MUSCLEBOUND
Silly name, but high in the charts. HUW
COLLINGBOURNE pumps iron with KAJAGOOGOO'S muscle-man LIMAHL.
Limahl, I was confidently
informed, is destined to be The Next Big Heart-Throb. In
comparison with his sultry good-looks, Simon le Bon would
seem about as erotic as a middle-aged Irish navvy with a
hernia, David Sylvian would look like a runner-up in a glamorous
grannie competition, and Steve Strange would look like, well...Steve
Strange.
I settled myself in a sumptuous settee in the offices of
Limahl's record company, EMI, and tremulously awaited his
arrival. Long seconds passed, and then, as is their wont,
even longer minutes.
The appointed time drew nearer and my pulse began to race,
a cold sweat stood out upon my brow and an electric thrill
of highly questionable sexuality tingled through every sinew
of my body.
I heard a delicate knock upon the door. The door
opened. And there stood (swoon!)...Limahl.
I knew at once that all I had heard about him was
true. Meeting him for the first time was one of those
rare, unforgettable moments which I shall cherish
to my grave. It was like discovering some new and,
as yet uncharted territory. All at once I felt as
Caesar must have felt when he laid claim to Britain.
Yes, this was a case if "I came, I saw, I conquered" -
though not necessarily in that order.
Limahl sat opposite me. Well, actually he sat next
to me, on the same settee, and after a few
initial gasps of adulation from me, the conversation
quite naturally got around to a discussion of his
body. |
|
"I think the body's a fantastic thing", he said. "And
I believe in looking after it. I do sit-ups every night before
I go to bed, I go swimming twice a week and go to the gym
about three times a week to train with weights.
"It's great, because you exercise muscles that you
don't normally exercise. Some muscles are very attractive
- and that helps with your sex life too!
"I haven't actually built up my muscles much,
but I have made them more prominent - just little ones
like the muscles in the stomach. The stomach actually
has about five different muscular sections, which you
can see quite clearly divided in champion weight-lifters.
I've got a couple of muscles, here, at the top of my
stomach, but it's very difficult to get them further
down".
Mopping the perspiration from the palms of my hands,
I eagerly questioned Limahl about the various exertions
involved in 'Pumping Iron' (as I believe this activity
is called in certain circles). |
 |
"Actually, I don't normally lift the really heavy weights
when I train," he told me, "Because I only weigh
eight stone myself! And it can be very embarrassing to try
to pick up a weight and not be able to do it. Besides, I
believe in always starting small and working your way up."
In fact, it appears that this is the philosophy which has
shaped not only Limahl's body but also his career to date.
His first public performances were given in the smallest
venues you could possibly imagine - well, alright, almost
the smallest you could imagine...
"I used to sing in local shops", he says, "I'd
either sing things from "The Sound of Music", or
current pop songs, and the shop-keepers would give me 10p
for it. I was about nine when I first sang in a shop and
carried on doing it till I was about twelve. I've never been
nervous of performing in public, even at that age. I was
always a cocky little bugger.
"Then, when I was about fifteen, I won a singing contest
at the Wigan Casino Club and was presented with fifteen albums
by Andy Peebles".
Since then, Limahl has trod the boards in productions ranging
from 'Godspell' and Agatha Christie's 'Murder at the Vicarage'
to the pantomime, 'Aladdin'.
"That pantomime was my first big break", he recalls, "It
was at the Grand Theatre, Swansea, which holds about five
hundred people, though sometimes we'd come on for a Monday
matinee and find only a hundred people out front. That helped
to teach me a lot about how to deal with unresponsive audiences.
 |
"These days, when Kajagoogoo do a live set,
I always try to involve the audience as much as possible.
I can be very physical when I perform".
Erotic even ? I ventured. "No...No, No! No!" Limahl
rebuked me, "Just physical".
Limahl says that one of his favourite performers
is the highly erotic Grace Jones, and it seems that
it was Ms Jones who, indirectly inspired his own
striking two-tone Dulux-dog hair-do. |
"I remember being very much impressed by her image
and so went out to try and create an image for myself. Originally,
I had my hair done all white, then I put a black streak on
one side, then later I added another bit on the other side,
then a bit behind, and so on. It progressed, you could say".
And so, the image is now complete - someone for the 'serious'
music papers to massacre, the teeny mags to centre-spread
and 'Flexipop' to write this sort of drivel about.
But the question remains - is there more to Limahl than
just a calculated pose, desirably rippling tummy muscles
and an increasing bank balance?
Oh, sod it all, who the hell cares? You see (sigh...)
I think I love him.
(Huw?!? --- Ed.) |
