After They Split: Limahl, ‘Don’t Suppose’ and Kaja, ‘Extra Play’

By Less Lee Moore

I received Kajagoogoo’s White Feathers at my 13th birthday party. I’d asked for it on cassette because my family and I were going to Disneyworld the next day and I wanted to be able to listen to it on my Walkman. (Ah, the pre-digital age when you had to have blank tapes handy and couldn’t just rip a CD to your hard drive and then transfer it to your MP3 player.)

I played the tape so much that all the text wore off. I had ridiculous crushes on singer Limahl and bass player Nick Beggs, both of whom had equally ridiculous hairstyles. (Okay, Limahl’s black-and-blond mullet was probably slightly less ridiculous than Nick’s weird half-cornrows look.) Many private jokes ensued between me and my teen-girl-squad friends; I’ll spare you, but I’ll mention that one was a stupid pun on the drummer’s name: “Jez. . . Strode across the room.”

Naturally, we were devastated when we heard news of Limahl leaving the band. I don’t even know how we found out things like this in the pre-Internet days of having to wait four weeks for magazines to be released, but it was likely from MTV. The rumor was that Limahl’s Buddhist beliefs conflicted with the other band members’ love of Jesus. (Although I believe this was eventually debunked, this story continues to proliferate on the Web.)

Within a few months the new, Limahl-less Kajagoogoo (called “Kaja” in the US) and the similarly Kajagoogoo-less Limahl had singles and eventually, albums. The Limahl album-Don’t Suppose—was buoyed by the inclusion of the Giorgio Moroder/Keith Forsey-created theme song to the movie The Never Ending Story, but the first single was released in 1983: “Only For Love.” It was on the strength of this (as well as my residual crush) that I bought the whole album.

Limahl, Don’t Suppose

The album sounds more like White Feathers than the Kaja stuff does, full of synths and processed drums. But I still enjoy it now, 25 years on. Granted, it’s probably at least 60 percent nostalgia factor, but it’s not as sterile as one might think (and certainly better than White Feathers, which is just hugely embarrassing to me now).

Limahl, who wrote all the songs except for the Moroder/Forsey one, ends up sounding like a more dance music version of Culture Club (and I can tell you I don’t listen to Culture Club much 25 years on). The lyrics are standard lovey dovey stuff for the most part, but they at least make sense, unlike the stuff on White Feathers; there are no tracks called “Ergonomics,” for example. Because of this stylistic change, Limahl’s pretty voice gets a lot more chance to shine.

I pull this album out about once or twice a year to enjoy it but only now does it strike me how much Limahl’s impassioned vibrato sounds like Liza Minnelli. In fact, I sort of wish that he’d written songs for her or at least let her record a version of the torch song-y “I Was A Fool,” because it would have suited her ’80s persona a lot better than “Don’t Drop Bombs.”

“I Was A Fool” is my favorite on the album (and it’s one of several songs featuring strings arranged and conducted by Anne Dudley). I remember playing the bridge/chorus at the end for my mom and marveling at the catch in Limahl’s voice when he sings the line, “I need to have just one more look at your face.” She was unmoved.

Catchy, bouncy songs like “Only For Love,” “Too Much Trouble,” and the title track are full of gospel-style background singers and give the whole album a real summertime feeling. This is most apparent on the incredibly danceable and percussion-heavy “Tar Beach”; if I was a DJ I would absolutely throw this track into the mix. There is also the semi-torchy “Your Love” and the odd “The Waiting Game,” whose semi-spoken lyrics sound almost like Japan (in the context of the other songs, that is).

The only clunker is the final track, the clumsy and corny “Oh Girl.” Besides the fact that the lyrics sound like a teen romance song from the 1950s, I felt sure Limahl was gay before I knew he was actually gay, so lines about “the love and attention that children can demand” make me cringe, 25 years on.

Kaja, Extra Play

Nick Beggs and the other members of Kajagoogoo were also trying to make a name for themselves after Limahl’s departure, and the first effort I heard was the single “Turn Your Back On Me,” which I absolutely adored. I’d only heard Beggs’ background vocals on White Feathers so I wasn’t sure how he’d hold up as a lead singer. I was thrilled to hear that he had a decent voice.

In the UK, the band was still known as Kajagoogoo and the album was released as Islands. But in the US, they were called Kaja and the album titled Extra Play. When I heard the entire album, I could scarcely believe this was the same band that had given us White Feathers. (And I was thankful that Beggs had ditched that ridiculous hairstyle.) It has a much heavier pop funk/jazz vibe, with lots of horns, a stylistic flourish that was predominant at the time (see also Haircut 100 and Howard Jones). “The Lion’s Mouth” and “Big Apple” were the other two singles and exemplify this sound. Both are remarkably catchy and fresh, even now, and feature Nick Beggs’ groovy bass playing.

The slower “The Power To Forgive” definitely lent credence to the whole “Christians vs. Buddhist” rumor, as it’s so obviously about Jesus (“Every day I fail him/as I bang another nail in”). There are other slower tunes on the album that are also quite lovely: “Melting The Ice Away” and “Part Of Me Is You.” My favorite, however, is “On A Plane” which meshes all the different sounds of the album together in one nice package.

Kaja’s next effort, Crazy People’s Right To Speak, was a disappointment. The songs were long and uninteresting, lacking the vibrancy of the ones on Extra Play. It was also so overly Christian in theme (“Rivers” is essentially a song version of the “Footprints In The Sand” poem) that I felt preached to and no matter how much I tried to ignore that, I couldn’t.

In 2004, Kaja appeared on VH-1’s Bands Reunited but the reunion was short-lived as they broke up again not long after (apparently Limahl and Jez Strode had “contractual differences” with the rest of the band which they could not resolve). I was fairly stunned to find out, during the course of writing this piece, that the entire band (including Strode-across-the-room and Limahl) are reuniting for a 2009 album and tour. I’m a little fearful of what it might sound like, but knowing me, I’ll probably check it out, anyway.

Let’s hope it doesn’t tarnish the shine of Extra Play and Don’t Suppose.

For more on the Kajagoogoo reunion and tour, please visit the band’s Official Site.