ah the 80s !

there once was a time not so long a go that i used to look back at that time in my life and cringe, but now a little bit older and maybe not so wiser i tend to hold more affection in my heart for that era when i think back. and why shouldn't i ? after all it is in that period in time where so much happened in my life. my high school years, teenage kicks and rebellion and of course the decade in which i lost my virginity.

oh the fashions, where at first i went from wearing mod styled target/checkered flag jackets and winkle pickers to D ms, stay press trousers and fred perry t - shirts with a short cropped hair. then drifted gently into the new wave/casual era. sporting a wedge haircut lyle and scott or pringle jumpers, tatchini, fila, elleese and la coste track suit tops and bottoms. louis jeans or farah trousers and then of course the most important of all the footwear, bjion borg diadora gold stripe, adidas samba, gazelles or wimbledons. and as the 80s drew to a close and the 90s neared things started to change yet again, but thats at another place back in time and story.

i remember some of the best feel good movies i ever got to see back then(bearing in mind i was a teenager and that i could relate to such story lines) and they still bring a rile smile to my face whenever i see them again. flicks like, the breakfast club, about last night, pretty in pink, st. elmos fire, say anything, porkies

politics and what was going on in the world didnt have much bearing on me at the point in my life, i was too busy and interested in what was going on in the world of tigerfish to care. much like most teenagers ! although some things do stick in your mind like the falklands war, the miners strike and the thatcher years. oh yeah and the ronald reagan spitting image puppet, where they used to open his head up to see if anything was actually going on inside

and then there was that thing called music. my what a diverse time it was ! duran duran, spandau ballet and wham. the jam(later the style council), specials and madness. culture club, the thompson twins, tears for fears and the human league. plus many other artist that filled the charts from both side of the atlantic and europe that either stuck around for a long time or were one hit wonders. micheal jackson, madonna, shalamar, musical youth, flock of seagulls, kajagoogoo, robert palmer, george benson, alexander o neil and luther vandross. there always the fringe kind of acts that always got me ticking to, fought against the norm. the way things should be per sieved/done and i guess have had a great influence on the way i have sought out to listen to different musical acts that carried through into the 90s up until this present day. to the likes of bands such as, the smiths, the cure, Siouxie and the banshees, Bauhaus, joy division/new order i guess i owe a special debt.

so anyone else got any weird, funny or special memories of times gone by in the 80s ? state side , down under, sporting, fashion disasters, t.v., food trends, cars, even times spent in the LOS.

anyway to start the ball rolling, top band from sheffield , england u.k.

The 80's sticks out in my mind as the worst decade for music in my lifetime. I know there will be some exceptions, like Dylan's "Time Out Of Mind" and Los Lobos "La Pistola" and U2's "Joshua Tree", which were brilliant, but man was there was a lot of shit pumped out back then .

Well, that was certainly a downer on a thread that was supposed to be positive.

The 80's sticks out in my mind as the worst decade for music in my lifetime. I know there will be some exceptions, like Dylan's "Time Out Of Mind" and Los Lobos "La Pistola" and U2's "Joshua Tree", which were brilliant, but man was there was a lot of shit pumped out back then .

Embrace the cheese

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XEhXcEpajN0

admittedly like i said in my op there was a lot of stuff about the 80s that made one cringe, but also put a smile on my face when i thought back to things related to that era. kind of a little chuckle inside to what i was once thought was "cool " in retrospect though wasnt. maybe the same might be said if i look back in 20 odd years and think of some of the things i am doing now. you just cant dismiss things though that have taken part in your life previously and its better to look back on them with a fondness rather than in regret.

just been browsing youtube for some inspiration and came across a documentary narrated by an old mucker from the past (gary crowely) on casual culture. my word girls wearing tassled boots in burberry overcoats, football firms, taxing and ford capris, cortinas and hunters. its all coming back to me now !

there were some good things though that came out of that time.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hv-2BBKicVU

and from the other end of the spectrum

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wlq0lYB3iSM

Some 80's jazz

The 80's sticks out in my mind as the worst decade for music in my lifetime. I know there will be some exceptions, like Dylan's "Time Out Of Mind" and Los Lobos "La Pistola" and U2's "Joshua Tree", which were brilliant, but man was there was a lot of shit pumped out back then .

Oh, come on. I bet you sang along with the above songs - word for word - just like the rest of us!! With good memories.

Nope, I was NEVER a waitress working in a cocktail bar. I didn't have time to visit bars at all. I was too busy raising a family, paying off a mortgage and trying to keep my marriage together with a wife who was going crazy with a thyroid problem while dealing with pre-menopause.

The 80's sticks out in my mind as the worst decade for music in my lifetime. I know there will be some exceptions, like Dylan's "Time Out Of Mind" and Los Lobos "La Pistola" and U2's "Joshua Tree", which were brilliant, but man was there was a lot of shit pumped out back then .

Oh, come on. I bet you sang along with the above songs - word for word - just like the rest of us!! With good memories.

The eighties were great!

Went to Libya at the start of the eighties - Benghazi.

No satellite TV dishes permitted (but we managed to get one for the whole compound).

Out most evenings - weekly darts league, weekly bridge league, hash on Saturdays, rugby training, rugby matches on Fridays, so on. No alcohol permitted, but a hundred different concoctions available from Biomalt, yeast and sugar. (Rarely any hops, so it had to be drunk within a limited period). The Italians had had n vineyards before WWII and these were still giving out good grapes. So September was wine-making time - Christmas was wine-drinking time.

You need to get through a Polish Christmas sometime. Most of the nurses in the hospitals were either Polish or czechoslovak (during the transition from cold war to glasnost).

Stayed there nigh on ten years, sometimes without a vacation for a year or more. But no music, except Boney M "Brown Girl in the Ring"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4z_usl6i9IY

I don't think Ian actually got the title. Myself, I never worked in a cocktail bar.

But i do remember being in my early twenties and living and working in Edinburgh and thoroughly having a great time.

Oh, to go back 20 odd years!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nAdaQhitdKg

Well,

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nAdaQhitdKg

nice one pasty ! reminds me of the closing scene from the movie " the breakfast club "

and the upload of the style councils a classic, brings back memories of the red wedge days.

also to think that d.c.lee started out as a backing singer for wham and then shirley went on to marry the fella from spandau ballet.

got me digging up some real goodies now, that will take you back. but for now some more from the mod father himself and d.c.

remember this lot ?

and a fair few decent Scottish bands around at the time if i remember rightly. wee Clare with altered images, edwyn Collins ala orange juice, loyld cole and the commotions, plus these fellas

Right tigerfish,

give me crap....

Luv it....

Nope, I was NEVER a waitress working in a cocktail bar. I didn't have time to visit bars at all. I was too busy raising a family, paying off a mortgage and trying to keep my marriage together with a wife who was going crazy with a thyroid problem while dealing with pre-menopause.

Eerily familiar.

No decent music since the 50s.

Just a cocophany of discordant sound.

Songs in general, gibberish.

No decent music since the 50s.

Just a cocophany of discordant sound.

Songs in general, gibberish.

Nonsense Pete. Here's a 1980's Leonard Cohen composition sung beautifully by Jeff Buckley.

I got a job workin' construction...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rYriU4bhW7I&feature=related

Performed here in '79, released on album in '80, so just under the wire.

taken from the movie 9 and a half weeks starring micky rourke, great soundtrack. angel heart was another good movie from that decade too.

and another from mr ferry.

ooooooooohhhhhhhh sixth form beano weekend to bournemouth, say no more.

Hey, I just bought Human League's album, along with the Best of ABC and REO Speedwagon (I'm just an old romantic at heart). They all had some killer songs back in the 80s.

Thanks tigerfish, this thread is very timely.

To this day i never understood why the armadildo was running around.

The start of the 80's, I was still at school in NZ. The middle of the 80's, I was married and subsistance farming in Fiji, by the end of the eighties, I had migrated back to NZ, got my first job, was made redundant, went to uni, got divorced...... Because of the time away in isolation, I was oblivious to the music and styles of the decade except for the begining and end years. But I do have fond memories of The Clash, The Smiths, Hello Sailor, Split Enz....the list goes on.