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.
//T-shirt from the first run produced by Malcolm McLaren in March 1976. Photo courtesy Bonhams//
“This was my first attempt at making a Sex Pistols T-shirt. I wanted to create something of a stir”
Malcolm McLaren, 2005
An extremely rare and controversial T-shirt from the first run produced by Malcolm McLaren in the early spring of 1976 for the new group he managed, the Sex Pistols, is up for sale tomorrow at London auctioneers Bonhams.
I’m signing copies of my new book The Story Of The Face at Paul Smith’s Beak Street store in London’s Soho on Thursday evening.
Smith’s shop is opposite the address of one of my all-time favourite fashion outlets, Demob, which was at 47 Beak Street in the early to mid-80s.
//Page 5, The Face 25, May 1982//
In fact Demob’s opening was heralded in a spring 1982 issue of The Face, with a report by Anne Witchard and photographs by Neil Matthews.
If you’re in town drop in to 46-48 Beak Street on Thursday evening and say hi.
The Story Of The Face: The Magazine That Changed Culture is out now.
I am honoured to have played a part in Dermot Kavanagh realising his ambition to produce a biography of the late footballer and soulboy legend Laurie Cunningham.
“I started taking portraits of people at The French House in the 70s when I took a picture of Gaston Berlemont. Then, while taking Spike Milligan’s portrait, we got to talking about Soho. At the time, I was living in Frith St, so Ronnie Scott’s and The French were both very familiar to us and, even then, both of us voiced our sadness at changes we saw – lovely delicatessens, independent restaurants and specialists shops closing down, all of which had been there for years.
“In 2004, I decided to document the customers at The French in earnest. For me, it was the one place in Soho that still held its Bohemian character, where people truly chose to share time and conversation, and I became aware that many I had once chinked glasses with were no longer around.
“These portraits of the regulars are a cross-section of those who sat for me, but there is no rhyme or reason to my selection.”
John Claridge, 2017
There is no time like the present for a project documenting the champs, chumps and charlatans* who have imbued Soho with its gamey character over the decades; dreaded “gentrification” in the form of drastic changes being wrought by property developers is steadily defanging the central London area.
Later this month I will be in conversation with British menswear legend Mark Powell at the V&A’s Sartorial Style day.
//Fashion designer Vivienne Westwood at Paul Yule’s studio in Berwick Street, Soho, central London, 1980//
//Filmmaker Alex Cox directing an Oxford University Dramatic Society production of Bertholt Brecht’s The Resistable Rise Of Arturo Ui, 1975//
Here are just a few examples of the riches presented by photojournalist/filmmaker Paul Yule’s highly recommended Instagram feed @paul_yule.
//Bow Wow Wow singer Anabella L’win and manager Malcolm McLaren at L’Escargot restaurant in Greek Street, Soho, immediately prior to the group signing with RCA Records, 1981//
//Le Macabre, 23 Meard Street, London W1. Photo: Unknown//
“When I started working as the Saturday boy at Let It Rock (in 1973), Malcolm McLaren used to take me around these strange places which played a part in early rock & roll. One time we went to Le Macabre. I don’t know how he knew about it, but it was the real thing. The tables were coffin lids and the jukebox only had songs to do with death.”
Glen Matlock, interview transcript for The Look, 2000.
A chance encounter on eBay spurred artist Robert Rubbish into creating one of the key elements of his current exhibition Spiritus Soho Volume Zero.
Rubbish – who is one of many mourning the recent death of his friend and documentary subject, the poet Jock Scot – is known for deep associations with central London’s Soho, and has celebrated its sleazy past and uneasy present in his own work and with the other members of the art collective Le Gun.
//Dilly Boys, Robert Rubbish, 2016//
//The Sailor And The Mermaid, Robert Rubbish, 2016//
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.
| Paul Gorman is a writer. This is his blog: art, books, conversation, cults, dancing, design, encounters, environments, events, film, galleries, groups, individuals, invitations, magazines, music, opinions, performance, photography, places, press, privacy, spaces, style, thoughts + views. |
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