Paul Gorman

Blokes Of Britain: Kevin Rowland

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//12"x10"s from Don't Stand Me Down shoot, 1985.//

NAME: Kevin Rowland

RESIDES: London

OCCUPATION: Dexys

Kevin Rowland is a very dapper gent. This is a truth acknowledged by all right-thinking people.

And Kevin is his own man. How many of us can say that?

He is also something of an artist, one whose connection to his muse is unadulterated by commercial concern or critical pressure. I can’t wait for the new Dexys record, which will be out in 2012.

I covered the stylistic changes Kevin rang through earlier Dexys incarnations – from stevedore to Ivy League – in THE LOOK.

Today Kevin answers the Blokes Of Britain questionnaire, providing an opportunity to present some of his looks – including rare and previously unpublished images – past and present:

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Is That All There Is? Lindsay Anderson’s envoi to Jill Bennett + Rachel Roberts

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//”I know that up there they’ll be having a good laugh.” Lindsay Anderson//
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//Rachel Roberts + Jill Bennett//

This is from Lindsay Anderson’s final film Is That All There Is?,  the 1995 autobiographical documentary which included a celebration of the lives of his friends, the formidable actresses Jill Bennett and Rachel Roberts.

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Michael Hochong’s life of flamboyant excess

Michael Ho-chong (right) with friends at a party in London in the late 60s
//Hochong (right) with friends at a party in London, late 60s.//

Title, exhibition of Michael Ho-chong's clothing, Horse Hospital, London.

Every Beautiful Thing… is the title of the forthcoming exhibition of extraordinary garments from the wardrobe of the late Michael Hochong, the French/Hawaiian/Chinese exquisite who, in the 70s, ran the Knightsbridge restaurant Michael’s (opposite the more famous establishment run by another Michael, Mr Chow).

Hochong also lived in some style in Tangier with John Koon (said to have been the instigator of the Chinese takeaway in the west).  It seems the house they shared was an exact replica of Tara, Scarlet O’ Hara’s spiritual home in Gone With The Wind.

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Penguins: James Tormey’s Raymond Chandler covers

The exclusion of designer James Tormey  – and in particular his early 70s covers for a series of Raymond Chandler books – from Phil Baines’ history Penguin By Design: A Cover Story 1935-2005 has long rankled with me.

I was expecting to find out more about the man whose remixes of Hollywood classic stills led me to Chandler in my early teens. But there is no mention of Tormey or these covers, which hummed at the time with the revival of interest in 40s cinema, and film noir in particular.

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Postcard + badge: Clandestine London


Clandestine London – the latest guide from Herb Lester Associates – is launched this week at a suitably discreet address in the capital.
Above is the invitation postcard. And here is the badge which guarantees entry.

Check out HLA’s online journal here.

Jamie Reid urged to donate artwork cash to Occupy

//Nowhere Buses print on Jamie Reid's website.//

David Jacobs – the US activist who says that his Situationist group Point-Blank!, not Jamie Reid, created the infamous “Nowhere Buses” punk graphic (see yesterday’s post) – is calling on the Sex Pistols art director to donate income from sales of the artwork to the Occupy movement.

//Back + front cover of Point-Blank! pamphlet, 1973.//

“Neither I nor anyone in P-B! ever wanted any commercialization of what we had done; that was the antithesis of commerce,” says Jacobs.

“But if Jamie Reid were up for contributing the gains from this artwork to a good cause such as Occupy – in which we are very much engaged – we would be cheered.”

Point-Blank! challenges Jamie Reid: ‘We created the Nowhere buses’

//Back + front cover, Point-Blank! pamphlet 1973.//
//Top: Page 3, Space Travel, Point-Blank!, 1973. Bottom: Sleeve back cover, Pretty Vacant/No Fun, Sex Pistols, 1977.//

In the week of the opening of Jamie Reid’s exhibition Peace Is Tough, the founder of the 70s American Situationist group Point-Blank! is challenging claims that Reid originated one of the key graphics of the punk aesthetic: the so-called “Nowhere buses”.

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