Description

London, 1979. From the rubble and ashes of punk a new youth cult was emerging. Divinely inspired by Bowie, Roxy Music and Kraftwerk, a new tribe the press started labelling New Romantics, or Futurists, discarded punks oldhat claims towards authenticity and protest, in pursuit of glamour, makeup, dressing up and dancing. Their home was The Blitz Club, a tiny wine bar at the edge of Covent Garden and what went on there between 1979 and 1980 would genuinely change the world. The other name for this cult Blitz Kids.Without necessarily knowing it, The Blitz was birthing the next wave of British pop stars. A young Boy George ran the cloakroom, its host and doorman was a young Steve Strange, soontobe the frontman of Visage, Spandau Ballet played their first gig there and on a given night you might find yourself dancing next to a member of Ultravox. Fashion designers in Regency ballgowns mingled with secretaries in rubber, post boys dressed as Biggles danced next to art school kids dressed as Pierrot. David Bowie assembled his extras for the Ashes To Ashes video from the Blitz kids. Mick Jagger was refused entry. Too square.And the club had a mighty soundtrack, assembled painstakingly by its resident DJ Rusty Egan. Rustys setsbrought together heroes like Eno, Iggy, and Lou Reed cool European electronic pioneers like Kraftwerk, Telex and Yello, the electronic side of disco Cerrone, Hot Chocolate, Amanda Lear and cuttingedge filmsoundtracks from the likes of Vangelis, Giorgio Moroder and Barry De Vorzon. Rusty also span the nascent sounds of Britians next new wave Japan, Landscape, the Human League, Visage, Ultravox, Fad GadgetCompiled exhaustively from his DJ sets, Rusty Egan Presents The Blitz brings together the sounds of a night at the club circa 1980 on either 66 track 4CD or 36 track 4LP sets. Beautifully presented with contemporary photography from Sheila Rock, Peter Ashworth and Terry Smith, the booklets also contain sleeve notes from Alexis Petridis and Rusty himself. Rusty Egan Boxset is available for home delivery from Vinyl Records London, only £60 +P&P