Biography

Born Richard Harding in January 1951, Richard Strange first received attention in the early '70s at the helm of the well-titled Great White Idiot -- well-titled because, according to legend, their most important gig yet, in 1973, found them headlining "soul night" at the 100 Club in London, and being booed out of sight. The group combusted on the spot, leaving Strange and drummer Pete DiLemma to set about forming a new band, the Doctors of Madness. In this guise, Strange was responsible for some of the most exhilarating yet overlooked music of the mid- to late '70s. Emerging at the very tail end of the glam era, then soundtracking punk from so far below the radar that even their fans often missed their activities, the Doctors were a signal influence upon several of the era's key figures: TV Smith, who cowrote a clutch of songs with Strange, including "Back from the Dead" (recorded by both Smith's Adverts and the Doctors); Simple Minds; and the Skids. Still, the Doctors broke up, unmourned and barely noticed, at the end of 1978, and Strange launched a solo career around what an earlier age would have called a concept album, a series of songs documenting the phenomenal rise and ultimate fall of a visionary politician named Richard Strange. Performed in concert by Strange alone, accompanied by a tape machine, the song cycle developed quickly. One live show, recorded during a visit to New York, was released as The Live Rise of Richard Strange, and shows much of the concept already in place; the finished work was presented in 1981 as The Phenomenal Rise of Richard Strange. Reviews tended toward the ecstatic, and even prompted a minor Doctors revival, as Polydor uncorked a well-received compilation album. Strange, meanwhile, opened his own nightclub in London, the Cabaret Futura, soaking up influences from the fringe of the new romantic movement, and providing one of the finest nighttime distractions on the entire London circuit. But The Phenomenal Rise ultimately sank, the club closed, and Strange drifted away from music, to concentrate instead on television and film. His credits include, among many others, the feature films Mona Lisa, Batman, Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves, and Gangs of New York; Russian stage director Yuri Lyubimov's production of Hamlet; further plays Murder Is Easy and Crimes of Passion; and TV shows The Blackheath Poisonings and Men Behaving Badly. In between times, however, he found time to cut a new single, "Next," and follow through with a new band, the Engine Room. Several singles and an album, Going Gone, appeared during 1985-1986, again to warm reviews, but close to two decades would pass before Strange returned to active duty, when he and David Coulter (ex-Test Dept. and the Pogues) launched a new band, Happiness, in London in 2002. Since that time he has continued playing live, including several shows reuniting with both Doctors of Madness bassist Colin Stoner and occasional songwriting partner TV Smith; he also oversaw the reissuing of the Doctors of Madness catalog on CD. ~ Dave Thompson, Rovi