Romo
Encyclopedia
Romantic Modernism, more commonly known as Romo, was a musical and clubbing movement, of Glam
/style pop lineage, in the UK circa 1995–1997, centred around the twin homes of Camden-based clubnight Club Skinny and its West End clone Arcadia, as well as concerts by the chief associated bands.
The Romo movement was essentially a derivation of late-1970s disco
and early-1980s club music, with an emphasis on the extroverted sartorial style and decadent air of New Romantic
-era bands such as Japan
and Soft Cell
. Nonetheless, contemporary features in Melody Maker (where the genre was championed mainly by Simon Price
and Taylor Parkes
– it was dismissed by the rival NME) tended to downplay the nostalgic connection with New Romantic, emphasising Romo's newness and contemporary relevance.
Much championed by the aforesaid writers at the Melody Maker as a stylish and poppy backlash against the dressed-down style of the Britpop
movement, while variously feted and lambasted by others in the media as a New Romantic
revival (a tag rejected by those on the scene) Romo's prime legacy has been chiefly in club culture as it heralded a new generation of glam/style orientated club nights which would continue through the 2000s.
-influenced band noted for their flamboyant dress sense, became regulars at the club, attracting a flow of further flamboyant club-goers in their wake.
A further development was the recruitment of two glamorous 1980s-styled bands Plastic Fantastic and DexDexTer, the former a Brighton
-based Roxy Music
/Japan
-influenced outfit fronted by former Scorpio Rising/Supercharger frontman Stuart Miller, the latter formerly known as MkII and led by future Placebo
keyboardist Paul "Xavior" Roide. The two bands were duly scheduled to double-headline the 17 August edition of Club Skinny. In addition, one of the aspiring Britpop bands who had been playing at the club, Viva, led by Derek 'Del' Gray, were inspired by the club to reinvent themselves as a pure pop/disco outfit in the same vein as ABC
circa The Lexicon of Love
. Wilde would subsequently become the manager of both Viva and DexDexTer.
was already alert to the existence of Plastic Fantastic and had previously linked them, together with Sexus, a Manchester
-based "intelligent handbag" duo consisting of singer David Savage and and keyboard player Paul Southern (together formerly indie guitar duo Sanity Plexus) and a non-glamorous electronic act called Boutique, as "New Romo" [sic] in a June 1995 review for Sexus's debut single Edenites. (His colleague Everett True
also heavily used the term Romo for a Plastic Fantastic review that summer) Price was invited to the aforementioned double bill edition of Club Skinny and, with the event judged a success by all concerned, not only began to cover the scene enthusiastically in his writing, converting his colleague Taylor Parkes
along the way, but also opened up a second clubnight for the scene in Soho, named Arcadia. This was based at L'Equippe Anglais in Duke Street but later moved to legendary Soho drag bar Madam JoJos.
Club Skinny meanwhile also relocated to HQ's a venue in Camden Lock Market close to Dingwalls
starting with the club's 31 August 1995 edition. A Plastic Fantastic/Viva/DexDexTer triple bill at the venue on 28 September 1995 was reviewed by Parkes in memorable fashion:
By this time, more acts were emerging from the scene. Orlando
who had played live as an indie band in 1993-4 before withdrawing to reinvent themselves as an "alienated" white soul duo consisting of singer Tim Chipping, guitarist/lyricist Dickon Edwards
and some sidemen, approached Club Skinny to relaunch themselves as a live act. Punk trio Xerox Girls likewise reinvented themselves as a glacial synth/electro duo Hollywood consisting of singer Hannah Edgren and keyboardist Stacey Leigh, with third member David Gray (Leigh's then-boyfriend) retained as a synth programmer. Gray would later become Orlando's live drummer while Nugent would take over the management of both bands.
featuring live footage of Plastic Fantastic and Sexus (by now a full part of the Romo scene) and interviews with the two aforementioned bands, Xavior from DexDexTer and Simon Price, and queue/crowd/dancefloor footage of Arcadia featuring Wilde, Grey, Chipping, Edwards, Edgren and Leigh. By the end of 1995, media coverage of Romo had included TV coverage on ITV
, Sky News
and an unspecified Japanese TV news programme, radio coverage on BBC Radio 1
and BBC World Service
and print media coverage in Time Out, The Observer
, The Guardian
, The Sunday Times
, as well as colour features in style magazines The Face and i-D
. Tabloid newspaper the Daily Star also printed an enthusiastic but largely inaccurate full page article depicting the scene as a straightforward New Romantic revival.
Melody Maker meanwhile continued its enthusiastic coverage, culminating in a cover-featured Romo special defining the scene. The cover image was a group shot of Chipping, Miller, Savage and Xavior clad in their Romo finery, while the feature identified seven core bands – the aforementioned Orlando
, Plastic Fantastic, DexDexTer, Sexus, Hollywood, Viva, and linking in one non-scene band Minty, the former musical project of the late Leigh Bowery
being continued after his death by his widow Nicola and various artistic friends, most notably singer Mathew Glammore. More significant was the inclusion of a "Romanifesto" by Price and Parkes which ideologically defined Romo as the rejection of authenticity in music in favour of creative artifice, a militant Pop sensibility (which placed Romo in direct opposition to both rockism
and the values of alternative music) and the ideal of recreating/reinventing oneself as a glamorous Star
-type persona.
and Neal X
) and Orlando
– Sexus and Minty having by now decided to keep their distance from the scene. Despite Minty's non-involvement in the tape, individual members and collaborators contributed to the continuing flow of fresh Romo acts such as Elizabeth Bunny and Massive Ego, the latter featuring a young Dan Black
on guitar. Other newcomers to the scene were Universe (a similar "perfect pop" concept to Viva) and Acacia
(an earlier incarnation of which featured future Mercury Music prize winner Talvin Singh
.) German pop act Sin With Sebastian
also played Arcadia during this time. Romo club culture also continued to develop with the launch by Price and Gray of Saturday night clubnight Paris 6 am at Oscars nightclub in Leicester Square as well as two clubs organised by other parties – The Cell at Gossips in Dean Street promoted by Stewart Ubik and the Roxy Motel Club at The Fridge in Brixton.
The climax of all this activity was a package tour of Romo bands, also entitled "Fiddling While Romo Burns", featuring a quadruple bill of Orlando, Plastic Fantastic, Hollywood and DexDexTer. Although the showcase London concert (also featuring Viva) at the LA2 venue was a 750 capacity sellout and reasonable crowds were also attracted to the Brighton and Manchester shows, other provincial dates on the tour – mostly at student venues that were the fodder of the very indie music that the militantly pop Romo movement opposed – failed to attract large audiences and those that did attend were generally sceptical. More seriously, the strain of having to live, eat and sleep together rather than merely go clubbing together had severely strained relations between the bands. Chipping was relatively diplomatic about this in one interview at the time: "There's a definite reason why we have two tourbuses. It's to do with the fact that some bands just won't tour with each other, not because they dislike each other, they just have different... living styles." Nevertheless, by the end of the tour, all of the seven core acts originally featured in the Melody Maker special had recording contracts with either major or big independent labels – Orlando with WEA subsidiary Blanco y Negro Records
, Plastic Fantastic with Mercury Records
, Sexus with ZTT, Hollywood with U2's Mother Records
label, DexDexTer with Island Records
subdivision Trade2, Viva with Planet3 Records and Minty (whose transvestite drummer Trevor Sharpe had filled in as drummer for Plastic Fantastic on the tour) with Candy Records.
writing/production partnership. In his review of the latter's gig, Price recanted his "Romo is dead" declaration, dismissing it as a red herring
tactic and further adding that the continued spread of Romo was by now beyond even his control. At around this time, a first anniversary party was held for Club Skinny headlined by Crush, the band of former Byker Grove
TV stars Donna Air
and Jayni Hoi. However, continued tensions in the scene led to the discontinuation of both Skinny and Arcadia in July 1996. Romo activities continued at the individual bands' concerts (although one Plastic Fantastic concert at Dingwalls from this time ended in a mass brawl after a hat was thrown onstage).
The bands mostly concentrated on their recording contracts at this point – in late 1996 Hollywood released a heavily remixed single Apocalypse Kiss while Plastic Fantastic – having previously released the Eno
-influenced Fantastique no.5 recorded a planned album Autumn which was never released due to a dispute with Mercury over the mix of planned second single Plastic World. Sexus, who had also released a second single The Official End Of It All and recorded an album The Boyfriend Olympics, similarly fell out with ZTT over the mix of planned third single How Do You Kiss. Personal differences led to the demise of DexDexTer in early '97 just as their single Another Car Another CarCrash was released. Viva meanwhile, despite continuing to demo material never released any records and would later rename themselves Scala 5 and revert to a heavier guitar sound before their demise circa 2000. Stuart Miller dissolved Plastic Fantastic and revived his old band Supercharger, while Hollywood's Hannah Edgren was spotted (by Dickon Edwards) fronting a new band in 1998 – she and Stacey Leigh would later reunite as Fubar. Sexus were frozen into inactivity due to a dispute with management after the fallout with ZTT – they would eventually re-emerge in 2002 as the Psychodelicates with a download/mail order album Psychodelicates Go Adventuring.
Thus by the middle of 1997 it was left to Orlando and Minty to be the most prolific – and in that sense the most successful – Romo bands as they were the only two of the seven core acts to reach the stage of releasing their respective albums. Orlando, having already released two singles Just For A Second and The Magic EP in late 1996 and a third, Nature's Hated in spring 1997, having toured extensively with Kenickie
and having scored the only UK chart hit of any core Romo act with their contribution to the Fever Pitch soundtrack EP, a cover of Tim Hardin
's How Can We Hang On To A Dream, released their album Passive Soul in October that year before Dickon Edwards departed to found Fosca
. Tim Chipping would continue to use the Orlando band name for a planned folk-orientated second album under the working title Sick Folk (to have included a collaboration with Kenickie
/Rosita
members Marie Du Santiago and Emmy-Kate Montrose), before finally dissolving Orlando in Spring 2000. Minty, likewise, having released singles Useless Man, Plastic Bag (a No. 2 hit in the Netherlands) That's Nice and Nothing, released their parent album Open Wide in late 1997 before also disbanding, with some members later forming rock band The Servant
. With all the core bands and major London clubnights now defunct (or at least no longer in their Romo incarnations), the Romo scene effectively came to an end.
Other promoters have also hosted such glam/style-orientated clubnights in the 2000s – most notably Glam-Ou-Rama, which later relocated to Tel Aviv
. Romo Night in Sweden, first established in 1996 during the original London scene's lifetime, was still active as of 2003.
Romo has also been frequently cited as a precedent for (if not actually an influence on) the Electroclash
scene of the early 2000s. The Disciples by James Mollison, a book of photographs of music fans, includes a spread
of photos of fans at a London concert by major Electroclash act Fischerspooner
, mostly dressed in Romo-style attire (one of whom is Simon Price.)
Glam rock
Glam rock is a style of rock and pop music that developed in the UK in the early 1970s, which was performed by singers and musicians who wore outrageous clothes, makeup and hairstyles, particularly platform-soled boots and glitter...
/style pop lineage, in the UK circa 1995–1997, centred around the twin homes of Camden-based clubnight Club Skinny and its West End clone Arcadia, as well as concerts by the chief associated bands.
The Romo movement was essentially a derivation of late-1970s disco
Disco
Disco is a genre of dance music. Disco acts charted high during the mid-1970s, and the genre's popularity peaked during the late 1970s. It had its roots in clubs that catered to African American, gay, psychedelic, and other communities in New York City and Philadelphia during the late 1960s and...
and early-1980s club music, with an emphasis on the extroverted sartorial style and decadent air of New Romantic
New Romantic
New Romanticism , was a pop culture movement in the United Kingdom that began around 1979 and peaked around 1981. Developing in London nightclubs such as Billy's and The Blitz and spreading to other major cities in the UK, it was based around flamboyant, eccentric fashion and new wave music...
-era bands such as Japan
Japan (band)
Japan were a British New Wave group, formed in 1974 in Catford, South London. The band achieved success in the late 1970s and early 1980s, when they were often associated with the burgeoning New Romantic fashion movement .- History :The band began as a group of friends...
and Soft Cell
Soft Cell
Soft Cell are an English synthpop duo who came to prominence in the early 1980s. They consist of vocalist Marc Almond and instrumentalist David Ball. The duo is most widely known for their 1981 worldwide hit version of "Tainted Love" and platinum debut Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret...
. Nonetheless, contemporary features in Melody Maker (where the genre was championed mainly by Simon Price
Simon Price
Simon Price is a British music journalist and club promoter, born on 25 September 1967 in the Welsh town of Barry. He is now best known for his weekly review section in The Independent on Sunday and his book on Manic Street Preachers.-Career:...
and Taylor Parkes
Taylor Parkes
Taylor Parkes is a British journalist. He is best known for his music journalism which appeared in Melody Maker from 1993 to 1998, notable for a style which mixed dark humour, especially in bitterly critical pieces, with an intellectual tone, influenced by the likes of Simon Reynolds and Paul Morley...
– it was dismissed by the rival NME) tended to downplay the nostalgic connection with New Romantic, emphasising Romo's newness and contemporary relevance.
Much championed by the aforesaid writers at the Melody Maker as a stylish and poppy backlash against the dressed-down style of the Britpop
Britpop
Britpop is a subgenre of alternative rock that originated in the United Kingdom. Britpop emerged from the British independent music scene of the early 1990s and was characterised by bands influenced by British guitar pop music of the 1960s and 1970s...
movement, while variously feted and lambasted by others in the media as a New Romantic
New Romantic
New Romanticism , was a pop culture movement in the United Kingdom that began around 1979 and peaked around 1981. Developing in London nightclubs such as Billy's and The Blitz and spreading to other major cities in the UK, it was based around flamboyant, eccentric fashion and new wave music...
revival (a tag rejected by those on the scene) Romo's prime legacy has been chiefly in club culture as it heralded a new generation of glam/style orientated club nights which would continue through the 2000s.
Birth of Romo
Club Skinny was created in Spring 1995 by promoters Kevin Wilde and Paul "HiFi" Nugent as a club playing stylish 1980s pop as an antidote to the fashion for indie-derived Britpop. The club was originally located at Camden's Laurel Tree venue, then the home of top Britpop clubnight Blow Up. Wilde and Nugent regarded it as a subversive and "punk" act to host their glamourous pop night at a major epicentre of the indie/Britpop movement they were opposing. Although initially forced to make the compromise of including concerts by upcoming Britpop bands in order to attract punters, the club gained momentum after members of Persecution Complex, a female David BowieDavid Bowie
David Bowie is an English musician, actor, record producer and arranger. A major figure for over four decades in the world of popular music, Bowie is widely regarded as an innovator, particularly for his work in the 1970s...
-influenced band noted for their flamboyant dress sense, became regulars at the club, attracting a flow of further flamboyant club-goers in their wake.
A further development was the recruitment of two glamorous 1980s-styled bands Plastic Fantastic and DexDexTer, the former a Brighton
Brighton
Brighton is the major part of the city of Brighton and Hove in East Sussex, England on the south coast of Great Britain...
-based Roxy Music
Roxy Music
Roxy Music was a British art rock band formed in 1971 by Bryan Ferry, who became the group's lead vocalist and chief songwriter, and bassist Graham Simpson. The other members are Phil Manzanera , Andy Mackay and Paul Thompson . Former members include Brian Eno , and Eddie Jobson...
/Japan
Japan (band)
Japan were a British New Wave group, formed in 1974 in Catford, South London. The band achieved success in the late 1970s and early 1980s, when they were often associated with the burgeoning New Romantic fashion movement .- History :The band began as a group of friends...
-influenced outfit fronted by former Scorpio Rising/Supercharger frontman Stuart Miller, the latter formerly known as MkII and led by future Placebo
Placebo (band)
Placebo are a British rock band from London, England, formed in 1994 by singer and guitarist Brian Molko and bass guitarist Stefan Olsdal. The band was joined by drummer Robert Schultzberg, who was later replaced by Steve Hewitt after conflicts with Molko. Hewitt left the band in October 2007 and...
keyboardist Paul "Xavior" Roide. The two bands were duly scheduled to double-headline the 17 August edition of Club Skinny. In addition, one of the aspiring Britpop bands who had been playing at the club, Viva, led by Derek 'Del' Gray, were inspired by the club to reinvent themselves as a pure pop/disco outfit in the same vein as 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:...
circa 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....
. Wilde would subsequently become the manager of both Viva and DexDexTer.
Discovery by Simon Price of Melody Maker
Melody Maker writer Simon PriceSimon Price
Simon Price is a British music journalist and club promoter, born on 25 September 1967 in the Welsh town of Barry. He is now best known for his weekly review section in The Independent on Sunday and his book on Manic Street Preachers.-Career:...
was already alert to the existence of Plastic Fantastic and had previously linked them, together with Sexus, a Manchester
Manchester
Manchester is a city and metropolitan borough in Greater Manchester, England. According to the Office for National Statistics, the 2010 mid-year population estimate for Manchester was 498,800. Manchester lies within one of the UK's largest metropolitan areas, the metropolitan county of Greater...
-based "intelligent handbag" duo consisting of singer David Savage and and keyboard player Paul Southern (together formerly indie guitar duo Sanity Plexus) and a non-glamorous electronic act called Boutique, as "New Romo" [sic] in a June 1995 review for Sexus's debut single Edenites. (His colleague Everett True
Everett True
For the cartoon character, see The Outbursts of Everett True.Everett True is a British music journalist, who grew up in Chelmsford, Essex...
also heavily used the term Romo for a Plastic Fantastic review that summer) Price was invited to the aforementioned double bill edition of Club Skinny and, with the event judged a success by all concerned, not only began to cover the scene enthusiastically in his writing, converting his colleague Taylor Parkes
Taylor Parkes
Taylor Parkes is a British journalist. He is best known for his music journalism which appeared in Melody Maker from 1993 to 1998, notable for a style which mixed dark humour, especially in bitterly critical pieces, with an intellectual tone, influenced by the likes of Simon Reynolds and Paul Morley...
along the way, but also opened up a second clubnight for the scene in Soho, named Arcadia. This was based at L'Equippe Anglais in Duke Street but later moved to legendary Soho drag bar Madam JoJos.
Club Skinny meanwhile also relocated to HQ's a venue in Camden Lock Market close to Dingwalls
Dingwalls
Dingwalls is a venue adjacent to Camden Lock in London, England. It houses bars, cafes, clubs . The building itself is one of many industrial Victorian buildings that were put to new use in the 20th century. The original owner of the building, T.E...
starting with the club's 31 August 1995 edition. A Plastic Fantastic/Viva/DexDexTer triple bill at the venue on 28 September 1995 was reviewed by Parkes in memorable fashion:
By this time, more acts were emerging from the scene. Orlando
Orlando (band)
Orlando was the most successful and visible band to emerge from the extremely brief Romo movement of the mid-'90s. Formed from the ashes of Sarah Records band Shelley, Orlando were led by lyricist/guitarist Dickon Edwards, and singer/songwriter Tim Chipping...
who had played live as an indie band in 1993-4 before withdrawing to reinvent themselves as an "alienated" white soul duo consisting of singer Tim Chipping, guitarist/lyricist Dickon Edwards
Dickon Edwards
Dickon Edwards is a London-based indie pop musician, writer, critic, DJ and online diarist. Although his parents named him Richard Edwards, they also chose to call him by the archaic derivative of Richard, "Dickon"...
and some sidemen, approached Club Skinny to relaunch themselves as a live act. Punk trio Xerox Girls likewise reinvented themselves as a glacial synth/electro duo Hollywood consisting of singer Hannah Edgren and keyboardist Stacey Leigh, with third member David Gray (Leigh's then-boyfriend) retained as a synth programmer. Gray would later become Orlando's live drummer while Nugent would take over the management of both bands.
Mainstream media attention
The scene began to achieve mainstream media coverage with a feature on Arcadia in Katie Puckrick's Sunday ShowThe Sunday Show
The Sunday Show is a British television entertainment programme that was broadcast live on Sunday lunchtimes on BBC Two between 1995 and 1997. Four series of the show were produced. Donna McPhail and Katie Puckrik hosted the first two series, with Puckrik was replaced by Paul Tonkinson for the...
featuring live footage of Plastic Fantastic and Sexus (by now a full part of the Romo scene) and interviews with the two aforementioned bands, Xavior from DexDexTer and Simon Price, and queue/crowd/dancefloor footage of Arcadia featuring Wilde, Grey, Chipping, Edwards, Edgren and Leigh. By the end of 1995, media coverage of Romo had included TV coverage on ITV
ITV1
ITV1 is a generic brand that is used by twelve franchises of the British ITV Network in the English regions, Wales, southern Scotland , the Isle of Man and the Bailiwicks of Jersey and Guernsey. The ITV1 brand was introduced by Carlton and Granada in 2001, alongside the regional identities of their...
, Sky News
Sky News
Sky News is a 24-hour British and international satellite television news broadcaster with an emphasis on UK and international news stories.The service places emphasis on rolling news, including the latest breaking news. Sky News also hosts localised versions of the channel in Australia and in New...
and an unspecified Japanese TV news programme, radio coverage on BBC Radio 1
BBC Radio 1
BBC Radio 1 is a British national radio station operated by the British Broadcasting Corporation which also broadcasts internationally, specialising in current popular music and chart hits throughout the day. Radio 1 provides alternative genres after 7:00pm including electronic dance, hip hop, rock...
and BBC World Service
BBC World Service
The BBC World Service is the world's largest international broadcaster, broadcasting in 27 languages to many parts of the world via analogue and digital shortwave, internet streaming and podcasting, satellite, FM and MW relays...
and print media coverage in Time Out, The Observer
The Observer
The Observer is a British newspaper, published on Sundays. In the same place on the political spectrum as its daily sister paper The Guardian, which acquired it in 1993, it takes a liberal or social democratic line on most issues. It is the world's oldest Sunday newspaper.-Origins:The first issue,...
, The Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
, The Sunday Times
The Sunday Times
The Sunday Times is a British Sunday newspaper.The Sunday Times may also refer to:*The Sunday Times *The Sunday Times *The Sunday Times *The Sunday Times...
, as well as colour features in style magazines The Face and 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...
. Tabloid newspaper the Daily Star also printed an enthusiastic but largely inaccurate full page article depicting the scene as a straightforward New Romantic revival.
Melody Maker meanwhile continued its enthusiastic coverage, culminating in a cover-featured Romo special defining the scene. The cover image was a group shot of Chipping, Miller, Savage and Xavior clad in their Romo finery, while the feature identified seven core bands – the aforementioned Orlando
Orlando (band)
Orlando was the most successful and visible band to emerge from the extremely brief Romo movement of the mid-'90s. Formed from the ashes of Sarah Records band Shelley, Orlando were led by lyricist/guitarist Dickon Edwards, and singer/songwriter Tim Chipping...
, Plastic Fantastic, DexDexTer, Sexus, Hollywood, Viva, and linking in one non-scene band Minty, the former musical project of the late 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...
being continued after his death by his widow Nicola and various artistic friends, most notably singer Mathew Glammore. More significant was the inclusion of a "Romanifesto" by Price and Parkes which ideologically defined Romo as the rejection of authenticity in music in favour of creative artifice, a militant Pop sensibility (which placed Romo in direct opposition to both rockism
Rockism
Rockism is a derogatory term referring to perceived biases in popular music criticism. It was popularized by New York Times critic Kelefa Sennneh in 2004 in an influential article. The term was coined by Pete Wylie with a variant meaning and used by "one or two" critics in the British music press...
and the values of alternative music) and the ideal of recreating/reinventing oneself as a glamorous Star
Celebrity
A celebrity, also referred to as a celeb in popular culture, is a person who has a prominent profile and commands a great degree of public fascination and influence in day-to-day media...
-type persona.
Melody Maker cassette and package tour
The 9 March 1996 edition of Melody Maker gave away a compilation cassette of Romo bands entitled "Fiddling While Romo Burns". Five bands featured on the tape – DexDexTer, Hollywood, Plastic Fantastic, Viva (whose track Now was co-produced by Marc AlmondMarc Almond
Marc Almond is an English singer-songwriter and musician, who originally found fame as half of the seminal synthpop/New Wave duo Soft Cell...
and Neal X
Neal X
Neal X was the guitarist with the British band Sigue Sigue Sputnik. They had a #3 UK hit single with "Love Missile F1-11" in 1986. He has also worked as a sideman for Adam Ant and Marc Almond...
) and Orlando
Orlando (band)
Orlando was the most successful and visible band to emerge from the extremely brief Romo movement of the mid-'90s. Formed from the ashes of Sarah Records band Shelley, Orlando were led by lyricist/guitarist Dickon Edwards, and singer/songwriter Tim Chipping...
– Sexus and Minty having by now decided to keep their distance from the scene. Despite Minty's non-involvement in the tape, individual members and collaborators contributed to the continuing flow of fresh Romo acts such as Elizabeth Bunny and Massive Ego, the latter featuring a young Dan Black
Dan Black
Dan Black is a British wonky pop artist. He was also a member of alternative rock band The Servant, before their 2007 split. He has also been a guest vocalist for the Italian group Planet Funk....
on guitar. Other newcomers to the scene were Universe (a similar "perfect pop" concept to Viva) and Acacia
Acacia (band)
Acacia was a multi-cultural British experimental pop band active during the mid-1990s. The band is most notable for helping to launch the subsequent musical careers of several of its members, most notably keyboard player/producer Guy Sigsworth, singer Alexander "Blackmoth" Nilere and associate...
(an earlier incarnation of which featured future Mercury Music prize winner Talvin Singh
Talvin Singh
Talvin Singh Matharoo , is a producer and composer and tabla player, known for creating an innovative fusion of Indian classical music and drum and bass...
.) German pop act Sin With Sebastian
Sin With Sebastian
Sin with Sebastian is a moniker used by the German musician/singer/songwriter Sebastian Roth currently living and producing in Berlin, Germany. Sin With Sebastian came to prominence in 1995 with the Europe-wide hit, "Shut Up ", which made it up to #1 in Spain, Austria, Finland, and Mexico, and Top...
also played Arcadia during this time. Romo club culture also continued to develop with the launch by Price and Gray of Saturday night clubnight Paris 6 am at Oscars nightclub in Leicester Square as well as two clubs organised by other parties – The Cell at Gossips in Dean Street promoted by Stewart Ubik and the Roxy Motel Club at The Fridge in Brixton.
The climax of all this activity was a package tour of Romo bands, also entitled "Fiddling While Romo Burns", featuring a quadruple bill of Orlando, Plastic Fantastic, Hollywood and DexDexTer. Although the showcase London concert (also featuring Viva) at the LA2 venue was a 750 capacity sellout and reasonable crowds were also attracted to the Brighton and Manchester shows, other provincial dates on the tour – mostly at student venues that were the fodder of the very indie music that the militantly pop Romo movement opposed – failed to attract large audiences and those that did attend were generally sceptical. More seriously, the strain of having to live, eat and sleep together rather than merely go clubbing together had severely strained relations between the bands. Chipping was relatively diplomatic about this in one interview at the time: "There's a definite reason why we have two tourbuses. It's to do with the fact that some bands just won't tour with each other, not because they dislike each other, they just have different... living styles." Nevertheless, by the end of the tour, all of the seven core acts originally featured in the Melody Maker special had recording contracts with either major or big independent labels – Orlando with WEA subsidiary Blanco y Negro Records
Blanco y Negro Records
Blanco y Negro Records, a subsidiary of WEA Records Ltd., was established in 1983 by Geoff Travis of Rough Trade Records.Blanco y Negro was home to such artists as Bananarama, Everything But the Girl, The Jesus and Mary Chain, The Dream Academy, Dinosaur Jr., Bernthøler, A House, Catatonia, The...
, Plastic Fantastic with Mercury Records
Mercury Records
Mercury Records is a record label operating as a standalone company in the UK and as part of the Island Def Jam Motown Music Group in the US; both are subsidiaries of Universal Music Group. There is also a Mercury Records in Australia, which is a local artist and repertoire division of Universal...
, Sexus with ZTT, Hollywood with U2's Mother Records
Mother Records
Mother Records was a record label founded by the band U2 in 1984 and distributed by parent Island Records. The intent was 'to unearth fresh musical talent in Éire '...
label, DexDexTer with Island Records
Island Records
Island Records is a record label that was founded by Chris Blackwell in Jamaica. It was based in the United Kingdom for many years and is now owned by Universal Music Group...
subdivision Trade2, Viva with Planet3 Records and Minty (whose transvestite drummer Trevor Sharpe had filled in as drummer for Plastic Fantastic on the tour) with Candy Records.
'Death' of Romo
After the tour, Price wrote an editorial in Melody Maker declaring the movement dead as it had achieved its aims but was now being soured by the revivalist portrayal in the mainstream media. Despite this, the scene in London continued with more bands emerging such as Anglo-Japanese female quartet Étoile as well as the arrival in Britain of Donovan Leitch's band Nancy Boy. Another late major addition to the scene at around this time was Belvedere Kane, fronted by Romo scene face Barry Stone, later of the Jewels And StoneJulian Gingell
Julian Gingell , known as Jules, is a British songwriter and record producer, best known for his partnership with fellow writer and producer Barry Stone under the name Jewels and Stone....
writing/production partnership. In his review of the latter's gig, Price recanted his "Romo is dead" declaration, dismissing it as a red herring
Red herring
A red herring is a deliberate attempt to divert attention.Red herring may refer to:* Red herring , the informal fallacy of presenting an argument that may in itself be valid, but does not address the issue in question....
tactic and further adding that the continued spread of Romo was by now beyond even his control. At around this time, a first anniversary party was held for Club Skinny headlined by Crush, the band of former Byker Grove
Byker Grove
Byker Grove was a British television series which aired between 1989 and 2006 and was created by Adele Rose. The show was broadcast at 5.10pm after Newsround on CBBC on BBC One...
TV stars Donna Air
Donna Air
Donna Air is an English television presenter, singer and actress.-Early life:As a former student of Gosforth High School, Donna attended the Drama School at First Act in Gosforth, Newcastle upon Tyne, where she was a pupil alongside Jill Halfpenny, Ant & Dec and Dale Meeks.-Television:She became...
and Jayni Hoi. However, continued tensions in the scene led to the discontinuation of both Skinny and Arcadia in July 1996. Romo activities continued at the individual bands' concerts (although one Plastic Fantastic concert at Dingwalls from this time ended in a mass brawl after a hat was thrown onstage).
The bands mostly concentrated on their recording contracts at this point – in late 1996 Hollywood released a heavily remixed single Apocalypse Kiss while Plastic Fantastic – having previously released the Eno
Brian Eno
Brian Peter George St. John le Baptiste de la Salle Eno , commonly known as Brian Eno or simply as Eno , is an English musician, composer, record producer, singer and visual artist, known as one of the principal innovators of ambient music.Eno studied at Colchester Institute art school in Essex,...
-influenced Fantastique no.5 recorded a planned album Autumn which was never released due to a dispute with Mercury over the mix of planned second single Plastic World. Sexus, who had also released a second single The Official End Of It All and recorded an album The Boyfriend Olympics, similarly fell out with ZTT over the mix of planned third single How Do You Kiss. Personal differences led to the demise of DexDexTer in early '97 just as their single Another Car Another CarCrash was released. Viva meanwhile, despite continuing to demo material never released any records and would later rename themselves Scala 5 and revert to a heavier guitar sound before their demise circa 2000. Stuart Miller dissolved Plastic Fantastic and revived his old band Supercharger, while Hollywood's Hannah Edgren was spotted (by Dickon Edwards) fronting a new band in 1998 – she and Stacey Leigh would later reunite as Fubar. Sexus were frozen into inactivity due to a dispute with management after the fallout with ZTT – they would eventually re-emerge in 2002 as the Psychodelicates with a download/mail order album Psychodelicates Go Adventuring.
Thus by the middle of 1997 it was left to Orlando and Minty to be the most prolific – and in that sense the most successful – Romo bands as they were the only two of the seven core acts to reach the stage of releasing their respective albums. Orlando, having already released two singles Just For A Second and The Magic EP in late 1996 and a third, Nature's Hated in spring 1997, having toured extensively with Kenickie
Kenickie
Kenickie were a four-piece rock band from Sunderland, Tyne and Wear, England. The band were formed in 1994 and consisted of lead vocalist, guitarist and lyricist Lauren Laverne , drummer Johnny X , lead guitarist and occasional vocalist Marie du Santiago and bass guitarist Emmy-Kate Montrose...
and having scored the only UK chart hit of any core Romo act with their contribution to the Fever Pitch soundtrack EP, a cover of Tim Hardin
Tim Hardin
James Timothy "Tim" Hardin was an American folk musician and composer. He wrote the Top 40 hits "If I Were a Carpenter", covered by, among others, Joan Baez, Bobby Darin, Johnny Cash, Ramblin' Jack Elliot, and Robert Plant, and "Reason to Believe", covered by many, including Rod Stewart, as well...
's How Can We Hang On To A Dream, released their album Passive Soul in October that year before Dickon Edwards departed to found Fosca
Fosca
Fosca was a British band, combining indie pop songwriting with synth pop instrumentation. They released a total of three studio albums between 2000-2008...
. Tim Chipping would continue to use the Orlando band name for a planned folk-orientated second album under the working title Sick Folk (to have included a collaboration with Kenickie
Kenickie
Kenickie were a four-piece rock band from Sunderland, Tyne and Wear, England. The band were formed in 1994 and consisted of lead vocalist, guitarist and lyricist Lauren Laverne , drummer Johnny X , lead guitarist and occasional vocalist Marie du Santiago and bass guitarist Emmy-Kate Montrose...
/Rosita
Rosita (band)
Rosita was a band formed by Marie Du Santiago and Emmy-Kate Montrose, formerly one-half of the much-championed Kenickie in the immediate aftermath of Kenickie's split in October 1998...
members Marie Du Santiago and Emmy-Kate Montrose), before finally dissolving Orlando in Spring 2000. Minty, likewise, having released singles Useless Man, Plastic Bag (a No. 2 hit in the Netherlands) That's Nice and Nothing, released their parent album Open Wide in late 1997 before also disbanding, with some members later forming rock band The Servant
The Servant (band)
The Servant were an English alternative band, formed in London in 1998. They are popular in Britain, France, Italy, as well as other European countries and western Canada....
. With all the core bands and major London clubnights now defunct (or at least no longer in their Romo incarnations), the Romo scene effectively came to an end.
Legacy
In Romo's wake over the next several years came a fresh wave of glam/style orientated clubnights. One of the first of these was Club Kitten, the successor to Club Skinny, based at the latter's old location of HQ's in Camden and featuring Stuart Miller as DJ. Another important post-Romo club has been Stay Beautiful, run by Simon Price at various London locations from 2000–2009. Several other Romo musicians have run glam/style orientated club nights – notably Minty vocalist Mathew Glammore's "Kashpoint" (at a January 2004 installment of which Glammore performed a medley of old Minty songs and a March 2005 installment of which featured a Minty reunion), Xavior's "Hanky Panky Kabaret" clubnight (and associated meetings in London's Wolsey restaurant) and Dickon Edwards' "Beautiful And Damned" and "Against Nature". Wilde and Nugent would later unleash another scene – the Club Rampage/Club P*rnstar "Bratpop" scene in late 1998 (also the beneficiary of a Melody Maker cover special).Other promoters have also hosted such glam/style-orientated clubnights in the 2000s – most notably Glam-Ou-Rama, which later relocated to Tel Aviv
Tel Aviv
Tel Aviv , officially Tel Aviv-Yafo , is the second most populous city in Israel, with a population of 404,400 on a land area of . The city is located on the Israeli Mediterranean coastline in west-central Israel. It is the largest and most populous city in the metropolitan area of Gush Dan, with...
. Romo Night in Sweden, first established in 1996 during the original London scene's lifetime, was still active as of 2003.
Romo has also been frequently cited as a precedent for (if not actually an influence on) the Electroclash
Electroclash
Electroclash is a style of music that fuses New Wave and electronic dance music. It emerged in New York and Detroit in the later 1990s, pioneered by acts including I-F and those associated with Gerald Donald, and is associated with acts including Peaches, Adult, and Fischerspooner...
scene of the early 2000s. The Disciples by James Mollison, a book of photographs of music fans, includes a spread
Two-page spread
In page layout and typography, a spread is the unit formed by two adjacent, facing pages in a magazine or other publication, featuring a single image or a themed group of images...
of photos of fans at a London concert by major Electroclash act Fischerspooner
Fischerspooner
Fischerspooner is an electroclash duo and performance troupe formed in 1998 in New York. The name is a portmanteau of the founders' last names, Warren Fischer and Casey Spooner...
, mostly dressed in Romo-style attire (one of whom is Simon Price.)