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“Fashion seemed to be the place where music and art came together. Creating my own clothes was like jumping into the musical end of painting. The shop became a natural extension of my studio.” Malcolm McLaren. The Look, 2001. Featuring a rare portrait of Malcolm McLaren displaying his wares inside the recently opened Let It […]
Researching my archive during lockdown for a project has given me the opportunity to thoroughly assess individual publications, none more so than the 59th issue of underground paper IT, which hit the streets in early July 1969. This particular edition features a couple of small items which provide clues as to the countercultural activities at […]
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 […]
We have to take our pleasures where we can during these grim times, and last night’s virtual book launch of my Malcolm McLaren biography provided a much-needed tonic. The plan was to celebrate the publication with a party at the library bar of London’s hotel The Standard, with a relaxed congregation of friends and contributors […]
“With this book, Gorman convincingly moves away from the ossified image of McLaren as a great rock’n’roll swindler, a morally bankrupt punk Mephistopheles, and closer towards his art-school roots, his love of ideas” Victoria Segal reviewing The Life & Times of Malcolm McLaren in the Sunday Times, April 5, 202 The first reviews of my […]
“Within the slippery divides between disciplines and media – fashion, art, music, interiors, commerce – one finds Malcolm McLaren, roaming and creating.” Lou Stoppard in her essay in The Life & Times Of Malcolm McLaren Disruption to the publication of a book is extremely small beer at a time when the COVID-19 pandemic has set […]
In October 1974 Malcolm McLaren conjured an unusual group name for four young musicians who congregated at his shop at 430 King’s Road. At the time the transition from the premises’ previous incarnation as Too Fast To Live Too Young To Die to Sex was nearing completion; in fact the teenagers Paul Cook, Steve Jones, […]
Perfect Binding, the recently published book by British experimental filmmaker/broadcaster/bookseller William English, is a psychogeographic portrait of a particular strain of cultural activity in a particular place at a particular time: the Midlands city of Leicester from the 1950s to the 70s.
The British sex magazine Curious was well-named: for the duration of its near-decade long run from the late 1960s it was indeed a curiosity.
I was flattered recently to receive an email from Jacob Shaw, bassist in art-rockers Wild Daughter, about the effect my work has had on certain visual elements of the group and in particular a performance during their recent ICA night The Moon Sextiles The Sun.