28 Saturday Mar 2020
Mark Blum was born in Newark and raised in Maplewood, New Jersey. As a teenager, trips to Broadway shows taught him to love the theatre, though he never considered acting as a career. “I was raised in one of those basic middle-class Jewish families in the suburbs,” he told the New York Times, “and that just wasn’t something somebody thought about.” Continue reading
15 Sunday Dec 2019
Posted in Books, Lana Del Rey, Madonna, Music, Non-Fiction
≈ Comments Off on 2019: A Year In Music
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A Year in Music, All Mirrors, Andrew Ridgeley, Angel Olsen, Billie Holiday, Debbie Harry, Downhill Lullaby, George Michael, Lana Del Rey, Madame X, Madonna, Marina and the Diamonds, Mirwais Ahmadzai, Norman Fucking Rockwell, Odetta, Prince, Remind Me Tomorrow, Seventeen, Sharon Van Etten, Sky Ferreira, The Shangri-Las, To Be Human, Tricky, Wham!
This year brought defiant statements from masters old and new: the iconoclastic Madame X, reuniting Madonna with ‘disco god’ Mirwais; and the epochal Norman Fucking Rockwell from Lana Del Rey. Continue reading
14 Friday Jun 2019
Posted in Books, Madonna, Marilyn Monroe, Music, Updates
≈ Comments Off on ‘Madame X’ is a Birthday Girl
In my 35+ years of fandom, this is the first time a Madonna album has dropped on my birthday – and it’s a masterpiece! As well as the delectable Madame X, I also got a copy of Marilyn Monroe In Spain, a wonderful book by the artist, author and museum owner, Frederic Cabanas … “Saludos a todos mis amigos!”
24 Monday Dec 2018
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A League Of Their Own, Baseball, Madonna, Penny Marshall, Rosie O'Donnell, This Used To Be My Playground
Carole Penny Marshall was born in the Bronx in 1943. Her mother Marjorie ran a dance school, and her father directed industrial films. Of Italian descent, he had changed his name from Masciarelli to Marshall. Their youngest daughter was named after Carole Lombard, the much-loved comedic actress and wife of Clark Gable, who had died in a plane crash the year before. Young Carole’s middle name was inspired by her sister Ronny, who was ‘saving her pennies’ to buy a horse: and it was that name, ‘Penny’, which finally stuck. The family lived in a building which also housed the young Neil Simon, Paddy Chayevsky, Calvin Klein and Ralph Lauren. Continue reading
17 Monday Dec 2018
Posted in Amy Winehouse, Books, Film, Lana Del Rey, Madonna, Music, Non-Fiction
≈ Comments Off on 2018: A Year in Music
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A Year in Music, All Nerve, Amy Winehouse, Back to Amy, Back to Black, Beautiful Game, Blake Wood, Bobbie Gentry, Cat Power, Charles Moriarty, Chris Wade, Comeback Kid, David Bowie, Fado, Jack Antonoff, Lana Del Rey, Lissie, Madonna, Madonna in the Eighties, Mariners Apartment Complex, Matthew Rettenmund, Mazzy Star, Mercury Rev, MLVC60, My Wild West, Nico, Nico 1988, Norman Fucking Rockwell, Piano & A Microphone 1983, Portugal, Prince, Quentin Harrison, Record Redux: Madonna, Record Store Day, Sharon Van Etten, The Breeders, The Girl From Chickasaw County, Wanderer, Woman
She may have left the stage decades ago, but 2018 was a vintage year for die-hard fans of the mysterious Bobbie Gentry, with a rare vinyl release on Record Store Day followed in September by a career-spanning CD box-set, The Girl From Chickasaw County. Continue reading
16 Thursday Aug 2018
Posted in Anniversaries, Fashion and Beauty, Film, Madonna, Music
≈ Comments Off on ‘You May Be My Lucky Star…’
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Beautiful Stranger, Catholicism, Confessions on a Dancefloor, Desperately Seeking Susan, Evita, Ghosttown, Into the Groove, Jump, Like A Prayer, Live Aid, Live to Tell, Living for Love, Lucky Star, Madonna, Marilyn Monroe, Marvin Gaye, Material Girl, Ray of Light, Secret, Smash Hits, Wembley, Who's That Girl, William Orbit
From the age of eleven, my Saturdays would often include a trip to the record department at Boots to buy a 7-inch single. One of these was ‘Lucky Star’ by Madonna. Along with ‘Holiday’, it was one of her earliest songs played on the radio. Each weekend I stopped to gaze at her gorgeous album cover, but my savings rarely stretched to LPs. When I finally bought it, it had a different cover and my best friend (who wasn’t a fan) borrowed and never returned it. Continue reading
20 Sunday May 2018
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1983, Borderline, Burning Up, I Know It, Lucky Star, Madonna, Physical Attraction, Reggie Lucas, The First Album, Think of Me
Reginald Grant Lucas was born in Queens, New York in 1953, the son of a doctor and a teacher. “Although no one in the family was a musician or singer,” he recalled, “music was an important and natural part of our lives.” He began taking piano lessons aged six, and was given an electric guitar for his eleventh birthday. Enthralled by the “music explosion” coming from Motown and England in the Early 1960s, it was “the beginning of a lifelong romance.” Continue reading
23 Monday Apr 2018
In March 2012, Madonna made a surprise appearance at the Ultra Music Festival in Miami alongside the twenty-three year-old Swedish DJ/producer Avicii. She had enlisted him to remix her latest single, ‘Girl Gone Wild’. “I’ve been here in spirit for many years, but it’s good to finally be standing on the stage, looking at all you people who have come here from all around the world,” Madonna told the crowd. “In my world the words ‘music’ and ‘dance’ are not separated. Electronic music has been a part of my life since the beginning of my career. I can honestly say that a DJ saved my life.” Continue reading
27 Monday Nov 2017
Posted in Anniversaries, Madonna, Music
≈ Comments Off on Madonna’s ‘Erotica’ At 25
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1992, Andre Betts, Bad Girl, Bye Bye Baby, Christopher Walken, David Fincher, Deeper and Deeper, Erotica, Fever, Madonna, Maverick, Rain, Shep Pettibone, Steven Meisel, The Girlie Show
In 1991, Madonna’s fame was at its height. Truth or Dare, her behind-the-scenes documentary filmed during the Blond Ambition tour a year earlier, caused a sensation with its revealing take on the star. After reaching her pop apotheosis with Like a Prayer, she had struck out in new directions with ‘Vogue’ and ‘Justify My Love’ (a sultry, experimental track produced by Andre Betts, with a video banned by MTV.) Continue reading
13 Monday Nov 2017
Posted in Madonna, Magazines, Marilyn Monroe, Radio, Television
≈ Comments Off on Liz Smith 1923-2017
Liz Smith, the veteran gossip columnist known as the ‘doyenne of dish’, has died aged 94. Continue reading
