The Life And Death Of Marina Abramović represents a melding of the visions of the subject and Robert Wilson into beyond bravura performance theatre.

Enhanced by Antony Hegarty‘s holy terror and held together by the carny physicality of Willem Dafoe‘s stage presence, the diamond-hard Manchester International Festival production at Salford’s Lowry Theatre offers a series of sublime tableaux, many preoccupied with Abramović’s monstrous mother.

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Tags: Antony Hegarty, Manchester International Festival, Robert Wilson, Salford, The Life & Death Of Marina Abramović, The Lowry Theatre, Tom Waits, Ulay, Willem Dafoe

Broadcast on April 9, 1975, this episode of BBC series One Man’s Week captured Vivian Stanshall at a career high.

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Tags: 1975, Baba Tunde, BBC, Gaspar Lawal, Jack De Manio, Lakonga, Men Opening Umbrellas Ahead!, Michael Lynch, Mongezi Feza, Vivian Stanshall

Donald Smith, Lloyd Johnson + Chelsea Space assistant Emily Rubner.

Yesterday I met Lloyd Johnson to discuss next spring’s exhibition celebrating his career as Pop’s Pontiff Of Cool (a title I shamefully bestowed upon him in a Mojo feature a decade or so ago).

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Tags: 1999, Chelsea Space, Donald Smith, Emily Dubner, Lloyd Johnson, Mojo

I have a piece on mod fashions in the new Mojo special MOJO ’60s.

To mark it, THE LOOK blog is featuring scans from a great interview with the Small Faces keyboard player Ian “Mac” McLagan from Rave magazine, April 1967. See here.

Tags: April 1967, Ian "Mac" McLagan, Mojo '60s, Rave, Small Faces

Talking Barney Bubbles with Billy Bragg in the Spirit Of 71 Cafe. Photo: Dom Chambers.

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Tags: 1971, Andrew kerr, Billy Bragg, David Bowie, Dom Chambers, Glastonbury Fayre, Mick Farren, Nik Turner, Spirit Of 71 Cafe

Front cover, Innocents EP, 1977.

Chance encounters with heroes can be tricky, but bumping into John Cooper Clarke outside the Festival Hall late one evening last week proved pleasurable beyond all expectation.

Clarke looked the bomb, naturally in dark glasses as midnight approached, his frame draped in a coat worn across the shoulders gangster-style with white silk scarf hanging loose. Charm personified, he returned my compliments with words of praise with which I’m still coming to terms.

It hasn’t taken much to versify them into this lame appropriation of Clarke’s rat-a-tat style:

“I know your work,

I’ve got The Look,

I was first on our block with that book.”

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Tags: 1977, Evidently Chickentown, Innocents EP, John Cooper Clarke, Martin Hannett, Psycle Sluts Parts One & Two, Rabid Records, Salford Tech, So It Goes, Strawberry Studios, Tony Wilson

Lean on me: Clemons + Springsteen in Eric Meola's Born To Run cover shot.

Here is Charles Shaar Murray’s contribution to my Clarence Clemons obit in today’s Daily Telegraph; his quotes fell victim to space considerations.

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Tags: 1975, Bruce Springsteen, Charles Shaar Murray, Clarence Clemons, Daily Telegraph, Hammersmith Odeon, Houston, Jon Landau

While I was writing an obituary for Clarence Clemons today, my friend Yuki Yoshioka texted me with the information that our mutual acquaintance the Swedish musician Gustaf Kjellvander died suddenly in his sleep on Saturday. He was 31.

Yuki says Gustaf popped into his thoughts this morning. On a whim, Google led him to Gustaf’s Wikipedia entry, which had been updated with this sad news.

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Tags: Chemical Girl, Control Freak!!, Gustaf Kjellvander, Joe Foster, Molly Jean, Poppy Disc, Radiola, The Fine Arts Showcase, Yuki Yoshioka

My brother Michael’s new book, Broken Pieces: A Library Life 1941-1978, is a personal and professional memoir.

Read about it here and buy a copy here.

Tags: ALA, Broken Pieces, Michael Gorman

Roland Barthes in his office at the École Pratique des Hautes Études, Paris, 1963. Henri Cartier Bresson/Magnum.

Interesting to note that Roland Barthes’ “anarchic foam of tastes and distastes” is contemporaneous with You’re Gonna Wake Up. No surprise then that J’aime, je n’aime pas became the starting point for updates and personal interpretations among list-loving binary-fixated bloggers from the mid-Noughties onwards.

Here is a translation of the Great Signifier’s original, complete with coda:

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Tags: 1977, Roland Barthes