I, who always had a weakness for excentric people, would like to introduce to you a german export that is to my mind one of THE founders of the new wave scene. You might already know him from your childhood´s nightmares, if you were one of those kids being afraid of clowns.

Klaus Sperber alias Klaus Nomi used to be a confectioner trying to gain ground in the German opera as a singer. Moving to the East Village of New York in the seventies, it took a while till he got David Bowie’s attention. Because of his unique style mashing opera singing with New Wave sounds and his excentric outfits, Nomi got the chance to feature Bowie in a nightshow as his backgroundsinger which was one of the first steps to achieve the public attention.

After dropping some LPs in the following years, Nomi died much too early, not even having reached a part of the attention, he should have earned. But before this post ends up in a melodramatic obituary, enjoy the following video and better watch out for the documentary “The Nomi Song” to get a closer look at Nomi’s life by your own.

Mediafire: Klaus Nomi - Total Eclipse
Mediafire: Klaus Nomi - After The Fall

I’ve heard Teen Millionaire’s birth was the only flash of inspiration for Eurythmics’ hardly beautiful tune “Who’s That Girl”. They kicked this track in 1983 some months after Teens birth, wondering what an unutterable impressive baby she was. Eurythmics is still on fire today, released Boxed in 2005, even they lost their special feeling of bygone days. My mother bothered me a long time of my youth with it, but I fortunately crowded it, until it was a track in The Simpsons “Smart and Smarter”.

Mediafire: Eurythmics - Who’s That Girl

In the same year Milli ran away from home, cause her daddy kicked her out the house, lingered through dirty streets, took any subway and interurban-bus she could catch, playbacked on any crowded place, hung around in smoky clubs with beefy oily hustlers, danced with dubious figures, wrote letters to her brother, saved ladies of the rough club-boss, had the best extemporaneous choreography of her life to awe and convert all the bad men to soft freemen, just to realize, that dancing in the streets at the crack of dawn is the best you can do and sleeping in a bus with an experience like that seems to be the most precious thing on earth. You are familiar with that story? Yes, of course, Pat Benatar wrote a song about!

Mediafire: Pat Benatar - Love is a Battlefield

A friend told me about this track back in 1998, when Frankie Knuckles was already 43 gleaming yrs old. He said Frankie ran into a burning building in 1984 to save seven kids and 4 cats, ran inside the house again, but was that bored, because of no one was inside anymore, so he sat down on a 487 degrees hot armchair to write that song, he produced years later together with Jamie Principal. “Waiting on my Angel” slided into my spine forever!

Mediafire: Frankie Knuckles - Waiting on my Angel

Did you know the American space agency NASA was in a huge crunch before 1984? Yes really, their get up and go has got up and went because of rocket-envy! So the administration needed to act and asked Dead Or Alive to give a little initial aid! Nobody knows what would happen if this new-wave band would’nt have created “You Spin Me Round”! Anyway, the NASA is on top again and every astronaut needs to know the text of this track by heart. Thanks Dead Or Alive.

Mediafire: Dead or Alive - You Spin Me Round (Like a Record)

If you wanna get down with a real “80’s week special” you’ve got to savor one group necessarily. In a career over a period of more than 35 years, these German electro pioneers have been an endless source of inspiration for generations of groundbreaking musician. Whole music-styles emerged or were influenced because of ‘em and possibly they’re the most sampled band on the planet.
We slobber over Kraftwerk.

In 1970 Ralf Hütter and Florian Schneider-Esleben, who had met studying classical music at the Dusseldorf Conservatory, founded the Kling-Klang Studio. Their first recorded appearance together is 1970’s Tone Float by a psychedelic rock quintet called Organisation. After leaving that group, Hütter and Schneider took the name Kraftwerk (”power plant”) and began experimenting with integrating mechanized sounds from everyday life into music.

1981 - Pseudoe makes his mommy happy and Kraftwerk came with their 8th record called Computer World which is presumed to be a forerunner of modern electro and techno music and a reflection on the new global dominance of technology. By now pop music was dominated by synthesizers and drum machines, and the group’s uniqueness and extravagance-status became almost ordinary. But just almost.

It seems to be an attribute of 80’s musican to be ahead of the times. And Kraftwerk seems to come directly from a future society who pre-dated their electronic music to bring it right into the time my/our generation has grown up.

“After the war, German entertainment was destroyed. The German people were robbed of their culture, putting an American head on it. I think we are the first generation born after the war to shake this off, and know where to feel American music and where to feel ourselves. We cannot deny we are from Germany.” (Ralf Hütter: interview with Lester Bangs, 1975)

Mediafire: Kraftwerk - Home Computer Live

Back from the place, where all that street stuff started, all that hard kids today got their roots on being cool, being a wanna-gee, possessing at least one oldschool adidas training jacket or a Superstar, we got something almost every German Kid of the 80s had to deal with because his/her parents never stopped spinning this man on their gramophone.

We talk about the Austrian Ultra Hustler, one of the most excentric broken persons in Middle Europe: Falco aka Johann Hölzel, who ran his most gleaming business and his international breakthrough in the middle 1980s with his 3rd album “Falco 3″, lifting the singles “Rock me Amadeus”, “Vienna Calling” and “Jeanny” (which was highly discussed in Germany because of glorification of a violent act). Nevertheless or because of that Falco became very successful, hang around for weeks on the 1st place in German Charts and sold “Jeanny” about 2.500.000times.

His success continued by publishing his 4th record “Emotional” and Falco started a world tour, that he cancelled on his own, because of homesickness and the fear of the accountabilities of (maybe) becoming known and famous around the globe. Quoting Falco: „I often had the chance playing in America. I haven’t done, because the most beautiful of the American Flag are the redwhitered stripes.” (allusion to the reason becoming no star in USA)

We call Faco “The feeling of being born in the wrong century”, cause that’s what perfectly fits, checking this Austrian rococonian personalization of lascivious appearance, decadent living and keeping countenance.

Falco - Jeanny

During a walk across a car boot sale one week ago, Gucci Boy detected a record he was immediately head over heels in love with - Street Dance by Break Machine. Outcoming of this trove, the TFL crew decided to come up with a petite 80’s retrospection week full of tidbits we want you remind to. Aaaight!

Because it sets the ball rolling and of course because we like to be as nonchalant as the three boys in this clip of 1984, Break Machine a.k.a. Bon Rock a.k.a. Keith Rodgers comes right from the start. Street Dance was one of the first breakdance tracks ever in the international charts and it’s catchy whistling sound incites you to take part in. We, for one, do nothing else all day long.

Furthermore we like to prepare you for this year’s Battle of the Year and come up with some breakdance lessons. Work out hard and you will beat every breakdance crew in single mode! But - KEEP IT REAL!

1200 x 1200 version

1200 x 1200 version

You might remember Ladyhawke, we already got her here about one month ago with two beautiful tunes, that slip inside your clothes and hide themselves while you seize your day.

A few days ago Pnau from Sydney headed out their new track, together with Ladyhawke, called “Embrace”, showing their 80s skills in a dance-track, that forces you to throw up your arms and sing the chorus together with Ladyhawke and all your friends, after you gave your momma a kiss.

zShare: Pnau ft. Ladyhawke - Embrace

Ha, to practice home alone, get the lyrics by clicke-di-click show