Fiona Russell-Powell
Encyclopedia
Fiona Russell Powell is a British
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 journalist
Journalist
A journalist collects and distributes news and other information. A journalist's work is referred to as journalism.A reporter is a type of journalist who researchs, writes, and reports on information to be presented in mass media, including print media , electronic media , and digital media A...

. She is best known for her series of interviews throughout the 1980s in The Face
The Face (magazine)
The Face was a British music, fashion and culture monthly magazine started in May 1980 by Nick Logan.-1980s:Logan had previously created the teen pop magazine Smash Hits, and had been an editor at the New Musical Express in the 1970s before launching The Face in 1980.The magazine was influential in...

magazine. For a brief period in the mid 1980s, she performed with the pop group
Pop music
Pop music is usually understood to be commercially recorded music, often oriented toward a youth market, usually consisting of relatively short, simple songs utilizing technological innovations to produce new variations on existing themes.- Definitions :David Hatch and Stephen Millward define pop...

 ABC
ABC (band)
ABC are an English band, that charted ten UK and five US Top 40 singles between 1981 and 1990. The band continues to tour and released a new album, Traffic, in 2008.-Formation:...

 in videos and onstage to support their cartoon-synth album How to Be a...Zillionaire!
How to Be a...Zillionaire!
How to Be a... Zillionaire! is an album by the band ABC. It was released in January 1985 . Four singles were released from this album, "Be Near Me" , " Millionaire" , and "Vanity Kills" , and the fourth was "Ocean Blue",...

(1985). She performed under the stage name "Eden," so she could continue with her music and style journalism at the same time.

Early life and career

Growing up in Totley, Sheffield
Sheffield
Sheffield is a city and metropolitan borough of South Yorkshire, England. Its name derives from the River Sheaf, which runs through the city. Historically a part of the West Riding of Yorkshire, and with some of its southern suburbs annexed from Derbyshire, the city has grown from its largely...

, she had known ABC from their early days as an electronic three piece called Vice Versa. She joined Vice Versa
Vice Versa (band)
Vice Versa was a synthpop band from Sheffield, Yorkshire, England. Vice Versa comprised future members of the successful pop group ABC.Formed in 1977 by Stephen Singleton, Mark White and David Sydenham, they founded their own label, Neutron Records, releasing the EP Music 4...

 very briefly after keyboard player David Sydenham left the band but, after only three rehearsals in ABC co-founder Stephen Singleton's cellar, the fourteen year old "chickened out" when she was told they would be supporting Simple Minds
Simple Minds
Simple Minds are a Scottish rock band who achieved worldwide popularity from the mid-1980s to the early 1990s. The band produced a handful of critically acclaimed albums in the early 1980s and best known for their #1 US, Canada and Netherlands hit single "Don't You ", from the soundtrack of the...

 in a Leeds pub the following night. A last minute replacement was found in Mancunian student Martin Fry
Martin Fry
Martin Fry is lead singer of the band, ABC.-Biography:He grew up in Bramhall, Stockport, alongside his younger brother Jamie .-ABC:...

 who was studying English Lit
English literature
English literature is the literature written in the English language, including literature composed in English by writers not necessarily from England; for example, Robert Burns was Scottish, James Joyce was Irish, Joseph Conrad was Polish, Dylan Thomas was Welsh, Edgar Allan Poe was American, J....

 at Sheffield University and had interviewed the band for his fanzine, Modern Drugs.

After running away from home and subsequently leaving Sheffield High School for Girls aged 15, Fiona moved to London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

 when she was 17 and slept on Heaven 17
Heaven 17
Heaven 17 are an English synthpop band originating from Sheffield in the early 1980s. The trio comprises Martyn Ware , Ian Craig Marsh and Glenn Gregory...

 singer Glenn Gregory
Glenn Gregory
Glenn Gregory is an English musician. A founding member of Heaven 17, he was partly responsible for hit records such as "Temptation"....

's floor before moving in to the notorious Carburton Street squat where she took over Boy George
Boy George
Boy George is a British singer-songwriter who was part of the English New Romantic movement which emerged in the early 1980s. He helped give androgyny an international stage with the success of Culture Club during the 1980s. His music is often classified as blue-eyed soul, which is influenced by...

's old room. Fellow squattees included 80s transgender singer Marilyn, DJ and Haysi Fantayzee
Haysi Fantayzee
Haysi Fantayzee were a British New Wave band of the early 1980s. Allmusic journalist Andy Kellman notes "Haysi Fantayzee was a quirky pop group, known most for its colourful thrift shop image and successful debut single, "John Wayne Is Big Leggy", which was released in 1982.-Career:Haysi Fantayzee...

 frontman Jeremy Healy
Jeremy Healy
Jeremy Healy is an English DJ and singer. He is a former member of the 1980s pop group, Haysi Fantayzee.-Career:...

, and milliner Stephen Jones
Stephen Jones (milliner)
Stephen Jones OBE is a leading British milliner based in London, who is considered one of the world's most radical and important milliners of the late 20th and early 21st centuries. He is also one of the most prolific, having created hats for the catwalk shows of many leading couturiers and...

. In 1982, aged 18, she started writing for The Face as a features writer, concentrating mostly on music and became notorious for her irreverent mickey-taking interviews with leading pop stars of the day. Meanwhile, she moved into a three-bedroom council flat in Old Street with Richard Habberley, who moved out of Boy George's St John's Wood
St John's Wood
St John's Wood is a district of north-west London, England, in the City of Westminster, and at the north-west end of Regent's Park. It is approximately 2.5 miles north-west of Charing Cross. Once part of the Great Middlesex Forest, it was later owned by the Knights of St John of Jerusalem...

 flat, and Amanda Metro, a backing singer for Mari Wilson
Mari Wilson
Mari Wilson is an English singer, best known for her sometimes quirky, early 1960s-influenced pop music songs, and her beehive hairstyle.-Career:...

. During this time, Vice Versa had changed their name to ABC, become a five piece, and by 1982, ABC's first album, 'The Lexicon of Love
The Lexicon of Love
The Lexicon of Love is the critically acclaimed chart-topping debut album by British pop band ABC, released in 1982. It is a concept album in which the singer experiences heartache as he tries and fails to have a meaningful relationship....

', was released and went platinum, spawning four chart hits.

Later, she was part of the infamous Taboo
Taboo (musical)
Taboo is a stage musical with a book by Mark Davies , lyrics by Boy George, and music by George and Kevan Frost....

 nightclub crowd, being a close friend of Leigh Bowery
Leigh Bowery
Leigh Bowery was an Australian performance artist, club promoter, actor, pop star, model and fashion designer, based in London. Bowery is considered one of the more influential figures in the 1980s and 1990s London and New York art and fashion circles influencing a generation of artists and...

 and his artist partner Trojan, and introduced Mark White and Martin Fry to people in her circle including fashion designer John Galliano
John Galliano
John Charles Galliano CBE, RDI is a Gibraltan-born British fashion designer who was best known as head designer of French haute couture houses Givenchy and Christian Dior , and his own self titled fashion house.-Family:He was born in Gibraltar to a Gibraltarian father, Juan Galliano, and a...

, punk ballet dancer Michael Clark
Michael Clark (dancer)
Michael Clark is a Scottish dancer and choreographer.-Early life:Michael Clark was born in Aberdeen and began traditional Scottish dancing at the age of four. In 1975 he left home to study at the Royal Ballet School in London, and on his final day at the school he was presented with the Ursula...

 (who was dating her flatmate Richard), film director John Maybury
John Maybury
John Maybury is an English filmmaker. In 2005 he was listed as one of the 100 most influential gay and lesbian people in Britain.-Early life:...

, DJ and S'Express
S'Express
S'Express were a British dance music act from the late 1980s, who had one of the earliest commercial successes in the acid house genre."Theme from S'Express", based on Rose Royce's "Is It Love You're After", was also one of the earliest recordings to capitalize on a resurgence of sampling culture...

 pop star Mark Moore
Mark Moore
Mark Moore is a British dance music record producer and DJ. He was founder of the pop/sampling pioneers S'Express, and runs the London nightclubs, 'Electrogogo' and 'Can Can'.-Biography:...

, among others. Mark Moore has since publicly acknowledged the direct influence of ABC's image circa How To Be a Zillionaire.
How to Be a...Zillionaire!
How to Be a... Zillionaire! is an album by the band ABC. It was released in January 1985 . Four singles were released from this album, "Be Near Me" , " Millionaire" , and "Vanity Kills" , and the fourth was "Ocean Blue",...


ABC

ABC's Martin Fry and Mark White loved the 70s super pimp/space tramp charity shop meets Comme des Garcons
Comme des Garçons
Comme des Garçons, written コム・デ・ギャルソン in Japanese and French for "Like Boys," is a Japanese fashion label headed by Rei Kawakubo, who owns the company with her husband Adrian Joffe....

/Yohji Yamamoto
Yohji Yamamoto
Yōji Yamamoto , is an award winning Japanese fashion designer based in Tokyo and Paris. Yohji is considered to be among the master tailors whose work is thought to be of fashion genius and he has been described by Julie Gilhart, fashion director for Barney's New York as probably the only designer...

 look that Fiona and her friends were sporting in the spring of 1984 - they were the first to knowingly champion a retro image. Martin and Mark had written and produced the music for their third album but knew they wanted a completely new image for ABC so decided to ask Fiona to join the band and also brought in American David Yarritu
David Yarritu
David Yarritu is an American musician and photographer. He was best known for his short stint as a member of new wave group ABC in the 1980s. He was featured in several videos from the band's How to Be a...Zillionaire! album, including "Be Near Me" ....

. The choice of someone with such diminutive stature was deliberate: the first single 'How To Be a Millionaire' (inspired by Martin Amis
Martin Amis
Martin Louis Amis is a British novelist, the author of many novels including Money and London Fields . He is currently Professor of Creative Writing at the Centre for New Writing at the University of Manchester, but will step down at the end of the 2010/11 academic year...

's seminal 80s book, ''Money'
Money (novel)
Money: A Suicide Note is a 1984 novel by Martin Amis. Time magazine included the novel in its "100 best English-language novels from 1923 to the present".-Plot summary:...

') was accompanied by a cartoon video, modelled on the Jackson 5. The new-look ABC was pure cartoon fantasy and the two new members reflected that. Fiona was asked to dress as she had earlier that year, and while her personal image had since moved onto what became known as Sinéad O'Connor's
Sinéad O'Connor
Sinéad Marie Bernadette O'Connor is an Irish singer-songwriter. She rose to fame in the late 1980s with her debut album The Lion and the Cobra and achieved worldwide success in 1990 with a cover of the song "Nothing Compares 2 U"....

 look, so she wore wigs, platform shoes and clothes made for her by Leigh Bowery, Bodymap and Mark Spy and Murray Blewitt, who went on to design for Vivienne Westwood
Vivienne Westwood
Dame Vivienne Westwood, DBE, RDI is a British fashion designer and businesswoman, largely responsible for bringing modern punk and new wave fashions into the mainstream.-Early life:...

. The name 'Eden' was dreamt up by Fiona, Leigh Bowery and Trojan one night over a bottle of vodka in their East London flat.

Neither Fiona nor David were allowed to contribute musically (although both were more than capable). The reasons were partly aesthetic and partly financial. Fake instruments were made for the band in homage to Claes Oldenberg's famous 'soft' drumkit. The aim was to be as luridly bright and Loony Tunes cartoony as possible in a purposeful comment about how infantile, money-driven and artificial the decade was becoming. It turned out to be an in-joke that backfired: British fans did not get it or like it at all, unhappy that the five lads in gold lame suits had morphed into what one critic called 'The Addams Family
The Addams Family
The Addams Family is a group of fictional characters created by American cartoonist Charles Addams. As named by Charles Addams, the Addams Family characters include Gomez, Morticia, Uncle Fester, Lurch, Grandmama, Wednesday, Pugsley, and Thing....

'. Luckily, and perhaps unsurprisingly for a nation raised on Hanna Barbera, Disneyland and McDonald's
McDonald's
McDonald's Corporation is the world's largest chain of hamburger fast food restaurants, serving around 64 million customers daily in 119 countries. Headquartered in the United States, the company began in 1940 as a barbecue restaurant operated by the eponymous Richard and Maurice McDonald; in 1948...

, the new look ABC went down very well in the States. Indeed, although 'How To Be a Zillionaire' only charted in the Top 30 in the UK and 'Be Near Me
Be Near Me
"Be Near Me" is a song by ABC. The hit single from How to Be a...Zillionaire!, it is a message from the group's lead singer, Martin Fry, to an unknown addressee. He commands the addressee not to leave him. It peaked at #26 on the UK singles chart in 1985, then later in the year it went to #9 on the...

' was the highest charting track off the album at No.26, by contrast it made the US Billboard Top Ten and 'Be Near Me' was a Billboard hit, a number 1 dance floor hit, a radio and MTV
MTV
MTV, formerly an initialism of Music Television, is an American network based in New York City that launched on August 1, 1981. The original purpose of the channel was to play music videos guided by on-air hosts known as VJs....

 hit coast to coast.

Unfortunately, during the time the album was rocketing up the Billboard charts, Martin Fry was extremely ill with Hodgkin's Disease, so the band could only make limited promotional appearances. Fiona continued with her journalism during the down time, writing for Time Out and Interview as well as for The Face, while also spending time in New York after being adopted by the then-cognescenti, including Andy Warhol
Andy Warhol
Andrew Warhola , known as Andy Warhol, was an American painter, printmaker, and filmmaker who was a leading figure in the visual art movement known as pop art...

 who was impressed by her cutting edge look and success in two separate fields. Although Fiona was not allowed to sing, she did contribute to ABC in that she influenced them with the people she introduced Martin and Mark to, such as the avant garde jeweller and stylist, Judy Blame, who became the subject of a B-side, 'Judy's Jewels'. One of Michael Clark's dancers, Les Childs, was brought in to choreograph the group, and various up-and-coming young designers dressed the rest of the band while Leigh Bowery designed Eden's fun fur jacket and double-brimmed super-high glittery military-style cap.

Two much- talked-about Eden incidents: Eden wore a dildo
Dildo
A dildo is a sex toy, often explicitly phallic in appearance, intended for bodily penetration during masturbation or sex with partners.- Description and uses :...

belt she made on 'The Tube
The Tube (TV series)
The Tube was an innovative United Kingdom pop/rock music television programme, which ran for five seasons, from 5 November 1982 until 1987...

', the legendary 80s Channel 4 live music show, which was a belt covered in 'ladyfingers' - very small white dildoes - to look like a bullet belt. It was a first on British TV that has still not been topped. The B-side of 'How To Be a Millionaire' has a track called 'A to Z' which introduces all the band members. When it gets to the girl, we hear "Hi, I'm Eden, and I want you to kiss my snatch" accompanied by suggestive kissing sounds. Fiona agreed that while it IS the sort of thing she would say, being well-known for making provocative gestures, it's actually Martin Fry's voice speeded up and was recorded entirely without Fiona's knowledge. The reason given was that there wasn't enough time to get her into the studio. Fiona says she has since discovered that, as it was not her real voice, royalties did not have to be paid to her.

Although many music journalists are said to be frustrated or failed rock stars, she says the reason she joined the band was because "I thought - incorrectly as it turned out - that it would be fun. Also, it was a great opportunity to experience the music industry from the inside. Unfortunately, I discovered all too quickly why the other band members had left and cut off contact with Martin and, to a lesser extent, Mark. As Martin was very ill -something I knew absolutely nothing about until the day he turned up at the airport when we flew to LA
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...

 - after we did the US TV shows, I didn't hear anything from either of them again although I was kept on the payroll for another four months. I was unceremoniously dumped when I was no longer useful. I understand that business is ruthless but we were supposed to be mates. They'd known me since the age of 14. They didn't even have the courtesy to call me, I'd served my purpose and that was that. It was depressing. Occasionally, I would bump into Mark in a club or at a fashion show but I didn't see or hear from Martin until '97 or '98 – 12 years later - when I wrote a piece for ''The Times
The Times
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...

' about the retro phenomenon and the Here and Now Tour that Martin, as ABC, was on.

Journalistic career

Fiona Russell Powell has written for Loaded
Loaded (magazine)
Loaded, first published in 1994, is a British magazine for men that is considered to be the "original lads' mag". Its motto is "For men who should know better".-History:...

and Punch
Punch (magazine)
Punch, or the London Charivari was a British weekly magazine of humour and satire established in 1841 by Henry Mayhew and engraver Ebenezer Landells. Historically, it was most influential in the 1840s and 50s, when it helped to coin the term "cartoon" in its modern sense as a humorous illustration...

, The Face, i-D
I-D
i-D is a British magazine dedicated to fashion, music, art and youth culture. i-D was founded by designer and former Vogue art director Terry Jones in 1980. The first issue was published in the form of a hand-stapled fanzine with text produced on a typewriter...

, The Evening Standard, The Daily Express, The Idler
The Idler
There have been three British publications called The Idler:* The Idler , a series of essays by Samuel Johnson and his contemporaries.* The Idler , a literary and humorous magazine started by Jerome K...

, Dazed and Confused
Dazed & Confused (magazine)
Dazed & Confused is a British style magazine, that was set up in 1992 and published monthly. Its founding editors were Jefferson Hack and Rankin...

, Interview, Penthouse, Time Out, Arena
Arena (magazine)
Arena was a British monthly men's magazine. The magazine was created in 1986 by Nick Logan, who had started The Face in 1980, to focus on trends in fashion and entertainment. British graphic designer Neville Brody, who had designed The Face, designed Arena's launch appearance.The magazine featured...

, Arena Homme Plus
Arena Homme +
Arena Homme + is a fashion magazine for men published biannually since 1994. It is published by Bauer and editor-in-chief is the writer Jo-Ann Furniss....

, The New Humanist
New Humanist
New Humanist is a monthly magazine published by the Rationalist Association in the UK. It has been in print for 125 years; starting out life as Watts's Literary Guide, founded by C. A. Watts in November 1885....

, Woman's Journal
Woman's Journal
Woman's Journal was a women's rights periodical published from 1870-1931.Woman's Journal was founded in 1870 in Boston, Massachusetts by Lucy Stone and her husband Henry Browne Blackwell as a weekly newspaper. The new paper incorporated Mary A...

and Fashion Weekly among others. She has also featured in the press on more than one occasion, having had various incidents and antics documented, . In the mid to late 90s, she frequently appeared on British television debates, such as the BBC's peaktime You Decide discussing the decriminalisation and legalisation of drugs, having previously written extensively about her own battle with Class A's. In 2006, Fiona was co-director (along with Patrick Lilley, who was one of the original Carburton Street squatters and founder of the Queer Nation Club in London, and Christophe Demoulin, artist's agent) of The Outsider festival, a ten day-long arts festival curated by Angie Bowie that focussed on films, photography and club nights celebrating underground sub-culture in London and the UK since the early 80s. The project was commissioned by Sony PSP, and was the world's first downloadable arts festival. Fiona also co-wrote 40 Ans de Musique au Gibus, which chronicles four decades of seminal musical acts at the famous Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

nightclub.

External links

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