//1964 promotional shot of Screaming Lord Sutch//

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Tags: Addie Isman, An An, Chuck Berry, Diana Crawshaw, Hans Feurer, Jerry Lee Lewis, Let It Rock, Little Richard, London Rock N Roll Show, Masayoshi Sukita, My Monster In Black Tights, Paradise Garage, Peter Clifton, Screaming Lord Sutch, Sunday Times Magazine, Tony Barrell, Ugly Things, You're Gonna Wake Up One Morning And Know What Side Of The Bed You've Been Lying On!, Yvonne Gold

Specially selected posts from this blog’s archive are now featuring on Flashbak, the digital resource featuring images and stories from the past.

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Tags: Another Nickel In The Machine, Flashbak, ICA, London Rock N Roll Show, Rob Baker, Ten Sitting Rooms, Wembley Stadium

//Poster for Italian release of Alan Freed’s 1956 musical Rock, Rock, Rock!. Photo: John D. Kisch/Separate Cinema Archive/Getty Images//

//Left: Chuck Berry image isolated and bleached out. Right: As it appeared on the t-shirt, worn in this 1973 photograph of singer/songwriter Simon Fisher Turner. Photographer: Unknown//

When they were setting up Let It Rock in 1971, Malcolm McLaren and his original partner in the boutique at 430 King’s Road – Patrick Casey – acquired a cache of posters, showcards and ephemera for 50s rocksploitation movies, including many Continental-language variants.

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Tags: After School Session, Alan Freed, Don't Knock The Twist, Golden Hour Of Rock N' Roll, Harry Foster, Jayne Mansfield, L'Amour Frénétique, Le Cavalier Du Crepuscule, Let's Rock, London Rock N Roll Show, Loving You), Mister Rock And Roll, Patrick Casey, Peter Clifton, Rock, Simon Fisher Turner, Wembley Stadium, You Can't Catch Me

//Flyer for The Rock n Roll Show printed on the back of a subscription form for Oz magazine, July 1972. The Move were replaced by lead member Roy Wood’s new band Wizzard; this was their first gig. Original Brit-rocker Heinz was added to the bill; his backing band would soon become Dr Feelgood//

I acquired my first underground press publications in the summer of 1972, at about the point when the sector was taking the nosedive from which it never recovered.

Still, better late than Sharon Tate, as they say. Aged 12, my taste had been whetted by sneak peeks at an older brother’s collection of magazines when a guy called Kevin O’Keefe who lived down the road gave me a few copies of Oz, including number 43, the July issue.

A few weeks later, to my astonishment, the newsagents in Hendon’s Church Road started stocking Frendz. I folded issue 33 between a couple of music papers and pored over it in my bedroom.

//Front cover of OZ 43, the issue which included the Wembley flyer//

//Front cover, Frendz 33, September 1972//

//Crowds around the Let It Rock stand. From the 1973 film London Rock N Roll Show directed by Peter Clifton//

Neither of the magazines are shining examples of the genre, but they had something in common: the centre spread of OZ 43 contained a subscription form back-printed with a flyer for the London Rock N Roll Show, a one-day festival of original 50s acts and those who could claim kinship held at Wembley Stadium on August 5 that year.

And for me the most beguiling article in Frendz 33 was a two-page stream-of-consciousness report of the event filed by one Douglas Gordon and illustrated with photographs by Pennie Smith, soon to leave for the NME and carve out her reputation as one of rock photography’s all-time greats.

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Tags: 1972, Chuck Berry, Douglas Gordon, Dr Feelgood, Evening Standard, Fats Domino, Fred "Sonic" Smith, Frendz, Gary Glitter, Geoffrey Aquilina Ross, Granny Takes A trip, Heinz, Hunky Dory, Ian Bodenham, Jerry Lee Lewis, Little Richard, London Rock N Roll Show, MC5, Oz, Pennie Smith., Peter Clifton, Too Fast To Live Too Young To Die, Vivienne Westwood, Wembley Stadium, Wizzard, Yvonne Gold