The poster for the Sex Pistols’ first performance (on November 6 1975 in the Common Room of St Martin’s School Of Art in central London’s Charing Cross Road) has been found after 40 years – and it doesn’t even mention them!
Art schools are places of possibilities, which is one of the reasons we chose the title Be Reasonable Demand The Impossible for the celebration of the 40th anniversary of the first Sex Pistols gig at Central Saint Martins in London’s King’s Cross this Friday (November 6).
Tomorrow (November 2) I am introducing a Malcolm McLaren film night at Southampton’s The Stage Door as part of the city’s Film Week.
Continue reading Rare footage to be revealed at Malcolm McLaren Night in Southampton tomorrow
On November 6 1975, the Sex Pistols made their live debut in the refectory of Saint Martin’s School Of Art in London’s Charing Cross Road before an audience of around 20 people.
Earlier this year I participated in a symposium on interior design and pop culture at London’s Institute Of Contemporary Arts.
Continue reading My talk on 430 King’s Road at the ICA’s interiors symposium is online now
In the histories of London street style, Kenny MacDonald’s King’s Road outlet Marx receives rare mention, yet from the mid-70s this unusual and tucked-away boutique was important in the development of the type of English tailoring-with-a-twist which has subsequently dominated a strand of menswear around the world.
Continue reading ‘Absolutely London’: Marx, Kenny MacDonald + PiL style
Hope you enjoy this selection of installation shots from the exhibition Eyes For Blowing Up Bridges: Joining The Dots From The Situationist International To Malcolm McLaren, currently wowing visitors to Southampton’s John Hansard Gallery.
//Stills from unedited interview with Malcolm McLaren by Ariel Van Straten, London 1996//
The establishment still aren’t quite able to understand interactive; it’s the street which understands it and is able to use it in a simplistic but very real way. They will be the people who break through; they will make it the most sexy. It won’t be as cerebral as the likes of Peter Gabriel or Eno and that lot.
[Handed underground dance CD]: See look, they’re already emailing, connected to the web, and that’s where it’s all happening.
Web TV, downloading music, graphics and so on is definitely the future, definitely where it is going to go. These guys are on the verge of suggesting in the years to come you won’t purchase your music from shops. Your cultural information is going to come through the Net.
Now it’s about buying the technology so that you can broadcast from your goddamn bedroom across the planet. I think the reason why the industry is holding back is because they know that it is only a question of the technology being affordable and that’s when it will happen.
Malcolm McLaren, London 1996
In the mid-90s photographer Ariel Van Straten interviewed Malcolm McLaren for a film about graffiti art. Entitled Getting Your Name Up, the short was made for a video-only issue of Don’t Tell It magazine, to raise awareness of the plight of Simon Sunderland, who had been jailed for five years for committing criminal damage on the rail network in South Yorkshire using the tag ‘Fista’.
I am indebted to IG pal and fan of this blog Kjell Magnusson for this 1977 magazine photo of The Runaways’ guitarist Lita Ford presenting her I Groaned With Pain t-shirt for a raffle in Swedish teen title Poster.
In the light of the revelations about the abusive nature of the group’s relationship with the late, unwholesome manager Kim Fowley, Ford’s choice of item for the Poster magazine raffle was less seamy than those made for vocalist Cherie Currie and bass-player Jackie Fox, whose knickers were donated (guitarist Joan Jett sensibly chose a bracelet and drummer Sandy West a miniature drumstick).
The I Groaned shirt is one of the series with zips designed by Malcolm McLaren and Vivienne Westwood and sold through their outlet Sex at 430 King’s Road between 1974 and 1976. The shirt was favoured by female performers of the period, including Viv Albertine, Little Nell Campbell and Chrissie Hynde.
There are two variants of the design in the current exhibition Eyes For Blowing Up Bridges at Southampton’s John Hansard Gallery. One is a very early deliberately ripped example produced in mid-1974 when 430 King’s Road was between names (the decision had been taken to abandon the previous title Too Fast To Live Too Young To Die).
This is why it doesn’t have a label. McLaren had yet to design the distinctive “SEX Original’ woven blue-on-pink tag, which was manufactured under his instructions by a supplier in Portugal.
The other shirt is the same type as Ford’s and does have a label.
I wrote about the genesis and realisation of I Groaned With Pain here.
Eyes For Blowing Up Bridges: Joining The Dots From The Situationist International To Malcolm McLaren is at John Hansard Gallery until November 14. Find out more here.
The opening of new exhibition Eyes For Blowing Up Bridges: Joining The Dots From The Situationist International To Malcolm McLaren at the weekend was a great success.
Continue reading Eyes For Blowing Up Bridges: Opening a great success