Nick Rhodes Year End, 2017

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NICK

Event of the Year -

I found most of the world events upsetting and depressing. I am hoping in 2018 our whole world will perhaps see a little more common sense.

Events I liked were museums and galleries, shows that I saw. Notably, the Royal Academy of the Arts had three interesting shows, all on at one time. 1) Matisse in the Studio 2) Jasper Johns “Something Resembling the Truth” 3) Dali / Duchamp exhibition, which was my favourite of the three. It made me realizes how great art was during that period.

We travelled a lot this year, so I got to go to a lot of museums this year….Both John and I saw the Edvard Munch exhibit at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. It was a great show, beautifully put together, a real highlight.

I saw a Keith Haring exhibit in Milan, which showcased his work by juxtaposing it against other artists. Very cool presentation.

I saw “The Radical Eye: Modernist Photography from the Sir Elton John Collection” at the Tate Modern, which are photographs from Elton John’s personal collection that he has purchased over the years. They’re exquisite.

I also saw “Basquiat: Boom for Real” show in London at the Barbican, which was very special. It was beautifully done with context.

My big surprise of all the exhibitions we saw this year was when John and I went to the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts in Moscow to see a Retrospective from Chaim Soutine, a Russian born French artist.

Movie -

It’s moving toward Oscar season, but I haven’t seen that many contenders yet. I guess there will be some surprises over the next month or so. “Blade Runner 2049” I am a big fan of the original, it was a masterpiece of styling and movie making. The art direction in this was pretty flawless, the actors were fun to watch. The cinematography was so great. His name is Roger Deakins and he worked with us on the “Wild Boys.” I’d go and see it again.

I saw Sofia Coppola’s “The Beguiled” on the plane. Very subtle, very beautiful, with some strange turns. Very unusual, great acting.

“Dunkirk” looked amazing, and the sound design was really good on that. I am not a big fan of war movies, but sometimes you get one that’s really great..

I also saw a documentary called “Sex, Fashion & Disco” which was about Antonio Lopez, a fashion illustrator. Go and see it!

Book(s)

I like picture books more than reading books! My favourite book this year was from a photographer called Stephen Gill called “Night Procession.” Strangest, beautiful, magical feeling to it. What he basically did was photograph animals at nighttime in the forest in Sweden. The results are unusual, unique, unpredictable and beautifully strange.

TV Show(s) -

I never have time to watch television, even though there is lots I’d like to see. The one series I want to see, that I will see this year, is "Twin Peaks." I was absolutely delighted to hear it was returning with David Lynch at the helm and most certainly will see it. I am almost embarrassed to say I haven’t seen it yet.

Music

I often find myself completely dependent on John Taylor for my flow of modern music because John consumes more music than anyone I’ve ever met in my whole life. He is very kind to share the music he thinks I might like too. This year I felt abandoned by him (!), he hasn’t told me about anything much new, and so I found some things over the year myself and it was the year of the Dica.

I liked the SZA record, “Cntrl.” That album is really special. Kelela’s “Take Me Apart” is a really cool album. Kendrick Lamar’s “DAMN” had an interesting sound to it. Arca is a more obscure one I suppose, it’s a wacky sounding record.

Favourite Duran Duran Moment

Lollapalooza in South America. We hadn’t been there in a long time, and they’re just such a remarkable audience. All the Lollapalooza shows were high energy.

Hawaii was special. We ticked off another American state! We only have maybe 5 left.

We ended the tour in Tokyo and ended at the Budokan. I love to visit Japan, such a fabulous culture.

More recently we just performed in Miami for Sirius XM, and we did a show in a tiny venue at the Faena…we hadn’t played anywhere that small for a while!

Personal Highlight

When we were in Tokyo, I stayed on for an extra week to do a documentary on Japanese photography. It has long been a fascination of mine, so I seized the opportunity to speak to some of the most influential photographers of the 20th century. It was a real treat to meet the people who have created imagery I’ve been looking at for many years and to understand more about their lives and their art. I did 25 interviews in a week – and Tokyo isn’t the easiest city to move around in traffic! It was uplifting and exhausting. I am really looking forward to that.

Looking Forward to in 2018

Sleeping!

Finishing the documentary I just mentioned.
And John and mine’s musical, which we’ve been working on and off for the past seven years, is nearly done. I am looking forward to completing it and trying to stage it. It has been a very different discipline and I’ve learned so much from it. I feel like we ended up with something that represents what we set out to do. We will see whether our crazy idea connects with anyone else.

Oh, and my day job! We have some shows planned, notably Dubai in February. Always good to have some shows on the horizon, but it will be a limited number of performances in 2018. We will also start some new recordings in the Studio…and we have a lot of things we are planning for the fortieth anniversary, which is officially 2020 but will start in 2019.

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