Look out for a future post from Charlie with some ultra rare shots of The Walkers Brothers and some equally rare tracks.
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Mary Weiss, original singer of the legendary Shangri-Las, is now recording a new album for Norton Records. Visit http://www.maryweiss.com and http://www.nortonrecords.com for more information!
The group appeared on several TV shows, but in 1966 two of three releases on Red Bird failed to crack the U.S. top 50 although they remained popular in England and Japan. Mary Ann Ganser left but returned when Marge — the most outspoken member, sometimes considered the leader — left early in 1967. Red Bird Records had folded. The group recorded more tracks with Morton (some of which remain unreleased) and signed with Mercury Records. However, Morton had begun working with Janis Ian and Vanilla Fudge and Mercury had little enthusiasm for the group. During their Mercury stint, the Shangri-Las had no further hits. In 1968, they disbanded amid litigation.
Reportedly, they were angry that they received little royalties, despite the millions of records they sold. Mary Weiss moved to New York’s Greenwich Village, then to San Francisco. Returning to Manhattan a few years later, and prevented from recording because of lawsuits, she worked as a secretary while taking college classes. She then went into the architectural industry, working in the accounting department of a New York architectural firm. She moved up to be the chief purchasing agent and later ran the commercial furniture dealership. In the late eighties she managed a furniture store and was an interior designer. By 2001 she was a furniture consultant to New York businesses.
Following on from the East Kilbride Hitch Hike, this is the first in an occasional series of dance master classes for Chris C, so that when we have the next reunion he can dazzle us with his prowess on the dancefloor!!
( same steps for boy and girl )
Stand with feet apart, hands held at side of body two or three inches from side
1. Swing weight over onto left foot, both knees bending over to the left, swinging arms
across each other at the same time.
2. Swing weight over onto right foot, both knees bending over to the right,
uncrossing arms and swinging them wide open away from body.
3. Continue this swinging movement left and right, keeping time to the very
definite background beat that you can hear in all ‘blue-beat’ music.
Keep arm swing sharp and defined.
Blue-Beat Fly-Away ( can be danced before or after the basic swing )
1. Straighten right knee, raising left foot in sharp, small kick in front of right foot
2. Step onto left foot, lowering it in front of right foot
3-4. Transfer weight onto right foot, then left foot, in a rocking action.
5. Straighten left knee, raising right foot in sharp, small kick in front of left foot.
6. Step onto right foot, loering it in front of left foot.
7-8. Transfer weight onto left foot, then right foot, in a rocking action.
Enjoy!
 Fly-away step 1 Swing step 1 Fly-away (group) |
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Directed by Frederic Goode, Pop Gear is a music review film released in 1965. It contains live concert footage of The Beatles, and lip-synched videos of some of the British Invasion bands, including The Animals, Herman’s Hermits, The Nashville Teens, Peter and Gordon, Matt Monro, Billy J. Kramer and the Dakotas, The Honeycombs, The Rockin’ Berries, and the Spencer Davis Group). The film is also known as “Go Go Mania“.
In October 1955 Mary Quant joined forces with her husband, Alexander Plunkett-Greene, and Archie McNair, to open a clothes shop on London’s Kings Rd called Bazaar. Her best sellers were small white plastic collars to brighten up black dresses or a black sweat shirt.
Following the positive reaction to her outfit for the Bazaar launch party, and unhappy with the variety of clothes already on the market, Quant decided to design and make her own range. Initially working solo, she soon employed a few machinists. A second Bazaar opened in Knightsbridge in 1961 and in 1965 she started exporting to the U.S.A. By 1966 she was working with 18 different manufacturers.
Skirts had been getting shorter since about 1958 – a development Quant felt to be practical and liberating. The miniskirt, for which she is arguably most famous, became one of the defining fashions of the 1960s. Its design was developed separately by Andre Courreges, and there is some disagreement as to who came up with the idea first. Mary Quant named her miniskirt after her favorite make of car - you’ve guessed it - the mini! Whether she invented the miniskirt or not, Quant was one of its major popularisers. This was largely thanks to Bazaar being a popular haunt for the fashionable “Chelsea Set”.
Quant’s popularity was at its peak in the mid 1960s, during which time she produced the dangerously short micro-mini skirt and plastic raincoats. She was described as being the leading fashion force outside Paris.
In 1966, Quant was appointed an OBE for services to the fashion industry. She was a truly influential women’s tailor and as such her clean cut, no-nonsense designs are as desirable today as they were in the 60’s.
This Album brings back a lot of memories of the parties in easterhouse and taking the album up to the Olympia in East Kilbride to play the Hitch Hiker…… class tracks taken from the 63 RSG series, Decca Rediffusion were compiling the best of the year….. Not sure if this was the only release or if there were more…. maybe someone out there will have an idea. This was the first time I had even heard of kathy kirby and secret love, I won over some of the grannies playing that one hahahahha. The tracks are arranged in order as they originally appeared on the album. A lot of thanks goes to Jackie Murray for pulling this out of the loft and
recording it and sending it to me tonight. I can just feel those memories with charlie and me doing the hitch hiker at the BIG O in EK and The parties up the east end ……. some days they were too…… Charlie anyting you would like to add to the memories of my old rsg album now resurrected for us by Jackie the Zombie Murray…
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Piet Mondrian ( born in the Netherlands in 1872) was an important contributor to the De Stijl art movement and group, which was founded by Theo Van Doesburg. He evolved a non-representational form which he
termed Neo Plasticism. This consisted of a grid of vertical and horizontal black lines and the use of the three primary colours as in “Tableau 2″ ( 1922) below left.
The 1965 dress still has resonance and iconic status, so much so that contemporary designer Diane Von Furstenburg created her own homage to it last season (above).
Some more groovy stuff which I’d like to dedicate to Tam Gow, Sting and all the MoD Mods.
After reading the stories and listening to the comradery of the guys and girls we all ran about with as teenagers, I dont think there could be any doubting the fine class of people who were part of the mod movement!
Have a look at us now Sgt B’stard and your Stewart Street cronies - we are still the Mods!
More Groovy Stuff here:
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