Paul Gorman is…

”I love the book… your work cascades over the decades’: David Bowie’s last email to Derek Boshier

Jan 12th, 2016
derekboshier_davidbowie_sta

//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.

Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: , , , , ,

Touched by the hand of Bowie

Jan 11th, 2016
IMG_0528

//Framed shred of Lucian Freud wallpaper designed by David Bowie for inclusion in the 1995 War Child fashion show Pagan Funwear//

It is of course very sad to note the death of David Bowie; 69 is too young, particularly for such an important figure in the pop cultural landscape with an evident abundance of creative contributions still to make to our lives.

Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

Beat This: A Hip Hop History – Malcolm McLaren taken by Michael Holman to the Zulu Nation in August 1981

May 21st, 2014

beathis1 beaththis4 beatthis2 beatthis3

Beat This: A Hip Hop History is an hour-long documentary broadcast by BBC in its Arena strand in 1984 and directed by Dick Fontaine (who I interviewed for my Goldie book back in the early 00s).

In one section Malcolm McLaren talks about his August 1981 introduction to Afrika Bambaataa’s Zulu Nation in the south Bronx.

This was effected by artist/filmmaker/writer Michael Holman; his often overlooked achievements include actually naming the genre “hip hop” in his East Village Eye column, founding the noise group Gray with Jean-Michel Basquiat (Holman also wrote the 1996 Julian Schnabel-directed biopic), running the world’s first hip-hop club (Negril, on 11th Street), creating the New York City Breakers and making the films and TV shows Catch A Beat, Beat Street and Graffiti Rock.

Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,