King's Road: The Rise and Fall of the Hippest Street in the World - Tapa dura

'It's at its best when uncovering the Fifties as when the road began to swing.' (GQ Magazine (December issue))

'As a trawl through the glitz and glamour of the King's Road, this is hard to beat. Decharne's research, which takes in everything from political weeklies to underground pop magazines, is impressive and unimpeachable, and he whisks the reader along in brisk and witty prose.' (Dominic Sandbrook SUNDAY TIMES (13.11.05))

'...this is a love letter to the street...the wealth of information he crams into his book wins you over, as he charts the street's rise and most famous moments, from John Osborne's Look Back in Anger, which opened at the Royal Court Theatre, to the boutiques such as Bazaar and Sex, where the idea of music was blown apart by The Sex Pistols.' (Ben Sloan METRO (9.11.05))

'Decharne is a thorough researcher, with a charming enthusiasm for his raw material...He has an ear for drollery in his many interview subjects, and there are some lovely quotes from the late John Peel...He's particularly authoritative in punk.' (Andrew Martin SUNDAY TELEGRAPH (20.11.05))

'it's a brilliant evocation of London's fashion history.' (Alex Clark RED (January '06))

'what makes Decharnes exploration so enjoyable is not just sheer heavyweight of facts but the passionate way that they are delivered, capturing both their subject's volatile nature and creative spirit.' (Lois Wilson MOJO (January '06))

'[a] highly enjoyable book...Max Decharne uses the long spine of the road, and the ribs of adjoining streets, as a skeleton which he fleshes out with the artistic, musical and sartorial developments flourishing in these few squares of the London A-Z.' (Jonathan Sale INDEPENDENT (6.12.05))

'Decharne zips through the area's history, remembering when it housed Jane Austen, Bram Stoker and Vladimir Nabokov, to name a few...Best of all are odd bits of trivia like the fact that the house in horror film 'Theatre of Blood' where Diana Dors gets murdered is 16 Cheyne Walk, Dante Gabriel Rossetti's former home...Now that Chelsea is more Cartier and Tiffany then velvet loons and bondage gear, it's good to have such an affectionate, spirited reminder of its more diversely flamboyant heritage (Lucy Daniel TIME OUT (4-11 January 2006))

'exhilarating, informative, chatty and hip...Decharne's frantic, fact-packed book superbly captures all the buzz and lunatic frivolity of a street that has consistently been a the cutting edge of all that is new in theatre, fashion, art, music and film.' (Val Hennessy DAILY MAIL (13.1.05))

The King's Road in Chelsea was at the epicentre of not one but two worldwide cultural shifts. In the mid-sixties, it became a focal point and shop window for the new 'swinging' London, encompassing music, the visual arts, fashion and much more. It remained continuously at the forefront of developing trends throughout the following decade until it was the key breeding-ground for punk rock, whose sound, look and attitudes continue to shape global notions of youthful rebellion almost thirty years later. In short, it was the place to be. As a laboratory and showcase for the emerging youth-orientated scene, it became the favoured habitat of several generations of pop-culture prime movers. The Sex Pistols may have sacked bass player Glen Matlock in 1977 for 'liking the Beatles', but the street in its day had also been a regular haunt for the likes of Paul McCartney and Syd Barrett of Pink Floyd. Like Paris in the twenties, or Hollywood in the thirties, during the time between the formation of the Rolling Stones and the demise of the Sex Pistols the King's Road had the attention of the world. Just how this came to be is a classic rise-and-fall story of satisfaction and sedition, featuring some of the most famous people of the last fifty years, and also many of the pivotal moments of decades of the 50s, 60s and 70s.