Shades
Essay by Mick Farren, NME, July 1976
WHEN ALL AROUND YOU is brown, burnt, pink or peeling and you're tired of squinting in the glare it's time to ...

Twiggy: Royal Festival Hall, London
Live Review by Fred Dellar, NME, July 1976
I GUESS they popped the champers at Phonogram after this glitzy shindig at the Home of Fest. For hadn't Mike Harding, had 'em clutching at their ...

The Frontier Ethic of Anti-Fashion
Overview by Cynthia Rose, The Virgin Yearbook, 1980
THOUGH THE dictionary defines it as "the prevailing customs and usages of upper-class society, especially in dress", fashion is really a way to re-spell thievery. It ...

Pop Art/Art Pop: The Warhol Connection
Report and Interview by Mary Harron, Melody Maker, February 1980
Like to be a gallery
Put you all inside my show
— David Bowie, 'Andy Warhol'

Some people claim that only James Brown can match Andy Warhol's ...

Vivienne Westwood
Interview by Jon Savage, The Face, January 1981
Let It Rock, Sex, Seditionaries...Anarchy t-shirts and bondage straps. VIVIENNE WESTWOOD’S new collection is called World’s End. She talked about it to JON ...

How Music Changed The Look Of American Youth
Essay by Cynthia Rose, The History of Rock, 1982
By 1962, rock'n'roll was no longer the pressing issue it had appeared in the days of Teddy Boys and juvenile delinquency. Music had given way to ...

Peppermint Pop: Music, Art And The New York ‘In-Crowd’
Retrospective by Cynthia Rose, The History of Rock, 1982
The Twist was a phenomenon of a commercial musical culture which, ever since its early boom in the mid-Fifties, had been looked down upon by the ...

Bop Art
Essay by Glenn O'Brien, Artforum, February 1982
1) From Atlantis to the Jazz Loft

MUSIC WAS probably the first art. You could run with it and take it up a tree. ...

Jamie Reid
Interview by Jon Savage, The Face, October 1983
For someone whose work has graced millions of record sleeves and influenced a whole generation, Jamie Reid’s personal profile is not the highest. This is partly ...

Psychedelic Art: Flashing Back
Essay by Glenn O'Brien, Artforum, March 1984
Standing in line at the bank: what if this were on TV? What if we were all on mescalin?
– Michael Brownstein, from '43 Cents a ...

Debbie Harry and Andy Warhol: Parallel Lives
Interview by Cynthia Rose, NME, January 1986
FRANK TALK WITH DEBBIE ...

Roger Dean
Essay by Johnny Black, Q, November 1989
Any self-respecting Yes album used to feel naked without a fantasy cover by artist Roger Dean. It seems only fitting, then, that he has done the ...

Storm Thorgerson: Daily Departures From Reality
Interview by Martin Aston, Q, December 1992
"I LIKE PICTURES that don't necessarily have an explanation off pat," Storm Thorgerson says of the beguiling, often outlandish record sleeves that cemented the reputation ...

Astrid Kirchherr
Profile and Interview by Graham Reid, New Zealand Herald, 1994
AT 55, ASTRID Kirchherr still loves rock music and listens to it every day: The Beatles, the Doors, Bowie... "and Prince, he's such a genius – ...

Remembering Rock Dreams: Guy Peellaert and Nik Cohn
Retrospective and Interview by Paul Rambali, Mojo, March 1995
DO YOU STILL have a copy of Rock Dreams? If you were a rock fan in the early ‘70s, when it was first published, you ...

Bob Gruen: Just Like Starting Over
Interview by Graham Reid, New Zealand Herald, August 1995
New Yorker Bob Gruen is famous in the field of rock'n'roll photography but his association with John Lennon overshadows everything. GRAHAM REID hears the stories. ...

Linda McCartney: How Rock 'n' Roll Saved Our Lives
Retrospective by David Dalton, Gadfly, August 1998
I first met Linda McCartney at the Scene on West 46th Street. A hip little grotto in a cellar, it was run by the cool Steve ...

Beck, Al Hansen, and the new Art Rock
Interview by Barney Hoskyns, World Art, September 1998
LAST MAY, "Beck and Al Hansen: Playing With Matches" opened at the Santa Monica Museum of Art. This fall and winter the exhibition can be seen ...

Jimi Hendrix: Public Image Unlimited
Essay by David Stubbs, Uncut, July 2000
Hendrix the black radical. Hendrix the glam dandy. Hendrix the icon. Hendrix the man. ...

The Dark Visions Of Raymond Pettibon
Profile by Michael Goldberg, Neumu, August 2001
Raymond Pettibon first got our attention with startling flyers for Black Flag shows. These days he's seen in the galleries and ...

Imaging The Stones: John Van Hamersveld
Book Excerpt by John Van Hamersveld, Rock's Backpages, August 2001
John Van Hamersveld was one of the key poster artists of the psychedelic rock era in Los Angeles. He was also the man to whom the ...

Flying High with the Jefferson Airplane: How John Van Hamersveld created the cover of Crown of Creation
Book Excerpt by John Van Hamersveld, Surfadelic: From Surf Saga to Artist 64-74, October 2001
DECEMBER 31st, 1967: The Winterland Ballroom. San Francisco. Bill Graham's The Doors concert this evening. I'm checking out the show backstage with The Family Dog poster ...

The Army’s Mystery Pop Artist
Report by Paul Gorman, Mojo, 2003
THE UNEARTHING IN central London of a series of stunning images of rock icons from the early ‘70s has sparked a search for a mystery pop ...

The Story Of Tchocky
Report and Interview by Ian Gittins, Q, Summer 2003
ON FEBRUARY 27, 2002, Radiohead designer Stanley Donwood mounted the stage at the Staples Center, Los Angeles, to receive a Grammy for "Best Recording Package" for ...

The Million-Pound Mod: John Stephen
Obituary by Paul Gorman, unpublished, February 2004
JOHN STEPHEN - who died on February 1 aged 69 - was the "£1m Mod" who was a vital element in the look of the 60s ...

The Art Of Storm Thorgerson
Interview by Christine Natanael, crushermagazine.com, 2005
FOR AS FAR BACK as I can remember, I have been enraptured by album cover art. In the days before the small format of the CD, ...

'Kraftwerk Are The Catalyst'
Interview by Simon Witter, Mojo, September 2005
The band's art guru and oldest friend, EMIL SCHULT, gives a view from inside the Kraftwerk project. As told to Simon Witter. ...

Psychedelic Album Artwork
Overview by Richie Unterberger, Mojo, March 2007
"I SAW THIS face looking up at me out of the trashcan. It was a woman. It looked like a flamenco dancer staring at me. As ...

Pop Into Art: Post-Punk Aesthetics Revisited
Essay by Steve Redhead, Rock's Backpages, May 2008
"Girls, Boys, Art, Pleasure"
– Chris Lowe, Pet Shop Boys, 'Paninaro 95' ...

Tom Wilkes, 1939-2009: Legendary Designer of Posters and Album Covers
Interview by Barney Hoskyns, Rock's Backpages, July 2009
Tom Wilkes, legendary poster and album cover designer (Monterey Pop, the Rolling Stones' original Beggars Banquet, Neil Young's Harvest, Janis Joplin's Pearl, George Harrison's All Things ...