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40th Anniversary: White Light and a Club Dance Floor Smash

Tue, November 03, 2020

The recording of ‘To Cut A Long Story Short’ single was the third time Spandau Ballet had recorded it in 6 weeks in 1980. First for the Arista demos at the end of August, then for the BBC session on the Radio 1 Peter Powell show and now the “real thing“. As good as the first 2 versions were, ”the real thing” sounded awesome. Complete with extended version and dub-mix, it sounded like something very new, powerful, and very arresting. It was different from most of the electronic dance music of Rusty and other DJs sets. The European and Japanese music sounded very “polite” compared to this. It sounded very British and slightly punky.

Graham Smith’s artwork looked fantastic and we were ready to go for the 31st October release. Timed for Halloween? Not in 1980, British kids had never heard of it in those days.

All the signs for the single were very good, it was being played on high rotation on Radio 1, Peter Powell’s session recording being replaced seamlessly by “the real thing”.

On the day of release, it featured on the highly rated and very influential “Roundtable “ record review show on Radio 1 on Friday afternoon. DJ Roscoe chaired a panel of pop stars, DJs, and celebs which changed every week and reviewed the new releases. It was a good thing to be chosen for review, but what would they say? And to make it more of a drama Bryan Ferry was one of the guests. He was second only to David Bowie as style, musical, lifestyle inspiration to our generation. So no pressure. What if he didn’t like it? We needn’t have worried he gave it a great review, saying it was a smart, witty single. Phew, how amazing he had now heard of us.

But in the 12”, we had something else. The band and Richard Burgess had made a potentially colossal dance floor hit.

As soon as the “white labels” arrived I took them round to the sympathetic DJs in London personally while they were playing their sets that night. It was a

Friday night so clubs were busy, but because of the hype around the band, they all played it almost immediately, some played all the mixes. Rusty Egan was DJing temporarily at the Venue in Victoria, a 2,000 plus theatre type club/live music venue. It sounded great on the huge sound system and it was hugely satisfying to see hundreds of people who might not have heard of the band dancing to it. After that, I went to the Embassy in Mayfair. The same. The same everywhere that night.

We needed to get this out to the whole country to all the “Blitz” type clubs and DJs, the Bowie/Ferry nights right across the spectrum to the Mecca Ballrooms. We needed a club promo company.

Phil Coakall, one of the marketing guys at Chrysalis called around. There was some push back from the old school disco promotion guys, who didn’t know what to make of it and couldn’t imagine it having a mass audience. After a worrying couple of days, a meeting was arranged at Chrysalis with Ian and Nick Titchtner of “Rush Release”.

“It’s brilliant! “ they said, ”Weeeee know what to do with this!” They were two very young London Soul Boys who knew all about the sub-sect of Blitz/Bowie/Ferry nights and reeled off dozens of DJs they knew who were literally waiting for it. I knew and had already serviced the obvious supporters around the country, Billy McCloud at Maestros in Glasgow, Dick at the Rum Runner in Birmingham, Mark Taylor at Mel’s in Cardiff. But according to Ian and Nick, the pop culture “virus” we were part of had already spread far and wide. They were hired on the spot. I loved their positive vibes and they became great friends and allies over the years to come.

They mailed out to their selected DJs and we waited for a reaction.

A weekend came and went. Ian phoned me, ”It’s massive, it’s going to be HUGE. Top 5 record!”. He was right. All of the obvious clubs played it and loved it, but so did the mainstream discos and Meccas.

“The only thing is the Mafia don’t like it and won’t play it, but fuck that lot. You don’t need them!” This was not unexpected, but I was annoyed all the same. This wasn’t the Gambino Family, but the tightly linked “cartel “of southern-based RnB/JazzFunk Superstar DJs who controlled the playlists of the Soul Clubs South of Birmingham. They could make or break a record, but not ours. We had our own power-base. Although musically “To Cut” didn’t really fit their sets, what annoyed me was that our “audience” crossed over hugely with theirs. They were going to a Blitz night somewhere on a Tuesday and soul night on a Saturday.

“There is one of them that loves it though”
Really? Who?
“The kid, Pete Tong”.

At that time he was the youngest Mafia member, about 19, the rest all being in their mid-thirties. I wanted to meet him, so Ian and Nick took me to a gig of his at “The Goldmine” in Canvey Island, a temple of Southern Jazz /Funk and soul. He emerged beaming from behind the DJ booth and shook my hand. He knew what was going on and how club culture was changing into something very new.

So we were OK with clubs and radio. We had loads of press. What about TV? Top Of The Pops was the Holy Grail, but you had to have a chart position, Top 40 at the lowest usually. Because the band looked so great and performed brilliantly, I wanted some TV week of release. There weren’t many options. But then I remembered our great friend and supporter from pre-Spandau days, Gary Crowley was presenting a TV show which featured music, a youth TV show (remember those?), ”White Light”, it was broadcast in the London area at 5.30pm. I’d take that! I phoned Gary, and we were booked for a week of release broadcast.

We went up to a theatre in Hatfield to record it. Perry Haines, our great friend from the Blitz, journalist (at that time on ID mag ), scene maker, later artist manager, and artist in his own right, was there being interviewed. A real cultural ideas man at the time, it was great to hear him spinning and sparking in our dressing room. He spoke in sound bites, he is credited as coining the phrases “New Romantic in one of his articles. He might have done. It sounds like Perry.

It was the first of hundreds and hundreds of TV shows the band were to perform on. Something that became mundane and often boring was so exciting then. But with Gary Crowley, Perry, and our friend Neil Matthews taking photos it felt we were all being dragged inexorably upwards by some pop-culture force.

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Steve Dagger - Spandau Ballet, Manager

October, 2020

(Photo: Neil Mackenzie Matthews / www.instagram.com/nellymacmat/)

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‘Too Cut A Long Story Short’ 40th Anniversary 12” vinyl is available to pre-order here.

‘Too Cut A Long Story Short’ 40th Anniversary release is available to stream here, now.

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***40th Anniversary Features***

40th Anniversary: ‘Too Cut A Long Story Short - Forty Years On by Richard Burgess

40th Anniversary: Spandau Ballet sign with Chrysalis Records - October 10th, 1980

40th Anniversary: Spandau Ballet and The Arista Demos, August, 1980