Wait'll you see my fridget

Was watching the old Gidget TV show with Sally Field when I spotted the most gorgeous refrigerator ever in Gidget's kitchen. Not the '50s teal/turquoise you so often see, but more of a powder/baby blue. Love it!

Boys on Film

I am making a declaration that I will update my blog at least once per week. Send the militia after me if I don’t stick to it.

Other than being caught up in the usual holiday stuff that most of us are preoccupied with this time of year and fretting about the condo on which I put an offer nearly seven months ago, I’ve been doing a bit of pop culture archeology lately. Yesterday I finished reading Wild Boy: My Life in Duran Duran by the former guitarist Andy Taylor. He’s widely known among Durannies as the least interesting one (and/or the least attractive one) but having been obsessed with them in my tween years, I figured it was worth a read. The book itself is not that great. He doesn’t talk much about writing and recording the music, which I love hearing about, he’s pretty diplomatic toward the other members of the band, and he claims they didn’t really fool around with groupies, which… I call bullshit.

However, the one major pleasure I’ve gotten out of this book is digging a bit deeper into the early history of the band, which is much easier now, in the era of the Internet. I always knew that Stephen Duffy, Simon Colley, and Andy Wickett were members before the lineup that landed a record deal. Duffy went on to become sort of a cult figure, mainly for his work as the singer of the Lilac Time. After having a couple of minor pop hits in the early ’80s, he went in more of a singer-songwriter direction, and he’s actually really good.





Wickett was in a band called TV Eye at the time Duffy and Colley were in Duran Duran. When TV Eye broke up, Duffy and Colley left Duran and formed Subterranean Hawks with former TV Eye members, while Wickett joined Duran. So, they basically traded members. I had never heard about Subterranean Hawks, but lo and behold, there is actually a clip of one of their songs, “Big Store,” online. Duffy and Nick Rhodes from Duran recorded a new version of “Big Store” a few years ago when they got together for a project attributed to Devils. The album featured new versions of some of those pre-fame Duran songs – a very good album, actually (much better than any Duran stuff has been for years).



Andy Wickett apparently wrote an early version of “Girls on Film” and a song that was the basis of “Rio.” He now performs in drag as Candy Wicked and did an updated, kind of industrial, version of “Girls on Film” a few years ago. Not really my cup of tea, but interesting all the same.



I love this stuff, because I’m really interested in the process of making music: how the different lineups click, who writes what, which songs are recycled and updated after lineup changes, how the production changes the song, who “makes it” and who is forgotten, etc. I find it really fascinating.