‘This book solves the mystery of a spell that was cast on a time that won’t fade away’

Hiroshi Fujiwara

2024 has got off to a good start with the news that the Japanese edition of The Life & Times of Malcolm McLaren is going to be published by East Press on January 26, four days after what would have been the great provocateur’s 78th birthday.

This translation includes a new photo selection, the above cover quote from Japan’s style guru Hiroshi Fujiwara and updated text, including much new detail on the visit McLaren made with Vivienne Westwood and Gerry Goldstein to Andy Warhol’s Factory in New York in the summer of 1973.

The Life & Times Of Malcolm McLaren Japanese edition is available to order here.

Tags: Hiroshi Fujiwara, The Factory

//From the presentation for tomorrow’s event//

Tomorrow I’ll be talking to interiors, homewares and textile designer Sue Timney about the fashion legacy of the King’s Road, the two-and-a-half mile thoroughfare in west London’s Chelsea where the late Mary Quant kicked off the boutique boom by opening her clothes shop Bazaar at 135a in 1955.

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Tags: Ace, Don Letts, Jeannette Lee, King's Road Music & Fashion Trail, Let It Rock: The Look Of Music The Sound Of Fashion, Mary Quant, Peter Golding, Quorum, Sheila Rock, Sue Timney, The Great Gear Market, Timney Fowler

When he launched the small-format 32-page song sheet The Melody Maker in 1926, Tin Pan Alley music publisher Lawrence Wright sparked the media revolution that created the music press.

This multi-million pound business eventually straddled the Atlantic and simultaneously proved a fertile breeding ground for generations of writers, photographers, film-makers and performers who made their mark in the wider world.

Everyone from Bob Geldof, Chrissie Hynde and Neil Tennant to Danny Baker, Caroline Coon, Julie Burchill, Barbara Ellen, Caitlin Moran, Miranda Sawyer and movie directors Cameron Crowe and Anton Corbijn (and even Michael Winner) cut their teeth on music magazines such as Melody Maker, New Musical Express, Rolling Stone, ZigZag and Smash Hits.

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Tags: Alan Lewis, Andy Warhol, Anton Corbijn, Antonella Gambotto-Burke, Barbara Ellen, Bob Geldof, Caitlin Moran, Cameron Crowe, Carl Gayle, Caroline Coon, Chelsea Clinton, Chrissie Hynde, Corinne Day, Danny Baker, Darby Romeo, David Salzman, Erica Smith, Grace Jones, Harry Styles, Jann Wenner, Jason Donovan, Julie Burchill, Kate Moss, Kerin Morayata, Lawrence Wright, Mat Snow, Max Jones, Micahel Winner, Miranda Sawyer, Neil Tennant, neville Brody, NIck Cave, Quincy Jones, Roisin Murphy, Stevie Wonder, Time Inc, Truman Capote, Tupac SHakur

//Ellen Willis, c. 1970. Photograph: Ellen Willis’s family//

One of the narrative threads of my book Totally Wired: The Rise & Fall of the Music Press – which is published in paperback next week – traces the ways in which women writers have been forced to fight long and hard against white male dominance of the field.

//Gloria Stavers photographs Jim Morrison 1967. Photographer: Unknown//

This process was kicked off in the 1950s by Gloria Stavers, who transformed the US teen scene as editor and photographer at the huge-selling 16 magazine and went on to champion the likes of the Beatles and others in the 60s on her own terms: while she recognised the charisma of The Doors’ Jim Morrison, she was also his equal and lover.

//Lillian Roxon, mid-1960s. Photo by unknown, Fairfax Archives//

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Tags: Elizabeth Nelson

The September 1975 issue of US music/proto-lifestyle magazine Rock Scene contains an absolute curio in the form of a report on Angie Bowie’s visit to Eton College – ‘Hogwarts for wankers where you’re taught Latin and tax avoidance while wearing full evening dress’* – that year.

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Tags: Angie Bowie, Boris Johnson, Craig Brown, David Cameron, Eton College, Jonathan Pie, Leee Black Childers, Lisa Robinson, Nicholas Coleridge, Richard Robinson, Rock Scene, Roy Martin, Simon Fisher Turner

I have known the Arts & Crafts connoisseur, collector and dealer Paul Reeves since the early Noughties when I approached him for the second edition of my fashion x music book The Look; Paul’s previous career as a designer took in such important 60s and 70s labels and boutiques as Sam Pig In Love, Alkasura and The Universal Witness.

From the off we got on like a house on fire and became firm friends; he was a major contributor to my Tommy Roberts book and the ever-generous Paul has often hosted Caz and I at his wonderful Wiltshire farmhouse.

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Tags: Alkasura, Claire de Rouen, Jermaine Gallacher, Jon Wealleans, Led Zeppelin, Oskar Proctor, Paul Reeves, Peter Grant, Sam Pig In Love, The Universal Witness, TON

I’m looking forward to appearing at Pop Up, the subcultures festival being held in the Gloucestershire town of Stroud next month.

I’ll be comparing and contrasting the work of Barney Bubbles with that of his rivals Hipgnosis in the 70s and 80s with Mark Blake, author of the new book about the British music design studio and Pop Up organiser and writer Ben Wardle.

//Front Cover, Peter Gabriel, Charisma Records, 1977. Design: Hipgnosis//

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Tags: Ben Wardle, Cosey Fanni Tutti, Duggie Fields, Edgard Broughton Band, Fumble, Genesis Breyer P. Orridge, Hipgnosis, Mark Blake, Peter Gabriel, Sammy Hagar, UFO

I’ll be joining contemporary music magazines including Disco Pogo and Ambit Pop at a celebration of the music press then and now at London’s premier magazine outlet Magculture a week on Thursday (October 27).

Magculture currently stocks a dozen music magazines, so is the appropriate place to talk about the past, the present and the future of the media sector which has spawned so many exciting publications as well as writers, designers, photographers and editors.

Starting at 6.30pm, I’ll be discussing the themes raised in my book Totally Wired: The Rise and Fall of the Music Press with magCulture’s Jeremy Leslie,and then we’ll be joined by editors including Paul Benney of Disco Pogo (and also co-founder of 90s mag Jockey Slut) and Kirsty Allison of Ambit + Ambit Pop.

Details and tickets for the event are available here.

Tags: Ambit, Ambit Pop, Disco Pogo, Jockey Slut, Kirsty Allison, Magculture, Paul Benney, Sam Ford, So Young

//Suit jacket + tie: Mark Powell; tab collared polka dot shirt Simon James Cathcart//

Get your Barney Bubbles Button badge set from the Barney Bubbles online shop.

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Tags: Generation X, John Cooper Clarke, Johnny Moped, Mark Powell, Punch The Clock, Simon James Cathcart, Vinyl Factory

//The opening spread of my piece, with images from In The Gutter. Left: Pleasant Gehman, right: Caroline Coon//

//The new issue of MacGuffin//

I’ve returned to the excellent MacGuffin magazine with a piece in their latest issue, which adopts the theme ‘The Chain’.

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Tags: Belmacz, Caroline Coon, Diana Pfammatter, Ernst van der Hoeven, IN The Gutter, Julia Muggenburg, Kirsten Algera, Pleasant Gehman