//From The Times, July 29, 1966. Paul Gorman Archive. No reproduction without permission//

The late Malcolm McLaren made his first national media appearance in a 250-word item on the Law Report page of The Times in the summer of 1966.

This is an extract from my biography The Life & Times of Malcolm McLaren:

In 1966 while he was attending a painting course at Chelsea College of Art, Malcolm McLaren – who had been forced to take his step-father’s surname Edwards a few years earlier – came under the influence of Stan, a fellow student whose last name is lost to memory.

“Stan was a Trotskyist who played a mean jazz saxophone and politicised Malcolm,” says Fred Vermorel, a friend of McLaren’s who had been at Harrow art school with him a couple of years previously.

For McLaren, radical politics opened up a world of possibilities when entwined with his investigations into art. Encouraged and initially accompanied by Stan, McLaren began attending rallies and demonstrations protesting on behalf of the causes célèbres of the day: against the war in Vietnam and South Africa’s apartheid regime.

Long gone were the polite CND parades peopled by earnest chaplains and fresh-faced Home Counties youth in duffel coats chanting Kumbaya. Taking their cue from the US uprisings such as that among the African American community on Chicago’s West Side, the British protestors of 1966 brought activism to new heights in direct confrontation with the authorities. A turning point was the July central London rally calling for the British government to disassociate itself from US military policy in south-east Asia.

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Tags: Alexander Trocchi, Chelsea College Of Art, Fred Vermorel, Harrow school of art, Henry Adler, King Mob, Kumbaya, Malcolm Edwards, Mrs Gold, Stars & Stripes, The Times

In response to inquiries about signed copies of The Life & Times Of Malcolm McLaren, I’m offering the socially distanced solution: I’m happy to send signed adhesive bookplates (personalised if you like) gratis anywhere in the world.

Send your postal address to my contact address stating whether you want a random or personalised message, and I’ll send you your very own bookplate.

The photo at the top of this post shows variants I have already signed for the virtual event being staged by Atlanta’s A Capella Books next month. I’ll post about that and other US activities coinciding with the book’s American release on September 22 in the coming weeks.

Tags: A Capella Books, Atlanta, bookplates

//Musician Sam Parkin sports the Teenburger Designs t-shirt//

Infused with the personal freedoms and camaraderie experienced on a trip to San Francisco, the graphic artist Barney Bubbles (born Colin Fulcher 1942; died 1983) took occupation of the three-storey building at 307 Portobello Road in 1969 and transformed it into a creative commune at the heart of the Notting Hill counterculture.

With musicians rehearsing in the basement and a shifting set of unusual and interesting inhabitants and collaborators, Bubbles established his Teenburger Designs studio on the ground floor of 307 and set about servicing all manner of clients from livery for posh grocer Justin de Blank to record sleeves and posters for such rock, raga and prog groups as Brinsley Schwarz, Cressida, Gracious!, Quintessence and Red Dirt.

//Bubbles checks Justin de Blank artwork at Teenburger Designs, 1970//

//Teenburger Designs letterhead, March 1969//

Bubbles styled his Teenburger letterhead as a square wrapper with one side featuring a composition of Letraset fragments arranged in the form of a hamburger.

From today, this very limited edition shirt is available in S, M, L + XL and celebrates the brilliance of Barney Bubbles, evoking his wish for “a groovy scene… with lots of hard work and fun play”.

Order yours from daniel@somethingelse.gg

Tags: 307 Portobello Road, Brinsley Schwarz, Cressida, Daniel Mason, Gracious!, Justin de Blank, Notting Hill, Quintessence, Red Dirt, Teenburger Designs

//Box advert for the Beckenham Arts Lab run by David Bowie and Mary Finnigan in IT #59, July 1969//

//News story about the Goldsmiths Arts Festival organised by Malcolm Edwards and his fellow student Niall Martin in IT #59//

Researching my archive during lockdown for a project has given me the opportunity to thoroughly assess individual publications, none more so than the 59th issue of underground paper IT, which hit the streets in early July 1969.

This particular edition features a couple of small items which provide clues as to the countercultural activities at the time of two Londoners who would go on to define pop culture in the 1970s: David Bowie and Malcolm McLaren.

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Tags: Alexander Trocchi, Beckenham Arts Lab, Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band, David Bowie, Give Peace A Chance, Goldsmiths College of Art, Harold Pinter, IT, King Crimson, L. Ron Hubbard, Mary Finnigan, Mick Jagger, Plastic Ono Band, Pretty Things, RD Laing, Rolling Stones, Sun Ra, William Burroughs

//Introductory spread from the Fashion Beast feature in Arena Homme + 53, Summer/Autumn 2020//

//Above: Fashion Beast story, AH+ 53. Photography Drew Vickers; fashion Tom Guinness//

The new issue of Arena Homme + – which is available to read through Exact Editions here for those who can’t obtain physical copies – includes a 28-page extravaganza on Malcolm McLaren’s activities across cinema, fashion and music during the mid-80s.

With an extract from my new biography of McLaren, the feature homes in on Fashion Beast, the unrealised film collaboration with Britain’s dark magus of comic book writing Alan Moore. It also includes my interview with Moore as well as an ingenious fashion story photographed by Drew Vickers and styled by Tom Guinness.

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Tags: Alan Moore, Amanda Harlech, Andrea Linz, Arena Homme +, CBS Theatrical Films, Drew Vickers, Fashion Beast, Heavy Metal Surf Nazis, John Galliano, Lauren Hutton, Paul Frecker, Simon Withers, St Mark's Comics, St Mark's Place, Tom Guinness

//In conversation with (from top left) RBP’s Mark Pringle, Jasper Murison-Bowie and Barney Hoskyns//

I’m the featured guest on this week’s podcast from the world’s premier music journalism site rocksbackpages.com.

I go way back with RBP founder and author Barney Hoskyns; he commissioned pieces from me when he was Mojo editor in the early 90s and we launched my music press book In Their Own Write, RBP and photographer Jill Furmanovsky’s rockarchive.com on the same night at a Shoreditch gallery nearly 20 years ago.

I had fun talking to Barney and his confreres Mark Pringle and Jasper Murison-Bowie. The chat ranged from my background in trade journalism to, of course, the new Malcolm McLaren biography. Listen to the podcast here.

//David Harrison in customised Sex t-shirt, 1975//

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Tags: Barney HOskyns, Ben Is Dead, David Harrison, Forced Exposure, Grand Royal, In Their Own Write, Jasper Murison-Bowie, Jill Furmanovsky, John Lydon, Mark Pringle, Maximum Rock'n'Roll, Rock's Back Pages, Sex Pistols, Spice Girls, Toby Amies

Tomorrow night (April 14) I was supposed to be appearing at London’s regular event Word In Your Ear, the live successor of the much-missed The Word magazine founded by publishing titans Mark Ellen and David Hepworth.

//Smash Hits, January 6-19, 1983//

In the era of social distancing Mark and David have come up with the online Word In Your Attic, the results of which are posted on Youtube. For the episode to coincide with the publication of my Malcolm McLaren biography they asked me talk about 10 objects relating to McLaren from my archive.

//Mayoral campaign materials, 2000//

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Tags: Billy Fury, Charles M. Young, David Hepworth, Harold Pinter, Ian Dury, Mark Ellen, Mayor Of London, Neil Tennant, New Musical Express, Nick Kent, Patrick Casey, Pennie Smith., Robin Maugham, Rolling Stone, Smash Hits, The Herd, The Kinks, The Politics Of Flash, The Servant, The Story of Oxford Street, The Word, The Zombies, Who KIlled Bambi?, Word In Your Attic, Word In Your Ear, Writers Guild Of America

//Clockwise from top left: @vieux.wave, @pippabrooks, @luxoramor, Nick Vivian, @ladyacss, @chrissalewicz//

//Clockwise from top left: @belmaczmayfair, mr + mrs @adamskiofficial, @joebrookks, @pippabrooks, @ourmanincairo, @mrsgorman//

We have to take our pleasures where we can during these grim times, and last night’s virtual book launch of my Malcolm McLaren biography provided a much-needed tonic.

The plan was to celebrate the publication with a party at the library bar of London’s hotel The Standard, with a relaxed congregation of friends and contributors and DJ sets by Pippa Brooks and Pam Hogg.

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Tags: Pam Hogg, Pippa Brooks, The Standard Library, virtual book launch

//The post featured a grab of Pennie Smith’s portrait for Nick Kent’s The Politics Of Flash article in an April 1974 issue of the NME//

Ten years ago I posted this on The Look blog upon returning home from a gathering at London gallery Chelsea Space.

The venue was fitting; Chelsea Space is within the grounds of Chelsea College of Arts which was in Manresa Street off the King’s Road until a few years back. This was among the arts institutions attended by the student painter Malcolm Edwards in and around London in the 1960s.

Our friend the writer Chris Salewicz broke the news; among the company was guitarist Mick Jones, whose life, like many of us, had been improved by connection with McLaren.

Naturally, Jones expressed sorrow, and his immediate response to the news of McLaren’s passing struck me hard. ‘We’ll never hear Malcolm’s latest thoughts again,’ said Jones. ‘All those brilliant, wild ideas which seemed to pour out of him on a daily basis, that’s over. And that’s really sad.’

Tags: Chelsea Space, Chris Salewicz, Mick Jones

“With this book, Gorman convincingly moves away from the ossified image of McLaren as a great rock’n’roll swindler, a morally bankrupt punk Mephistopheles, and closer towards his art-school roots, his love of ideas”
Victoria Segal reviewing The Life & Times of Malcolm McLaren in the Sunday Times, April 5, 202

The first reviews of my Malcolm McLaren biography are carried today by Britain’s Sunday Times Culture section and in The New Review magazine of it’s broadsheet rival The Observer.

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Tags: Chrissie Hynde, Constable, Dave Vanian, David Harrison, John Lydon, Masters Of The Backside, Rat Scabies, Sean O'Hagan, Sex Pistols, Sunday Times, The Observer, Victoria Segal