RE-MAKE/ RE-MODEL: BECOMING ROXY MUSIC,

‘Time moves in loops. I got my first job writing for Sounds from a work experience placement taken while studying at The London College of Fashion in 1987. Thirty years on and six books into my career as a noir writer, I “got the call” that would spin me back to those worlds. Jordan Mooney – who played a pivotal role in punk as frontwoman of Malcolm McLaren and Vivienne Westwood’s Sex shop on 430 King’s Road, friend of the Sex Pistols and manager of Adam and the Ants – wanted a collaborator for her memoir. Meeting Jordan, it soon became clear we shared a vision of how to present this – a social-historical document and pop-culture handbook that included the voices of her friends, family and insiders from those heady days. My inspiration and guidebook on how to present such a multifaceted story in a clear way was Michael Bracewell’s genius account of the rise of Roxy Music. Tracing their provincial upbringings and experiences at art college to the making of their first album in 1972 London, Bracewell interviewed not just the band but a wide sample of peers, girlfriends, lecturers, and fellow travellers in fashion and design whose cumulative experience brought forth a musical revolution. He brought an overlooked period of history back into focus, emphasising just how much of an important cultural lifeline the art college was to the post-War generation. I have never met him, but I could not have written Defying Gravity without him. Thank you Michael!’