//Polaroids taken on the journey by Bayley courtesy of the NYU Richard Hell Archive//

//Opening spread of my feature in GQ UK March 2015//

“I’m forever grateful for Jake for giving us the opportunity. It was magical that he wanted to encourage Roberta and me to use our abilities in a new way. Just another example of his beautiful style.”
Richard Hell

The new issue of GQ UK contains my piece about the quixotic 1980 US road trip undertaken by Roberta Bayley and Richard Hell in a Cadillac Eldorado belonging to Jake Riviera (who conceived and sponsored the journey).

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Tags: 1980, Cadillac Eldorado, GQ, Jake Riviera, NYU, Richard hell, Roberta Bayley

Sleevenotes make a vinyl record package complete.

When they appear with CDs they’re just too diddy; on a 12-inch sleeve they’re writ large. Like good sleeve design, the best text – whether scrawled or neatly arranged – enhances and delights.

This is Joe Strummer’s contribution to Charly Records’ rock-solid 1980 Lee Dorsey collection Gonh Be Funky, compiled by Cliff White (who was responsible for an incomparable run of reissues around this time).

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Tags: 1980, Charly Records, Cliff White, Gonh Be Funky, Joe Strummer, Lee Dorsey

As explored in In Their Own Write, the most important creative in the development of British print media in the latter half of the 20th Century was Nick Logan. Arguably his greatest contribution was via the launch of The Face in 1980.

This year-end review – “123 things to remember 1980 by” – was featured in issue 9, published 30 years ago.

Adopting the technique applied at Harpers & Queen by the magazine’s poster boy Peter York – who appears in this issue in three separate articles due to the recent publication of his tone-setting Style Wars – The 1980 Face Show inaugurated the lifestyle list-culture which dominates global media to this day.

It’s as fascinating for who it promulgated – who can remember the name of Bad Manners’ lead singer now? – as for that which it found hard to define.

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Tags: 1980, Harpers & Queen, Keith Joseph, New Romantics, Nick Logan, Peter York, Robert Elms, The Face