Keith, circa 1981 and again in Margate 2011. Taken on the Harbour wall, where Keith now sells his paintings, inspired by the work of JMW Turner. The Turner Contemporary Gallery was named after Turner, who lived and worked in the town, painting some of his most famous work from a spot on or near where the gallery now sits. Keith was a friend of mine back in the 1980s.
Dennis Morris was highly adept at capturing the emerging black subculture in late 1960s and early 1970s London, as he was a teenager as it was growing. From sound systems to street fashions, he caught it all. He also captured life around in him in Hackney before going on to photograph the Sex Pistols and Bob Marley (his two most famous jobs) and choose acts for Island Records. I interviewed him last month for the Daily Telegraph. Only a few of the words made it to the web, but you want to see the photos anyway!
This is Tracey, taken circa 1981 and 2011. Part of my Cachet show in Nothing in the World But Youth at Turner Contemporary 9/2011-1/2012
Great piece from US author Bee Lavender about the importance of finding your subcultural group and how she found them in the queue for Madonna’s first show.
Fascinating gallery of pics from the Independent today. Simon Barker’s 1976-77 Bromley contingent pics with Adam Ant, Steve Cook, Poly Styrene, Steve Strange et al.
I always try to catch TV shows that speak to or about youth culture, so I was interested to see that the BBC show (in the UK) Melvyn Bragg on Class would deal with subculture in Britain. Melvyn (or, I think, his scriptwriter) made a half-decent stab at explaining the Teddy Boys, a rushed explanation of mod and an altogether poor attempt to tell us what skinheads are/were. He then added insult to injury, finishing the show by telling the viewer that skinheads did not have a voice, instead waiting eight years or so for punk to come along and give them one. A typical case of those in the middle class trying to take the voice away from those who have adopted an ethos that those outside are unable or unwilling to understand.
Now, this explanation is problematic on SO many levels. The show largely ignored that skinhead was a more working class/tough offshoot of mod. It also ignored the fact that these working class youths had made a choice to differentiate themselves from what was becoming a staid and played out youth cult. The skinheads had a voice when they appeared in numbers in seaside towns like Margate or on the football terraces. It said ‘watch out’.
From 1968 skinhead had various mutations (with the likes of the Skinhead series of novels bringing in numbers but, according to some, diluting the cult with those more interested in the violence than the clothes and music), including the late-1970s version that 2-Tone inspired. Yes, this was filtered through punk, but the voice was still a distinctive one. Punk was largely an individualist ‘fuck you’, whereas skinhead retained its desire to raise a collective middle finger to convention. By this time, and later, there were divisions between racist and non-racist skinheads, but it certainly did not take punk to take them to either point.
Photo: Iain Aitch, aged 12, Margate. © Iain Aitch.
Goth night in Batley, West Yorkshire in 1984. Worth watching the whole thing for a look at the way that subcultures act and interact. Some wonderfully soulless dancing, some great looks, some goth favourites on the turntable. A perfect night out in 1984.
Source: youtube.com
Punks and skinheads in Dreamland, Margate, circa 1978. Mixing well, which would probably have not have been the case about 3 or 4 years later.
All the young skins…
Young skinhead, mod/rude boys in Turner Contemporary, Margate, showing off their Harrington jackets. An older skinhead looks on in the background. © Iain Aitch
