The ABBA of New Romantic
Occasional Albums Thing 042 - Duran Duran “Duran Duran”
I met Deb, my wife, in the late summer of 1981. I remember this because The Jam split up in 1982 and I managed to take her to see them before that fateful day. But during that period we were getting into very different stuff, more electronic music. Post Punk had given rise to the likes of the Human League playing completely electronic music. Clubs were putting on Bowie & Roxy nights and what were originally called Futurist nights, a mixture of post punk, Bowie/Iggy/Roxy, Kraftwerk/Krautrock and the new electronic music. Me and Deb were enthusiastic attendees at a weekly Futurist night at Romeo & Juliets nightclub in Birmingham. Before going there we’d usually be found in the Hosteria Wine Bar, hidden up a little alley next to clothes shop Khan & Bell in Birmingham’s Hurst Street. The denizens of the Hosteria were a mixture of freaks and poseurs heading to R&J’s, regulars from Khan & Bell and others heading to the other club across town favoured by the flamboyant dressers and Bowie freaks, The Rum Runner.
The Rum Runner had been a fixture of Birimgham’s nightlife since the mid 60’s. Originally a casino it became a more conventional club by that decades end, home to a house band that in time became prog-metallers Magnum and regularly frequented by Black Sabbath and members of The Move. By the early 80’s it was home to the bright young things, those who wore the daring fashions made and sold by Jane Khan and Patti Bell in Hurst Street (and their shop assistants who at various times included Pete Burns and Boy George) and danced the night away to the new and old electronic sounds. House DJ Nick Rhodes played an eclectic mix (some of it collected together on the compilation “Only After Dark: The Sound Of The Rum Runnerhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Only_After_Dark_(album)#:~:text=%22Only%20After%20Dark%22%20is%20a,punk%2Felectronica%20started%20to%20crystallizethat’s Patti Bell on the cover), that was mirrored and expanded on at Romeo & Juliet’s (add in Bauhaus, DAF, Fashiön, Japan and many others). Oh, Nick was in the Rum Runners new “house band” too, they were called Duran Duran.
Nick Rhodes and John Taylor formed the band that became Duran Duran in 1978, initially with singer Stephen (Tin Tin) Duffy. After burning through many members and playing some initial gigs, one at the Rum Runner, they picked up drummer Roger Taylor (previously of the Scent Organs, local Punk heroes to us in South Brum who we had seen play at our school Youth club) and by early 1980 guitarist Andy Taylor and singer Simon Le Bon. Their stated, aim as I remember from the time, was to make music that blended the Sex Pistols and Chic !
Our tastes were changing in 1981. Although I was still listening closely to The Jam I’d begun getting into Bowie and by association Kraftwerk, Roxy, Iggy Pop and the new Electronic music influenced by those artists like the Human League. Add in the Post Punk bands like Magazine, Bauhaus, Japan, Simple Minds and Tubeway Army. Spandau Ballet had released their first single at the tail end of 1980, the times were indeed a-changin’. Myself and Deb became regulars at the Futurist Nights at Romeo & Juliet’s in Birmingham where you could pose and dance til the early hours to a selection of all those artists mentioned earlier, and more. And then along came a band shamelessly playing music aimed at the Rum Runner/R&J’s/Hosteria crowd, they looked like us, played music pitched at us and they were from Brum (I won’t call them Brummies as only 3 of them were and one of those was actually from Solihull. Try telling them from Solihull that they’re really Brummies and see what the reaction is !). Yep we embraced them wholeheartedly.
Duran’s debut single “Planet Earth” was released in February ’81 and was an immediate dancefloor hit…except with the DJ at Romeo & Juliet’s who, although he played their records, always referred to Duran Duran as “the ABBA of the New Romantics” ! We ignored him and danced anyway as over the next 10 months Duran Duran released 3 singles, all of them what the Northern Soul crowd would describe as Floorshakers. “Planet Earth” was followed by “Careless Memories” (probably my favourite of the 3) and in December we got “Girls On Film”, all 3 are on this album.
There were other killers on here too, “Anyone Out There”, the instrumental “Tel Aviv” and “Friends Of Mine” particularly, the latter always sounded to me as though, in another arrangement, it would have suited Sham 69 ! By the time 1982 came around Duran Duran were bona fide tenny-bopper pop stars with little girls wetting their knickers in the front row of their gigs while screaming themselves hoarse, somewhat different to the time we first saw them at Birmingham Odeon on the night of the Birmingham riots when the freaks, poseurs and night people all paraded down New Street while checking around for rioting youths and flying bricks. Duran Duran burned bright for us in 1981 but by 1982 we’d lost interest…it was fun while it lasted.
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