L-R: Nick Egan, Vivien Goldman, Bob Gruen, and Young Kim
Malcolm Mclaren: Worlds End Paris Catwalk Shows
+ Duck Rock Post Screening Discussion and Q&A
Click here to watch on YouTube
I.
If I could have been anywhere in the world this week it would have been New York City - despite the subzero temperatures - in order to attend a programme of events put on by the Anthology Film Archives to honour Malcolm Mclaren and organised in collaboration with Young Kim, his creative and romantic partner for the last twelve years of his life and the executor of his estate.
Essentially a series of screenings, the week-long event explored McLaren's relationship to film and surveyed his rarely seen or discussed contributions to the world of the moving-image.
Following the screening of a 60 minute video of the Worlds End Paris Catwalk shows (1981-84) and the 42 minute long-form music video made to accompany the album Duck Rock (1983), there was a post-screening discussion and Q&A moderated by the the British writer, musician, and punk scholar Vivien Goldman and featuring the American photographer Bob Gruen and the English visual artist and self-styled creative vandal Nick Egan, alongside Young Kim.
And, having now twice watched a recording of this discussion uploaded to YouTube, I thought I'd share some thoughts (and impressions) on what was said (since I wasn't invited to attend and chip in my tuppence ha'p'orth in person).
II.
Vivien Goldman sounds fun and seems keen to infuse a little liveliness into events, which is what you need, I suppose, from a moderator. Her remark re Malcolm's heavenly status (0:26) made me smile; for if he has indeed ascended to the Kingdom of God then the angels had better tie him to a tree, or he'll begin to roam and soon you know where he will be.
Young sounds smart and serious, though one might raise an eyebrow at some of her claims; was Duck Rock really an 'anthropological study of world dance cultures' (3:22)? I mean, it's more than just an amusing pop record, but that's over-egging the pudding somewhat.
Let's just say rather that it's an imaginative and pioneering work of ethnomusicological curation - albeit one that conveniently and commercially packages things for a Western audience. Malcolm certainly did his research and Duck Rock displays creative genius, but he wasn't an attempting a serious study of world music nor trying to faithfully document such.
III.
It's interesting to hear it confirmed by Kim that there is, in fact, not a huge archive of material left behind by McLaren (6:41); I know some people like to think he was England's Andy Warhol [1], but here he absolutely differed from his hero.
For Warhol, of course, left behind an outrageously large and detailed archive of material, consisting of approximately half a million objects, including his personal and artistic belongings from the 1950s until his death in 1987, and filling a space of some 8,000 cubic feet.
Amusingly, The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts donated the vast majority of this material to The Andy Warhol Museum, giving them the Herculean task of cataloguing the contents (whilst they hold on to the massive collection of paintings, drawings, and prints).
One suspects that the Malcolm McLaren Estate will soon exhaust whatever materials have not yet been placed into the public arena and that defending his legacy will be Kim's main role, rather than adding to it in any significant manner.
IV.
Nick Egan I'm always going to think fondly of, as he was kind and helpful to me back in 1983 [2].
But his claim that Malcolm was 'not a nostalgic person' (7:11) is laughably false; his entire project might be summed up as an attempt to live yesterday tomorrow (to reverse the past into the future).
He may have been quickly bored and always looked to radically shake up the present (his history in relation to 430 Kings Road is evidence of that), but McLaren was a man haunted by ghosts and childhood memories his entire life and was even nostalgic for mud; i.e., some form of primal and primitive authenticity.
Let's just say that his relationship with nostalgia was complex and that he viewed the lost promise of the past as potentially subversive rather than something to get sentimental about.
V.
Bob Gruen - whom I've never met or had any contact with - seems like a nice chap and I enjoyed listening to his anecdotes from back in the day, be they about the New York Dolls or suckling pigs (15:30).
And his initial impression of McLaren as odd (9:45) is not wrong; Malcolm was nothing if not an odd duck, although some may prefer to idiomatically label him a queer fish.
Either way, Malcolm was a member of the punk 1% - i.e., those who don't fit in and don't care (as it says on a Seditionaries shirt) [3].
VI.
Interesting also to hear from Nick that Malcolm had 'a bubble around him' (17:37) and wasn't always aware that other people didn't see things as he saw them and didn't always realise when he had overstepped the mark or outstayed his welcome.
Hearing how he managed to piss off the mountain folk in Tennessee (16:42) reminds one of that time when, in 2007, he managed to antagonise the good people of Gardenstown, a small fishing village in Aberdeenshire, by informing them that Jesus Christ was a sausage [4].
Is this a sign of McLaren's egoism, or narcissism, or solipsism ...?
I don't know.
But let's call it innocence.
VII.
Interestingly,
in answering an audience question about accessing the McLaren archive Kim - who
obviously has legal control - makes it clear she also wants complete control. Thus, whilst she plans to make Malcolm's work available, it
will be at a time of her choosing and according to the terms and
conditions she sets:
'I don't really want [things] just everywhere right
away. I want to do something with them, but I want to control kind of
how it goes out to be honest.' (30:00 - 30:15)
That's understandable, I suppose, but one does have concerns that
Kim is also trying to determine the critical reception of McLaren's work
and coordinate his entire story from her perspective (I suspect this is what Vivien Goldman refers to as Kim being a 'really fierce defender' (1:31) of Malcolm's legacy.
VIII.
Where Young is spot on - and right to contradict Egan - is in her claim that Malcolm always viewed things ultimately from a British perspective (33:13); thus, for example, his album Paris (1994) was very much a love letter to the city and to French pop culture written by an Englishman.
He once told me that Paris is for living in; New York is for playing in; but London is where he always returns to work and bring ideas together (and it's Highgate, of course, where he has his final resting place, not Père Lachaise).
IX.
Is Nick right to argue that Duck Rock has had more influence than Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols (1977) (41:02)?
Young looks as if she wants to interject and challenge the idea and, if I'd been there, I think I might also have challenged that. For while both albums are seminal works, the comparison is inappropriate (maybe even odious), for their influence operates in very different spheres.
Push comes to shove, however, I think Never Mind the Bollocks is the more culturally significant and broadly influential work, having defined the punk movement and its global aesthetic - but this is not to deny or downplay Duck Rock's innovations and the latter album has perhaps proven to be more prophetic (some critics arguing that it not only brought hip-hop into the mainstream, but that it anticipated developments in the 21st century, such as sampling, for example).
Notes
[1] See the post titled 'The Talented Malcolm McLaren and the Visionary Andy Warhol' (21 Jan 2026): click here.
[3] I'm referring to the Anarchist Punk Gang' shirt designed by McLaren and Westwood for Seditionaries c. 1979. Click here to view an example of such held by the Met Museum. And click here for a forthcoming post discussing the shirt and in praise of the 1% who don't fit and don't care.
[4] See the post titled 'Don't You Know Jesus Christ is a Sausage?' (18 April 2020): click here.
If I could have been anywhere in the world this week, I'd have been 1,200 miles west in Minneapolis, supporting those remarkable residents out in minus 23 degree temperatures to protect the shrine to the ICE-murdered Alex Pretti as they pursue the dirty work of the fascist lunatics in the White House. (I'd suggest those civilians hitting cans and sounding sirens on the street are making punk art statements all of their own against the scum of the Western world.) MInd you, as there's no cash to be made from it, I somehow doubt MM would have been there were he still with us.
ReplyDeleteOne wonders what's stopping you?
DeleteAre you not afraid of being seen as all mouth and no (bondage) trousers, with this wildly inappropriate attempt to virtue signal and politically posture?
Probably similar reasons to what's stopping you going to NYC and more besides, Stephen - lack of funds, working commitments, and the unappealing possibility of recklessly endangering my own life in a fascist state. I'm too young, and not ready, to die through a bullet fired by an ICE goon. I may well be less brave in this respect than the recent murder victim Alex Pretti. However, there is value in conversing in every way one can about these abominations, as I am with a number of people right now.
ReplyDeleteAs to the reactive swat (and cliche) of 'virtue signalling' as reductive defence mechanism in relation to unwelcome discourse (leaving aside how what is 'appropriate' commentary is legislated), here are a few things readers of TTA may wish to consider that make the phrase, in my view, boring, dismissive, authoritarian, and presumptuous.
1. It pretends to describe a motive it can’t actually know, i.e. an intentional gesture that is mainly in the mind of the respondent. It isn't argument, I suggest - it works more like presumptive mind-reading.
2. It short-circuits discussion through an ad hominem slur (playing the man not the ball) - similar to the work done by fashionable slurs like 'woke', 'snowflake' etc.
3. It weaponises cynicism by implying there's something wrong about asserting value and sympathy in general terms, however imperfectly. Once something is labelled 'virtue-signalling', I mean, it becomes dismissible by default. If all supposed 'signalling' is suspect, conversations about what matters become impossible. Essentially, in this case, the implication is that only private/invisible virtue has any validity.
4. It flatters the speaker by allowing them to take up a smug third position - which I feel is something like, in the case of TTA, 'I'm too sophisticated to care and too deep/ironic/clever to perform.' We could call this, I suggest, something like 'detachment-signalling'.
To conclude, all writing is self-evidently a 'posture' of some kind. However, that doesn't legitimise a crude, single, contemptuous diagnosis of such that punishes broad-brush moral feeling, the exploration of which is how most people actually learn.
In short, talk about virtue-signalling isn’t wrong only because it’s inaccurate (although it is) or because it’s lazy (although it is) or because it's accusatory (which it is). It's because it's judgmentally and epistemically overconfident because it quietly discourages the messy, public work of ethical life.
Thank you for this (presumably AI assisted) piece of moral polemic cum rhetorical analysis.
DeleteIt amazes me how - no matter what the content of the original post - you manage to move the discussion on to areas of your own personal and political obsession.
One wonders why, since you feel this passionately and clearly have much you wish to share with the world, you don't start a blog of your own ...?
What difference does it make to you where ideas and thinking come from - as long as one brings a personal twist to it? I should have thought you of all people would be (re-)endorsing this. (In fact, I comment on relatively few TTA posts, so I'm also not sure why you're exaggerating here.)
ReplyDeleteMy thinking comes from everywhere - reading, writing, conversing, dreaming etc. It never stops for me.
As to your final point, I'll certainly be blogging on my new company website, My Irish Story, though probably on the specific niche of memoir-writing. Otherwise, I'm too busy with other more important work right now.
Meanwhile, I think the question is more 'Why have a comments section on TTA?' (and send me links to new posts) when you're clearly so resentful of critique/comment?
Just to clarify a couple of points:
Delete1. I didn't mention the number of posts that you have commented on (so can't see how I exaggerated here). I noted, rather, how, when you do comment, you quickly move away from discussing the actual ideas and images presented in order to engage in personal remarks, political diatribe, psychological analysis, etc.
Just for the record, between Jan 2016 and Jan of this year, you have published 369 comments on various posts under the name Simon Solomon; so quite a considerable amount of material.
2. I am not 'resentful of critique'. Not only have I encouraged you to comment freely and at length on TTA, but I have published several posts written by you and provided an open invitation to submit future posts whenever your 'more important work' allows you time to do so.
What I do have an issue with is when your critique gives way to abuse and insightful commentary is replaced by a series of remarks that are often unkind, unfair, and unpleasant in character. Examples of such toxicity drawn from comments published over the last ten years can be provided on request.