//David Parkinson in the Eight Young Photographers catalogue, 1971. Image courtesy Mark Trompeteler//

//Front, catalogue/fold-out poster, for the show which ran at the Photographers Gallery in Great Newport Street from April 6 to May 2, 1971. Courtesy Mark Trompeteler. No reproduction without permission//

Eight Young Photographers was the third exhibition to be held at the newly-opened Photographers Gallery at its original premises in Great Newport Street in London’s West End.

The gallery opened in January 1971 with a group show entitled The Concerned Photographer featuring, among others, Robert Capa, and followed that by simultaneously staging three exhibits, including a display of Polaroids taken by Andy Warhol.

Visitors to Eight Young Photographers, which ran during April and into early May that year, recall it as being an important staging post in the acceptance of photography as a subject worthy of artistic appreciation. Among the contributors was the late David Parkinson, about whom I have written often. He showed work alongside Mark Edwards, Meira Hand, Roger Birt, Sylvester Jacobs, Tim Stevens, Bob Mazzer and Mark Trompeteler (who has kindly retrieved the catalogue/poster for me from his archive).

//From the Photographers Gallery listings. The show was preceded by an exhibition of Andy Warhol’s Polaroids//

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Tags: Acme Attractions, Album, Andy Warhol, Belmacz, Bill Jay, Bob Mazzer, Bush Holyhead, City Lights Studio, Club International, Colin Watmough, Creative Camera, Eight Young Photographers, Great newport Street, Hag, Hipgnosis, Ian Hargreaves, John Krevine, Mark Edwards, Mark Trompeteler, Meira Hand, NTA Studios, Paul Raymond, Photographers Gallery, Polaroids, Robert Capa, Roger Birt, Steph Raynor, Steve Ridgeway, Sylvester Jacobs, Tim Stevens, Tommy Roberts, Vivienne Westwood, Willy Daly

//The Michael Joseph image which was to be central to the 1971 Fernet-Branca campaign was featured in Dave Saunders’ survey Sex In Advertising, published by Batsford Books in 1996//

//Front, Funk Spectrum, BBE Records, 1999. Photo: Michael Joseph//

//Back, Funk Spectrum, BBE, 1999. Photo: Michael Joseph//

In 1971 the great advertising director and photographer Michael Joseph was commissioned to shoot a billboard campaign for the Italian digestif Fernet-Branca.

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Tags: BBE Records, Brent Sherwood, Dave Saunders, David "Piggy" Worth, Fernet-Branca, Funk Spectrum, Gala Pinion, Judy Nylon, Keb Darge, Lord Snowdon, Masters At Work, MIchael Joseph, Norman Parkinson, Pete Rock, Peter Lyster-Todd, Pink Floyd, Rolling Stones, RZA, Sex In Advertising, Syd Barrett

Martin Stone hopped, pre-dawn, through the Cheshire street market, scavenging books. Winklepickers, tourniquet trousers, mildewed beret, bulging swagbag: Blind Pew impersonated by Max Wall. Cigarette grafted to trembling, prehensile fingers, he was an anthology of retro fashion. And in his wake there shimmered a vortex of gossip and, amazingly, goodwill…  Iain Sinclair, The Independent, February 18, 1995

Sad to note the passing of Martin Stone, dapper devil and rock and rolling rare book dealer par excellence.

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Tags: Alexander Trocchi, Chilli Willi And The Red Hot Peppers, Head Heritage, Iain Sinclair, Jake Riviera, Julian Cope, Martin Stone, Mighty Baby, Pink Fairies, the 101'ers, William Burroughs

I’m really looking forward to visiting the forthcoming exhibition of the photography of Dave Hendley, who died this summer.

//Outer gatefold, Rebel Music, Trojan Records, 1979. Design: Uncredited//

Hendley is best known for the photos he took of the Jamaican music scene in the 70s, but he holds a special place for me as the man responsible for one of my favourite compilations, the double-LP Rebel Music, released by Trojan at the end of that decade.

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Tags: Big Youth, Bobby Gillespie, Central Saint Martins, Creation Rockers, Dave Hendley, Dennis Brown, Gregory Isaacs, I-Roy, Junior Byles, Peter Tosh, Redbel Music, Sufferer's Rights, Trojan records

Tonight sees the opening of a group show featuring the work of one of my favourite contemporary figurative artists, Emma Hopkins.

//Uta. Mixed media on polyester, 125 x 57cm. Emma Hopkins 2016//

Hopkins’ work unflinchingly considers the raw beauty of the human anatomy and physiognomy. As she says: “I paint people from the inside out.”

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Tags: Dellasposa, Emma Hopkins, Isabella Watling, Sabatino Cersosimo, Simon Davis, Wanda Bernardino

//Members of the audience from Edinburgh who preferred Australian support act Icehouse to Bowie//

Fittingly Britain’s most surprising rock star has found his way to Britain’s newest and most surprising city, where high tech meets ecologic, where concrete meets conservation, where the silicon chip meets the fibreglass rod…

Steve Taylor, South Of Watford, Summer 1983, London Weekend Television

While putting the finishing touches to my forthcoming book about The Face magazine, I followed a line of research which lead me to an excellent documentary about the late David Bowie which I hadn’t seen since it was screened in 1983.

Shown as part of London’s regional broadcaster LWT’s South Of Watford strand, the film focused on Bowie’s immersion in the mainstream with the Let’s Dance LP and companion Serious Moonlight tour (sponsored by Levi’s in a groundbreaking marketing deal, this inaugurated the era of corporate and branded live music events).

The doc’s point of entry was Bowie’s weekend of sold-out gigs that summer at Milton Keynes Bowl, the open-air arena in Britain’s newest city north of London in the Buckinghamshire countryside.

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Tags: Alex Graham, David Bowie, Icehouse, Let's Dance, London Weekend Television, Melody Maker, Michael Watts, Milton Keynes Bowl, Nick Logan, Paul Tickell, Serious Moonlight, Sheryl Garratt, Steve Taylor