//Poster for Italian release of Alan Freed’s 1956 musical Rock, Rock, Rock!. Photo: John D. Kisch/Separate Cinema Archive/Getty Images//

//Left: Chuck Berry image isolated and bleached out. Right: As it appeared on the t-shirt, worn in this 1973 photograph of singer/songwriter Simon Fisher Turner. Photographer: Unknown//

When they were setting up Let It Rock in 1971, Malcolm McLaren and his original partner in the boutique at 430 King’s Road – Patrick Casey – acquired a cache of posters, showcards and ephemera for 50s rocksploitation movies, including many Continental-language variants.

Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: After School Session, Alan Freed, Don't Knock The Twist, Golden Hour Of Rock N' Roll, Harry Foster, Jayne Mansfield, L'Amour Frénétique, Le Cavalier Du Crepuscule, Let's Rock, London Rock N Roll Show, Loving You), Mister Rock And Roll, Patrick Casey, Peter Clifton, Rock, Simon Fisher Turner, Wembley Stadium, You Can't Catch Me

//Top: The photographer in A Life Exposed; above: One of Beeche’s arresting images from the show for the McLaren/Westwood collection Nostalgia Of Mud, March 1982//

I’m saddened by the news of the death last week of the great Australian photographer Robyn Beeche.

Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: A Life Exposed, Alternative Miss World, Divine, Fade To Grey, Fat Gill, Gene Krell, Leigh Bowery, Lesley Branagan, Miss Fuckit, Nostalgia Of Mud, Robyn Beeche, Steve Strange, Visage, Vivienne Westwood, Vrindavan

//From top left: Chinese Communist Party pamphlet, 1971; McLaren in Let It Rock 1972; Proclamation by Engels and Marx, 1881; Title lettering, Belgian film poster, 1958//

A year or so ago I established the source material for one of the first designs generated by Malcolm McLaren in the fashion partnership he conducted with Vivienne Westwood in the 70s and early 80s.

Now I can reveal the inspiration: text contained in an unprepossessing Communist booklet celebrating the short-lived “Paris Commune” government of 19th Century revolutionary France.

Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: Abbie Hoffman, Chuck Berry, Friedrich Engels, Jerry Lee Lewis, Karl Marx, Let It Rock, Let's Rock, Little Richard, New York Dolls, Paris Commune, Patrick Casey, Peter Clifton, Steal This Book, The Anarchist Cookbook, The Little Red Book, The London Rock N Roll Show, Vive le Rock!, Vivienne Westwood, William Powell, Yvonne Gold

//Autoportrait, Pierre Molinier, 1962//

At all times, my acts and my actions in life have stemmed from love or eroticism, as you like it.
Pierre Molinier, The Shaman And Its Creatures

Pierre Molinier, “the man and the painter, the genius and the pervert, the ‘lesbienne’ and the guns lover” is not an easy figure to pin down.

Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: Luciano Castelli, Pierre Molinier, Richard Saltoun Gallery, The Shaman And Its Creatures

//Artwork: Derek Boshier 2015//

Derek Boshier is the next subject of the BBC strand What Do Artists Do All Day? – Zara Hayes’ film, which was shot in Los Angeles and shadows Boshier on his daily routine, will be screened at 10.30pm UK time on BBC Four next Monday (August 24).

Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: BBC Four, Cork Street, Flowers Gallery, Thames & Hudson, What Do Artists Do All Day?, Zara Hayes

Eyes For Blowing Up Bridges* is the title of the forthcoming exhibition about the creative interplay between a group of remarkable radical artists, poets, writers and activists who initiated, perpetrated and influenced a range of post-war alternatives.

Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: Alexander Trocchi, Asger Jorn, David Thorp, David Wise, Derek Harris, Guy Debord, Hervé Falcou, John Hansard Gallery, King Mob, Nostalgia Of Mud, Paul Burgess, Stuart Wise, William Burroughs

Taking its title from a song on hippie outfit Quintessence’s debut album, Jo Gannon’s documentary Getting It Straight In Notting Hill Gate – as featured on the BFI’s website – captures the social churn in the west London neighbourhood at the start of the 70s.

Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: BFI, Caroline Coon, Felix de Mendelsohn, Felix Scorpio, Getting It Straight In Notting Hill Gate, Ink, Jo Gannon, John Muggeridge, King Mob, Oz, Pink Floyd, Portobello Film Festival, Quintessence, Release, Teenburger, The Mangrove

//Left: Top in blue suede, JW Anderson for Loewe. Right: White cotton shirt and blue flared trousers, both Kenzo//

Photographer Brian Griffin rarely fails to beguile, as evinced by these portraits from a series produced with stylist Emma Clifton for architectural/design/fashion magazine Disegno earlier this year.

Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: Arlette Ess, Brian Griffin, Chanel, Disegno, Elizabeth Wilson, Emma Clifton, JW Anderson, Kenzo, Meadham Kirchoff, Pleats Please, Prada

From the SS16 menswear collections to the people flocking to Somerset House’s current celebration of The Jam, the aesthetic of “clean living under difficult circumstances” (as summarised by The Who’s first manager, Pete Meaden) is at one with what’s happening now in fashion…

Read the rest of my piece – with quotes from Dylan Jones of GQ/London Collections: Men, Soho tailor Mark Powell and Man About Town’s Ben Reardon – on the enduring appeal of Mod here.

Tags: About The Young Idea, Ben Reardon, Dylan Jones, GQ, London Collections: Men, Man About Town, Mark Powell, Paul Weller, Pete Meaden, Somerrset House, The Guardian, The Jam, The Who

This’ll put a spring in your step – Dee-lite performing at Wigstock in 1990, as posted by Hintmag. The second track is What Is Love (Holographic Goatee Mix).

Check it out on Hintmag’s FB page.

Here is the promo for Groove Is In The Heart:

Tags: Deee-lite, Groove Is In The Heart, Hintmag, Lady Miss Kier, Wigstock