About a year ago, I stumbled onto Nile Rodgers’ Twitter account. Yes, that Nile Rodgers. I can’t remember how it happened. I remember him talking about how he was recently struck with cancer. He was in treatment, after surgery, and spoke about his doctor-prescribed daily walking therapy. The part that interested me is the way he narrated his daily walks. They were spotted with “we did this here” and “that was recorded there”. Of course, these references were always about some of my favorite soundtrack-to-your-life artists.

Of course I knew of Chic, Nile’s band along with Bernard Edwards and Tony Thompson and the ladies. I remembered roller skating to them on Friday nights and dancing to them in my room as a young teenager. I knew of Nile’s far-reaching producing efforts (Madonna, Duran Duran, Diana Ross, David Bowie, Sister Sledge) and of course Bernard and Tony’s crucial contributions in Power Station but it wasn’t until reading his daily blog, and seeing wonderful vintage photos, that I realized how extensive Nile’s musical reach was into the fabric of the soundtrack of my life.

Last year when I was going to spend a long weekend in New York I thought “How wonderful would it be to run into Mr. Rodgers on one of his daily walks?” We had batted a tweet back and forth, about what I can’t remember, but he did start following me and I always appreciated that. The accidental meet up never occurred, unfortunately. Probably because I was way downtown in Chelsea and not waking up until the afternoon and I think Nile is up on the Upper East Side somewhere. And judging by the pictures he took of him bundled up from the cold on his daily walk, it seemed he started pretty early in the morning. No worries.

Tonight, I saw Nile post a tweet to Miss Jody Watley (swoon) about loving to play on her new album. I noticed he accidentally made a typo (@ jodywatley instead of @jodywatley) and I realized she wouldn’t get the message. I retweeted his tweet, correcting it so it would show up in her feed. This is what he sent back to me:

What a helluva guy. Maybe one of these days I’ll be in New York and accidentally run into Mr. Nile Rodgers and I would love to shake his hand. Shake his hand and say “Thank you, sir”, thank for all the wonderful music you have given to me.

You can read Nile’s Planet C blog here and his homepage here. You can also purchase his autobiography, Le Freak, (which I haven’t started reading yet) here.

Be well.

It’s actually a Tuesday. But I have the next two days off so it’s my Friday. Hello Weekend!

So what do I plan to do with my weekend? Nothing exciting. I’m hopefully going to finally get unpacked from my move-in four months ago. There are still some boxes lying around that I haven’t even opened yet, and some furniture needs to have some placement decisions made. Plus coffee and laundry, of course.

The Andy Warhol Diaries are available in epub for free at this link. Better hurry and grab it, this link may be taken down. I remember barreling through this massive book (850 pp) back in the early nineties. It was awesome. I remember keeping an index of whenever any member of DD was mentioned. Sample:

Saturday, October 10, 1981
I wanted to see Duran Duran at the Savoy because their videotape was so good, it’s called “Girls on Film.” When I got there the first band was still on. Duran Duran are good-looking kids like Maxwell Caulfield. And then afterwards they wanted to meet me so we went backstage and I told them how great they were. They all wore lots of makeup but they had their girlfriends with them from England, pretty girls, so I guess they’re all straight, but it was hard to believe. We went to Studio 54 in their white limo and Steve Rubell was really nice to them. He took them to the booth and gave them drinks. Ran into old friends, met a bunch of new kids and got home at 5:00 (cab $5).

It’s Tuesday now but here’s the rundown on Monday in NYC.

I woke up to the sound of the city going to work. Across the street from me appeared to be a printer or some service bureau and I watched them move around for a while, wondering if they were complaining about it being Monday. Then I noticed it was raining, which wasn’t good news since I did not bring an umbrella with me. Then it actually started snowing for about a minute.

I checked out of the hotel (while they held my luggage) and headed down to SoHo to visit my last AS (BOH tour!) and also to check for a new wallet at Yellow Rat Bastard. Couldn’t find one that I liked.

Then I headed over to Record Runner to have a talk with John about the version options of Duran Duran’s All You Need Is Now which is actually releasing today in its full version. He’s going to look into some of the UK versions which have additional songs and get back in touch with me later this week.

Then I kinda just bummed around the Village until it was time to pick up my luggage and head up to Penn Station for my train home. Luckily there were none of the power outtages that delayed my trip up and I was home on schedule in Union Station at 10:40.

Here’s Duran Duran making a video of making a video. It’s footage from their publicity shoot(s) for their album All You Need Is Now, which is available now on iTunes. The deluxe expanded version drops March 22 in digital and physical formats.

I like that this video features the very new wave sounding “Blame The Machines”. It’s track 2.

Today on their website Duran Duran announced an all-encompassing repackaging of Arcadia’s 1985 So Red The Rose, arguably the best Duran Duran album never made. Nick Rhodes had hinted towards this release several months ago and I was eager to see if it would come to see the light.

History: Arcadia was one of the DD splinter groups in 1985, at the height of their fame, being comprised of Simon Le Bon, Nick Rhodes and Roger Taylor. The other remaining DD members joined up with Robert Palmer and Tony Thompson to form Power Station.

This re-release includes the original album as-is and all 20 remixes of the five released singles from the album, plus the soundtrack-only rarity “Say The Word”. Also included is the über-rare long form version of “Rose Arcana”. The shorter (0:51) version, according to legend, ended up on the original lease due to length of tape and vinyl allowed to be released at that time. I don’t know if that is necessarily true, but it does make for good folklore. Also included are all five videos and making-of documentaries for each video.

This project would also mark the last use of graphic designer Malcolm Garrett of Assorted Images for any of their packaging or branding related efforts.

Just for kicks, here’s video of 80s stalwart Max Headroom giving Simon and Nick a hard time:

From the Duran Duran press release, the complete track listing for the re-release is below:

Read the rest of this entry »

More on Nitevisions, the Duran offspring band and some speculation of a Spandau Ballet offspring band and a new battle that could reign supreme on the UK pop charts can be found here and their Twitter feed is here. In America maybe the closest pop battle we’ve had would maybe be Madonna vs Michael Jackson in the 80s? Unlike the Brit counterparts of the early 80s and mid 90s (Blur and Oasis battling it out for Britpop) there wasn’t a lot of public mudslinging, just a race to see how could sell more albums. Maybe a Britney vs Christina battle comes to mind? Possibly. I guess times have changed now and they let others do their mudslinging for them.

Here’s the infamous battle on Pop Quiz between Duran and Spandau:

Yesterday EMI released a two-CD (also available on LP, but with limited content) Limited Edition of Duran Duran’s seminal 1982 album, Rio. Of course, I already have my copy that I purchased pre-release during last weekend’s trip to New York.

This release contains the original UK album version, the US album mixes, Manchester Square demos (recorded 28th August 1981), non-album singles and B-sides, and Night Version & Carnival remixes and a 56-page booklet.

This is the first time the US album mixes have been published in different formats other than vinyl and cassette from back in the day. There is also an unconfirmed rumor of an actual reel-to-reel release. When Rio was released on CD the UK version was pressed so while it was nice to have the UK version, this meant saying goodbye to the US version once those cassettes went kaput.

Why the different album versions between the UK and the US? While DD was trying to break into America, EMI felt the album needed to be released to appeal more to the American market at the time. From the booklet, written by Daryl Easlea:

“Guitarist Andy Taylor, writing in his autobiography, ‘Wild Boy’ knew the and should listen to their American record company Capitol and remix the album if they were to make it there. “It gave the album a smoother, cleaner sound that went down better with US audiences. We understood that we needed to change our sound for the States, where the music industry spends far more time and money on mixing material” before cutting to the bottom line. “Not that we had much choice: ‘Remix it and we’ll support you, don’t do it and we won’t,’ said Capitol.” It was remixed under established producer David Kershenbaum’s expert ear. The US market’s appetite had been whetted by the Carnival EP in September 1982 (the mini-album including ‘Hungry Like The Wolf’), before the full Kershenbaum version of the album came out, propelling them into the US Top 10 in early 1983.”

So is the difference in these mixes audible? Yes and no. You can tell the difference listening on headphones; maybe at a party over speakers you wouldn’t be able to distinguish which mix it actually is. Still worth the price though, particularly for the demos and the US version of Lonely In Your Nightmare, which contains extra chorus which has never been available anywhere in the post-vinyl era.

If you want to learn everything you’d ever want to know about the many versions of the nine tracks on Rio, check this out. It even makes my head swim.

So while DD is getting 27-year-old albums re-released, two of the Duran offspring are going to take their turn on the stage. Sons of Taylor’s Andy and Roger have formed their own band, “Nite Visions”, in a clever wordplay of their dad’s moniker for their 12″ single recordings, “Night Versions”. Naturally, they have an 80s electronic dance feel to it. You can find out more about them, including a track sampling, here.