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The title of that film was originally different [Illusions]… I woke up one day and thought of Bad Timing which sounds exactly like the right title—for my career. Now there was a film I really thought was one to which there would be a different response. Whilst filming I felt sure that this was one […]

Red Petals by Sarah Meyohas. • “For MMoB, I want it to be like a [Werner] Herzog movie, so at our concerts the people on stage aren’t necessarily people who are named. We’re trying to create an entity that is beyond music and relates visually and sonically with everything in a way that’s different.” Randall […]

Another resurrected article. Cinema Rising was a short-lived newsprint film magazine that ran for three issues in the UK in 1972. I have a few pages from the rare first issue that was part of a batch of old underground newspapers I was given a few years ago. (The Frendz Hawkwind strip is from the […]

Oz magazine no. 15, October 1968. The psychedelic art of Australian artist Martin Sharp has featured here on several occasions. Unlike his British and American contemporaries who maintained a single graphic style, Sharp was a versatile artist whose work could range from loose, often cartoony drawing and painting to very detailed collage designs; he was […]

Another recent piece of Angeriana, and another short video sketch, Brush of Baphomet (2009) is a kind of addendum to Anger’s The Man We Want to Hang (2002), being a further look at Aleister Crowley’s paintings. The title refers to one of Crowley’s many occult names. As a painter Crowley’s technical ability was almost nil […]

L The P (1969) by Scaffold. Art: Ascending and Descending (1960). A follow-up to yesterday’s post. MC Escher lived long enough to see his work move from curiosities appealing to a small circle of print collectors, through enthusiasm among scientists and mathematicians, to mass acceptance in the late 1960s thanks, in part, to the general […]

Seven (1973) by Soft Machine. Design by Roslav Szaybo. You’re the great, grey man whose daughter licks policemen’s buttons clean, You’re the man who squats behind the man who works the soft machine. Mick Jagger, Memo From Turner (1968) By coincidence this month I’d been re-reading some William Burroughs when I picked up a nice […]

The Beatles aka The White Album (1968) by The Beatles. Design by Richard Hamilton. Hamilton admires Hunger but he has little time for the other Young British Artists. He can’t imagine a conversation with Tracey Emin lasting more than five minutes – too tedious! – and though he was quite interested in Hirst’s sharks, his […]

The interior of the Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County “Old Main” Building, 1874. Reblogged over the past few days on numerous Tumblr postings, none of whom had bothered to find out any details about the picture. I’m with Silent Porn Star on the contextless reblogging issue. • Keith Richards et Mick Jagger à […]

It’s become a tradition here to post a playlist for Halloween so here’s the one for this year, a collection of favourite “voodoo” music. Most are these pieces have as much to do with real voodoo as Bewitched does with real witchcraft but I like the atmospheres of Voodoo Exotica they evoke. Voodoo Drums in […]

Fortunate Londoners can get to see a new exhibition, Alejandro Jodorowsky’s ‘Dune’: An exhibition of a film of a book that never was, which runs at The Drawing Room until October 25, 2009. As well as production designs from concept artists Moebius, HR Giger and Chris Foss, there’s newly commissioned work by artists Steven Claydon, […]

Nearly two years after their American release, and not a moment too soon, the films which comprise Kenneth Anger‘s superb Magick Lantern Cycle turn up at last in the UK. Good to see these being produced by the BFI, their previous collections of shorts by the Brothers Quay and Jan Svankmajer are distinguished by quality […]

The first part of Kenneth Anger’s Magick Lantern Cycle appeared on DVD in a splendid edition from Fantoma earlier this year. The second and final part is due for release on October 2nd and you can see the mouthwatering trailer here. This new set includes the Cocteau-esque Harlequinade, Rabbit’s Moon (1950); homoerotica, bikers and rock’n’roll […]

Philip Castle’s poster design. Castle also created the artwork for Full Metal Jacket. Searching through old magazines whilst researching the epic Barney Bubbles post turned up this, a short reaction by Anthony Burgess to the success of Stanley Kubrick’s Clockwork Orange. Burgess became increasingly ambivalent about the attention brought about by Kubrick’s adaptation, not least […]

Mick Jagger by Cecil Beaton (1968). Donald Cammell thought Mick Jagger to be a more provocative rock star than Elvis Presley because Jagger was willing to experiment with his masculinity. Elvis, although extraordinarily erotic to a generation of young women, never did. What this difference suggests, among other things, is that Mick Jagger’s appeal is […]

Beyond Bowie and Frankie, there’s a whole secret history of gay pop, reports Alexis Petridis ‘Wilder, madder, gayer than a Beatle’s hairdo’ It was the love that dare not sing its name—or was it? Beyond Bowie and Frankie, there’s a whole secret history of gay pop, reports Alexis Petridis Tuesday July 4, 2006 The Guardian […]

As mentioned earlier, I designed the jacket for this excellent biography of Donald Cammell some time ago. The book is reviewed in today’s (London) Times by Barry Miles. Quite a performance review by Barry Miles DONALD CAMMELL: A Life on the Wild Side by Rebecca and Sam Umland FAB Press, £24.95 hardback, £16.95 paperback; 304pp […]

I designed these two very different covers last year (with some slight tweaking later). Books always take a while to reach publication, however, so both titles have ended up appearing in the same month. I was particularly pleased to be involved with the Donald Cammell book as this is the first substantial biography of the […]

The Chelsea Drug Store, 49 King’s Road, London, circa 1970. “I went down to the Chelsea Drug Store,” “To get your prescription filled…” The Rolling Stones, You Can’t Always Get What You Want, 1969 How much Stanley Kubrick trivia can you stand? One of the delights of DVD over VHS tape is the ability to […]