As a follow-up to my recent post about the rarely seen 1975 interview with Malcolm McLaren in soft porn mag Gallery International, here is another exclusive: for the first time since publication in June 1976, the full article featuring McLaren and Vivienne Westwood’s shop SEX in British sex guide Forum.
My appreciation for the visual culture surrounding popular music was given a leg-up at an early age by a Christmas 1973 gift: Rolling Stone‘s photography compendium Shooting Stars.
Edited by Annie Leibovitz, Shooting Stars lined up a number of the magazine’s photographic contributors who had recorded the American rock music scene in its pomp.
Time to put away the books, mags, newspapers, pamphlets, catalogues and other materials used as reference for the map The Look Of London, which is published later this week by Herb Lester Associates.
Continue reading The Look Of London: Research materials for new map with Herb Lester Associates
Such was the shadow Tommy Roberts cast over popular music that even Practical Styling, the 80s central London furniture, office and homewares outlet he ran with partner Paul Jones, was cited as an influence by performer Geoff Deane.
Continue reading The Face 1983: Geoff Deane applies the Practical Styling principle to pop
This advert for Vince Man’s Shop – the small Soho boutique which sparked the modernisation of menswear design and retailing in the second half of the 20th century – was designed by Gordon Moore for issue 20 of the Royal College Of Art magazine ARK, published in autumn 1957.
Continue reading ‘Soho-Italianate’: Gordon Moore’s advert for Vince Man’s Shop in ARK magazine 1957
It’s unlikely that cities will shake or nations start to rock under the impact of Malcolm McLaren’s sexual revolution. A few people might die though.
Malcolm McLaren, at 30, is a mixture of entrepreneurial cultist, sexual evangelist, businessman, artist, fetishist and political philosopher; a psychotic visionary in the ephemeral subculture of the fashion world.
David May, Gallery International Vol 1 no 4.
In November 1975 – by which time his charges the Sex Pistols had just embarked on live performances – Malcolm McLaren was interviewed by journalist David May at 430 King’s Road, then in full bloom as radical retail venture SEX.
The new Beatbooks catalogue lines up the seminal alongside the obscure, from complete sets of Oz, Ink, Gandalf’s Garden and Suck magazines and Time’s “Swinging London” cover story to Robert E. Brown’s The Psychedelic Guide To Preparation Of The Eucharist, LIFE’s July 1969 study of US communes and a rare poster for the Psycho Circus at the Roundhouse in 1967 in support of the Vietnam Solidarity Campaign.
Continue reading Beatbooks 61: Communal, alternative and psychedelic living; Peyote; Hippies; Music; Psychedelic & Underground Art; Sixties London; Underground Press
The cover story of the new issue of France’s graphics magazine Étapes is based around writer Renaud Faroux’s 10-page feature about my Barney Bubbles book and recent exhibition The Past, The Present & The Possible.
Thanks to photographer David Reed for this portrait of Tommy Roberts and John Paul in much satin finery in the office hallway above their Mr Freedom boutique at 20 Kensington Church Street in 1971.
Continue reading Photography: David Reed’s portrait of Tommy Roberts + John Paul, 1971
Out later this week, the final issue of The Word marks a significant staging post in the story of magazine publishing in the digital age.
Champions of the written word and intelligent discourse about popular culture, the editorial team headed by veteran double-act Mark Ellen and David Hepworth have assembled a fine last edition in which I’m stoked to be included, with an extract from Mr Freedom about Tommy Roberts’ involvement in the mid-70s British music scene (including never-previously revealed details of Roberts’ loaning of rehearsal space to the nascent Sex Pistols, the burglary of his shop City Lights Studio by members of the group and Malcolm McLaren’s interest in managing Ian Dury).