Communicates and expresses the energy of an intelligent anarchist holding an anti-bullshit device” The Guardian Derek Boshier: Rethink/Re-entry October 7 – November 7 2015 Flowers Gallery London UK Role: Curator with Guy Brett PRINT! Tearing It Up June 8 – August 22, 2018 Somerset House London UK Role: Co-curator with Claire Catterall See here.

Gorman covers everything from The Beatles to Bowie, bringing the styles to life by talking to designers, tailors, stars and style icons past and present” The Face, April 2001 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. The Wild World of Barney Bubbles all but bursts apart with delight. Gorman has been working for 15 years to preserve and promote Bubbles’ legacy and has authored books on Malcolm McLaren and The Face magazine. (His next book, a narrative history of the American and British music press, is due later this year.) His knowledge of the English music, fashion, and art scene of the second half of the 20th century is authoritative.”– PopmattersAs Musical Express, the paper had included an unobtrusive chart of sheet music sales. “There were names there like Johnny Ray, Frank Sinatra [and] Nat ‘King’ Cole, but they weren’t getting the coverage,” Kinn noted. “Instead it had been all about the big-band scene, which was fading away. So I got hold of the chart and said, ‘These are the people we should be covering. The chart should be the reason why people buy the paper.’”

British Design 1948–2012: Innovation in the Modern Age March 31 – Aug 12 2012 V&A London UK Role: Advisor/contributor of exhibits 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. The resulting narrative, containing stories of unbound talent, blind ambition and sometimes bitter rivalry, makes Totally Wired a riveting and roller-coaster read.

Reviews

Inspirational Interiors April 14 – 29, 2016 Windows Gallery 1 Central Saint Martins London UK Role: Contributor See here. Nobody is better qualified to write the history of the music press … there’s no doubt that he does a fine job of telling the whole story, from the launch of the Melody Maker as a monthly for dance band musicians in 1926 through to the closure of all the big titles in the 21st century' Process: The Working Practices Of Barney Bubbles Sept 21 – Oct 23 2010 Chelsea Space London UK Role: Curator with Caz Facey See here. You simply can't separate pop music from its coverage in the greatest publications of the past half-century. I learned so much from this riveting sweep through the birth and evolution of the music press. The characters in it are almost as fascinating as the stars and scenes they wrote about'