Spandau Ballet Supportive stars

Spandau Ballet helped Gary and Martin Kemp cope with the death of their parents. The brothers say their bandmates – Tony Hadley, John Keeble and Steve Norman – became their "second family" after their parents died within 48 hours of each other in January.Guitarist Gary said: "I think I coped and my brother did too because of the band. It was like having another family to catch us. I think they understood what we were going through."They knew our parents very well. They were moved by it and they supported us."Eileen Kemp was undergoing heart surgery at Bournemouth hospital when her husband Frank had a fatal heart attack. Eileen died shortly afterwards. Bassist Martin told Britain’s Hello! magazine: "It came as a tremendous shock. They spent 50 years of their lives together. My dad wouldn't even go down to the pub with me because he wouldn't leave my mother on her own."That's how close their marriage was. The fact that they went together was in some ways comforting. Like it was meant to be. That's how I came to see it and that helped me deal with the loss."The group – who officially reunited in March this year – split up in 1989 and spent the next 20 years in bitter conflict, with Tony, John and Steve suing Gary over royalty payments in 1999.They eventually reconciled and kicked off their reunion tour in Dublin earlier this month.

First single in 20 years to Spandau Ballet to release

Spandau Ballet are set to release their first single in nearly two decades. Once More will be released on 9 November, 20 years to the month that the so called New Romantics released their debut single Crashed Into Love.
The band, best known for a string of 80s hits including True and Gold, reunited in March of this year. They split under resultedly acrimonious circumstances in 1990. Singer Tony Hadley told the BBC: "We got back together and the tour dates went on sale, none of us could believe the fantastic reaction we got from fans."
He continued: "When the chance came to get into a studio and play music together, we couldn't pass it up."
Tickets for their comeback show at the O2 Arena in London sold out in less than 20 minutes, when they went on sale earlier this year. The success of their comeback appears to have eased communication between the band. Guitarist Gary Kemp said the band had "gelled" this time around.
Kemp said: "The new song was a way for us to show that Spandau Ballet are back, not just to play the hits on tour, but also to take on our generation in the pop charts."
Once More is taken from an album of the same name, which features reworked versions of some of the band's past hits. A release date for the album has not yet been announced.

the unkindest cut of all and now

WITH the benefit of 20:20 hindsight, I can pinpoint the exact moment today when things went phut.
Due to a looming manuscript deadline and a neighbour with a vast collection of Bob Marley routinely played at Stadium Australia volume, I currently decided to ditch my London existence for a weekend away. In a quest for a geography that would invigorate me I headed ''up north''. Specifically to that part of England where the road signs stop listing town names and simply say "the north" and "the south"; where people say hello to you on the streets, and where articles in sentences are optional. This, however, is not the aforementioned moment.
After discovering that my four star hotel didn't have WiFi, my plans of writing all weekend took a slight detour. However, in an uncharacteristic glass-half-full moment, I decided to use the time fruitfully and so booked in to get my hair done at a local salon.
Upon comer at said salon a slight young thing, with hair that would not have been out of place on a member of Spandau Ballet, sat me down and started asking me the standard questions.
We agreed on what I wanted. Or so I thought. This, still, is not the moment.
She went off to mix the colours and I settled in to read a five-year-old copy of a magazine providing useful tips on decoupage and baking.
She came back and we began the small talk challenge, where she asked questions to which she had no interest in hearing the answers and I provided answers in the hope of shutting down the conversation.
About half way into the challenge, accordingly with my head half covered in aluminium foil, she mentioned that until two weeks ago her hair had been waist long. Given it was now cut in an homage to the New Romantics, this piqued my interest. ''Really?'' I say. ''Did you get it done here?''
She laughed out loud and said ''No!'' with such force that the foil strips tinkled in the breeze.
Faced with the prospect of asking her to stop half way through, I reasoned that clearly she didn't do her own hair so she was probably the talented one and I would be fine.
And that, dear reader, is the moment when, instead of getting a selection of autumnal low lights and a trim, I ended up looking like David Bowie as the Goblin King in Labyrinth.

Loss of studios to Spandau Ballet

Spandau Ballet's Steve Norman has hit out at modern "clinical" recording techniques, which have been blamed for many traditional studios closing down.
The saxophonist and guitarist told of his sorrow at the collapse of facilities such as the Olympic Studio in Barnes, west London, which played host to musical wonderful and was the setting for Procol Harum's recording of A Whiter Shade Of Pale.

Norman told London's Evening Standard that the band had bonded at the Olympic: "We had such a fantastic time the studio makes bands productive and creative."


He continued: "It had a magical burden on us. Our squabbles are well known, but the studio was a place where we could come together."

Norman also told the newspaper a "friendly rivalry" developed in studios with popular such as their 1980s generation Duran Duran.

Norman, whose band are known for classics such as Gold and True, said the loss of studios will make the expension "very clinical".

He said: "When you go to a studio, you are going into work. It application respect. You don't get that with a backroom or in people's bedrooms."

A holocene report titled The Software Slump found that studios are being clasped on one side by record companies driving down what they are prepared to pay, coupled with a rise in home recording technology, allowing musicians to produce tracks from their bedrooms.