//Billy Murphy by Sean Moorman//

“There were many kings of the King’s Road at different periods of time but there was only one Emperor”

Lloyd Johnson

Very sad to note the passing of Billy Murphy, a thoroughly lovely bloke whose contribution to street fashion – particularly in Britain and specifically in and around the King’s Road – is sorely underrated.

I knew all about Billy’s significance in his field decades before I met him; as I wrote here, his shop The Emperor Of Wyoming was “an extremely important staging post not just in the story of British rock and roll fashion but also the development of the vintage scene in this country”.

//Stetson, embroidered shirt and hand-tooled leather belt from The Emperor Of Wyoming. Photo: David Parkinson for Club International, February 1974//

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Tags: Billy Murphy, Club International, Flip, Janet Street-Porter, Karl Stoecker, King's Road, Paradise Garage, Pru Walters, Sean Moorman, The Emperor Of Wyoming, Trevor myles, West One

//Electric Colour Company’s Roderic Stokes and David Smith with Carol Davey at Blueberry Hill, 91 King’s Road, London, 1970//

Here are a couple of images relating to late 60s/early 70s British design studio Electric Colour Company; I’m writing a magazine feature about their exceptional body of work which ran from signage, custom-built furniture and shop designs (notably Mr Freedom, Paradise Garage and City Lights Studio) to lighting modules, display objects, interior decoration, murals, custom cars and fashion accessories.

In November 1970 the King’s Road boutique Blueberry Hill was launched with a comprehensive fit-out – reported at a substantial-for-those-days £3,000 – by the ECC team of Andrew Greaves, Jeffrey Pine, David Smith and Roderic Stokes.

//By the time this coverage appeared in the February 1971 issue of Design magazine, Blueberry Hill had been closed for several weeks//

Despite the extraordinary nature of the shop design – which included cloud-form light fittings in neon strip  and a timber counter with spray-on brickwork finish resembling a well-head – Blueberry Hill closed after just six weeks when the landlords opted to replace it with a more bankable betting shop.

//Irene Smith and Dinah Adams with the ECC-customised Ford Fairlane 500, 1970//

//Advert, Time Out, 1970//

The other photograph shows ECC fellow travellers Dinah Adams – who designed clothes for Mr Freedom, Paradise Garage and Granny Takes A Trip – and Irene Smith with the customised Ford Fairlane which also appeared in the East End company’s advertising.

I’ll give the nod when my piece on Electric Colour Company is nearing publication.

Visit the ECC site here.

Thanks to Andrew Greaves for the photographs.

Tags: Andrew Greaves, Blueberry Hill, Carol Davey, David Smith, Dinah Adams, Electric Colour Company, Ford Fairlane 500, Irene Smith, Jeffrey Pine, King's Road, Mr Freedom, Paradise Garage, Roderic Stokes

//Roberts, right, tries on a military greatcoat at I Was Lord Kitchener’s Valet//

Look out for an appearance by Tommy Roberts – subject of my new book – in the 1967 documentary Three Swings On A Pendulum, currently available for viewing (in the UK at least) on BBC iPlayer.

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Tags: Arnold Wesker, BBC, Ben Olins, Biba, Carnaby Street, Charlie Simpson, Gear, Geraldine Chaplin, Granny Takes A trip, I Was Lord Kitchener's Valet, John Paul, John Pearse, King's Road, Lewis Nkosi, Male W1, Olivier Todd, Oz, Portobello Road, Robert Hughes, Three Swings On A Pendulum

//From a review of the Queen Elizabeth College All Night Christmas Ball by Kate Phillips, New Musical Express, December 27, 1975.//

This is something of an exclusive.

Not published in the 36 years since appearing in the issue of the New Musical Express dated December 27, 1975, this is the very first media mention of the Sex Pistols (just seven weeks after their live debut).

These sentences were written by NME staffer Kate Phillips in her review of the All Night Christmas Ball on November 27 1975 at Queen Elizabeth College (then in Campden Hill, Kensington, west London).

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Tags: Chelsea College Of Art, Chris Salewicz, Georgie Fame & the Blue Flames, Kate Phillips, King's Road, Malcolm McLaren, Manresa Street, Mike Absolom, Neil Spencer, NME, Queen Elizabeth College, Sex Pistols, Slack Alice, Tony Tyler

//The Roebuck, 354 Kings Road, 1976.//

Thanks to Neal Purvis for alerting me to these captivating photographs taken in London in the hot summer of 1976 by German holidaymaker Klaus Hiltscher.

As Neal points out, Hiltscher captures the mood of the city in that specific period; I don’t believe my recall is playing tricks on me when I write that every day – from May through to September – was glorious in terms of the weather, and more often than not eventful in a variety of ways.

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Tags: Antiquarius, Gary Craze, Jean Machine, Jeff Kwintner, John Simons, Johnny Rotten, King's Road, Klaus Hiltscher, Malcolm McLaren, Meeny's, Neal Purvis, Sex Pistols, The Pheasantry, The Roebuck, The Squire Shop, You're Gonna Wake Up

A couple of weeks back I and writer Teddy Jamieson strolled the length of the King’s Road for his piece on the thoroughfare for the Herald Scotland.

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Tags: Granny Takes A trip, King's Road, Mona Lisa, Seditionaries, SEX, Teddy Jamieson, The Picasso

//Anita Pallenberg + film-maker Harmony Korine, 2008. Photo: Eva Vermandel.//

A couple of years back I interviewed Anita Pallenberg – who celebrated her birthday yesterday – for Mojo magazine.

The subject was the scene in and around the King’s Road in 1967. Crisp and funny, Pallenberg was just as buzzed about the present;  visiting Karl Lagerfeld in Paris the next day, her interests in gardening and photography, the bargains to be found in charity shops and the notion of a collection based on the MA show from her studies at Saint Martins in the 90s.

A few months later, with her friend Anna Sui, Pallenberg participated in a rock & roll event I organised at the Port Eliot LitFest; after the show it was an honour to give her a vintage Vive Le Rock tee, which, of course, she wore with her trademark élan.

Here’s a refreshed and re-edited chance to appreciate this bewitching figure whose combination of innate style, fashion-savviness and earthy sexuality brought Continental sophistication to Swinging London and turned it on its head:

Gawky gamins and dolly-birds melted into insignificance in the presence of the impressive 21-year-old who arrived in London in 1965 having already studied graphic design in her native Rome, assisted Vogue photographer Gianni Penati and modelled in Paris.

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Tags: Anita Pallenberg, Donald Cammell, Emmerton & Lambert, Eva Vermandel, Granny Takes A trip, Harmony Korine, James Fox, Keith Richards, King's Road, Ossie Clarke, Robert Fraser, Volker Schlöndorff