Friday 30 May 2014

Playing along with the art school boys, part three


Much as I would love to claim to be the artist behind this poster, all credit must go to Simon, who was in the year above me at college and designed and drew this for a party in 1980. (If you should happen to stumble upon this, Simon, then I hope you won't mind me reproducing it here. I also hope you're still drawing!)   I think it's a great piece of graphic illustration, especially considering he was only 18 when he created it.

I've kept it for the last 34 years because, much to my great surprise at the time, a good friend and I were immortalised in it. That's me, apparently, top centre, wearing fishnets and brandishing a cutlass, showing more feistiness (and flesh) than I think I ever did in real life. My beautiful college mate is nearby looking suitably sultry in a Cleopatra get-up. There are one or two others in the crowd which are wonderful caricatures of our fellow students, and I like the fact that Bowie and Jordan (the original) have made a guest appearance in the pic; sadly they never made one at college. All in all it kind of sums up 1980 art school life for me.

Even though I didn't make it to the actual party (I can't remember why), I can probably tell you fairly accurately what would have been played there. Musically 1980 had some interesting things to offer. A quick look at the year's indie charts reveals that the best-selling bands included acts as diverse as Dead Kennedys, Spizzenergi, Joy Division and Crass (I owned them all!) but in December's UK Top 40 you could hear Abba one minute and AC/DC the next (I owned neither!), not forgetting singles by ELO, Kate Bush, Clash, Madness, Spandau Ballet, oh and... St Winifred's School Choir... what an odd mixture.  That month, John Peel aired sessions by the Raincoats, Theatre of Hate and Red Beat.

The murder of John Lennon just a couple of weeks before this party was shocking but, you know, I remember it didn't really touch me in any significant way at the time – unlike the deaths of Malcolm Owen and Ian Curtis earlier that same year.


A great dubby track from Red Beat.

9 comments:

  1. Fishnet and cutlass always a dangerous combination!

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    1. If only I'd known - might have tried it for real! ;-)

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  2. This has tickled me. You obviously made quite an impression on him.

    It's a strong possibility that Black and White and Lola will appearing on my iTunes shortly.

    I remember when the news of John Lennon's death hit our home because I, as a seven year old, got in trouble with a very emotionally unstabilized Mother for making an insensitive remark. This is the same woman who admits that she was making fun of Elvis just before they announced his death on the radio...so, I guess we were even.

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    1. What was weird was that my friend and I weren't even aware he was aware of us at the time! Seeing this first time was a shock, but quite a nice one!

      Yes sounds like you and your mother were even there. At the time of JL's death, he and the Beatles were, to me 'just old music'. Music was only about the present at that point, the present and the future - I had no appreciation whatsoever of what had gone on in the distant years beforehand (even though it was only a comparitively short span of years at the time, it seemed like another age).

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  3. Quite wonderful artifact. Yes. very impressive talent there and he obviously could see things in you that even you couldn't!

    1980 was definitely a fine year on the music front and it would have been extra cool to have owned records by JD, Dead Kennedys AND Abba and AC/DC. I have a feeling a actually recall the JP session to which you refer but, then again, I think he played The Raincoats and Theatre of Hate a fair bit.

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    1. Indeed, I'm glad I hung onto it - better than a photo! (A photo of me in such a get-up would have had to have been destroyed!)

      You're right, SB, it would have been extra cool. You owned records by them all, didn't you?!

      Those bands from the Peel shows were just so of the time, weren't they (obviously... but you know what I mean!)

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    2. Alas, The Dead Kennedys took me a little longer.

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  4. What a great memento. I hope it's framed and on the wall at SDS Acres and not tucked away in a cardboard tube under the bed! All our recent talk about the 1980s has given me cause to re-examine the period myself. I'd completely forgotten, for instance, that Malcolm Owen died around the same time as Ian Curtis. It's strange how some events seem so long ago, while others feel comparatively recent.

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    1. Erm, it's just shoved in a dusty old portfolio - but I like your idea of putting it on the wall!

      I totally agree about the way events seem to have different amounts of distance. What always gets me about looking back is how much we packed into a year - when I look at my own interests and experiences. All the varied phases of my taste in music and fashions etc. seemed to last for ages but in reality were no more than months!

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