Saturday 10 April 2010

Malcolm McLaren


It was announced this week that Malcolm McLaren (pictured left in 2009), former manager of the Sex Pistols and the New York Dolls, had died. In this article we take a look at the life and career of the man who brought Punk music to the attention of the world.
Malcolm Robert Andrew McLaren (22 January 1946 – 8 April 2010) was an English performer, impresario, self-publicist and former manager of the sex Pistols and the New York Dolls.
Early years
McLaren was born to Pete McLaren, a Scottish teenaged war deserter, and Emmy (née 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 shmatte factory in London's East End called Eve Edwards London Limited. They lived well but Malcolm 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.
The New York Dolls and SEX
In 1971, McLaren and his girlfriend, the designer Vivienne Westwood, opened a London clothing shop called Let It Rock on the King's 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's son by Westwood, Joseph Ferdinand Corre, co-founded the lingerie brand Agent
Provocateur.
Later life and death
McLaren met Korean American Young Kim at a party in Paris; she became 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 died of mesothelioma on 8 April 2010 in a clinic in Switzerland. His body will be flown back to England to be buried in Highgate Cemetery, North London. Malcolm McLaren's death bed last words were "Free Leonard Peltier."
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 stagewear. In 1975, McLaren designed red 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. However, it was while he was managing the Dolls that he first saw the Neon Boys perform. The Neon Boys included Tom Verlaine and Richard Hell, who were later to form Television. In April 1975, McLaren returned to Britain, by which time he had renamed the store SEX, selling S&M (sadomasochistic) style clothing.
The Sex Pistols
By 1976, McLaren had started to manage The Strand, the band who would later become the
Sex Pistols. He soon convinced them to kick guitarist/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 was renamed The Sex Pistols (McLaren stating he wanted them to sound like "sexy young assassins").
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 Houses of Parliament. The boat was raided by the police and McLaren was arrested, thus achieving his goal to attain 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 an American tour in January 1978. This tour saw the band split up after a series of arguments. 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 has 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. The film was criticised for allegedly being too skewed towards McLaren and for being a launchpad for McLaren's future career in music as a performer (he performs the Max Bygraves song "You Need Hands" in the film) as well as a manager 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.
Solo musical career
In 1983, McLaren released Duck Rock, an album which 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. 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 synthesizers and spoken verses. It reached #13 in the UK and #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 or 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.
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 Francoise 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 Esther
Bigeou'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 Smuglazz 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 (Buffalo Girls)." 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.

Sign Of The Times


Chinese Dwarves Big On Popularity


I have just been reading a story by Dan Martin of AFP news which I thought might interest you.
In an imperial yellow coat and stylish shades, China's dwarf emperor toddles from his tiny mushroom house to rapturous applause and a welcoming volley of ear-splitting techno music.
Barely a metre tall, the mini-monarch squats proudly on a royal stool as his court of dwarves and midgets -- dressed as fairies, warriors, cooks, and monks -- regale hundreds of paying visitors with a high-pitched, syrupy ballad.
China's imperial days may be long gone, but this scaled-down version lives on at the "Dwarf Empire", a popular attraction at a theme park that opened in September in southwestern Yunnan province.
The "empire" -- part of a butterfly park -- has quickly become the site's main draw thanks to the popularity of dwarf performances that would likely evoke howls of protest in the West as an exploitative freak show.
It includes a mini v
ersion of "Swan Lake", and there's even a male dwarf in leather pants and a punk hairdo hand-walking and gyrating his hips to thunderous hip-hop.
But the more than 100 dwarves -- known in China as "xiao ai ren", or "little small people" -- who range in height from 79 centimetres (2 feet 7 inches) to 1.3 metres, dismiss suggestions the park demeans them.
Several call it a haven in a country where their kind often face harassment and mistreatment and rarely get to mix with like-sized comrades.
"Before coming here, most of us faced discrimination. But here, we are equal and respected. We have our dignity," said Ou Jielin, 24, who sold clothing in the southern province of Guangdong before coming to work at the park.
Nestled in rugged hills about 40 kilometres (25 miles) west of the Yunnan capital Kunming, the park is the brainchild of flamboyant businessman Chen Mingjing, who made his fortune in electronics, real estate and other ventures.
His hair slicked back and wearing a high-collared Chinese jacket not unlike that of the dwarf emperor, Chen said the idea came to him after he encountered midgets on a train.
"We felt their lives were hard and bad, so we wanted to build a great place for them to live and a platform for them to work," said Chen.
Employees get room, board and free English lessons -- to chat with a hoped-for flood of overseas visitors. Few can get past "Hello", however, except for one who introduced himself as being from the empire's "Foreign Ministry".
Altruism aside, dwarves are good business.
On a recent day, Chen's empire heaved with hundreds of mostly-respectful teenagers from Kunming, cheering wildly and posing for photos with dwarves.
Chen is expanding the "empire", which now consists of more than a dozen
mushroom homes from which the dwarves emerge and descend to their performance area.
A nearby hill is topped by a fortress-like emperor's "castle" opening later this year. New dwarves arrive weekly.
"We will build a team of 800 to 1,000 dwarves and make it the biggest wonderland for dwarves in the world," Chen proclaimed.
Dwarves acknowledge the park could be seen as demeaning in the West, but say it is a step up for "little people" in China, whose opportunities in life are sometimes quite limited.
Chinese dwarves need to be tough, said Pi Fasi, who faced bullying and was even robbed in his previous job driving a three-wheeled transport vehicle. He says he has fought to defend himself his whole life against schoolmates and even adults.
"Some would even be crying after I used my fists and legs," he said proudly.
Fittingly, he is now the emperor's personal bodyguard, vowing to "stay at the park until I am too old to work."
Homesickness hurts, but life with fellow dwarves has changed the fate of people like Ou, who fell in love with another of the dwarf employees and hopes to marry.
"I feel this is our destiny. We came from different places in China but have come together to live as a family. We are all very happy," she said.

Today's Smile


Signs Of Growing Old




You no longer think of speed limits as a challenge.
----------
You consider coffee as one of the most important things in life.
----------
8 a.m. is your idea of 'sleeping in'.
----------
You don't remember when you got that mole or the one next to it.
----------
You write thank you notes without being told.
----------
Neighbours borrow your tools.
----------
You answer the question with "Because I said so!"
----------