The Darlings Of Wapping Wharf Launderette: Best Bits

by John Hellier

Overview

The Mod Revival of 1979, kicked off by the movie ‘Quadrophenia’, revolved around The Who and throughout the whole of the eighties and early nineties The Small Faces were largely forgotten. There was the occasional compilation album or two but virtually nothing in print; so as a fan since 1965 just imagine my joy when I (John Hellier) stumbled across a fanzine called ‘Darlings of Wapping Wharf Launderette’ around 1993. It was produced by two guys, Steve Chamberlain from Merseyside and Stuart Wright from Dagenham, on a shoe string budget and was an incredibly basic cut and paste job, but it excited me. I wrote to them and told them of my delight and offered to write a story for issue 2. They took me up on my offer and further contributions from myself appeared in issues 3 and 4, after which the fanzine was on the verge of folding due mainly to the fact that very few people were buying it I just couldn’t stand by and see it die so I stepped in and took over the editorship from issue 5. I took it upmarket with a new glossy 40 page format and have never looked back, from that moment onwards the popularity and readership soared. By issue 20 it was the biggest selling self published fanzine in the country, overtaking the established Eric Clapton magazine ‘Where’s Eric’ and was attracting readers worldwide. Fans were purchasing from literally every continent on the planet and with the advent of the internet it has grown in stature and sales ever since. 40 issues on, it was time for a ‘Best Bits’ compilation in the form of an A5 book and here we are! Definitely the BEST Small Faces publication ever!

Product Details

BN ID:	2940155761600
Publisher:	Kaleidoscope
Publication date:	08/02/2018
Sold by:	Smashwords
Format:	eBook
File size:	19 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.

About the Author

PUBLICATIONS: Original 60s mod around town, John was born in Romford, Essex and spent my formative years playing drums in various bands in and around East London but it was with Johns writing that he found his niche not only as editor of the worldwide respected Small Faces (and related) magazine Darlings Of Wapping Wharf Launderette, which goes out worldwide to 5000 readers, but also as a free-lance writer with major music monthlies such as Mojo, Uncut, Loaded and Record Collector. His work also appear on numerous CDs/DVDs for all the major record companies. The first Small Faces book was back in 1996 and was a collaboration with Terry Rawlings and Keith Badman called “Quite Naturally” but his biggest triumph in this field is the Steve Marriott biography “All Too Beautiful” co-written with Paolo Hewitt and published in 2004 by Helter Skelter books. A labour of love, 77 interviews and three years graft but something hes very proud of. A third edition of this highly acclaimed book will be available later this year. A third book co-written with friend Paul Weller entitled “Here Come The Nice” was published in late 2005 and spent many months in the Music book best sellers. Two more books recently released are the Ronnie Lane biography as well as a biography about original Who manager Pete Meadon.

PROMOTIONS: On the Promotions side his biggest venture to date was the very successful, sell-out Ronnie Lane Memorial Concert at the prestigious Royal Albert Hall in London in April 2004. He promoted and compered the show in front of 5500 fans. The show, entitled “One For The Road” featured many of Rock and Rolls premier league and included amongst others Pete Townshend, Ronnie Wood, Paul Weller and Ocean Colour Scene. Other promotions include a sell-out show in 2001 at the London Astoria in memory of Steve Marriott, ex Small Face, who had died in a house fire some ten years earlier (to the day). This concert once again featured Rock’s finest including Noel Gallagher, Paul Weller, Peter Frampton, Small Faces Kenney and Mac, Midge Ure and many, many more.