The "official photographer of the 1980s"

Any long-serving reader of my "regular blog" Give 'em the old Razzle Dazzle will know that one of "our gang"'s occasional divertissements is to attempt to photographically recreate those magnificently-stylised 80s album covers we know and love - see here, here and here for examples.

Today comes sad news that the man who was behind most of those images we were emulating, photographer Brian Griffin has departed to take up residence in the Posing Room at Fabulon.

Here are just a few of the many, many works that encapsulated, if not influenced, the aesthetic that particular [favourite] era five decades ago...

Mr Griffin's work was lauded throughout his career - his photograph for the Depeche Mode LP A Broken Frame [at the top of this post] was chosen for the cover of Life magazine's "The World's Best Photographs: 1980 - 1990", and he was voted The Guardian’s photographer of the decade in 1989. Permanent collections of his photography are held in galleries across the globe, including the National Portrait Gallery, Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery and the V&A.

His impact on popular consciousness, however, is forever cemented in his classic album covers, for the likes of Iggy Pop, Joe Jackson, Psychedelic Furs, Elvis Costello & The Attractions, Siouxsie and the Banshees and Devo, among many, many others. The following is merely a soupçon:

[All works copyright Brian Griffin Estate - click any pic to enlarge]

RIP, Brian Griffin (13th April 1948 – 29th January 2024)

Viv

“It is not possible for a man to be elegant without a touch of femininity.”

“I never look at fashion magazines. I find them incredibly boring. To me, reading a fashion magazine is the last thing I need to do. I've got books I need to read. More people should read books. It's the most concentrated experience you can have. You know, all those incredible geniuses concentrated their lifetimes' experiences in books. It's much better than chattering away to somebody who's never read anything and knows nothing at all.”

“Culture is necessary for human beings to evolve into better creatures.”

"If you wear clothes that don't suit you, you're a fashion victim. You have to wear clothes that make you look better."

"I may be a rebel, but I am not an outsider."

"If in doubt, dress up."

Yet another icon has departed, on a mission to make Fabulon a more stylish place...

RIP, Dame Vivienne Westwood DBE RDI (8th April 1941 – 29th December 2022)

Trompe-l’loeil

[click any image to enlarge]

Photography by the late Robyn Beeche (in collaboration with makeup artists Richard Sharah, Phyllis Cohen and Richard Sharples).

One of the true "Shapers of the 80s", she frequented Steve Strange's Blitz Club and worked with just about everyone who was anyone in that era, including Divine, Andrew Logan, Scarlett, Leigh Bowery, Stephen Jones, Mary Quant and Zandra Rhodes.

For more, read the article Robyn Beeche, Before Photoshop over at the A.G. Nauta Couture blog.

Landmarks on my map

“I've got a mink from Paris,
A ring from Rome,
A whole new wardrobe in my home;
A tune from Teddy,
An Ashworth snap -
These are the landmarks on my map.
I've got just what I always wanted”
- Mari Wilson

As featured in today's Guardian, there's a faboo exhibition of 80s photography by the legendary Peter Ashworth, snapper to the stars, on in London at the moment.

Every one of these photos is iconic - literally a "snapshot" of an important era in my life.

I must go!

Mavericks - a photographic show by Peter Ashworth is on at the Lever Gallery in Goswell Road, Clerkenwell, and has been extended to 20th December 1018 by popular demand.

And the worlds built of age are a stage where we act out our lives

Very sad news today. The iconic Pete Shelley, co-founder of The Buzzcocks - the seminal Punk band who were contemporaries of the Sex Pistols and Siouxsie but whose approach to the genre took a far less antagonistic and more sexually ambiguous tone than their peers, and posed a challenge to the aggro of Punk's pogo-ing, beer-swilling, spitting fans - is dead, far too young, at 63.

As was "revealed" in a tribute article on the BBC today (as if anyone didn't already guess), Mr Shelley wrote all his lyrics in a gender-neutral fashion for a very good reason. Many Buzzcocks songs - including Orgasm Addict, What Do I Get?, and of course, their magnum opus Ever Fallen in Love (With Someone You Shouldn't've) - were, in fact written from Mr Shelley's own perspective, based upon his relationships with men (his fellow band-mate Steve Diggle included).

Here is their most enduring (and beloved) standard, by way of illustration:

Buzzcocks - Ever Fallen in Love (With Someone You Shouldn't've)

Mr Shelley had in reality, of course, never hidden his true feelings. Back in the 90s, in an interview for the US fanzine Outpunk, he was very candid indeed. Here are two pages from that tome, courtesy of that sadly-missed encyclopaedia of all things homo Queer Music Heritage, that tell the story in his own words:



But, although the fey-punk legacy of the Buzzcocks is dear to our hearts here at Dolores Delargo Towers, it was a song from Mr Shelley's short-lived solo career that was the real gay anthem - a song that alone justifies Mr Shelley's place here in the Museum of Camp:

Pete Shelley - Homosapien

I'm the shy boy, you're the coy boy
And you know we're Homosapien too
I'm the cruiser, you're the loser
Me and you sir, Homosapien too

Homosuperior in my interior
But from the skin out
I'm Homosapien too
And you're Homosapien too

And I'm Homosapien like you
And we're Homosapien too

And I think of your eyes in the dark
And I see the star
And I look to the light
And I might wonder right where you are

All the Gods in the sky, way up high
See the world spinning 'round
But the sun and the moon
And the stars are so far from the ground

I'm the shy boy, you're the coy boy
And you know we're Homosapien too
I'm the cruiser, you're the loser
Me and you sir, Homosapien too

Homosuperior in my interior
But from the skin out
I'm Homosapien too
And you're Homosapien too

And I'm Homosapien like you
And we're Homosapien too

And the worlds built of age are a stage
Where we act out our lives
And the words in the script seem to fit
'Cept we have some surprise

I just want this to last
Or my future is past and all gone
And if this is the case
Then I'll lose in life's race from now on

Homosuperior in my interior
But from the skin out
I'm Homosapien too
And you're Homosapien too

And I'm Homosapien like you
And we're Homosapien too

And I just hope and pray
That the day of our love is at hand
You and I, me and you
We will be one from two, understand?

And the world is so wrong
That I hope that we'll be strong enough
For we are on our own
And the only thing known is our love

I don't wanna classify you
Like an animal in the zoo
But it seems good to me to know
That you're Homosapien too

I'm the shy boy, you're the coy boy

I don't wanna classify you
Like an animal in the zoo
But it seems good to me to know
That you're Homosapien too

RIP, Pete Shelley (born Peter Campbell McNeish, 17th April 1955 – 6th December 2018)

Art tart

Who would ever have thought it?

In addition to being a spectacular performance artist, counter-tenor vocalist and 80s icon, the wonderful Klaus Nomi was a fully-qualified pastry chef!



And (of course) the faboo people over at Dangerous Minds have located one of his recipes for Lime Cheesecake, which he once demonstrated on Cable TV...

• Step 1. The crust. It needs a 9-inch pie pan to make the tart in. Take 1 1/4 cups fine 'Graham cracker' [that's 'Digestive biscuits' to us Brits!] crumbs, 1/3rd cup brown sugar, and 1/4 melted butter to make crust. Mix the ingredients together and shape the crust into the pie pan. (Klaus Nomi mentions that it may not seem like the crust will hold together, but if it is packed tightly enough and when it sits overnight, it should hold). The artist also cautions about making the crust too sweet; you may not need to use as much brown sugar.
• Step 2. The filling. It needs 4 eggs, 1 can sweetened condensed milk, and 1/2 cup lime juice. First the eggs have to be separated; placing yolks in one bowl and whites in the other one. Klaus uses the egg shell to actually separate the whites from the yolk by putting the yolk on one side of the cracked shell and letting the whites drip into a separate bowl. Take the bowl with the egg yolks and add the sweetened condensed milk and lime juice. Mix together. Then, in the bowl with the egg whites, whip them until the whites are very, very stiff. Once the whites are stiff it dramatically increases in volume. Slowly fold the whites into the other bowl. Once mixed together, place the filling into the crust.
• Step 3. Take lime peel and cut it into thin strips. Place the lime peel on top of the pie. This has two purposes; a beautiful presentation but also the flavour. The zest really adds a punch to the taste and is meant to be eaten. Then place the tart into the refrigerator for at least several hours, but overnight is recommended in order to firm the tart, make it easier to cut and better consistency.

In this montage scored to Nomi’s version of “You Don’t Own Me,” you can see him baking the recipe starting at the 0:52 mark:

Klaus Nomi - You Don't Own Me

Tasty.

Deliberate trash

"If you own a car, you change that every few years and that's just what I'm doing with my appearance."

"The only thing that separates us from animals, our ability to accessorise."

"You'd never catch me in a pair of fishnets! For one thing, they are not practical. And for another thing, it's just like a tacky drag queen."

"How trashy do I seem? I like deliberate Trash. I collect items like Elvis Presley clock radios and '50s memorabilia. It inspires a lot of my imagery. I like tasteful trash."

We're very sad here at Dolores Delargo Towers. Another great icon of the Eighties, Pete Burns is dead!

There will never be another...

RIP, Peter Jozzeppi "Pete" Burns (5th August 1959 – 23rd October 2016)

More Pete Burns and Dead or Alive here, here and here.

Faded to Grey

"I was the freak of the village, long before Matt Lucas started doing those sketches. I was banned from school but I was a grade A student. It was ridiculous. I wasn't going to be a rugby player and I wasn't going to go down the pit, I was a creative spirit and so I ran away."

"I [became] known as the strictest door whore in London!"

"I don’t think there’s anything as pioneering now as there was in the ‘80s... [The] whole Blitz scene was incredibly pioneering. No one was doing what we were doing."

It is a very sad day for those of us who lived through that magical era that was the early 80s - dressing-up to go to the most selective of clubs, the mix of electronica and (Northern) soul dance music, the carefree toying with the notion of "style" as an antidote to punk, the outpouring of artistic creativity not seen since the rise of David Bowie and Roxy Music - for the man who did more than any other to bring us that world is dead.

Rest in peace, Mr Steve Strange. We all owe you an incredible debt of gratitude.

Steven John Harrington, aka Steve Strange (28th May 1959 - 12th February 2015)