in ecstacy, like the gods i saw walking in my dreams

Christmas is here once again, so let’s all have some fun,
don’t forget ten pints a night and don’t forget to come.....
......to the lads’ party, of course





the above words are, for want of a better term, the lyrics to the masterpiece unleased by Ped, Mark and Nasher on the elaborate b-side of the 12” of Frankie Goes To Hollywood’s The Power Of Love. well, with it being the Christmas season, i thought that would be the best way to start off what will hopefully turn out to be my masterpiece on my most beloved band. although it could do with less convoluted sentences from here on out......

this is and this is not a history of Frankie. if you want to read more of The Spitfire Boys, Big In Japan and a certain edition of Variety reporting on Frank Sinatra making films, i suggest you return to google and start again. this being a blog, and supposedly us who write blogs are all “me, me, me” on them, this is my tale of Frankie, and claims to be nothing more but is perhaps always going to be something less......

i can with ease recall my first encounter with Frankie – a family holiday in Malta, 1983. in Malta one could by “independently produced” tapes (yes, those in the know, even back then), and something called Relax by Frankie Goes To Hollywood, or possibly to my ten year old mind Frankie Goes To Hollywood by Relax, was on one of the tapes i got. another kid on holiday, the name of whom sadly has been lost in time, was in raptures over it, saying it was like the greatest song ever. i listened to it, and i was less than enthusiastic.

i recall glimpses of them on TV here and there. i easily remember the promo for the 83-84 New Year special of The Tube, with someone calling himself Holly Johnson of Frankie Goes To Hollywood appearing in it. i wondered why they had this Holly fellow and not whoever Frankie was. needless to say, i never owned a Frankie Say t-shirt.

Frankie released another record, something called Two Tribes. i wasn’t really interested, not being all that impressed with my, up to then, one and only playing of Relax. i ignored the song and its domination of the charts for quite some time. and then i saw them performing it on the now sadly gone Top Of The Pops. the decision was taken there and then to become a Frankie fan.

and that’s how i got to where i am now, some 23 years on, and still a Frankie fan. there’s not a great deal of point trying to make any sense of it, but let’s see what ramblings i can come up with.

i think the one thing that was central to my formulative years, in respect of development, knowledge and education, was the audacious double album Frankie released, Welcome To The Pleasuredome. i recall my Mum buying the set for me, and showing off certain aspects of the cover and artwork – things that did not make all that much sense to me at the time, but as she then rightly described as the band “pushing it as far as they could still get away with”. if you have the original double album, or one of the unedited CD releases, you will know exactly which parts of the artwork are being referred to here. i mean, i thought the poster of Holly & Paul in black leather clothes on my bedroom wall was just stylish, i never knew what the clothing indicated!

it’s the content and the substance of the album that did it for me, however. yes, they were at heart an explosive dance creation outfit built on a bedrock of solid rock music. but they were an intelligent one at that. on the basis of the sleevenotes as the lyrics, i learned new things to go and explore and research. they included, off the top of my head – Kubla Khan, Andy Warhol, Pablo Picasso, Che Guevara, Malcom X, Bruce Springsteen. the Frankie i love kicked open the doors to a world of learning and expanding horizons.

oh, and Norman – the words to Krisco Kisses turn out to be “thunder thunder, i love like thunder, yeah” and not what we assumed for all these years. a shame, i think our interpretation is much better.

3rd Single, 3rd Number 1 – The Power Of Love. it only stayed at Number 1 for a week, thanks to the unstoppable (and who would have wished to have stopped it?) Band Aid being released the next week. like it? well, we used it as our wedding music.....

a family holiday, i think in 1985 or 86 (whenever Karate Kid 2 was released, we watched it like 6 times at a cinema whilst there), in Portugal had me spending a day listening to the staggering 12” of Relax on repeat on the walkman. for those of you not of my generation, the walkman was what we had in the 80’s. a 0GB iPod, if you will. New Order’s Blue Monday may very well have set records for sales of the 12”, but Frankie defined what a 12” should be.


Frankie had a personality that no band at the time courted, and no band since has come close to touching. a shame, really, that’s probably got a lot to do with the sorry state of music these days. it may very well have been clever marketing and what not, but each and every Frankie was like an extended friend, big brother and/or someone that you just plain admired and were envious of. Holly was just the coolest person in the world, and for a time you got the impression that the universe revolved around him. Paul Rutherford was the second coolest, as he got to hang around with the greatest band in the world and wasn’t, to the most ardent observer, apparently expected to do or contribute much as the entrance fee. as for the lads – Ped, Nasher and Mark, well! the party animals, the have a good time all the time brigade. going out to parties and clubs appeared to be the greatest thing in the world, going on their comments and antics. just spin the b-side of Two Tribes, the curious One Feburary Friday, and tell me that you don’t want to transport yourself far away and become one of “the lads”. or the mentioned Power Of Love 12” b-side, where you are basically at a Frankie hosted party. Frankie offered a world of enlightenment and experience you could only dream of. Let your imagination conceive it, to paraphrase a remix of Pleasuredome.

a film appearance for the band, no less, in Body Double. myself and my good friend Norman sneaked a rental of the film (the age restriction well over what we should have been watching) just to see them. we were impressed with them, and the film entire.

it was with the single Welcome To The Pleasuredome that it all went a little bit wrong. 3 singles, 3 number ones and one of the biggest selling albums of all time. in retrospect, it was amazing that a 4th single from the album would sell at all, their sales being so rampant, but sell it did. but not enough. Welcome To The Pleasuredome as a 7” entered the charts at the cursed Number 4 slot. no single entering the charts at 4 had ever made it to 1. and this did not break the curse, it stalling at 2. i think it was Boris Gardner that kept them off the top – well, it was this one or Rage Hard in 86.

Frankie went away for 18 months after that – tax reasons and recording being the usual circumstances quoted. it was, and it was not ever, to be the same again on their return.

in mid-86 i stayed up until 1am to catch a glimpse of their comeback, somewhere in Montreal or Monseraat or something. they mimed two new tracks, Rage Hard and Warriors Of The Wasteland. the lads had taken over, they came back with a far harder rock, far lesser dance sound. it was still good.

Rage Hard was the comeback single. it didn’t clock the number 1 spot, again the curse of entering the chart at 4 striking. hey, i bought as many copies as i could. the video got voted the worst video of the year. Holly’s pants in it go some way to explaining why i cannot disagree with that decision.


the second album came out, Liverpool. the critics said it was “half as long but twice as good” as the illustrious debut. it didn’t need that – a great album is a great album, and Liverpool is a great album. there's not a bad track to be had.

single 6 – Warriors Of The Wasteland. i don’t think it even made the top 10. i was frustrated that Maximum Joy or Lunar Bay were not considered singles. for some reason the video was a cartoon, photos of the band cropping up here and there.

January 10 1987. Manchester G-Mex Arena. Frankie Goes To Hollywood, supported by Berlin. i was there. they opened with Warriors, and then went into one of my all time favourites, The Only Star In Heaven. Paul wore a “Frankie Say Use A Condom” t-shirt. for Lunar Bay the lights all went out and Ped played with red neon drumsticks. for War, massive flamethrowers shooted up all over the stage. nice one, thanks again, thanks forever to my Uncle Colin for taking me to see them.

single 7 – Watching The Wildlife. not bad. i bought the 7” and the 3 12”’’s released. it was not enough, i think it barely scraped into the 20’s in the chart, if that. the video was awful for it, except that the band as ever looked cool.

and then Frankie as a going concern was gone. there’s the stories of a backstage fight, but i guess it was never going to last.

the stories of Frankie are the stuff of legend. i dare not repeat some of them here, as i do my best to keep it clean for all visitors. some are safe to mention – the one where Ped was so keen to avoid a trip to the USA that he just threw himself down some stairs until something broke. the reason for wishing to skip the States? it was not as good an offer as staying home and watching the footie with his mates. then there’s the one of Mark O’Toole trashing a pub quiz machine, as it dared to suggest that his wife was the girlfriend of Howard “What Is Love Anyway” Jones. and, closer to home, the tale of how Frankie took one look at Middlesbrough and refused to play the scheduled gig there – until their ego was massaged with an official opening of the HMV store there.

i followed the solo careers as best i could – i even penned to Holly, and was delighted to get a response, and a signed copy of his excellent debut CD, Blast. Holly hit the charts for a while, but sadly soon faded away. Paul’s solo material, as hinted at in other posts, was ace – a shame it never got any widespread attention, he had some fascinating ideas going on. The lads? well, the lads kinds of did not do too much to follow, quite frankly, Frankie. there’s this whole reunion, new version thing on the go, and i wish them well.

the world is a sadder place without any musician or band being what Frankie were and are. none of the ones out there at the moment are as diverse, self-assured or just plain interesting in comparison. no band puts the effort in either – yeah, yeah, Trevor Horn was a wizard at production, but the sheer energy and gargantuan effort that went in to Two Tribes, for example, has never been touched. just go and listen to it – the 7” pop single transformed into a hugely danceable, classical work of art.





anyway, that’s why Frankie are and always will be Number 1 for me. yeah, sure, i love the Manics, the Roses, Bowie, Smiths & Scream – as astonishing as they are and have been, though, the Frankies are the ones i would take with me if i were to be marooned in the high seas or deep space. they dominate my stereo, and i sing (shout / scream) along to them, whether i have company or not. make what you will of this post, but if one person goes off from reading this and either discovers, rediscovers or re-rediscovers Frankie as a consequence, my work is done.

if you are a Frankie fan who found this article, nice one, i hope you get what i am saying. if you are one of Frankie, thank you.

to be stolen or bought.