Totally Wired x Ambit Pop x Disco Pogo x others = We Love Music! at Magculture on October 27

I’ll be joining contemporary music magazines including Disco Pogo and Ambit Pop at a celebration of the music press then and now at London’s premier magazine outlet Magculture a week on Thursday (October 27).

Magculture currently stocks a dozen music magazines, so is the appropriate place to talk about the past, the present and the future of the media sector which has spawned so many exciting publications as well as writers, designers, photographers and editors.

Starting at 6.30pm, I’ll be discussing the themes raised in my book Totally Wired: The Rise and Fall of the Music Press with magCulture’s Jeremy Leslie,and then we’ll be joined by editors including Paul Benney of Disco Pogo (and also co-founder of 90s mag Jockey Slut) and Kirsty Allison of Ambit + Ambit Pop.

Details and tickets for the event are available here.

‘Illuminating treatise… essential reading’ Electronic Sound on Totally Wired

The first review of my next book Totally Wired: The Rise & Fall of the Music Press is in the current issue of British monthly Electronic Sound, which receives a mention in the post-2000 epilogue:

Challenging my ‘rise & fall’ thesis, Electronic Sound‘s review is nevertheless complimentary, describing the book as an ‘illuminating treatise’ and ‘essential reading’.

Visit Electronic Sound and buy the latest issue here.

Order your copy of Totally Wired at all good booksellers, including bookshop.org.

 

 

Invitation to the 1970 opening of Universal Witness in Fulham Road: Paul Reeves’ taste-making brilliance, George Hardie’s graphic excellence + David Bowie’s bippity-boppity hat…

//George Hardie’s design for card announcing the opening of Universal Witness at 167 Fulham Road on November 17 1970//

Here’s another treasure from the trove of Design magazines given to me by the designer Paul Walters; the invitation for the opening of Paul Reeves’ west London boutique Universal Witness in November 1970.

Continue reading Invitation to the 1970 opening of Universal Witness in Fulham Road: Paul Reeves’ taste-making brilliance, George Hardie’s graphic excellence + David Bowie’s bippity-boppity hat…

Post-Pistol – a timely look at Malcolm McLaren’s London at Fora Soho tonight

What with Pistol and all, it seems timely to discuss Malcolm McLaren’s place in the scheme of things so tonight journalist Helen Barrett and I will be in conversation at a London Society event about the late cultural iconoclast’s relationship with the city of his birth. Here is a selection of visuals from this evening’s presentation.

Continue reading Post-Pistol – a timely look at Malcolm McLaren’s London at Fora Soho tonight

Malcolm McLaren’s London Life with Helen Barrett at the London Society on June 9

In the evening June 9 I’ll be in Soho for a London Society event about the London life of the late cultural provocateur Malcolm McLaren.

At workplace venue Fora in Broadwick Street writer Helen Barrett and I will be discussing the ways in which the man born in Stoke Newington and buried in Highgate Cemetery used the city as the springboard for his dizzying range of creative and subversive activities.

Continue reading Malcolm McLaren’s London Life with Helen Barrett at the London Society on June 9