Badge
Magazine
1980

These badges were given to me at a gig in Birmingham, May 1980. Bauhaus were supporting Magazine on the "Correct use of Soap" tour and I'd skipped off college that afternoon to try and get to the venue early to, perhaps, crash the soundcheck. This I did, and after chatting to (who turned out to be) Bauhaus' lighting man, I "paid" for my ticket by helping both bands set up their gear. The piece of broken plastic is part of the ingenious, but simple stage prop Magazine used on that tour. The Malcolm Garrett-designed album sleeve, consisting primarily of a chevron and oval on a flat grey field, was translated into a kind-of interactive stage backdrop by the use of lights projected onto and through huge sheets of semi-silvered clear plastic, so that depending on how the light struck the sheeting, it could appear both opaque and transparent at the same time. Difficult to explain, really, but the effect was quite amazing. This piece broke off when we were detaching it from some scaffolding after the gig.