Malcolm McLaren

All Music Guide:

Malcolm McLaren first came to prominence as the notorious manager of the Sex Pistols, the premier punk rock band of the late '70s. In the 1980s, McLaren turned performing artist himself, assembling eclectic recordings that were especially popular in Great Britain.

The son of Peter and Emily Isaacs McLaren, McLaren was actually raised by his grandmother, Rose Corre, who gave him home instruction until 1955. Like many who later entered the music business, he was educated in England's art colleges, lots of them. He attended St. Martin's College of Art (1963) and Harrow Art College (1964); was expelled from South East Essex (1965) and Chiswick Polytechnic (1966); and went to Croyden College of Art (1968) and finally Goldsmith's College (1969-1971). Meanwhile, he became especially interested in the obscure French Situationist international movement, which advocated provocative, even absurd actions both as political statement and performance art. The movement was founded in the 1950s and gained its greatest attention during political upheavals in France in 1968 before dissolving. McLaren, who tried unsuccessfully to get to Paris during the May 1968 riots, would apply Situationist ideas to the field of pop promotion. (A good source for information on the Situationists and McLaren's adaptation of their teachings can be found in Greil Marcus' book Lipstick Traces: A Secret History of the Twentieth Century [1989].)

While attending Goldsmith's, McLaren began designing clothes, and after leaving college without a degree he opened his first London boutique in 1972. He and partner Vivienne Westwood were also employed designing costumes for such films as Mahler and That'll Be the Day (both 1974). While in New York at a boutique fair, McLaren met the members of the proto-punk group the New York Dolls, and in late 1974, he took over their management, dressing them in red leather and using the Soviet Union's hammer-and-sickle symbol in their stage set and publicity photographs. The concept was not well suited to America, where Communism remained an anathema, but it had no great impact on the career of the Dolls, who were on their last legs at that point, anyway. McLaren returned to the London clothing business in May 1975 and used what he'd learned with the Dolls in helping to assemble the Sex Pistols.

The extent to which McLaren instigated the Sex Pistols' brief, flamboyant career has been much debated. From their first record release in November 1976 to their breakup in January 1978, they were regularly found on both the record charts and the front pages of Britain's tabloids, renowned by fans for songs like "Anarchy in the U.K." and "God Save the Queen" and condemned by detractors as examples of moral turpitude. In 1979, the documentary film The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle suggested that McLaren had planned it all; he made his recording debut on the soundtrack album singing "You Need Hands."

His reputation as a manager established, McLaren began looking for other British talent to handle, briefly settling on the then-unknown Adam Ant before spiriting away Ant's backing band and using it to support a 14-year-old Burmese singer he had discovered, Annabella Lwin, in a band called Bow Wow Wow. McLaren's involvement extended to writing their debut single, "C'30, C'60, C'90, Go," a British Top 40 hit in 1980. "Go Wild in the Country" (lyrics by McLaren) and a remake of the Strangeloves hit "I Want Candy" hit the British Top Ten in 1982, but the band broke up in 1983, though not before McLaren tried adding a second singer, George O'Dowd, dubbed Lieutenant Lush. (O'Dowd, later known as Boy George, went on to form Culture Club.)

In the meantime, McLaren began making his own records, beginning with the single "Buffalo Gals," which combined traditional folk music with hip-hop. Credited to Malcolm McLaren & the World's Famous Supreme Team, it became a Top Ten hit in the U.K., paving the way for the late 1982 album Duck Rock, which reached the Top 20 and produced a Top 40 hit in "Soweto" and a Top Five hit in "Double Dutch." Both "Buffalo Gals" and "Double Dutch" made the U.S. dance charts in 1983, and in February 1984 the remix mini-LP D'Ya Like Scratchin' gave McLaren his first American album chart entry. McLaren next turned to opera, recording an adaptation of "Madame Butterfly" that made the British Top 20 in 1984; it introduced his second full-length album, Fans. Released in 1985, Swamp Thing was a contractual obligation collection of outtakes issued while its creator had moved to Hollywood to try to make his mark in the film business. He returned to music in 1989, signing to Epic Records for Waltz Darling, which produced Top 40 U.K. hits in the title track and "Something's Jumpin' in Your Shirt." The album featured guest vocalists as well as star instrumentalists Jeff Beck and Bootsy Collins.

Paris, released in Europe in 1994, marked its creator's move to France. In October 1998, a re-recording of "Buffalo Gals," "Buffalo Gals Stampede," credited to Malcolm McLaren & the World Famous Supreme Team Versus Rakim and Roger Sanchez, reached the British charts. During the 2000s McLaren was involved in the film and art world, including as co-producer of the movie adaptation of Eric Schlosser’s book Fast Food Nation. At the close of the decade he battled cancer, with his condition remaining undisclosed to the world until a deterioration in his condition led him to a clinic in Switzerland, where he died of mesothelioma on April 8, 2010 at the age of 64. His film montage/pastiche Paris: Capital of the 21st Century had received its U.S. premiere at the Swiss Institute in New York two months previously, on February 15.

Wikipedia:

Malcolm Robert Andrew McLaren (22 January 1946 – 8 April 2010) was an English performer and impresario. He was manager of the Sex Pistols and the New York Dolls. As a solo artist, McLaren had an innovative career that helped introduce hip hop to the United Kingdom.

Early years

McLaren was born to Pete McLaren, a Scottish engineer, and Emmy Isaacs in post-World War II North London. His father left when he was two and he was raised by his maternal grandmother, Rose Corre Isaacs, the formerly wealthy daughter of Portuguese Sephardic Jewish diamond dealers, in Stoke Newington. McLaren told Andrew Denton on Enough Rope, that his grandmother always said to him, "To be bad is good... to be good is simply boring". In The Ghosts of Oxford Street he says Charles Clore (who bought Selfridges) became his mother's lover. When he was six, McLaren's mother married Martin Levi, a man working in London's rag trade. When McLaren was in his forties, a Sunday newspaper found Pete McLaren in an English "greasy spoon garage".

McLaren's stepfather and mother owned a rag factory in London's East End called Eve Edwards London Limited. They lived well but McLaren and his stepfather never got along. He left home in his teens. Following a series of jobs (including one as a wine taster), he went on to attend several art colleges through the 1960s, being expelled from several before leaving education entirely in 1971. It was during this time that he began to design clothing, a talent he would later use when he became a boutique owner.

He had been attracted to the Situationist movement, particularly King Mob, which promoted absurdist and provocative actions as a way of enacting social change. In 1968 McLaren had tried unsuccessfully to travel to Paris to take part in the demonstrations there. Instead, with Jamie Reid, he took part in a student occupation of Croydon Art School. McLaren would later adopt the movement's ideas into his promotion for the various pop and rock groups with whom he was soon to involve himself.

New York Dolls, Vivienne Westwood and SEX

In 1971, McLaren and his girlfriend, the designer Vivienne Westwood, opened a London clothing shop called Let It Rock, on Kings Road. The shop sold Teddy Boy clothes and McLaren and Westwood also designed clothing for theatrical and cinematic productions such as That'll Be The Day and Mahler. Let It Rock proved a success but McLaren grew disillusioned with the style of shop owing to problems with the Teddy Boys who were the shop's main customers.

McLaren travelled to New York City for a boutique fair in 1972, having already met the group the New York Dolls. That year he renamed the outlet at 430 Kings Road Too Fast To Live Too Young To Die and supplied the group with stage wear. In 1975, McLaren designed red patent leather costumes for the New York Dolls and used a Soviet-style hammer and sickle motif for their stage show, as a provocative means of promoting them. This ploy was not successful and the Dolls soon broke up. In April 1975, McLaren returned to Britain, by which time he had renamed the shop SEX, selling punk and S&M inspired clothing. In December 1976, Sex was renamed "Seditionaries". In 1980 it was reopened under the name "World's End".

Sex Pistols

By 1976, McLaren had started to manage The Strand, the band that later became the Sex Pistols. He soon convinced them to kick guitarist and songwriter Wally Nightingale out of the band and also introduced them to bassist Glen Matlock (who worked in SEX). His assistant, Bernie Rhodes (soon to be manager of The Clash), spotted John Lydon who was then sporting green hair and torn clothes with the words "I hate" scribbled on his Pink Floyd shirt. His appearance and attitude impressed McLaren and Lydon, now dubbed "Johnny Rotten", was brought in to audition as a new frontman. Rotten joined and the band were renamed The Sex Pistols (McLaren stated that he wanted them to sound like "sexy young assassins").

NME – November 1976

In May 1977, the band released "God Save the Queen" during the week of Queen Elizabeth II's Silver Jubilee. McLaren organised a boat trip down the Thames where the Sex Pistols would perform their music outside the Houses of Parliament. The boat was raided by the police and McLaren was arrested, thus achieving his goal to obtain publicity.

The band released their album Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols in October 1977 and played their last UK gig before embarking upon a US tour in January 1978. During his time managing the band McLaren was accused by band members (most notably by John Lydon) of mismanaging them and refusing to pay them when they asked him for money. McLaren stated that he had planned out the entire path of the Sex Pistols, and in the film The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle he set this plan out. McLaren kept the Sex Pistols' contract rights until Lydon took him to court in the 1980s to win the rights and unpaid revenues from McLaren. Lydon won and gained complete control from McLaren in 1987. McLaren and Lydon refused to speak to each other after the band split. In the 2000 film The Filth and the Fury the surviving members of the Sex Pistols put their version of events on film.

Other artists

McLaren was approached by Adam Ant to manage Adam and the Ants, following their debut album release in late 1979. Shortly thereafter three members of the band left to form Bow Wow Wow, under McLaren's management. McLaren continued to manage Ant as he found new band members for Adam and the Ants and worked on a new sound. McLaren was later to manage Jimmy The Hoover, formed in 1982, who gained a support slot on a Bow Wow Wow tour.

Bow Wow Wow was originally created to promote clothing designed by Vivienne Westwood, and McLaren continued to exploit the band members, pressuring the underage lead singer to pose nude for the underage sex magazine he had created entitled Chicken, a reference to the magazine's underage content.

Solo musical career

In 1983, McLaren released Duck Rock, an album that, in collaboration with producer and co-writer Trevor Horn and The World's Famous Supreme Team (a duo of Hip-Hop radio disc jockeys from New York City – See Divine, The Mastermind and Just Allah, The Superstar – who then hosted a prominent Hip-Hop/classic R&B show on WHBI 105.9 FM and who were also among the first DJs to introduce the art of scratching to the world), mixed up influences from Africa and the Americas, including hip-hop. The album proved to be highly influential in bringing hip-hop to a wider audience in the UK. Two of the singles from the album ("Buffalo Gals" and "Double Dutch") became top-10 hits in the UK, with "Buffalo Gals" a minor hit in some major cities in the U.S. Duck Rock features clips of "The World's Famous Supreme Team Show" throughout the course of the album between songs, as well special vocal appearances from the duo themselves.

He then turned to electronic music and opera in the 1984 single "Madame Butterfly", based on the opera. The track is arranged with drum machines, atmospheric synthesisers and spoken verses. It reached No.13 in the UK and No.16 in Australia. The producer of the single, Stephen Hague, became a much sought after producer in the techno pop genre following his work with McLaren on the following full length LP, Fans.

McLaren's 1989 album Waltz Darling, was a funk/disco/vogueing inspired album. Waltz Darling incorporated elements of his former albums, i.e. spoken verses, string arrangements and eclectic mix of genres but featured such prominent musicians as Bootsy Collins and Jeff Beck with a glitzy, Louisiana-style production aimed at the US market. The singles, "Waltz Darling" and "Something's Jumpin' in Your Shirt" became top-20 radio hits in Europe, with the single "Deep in Vogue" bringing voguing to the attention of the world long before Madonna did.

In 1992, McLaren co-wrote the song "Carry On Columbus" for the feature film of the same name. The song plays over the end credits of the film. In 1994, he recorded the concept album Paris, with French artists such as Catherine Deneuve and Françoise Hardy.

In 1998, McLaren released Buffalo Gals Back 2 Skool (Virgin Records), an album featuring hip hop artists like Rakim, KRS-One, De La Soul and producer Henri Scars Struck revisiting tracks from the original Duck Rock album. In addition, that year, he created a band called Jungk. This project was not a commercial success. Also in 1997/1998, he released a track called "The Bell Song". Various remixes were released on 12" singles.

His song "About Her", based on "She's Not There" by The Zombies, rose to prominence when used by director Quentin Tarantino in Kill Bill Vol. 2. He was accused of plagiarism for this song in 2005 for allegedly copying the work of a French musician, but was cleared of the charges in November 2005 when the court in Angers, France threw out the case. The song uses Bessie Smith's "St. Louis Blues" by repeatedly playing the verse, "My man's got a heart like a rock cast in the sea."

McLaren's solo work, particularly from the Duck Rock period, has also been sampled by other artists. In 1999, a group called Dope Smugglaz had a UK top twenty hit with the track "Double Double Dutch," which made extensive use of samples from McLaren's original "Double Dutch". In 1997, Mariah Carey's "Honey" and "Honey (Bad boy remix)" sample "Hey DJ" In 2002, Eminem released a track called "Without Me," which sampled McLaren's song, "Buffalo Gals". In 2007, McLaren's song "World's Famous" was sampled by R&B singer Amerie on the song "Some Like It" from her album Because I Love It.

In 2006, author Paul Gorman published his book The Look: Adventures In Rock & Pop Fashion with a foreword and contributions from McLaren. The book included a CD featuring the track "Deux" from the Paris Remixes album.

British Airways advertisements

In 1989, McLaren and composer Yanni arranged The Flower Duet into a work called Aria. The 'Flower Duet' theme, taken from the French opera Lakmé by Léo Delibes, had already been used by composer Howard Blake to accompany British Airways commercials since 1984. However, from 1989 McLaren and Yanni further arranged the Flower Duet and it featured in BA's "World's favourite Airline" global advertising campaign of the 1980s and 1990s.

Other projects

During the 1980s, McLaren attempted to make a film called Fashion Beast, from a script by comic-book writer Alan Moore. McLaren took the project to New York City in 1986, and was for a time funded through NYC-based nightlife impresario and producer Robert Boykin. Avenue Pictures recommended screenwriter Steve Means to rewrite the Alan Moore script. This was contracted and several drafts written, but the process slowed down with the physical deterioration of producer Boykin, who subsequently died in 1988. McLaren declared the project "an orphan." The film was never made, but McLaren was involved with other film and television projects, including The Ghosts of Oxford Street, made for Channel 4 in 1991. This musical history of London's Oxford Street was directed and narrated by McLaren and included performances by The Happy Mondays, Tom Jones, Rebel MC, Kirsty MacColl, John Altman and Sinéad O'Connor. McLaren was also one of the producers for the film adaptation of Fast Food Nation, which premiered on 19 May 2006 at the Cannes Film Festival and was released in late 2006.

McLaren approached the Red Hot Chili Peppers in 1985, early in their career, expressing interest in managing them, and reinventing the group. After hearing a short live set, McLaren was "clearly unimpressed" according to Chili Peppers frontman Anthony Kiedis. He then proposed to reinvent the group by having them dress in neon surfer-punk clothing, and have them play really stripped-down, basic 1950s rock n' roll, with all of the emphasis on Kiedis. Although Kiedis was flattered to be considered, he and the band rejected the offer. Kiedis recalled the event, saying "It was like the Wizard of Oz had spoken, and what he had said was too ludicrous to take seriously", as his proposition was too different from the band's musical style.

In an issue of New Statesman published on 20 December 1999, an article titled "My Vision for London" included the McLaren Manifesto, and there was speculation that McLaren might stand to be elected as Mayor of London, although ultimately he did not run.

McLaren had a 2005 exhibition of some autobiographical work at the Zentrum für Kunst und Medientechnologie (Center for Arts and Media Karlsruhe) in Karlsruhe, Germany called Casino of Authenticity and Karaoke. This installation had originally been part of the Bonnefanten's 1999 exhibit Smaak – On Taste in Maastricht. In 2003, he wrote the article "8-Bit Punk" championing 8-bit music. He also appeared on This Spartan Life, a popular machinima that frequently uses 8-bit music, and he also discussed the topic.

In 2006, McLaren presented the documentary series Malcolm McLaren's Musical Map of London for BBC Radio 2, followed in 2007 by Malcolm McLaren's Life and Times in L.A. Also in 2007, McLaren competed in a reality TV show for ITV titled The Baron, filmed in the small Scottish fishing village of Gardenstown. The series was due to be shown in August 2007, but was postponed owing to the death of fellow contestant actor Mike Reid shortly after filming was completed. It was eventually broadcast starting on 24 April 2008. During filming McLaren was seen urinating into the harbour and loudly telling assembled inhabitants of the famously devout town, 'Jesus is a sausage', at which point he was physically assaulted by a resident.. McLaren came last in the competition, which was won by Reid. It was announced on 7 November 2007 that McLaren would be one of the contestants in the seventh series of the ITV reality show I'm a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here!, set in the outback of Australia and premiering on British television on Monday 12 November 2007, but he pulled out the day he had flown to Australia. He told press "it is fake", that he didn't know any of the other celebrities and quite frankly, "he didn't have the time". He was replaced by Katie Hopkins.

In January 2008, McLaren featured as one of the 'celebrity hijackers' in the UK TV series Big Brother: Celebrity Hijack, which was broadcast on E4. In his hijack, he encouraged the housemates to remove their clothes, daub themselves in paint and produce an artwork using only their bodies and a bicycle. Also in 2008, New York City public arts group Creative Time premiered nine pieces of Malcolm's 21-part sound painting series Shallow via MTV's massive HD screen in Times Square. The series, which originally premiered at Art 39 Basel in June, was the first instalment of an on-going public arts content partnership between Creative Time and MTV. The complete version of 'Shallow 1–21' was given its full US museum premiere in the Morris Gallery of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (PAFA), in Philadelphia, from 24 October 2009 until 3 January 2010.

About his contribution to music, McLaren has said about himself: "I have been called many things: a charlatan, a con man, or, most flatteringly, the culprit responsible for turning British popular culture into nothing more than a cheap marketing gimmick. This is my chance to prove that these accusations are true." At the time of his death McLaren had just finished a new film work entitled Paris.

Later life and death

McLaren met Korean American Young Kim at a party in Paris; she was his girlfriend for the last 12 years of his life. She moved in with him in 2002; they lived together in Paris and New York. He was diagnosed with peritoneal mesothelioma in October 2009, and died of the disease on 8 April 2010 in a hospital in Switzerland. McLaren's last words were said to be "Free Leonard Peltier". His funeral was held on 22 April 2010 at One Marylebone Church, central London. Later that day he was buried in Highgate Cemetery, North London.