“To you whom I may communicate with shortly through the smoke of Deaux-Deaux the rattlesnake whose forked tongue hisses pig Latin in silk and satin da-zaw-ig-day, may the gilded splinters of Auntie Andre spew forth in your path to light and guide your way through the bayous of life.”

For prime poetic mumbo-jumbo, look no further than the back cover text of Dr John’s debut LP Gris-Gris.

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Tags: Atco, Blue Valentine, Coco Robicheaux, Dr John, Exile On Main Street, Gris Gris, Harold Battiste, Heartattack & Vine, Let It Loose, Mac rebeenack, Plas Johnson, Professor Longhair, Richie Unterberger, Rolling Stones, Tchoupitoulas, Tom Waits

As promonews.tv points out, this is perfect for Carnival weekend (even with this weather). Scenes from Jamaican life in the clip by So Me.

Tags: Amber, Dirty Projectors, Get Free, Major Lazer, Promonews, So Me, Somesuch & Co

This advert for Vince Man’s Shop – the small Soho boutique which sparked the modernisation of menswear design and retailing in the second half of the 20th century – was designed by Gordon Moore for issue 20 of the Royal College Of Art magazine ARK, published in autumn 1957.

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Tags: Alex Seago, Any Day Now, ARK, Bill Green, Burning The Box Of Beautiful Things, David Bowie, David Collins, Design, FReddie Burretti, Gordon Moore, Helen Hanley Centre, Independent Group, John Bratby, Kevin Cann, Oui, Peter Blake, Playboy, Richard Smith, Robyn Denny, Rodney Bennett-England, Roger Coleman, Royal College Of Art, Sean Connery, Soho, Soup Kitchen, Terence Conran, The Sombrero, Toni del Renzio, Vince Man's Shop

//Sex assistant Jordan, Gallery International, Vol 1, no 4.//

It’s unlikely that cities will shake or nations start to rock under the impact of Malcolm McLaren’s sexual revolution. A few people might die though.

Malcolm McLaren, at 30, is a mixture of entrepreneurial cultist, sexual evangelist, businessman, artist, fetishist and political philosopher; a psychotic visionary in the ephemeral subculture of the fashion world.

David May, Gallery International Vol 1 no 4.

In November 1975 – by which time his charges the Sex Pistols had just embarked on live performances – Malcolm McLaren was interviewed by journalist David May at 430 King’s Road, then in full bloom as radical retail venture SEX.

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Tags: Alan Jones, Bob Guccione, Cambridge Rapist, Chelsea Arts Club, David May, Forum, Gallery International, Hendon, Jeremy Thorpe, Jo Buckley, Jordan, Len Richmond, Let It Rock, Michael Collins, Michael Roberts, MIddlesex Polytechnic, Naked Cowboys, New English Library, Ravensbourne College, SEX, Sex Pistols, Simon Barker, The Economist, The Sunday Times, Time Out, Too Fast To Live Too Young To Die

These are the first five downloadable clips in the King’s Road Music + Fashion Trail, a celebration of landmark boutiques I am making for the culture section of Royal Borough Of Kensington + Chelsea Council.

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Tags: Alan Holston, Archie Nairn, Bazaar, Dandie Fashions, Freddie Hornik, Gene Krell, John Crittle, John Pearse, Marty Breslau, Mary Quant. Alexander Plunkett Green, Neil Winterbottom, Nigel Waymouth, Shiela Cohen

Adiós Chavela Vargas.

Read the Telegraph obit here.

Tags: 1919, 2012, Chavela Vargas, The Telegraph

//Two views of Robert Hughes, London, 1967.//

Sad to note the death yesterday of the great journalist and author Robert Hughes.

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Tags: A Big Life, Jenny Kee, Robert Hughes, The Art Of Australia, The Melbourne Age, The Shock Of The New, Things I Didn't Know

Tonight I am the guest again of the Broken Hearts DJs, this time on their monthly show at Strongroom Alive, the station which is part of the media complex based in the Strongroom recording studio in east London.

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Tags: Amber Butchart, Nisha Thirkell, Strongroom Alive

The September 2012 issue of GQ features this David Parkinson photograph of the interior of Tommy Roberts and Trevor Myles’ Mr Freedom at 430 King’s Road.

One of a number of previously-unpublished photographs in Mr Freedom – Tommy Roberts: British Design Hero, this shot captures the extraordinary fit-out Myles and Roberts’ commissioned from pioneering East End design team Electric Colour Company.

Read my post about ECC’s achievements  – with interviews and many illustrations, still the only piece to be published anywhere about this important but sorely neglected group of British artist/designers – here.

Tags: 1969, David Parkinson, Electric Colour Company, GQ, Trevor myles

Plus ca change…

Tucked away in the June 1983 edition of The Face was this news story about a brave broadcasting venture, the scabrous and short-lived Breakfast Pirate Radio.

//Proof of front cover of Programme 1 by Station BPR, Utility, 1983. Design: Barney Bubbles.//

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Tags: 1983, 2011, Billy Bragg, Boots Sex Dread, Breakfast Pirate Radio, Bully, Channel 4, Daily Mail, Dodi Fayed, Dread Broadcasting Company, Free Kitten, Glen Colson, Jeremy Thorpe, Jerry Arkwright, John Eden, Joly MacFie, Julia Cafritz, Keith Allen, Kevin Rowland, Larry Clark, Lepke, Malcolm McLaren, Mohammed Al-Fayed, Peter jenner, Princess Diana, Rinka, The Face, Utility, Virgin