In the evening June 9 I’ll be in Soho for a London Society event about the London life of the late cultural provocateur Malcolm McLaren.
At workplace venue Fora in Broadwick Street writer Helen Barrett and I will be discussing the ways in which the man born in Stoke Newington and buried in Highgate Cemetery used the city as the springboard for his dizzying range of creative and subversive activities.
//The two maps are housed in handsome folders////The guide was designed by Ricardo Santos and includes photography of the band, quotes and a card for my Malcolm McLaren biography//
My new guide out with Herb Lester Associates is out now.
A celebration of the London lives of the Sex Pistols and their charismatic – some might say notorious – manager Malcolm McLaren, it comprises two fold-out maps with 100-plus addresses from birthplaces, schools, colleges, art schools, pubs, clubs, venues and boutiques to such diverse places as Buckingham Palace (where the Pistols signed to A&M Records), the Soho gay club Il Duce (frequented by McLaren after leaving art school in the early 70s) and the Shepherds Bush remand home where the teenage Steve Jones resided before being pulled up before various beaks on assorted burglary charges.
//There are nearly 60 entries charting the lives of the Pistols in London////The Pistols map shows how Punk Rock was at its dark heart a London thing//
The Pistols maps covers the group’s 29-month existence and the lives of the five members as they relate to the British capital, while McLaren’s shows how this fourth generation Scottish/Jewish provocateur used the city as a weapon of sex, style and subversion.
//Born in Stoke Newington, McLaren roamed the capital, from Lewisham and Clapham to Chelsea and Notting Hill to Fitzrovia and Oxford Street to Whitechapel and Rotherhithe////No coincidence that some of the major projects of McLaren’s life – a psychogeography of Oxford Street, the shop at 430 King’s Road and his campaign to become Mayor of London – were firmly rooted in the city//
SITUATION VACANT: Sex Pistols and Malcolm McLaren in London is available from Herb Lester Associates here.
This afternoon I’m the guest on DJ Gary Crowley’s show on London-based digital station Soho Radio.
I’ll be talking about Punk London: In The City 1975-78 – my map collaboration with Herb Lester Associates which is published on Friday (February 12) – and also playing a highly personal selection of songs in the spirit of the project where we aim to sidestep the cliches and show another side to the oft-told punk story.
This is the finalised cover of Punk London: In The City 1975-78, my map collaboration with Herb Lester Associates which will be published in a few weeks.
As a tribute to the late rock star, I have joined forces with map-makers Herb Lester to create an online guide to David Bowie’s London from his birth at 40 Stansfield Road in Brixton in 1947 through his solo art show in Mayfair in 1995 to the giant retrospective David Bowie Is exhibition at the Victoria & Albert Museum in South Kensington in 2013.
//Front cover, Punk London: In The City 1975-78, Herb Lester Associates/Paul Gorman, 2016. Design: Mike Haddad//
I am collaborating with Herb Lester Associates on a new map – Punk London: In The City 1975-78 will be published in the New Year as a celebration of the movement which swept the capital 40 years ago and resonates today as an attitude throughout the world.
//Food writer and map compiler Leanne Clancey at the launch of An Appetite For Melbourne at the city’s Kelvin Club. Photo: Brook James//
My wife and I are happy to have hooked up our friends at mapmakers Herb Lester Associates with her one-time schoolmate and these days prominent Australian food writer Leanne Clancey.
As a result Clance, as she is known, produced the excellent guide An Appetite For Melbourne in collaboration with US designer Ross Bruggink.
Out There from Herb Lester Associates marks a departure from terra firma for my favourite map-makers: they’re anticipating the wave of space tourism of the future with this guide to three Grand Tours of the Solar System.
Complete with speculative observations from such sci-fi greats as Arthur C. Clarke, HG Wells and Olaf Stapledon (author of the 1930 book The Last And First Men, about the flight of mankind to Venus), Out There voyages from the Tar Pits Of Titan and the Fountains of Enceladus to the “giant space sponge” moon, Hyperion.
The text is by Matthew De Abatua with design and illustrations by Paul Rogers.
Out There’s publication has been accompanied by Trunk Records’ release of a companion space-themed download album compiled by Nick from the much missed west London record store Intoxica!.
Tomorrow (October 11) is the publication date of The Look Of London, my map collaboration with the pre-eminent modern guide-makers Herb Lester Associates.
“This map is a reminder that London, with all its individuality and character, is still very exciting,” writes Paul Smith in the foreword; he opened at 44 Floral Street WC2 in 1979.
