In October 1974 Malcolm McLaren conjured an unusual group name for four young musicians who congregated at his shop at 430 King’s Road.
//The group name as it appeared on the ‘right’ side of the You’re Gonna Wake Up t-shirt//
At the time the transition from the premises’ previous incarnation as Too Fast To Live Too Young To Die to Sex was nearing completion; in fact the teenagers Paul Cook, Steve Jones, Glen Matlock (who was also a sales assistant on Saturdays) and Wally Nightingale assisted McLaren in applying the finishing touch with the erection of the pink vinyl shop sign constructed at his direction by carpenter Vic Mead.
//Island Records promo shot of the Sharkmobile outside the long closed Blenheim Arms, Blenheim Crescent, Notting Hill, west London, on January 8, 1973. Photo: Brian Cooke////Sharks surround Nora Foster, 1974. From bottom left: keyboard player Nick Judd (in Wonder Workshop jacket); drummer Marty Simon, bassist Busta “Cherry” Jones, frontman Snips and guitarist Chris Spedding in Let It Rock Rock N Roll Lives/Chuck Berry tee. Photo: Dick Polak//
Singer-songwriter Steve “Snips” Parsons has been in contact; the reunion of early 70s British rock band Sharks (which he fronted) moves apace – with an album out in September, next week they are launching a crowdfunding appeal to bring back the so-called Sharkmobile.
This was guitarist Chris Spedding’s Pontiac Le Mans which – at the behest of their record company boss Chris Blackwell – was decorated with fibreglass shark’s teeth and a fin and appeared on the back cover of the group’s debut LP First Water.
To mark the arrival in London of the legendary founder of The Cockettes Fayette Hauser for screenings of rare films featuring the transgressive troupe, here are some extracts from an interview she gave me for the forthcoming Malcolm McLaren biography.
I’m also featuring photographs Hauser took when she hooked up with the late McLaren on the West Coast after the Sex Pistols had splintered in San Francisco at the end of their January 1978 US tour.
With meetings arranged with record company and movie studio producers and financiers, McLaren stayed at West Hollywood’s infamous Tropicana Motel on Santa Monica Boulevard, home to the likes of Tom Waits and visiting musicians from Bob Marley & The Wailers to the Ramones and the Velvet Underground (Andy Warhol’s Heat and Trash were both filmed there).
//Alkasura staff inside 304 King’s Road. Photographer: Unknown. Paul Gorman Archive. No reproduction without permission//
This is the first time these photographs – taken inside London’s legendary glam boutique Alkasura – have been published since they appeared in a Japanese fashion magazine in 1970.
//Gary Crowley outside 93 Bell Street, London NW1, the address once occupied by Sex Pistols scenester/designer Helen Wellington-Lloyd, her fellow Goldsmith’s student Malcolm McLaren and Pistols Steve Jones and Paul Cook//
Interspersed with a personal selection of songs, I talked to DJ Gary Crowley about the new Punk London: In The City 1975-78 map for the second hour of his Punk & New Wave show on Soho Radio yesterday.
//Nicholas de Jongh’s front-page report, The Guardian, August 2, 1975////Sex Original-labelled Cowboys t-shirt courtesy Hiroshi Fujiwara Collection//
This month – specifically July 26 – marks the 40th anniversary of the introduction for sale of Malcolm McLaren’s notorious Cowboys t-shirt in Sex, the revolutionary boutique he operated at 430 King’s Road with Vivienne Westwood.
The shirt’s status as the most provocative of all punk designs is enhanced by the fact that it made waves immediately: the same day the shirt went on sale, the first customer to wear it in public was arrested. Within 24 hours, the store itself was raided for indecency.
