Duran Duran, Three To Get Ready

Image from Calling Planet Earth

Former member of Missing Persons, Warren Cuccurullo, their fill-in guitarist, is a shorty with a compensating gigantic cupcake of teased black hair and a guido’s tough-guy scowl. Warren is an absolute professional, though; his time spent in the trenches with Frank Zappa whipped any screw-around out of him and when he shows up to play he is on it, in contrast to the slightly dazed Durans. It’s all too much. If the music hadn’t bonded them together, and their shared belief in its power hadn’t given them a mutual goal, Duran Duran would have dissolved decades ago.

Three to Get Ready is full of delights for the Duran fan, especially the long-term one. Amongst other bits of awesome, there’s a quick glimpse of Nick’s then-wife Julie Anne and baby Tatjana, and how amazing John Taylor is with babies might cause spontaneous ovulation. Nick has heavy and perfect mascara even just to make a day’s worth of unbelievably tedious phone calls across the United States. Simon gets wildly enthusiastic about a tuna sandwich.

Uncomfortably, hilariously, Duran Duran does “Meet El Presidente” on Soul Train, and gives the dancers a really great track on which to freak out. (Simon on maracas; need I say more?) And, the pièce de resistance, during an all-night wait to mime “Notorious” in Paris, for Japanese TV, Nick nips off to go see Miles Davis and returns all schnockered and hilarious, mixing perfectly with a wired, bouncy Simon and a loopy John. Eventually, they go out and perform, not minding the cold that has frozen the camera crew into frowning goblins. They’re rock stars in black leather; what do they care?

Stuck together all the time like this, one can tell that Nick, Simon, and John like each other quite a bit, but more importantly, are immensely comfortable in each other’s company, like family. Whether or not that’s still true 14 years later, that bond seems essential for having kept the band together, despite how difficult and thankless the professional side of the job had to seem. The music is the other part; they work best together. Only with each other can they create magic.

Le Bon, Rhodes, and Taylor had come through the fire, and it was time to jump back in the frying pan.

This video is now extremely rare, but it’s worth the trouble to find and is essential viewing for any Duran Duran fan, dedicated or casual. Good luck.

Read more about Three To Get Ready at the Duran Duran Wiki.

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