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My favourite group of the mid 90s were the antithesis of Britpop, which was alright with me. Sukia came out of Silverlake with a vaguely sinister vibe, a clutch-bag of odd samples and a whole other set of references, many from Mexican-American trash culture. Their 1997 single The Dream Machine is a jump-up staple.
This is a favourite of mine + Mrs G’s for a bit of a mid-to-late evening shape-throwing. First because it’s a great song. And then mine because every listen to my copy in the paper sleeve on Fast Product brings back the awe I felt on hearing the delivery of yet more true new music […]
Tommy Roberts reminisces about the look of 1967: By 1967 Haight Ashbury hippie culture had taken off in London. At Kleptomania – my boutique around the corner from Carnaby Street at 10 Kingly Street – it was embraced with gusto. Out went red guardsman’s tunics, Union Jack kipper ties, Victorian-style lacy mini dresses, soul music […]
A recent conversation with artist John Frankland about the work of Mervyn Peake has brought me back to one of my most treasured possessions: the 1970 Penguin edition of Peake’s masterpiece Gormenghast. Designed by Robert Hollingsworth, the three illustrated paperbacks Titus Groan (first published in 1946) Gormenghast (1950) and Titus Alone (1959) were housed in […]
Can’t beat a bit of Chuck for a frolic. Watch him move. I saw him live a year or so later at The Rainbow. He played a 35-minute set and brought on his daughter for the lovey-dovey finale. It may have been South Of The Border. When the Teds realised he had vamoosed rather than […]
Here’s another from from Stagger Lee‘s trick bag (click on the title): Slim Cessna’s Auto Club – A Smashing Indictment Of Character (Alternative Tentacles) Not well know in the UK, which is a shame, this Denver band operate somewhere between the Violent Femmes, The Bad Seeds, The Handsome Family and Th’Legendary Shack Shakers, so we’re […]
My theorising over the roots of the Cowboys t-shirt has uncovered the true source of the main image: a 1969 drawing by the artist Jim French reproduced in a 1974 issue of his magazine Manpower!. French has an international following for his gay-themed photographic + illustrative work, via his Colt Studio image-bank and work as […]
Patti Smith is the focus of the latest Beatbooks sale, which is accompanied by a printed catalogue up to the usual high standards of the archive’s curator Andrew Sclanders.
This is Lee Perry really mixing up the medicine with his dub of The Heptones’ 1976 song. It’s billed as Party Time 2 on the great Arkology 3-CD set from quite a few years back. I was given my now tattered, battered, partied + cherished copy by the much missed Rob Partridge. Wherever you are: […]
MY SPECULATION HERE SPARKED A TRAIL TO THE TRUE SOURCE OF THE MAIN IMAGE: THE ARTIST/PHOTOGRAPHER JIM FRENCH, WHO DREW THE COWBOYS FOR A SERIES CALLED LONGHORNS IN 1969 (SEE LINK AT END OF THIS POST). The late Malcolm McLaren said he could never remember the origins of one of the most potent designs to […]