Someone FINALLY remembers "The Eighties" the way I do: Excellent 10-part series on music of 1980's on Sweden's SVT is mostly in English, and can be seen online from anywhere in the world. Swedish TV to the rescue of the summer doldrums! Depeche Mode, Culture Club...

SVT video: Synth eller hårdrock? Synth and Depeche Mode. Two-minute teaser for Episode 1 on 1980 and the introduction of synthesizers/Electronic Music and Depeche Mode starting their string of catchy hits. Originally aired June 8th, 2012.
http://www.svtplay.se/klipp/107504/eighties-1980-och-depeche-mode

Someone FINALLY remembers The Eighties the way I do: Excellent 10-part series on music of 1980's on Sweden's SVT is mostly in English, and can be seen online from anywhere in the world. Swedish TV to the rescue of the Midsommar doldrums! Depeche Mode, Culture Club...


Today I've posted teasers for three of the ten 30-minute episodes. Each program is available on the website for only 30 days due to copyright reasons, so don't procrastinate and miss one! Once it's gone, it's gone for good.


SVT's homepage with the entire series schedule is at http://www.svt.se/eighties/

SVT video: Three-minute teaser for the two-part episode of The Eighties on Boy George & Culture Club and Adam Ant that aired Friday night, June 22nd.
http://www.svtplay.se/klipp/119922/eighties-1982-boy-george-och-adam-ant


http://www.svt.se/eighties/1984-frankie-goes-to-hollywood-och-pudelrock
SVT video: Three-minute teaser for the fifth episode of The Eighties on 1984, a year that saw the group Frankie Goes to Hollywood make it big but see their huge hit "Relax" banned from BBC Radio, while LA-based groups like Van Halen, Whitesnake and Mötley Crüe wre making their presence known. This episode aired last night, June 26th.


The first time that I ever bought an album with a Depeche Mode song on it was in 1982, when I purchased the soundtrack for Summer Lovers about an hour after I saw that film starring Peter Gallagher and Darryl Hannah, the very first day it was out.
I replayed it in my head as I walked thru the record store, thinking how mundane and boring everything in NMB seemed compared to that film, which showed people giving in to their unconventional side for a change.


That film, along with its title song by Michael Sembello, has always been a guilty pleasure of mine and many of my friends from IU, who wondered why in the world we didn't have the good sense to be in Greece in the summer instead of the heat and humidity of Miami, Indianapolis Kansas City and Long Island.
The film has just awesome scenery of Santorini, which is a no-brainer, of course, and a potpourri of music interludes that seemed perfectly timed, including Depeche Mode's "Just Can't Get Enough."



busson9 video: Michael Sembello- Summer Lovers (1982, title song from the film)
http://youtu.be/yvu5H2hRJiE


Trivia note: my personal high school graduation party for myself, my family and friends took place at a wonderful Greek restaurant on Lincoln Road in South Beach, following the ceremony at the nearby Miami Beach Convention Center.
I wish we'd owned a video camera back then, because that was a hell of a party, and it'd be nice to replay it every once in a while.

Fascinating Danny Baker interview with the always-interesting Boy George (George O'Dowd) on his life: a worldwide music star, his fall, his rebirth, and his sudden interest in singing in foreign languages, esp. Italian; Judge on "The Voice" in Italy?

Culture Club - Do You Really Want To Hurt Me (1982) http://youtu.be/2nXGPZaTKik

A truly genius song, sung by someone with the pipes to deliver it on a silver platter.

After all these years, it's still impossible to hear this song somewhere and not start singing it or humming it yourself, within seconds -and notice that everyone else is doing the same.

Fascinating Danny Baker interview with the always-interesting Boy George (George O'Dowd) on his life: a worldwide music star, his fall, his rebirth, and his sudden interest in singing in foreign languages, esp. Italian; Judge on "The Voice" in Italy?

Audio of BBC Radio, 5 live, The Danny Baker Show: March 31, 2012.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00mjjxr

This audio is available on the BBC website until Friday night GMT, the 6th of April.

You can also do the pop-out via http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/console/b01f51ly

The segment with Boy George in this two-hour audio is from 1:04:01-1:29:40, with a short three-minute news break between the two segments 

Owing to some things that I needed to work on editing, I was up early Saturday morning and rather than have ESPN's SportsCenter drone on in the background and be lulled to sleep by the fourth time I heard the same baseball spring training story, word-for-word, I turned the Tv off and flipped my computer on to BBC Radio 5 live for a jolt, and the Danny Baker Show more than delivered

Danny's weekly show, which airs from 9-11 a.m. GMT, is, in my opinion, one of the most interesting things airing in the English-speaking world, as his knack for dropping great trivia and pithy anecdotes on you spontaneously regarding almost any subject -and which give you some real context, is something I really appreciate.

Plus, Danny was great when reporting LIVE for 5 live from South Africa for the 2010 World Cup, with lots of fascinating stories, before and after matches that made the whole experience for me infinitely better than if I'd only relied on what I saw and heard on ESPN.

That was especially the case once England lost and lost in such humiliating fashion, since it seemed like there were seemingly hours and hours of angry, spot-on criticism coming from callers all over the world, but especially in the U.K., about what the English National Team and their administrators needed to do to be more competitive in future World Cups.

Chiefly, NOT appear to be standing in place while teams like Spain or Germany toyed with them, out-running them, out-finessing them and out-coaching them.

I originally recorded this interview on my camcorder by placing it in between my two computer speakers, but unfortunately, my rechargeable batteries died after I fell asleep, which makes this being online a good thing for everyone involved, esp. yours truly. 

Boy George Trivia: 

The first big concert he ever attended was David Bowie's Ziggy Stardust tour.

He likes raw food, hemp milk and tweets lots of photos of what he likes to eat.

He talks here about why he chooses NOT to be a TV music talent show judge in the U.K., discusses his life as a kid at school -reveals he isn't allowed back to visit- how prison taught him to love hard pillows

One of the more interesting things that George says, and this is certainly good news for fans, is that he says he's "more focused than [he's] ever been before in his life," but admits that he now is willing to admit that he has some regrets, unlike he felt years ago.

George candidly admits, "Moderation is not something I do well."

According to George, the new Culture Club album will be out in 2013, and his new solo album with foreign songs will be out later this year, when he will likely be appearing on the Italian TV version of "The Voice" -IF he learns enough Italian by November.

For more information about the Mark Ronson project at the Opera House he discusses, see

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/features/mark-ronson--pops-top-producer-jumps-at-the-ballet-7600834.html

Danny Baker Show homepage: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00mjjxr

For the show, Danny uses an email address that includes the name "Lord Reith." 

This is a reference to the first General Manager of the BBC, whose personal problems and behavior could best be described as hypocritical and odious according to this 2007 Daily Mail article 

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-445763/Lord-Reith-The-Hypocrite-built-BBC.html 

http://www.boygeorgeuk.com/

http://twitter.com/#!/BoyGeorge

http://www.culture-club.co.uk/

Culture Club's artist page at YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/artist/Culture_Club?feature=watch_video_title