Luxury and Distinction

The British Electric Foundation (B.E.F. to friends) will be celebrating the 30th anniversary of their 'Music of Quality & Distinction' album with a special weekend of performances at London's Roundhouse in October.

The two day festival will feature a major concert each night. Friday 14th October will include the world premiere of Heaven 17's 1983 album The Luxury Gap performed live for the first time, while Saturday 15th October will be the first ever live show by B.E.F. featuring collaborative tracks from the two Music of Quality and Distinction albums, and featuring guest vocals from Elly Jackson (LaRoux), Green Gartside (Scritti Politti), Shingai Shoniwa (Noisettes), Boy George (Culture Club), Midge Ure (Ultravox), Andy Bell (Erasure), Glenn Gregory (Heaven 17), Sandie Shaw, Polly Scattergood and Kim Wilde...
Tickets & info here. Thanks to 80s Empire for the tip-off

The celebration does in fact come slightly ahead of the anniversary of the first volume of Music of Quality and Distinction which was released for the first time in 1982. The fairly unusual format of various poular singers covering classic songs didn't really fare too well at the time although Tina Turner's version of Ball of Confusion did revive her career as an 80's star-lette leading to her enjoy hit singles such as Let's Stay Together, also produced by BEF's Martyn Ware. Yes, that's who we've got to thank for that.

That aside, better MoQ&D tracks including the late Billy Mackenzie singing Bowie's The Secret Life of Arabia, Glenn Gregory doing Wichita Lineman and Sandie Shaw with Anyone Who Had a Heart. The album was also released a a special 5 x 7" collectors box set fact fans (although LiM distinctly remembers seeing the single singles in many a bargain bin..ehem)
MoQ&D came back for a second volume in 1991, again without much success.



As far as we know the BEF will sadly not be celebrating the 30th anniversary of Hot Gossip's Geisha Boys & Temple Girls album. Now, that might have been a laugh.