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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.
Guitarist Chris Spedding is one of the unsung heroes of Seventies style. I’ve been a fan of his music and look since 1974, when I acquired Jab It In Yore Eye. This was the second album by Sharks, formed by Spedding with other survivors of the early 70s music scene after leaving jazz-rock outfit Nucleus and […]
The Conformist – artist Paul Kindersley’s counter intuitively-titled group show about non-conformity of expression from Emma, Lady Hamilton and Aubrey Beardsley to Marvin Gaye Chetwynd and Julie Verhoeven – opened with a bang last night with a private view at Mayfair’s art and jewellery space Belmacz.
On a recent trip to Austin, Texas, I enjoyed many encounters with members of the region’s creative community, not least expat British sci-fi Titan Michael Moorcock and his delightful wife Linda, transplanted Westernwear expert Jerry Ryan and his Heritage Boot emporium and, as previously noted here, the charming duo Jesse Sublett and Lois Richwine. I […]
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 […]
DÉTOURNÉD PAINTING Intended for the public. Easy reading Collectors and museums, be modern If you have old paintings, do not despair. Keep your memories But detourne them So they correspond to your time Why reject the old [paintings] If one can modernize them? With a few brushstrokes Modernize your old culture Be up to date […]
Thanks to Mr Mondo for turning me onto Glam Idols, a goldmine of early 70s music and fashion images. Lovingly presented and well credited, many of the photographs on the feed derive from continental European publications, like the 1972 shot above of a German model in a glitter t-shirt from Malcolm McLaren and Vivienne Westwood’s […]
//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 […]