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Rebel Rebel: How Mavericks Made the Modern World

Thirty-four essays and interviews with some of the greatest individuals, malcontents and free thinkers of the last 150 years - including Louise Brooks, Richard Pryor, David Bowie, Liam Gallagher and Daniel Day-Lewis - this is a collection that exonerates the maverick and celebrates the individual. It is an essential read for the left of field.

Publication date: 08 April, 2019
Status: Published
Book: Paperback
Regular price £10.99
Regular price £10.99Sale price £10.99

Description

'Sullivan the Maverick’s maverick, writing about mavericks. This catalogue of great characters could seriously disrupt your mundane life' Robert Elms

'The Sullivan on mavericks – who could resist! Jolly japes and ribald shenanigans indeed' Suggs of Madness

'Chris Sullivan is the quintessential maverick.' Dylan Jones

Fed up with blandness? Bored rigid by the dull clock-punchers you work with? Sick of towing the line?

If your answer is ‘yes’ to any of these questions, Rebel, Rebel is the book for you. It’s a compendium of 60 pieces on outsiders, intended to
remind us all that, in this age, where to kowtow is a pre-requisite, where doing what one is told is essential and turning up on time a must, that most of
the people/things of lasting significance didn’t play by the rules.

Like a really good party, it’s got musicians (Charlie Mingus, Fela Kuti, Joe Strummer), actors (Louise Brooks, Robert Mitchum, Daniel Day Lewis), artists
(Egon Schiele, Man Ray, Jackson Pollock), directors (Fritz Lang, Kenneth Anger, Wong Kar-wai), photographers (Horst, Weegee, David Bailey), DJs (Andrew
Weatherall) places (Paris in the Twenties, Muscle Shoals), and things (sunglasses, Levis, the pork pie hat) all of them turning up for one reason: they want to do their own thing in their own way. Not all are heroes - James Brown was a wife-beating misogynist control freak with impossibly bad dress sense after the age of thirty, but by breaking all the rules of music he created a brand new fresh form called funk, and went on to influence more musicians than
anyone on earth.

Some of the pieces are brand new, some have been published in magazines, but will appear here in their original form, with the life and energy previously
cut out by lily-livered editors now fully restored by yours truly.

With your help, Rebel Rebel will be a fat, handsome paperback manifesto to keep you amused and inspired for years to come. Keep it in the smallest
room.


It might help you achieve something, if only notoriety…

About the Author

Chris Sullivan

What makes me qualified to tell the story of rebels and mavericks?

Over the years, I’ve been a DJ, author, nightclub host, pop star, painter, style commentator, entrepreneur and fashion designer. In fact, I’ve always been proud of never having a ‘real job’.

As a teenager in Merthyr Tydfil in the early seventies, I was a ska-loving, moon-stomping suedehead, listening to David Bowie and Lou Reed or bowling up the motorway to catch the Northern soul sessions at the the Wigan Casino.

Then came the move to London and funk clubs, the punk explosion, studying art and fashion at St Martin’s. In the early 80s I was a regular at Billy’s and the Blitz and ran the club, Hell with Steve Strange and Rusty Egan. In 1981, I fronted the Latin funk band, Blue Rondo A La Turk. We were signed to Virgin and got a no 1 in Brazil.

I’m probably best known for opening The Wag Club in Wardour Street in 1983. I was founder, host, director and DJ for 18 years – a true home for outsiders and rebels – everyone from Prince to Lee Perry played live there. From the mid eighties onwards I’ve DJ’d in the best clubs and parties in London, Tokyo, New York, LA, Paris, Barcelona, Milan and Ibiza.

I’m also a journalist: first at

The Face

, then a columnist and stylist for

Loaded

and for four years from 2000, I was

GQ’s

style editor. Since then I’ve freelanced for

The Times, Esquire, Telegraph, Independent, Guardian

, and

L’Uomo Vogue

. I’ve written two books, the international best-seller,

Punk

(with Stephen Colegrave) and the definitive chronicle of club culture of the 80s,

We Can Be Heroes

(with Graham Smith), and a 9-part TV documentary series

Gangs of Britain

presented by my old chums Martin and Gary Kemp. My first film,

Anarchy in the UK

(a punk road movie) is in production with Hacienda films.

I still DJ weekly in London and pop up at parties and openings all over the world. When not gallivanting, I live in Maida Vale with my long suffering spouse Leah, ten year-old son Finbar and a cat called Tuesday.

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