Russ Bestley: 'Turning Revolt Into Style' (2025): Notes on Chapters 3-5

Russ Bestley: Turning Revolt Into Style 

(Manchester University Press, 2025)

 

 

I.

 

It's true that although UK punk began in London, it soon spread elsewhere; that it was neither a uniform nor static phenomenon; that it was "subject to rapid and dramatic change over time, particularly as local scenes sprang up across the country" [a]. 

 

But whereas Bestley, like most other punk scholars, is interested in the way in which "punk's evolutionary diaspora was as much geographical as it was temporal and aesthetic" [103], I have to admit that my own interest tends to begin and end at 430 King's Road. 

 

And whilst I wouldn't dismiss the punk scene as it developed in Leeds, or Manchester, or even Penzance [b] as part of the "'incorporation and containment'" [c] of McLaren's project, I do think that the Sex Pistols were something distinctly different, as recognised by Bernard Brook-Partridge [d].

 

In brief, whether we choose to think of them as the "extreme ideological wing of the Peculiars" [e], or as a group of Dickensian yobs looking to swindle their way to the top of the music industry whence they could shit on their own success, they were not a punk band merely offering us, in Rotten's words, a bit of a twang, a giggle ... [f].           

 

 

II. 

 

Post-punk: an aesthetic and stylistic expansion, which, to be fair, did result in some great records and previously unknown pleasures. 

 

And I'd concede the point that one cannot stay forever at the level of the ruins, like those "sections of the original punk scene ossified around a set of fixed aesthetic conventions" [106]. Ultimately, one has to "build up new little habitats, have new little hopes"[g] and even McLaren and Westwood ditched punk for piracy in 1980 and set off in search of new sounds, new looks, and new adventures.   

 

But, on the other hand, I'm extremely wary of those who think Metal Box is more fun than The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle, or more radical than Your Cassette Pet - and I'm sorry to say that seems to include Bestley, who describes the former as ground-breaking and thrills to the album's dub rhythms and "Lydon's leftfield, poetic lyrics" [105], whilst not once mentioning either of the other two albums.     

 

 

III. 

 

Extreme punk politics: from puritanical anarcho-hippies Crass, to fascist morons Screwdriver - what can one say? 

 

Punk, as I understood it, rejected political asceticism of all varieties; it had no time for "the sad militants, the terrorists of theory, those who would preserve the pure order of politics and political discourse" [h]. 

 

Punk was not apolitical; but it was transpolitical ...

 

 

IV.  

 

"A significant part of the emerging punk aesthetic was driven by enthusiastic followers and amateur producers ..." [124] 

  

Sadly, it seems to me that amateurism is, in this professional era, increasingly looked down upon (with the possible exception being that of amateur porn; the erotic folk art of our digital age). 

 

Which is a pity: for I tend to be of a Greek persuasion and consider the amateur as a virtuous figure; open minded, devoted, and full of passion for their discipline regardless of whether this brings public recognition or generates an income. 

 

Ultimately, as Roland Barthes notes, the true amateur is not defined by inferior knowledge or an imperfect technique, but, rather, by the fact that he does not not identify himself to others in order to impress or intimidate; nor constantly worry about status and reputation. 

 

Also, crucially, the amateur unsettles the distinction between work and play, art and life, which is doubtless why they are feared by those who like to police borders, protect categories, and form professional associations.  

 

Having said that, the fact remains that the "history of punk graphics in the United Kingdom starts [... and I'm tempted to say finishes] with Jamie Reid" [124], whose work for the Sex Pistols captured what they were about with a high degree of skill and style.   

 

Obviously, there were many other design practitioners and graphic artists who emerged at the time of punk and contributed to it. But, other than Winston Smith - who was associated with the American punk band the Dead Kennedy's - and Nick Egan, who worked in partnership with McLaren in the post-Pistols period, I can't think of any whose work ever really excited my interest.  

 

I know a lot of people rave, for example, about Peter Saville's cover for the first Joy Division album (Unknown Pleasures, 1979) and Mike Coles's cover for the eponymous debut album by Killing Joke (1980) [i]. However, whilst they're both vaguely interesting works, neither really means anything to me, whereas Reid's Never Mind the Bollocks cover still makes smile almost 50 years later.    

 

 

V. 

 

Chapter 4 concludes on a slightly depressing note (but true, of course):

 

"Despite the rhetoric of the punk 'revolution', little changed at the major labels [...] The recorded music industry was founded on the core principles of innovation and novelty, at least in relation to identifying new artists that could be moulded and exploited to generate popular appeal. The commercially viable areas of punk and new wave were rapidly absorbed, just like the at-the-time radical music and youth scenes that preceded them." [151]

 

Similarly, while some of the "new breed of punk-inspired graphic designers set themselves apart from the traditional art departments [...] many of the more successful practitioners joined the ranks of the commercial studios as time went on" [151].

 

In brief, never trust a punk [j] and remember - to paraphrase Nietzsche writing in the Genealogy - no one is more corruptible than a graphic artist ... [k]   

 

 

VI. 

 

I think the main takeaway from Bestley's book is that amateurs and professionals need one another and that both types of producer "informed the wider punk aesthetic and reflected common visual conventions that were emerging as the new subculture made a nationwide impact" [154].

 

Those who lack education, skills, and material resources but who still attempt to do things for themselves should not be looked down on. But inverted snobbery aimed at those who are professionally trained and talented and do have access to the very latest technologies [l] is also unwarranted. 

 

 

VII.   

   

Whilst I'm not particularly interested in the "range of processes chosen by punk and post-punk designers for the origination and print reproduction of record sleeves, posters and other visual materials" [155], there are passages in Chapter 5 of Turning Revolt Into Style that caught my attention and in which Bestley's analysis is spot on. 

 

For example, I agree that the reason many punk visual tropes and techniques work so well is because they not only "drew upon a much longer tradition of agitprop art and design" [157], but unfolded within "a new context that extended into mainstream culture resulting in [...] a more powerful impact" [157].

 

In other words, things such as record sleeves, posters, badges, etc., "were not fine art objects to be appreciated by connoisseurs in galleries and exhibitions; they were examples of mass-produced printed ephemera that conveyed a sense of identity and subcultural capital" [157].

 

Of course, today, many of these same objects are in fine art galleries and museums and cultural capital is now big business. 

 

Thus, for example, a copy of the one-off official Sex Pistols newspaper, Anarchy in the U. K., produced by Jamie Reid in collaboration with Sophie Richmond, Ray Stevenson, Malcolm McLaren and Vivienne Westwood, and featuring a striking photo of Soo Catwoman on the cover, may have had a cover price of 20p when it was sold on the Anarchy Tour in 1976, but it will now set you back £2000 if you wish to buy it from Peter Harrington in Mayfair: click here. 

 

Cash from chaos, as someone once said ...

 

 

VIII.   

 

Bestley mentions many of the more successful punk fanzines; Sniffin' Glue, Ripped & Torn, Chainsaw, etc. - and several of the fanzines produced outside of London which "reflected the development of scenes well beyond punk's stereotypical epicentre" [172].

 

One that he doesn't mention and won't know of - one that probably only me and one other person in the world remember - was Yourself which was a single photocopied page of A4, printed on both sides, and freely distributed amongst the student body of a small Catholic college which, at that time (1981) was affiliated with the University of Leeds. 

 

The subtitle read: 19 and young - 20 and old (ageism was a defining feature of punk as I remember it back in the day) and the text called for a rejection of all authority, particularly beginning with the letter 'P' (parents, priests, and policemen, for example). 

        

 

IX.

Ultimately, as Bow Wow Wow once informed us, it's T-E-K technology - not punk rock or other forms of subcultural activity - that really brings about fundamental change in society; demolishing patriarchal structures and creating greater degrees of A-U-T autonomy [m]. 

As Bestley notes in his closing remarks to Chapter 5, "changes in the social and technical practices of design blurred the boundaries between amateur and professional production" [178-79]. He continues:

"Changing technologies and the culmination of an ongoing restructuring of the labour market [...] enabled more control along with creative freedom for a new generation of designers ..." [179]

 

 

Notes

 

[a] Russ Bestley, Turning Revolt Into Style: The process and practice of punk graphic design (Manchester University Press, 2025), p. 103. All future page references to this text will be given directly in the post.

 

[b] See Simon Parker's PZ77: A Town a Time A Tribe (Scryfa, 2022), for a nostalgic look back at the punk scene in Penzance in 1977. And for my thoughts on this work, see the post entitled 'Punk History is for Pissing On' (21 Sept 2025): click here. 

      In brief: I don't like it. Bestley seems to approve of punk bands acknowledging their roots and paying homage to their locality and that of their friends, family, and fans; singing about "the issues that affected their local community" [113]. But that kind of folksy provincialism doesn't really appeal to me (not even when it's the Clash singing about West London). 

      In part, the is due to my own intellectual background in schizonomadic philosophy; home is made for coming from, it's not somewhere to idealise (or even dream of going to). Punk, at it's best, is headless and homeless (one might do well to recall the destination of the Sex Pistols bus as well as Poly Styrene's problematising of identity). Remember kids: civic pride is simply a form of micro-nationalism.

 

[c] Gary Clarke, quoted by Russ Bestley in Turning Revolt Into Style, p. 103.

 

[d] Brook-Partridge was a high-profile Tory who served as chairman of the Greater London Council's arts committee (1977-79). He famously described punk rock as "nauseating, disgusting, degrading, ghastly, sleazy,  prurient, voyeuristic and generally nauseating". 

      Singling out the Sex Pistols as the worst of the punk rock groups, Brook-Partridge labelled them as the "antithesis of humankind" and suggested that "the whole world would be vastly improved by their total and utter non-existence". 

      Malcolm so-loved this, that a filmed recording of Brook-Partridge uttering these words was included in The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle (dir. Julien Temple, 1980). As far as I recall, no other punk (post-punk, or new wave) band ever solicited such a vitriolic response. Click here to watch on YouTube.

 

[e] Peter York, 'Them', Harpers & Queen (Oct 1976), quoted by Paul Gorman in The Life and Times of Malcolm McLaren (Constable, 2020), p. 329.  

 

[f] Of course, Rotten himself would eventually collaborate with Virgin Records and build himself a long term career in the music business. 

 

[g] D. H. Lawrence, Lady Chatterley's Lover, ed. Michael Squires (Cambridge University Press, 1993), p. 5. 

 

[h] Michel Foucault, Preface to Deleuze and Guattari's Anti-Oedipus, tran. Robert Hurley, Mark Seem, and Helen R. Lane (The Athlone Press, 1984), p. xii.

 

[i] Bestley discusses Cole's Killing Joke sleeve on p. 141 of Turning Revolt Into Style. 

 

[j] Jamie Reid came to the same conclusion and in 2007 he issued a limited edition giclee print with this title; an ironic inversion of the 'Never Trust a Hippy' slogan from The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle.  

 

[k] See Nietzsche, On the Genealogy of Morality, III. 25. 

      For Nietzsche, the artist, as a creator, should actively invest and transform the world; not simply represent it by holding up a mirror to the times. Or, failing all else, the artist should be prepared to return the world to its chaotic character and become a great destroyer.

      Unfortunately, Nietzsche was obliged to accept that the becoming-decadent of even our greatest artists is far more likely than their becoming-untimely.  

 

[l] Often, knowledge of and access to new technology was what mostly "separated the professionals from the amateurs, the commissioned from the vernacular" [170]. 

 

[m] I'm quoting from the lyrics to the Bow Wow Wow single 'W.O.R.K (N.O. Nah No My Daddy Don't)', written by Malcolm Mclaren and released on EMI Records (1981). 

 

To read the first post in this series - Notes on the Introduction - click here. 

 

To read the second post in this series - Notes on Chapters 1 & 2 - click here. 

 

To read the fourth and final post in this series - Notes on Chapters 6-8 - click here.  

 

 

Russ Bestley: 'Turning Revolt Into Style' (2025): Notes on Chapters 1-2

A Gentleman and a Punk Scholar [a]

Stephen Alexander à la Jamie Reid (2025) 

 

I. 

 

Russ Bestley's new book, Turning Revolt Into Style (2025), is divided into eight chapters and an Introduction that I discussed here.   

 

In this post, I will offer some remarks on Chapter 1, which introduces the notion of punk graphic design and its core themes, and Chapter 2, which "interrogates the range of design methods that were utilised in response to these punk thematic ideals" [b]. 

 

 

II. 

 

"Punk's original premise ..." [24] - did punk ever really have such? 

 

I suppose one might regard sex, style, and subversion as a thematic slogan - and punk was as accomplished at sloganeering as it was at political posturing and posing for the cameras - but I'd hesitate before speaking of a punk premise when punk was far from being a coherent philosophy or aesthetic and "simply an umbrella term that could be applied to an eclectic and disparate range of activity" [24] [c]. 

 

Still, let's not get get bogged down with the opening three words of the first chapter and broadly agree with Bestley that punk's core themes were "provocation, individuality, novelty, directness, honesty and authenticity" [25-26] and that these things were reflected in the sound and look of punk. 

 

And let's remember that Bestley is a graphic designer, not a philosopher; i.e., he's someone concerned with a "range of physical, designed objects" including "flyers, posters, photographs, clothing, badges, fanzines and record covers" [26] rather than with language, with which he seems to have an unproblematic relationship.

 

Bestley is not a bad writer. But he is an assured writer: one for whom words possess clear meanings and are used straightforwardly to convey information as concisely and precisely as possible.

 

However, whilst it's good to think in a material manner (in terms of objects), that shouldn't mean one fails to think also in a more abstract or symbolic manner (in terms of ideas); a good writer understands that language might move beyond being merely communicative in a narrow, functional manner and become a medium in which we can construct new thoughts [d].  

 

 

III. 

 

This seems an important point: 

 

"The diversity of punk graphic design styles and aesthetics needs to be understood in relation to three loosely defined groups of visual practitioners ..." [27] - amateurs; up-and-coming designers (often out of art school); and established design professionals. 

 

If it was "the simplicity of the lo-tech, handmade flyers produced by Helen Wellington-Lloyd and Jamie Reid for the Sex Pistols, along with an underground revolution in homemade fanzines and other printed ephemera produced by inspired and enthusiastic fans [...] that kickstarted a punk design aesthetic" [28], it was, by contrast, "the hugely influential work of professional art directors and designers [...] that helped it reach a mainstream audience" [28].

 

And this, for me at least, is an interesting point: Reid's ransome note typography for his work with the Sex Pistols was not widely copied or "commonly used on record covers for other punk artists" [34], even whilst it was soon recognised as visual shorthand for punk. Bestley writes:

 

"The success - and notoriety - of the Sex Pistols [...] was a double-edged sword: on the one hand, punk was beginning to develop a recognisable set of visual styles, largely centred on Reid's work [...] At the same time, largely due to its powerful visual impact, ransom note typography [...] quickly became symbolic of early UK punk in the mainstream media and therefore a cliché to be best avoided unless the designer's intention was to make a parodic comment on the commercial exploitation of the new subculture." [37]

 

This makes me wonder about my continued use of Reid-inspired graphics as in the God Save ... poster featuring Bestley above. Is it possible for something that has been assimilated by the mainstream culture - Reid's work is found in collections all over the world, including the National Portrait Gallery and the V&A here in the UK - to be reclaimed? 

 

In other words, can the recuperated punk image be subject to a technique of détournement?    

 

 

IV. 

 

"The inclusion of a photograph of the group - standard practice in the pop music market going back to the 1950s - is prevalant in many early punk record sleeves, though the convention was rejected by some groups, including the Sex Pistols ..." [37]

 

Other punk groups displayed no such qualms with having their ugly mugs plastered on record covers and before long there was a standard picture; band members standing in a gritty urban environment trying to look menacing "and graphically treated to render a high contrast, distressed or distorted image" [40]. 

 

As punk became ever-more commodified and commercialised, "by far the most common visual trope in the depiction of a punk rock group is the band lined-up against a brick or concrete wall" [41] - see the Clash, for example, on the cover of their eponymous debut album (1977) [e], or posing as rebel rockers on the front of Sandinista! (1980).  

 

And some people still think of them as the only band that matters ...!

 

 

V.

 

"Punk was no erudite ideological critique ..." [51] 

 

Well, that's certainly true; "most punk discourse was rhetorical and performative" [51], though McLaren and Westwood may have fancied they had something of political importance to say and they provided punk with "an appropriately anatgonistic" [51] language and look drawn from various sources, promiscuously and irresponsibly "mixing symbols of insurrection and revolution" [52] with images drawn from popular culture and pornography. 

      

And better their playful politics of provocation and art school pranksterism, surely, than the militant asceticism of bands like Crass, or, on the other side of the fence, the politics of those punks who supported far-right movements and replaced witty intelligent lyrics with a grunted two-letter interjection.    

 

 

VI. 

 

And speaking of art school pranksterism ...

 

Bestley makes the fair point that "while Malcolm McLaren and Jamie Reid had indeed caught the late 1960s zeitgeist and attempted to engage with the then current ideas of the Situationists [...] while at art college [...] the suggestion of substantive links between participants in the wider punk scene and the work of earlier art groups is less convincing" [57]. 

 

That's why, one might argue, the Sex Pistols interest and excite far more than most of the artless and ideologically clueless punk bands that followed. I know many sneered at those who played along with the art school boys - including Rotten - but I don't have much time for such philistine and reactionary stupidity disguised as "working-class politics and street level 'authenticity'" [58]. Ultimately, where would we be without creative intellectuals such as cousin Kevin? [f]

 

 

VII. 

 

DIY: to tell the truth, I've always hated this three-letter initialism and the kind of people who spend their weekends in B&Q, priding themselves on being able to turn their hand to all sorts of job, even though do-it-yourself was an oft-repeated punk mantra and core ethic even among "many groups and artists signed to major labels and operating in the mainstream music industry" [59].  

 

I suppose, I've always been intrigued by the aristocratic (anti-utilitarian) idea that one attains sovereignty not by doing things for oneself, but by not doing anything and by refusing to be a useful or productive human being [g]. 

 

Knowing how to operate a photocopier or printing press does not a scarlet poppy make you ...     

 

 

VIII. 

 

The appropriation of visual material (including found images) and "the use of détournement as a subversive method" [78] is something I very much admire about punk graphic design and artwork. And so is the deployment of humour:

 

"Beneath all the rhetoric and 'shocking' behaviour, the early punk scene in the United Kingdom displayed a deep-seated ironic intelligence [...] The scene was [...] deeply self-aware and parodic, with a keen sense of the absurdity of its own rebellion ..." [84]

 

Bestley continues:

 

"Punk's embrace of parody, pastiche and irony was played out in lyrics, dress, interviews, artwork and music. These kind of strategies were not unfamiliar to artists and designers [...] The long tradition of satirical insurrection, from Dada to Duchamp, the Surrealists to the Situationist International, offered a rich resource for punk graphic designers and visual communicators to plunder." [84]   

 

As I argued in a post published on 28 February 2025 - click here - fun is not only a vital component of playfulness (i.e., hedonic engagement with the world), but it can also help one avoid what Wilde terms humanity's original sin, i.e., self-seriousness [h].  

 

I think it's crucial therefore to stress that punk was essentially a revolution for fun and that the Sex Pistols embodied a notion of the ridiculous, the most crucial aspect of which is that it solicits, incites, or provokes laughter [i]. 

 

To quote once more from Bestley: "While the notion of détournement suggests a politically charged, subversive intent, much punk graphic design appropriation was simply playful and witty ..." [86]  

 

 

IX. 

 

And finally ... 

 

One of the defining characteristics of post-punk, writes Bestley, was the fact that they attempted to operate withing "a wider and more sophisticated musical and visual arena" [99]; i.e., to "raise the intellectual bar away from 'outdated' and inarticulate punk themes and into an aspirational new decade" [99].  

 

Personally, however, I preferred Bow Wow Wow to Joy Division; post-punk pirates to post-punk miserabilists ...   

 

 

Notes

 

[a] Russ Bestley is a Reader in Graphic Design & Subcultures at London College of Communication. 

      He is also Lead Editor of the academic journal Punk & Post-Punk, Series Editor and Art Director for the Global Punk book series published by Intellect Books, a founding member of the Punk Scholars Network, and head of the Subcultures Interest Group at UAL. His research archive can be accessed at hitsvilleuk.com.  

 

[b] Russ Bestley, Turning Revolt Into Style, (Manchester University Press, 2025), p. 19. All future page references to this text will be given directly in the post.  

 

[c] I discuss the problematic term punk in the notes made on the Introduction to Turning Revolt Into Style - click here - and in a post published on 13 March 2025: click here. For me, the term wasn't quickly co-opted - it was itself the linguistic means of co-option; a way to overcode, simplify, and negate. As Bestley notes, the term punk allowed a "reflective metanarrative" [29] to develop as well as a new youth market.  

      Bestley's use of the term umbrella is perhaps more appropriate than he realises. For I would suggest that what the Sex Pistols attempted to do was cut a hole in the great umbrella erected betweeen ourselves and the forever surging chaos of existence (we mean by umbrella our ideals, our conventions, and fixed forms of every description). 

      The Sex Pistols were essentially cultural terrorists; the enemy of human security and comfort. But no matter how many times they managed to make a tiny hole in the painted underside of the Umbrella, along came other bands to ensure things were speedily repaired. And the majority of us, if we're honest, prefer a patched-up reality to the sheer intensity of lived experience; which is why we quite like those punk and new wave bands who followed the Sex Pistols. 

      D. H. Lawrence introduces this idea of chaos and the great umbrella in his text entitled 'Chaos in Poetry', which can be found in Introductions and Reviews, ed. N. H. Reeve and John Worthen (Cambridge University Press, 2005), pp. 107-116.    

 

[d] Am I being unfair here? Maybe. 

      But Bestley writes with confidence, clarity, and authority and these are not traits that I value in a writer. I suspect he believes that there are certain objective truths and indisputable facts about punk on which everyone who has attained a certain level of education can manage to agree. Thus, thanks to the inherent certainties of language and shared common sense, critical consensus is both possible and desirable.

      I would deny this and I would also contest the author's consciously exercised control over their own work; i.e., bring into question a writer's ability to ever fully understand their subject with any confidence or certainty.

 

[e] Bestley describes the cover thus: 

      "The front cover is based on a photograph by Kate Simon depicting the three main group members, Paul Simonon, Joe Strummer and Mick Jones in an alleyway adjacent to their rehearsal studio. Wearing suitably punk stage clothing, the musicians look directly at the camera without smiling. The connotations of the image are clear: punks are embattled urban survivors, their territory the rundown street. The photograph is reproduced in stark, high contrast black and white, with all the midtones stripped out through a deliberately heavy halftone image treatment." [94-95]

      The key point is:

"While the album cover offers several graphic references to the visual language of punk fanzines and the DIY revolution, this is a sophisticated graphic composition that sets out to play down the technical skill of the designer ..." [95]. 

      In other words, the gritty authenticity of punk is a form of artifice; the Clash were plastic punks after all.

 

[f] I'm referring here, of course, to a line from the song 'My Perfect Cousin' by the Undertones, released as a single from their second studio album Hypnotised (Sire Records, 1980). It was the band's only top ten UK hit, reaching number 9 in the charts. The track was written by Damian O'Neill and Michael Bradley. To play on YouTube - and watch the video directed by Julien Temple - click here. 

      I love the song, but I have to admit I'm sympathetic to Zanti Misfit's defence of Kevin, the perfect cousin, published on The Afterword (03/06/2015): click here. 

 

[g] This is why I've always loved the X-Ray Spex track 'I Can't Do Anything' on Germ Free Adolescents (EMI, 1978): click to play here. 

      For an interesting essay by George McKay that critically interrogates and reconceptualises the DIY/punk nexus, with particular reference to the early UK punk scene, see 'Was Punk DIY? Is Punk DIY?' in DIY: Alternative Cultures & Society Vol. 2, Issue 1 (April, 2024): click here to read online. 

      Challenging Bestley's view of DIY as being an essential component of the punk philosophy, McKay suggests the two concepts should be decoupled; that DIY needs depunking so to speak, in order that it might be liberated as a far broader (and more radical) practice.

 

[h] One recalls Oscar Wilde's line from The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890): 'If only the caveman had known how to laugh ...'

 

[i] See the post entitled 'In Defence of Fun' (3 June 2024) - click here - and the post entitled 'On the Nature of the Ridiculous (and the Ridiculous Nature of the Sex Pistols) (21 March 2024): click here. 

 

 

The following post in this four-part series on Russ Bestley's Turning Revolt Into Style, can be read by clicking here. 

 

Memories of a Duck Rocker

Nick Egan: Front cover of Malcolm McLaren's Duck Rock (1983) [1]

and Duck Rock (2023), a mixed media collage on canvas, 48 × 36 in [2]

 

 

I. 

 

I was very pleased to discover that the artist, designer, and film director Nick Egan is alive and well and living in the Hollywood Hills with his wife and family. 

 

I was even happier to discover that he has recently been reimagining some of the record covers he designed back in the 1980s; including Malcolm McLaren's Duck Rock (1983), which has been transformed from a 12" square image into a large mixed media collage on canvas, using digital artwork, airbrush, oil pastels, acrylic and metallic paints.    

 

Still referencing the art of Keith Haring and Dondi White [3], which formed such a vital part of the original work, it also includes the magically customised boom box (or ghetto blaster, as we used to say) designed by Ron West, that became known as the Duck Rocker - one of the most iconic objects in the cultural history of hip-hop.   

 

Due to the size and shape of Egan's 2023 work, it reminds one of poster art; and in fact Egan has admitted that this was his intention:  

 

'I saw it as a poster that had been put up on the walls of a New York subway station, with the Duck Rocker retained as the base image, but, as time went on, people would come by and graffiti over it. Some would try to peel it off the wall, and others would stick another flyer over it until it became almost unrecognisable from the original, exactly how it would look if it did appear on a subway wall.'

 

I suppose it's fair to say that Duck Rock is Egan's greatest achievement as a designer of record covers [4]; although his recreation of Édouard Manet's Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe (1863) for the cover of the Bow Wow Wow album See Jungle! See Jungle! Go Join Your Gang Yeah, City All Over! Go Ape Crazy! (1981), will always just top it for some of us [5].

 

 

II. 

 

I first met Nick Egan back in the spring of 1983, at Malcolm's first floor office on Denmark Street, after he'd kindly offered to help find me a six-week work attachment of some description. He was very tall and thin with lots of blonde hair and wore a large punk-style jumper, a pair of striped pirate trousers, and a Buffalo coat from Nostalgia of Mud, so looked good.     

 

He gave me several names and numbers to try, including that of the press officer at Charisma Records, and told me not to worry as he was sure something could definitely be arranged (although unfortunately not at Moulin Rouge, as he and McLaren were both going to be in New York for a lot of the time in April and May). 

Thus it was I ended up at 90 Wardour Street; in the Charisma offices above the Marquee Club, working as Lee Ellen Newman's assistant (and general dog's body). Amongst my more amusing assignments was taking the Duck Rocker to the HMV, where it was to feature in a window display dressed by Nick to promote Malcolm's album [6].

 

Whether this was the original customised boom box - or one of several that were made - I'm not sure; but it looked fantastic and was surprisingly heavier to carry than one might imagine. Judging by the stares of astonishment it received - and the number of people who stopped me as I walked along Oxford Street requesting a photo - it wasn't only the Zulus in South Africa, the Hip-hoppers in New York, or the Hilltoppers in the Appalachian Mountains, who were enchanted by it.       

Unfortunately, I didn't think to have a photo taken with the Duck Rocker. However, here's a picture taken in the Charisma press office, standing in front of a smaller replica (which, I think, was eventually given away as a prize in a Smash Hits competition), accompanied by a photo of Malcolm in NYC with the mighty original [7].

Notes

 

[1] Malcolm McLaren's groundbreaking studio album Duck Rock, produced by Trevor Horn, was originally released on Charisma Records in 1983. Arguably, it has proved to be as influential - if not more so - than Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols (1977). 

      A 40th anniversary double vinyl edition was issued on the independent label State51 Conspiracy in 2023. This featured six additional tracks and was produced in collaboration with Young Kim of the Malcolm McLaren Estate: click here for details.

 

[2] Duck Rock (2023), by Nick Egan, is available to buy from the Wilma Gallery: click here for more details. For those who can't afford the asking price of the original canvas (£22,800), there are some very nice limited edition prints available, starting from just £150: click here. 

      Other works by Egan can also be viewed on (and purchased from) the Wilma Gallery website: click here.     

[3] Keith Haring (1958-1990), was an American Pop artist who emerged from the New York City graffiti subculture of the 1980s. At Nick Egan's invitation, he provided the illustration that formed the pink background image of the Duck Rock sleeve (for which he was paid $1000).

      Dondi White (1961-1998), was also an American street artist; he provided the Duck Rock lettering, again having been asked to do so by Nick Egan (unfortunately, I don't know how much he was paid).

 

[4] The album cover artwork for Duck Rock is now included in the permanent collection of New York's Museum of Modern Art: click here.

 

[5] Amusingly, Egan transformed Andy Earl's 1981 photograph, inspired by Manet's canvas, back into a painting entitled We're Only in it For the Manet (2023): click here for details. 

      By his own admission, Egan always felt a little awkward being credited for the original record sleeve, as it contained none of his graphics; yes, he directed the photo shoot, but the artist responsible for the actual image was Andy Earl. With this new canvas, however, he has made it very much his own.       

      For those who are interested, I explain why I love Manet's Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe in a post on TTA dated 27 April 2017: click here. 

[6] According to my diary, this was Monday 23 May, 1983. 

      Amusingly, Malcolm had agreed to dance with a buffalo gal in the store window on the following Saturday, but he pulled out at the very last minute, insisting he must have been drunk to have ever agreed to such; much to Lee Ellen's irritation, as she had already informed several journalists who went along to witness the event.  

 

[7] The photo was taken by Bob Gruen in April 1983. Many more wonderful photos of McLaren taken by Gruen can be found on the latter's website: click here.

 

 

Bonus 1: click here for a fascinating interview with Nick Egan conducted by Mike Goldstein in August 2013, in which he discusses his work with Malcolm on the cover of Duck Rock. As Egan makes clear, he was involved with McLaren as a conceptual partner rather than simply an art director; in other words, he worked on Duck Rock from its inception all the way through its recording and mixing, contributing ideas at every stage. 

      Egan is currently working on a book project which explores the cultural influence of Malcolm McLaren and features his artwork from the Duck Rock period. 

 

Bonus 2: To watch the feature documentary Creative Vandal (dir. Peter Pahor, 2024), chronicling the career of Nick Egan, click here. 

 

Bonus 3: The essential track on Duck Rock is, of course, 'Buffalo Gals', which was released as a single in November 1982 on Charisma Records. The video pretty much captures what was happening in NYC at the time (filtered through the imagination of Malcolm McLaren who directed it): click here.

      For those who might be interested, my post on 'Buffalo Gals' (dated 19 Feb 2019) can be accessed by clicking here.     

 

Loving the Alien: Nyah - the Devil Girl from Mars

 

Patricia Laffan as Nyah in the kinky sci-fi classic 

Devil Girl from Mars (dir. David MacDonald, 1954)

 

"They're scared of girls in the war of the worlds ..."

 

 

I. 

 

Some films you have to see to believe; and Devil Girl from Mars (1954), starring Patricia Laffan, is one such ...

 

 

II. 

 

A black-and-white British sci-fi, produced by the famous Danzinger Brothers [1], Devil Girl from Mars tells the story of Nyah, a stern but alluring alien dominatrix dressed in a shiny, black PVC costume [2], whose mission is to acquire Earthmen for breeding puposes; her home planet's male population having been severely depleted during a war of the sexes. 

 

Whilst open to the idea of a rational negotiation, Nyah is prepared if necessary to use advanced technological force - rayguns and robots - to accomplish her mission and thereby secure the future of her race. 

 

Intending to land in London, damage to her spacecraft - caused when entering the Earth's atmosphere - obliges Nyah to land instead outside a remote Scottish village, surrounded by moorland. Making her way to the public inn, she encounters a small cast of colourful characters, including an astrophysicist, a journalist, an escaped convict (in love with Doris the barmaid) and a fashion model [3].

 

The inn's landlord is played by everybody's favourite Scottish actor, John Laurie, who is perhaps best remembered today (despite a long and impressive film career) as Private Frazer from Dad's Army (1968-1977); sadly, he doesn't anticipate his later TV role and declare the above to be doomed, even when Nyah is threatening to kill them all, with the assistance of Chani, her menacing automaton.  

To cut a long story short - although, actually, the film is only 77 minutes in length - the escaped convict proves to be the hero of the hour, successfully sabotaging Nyah's flying saucer after take off and sacrificing himself in order to save the men of Earth from a fate worse than death; i.e., becoming sex slaves on Mars to a race of cruel superwomen, with a penchant for PVC and BDSM ... [4]   

 

III.

Obviously, almost everything about this film - made on an extremely low budget - is poor; the acting, the dialogue, the sets, the special effects, etc. And yet, paradoxically, as one critic said at the time: "There is really no fault in this film that one would like to see eliminated. Everything, in its way, is quite perfect." [5]    

 

And its way is - to use the slightly tiresome trio of words that have been central within critical discourse for some time now - queer, kinky, and camp. In their discussion of the film, Steve Chibnall and Brian McFarlane emphasise the perverse dynamic [6] at play within the film and how such has (supposedly) political implications. 

 

Nyah, they claim, is a "genuinely shocking figure in the staid world of British film-making of the time"; one who imparts an "eroticised threat to a patriarchy that was increasingly troubled in the post-war years", which is why Devil Girl from Mars is, therefore, "not only a camp classic but an ideologically significant moment in 1950s British cinema [7].

 

 

Notes

 

[1] Edward and Harry Lee Danzinger were American-born brothers who produced many British films and TV shows in the 1950s and early '60s, thereby having a significant role in shaping the popular imagination of movie goers and TV viewers during this period.

 

[2] I'm guessing it wouldn't be leather, as it's hard to imagine Martian cows, but I'm not sure and it could well be that Patricia Lafflan's costume - designed by Ronald Cobb - features both leather and vinyl elements. 

 

[3] I appreciate that readers who have not seen the film or checked out the IMDb page - click here - will think I'm making this up, but I can assure them I'm not. And as it says in the trailer, this is a story that might yet be true!

 

[4] Whether this atones for the (accidental) killing of his wife for which he was convicted, is debatable. As is whether all Earthmen would thank him for his actions; I know quite a few who would have happily returned with Nyah to Mars and submitted of their own free will to a life as stud males servicing nubile alien females.   

 

[5] Gavin Lambert, review of Devil Girl from Mars, in The Monthly Film Bulletin, Vol. XXI, No. 240 (1 January 1954), p. 83. 

 

[6] The 'perverse dynamic' is a theoretical concept developed by Jonathan Dollimore in Sexual Dissidence (1991). It refers to the production of perversion from within the very social structures that often seek to deny such. The pervert is thus revealed not to be a remote alien being, such as Nyah, but one of us after all.    

 

[7] Steve Chibnall and Brian McFarlane, The British 'B' Film (BFI / Bloomsbury, 2009), p. 212. Readers will rightly detect my scepticism about such claims of 'ideological significance' and sexual radicalism. 

 

 

To watch the trailer to Devil Girl from Mars, click here. 

 

And for those who simply must watch the whole film, it's available on YouTube: click here.

 

 

Musical bonus: Bow Wow Wow; 'I Want My Baby on Mars', Your Cassette Pet (EMI Records, 1980): click here.  

 

 

Out of the Punk Ruins and Into the Age of Piracy

Jordan as SEX punk (1976) 

and Worlds End pirate (1981)

 

'Twas a sunny day when I went to play down by the deep blue sea  

I jumped aboard a pirate ship and Malcolm said to me ...

 

 

I. 

 

One of the things I most love about the animated closing scene to The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle (dir. Julien Temple, 1980) aboard the good ship Venus [1] is that it anticipates the radical move that McLaren (and Westwood) were to make the following year when they transformed Seditionaries into Worlds End and replaced the figure of the punk rocker with that of the pirate, obliging an entire generation to either set sail with them on a new swashbuckling new adventure, or risk being thrown overboard like that scurvy dog Johnny Rotten.

 

 

II.

By 1979 it was clear that Seditionaries was no longer the centre of the world:

"McLaren and Westwood's customer base was no longer drawn from the cutting edge of the capital's cognoscenti. Now visitors comprised curious provincials, cookie-cutter second-wave punks, Johnny-come-latelies and Sid fans." [2]

 

It was time to move on, or risk becoming trapped by old ideas and old looks - although, ironically, this meant leaving the 20th-century by travelling back to a more Romantic time. 

 

McLaren, now more excited by the outlaw than the rebel, began to conceive of a new age of piracy - one which Westwood was able to brilliantly materialise with her latest fashion designs. Their partnership was once more "firing into the future" [3] and it was all systems (C30 C60 C90) Go!  

 

Of course, this meant the shop at 430 King's Road would also require a major refit ... 

  

 

III.

 

Worlds End - the fifth and final version of the store - was arguably the most imaginative; a cross between a pirate's ship and the Old Curiosity Shop made famous by Dickens. Not as pervy as Sex; not as intimidating as Seditionaries, Worlds End was an unreal place of fantasy and promise. 

 

The large clock placed above the entrance with its hands perpetually spinning backwards, suggested the idea of time travel. But the fact that it had thirteen hours rather than the standard twelve made sure that one also aware that the time one was escaping to didn't exist - but might, one day.

 

In retail terms, Worlds End was certainly more successful than the earlier versions of 430 King's Road. And McLaren and Westwood's Pirate collection (1981) was a seminal moment in fashion history (it certainly inspired Galliano). 

 

Even now, the outfits seem astonishingly fresh and colourful; full of youthful exuberance and swagger. Jerry Seinfeld may have rejected the pirate look [4], but for many of us, the puffy shirt was once a must have back in the day and every now and then you'll still see models on the catwalk wearing clothes inspired by the clothes Malcolm and Vivienne created.  

  

Post-punk pirates Bow Wow Wow 

looking the part in 1981

 

Notes

 

[1] I have written about this scene earlier this year on Torpedo the Ark: click here. 

 

[2] Paul Gorman, The Life and Times of Malcolm McLaren (Constable, 2020), p. 438.

[3] Ibid., p. 450.

 

[4] I'm referring to the episode of Seinfeld entitled 'The Puffy Shirt' [S5/E2], dir. Tom Cherones (1993), in which Jerry famously declares: "I don't wanna be a pirate!" Click here. 

Musical bonus: Adam and the Ants, 'Jolly Roger', from the album Kings of the Wild Frontier (CBS Records, 1980): click here.

 

Video bonus: Jordan outside Worlds End in 1981 speaking about the new age of piracy: click here.

 

For a related post to this one on Worlds End, please click here.   

Disney Über Alles

The Happiest Place on Earth [1]

"Children, I wanna warn ya / 'Cos I've been to California

Where Mickey Mouse is such a demon / Where Mickey Mouse is as big as a house!" [2]

 

 

I.

 

Cotino is the first Storyliving community being developed by Disney in Rancho Mirage, California. Work started on the 618-acre site - which will feature residential housing, hotels, resort facilities, and a retail centre, all surrounding a 24-acre grand oasis and an artificially blue lagoon - in April 2022. 

 

Disney are so confident that it will be a successful venture, that, in December 2023, they announced plans for a second such community, Asteria, in Pittsboro, North Carolina, which will include 4,000 homes (the same month that the first houses in Cotino went on sale, although the community will not be opened until 2025).    

 

 

II. 

 

In an article published in The Guardian [3], Oliver Wainwright discusses Disney's plan for curated living, i.e., a life which unfolds in a perfectly stylised and completely controlled environment so as to ensure that residents and guests experience the magical joy that the company has been peddling for a hundred years.    

 

Wainright calls it a fantasy world, but it's really much more (and more sinister) than that; this is a model of zen fascism overseen by Mickey Mouse and other Disney cast members where neighbours will be able to "bond over Disney-themed art lessons, enjoy dinners inspired by Disney stories and join family days with Disney-related activities". 

 

Wainright also informs us that the themed homes curated by Disney imagineers will be priced in excess of $1m, whilst the forthcoming town centre will feature "a street market where local artists will sell Disney-themed arts and crafts" and there will be "'abundant opportunities for laughter'". 

 

Oh, and if you're wondering how to keep a large lake sparkling blue all year round in an area that suffers from extreme drought, well, that's thanks to patented Crystal Lagoons technology.   

 

This expansion by the world's largest mass media and entertainment conglomerate into the real world is surely something that Uncle Walt would have approved of and might have amused Jean Baudrillard were he still alive to witness it ...

 

 

III.

 

Baudrillard wrote an important piece on Disneyland more than forty years ago in his seminal text  Simulacres et Simulation (1981), describing it as "a perfect model of all the entangled orders of simulacra" and a "frozen, childlike world [...] conceived and realized by a man who is himself now cryogenized" [4] and awaiting resurrection.  

 

Obviously Disneyland exalts American values in miniature and cartoon form. But it does more than this: its real purpose is to conceal the fact that it is the real America, just as prisons are built in order to disguise the fact that society is itself carceral. 

 

Baudrillard writes: 

 

"Disneyland is presented as imaginary in order to make us believe that the rest is real, whereas all of Los Angeles and the America that surrounds it are no longer real, but belong to the hyperreal order and to the order of simulation. It is no longer a question of a false representation of reality (ideology), but of concealing the fact that the real is no longer real, and thus of saving the reality principle."

 

He continues: 

 

"The imaginary of Disneyland is neither true nor false, it is a deterrence machine set up in order to rejuvenate the fiction of the real in the opposite camp. Whence the debility of this imaginary, its infantile degeneration. This world wants to be childish in order to make us believe that the adults are elsewhere, in the 'real' world, and to conceal the fact that true childishness is everywhere - that it is that of the adults themselves who come here to act the child in order to foster illusions as to their real childishness." 

 

With the opening of Cotino next year, I'm not sure whether the Disney executives so skilled in playing this game of concealment have finally triumphed and the Happiest Place on Earth will soon expand across the globe, or if, perhaps, they have made a fatal miscalculation and all but the most fanatic of Disney adults will decide they've had enough of staged reality and curated living.    

 

 

Notes 

[1] This was the original slogan for Disneyland, Est. 1955. 

 

[2] Lyrics from 'Do You Wanna Hold Me?' by Bow Wow Wow, from the album When the Going Gets Tough, the Tough Get Going (RCA Records, 1983): click here.

 

[3] Oliver Wainwright, 'Let's move to Disney Town! Will life in its 2,000 themed homes be a dream or a nightmare?' The Guardian (08 April 2024): click here.

[4] This text by Baudrillard was translated into English as Simulacra and Simulation by Sheila Faria Glaser (University of Michigan Press, 1994). Material quoted here and following is from a section entitled 'The Hyperreal and the Imaginary' in the first chapter, 'The Precession of Simulacra'. See pp. 12-14. 

 

A Christmas Dilemma

 

I received the above Xmas card which contained the following greeting:

 

Have yourself a savage little Christmas

Make the Yuletide fierce ...

 

I liked it and put it under the tree. But my American friend, Winona, who is far more alert to the racial politics of art and language, said it was inherently offensive on multiple levels. 

 

She explained how, for example, the image plays on white fear of the dark-skinned Other - portrayed here as an ape crazy gang member - and how the word savage is one that belongs to the lexicon of white supremacy and colonialism and is used to denigrate marginalised communities, dehumanise indigenous peoples, and justify genocide.  

 

My (tentative) suggestion that perhaps the meaning of the word had changed over time and had now to be considered within a different cultural context [1], wasn't met with much sympathy or given a great deal of consideration. 

 

Neither was the idea that perhaps it was just an amusing (if slightly disturbing) picture and that the sender of the card was simply referencing an album by Bow Wow Wow [2] and the popular Christmas song by Martin and Blane [3], without wishing to insult or upset anyone. 

 

It doesn't matter what the intention of the sender is, she said, going on to argue that even those who perpetuate the myth of the noble savage and celebrate primitivism are still part of the problem [4].

 

All of which leaves me with a dilemma: do I leave the card up and fall back on a free speech defence; or do I take it down and concede that Winona's politically correct case is just that - i.e., right and proper. 

 

I don't want to seem like an insensitive jerk flaunting their white privilege. But, on the other hand, nor do I want to become the kind of  woke snowflake who self-censors in order to virtue signal. I suppose the liberal compromise would be to leave it up, but hide it behind the other cards with their anodyne angels and innocuous robins ...  

 

    

Notes

 

[1] Savage - or sometimes savage as fuck (SAF) - has been used as online slang for some time now in order to characterise something as brutally honest, or ruthlessly hitting the nail on the head. It can also be used to indicate you find something extremely positive in a similar way that the term fierce is used within gay slang. 

 

[2] The Bow Wow Wow album See Jungle! See Jungle! Go Join Your Gang Yeah! City All Over, Go Ape Crazy was released on RCA Records in October 1981. Click here to play the opening track 'See Jungle! (Jungle Boy)' and/or here to play ('I'm a) TV Savage' (both written by Matthew Ashman, David Barbarossa, Leigh Gorman, and Malcolm McLaren).

[3] The popular Christmas song 'Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas' was written in 1943 by Hugh Martin and Ralph Blane and introduced by Judy Garland in the MGM musical Meet Me in St. Louis (dir. Vincente Minnelli, 1944). The lines parodied from the second verse originally read: 'Have yourself a merry little Christmas / Make the Yuletide gay'. Click here to play Sinatra's version from the album A Jolly Christmas from Frank Sinatra (Capitol Records, 1957 - remastered in 1999).     

 

[4] Winona has asked me to cite the following work by Ter Ellingson; The Myth of the Noble Savage, (University of California press, 2001). 

      In this study, Ellingson - an associate professor of anthropology at the University of Washington - shows how the myth of the noble savage did not, in fact, originate with the 18th-century French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and only really took hold as an idea when resurrected as a racist trope within mid-19th century British anthropology. See Amelia Hill's review of Ellingson's book in The Guardian (15 April 2001): click here.