Tag Archives: 80s

The Castanet Club Comes to YOU! – (Final)

Maynard brings the colour and movement that was The Castanet Club 1982-1991 into your home (Final show)*.

Tune in one last time. Hang onto your Lana Caruso hat, because you’ll need it for this show.

Videos and songs from Castanet Club archives, as well as some photos even we’ve never seen. See the Newcastle Museum exhibition from afar, close up and live from Maynard International Studios. Plus videos of a few of the artists that influenced The Castanet Club.

See what can be done with just some really old slide photos and VHS tapes.

Lance, Rodney, Warren, Kid Paganini, Nastassja Bassi, Jodi Shields and Leslie Fountain will be on our final show this Saturday night.

*show may not go as planned. Some viewers may be underwhelmed.

Here is the second show from Saturday 31st July, the final Castanet Club Come to YOU!

Enjoy the second (and final) Castanet Club Comes to YOU!
A real hi-light from the final show Nastassja Bassi (Jacqueline Amidy) singing Wuthering Heights. It’s as good as the book and a lot shorter.

Watch the first Castanet Club comes to YOU!

Newcastle Museum Exhibition

The Castanet Club 2021 -2022 calendar

Your 18 month Castanet Club calendar is here for you to enjoy and print out. You can see The Castanet Club exhibition at Newcastle Museum July 11th through to October 2nd 2021.

Download your calendar here.

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How about some out of context quotes about The Castanet Club 1982 – 1991 from the people that were there.

The only full colour book about The Castanet Club is now available.

Steve Abbott (Johnny Goodman) – “If you make friends with the audience before the show, it makes it harder for them to dislike you.” “We were excessively daggy”.

Warren Coleman (Bowling Man) – “We had a show that would work in a pub or a theatre”.

Glenn Butcher (Lance Norton) – “The first show we played outside Newcastle at the Adelaide Fringe festival in 1984 was 3 hours long. We did everything.”

Jane Turner (Kath & Kim) – “When I first saw The Castanet Club at The Last Laugh in Melbourne, I fell in love with Lance Norton’s voice.”

Angela Moore (Betty & Shirley Purvis) – “Shirley Purvis was based on my grandmother from Yowie Bay.”

Mikey (Elvis Presle) – “The Castanet Club never had a bad gig. How many acts can say that?”

Russell Cheek (Tron Wexler & Douggie) – “The greatest comedy cabaret big band in the world that never made any money.”

Jacqueline Amidy (Nastassaja Bassi) – “Everything was much bigger than it should have been.”

Kathy Bluff (Kid Paganini) – “We were always anchored in popular culture and retro.”

John Doyle (Roy Slaven) – “The Castanet Club was larger than the sum of its parts.”

The Castanet Club book cover
The new Castanet Club book

Castanet Club calendars drying on the line
Castanet Club calendars drying on the line

We Don’t Care Quiz show January 2021 – Australian music retro edition.

Maynard’s Mastermind returns as the We Don’t Care Quiz to suit the awkward zeitgeist that 2021 will become. (Trigger warning, two German words appear in this 50 minute show)

We Don’t Care Quiz

Join Maynard, Richard Saunders, and inflatable hippo Anderson Cooper as we test your knowledge of Australian retro music up to 1998.

Questions on everything from Aunty Jack to The Unbearable Lightness of Being a Dickhead. What could be more Australian than that?

If you have any issues with the We Don’t Care Quiz, you have our answer already.

November’s Mastermind Quiz

RAT Party NYE 87/88 live on RAGE

Rage via VHS tape from possibly the only time it did a live outside broadcast. Maynard hosted Rage from 1987/88 RAT party in at Hordern Pavillion, Sydney goofing with the crowd.

Rage NYE live crosses from RAT Party, Sydney Hordern Pavillion 87/88.

The live cross at midnight has the Castanet Club in the background finishing their gig that night, then some New Year’s thoughts from the crowd, a run down the giant slide, a visit to an unimpressed DJ Tim Richie, then goodbye from the central dance floor at the Hordern Pavillion.

These all went to air between music clips played in back at ABC-TV at Gore Hill between 12-1am NYE 1987/88.

Maynard live Rage NYE 87/88 RAT party
Maynard live Rage NYE 87/88 RAT the crowd looks impressed

Maynard Hordern Dance Party special

Have a Madd New Year this New Year’s Eve

Its a Madd New Year from 9pm New Year’s Eve through to 1am. Video livestream LIVE at Mixcloud.

Every Madd Club video livestream from this year. PLUS at midnight Maynard live to air interviews (direct from VHS) at NYE 1987/88 Rage Hordern RAT party.

THEN get your groove on watching the hot retro explosion that was Ant, Kate & Maynard working The Moshpit, Newtown in Septembertill about 1am.

Get your kook on with a Madd New Year.. See you in the chat room from 9pm.

Facebook event for Madd New Year

Maynard Mixcloud live page from 9pm – 1am New Year’s Madd

This will take some explanation. Best you just watch Madd New Year.

A Very 2020 Xmas spectacular to warn to what to expect

Video – Maynard 1987 Special

In this Channel V, Rewind show Maynard looks at the year 1987, a year that featured a lot of big hits and big hair.

See the smash hits from Kylie Minogue, Madonna, Pseudo Echo, Was (Not Was) and plenty more you thought you’d put behind you.

Kylie Minogue in locomotion film clip
Can’t have 1987 without Kylie Minogue
Pseudo Echo in Funkytown clip
Pseudo Echo rock out
Smash Hits 1987 record cover
You have this Smash Hits record somewhere
Madonna in True Blue film clip
No chair was safe from Madonna in 1987
Maynard salutes 1987
1987 we salute you

Have a look at 1978

Video – Plate Spinning Retro Classics

In this Rewind show from 1997 you’ll have the usual retro excitement you expect from Maynard on an old VHS tape.

Plenty of underpants on your head fun in this show

There’s the opening tension of the best plate spinning on cable TV followed by Adam Ant, Human League and The Fat Boys.

Adam and the Ants on Maynard's Rewind show 1997
Adam Ant jumps in to unplug your jukebox
Maynard with audience on Foxtel 1997
Maynard’s huge live audience gets the retro fever, Foxtel 1997

Video – Rewind Volume 2, Kinselas nightclub.

Kinselas nightclub Sydney is the setting for this journey through the Rewind Volume 2 CD (disc one).

The renovations to the middle bar had the place looking as clean as it was ever going to be. So I’m sure you’ll enjoy the decor in between the music clips.

A show about a CD from Kinselas night club. How 2001 is that?

You’ll cop tracks from MC Hammer, Bananarama, Ce Ce Peniston, Beats International, Sunscream, Snap, Blondie, Kriss Kross, De La Soul and more. It’s a packed show.

Still from Dee Lite music clip
Love some Deee-Lite

Deee-Lite was Towa Tei and DJ Dimitry, with Lady Miss Kier cooing out front of a wicked bass groove produced by legendary 70s funkster Bootsy Collins & Q-Tip of A Tribe Called Quest. This track is from the World Clique album featuring a lot of faux fur.

Maynard's Rewind Volume 2 CD
Maynard’s Rewind Volume 2 CD
Kriss Kross
It’s wiggida wiggida wiggida wack

Kriss Kross are the winners of the stupidest street clothing look of the 1990s. These two thirteen year old kids Chris Smith and Chris Kelly wore their pants backwards. No wonder their follow up was called I Missed The Bus.

Maynard running in Kinselas nightclub Sydney
Gotta run, late for work

Maynard with Kylie Minogue interview 1997

U Gotta See This! Can’t Stop The Music (1980)

Movie buff Lance Leopard and movie bluffer Maynard present the greatest disco musical starring Olympian Bruce Jenner & Village People CAN’T STOP THE MUSIC (1980)

Tuesday night 3rd September at Red Bar.

Lance and Maynard both have what can only be described as an intimate knowledge of this musical. They’ll combine their knowledge for what will be a unique group viewing experience, U Gotta See This!

Maynard supports Village People, Enmore Theatre 2005

Maynard promises great Village People stories and clips from his pop culture collection of disco.

Facebook event for U Gotta See This! Can”t Stop The Music