Sit back, put on your most outrageous jumper, and enjoy! Newcastle Museum is proud to bring you Almost Live from the Castanet Club!
With current public health orders preventing visitors from experiencing our special exhibition The Castanet Club – An exhibition you can dance to! in person, we’re bringing the fun to you with this limited release variety show.
In true Castanet Club collaborative style, we’ve gathered talented musicians, videographers, sound engineers and visual artists to produce a modern take on a classic Novocastrian attitude: get your friends together, have fun, make art and share it!
For our first episode of Almost Live The Medley Sisters join us from 1988 and get into a banjo duel – except with a violin and an accordion. Maynard makes a special Castanet Club themed cocktail with scientist Catherine and Sprout Catering & Kitchen bartender Harry (they also chat about sedimentary rocks). We round off this electric experiment in almost live entertainment with The Lairs, who take us all the way to Las Vegas!
Saturday night Maynardarama broadcast to the world a message of foolishness and colourful tea towels wrapped in the grooves that are so needed these days.
Watch all the action live from Maynard International Studios
Enjoy a trampoline with Ann-Margret, a casually undone bow tie with Tom jones or maybe marvel at Mari Wilson changing her outfit in under 25 seconds on live TV. Tim Ferguson drops in to monkey around AND International (but mainly NSW) Tea Towel News.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
In 1998 we found out when Foxtel’s Channel V assigned Mary Datoc and Maynard to dig up clips and music from around all Foxtel channels in a way that would never happen now.
All the Channel V presenters of the time turned up at Maynard’s for an afternoon and this show was the result.
Unseen since 1998 Planet Maynard presents A Very Maynard Xmas (an El Cheapo production)
Time for a serious Oxford Street lunch with Lance Leopard, but not till after an even more serious viewing of Valley of the Dolls, a movie Lance agrees is a “great starting point for any camp movie collection’.
Join Maynard as he visits Lance Leopard, high in his ivory tower of scuttlebutt, where all secrets are hidden and revealed, overlooking the inhospitable wilds of Darlinghurst.
Topics covered in this show include, Delilah, The Gibson Brothers, Madonna’s movie career, Jane Fonda, Liberace, Marilyn Monroe on the piano, Bill Collins, Village People, Claire de Lune, Joe Hasham and ABBA.
Lance declares two “stupid films” that should never have been made. While Maynard gets the best scene from Tank Girl wrong.
And the next time someone you know isn’t getting what you are saying, just do what Lance does, and ask them; “can you hear the drums Fernando?”.
Lance did have a few other things he wished to be quoted on;
“I’m glad you’re working hard on this show Maynard, I’m as lazy as Dean Martin.”
“I thought the Madonna film Body of Evidence was a great film in a genre I’ve made up called faux Hitchcock.”
“Madonna can act, when she’s directed well and she’s not the leading character.”
“My favourite Bond film is Moonraker, it’s James Bond in space AND Shirley Bassey belts out the theme song.”
“I ironed Neil Tenant’s pants once backstage because the Pet Shop Boys wardrobe assistant had gone missing at The Phoenix Bar on ecstasy or something. I blame the gays.”
“I have long arms, so it never looks like I’m taking a selfie. It looks like I’m just waving.”
“I’ve been called a gay icon, and I’ve been called worse.”
“Now a new audience has rediscovered me, I’m trapped with my quiff, my perfect eyebrows and my matte complexion.”
” Now that I’m older, I’ve realised timing and lighting is EVERYTHING.”
Enjoy your lunch with Lance, see you at the buffet….
Lance Leopard is a gay icon and legendary gossip columnist from the glamorous 1990s of the Oxford Street strip, and beyond. Join us in Lance Leopard’s new spot. An ivory tower high above the fray, overlooking Darlinghurst, where secrets are both hidden and revealed.
During his tenure as chief gossip and stirrer of The Scene in his weekly columns in The Star Observer, Capital Q, Out Biz and more, he dished the dirt and smeared the eyeliner without fear or favour.
Lance even has celebrity advice for Dannii Minogue (a child superstar), Cybill Shepherd (selfish bitch) and his Mum (Ikeep my manners around her and try and teach her a few).
Join us for drinks won’t you?
I present short history of quotes from Lance Leopard;
“I can admit it now because I’m retired”
“People “remember” me doing all sorts of things. It might not have been me they actually remember. It could have been Sexy Galexy for all I know.”
“The more you do something, the better you get at it. Or else you’re always dreadful and no one will tell you.”
“Brisbane is like Baltimore, it’s one of those nutty little towns that just has its own thing.”
“I don’t know if I should say this.”
“If people are complaining there isn’t a scene. They can go out there and make one.”
“I liked it when my columns were in magazines people had to actually buy. I made more of an effort then.”
“Everybody has an opinion now days. But if it’s not an informed opinion, it’s a lousy opinion, and who needs to hear it?”
When asked at what point in history Lance would have liked to have lived;
“I would have picked the good years of Versailles. Before everybody got angry and started demanding cake.”
On the world of gossip a learned Lance quotes Ru Paul;
“What people say about you behind your back is none of your business.”
