Madman, genius, visionary, or vampire, there’s no denying Malcolm McLaren’s pivotal role in early British punk. It was he, after all, who formed and, perhaps more importantly, outfitted the Sex Pistols. In the mid 1970s, McLaren owned a clothing and fashion store called Sex, which was stocked with leather and bondage gear. After visiting New York City and absorbing the burgeoning punk movement there, and briefly managing the notorious New York Dolls, he returned with a head full of ideas, most of them inspired by Richard Hell’s ripped t-shirt and unkempt hair. Gathering up some of the disaffected youth that hung around his store, he formed the Sex Pistols, and managed them through their brief but notorious existence, courting controversy as publicity (McLaren, an overeducated art college drop out, was fond of the obscure French art movement of Situationists, who aimed to shake up the world with absurdity and controversy as both artistic and political tools).
After the Sex Pistols burned out in a spectacular flourish across the cultural sky, he took over management of Adam and the Ants, before stealing the entire Ant band out from under Adam and using them to back a 14-year-old Burmese girl named Annabella Lwin (whom he met in a laundromat) in his new band concept, Bow Wow Wow. Ever mindful of staying visible by staying controversial, McLaren had early Bow Wow Wow covers feature a naked Lwin – this when she was still 15. The pundits cried foul and the records flew off the shelf. Well, I don’t know as if Bow Wow Wow records ever actually flew off the shelves, but the controversy certainly didn’t hurt sales.
For McLaren, the look of the bands he managed – their theme – was more important than the music they created. He carefully tailored the studied sloppiness of the Sex Pistols to infuriate the establishment while exciting the growing numbers of disaffected youth. Adam and the Ants pursued a pirate agenda, and Bow Wow Wow was loosely based on jungle motifs, and was anchored by the nonstop Burundi-style drumming of David Barbarossa. I don’t know whether he also instructed them to look as bored as possible while performing, but they did that quite well, earning the dubious distinction of being the worst band that I’ve seen perform live.
Tired of his role behind the curtains, the wizard decided to dispense with his bands and be the star of his own show. Which is where it becomes very clear that the concept outweighs the execution. His first, and best album, is the exception, the remarkable Duck Rock. Featuring a tricked out boom box and Keith Haring graphics on the cover, the amazingly eclectic album mixes hip hop and square dancing and indigenous South American music and Afropop and jump ropes and whatever else he can get his hands on together in a dizzying blend of styles. Interwoven with snippets from the World’s Famous Supreme Team show – an early, edgy, NYC radio show, one of the first to feature hip hop and rap and scratching – Duck Rock sounds like listening to a radio that’s picking up and crossing signals from all the world’s stations into one gooey and intriguing mix. Credit has to be given to uber-producer Trevor Horn (early Art of Noise, Frankie Goes to Hollywood, Seal, etc) for pulling it all together.
I bought this album when it first came out, while living on the Lower East Side in Manhattan. It was an exhilarating record because it sounded just like the city did at that time, all these different styles and influences coming together in unique and unusual – and sometimes uncomfortable – ways. The centerpiece for me – and the only real hit from the album (and a pretty minor one at that) – is the glorious Buffalo Gals. Malcolm originally wanted to do it as a straight-up square dance number, but Trevor (thankfully) convinced him to throw out the traditional arrangement and use a stuttering drum machine as practically the sole accompaniment. The result is a study in minimalist electrofunk, an invigorating barrage of beats and synth stabs that I absolutely could not get enough of that year. Duck Rock took the wave of multiculturalism that had infected the ranks of the rock elite (Talking Heads, Peter Gabriel, XTC et al) and gave it some street cred. For one great album, the concept and the execution came together perfectly.
Emboldened with his success at crossbreeding highly unlikely strains of music, McLaren next released Fans, which liberally mixes hip hop and opera. And which doesn’t have the unifying touch and astonishing sheen of producer Trevor Horn. Interesting briefly as a novelty (Madame Butterfly is particularly satisfying), the album collapses under its own pretensions. Subsequent musical experiments (such as hip hop versions of waltzes – done in 4/4 (?) – and rap versions of Shakespeare) also fell flat. But does he care? I doubt it. Music isn’t what drives McLaren, fashion is – the music is just a by product of his concepts. But on Duck Rock, at least, the by-product is good enough to eat.
