MASK UP AND GET THE SHOTS THEATER

Oh man, I must have been in my twenties but I remember it like it was yesterday. My friend Ed and I were hanging out and between beers and/or bong hits, we were thinking of the future when we'd be old and crotchety and we'd be saying to young snots "Sex Pistols, now there was a band!" Many laughs over that. But guess what. The day has come. So, I'll say it,  "Sex Pistols, now there was a band!" I was reminded of that incident when I ran into the flick There'll Always Be An England, a live concert film of the Sex Pistols playing in London in 2007. Here's what brought on the flash back: The concert was thirty years after their formation (actually I think it's thirty one years). So, what you see in the film is a band playing songs that were the rage thirty (one) years earlier. Say the Sex Pistols were fully on their game in 1977. How many young people in 1977 would go, enthusiastically, to see a band that was in their prime thirty years earlier, in 1947? Shit, I can't even think of a single song that I know of from 1947.

You could say that the Sex Pistols reuniting at all kind of goes against the intent of the 1977 Sex Pistols. It kind of looks that way. I'm way passed giving a shit what they do. It's entertainment. It is rock 'n 'roll and there's nothing wrong with that. This film isn't just some slap dash shakily shot cheap footage. It was directed by Julien Temple and the music producer is Chris Thomas who produced the Pistols' early stuff. Fucking Lydon though. He's so damn full of himself. Makes sense that he's expressed admiration for fucking Trump. (A description and set list can be found on his site.)

~ NOTE: ALL MEDIA IS HOSTED BY THE BLOGS & SITES NAMED BELOW ~

Listen:
Sex Pistols - Anarchy In the UK mp3 at Ebaums World
Sex Pistols - God Save The Queen mp3 at Clones Project

CARD CARRYING DUES PAYER

These days practically nothing seems all that shocking musically. I mean, really, just about everything radical that could be done, has been done. When was the last time you heard something and thought "Whoa! What the fuck is that?"?. To put things into perspective, let's set the Wayback Machine to the fall of 1977. The chart-toppers are Debby Boone (Pat Boone's daughter), KC and the Sunshine Band, Carly Simon, Shaun Cassidy, a disco version of the Star Wars theme, and "Boogie Nights" by Heatwave. You might understand how red blooded rockers were just waiting for things to change. Some already had a project in the works. The Sex Pistols did.

I'd heard about the Sex Pistols, knew what they looked like and had an idea of what they were about but had not heard them. When I finally did hear them I wondered where all the comparisons to the Ramones came from. This was not "Beat on the Brat" nonsense. The Sex Pistols raged. Like a pressure cooker that finally popped a lid. They shook shit up.

Yesterday (or the day before?) it was reported that there will be a TV series about the Sex Pistols on FX to be directed by Danny Boyle (the guy who did the film Yesterday). The part I like about it is that it's based on guitarist Steve Jones' book, Lonely Boy: Tales From A Sex Pistol. (Jones, above.) The book is a good read. I've read a shitload of accounts of early UK punk over the years, including two memoirs by John Lydon (né Johnny Rotten). Jones's tale can seem almost Forest Gump-like in his uncanny string of being in the right place at the right time. But he and drummer Paul Cook struggled long before the Pistols got off the ground. Dude was a classic petty thief.

Though he's done his share of rock star skirt chasing and had plenty of success over the years, you get the feeling that Jones knows the bottom could drop out at any moment. Reading his take on the Pistols saga makes you feel like you're having a beer with him. Lydon's memoirs, on the other hand, read like a guy who's full of himself, self important and ego driven. Not to say his books aren't good. They just seem self aggrandizing. Jone's book seems more honest. Now that I know that Lydon is (was?) a Trump supporter, it all makes sense. Blowhards attract. I love it that it probably pisses him off to no end that Jones got the deal. Tee-hee. Oh well, he can always go start a band with his Trump bro Ted Nugent.

~ NOTE: ALL MEDIA IS HOSTED BY THE BLOGS & SITES NAMED BELOW ~

Listen:
Sex Pistols - Anarchy in the UK mp3 at Tumblr
Sex Pistols - God Save the Queen mp3 at Clones Project
Visit:
Danny Boyle to direct Sex Pistols limited series for FX at AV Club
John Lydon doubles down on Trump support in bizarre interview at NME “He is the only hope”
More Sex Pistols stuff here

NICE SANDALS, ROCKER.

Okay, so there's an older lady that moved in across the alley. She's 77, thin and walks with a cane. She was out there having a smoke, as was I. Not having seen her come or go before, I figured she was new to the neighborhood, so I introduced myself. Her name was Jeanie.

I know I'll be talking to Jeanie again soon. Gotta remember her name. This one is easy, a song association, "Jeanie, Jeanie, Jeanie" by Eddie Cochran. Come to think of it, at her age she would have been in high school when that song was released. Note to self: Ask Jeanie if she knows the song "Jeanie, Jeanie, Jeanie" by Eddie Cochran.

I went looking for the song. Squat. I expanded my search and all sorts of shit popped up. Amongst it, a collection of Led Zeppelin rarities that included two Eddie Cochran covers. First thought: this is gonna be rich.

The covers sound just like what you would expect Led Zeppelin covering Eddie Cochran to sound like, basically like shit. Okay, it does sound like Zeppelin and if you didn't know the songs they would sound like anything else they were doing at the time. But if you do know the songs and you like Eddie Cochran just fine, there are parts that will make you cringe. For example, near the end of the first verse of "C'mon Everybody", when Plant sings "who cares" it sounds like a parody of a seventies rock vocalist. Totally whiney.

All fourteen tracks are in one file, and there's plenty of listenable stuff here. You just have to let the whole thing roll or pick through it to find individual songs. The Cochran covers are at 11:22 ("Something Else") and 31:55 ("C'mon Everybody"). Along with those are covers of Sonny Boy Williamson, Jerry Lee Lewis, Howlin' Wolf, you get the idea.

The Sex Pistols covered the same Cochran songs (three quarters of the Sex Pistols anyway, with Sid Vicious on vocals and Johnny Rotten absent). Compare their takes and Zeppelin's and you will sense a difference. Here's the thing, if you know early rock 'n' roll, you know that certain OG rockers had a sort of swagger. Vicious, in his delivery, has some of that. But 1970-era Robert Plant was suffering from bell bottoms and frilly tops, and a high pitched whiney "who cares".

~ NOTE: ALL MEDIA IS HOSTED BY THE BLOGS & SITES NAMED BELOW ~

Listen:
Led Zeppelin - Rarities mp3 at Internet Archive Single 14 song mp3. "Something Else" at 11:22, "C'mon Everybody" at 31:55. In the right column, under "Download options" click on "VBR MP3 Files"
Eddie Cochran - Something Else mp3 at Rocky 52
Eddie Cochran - C'mon Everybody mp3 at Rocky 52
Sex Pistols - Something Else (streaming) at YouTube
Sex Pistols - C'mon Everybody (streaming) at YouTube

GET TO WORK YOU LAZY POSEURS

I've just finished reading Jon Savage's The England's Dreaming Tapes for the second time. It consists of the interviews he conducted for his earlier book England's Dreaming, an overview of the English punk scene. There's a shitload of take-aways in it, as far as common pre-punk tastes (Roxy Music, Bowie, Mott the Hoople, the Stooges, and the MC5), what gigs they went to, when they first became acquainted with the Sex Pistols, the impact of the Pistols, and so on. Everyone saying that the pre-Nancy Sid Vicious was really nice, surprisingly smart, and funny. I haven't read the book that the interviews were conducted for, but this follow up is deep, I can't imagine the earlier book adding all that much.

I haven't listened to punk rock all that much in recent years because I've listened to all of the seminal stuff so much I'd practically memorized much of it. You can debate all that you want about whether or not "punk is dead", but to me much of what has been labeled punk rock in the last thirty years is derivative, just banging out three chords and showing an angry face. All the mosh pit and stage diving nonsense, everybody's seems to forget the part about thinking for yourself and debasing what came before. Well intended or not, most of it seems disingenuous. Punk rock is decidedly dead. The spirit of punk is not, but you'll have to look elsewhere for it (the first thing that comes to mind is the lone protester standing in front of the tanks in Tiananmen Square. Oh, and the Pussy Riot thing).

In the midst of reading the book I did some poking around online and while looking for the current status of Jamie Reid, the situationist pal of Malcolm McLaren who did all of the Sex Pistols graphics, I ran into his semi-recent revisit of the original "God Save the Queen" graphic, this time around with Trump the target. It got me to thinking that if punk rock did truly still exist, shouldn't there be an anti-Trump anthem by now? There may very well have been an attempt, but if I haven't heard of it, the splash wasn't big enough. You can't leave all that to Uncle Neil. I mean, jeez, show us what you're made of.

~ NOTE: ALL MEDIA IS HOSTED BY THE BLOGS & SITES NAMED BELOW ~

Listen:
The Sex Pistols - God Save the Queen mp3 at Marty Sport (?)
The Clash - I'm So Bored With the USA mp3 at Review Stalker
The Buzzcocks - Boredom mp3 at Inside Pulse (?)
The Damned - Neat, Neat, Neat at Jorge Farah (?)
Plaster these around the hood:
God Save the USA - Jamie Reid, high resolution version of above
God Save President Trump, God Save Us All, alternate version  

LETTS MEETS PEEL IN HI-FI

Every so often I go back to the John Peel site to see the most recent posts. It's hard to beleive that it's been ten years since he died. And the interesting shit just keeps coming. One thing added since the last time I checked it out is the Record Box, a series of posts with different notable music types pullimg favorites from his massive collection and explaining the reasons why the records were chosen. One of the posts features the picks of Don Letts. (You should know him by now.)

Letts starts with regggae, King Stitt, Big Youth, Augustus Pablo, and the Congos, then inexplicably changes directions and goes to the Idle Race (Jeff Lynne's pre-Move, pre-ELO band), then Led Zep, Bowie, the Who, Sly and the Family Stone, James Brown and Funkadelic. Then onto punk rock related stuff. Back to reggae, then the Slits and PiL. You get the drift. Cool, no brainer stuff, right? But Letts was there way before you, and may actually be, in a butterfly effect, part of the reason you first heard some of the songs. He was a stealth tastemaker. Peel himself was a tastemaker supreme. So, to have Don Letts picking through John Peel's records is worth checking out. There's also an eighteen minute video of Letts talking about the records.When you get to the page, click on the first one and go about your business while they play in succession. Here's just two of them, these two because they're smack dab in the middle of the Letts/Peel Venn diagram.

~ NOTE: ALL MEDIA IS HOSTED BY THE BLOGS & SITES NAMED BELOW ~

Listen:
Bob Marley and the Wailers - Punky Reggae Party mp3 at Pixie Radio
Sex Pistols - Anarchy In the UK mp3 at Ebaums World
Visit:
Don Letts at John Peel Archive Letts's picks from Peels stash
John Peel Archive Home page

EVER FEEL LIKE YOU'VE BEEN THE MONKEES?

You might not have known this existed. If you aren't the sort that is constantly looking for anything Pistols related, maybe you've outgrown them, you probably haven't run across it. It's their last set from the 1978 US tour, and was supposedly their last show ever. (It was until they reunited decades later). I happened upon it by accident. It just reminded me of what a package the Sex Pistols were, how much they stirred shit up. The whole thing, not just the band and their music. The manager Malcom McLaren, his wife, clothing designer Vivien Westwood, and an old chum of McLaren's, Jamie Reid, a graphic designer and token situationist; they were all part of it. Add irreverence and an uncanny ability to be in the wrong place at the right time, and play like shit. Like you don't give a fuck. Be ugly. Be stylishly anti-glamour. All part of the package. I liked that package, and still do, even when it sucked.

The video is pretty good quality for the era. Apparently the show was simulcast on a local radio station, so that's probably why the sound is decent (though Steve Jones's guitar is barely audible at the very beginning). Check this video ASAP if you're interested. Something tells me it won't be up for long. If you want music by the Pistols, including various oddballs, they can probably be found here.

ROGER AND THEM

Roger Ebert passed away today. You know who he is, right? He's the Chicago Sun Times film critic who, with Gene Siskel, invented the "two thumbs up" thing on their syndicated show "At The Movies". He also dabbled in screenwriting, notably for Russ Meyer's Beyond the Valley of the Dolls, Beneath the Valley of the Ultra-Vixens, and Up!. (Meyer is on the left in the photo above, Ebert on the right) In 1977, Meyer again enlisted his help, to write the screenplay for a movie that was to feature the Sex Pistols, with a working title of Anarchy In the UK. During work on the film, Ebert suggested another title, Who Killed Bambi, and that was to be the title before Russ Meyer walked off the project due to ongoing disputes with Malcolm McLaren, the Pistol's manager. The film was later pieced together by Julien Temple and released with the title The Great Rock 'n' Roll  Swindle, with remnants of Ebert's screenplay still intact. It also included a song, sung by Tenpole Tudor, who was at the time being considered to replace Johnny Rotten as the new singer for the Pistols. The song was called "Who Killed Bambi".

This is as good a time as any to post Eberts' account of working with Meyer and the Sex Pistols camp. So here's a link to that post on his blog, and another to the original screenplay that he wrote for the film.

~ NOTE: ALL MEDIA IS HOSTED BY THE BLOGS & SITES NAMED BELOW ~

Read:
McLaren & Meyer & Rotten & Vicious & me at Roger Ebert's Journal 
"Who Killed Bambi?" - A screenplay at Roger Ebert's Journal 
If you must have music, try these:
Sex Pistols - Who Killed Bambi mp3 at 195.122.253.112 (?) (From the film The Great Rock n' Roll Swindle) 
Sex Pistols [sic]- Friggin' in the Riggin' mp3 at Joi Ito (From the film The Great Rock n' Roll Swindle) 
Sex Pistols - Pretty Vacant mp3 at Review Stalker 
Le Anarchie Pour Le UK (in French) mp3 at Stillerman.com (From the film The Great Rock n' Roll Swindle) 
Video: 
The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle trailer at YouTube 
Beyond the Valley of the Dolls trailer at YouTube
Visit: 
Roger Ebert at Wikipedia
The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle at Wikipedia 

GIVE IT UP OR TURN IT LOOSE

It's done folks. It's been merchandised and marketed, misused, and misunderstood, and it is done. Dead as a door nail. Believe me, if you're younger, whatever it is that you think is punk rock is, it's just a way to sell patches, buttons and black clothes. (As my Dad said to me back in the day, "Oh, I get it. You're just being different together.") So, you want some proof? How about robots playing the Ramones? Or Malcolm McLaren and Vivien Westwood's punk rock get-ups in the collection of the Costume Institute of the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art?

Here's what bugs me other than the punk rock angle. (Which really doesn't get me all that worked up. I just like shooting my mouth off.). Just looking at the complexity of the Ramones playing robots, you know it took an awful lot of time, money and know- how to create, program, set up, and all that jazz. What could the creators have done more effectively with less time and effort? That's right. They could have actually picked up a guitar and learned three chords.

As for the McLaren/Westwood collection, check this article to read about the factual errors that were included. Here's what bugs me about that: They were pretty glaring. Anyone who knows a little more than average about UK punk rock of that era would catch these errors. That doesn't bug me as much as it does thinking about what other factual errors might exist in the museum.  Picasso and Banksy were pals. True story. Done and done.

~ NOTE: ALL MEDIA IS HOSTED BY THE BLOGS & SITES NAMED BELOW ~

Listen:
ATV - How Much Longer mp3 at Faking It 
Sex Pistols [sic]- Friggin' in the Riggin' mp3 at Joi Ito
Visit:
Observer article highlights Met’s embarrassing punk flaws.at Paul Gorman Is Check the links at the bottom too.
McLaren and Westwood collection at the Metropolitan Museum of Art

YAY FOR MILLIE!

If you watched the opening ceremony of the Olympics last night, you'd probably agree that there were some interesting moments for music freaks. If you watched the show in the U.S., you probably noticed that right when they got to the Sex Pistols part of the UK pop history segment, before you good say "My, how times have changed," it cut to a commercial. (It figures, eh?) I was curious about how that part was handled, so I went looking. I found a rather crude clip, filmed from a TV screen, and it's goofy. The performers had these big giant heads with spikey hair, and were pogoing on those springy prosthetic things that amputee athletes use. Like I said, it was goofy, not at all like the serious pogoing done by people with normal sized heads with spikey hair back in the day. It was kinda weird seeing the video images of the Sex Pistols on the big screen, with the lyrics flashing from the seats. Anyways, here's a clip.

The highlight of the music segment, for me anyways, was the inclusion of Millie Small's "My Boy Lollipop." It was totally unexpected, primarily because, even though the song was a huge hit in the UK, she's from Jamaica. She was the only artist included in that musical journey type segment that wasn't from the UK. And dang me if it wasn't nice to see her cute face singing on the big screen. Just think about how many people were viewing the opening ceremony. It was probably the most viewed single performance, albeit fleeting, of any Jamaican song ever.

~ NOTE: ALL MEDIA IS HOSTED BY THE BLOGS & SITES NAMED BELOW ~

Listen:
Millie Small - My Boy Lollipop (English) mp3 at Le Blog de la Grande Chose
Millie Small - My Boy Lollipop (German/English) mp3 at Dust On the Stylus
Sex Pistols - Pretty Vacant mp3 at Review Stalker

NO FUTURE (SLIGHT RETURN)

You know what? The whole Jubilee thing bugs me. I can't believe that kind of sucky tradition still exists. With or without the Sex Pistols' "God Save the Queen," it gets under my skin, as does everything that doesn't really have a common sense purpose. (The Jubilee is right below neckties on that list.) That said, when "God Save the Queen," came out, I wasn't even cognizant of the Silver Jubilee. Though not written specifically about, or for, the Jubilee, it coincided with the event. The Sex Pistols just resented the monarchy. Regardless, they just gave me one more thing to be annoyed about. The lasting effect, though, was that it reinforced the mindset, of questioning not necessarily just authority, but anything that doesn't make sense.

Here's some stuff. The Sex Pistols version, a cover, and a few other odds and ends added as filler. I definitely recommend the Pistols' stuff, including the clip from The Filth and the Fury. After that, you're on your own. The Queen Haters thing (at the very bottom) is kind of stupid, but I did get a chuckle from the lyrics.

~ NOTE: ALL MEDIA IS HOSTED BY THE BLOGS & SITES NAMED BELOW ~

Listen:
Sex Pistols - God Save The Queen mp3 at Clones Project
Nouvelle Vague - God Save the Queen mp3 at Cover Me
Sex Pistols - Pretty Vacant mp3 at Review Stalker
Sex Pistols - EMI (from Spunk) mp3 at This Is Fil
Sex Pistols - Satellite (Suburban Kid), unreleased version mp3 at Dalston Oxfam Shop
Sex Pistols - Seventeen (Wessex Studio outtake) mp3 at Sibling Shot on the Bleachers
Bonus oddballs:

Le Anarchie Pour Le UK (in French) mp3at Stillerman.com (From the film The Great Rock n' Roll Swindle)

Anarchy in the UK (as read by computer) mp3 at Internet Archive
Bananarama - No Feelings mp3 at Cover Me
Joan Jett and the Blackhearts - Pretty Vacant mp3 at Cover Me
Video:
Sex Pistols - God Save the Queen at YouTube From The Filth and the Fury
Motörhead - God Save the Queen at YouTube
The Queen Haters - I Hate the Bloody Queen (from SCTV) at YouTube
Visit:
God Save the Queen - Song entry at Wikipedia

THEY STILL HOLD UP

Every once in a while, when the Sex Pistols cross my mind, I think, why them? They sound an awful lot like a rock n' roll band with a bad singer. What set them apart? Beyond the fact that they were brilliantly anti-marketed, wrote good songs, had flippant attitudes, and were among the first of the UK punk bands, were they all that inventive? Militant? Honest?

Who really cares? All I know is that I'd never seen the video above before tonight, and it reminded me of what a good band they were, whatever their standing in the punk annals.

~ NOTE: ALL MEDIA IS HOSTED BY THE BLOGS & SITES NAMED BELOW ~

Listen:
The Sex Pistols - Pretty Vacant mp3 at Review Stalker
The Clash - I'm So Bored With the U.S.A. mp3 at Review Stalker
The Buzzcocks - Orgasm Addict mp3 at Review Stalker
Wire - Pink Flag mp3 at Review Stalker
Note: If links don't work, all mp3's can be found at Review Stalker.
Previous related post:
Listen Up Sonny - Sex Pistols oddballs, rarities & demos

LISTEN UP SONNY

A quick rundown: The first three are from the Dave Goodman produced demos, that pre-date their signing with Virgin (Glen Matlock was still in the band), famously known as the "Spunk" bootleg.. The next one, "Satelitte" is a version with different lyrics, and I don't know anything about the last one, "Seventeen".

There's a few related oddballs down there, and the Bow Wow Wow thing isn't related at all. It's a Smiths cover. I really can't handle the Smiths, but it's a departure from what I think of when I think of Bow Wow Wow, so I found it mildly interesting.

~ NOTE: ALL MEDIA IS HOSTED BY THE BLOGS & SITES NAMED BELOW ~

Sex Pistols - Anarchy in the UK (from Spunk) mp3 at This Is Fil
Sex Pistols - Submission (from Spunk) mp3 at Sibling Shot on the Bleachers
Sex Pistols - EMI (from Spunk) mp3 at This Is Fil
Sex Pistols - Satellite (Suburban Kid), unreleased version mp3 at Dalston Oxfam Shop
Sex Pistols - Seventeen (Wessex Studio outtake) mp3 at Sibling Shot on the Bleachers
Bonus oddballs:
Le Anarchie Pour Le UK (in French) mp3 at Stillerman.com (From the film The Great Rock n' Roll Swindle
Bananarama - No Feelings mp3 at Town Full of Losers
Bow Wow Wow - I Started Something I Couldn't Finish mp3 at Town Full of Losers
Drop Out Orchestra - Pretty Vacant (disco stylee) mp3 at AudioPorn
Anarchy in the UK (as read by computer) mp3 at Internet Archive
Word:
Sex Pistols - Interview from KSAN, 1978 at Beware of the Blog
John Lydon - Anglomania: Tradition and Transgression in British Fashion (2006) mp3 at Beware of the Blog
Read:
Sex Pistols - Spunk bootleg entry at Wikipedia

TAKE A DRIVE WITH SOME OLD FRIENDS

Should you have a long drive ahead of you this week, here's enough to keep you from dozing off. You might agree that a lot of podcasts found online can seem like vanity mixes, and not quite what real radio is like. But I ran into a few radio shows that, though I've only listened to a portion (there's hours of them to get through), sound interesting enough to help you drive a few more miles before pulling over for another cup of coffee.

First up is a bunch of Joe Strummer's "London Calling" radio shows, that originally aired on BBC's World Service radio, from 1998 to 2002. Eighteen in all, there's hours and hours of good stuff. And there's also Don Letts Culture Clash, a Joe Strummer tribute show, from 2007.

Next up is a radio show, in two parts. It's John Lydon visiting Steve Jones on his Jonesy's Jukebox show, originally aired on Indie 103.1 FM, in 2006. This one is a hoot. It's really neat to hear the two of them, older and presumably wiser, talk about music some thirty years after they first met.

If you can't get to downloading these right away, rest easy. They've apparently been online for some time, so just come back and get 'em later. And a little PSA here: don't drive drowsy, and by all means, don't drive drunk or stoned, you know it's idiotic.

~ NOTE: ALL MEDIA IS HOSTED BY THE BLOGS & SITES NAMED BELOW ~

John Lydon with Steve Jones on Jonesy's Jukebox, Part 1
John Lydon with Steve Jones on Jonesy's Jukebox, Part 2
Originally aired on Indie 103.1 FM, March, 2006. at John Lydon's site.

Joe Strummer's London Calling 2000 Show 1 (of 6 from 2000)
Joe Strummer's London Calling 2001 Show 1 (of 4 from 2001)
Joe Strummer's London Calling 2002 Show 1 (of 4 from 2002)
All 18 shows, originally aired on BBC's World Service, 1998 - 2002, at Radio Clash

Don Letts' Culture Clash, Joe Strummer tribute show at Radio Clash

REMEMBERING A TRUE SHIT STIRRER

Malcom Mclaren passed away today, in New York. The bulk of the piece below is from a bio I wrote for Woodstock.com ten years ago. Sadly, some editing was required, to change the tense of some passages.

Malcolm McLaren, best known as the former manager of the Sex Pistols, was incredibly astute at picking up on the slightest nuances of contemporary culture and lighting an invisible fuse. He was equal parts explorer, appropriator, trash picker, entrepreneur, opportunist and artist. And he knew how to stir up a fuss.

His name seems to pop up everywhere. In addition to the Sex Pistols, he has had ties to the New York Dolls, Ronnie "the Great Train Robber" Biggs, actress Lauren Hutton, Bow Wow Wow, film critic Roger Ebbert, Boy George, French actress Catherine Deneuve and artist Keith Haring. At different times, he has been band manager, entrepreneur, fashion designer and recording artist, and he was one of the earliest to sell the trends of punk rock, vouging, hip-hop and music piracy. In 1999, when it seemed as though he was starting to slow down, he ran for Mayor of London.

Born in London in 1946, he was brought up by his grandmother and began his young adult life attending several London area art schools. While in art school, he organized a happening at an art gallery (that was shut down by the police), was involved in student revolts and traveled to Paris where he began an association with an art gangster group, the Situationists. During these art school years, his predilection for disorder was instilled.
.
Photos from McLaren's funeral here

In 1971, he entered the fashion world, opening his first boutique on Kings Road. Originally named "In The Back of Paradise Garage," it would become his hub, operating under several different names and featuring constantly changing clothing lines, designed with his partner, Vivien Westwood. From this store, under it's third name " Too Fast To Live Too Young To Die," he met the New York Dolls. After yet another name change, this time to "Sex," he would go on to briefly manage the New York Dolls, during their "red patent leather" period. McLaren issued a press statement "Better Red Than Dead" and dressed the Dolls in red patent leather outfits. The intent was for the Dolls to appear as having a threatening affiliation with communism. Ultimately the band sabotaged the idea when they told the press that it was joke.

By 1975, while still operating under the name of "Sex," McLaren met a young band called "QT Jones and the Sex Pistols" and, after learning that most of their equipment had been burgled from the homes of various English rock stars, was enamored enough that he began managing them. After dropping "QT Jones" from the name and recruiting a singer they would name Johnny Rotten, they went on to be signed and dropped from two record companies within months, before landing a deal with Virgin Records.

During the short life span of the Sex Pistols (they broke up in 1978), McLaren invited soft core film maker Russ Meyer to make a film about the band, and he began writing a script with Roger Ebert, titled "Who Killed Bambi?" The project was dropped by 20th Century Fox after one scene was shot, a studio spokesman saying, "We are in the business of making family entertainment".

McLaren would later salvage the idea and some footage, assembling a film that would later be released as "The Great Rock N Roll Swindle," with director Julien Temple. It was during this process that McLaren hooked up with Ronald Biggs, the infamous Londoner known as "the Great Train Robber." Biggs, who had escaped from prison and fled to South America, was enlisted to take the place of Johhny Rotten, who had left the band in 1978. Though the middle-aged and talent-less Biggs was an unlikely front man, he was enlisted by McLaren as an ideal candidate to infuriate British authorities. Flying Sex Pistols Steve Jones and Paul Jones to the exiled Biggs' home base, the sessions produced the single "No One Is Innocent".

The Sex Pistols would soon disband, and McLaren later summed up the experience saying, "The greatest technique involved in managing the Sex Pistols was always to create the right explosion and when know that it was going to happen, and as manager, run into the toilet and come out after the explosion and say, 'God, what's happened?"

In 1980, with his shop operating under the name "World's End", Malcolm McLaren discovers and produces Adam Ant, Bow Wow Wow and a young Boy George. Bow Wow Wow included Adam Ant's backing band (persuaded to leave Ant by McLaren) and featured a 13 year-old girl singer named Annabella, whose youth would prompt another McLaren ploy. By recreating Manet's painting "Dejeuner Sur l'herbe" using the members of the group and Annabella in the nude, as a record cover, he again managed to anger officials (and the girl's mother).

The concept for the new group, and accompanying line of pirate influenced clothes, was to promote music piracy, particularly the home taping of songs broadcast on the radio. The first single by Bow Wow Wow was "C30 C60 C90 Go" a name derived from the names designated by different lengths of cassette tapes. The press release was accompanied by a cassette single (said to be the very first in the format) and a statement that "Copyrighting of this sound recording is UNLAWFUL." The lyrics speak for themselves:

When I went in your shop,
And you said my records were out of stock,
So I don't buy records in your shop,
I tape 'em all, I'm top of the pops

Now I've got a new way to move,
It's shiny and black and don't need a groove,
I don't need no album rack,
I carry my collection over my back

C-30 C-60 C-90 Go
Off the radio I get a constant flow,
Hit it! Pause it! Record it and play,
Or turn it on rewind and rub it away

The record company, EMI, was not amused. As the first label to drop the Sex Pistols, they had already been bamboozled once by McLaren. The song was a hit, but they stopped production, issuing a press release that stated "We cannot promote a band who blatantly promote home taping."

By 1983 McLaren had become fascinated with the New York hip-hop scene, then still in it's infancy. He would later say, "I came to rap on a street corner near Harlem, and I noticed this young black kid wearing a T-shirt saying 'Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols' on it, and he was scratching. To me, that seemed like a miraculous kind of vision. Punk, from England, had made it all the way to New York's Harlem, and now here was this whole new music to be discovered as well."

He began an album called "Duck Rock" which combined international music, rap influenced lyrics and some of the earliest scratching to reach a mass audience. The liner notes described collaborators the World Famous Supreme Team as DJs from New York that had "developed a technique using record players like instruments, replacing the power chord of the guitar by the needle of a gramophone, moving it manually backwards and forwards across the surface of the record. We call it scratching."

The album was quietly groundbreaking. Not only had it introduced scratching, hip-hop culture and cover artist Keith Haring to a mass audience, it was one of the first to introduce a world music hybrid in an international pop music context.

McLaren was still active, with Westwood, in clothes designing. The two opened another shop called Nostalgia of Mud (in 1981). To coincide with the release of "Duck Rock," they showed a new fashion collection (featuring textile prints by Keith Haring) in Paris, using music that mixed rap with opera. Within a year, this would be another path that McLaren would wander. In 1984, he released his second album "Fans" which mixed opera with R & B and hip hop elements. The album, and featured single "Madame Butterfly" (which was a hit in Europe), predated MTV's "Hip Hopera: Carmen" (aired in May 2000) by a whopping 16 years.

After 1984, McLaren was seemingly everywhere, though not as much in the public eye. In 1985, he went to Hollywood, pitching movies such as "Heavy Metal Surf Nazis" and "Rock 'n' Roll Godfather." Now split up with Westwood, he began a relationship with actress Lauren Hutton. Though seen as an odd pairing by many who knew McLaren, the press was uninterested, presumably because they had covered enough of McLaren antics.

The next few years would be filled by a legal battle over the Sex Pistols name (which he gave up the rights to by walking out of court), an exhibition of his work (at the Museum of Contemporary Art in New York) and pitching another film project (this time to Steven Spielberg's Amblin Productions). In 1989, McLaren released a third album, this time recruiting Jeff Beck and Bootsy Collins. Titled "Waltz Darling" and credited to McLaren and the Bootzilla Orchestra, it was another odd pairing, this time with waltzes and funk. He also released a single "Deep In Vogue,' inspired by the New York semi-dance craze. Though not a big seller, the single predated and inspired Madonna's "Vogue," the song that put voguing into it's short-lived limelight.

From 1990 through 1999, McLaren was still at it, keeping up a pace that looked that by now, seemed unstoppable. He wrote and directed a TV movie, "The Ghosts Of Oxford Street," released a forth album, "Paris" (featuring Catherine Deneuve), and toured the Far East, Australia and New Zealand as a lecturer.

He was commissioned to begin writing his autobiography, created and managed a Chinese all girl group called JUNGK. An album, called "Buffalo Gals Back To Skool," consisting of "Duck Rock" remixes (by high profile hip-hop producers) was released in 1998.

McLaren's decade culminated with an unsuccessful bid for Mayor of London in 1999. His chances were slim from the outset. By design, the campaign was pure McLaren. (One of his platforms called for the legalization of cannabis.)

From all appearances, McLaren seems to have been on hiatus since the mayoral election. With the exception of a mash-up (of the Carpenters "Love Will Keep Us Together" and Joy Division's "Love Will Tear Us Apart," roughly a year ago), there had been hardly a peep from the McLaren camp in the past ten years. It's quite possible that it was only because he was involved in projects even more peripheral than those in the past (and, if the pattern continues, later someone else will receive the bulk of the credit). Well, then. Long live the shit stirrers.

If you follow this blog and read the last post, the irony may not be lost on you. This post, the first without links leading directly to mp3 files, is about the person who practically invented the term "music piracy".

NOTE TO UK MUSIC PUBLSHERS: These links lead to other sites:
Sex Pistols - Anarchy in the UK mp3 at Music is Art (5th song at bottom of post)
Bow Wow Wow - C30 C60 C90 Go mp3 at Town Full of Losers (4th song down)
Malcolm McLaren - Buffalo Gals mp3 at 8106 (Scroll down to 4th song)
Malcolm McLaren - Double Dutch mp3 at Crying All the Way to the Chip Shop
Malcolm McLaren & the World Famous Supreme Team – Hey DJ at 8106 (6th song)
Malcolm McLaren and the Bootzilla Orchestra - Deep in Vogue mp3 at Nervous Acid

Added 4/12/2010: Comments from John Lydon, Steve Jones, Annabella Lwin, David Johansen, Vivien Westwood and others at Pitchfork
Added 4/22/10: Photos of the funeral at the Telegraph web site
Added 4/24/10: Roger Ebert on McLaren, Russ Meyers and the aborted Sex Pistols film "Who Killed Bambi?"
Malcolm McLaren - A Chronology
McLaren declares Damien Hirst's $160K clothing collection fake
McLaren's Manifesto for London
McLaren's obituary in the Guardian

McLaren's obituary in the New York Times
Malcolm McLaren's run for Mayor of London

SERENDIPITOUS SCORING

[NOTE: After testing the mp3 links in this post, I realized that the the hosting site Pogo A Go-Go has disabled direct links, which is his perogative. Rest assured though, all of the tunes can be found and downloaded at his site: Pogo A Go-Go, with links to specific posts below. In other words, I'll be damned if I'm going to delete this post after going through the hassle of writing it...]
.

Every once in a while, in need of something to post, I'll start browsing blogs that I haven't been to in a while and find a few mp3s that scream "download me now you hack, or you'll forget where you saw me!" Today's screaming mp3s come from Pogo A Go-Go. There's plenty to devour there, and some, well, some of that screaming variety. Case in point: "A Different Story", by the Subway Sect. The Subway Sect were contemporaries of the Sex Pistols (they were in the early punk fanzine Sniffin' Glue for cryin' out loud!) and that whole first wave of UK punk, but were already leaning toward a post-punk kinda "I'll let those guys bang out the chords, I'm a little smarter than that..." type of sound. Despite the fact that they may have thought themselves above three chord simpletons, they came and went after only two proper 45s (a comp of stuff came out later).

.

Fil, the host of Pogo A Go-Go, demonstrating that he's clearly got his head on straight, is currently ranting about some really messed up venture called "The Rock n' Roll Experience." It's some really fucked up hoity-toity thing where you can pay a few thousand dollars and go to Hawaii to jam (and play golf) with "rock legends" like Gerald Casale (Devo), Earl Slick (one time guitarist for Bowie), Al Jardine (the second lamest Beach Boy, after Mike Love) and Glen fucking Matlock (yeah, a former Sex Pistol). Oh yeah, there's also Clem Burke (the drummer from Blondie) and, it pains me to even mention it, Wayne Kramer (from the MC5). Get out your sticks kids, it's definitely time to draw the line. (Remember the scene in Animal House when John Belushi, as Bluto, says "...Neidermeyer? Dead!!"? It's kinda like that...)

.

Showing his kindred soul side, Fil writes:

"Dearest Friends, this is a travesty. This is not rock 'n' roll. This is balding, fiftysomething, system analysts with their remaining strands of hair scraped behind their heads into dork handles. This is Euro trustafarian brats decked out in Bench and Von Dutch. This is the annoying, botox-injected fucker who cut me off today in his Porsche Boxter. This is whore meets john." Sting like a bee!

.

Besides Subway Sect's cut, he's also posted "The Great Rock n' Roll Swindle" which has always been credited to the Sex Pistols, but was actually the music of Pistols Steve Jones and Paul Cook, with all of the people auditioning to be Johnny Rotten's replacement trading vocals (including the wonderful stylings of Edward "Who Killed Bambi" Tudor-Pole, who was chosen to be Rotten's successor). And, to take us back to a time before trustafarians, he's also posted Chuck "I see see London, I see France" Berry's "Johnny B. Goode".

.

Proving he's not a one trick pony, Fil's previous post featured five vintage ska tunes, including Daddy Livingstone's "Rudy, A Message To You" (covered during the Two-Tone era by the Specials). And an earlier post has Mudhoney's "This Gift". A whole bagful of stuff over there; this is just the few I found in a matter of minutes.

.

Subway Sect - A Different Story mp3 found on this post

Sex Pistols - The Great Rock n' Roll Swindle mp3 found on this post
Chuck Berry - Johnny B. Goode mp3 found on this post
Daddy Livingstone - Rudy, A Message To You mp3 found on this post
Mudhoney - This Gift mp3 found on this post
All found on Pogo A Go-Go