My Lives As A Duranie (excerpt),
by Sheila O'Shea
When did I first get into Duran? Depends on your definition. Do you define it as when I was first aware they existed? Or when I could look at a picture and tell them apart? Even after that point, there has been any number of rebirths into Duraniehood that I've been through. I was a Duranie before I met Brenda, but I sure as hell wasn't the same Duranie afterwards. Time changes, but the fact of the matter is, it has. Not that I've outgrown them or anything like that, but sometimes its hard to remember that the Duran Duran I listened to entirely too much of when I was fifteen and the Duran Duran I'm listening to entirely too much now is, theoretically, the same band (give or take a few albums and lineup shifts). This is my story about those changes.
Phase One: Planet Earth
Back when I was twelve, in yon ancient days of 1982, my family finally decided to join the ranks of the blessed and get cable television. Cable was pretty sloppy back in those days, and music video was still in its infant form. Our cable system didn't even have MTV when we first hooked up instead, they had a local bargain basement version called The Atlanta Video Music Channel, which came on at about four in the afternoon and shut off sometime late at night. I remember watching it fairly constantly (after school, before the parents came home) and becoming quite a connoisseur of music videos. There was a lot of crap back then, but if you were patient you came across the really cool videos.
Duran Duran was one of the bands I looked forward to. The first video of theirs I saw was (what else?) Planet Earth, and for some reason I recall my reaction quite distinctly. My thoughts were something along the lines of Oh, look, another one of those British bands with guys wearing makeup. What a nice video. (I was twelve, and easily impressed.)
Is that a guy or is that a girl? my sister asked, when the camera rested on Nick, fluffy blond glory. I think its a guy, I replied.
Scary.
And there the matter remained. I saw other Duran Duran videos as time progressed (and as my cable system eventually picked up MTV and the Atlanta Video Music Channel evolved into a UHF station). I remember expecting Simon to step on the banana peel in Rio. I remember being fascinated and confused by exactly what the hell was going on in Union Of The Snake. I remember being dreadfully disappointed with the video for The Reflex because it was just another boring old concert video. And I remember listening to one of those Toe 40 countdown shows on the radio and finding out where the name Duran Duran came from.
This is the point I started reading magazines, buying records and all that neat stuff, right? Nope. By now, I was a mere thirteen years old, and a social isolate. My older brother and sister were the ones who bought records; I only had five albums to my name and they were all either birthday or Christmas presents. My brother even bought a few Duran singles when they came out somewhere in his massive collection of 45s he has a copy of The Reflex, poster sleeve and everything.
At my school there were girls who poured over pinups and sang Duran songs on the playground. One time, one of them showed me a picture of them (the one off the cover of Seven And The Ragged Tiger) and asked me which one I liked. I pointed to the only face that I recognized from the videos.
"That's Simon," she said.
"Oh," I replied.
So much for that. When Duran rolled into town for the 84 tour. There was an article about them in the local paper and I discovered that there were three guys named Taylor in the band, and none of them were related. Duran Duran were nothing more than a band that played songs that I liked. Nothing more. So far.
Phase Two: Friends Of Mine
It wasn't until high school that I learned all the names and natures of the Duran boys, thanks to my best friend at the time, Katie. WE were friends in grade school (two Catholic school survivors).
I have no idea who converted her to Duran. All I know is she managed to convert me. She had a poster of them on her wall and introduced them to me by name, and then we played Dungeons and Dragons and tried to figure out what kind of character each of them would be, judging by the way they looked in the poster.
I asked for and got Seven And The Ragged Tiger that Christmas, as well as a new stereo to play it on, and a few weeks later I bought Rio. It was the first record I purchased for myself with my own money, and to this day it is my favorite Duran album.
I bought magazines, began learning their names, birthdays, all the vital statistics that the fan mags gave us, creating an illusion of intimacy. They tended to dwell on John and Simon the most, since by this time Nick and Roger had gotten married and Andy had a wife and child. Katie liked John, so I guess I liked Simon.
Katie had an easier time finding fellow Duranies at her school than I did at mine. I kept a lot of phone contact, both with her and her friends, and we had a whole elaborate game of adopting one member of Duran as a brother and then detailing all the nasty little pranks perpetrated upon the hapless sibling. I was given a choice between Simon and Nick, and I chose Nick. My favorite member tended to vary with whomever Katie liked, so that when she decided that she actually liked Simon, I switched over to John, out of courtesy.
Another thing that marked a particular phase of my Duran life was a certain hesitance to go overboard like those other Duranies. We didn't rag on Andy (we ragged on Roger instead). In fact, in our set, Duranie was a term of derision; we preferred Duran Duran Fan or an occasional Duranimal. Even though I spent long periods of time listening to nothing but Duran Duran. Even though I was swinging by my local record store on my way home from school to see if any interesting new Duran imports had shown up. And even though I was buying magazines like Bop and Star Hits (and cringing as I did) for those Duran articles and pictures, I didn't think I was one of those fans. Who, me, obsessed? Nah.
Duran Duran was:
Phase Three: Lonely In Your Nightmare
One day Katie tore down all her Duran posters while listening to Careless Memories over and over again and quit. Gafiaed from Duran (Gavia, verb, from the acronym Get Away From It All, quite applicable here). Partly because she had broken up with her boyfriend at the same time (also a Duran fan), partly because she's had it up to here with the backstabbing from certain Duranie friends, and party because shed simply had enough. We stayed friends and we just talked about other things.
I stayed in touch with Duran Duran. Over time, with no one to feed my frenzy, I began to convince myself that I was growing up, moving on to other things, that Duran would always be my favorite band, but I had other things and other interests. When Notorious came out, I didn't buy it, on the basis that I was not going to rush out and buy an album just because it had Duran Duran on it. I wanted to hear it first, like I did the other albums. I never got the chance to. I only saw the video for Skin Trade once and I never heard the song on the radio. I was out of town when they came to Atlanta on the Strange Behaviour Tour, so I missed them then. I think I would have gone, or at least tried to. I still tried to keep up with what they were doing. But it was harder and harder to find out. The fan mags stopped paying attention to them, and the media machine moved on to newer things. I started listening to INXS.
Duran Duran was, once again, nothing more than a band that played songs that I liked. Nothing more. Not for long.
Phase Four: Cranks In The Pavement
When "I Don't Want Your Love" came out, I first heard the extended mix on the radio. My first reaction: HUH? Later, I heard the single version, saw the video and liked it. Then came All She Wants Is. Better and better. Then one morning, my clock radio goes off on a Saturday and the DJ mentions that tickets for Duran Duran at the Fox Theater are going on sale this morning. Hmm. I mentioned the fact to my brother. I figured it would be sold out by the time I got around to buying tickets. My brother bought me tickets for Christmas. Best damn Christmas present I ever had.
It was the first concert I had ever gone to at the Fox. I had only seen movies there. It was a strange feeling, mixing childhood memories and adolescent longings, but once they started playing, all I cared about was the moment then and there. I only knew about half the songs they played by heart (I still hadn't gotten Notorious, and I hadn't gotten Big Thing either), but I loved them all.
I only screamed once. Honest. I bought Big Thing a few days later. It was one of the last albums I bought on vinyl. I remember listening to it from beginning to end, and crying when I heard Do You Believe In Shame? for the first time.
Duran Duran was the band I'd loved for so long and where on earth did I get the idea that I could outgrow them?
For the rest of My Lives As A Duranie, get your hands on Issue #8!
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