From afterhours wanderings…

Although there’s a link (or two) to the likes of the Medway Scene, Billy Childish’s work and interconnected British beat style garage punk – includingmore than a nod or two to the past but often reimagined, sometimes shared musicians – but it is also a very different kettle of fish to the noir-ish glamour of my own work and many of the cultural reference point that can be found around these parts.

Having said which, there is still a glamour to some of the accompanying imagery but more in a post-war utilitarian shortages and proper short back and sides haircut manner than say the Soho via way of the hidden alleys, burlesques and juke joints of Vegas glamour of much of what can be found around these parts…

Talking of which (and indeed reimagining of other eras and dolly birds) this is probably one of my favourite photographs from what has come to be known as the Medway Scene.

It’s a photograph that was used on the cover of Billy Childish’s book Poems Of Laughter And Violence and was taken by Eugene Doyen, whose images from the time seemed to very much capture the heading towards but not quite mod, actually much more kitchen sink-esque aesthetic of that time, work and place.

The photograph seems to capture a playful, cheeky youthfulness but one that seems to belong more to a time prior the advent of mass youth culture, that’s borrowed – or inherited – and is proud of it’s grandad’s clothes (and has maybe also raided the wardrobe of older female family members but way back in the day).

This was youth culture that would be more likely to be found sipping a cup of tea in a local caff than swilling cocktails down the latest club.

You can see/read a bit more about Eugene Doyen’s photographs from the time (1982-1986) here and see some of his work from that period and later adorning the covers of some of those earlier mentioned beat style garage punk gents and gals here.

Now, as you may well gather, around these parts I have something of a soft-spot variously for a touch of noir-ish aesthetics and a certain kind of 1970s grit (intermingled with a dash of 1970s glamour in various forms) and a reimagining of the past in the creation of worlds unto themselves (a Soho of the mind, as it were).

In this post are some of my favourite photographs from the somewhat famous 1960s/1970s fashion label and boutique Biba’s mailorder catalogues.

They seem to perfectly capture the late 1960s/early-ish 1970s interest in 1920s/1930s fashion, art deco and the like while intermingling that with fashion styling by the way of China Town, all reimagined and recreated via accessible avant-garde fashion as part of the Biba aesthetics and world – a world created unto itself if ever there was one.

Below are the photographs in their natural home – a spread from one of the Biba catalogues.

PS If you should be curious the photographs are of Stephanie Farrow by Hans Feurer. See more of such things over at Sweet Janes Pop Boutique or indeed in a wider sense at Ms Peel’s Trouser Wear.

From afterhours wanderings…

A few years back when I was busy being particularly intrigued and drawn in by the aesthetics, stories and world of Mad Men, I came across a whole other imagined world…

Mad Men may well have been a form of mod/modernism for grown-ups – this was a world of childhood toys for grown-ups.

Essentially, a whole mini-cultural genre of sharply styled, populuxe-esque Barbie dolls and home made (but far from home made looking) accessories.

I don’t know if this was before, after or a similar time to when I was discovering David Levinthal’s diorama and Barbie based work but it put me in mind of such things but arriving from a more homespun, less fine art base.

One of my early discoveries was the “official” side of such things – the Joan Harris of Mad Men Barbie doll released by Mattel (and hence an overt connection otherly than purely aesthetic ones to the series) that can be seen at the top of this post but soon wandered into this world of handcrafted objects that summoned forth a Mad Man-esque world and its ambience.

Lovely stuff. Much of the furniture, fixtures and fittings that populate this place and the accompanying outfits are often one of a kind (or ooak in modern abbreviated searching and seeking parlance). Even many of the dolls have been modified from the “official” releases.

The image below of such work intrigues me. It’s part of the same series but in its style seems to harbinger the later series of Mad Men, when the sharp 1960s styling began to meet looser late 1960s/early 1970s style.

Stylistically Mad Men ended at a liminal point – there had not yet been a transition from one era to another’s style.

It is something that I would have been interested to see how that aspect would have developed if the series had continued through the years.

There could be seen to be a connection between the affluence and opulence of populuxe styling and that of say affluent 1970s glamour but the former is intrinsically connected to a corseted (uptight?), ideal nuclear family, genre division of home and work roles way of being or philosophy while the latter is founded more in a sense of decadence, (over?) indulgence and the like – the perfect housewife becomes the perfect playmate.

This was quality television. One of the times when escapist, mainstream television was shown as not needing to be mediocre (or lower).

One of the big draws for me was the ambience of the world that it created and projected – that populuxe, sharp very late 1950s/1960s American styling, which was a kind of grown-up Mod thing but from over the other side of the sea.

(A form of mod with a few more sheckels in it’s pocket of course – more than for a tailor made suit or two and a cup of that new fangled Italian style coffee down Soho way.)

It was that ambience and its richness, the lushness, a vintage recreation/reimagining without grit or grain – Erwin Olaf’s Grief, Hope, Rain series of photographs brought to smoothly flickering, storytelling life – that stayed with me after the series.

In honour of those aesthetics, here I gather a few of my favourite promotional related images that to my mind and eye seemed to summon up that world particularly well.

And why not a touch of Roger Sterling channelling Harry Palmer?

As a postscript: Mainstream. Hmmm. It’s interesting how these things work. Mad Men conquered the world while Magic City, which shared some not dissimilar aesthetics was seen by relatively but a few. Visit tales of Magic City around these parts here.

From afterhours wanderings…

I wa recently been nattering about a loose cycle of just pre-Swinging London Soho shennanigan films and The World Ten Times Over.

In an interconnected manner, during that film, in a meta fictional/blurring of the boundaries between fiction and faction manner, is a scene where a poster for the then banned documentary West End Jungle can be seen.

West End Jungle purports to be an overview of the worlds, culture and lives that the above cycle of films inhabit but was in fact an exploitational staging of such things.

It is part of a loose film cycle largely by director/producer Arnold Miller that would lead to future salacious sometimes partly-non-documentaries such as London In The Raw and Primitive London, both of which have been rescued / rehabilitated and gained an air of academic respectability by their relatively recently release, brush and scrub up by the BFI.

This rescue and rehibilitation is something that as I type is a process that is also being undergone by the Soho shennanigan film cycle titles Expresso Bongo and Beat Girl, as part of the BFI’s Flipside film release on DVD/Bluray and latterly internet label.

The Flipside is described by the BFI as:

“BFI Flipside is dedicated to rediscovering cult British films, reclaiming a space for forgotten British films and filmmakers who would otherwise be in danger of disappearing from our screens forever.”

When it was first inaugurated London In The Raw and Primitive London were two of their first releases and it felt like the label had been set up just for me; a sort of classy trawling of the underbelly and neglected undercurrents of film.

The films that have been released are often more cultural curios than those that could be considered cinematic classics but none the less worthwhile for that.

If you were to imagine a very selectively done Something Weird Video with institutional status, public funding, a tendency to wander towards an almost Derek Jarman-esque/arthouse take on what constitutes mondo film, a touch more prudish or possibly jurisprudent take on such things than say Something Weird, high end reproduction and releasing, well you could well be heading in the right direction.

Peruse the Flipside releases here. Possibly discover related events that leave you slightly frustrated at not being able to go to them/having missed them here.

PS Is it just me or does the publicity photograph of Gillian Hills from Beat Girl above seem like something of a predecessor to Mr Vince Ray’s Death Of The Teenage Death Song work?

I was recently nattering about The World Ten Times Over, which seems to be part of a loose cycle of British films from around the late 1950s to about 1963 (or, as I’m fond of saying around these parts, just pre-Swinging London); tales of life lived but a few steps away from the gutter in London’s Soho and heart of the town nightlife, often set in and around hostess bars / clip joints and the shennanigans, ducking and diving that such ways of life can involve.

As with The World Ten Times Over these are all films that could each be described as “a curiousity, a snapshot of a particular way of life and a transitional point in life and culture – post-war auserity about to make way for the colour, spark and vitality of first Swinging London and pop-art mod(ernisms) and later the evolutions and looseness of psychedelia and what has come to be labelled hippie-dom.”

Along which lines, I thought now would be a good point to gather what for my good self are the particular touchstones / reference point films for such things:

This is a film cycle that could well include the surprising Soho Johnny of Expresso Bongo, the almost Arthur Seaton down-to-earth night out but in Soho-isms of Saturday Night Out, in a more teenage-kicks Bohemian coffee bar manner Beat Girl, the slightly earlier tabloid-esque scares of The Flesh Is Weak, the quota quickie feeling Jungle Girl, the blonde bombshell from over the seas Too Hot To Handle and for myself the somewhat fine grandfather of them all The Small World Of Sammy Lee.

I could possibly include the pre-Steptoe Harry H. Corbett featuring Cover Girl Killer. Released in 1959, it feels like it belongs to a much earlier era. It also has that quota quickie feel but also that curiously clipped older British film sense to it – a past far, far away from modern mores and modes.

Or the also slightly later 1964 Harry H. Corbett featuring Rattle Of A Simple Man, where he plays a Northern innocent lost in Soho who meets a hostess, spends the night with but not in the manner which might be expected.

And in a further over the seas the imagined / reimagined Soho of Das Phantom Von Soho could well belong loosely to this cycle.

One thing that is curious about many of these films is that despite their tabloid friendly subject matter, this can sometimes mask much more human stories than their subject matter and setting might imply and they are not always or just salacious exploitation films; The World Ten Times Over is a gritty realist film with a sense of the consideration of the futilities of life, Rattle Of A Simple Man is actually quite a sweet, touching story of romance rather than times in “London’s sin-filled strip” and The Small World Of Sammy Lee is, well, just mighty fine cinema that takes in realism, thriller, love and loss in this particular heart of London.

Sometimes I cast the old mind backwards and wander where all this interest in and being drawn to an Afterhours-esque take on the world comes from?

Whence wandered an interest in a re-imagining of times gone by, noir-ish shennanigans, far-too-late-night-bar suave but weary adventures and the like?

I have a suspicion that the 1987 film Angel Heart may have a touch to do with it.

Although it’s now a fair few years since I’ve seen it if I think of the film, well, I tend to think of a crumpled but suave, good liking hero (I use the word loosely there), a certain kind of smokey, textural, noirish textures and atmosphere, an almost palpable sense of the character, sweat, soul and atmosphere of the South, a haunting jazz soundtrack, convoluted hidden stories.

This was probably one of the first times that I’d come across such a heady mix and it seems to have stayed with me over the years.

There are a couple of classic/more well known posters/video covers that have accompanied Angel Heart over the years in the west but (as I’ve mentioned around these parts before) I have something of a soft-spot for the designs, posters etc that accompany films over the years and in different places.

I’d accompany that particular soft-spot for one with obscure and/or semi-forgotten forms of media, so with that in mind, above is one of the laserdisc covers which has intrigued me – it takes Angel Heart much more overtly into horror or demonic territory – more overtly black-ridden tales than it’s Southern, noirish aesthetic side.