studio album, Paper Gods. From the get-go, the reviews from the media were stellar. The voices of the fans, however, were mixed at best. Opinions seemed pretty polarized-- either they hated the album, or they loved it. I purchased a version released specifically for Target, with three bonus tracks, and then ordered the traditional version, released with two more different bonus tracks. On the first listen, I was puzzled as well. To me, it sounded as though the boys had allowed the bass, guitar and drums to take a backseat to more electronic means. I was also a little disturbed when pop culture hot mess Lindsey Lohan had a "guest vocal" on the track "Dancephobia," which was really no more than a ridiculous throaty spoken word voice-over during an instrumental. The overall feel for the album at first was that Duran Duran were doing their damnedest to mesh with the current music scene and infuse their sound with the same kind of electronica dance pop feel.
A few songs jumped out at me immediately, though. Their first single, "Pressure Off," was an easy winner, probably due to the Nile Rodgers funk influence. "Butterfly Girl" leaped out from the get-go, probably due to the title (I love butterflies), and because I found it to be an immediately infectious groove. "What Are the Chances?" broke my heart all at once. Classic Simon lyrics, swirled through with melancholy and longing. And then I realized why I wasn't reacting quite as vehemently as some of the other fans who had taken to Twitter and Facebook to pan the album; it was because, in my eyes (and ears), the magic was still there.
When the official Duran Duran Facebook page asked fans to reveal what surprised them most about the new album, I thought about posting my opinion among the hundreds of others that were popping up. At first, I thought better of it, because normally Facebook (and the Internet, in general) is no more than a forum for people to bash others for their opinions, and my words might incite a riot of disagreement and ridiculousness. But something in me changed, and I put the following out there to be mocked and/or ridiculed:
I never thought in a million years that 4, much less 46, people would not only agree with my initial assessment of the album, but that they would praise my observations. Granted, there are over 2.5 million people in the Facebook DD fan community, but still. It kind of floored me to be acknowledged at all.
Having listened to the album many more times since I purchased it, I have grown to enjoy it immensely, and stand by my original assessment. I find the overall sound to be far better than Red Carpet Massacre, even though I'm not a fan of current pop music. I think their essence is both timeless and current. I also think there is something cosmic about pairing them with Nile Rodgers. He worked magic on The Power Station project and the Notorious album some 30 years earlier, and he's done it again with "Pressure Off."
I recently posted another response to a DD Facebook question, asking what everyone's favorite video from the Rio album was. My share of "Lonely In Your Nightmare" brought an astonishing 136 "likes," along with 13 comments. I remarked that at forty-five, I no longer had any Duranie friends, so the commentary I was receiving was so nice. One of them replied "Heather, you have a whole page of fellow Duranies. We are all one big happy family. " It kinda warmed my heart.
Present-day Duranies are not ashamed in the least of their fandom. They embrace it wholeheartedly, and the girls, who are now in their mid- to late-forties and early fifties have an understanding with their husbands, wives, boyfriends, girlfriends, partners, and now their children. When Duran Duran is on the radio, on tv, or on the iPod shuffle, be quiet and let Mommy dance and wig out. And if Duran Duran are coming to town, you can bet your ass that Mommy will be going. So you probably won't see her for a day or two. Or, if you're lucky, you'll be going along with her to experience it first-hand, and come away with a better understanding of why Mommy's been hung-up on them for all these years. Or not. Mommy doesn't care...
With the explosion of social media and resulting hyper-connectivity between fans and artists of all stripes these days, I see evidence on a daily basis of Duranies in their 40's still hitting the concerts and immediately uploading their iPhone videos and selfies taken with the boys backstage and on the street. Long gone are the days of recording bootleg tapes and seedy propositions to roadies and the like. Still, I cannot help but wonder if I could ever cough up enough dough for a VIP ticket and whatever it entailed? It caused me to seriously consider joining their fan club, where supposedly such perks are made available before being unleashed to the general public (you would think such a "fan" would have joined their club decades ago, but alas, I never did). I never thought I'd join a fan club of anyone's at the age of forty-five. After much deliberation, I coughed up the cash only a few days ago, laboring under the delusion that it would give me access to backstage meet-and-greet opportunities as well. After hitting "send," I learned that meet-and-greets are not exclusive to every city, and that one really needs to subscribe to Crowdsurge.com, and after doing so, I still didn't understand the process... But I received my fan club package of an exclusive t-shirt (which of course does not fit, even in the largest size offered), a magnet, a swank pen, a keychain, a stainless steel insulated mug, and some high-tech data-saving thing that I will probably never use or need since I don't own any Smart products, as well as a copy of Simon's handwritten lyrics to "Pressure Off." Fingers still crossed that DD even plays Tampa in the coming year. This old dog doesn't know the tricks that it takes to get a decent seat or a meet-and-greet... And I don't know who you "need to know" like so many folks do in this world. I could never boast being "well-connected" during my lifetime.
If I were ever granted such a dream-wish to spend a mere five minutes in their presence, it would be to simply say "thank you," and nothing more. There is absolutely nothing I could attempt to express to them that they haven't already heard a million times before over the past 35+ years, so I can only assume that there would be no point in even trying. But my feelings of thanks eclipses the music or the past misplaced idolatry. They are instead for essentially saving my life when a melodramatic, hormonal, painful and angry adolescence could not be healed by anything else on this earth. So to give a heartfelt thank-you once and for all would be a nice sense of closure. A hug in return would be nice, too...
If I were ever granted such a dream-wish to spend a mere five minutes in their presence, it would be to simply say "thank you," and nothing more. There is absolutely nothing I could attempt to express to them that they haven't already heard a million times before over the past 35+ years, so I can only assume that there would be no point in even trying. But my feelings of thanks eclipses the music or the past misplaced idolatry. They are instead for essentially saving my life when a melodramatic, hormonal, painful and angry adolescence could not be healed by anything else on this earth. So to give a heartfelt thank-you once and for all would be a nice sense of closure. A hug in return would be nice, too...
My one true wish is that they're still having fun and loving what they do, even now into their mid- to late-fifties. The clips I've caught of concerts posted to YouTube and the guest spots on the late-night circuit and early-morning news shows seem to show great evidence of this. And watching the recently-released official video for "Pressure Off" shows the best evidence of all-- they are all smiling and having so much fun with it. I don't think anything could make me much happier than that.
But that hug would be nice, too...
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