Malcolm Robert Andrew McLaren (22 January 1946 – 8 April 2010) was an English fashion designer, entrepreneur and music manager. He was a promoter and a manager for punk rock and new wave bands such as New York Dolls, Sex Pistols, Adam and the Ants, and Bow Wow Wow, and was an early influencer of the punk subculture.
McLaren was brought up by his grandmother after his father, Peter, left the family home. He attended several British art colleges in the 1960s, where he became involved in underground art and left-wing activism. From 1974 to 1976, he operated the Chelsea boutique Sex with his girlfriend Vivienne Westwood, which helped shape early punk fashion and became an early hub for the subculture in London. After a period advising the New York Dolls in the United States, McLaren managed the Sex Pistols, for which he recruited frontman Johnny Rotten. The issue of a controversial record, "God Save the Queen", satirizing the Queen's Jubilee in 1977, was typical of McLaren's shock tactics, and he gained publicity by being arrested after a promotional boat trip outside the Houses of Parliament.
In the 1980s, McLaren continued managing other London-based acts and performed as mainly a solo artist, initially focusing on hip-hop and world music, and later diversifying into funk, disco, and electronic dance music. When accused of turning popular culture into a cheap marketing gimmick, he replied that he hoped it was true. His first album, Duck Rock, was certified silver in the UK and spawned the top-ten singles "Buffalo Gals" and "Double Dutch".
In his later years, he lived in Paris and New York City and died of peritoneal mesothelioma in a Swiss hospital.
Early years McLaren was born on 22 January 1946 to Scottish-born engineer Peter McLaren, an upper-middle-class Londoner who was at that time serving with the Royal Engineers, and Emily Isaacs, the daughter of tailor Mick Isaacs and independently wealthy Rose Corré Isaacs.
"We've talked to Malcolm's mum. Even she doesn't like him." — Judy and Fred Vermorel, 1984
At age 16, McLaren left Orange Hill with three O-levels and was briefly employed in a handful of jobs before attending classes at St Martin's School of Art and then undertaking a foundation course at Harrow School of Art. Other arts institutions attended by McLaren over the next seven years included the South East Essex School of Art in Walthamstow and Goldsmiths.
Fashion design and music 430 King's Road, Vivienne Westwood and New York Dolls In October 1971, McLaren took over the back part of the retail premises at 430 King's Road in Chelsea, West London, and sold rock and roll records, refurbished 1950s radiograms and deadstock clothing under the name "In the Back of Paradise Garage". With the assistance of art school friend Patrick Casey, McLaren converted the entire ground floor into the store and renamed it Let It Rock, initially selling clothing (dead stock, military surplus) and objects he had sourced. When the shop became a success, he enlisted the help of his then-girlfriend Vivienne Westwood who customized and repaired original clothing and made facsimiles.p. 8, England's Dreaming: Sex Pistols & Punk Rock by Jon Savage, Faber, 1989
Let It Rock was patronised by teddy boysBeatles Loathers Return: Britain's Teddy Boys, Rolling Stone, 2 March 1972 and McLaren and Westwood's designs also appeared in such theatrical and cinematic productions as The Rocky Horror Show and That'll Be The Day. In spring 1973 the store was renamed Too Fast To Live Too Young To Die and began selling original 1950s-inspired leather clothing. Among the commissions were costumes for Ken Russell's film Mahler.Shirley Russell, Mahler, Goodtimes Enterprises, 1974 In August 1973, McLaren and Westwood visited New York to participate in the National Boutique Fair, where they began an association with the New York Dolls, supplying them with stage wear and joining their group on tour in the UK and France. In October 1974, he renamed the outlet Sex to reflect its move towards fetish fashion and provocation. In January 1975, McLaren and Westwood designed red patent leather costumes for the New York Dolls and used a Soviet-style hammer and sickle motif for their stage shows in the US as an attempt to attract attention through provocation. This ploy was not successful and the Dolls soon broke up, with guitarist Johnny Thunders specifically naming McLaren as "the reason why we broke up." McLaren instead blamed Thunders and drummer Jerry Nolan's drug addictions for the split. In May 1975, McLaren returned to Britain.
Sex Pistols From 1974, McLaren had advised Sex customers Paul Cook and Steve Jones on their musical aspirations, having proposed that one of his shop assistants, Glen Matlock, join them as the bass-player in a group McLaren named QT Jones and his Sex Pistols. In the summer of 1975, McLaren ejected frontman Wally Nightingale from the line-up because he did not fit with McLaren's vision for the band's image."The Lost Pistol", Nick Kent, Punk: The Whole Truth, Mojo Special Edition, May 2005 His one-time associate Bernie Rhodes, who would later become the manager of the Clash, claimed he spotted a new frontman in another customer, John Lydon, then sporting green hair and torn clothes with the words "I hate" written on a Pink Floyd T-shirt above the band's name. After Lydon joined, McLaren dubbed him "Johnny Rotten" and shortened the band's name to simply Sex Pistols, stating that he wanted to give the impression of "sexy young assassins".
In May 1977, a few months after McLaren replaced Matlock with Sid Vicious (supposedly because Matlock "liked The Beatles"), the band released the anti-monarchy protest song "God Save the Queen" during the week of Queen Elizabeth II's Silver Jubilee. McLaren organised a boat trip down the Thames in which 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 U.S. tour in January 1978. McLaren was accused by the band of mismanaging them and refusing to pay them when they asked him for money. McLaren stated that he had planned out the entire career path of the Sex Pistols, which he illustrated in the film The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle. Lydon's feelings of being used by McLaren formed the creative impetus for his subsequent band Public Image Ltd. The contractual rights to the Sex Pistols' name were disputed in a case brought by Lydon, Jones, Cook and the estate of Sid Vicious in 1979 against McLaren's management company Glitterbest. In 1986 the High Court awarded the rights to the group's name, The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle, the artwork, master tapes and the group's income to Lydon and the others. In the 2000 film The Filth and the Fury, the surviving members of the Sex Pistols gave their version of events. McLaren is portrayed during his time as the Sex Pistols' manager by David Hayman in the film Sid and Nancy and by Thomas Brodie-Sangster in the miniseries Pistol.
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 formed a new lineup of the Ants and also advised the Slits and Jimmy the Hoover.
The members of Bow Wow Wow were dressed in clothing designed by McLaren and Westwood, and he embroiled the group in such controversies as plans to publish a magazine titled Chicken, to celebrate sex between individuals under the age of consent.Reynolds, Simon, and Joy Press. The Sex Revolt. 2nd ed. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1994. 40–41. Print.
Solo music 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 who hosted a hip-hop and classic R&B show on WHBI 105.9 FM and were among the first DJs to introduce the art of scratching to the world). This mixed up influences from Africa and the Americas, including hip-hop. The album helped bring hip-hop to a wider audience. The singles "Buffalo Gals" and "Double Dutch" became top-10 hits in the UK, with the former also a minor regional hit in the US.
In 1984 McLaren turned to electronic music and opera on the single "Madame Butterfly", which reached No. 13 in the UK and No. 16 in Australia. The producer of the single, Stephen Hague, became much sought after following his work with McLaren on the LP Fans.
McLaren's 1989 album Waltz Darling, was a funk and disco album inspired by the voguing subculture. The singles "Waltz Darling" and "Something's Jumpin' in Your Shirt" became top-20 radio hits in Europe. A remix of "Deep in Vogue" was instrumental in bringing voguing and ball culture to wider public attention, topping the U.S. dance chart in July 1989 (some nine months before the global success of Madonna's similarly themed "Vogue"). "Deep in Vogue" is also notable for McLaren's collaborations with vogue performer Willi Ninja and filmmaker Jennie Livingston, who directed the promotional music video and gave McLaren and remix producers Mark Moore and William Orbit permission to sample audio from the soundtrack of her then-unreleased voguing documentary Paris Is Burning.
McLaren personally hired Creative Director John Carver to handle the design and art direction for "Waltz Darling". He was introduced to John by mutual friend Tommy Roberts at The Titanic nightclub, near Berkeley Square. McLaren and Carver spent a week together discussing visual references. McLaren returned to New York and Carver was left to design and art direct the album and singles sleeves.
In 1989, McLaren and composer Yanni arranged the "Flower Duet" into a work called "Aria on Air". The "Flower Duet" theme, taken from the French opera Lakmé by Léo Delibes, had already been used by composer Howard BlakeBritish Airways Theme Tune. Howardblake.com (31 March 1984). Retrieved on 9 July 2011. to accompany British Airways commercials since 1984. However, in 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.
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 appearances by such prominent French stars as actress Catherine Deneuve, musician Françoise Hardy, and fashion designer Sonia Rykiel.
In 1998, McLaren released Buffalo Gals Back 2 Skool (Virgin Records), an album featuring hip-hop artists Rakim, KRS-One, De La Soul and producer Henri Scars Struck revisiting tracks from the original Duck Rock album. That year, he also created a band called Jungk. This project was not a commercial success. Around this time he released a track called "The Bell Song" as a single available in a variety of remixes.