On the heels of Edward Bell’s Unmade Up… and Dylan Jones’ A Life comes another strong David Bowie-related book: Susan Compo’s Earthbound.
Continue reading Earthbound: The story of The Man Who Fell To Earth
Books
The Story Of The Face in British GQ
Out today, the November 2017 issue of British GQ includes a 10-page feature on my forthcoming book The Story Of The Face: The Magazine That Changed Culture.
A solid testament: David Bowie A Life by Dylan Jones
In contrast to Unmade Up, Edward Bell’s light-touch but nonetheless deeply personal memoir of David Bowie recently reviewed here, Dylan Jones’ A Life is a weighty, text-heavy tome, with hundreds of contributors packed into its unillustrated 560 pages.
And that’s fine; Jones’ choice of the oral history format maintains the pace as his subject transitions from humble ‘Bromley Dave’ into the superstar whose work continues to beguile and bewitch.
Continue reading A solid testament: David Bowie A Life by Dylan Jones
RIP Gary Warnett, streetwear guru and sneaker supremo
This is a terrible week for those of us interested in the accumulation of knowledge and expertise surrounding design, music and popular culture.
I was settling in to write an obituary for New York design hero Jim Walrod when news came through last night that British sneaker guru Gary Warnett – a similarly irreplaceable figure – had also unexpectedly died.
Warnett was 39; the cause was attributed to complications arising from pneumonia.
The former content editor for label Crooked Tongues, Warnett was a streetwear obsessive who worked with the world’s biggest brands. Still he found the time to pursue a wide array of interests as evinced by his excellent Gwarizm/Still Lameaphobic site.
Continue reading RIP Gary Warnett, streetwear guru and sneaker supremo
Barney Bubbles: Optics & Semantics at Rob Tufnell London
You wait years for a Barney Bubbles exhibition and then two come along in the space of a month.
On the heels of the mini-show of Barney Bubbles music designs at Fred Perry’s basement space in Covent Garden comes a different take on the work of the late graphics maestro.
Continue reading Barney Bubbles: Optics & Semantics at Rob Tufnell London
Different Class, the story of the extraordinary Laurie Cunningham, is published this week
I am honoured to have played a part in Dermot Kavanagh realising his ambition to produce a biography of the late footballer and soulboy legend Laurie Cunningham.
My new book – The Story Of The Face: The Magazine That Changed Culture
This is the front of the jacket of my new book The Story Of The Face: The Magazine That Changed Culture, which is published by Thames & Hudson this autumn.
Continue reading My new book – The Story Of The Face: The Magazine That Changed Culture
Cunst Art: Caroline Coon’s hand-rendered Laid Bare Diary 1983-1984
I once asked gallery owner Angela Flowers for her definition of an artist. Without hesitating she said: “That’s easy. An artist is someone who simply has to paint every day.” Caroline is the personification of that description.
Charlotte Metcalf from her editor’s note, Laid Bare Dairy 1983-1984
A fascinating and frank document of the period of the artist’s personal life conveyed by the title, Caroline Coon’s Laid Bare Diary 1983-1984 is also a lovingly realised bookwork.
Continue reading Cunst Art: Caroline Coon’s hand-rendered Laid Bare Diary 1983-1984
Happy Birthday British rock and R&B, born 55 years ago tonight at the Ealing Club when Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Brian Jones, Charlie Watts and Eric Burdon gathered around Alexis Korner
//Top: Entrance to Ealing Club stairwell with jeweller’s to its right, early 1960s. Photo: ealingclub.com. Above: The entrance as it is today//
“Suburbia is the breeding ground for the richest and most innovative cultural production of the 20th and 21st centuries” Rupa Huq, writer and MP for Ealing Central & Acton, 2013
An advert in the New Musical Express for a “Rhythm & Blues Night” staged 55 years ago today – on St Patrick’s Night, March 17, 1962 – sparked the British musical revolution which soundtracked youth culture in the West for decades.
The ad proved a lure for suburban London teenage r&b fans including Keith Richards and Mick Jagger, while Eric Burdon, soon to be vocalist with The Animals, hitchhiked the 300 miles from Newcastle to join them in witnessing the main performance by Blues Incorporated (in fact he and Jagger traded verses on stage during a rendition of Billy Boy Arnold’s I Ain’t Got You).
What’s it going to be then, eh? An ‘unforgettable evening of typewriters, music, rough cider and poison-pen letters’
