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Dark Money Fuels Transphobic Opposition to the Equal Rights Amendment and Equality Act
by Vins April 11, 2022
The Eagle Forum, Concerned Women for America (CWA), the Independent Women's Forum (IWF) and other women's groups leading the opposition to the Equal Rights Act and the Equality Act are funded by dark money from a variety of right-wing interest groups, Truthout reported in March 2022. Julia Peck, Ansev Demirhan, and Alyssa Bowen wrote that the anti-feminist legacy of Phyllis Schlafly, who mobilized conservative women to oppose passage of the original ERA, back in 1977, "very much lives on" through the Eagle Forum, the CWA, and the IWF, but that these groups use transphobia as a new tactic in mobilizing opposition to the ERA, which would guarantee equal rights for all US citizens regardless of sex, the Equality Act, which would amend the 1964 Civil Rights Act to prohibit discrimination based on sex, sexual orientation and gender identity.
As Peck, Demirhan, and Bowen explained, "dark money"— funding used to influence elections, judicial nominations, ballot measures, and legislation, whose sources are kept secret from the public—"gives corporations and the wealthy undue sway in politics with little accountability."
Many of the donors to the Eagle Forum are unknown, Truthout reported, but the Eagle Forum and its related Eagle Forum Education & Legal Defense Fund have received "tens of thousands over the years from the Bradley Foundation and Ed Uihlein Family Foundation, which are both massive foundations with deep connections to the far right." (Both of these foundations, Truthout noted, also funded groups that undermined public faith in the 2020 presidential election results.) Between 2010-2013, the CWA (and its partner organization, the Concerned Women for America Legislative Action Committee) received more than $11 million from groups linked to the libertarian billionaire Charles Koch, including Freedom Partners, Center to Protect Patient Rights, and TC4 Trust. The IWF, which began as Women for Clarence Thomas, has links to Koch brothers money and the Bradley Foundation. According to the most recent IRS filings of the IWF and its partner organization, the Independent Women's Voice, the two groups received more than $4.75 million from their funders since 2014.
Noting that 2021 saw "record highs in anti-trans violence and rhetoric" and was "the worst year for legislative attacks on LGBTQ+ people in recent history," Peck, Demirhan, and Bowen reported that anti-ERA groups such as the Eagle Forum, CWA, and IWF are "riding the recent wave of transphobia." In addition to promoting anti-trans positions to their own members, these groups seek to impress their position on the courts and in legislatures. For example, in October 2021 a senior policy analyst at the IWF, Inez Stepman, told members of a House committee that the ERA would put women's physical safety at risk, invoking the violence cisgender women allegedly face at the hands of transgender women in prisons. As Peck, Demirhan, and Bowen concluded, "The fear-mongering about expanded transgender rights—grounded in the baseless claim that transgender women somehow represent a threat to cisgender women—is simply the latest in a history of attacks on the ERA based on the sexist notion that women are in need of protection and not equality."
Source: Julia Peck, Ansev Demirhan and Alyssa Bowen, "Dark Money "Women's Groups" Are Using Anti-Trans Scaremongering to Oppose ERA," Truthout, March 22, 2022.
Student Researcher: Mia Wood (San Francisco State University)
Faculty Evaluator: Amber Yang (San Francisco State University)


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The Post-Punk Professor
Reading my way through pop culture one book at a time
Blitzed!
Blitzed! The Autobiography of Steve Strange (2002)
Steve Strange
(Or Notes on New Romantic/New Wave Masculinity)
For all the talk about Spandau Ballet and Duran Duran as New Romantic bands, it's really Steve Strange who was the first New Romantic. Spandau might've supplied the soundtrack to the scene, but Steve Strange provide the venue: the Blitz. The Blitz was essential not just as a place for the New Romantics to gather but it was also a state of mind. Strange and business partner/club DJ Rusty Egan created an oasis where artists in various genres and levels of development were able to express themselves and their world view through their fashion and through the music to which they liked to dance. Strange's clubs were staging grounds for self-discovery and artistic development and the Blitz was also vital to the revitalization of dance club culture in England in the late 70s and early 1980s. Disco obviously made people want to gather together and boogie, but the Blitz represented a true "club culture" in that its reach of influence extended beyond the dance floor. It was a place to dance, be seen, and to draw inspiration. For the New Romantics, dancing in a club replaced or bettered seeing a live band. In a club, the dancers were the show and the music existed to support their performance. Gary Kemp even argued that Spandau Ballet was "a mirror to [their] audience. An applause, if you like" (I Know This Much, 122).
New Romantic makeup was way beyond guyliner. Strange set the bar for experimentation high!
Strange was also the singer for the band Visage whose song, "Fade to Grey" is a cornerstone of the New Romantic sound. Midge Ure and Billy Currie of Ultravox, Rusty Egan, and John McGeoch, Dave Formula, and Barry Adamson of Magazine rounded out Visage's early lineup. Strange's extreme fashion and makeup inspired many of the other New Romantics who went to the Blitz. Strange had style, panache, and, well, balls. Not only did he not let Mick Jagger into the Blitz one night, he regularly excluded the "little people" by turning a hand mirror to them and saying, "Would you let yourself in?" (51). He was a creative, funny man who never quite got enough credit for helping so many people launch their careers. He died far too young in 2015.
I thought I would approach this post differently than the others I've written so far. My goal for this summer was to write a journal article that back in June I thought might be about Adam Ant. Or Liberace. Or both? Maybe something about celebrity autobiographies since last summer I wrote a chapter on gay celebrity autobiography for a book about gay autobiography edited by a former colleague. It took awhile for all of those kinda-related-but-not-really ideas to percolate and turn into a drinkable brew, but I do think I have some idea of what I want to do now. In order to pursue more solid thoughts about the whole thing – and to give me more to work from when it comes to researching – I'm going to use this post on Strange's autobiography to track/record what I've already identified as recurring themes and to maybe discover a few more.
What's the big idea? I would like to write about New Romantics/New Wave masculinity: how do men who participated in a certain genre(s) of music in the early 1980s write about themselves as men? How do they talk about their identity and what is different about it for them and for us, the readers? What can we learn from looking at musicians who participated in creating culture at a certain period of time and in a particular place? The other issue I need to wrestle with is how a musician's autobiography might be different from celebrities in other fields.
Musical inspirations (Bowie, Roxy Music, Sex Pistols):
Bowie was the gateway drug for both punks and the New Romantics who followed them. Every single man I've read about: Marc Almond, Pete Burns, Adam Ant, Boy George, Gary Kemp, Tony Hadley, Andy Taylor, John Taylor, and Billy Idol were all obsessed with Bowie.
"I liked Marc Bolan and Bryan Ferry, but Bowie was the best. By the summer of 1973 he was at his commercial peak, having already topped the album charts with Aladdin Sane earlier in the year. I had his posters all over my wall. He seemed to be perfect. He had a great look and made great music. I admired the way he was able to reinvent himself with a new look for each album" (17).
And the inevitable slide from Bowie into punk:
"It was places like this [clothing stores in London] that I first saw the punk thing happening long before the press picked up on it. People like Siouxsie Sioux and Billy Idol would be hanging around and I'd see how they were being creative and not just wearing clothes they had bought in the high street chain stores […] Back in Wales I started putting my own outfits together, wearing plastic bin bags and ripping up clothes and safety pinning them back together. I dyed my hair jet black and made it stand up in spikes. Word soon got around about my appearance. The Western Mail ran an article with the headline 'Hey punks, meet the chain gang' and said I was the first punk in Wales. There was a photo of me in my black plastic jumpsuit with my eyes heavily made up, my nose pierced and three chains from my nose to my left ear. The feature talked about this outrageous new cult and quoted me as saying that the only thing that worried my mum 'is the neighbours'" (25-26).
Strange saw the Sex Pistols at the Stowaway Club in Newport, Wales in September, 1976.
"The Sex Pistols had the biggest effect on me. I saw those four lads and thought that anyone could get up onstage and be in a band. Seeing them made me decide I wanted to have another go at being in a band. They were saying 'we can't play' and neither could I, but now it didn't matter" (27).
There's also a great story about Strange's first gay sexual experience being with Jean-Jacques Burnel, the bassist of The Stranglers. They hooked up after a Stranglers show. Strange took Burnel back to his mom's house! That's not part of the autobiographical study or anything, it's just good gossip!
In returning to Bowie, Strange and a few other New Romantics were featured in Bowie's video for "Ashes to Ashes" after Bowie took in the scene at the Blitz one night, was impressed with what he saw, and asked Strange to turn up with some friends the next day to make a video. Strange, Judith Franklin, Darla Jane Gilroy all dressed "as gothic ecclesiastical priests, in black and white, topped off with beads and crucifixes" (52) and walked along the beach with Bowie followed by a bulldozer.
In these examples, Strange reflects what many post-punk/new wave/New Romantic men articulate in their autobiographies. Bowie sets the example for outrageous fashion as an outward expression an internally complex (non-traditional male) self. Additionally, fashion and music become twinned and equitable modes of exploration, and finally, the Sex Pistols give the writer courage to explore fashion's furthest reaches and/or to start a band.
This reliance on fashion is an important clue to new wave masculinity. It isn't all that different from Mods or Teds or any other British teen subculture, but there is one essential difference: an expressed desire to be a new kind of man, one not bound by society's definitions of traditional masculinity. This desire to be something other than a traditional man was explored via punk but through New Romanticism, it become san embrace of more feminine clothing and makeup. Punks weren't traditionally masculine but they were tough and toughness doesn't necessarily transfer over into post-punk sensibilities.
Experimentation/invention of self
Strange has a pretty amazing tale of leaving Wales to live with various punk luminaries he met after shows. He was friendly with Glen Matlock and lived in a squat with Billy Idol. He was also in a punk band called the Moors Murderers with Chrissie Hynde, though the band dissolved before they could actually record anything. Punk, however, stopped being interesting for Strange.
Strange, Billy Idol, and Perry Lister
"I'd go to a Siouxsie and the Banshees gig in a Vivienne Westwood outfit, and the bottom of bill would be a skinhead band or a band like UK Subs. It got so the stage where in your blood you thought, 'I've got to get out of here or I'm gonna get my head kicked in.' Punk, which was supposed to bring people together was now dividing them again. An overtone of violence was in the air when these band were on the bill. All the original rebellious force of punk, and creating your own style, was gone. The Daily Mirror was telling you how to rip your clothes and pretend you had a pierced nose. Unbeknown to me at the time, I was getting bored with the scene and I was getting read to move on" (37).
Strange attributes his inspiration to move on to the violence that permeated the scene which leeched the fun from it, while also acknowledging the queer culture that provided another impetus to exit punk. Without queer participants (like Strange himself), New Romanticism wouldn't have happened, and the straight, cis male members of the scene would've most likely not have had the courage to push boundaries as far as they did.
"I was disillusioned by punk and felt it would be nice to be in a band or even kick-start something myself. I had already met some of the colourful characters that felt the same way. I was walking across Piccadilly Circus one day when I heard a camp voice shout out, 'Look at her in her Vivienne Westwood suit. Where are you going?' It was Philip Sallon, who had been a bit of a face on the London scene for years. He was with Boy George, then just plain George O'Dowd […] After a while, and a few drinks, George and I got talking and we both agreed that we were bored with punk and wished something else would happen" (38).
Boy George writes a great deal about Sallon in his autobiography. What a fascinating man! He was a Quentin Crisp for the punk set. Unabashedly out and unafraid of public reaction to his bizarre outfits, Sallon stalked the edges of the New Romantic scene, providing inspiration, starting fights, and just generally being a diva. This queer connection is important because it also extends backward to punk with Club Louise, the lesbian club that allowed punks to hang out and drink when most other pubs and clubs were ejecting them. Sexual identity, then, plays a role not only for New Romantics like Strange and Boy George but also in the creation of marginalized albeit safe spaces in which outsiders of various stripes can gather. Sexual identity also connects to the non-gay musicians in this "study" (keeping the quotation marks around that so it doesn't seem too pretentious!) who regularly were beaten up and taunted with homophobic slurs because of their fashion and makeup.
Strange and Boy George at the Blitz
Obviously, Bowie is also a queer connection. In his autobiography, Gary Kemp reflects on his first Bowie sighting while watching Top of the Pops at a friend's house: "A Mephistophelean messenger for the Space Age, expounding a manifesto that was almost spiritual in its meaninglessness, he spoke his words through a grinning confidence that had me signing up to whatever he was selling for the rest of my life. Pointing his long fingers down the barrel of the lens he sang: 'I had to phone someone so I picked on you,' and I felt that he had. And oh, but oh, when that guitar solo clawed and choked its way out of the Gold Top Les Paul, brandished like a musical laser gun, the Starman Bowie threw his arm around his golden-suited buddy and I wanted to go to that planet" (53-54). Kemp's memory of a moment of camaraderie between Bowie and Ronson is also charged with the same sexual frisson the two exuded in the performance.
Strange's desire for something else to happen after punk manifested in club culture. Strange met Rusty Egan (who was in the Rich Kids with Glen Matlock) and the two discussed how tired of punk they were. They shared an interest in European music like Kraftwerk and Nina Hagen and a desire to bring something akin to Studio 54 to the London club scene (43). Though Strange differs from the other new wave men I've read about in that he was less motivated by music and more into the scene that surround the music, all of the men were at some point convinced that their particular interest in music was a way to express a mode of being that was no longer fulfilled through punk.
"We were young and had balls to do anything, so we looked for a venue where we could set up our own club. We were very shrewd. We went to Billy's, a club at 69 Dean Street, on a Tuesday, and saw that it was empty […] The people hanging out there were mostly Soho's sex workers, grabbing a breather. Two weeks later we went back to the owner and said we could pack the club […] We printed up flyers with the tantalizing line, 'Fame Fame Jump Aboard the Night Train/Fame, Fame, Fame. What's Your Name?' We opened in Autumn 1978 and very quickly we were successful. All the punks who were closet Davie Bowie fans turned up. Soon it was a regular event known as Bowie Night" (43).
Strange and Visage outside of the Blitz
"The people who turned up were a bit of a mish-mash, but what they all had in common was that they were fed up with punk, and had a love of David Bowie. Rusty, who DJ'd tried not to play much punk music, so there was a lot of Bowie on the turntables, along with futuristic German music, "Being Boiled" by The Human League, "Warm Leatherette" by The Normal, the theme from Stingray and torch songs from Marlene Dietrich" (44-45).
This mash up of past and present in the music the club kids listened to also reflected in the clothing they wore. Strange and others wore a mix of styles and time periods which reflected a futurism that gazed backward to the past for inspiration and guidance. In opposition to punk's torn and tattered fashion, the New Romantics put on more: more fabric, more makeup, more hairspray. Their mix of eras and their disregard for class barriers (all of those working class kids wearing the clothes of their historical "betters"!) allowed the New Romantics to protest class barriers like the punks did, but simply in a more beautiful way.
New Romantic fashion as a reaction against punk's masculinity/non-acceptance of gayness
The New Romantics weren't always called the New Romantics. Betty Page (nee Beverly Glick) writing for Sounds magazine was the one, it seems, to give the scene this name. In her interview with Gary Kemp – Spandau Ballet's first interview in September, 1980 – Kemp discussed the political importance of fashion for the working class. Taking this information and combining it with her observations of the clothes many in the scene were wearing, Page wrote the headline for her article: "The New Romantics – a manifesto for the Eighties".
"There was drinking all the time. We never needed much of an excuse for a party. It was ironic that England was about to sink into an economic recession, but then they say you party the hardest when the ship is sinking" (49).
"Everything was going well at the Blitz. [Boy] George and I were being seen at parties, and a day later it would be in the gossip column as the national newspapers tried to give a name to the movement. The Face and i-D had started and they were reporting on the scene as well, dubbing it the Cult With No Name, the Blitz Kids and the Now Crowd. Pick up the Evening Standard, and there was my stark, white face, scarlet lipstick, jet black, spiky hair 12 inches high, steamed and crimped with steel steamers, staring out at you" (49).
I think of this inability to find a name to accurately call the scene a way in which Strange and the others queered their subculture. Countering class and economic troubles with fashion was the New Romantics way of asserting an alternative identity that transcended labels whether they were personal, political, or sexual. The men and women tended to look alike as makeup and hairstyles were so extreme they quickly destroyed gendered distinctions. The new masculinity of post-punk was androgynous and men sought to be unusual, beautiful, and distinct without concern for appearing "manly" in a conventional sense.
"The more coverage our clubs got, the more the media tried to pin a label on us. But we changed so fast it was impossible. Every week the clothes would be different, as people constantly tried to outdo each other. One week I'd turn up in a bishop's outfit, the next week I'd be working on the door dressed as an adult version of Little Lord Fauntleroy.
Somehow though the term New Romantic seemed to stick and I could really argue with it. Without trying, or even knowing what we were doing at first, Rusty and I had kick-started a whole new movement, the first original subculture to come out of England since punk" (62).
Strange by the fireside
What fascinated me the most about the New Romantics is how short, strange, and hard-to-define the movement was. Because "every week the clothes would be different", it was impossible for the New Romantics to establish a singular identity around which a more stable subculture would really exist. As James Truman mused in a 1981 article in The Face, the New Romantics confused everyone: "The real event of the season hasn't been the music, the clothes or the attitudes; it's been the way in which the media has steamed ahead in search of the right context, the real significance. There's been Blitz as right wing conspiracy, Blitz as the final step in rock's evolution and plenty of stuff too clever to understand".
Those ruffles, however, did really take over the 80s.
For Strange, recovery from an addiction to pills and heroin is coupled with his sexuality as his mother was only able to accept his being gay once she attended counseling sessions when he was in treatment (177-178).
There is no romantic partnership as there is in the concluding chapters of most gay autobiographies. Strange, though, does highlight a peaceful resolution to a previously tumultuous relationship: his friendship with Boy George. The end of Strange's autobiography describes Boy George reaching out to him to ask for permission to use Visage's song "Fade to Grey" in the musical Taboo. Strange describes meeting Drew Jaymson who plays Strange in the musical as being a surreal encounter with himself.
"I couldn't really imagine anyone impersonating me, but when I met Drew I could immediately see what George was getting at. I can just picture him, standing outside the real-life Billy's in his – or rather my – French Revolutionary garb, silver-topped cane in hand, behind the gold rope, vetting the potential clientele […] Drew wanted to capture my personality but also capture the bitchiness of the era, when it was all about being seen wearing the right designer labels and drinking the right champagne. Here I was in 2002 telling myself how to be me 20 years after it all began" (187).
This doubling of self is a fascinating way to end an autobiography. I will have to deal with this more effectively at another point in time, but I do think it points to a construction of a remembered self that reflects on the autobiographical process. Meeting the man who playing him onstage causes Strange to remember himself in the present tense (telling himself how to be himself) which says something about memory but perhaps also about the nature of subcultures.
Death of parent
Strange was very close to his mother but like many of the other men I've read about, had a strained relationship with his father. Even KROQ DJ Richard Blade writes about the death of his father in his book. There are obvious observations to make about the connection between masculine identity and one's father but I'll leave that for another post.
Respectability – appealing to teen girls as being a mark against them
This wasn't an issue for Visage because they weren't a typical "heartthrob" band, but Strange does say that the New Romantic scene as a whole didn't receive respect from the NME or Melody Maker (49) because it was perceived to be too insular.
I have a number of points to explore and others to knit together into a more cohesive view of this subculture. Strange's book as really helped me to think about the issues present when exploring a subculture in general. As opposed to someone like Adam Ant who disavowed his connection the scene, Strange places himself at the center of it. He takes the fashion aspect of it seriously, queers aspects of the scene, and gives something other than just a musician's point of view. Now I need to kick myself out of research phase and really get to writing!
postpunkprof Music Autobiography (1980s), New Romantic Autobiography 1 Comment July 19, 2018 July 21, 2018 15 Minutes
I Know This Much: From Soho to Spandau
I Know This Much: From Soho to Spandau (2009)
After seeing the documentary on Spandau Ballet, Soul Boys of the Western World, I was struck by a wave of Spandau obsession. I'd always been a Duranie, though Spandau's presence was inescapable, of course, as "True" was a huge hit at the same time Duran Duran fever had a hold on me. What Soul Boys of the Western World did for me, though, is to show me the depth and artistry of Spandau's career that went far beyond "True". I was really struck by the emphasis on their working class origins and their participation in the New Romantic movement inspired me to look more deeply into a subculture that many don't know even existed.
Spandau Ballet during their first trip to NYC, 1981
If you are a fan of Spandau, are English, or frequent British based music sites, you might be aware that after reuniting in 2009, Spandau went through a tumultuous period that resulted in Tony Hadley leaving the band (before the reunion, the band had last played together in 1990 and were only to meet in a courtroom in a battle over residuals by the end of that decade). Spandau now has a new singer and recently played a couple of sold out shows in London. The response from hardcore Spandau fans has been … mixed. Some have readily accepted Ross William Wild as the new singer, or are at least willing to give him a chance. Some have declared that the band is nothing without Tony's voice. Some blame guitarist/songwriter Gary Kemp for destroying the band. Some think Tony let Spandau and the fans down. I lurk in several Spandau fan groups on Facebook and the arguments continue as to who is at fault and if the band is renewed or doomed. Hardcore fans are very, very upset about the whole thing.
In his autobiography, Kemp reflects on what began to go wrong within a band that had been formed through genuine friendships and artistic desire:
Where did the end start? Certainly it would have gone unnoticed in 1986, so much good stuff was happening. We were famously 'five mates', 'the Angel Boys', closer than any other band, drinking pals on a permanent world bender and having the time of our lives. But at some time, something must have started imperceptibly to alter things, a mutation of a single cell, unnoticed at first, but with our fate contained within it. Where can I find the first fissure, the first footfall of the trouble that was to arrive? (243)
Kemp sees the beginning of the end as accepting the starring role – along with his brother Martin – in the 1990 movie, The Krays. In truth, though, his autobiography as a whole is an examination of the many little cuts that led to the death of the band.
Death is the organizing force of the book as Kemp begins his story as a ghost looking back at his own life and ends with the death of his parents. In between there is the death of class divisions, of the band's names and musical genres, of Spandau Ballet itself, and in the court case which finally severs Kemp's songwriting from the rest of the band, of friendships that had lasted 20 years. It is a book largely about loss, though it isn't joyless or without humor. Kemp is, however, interested in dissecting/illustrating the ins and outs of band life but also the role his own attitudes played in the decisions Spandau Ballet made along the way.
Kemp repeatedly returns to class and the role it played in his life and career. He prides himself on coming from a working class family but recognizes the complications of continuing to identify as working class when one becomes a successful musician. Before success in Spandau, however, Kemp and the others who made up the band – brother and bassist Martin Kemp, saxophonist and percussionist Steve Norman, singer Tony Hadley, and drummer John Keeble – would all use their working class backgrounds to their advantage in the emerging club scene in London in the late 70s and early 80s.
Kemp's discussion of the Blitz club, fashion, working class politics and identity was my favorite part of the book. Unlike Hadley who seemed a bit embarrassed and bemused about his fashion from the time, Kemp embraces it, really seeing it as a political statement as much as an artistic one. He also discusses the scene which lead to the New Romantic moniker with great detail:
Blitz was a wine bar in Great Queen Street decorated with thirties memorabilia. It suited our theme of dancing while Rome burned. [Steve] Strange wore his hair and heels high, and tottered at the door with a silver-topped cane, while hundreds, desperate to burn brightly in these dark times, block the street outside. (93)
Kemp goes on to name Stephen Jones, Stephen Linard, Melissa Caplan, Fiona Dealey, Sade, John Galliano, Boy George, Princess Julia, Jeremy Healy, Marilyn, Rusty Egan, and Mige Ure among many others as Blitz regulars who all went on to find fame in fashion, film, and music. The New Romantic scene relied heavily on the creativity of young people who wanted to look incredible but had no funds to make it happen. The Kemp brothers were fortunate to have a mother who was willing to make her hot-on-the-club-scene sons a couple of zoot suits, while the others found would they could at Oxfam or stores with lax security measures. This working class ingenuity resulted in a glorious mix of fashion from a huge range of time periods and styles. These inventive fashions allowed the kids wearing them to transcend time and place, but most importantly they transcended class as well. Kemp and others like him became fantastical peacocks, indeterminate of gender, class strata, and any other social or cultural markers. They were inspired by punk but were most interested in surpassing it in terms of social disruption. What better way to stealthily bomb the mainstream than to infiltrate them with style and pop music? Kemp and his band of gorgeous outsiders were determined to become the soundtrack to this movement.
An example of Spandau's adventurous fashion in the early days of the band
Spandau didn't immediately infiltrate the Top 40. Kemp traces the many permutations of sound and style of the band but the book is most concentrated on Spandau's glory years which naturally reflect the excesses of top-earning rock stars. Kemp thoughtfully unravels the complex tapestry that is class and money when he discusses the band first making big money. Moving into his own place, he muses:
It was more than a physical move away from home. Those aspirational yearnings that I'd been nurturing […] all those years before were now fully fledged and allowed free flight. But as I placed art and books on the wall, church candles and interior magazines on the black enameled coffee table, I felt a strong sense of denying everything my family was. I sat on my William Morris chair – designed by the esteemed architect Philip Webb, I hasten to add – and, with a glass of claret in my hand and something light and choral on the stereo, I realised I'd become middle class […] My desire for higher things left me appearing like a snob. Or maybe I just was. Waves of pride and shame would alternately crash against me, especially when Martin and I parked our matching Porsches side by side outside our parents' home in a street full of rusting Fords. Were the locals proud of their prodigal sons or were we rubbing salt (Malvern, of course) into the wounds of a beleaguered working-class neighbourhood? Money left me a mass of neurotic contradictions, and, as much as I wanted a more cultured lifestyle and aspired to the other side of the Essex Road, I was still riven with guilt about it and the fear that I might be deserting my roots. (178-179)
Although class issues have come up a lot in the books I've read so far, Kemp writes about his conflicted feelings in a touching and profound way. As an American, I don't relate to class in the same way as the English do (or at least English musicians do). Though the American press is quick to latch onto success stories that include a performer coming up from a humble background, there isn't as much emphasis on the loss of culture and self once that class status has changed. Most American celebrities, including musicians, don't speak a great deal about the meaning class has had in their lives, unless it is a discussion of "authenticity" as it pertains to a performance of toughness or street credibility. But class is an issue for English musicians (and a continuing one at that – for example, check out this article in Pop Matters) and Kemp writes about it in what seems to me an honest and complicated way.
Class intersects with band's stylization of itself, too, as Spandau left behind the more experimental clothing of their past to embrace a more traditional "pop star" look including Anthony Price suits just like Duran Duran wore. They pursued hits and reflected a sense of success in their upscale looks as well as in their slickly produced singles, their most famous of which, "True", made them seem like romantic softies instead of the arty upstarts they were originally. The movement from their earlier songs like "To Cut A Long Story Short" to the more polished sounds of "I'll Fly For You" felt to the band like they were moving into more serious (and radio friendly) territory, but the press was more concentrated on who the band played to and how they looked while doing it:
During our fall from grace with Diamond the common judgement from the serious rock press was that we were fashion-obsessed dandies who couldn't play and that we'd had our run on the fickle train of youth culture and been swiftly forced to alight. There was a certain amount of glee and told-you-so in their statements. Now they saw our new, successful, smiling version as irrefutable evidence that we were interested only in financial rewards and not musical credibility. (188)
Not being thought of as serious musicians is a recurring theme in the autobiographies of 80s pop stars I've read so far. Though each musician/singer embraced their teen appeal with degrees of bemusement, they all also felt the hard graft they'd put into their musicianship or songwriting was being overlooked. This idea of respectability is something I want to delve into in the journal article I am planning on writing on what I'm (tentatively) calling "New Wave masculinity". What hinders getting the respect of the press is primarily the band's fanbase, not the actual musical product. And that fan base? Teen girls. They are the kiss of death. A recent article in Pitchfork clarifies:
When fame is girded by a swelling teenage, female fanbase immediately, that celebrity becomes false, temporary, and unearned. We're always grappling for a reason to disregard the value of a popular—and populist—product because blindly embracing it means the market research and Simon Cowell-eque figures behind it have duped us again. The presence of teen girls offers up a handy barometer: if they like something you can be rest assured it's not worth a serious listener's ear [,,,] female fans are seen as less legitimate, so their adoration is an instant credibility-killer. The crux of teen-girl illegitimacy is the assumption that they are incapable of the critical thinking their older, male counterparts display when it comes to their favourite bands.
Even Kemp describes an encounter with teen girl fans as having witnessed a flock of "Hitchcockian birds" as the girls screamed, cried, and threw themselves against a plate glass door while watching the band walking into a radio station.
Are there any other kind?
Spandau, of course, soldiered on in their career, making more albums while the in-fighting between them increased. Kemp writes a great deal about how controlling he was, from writing all of the songs to dictating how Tony Hadley should sing a particular line. This control is what lead to the court case Hadley, Keeble, and Norman brought against Gary in the 1990s. Kemp characterizes it as a decision to have his personal publishing company to stop contributing to the costs of running the band (since he was the lone songwriter in the band). He says that long-time manager Steve Dagger "told the others" and that "there was no confrontation about it, but it was a decision that would have a very slow-burning fuse indeed, and more destructive firepower than anything [he] could possibly imagine" (259). Well, yeah! It seems a little naïve to say that you couldn't know that making a decision to stop sharing monies with the band would result in such anger. I think the court case, though, wasn't just about the money but about the idea that somehow Kemp was the only important member of the band. But as Kemp says, by the time Heart Like a Sky was being recorded, it was obvious the band was falling apart. He wanted to hurt the band for taking him for granted and to prove to them that he was the real center of Spandau Ballet.
In photos, however, Tony was usually posed as the center of the band because he was the tallest (sorry, Gary!)
Kemp concludes the book with the band's reunion a decade after the court case in which he was triumphant. The story of their getting back together is interwoven with the story of his parents' death. Kemp's father practically died right in front of him and he along with his brother Martin was tasked with telling their mother of her husband's death while she was hospitalized during a battle with cancer. After they'd told her, Kemp says that, "the second or third thing my mother said through her tears after she'd hear what had happened was this: 'And he was so looking forward to [the reunion of] Spandau Ballet' (310). Four days later she, too, died. These profound deaths make the whole "let's get the band together!" ending of the book pretty melancholy to read. Knowing that the band wouldn't stay together in their original form also makes this ending a bit sad. But it's an excellent book in which Kemp is honest about his flaws and he's willing to laugh at himself in the process of exposing them. There's also stuff about his acting career, his love life, and lots of tales of excess while on the road. An overall good read, whether you are a fan or not.
In terms of my New Romantic research, this book is indispensable. I really admire Kemp and I'm grateful for his continuing triumphing of the importance of New Romanticism. (He also also liked a few of my tweets which was, like, the greatest thing ever!)
Please enjoy a few of the following selections from the Spandau Ballet oeuvre:
postpunkprof Music Autobiography (1980s), New Pop Autobiography, New Romantic Autobiography, Uncategorized 2 Comments July 7, 2018 July 7, 2018 10 Minutes
Unfaithful Music & Disappearing Ink by Elvis Costello
Books I've Read/Considering
Peter Hook
Marc Almond
Pauline Black
Martin Kemp
Tim Burgess
Viv Albertine
Simon Reynolds: Shock and Awe
Paul Gorman: The Story of The Face
Britpop Britpop autobiography Music Autobiography (1980s) New Pop Autobiography New Romantic Autobiography Postpunk theory Punk Autobiography Uncategorized
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Britpop autobiography
Music Autobiography (1980s)
New Pop Autobiography
New Romantic Autobiography
Postpunk theory
Punk Autobiography
1980s 1980s radio 1990s Adam and the Ants Adam Ant Autobiography Billy Idol Blitz Blur Boy George Brett Anderson Britpop Bromley Contingent Chris Difford Cool Cymru Culture Club Damon Albarn Dave Rimmer Dead or Alive Duran Duran Elastica Gary Kemp Glenn Tilbrook Human League Joe Jackson Justine Frischmann KROQ Manic Street Preachers New Pop New Romantic new wave New Wave music Pete Burns Postpunk Punk Richard Blade Simon Reynolds Spandau Ballet Squeeze Steve Strange Suede Thompson Twins Tony Hadley Visage Wham!
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30 December 2000 - Alpha Simulations has added a Mirage IIIB-RV in Armée de l'Air colors (below) to their FS Supermarket. Look for it in the "Others" section. The aircraft includes an all-new panel and high-resolution texturing (it will only work in FS2000 and CFS2).
27 December 2000 - I've added a translation from Portuguese of a test flight article of Washington Fernando de A. Kuhlmann Jr.'s original Mirage IIIDBR courtesy of Adriano Axel Pliopas Pereira and the Fórum de Simulações Aéreas (FSA) of Brazil.
17 December 2000 - Just wanting wish everyone a joyous Holiday season. I added a neat java applet on the index page for the occasion.
30 November 2000 - Alpha Simulations is scheduled to release a new add-on package in early 2001 titled "Jump Jet". The subject is the Harrier V-STOL aircraft but the package revolves around the 1982 Falkland Islands War. Among the aircraft included is a Fuerza Aérea Argentina Mirage (below) with sounds and panel. Check out Alpha's website for more images and complete description.
28 November 2000 - Today marks the first year anniversary of this website. There are a lot of people to thank for making this possible. So I'll do just that.
25 November 2000 - This website hit a milestone today with our 25,000th (25K) visitor. Thanks everyone.
20 November 2000 - Its turned into a very busy month at work with little time for Flight Simulator. I've added a few links and some scenery for South Africa and Spain.
3 November 2000 - Jason Ashworth has modified his Cheetah to Cheetah D No. 844. This is the sole "D" with a one-piece, frameless windscreen; an ATAR 09K50 (the other D's have the 09C); and the Advanced Combat Wing. It is Denel's Technology Demonstrator. I've also added scenery for Morón Air Base in Spain and another European military track by Bernd Barsch for use with FSTraffic.
24 October 2000 - No new aircraft this time but I have several projects in the works. I've taken a few minutes away from working on them to put together a preview page to show what I expect to have available before the end of the year.
12 October 2000 - Colin Norwood has sent an update to his Mirage 5BR in the markings of Belgium's 42nd Reconnaissance Escadrille.
11 October 2000 - Its here! Colin Norwood has completed his extensive updating and conversion of Anton Coetzee's Cheetah AFX to a Mirage 5BR. He has done a great job.
8 October 2000 - Colin Norwood has nearly completed his updating and conversion of Anton Coetzee's Cheetah AFX to a Mirage 5BR. He has been sending along images to show the progress. It is coming long nicely.
28 September 2000 - Bernd Barsch has been working on a series of military aircraft tracks for use with FS98/FS2000 and FSTraffic 1.5. His latest release covers western European air bases. Included are tracks for 22 Armee de l'Air and Aeronavale Francaise bases. If you have FSTraffic try this out. See the scenery page for a full list of military track files.
21 September 2000 - Jason Ashworth attended the Africa Aerospace and Defense 2000 exhibition earlier this month and sent me an email and images describing the static and flying Mirage and Cheetah displays. He saw a Cheetah D2 with the new Advanced Combat Wing modification and remarked that he now intends to modify his Cheetah to include the new wing. So we can look forward to that sometime in the future. Also on display was a Mirage F1AZ armed with Russian air-to-air missiles. I've gathered some additional pictures and put together a page on the Mirage F1AZ in South African service.
11 September 2000 - Colin Norwood has been working on his conversion of Anton Coetzee's Cheetah AFX to a Mirage 5. "The control surfaces are on and the gear also. It now has a jetpipe more realistic to how it should be, and has been reworked to include the doors, etc. Next will be the addition of some fuel tanks and the splitting of the fuselage to give a better texture resolution. The first release will be the Mephisto Mirage 5 from Belgium followed by numerous Mirage III/V variants later in the year."
6 September 2000 - Its been a slow couple of weeks for aircraft. I've updated the scenery page with some new update listings and have removed some that were of FS5 vintage and didn't work well in at least FS98. I've added John Mapstone's scenery of South Africa. It includes several military airbases. I've also added a link to his website where you can find additional scenery for that region. See May 13 below for relavent aircraft suggestions.
27 August 2000 - Jason Ashworth's Cheetah D has been repainted as a Dassault/ENAER Mirage 50DC Pantera in the colors of the Fuerza Aérea de Chile.
19 August 2000 - I found a Mirage IIIS in a gray Swiss Air Force color scheme. In case you haven't noticed, the aircraft are arranged by release date on each page, not in the order I found them.
12 August 2000 - I've located another panel for the Mirage 2000. It is August so Michel Gérard is on holiday but has assured me he will return to these webpages soon.
5 August 2000 - I've added three new aircraft, all in South African colors, by Vasco Ferreir. The visual models are novice at best but the flight models aren't too bad and this does keep the collection complete. Included is a Mirage IIIEZ and two Mirage F1s.
30 July 2000 - I've located another Rafale. This one includes a working tail hook. I've also found a scenery file of the French aircraft carrier "Foch" so you can try your hand at carrier takeoffs and landings.
23 July 2000 - I've updated the scenery page with one new item, Florennes AFB in Belgium, and FS2000 updates to several others. I've also listed several other scenery files. As I try them out I'll add images or remove them.
19 July 2000 - Marc Siméon has completed his Rafale B. It is painted as Prototype B01 with Armée de l'Air markings and is now available for download. Dassault has updated their website. They now feature short videos on the Mirage III/V-50, Mirage F1, Mirage 2000, Rafale, and Etendard/Super Etendard.
12 July 2000 - Marc Siméon's Rafale B project is coming along nicely. Marc sent a beta copy for me to fly around in FS2000. Here are some more images and comments.
9 July 2000 - Colin Norwood, who has a few Mirage aircraft featured here, has been updating Anton Coetzee's original Cheetah AFX file to a Mirage V. The AFX is over four years old so this is no small task. As the screenshot below shows, the new aircraft has the wing leading edge extensions removed and all control surfaces have been separated for animation. It will also have a reconnaissance nose so we should see some new Mirage 5BR and IIIRs by late summer.
7 July 2000 - I happened upon another repaint of Remi Moreau's Rafale. This one is also based on the markings of Flotille 12F of the French Aéronavale. I've also added a few new links.
1 July 2000 - Eric Bressant has repainted Remi Moreau's Rafale in the markings of three French Aéronavale aircraft: the prototype M-04, a Flotille 12F aircraft, and an Escadrille 59S aircraft. Jason Ashworth has answered my request for an aircraft with wing tanks by adding a pair to his Cheetah D. Thanks again, Jason.
17 June 2000 - Very big day today. This website had its 10,000th visitor. That's not bad for less than seven months. Thanks everyone for continuing to stop by. And thank you simvol.org for the mention.
16 June 2000 - Jason Ashworth has completed his Cheetah D. It looks great and is now available for download. Thierry Romain has made the first Dassault Super-Etendard for Flight Simulator. Both are available on a new page titled "Other Mirage". I've also grouped the Mirage derivatives (IAI Kfir and Atlas/Denel Cheetah) on this new page.
10 June 2000 - I've added a few new links.
1 June 2000 - Periklis "Theseas" Pagratis sent in a new repaint of the Mirage F1 in the colors of the Hellenic Air Force (Elliniki Polemiki Aeroporia Mirage F1CG).
22 May 2000 - I've added two new aircraft. The first is the original two-seat Mirage IIIDBR by Washington Fernando de A. Kuhlmann Jr. in Brazilian Air Force colors. The second is Kuhlmann's two-seater repainted as a Mirage 50DC/Pantera in the colors of the Fuerza Aérea de Chile by Nicolas Sepúlveda.
13 May 2000 - Mike McCormack, who made the panel for the Mirage F1, sent some images from the Test Flight and Development Centre at Bredasdorp, South Africa showing their testing of Mirage and Cheetah aircraft.
4 May 2000 - Michael Gérard has provided a set of approach plates for the Salon-de-Provence scenery. I've also added a link to the Conservatory of the Air and the Space of Aquitaine website. Thanks to Joël Branchu for the tip.
27 April 2000 - Two new scenery files have been released this month covering Salon-de-Provence and the Bourgogne region. Both include French Air Force bases.
20 April 2000 - Marc Siméon, who repainted/modified Jason Ashworth's Mirage F1 to produce a couple of examples in French Armée de l'Air colors, is working on a Rafale B. Marc sent in a screenshot from AF99. No one has worked on a Rafale in over three years so this is a welcome project.
9 April 2000 - A new book has been published on the Mirage IIIC. Michel Gérard has given us a review with illustrations. I've added a Kfir C2 in the colors of the Fuerza Aérea de Ecuador.
2 April 2000 - I've added a few new links. Jason Ashworth sent me a pre-beta copy of his Cheetah D. Its coming along very nicely as you can tell from these screenshots.
26 March 2000 - I've added a new article by Michel Gérard.
18 March 2000 - I've added a few new links as well as a new article by Michel Gérard.
16 March 2000 - I've added five additional aircraft this week. All are the work of South American painters. The first is a Mirage IIIEBR painted in the colors of the Brazilian Air Force-FAB. Next is a Mirage F1-JA in the colors of the Fuerza Aérea de Ecuador. The final three are a Mirage M5P and a pair of Mirage 2000DPs, all in the colors of the Fuerza Aérea del Perú.
12 March 2000 - Michel Gérard has sent a photo and commentary on a meeting of Swiss Vampire and French Mirage aircraft. This is very interesting reading. And as always, the photo is outstanding.
6 March 2000 - Early this week three repaints of the Anton Coetzee/Yves Franckart Atlas Cheetah were uploaded to the usual locations -- two painted as IAI Kfirs and one described as an IAI Nesher. The AFX used dates back to the days of FS5.0 in early 1996. So it is quite dated and they exhibit the 3D display problems described on the Conversion page. The repaints also include details completely incorrect for the aircraft depicted. I've included them on the Other Mirage page to keep the file archives complete. Later in the week, one of the Kfirs was uploaded again by another contributer with moving parts added as well as a combat damage file for use with CFS. Michel Gérard has sent another interesting photo with commentary. This time the Mirage 4000.
2 March 2000 - Michel Gérard has sent an installment including one of his photos of a Mirage 2000 and commentary. As always this is very interesting reading. And the photo is outstanding.
24 February 2000 - It is with a great amount of excitement that I introduce to this website a new page, but more importantly, the subject of that page. Michel Gérard, formerly on the editorial staff of the french aviation magazine AIR FAN has agreed to provide periodic photos and information relating to Mirage aircraft, his experience with the French Armee de l'Air, as well as comments/reviews on the scenery, aircraft, and panels featured on this website.
22 February 2000 - Added a few more links. Also added the first, that I've seen, scenery for FS200 depicting a European Air Base. This one is Chièvres AFB in Belgium. The scenery is by Early Bird and is designed to have minimal impact on frame rates.
14 February 2000 - Happy Valentine's Day everyone. I found a piece of scenery	that I've been looking for for quite a while. The subject is the French island of Corsica, the "Island of Beauty". The scenery includes Solenzara Air Base (BA 126). From here, French Armée de l'Air crews (and visiting aircrews from some NATO countries) have gunnery practice over the Mediterranean in a shooting range know as D 67 (Dangerous Zone 67).
11 February 2000 - Jason Ashworth has sent in a couple of photos. One of his upcoming Atlas Cheetah D (the earlier version with windscreen frames, Mirage III main gear doors, and inflight refueling probe) shown below with drag chute deployed. And an IAI Kfir TC2/7 he has been working on. The Kfir includes the characteristic dorsal intake and shortened rear fuselage for the J79 engine.
6 February 2000 - Always on the lookout for new Mirage aircraft I've found a commercial software package for Flight Simulator that includes two Mirage IV bombers. The Mirage IV hadn't been mentioned on this website before because no one has made a freeware version. The package, Air Power - Cold War, is available from Alpha Simulations. The Mirages are by Colin Norwood who has a Mirage V and a Mirage 2000 featured here.
30 January 2000 - A couple of weeks ago I gave a heads up on a new aircraft from Jason Ashworth. The Cheetah D is coming along. Jason sent the image below and says a little more tweaking is required so he will have the resources in the MDL available to include animated parts.
20 January 2000 - Cool! This website just won an award. It is a "Flight Sim Select Site". This award came from CompuFlight.com. The award image is on the home page.
17 January 2000 - I've added a little something at the bottom of the home page. Using a search engine developed by Simvol.com, and the databases of CompuFlight, this will search the Flight-Sim directories on the IUP anonymous FTP server. In case you don't know, the IUP archives go back to early 1994 and are huge by this time. The search engine is very fast and a big improvement over previous methods for searching IUP.
14 January 2000 - New aircraft on the horizon. Jason Ashworth, who gave us the fantastic Mirage F1, has been working on a Cheetah D. This is not a rework of older Mirage IIIs or Vs dating back to the days of FS5, but a new aircraft from the ground up -- designed around the 3D environment of FS98 and FS2000. A sneak-peak is below.
9 January 2000 - Its been a slow week. I did however, manage to locate a website for Daniel Mrawek, the designer of the various Mirage 2000 aircraft available for Flight Simulator. From there I have obtained a more complete AFX file set including texture files and some additional background.
1 January 2000 - Well, it looks like we all made it successfully into the New Year. And the predicted Y2K problems were kept in check. In the meantime, I've added a few new links. I've also added a version of this "What's New?" page translated in French.