//Malcolm McLaren with New York scenester Eileen Polk at New York nightclub Hurrah, October 1978. Photo: © Joe Stevens. No reproduction without permission//

Today marks eight years since the death of visual artist, designer and cultural provocateur Malcolm McLaren.

His friend Joe Stevens sent me this photo a couple of years back. It was taken during the period when McLaren – wearing one of the tartan bondage suits he designed with Vivienne Westwood – was mounting the defence of Sid Vicious, then on the murder charge for having killed Nancy Spungen.

This extraordinary episode from an extraordinary life – during which time McLaren encountered the likes of Donald Trump’s vile mentor Roy Cohn, the legendary radical lawyer William Kunstler and criminal defence attorney F. Lee Bailey (the latter by way of an introduction by Allen Ginsberg) – will of course be covered in my book Malcolm McLaren: The Biography, which is to be published by Constable & Robinson next year.

Tags: Allen Ginsberg, Constable & Robinson, Donald Trump, F. Lee Bailey, Hurrah, Roy Cohn, Sex Pistols, Sid Vicious, Vivienne Westwood, William Kunstler

//John Rotten performing with the Sex Pistols at Andrew Logan’s Valentine’s Ball, February 1976 in a hybrid Sex t-shirt combining the images from the ‘Tits’ and ‘Naked Footballer’ designs. Note Jordan Mooney (far left), Luciana Martinez (third right), Derek Jarman (with camera) and Vivienne Westwood (far right). Photo: Joe Stevens. No reproduction without permission//

Last summer I spent a pleasant afternoon in the company of American academic Benjamin Court, who has been researching a dissertation entitled The Politics of Musical Amateurism, 1968-1981.

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Tags: Andrew Logan, Audun Engh, Benjamin Court, Bob Anthony's Beefcake, Dave Martin, Jim French, Joe Stevens, Johnny Rotten, Jordan Mooney, Lavender Scare, Luciana Martinez, Maurice Spencer, Naked Footballer, Peter Gravelle, Sex Pistols, Sid Vicious, Stanford University

//London Records promotional image, 1958//

In 1956 the Hollywood photographer John E. Reed took a series of promotional shots of the stars of DJ Alan Freed’s rocksploitation flick Don’t Knock The Rock.

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Tags: Alan Freed, Chuck Berry, Don't Knock The ROck, Eddie Cochran, Gene Vincent, God Save The Queen, Jerry Lee Lewis, Jet Harris, JOhn E. Reed, Little Richard, London records, Patrick Casey, Sam Cooke, Sex Pistols, Sid Vicious, Yvonne Gold

//Malcolm McLaren in a previously unpublished shot wearing original 50s George Cox Bingley D-ring brothel creepers to match his detail-perfect Teddy Boy garb. Photo taken inside Let It Rock, 430 King’s Road, January 1972. (c) David Parkinson//

//Left, Saint Laurent point-toed patent brothel creepers, A/W 2014. Right: George Cox Buckle Diano made to the 1950s last//

Last season’s foregrounding by Saint Laurent of the pointed brothel creeper is just one of a run of examples of fashion brands plugging into the purity of this quintessentially British rock & roll style minted in 1949 by the UK independent footwear company George Cox.

Among the first stylistic innovators to take the design out of Teddy Boy revivalism and apply it to contemporary fashion was Malcolm McLaren, who had been selling creepers for a couple of years at Let It Rock, the boutique he operated with Vivienne Westwood, by the time he visited the Cox factory in Northampton in November 1973. Here he ordered samples for six styles, some of which went into production for sale at 430 King’s Road.

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Tags: Adam Waterfield, Commes des Garcons, Fred Perry, Ganryu, George Cox, Jamie Reid, Let It Rock, Ray Stevenson, Saint Laurent, Sex Pistols, Sid Vicious, The Bingley, The Diano, Vivienne Westwood

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

//Jim French Polaroid studies//

Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Sailor is an exhibition of Polaroids taken by artist, illustrator and print-maker Jim French which opens tonight at New York’s ClampArt gallery.

These include studies for French’s 1969 Colt Studio print Longhorns Dance, incorporated by Malcolm McLaren in 1975 in his notorious Cowboys t-shirt design, as sold in Sex and Seditionaries at 430 King’s Road and worn by the Sex Pistols and others.

//Longhorns Dance by Colt (Jim French) from Manpower! issue 7, 1974//

//Wearing their Cowboys (clockwise from top left): McLaren 1975, Sid Vicious 1977, Siouxsie 1976, Steve Jones 1975. Photographs: Bob Gruen; Dennis Morris; Ray Stevenson; Mick Rock.//

//From queerclick.com//

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Tags: Antinous Press, Bob Gruen, ClampArt, Colt Studio, Dennis Morris, Jim French, Mick Rock, Ray Stevenson, Seditionaries, SEX, Sex Pistols, Sid Vicious, Siouxsie, Steve Jones

This just in from Joe Stevens, following yesterday’s post about his new website: the story behind the photo with Johnny Rotten above, taken in London in 1978.

We were at his Gunter Grove digs in Fulham. Malcolm (McLaren) had left his grotty leathers in my flat in NYC during the Sid and Nancy murder doings. I had them dry cleaned. Never got the $90 for that one.
He had Glitterbest problems in London. So did Rotten. I was over there to do pictures of Public Image Limited.
He made a nice curry. I crashed there with him and Nora (Forster). Ari (Up, Forster’s daughter) would pop by often.
We watched her and The Slits record Heard It Thru The Grapevine and Chrissie (Hynde) rehearsing with her new Pretenders.
Yeah, he’s holding up his trousers with a strand of white cord.
I was later a witness at the High Court trial involving the band versus Glitterbest.
I tried on Malcolm’s leather trousers. Fell in love. It was a first. Went to London in them. Never took them off. Returned two weeks later to NYC wearing them.
Had them cleaned again. This time they didn’t survive. All I got back was swatches of leather in a bag.

Stevens’ new website is here.

Tags: Ari Up, Chrissie Hynde, Fulham, Glitterbest, Gunter Grove, Joe Stevens, Johnny Rotten, Nancy Spungen, Nora, Public Image Ltd, Sid Vicious, The Pretenders, The Slits

//Jah Wobble, 2009.//

NAME: Jah Wobble (real name: John Wardle)

RESIDES: Cheshire

OCCUPATION: Musician

It’s well documented that, in his teenage years, Jah Wobble was a member of the Four Johns, the gang of youths who gravitated to each other while at Kingsway College Of Further Education on the fringes of the City Of London in the mid-70s.

The other members included John Beverley, aka Sid Vicious, John Lydon – later Johnny Rotten of the Sex Pistols – and Lydon’s friend, John Gray.  Knocking around east and north London, the quartet followed football and voraciously consumed music from Bowie to Can to Hawkwind to Big Youth and beyond.

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Tags: Acme Attractions, Daniel hechter, Dennis Morris, Don Letts, Jah Wobble, Jeanette lee, John Lydon, John Wardle, Kenny macDonald, Marx, Missoni, Public Image Ltd, Sex Pistols, Sid Vicious, Terry Jones, versace