Friday 25 January 2013

Last-Week Links: 25 January 2013

A teenage rampage...

Maybe it's because my joints are aching with the cold, or it's a struggle to get out of bed, and each day I seem to see a new line on my face (or, more alarmingly, a white hair in my eyebrow!) but - without intending it - today's links are all teenage themed.


Starting, as you might have guessed, with some material from the Teenage blog which has been on especially good form recently. I really enjoyed their feature on Frankie Lymon, of Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers. He's mentioned by Ronnie Spector in both her autobiography and the Street Corner Soul series - her mother somehow persuaded him, then Ronnie's doo-woop heart-throb, to come and visit their home. Then, still only in his mid-teens, he apparently stank of booze and made a pass at the young Veronica. He tragically died of a heroin overdose at the age of 25. Forget the booze and the drugs and inappropriate passes and just listen to him sing instead.


Also on Teenage, a young Chloe Sevigny, who was plucked off the New York streets and asked to intern, then model, at Sassy, a magazine I only know by its fearsome reputation. This spread dates from 1992. My main reading matter from my early teenage years (before moving onto Just 17 and the like) was Smash Hits. I owe it a lot: how else would I still know all the words to Betty Boo's Where Are You Baby? This article from a couple of weeks ago reminded me of exactly how funny and brilliant it was and made me miss it heaps.

I've mentioned I was working on a book about Glam Rock. It's meant I've spent a huge amount of time looking at images of the Glam Rock's original poster boy Marc Bolan. Hackney Museum have an exhibition closing this Saturday called Stamford Hill Mods: the genesis of Marc Bolan. It looks at Mod culture in the early 60s in the area. This is where Marc Bolan (then Mark Feld) grew-up, and there's an argument to say Glam itself grew of out the Mod movement. The exhibition is based around the photography of Don McCullin who took a series of images for Town Magazine in 1962. The image to the right is one of Don's and, on the right, is Mark Feld himself.


Thanks to a post on Candy Pop, I found out about the ace Ralph Crane pictures taken of 18-year-old Twiggy on her first visit to the United States in 1967 and seemingly having a lovely time with Sonny and Cher and the like.



See the full gallery (and laugh at some of the crazy party dancing) here.

What other way to finish but with some more Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers? This recording from 1956 is fantastic, and I dig their 'T' tops too. Have a lovely weekend.

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