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Kajagoogoo

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Kajagoogoo Genre All Genres
City Leighton Buzzard
Country UK
WEB http://www.kajagoogoo.com/
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The band was originally founded in Leighton Buzzard, Bedfordshire, in 1979, as a four-piece avant-garde instrumental group, called Art Nouveau, with Nick Beggs on bass guitar, Steve Askew on lead guitar, Stuart Croxford Neale on keyboards, and Jeremy "Jez" Strode on drums. Art Nouveau released a track called "The Fear Machine". The single sold a few hundred copies, and was played on the John Peel show, but the band were unable to get a record deal.

In 1981, they advertised for a lead singer, ultimately auditioning and choosing Christopher Hamill, who then went under the stage name Limahl (an anagram of his surname). The name of the group was then changed to Kajagoogoo, coined by phonetically writing out a baby's first sounds, which gave them 'GagaGooGoo' - and with a minor alteration, it became 'Kajagoogoo'
 

The band attracted the interest of three record labels (and Duran Duran's Nick Rhodes), while performing at the Embassy Club, in London. The group was eventually signed to EMI, in July 1982, and Rhodes was hired to produce their first album, White Feathers along with Duran Duran's EMI producer Colin Thurston. In between events, they supported Birmingham band Fashion on tour. Their debut single, "Too Shy", was released in January 1983 and went to the top of the charts (before any of Duran Duran's singles had done so, Rhodes ruefully noted). Follow-up releases, "Ooh to Be Aah" and "Hang on Now", also both reached the UK Top 20, and the album White Feathers reached no.5 in the UK album chart. As success came, tensions began to rise in the band, which eventually culminated in Limahl being fired by the other band members in mid-1983 and Beggs then taking over as lead singer. The first single by the new four-piece Kajagoogoo was "Big Apple", which made the UK Top Ten in late 1983. Their next single, "The Lion's Mouth", made the Top 30 but after that public interest waned and the hits dried up. The subsequent new album, Islands, was less successful, peaking at only no.35 in the UK. In the U.S., the band renamed themselves as Kaja, and a different edition of the Islands album was released there as Extra Play, peaking at no.185 on the Billboard charts. The single "Turn Your Back On Me" did well on the US Dance Charts peaking at no.2 for two weeks.

Strode then left the band and, in an attempt to gain some credibility and to lose their bubblegum image, the remaining three members relaunched as Kaja in the UK in 1985. Following the name change, the band released the single "Shouldn't Do That" (UK #63) in mid-1985. The song was featured on their third album, Crazy People's Right to Speak. In 1986, the band split up.

 

Albums (2)
Songs (19)
Vinyl Vinyl
White Feathers
Kajagoogoo
Songs 10 Comments 0
0 out of 50 out of 50 out of 50 out of 50 out of 5 / 0 out of 50 out of 50 out of 50 out of 50 out of 5 Added on 03 July 2011
Released 1983
Format Vinyl
Type
Length 0:00
N discs 1
Label EMI
Genre All Genres
Price 0.00 €
Cat N EMC 3433
Islands
Kajagoogoo
Songs 9 Comments 0
0 out of 50 out of 50 out of 50 out of 50 out of 5 / 0 out of 50 out of 50 out of 50 out of 50 out of 5 Added on 03 July 2011
Released 1984
Format Vinyl
Type
Length 0:00
N discs 1
Label EMI
Genre All Genres
Price 0.00 €
Cat N EMC 2401161

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