Malcolm McLaren

[Craig 6700]

Former Sex Pistols manager Malcom McLaren dies at 64

 

Malcolm McLaren, the former manager of punk group the Sex Pistols, has died in New York, aged 64, his agent has said.

 

McLaren, the ex-partner of designer Vivienne Westwood, was believed to have been diagnosed with cancer a while ago.

 

He set up a clothes shop and label with Westwood on London's King's Road in the 1970s and was later a businessman and performer in his own right.

 

The couple had a son, Joseph Corre, the co-founder of lingerie shop Agent Provocateur

 

Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8610423.stm

[Park Life 71]

RIP. For me a man who was a lot more talented and multi-faceted than people realise.

[Sonatine 11546]

Always liked his Fans album,

[Craig 6700]

Am I right in thinking he was behind the British Airways version of Aria on Air?

[Sonatine 11546]

Am I right in thinking he was behind the British Airways version of Aria on Air?

 

Aye, he was a bit of an opera fan iirc.

[Cid_MCDP 0]

The Svengali of punk rock.

 

"Make sure they can't play. Make sure they hate each other."

 

Too right.

 

RIP.

[AgentAxeman 189]

RIP. For me a man who was a lot more talented and multi-faceted than people realise.

 

 

+1

 

RIP to a great and talented man.

[trophyshy 7084]

RIP, 64's no age.

[Tom 14013]

R.I.P

[Guest alex]

Read Glen Matlock's book a while back (fucking years back thinking about it) and he said Malcolm McLaren propagated (and probably largely believed) the myth that he was controlling The Sex Pistols when in fact the band were pretty uncontrollable. He cited the example of the tv show (Bill Grundy?) where the band swore and said Malcolm was shitting it afterwards. I think other members of the group have confirmed this to be the case. It doesn't alter the fact he was a central figure in a very important cultural and musical movement in the UK though. I also thought 'Buffalo Girls' was ahead of its time, especially in terms of what most UK audiences had heard. He should also take his rightful place in the long tradition of great English eccentrics. RIP.

[Park Life 71]

Read Glen Matlock's book a while back (fucking years back thinking about it) and he said Malcolm McLaren propagated (and probably largely believed) the myth that he was controlling The Sex Pistols when in fact the band were pretty uncontrollable. He cited the example of the tv show (Bill Grundy?) where the band swore and said Malcolm was shitting it afterwards. I think other members of the group have confirmed this to be the case. It doesn't alter the fact he was a central figure in a very important cultural and musical movement in the UK though. I also thought 'Buffalo Girls' was ahead of its time, especially in terms of what most UK audiences had heard. He should also take his rightful place in the long tradition of great English eccentrics. RIP.

 

Well put Alex.

[Sonatine 11546]

Read Glen Matlock's book a while back (fucking years back thinking about it) and he said Malcolm McLaren propagated (and probably largely believed) the myth that he was controlling The Sex Pistols when in fact the band were pretty uncontrollable. He cited the example of the tv show (Bill Grundy?) where the band swore and said Malcolm was shitting it afterwards. I think other members of the group have confirmed this to be the case. It doesn't alter the fact he was a central figure in a very important cultural and musical movement in the UK though. I also thought 'Buffalo Girls' was ahead of its time, especially in terms of what most UK audiences had heard. He should also take his rightful place in the long tradition of great English eccentrics. RIP.

 

Well put Alex.

 

Still a great clip now

 

[Park Life 71]

Ha ha...2 week TV BAN FOR GRUNDY!!1

[Rob W 0]

nasty manipulative swine

 

but that's what was needed at the time................

[Guest alex]

Ha ha...2 week TV BAN FOR GRUNDY!!1

More or less finished his career I think. It was his own fault as well as he egged them on.

Edited April 9, 2010 by alex

[NJS 4411]

Still a great clip now

 

I can see how it was shocking in the context of the times but when I've seen it since I've just thought what a bunch of wankers - like kids swearing at the back of the class to look hard.

 

Always though McLaren was a twat but I recognise his place in the scheme of things.

[Craig 6700]

Probably being suggestive to Siouxsie Sioux didn't help either...

[manc-mag 1]

Heh ebo ebonettes

heh

ebo ebo ebonettes

 

RIP.

[JawD 99]

Read Glen Matlock's book a while back (fucking years back thinking about it) and he said Malcolm McLaren propagated (and probably largely believed) the myth that he was controlling The Sex Pistols when in fact the band were pretty uncontrollable. He cited the example of the tv show (Bill Grundy?) where the band swore and said Malcolm was shitting it afterwards. I think other members of the group have confirmed this to be the case. It doesn't alter the fact he was a central figure in a very important cultural and musical movement in the UK though. I also thought 'Buffalo Girls' was ahead of its time, especially in terms of what most UK audiences had heard. He should also take his rightful place in the long tradition of great English eccentrics. RIP.

 

This bit in the main. Well put. RIP.

[Park Life 71]

Malcolm McLaren: Blood, spit and tears as the punk provocateur dies

Malcolm McLaren stirred up chaos all his life – and even in death, punk's most inspired interloper will cause controversy

 

Malcolm McLaren, who has died of cancer aged 64 Photograph: Vincent Kessler/Reuters

 

You can, if you so desired, make a strong argument for the importance and originality of the largely forgotten albums Malcolm McLaren released under his own name in the 80s.

 

The first, Duck Rock, was a particularly innovative blending of hip hop and world music, while the video for the hit single Buffalo Gals offered most Britons their first glimpse of breakdancing. But it's as The Sex Pistols' manager that he will be remembered, which means the question of how successful he was in the role is likely to be debated for years to come.

 

McLaren certainly had an acute grasp of what was wrong with British rock music before The Sex Pistols' arrival.

 

He was a nonpareil orchestrator of outrage during their early career, but proved incapable of dealing with its consequences. McLaren knew exactly what buttons to press, but seemed to have no idea what to do once he'd pressed them: fatally so in the case of Sid Vicious, who was only too willing to play the monster role that McLaren wrote for him right up to a suitably grim conclusion.

 

You could argue that Vicious' death from a heroin overdose while on bail for the murder of his girlfriend Nancy Spungen was the greatest disaster of McLaren's career, but it was a close-run thing.

 

Even before that, he had seemed at best unable to protect the band's members from the unprecedented public antipathy he had stirred up, at worst he seemed actively disinterested in doing so. Perhaps he had his mind on higher concepts than the day-to-day reality of life in a band so reviled that the tabloids stopped just short of actively advocating violence against them: PUNISH THE PUNKS demanded the Sunday Mirror in 1977.

 

Perhaps the whole situation had simply run out of his control. Either way, it wasn't much fun being a Sex Pistol in the summer of the Jubilee they so brilliantly mocked on God Save The Queen: Johnny Rotten was attacked by a knife-wielding mob outside a Stoke Newington pub; later the same day, drummer Paul Cook was beaten with a metal bar in west London; three days later, Rotten was attacked again.

 

It wasn't until after the band split up that McLaren attempted to reassert his authority over the Sex Pistols: rewriting their story in the film The Great Rock'n'Roll Swindle as a masterplan he had controlled all along, the band merely his stooges. It wasn't a terribly convincing argument, nor was it a terribly good film.

 

Understandably outraged, Johnny Rotten has spent the subsequent years airbrushing McLaren from the Sex Pistols story, pointing out that the music had nothing to do with him, reinventing the band as autodidacts who would have been even more successful without his interference.

 

But that seems reductive too: without McLaren's ideas, his art-school grounding in Situationism, without the clothes he and Vivienne Westwood designed for them, the Sex Pistols wouldn't have been the same band, nor would they have had the same impact. Neither party would ever admit it, but they needed each other.

 

Still, if nothing else, the ongoing argument meant Malcolm McLaren remained a controversial figure up to his death, and will remain a controversial figure beyond it – which is presumably just what he wanted.

[Happy Face 29]

Pal of mine sent me a tribute mix...

 

http://usershare.net/0x99z19yk7zj

 

Enjoy.