//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.
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.
//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//
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//
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.
I’m really jazzed about getting my hands on the first finished copy of Totally Wired, my history of the music press which is published by Thames & Hudson this autumn.
Designer Daniel Streat has done wonders with the day-the-world-turned-dayglo jacket concept and my choice of cover star Poly Styrene.
There are 60 or so illustrations, all magazines from my archive. The diversity reflects the content of the book, which covers the usual suspects – NME, Melody Maker, Rolling Stone – but will hopefully turn readers onto the unexpected and surprising, from Black Music and Collusion to WET, Ben Is Dead and Girlfrenzy.
Totally Wired is published in the UK and elsewhere on September 22 and in North America on November 29. It is available to order now from all good booksellers as well as my Bookshop page at uk.bookshop.org/shop/paulgorman or by clicking on this panel:
++ McLaren outside the empty Centre Point, spring 1979. Photo: Barry Plummer ++
Rare and exclusive images will be on display during the forthcoming event about the late Malcolm McLaren’s London life at Fora Soho on June 9.
//Subscribe exhibition ident//
//Artist and filmmaker Steve McQueen (right) featured in The Uniform Backlash, The i-D Bible Part 2, 1989. Photography Daniel Kohlbacher, styling Simon Foxton. Paul Gorman Archive//
Beginning in the early 1970s—as under-represented groups were demanding new forms of visibility following the emergence of political movements such as Black Power and the Stonewall Rebellion—a handful of British and American photo-driven alternative magazines came on the scene.
The Face, i-D, Rags, Out/Look, and other new publications amplified marginalized voices, especially those of queer makers and makers of colour, and made room for those makers to question who and what was accepted as mainstream. These publications introduced a hybrid model within the magazine industry: combining the high production standards and engagement with fashion of “powerhouse” publications such as Vogue and Life with the use of collage in zines and the text/image provocations of underground newspapers. In the end, these alternative magazines transformed their industry.
From the introduction to Subscribe.
Two years ago, just as the enormity of the pandemic was emerging, I met American curators Solveig Nelson and Michal Raz-Russo in London to discuss making a contribution to an exhibition at the Art Institute of Chicago about the significance of alternative magazines to Western culture.
Among the many things the world doesn’t need now is another book of record covers, but DB Burkeman’s Art Sleeves, which is published today by Rizzoli, is something else entirely.
For once the publisher’s blurb is spot-on; this is “a tightly curated exploration” of record covers which challenge the distinctions between art and design, between object and product.
This means that there are many surprises in the book, and a minimum of the usual suspects.
Art Sleeves also contains a bonus in a series of artist spotlights and conversations featuring such exponents as Christian Marclay, INVADER, Ryan McGinley, Genieve Figgis and Marilyn Minter.
And Barney Bubbles receives a mention as DB’s “personal design hero” in the introduction.
I recommend Art Sleeves highly. Order your copy here and follow Art Sleeves on Instagram here.
Today I’ve launched a page on this site for the Estate of the late radical graphic artist and designer Barney Bubbles.
//Ridiculous Roadshow mask, 1973. © Barney Bubbles Estate//
I represent the Estate and its hundreds of original artworks. We have some exciting activity coming up, including the loving recreation of one of Bubbles’ most striking designs for a very special reissue on Record Store Day this year.
Then there is a new enhanced edition of my monograph Reasons To Be Cheerful: The Life & Work of Barney Bubbles, to be published by a leading international imprint. We are also planning a companion limited edition box of Bubblesiana, including high quality reproductions of his build-your-own paper and card designs.
In recent years the Estate has collaborated with a number of top-flight partners, including Universal Music, BMG Music, Paul Smith, Fred Perry and NOAH Clothing, and produced limited edition t-shirt, poster and postcard ranges with artist/dancer Stacia Blake and specialist printer Something Else.
//Johnny Moped Lightbulb 1977.© Barney Bubbles Estate//
//John Cooper Clarke, 1979. © Barney Bubbles Estate//
Read Barney Bubbles’ biography on the Estate page here.
//Still from Barney Bubbles-directed video for Ghost Town by The Specials, 1981//
//Letterhead for Teenburger Designs studio, 1969. © Barney Bubbles Estate//
//4D Man, 1982.© Barney Bubbles Estate//
//I Love The Sound Of Breaking Glass, 1978. © Barney Bubbles Estate//
//Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick, 1978. © Barney Bubbles Estate//
//Cracking Up, 1979. © Barney Bubbles Estate//
For licensing and reproduction inquiries, contact paulgormanis@btinternet.com. PDFs of available artworks on request.
Follow the Estate’s Instagram account: @_barney_bubbles_estate_
| Paul Gorman is a writer. This is his blog: art, books, conversation, cults, dancing, design, encounters, environments, events, film, galleries, groups, individuals, invitations, magazines, music, opinions, performance, photography, places, press, privacy, spaces, style, thoughts + views. |
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