Paul Gorman is…

My first concert: Count Basie and Frank Sinatra at the Royal Festival Hall, May 1970

Feb 2nd, 2017

I am fortunate enough to be able to state that the first live music concert I attended was the midnight double bill of Frank Sinatra and The Count Basie Orchestra at London’s Royal Festival Hall in May 1970.

//The headliners at the RFH, May 1970. Photo: Getty//

//At The RFH, May 1970. Photo: Getty//

I was 10 years old. My resourceful mother wangled tickets for the entire family, with one of my sisters selling programmes. That gained her access to the artists’ area; she gave me the backstage pass which I duly placed in the school project autobiography I wrote the following year.

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New map in the New Year – Punk London: In The City 1975-78

Nov 26th, 2015
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//Front cover, Punk London: In The City 1975-78, Herb Lester Associates/Paul Gorman, 2016. Design: Mike Haddad//

I am collaborating with Herb Lester Associates on a new map – Punk London: In The City 1975-78 will be published in the New Year as a celebration of the movement which swept the capital 40 years ago and resonates today as an attitude throughout the world.

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LP artwork distilled, venue interiors re-appraised and video portraits of Ian Brown, Matt Johnson and Richard Strange at Peter Wilkins’ Lost In Music

May 20th, 2015
60s, Van Morrison - Astral Weeks, Peter Wilkins, 2015

//Astral Weeks – Van Morrison, Peter Wilkins, 2015//

Hammersmith Apollo, Peter Wilkins, 2015

//Hammersmith Apollo, Peter Wilkins, 2015//

In the 21st century, when digital downloads displaced compact discs as the format of consumer choice, music went naked into the world, unadorned by design or packaging. Yet this in turn gave rise to vigorous rear-guard action in the growing appreciation of what was fast disappearing. As if from the dead, vinyl made a comeback and the fan in Wilkins places him in a key position to cogitate this phenomenon.
From my text for the Lost In Music catalogue

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