Books

The Rock And Roll Public Library




This is turning out to be a week of scrapbook-mania, moodboard-making and ephemera-loving! Firstly, I decided to make some fashiony moodboards for my own pleasure so have started with the fun bit – namely deciding on themes and sorting all my relevant scraps into piles. To aid the creative flow, dear D came home this evening with a Waterstones carrier bag tucked under his arm. Therein was the Satchmo book, a present for us to share which is even better than I expected. Pages and pages of cut-out photos, hand rendered type and yellowing tape artfully arranged into beautiful, personal collages that tell the story of Louis Armstrong’s life. As if that wasn’t ‘WOW’ enough, an email just pinged in my inbox from PR pal R about The Rock And Roll Public Library.

This is an exhibition that opened today featuring a lifetime’s collecting of pop culture and ephemera by West London cool dude Mick Jones (otherwise known as iconic guitarist and songwriter from The Clash, Big Audio Dynamite and Carbon Silicon). Jones has collected and archived all his Clash-related videos, magazines, stage clothes, artwork and instruments as well as more personal letters and artefacts amassed in his studio over the last three (or even four) decades. The exhibition is on show for a month but Jones has longer term aims for the collection. “Ultimately I’d like to have a permanent place to exhibit the whole collection like a museum, like a library where you can come and see the stuff and maybe get a copy or sit there and read it. I also would like to bring artists there because it’s history really,” he said. It’s on until 18th April and I can’t wait to go!

Read more about The Rock and Roll Public Library…



Louis Armstrong: The collage book




I didn’t make it to the Louis Armstrong Museum when I went to NYC but I can’t wait to get my hands on this new book. As well as being a jazz legend (which is by the by for me, I have nil knowledge of jazz), Armstrong was a prolific collagist. This book showcases some of his 650 mini collages (all made on cassette boxes) and 20-odd scrapbooks. Heaven!



Richard Avedon: What’s the surprise?



Richard Avedon - what's the surprise?

I spent last weekend dipping in and out of the Stylist book I bought a couple of weeks ago and can I say it was money well spent. In particular, this quote from Allure creative director Paul Cavaco resonated with me:

Richard Avedon would ask, ‘What’s the surprise?’ And you’d go, ‘It’s the purple sock,’ so he’d go ‘Okay, move the pant leg up.’ I worked with great visual people who would ask, ‘Why am I looking at this? What is great about this girl? Yes, she’s beautiful, but they’re all beautiful. Show me what is different. Is it lipstick; is it not? What is that hand doing? Is it just shoved in the pocket? Should it be out or should it be showing a nail?’ You have all these options; what are you going to choose? The world is that open; how do you make it yours? That’s the editing process.”

Wise words. The book seems to feature mostly Conde Nast stylists (W, Vogue, Allure) which isn’t all that surprising as Style.com is behind it but Sarah Mower’s writing is spot on and it’s just so interesting to get a bit of an insight into these backstage creatives.

WORDS: Disneyrollergirl
IMAGE: Richard Avedon
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Berlin Bromley, a punk memoir



Berlin Bromley by Bertie Marshall
It’s no secret that I’m a bookaholic and I love reading oral histories and biographies about underground movements, pop culture and subcultures. Off the top of my head I can enthusiastically recommend Please Kill Me by Legs McNeil, Edie an American Biography by Jean Stein, The Last Party by Anthony Haden Guest* and Days in the Life: Voices from the English Underground 1961-71 by Jonathon Green as fascinating, insightful reads. One I hadn’t heard of is Berlin Bromley by Bertie Marshall, a book I read about on this blog.

Marshall was one of the Bromley Contingent, a group of suburbanites which included Siousie Sioux amongst their number who were key players in the early London punk movement. This book documents his growing up in gloomy seventies suburbia and the drug-addled years that followed. (Not a lighthearted read then…)

*Actually this one is rather hard work as the story (about the rise and fall of New York’s nightlife in the 70s) does have so many twists, turns and characters but it’s a worthwhile read to dip into and get a feel for the hedonistic goings-on of the era.

Pic: http://www.honeyee.com/blog/