Described by Alan Moore as William Blake’s “fellow impoverished south London angel-headed nut-job”, Austin Osman Spare has slowly but steadily ascended from obscurity since the critic Mario Amaya‘s mid-60s declaration that Spare was responsible for “the first examples of Pop art in this country”.`
Produced as the programme for the International Poetry Incarnation held in London in the summer of 1965, this “invocation” performed a similar function to the event, which is seen as the first gathering of the tribes which would form the counterculture.
Compiled by 10 of the participants at the London flat of Alexander Trocchi, the mission statement “maps a new emergent countercultural community”, as art historian Andrew Wilson wrote in 2004.
Sixth on the gun from guest selector Stagger Lee (click on the title):
Prince Alla – Stone (Freedom Sounds)
Don’t do anywhere near as much reggae DJing as I used to, but this never leaves my big box of 7″s – as good as 70s roots gets. Dug it out for a recent gig and can’t leave it alone.
Teaser trailer for Hedi Slimane’s Man About Town LA issue, featuring Kenneth Anger, John Baldessari, Beck, Larry Bell, Chris Burden, Dave Grohl, Henry Hopper, No Age, Gus Van Sant, Gore Vidal, Wavves + Brian Wilson.
Here’s the fifth from the Top Ten current faves of guest selector Stagger Lee (click on the title):
LCD Soundsystem – All My Friends (London Sessions Version) (EMI)
They played their last gig a few weekends ago and I miss them already. Underneath the hipster signifiers is a songwriter with amazing heart and a pretty much perfect set of influences he parlayed into music which sounded totally original.
//From a review of the Queen Elizabeth College All Night Christmas Ball by Kate Phillips, New Musical Express, December 27, 1975.//
This is something of an exclusive.
Not published in the 36 years since appearing in the issue of the New Musical Express dated December 27, 1975, this is the very first media mention of the Sex Pistols (just seven weeks after their live debut).
These sentences were written by NME staffer Kate Phillips in her review of the All Night Christmas Ball on November 27 1975 at Queen Elizabeth College (then in Campden Hill, Kensington, west London).
Fourth on the floor from Stagger Lee (click on the title):
JD McPherson – Northside Gal (HiStyle)
A Chicago-based Okie making soulful, riotous rockabilly and rhythm’n’blues the old way. Like Eli Reed’s soul, this isn’t pastiche, this is passion.
//Dennis Hopper in front of a Dr Pepper sign, 1965. Robert Walker Jr.//
A recent post triggered this memory from designer Diana Crawshaw of an encounter with Dennis Hopper. It occured at the Royal College Of Art summer ball in 1965, “when he was very young and so was I”:
At the ball everyone was wearing white or silver (it was that summer when The Knack came out).
Third on the gun from Stagger Lee (click on the title to listen/download):
Morton Valence – Sailors (Bastard Recordings)
Cue lots of “best kept secret” cliches…Morton Valence are the best band in London right now. This is from their second album, Me & Home James, which I think is out early this summer. Hard to categorise but always brilliant.
//Side view, 7' x 4' Daz box, Jeffrey Pine, 1970. Photo: David Smith.//
Mr Freedom was as much an event as a boutique, described by the London Evening News in 1970 as a “spectacle like no other show on earth, taking place down the King’s Road non-stop, six days a week”.
Here Tommy Roberts reflects on some of the extraordinary in-store displays commissioned from young artists and designers.
| 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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