Post by chrupki on Jul 28, 2004 19:13:47 GMT -5
Silly name, but high in the charts. HUW COLLINGBOURNE pumps iron with KAJAGOOGOO'S muscle-man LIMAHL.
Limahl (here doing some advanced fitness training...?)
This interview first appeared in Flexipop! magazine in 1983.
Limahl, I was confidently informed, is destined to be The Next Big Heart-Throb. In comparison with his sultry good-looks, Simon le Bon would seem about as erotic as a middle-aged Irish navvy with a hernia, David Sylvian would look like a runner-up in a glamorous grannie competition, and Steve Strange would look like, well...Steve Strange.
I settled myself in a sumptuous settee in the offices of Limahl's record company, EMI, and tremulously awaited his arrival. Long seconds passed, and then, as is their wont, even longer minutes.
The appointed time drew nearer and my pulse began to race, a cold sweat stood out upon my brow and an electric thrill of highly questionable sexuality tingled through every sinew of my body.
I heard a delicate knock upon the door. The door opened. And there stood (swoon!)...Limahl.
I knew at once that all I had heard about him was true. Meeting him for the first time was one of those rare, unforgettable moments which I shall cherish to my grave. It was like discovering some new and, as yet uncharted territory. All at once I felt as Caesar must have felt when he laid claim to Britain. Yes, this was a case if "I came, I saw, I conquered" - though not necessarily in that order.
Limahl sat opposite me. Well, actually he sat next to me, on the same settee, and after a few initial gasps of adulation from me, the conversation quite naturally got around to a discussion of his body.
"I think the body's a fantastic thing", he said. "And I believe in looking after it. I do sit-ups every night before I go to bed, I go swimming twice a week and go to the gym about three times a week to train with weights.
"It's great, because you exercise muscles that you don't normally exercise. Some muscles are very attractive - and that helps with your sex life too!
"I haven't actually built up my muscles much, but I have made them more prominent - just little ones like the muscles in the stomach. The stomach actually has about five different muscular sections, which you can see quite clearly divided in champion weight-lifters. I've got a couple of muscles, here, at the top of my stomach, but it's very difficult to get them further down".
Mopping the perspiration from the palms of my hands, I eagerly questioned Limahl about the various exertions involved in 'Pumping Iron' (as I believe this activity is called in certain circles).
"Actually, I don't normally lift the really heavy weights when I train," he told me, "Because I only weigh eight stone myself! And it can be very embarrassing to try to pick up a weight and not be able to do it. Besides, I believe in always starting small and working your way up."
In fact, it appears that this is the philosophy which has shaped not only Limahl's body but also his career to date. His first public performances were given in the smallest venues you could possibly imagine - well, alright, almost the smallest you could imagine...
"I used to sing in local shops", he says, "I'd either sing things from "The Sound of Music", or current pop songs, and the shop-keepers would give me 10p for it. I was about nine when I first sang in a shop and carried on doing it till I was about twelve. I've never been nervous of performing in public, even at that age. I was always a thingyy little bugger.
"Then, when I was about fifteen, I won a singing contest at the Wigan Casino Club and was presented with fifteen albums by Andy Peebles".
Since then, Limahl has trod the boards in productions ranging from 'Godspell' and Agatha Christie's 'Murder at the Vicarage' to the pantomime, 'Aladdin'.
"That pantomime was my first big break", he recalls, "It was at the Grand Theatre, Swansea, which holds about five hundred people, though sometimes we'd come on for a Monday matinee and find only a hundred people out front. That helped to teach me a lot about how to deal with unresponsive audiences.
"These days, when Kajagoogoo do a live set, I always try to involve the audience as much as possible. I can be very physical when I perform".
Erotic even ? I ventured. "No...No, No! No!" Limahl rebuked me, "Just physical".
Limahl says that one of his favourite performers is the highly erotic Grace Jones, and it seems that it was Ms Jones who, indirectly inspired his own striking two-tone Dulux-dog hair-do.
"I remember being very much impressed by her image and so went out to try and create an image for myself. Originally, I had my hair done all white, then I put a black streak on one side, then later I added another bit on the other side, then a bit behind, and so on. It progressed, you could say".
And so, the image is now complete - someone for the 'serious' music papers to massacre, the teeny mags to centre-spread and 'Flexipop' to write this sort of drivel about.
But the question remains - is there more to Limahl than just a calculated pose, desirably rippling tummy muscles and an increasing bank balance?
Oh, sod it all, who the hell cares? You see (sigh...) I think I love him.
(Huw?!? --- Ed.)
---------------------------------------------------------------
It's hard to recall now just what a big star Limahl was back in 1983. I used to do some freelancing for 'No.1' magazine at that time and, for a while, I edited the magazine's letters page. My heart sank on Monday morning when two huge sacks would be delivered to my desk. One sack was full of fan letters for Duran Duran (typically these began something like "Simon Le Bon is great! Limahl is crap!"). The other sack contained just as many fan letters for Kajagoogoo (these began "Limahl is great! Simon Le Bon is crap!").
I don't know what Kajagoogoo fans made of the interview above. What I do know is that the group's Press Officer was not amused. She rang me up to tell me that she thought this was a very strange interview... ("It's the only kind I know how to do," I replied). Sadly Kajagoogoo's stardom was over in the twinkling of an eye. Limahl left the band to pursue a solo career and neither he nor Kajagoogoo ever managed to hit the heights of mega-fame again...
Limahl (here doing some advanced fitness training...?)
This interview first appeared in Flexipop! magazine in 1983.
Limahl, I was confidently informed, is destined to be The Next Big Heart-Throb. In comparison with his sultry good-looks, Simon le Bon would seem about as erotic as a middle-aged Irish navvy with a hernia, David Sylvian would look like a runner-up in a glamorous grannie competition, and Steve Strange would look like, well...Steve Strange.
I settled myself in a sumptuous settee in the offices of Limahl's record company, EMI, and tremulously awaited his arrival. Long seconds passed, and then, as is their wont, even longer minutes.
The appointed time drew nearer and my pulse began to race, a cold sweat stood out upon my brow and an electric thrill of highly questionable sexuality tingled through every sinew of my body.
I heard a delicate knock upon the door. The door opened. And there stood (swoon!)...Limahl.
I knew at once that all I had heard about him was true. Meeting him for the first time was one of those rare, unforgettable moments which I shall cherish to my grave. It was like discovering some new and, as yet uncharted territory. All at once I felt as Caesar must have felt when he laid claim to Britain. Yes, this was a case if "I came, I saw, I conquered" - though not necessarily in that order.
Limahl sat opposite me. Well, actually he sat next to me, on the same settee, and after a few initial gasps of adulation from me, the conversation quite naturally got around to a discussion of his body.
"I think the body's a fantastic thing", he said. "And I believe in looking after it. I do sit-ups every night before I go to bed, I go swimming twice a week and go to the gym about three times a week to train with weights.
"It's great, because you exercise muscles that you don't normally exercise. Some muscles are very attractive - and that helps with your sex life too!
"I haven't actually built up my muscles much, but I have made them more prominent - just little ones like the muscles in the stomach. The stomach actually has about five different muscular sections, which you can see quite clearly divided in champion weight-lifters. I've got a couple of muscles, here, at the top of my stomach, but it's very difficult to get them further down".
Mopping the perspiration from the palms of my hands, I eagerly questioned Limahl about the various exertions involved in 'Pumping Iron' (as I believe this activity is called in certain circles).
"Actually, I don't normally lift the really heavy weights when I train," he told me, "Because I only weigh eight stone myself! And it can be very embarrassing to try to pick up a weight and not be able to do it. Besides, I believe in always starting small and working your way up."
In fact, it appears that this is the philosophy which has shaped not only Limahl's body but also his career to date. His first public performances were given in the smallest venues you could possibly imagine - well, alright, almost the smallest you could imagine...
"I used to sing in local shops", he says, "I'd either sing things from "The Sound of Music", or current pop songs, and the shop-keepers would give me 10p for it. I was about nine when I first sang in a shop and carried on doing it till I was about twelve. I've never been nervous of performing in public, even at that age. I was always a thingyy little bugger.
"Then, when I was about fifteen, I won a singing contest at the Wigan Casino Club and was presented with fifteen albums by Andy Peebles".
Since then, Limahl has trod the boards in productions ranging from 'Godspell' and Agatha Christie's 'Murder at the Vicarage' to the pantomime, 'Aladdin'.
"That pantomime was my first big break", he recalls, "It was at the Grand Theatre, Swansea, which holds about five hundred people, though sometimes we'd come on for a Monday matinee and find only a hundred people out front. That helped to teach me a lot about how to deal with unresponsive audiences.
"These days, when Kajagoogoo do a live set, I always try to involve the audience as much as possible. I can be very physical when I perform".
Erotic even ? I ventured. "No...No, No! No!" Limahl rebuked me, "Just physical".
Limahl says that one of his favourite performers is the highly erotic Grace Jones, and it seems that it was Ms Jones who, indirectly inspired his own striking two-tone Dulux-dog hair-do.
"I remember being very much impressed by her image and so went out to try and create an image for myself. Originally, I had my hair done all white, then I put a black streak on one side, then later I added another bit on the other side, then a bit behind, and so on. It progressed, you could say".
And so, the image is now complete - someone for the 'serious' music papers to massacre, the teeny mags to centre-spread and 'Flexipop' to write this sort of drivel about.
But the question remains - is there more to Limahl than just a calculated pose, desirably rippling tummy muscles and an increasing bank balance?
Oh, sod it all, who the hell cares? You see (sigh...) I think I love him.
(Huw?!? --- Ed.)
---------------------------------------------------------------
It's hard to recall now just what a big star Limahl was back in 1983. I used to do some freelancing for 'No.1' magazine at that time and, for a while, I edited the magazine's letters page. My heart sank on Monday morning when two huge sacks would be delivered to my desk. One sack was full of fan letters for Duran Duran (typically these began something like "Simon Le Bon is great! Limahl is crap!"). The other sack contained just as many fan letters for Kajagoogoo (these began "Limahl is great! Simon Le Bon is crap!").
I don't know what Kajagoogoo fans made of the interview above. What I do know is that the group's Press Officer was not amused. She rang me up to tell me that she thought this was a very strange interview... ("It's the only kind I know how to do," I replied). Sadly Kajagoogoo's stardom was over in the twinkling of an eye. Limahl left the band to pursue a solo career and neither he nor Kajagoogoo ever managed to hit the heights of mega-fame again...