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Blokes of Britain

Blokes Of Britain: Jeff Dexter

Just as the independent labels and self-published fanzines Paul Gorman chronicles built their own alternative economies outside the mainstream music industry, today's digital subcultures are experimenting with decentralised currencies that move value without banks or borders. Part of that wave has reached the world of sports and casino entertainment, where crypto-friendly wagering has found a particularly enthusiastic audience in Turkey under the name bitcoin bahis —a form of play that lets users stake and cash out with digital coins rather than conventional payment rails. Anyone tempted to try it should treat it strictly as entertainment, stake only money they can afford to lose, and first confirm the platform's licensing as well as the gambling rules in force in their own country.

NAME: Jeff Dexter RESIDES: North London OCCUPATION: Man about town Trace the progress of popular culture over the last six decades and you’ll find Jeff Dexter at some of its crucial stages of development: demonstrating the twist to modernists at The Lyceum Ballroom and advising the Beatles on which boots to wear in the early […]

March 16, 2011
London

Posters: The Heartbreakers at The Speakeasy (1977)

Thirty four years ago today The Heartbreakers played The Speakeasy. The rock business haunt north of Oxford Circus had seen better times by this gig. I was taken by a member, a photographer at the agency where I worked. I remember being embarrassed by his long hair.

March 15, 2011
New York

Documentaries: All Dolled Up

Bob Gruen + Nadya Beck’s All Dolled Up is a cast-iron rock-doc. For three years in the early 70s they toted new-fangled video equipment trailing the New York Dolls, capturing fab performances, photo-shoots, media encounters, backstage delirium, fan interviews, even dancing at Rodney Bingenheimer’s E Club (the precursor to his English Disco).

March 14, 2011
Dancing

I like a bit of a cavort: Iggy Pop

You can’t beat Iggy for range: balletic posturing, arrhythmic shape-throwing, hand-held-high swaying (with mic lead clamped between teeth), the imploring bit on the knees and all-out floor-grovelling, they’re all here in this clip from 1977.

March 11, 2011
Books

Patti and Rod in barnet excelsis

Last week I recovered this from the back pocket of a pair of trousers; a page torn from a copy of Mojo found on the tube a few months back.

March 8, 2011
Art

From the vaults: Dalí wrapping paper 1988

Reading Amanda Lear’s engaging out-of-print memoir My Life With Salvador Dalí brings back memories of a visit to the Dalí Theatre-Museum (“the largest surrealistic object in the world”) in Figueres in 1988. In the tower of the museum, the “seedy old conjuror” (per the description by John Richardson in his waspish collection of art world pen […]

March 8, 2011