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I’m grateful to Peter Stanfield, media and arts professor at the University of Kent, for alerting me to these great images of members of Shakin’ Stevens’ backing band The Sunsets sporting T-shirts designed by the late Malcolm McLaren for sale in his shop Let It Rock at 430 King’s Road in the early 70s.
In 1956 the Hollywood photographer John E. Reed took a series of promotional shots of the stars of DJ Alan Freed’s rocksploitation flick Don’t Knock The Rock.
I saw Chuck Berry play live twice, and have written previously about the first time when, supported by David Bowie-endorsed revivalist rockers Fumble, he performed a truncated set at the Rainbow theatre in north London’s Finsbury Park in September 1973. The second time was frankly bizarre. He and Little Richard sat in with Paul Shaffer and his […]
//From top left: Chinese Communist Party pamphlet, 1971; McLaren in Let It Rock 1972; Proclamation by Engels and Marx, 1881; Title lettering, Belgian film poster, 1958// A year or so ago I established the source material for one of the first designs generated by Malcolm McLaren in the fashion partnership he conducted with Vivienne Westwood […]
Let It Rock was digging in the ruins of past cultures that you cared about. It was giving them another brief moment in the sun. It wasn’t about doing anything new. It was an homage. It was nostalgia. Malcolm McLaren to Momus, 2002 Forty three years after its creation I can reveal the source of […]
I acquired my first underground press publications in the summer of 1972, at about the point when the sector was taking the nosedive from which it never recovered. Still, better late than Sharon Tate, as they say. Aged 12, my taste had been whetted by sneak peeks at an older brother’s collection of magazines when […]
If you are of a London gig-goer of a certain (getting on to be advanced) age you will remember “Jesus”, an enthusiastic audience member at many musical events in the capital from the 60s to the late 70s. Jesus was notable because a) he was personable and b) would often discard his clothes as he […]
A viewing of Jes Benstock’s fab doc A British Guide To Showing Off occasions this opportunity to dig out the London Belles feature from a 1973 issue of shortlived free magazine West One. Above is milliner Diane Logan in one of her outfits as contestant Rita Ritz in the 1973 Alternative Miss World. Logan – […]
Can’t beat a bit of Chuck for a frolic. Watch him move. I saw him live a year or so later at The Rainbow. He played a 35-minute set and brought on his daughter for the lovey-dovey finale. It may have been South Of The Border. When the Teds realised he had vamoosed rather than […]