Kajagoogoo

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Kajagoogoo
Origin Bedfordshire, England
Genre(s) New Wave
Synth Pop
New Romantic
Pop rock
Years active 1979–1986
(as Art Nouveau: instrumental band without Limahl)
1981-1983
(as Kajagoogoo:
5-piece band with Limahl)
1983-1984
(as Kajagoogoo in the UK and Europe, as Kaja in the U.S.:
4-piece band without Limahl, with Nick Beggs as singer)
1985-1986
(as Kaja everywhere:
3-piece band without Strode)
2003-2004
(as Kajagoogoo live
for VH1: original 5-piece band)
2007-2008
(as Kajagoogoo:
3-piece band without Jez Strode and Limahl)
2008-present
(as Kajagoogoo:
original 5-piece band)
Associated acts Limahl
Art Nouveau
Website Official Website
Members
Limahl
Nick Beggs
Steve Askew
Stuart Croxford Neale
Jez Strode

Kajagoogoo are a British pop band, best known for their first single, "Too Shy", which reached Number 1 in the UK Singles Chart, and Number 5 in the U.S. Billboard Hot 100, in 1983. The single was produced by Duran Duran's keyboardist Nick Rhodes, and by Colin Thurston, Duran Duran's in-house producer at the time.

Contents

[edit] Early beginnings

The band was originally founded in Leighton Buzzard, Bedfordshire, in 1979, as a four-piece avant-garde instrumental group, called Art Nouveau, with Nick Beggs on bass guitar, Steve Askew on lead guitar, Stuart Croxford Neale on keyboards, and Jez Strode (born Jeremy) on drums. Art Nouveau released a track called "The Fear Machine". The single sold a few hundred copies, and was played on the John Peel show, but the band could not get a record deal.

In 1981, they advertised for, and auditioned, lead singers, and finally chose Christopher Hamill. He made his profile, and therefore that of the band, catchier by using an anagram of his surname for his stage name, becoming Limahl, matched with his typical double colour hairdo (blond on top and black on sides). The name of the group was then changed to the also catchier Kajagoogoo: writing out the phonetics of a baby's first sounds gave them 'GagaGooGoo' - with a little bit of as casual as musical an alteration, it became 'Kajagoogoo'.

[edit] Success and decline

The band attracted the interest of three record labels (and Duran Duran's Nick Rhodes), while performing at the Embassy Club, in London. The group was eventually signed to EMI, in July of 1982, and Rhodes was hired to produce their first album, White Feathers. In between events, they supported Birmingham New Romantic band Fashion on tour. Their debut single, "Too Shy", was released in January of 1983 and went to the top of the charts (before any of Duran Duran's singles had done so, Rhodes noted ruefully). Originally entitled "Shy Shy", this was subsequently changed to the current title, due to their already close association with Duran Duran themselves. Follow-up releases, "Ooh to Be Aah" and "Hang on Now", both reached the UK Top 15 as well.

As success came, tensions began to rise in the band, which eventually culminated in Limahl being fired by the other band members in 1983, with Beggs then taking over as lead singer. The first single by the new four-piece Kajagoogoo was "Big Apple", which made the Top Ten, in late 1983. Their next single, "The Lion's Mouth", made the Top 30, but then the hits dried up completely ("Turn Your Back on Me" failed to enter the UK Top 40, stalling at a low Number 47), and the subsequent new album, Islands was a commercial failure, peaking at only Number 35 in the UK. Strode then left the band, and in an attempt to gain some credibility and to lose their bubblegum image, the remaining three members relaunched as Kaja, in 1985. The four-piece version of the band, including Jez, had already made their appearance in the U.S. as Kaja, the previous year, when a different edition of the second album was released there as Extra Play, only peaking at Number 185 in the Billboard charts, though the remixes for the three singles taken from the Islands album had all reached the Number One spot in the U.S. Hot Dance Club Play chart (this information is false and a citiation is needed here -- only ONE song, 'Turn Your Back On Me', made the dance chart from 'Extra Play' and it only reached number 2). However, this new version of Kajagoogoo was also a failure, and the band went their separate ways in 1986, after issuing the UK Number 63 single "Shouldn't Do That", from their last album Crazy People's Right to Speak, which the label refused to promote after the trio split up.

[edit] Limahl's solo career

Similarly, Limahl enjoyed a briefly successful solo career, scoring a Top 20 hit with "Only for Love", and then a Top 5 hit with the Giorgio Moroder-produced "The Never Ending Story" the title track to the hit film of the same name, in 1984. Limahl continued to record, working with producers Tim Palmer and De Harris. The result was his debut album, Don't Suppose, released in 1984, but the long playing work was a commercial failure, charting even lower than Kajagoogoo's Islands album the same year. It was later released in the U.S., in 1985 (with "The Never Ending Story" appended as a selling point, replacing previous album track "The Greenhouse Effect", which then resurfaced as a single B-Side, and now is an extremely rare track, much sought-for by hardcore fans). He then resumed his collaboration with Moroder, resulting in the 1986 LP Colour All My Days, his final project for EMI, but success eluded him. His last album, 1992's dance-oriented Love Is Blind, was released only in Germany, on the Bellaphon label, and featured an updated take on their seminal hit, retitled as "Too Shy '92".[1] Like the Kajagoogoo albums made after his leaving, none of Limahl's solo albums has been commercially successful in the UK, though they did more or less well in the rest of Europe, especially in Italy, where Limahl's second album in particular received a lot of airplay, producing two successful singles, Love in Your Eyes (with which he won a TV programme along with other artists joined together in a musical team), and Inside to Outside, later covered by Hi-NRG singer Violet.

[edit] The reunions

The original five-piece line-up of the band briefly joined forces again on VH1's Bands Reunited (26 January 2004, Season 1, Episode 6). Following the VH1 reunion, the original group had many offers to continue to play in this line-up, but there were still too many disagreements between band members to make this possible. The group felt that the VH1 feature was unfairly edited to portray simplified reasons as to Jez's and especially Limahl's departure, and complained that it also suggested the band remained together in the fairy tale ending (which, incidentally, is what seems to have gradually happened some time later...).

In 2007, Nick Beggs, Steve Askew and Stuart Neale indeed decided to continue to play together as Kajagoogoo (same line-up as in late 1984-early 1986 Kaja, but with original name), and 24 June saw the release of "Rocket Boy", the first Kajagoogoo/Kaja single in 22 years. The single, decidedly rock in style (matched by an exhilarting Nick Beggs only video, apparently shoot with a Webcam in front of a computer, while he mimes the song lyrics into a hairbrush, and makes two Barbie dolls fight in his hands) has received airplay on Steve Wright's BBC Radio 2 show in the UK, and was critically acclaimed. A new album, Gone to the Moon, was also recorded and about to be released, but the hard copy release was then put off (however, since May 2008, though it is also sold by iTunes, it may be downloaded for free on the band's official Website, until February 2009), because the band's situation started to somehow change. Kajagoogoo first performed the opening set, with other 1980s acts, at Retrofest, on 1 September, at Culzean Castle in Ayrshire, Scotland, which laid the foundations for something else soon coming up.

In February 2008, in fact, the then three Kajagoogoo announced plans to reunite with original members, lead singer Limahl and drummer Jez Strode. The band also said it would play Retrofest again in August. [2] Since then, Limahl and Strode actually rejoined the band, thanks to the hard work of their new manager, Bradley Snelling, the organizer of the Retrofest event too, who had already convinced the three-piece Kaja to reform the live act. Bradley soon became so instrumental in getting all 5 members of Kajagoogoo together that, also in February 2008, he succeeded in arranging for Kajagoogoo to have their first photo shoot in 25 years. The band wrote on their official site that "The atmosphere was relaxed, jovial and, after 25 years, Kajagoogoo, in their original five-piece line-up are back."

[edit] Current activities

Several live dates are scheduled in Europe and Scandinavia as for 2008. The group's members are currently writing new material, with a view to be recording during the year, for release some time in 2008-2009. Meanwhile, the Gone to the Moon album is also to be released as a compact disc, but the Beggs, Neale and Askew songwriting team for that work would wish to highlight that the album was recorded before Limahl and Jez actually joined the band, which seems to be laying a solid background for Kajagoogoo's bright future.

The new live debut should have taken place in May, in Bratislava, in the Czech Republic, but the event was cancelled just a few days before, apparently for reasons Kajagoogoo members and manager are not liable for, as carefully specified on their official Website, though rumours have it that they were never supposed to play there in the first place, and that this was all a publicity issue, to generate higher levels of expectation about the event (fans, and critics too, have been waiting for such a reunion for some 25 years, which would only corroborate such an accusation). The fact that another British artist that was very famous in the Eighties, Kim Wilde, has also cancelled her participation in the show would not be a strong evidence for the band's non-responsibility, a solid friendly and professional relationship connecting lead singer Limahl and Wilde, with the two having known each other for quite a long time, and the former working as a producer for the latter, in the recent past. However, the whole event was cancelled shortly after, giving ultimate evidence. So, now the new debut for the band will coincide with former second live date, that is in Denmark, on June 14, at Esbjerg Rock Festival[3], followed, on August 30, by their very first British gig at Retrofest 2008[4], a live festival organized, as mentioned above, by their own manager, in Scotland.

[edit] Discography

See also: Limahl

[edit] Studio albums

[edit] Compilations

  • 1993 - Too Shy: The Singles and More (also includes five singles and two 12" remixes of Limahl's)
  • 1996 - The Best of Kajagoogoo & Limahl
  • 1996 - The Very Best of Kajagoogoo (also includes Limahl's "The Never Ending Story" and "Only for Love")
  • 2000 - Best of the 80's Kajagoogoo & Limahl
  • 2003 - The Very Best of Kajagoogoo & Limahl

[edit] Singles

  • 1979 - "Fear Machine" (as Art Nouveau)
  • 1983 - "Too Shy" (UK #1, U.S. #5)
  • 1983 - "Ooh to Be Ah" (UK #7)
  • 1983 - "Hang on Now" (UK #13, U.S. #78).
  • 1983 - "Big Apple" (UK #8)
  • 1984 - "The Lion's Mouth" (UK #25)
  • 1984 - "Turn Your Back On Me" (UK #47)
  • 1985 - "Shouldn't Do That" (as Kaja) (UK #63)
  • 2007 - "Rocket Boy" (Internet release) (as Kajagoogoo; Beggs, Neale and Croxford only)

[edit] Audio sample

Kajagoogoo - Too Shy excerpt

An excerpt from Too Shy[5]
Problems listening to the file? See media help.

[edit] Footnotes

  1. ^ Kajagoogoo | Billboard.com: Biography & Discography
  2. ^ Stuck in the '80s | tampabay.com: Archives
  3. ^ Link to Esbjerg Rock Festival
  4. ^ Link to Retrofest 2008
  5. ^ Link to an image of Kajagoogoo at the time of "Too Shy"

[edit] References

  • Paul Gambaccini, Tim Rice, Jonathan Rice (1993), British Hit Singles, Guinness Publishing Ltd.
  • Paul Gambaccini (1983), Kajagoogoo

[edit] External links