Next Thursday (August 3) I’m going to be in conversation with the prominent writer and photographer Mark C. O’Flaherty at central London’s library/bookshop/bar Reference Point.

//Mark reminisces about his time at Boyz in Totally Wired//

We’ll be talking about the music press – the subject of my book Totally Wired, which is out now in paperback –  it’s history in relation to LGBTQ+ communities and Mark’s experiences working for such magazines as Melody Maker and Boyz.

Afterwards I’ll DJ a vinyl set of music-press-related sounds.

Bag your spot here.

//Totally Wired paperbacks in the Tate Britain bookshop//

Copies of Totally Wired are widely available, including from bookshop.org

Tags: 180 The Strand, Boyz, Mark C. O'Flaherty, Reference Point

//I’ll be in conversation with Soho tailor Mark Powell at 2pm. Photo: Mark Powell//

//And talking about The Face from 3pm. This issue: Clinton McKenzie by Jamie Morgan/Ray Petri (Buffalo), June 1985 //

Sartorial Style is on this Saturday at the V&A and looks to be a humdinger.

The day of talks, q&as and presentations considers centuries of male style and elegance and also explores contemporary men’s fashion, bringing together curators, academics, photographers, writers and designers.

Sartorial Style kicks off with Real Men DO Wear Pink!, an investigation into masculine style up until 1800 by Susan North, the V&A’s curator of 17th & 18th Century fashion.

//Sir Roy Strong at the V&A, May 20, 1987. Photo: Peter Dazeley/Getty//

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Tags: Adam Murray, Anna Jackson, Ben Whyman, Buffalo, Clinton McKenzie, George Malyard, Jamie Morgan, Mark Powell, Peter Denmark, Preston Is My Paris, Ray Petri, Sir Roy Strong, Susan North, Tommy Nutter

Tomorrow I’m a guest of historian Amber Butchart at London’s National Film Theatre for a conversation and q&a about Punk fashion with her special invitee Jordan Mooney, SEX and Seditionaries superstar and inner member of the Sex Pistols circle.

I’ve put together a presentation from my archive to run during our chat, including images of Jordan’s striking series of visual personae and slides showing how the designs by Malcolm McLaren and Vivienne Westwood at 430 King’s Road were regularly featured in the fashion and national press from the early 70s to the time of Punk later in the decade.

//Selection of Let It Rock designs showcased in a May 1972 issue of The Sunday Times Magazine. Photos: Hans Feurer. Paul Gorman Archive//

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Tags: 19, Alasdair McLellan, Amber Butchart, Caroline Baker, Hans Feurer, Honey & Vanity Fair, Jordan Mooney, Julien Temple, Karl Stoecker, Man About Town, Michael Roberts, National Film Theatre, Nova, Olivier Rizzo, Sex Pistols, Sunday Times Magazine, The Filth & The Fury

Lucky Los Angeles; later this week there is a special screening of Zara Hayes’ recent film about Derek Boshier, which was shown as part of the What Do Artists Do All Day? strand.

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Tags: BBC, Christopher Finch, Night Gallery, What Do Artists Do All Day?, Zara Hayes

It’s flattering to receive praise from a tastemaker of the standing of Gary Warnett, who has posted on his Gwarizm blog about my recent cult magazine chat with SHOWStudio editor Lou Stoppard for her Print project.

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Tags: 19, Blitz, Club International, Gary Warnett, Gwarizm, i-D, Interview, Lou Stoppard, NME, Print, Rags, Ritz, Showstudio, Street Life, The Face, West One

McLaren opened up the frontiers between artistic and wider cultural attitudes by taking fashion and music out of their respective contexts and translating them into new formats that captured the wider popular zeitgeist. A closer look at his seemingly disarticulated, exuberant and streetwise oeuvre shows it to be consistent and, in its own way, profound.

David Thorp

On Wednesday (June 3) I’m introducing a screening of Malcolm McLaren’s Paris: Capital Of The XXIst Century at The Performance Studio in Peckham, south London.

This is a the first-ever opportunity in this country to see the final work, which McLaren completed a matter of weeks before his death in April 2010. A working version was shown here just once, at Newcastle’s Baltic in November 2009.

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Tags: Alexander Trocchi, Asger Jorn, Baudelaire, David Thorp, Guy Debord, John Hansard Gallery, King Mob, Paris Capital of the XXIst Century, Situationist International, The Performance Studio, Tracey Emin

//Spread from AJ featuring images of Mr Freedom + Paradise Garage. Photo: Caz Facey//

It’s been a busy and satisfying week, rounded off by publication today in the Architects Journal of an essay of mine on the cultural significance of 430 King’s Road.

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Tags: Apartamento, Architects Journal, Architectural Association, Ben Kelly, DIY Cultures, Don't Take These Drawings Seriously, Gene Krell, Glasgow School Of Art, Jim Walrod, Katy West, Memphis, Nathalie Du Pasquier, Omar Sosa Bartolome, Rory Olcayto

//Genitalpanik (Genital Panic), 1969. VALIE EXPORT. Poster, silk-screen print. 69.5 x 49.5cm. Copyright the artist. Courtesy Richard Saltoun Gallery//

//Untitled (Pin-Up), 1973. Friedl Kubelka. Black and white photograph mounted on cardboard, 16.8 x 11.6cm//

This week sees the opening of the second of London gallery Richard Saltoun’s two-part exhibition of Viennese art: Feminism presents the work of VALIE EXPORT and Friedl Kubelka.

//Smart/Export II, 1968/1970. VALIE EXPORT. Vintage gelatin silver print, 60.7 x 40.5 cm. Edition of 5 plus 2 artist’s proofs. Copyright the artist. Courtesy Richard Saltoun Gallery//

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Tags: Friedl Kubelka, Jahreportraits, Peter Kubelka, Richard Saltoun Gallery, Smart/Export II, VALIE EXPORT, Viennese Actionists, Waltraud Lehner

//Dread at the controls: Toby Amies. Photo: Sarah Lee//

A self-confessed exhibitionist who took the world for his stage and his life for art and theatre, a blank canvas on which to create and display himself without preconceptions or inhibitions. Heavily tattooed and pierced, with his thin waxed moustache jutting forth at a rakish angle, Drako Zarhazar was for many years a familiar figure around the Kemptown district of Brighton, striding forth with cape and cane, an aristocratic apparition who seemed emblematic of true transgressive bohemia.

The Quietus, 2013

This Sunday evening I’m hosting a q&a at London’s BFI with director Toby Amies after a screening of The Man Whose Mind Exploded, his valediction for the unique Drako Oho Zarhazar.

Come along, enjoy this incredible film and join in the conversation afterwards. Tickets are available here.

The Man Whose Mind Exploded is being screened as part of BFI Flare, the London LGBT Film Festival.

Tags: BFI, BFI FLare, Brighton, Drako Oho Zarhazar, Kemptown, LGBT, The Man Whose Mind Exploded, The Quietus, Toby Amies

On Sunday March 30 I’ll be hosting a Q&A with film director Toby Amies (above right) after a screening at the BFI of The Man Whose Mind Exploded, Amies’ heart-rending documentary of the life of the extraordinary Drako  Zarharzar (above left).

We’ll be talking about Amies’ relationship with Drako, who died during the making of the film, and the often-fraught path documentarists tread between exploitation and celebration.

Other relevant matters, including the here and now, brain damage, memories, love, faith, cocks and nipples, may well crop up.

Come along, enjoy the film and join in; it will be a splendid way to spend a Sunday evening. Tickets here.

The Man Whose Mind Exploded is being screened as part of BFI Flare, the London LGBT Film Festival.

Tags: BFI, BFI FLare, Drako Zarhazar, London LGBT Film Festival, The Man Whose Mind Exploded, Toby Amies