When he launched the small-format 32-page song sheet The Melody Maker in 1926, Tin Pan Alley music publisher Lawrence Wright sparked the media revolution that created the music press.

This multi-million pound business eventually straddled the Atlantic and simultaneously proved a fertile breeding ground for generations of writers, photographers, film-makers and performers who made their mark in the wider world.

Everyone from Bob Geldof, Chrissie Hynde and Neil Tennant to Danny Baker, Caroline Coon, Julie Burchill, Barbara Ellen, Caitlin Moran, Miranda Sawyer and movie directors Cameron Crowe and Anton Corbijn (and even Michael Winner) cut their teeth on music magazines such as Melody Maker, New Musical Express, Rolling Stone, ZigZag and Smash Hits.

Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: Alan Lewis, Andy Warhol, Anton Corbijn, Antonella Gambotto-Burke, Barbara Ellen, Bob Geldof, Caitlin Moran, Cameron Crowe, Carl Gayle, Caroline Coon, Chelsea Clinton, Chrissie Hynde, Corinne Day, Danny Baker, Darby Romeo, David Salzman, Erica Smith, Grace Jones, Harry Styles, Jann Wenner, Jason Donovan, Julie Burchill, Kate Moss, Kerin Morayata, Lawrence Wright, Mat Snow, Max Jones, Micahel Winner, Miranda Sawyer, Neil Tennant, neville Brody, NIck Cave, Quincy Jones, Roisin Murphy, Stevie Wonder, Time Inc, Truman Capote, Tupac SHakur

//Ellen Willis, c. 1970. Photograph: Ellen Willis’s family//

One of the narrative threads of my book Totally Wired: The Rise & Fall of the Music Press – which is published in paperback next week – traces the ways in which women writers have been forced to fight long and hard against white male dominance of the field.

//Gloria Stavers photographs Jim Morrison 1967. Photographer: Unknown//

This process was kicked off in the 1950s by Gloria Stavers, who transformed the US teen scene as editor and photographer at the huge-selling 16 magazine and went on to champion the likes of the Beatles and others in the 60s on her own terms: while she recognised the charisma of The Doors’ Jim Morrison, she was also his equal and lover.

//Lillian Roxon, mid-1960s. Photo by unknown, Fairfax Archives//

Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: Elizabeth Nelson

The September 1975 issue of US music/proto-lifestyle magazine Rock Scene contains an absolute curio in the form of a report on Angie Bowie’s visit to Eton College – ‘Hogwarts for wankers where you’re taught Latin and tax avoidance while wearing full evening dress’* – that year.

Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: Angie Bowie, Boris Johnson, Craig Brown, David Cameron, Eton College, Jonathan Pie, Leee Black Childers, Lisa Robinson, Nicholas Coleridge, Richard Robinson, Rock Scene, Roy Martin, Simon Fisher Turner

I have known the Arts & Crafts connoisseur, collector and dealer Paul Reeves since the early Noughties when I approached him for the second edition of my fashion x music book The Look; Paul’s previous career as a designer took in such important 60s and 70s labels and boutiques as Sam Pig In Love, Alkasura and The Universal Witness.

From the off we got on like a house on fire and became firm friends; he was a major contributor to my Tommy Roberts book and the ever-generous Paul has often hosted Caz and I at his wonderful Wiltshire farmhouse.

Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: Alkasura, Claire de Rouen, Jermaine Gallacher, Jon Wealleans, Led Zeppelin, Oskar Proctor, Paul Reeves, Peter Grant, Sam Pig In Love, The Universal Witness, TON

The new interiors magazine TON – the first issue is out now –  has two pieces by me on very different but equally extraordinary homes.

TON’s founder and editor-in-chief Jermaine Gallacher – who works with art director Rory Gleeson and editorial director Ted Stansfield – commissioned me to write about Dave Baby’s apartment close to where we both live, in south London’s Stockwell.

As I write, ‘this otherworldly space represents a bewitching realm of desires, sexuality and esoterica with Dave at the maelstrom’s centre, a still figure dispensing wily wit and charm’.

Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: Celeste, Christopher Nemeth, Clare de Rouen, Dave Baby, Derek Jarman, House Of Beauty & Culture, Ischia, Jermaine Gallacher, John Maybury, Judy Blame, Luchino Visconti, Mark Lebon, Reference Point, Rory Gleeson, Roxy Lee, Ted Stansfield

The first review of my next book Totally Wired: The Rise & Fall of the Music Press is in the current issue of British monthly Electronic Sound, which receives a mention in the post-2000 epilogue:

Challenging my ‘rise & fall’ thesis, Electronic Sound‘s review is nevertheless complimentary, describing the book as an ‘illuminating treatise’ and ‘essential reading’.

Visit Electronic Sound and buy the latest issue here.

Order your copy of Totally Wired at all good booksellers, including bookshop.org.

TAGS: None

//The opening spread of my piece, with images from In The Gutter. Left: Pleasant Gehman, right: Caroline Coon//

//The new issue of MacGuffin//

I’ve returned to the excellent MacGuffin magazine with a piece in their latest issue, which adopts the theme ‘The Chain’.

Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: Belmacz, Caroline Coon, Diana Pfammatter, Ernst van der Hoeven, IN The Gutter, Julia Muggenburg, Kirsten Algera, Pleasant Gehman

//George Hardie’s design for card announcing the opening of Universal Witness at 167 Fulham Road on November 17 1970//

Here’s another treasure from the trove of Design magazines given to me by the designer Paul Walters; the invitation for the opening of Paul Reeves’ west London boutique Universal Witness in November 1970.

Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: Alkasura, Design, George Hardie, Jimi Hendrix, John Lloyd, Keith Richards, Led Zeppelin, Mr Feed'Em, Paul McCartney, Paul Reeves, Paul Walters, Pink Floyd, Universal Witness, Wings

//Interior of the first Fiorucci boutique, Galleria Passerella, Milan, 1972//

I am extremely grateful to artist and designer Paul Walters for his gift of dozens of issues of Design magazine dating to the dawn of the 1970s.

These are being catalogued and added to the collection I already have of the title; some were donated by Paul’s fellow artist and designer Steve Thomas a few years ago.

Design was founded in the mid-60s by the Design Council precursor the Council of Industrial Design, and back issues are a goldmine of visuals and text about most aspects of the design world, from interiors, posters and packaging to product innovation, architecture and popular culture.

//The report on the store opening in Design, December 1972//

I’m going to post a selection of stories that have caught my eye over the coming months, starting with the image at the top of the post: a rarely seen view inside Elio Fiorucci’s first boutique, which he opened in Milan’s Galleria Passerella in late 1972.

Fiorucci was much inspired, to put it politely, by Trevor Myles and Tommy Roberts’ pop-art fashion outlet Mr Freedom – which had gone out of business in the spring of 1972 – and commissioned artist Stan Peskett, who had produced murals for Roberts, to create a space which engaged customers with a similar energy: the yellow and red colour scheme was extended to the exposed piping and venting with insignia of sunrays emanating from fluffy clouds hovering over the clothing racks.  Stan, who I interviewed  a couple of years ago for my Malcolm McLaren biography, has described his interior for Fiorucci as ‘an installation’.

//Advert in Design, December 1972//

//Spread from fashion shoot featuring Mr Freedom designs, Nova October 1971//

Coincidentally, an ad in the same issue of Design featured an image of a model in Mr Freedom clothes which had appeared in Nova magazine the previous year.  The advert was for the architecture and interiors publication Abitare, which continues to this day – see here.

Tags: Council of Industrial Design, D, Design Council, Elio Fiorucci, Fiorucci, Milan, Paul Walters, Stan Peskett, STeve Thomas

I’m really jazzed about getting my hands on the first finished copy of Totally Wired, my history of the music press which is published by Thames & Hudson this autumn.

Designer Daniel Streat has done wonders with the day-the-world-turned-dayglo jacket concept and my choice of cover star Poly Styrene.

There are 60 or so illustrations, all magazines from my archive. The diversity reflects the content of the book, which covers the usual suspects – NME, Melody Maker, Rolling Stone – but will hopefully turn readers onto the unexpected and surprising, from Black Music and Collusion to WET, Ben Is Dead and Girlfrenzy.

Totally Wired is published in the UK and elsewhere on September 22 and in North America on November 29. It is available to order now from all good booksellers as well as my Bookshop page at uk.bookshop.org/shop/paulgorman or by clicking on this panel:

Tags: Ben Is Dead, Black Music, Collusion, Daniel Streat, Girlfrenzy, Melody Maker, NME, Rolling Stone, Thames & Hudson, WET