Today is the 40th anniversary of the gig at central London venue The Marquee by the Sex Pistols which generated their first substantial media coverage, a prescient 200-word review by Neil Spencer on page 31 of the February 21, 1976 issue of the New Musical Express.
//Sylvain in the streets of Austin last week//
On a recent trip to Austin, Texas, I enjoyed many encounters with members of the region’s creative community, not least expat British sci-fi Titan Michael Moorcock and his delightful wife Linda, transplanted Westernwear expert Jerry Ryan and his Heritage Boot emporium and, as previously noted here, the charming duo Jesse Sublett and Lois Richwine.
I also had fun with the visiting New York Doll Sylvain Sylvain Mizrahi, in town for a residency at the Hotel Vegas, on the the city’s hip eastside.
//Gary Crowley outside 93 Bell Street, London NW1, the address once occupied by Sex Pistols scenester/designer Helen Wellington-Lloyd, her fellow Goldsmith’s student Malcolm McLaren and Pistols Steve Jones and Paul Cook//
Interspersed with a personal selection of songs, I talked to DJ Gary Crowley about the new Punk London: In The City 1975-78 map for the second hour of his Punk & New Wave show on Soho Radio yesterday.
This afternoon I’m the guest on DJ Gary Crowley’s show on London-based digital station Soho Radio.
I’ll be talking about Punk London: In The City 1975-78 – my map collaboration with Herb Lester Associates which is published on Friday (February 12) – and also playing a highly personal selection of songs in the spirit of the project where we aim to sidestep the cliches and show another side to the oft-told punk story.
//The Overton Gang, 1966//
//Jesse Sublett with his book in the Townes Van Zandt foyer//
Over cocktails a couple of nights back at Austin’s Townes Van Zandt Hotel I was captivated by writer Jesse Sublett’s tales of the Texas capital’s not-so-distant criminal past.
This is an extract from an interview with the late Malcolm McLaren in October 1982, conducted just after he and design partner Vivienne Westwood had shown their fashion collection Punkature.
As the promulgator, initially through music and fashion and then into other forms from film and art to design and media, McLaren defined Punk as an anti-authoritarian, anti-corporate attitude imbued with a D-I-Y spirit which embraces chaos.
Next week witnesses the opening of a London exhibition of reworked images by music/street art photographer Janette Beckman.
This is the finalised cover of Punk London: In The City 1975-78, my map collaboration with Herb Lester Associates which will be published in a few weeks.
As a tribute to the late rock star, I have joined forces with map-makers Herb Lester to create an online guide to David Bowie’s London from his birth at 40 Stansfield Road in Brixton in 1947 through his solo art show in Mayfair in 1995 to the giant retrospective David Bowie Is exhibition at the Victoria & Albert Museum in South Kensington in 2013.
//Sketches for the Lodger sleeve, 1979//
I just had to write and tell you how much I love the book that has just been published. Your work really cascades over the decades and is utterly real and convincing.
Extract of email from David Bowie to Derek Boshier, November 2015
I guess it can be told now. David Bowie was at one stage going to contribute to Rethink/Re-entry, the monograph of the artist Derek Boshier, with whom the late rock star had worked in the late 70s and early 80s.
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