Eddy Rhead is a co-founder of the Manchester Modernist Society who we’re having a bit of an intellectual bash with in Manchester next month. He also helps publish The Modernist magazine. When reviewing one of his famous Manchester architectural walks The Guardian newspaper said of him “Eddy is known for his half-arsed topographical anecdotes”. We love Eddy here at Proper and so without further ado here is his favourite five.
Clothes
I’m a big fan of Howies. Its great for someone like me, who isnt that arsed about clothes, when you find a brand that just does exactly what you want and need, and they do it well. I dont have to think about it too hard – I just see what Howies are doing and buy it and I’m usually happy. Trainers are pretty much always Adidas ZX nowadays. None of this Flux nonsense though. 500, 700, 750 or 800 only.
Music
I’m a gay Puerto Rican from Brooklyn trapped in the body of a father of three from Macclesfield. Girly Garage, Disco, 80’s Boogie – stuff that probably used to be called ‘Black Dance Music’ in the olden days. If its got the words ‘Frankie’ and ‘Knuckles’ attached to it in any way, I’m happy. And The Carpenters. I bloody love The Carpenters. And you should too. If you don’t like The Carpenters you are dead to me.
Book
I publish a magazine called The Modernist about 20th Century Architecture and Design so, as you may expect, my shelves are pretty much full of beautiful, expensive books about that. I dont read any of them mind you. I just look at the pictures. I dont read fiction either – its all made up you know? The great thing about publishing a magazine is you can ask publishers for review copies of beautiful, expensive books and sometimes they send you them. Its ace. The one floating my boat at the minute is called Space Hope and Brutalism and is a MASSIVE book about post-war architecture in England. The photography is beautiful and the research involved is peerless.
Art
I’m more of a photography man than anything else. Unsurprisingly I love the work of architectural photographer Julius Shulman who pretty much defined the look of American mid century modernism. William Eggleston is a genius. You could drop him into somewhere like Harpurhey with his camera and still make it look interesting and amazing (no disrespect to Harpurhey) I love Don McCullin too. He is famous for his war photography and despite the depressing nature of the subject matter, McCullin’s own humanity comes through and makes it beautiful art.
