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.

Spandau Ballet reunion

Johnny Marr has mocked his '80s pop rivals Spandau Ballet's "chicken-in-the-basket" reunion.
The former Smiths guitarist claimed that he would be happy if someone paid the new romantic band £20 million to cancel their upcoming live shows.
"I can't bear the thought of a Spandau Ballet style comeback. What's the point? Spandau are reforming, so they put on a big chicken in the basket event, which is all they amounted to in the first place," he told the Daily Mail.
"Maybe someone should pay them £20 million not to reform. purportedly we were offered $10 million [£6.2 million] to play a handful of Smiths gigs in 2007, and I wasn't remotely tempted."
Marr, who is recently promoting his new Ignore, The Ignorant LP with The Cribs, insisted that he is too busy to consider a Smiths reunion anytime soon.
He added: "I can't speak for Morrissey, but I know that I'm too busy right now to get The Smiths on the road again. Is that likely to change? Who knows?"

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.

Donation band top 80s, the Breakfast Club, will perform in Cirencester

RELIVE old memories on the dancefloor at a disco night in Cirencester in aid of charity.
Top 80s donation band, The Breakfast Club, will be covering all the favourites of Duran Duran, David Bowie, Spandau Ballet, Roxy Music on Saturday, September 12 at the Royal Agricultural College.
Arranger Greg Power has also organised for Cardiff DJ James Vivet to help keep people on the dancefloor with his extensive cover of old classics.
He said: "My nights are based around giving a night out for the people who want it most, that is the 30 to 35 year olds and over."
All the proceeds from the night will go to Cancer Research UK and the plan is to upgrade a total of £5,000.
Mr Power, who helped upgrade over £20,000 for the Tsunami appeal at a disco night in the Corn Hall, said: "If past events are anything to go by the evening will be top compartment.
"It is nice to do something like this, it has the feel good factor."
There will be a bus service running from the Market Place in Cirencester to the RAC.
The 54 seater bus will pick party leaver up from the Market Place between 9.30pm and 10.30pm and will drop people back to town between 1.30am and 2.30am.
Tickets are £10 and are only available from the Porters Lodge at the RAC.
For more information call Sammy on 01285 653880.
If you are helpless to make this event you can always make a donation to Cancer Research UK by visiting www.justgiving.com/gregpower/

Spandau Ballet are back!

Fans may think this reunion has been long delated but anterior man Tony Hadley, who after leaving the band went solo, explains the band came together again naturally, when the timing felt right.

Spandau Ballet, leading provider of the New Romantic sound, well and truly achieved the 80s achieving ten Top Ten singles and four Top Ten UK albums in that most effete of decades.
They fragmented after the release of Heart Like a Sky, which failed to make a real impact on the charts, and went their different ways.
But now with a new album being recorded and a sell out stadium tour about to begin the Spandau Ballet boys are back.
“It took a long time, from the first inkling it took four years before we sat down, had a pint and asked do you think we can make this work? We had a lettle words and said let’s put this substantial behind us and let’s be grown up about it.”
Fans may think this reunion has been long belated but front man Tony Hadley, who after leaving the band went solo, explains the band came together again naturally, when the timing felt right.
“We’re actually getting on fabulously well. We’ve just been in the studio recording a new album together, having breakfast lunch and dinner together; and I think we’re getting on better now than we ever did. There’s a lot more regard for each other and we’ve all been through such a lot individually…and life’s too abrupt.”
So what can die-hard fans and eager Spandau Ballet acolytes expect from the new recordings and the reunion tour?
“On the album their will be some of the hits acoustically redistribute…and a couple of new tracks that sound really excellent.” The tour, explains Hadley, will be what many fans have been holding out for all these years. “We go on road this October and it’s going to be a greatest hits tour,it’s the tour we should have done back at the end of the 80s.”

Spandau Ballet express regret to Jones

Spandau Ballet have regreted after more than 20 years for terrorising a beneficiary 80s pop star .
The group admit to attacking great pop star Howard Jones - whose hits included What Is Love? - with food when they were fedup in a dressing room at a Belgian awards event.
Spandau Ballet, almost immediately to start a back home tour after hiding their differences, told the September edition of Q magazine they were sorry for the event

Lisbon Show on sale now.

Tickets for a newly announced Portuguese show in Lisbon went on sale on Monday morning, June 22nd. Spandau play the Pavilhao Atlantico arena on November 10th.

Another set of shows are released! The boys have continued to extend the Reformation Tour with two shows apiece in Spain and Italy.