You came up from behind me and I knew

Sad news of the departure of the dance-floor diva Evelyn Thomas for the "Rush Poppers Room" in Fabulon yesterday sent me hurtling down a time-slip-wormhole...

...back again to the year when her only major hit was everywhere - the year of strikes, of Yuppies, of Space Shuttles and of Band Aid, the year of "Frankie Say" t-shirts and Hi-NRG music, the year I came out - 1984!

For me, this year forty years ago was one of the very best for music in that (or any other) decade!

What other year can you name, dear reader, that saw the debuts in the Top 40 of a clutch of world-beating and eternally influential artists of the calibre of Madonna, Cyndi Lauper, Jimmy Somerville [with Bronski Beat], Gloria Estefan [with Miami Sound Machine] or Prince, or indeed the arrival of class acts like Scritti Politti, The Smiths, ZZ Top, Nik Kershaw, Sade, Alphaville, Van Halen, Propaganda, and of course Frankie Goes To Hollywood?

Making their first foray in the upper echelons of the charts in 1984 as solo artists were George Michael [although Wham! had a great year of hits as well], Alison Moyet, Freddie Mercury [Queen also had a huge resurgence that year], Philip Oakey, Limahl, Billy Idol, Malcolm McLaren and Ray Parker Junior. It was also the year that saw massive commercial success for a number of established stars such as Stevie Wonder, Chaka Khan, Paul McCartney, Kenny Rogers & Dolly Parton, Tina Turner, Lionel Richie, Deniece Williams, Billy Joel, Pointer Sisters, Spandau Ballet, Elton John, Duran Duran, Thompson Twins, The Specials (Special A.K.A.), U2, Eurythmics, Kraftwerk, Bananarama, The Cars, Style Council, Billy Ocean, Culture Club, Bob Marley and the Wailers and Depeche Mode.

So much of the very "gay-gay-gay" theme that year - be it Boy George and Marilyn's "gender-bending", an unapologetic drag star singing You Think You're A Man on Top Of The Pops, the Age of Consent LP, Pete Burns and Dead or Alive, or Relax - was forever underpinned by the aforementioned musical genre of Hi-NRG, with the likes of Hazell Dean, Divine, Maria Vidal, Fancy, Laura Branigan, Sheryl Lee Ralph, Fun Fun, The Weather Girls and their ilk all dominating the clubs and the airwaves.

So let's conclude with Miss Thomas's mega-hit, a classic if ever there was one - I can smell the Kouros and amyl nitrite as we speak:

Evelyn Thomas - High Energy

RIP, Ellen Lucille "Evelyn" Thomas (22nd August 1953 – 21st July 2024)

Everybody's talking when they see me walking

You know you're getting old when...

...you find out that trash-tastic "friend-of-the-gays" Sinitta is sixty years old! Gulp.

Very much in her mother Miquel Brown's genre [and even that of her auntie Amii Stewart] of high-camp, Hi-NRG stompers, she launched onto the scene in the mid-80s with a string of club hits including Feels Like the First Time, So Macho and Cruising, before getting drawn (inevitably) into the "Hit Factory" of Stock Aitken Waterman. Of course, they gave her her most memorable hit...

I can smell the poppers as I play this one!

Sinitta - Toy Boy

Toy boy, toy boy!

Everybody's talking when they see me walking
With this little boy of mine

He's my plaything and I love him
I dress him up looking fine
He ain't got money
People think it's funny
He gives me everything I need

He's my playboy and my love toy
And I want everyone to know
He's my toy boy toy boy
I'm out with my toy boy toy boy

Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday night

When I want a lover
Don't need any other
I know he'll come running to me

He's my gigolo and my Romeo
And I want everyone to know
He's my toy boy toy boy
I'm out with my toy boy toy boy

Speaking of toy boys, I still can't believe the bitch shagged Brad Pitt...



Many happy returns, Miss Sinitta Renay Malone (born 19th October 1963)!

Sharing unexpected love

A chance discovery from scanning the "death notices" on Wikipedia, as is my wont, throws up a rather obscure name - but one who was integral to a genre of music that I (and myriad queens worldwide) went nuts over in the mid-80s, Hi-NRG!

Mr Denis LePage (for it is he) emerged from the unlikely music scene of Quebec in Canada to become not only a key member of disco favourites Kat Mandu (whose The Break, written by Mr LePage, was a worldwide club hit in the late 70s), but later with his wife formed the electronic duo Lime, responsible for many key dance choons in that heady, hedonistic era. Denis was also a gifted multi-instrumentalist and producer with hundreds of credits ranging from Carol Jani to France Joli.

This brought me to recall a post featuring Lime that I did on this very blog (gulp!) fifteen years ago.

For your delectation, dear reader, here it is again. Somebody pass the poppers!

Madam Arcati has just found this faboo little gem of a megamix featuring our Great Earth Mother Divine:

Divine Drag Disco

Of course, revisiting this kind of music always sets me off on a Hi-NRG kick - and so here are few other gems from the heady gay music era of the 1980s. First up the brilliant Lime, with a video evidently filmed in November somewhere in Norfolk:

Lime - Unexpected Lovers

Next, a pair of "uber-butch" queens, Patrick Cowley...

Patrick Cowley - Megatron Man

...and and Paul Parker:

Paul Parker - Right On Target

And finally, winning the award for possibly the worst mime by "badly made-up drag" ever, here's the superb Flirts!

The Flirts - Passion

Whew...

---

FOOTNOTE: Interestingly Mr LePage transitioned to "Nini Nobless" in the final years of their life.

Feels like I'm in heaven every night

Thank heavens for that! The first gruelling week back [albeit a short one, after (gulp!) the last Bank Holiday Monday until the end of August], following our lovely holiday, is over...

Time to start the party with a bang - or maybe an explosion of pink glitter? - with [an albeit short clip of] one of my fave Bette Midler "forgotten gems":

Bette Midler - I'm Beautiful, Dammit!

Somehow what used to be a one-day event called Gay Pride [a march, sometimes followed by a party in a park] has been transmogrified - by various commercial interests in the so-called "pink pound", no doubt - into something called "LGBTQI+ Pride Month", and this is supposedly the start of it. Hey ho. Let's carry on with the flow with another favourite that's sure to please us "gentlemen who are light in their loafers" - and Thank Disco It's Friday!

Miquel Brown - So Many Men, So Little Time

Have a good weekend, dear reader!

Multi-coloured and elastic

Perusing (as is my wont) the famous birthdays today, I note that it is the centenary of the birth of telly's least likely sex symbol Jack Klugman aka Quincy; other ill-matched celebrants include Sergei Prokofiev, Russell T Davies, Sheena Easton, Mary Wollstonecraft, Anouk Aimée, Cecil Day-Lewis, Dame Darcey Bussell, Sandy Dennis, Ulysses S. Grant, Judy Carne, Casey Kasem, Ann Peebles, Michael Fish, Marco Pirroni, Anna Chancellor, Lizzo, and...

...the ill-fated Wallace Carothers. Who? I hear you ask...

Mr Carothers was none other than the inventor of Nylon, which gives me the perfect excuse to play a fave choon of mine for many decades [that, to my chagrin, I have never featured on this blog before!].

Whop the poppers out, girls - it's Hi-NRG time!

Marsha Raven - I Like Plastic

I've seen 'Gone with the Wind',
I've read Jane Eyre.
And Haydn's 5th Symphony,
Didn't have it for me.

Well, I've been to Spain
where Picasso lit the flame,
Seen the Colosseum at night,
Oh! but it never turned on my light.

Oh, but I like plastic
It's fantastic
Bend me
Shape me
I'm gymnastic
Lay some polyvinyl chloride on me now!

Oh I like plastic
I'm romantic
Multi-coloured and elastic
Lay some polyvinyl chloride on me now!

I wined on Chateau Margo and I passed on caviar
And the chef at the Savoy Grill;
He didn't give me a thrill.
Those hot summer nights when the Karma Sutra held sway
Oh we tried every page
But it had nothing to say, no no no.

Oh, but I like plastic
It's fantastic
Bend me
Shape me
I'm gymnastic
Lay some polyvinyl chloride on me now!

I tried the finest clothes
Pure silk down to my toes
But I've thrown it all away
They belong to yesterday

Oh, but I like plastic
It's fantastic
Bend me
Shape me
I'm gymnastic
Lay some polyvinyl chloride on me now!

J'aime le plastique
J'aime le plastique
I like plastic
Yes I like plastic.

An all-time classic. Love it!

Ce n'est rien que nous n'ayons vu auparavant

I've woken up to the sight of the first air frost on the extensive gardens here at Dolores Delargo Towers - it was foggy overnight and the moisture froze onto leaves and pots, giving a sparkly sheen to everything. Winter drawers on, methinks...

As we crawl ever closer to the weekend, however, we need to get ourselves into the mood for a party [and we're actually having one tonight, via Zoom of course], thermal underwear or no. As the Timeslip Annual 1971 above hints, I am taking a little trip down memory lane; to #adecadeago again [a sort-of-memey-thing I half-heartedly entered into a while back at the suggestion of Ms Scarlet, who is unashamedly recycling her own back-catalogue at the mo] revisiting posts I did ten years ago - and came up with a corker.

From this week in 2010, a double-bill of campery - and Thank Disco It's Friday!

As you, dear reader, will no doubt already know, here at Dolores Delargo Towers we are passionate for most things 80s - the hairdos, the overblown power-ballad dry-ice-laden videos, the padded shoulders, the gradual handover from punk to New Romantics to Madonna to Stock Aitken & Waterman to rave, the almost complete lack of rappers... And of course, in the middle of all this - HiNRG/Italo Disco!

This particular song was a favourite of mine from gay clubbing days in Wales. Like so many dance numbers of that era (notably Voyage, Voyage and Ella, elle l'a), it probably benefited from being sung in its native language (French), so you didn't need to concentrate on how silly the lyrics may be.

Of course, unless a song was American or British we would never get to see the video. And in the case of this remarkably artless effort by Début de Soirée (for it is they), it was probably a very good thing indeed...

Début de Soirée - Nuit de Folie

Not content with just leaving it at that I just had to share another recent discovery, courtesy of our friends in Brittany. You thought the original was bad? Try this marvellous Korean lady-boy karaoke version:

Début de Soirée - Nuit de Folie (Reprise Sud-Coréenne)

I can smell the poppers from here.

Have a great weekend, peeps!

From Liverpool To Wales I wanna hear the music pumping

Sharing a birthday with a mixed bag of luminaries such as CeCe Peniston, Idris Elba, Laugh-in veteran Jo Anne Worley, songwriter Jackie Trent, one of London's great landowners Lady Anne Cavendish-Bentinck, Pink Floyd's Roger Waters, the original "Nosferatu" Max Schreck, MAD magazine cartoonist Sergio Aragonés, Dolores O’Riordan of The Cranberries, and - erm - Buster Bloodvessel from Bad Manners, the late, great Sylvester (James) would have been 72 today.

To get us in the mood for the celebration that is the weekend (yay!), let's have something a little different from the great gay icon himself - a number from his later career, when he ventured into the electro-tinged (sometimes known as "New-Beat") crossover territory that marked the slow decline of Hi-NRG and the ascendancy of House and Techno music. Regardless of what you call it, however, let's just Thank Disco It's Friday!!

Sylvester - Rock The Box

Have a great weekend, peeps!

A little Ceilidh

It's Burns Night - the night when it it is traditional to get a lump of Scottish meat into your mouth and wash it down with whisky...

It also happens to be the start of the weekend, so let us combine the two celebrations in the capable hands of Glasgow's finest, Miss Mary Kiani - and Thank Disco It's Friday!

Mary Kiani - When I call your name

Have a faboo time, dear reader, and don't choke on yer haggis!

Gotta get my gear out ready for a winter spill

Having spent all day yesterday with "our gang" - at one of our newest innovations, a "Film Club" - drinking vast quantities of alcohol, and watching hours of campery (the Technicolour remake of The Prisoner of Zenda, followed by The Grand Budapest Hotel), I was in need of a lie-in. No such luck, as the demon spawn upstairs decided that destroying furniture while screaming at the tops of their lungs was a good idea at 9am on a Sunday...

...and to top it all, the world turned white overnight (which will make a trip to the shops that little bit more tedious than usual)!

Hey ho. We might as well welcome the arrival of winter proper with a suitable number, courtesy of former Edwin Starr protégé turned Hi-NRG singer Mis Laura Pallas:

Laura Pallas - Ski-Ing In The Snow

Let's hope I stay vertical.

Let's cause a nuclear reaction, shake it up

It's Divine's birthday today!

All hail.

By way of a little tribute to the largest of our larger-than-life Patron Saints, here's an old favourite - Shake It Up, "performed" by... Ursula the Sea Witch:

Divine - Shake It Up ("Ursula" Lip-Sync)

Happy birthday, Harris Glenn Milstead aka Divine (19th October 1945 – 7th March 1988)

Read my tribute to the great Diva of Trash on the 70th anniversary of her birth last year - and also reminiscences on her notorious sojourn down the Thames for Gay Pride way back in 1985 (my first Pride)!

I can remember the screams and cheers even now...

Even more Divine here, here and here.

Milestones and boy-bands

"Memory... is the diary that we all carry about with us."
- Oscar Wilde

"I just wanna dance, I just wanna fucking dance!"
- Jerry Springer the Opera

Twenty years? Where do they go? Two decades is a long, long time, but some things you never forget.

For it was on this day in 1996 that my Garry died.

As always - but particularly on such a milestone - I raise a glass to "absent friends".

But, to quote another great diva, let's go on with the show..!

At the end of any working week, I am always in the mood for a party - and, knowing I was about to play one of his fave boy-bands Seventh Avenue, so would Garry be, no doubt.

So to get things started on a suitably boppy note, here's their first hit Love's Gone Mad:

Seventh Avenue - Love's Gone Mad

And by way of a bonus, here are the boys again, showing off their (ahem!) talents at a gay club in Edinburgh called Fire Island - and Ending Upon a High:

Seventh Avenue - Ending Up On A High

Thank Disco (or should that be Hi-NRG?) It's Friday!

Clink clink, Garry. RIP.

Someone told me this was just a dance

On Thursday we celebrated Bananarama singer Sara Dallin's birthday with their hit song Look On The Floor, which I pointed out was a tribute to an earlier Hi-NRG/Italo classic.

So, today let us indulge in the original - and an absolute fave here at Dolores Delargo Towers:

My Mine - Hypnotic Tango

Look on the floor and all is spinning round
Someone told me this was just a dance
And take a chance I ain't met before
Do you think I really have a chance?

Hypnotic tango tango tango

The 80s. Oh, how I love that decade!

My Mine

A load of pants

It's Hazell Dean's birthday!

What more of an excuse do I need to feature the "AussieBum Edition" of her Hi-NRG classic Searchin (I Gotta Find A Man)?



Whew!

Hazell Dean (born Hazel Dean Poole, 27th October 1952)

I wanna sample what's around

Stop the presses!

One of our tackiest "heroines" of 80s Hi-NRG camp, Miss Sinitta, will be making her comeback to the pop world on the main stage at Gay Pride in Trafalgar Square tomorrow - and apparently her new single (that she will debut on the day) is none other than her own mother Miquel Brown's gay-gay-gay hit So Many Men, So Little Time...

Miquel Brown - So Many Men, So Little Time

5 - 10 - 20 - 40 - 50 - 60 - 10 - 80 - 85 - 90 - 95 - ooh

It's morning I open my eyes
And everything's still the same
I turn to the guy who stayed last night
And ask him: "Whats's your name?"

This seems to happen more and more
I love those men one and all
Each new one I meet makes heart beat faster
When I see them so strong and tall

So many men, so little time
How can I lose?
So many men, so little time
How can I choose?

They tell me I'm up to no good
I should just settle down
But I don't wanna stay with just one man
I wanna sample what's around

Feels like I'm in heaven every night
Being here with someone new
A physical thrill, a beautiful smile
And wonderful muscles too

So many men, so little time
How can I lose?
So many men, so little time
How can I choose?

5 - 10 - 20 - 40 - 50 - 60 - 10 - 80 - 85 - 90 - 95 - ooh

So really who cares about love?
The ones that feel, take it away
For 52 weeks of every year
That's a new man every day

It's too hard a choice to make up my mind
So many men turn on my light
Still want to go some, don't want brains
Just give me their bodies tonight

So many men, so little time
How can I lose?
So many men, so little time
How can I choose?

Amen to that.

It's Gay Xmas Eve.

It's looking less likely it will piss down while we are actually marching tomorrow.

So, more than ever.... Thank Disco (or should that be Thank H-NRG?) It's Friday!

Hope yours is a fantabulosa party...

Pride in London

Stop - is this reality?

The world is awash with technology, most of it the size of a bar of soap these days - yet it is barely forty years since the first mobile phone call; thirty years since the first Apple Macintosh computer; twenty-eight years since Windows 3.1 (the first version in colour); twenty-five since GPS satellite technology, Sim City, Lotus Notes and the Nintendo Game Boy; and a mere twenty years since the official launch of the free "World Wide Web", with its (then only) browser Netscape.

Google is only sixteen years old, Blogger is fifteen, Wikipedia is thirteen, Amazon and Facebook are ten, eBay and YouTube are is nine, and Twitter is only eight...

To divert us from thinking about all this, let us embrace the far more comforting futurist visions of the fantabulosa Trans-X - with their only hit, from way back in the early 80's - it's Living On Video:

Trans-X - Living on Video

Give me light
Give me action
At the touch of a button.
Flying through hyper-space
In a computer interface.
Stop - living on video
Stop - integrated circuits.
Stop - sur un faisceau de lumieres
Stop - is this reality?

Travelling in a light beam
Laser rays and purple skies.
In a computer fairyland
It is a dream you bring to life.
Stop - living on video
Stop - integrated circuits

Living on video - sur un faisceau de lumieres
I see your glittering blue eyes
You look at me with a smile.
It's a computer fantasy
It is waiting for you and me.
Living - living on video
Living - living on video

Living - living on video
Living - living on video - stop

I adored this song then, and I adore it now - which is more than I can say about the pace of technological progress!

A surfeit of babies

Convoluted connections, #587 in a series...

It is the end of a mad, hectic week - I was at the splendid Stonewall Awards at the V&A last night, and it's Peter Tatchell's annual "state of the nation address" tonight - but we know what le weekend means. Party time!

It also happens to be the centenary today of the lovely Miss June Havoc, who was the original "Baby June", as featured in the classic musical Gypsy (she was Gypsy Rose Lee's sister in real life).

Baby June, Baby Jane - you can see where this is leading... Here's a fab video mash-up of clips from the magnificently camp Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?, as a showcase for the reissue of a Hi-NRG gem - One Less Bell To Answer by Pearly Gates...

Whew. Thank Disco It's Friday!

Pearly Gates - One Less Bell To Answer (featuring Whatever Happened To Baby Jane)

Read my tribute to June Havoc on news of her death in 2010.

Don't ever stop doing what you're doing

Speaking of "pop-trash-tastic"...

Another notable birthday today is the sadly-missed Harris Glenn Milstead, better known (of course) as the irrepressible Divine!

To mark what would have been her 68th birthday, here is a fab live appearance by the greatest "monster-woman" of them all - at Manchester's legendary Hacienda club in 1983 - with Shoot Your Shot:

Divine - Shoot Your Shot

You got what I want
You got what I need, shoot your shot.
You know how I feel
Come on make it real, shoot your shot.

Don't ever stop doing what you're doing
Don't stop, shoot your shot.
Don't ever stop doing what you're doing
Don't stop, shoot your shot.

No matter what it takes
It's for you to make, shoot your shot.
Give it all you got
You really got a lot, shoot your shot.

Don't ever stop doing what you're doing
Don't stop, shoot your shot.
Don't ever stop doing what you're doing
Don't stop, shoot your shot!

Divine (19th October 1945 – 7th March 1988)

Pop-trash-tastic

It's another "fabulous at fifty" birthday today - Miss Sinitta Renay Malone!

Despite being famous for only a few camp Hi-NRG hits three decades ago, her on-off relationship with the mega-powerful TV mogul Simon Cowell has assured that Amii Stewart's favourite niece has remained in the spotlight for decades since (even if that "relationship" is yet again suffering the indignities of tabloid frenzy of late).

Good luck to her - she gave us all a fab few moments in the 80s. I can smell the poppers even as I play this - it's the pop-trash-tastic Toy Boy!

Sinitta - Toy Boy

Toy boy, toy boy!

Everybody's talking when they see me walking
With this little boy of mine

He's my play thing and I love him
I dress him up looking fine
He ain't got money
People think it's funny
He gives me everything I need

He's my playboy and my love toy
And I want everyone to know
He's my toy boy toy boy
I'm out with my toy boy toy boy

Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday night

When I want a lover
Don't need any other
I know he'll come running to me

He's my gigolo and my Romeo
And I want everyone to know
He's my toy boy toy boy
I'm out with my toy boy toy boy

Speaking of toy boys, I still can't believe the bitch shagged Brad Pitt...



Many happy returns!

Sinitta official website

Let me know what happens here tonight

Continuing our countdown to Gay Xmas this Saturday, I thought I'd step into the Time Machine, and take us back to the heady days when all European dance music seemed to be aimed at us Boys Who Like Poppers.

So here to push all your gay buttons is a classic slice of kitsch from the year I came out (1984), a thumping ItaloDisco/Hi-NRG number by Mr Ken Laszlo (and whatever happened to her?) - Hey Hey Guy.

I love it...

Ken Laszlo - Hey Hey Guy

Let me see what you have done
Let me know what happens here tonight
Love for hire is dangerous
Let me know what happens here tonight

Hey hey guy (Shall I get you)
Hey hey guy (Oh yeah)
Hey hey guy (Stay any longer)
Hey hey guy (Oh yeah)

Steps to heaven, three steps to me
Let me know what you are doing tonight
You love me, but sorry I don't love you
Let me know what you are doing tonight

Twirl those fans, boys!

Gay Pride in London 2013

Standing in the shadows too long

Poofs are everywhere in the news lately, it seems!

• The American courts are deliberating over us.
• The French loony religious right is protesting about us.
• It seems Lech Walesa's support for civil rights does not extend to gays.
• Less importantly, dubiously-talented "singer" Michelle Shocked hates us.
• The new Pope (unsurprisingly) dismisses us as demonic (in public, at least).
• But, of course, Our Glorious Leader Madonna loves us!

As Pamala Stanley says, we're Coming Out Of Hiding...

Pamala Stanley - Coming Out Of Hiding

...but hopefully not dressed as badly as she is.

It's a long weekend, peeps! Have a gay one!