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.

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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

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

British law firm Charles Russell Speechlys, which supports the exhibitions at Somerset House’s Terrace Rooms, has produced a short film about PRINT! Tearing It Up, the show which I have organised at the gallery with SH senior curator Claire Catterall.
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Tags: Anarchy In The UK, Charles Russell Speechlys, Claire Catterall, Mushpit, Peace News, Somerset House, Suzanne Marriott, Viz

//The PRINT! Mind Map currently in the Terrace Rooms of Somerset House. Photo: Doug Peters/PA Wire//

//First rough draft, February 2018//

One of the most popular elements of PRINT! Tearing It Up – the celebration of independent magazines currently at Somerset House – is the giant mind map of British publishing which occupies an entire wall in the Terrace Rooms gallery.

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Tags: Architectural Review, BLast, British Journal Of Photography, Claire Catterall, Doug Peters, Omni Colour, Rhys Atkinson, Scott King, Somerset House, The Spectator

This summer I am staging PRINT! Tearing It Up, an exhibition at central London’s Somerset House which investigates and celebrates the power of independently produced British magazines and journals.

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Tags: Claire Catterall, Gal-dem, Gay News, Homesick, Hotdog, i-D, Mushpit, Orlando, Peace News, Print! Tearing It Up, Sleazenation, Somerset House, Spare Rib, The Gentlewoman, THIIIRD

//Judy Nylon at David “Piggy” Worth’s basement flat, Edith Grove, World’s End, London, 1971. Photo:©Tony Hall. No reproduction without permission//

//Nylon and  Worth amid the cut-outs, props and mannequins in his flat, 1971. Photo: © Tony Hall. No reproduction without permission//

It is a great honour to feature this guest post by the artist and thinker Judy Nylon about her friend David “Piggy” Worth and their life and milieu in London at the turn of the 70s (brought up in Boston, Nylon had arrived in the UK capital at the start of the decade). The photographs, like those posted here at the weekend, were taken by Tony Hall as he set out on his career in photography, and have not been previously published…

THERE was a time when I smoked and owned skirts.

I lived at 14 Edith Grove, just south of Fulham Road, in a house owned by Donald and David Cammell just after they’d done Performance.

Piggy lived further down Edith Grove below the King’s Road, in a basement flat that was like stepping into his imagination. He had collections of clothes, props and small objects.

//”Like stepping into his imagination.” Nylon and Worth and part of his clothing/antiques collection. Photo: © Tony Hall. No reproduction without permission//

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Tags: Anello & Davide, Avon, Beggars' Banquet, Clovis Ruffin, Dave Saunders, David "Piggy" Worth, Dunhill, Findus, Hovis, Ian MacDonald, Judy Nylon, MIchael Joseph, Player Specials, Ridley Scott, Rolling Stones, Silk Cut, Tony Hall, Tony Scott

//David “Piggy” Worth and Judy Nylon at the back of the building which housed his basement flat, Edith Grove, World’s End, London, 1971. Photo: © Tony Hall. No reproduction without permission//

//Worth in Ossie Clark snakeskin coat, Brompton Cemetry, west London, 1971. Photo: © Tony Hall. No reproduction without permission//

//On West Pier, Brighton, 1971. Photo: © Tony Hall. No reproduction without permission//

“Piggy was a special dreamer” Judy Nylon

“Piggy got me my first job with Helmut Newton” Yvonne Gold

“He was an amazing character, funny, exuberant, outgoing, such fun to be with. Everybody wanted to be his friend” Tony Hall

Before David Gandy, before Nick Kamen, there was David “Piggy” Worth.

//With Graeme Edge’s girlfriend at the Moody Blues’ drummer’s apartment, Bayswater, west London, 1971. Photo: © Tony Hall. No reproduction without permission//

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Tags: Adel Rootstein, Biba, David "Piggy" Worth, Duggie Fields, Gaby Longhi, Graeme Edge, Helmut Newton, Herb Schmitz, Jean Machine, John Stephen, Jordan Mooney, Judy Nylon, Ken Russell, Missionaries of Charity Sisters, Moody Blues, Ossie Clark, Shirley Russell, The Boyfriend, Tony Hall, Tony Lonsdale, Yvonne Gold

“The pastime of deriding the young never seems to grow old. Kids on the street: more must be done to tackle gang warfare. Kids inside; internet addiction is out of control. Kid sitting alone: depression epidemic. Kid running round: ADHD epidemic. Kid aces exam: standards are slipping. Kid flunks exam: no aspiration. The conditions the young endure are invariably a playground for adult moral grandstanding…

“For those who believe the voice of children is worth listening to, Woodcraft Folk has blazed a trail.”

Phineas Harper, Introduction, A People’s History Of Woodcraft Folk, 2016

My father, a career soldier of 26 years standing, was not strict, but on certain issues of upbringing he stood firm: a trophy-winning marksman himself, he would not allow us toy guns or quasi-army paraphernalia. In addition, joining the scouts was out of bounds. Like many who came of age in the 1910s and 20s he deplored the militarism the movement promoted among children. Doubtless the deaths of two of my uncles in the Great War lay at the roots of this.

He disparaged a Pacifist position, feeling it was his duty to serve, and so joined up as soon as he could, later playing his part at the pivotal battle of El Alamein in 1942. But after World War 2, militarism, even in the form of childish game-playing, was anathema.

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Tags: Annebella Pollen, Architecture Foundation, Baden-Powell, El Alamein, Jeremy Corbyn, John Hargrave, Kindertransport, Labour Party, Leslie Paul, Phineas Harper, The Kindred Of The Kibbo Kift, Woodcraft Folk

//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.

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Tags: Alan Jones, Cowboys t-shirt, David "Piggy" Worth, Dr Colin Phipps, Glen Matlock, Hiroshi Fujiwara, John Lydon, Paul Cook, Roy Jenkins, Steve Jones, The Roebuck, Vagrancy Act 1924, Vivienne Westwood

//Explanatory text panel which appeared on the inside cover of Icteric No. 2 with 2004 note, from King Mob: A Critical Hidden History//

//Extract of text on 1974 t-shirt by Bernie Rhodes, Malcolm McLaren and Gerry Goldstein//

A few years ago I attempted a dissection of the intriguing elements of the culture-shock t-shirt You’re Gonna Wake Up One Morning And Know What Side Of The Bed You’ve Been Lying On!, produced by Bernie Rhodes, Malcolm McLaren and Gerry Goldstein for sale in Sex at 430 King’s Road in the autumn of 1974.

In You’re Gonna Wake Up, the declamatory tone, aggressive punctuation, satirical bite and use of basic typographical emphases such as the repeated forward slash and random capitalised text combined to detonate a densely packed cultural device.

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Tags: Antonin Artaud, Arthur Cravan, Bernard Buffet, Blue Blouse, Boris Arvatov, Buckminster Fuller, David Wise, Erik Satie, Filippo Tomasso Marinetti, Francis Picabia, Franz Jung, Georges Méliès, Giorgio de Chirico, Icteric, James Joyce, Jean-Paul Sartre, Johannes Baader, John Cage, John Myers, Jonathan Swift, Kazimir Malevich, Leon Trotsky, Louis Aragan, Marcel DUchamp, Maurice Martin du Gard, Nick Brandt, Raymond Roussel, Richard von Foregger, Ron Hunt, Stuart Wise, Tristan Tzara, Vache, Viktor Rodchenko, Vladimir Tatlin, Vsevolod Meyerhold, Woyrow, You're Gonna Wake Up One Morning And Know What Side Of The Bed You've Been Lying On!