//The t-shirts show the deliberate production of variants within the limited edition designed and written by McLaren and printed on the simple square pattern produced by Vivienne Westwood in 1974. © Malcolm McLaren Estate//

Two of Malcolm McLaren’s t-shirts from the very first production run of I Groaned With Pain – the notorious text design produced with Vivienne Westwood in 1974 – will be featured in Eyes For Blowing Up Bridges, the exhibition I am co-curating with David Thorp at Southampton’s John Hansard Gallery this autumn.

//T-shirt with central tear on light blue jersey with exterior seaming, labelled, Malcolm McLaren and Vivienne Westwood, 1974. 360mm x 375mm. © Malcolm McLaren Estate//

I Groaned With Pain is named after the first four words of the paragraph of text McLaren lifted from beat writer Alexander Trocchi’s erotic novel Helen And Desire (published in 1954 by Olympia Press under the pseudonym Francis Lengel).

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Tags: Alexander Trocchi, Antiquarius, Asger Jorn, bernie Rhodes, David Thorp, FRancis Lengel, Guy Debord, Helen And Desire, I Groaned With Pain, John Hansard Gallery, King Mob, Let It Rock, Olympia Press, Parade, The Clash, Too Fast To Live Too Young To Die, Vivienne Westwood, William Burroughs

//Left: Detail of photo of model posing in leather Sex hood, autumn 1974. Photo: © David Parkinson. Right: David Bowie in leather hood, summer 1974, Sherry Netherland Hotel, New York. Photo: Dana Gillespie//

My recent post about David Bowie’s visits in 1974 to 430 King’s Road when it was in its Too Fast To Live Too Young To Die incarnation prompted Facebook friend and DJ Graham “Sugarlump” Evans to alert me to Polaroid photographs of David Bowie trying out make-up, hair and styling options in preparation for his Diamond Dogs tour of the US that year.

// Polaroid taken by Dana Gillespie in New York in 1974//

In one, as Evans points out, Bowie posed in a leather hood of similar style to the model sold at 430 as it was transformed over a period of six months from TFTL to fetish emporium Sex.

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Tags: Anarchy In The UK, Brian Epstein, Cambridge Rapist, Dana Gillespie, David Bowie, David May, Henry Edwards, James Dean, Jamie Reid, Kevin Cann, Michael Collins, Peter Cook, Robert Fraser, Sex Pistols, Susan Shaw, The London Leatherman, Tony Zanetta, Vivienne Westwood

//Dorothea Wight picking up groceries in Queens Crescent Market…//

//…before heading into Studio Prints//

The 1970 BBC documentary At A Printmaker’s Workshop focuses on Dorothea Wight’s fabled Studio Prints in Queens Crescent, Kentish Town.

It is also a marvellous snapshot of London on the cusp of change as inner city areas became invigorated by the arrival of interesting new businesses (with none of today’s dread “regeneration” and its companion property-speak of “creative quartiers” and such).

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Tags: Anthony Gross, Dorothea Wight, Douglas Cleverdon, Francis St Clair Miller, Frank Auerbach, Garry Kennard, Leon Kossoff, Lucian Freud, RB Kitaj, Slade School Of Art, Studio Prints, Tess Jaray, William Turnbull

This is a very nice short made by producer/editor Tulip Tappenden at Derek Boshier’s Los Angeles studio in 2013:

Derek Boshier: An artist at his studio. from TulipT on Vimeo.

It includes many of the works featured in the forthcoming monograph Derek Boshier: Rethink/Re-entry, which is published by Thames & Hudson in October and features a foreword by David Hockney.

Order your copy here.

Tags: Tulip Tappenden

//Nicholas de Jongh’s front-page report, The Guardian, August 2, 1975//

//Sex Original-labelled Cowboys t-shirt courtesy Hiroshi Fujiwara Collection//

This month – specifically July 26 – marks the 40th anniversary of the introduction for sale of Malcolm McLaren’s notorious Cowboys t-shirt in Sex, the revolutionary boutique he operated at 430 King’s Road with Vivienne Westwood.

The shirt’s status as the most provocative of all punk designs is enhanced by the fact that it made waves immediately: the same day the shirt went on sale, the first customer to wear it in public was arrested. Within 24 hours, the store itself was raided for indecency.

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Tags: Alan Jones, Cowboys t-shirt, David "Piggy" Worth, Dr Colin Phipps, Glen Matlock, Hiroshi Fujiwara, John Lydon, Paul Cook, Roy Jenkins, Steve Jones, The Roebuck, Vagrancy Act 1924, Vivienne Westwood

//David Bowie recording the Diamond Dogs LP at Olympic Studios, Barnes, south-west London, January 1974 during his residency in Chelsea’s Oakley Street. Photo © Kate Simon//

//Malcolm McLaren and Gerry Goldstein in front of the Too Fast To Live Too Young To Die facade, 430 King’s Road, London, summer 1973. © Malcolm McLaren Estate//

//Malcolm McLaren in Too Fast To Live Too Young To Die designs, Chelsea, London, from New Musical Express, April 6, 1974 . Photo: © Pennie Smith//

It is a little known fact that David Bowie was an occasional visitor to 430 King’s Road when it was operating as Too Fast To Live Too Young To Die.

This manifestation of Malcolm McLaren and Vivienne Westwood’s revolutionary boutique  – which paid design tribute to the fetishistic studded leather attire of Britain’s early 60s Ton Up Boys and rockers and sold the cult clothing associated with 40s mobsters and Latino zoot suit rioters – succeeded the 50s outlet Let It Rock in the early spring of 1973, as noted at the time by the fashion writer Catherine Tennant in British Vogue.

//From British Vogue, April 1, 1973//

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Tags: British Vogue, Catherine Tennant, David Bowie, David Parkinson, Diamond Dogs, Glen Matlock, Kate Simon, Let It Rock, Nick Kent, NME, Oakley Street, Pennie Smith., SEX, Sex Pistols, Too Fast To Live Too Young To Die

//Magazines from my archive (clockwise from top left): Creem, August 1974; Grand Royal #3, 1995; Club International, August 1973; Harpers & Queen, October 1976//

//After Dark, September 1974; Ben Is Dead #26, 1996//

I’m one of the contributors to Print, writer Lou Stoppard’s forthcoming celebration of the great fashion and music magazines of the past and present.

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Tags: After Dark, Bay Garnett, Ben Is Dead, Cheap Date, Club International, Creem, Deluxe, Grand Royal, Harpers & Queen, Honey, Jefferson Hack, Kira Jolliffe, Lipstick, Lou Stoppard, Nick Knight, NME, Nova, Perry Ogden, Rags, Ritz, Showstudio, The Hyman Archive, The Mushpit, Tory Turk, Twen, West One

//Poor Valley Girl: Valerie June Carter in the 50s. Photo: innocentwords.com//

Singer-songwriter Carlene Carter has posted a touching memoir of her mother, the country giant June Carter Cash who would have been 86 this week, at online music ‘zine Innocent Words.

//With Johnny Cash in the early 70s. Photo: innocentwords.com//

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Tags: Carlene Carter, Grand Ole Opry, Innocent Words, Jackson, Johnny Cash, June Carter Cash, The Carter Family, Wildwood Flower

Just when boys with guitars threaten to rule pop life – Damon’s all over Smash Hits, Ash are big in Big! and Liam can’t move for tabloid frenzy – an all-girl, in-your-face pop group have arrived with enough sass to burst their rockist bubble.

From Music Week, April 1996

I see that next week marks the 19th anniversary of the release of Wannabe. Coincidentally I came across this cutting while ferreting around my magazine archive: the first published interview with the Spice Girls, when they launched the promotional campaign for the single and I was a contributing editor at industry publication Music Week.

I remember quite a lot about my encounter with the five of them at Virgin Records hq in Ladbroke Grove, not least that they afforded opportunities for digs at the full-of-itself British rock cabal which had grown out of the damp squib which was Britpop.

//It wasn’t me. From Wannabe//

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TAGS: None

Rocking Underground is the title of Scarlett Sabet’s beautifully presented poetry collection.

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Tags: Alice Stallard, Rocking Underground, Scarlett Sabet