Tom Dunne: Culture Club and Heaven 17 were bands of their time — yet they are relevant today

Boy George of Boy George and Culture Club performs at the Austin City Limits Music Festival at Zilker Park in Austin, Texas on Oct. 15, 2022. Boy George is returning to Broadway in “Moulin Photo by Amy Harris/Invision/AP, File

Cometh the hour cometh the hero. Just as the far-right raises its ugly head again across Europe, the lads who saw it off the last time — the Blitz Kids — are back. Who do you think you are fooling Mr Putin when you think Old England’s done?

We are the (heavily made up) boys who will stop your little game.

We are the boys who will make you think again.

It may sound fanciful, but the news that Culture Club, Tony Hadley — I’ll explain what band he was in later, it’s a sore point — and Heaven 17 are playing the 3Arena in December struck me as really good news this week. They were bands of their time, and yet, could not be more relevant today.

Two of them, Culture Club and em, Tony’s band, trace their roots back to a night club called The Blitz. Situated in Covent Garden, London, it ran a regular Tuesday night club playing mostly Roxy Music and Bowie.

As many of the patrons were studying fashion, it encouraged them to dress up. “Turn up the glam,” it said and “be a bit androgynous with it". It doesn’t sound much, but it would birth Culture Club, Duran Duran, Spandau Ballet, Visage, and Classix Nouveaux.

They were called the New Romantics as apart from the glam, their look incorporated a late 17th century romantic period influence.

The cream of the crop was Culture Club, so named as they contained a gay Irish singer, a blonde British guitarist, a black bassist and a Jewish drummer. Yep, racism was rife, the National Front were virulent and there were boot boys on every corner.

But if a racially integrated band was provocative, it was Boy George’s appearance on Top of the Pops that ignited a tabloid maelstrom. Androgyny and sexual ambiguity were one thing on a Tuesday night at The Blitz, but at 7.30pm of a Thursday on the BBC, well frankly, Mr Shankly.

Many were apoplectic, but Boy George, singing ‘Do You Really Want to Hurt Me’, was quite clearly a pop superstar. Particularly so in the USA where Culture Club became the first band since The Beatles to have three top ten hits from a debut album.

They owned 1983. ‘Karma Chameleon’ was the biggest single of the year and the band won Brit Awards and a Grammy. Accepting his Grammy, George quipped: “thank you America, you’ve got taste, you’ve got style, and you know a good drag queen when you see one”.

The other Blitz Kids, Spandau Ballet, were if anything, even more influenced by the visual side of things with early gigs often taking place at fashion shows. Gary Kemp had seen the Sex Pistols in 1976, but by 1980 was embracing electronic music. Success took its time, but when it arrived — via ‘True’ — it was biblical.

Tony Hadley

Heaven 17 were from Sheffield. That may be a long way from The Blitz, but these northerners were equally no strangers to makeup. Two, Martyn Ware and Ian Craig had formed The Human League but had left to start Heaven 17 with Glenn Gregory.

Their first single is the one that is most of its time. ‘(We Don’t Need This) Fascist Groove Thang’ was a timely response to then perceived rise of fascism. It was banned by the BBC. But sure, isn’t that always the way, with the establishment.

The boys were not pulling their punches: “Hitler proves that funky stuff is not for you and me girl, Europe’s an unhappy land, they’ve had their fascist groove thang,” sang Gregory before extolling us then as “sisters" and "brothers” to “grab that groove thang by the throat and throw it in the ocean”.

Mind you, it’s worth pointing out that the actual “fascist” they were concerned about was the newly elected Ronald Reagan, the man who probably ended the Soviet Union and brought down the Berlin Wall. That’s a lot to take in at that gig in the 3Arena.

Before we go: Tony Hadley was in Spandau Ballet. The poster might not mention this — possibly for legal reasons — but we know the truth. He bought a ticket to the world, and now he’s come back again. This much is ‘True’, and Tony, we don’t forget.