Too Shy, a Bass Guitar, and Black Sabbath…..!
Too Shy, a Bass Guitar, and Black Sabbath…..!
In an effort to bring you, the reader, the very best in Kajagoogoo content, KajaFax has unearthed this rather unusual tale….
Ever wondered what happens to the various instruments used by famous stars over the years? Well, we here at KajaFax did. The ‘Wal Pro2E Bass’ was the instrument used by Nick Beggs back in the 1980’s and was used in the recording of the 1983 No1 hit, Too Shy as well as various other tracks on both the ‘White Feathers’ and ‘Islands’ albums.
Launched in early 1979, the Pro Series headstocks are characterised by the striking neck laminates which continue through the headstock. The first ever Pros had plain faced headstocks; from then on, the distinctive Wal stripes became standard. Early Pro headstocks featured 10 laminations of maple, mukalungu (an Amazonian hardwood) and English hornbeam.
This is the bass played by Nick in the video for ‘Too Shy’ in 1983.
This photo was taken in 1984 on theKajagoogoo Islands tour at the Hammersmith Odeon inLondon.
Photo courtesy of ‘SFX83’, who as a past owner of Nick’s bass, continues the story:
“I can remember being really disappointed at the (Islands) gig, cos at that time Nick couldn’t sing and play bass at the same time…so they had session player, John McKenzie, playing most of the bass lines. I remember jokingly saying to Nick afterwards, funny how you can sing and play at the same time, when you’re on top of the pops….”
Nick sold the Wal through the Bass Centre,London, on commission, in 1989 which is where SFX83 inadvertently obtained possibly the ultimate in ‘goo memorabilia!
“I travelled down from Newcastle on the coach to London to collect the bass. I got to the shop to find that they had hired it out to the then bass player of Black Sabbath, Laurence Cottle, who were shooting a video that day for the ‘Headless Cross’ single…so one of the guys from the shop had to go get it back. I bet Nick didn’t know about that! It really stood out from all the other basses…I remember seeing the cigarette burn on the head stock. I knew Nick Beggs used a pro2E because I’d seen him playing one live in 1984…on retuning home forgot all about it. A couple of weeks later, I was looking through some pictures in the Kajagoogoo lyrics book, and saw Nick Beggs playing his black Wal and straight away noticed the cigarette burn on the headstock…”
Careful examination of the case revealed a further clue as to the history of the instrument:
“On the side of the case was a strip of gaffa tape reading, N. Beggs – Commission sale…I phoned the Bass Centre to get some info and they said they were selling some basses for Nick”
It appears that Nick sold several basses at this time, including his old pre Ernie Ball Music Man StingRay, his 2 white Vigier Arpege’s and of course the Wal pro2E. He subsequently purchased a Wal Mk2 5-string in 1987, when he formed Ellis, Beggs & Howard.
As for the ‘loan’ to Black Sabbath:
“I saw the (Black Sabbath) video a month later, on TV and there it was”
Video courtesy of ache666:
“You can always recognize this bass, by a cigarette burn on the headstock, just above the E string. I tried to polish it out, but it’s visible if you look for it. I changed the original control knobs for the newer Wal aluminum ones, but kept the old ones and gave them to the buyer, when I sold it”
‘SFX83’ owned the instrument from 1989, until 1992.
So what of the present day? Well, the bass finally got the attention it deserved when it was placed in the expert hands of Paul Herman who gave it a thorough restoration job back in 2010.
Its current value is £1750, which includes a new Wal embossed Hiscox case! The only non-stock feature is the ebony thumb-rest that has been custom manufactured during the restoration process.
A fine instrument and a great piece of Kajagoogoo history!
* a huge thank you for this story is owed to the contributors at ‘Basschat’ forum – in particular, forum members Happy Jack and SFX83 who provided KajaFax with the much appreciated source material that made this whole article possible. Thank you, guys!
2011 KajaFax
Kajagoogoo Russian Bootleg Flexi Discs
Kajagoogoo Russian Bootleg Flexi Discs
Kajagoogoo are not a band bootlegged often, but occasionally something appears that bucks the apparent trend. Regular readers to KajaFax will remember our posts on bootleg albums ‘Over the Top’, ‘Thanks Japan’ and ‘Kajagoogoo and Culture Club Live’…
https://kajafax.co.uk/2011/03/18/kajagoogoo-and-culture-club-bootleg/
https://kajafax.co.uk/2011/01/12/white-feathers-tour-bootleg-album/
https://kajafax.co.uk/2011/01/16/kajagoogoo-live-in-tokyo-1984-cdr/
The Thanks Japan CD comes in the form of an ‘official’ bootleg (available via KajaShop as ‘Live in Tokyo’):
…and in this form, as an unofficial factory pressed CD, available by cover of darkness under plain brown paper wrapping… J
Here we have one such group of unofficial items in the form of flexi discs, rather crudely manufactured inRussia.
The translation of the Russian writing on flexis/sleeves reads:
‘Association of Music Lovers’ Clubs’ (on top of the label)
‘Budkon’ (a label name) underneath it
‘45 Mono’ on the right side, and what appears to be a catalogue number on the left side
‘Recorded by transmission’ (on the bottom)
A fansite dedicated to punk band The Stranglers managed to get further information on these discs from a Russian fan who writes:
“I guess they might have made a number of such releases, most likely a very limited amount of each (like several dozen copies – maybe even less). All I can say about the date of release is that I don’t think it is later that ’95. The vinyl market in Russia died a very quick death in 1992-94. I doubt anybody would bother to release anything of this sort knowing that most people had thrown away their record players…and soon after ’95 everybody started making and selling pirate CDs, so based on this speculation I’d put the dates of release somewhere between 1992 and 1995. I vaguely recall seeing flexis like this shortly before I left Russia in early 1993, but I can’t remember any details”
The discs are a real oddity and have occasionally been available in record fairs since the 1990’s and more recently via the internet. The discs are 6 inches square and are single sided. They vary in colour, are usually seen in green, red, blue or clear variants, and contain a very poor quality mono recording of the song in question. Most of the discs contain incomplete versions of the track named, as they are ‘edited’ to fit the disc. Cover art is very crude – black and white paper in a polythene slipcase, and often bears no relation to the artist on the disc!
The records were pressed by Budkon Records inRussia– does anybody know anything about this label???
KajaFax is aware of the following Kajagoogoo/Goo related titles available
Kajagoogoo Titles:
Frayo
Ergonomics
Too Shy
This Car Is Fast
White Feathers (live)
Magician Man (live)
Limahl Solo Titles:
I Was a Fool
Tonight Will Be the Night
Cheatin’
Shock
That Special Something
For My Heart’s Sake
Someone Else
The Greenhouse Effect
Love in Your Eyes
Never Ending Story
Do you know of any more of these flexi discs? If so, please let us know at:
2011 KajaFax
Limahl Solo Singles Love in Your Eyes
Limahl Solo Singles – ‘Love In Your Eyes’
‘Love in Your Eyes’ was Limahl’s fifth solo single, and the first single from the album ‘Colour All My Days’, released by EMI in 1986.
Produced by Giorgio Moroder, the release featured ‘Love Will Tear the Soul’ on its B Side – another track from the album. The track charted well all over Europe, but only hit number 80 in the UK chart. The song was a top 30 hit over most European territories.
Below is a photo of the UK 12” single.
And here is the promotional video, commissioned by EMI in 1986:
More features on Limahl’s solo singles to follow!
2011 KajaFax
Limahl Comeback United
Limahl – Comeback United
Back in 2004, Limahl was asked to participate in the European pop show ‘Comeback – Die Grosse Chance‘ aka ‘Comeback United’. The show was broadcast by German station ‘ProSieben’ and was viewable all over Europe including the UK (UK readers who had analogue SKY receivers will remember this station…)
In retrospect, programmes like this were very much in vogue in the early 2000s. Similar shows aired at around that time such as ‘Hit Me Baby One More Time’ (also featuring Limahl) proved popular with British audiences. ITV’s ‘Reborn
in the USA’ was another variation on the theme and was won (easily, in my opinion!) by Tony Hadley from Spandau Ballet.
Shows like this can be a useful tool – Hit Me Baby One More Time facilitated the return to the UK Top 20 of Shakin’ Stevens.
‘Comeback – Die Grosse Chance’ was hosted by popular TV presenter Arabella Kiesbauer and was also broadcast in Switzerland & Austria.
The show took ten artists who had enjoyed previous chart success and brought them together to compete for a chance to ‘Comeback’ and win a new recording contract into the bargain. All the artists performed new songs, ‘live’, every week, which were then judged by a panel of three music industry professionals and the TV viewers by telephone. Each week had a different theme.
The artists competing with Limahl were:
Benjamin Boyce – formerly of 90’s band ‘Caught in the Act’
CC Catch
Coolio
Chris Norman – former front man of 70’s group Smokie
Emilia
Haddaway
Jazzy formerly of ‘Tick Tack Toe’
Markus
The Weather Girls
Limahl has this great gallery of ‘behind the scenes’ photos – take a look at the official Limahl website to see them!
http://www.limahl.com/gallery/galleries/recent/limahl_comeback1/cc_catch&limahl.html
Unfortunately, Limahl did not win the show, but it did give him the opportunity to record some new tracks for the CD released to accompany the series.
The album contains a new recording of ‘Never Ending Story’, as well as a covers of ‘Can You Feel the Love Tonight’ and ‘Don’t Go Breaking My Heart’, a duet with Dynelle Rhodes from the Weather Girls.
Limahl comments on the whole experience:
“…In the end I can honestly say I LOVED it all……it was sheer excitement all the way, a joy and a privilege to be part of ‘Comeback’. I didn’t’ win and I didn’t even get to the final but I still feel like a winner. I feel very proud…”
Collectively, the artists recorded a single – ‘Survivor’ and also a promotional video for the song. To round off today’s post, KajaFax is pleased to present that video for your enjoyment:
2011 KajaFax
The Sopot International Song Festival
The Sopot International Song Festival.
An important event in Kajagoogoo’s recent history was their performance at the 48th annual ‘Sopot International Song Festival’ otherwise known as the ‘Sopot Music Festival Grand Prix’. Sopot itself is a seaside city in Northern Poland and a popular holiday destination, proudly boasting the longest wooden pier in Europe! The Sopot festival is one of the biggest festivals of its type in Europe, and was originally a competition not dissimilar in format to the Eurovision Song Contest. The ‘contest’ element was briefly dropped in the late 1990s, making it a music festival rather than a competition.
The event is televised overEuropevia Polish broadcaster TVN.
In recent years, the organisers have updated the format of the festival to favour big star names, with artists as diverse as Vanessa-Mae, Annie Lennox, Chris Rea, Sophie Ellis-Bextor and Whitney Houston all performing live at the festival at one time or another.
Kajagoogoo performed at the 2008 festival, andKajaFax is pleased to bring you backstage photographs from the event courtesy of Jez Strode.
The first set of photos was taken when the band arrived in Poland prior to the event, at a group press conference, and also whilst promoting the festival on Polish breakfast TV show ‘Dzień Dobry TVN’.
…and some great pictures of the band in rehearsals, and then on stage for the performance ‘proper’:
So, how good were they? Well, the guys played a four song, 17 minute set….
A great performance!
2011 KajaFax
Happy Birthday Stuart
Happy Birthday Stuart Croxford Neale
A huge KajaFax Happy Birthday to keyboard wizard, ‘Stuart Croxford Neale’.
Stu, we hope you are having a fantastic day and don’t stray too far from your keyboard!!
There are so many videos we could have selected to feature in today’s post but this is our choice.
Only for Love, Denmark 2008, courtesy of Kajagoogoomusic
Happy Birthday Stu!
2011 KajaFax
KajaFax Announcement
KajaFax Announcement
Ever since starting KajaFax back on November 17th 2010, we’ve worked hard to bring you fresh and interesting content on a daily basis and we really hope you’ve enjoyed reading it as much as we’ve enjoyed writing it.
It’s been an absolutely incredible journey for us and we’ve learned so much.
In order to preserve the quality of the site, as of today in our 350th post, we are reducing the quantity and switching to a minimum weekly update.
With over eight months of high quality daily posts brought to you, there is only so much longer we could continue writing on a daily basis before the content suffered and we can’t allow that to happen. We’ve brought you as much as we can from the past, we have no future material to report and that of course has contributed to our decision.
For us, it’s important to pull back a little whilst we’re still pulling in consistently great viewing figures. We’d never want this decision to have to be made for us.
The weekly post is guaranteed. Outside of that, we will update as and when we can. We’ll report news as soon as it happens and if we spot something that would make an additional good feature, we’ll publish it.
We’re very pleased to confirm that we will be working with Limahl on his official site and we’re hoping to work with the guys on the official KajaGooGoo site, we certainly won’t be stepping away from all things ‘Goo!!
We’d like to take this opportunity to thank you all for your support so far with the site. Our loyal readers come back daily and you’ve allowed us to continue doing what we do. We’d recommend that using the email subscription option would be the best way of ensuring you never miss any content.
Your continued support would be hugely appreciated!
Kind Regards,
Steve & Steve
2011 KajaFax
Limahl and the Eurovision Song Contest
Limahl and the ‘Eurovision Song Contest’
This may come as a surprise to some fans of Kajagoogoo, but back in the days when Nick, Steve, Jez and Stuart were busy being ‘Art Nouveau’, future band mate Limahl was doing something quite different – recording for the Eurovision Song Contest!
Shortly after moving to London in the June of 1979, the young (soon-to-be) Limahl purchased some studio time to record some new songs. This triggered some interest in Limahl by in one of the recording engineers, who paired him with female vocalist Christine Panayi. The duo set to work on a song that was later to be entered into the ‘Song for Europe’ selection process – hopefully gaining entry into the Eurovision event representing the UK. Working under the name ‘Kris’ (a play on their first names – Chris/Christine), the pair set to work.
Photograph courtesy of limahl.com
The single ‘Strange Kinda Love’ was the result.
Limahl describes the recording session:
“I took the underground to ‘Kingley Studios’ near Regent Street where I met Christine and our photo was taken together just outside the studio building…the recording session was fun, I liked the song and learned it pretty fast but one small thing bothered me……they told me I was singing too “proper” !! In their opinion the voice training and theatre stuff had perhaps steered me too much in the direction of a theatre style voice and I was quite secretly upset by this observation, although I didn’t show it. Thankfully they persisted in pushing me in the direction of a more contemporary sound which finally came”
Unfortunately, the song did not get selected for the Eurovision Song Contest that year…
http://www.limahl.com/media/swf_players/strange_kinda_love.swf
Many thanks to Limahl and Christine for bringing this article to KajaFax!
For more information on all things Limahl, please visit the official Limahl website:
2011 KajaFax
KajaGooGoo Thanks Japan Encore Live Book
KajaGooGoo Thanks Japan Encore Live Book
Here is a rather marvellous book all the way from Japan. It celebrates the time the band spent over there with the Islands tour.
Many thanks again to our own Steve Yeo for not just finding this one, but scanning all of the pages for us to share.
Fans will of course note that the book shares the same name as the bootleg CD. The digital download of this album ‘Live in Tokyo’ is still available via the KajaShop! A must own for all fans.
Related Post:
https://kajafax.co.uk/2011/01/16/kajagoogoo-live-in-tokyo-1984-cdr/
2011 KajaFax
Limahl Tar Beach
Limahl – Tar Beach
Here we have the 12″ single of Tar Beach and also the 7″ promo. This single was released in Germany and made #30 in the charts.
This was the fourth single to be taken from his debut album, ‘Don’t Suppose’.
You’ll note that the B side of this release was ‘The Greenhouse Effect’ which is of course the track which was removed from ‘Don’t Suppose’ when it was re-released and replaced with ‘Neverending Story’.
This information sheet came with the promo, it’s in German so we aren’t actually sure what it says! Can any of our German readers translate for us?
According to “The City in Slang” by Irving Lewis Allen, getting a tan on tar beach was often the preparation for a trip to Coney Island. “By the 1940’s,” he wrote, “city rooftops, those ersatz beaches, were given the fictitious place name tar beach, alluding to the black tarred and graveled rooftops.”
Tar Beach is an upbeat track, it’s fun. I always thought it had quite a strong ‘Club Tropicana’ feel to it. Have a listen for yourself:
Video courtesy of scando34:
2011 KajaFax
kajafax.co.uk 