//John Lydon. From The Face issue 8, December 1980. Photo: Sheila Rock//

//Grace Jones. From The Face issue 6, October 1980. Main photo: Jill Furmanovsky//

//Divine. From The Face issue 9, January 1981. Photo: Sheila Rock//

Here’s a selection of articles for early issues of The Face by veteran music journalist/author (and my old mucker) Chris Salewicz to mark the fact that he and I will be in conversation about my new book The Story Of The Face at leading south London independent bookshop Bookseller Crow on Tuesday evening (November 28).

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Tags: Anton Corbijn, Bookseller Crow, Carlo Manzi, Chris Salewicz, Debbie Harry, Divine, Grace Jones, Jah Wobble, Jill Furmanovsky, Joe Strummer, John Lydon, Kensington Market, Mike Laye, NME, Sheila Rock

//Leporello for The Conformist featuring (far left), David Parkinson’s unusual entry in his 1970 photography degree show at London’s Regent Street Poly//

//Paul Kindersley at last night’s exhibition opening//

The Conformist – artist Paul Kindersley’s counter intuitively-titled group show about non-conformity of expression from Emma, Lady Hamilton and Aubrey Beardsley to Marvin Gaye Chetwynd and Julie Verhoeven – opened with a bang last night with a private view at Mayfair’s art and jewellery space Belmacz.

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Tags: Aubrey Beardsley, Belmacz, Club International, Emma Lady Hamilton, Eve Ferret, I Groaned With Pain, Jah Wobble, James Cahill, John Frankland, Judy Blame, Julia Muggenburg, Julie Verhoeven, Leigh Bowery, Let It Rock, Marvin Gaye Chetwynd, Rose Wylie, Stephen Jones, Valerie Allam, Vivienne Westwood

‘

I am among the participants in The Conformist, a group exhibition being organised for the New Year by artist Paul Kindersley at the gallery of Julia Muggenburg’s extraordinary London art/jewellery establishment Belmacz.

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Tags: Aubreay Beardsley, Belmacz, Bernardo Bertolucci, Denton Welch, Eric Gill, Helen Bullock, Helen Chadwick, Jah Wobble, Jennifer Campbell, Jonathan Baldock, Julia Muggenburg, Julie Verhoeven, Lady Emma Hamilton, Leigh Bowery, Marvin Gaye Chetwynd, Paul Housley, Paul Kindersley, Richard Malone, Robert Rush, Rose Wylie, Stephen Jones

//Marx, the Great Gear Market, 85, King’s Road, Chelsea, 1979. Photo: Salvador Macasil//

In the histories of London street style, Kenny MacDonald’s King’s Road outlet Marx receives rare mention, yet from the mid-70s this unusual and tucked-away boutique was important in the development of the type of English tailoring-with-a-twist which has subsequently dominated a strand of menswear around the world.

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Tags: Acme Attractions, Boy, Futurama, Great Gear Market, Hoofer, Jah Wobble, Jeanette lee, John Lydon, John Wardle, Kenny macDonald, Marx, Peel + Lift, PiL, Pinto, Public Image Ltd, Salvador Macasil, Tom Salter, Trickers

//Jah Wobble as a female newsreader in the promo for Merry Go Round//

Love the clip from Jah Wobble for his cracking new song Merry Go Round.

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Tags: 30hertz, Cherry Red, Jah Wobble, Redux, Ronnie Anger, William Blake

This is nice; pal and fellow Chelsea Arts Club member John Wardle talks about the importance of the immediate neighbourhood, its artistic tradition going back to the likes of Whistler, the licentiousness of the Cremorne Pleasure Gardens in Victorian times, the Bohemian atmosphere engendered by the 70s slums around the Lots Road Power Station and how all of this combined to create the breeding ground for punk.

John also talks about his love for Hawkwind, Sid Vicious, how he sold the bass he played on Metal Box to the Jesus & Mary Chain for a drink and why he should really have done the interview topless…

Tags: Aswad, Chelsea, Chelsea Arts Club, Cremorne Pleasure Gardens, Hawkwind, Jah Wobble, Jesus & Mary Chain, Jill Furmanovsky, John Wardle, Metal Box, Public Image Ltd, Sid Vicious, Under The Bridge

//Top: Stacia Blake weaving her magic onstage at The Roundhouse in 1975. Photo: Paul Apperley. Above: Peter Lavery's photo of Russell Hunter from the insert in the Pink Fairies' 1973 album Kings Of Oblivion. Posted on the Facebook Portobello Shuffle group by Ian Nottnotw Edmondson//

Sad to witness Hawkwind, the great British musical force which has carved out a unique position outside of the mainstream music business over several decades, dragged into a tawdry row regarding ownership of the group’s name.

The dispute has been sparked by  saxophonist/flautist/sometime frontman Nik Turner. It seems he is trademarking the group’s name as a touring entity in the US, even though he hasn’t been a member for a long time.

Turner was in the line-up during Hawkwind’s greatest period, 1970-76, and returned sporadically until a parting of the ways with Dave Brock, generally acknowledged as Hawkwind’s founder and the band’s one constant, at the helm for all 44 years of its existence.

If scans of signed US documents circulated online prove to be authentic, Turner’s registration in the US – where he has just toured under the banner Nik Turner’s Hawkwind – denies the existence of any other entity of that name operating in the field of live performance. This undercuts his claims in the American press that he wants to spread peace and harmony by invoking Hawkwind’s name and has enraged a section of the fan base.

Brock meanwhile has cancelled his Hawkwind’s American tour on the basis that he – at 72, a year younger than Turner – is suffering from a stress-related illness as result of the dispute.

//Barney Bubbles poster for Sunday bill at The Roundhouse, 1975//

//I went with my friend Matthew Cang. He kept his ticket//

This is all a long way from the relative harmony in the ranks when I fell under their spell as a teenager. I saw Hawkwind a few times, at the Edmonton Sundown or the Dagenham Roundhouse in north-east London and at a free festival in Harlow New Town, Essex, but one particular concert in February 1975 when the ensemble played Camden Town’s Roundhouse with the Pink Fairies stays in the memory.

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Tags: 1975, Andy Dunkley, Andy Summers, Camden Town, Dave Brock, Duncan sanderson, Groupie, Hawkwind, Jah Wobble, John Lydon, Kings Of Olivion, Lady June, Larry Wallis, Lol Coxhill, Matthew Cang, Mick Jones, Nik Turner, Peter Lavery, Portobello Shuffle, Roundhouse, Russell Hunter, Shane Magowan, Stacia Blake, The Police, Twink

//Brian Eno + David Bowie interviewed by Anthea Turner for British breakfast TV at Flowers, east London, October 1994. This was to publicise the charity art show/auction Little Pieces From Big Stars. By this time the pair were collaborating again, on 1. Outside. For reasons now lost to me, I drove Brian to the gallery early that morning.//

I interviewed David Bowie a couple of the times in the 90s, having met him via fund-raising idea contributions I made to the music industry’s favoured charity, War Child. In the preceding months he had been an enthusiastic contributor to the art events Little Pieces From Big Stars (1994) and Pagan Fun Wear (1995).

This interview took place in the summer of 1995 when Bowie was promoting 1.Outside, notable in that it marked a return to collaboration with Brian Eno (who I also interviewed at the time for his work on that as well as another collaboration, with Jah Wobble on the ambient project Spinner).

Bowie had emerged from the maligned Glass Spider/Tin Machine period a couple of years earlier with more creditable, if not particularly memorable efforts, including The Buddha Of Suburbia soundtrack. He was also actively ploughing a furrow into the visual arts and already mutating as a musician and performer, soon to become a familiar presence on the international festival circuit and engaging in sorties into jungle manifested in the follow-up album Earthling (for which I also interviewed him).

Ideas crackled off Bowie throughout the conversation; Eno once told me that working with him on a song in the studio was like watching a fast-motion film of a flower blossom.

In our chat, Bowie even flew a kite about producing an album based around a fictional character Nathan Adler every year until 2000 culminating in a Robert Wilson-style epic theatrical production at the Brooklyn Academy Of Music. Of course these never came to fruition.

How did you come to hook up with Brian Eno again?
When Brian came to my wedding in 1992, I had instrumental pieces for what would eventually become a third of Black Tie White Noise – music that I composed to be played in the church and at the party afterwards. He explained he was working in a not dissimilar area and I was starting on The Buddha Of Suburbia, where I pretty much started to survey the territory I wanted to be involved in. After a series of conversations, working with Brian really came together in early March 1994.
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Tags: 1.Outside, 1995, Brian Eno, David Bowie, Jah Wobble, Robert Fripp, Robert Wilson, Spinner, Virgin, War Child

//Jeff Dexter (back to camera) with fashion historian Laura Helms + Nigel Waymouth.//

The Lewis Leathers shop in Whitfield Street W1 was the venue of the launch of The Look Of London map collaboration with Herb Lester Associates.

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Tags: Alex Taylor, Ali Rose, Ben Olins, Bruce Marcus, Caz Facey, Cube PR, Dawbell PR, Derek Harris, Ed Rekkers, Eve Ferret, Gieves & Hawkes, Herb lester Associates, Jah Wobble, Jane Smillie, Jeff Dexter, John Frankland, John Gall, Jordan Baseman, JP Gaul, Jules Middlebrook, Kitty Regan, Laura Helms, Lewis Leathers, Mark Wagstaff, Mrs G, Nick Abrahams, Nick ferman, Nicoal Murray, Nigel Waymouth, Patrick Watson, Rachel Caunt, Saint Craft, Sarah Watson, Suze Malyon, Teri Grenert, Tom Sheehan, Will Hodgkinson

This is Tightrope by Psychic Life, the new project from Julie Campbell + Jah Wobble with contributions from the latter’s colleague in the first Public Image Ltd line-up, Keith Levene.

Campbell released an album last year as Lonelady.

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Tags: Jah Wobble, John Lydon, Julie Campbell, Keith Levene, Lonelady, PiL, Poptones, Psychic Life, Theme, Tightrope