//Painting To Be Stepped On, Yoko Ono, 1961. Photograph: George Maciunas//

“People said Yoko Ono ruined the Beatles, but I think the Beatles ruined her in many ways”

Anne Bean, artist, to The Guardian, 2021.

Saturated as mass culture has recently been by Get Backery, I note the lack of celebration for another significant anniversary: 70 years since Yoko Ono became the first female student to be accepted onto the philosophy course at Tokyo’s Gakushuin University in 1952.

As noted in Inventing Downtown, Melissa Rachleff’s incisive history of New York’s artist-run galleries from the early 50s to the mid-60s, Ono left Gakushuin after two terms to join her parents in Manhattan, where she promptly enrolled at Sarah Lawrence College to study poetry and composition.

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Tags: 112 Chambers Street, Fluxus, Gakushuin University, George Maciunas, Get Back, Inventing Downtown, John Cage, John Lennon, La Monte Young, Marcel DUchamp, Melissa Rachleff, Painting To Be Stepped On, Sarah Lawrence College, Simone Forti, the Beatles, Toshi Ichiyanagi, Yoko Ono

At the bottom of page 66 of Melody Maker, September 13, 1975.

This is, I think, an exclusive. Much mentioned in the story of punk, I’ve not seen this ad published since it appeared 46 years ago.

Tucked away at the bottom of page 66 of the September 13 1975 issue of British music weekly Melody Maker was a relatively nondescript line advertisement offering the lease on premises in London’s Denmark Street, home to the British music publishing industry:

TIN PAN ALLEY.                Must be
useful for some msicians (sic), agent
or such. To take over.       Small lock-
up premises.    Store gear,      group-
meet,    rehearse,     hire-it-out,  etc.
Sacrifice.   –   455 7487.

Complete with that typo, this was the sole entry in the property section of the MM’s classifieds pages, which that week included hundreds of ads for musicians, instruments and equipment over seven pages.

The ad was tucked away at the bottom of the page.

The advert would have cost the leaseholder Bill Collins around £3.50 to post. The father of actor Lewis Collins, the Liverpudlian had made a name for himself in the music business, having been instrumental in the success of 60s powerpop quartet Badfinger, signing them to the Beatles’ Apple label when they were The Iveys. Collins even shared songwriting credits with the group, including those for Without You, which became a massive worldwide hit when covered by Harry Nilsson.

By 1973 Collins had been excluded from Badfinger’s affairs by the powerful US entrepreneur Stan Polley, who was soon accused of depriving the group of millions of dollars. In April 1975, a few months before Collins placed the ad, Badfinger mainman Pete Ham hanged himself at home, blaming Polley in the suicide note for the group’s misfortunes.

Another page of ads towards the back of the issue of MM with a news filler about a bomb scare interrupting a performance by a long-forgotten act called Screamer.

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Tags: Apple Records, Badfinger, Ben Kelly, Bill Collins, Denmark Street, Glen Matlock, Harry Nilsson, Historic England, John Lydon, Jon Savage, Kutie Jones and his Sex Pistols, Melody Maker, Pete Ham, Sex Pistols, STan Polley, the Beatles, The Iveys, The QT Rooms, Tin Pan Alley, Vivienne Westwood

//Maquette for Great Big Biggest Wide London, 1958. 5.6 x 61cm//

//Robyn Denny, 1961. Photo: Bernard Jacobson Gallery//

The late British abstract artist Robyn Denny is best known for his large-scale works, such as Great Big Biggest Wide London, the giant 1959 mural for menswear company Austin Reed’s Regent Street store.

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Tags: Austin Reed, Bernard Jacobson Gallery, Dominic Denny, Great Big Biggest Wide London, Portuguese Airlines, Richard Smith, Robyn Denny, Royal College Of Art, the Beatles

//Wild youth: Scenes of abandon from Twist Drunk/Drunk Twist in Ark 33. Photos: Keith Branscombe//

//Cover, Ark 33, Autumn 1962. Photography: Keith Branscombe//

The publication of issue 33 of the Royal College of Art’s magazine ARK in the autumn of 1962 hit the moment in terms of the turbo-charging of contemporary youth culture.

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Tags: ARK, Bill James, Brian Haynes, David Clarke, Derek Boshier, Don McCullin, Dougie Millings, Eric Mottram, Geof Reeve, John Stephen, Keith Branscombe, Marc Bolan, Mark Boxer, Mark Feld, Pauline Boty, Peter Blake, Royal College Of Art, Shashi Rawal, the Beatles, Town

//Front of folded flyer, 6.5 x 8″//

Graphic artist, musician, fashion and interiors designer and all-round all-rounder Ian Harris has granted me access to more items from his amazing archive; this is in the intriguing category –  a flyer for a most unusual art project he visited in the early 1970s.

Warhol Waking was staged over one day in the foyer of Kensington Town Hall in west London in the spring of 1971. This tumultuous period of creative experimentation in public and private spaces was later described as representing either “the immense variety and talent of the London arts scene or its condition of cultural confusion” by artist and art historian John A. Walker.

The installation/intervention proved challenging for visitors: it comprised a typical domestic bed with sheets and blanket drawn back to reveal excrement juxtaposed with a towering orchid which drooped as the day passed and flies gathered.

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Tags: Alexander Trocchi, Andy Warhol, Apple Boutique, Fitzrovia, Gosfield Street, John A. Walker, Karma-Sigma, Kensington Town Hall, Left Shift: Radical Art In 1970s, London Fillmore Foundation, Marijke Koger-Dunham, Pink Floyd, Studio International, the Beatles

//Jordan Mooney and David “Piggy” Worth. From photo by Patrick Lichfield, 1976//

//As they appeared in the Parlophone full-page advert for The Beatles compilation Rock “n”Roll Muisc, New Musical Express, June 26, 1976//

“He was a man full of wit and charm who always had an eye for new and exciting things. His special characteristics were kindness and forethought”

Jordan Mooney, 2016 

Following my recent blogs on the life of the late fashion model David “Piggy” Worth, here is a gem: Sex and Seditionaries superstar Jordan Mooney recalls her friend and in particular the time Worth urged her to join him in a 50s photoshoot by royal photographer Patrick Lichfield.

This was used for an advert and poster promoting Rock ‘N’ Roll Music, a compilation of previously released cover versions recorded by The Beatles between 1962 and 1970.

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Tags: 100 Club, David "Piggy" Worth, Jordan Mooney, New Musical Express, Patrick Lichfield, Rock 'N' Roll Music, Sex Pistols, the Beatles

//Front cover, Elemental, The Earth, Rare Vinyl, 2016. Design: Ian Harris//

Ian Harris is one of those London characters who turns up at various stages in the capital’s post-war pop culture narrative.

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Tags: 39 Gerrard Street, Alan Parsons, Black Sabbath, Coffin Club, Elemntal, Genesis, Ian Harris, Janet Street-Porter, Kleptomania, Pretty Things, Record Collector, Regent Sound Studios, Rolling Stones, Terry Tonik, the Beatles, The Earth, The Who, West One

//Robyn Denny, early 60s. Photo: Bernard Jacobson Gallery//

Artist/illustrator Peter Knock pays tribute to the British ‘Situation’ painter Robyn Denny, who has died:

Sad to learn of the death of abstract painter Robyn Denny last Tuesday (May 20).  It surprised me that he was, in fact, 83; my image of him is locked into the 60s when he was one of the hip and talented artists to have emerged from the Royal College of Art (where he studied in the 50s).

Great Big Biggest Wide London, Denny’s mural for Austin Reed’s Regent Street store, conveyed classic 1960s new age optimism, and received the ultimate seal of approval as a piece defining of its era when The Beatles asked to be photographed standing in front of it in 1963.

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Tags: Austin Reed, Great Big Biggest Wide London, Josef Albers, Patrick Caulfield, Peter Blake, Peter Knock, Richard Smith, Robyn Denny, Royal College Of Art, Tate Britain, the Beatles, Tom Overton

//Front cover, Rock Archive, Various Artists, Windmill Records, 1972//

It is relatively common knowledge among those interested in the careers of Malcolm McLaren and Vivienne Westwood and their series of extraordinary shops that they supplied clothes to the 1973 album Golden Hour Of Rock & Roll; Let It Rock at 430 King’s Road was clearly credited on the back of the record sleeve.

//Front cover, The Golden Hour Of Rock N Roll, Various Artists, Pye/Golden Hour, 1973//

//The photograph on the Rock Archive cover was flipped to better accommodate the text. Here it is as originally shot//

But I have fresh information which helps towards a greater understanding of McLaren’s project to investigate the detritus of popular culture’s recent past. During a bout of research recently I came across this earlier and hitherto undocumented use of Let It Rock clothing in a music context: the front cover of Rock Archive, a budget LP compilation released by the specialist British independent label Windmill in 1972.

And I am detailing the clothes on the cover with images taken inside Let It Rock which have never been previously published.

//Starke shirts with 50s sports jacket on Let It Rock wall, January 1972. Photograph: David Parkinson//

//Starke label detail//

Each garment worn by the model – whose attempts at rocking out resulted in his giving every appearance of suffering considerable pain – comes from the deadstock of British brands assiduously assembled by Malcolm McLaren and his art-school friend Patrick Casey for the opening of the world’s first avowedly post-modern retail outlet in November 1971.

From the ground up, the Rock Archive cover star wore black suede Denson’s Fine Poynts, ice-blue Lybro jeans with 5in cuffs, a Frederick Starke flyaway collar shirt and a studded and decorated Lewis Leathers early 60s Lightning jacket (which featured a highly collectable 6-5 Special patch).

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Tags: Bruton Street, Cathy Gale, Densons, Fine Pynts, Frederick Starke, Fumble, Golden Hour Of Rock & Roll, Good Golly Miss Molly, Hipgnosis, Honor Blackman, Let It Rock, Lewis Leathers, Lightning jacket, Little Richard, Lloyd Johnson, Lord Saatchi, Lybro, Paradise Garage, Patrick Casey, Rock Archive, Screaming Lord Sutch, Sunday Times, Teddy Boys, The Avengers, the Beatles, Vivienne Westwood, Windmill Records, Zapata