//In conversation with (from top left) RBP’s Mark Pringle, Jasper Murison-Bowie and Barney Hoskyns//

I’m the featured guest on this week’s podcast from the world’s premier music journalism site rocksbackpages.com.

I go way back with RBP founder and author Barney Hoskyns; he commissioned pieces from me when he was Mojo editor in the early 90s and we launched my music press book In Their Own Write, RBP and photographer Jill Furmanovsky’s rockarchive.com on the same night at a Shoreditch gallery nearly 20 years ago.

I had fun talking to Barney and his confreres Mark Pringle and Jasper Murison-Bowie. The chat ranged from my background in trade journalism to, of course, the new Malcolm McLaren biography. Listen to the podcast here.

//David Harrison in customised Sex t-shirt, 1975//

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Tags: Barney HOskyns, Ben Is Dead, David Harrison, Forced Exposure, Grand Royal, In Their Own Write, Jasper Murison-Bowie, Jill Furmanovsky, John Lydon, Mark Pringle, Maximum Rock'n'Roll, Rock's Back Pages, Sex Pistols, Spice Girls, Toby Amies

//Dread at the controls: Toby Amies. Photo: Sarah Lee//

A self-confessed exhibitionist who took the world for his stage and his life for art and theatre, a blank canvas on which to create and display himself without preconceptions or inhibitions. Heavily tattooed and pierced, with his thin waxed moustache jutting forth at a rakish angle, Drako Zarhazar was for many years a familiar figure around the Kemptown district of Brighton, striding forth with cape and cane, an aristocratic apparition who seemed emblematic of true transgressive bohemia.

The Quietus, 2013

This Sunday evening I’m hosting a q&a at London’s BFI with director Toby Amies after a screening of The Man Whose Mind Exploded, his valediction for the unique Drako Oho Zarhazar.

Come along, enjoy this incredible film and join in the conversation afterwards. Tickets are available here.

The Man Whose Mind Exploded is being screened as part of BFI Flare, the London LGBT Film Festival.

Tags: BFI, BFI FLare, Brighton, Drako Oho Zarhazar, Kemptown, LGBT, The Man Whose Mind Exploded, The Quietus, Toby Amies

On Sunday March 30 I’ll be hosting a Q&A with film director Toby Amies (above right) after a screening at the BFI of The Man Whose Mind Exploded, Amies’ heart-rending documentary of the life of the extraordinary Drako  Zarharzar (above left).

We’ll be talking about Amies’ relationship with Drako, who died during the making of the film, and the often-fraught path documentarists tread between exploitation and celebration.

Other relevant matters, including the here and now, brain damage, memories, love, faith, cocks and nipples, may well crop up.

Come along, enjoy the film and join in; it will be a splendid way to spend a Sunday evening. Tickets here.

The Man Whose Mind Exploded is being screened as part of BFI Flare, the London LGBT Film Festival.

Tags: BFI, BFI FLare, Drako Zarhazar, London LGBT Film Festival, The Man Whose Mind Exploded, Toby Amies

I can’t wait to see documentarist Toby Amies’ envoi to his extraordinary friend Drako Oho Zarhazar.

Over the last year or so when we have bumped into each other socially, Amies has shown me snippets on his phone. Each tasty morsel has increased my hunger for this portrait of the late Brighton dweller Amies describes as “muse for Dali, actor for Jarman, dancer at Les Folies Bergère, outsider interior decorator, hero and legend”.

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Tags: Brighton, Derek Jarman, Drako Oho Zarhazar, Les Folies Bergère, Salvador Dali, Sheffield Doc/Fest, Toby Amies