+ 7 - 4 | § ¶Steve Norman's band, Cloudfish - gig in March
+ 9 - 1 | § ¶Steve Norman's new web site
Spandau Ballet's sax man (not to mention guitar, bongos, voice and kitchen sink), Steve Norman, has just launched a brand new web site at (surprise surprise!) http://www.steve-norman.com/ . Here you'll find pictures, avatars, wallpapers and a whole load of other goodies to view online or download for your furtive offline pleasure. You can also get all the news and info on his live gigs, record production and CD reviews. If you are a Steve Norman fan you've probably already zoomed off to visit his site - so why the heck are we still wittering on here.... ;)
+ 4 - 5 | § ¶Marilyn's Most Outrageous Fantasy!
We're taking a break from Pete Burns trivia today...
Pete was, of course, just one of several '80s artists who, for a while, got lumped together under the title of 'gender benders'. Other notables included Boy George and his sometime clubbing friend, Marilyn (real name, Peter Robinson, best known for the song, Calling Your Name). As far as I can recall I only met Marilyn once and he rather liked me 
as, apparently, I reminded him of Tom Bailey of The Thompson Twins. Or so he said ( ah, sweet-talker that he was... 
)
Anyway, my meeting with Marilyn was not a social occasion. I was there on work, trying to do as many interviews for as many teenybop magazines as I could fit into my allotted half hour or so. Browsing through my files recently, I noted one which I wrote for an illustrious intellectual journal by the name of My Guy. One of the questions I asked Marilyn was: What is your Most Outrageous fantasy?
Here is his reply: "My most outrageous one is rude and involves Sylvester Stallone. My second most outrageous fantasy is to have a good singing voice."
Marilyn and Sylvester - what a perfect pair!
Visit Marilyn's web site HERE
+ 5 - 5 | § ¶Pete Goes Ape?
For those of you who have missed out on the Pete Burns 'gorilla fur' scandalette, let me bring you up to date. For the last couple of weeks, Pete has been locked up in a house with an assorted bunch of "celebs" (some of whom, I have to say, I'd never even heard of before ) in Britain's Big Brother TV show. Pete went in wearing a fur coat which he claimed was made of gorilla skin. Now, if you've ever seen a gorilla in a zoo, one of the things you may have noted is that their fur is a bit on the rough and manky side - not the sort of thing you'd expect someone to want turned into a coat. Well, anyway, that didn't prevent people taking Pete at his word. Gorillas being an endangered species, a protest was made, police were called in, the coat was seized and taken away for analysis by people who specialise in this sort of thing...
News came through today that the coat wasn't a gorilla skin after all. It was, in fact, made from the fur of the colobus monkey. Apparently, experts said: "the coat was in a 'relatively poor condition' and had been relined at some point." Bah, have they no sense of chvalry!
The full story HERE
+ 3 - 6 | § ¶Pete Burns Trivia - TOTP, blackouts and frocks
I asked Pete to tell me about the most chaotic day of his life. He told me about one day that was not only chaotic but also expensive...
"That was the day we first went on Top Of The Pops. As soon as we arrived at the studio I decided that I wanted something different to wear so I sent somebody out to buy clothes. When they brought them back I didn't like them so I sent out for some more. I had people running all over London buying me clothes. In the end I didn't wear any of them. That was the most energetic and chaotic day I can remember. Everybody else was worn out after buying the clothes and I was worn out after trying to get everything organised and do the TV runthroughs at the same time. And then, after all that, the BBC went on strike so Top Of The Pops was cancelled! I also decided to buy my wife a new dress to celebrate our TV appearance. It cost about £300. When Top Of The Pops was blacked out by the strike we decided that the dress must be unlucky, so I decided to buy another one for the same price but in a different design. So actually they were the most expensive two days of my life..."
+ 2 - 7 | § ¶Pete Burns' pussies
Another forgotten snippet from my '80s interview...
I asked Pete if he had any pets.
"Yes," he said, "Two cats."
"What are they called?" I asked.
"Cat One and Cat Two," Pete replied.
Oh well, ask a silly question... 
+ 3 - 6 | § ¶Pete Burns and Brigitte Bardot
Today's Pete Burns trivia - a previously unpublished quote from my interview with Pete in the early '80s...
"I get a lot of my imagery from other people's interpretation of me. Somebody wrote an article calling me the male Brigitte Bardot. It's interesting to see yourselves as others see you..."
Which is which...?
The resemblance is uncanny...
+ 5 - 5 | § ¶Pete Burns Trivia - his wedding
Pete and his ex-wife, Lynn, were married for 25 years. While Pete now lives with boyfriend, Michael Simpson, Lynn says that she and Pete are still on friendly terms...
When I interviewed Pete in the '80s, he told me that his happiest day was "Getting married to Lynn on August 8th, 1980. We had the ceremony in a registry office. The only thing that spoilt it a bit was when the man who married us tried to make a feeble joke by asking 'Which one of you is the bride?' - Ha! Ha!"
+ 3 - 6 | § ¶Pete Burns Trivia - snakes and sausages
Today's Pete Burns trivia item....
I asked Pete what he kept in his bedroom. His answer was: "I've got a squirrel that's stuffed with newspapers... and I've got a stag's head, a polecat, two leopard skins, a mongoose-fighting snake, two parrots with bullet holes in their heads and a boa constrictor with mother-of-pearl eye which looks like a sausage."
No mention of a gorilla, then... 
Keep tuned for more Pete Burns trivia, coming soon.
+ 6 - 4 | § ¶Pete Burns Trivia - Bette Davis!
I've been riffling through my collection of Pete Burns trivia - all culled from an interview I did with him back in the early '80s. As Pete is very much back in the public eye again at the moment, I've decided to unleash a few little known facts culled from my old carbon copies. Many of these trivia morsels haven't seen the light of day for more than 20 years. So be sure to keep coming back and getting your fill of Pete trivia as I reveal more over the coming days...
This is today's trivia tidbit. When I asked Pete which role he'd like to play in a movie if he had a completely free choice, he replied, without a moment's hesitation: "The Bette Davis part in 'Whatever Happened to Baby Jane".
I don't know. What d'you reckon...?
(Above) Pete seen here with Michael Barrymore in The Big Brother House. While (below), you can see...
...the immortal Bette Davis at her most glamorous
+ 6 - 4 | § ¶Pete Burns - fishnets, makeup, tacky drag queens
Or "Did he really say that...?"
Dead Or Alive frontman, Pete Burns, is back on the front pages again due to his incarceration in the Big Brother household on UK TV. Sporting a blond hairdo (though, Pete, you really should get those roots done) and a pair of lips you could suffocate in, Pete has shown that his tongue has lost none of its sharpness over the years. Out of idle curiosity, I decided to take a look through my stash of carbon copies of interviews I did back in the early '80s and pretty soon I uncovered one I did with Pete. Believe it or not, this is what he told me at the time:
"What make-up? You may read in the papers that Pete Burns subscribes to lipstick and false eyelashes but it's just not true. I don't go in for make-up at all.”
“I think all this so-called Gender-Bending is hilarious. I've always looked like this and until I got into pop music nobody even thought of putting me into such a category."
"You'd never catch me dead in a pair of fishnets! It's like a tacky drag queen.”
Read the whole interview over on the Dark Neon site.
+ 5 - 5 | § ¶Pete Burns - schoolboy
Swapped a few emails with a feature writer for The Daily Mirror today. She was writing a piece on Dead Or Alive's main man, Pete Burns. Pete is, of course, back in the limelight due to his current incarceration in The Big Brother household. The Mirror writer wanted to know which school Pete went to. This is one morsel of trivia which, unfortunately, seems to have passed me by. I know where Pete was born (Clatterbridge Hospital, Bevington), because he told me. But I have no idea where he went to school. Possibly somewhere nearby I would guess...? At any rate, if anyone knows the answer, let me know (and if you have access to email in The Big Brother household, Pete, feel free to drop me a line )
Fir some reason, I find it strangely difficult to imagine Pete as a schoolboy. I just can't seem to picture him in a little schoolboy's cap with shorts and little, dirty, knobbly knees...
+ 4 - 6 | § ¶The Human League - January 1982
Don’t You Want Me got to the Number One spot in the UK on the 12th of December 1981 and stayed there until the 16th of January (when it was knocked off the top by Bucks Fizz’s Land Of make Believe). Christmas 1982 was maybe not quite such a classic year. The Christmas Number One (staying in the charts well into January) was Renee and Renato’s Save Your Love…
Renee and Renato (aaahhhhh....)
Incidentally, Alcazar has a pretty decent version of Don’t You Want Me. You can watch the video on their site or download several MP3 remixes. Not sure if anyone’s done any remixes of Renee and Renato’s Save Your Love, however…
+ 5 - 6 | § ¶Simple Minds Tour Dates
Simple Minds commence the first leg of their 'Black & White 050505' 2005 World Tour at the end of January. Showcasing tracks from their current studio album, 'Black & White 050505', the band will also perform their worldwide classic hits 'Alive & Kicking', 'New Gold Dream', 'Love Song', and the No.1 American hit smash single 'Don't You (Forget About Me)'.
The UK dates are:
31/01/06 Waterfront Hall Auditorium, Belfast
03/02/06 Music Hall, Aberdeen (Sold Out)
05/02/06 Academy, Glasgow (Sold Out)
06/02/06 Academy, Newcastle
07/02/06 Rock City, Nottingham
09/02/06 Academy, Birmingham
10/02/06 Academy, Manchester(Sold Out)
12/02/06 Dome, Brighton
13/02/06 Astoria, London (Sold Out)
14/02/06 Astoria, London
All doors - 7pm
To order tickets call 0870 400 0688
or visit www.getlive.co.uk/simpleminds
