The Third Earl Of Harrow: Screaming Lord Sutch at Let It Rock
//1964 promotional shot of Screaming Lord Sutch//
//As it appeared on the sleeve of the German-only release of single Jack The Ripper/I’m A Hog For You Baby, 1964//
//Promotional shot featured in the Sutch section inside Let It Rock at 430 King’s Road. Photo: David Parkinson, January 1972//
//Reproduced on a mirror plate which featured among the display items selected by Malcolm McLaren and his first Let It Rock partner Patrick Casey for the back part of the shop premises. Photo: David Parkinson, January 1972//
//McLaren incorporated the image into a Screaming Lord Sutch t-shirt, featured behind assistant Yvonne Gold at the Let It Rock stall at Wembley Stadium, August 1972. From London Rock N Roll Show, directed by Peter Clifton//
I’d known Malcolm McLaren for years because he used to make my Teddy Boy suits before he got into punk. He and Vivienne Westwood both made my stage clothes. They were very arty and very wild, so we suited each other.
Screaming Lord Sutch, Ugly Things.
The late David Sutch – known to generations of Britons as the shock-rock performer and political buffoon Screaming Lord Sutch – played a supporting role in the story of 430 King’s Road when it was operating as the Teddy Boy fashion boutique Let It Rock in the early 70s.
The shop’s owner Malcolm McLaren, who delighted in Sutch’s B-movie charms, was assisted by the self-proclaimed “Third Earl Of Harrow” when erecting the pink lettering fascia on opening up in late 1971 (the ladders from Sutch’s north London window-cleaning business came in handy that day).
//Sutch helped McLaren paste the pink letters onto the Let It Rock facade. In this July 1972 photo by Masayoshi Sukita for An An magazine, Teds congregate outside the shop with assistant Addie Isman and designer Vivienne Westwood //
There was a dedicated Sutch memorabilia section inside Let It Rock, and the first national coverage of the outlet – in The Sunday Times Magazine in the spring of 1972 – featured the singer cavorting with models.
//Sutch in Hans Feurer photograph with Let It Rock feature in The Sunday Times Magazine, May 14, 1972. Designer Diana Crawshaw has pointed out that the sleeveless dresses date from 430 King’s Road’s previous incarnation, Paradise Garage//
//Sutch used a court appearance in the summer of 1972 to promote the London Rock N Roll Show. Photo: Getty//
//Roadie (right) in Let It Rock Screaming Lord Sutch t-shirt at Wembley, 1972. From London Rock N Roll Show, directed by Peter Clifton//
McLaren designed a Sutch t-shirt for sale at the London Rock & Roll Show at Wembley Stadium in August of that year; like the others for Chuck Berry, Jerry Lee Lewis and Little Richard, this centred on an appropriated image – in Sutch’s case, a wild 1964 promo shot.
//T-shirt displayed at the Let It Rock stall at Wembley. McLaren and assistant Yvonne Gold in the foreground. From London Rock N Roll Show, directed by Peter Clifton//
Sutch’s pervy single My Monster In Black Tights was a fixture on the jukebox as Let It Rock became Sex, where it was namechecked on the 1974 t-shirt design You’re Gonna Wake Up One Morning And Know What Side Of The Bed You’ve Been Lying On!.
A few years later McLaren booked his charges the Sex Pistols as support to the rock & roll performer at a 1976 Valentine’s dance; this ended badly when the young band trashed Sutch’s equipment.
//Wife Thann Rendessy poses to promote a Danish tour of Sutch’s in 1974. Photo: Getty//
As his status as figurehead of the Monster Raving Loony Party grew, Sutch’s musical career was marked out by gimmickry into which he roped his American model wife Thann Rendessy in the 70s.
Plagued by depression, Sutch took his own life in the summer of 1999. This piece by Tony Barrell for the Sunday Times is well worth reading for insights into a peculiar pop culture figure who also made a distinctive – and often unwelcome – contribution to the UK’s electoral process.
And this performance from the Wembley rock & roll show – with go-go dancers and pigeons, wobbly props and off-kilter vocalising – conveys Sutch’s mix of music-hall bravado and bonkers stage-craft (one Youtube commenter suggests it is best viewed through splayed fingers):