My engagement with the spectacle of the Royal Wedding is taking the form of protesting at Lambeth Council’s leasing of Clapham Common to Camp Royale.
British Remains, meanwhile, is publishing a design which offers a choice of expression.
Dennis & Iggy get their tits out
In these 70s shots Dennis Hopper and Iggy Pop are both wearing the so-called “tits tee” – the design which started out as an art-school project in the late 60s, became a novelty item, then a punk classic and more recently was a Haiti disaster fundraiser.
I investigated the story of the tits tee here.
Jack Smith: Exotic Theatrical Genius!
Jack Smith’s business card didn’t lie.
Smith’s card is for sale, priced £75, in the new catalogue from Maggs.
Acid Aalto at Chelsea Arts Club
My friend Donald Smith’s exhibition Acid Aalto opens at London’s Chelsea Arts Club tonight.
Classifieds: Jerry Nolan’s advert in Rolling Stone June 14 1969
I haven’t had it confirmed – nor seen this in any music history – but I believe this line ad to have been placed by Jerry Nolan three years before he replaced Billy Murcia as the drummer in the New York Dolls.
It appeared in the June 14, 1969 edition of Rolling Stone, the “first British issue” of the magazine produced in collaboration with newly recruited staff in London.
Continue reading Classifieds: Jerry Nolan’s advert in Rolling Stone June 14 1969
From The Vaults: Patti Smith, Andy Warhol’s Interview, October 1973
As a companion to today’s post on the Horses cover, here’s another Patti Smith item from the archive: a feature by Penny Green from the October 1973 issue of Andy Warhol’s Interview magazine.
Coinciding with the publication of Smith’s poetry book Witt, the photographs for the Interview piece were taken by Barbara Walz (who later produced The Fashion Makers with Bernadine Morris).
Continue reading From The Vaults: Patti Smith, Andy Warhol’s Interview, October 1973
Horses: “I never see me. I see us.”
This is my copy of Horses, battered but unbowed after 35 years.
The story behind the photo-shoot for the front cover lies at the heart of Just Kids, Patti Smith’s valediction for Robert Mapplethorpe.
Catalogues: Son Of Vulgar
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This sleeve for Joseph Beuys’ 1982 single is featured in Son Of Vulgar, the latest “scratch” catalogue from Maggs Bros’ counterculture department.
With 24 lots, it’s a typically eclectic affair.
Here is a selection, from a Malcolm McLaren promotional brochure for Bow Wow Wow and a Roxy Club membership card through US transgender photography of the early 20th Century to the LAPD’s report on the Symbionese Liberation Front and a book by Japanese artist Tadanori Yokoo:
Zines: Bad Seed 1-3
Published 1984-85, here are the covers and some content from the first three editions of Bad Seed, Miriam Linna’s celebration of Juvenile Delinquency, the “overnight plunge into general degeneracy” among US teens in the 50s.
At the time the JD scare prompted a media frenzy which was accompanied by an explosion of books, music, flicks and fashions.
I like a bit of a cavort: Street Tuff
This compilation of scenes from 1989 raves is proof positive of the nutso-bongo atmosphere of such events, and that tracks such as Street Tuff still prompt a shake of the leg (and other limbs).