Fact #188019
When:
Short story:
Rehearsals are underway at The Ku Club, Ibiza, Spain, Europe, for the following day's launch of the single Barcelona by Freddie Mercury and Montserrat Caballe. Also appearing at the launch will be Duran Duran, Spandau Ballet, Chris Rea, Marillion and Nona Hendryx.
Full article:
Johnny Black (diary entry) : 1987, Thursday May 28 : We flew in from Gatwick via Barcelona, where we were picked up by two luxury Hawker Siddley private 8-seater jets, in which we ate canapés and drank whatever we wanted - Coca Cola in my case. This was quite a relief after a rather cramped flight with British Airways.
It was raining when we touched down, but a fleet of cabs whisked us off to the Club Hotel at Tarrida Beach, a white-walled oasis in a sea of sandy hills with sparsely-wooded slopes. The hotel is obviously intended for German and British package tourists, and not ideal for working journalists. The only phone from which we can phone London is on the reception desk, constantly surrounded by other guests and screaming children. The hotel does not accept any kind of plastic money, which has already proved very inconvenient.
Things looked less bleak after a giant paella was served up in the restaurant, on a silver platter big enough to serve 40 people. Later tonight we are to go to a reception-barbecue at the home of an 'acid painter' called Mimo Ferretti. It seems the chap is one of Ibiza’s numerous millionaires and made his money from psychedelic paintings, which he still does.
I’m learning a bit about the place now. It seems that many wealthy foreigners have villas here - the only one I know of for sure being Niki Lauda the racing driver.
Peanuts here, as I’ve just discovered by popping a handful in my mouth, are sold with a sprinkling of sugar on them. Very odd indeed, especially when your mouth is set for salt.
Later the same evening, about 10.15, a coach took us along dusty tracks to a white villa sprawling on the side of a cliff. "No cameras," they said as we entered. Inside, it was as if we’d slipped through a time warp to the late 60s, or into a Fellini film set. Here are the beautiful people. "These girls must have leg jobs!" exclaimed Judy Lipsey (publicist) gazing at one.
From the midst of Marillion, a broad Scots accent declares, 'God, it’s just like Miami Vice!' Rumours of ashtrays piled high with cocaine begin to circulate. I settle down beside a vast sunken marble table, and chat to Richard and Susan Young (paparazzi photographer and wife).
Outside, small candles burned in rows along the stairways and paths down the side of the cliff to the sea. At the foot of the cliff is a jetty, a slab of white stone. A table sits on the jetty. On the table stand four magnums of champagne and a row of empty glasses.
Surrealist paintings in the style of Di Chirico adorn the walls. In an enclosed garden to the side, rows of trestle tables sag under the most extraordinary spread of food and drink I have ever seen. Huge fish, decorated with shells and coloured pastes are topped off with rows of shrimps arranged like dominos so that, if the first were removed, the whole row would topple. Vast blancmanges wobbles, four feet across.
Nona Hendryx drifts by with members of the group Poison. One of the owners of the Ku Club strolls in through a huge open window. He’s notorious for his exploits at the club, where he goes up to beautiful young women, says, 'Darling, you are beautiful, I love you,' and, when their jaws drop, he slips a tab of LSD onto their tongues.
Outside on the candlelit terrace I ran into Peter Martin from Sky magazine. He was most upset. He’d paid £15 for a pill from a strange man and, after fifteen minutes it had had no pleasurable effects. "I’ve just paid £15 for a headache and a sore throat!" he complained. "And he told me it was ecstasy."
Roman Polanski drifts in with a very teenage girl by his side. Now we’re talking serious jet-set. (The girl, I later learned, was 21 year old actress Emmanuelle Seigner, fresh from co-starring with Harrison Ford in Frantic).
The music that was playing when we arrived was Dire Straits, but since then we’ve had Malcolm McLaren’s Madame Butterfly, hints of hip-hop, some Springsteen, OMD, Aretha Franklin and lots of very nondescript heavy rock and disco.
I made Roxy (publicist Roxy Meade) laugh when I announced that I was sure I was the only person at this party wearing Marks And Spencer shoes, but it’s true. I was introduced, just as I was leaving, to a member of Poison. When he was told about my diary, he said, "I had a diary when I was a kid, but my dog ate it."
You can’t escape the feeling when you look at these people that they’re simply the idle rich. I asked two girls if they lived on the island, and they said, "Yes, in the summertime." They all look so tanned and well-dressed and immaculately coffered that they must have nothing else to do but make themselves look good and dance the nights away.
At one point, I heard Pino, the promoter who organised the whole Ibiza 92 Festival, grumbling about the 'no cameras' rule. "I paid £40,000 to bring the press here and you’re losing me thousands more in publicity that we won’t get!" he shouted at one of Mimmo Ferretti’s people. Eventually we were allowed to use our cameras. When the bright tv camera lights raked across the beautiful people it was easy to see that many of them were somewhat more wrinkled and unappealing than they seemed in the dim party lights.
The villa itself was quite extraordinary. Set on the edge of a cliff, overlooking the Mediterranean, it must have been about 2000 yards long, with vast rooms all on different levels but never more than one storey high. It is located at the end of a long, winding, rutted dirt road which is deliberately kept that way so Mr. Ferretti will have the seclusion he desires.
(Source : Johnny Black's diary)
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It was raining when we touched down, but a fleet of cabs whisked us off to the Club Hotel at Tarrida Beach, a white-walled oasis in a sea of sandy hills with sparsely-wooded slopes. The hotel is obviously intended for German and British package tourists, and not ideal for working journalists. The only phone from which we can phone London is on the reception desk, constantly surrounded by other guests and screaming children. The hotel does not accept any kind of plastic money, which has already proved very inconvenient.
Things looked less bleak after a giant paella was served up in the restaurant, on a silver platter big enough to serve 40 people. Later tonight we are to go to a reception-barbecue at the home of an 'acid painter' called Mimo Ferretti. It seems the chap is one of Ibiza’s numerous millionaires and made his money from psychedelic paintings, which he still does.
I’m learning a bit about the place now. It seems that many wealthy foreigners have villas here - the only one I know of for sure being Niki Lauda the racing driver.
Peanuts here, as I’ve just discovered by popping a handful in my mouth, are sold with a sprinkling of sugar on them. Very odd indeed, especially when your mouth is set for salt.
Later the same evening, about 10.15, a coach took us along dusty tracks to a white villa sprawling on the side of a cliff. "No cameras," they said as we entered. Inside, it was as if we’d slipped through a time warp to the late 60s, or into a Fellini film set. Here are the beautiful people. "These girls must have leg jobs!" exclaimed Judy Lipsey (publicist) gazing at one.
From the midst of Marillion, a broad Scots accent declares, 'God, it’s just like Miami Vice!' Rumours of ashtrays piled high with cocaine begin to circulate. I settle down beside a vast sunken marble table, and chat to Richard and Susan Young (paparazzi photographer and wife).
Outside, small candles burned in rows along the stairways and paths down the side of the cliff to the sea. At the foot of the cliff is a jetty, a slab of white stone. A table sits on the jetty. On the table stand four magnums of champagne and a row of empty glasses.
Surrealist paintings in the style of Di Chirico adorn the walls. In an enclosed garden to the side, rows of trestle tables sag under the most extraordinary spread of food and drink I have ever seen. Huge fish, decorated with shells and coloured pastes are topped off with rows of shrimps arranged like dominos so that, if the first were removed, the whole row would topple. Vast blancmanges wobbles, four feet across.
Nona Hendryx drifts by with members of the group Poison. One of the owners of the Ku Club strolls in through a huge open window. He’s notorious for his exploits at the club, where he goes up to beautiful young women, says, 'Darling, you are beautiful, I love you,' and, when their jaws drop, he slips a tab of LSD onto their tongues.
Outside on the candlelit terrace I ran into Peter Martin from Sky magazine. He was most upset. He’d paid £15 for a pill from a strange man and, after fifteen minutes it had had no pleasurable effects. "I’ve just paid £15 for a headache and a sore throat!" he complained. "And he told me it was ecstasy."
Roman Polanski drifts in with a very teenage girl by his side. Now we’re talking serious jet-set. (The girl, I later learned, was 21 year old actress Emmanuelle Seigner, fresh from co-starring with Harrison Ford in Frantic).
The music that was playing when we arrived was Dire Straits, but since then we’ve had Malcolm McLaren’s Madame Butterfly, hints of hip-hop, some Springsteen, OMD, Aretha Franklin and lots of very nondescript heavy rock and disco.
I made Roxy (publicist Roxy Meade) laugh when I announced that I was sure I was the only person at this party wearing Marks And Spencer shoes, but it’s true. I was introduced, just as I was leaving, to a member of Poison. When he was told about my diary, he said, "I had a diary when I was a kid, but my dog ate it."
You can’t escape the feeling when you look at these people that they’re simply the idle rich. I asked two girls if they lived on the island, and they said, "Yes, in the summertime." They all look so tanned and well-dressed and immaculately coffered that they must have nothing else to do but make themselves look good and dance the nights away.
At one point, I heard Pino, the promoter who organised the whole Ibiza 92 Festival, grumbling about the 'no cameras' rule. "I paid £40,000 to bring the press here and you’re losing me thousands more in publicity that we won’t get!" he shouted at one of Mimmo Ferretti’s people. Eventually we were allowed to use our cameras. When the bright tv camera lights raked across the beautiful people it was easy to see that many of them were somewhat more wrinkled and unappealing than they seemed in the dim party lights.
The villa itself was quite extraordinary. Set on the edge of a cliff, overlooking the Mediterranean, it must have been about 2000 yards long, with vast rooms all on different levels but never more than one storey high. It is located at the end of a long, winding, rutted dirt road which is deliberately kept that way so Mr. Ferretti will have the seclusion he desires.
(Source : Johnny Black's diary)