Barney Bubbles Artworks August 3 – 18, 2017 Fred Perry Henrietta Street London UK Role: Organiser See here. Columnists included DJ Pete Murray, a presenter of the BBC’s first pop television show, Six-Five Special. He was among the high-profile entertainment names who gathered to launch Disc in February 1958. The mood was dampened when Buchan announced that he would not make a celebratory speech because news had broken that eight Manchester United footballers had died in an air crash in Munich. Tommy Roberts is an inspiration, a real character and one of Britain’s true eccentrics. He has always been at the forefront of what is new in retailing, fashion and design” Sir Paul Smith

Totally Wired, published by Thames & Hudson, explores the development of the music press between the 50s and the 00s, honing in on particular genres, artists, publications, figures and events that shaped these decades. This multi-million pound business eventually straddled the Atlantic and simultaneously proved a fertile breeding ground for generations of writers, photographers, film-makers and performers who made their mark in the wider world. Glam! The Performance Of Style October 19 2013 – February 2, 2014 Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt Germany Role: Consultant/contributor See here. Edited by and written for young women and people from disadvantaged communities, 30 issues of LA-based Ben Is Dead (named after the ex-husband of prime mover Darby Romeo) were published over 11 years from the late 80s and distributed free through an alternative network of record stores, coffee shops and boutiques. Each issue adopted a theme – ‘Sex’, ‘Broke’ and ‘Disinformation’ – and combined wiseass humour with kaleidoscopic visuals. Romeo and her partner-in-crime Kerin Morayata were hired as contributing editors at Vanity Fair and their ‘Sassy’ edition featuring cover star Chelsea Clinton made it to the White House.

This huge, rich book is a celebration not only of the style bible but British pop culture in the late 20th century”– The Guardian Despite what the publisher, Thames & Hudson, claim, this book can’t be “definitive”, because some of the key voices in music journalism during this period are no longer alive to share their perspectives. And any magazine or paper is always a collaboration – some of the art directors are mentioned for notable redesigns, but what of the less visible influences of photo, production and sub-editors, whose roles as gatekeepers of the music industry have never been captured? Communicates and expresses the energy of an intelligent anarchist holding an anti-bullshit device” The Guardian The music press as we knew it barely exists any more, which makes 'Totally Wired' the perfect eulogy - a broad, deep, fascinating exploration of its 100-year lifespan' - Alexis Petridis

If oral history is your bag then you might supplement this read with Dave Laing’s Unsung: An Oral History of the UK Music Business (2019) and the proliferation of autobiographical books from music journalists (notably Allan Jones, Mark Ellen, David Hepworth and Ted Kessler) which add a more human dimension. Paul Gorman is interviewed by Mark Ellen and David Hepworth about his new book on YouTube /Word in Your Ear/Word in Your Attic.The Conformist February 23 – April 16, 2016 Belmacz Gallery 45 Davies Street London UK Role: Consultant/contributor See here. Herein are documented the rise and fall of scores of music papers, from titans like New Musical Express and Melody Maker to radical papers like Oz and IT, from later, hugely successful, glossies like Smash Hits, The Face and Q to publications that were little more than Xeroxed fanzines, all of them staffed by schemers and dreamers drawn to the bright lights of pop, most of them engaging characters of one sort or another whose work is documented and, to some extent, assessed by colleagues and the author himself. Furthermore, although the emphasis is on the UK, Totally Wired extends its reach to the US with its dry trade journals like Billboard, twinkling teenybop mags like 16 and hard-nosed monthlies like Creem, and where the struggle to outshine Rolling Stone continues to this day.

From Rolling Stone to NME and Q magazine, the world of music music journalism has produced some of the most widely respected and revered cultural publications of the past century. However, like many print cultures, due to the rise of digital publishing the physical music press has seen a slow but steady demise. Now, being 20 years or more since “the beginning of the collapse”, writer Paul Gorman has collated its rich history in a new book, Totally Wired. The book chronologically traces the music press’ legacy, from the earliest known publication – the 1920s The Melody Maker – to its move online. But, importantly, Paul was also intent on giving a platform to some of the lesser known, more radical journalists and publications who have had their role in the music press omitted. PRINT! Tearing It Up June 8 – August 22, 2018 Somerset House London UK Role: Co-curator with Claire Catterall See here. There’s been a recent glut of memoirs by former music journalists lamenting the decline of the weekly and monthly music press (Ted Kessler’s and Jude Roger’s memoirs being excellent examples of this burgeoning sub-genre). So it is welcome to get a book like “Totally Wired” that sets out to provide a broader, objective overview on the history of the music press and how it dominated much of cultural criticism during the latter part of the twentieth century. Totally Wired is the definitive story of the music press on both sides of the Atlantic, tracing the rise and fall of the creatively fertile media sector which grew from humble beginnings nearly 100 years ago to become a multi-billion business which tested the limits of journalistic endeavour.According to the Los Angeles musicologist Harvey Kubernik, Phil Spector—Kubernik’s Fairfax High School pal—wrote to DownBeat in the mid-1950s to protest the exclusion of jazz guitarist Barney Kessel from an article. “A lot of people had letters printed in magazines before they jump-started their careers in music or the press,” said Kubernik. “It was a way of showing interest in the subject as well as being their only outlet.” Barney Bubbles: Optics & Semantics August 31 – September 23, 2017 Rob Tufnell Lambeth Walk London UK Role: Curator See here.