Metropolis - Redux!?

One of the crazy things I remember from walking down Champs-Elysees in 1984 as a wide-eyed kid discovering Paris was the big movie posters at the big cinemas. The most impressive of the posters for me was Metropolis (I think it was featured, among other places, at the Gaumont Georges V), with the freaky retro-futuristic robot head. At the time I had no idea it was an old movie from 1927 by Fritz Lang (a great one, highly recommended!). What was even more confusing was that the poster was mostly advertizing the soundtrack by a certain Giorgio Moroder.

I think most people have forgotten that indeed Giorgio Moroder, one of the big names in Disco, restored the old movie and created an entirely new soundtrack for it. I've seen the old movie, but never had the chance(?) to see it with this disco soundtrack. But YouTube is here to help, and so this is one of the songs written for this soundtrack, and the video summarizes the plot of the movie pretty well (so don't watch it if you don't want any spoilers!).

Sex symbol: Isabelle Adjani

En 1984, Adjani devait etre au sommet de sa popularite. "L'ete meurtrier" avait ete un gros succes populaire l'annee precedente (avec un Cesar de meilleure actrice a la cle), et "Pull marine" ecrit par Gainsbourg specialement pour elle est un gros tube en 1984. Le clip , tourne par Luc Besson (et produit apparemment par un certain Bernard Tapie, selon Wikipedia !) qui la fera jouer dans Subway l'annee d'apres, rafle aussi un Cesar.

Alors voici une apparition d'Adjani dans l'emission Platine 45 aux cotes du clown Jacky. Trop craquante. (NDLR : malheureusement la video a ete enlevee par YouTube... Les aleas du direct ! Je l'ai donc remplacee par le clip de Besson.)

Memories-Part 18

I remember one of the main news stories was the 'L'Affaire Gregory'
where a young boy was abducted and killed in a village, from what I remember in the initial stages, the boy's uncle was the prime suspect, however he was released due to insufficient evidence
In the days after he was released the victim's father went to his home and murdered the uncle
then eventually, I believe the mother was thought of as a suspect
to the best of my knowledge , this case is still unresolved, but I could be wrong

In USA, the equivalent case would be the Joanbenet Ramsey case, where a child was murdered and at some point the parents were suspected and that case is also still unresolved

Bashung

Il y a cinq ans, Bashung disparaissait... Il y a trente ans, il sortait le single suivant :

A l'epoque je me prenais la tete avec le non-sens des paroles, et aussi les jeux de mots possibles ou imaginaires : "tu m'as conquis j't'adore" = conquistador? Maintenant en reecoutant la chanson je comprends surtout que les paroles etaient tres cochonnes !

Memories-Part 17

1984 was also a comeback year for two artists who were successful in the previous decades but had been somewhat under the radar since

Les nuits de la pleine lune

A l'occasion de la publication par les Inrockuptibles de leur liste des 100 plus beaux films francais, on se souvient du film d'Eric Rohmer sorti donc en 1984 (classe 5eme !), avec un jeune Fabrice Lucchini (et hop une petite apparition d'Eli Medeiros !) :



Les nuits de la pleine lune by dersouo

(a vrai dire je n'ai pas encore vu ce film, mais je me souviens tres bien de l'affiche !)

Alain Resnais

En 1984 je ne connaissais pas le cinema d'Alain Resnais, mais je connaissais le Cinema Alain Resnais de Clermont-L'Herault. J'y ai pu voir de mauvaises adaptations de films tels que 1984 et Dune, ainsi qu'un film qui, meme a l'ado que j'etais, semblait etre un navet: Footloose.

J'imaginais a l'epoque qu'Alain Resnais devait etre un cineaste deja mort depuis longtemps. Quelle erreur ! Non seulement il aura attendu 30 ans de plus avant de mourir, apres avoir realise une dixaine de films supplementaires, mais il etait meme a l'affiche en 84 avec "L'amour a mort" :

J'ai pu voir le film depuis, en fait il n'y a pas si longtemps. Assez bizarre, cette histoire ou le personnage d'Arditti meurt puis ressuscite et du coup se pose plein de questions metaphysiques, alors que sa femme realise a quel point elle tient/tenait a lui...

J'y prefere ses chefs-d'oeuvres stylises du debut (Hiroshima mon amour, L'annee derniere a Marienbad) et le quasi-ethologique "Mon oncle d'Amerique".

Ghostbusters!

With the recent death of Harold Ramis, it is timely to post this one: Ghostbusters of course came out in 1984, and I saw it at a ski resort with my hosts' kids during winter break. Maybe I'm tough to please, but I don't see why this film is so popular still these days. The best part of the movie for me was the title song by Ray Parker Jr:

Pacman vs les Schtroumpfs !

Oui, bien sur il y avait d'abord Pacman le jeu (qui datait bien sur d'avant 1984). Pendant mon passage a Paris l'ete 84, je me souviens avoir repere un cafe avenue Wagram qui avait un Pacman (on n'avait ni cafe ni Pacman la d'ou je venais). Parfois quand on se baladait sur les Champs-Elysees je laissais ma mere faire les boutiques chics (je me souviens tres clairement l'avoir vivement critique le jour ou elle a achete 3 pulls Benetton tres chers dans la boutique-mere) et me precipitais vers la Place Etoile direction Wagram pour depenser tout mon argent de poche dans le fameux jeu d'arcade. Une fois je crois etre tombe sur un bug, parce que le jeu continuait a me donner des credits gratuits alors que je ne jouais pas particulierement bien. Au bout d'un moment il a bien fallu laisser a regret le jeu malgre la vingtaine de vies accumulees..

Mais plus etonnant, Pacman le dessin anime ! Ca passait dans Recre A2 si je me souviens bien.




Ce dessin anime ne me paraissait pas tres interessant, mais bon j'etais un peu trop grand pour apprecier... A choisir je preferais le dessin anime des Schtroumpfs :




... mais la encore ce n'etait pas a la hauteur des bandes dessinees, que je lisais avidement par exemple a la fnac rue Wagram justement. Mais ma fnac preferee etait celle du boulevard Montparnasse, qui avait une excellente selection de BDs (hormis les Schtroumpfs, j'etais aussi obsede par Khena et le Scrameustache), et qui se trouvait pas loin de la boulangerie ou j'ai deguste un croque-monsieur pour la premiere fois....

Memories -Part 16

do you remember  X-OR

 

 

x-or générique début by maxiburgerjay

 

I did not watch this show, I believe it was on A2 opposite Collaro's Cocoricocoboy, ca not recall if it better in ratings than Collaro or not
Théâtre de Bouvard (1985) Le Beauf by showrisso

Les singles oublies : Tequila Bar

Ca dervait etre facile maintenant de trouver sur le net toutes les chansons dont on se souvient vaguement. Mais pas tant que ca quand on ne se souvient plus du nom du chanteur ni du titre ou des paroles, mais juste un vague souvenir ! Heureusement je suis tombe sur le nom du chanteur par hasard en cherchant autre chose, et hop ! Voici enfin cette chanson qui me taraudait l'esprit :

Qui se souvient de Tequila Bar ?

Les jeux teles !

Je me souviens de trois jeux teles a l'epoque, une creation francaise qui a survecu, une autre qui vecut plutot longtemps aussi, et un jeu importe des Etats-Unis mais tout de meme tres adaptee a la sauce francaise.

Commencons donc par le doyen des jeux teles, "Des chiffres et des lettres", qu'il est inutile de presenter. Ca passait a l'epoque un peu plus tard que maintenant, je dirais vers 18h... Mais ca donne un coup de vieux de voir le plateau de l'epoque :




Ah, le toujours rieur Patrice Laffont ! Et, deja la mais utilisant un bon vieux tableau, Bertrand Renard toujours aussi fort en chiffres. Arielle Boulin-Prat arrivera quelques temps plus tard. Et on n'a plus besoin d'Yvette en cas de litige, ou de Benedicte pour tirer les chiffres. Foin de nostalige, je prefere le jeu tel qu'il est actuellement, car on connait grace a l'ordinateur les resultats optimaux, et surtout les animateurs (y compris Leurent Romejko) font un vrai effort de trouver les mots et les comptes plutot que d'apparaitre clairement desinteresses (a part Bertrand bien sur) pendant le compte a rebours... En plus si je me souviens bien Patrice Laffont faisait parfois des fautes d'orthographe assez embarrassantes ! (Mais moi j'ai l'excuse de mon exil et le fait d'utiliser un clavier sans accent !)

Ensuite on a un jeu qui passait sur FR3 pendant les infos sur les deux autres chaines, et qui s'appelait donc le "Jeu des 20 heures"... Aaaah Maitre Capello ! J'avoue ne pas avoir souvent regarde ce jeux, car les parents preferaient (a juste titre) les infos. Je laisse donc le clip suivant vous rafraichir la memoire...




Tiens, tant qu'on y est, une apparition dans ce jeu de la mascotte de ce blog, Mylene Farmer chantant "Maman a tort" :



Quant a l'autre jeu, il etait beaucoup moins serieux et donnait surtout l'occasion a des acteurs ou chanteurs de seconde zone de montrer leur tete et leur sens de l'humour (finalement un peu comme le jeu precedent). Je parle bien sur de l'"Academie des 9", avec un transfuge justement du Jeu des 20 Heures, Jean-Pierre Foucault !



Emission Academie des 9 by spawnyyy

J'avoue que j'aimais bien cette emission (en realite un concept Americain connu sous le nom de "Hollywood Squares"). Ca ne volait pas tres haut, mais ca mettait de bonne humeur... Tiens, notre mascotte y fait une apparition !




Mais bientot avec l'arrivee de Canal + et de la 5, et la privatisation de TF1, on va voir deferler la vague de pleins d'autres jeux americains, mais cette fois-ci beaucoup plus "concepts" et beaucoup moins decontractes et naturels : Jeopardy, Le juste prix etc...

Memories-Part 15

song of the day from 1984

 

 

 

1984 was also the year Maradona arrived at Napoli with much fanfare

La valse des secretaires

Il s'agit en effet de secretaires... du parti communiste sovietique ! 1984 fut en effet une annee instable pour l'URSS. En 13 mois on est donc passe de Yuri Andropov :

A Konstantin Chernenko :

(on dirait des personnages de mechants sortis d'un vieux Tintin) et enfin, las de choisir des vieux croutons, on en arrive a un de mes heros de tous les temps, Michael Gorbachev :

Le politburo pensait tenir la un "jeune" ambitieux homme a poigne (ancien directeur du KGB oblige), et on s'est retrouve avec un homme moderne et raisonnable, qui ne s'est pas accroche au pouvoir autoritaire comme ses confreres des autres pays de l'Est et a prefere une transition democratique en douceur (qui a mis fin a sa carriere) a un bain de sang.

Duel au sommet : Rika vs Linda

1984 (et, on triche un peu, debut 1985 aussi) fut aussi l'annee de l'affrontement de deux monstres. Des monstres de la varietoche qui deciderent de nous infliger deux livres qui furent (bien sur) des succes (monstres) en libraire :

D'un cote on a la "Valise en carton" de Linda de Suza qui probablement fit pleurer la menagere de moins de 50 ans et lui fit renoncer, juste le temps de se secher les larmes rassurez-vous, a voter Le Pen :

De l'autre on a les conseils de sante (scientifiquement verifies, si si !) d'une autre chanteuse permanentee, en l'occurence Rika Zarai :

Je pense que Rika Zarai gagne le duel, euh... d'un cheveu. Je vous laisse, j'ai un bain de siege qui m'attend.

Merde !

The most difficult part when you're trying to catch up musically with everybody else is you're not quite sure if the artists you're discovering are brand new or whether they had a rich past (again, remember: no Google). When I saw in the charts a song named "Merde in France" I thought it was another silly song by some up and coming young artist who would soon go away. How wrong I was! Jacques Dutronc, I was to find out later, was an established and well-respected artist since the 60s. Still, hard to take this song seriously:




Then there was this other one that I really liked (very "planant") but that unfortunately didn't get much airplay or leave much of a trace, and again it turned out it was by a famous muse of the 60s: Francois Hardy.



I embedded the above version first because the recorded version has that "spacey" quality that I wanted you to discover if you didn't know the song. Here's Francois singing it "semi-live":



It's much, much later that I found out that Dutronc and Hardy had been a couple for the longest time. If all you know about these artists are the two songs above it's hard to see how they paired up...

Memories-part 14

do you remember this show Top 50


TOP 50 Année 1984 - Emission 1 by hitsdesclipsvideos

there was also another music show called 'Jack Spot' that I could not find any footage of

Le Youki !

Et hop ! Un p'tit clip de Richard Gotainer ! Elles sont mimis les caniches !



Richard Gotainer - Le Youki by clubmusic80s

Billy Ocean!

Sorry for the recent slowdown due to work... Let's get back to this gently with a guy who had a lot of success in 1984: Billy Ocean. He was already at the top of the charts by the time I arrived in France, with this song:

Apprently he had a version of the above song also called "European Queen", but I don't think I ever heard that version back then, even though I suppose it was targeted at precisely the European market:



Kinda weird, huh? I think "Carribean Queen" just rolls off the tongue better and makes more sense in the context of the song. A "European Queen" makes me think of Elizabeth II, not exactly someone I'd lust after...

Anyway... "Carribean Queen" is an example of a song that I first found out about by reading the charts, not by hearing it on the radio. I made it a mission to pay special attention to any mention of him or this song if it ever got played on the radio. But what happened is that Billy Ocean came up with a new single from his album, and so I heard the following song before I heard Carribean Queen:




I bet you that you'd forgotten all about "Loverboy", huh? I think the whole point of this blog is give you these Blast from the Past moments, things that are still in the remotest recesses of your memory, but not entirely gone... For whatever reason I remember being quite impressed by the production quality of the song AND the video (which reminds me a bit of Dune, a big movie flop from 1984, but that's for another post...). I think they were trying to outdo the success of Carribean Queen, but it wasn't to be...

Memories-Part 13

Of course you must remember this

Peter & Sloane-Besoin de rien, envie de toi

also this show in the mornings

Parlons France !

En 1984, Laurent Fabius remplace Pierre Mauroy et devient a 37 ans le plus jeune premier ministre de France.

Il confirme un virage a droite entame en 1983 et qui continue jusqu'a Gisca... pardon Hollande. Fabius est jeune, il est beau, il est brillant, et il veut imposer un style de communication qui corresponde a sa volonte de "moderniser la France" : "Parlons France" devient un rendez-vous mensuel de 15 minutes avec les telespectateurs :

Fabius dans "Parlons France" (TF1-1984) sur WAT.tv sélectionnée dans Actualité

Selon votre niveau de cynisme, je vous laisse decider de s'il s'agissait d'un coup de pub, d'une gestion habile d'image publique, de propagande, ou alors d'un desir candide et honnete de communiquer avec le peuple... Le gamin de 14 ans que j'etais approuvait en tout cas.

Memories-Part 12

1984, was also the year of the Jacksons reunion and this video 'Torture'

 

Also Jermaine Jackson had a hit with Pia Zadora

Sex Symbol: Valerie Kaprisky

I first noticed Valerie Kaprisky during my initial stay in Paris. As I might have mentioned earlier in this blog, those few weeks I spent there in the summer of 1984 were magical. And Valerie was part of that magic... She was on the poster for the movie "La femme publique" and you couldn't miss her:

A good friend from my home country, let's call him NZ, had also arrived in Paris at about the same time. He was a very ingenious guy. Back home he'd taught me all about airplane models (say the difference between a F-14 "Tomcat" and a F-15 "Eagle": the former's wings move back and forth for some reason!). He'd also managed to find in some dumpster some porn film (literally the film, not an actual tape we could play) and we'd strain our eyes trying to make sense of the tiny images. In Paris he built chess pieces out of cork plugs so we could play for cheap. And since he was as fascinated by "La femme publique" as much as I was, he convinced me to try to sneak into a movie theatre with him to see the movie, but our attempt was immediately spotted and stopped by an usher... To this day I haven't seen this movie.

Later on the same year Valerie Kaprisky had another movie that looked just as enticing, judging by the poster:

I saw that movie many years later on TV, but other than for Valery's physical attributes it didn't leave much of an impression to be honest.

Memories-Part 11

two more songs i remember

Bonnie Tylerr's 'Here she comes' and Telephone's 'un autre monde'

 

 

Mixtape!

Christelle was a tall and pretty classmate. She was, like most of my classmates, one or two years older than me, and so probably 15-16ish and looking more like 18 because of her height. It seemed that in Clermont-L'Herault it was ok to take your time finishing studying, or maybe they put me with those kids because they didn't have much hope that I'd do well.

More importantly, Christelle was into music (she was a fan of Jean-Jacques Goldman: nobody's perfect). And so I once asked her to make me a mixtape (under strict orders to include Alphaville's Big in Japan). This is what ended up playing on auto-reverse in my Toshiba walkman for weeks:

Because I'm a nice guy I made a YouTube playlist of this mixtape just for YOU!




As you may have noticed, side B is a little bit short. But that was ok because I discovered that the mixtape was taped over some older songs, and so the rest of side B ended up revealing some older songs:

- David Bowie - Let's Dance
- Falco - Der Kommissar
- Soft Cell - Tainted Love

But I didn't know what those songs were (they were already too "old" for NRJ to play them anymore), I didn't have Google and I didn't want to sound ignorant and uncool by asking my classmates, so it took me quite some time before I could put a name on them.

Memories-part 10

one of the best songs from that year

Remember this show ;le jeu de la verite' where celebrities would answer questions directly from the audience

Générique Le jeu de la vérité by fanda

Radio Days

Vous avez fait connaissance avec mon walkman. Je m'en suis surtout servi pour ecouter la radio. C'etait une epoque radiophonique un peu sauvage, avec la liberation recente des ondes. A Clermont-L'Herault on n'arrivait pas a capter grand-chose d'excitant, mais il y avait quand meme :

NRJ c'etait la source principale de pop music, c'est comme ca que je rattrapais mon retard sur mes camarades de classe ! Qui se souvient du jingle : "on est bien tous leeeees deuuux, quand on ecoute NRJ !". Il n'y avait pas encore FUN (1985 je pense, fonde par un ex-patron d'NRJ), Skyrock et autres.

Il y avait Radio Alligator, mais qu'on ne captait pas bien. Il fallait etre a Montpellier pour ca... C'etait surtout axe sur la musique americaine a l'epoque : Rock'n Roll, blues, folk... C'est bien plus tard, vers 1988, que je suis devenu completement accroc de cette station.

Mais il y avait aussi Radio Thau Sete, qui passait aussi surtout de la musique, mais dont je ne me souviens pas bien :

Radio Littoral :

Radio Clapas, avec ses emissions en occitan !

Radio Choc, la radio Pied Noir !

Il y avait aussi Sud Radio et Radio Campus, il me semble, mais imposible de trouver les logos...

Et puis bien sur les vieilles institutions : RTL, RMC, Europe 1, France Musique, France Culture...

Mais une de mes stations preferees etait la nouvelle venue : Radio France Herault :

Je me souviens en particulier de l'emission que j'ecoutais en rentrant du college, animee par un certain Jacques Baradat :

Je me souviens de son nom parce que le jingle de son emission jouait avec son nom de famille, et repetait comme en echo : "Barada... rada... da ?" Il avait aussi une obsession avec une chanson des Comateens :



Ce serait chouette si on pouvait trouver Jacques Baradat et lui demander d'ecrire un blog post, non ? Mon bon ami Mr Bad n'est qu'a deux degres de separations sur LinkedIn, une mission pour lui ?

Sinon, outre ses infos regionales il y avait aussi des emissions nocturnes sympas, dont une vers 22h dont le nom m'echappe mais qui passait de la tres bonne musique, suivie par une autre qui s'appelait "Dernieres nouvelles du front" par un certain Yves quelques chose, emission encore plus pointue que j'aurais mieux appreciee si j'etais un peu moins jeune et bete.

Mais, last but not least, il y avait surtout France Inter, mais je vais garder ca pour un autre blog post...

(pour les vieux logos et tout plein d'infos sur l'histoire radiophonique francaise, allez vous ballader sur Schoop.fr)

Des pubs avec des filles dedans !

Eh oui, imaginez : j'ai 14 ans et les sens en eveil, je debarque dans un pays ou on voit des jolies filles partout sur les affiches et a la tele. Voici donc quelques pubs avec des filles qui sont non seulement jolies mais qui apparemment sentent bon !






Et ma pub preferee pour la fin. J'aimais bien la musique et le look tres "frais" et tres colore de la pub... Apparemment on pouvait meme acheter le 45T !

Memories-Part 9

remember late at nights, the music videos on a show called 'bonsoir les clips'

ANTENNE 2 / 1984 / BONSOIR...LES CLIPS!... by 70DELUXE2000

Also this song by Al Corley

Un sacre numero !

Il n'y a pas que la musique dans la vie ! L'annee 1984 etait aussi memorable pour les debuts de la belle Peugeot 205 GTI :

La production de la 205 de base avait deja commence l'annee precedente, mais je pense que le modele GTI a donne au modele ses lettres de noblesses avec sa maniabilite, sa pointe de vitesse et ses lignes agressives. Et bien sur les succes en rallye de la 205 Turbo 16 la meme annee, avec au volant Ari Vatanen ont fait le reste :

Ce modele a sans doute sauve le groupe PSA. Voici une pub de l'epoque, c'est a dire juste avant que la loi n'interdise l'eloge de la vitesse dans les pubs de voiture :

Et enfin, un regal de voir Ari Vatanen piloter la Turbo 16, et pour bande son "Two Tribes" de Frankie Goes to Hollywood, bien sur datant de la meme annee !

On y voit en particulier le modele qui fit aussi les beaux jours du Paris-Dakar... (j'etais a Cergy-Pontoise debut Janvier 1985 pour y voir les voitures avant le depart !)

Memories-Part 8

By the way many times, I may select songs that may have been released in 1982 or 1983, I don't always know the exact release date.

Nevertheless, I select those songs because they were on heavy radio and video rotation at the time to have made an impression.

Also some of these songs I may actually not even like, but they are reminders

With that in mind the following is a song that was constantly played on the radio



and the inevitable French remake by Carlos

Memories-Part 7

two more hits

Memories-Part 6

how could we forget these two masterpieces

Memories-Part 5

talk about tacky disco remember this

Versions

For whatever reason, there were a few songs in 1984 and 1985 that were recorded by more than one artist. It almost always concerned a Euro-pop trash song. Usually the first (known) version was the better one, and so I never saw the point of the others that were presumably covers. Here's the ones I remember:

The first one has already been mentioned by sp1873: Self Control, which was a pretty big hit by two separate bands/artists:

Laura Branigan:



and then RAF:



I by far prefered Laura Branigan's version, which was sexier (the way she sings "you take myself" in the chorus, oh my!) and had a bit of an edge with the prominent electric guitars. RAF was probably produced to appeal to the female side of the audience. Still, so tacky.

Then we had Live is Life. The version that most people remember (and is probably the original one) is by Austrian band Opus:



It's heavy-handed, and that voice just plain irks me! Whereas the lesser known version by Stargo was almost poignant. I remember playing belote with my school friends during lunch break and listening to this song and singing it in unison!



It was faster, I loved the voice (hey, give me a break, I was 14), and the almost military "la la la la la" just made things somehow more... erm... serious.

Then we have to get to the bottom of the barrel for the next one. One of them is the awful Kalimba de Luna.



I hate pan flute in general, and when it is combined with all sort of fake synthesizer sounds it is just offensive. But of course it was so successful that Boney M covered it right away, and we have the almost identical version below:



But wait! This abomination was also covered in French by Dalida. Here she is performing it during Champs-Elysees:



And finally, something a little bit different. A fun little zydeco song by Rockin' Sidney called "My Toot-Toot" was a hit in the US:



But the version that made it to France was a cover by Denise LaSalle, and for once the cover was better than the original due to LaSalle's powerful and playful vocals:



But then of course once again someone immediately covered the song in French:



Really, was that cover necessary?

Memories-Part 4

Remember 'Les Enfants du Rock', I believe late on Saturday nights , with this James Brown intro

Speakerines !

Aaah les speakerines ! En voici quelques specimens qui officiaient en 1984...

Tout d'abord la Rolls des speakerines, Denise Fabre !

Ensuite une qui devint un an plus tard presentatrice a temps complet sur "Tournez Maneges", la parfois caustique Fabienne Egal :

Et enfin ma preferee, l'exotique Gillette Aho :

Et pour finir une petite compil' des speakerines (mais attention, pas que de 1984 !)... Saviez-vous que Chantal Lauby etait speakerine sur FR3 ?

Memories-Part Three

Two more songs from 1984, I remember the Raff version of Self Control y laura Branigan

Memories-part two

I remember on Saturday nights we often watched the program 'Champs-Elysee' hosted by Michel Drucker, from what I remember it was a variety show like the old 'Ed Sullivan Show'

It was musical acts and celebrity interviews

 

And of course your school going experience would not be complete with those lovely colorful Clairefontaine notebooks


22.09.1984 - Champs Elysées - MAT by moon1000

Catch My Fall

I also want to thank Dr Easy for letting me take part in this blog. I think he invited me because he knows 1984 is vivid for me, too. It was a transition year, for a couple of reasons. I was 12 and everything was changing: the way I felt about boys (terror, apprehension, longing), the way I experienced music (full-bodily), the way I expressed myself (I discovered writing in 1984).

 

But also, there was a big life change: I moved from France (possibly just as Dr Easy arrived) to South Africa in 1984. Before we left, I remember carefully cutting a picture of Michael Jackson out of a magazine to show people what he looked like, just in case they'd never heard of him or, God forbid, had never heard of Thriller. (Look, I was 12. Also, I know "Thriller" was from 1982, but I was a little behind.) 

But it turned out that the music people were listening to on the radio there was pretty much the same as in the place I'd left. I felt taken down a peg, but it was also a huge relief. Music gave some continuity, a bridge across the transition, when everything else seemed to be in upheaval. Lost friends, lost year at school because my age was all in between, lost summer (we moved to SA in the middle of winter from summer in Paris, which was a shock to the system), lost home (we lived out of a suitcase at a hotel for the longest time while my parents tried to find us somewhere to live). 

Posted below, a couple of the songs that kept me going at that time.

Invisible - Alison Moyet

Hold Me Now - Thompson Twins

  

I Want to Break Free - Queen

Catch My Fall - Billy Idol

Music/Television/Film/News/Soccer from 1984-Part one

My musical nuggets for today are Wham's Freedom and Jeanne Mas' 'Toute Premiere Fois'

I don't know if both songs were released in 1984 or before, but they were hits around the time we were there




On TF1 I remember Stephane Collaro's Cocoricoco, which was a daily half hour show if I recall correctly with comedy sketches


Cocoricocoboy 1984 by cdipre
Cocoricocoboy Emission TF1 1982 Stephane collaro by CrunchyPanthera












As far as movies, I remember seeing the first 'Police Academy' that year

For Political event, I do remember the Indira Gandhi Assassination

 

For Sports, the Football fan that I am remembers France's win the European Championships with Platini at the top of his game

this match vs Yugoslvia summed up his year

Introductions

First off, I would like to thank DrEasy for inviting me to co-author this blog.

For anyone who gets to see this blog, DrEasy and I are childhood friends who last saw one another in 1984.

We were able to reconnect through the wonderful world of the net in 2009 (some 25 years later).

Just like him (about a month later after him), myself and my family went to France in 1984.

Although, we stayed only one year, just like DrEasy, perhaps because the novelty of it all, I am also able to recall many of the events, the music, movies, etc.

I will try to add some memories as much as I can about the events of that life changing year as well.

Carl!

To be honest with you, I missed out on much of the Los Angeles Olympics hullabaloo. It was in the middle of summer, and I'd barely arrived in France, spending the first few weeks in Paris with my mom before finally going to the South and staying the whole school year with the family (friends of my mom) who had generously accepted to have me. It's even quite possible that I'd already arrived in Clermont-L'Herault during the Olympics, but even then there was not much time for TV distractions then, initially at least.

Those few weeks in Paris were magical, and understandably I didn't spend much time in front of the TV (except for the occasional F1 race - more on that in future posts!). But it was still hard to ignore the biggest story of the Olympics (besides the boycott by the Eastern Bloc) that was Carl Lewis' performance: 4 gold medals at track and field! (I used to root for Calvin Smith at the time, but oh well)

The big story for the French was Pierre Quinon's gold at pole vault (a bit of an upset I believe, as fellow Frenchman Thierry Vigneron was considered the better of the two), but let's not forget that superstar Sergey Bubka wasn't there due to the boycott. Here's Bubka breaking one of his many world records in 1984:

My walkman!

Let me introduce you to my best friend in 1984: the brand new Toshiba KT-AS1 walkman I was offered by a friend of my mom as a parting gift before my trip. The friend was an airline pilot, and he brought the walkman back from one of his trips to Japan (I think) as a special favor.

When I say this thing was my best friend, I'm not exaggerating. It followed me pretty much everywhere. I slept with it. You'll see why when you take a closer look at that little beauty:

First, as you can see in the logo at the bottom of the picture, it had Dolby! You could turn it on and off, and honestly, I would usually leave it off, as it took away too much "punch" from the sound. Second, it had a REVOLUTIONARY feature written in RED: AUTO-REVERSE! See, the "play" button has arrows going both ways! (It was sometimes confusing because the meaning of "fast forward" and "rewind" were relative and you were never quite sure what was the current direction). The green button reverses the direction of the tape! I found that one direction sounded better than the other though; I think the motor wasn't as powerful in both directions.

One of the toggles allows you to select automatic auto-reverse when reaching the end of the tape, thus allowing listening in a loop! My favorite thing: fall asleep listening to my favorite tape! (slight problem though: batteries weren't cheap).  The other toggle, as mentioned earlier, is to turn off Dolby. also notice the TWO headphone jacks: share the fun with a friend! My Toshiba wasn't the jealous kind...

But moving on to the most important feature: the TUNER!

See the little fellow to the right? Meet the tuner! This walkman was, I believe, one of the very first models to carry one, and to keep things compact they had to innovate. The tuner's shaped like a cassette tape, and so when you wanted to listen to the radio you'd open the lid and insert the tuner. The tuning knob conveniently protrudes from the lid (picture the tuner standing up vertically and you'll see how the knob aligns with the hole to the left of the FF button). But you did need to select AM or FM before you inserted the tuner.

Thanks to that little tuner I was constantly updating my knowledge of French pop culture to catch up to my buddies as part of my highly-sought assimilation process. I think I overdid it hough, hence this blog...

A couple more details:

The black thingy on the right is a belt clip-on. This is how the Toshiba never left me. It was with me with every walk to school, every trip to the magazine store to buy my weekly Spirou Magazine (there will be a blog post on this), and every rare long bus trip to Montpellier. Music colored everything; it made everything tolerable, less lonely, but also often more melancholy.

The box at the bottom of the picture was something I never saw with any other model: it was a container for big batteries; this way your listening pleasure would last longer and possibly cost less. Didn't use it much as it was bulky, even though it also clipped on to your belt. 

As mentioned earlier, I of course slept with the Toshiba every night. My bed was actually some sort of bunk bed. The bottom part wasn't a bed but a desk for the oldest kid of the family I was staying with. There was a ladder on the side to climb up to my bed. Being "upstairs" gave me a little bit of much appreciated privacy... The drawback was that a few times that poor walkman took a fall while I was sleeping. Not only the noise woke everybody up, but also ultimately the walkman was a little damaged, and tapes wouldn't sound so hot anymore. The tuner, thankfully, kept going, so the problem was probably the motor. So I ended up mostly listening to the radio, and that's how I'm quite the expert on French radio programming as well, but that's for another post...

(disclaimer: the nice photos were lifted off eBay; will happily replace them with my own if it's a problem)

Pub !

Pour commencer, une petite page de pub ! D'abord TF1:


Ensuite Antenne 2, et sa fameuse pomme :
Et pour finir (ben oui, il n'y avait que trois chaines), FR3 :