Electric Boogaloo: Remembering the Rock Steady Crew

The Rock Steady Crew in a Charisma Records 

promo photo (1983)

 

 

I. 

 

Apparently, the Rock Steady Crew are still a thing even today; indeed, the name has become a kind of franchise, used by various other groups of hip-hoppers and b-boys in multiple locations. 

 

I have to admit, I like this idea; it's not something that the Rolling Stones ever thought to do and even though Malcolm declared in the post-Rotten days that anyone can be a Sex Pistol, the actual band members were quick to assert intellectual property rights and demand other assets and accumulated royalties during their High Court case against him [1].  

 

 

II.

 

For me, however, the RSC - and I'm not referring to the Royal Shakespeare Company here - will always consist of the six members pictured above: Prince Ken Swift, Crazy Legs, Buck 4, Doze, Kuriaki, and, up-front and centre, 15-year-old Baby Love, who provided the vocals on their international hit single, '(Hey You) The Rock Steady Crew' (1983) [2].   

It is, to be brutally honest, a rubbish song; although when I first heard it played in Steve Weltman's office I reluctantly agreed it was 'not bad' [3]. Ultimately, the RSC were just another novelty act, signed by Charisma Records [4] in an attempt to cash in on the surprise success of McLaren's 'Buffalo Gals' (1982) [5] and exploit the burgeoning American hip-hop scene. 

 

Having said that, I remember them with a certain fondness; especially Doze, who was very friendly, very funny, and clearly a talented artist. And it was a shame that they were destined for the same sad fate as befell Adam and the Ants two years earlier - i.e., to make a spectacle of themselves on stage in a Royal Variety Performance ... [6]. 

 

 

Hip-hop meets pomp & circumstance: the Rock Steady Crew 

with a soldier from the Household Cavalry 

(London, c. 1983)

 

 

Notes

 

[1] Those who want to know more about this court case - which was instigated by Rotten in 1979, but not fully resolved until 1986 after much legal wrangling - should see chapters 26 and 31 of Paul Gorman's biography The Life and Times of Malcolm McLaren (Constable, 2020). Long story short: Malcolm, unfairly in my view, loses the case and everything is awarded to Lydon, Cook, Jones, and the estate of Sid Vicious (including, ironically, rights to The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle).

 

[2] '(Hey You) The Rock Steady Crew' was released from the group's debut studio album Ready for Battle (Charisma Records, 1984) and it reached number 6 on the UK Singles Chart. Blue Soldier and Stephen Hague, two of the co-writers of the song, also produced the track; the other co-writer, Ruza Blue, was the Crew's manager at this time. Click here to play the song's promo video on YouTube.

 

[3] This according to a diary entry made on Tuesday 16 August, 1983. Weltman had just returned from New York with the newly recorded song and accompanying video, which I first saw on the 19th, thinking it a pale imitation of McLaren's video for 'Buffalo Gals' in some respects, but noting that Baby Love was certainly easy on the eye. 

      

[4] Charisma Records was founded in 1969 by Tony Stratton-Smith and remained, at heart, a hippie label much loved by prog rockers, despite it's eclectic roster that included Monty Python, Sir John Betjeman, and Billy Bragg. Sadly, Charisma was swallowed by the Virgin shark in 1983 and fully digested by the latter in 1986. Steve Weltman was the managing director of Charisma, 1981-86.   

 

[5] 'Buffalo Gals' was very much a surprise hit - and a hit despite rather than because of the good people at Charisma Records, on whom the track's genius (and revolutionary nature) was completely lost. McLaren later recalled:

 

'It was greeted poorly by almost all at the record company. The radio plugger [...] was so outraged he refused to take it to radio and declared it was "not music" [...] The only person who stood up for me was the press lady: a young American, new in her job.' 

 

Charisma seriously considered legal proceedings against McLaren on the grounds that he had grossly overspent the budget and that he was "in breach of the contractual obligation to deliver music of acceptable commercial value". 

      However, thanks to the hugely positive response Kid Jensen received after playing the track on his Capital Radio show, Charisma were quickly obliged to recognise that they not only had a potential number 1 on their hands, but that they possessed a track capable of causing "a sea-change of significance in popular music terms to rival the advent of punk". 

      See Paul Gorman, The Life and Times of Malcolm McLaren ... pp. 516-517. 

 

[6] On 23 November, 1981, Adam and the Ants played two songs at the Royal Variety Performance, much to bass player Kevin Mooney's obvious discomfort; he thought he'd joined a post-punk band, not a pop pantomime troupe happy to entertain members of the English royal family. Refusing to take the performance seriously - thereby infuriating Adam - Mooney was subsequently sacked. Those who wish to watch, can do so by clicking here. 

      On 7 November, 1983, the Rock Steady Crew performed in front of Her Majesty the Queen at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane: click here. Their being added to the bill is an even more egregious example of cultural appropriation in which a marginalised subculture is ripped out of the urban context in which it derives its meaning, its magic, and its potency simply for the amusement of the rich. And the fact that this was done with the connivance of their record company and, one suspects, either the naive or knowing complicity of the RSC themselves, is doubly depressing.

      It's not often I find myself writing in praise of John Lennon, but I do admire that during The Beatles' set at the Royal Variety Performance in 1963, he sarcastically requested that wealthy members of the audience rattle their jewellery rather than just clap their hands like those in the cheaper seats: click here.

      It's worth noting that The Beatles also refused future requests to appear at the Royal Variety Performance, despite their continued popularity and the fact that all four had been awarded - and accepted - MBEs from the Queen in 1965 (Lennon returning his in 1969, in protest at Britain's involvement in or support for various armed conflicts around the world). 

 

 

Get Off Your Knees and Hear the Insect Prayer: Notes on the Ant People

Get Off Your Knees and Hear the Insect Prayer

 

I. 

 

When I came across a reference the other day to the Ant People, I immediately thought of the Adam and the Ants slogan: Ant Music for Sex People: Sex Music for Ant People [1]. 

 

I had long believed that this line simply referred to those whom the cultural commentator Peter York once described as the "'extreme ideological wing of the Peculiars'" [2] - i.e., those who used to hang around Sex - and, secondly, to those who were hardcore fans of Adam and the Ants.

I now discover, however, that existing long before Adam and Marco ever walked through the doors of 430 King's Road, were a legendary race of highly advanced beings (possibly of extraterrestrial origin) known as the Ant People, and venerated by the Hopi Indians; a tribe of Native Americans who have lived on the high arid mesas of northern Arizona for thousands of years [3]. 

 

 

II. 

 

According to Hopi legend, in times of global catastrophe, it was the Anu Sinom, or Ant People, who come to their rescue and offered them sanctuary in underground caves, which essentially formed a natural network of subterranean prayer chambers, or what the Hopi call kivas (a word which etymologically means beautiful dwelling place).      

 

No wonder then that the Hopi refer to the Ant People with their elongated skulls, almond-shaped eyes, tiny waists, and long skinny arms and legs, as their friends: Anu-naki.  

 

And one can only hope that if members of Extinction Rebellion and Just Stop Oil are correct in their dire predictions of a coming eco-apocalypse, that we palefaces will have some benevolent insects come to our rescue (although I doubt it and don't think we deserve such).    

 

Notes

 

[1] This line is a refrain in the Adam and the Ants track 'Don't Be Square (Be There)', found on the album Kings of the Wild Frontier (CBS Records, 1980): click here.   

[2] Peter York, writing in an article entitled 'Them', Harpers & Queen (October 1976), quoted by Paul Gorman in The Life and Times of Malcolm McLaren (Constable, 2020), p. 329. 

[3] See Gary A. David, 'The Ant People of the Hopi' (13 October, 2013) on the website Ancient Origins: click here.

 

 

Out of the Punk Ruins and Into the Age of Piracy

Jordan as SEX punk (1976) 

and Worlds End pirate (1981)

 

'Twas a sunny day when I went to play down by the deep blue sea  

I jumped aboard a pirate ship and Malcolm said to me ...

 

 

I. 

 

One of the things I most love about the animated closing scene to The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle (dir. Julien Temple, 1980) aboard the good ship Venus [1] is that it anticipates the radical move that McLaren (and Westwood) were to make the following year when they transformed Seditionaries into Worlds End and replaced the figure of the punk rocker with that of the pirate, obliging an entire generation to either set sail with them on a new swashbuckling new adventure, or risk being thrown overboard like that scurvy dog Johnny Rotten.

 

 

II.

By 1979 it was clear that Seditionaries was no longer the centre of the world:

"McLaren and Westwood's customer base was no longer drawn from the cutting edge of the capital's cognoscenti. Now visitors comprised curious provincials, cookie-cutter second-wave punks, Johnny-come-latelies and Sid fans." [2]

 

It was time to move on, or risk becoming trapped by old ideas and old looks - although, ironically, this meant leaving the 20th-century by travelling back to a more Romantic time. 

 

McLaren, now more excited by the outlaw than the rebel, began to conceive of a new age of piracy - one which Westwood was able to brilliantly materialise with her latest fashion designs. Their partnership was once more "firing into the future" [3] and it was all systems (C30 C60 C90) Go!  

 

Of course, this meant the shop at 430 King's Road would also require a major refit ... 

  

 

III.

 

Worlds End - the fifth and final version of the store - was arguably the most imaginative; a cross between a pirate's ship and the Old Curiosity Shop made famous by Dickens. Not as pervy as Sex; not as intimidating as Seditionaries, Worlds End was an unreal place of fantasy and promise. 

 

The large clock placed above the entrance with its hands perpetually spinning backwards, suggested the idea of time travel. But the fact that it had thirteen hours rather than the standard twelve made sure that one also aware that the time one was escaping to didn't exist - but might, one day.

 

In retail terms, Worlds End was certainly more successful than the earlier versions of 430 King's Road. And McLaren and Westwood's Pirate collection (1981) was a seminal moment in fashion history (it certainly inspired Galliano). 

 

Even now, the outfits seem astonishingly fresh and colourful; full of youthful exuberance and swagger. Jerry Seinfeld may have rejected the pirate look [4], but for many of us, the puffy shirt was once a must have back in the day and every now and then you'll still see models on the catwalk wearing clothes inspired by the clothes Malcolm and Vivienne created.  

  

Post-punk pirates Bow Wow Wow 

looking the part in 1981

 

Notes

 

[1] I have written about this scene earlier this year on Torpedo the Ark: click here. 

 

[2] Paul Gorman, The Life and Times of Malcolm McLaren (Constable, 2020), p. 438.

[3] Ibid., p. 450.

 

[4] I'm referring to the episode of Seinfeld entitled 'The Puffy Shirt' [S5/E2], dir. Tom Cherones (1993), in which Jerry famously declares: "I don't wanna be a pirate!" Click here. 

Musical bonus: Adam and the Ants, 'Jolly Roger', from the album Kings of the Wild Frontier (CBS Records, 1980): click here.

 

Video bonus: Jordan outside Worlds End in 1981 speaking about the new age of piracy: click here.

 

For a related post to this one on Worlds End, please click here.   

But Malcolm, They'll Not Be Able to Find It ...

Fig. 1: Sex Pistols: Anarchy in the U.K. (EMI, 1976)  

Fig. 2: Kazimir Malevich: Black Square (1915) 

 

 

I.

 

It's hard to resist loving a paper that explores the links between punk, nihilism, politics and the arts, such as the one delivered by Ian Trowell at the Torn Edges symposium at the London College of Communication a few days ago [1].

 

Kazimir Malevich and Malcolm McLaren; Suprematism, Situationism, and the Sex Pistols - what's not to love? 

 

I don't want to say it was the best presentation on the day, but it was probably the one I enjoyed the most - and if Trowell had only thought to entitle his work 'Don't Be (Black) Square Be There', I would've loved it (and him) even more [2].

 

 

II.

 

Perhaps unsurprisingly to torpedophiles, the aspect of the talk that most excited concerned the plain black sleeve that 'Anarchy in the U.K.' - the Sex Pistols' debut single - was originally issued in on 26 November, 1976. 

I figure that McLaren would be more than familiar with Malevich's suprematist masterpiece painted sixty years earlier, though don't know if this directly inspired the 'Anarchy' packaging, or if, as Paul Gorman says, the insistence on such a sleeve was simply in line with McLaren's own aesthetic, as seen in his portraits of the 1960s and the clothes designs produced with Vivienne Westwood for Sex [3]. 

 

Either way, it was a great idea for a sleeve; one that not only captures the anarcho-nihilism of the band, but affirms the colour with the greatest symbolic resonance and meaning. 

 

And when EMI executives complained that an all black sleeve with no identifying information would make it extremely difficult for fans to find it in the record stores, Malcolm smiled and said: I don't want them to find it ... [4]

 

Notes

 

[1] Ian Trowell is an independent researcher and author exploring themes of popular culture and ideas around myth and memory. His presentation at Torn Edges was entiled '"Anarchy in the UK', 'Black Square', and Pop Nihilism: Exploring the Links between Punk, Nihilism, Suprematism and Situationism". 'Further details of this event and of the other speakers can be found here. Trowell's recently published book - Throbbing Gristle: An Endless Discontent (Intellect Books, 2023) - can be purchased here.

 

[2] The fact that he was wearing an Adam and the Ants T-shirt on the day makes it even more surprising to me that Trowell didn't think of this title. Still, never mind - the presentation was all good clean fun (whatever that means).*  

[3] See Paul Gorman, The Life and Times of Malcolm McLaren (Constable, 2020), p. 331. Gorman goes on to say that McLaren was also thinking of the infamous 'black page' in Laurence Sterne's Tristram Shandy (1759-67).

 

[4] There were only a couple of thousand copies of 'Anarchy in the U.K.' issued in the black sleeve; after that, it was sold in the standard EMI sleeve with a hole in the middle so the label information could easily be read. 

      The record reached number 38 in the official UK Singles Chart, before being withdrawn by EMI following the Bill Grundy Incident (1 Dec 1976). The Sex Pistols were eventually fired from EMI on 6 January 1977, but they kept their £40,000 advance and had the last laugh when they included the track E.M.I. on Never Mind the Bollocks (Virgin Records, 1977). 

      To watch the band perform the single 'Anarchy in the U.K.' on the BBC's early evening current affairs show Nationwide (recorded 11 Nov 1976 and broadcast the following day), click here.

 

  

* I'm referring here - for those who don't know - to a track by Adam and the Ants entitled 'Don't Be Square (Be There)', from the album Kings of the Wild Frontier (CBS Records, 1980): click here. You may not like it now, but you will ... 

Submission

Sex Pistols: 'Submission' (1977) [1]

 

I. 

 

According to Rotten's recollection, it was Malcolm who suggested the band should write a BDSM-themed song with the title 'Submission' - they were, after all, called the SEX Pistols, although only guitarist Steve Jones seemed to have an eye for the ladies, Rotten once famously dismissing the act of love as merely a couple of minutes squelching [2].

 

So perhaps no surprise that Rotten would decide to interpret the word submission as sub-mission, i.e., a submarine mission and write a song that is less about kinky sex of the sort McLaren fantasised and more about an immersive experience with a mysterious girl and her watery love [3].   

 

Reflecting on the song years later, Rotten said that whilst he and other band members enjoyed the punning humour of 'Submission', Malcolm failed to see the joke and, as a result, didn't ever attempt to suggest or shape the lyrical content of a song again, which, if true, is a shame; for Malcolm was clearly the guiding spirit and intelligence of everything that came out of 430 Kings Road, including the Sex Pistols [4]. 

 

 

II. 

 

One assumes that McLaren was hoping Rotten might come up with something simlar to 'Venus in Furs' by the Velvet Underground, a track inspired by Masoch's famous novel of that title published in 1870 [5]. 

 

Unfortunately, however, Rotten is no Lou Reed and, as noted, kinky themes of sadomasochism, bondage, and submission mean nothing to him - or, at most, they provide an opportunity to mock those who do take these things seriously. Sex, style and subversion may be central to McLaren's philosophy and aesthetic, but Rotten is all about sarcasm, scorn and sneering. 

 

In a sense, Malcolm might have been better off kicking Rotten out of the band earlier than he did and bringing in another talented young singer-songwriter, namely, Adam Ant, who immediately quit the pub rock outfit Bazooka Joe (for whom he played bass) after seeing the Sex Pistols in November 1975 [6]. 

 

Adam soon fell in with key figures on the London punk scene, including Jordan, who famously worked at SEX, and, unlike Rotten, he was more than happy to explore the pervy world of fetish, producing some fantastic songs on the subject, such as 'Whip in My Valise' and 'Beat My Guest' [7]. He even coined a motto for his band Adam and the Ants which read: Ant music for sex people. 

 

Unfortunately, it would be two years after the breakup of the Sex Pistols, in January 1980, before McLaren finally paid attention to Adam and agreed to manage - or, more accurately, mentor - him for a month, receiving a flat fee of a £1000. It was from Malcolm, that Adam got his pirate-Apache look and the Burundi drum sound - so a bargain, really, although it also cost him the loss of his band, who left with McLaren to form Bow Wow Wow ... but that's another post.

 

 

Notes

 

[1] Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols (Virgin, 1977) was originally released as an 11-track album, but included 'Submission' as a one-sided 7" single. It was soon added to the album and the 2012 remastered version can be heard by clicking here.

 

[2] See Charles M. Young's feature on (and interviews with) the Sex Pistols - 'Rock is Sick and Living in London' - in Rolling Stone (20 Oct 1977): click here. 

      Asked if he shares Sid's view that sex is boring, Rotten replies: "Love is two minutes and fifty seconds of squelching noises. It shows your mind isn't clicking right." It was a quote greatly appreciated by the writer Aubron Waugh.

[3] It's possible, of course, that Rotten has, in fact, penned an erotic number - even if it was primarily designed to annoy McLaren. Repeatedly singing about going down, for example, suggests an interest in oral sex and when Rotten refers to her undercurrent flowing one can't help but imagine that the song references either female ejaculation or golden showering. Ultimately, whilst I have no idea if Rotten has a penchant for urophilia, it's undeniably the case that he enjoys taking the piss. 

[4] Rotten would like the world to to believe that he almost singlehandedly wrote the songs, only begrudgingly admitting the role played by other band members. But it's hard to imagine that he would have come up with 'Anarchy in the U.K.' without McLaren putting ideas in his head and 'Pretty Vacant' was almost certainly written at the latter's instigation after he was inspired by Richard Hell's 'Blank Generation' (I discussed this in an earlier post that can be accessed by clicking here).   

 

[5] 'Venus in Furs', by the Velvet Underground - a band managed by McLaren's artistic hero Andy Warhol - was originally released on the 1967 album The Velvet Underground & Nico. Readers who wish to listen can click here.

 

[6] In fact, the Sex Pistols - playing their first ever show - opened for Bazooka Joe at Saint Martin's Art College on 6 November, 1975.   

 

[7] 'Whip in My Valise' originally featured as the B-side of the Adam and the Ants single 'Zerox', released in July 1979. It was also added to the 1983 re-issue of the album Dirk Wears White Sox.

      'Beat My Guest' would eventually turn up as the B-side of 'Stand and Deliver', a single released in May 1981, and on the compilation album B-Side Babies (1994) Click here for the first of these tracks and here for the latter. 

Insectopunk

Image adapted from one used as part of the Wake Up Punk project 

conceived by Joe Corré and Nigel Askew

 

 

I. 

 

When I was a young child at school, one of the songs that we were encouraged to sing - despite nobody in the classroom knowing any Spanish - was the popular Mexican folk song La Cucaracha. 

 

Whilst entirely ignorant of the song's lyrics, origins, and significance, it did inspire in me a love of songs about insects and pieces of music which either imitate or incorporate the sounds made by our six-legged friends. 

 

This ranges from Rimsky-Korsakov's Flight of the Bumblebee (1900), a classical composition intended to musically evoke the seemingly chaotic and rapidly changing flight pattern of a bumblebee, to big-hearted Arthur Askey's silly (and somewhat irritating) Bee Song (1938), written by Kenneth Blain. 

 

 

II.

 

Of course, not all insect songs are about bees and don't merely possess novelty value. Thus it is, for example, that some of the finest examples of punk rock - in its broadest and best sense - are about insects. 

 

These include:

 

(i) Wire: 'I Am The Fly', written by Colin Newman and Graham Lewis, released as a single in February 1978 and also found on their second studio album Chairs Missing (Harvest, September 1978): click here. 

 

Sample lyric:

 

I am the fly in the ointment 

I can spread more disease than the fleas 

Which nibble away at your window display

 

 

(ii) The Cramps: 'Human Fly', written by Poison Ivy Rorschach and Lux Interior, originally released in November 1978 on Vengeance Records, it can also be found on the 12" EP Gravest Hits (Illegal Records / I.R.S. Records, July 1979): click here. 

 

Sample lyric:

 

Well I'm a human fly 

I, I said F-L-Y 

I say buzz buzz buzz 

And it's just becuz 

I'm a human fly 

And I don't know why 

I got 96 tears and 96 eyes

 

 

(iii) Blondie: 'The Attack of the Giant Ants', written by Chris Stein, final track on side two of the eponymous debut album Blondie, (Private Stock Records, December 1976). Click here to play the remastered version from 2001. 

 

Sample lyric: 

 

Giant ants from space

Snuff the human race 

Then they eat your face 

Never leave a trace 

 

(iv) Adam and the Ants: 'Antmusic', written by Adam Ant and Marco Pirroni, the third single from the second studio album Kings of the Wild Frontier (CBS / Epic, November 1980). Click here to watch the official video, dir. Steve Barron, on YouTube.

 

Note: the single got to number two in the UK charts in January 1981 and would've been a number one were it not for the fact that John Lennon's 'Imagine' was re-released following his murder in December 1980. As I remarked at the time, it's a sad day for pop music when a dead Beatle can crush a live Ant.  

 

Sample lyric:

 

Don't tread on an ant, he's done nothing to you 

There might come a day when he's treading on you 

Don't tread on an ant, you'll end up black and blue 

You cut off his head, legs come looking for you

 

 

(v) And finally, let's not forget the track 'Insects', by Altered Images, which can be found on their debut studio album Happy Birthday (Epic Records, September 1981), vocals by the punk generation's very own version of Lulu, Clare Grogan. Click here to watch a live performance of the song on The Old Grey Whistle Test (24 November 1981).

Sample lyric: 

 

Insects 

Insects 

See them crawling 

Insects 

In their thousands

 

 

Finally, let me note in closing that there are, of course, other punk and post-punk songs that could be added to this list. We might include, for example, 'Insects' by Osaka Popstar (2006), or Danny Elfman's 2021 reworking of the Oingo Boingo track of the same title from 1982: click here. 

 

The five songs selected above, however, remain my personal favourites; although they are not listed in any preferential order.

Note: for an academic take on this question of insects in relation to popular music, see Joseph Coelho, 'Insects in Rock & Roll Music', American Entomologist, Volume 46, Issue 3, (Fall 2000), pp. 186–200. Click here to access this work online as a pdf. Thanks to Thom Bonneville for this reference. 

 

For a related post to this one, entitled 'Punk Moth', click here. 

 

And click here for a follow up post, in which I reply to a critic and discuss a little known song by the Clash, 'How Do I Understand the Flies?'

Why I Still Love My Cassette Pet

(EMI Records, 1980)

 

 

Consisting of seven original tracks written by Malcolm McLaren and the trio of Ants he'd persuaded to abandon Adam and form a new group under his management [1] - plus a joyous cover of the Bloom-Mercer classic, 'Fools Rush In' - Your Cassette Pet [2] is 20-minutes of pop perfection that sounds as brilliant and as bonkers now as it did back in the day.

 

Essentially, Your Cassette Pet is a mixtape manifesto setting out McLaren's idio-romantic vision for music and fashion in a post-punk world. Ideas (and fantasies) vocalised by 14-year-old Annabella Lwin, include: 

 

(i) underage sex and rape play (Louis Quatorze) -

(ii) societal breakdown and gold fetishism (Gold He Said) -

(iii) extraterrestrial birth and macrosomia (I Want My Baby On Mars / Giant Sized Baby Thing) -

(iv) suicide as an eroticised practice of joy (Sexy Eiffel Towers) -

(v) queer primitivism coupled to new technology (Uomo Sex Al Apache / Radio G-String).

 

There is nothing else quite like it, athough some of the songs on Kings of the Wild Frontier - released in the same month and year as Your Cassette Pet (Nov 1980) - arguably come close and contain some of the same inspired madness, and I have always admired Adam for not only learning from his mentor McLaren, but, making the latter's ideas very much his own.

 

It's disappointing, therefore, that Your Cassette Pet isn't more widely - and more fondly - remembered. 

 

The reaction of Vim Renault, for example, is typical: in a reflection on Punk Girl Diaries, she describes Your Cassette Pet as a "remarkable release", before then informing us that "with the hindsight of 2020 attitudes to child exploitation", it becomes obvious that McLaren wrote the "back-of-the-envelope sexualised lyrics" for sleazy and commercially frivolous reasons: 

 

"At the time, I thought it was bold and I admired Annabella Lwin. But they weren't her words - they were the words of a narcissistic old perv." [3]  

 

Whilst I'm pretty sure the last line would have made Malcolm laugh, it's disappointing (to say the least) that Ms Renault feels this way and has come over all Mary Whitehouse in her old age; from being the cause of moral outrage to one who, with hindsight, has become the voice of such. 

 

Perhaps it might help her to think more favourably of McLaren as a lyricist if she were to be informed that, far from being written in a hurried manner, several of the songs had a history pre-dating the formation of Bow Wow Wow, when Malcolm was drifting round Paris in the post-Pistols period and trying to find funding for a new film company that would produce movies combining pop and porn, by and for a young generation that he termed the sex gang children [4].

 

And perhaps it might help Ms Renault to understand the wider (socio-political) context that McLaren's thinking had grown out of in the late '60s and early '70s; a time when radical theorists, such as Michel Foucault, were convinced that even underage teens should be allowed (and encouraged) to express themselves sexually [5].

 

Although in his biography of McLaren, Paul Gorman repeatedly indicates his unease with (and distase for) such a countercultural conceit, he considers the matter in an insightful manner and what he writes is worth quoting here (at length and in closing), not least for Ms Renault's benefit:

 

"Unlike David Bowie, Johnny Thunders and other rock stars whose sexual exploits with such young groupies as Lori Maddox and Sable Starr are well documented, McLaren derived no sexual pleasure from, and was not interested in engaging in, sexual acts with underage teens. By nature he was more of a romantic than a libertine, though it is true that he had cultivated a prurient view of sexual matters, largely as a result of his strange upbringing. His promotion of liberating young desires sprang from radical political grounding; not only had the Situationists propagated the idea [...] but the European and American underground press of the late 1960s and early 1970s, which informed his worldview, had brimmed with such views [...]

      McLaren's point was that true power in popular, and in particular music, culture resided with youth, not preening performers in their twenties or self-indulgent, middle-aged music-biz hacks, and that the sexual and social potential of young people outstripped that of any of the rock stars of the era [...] McLaren constantly referred to record company executives as 'child molesters' in that they corrupted and stifled fans' desires with a forced diet of corporate gloop." [6]    

 

Notes

 

[1] Matthew Ashman (guitarist), Dave Barbarossa (drums) and Leigh Gorman (bass) - along with 13-year-old Annabella Lwin on vocals - were brought together as Bow Wow Wow by McLaren, who not only managed them, but styled them and provided song lyrics and ideas.   

 

[2] Bow Wow Wow, Your Cassette Pet (EMI Records, 1980), a debut mini-album available only on tape, (therefore making it ineligible for the UK albums chart): click here to play in full.

      Your Cassette Pet came in a flip-top box designed by Jamie Reid and was originally to be sold alongside a magazine, Chicken, containing song lyrics, band photographs, features on fashion, consumer technology, and pornography for the under-12s. Perhaps not surprisingly, EMI got cold feet and when Bow Wow Wow's next single - 'W.O.R.K. (N.O. Nah, No No My Daddy Don't)' - failed to chart, the record company dropped them like a hot potato.

        

[3] Vim Renault, 'Bow Wow Wow - Your Cassette Pet' (7 Jan 2020) on punkgirldiaries.com: click here.

 

[4] 'Sexy Eiffel Towers', for example, was written by McLaren for a proposed musical about  three 15-year-old girls to be called The Adventures of Melody, Lyric & Tune. The script for this film eventually merged with that of another project, The Mile High Club, that will ring a bell with fans of Bow Wow Wow, as a song of that title appeared on their 1982 EP The Last of the Mohicans (RCA Records).  

      The phrase, 'sex gang children' - which Malcolm borrowed from William Burroughs - can be heard in the 'Mile High Club' track. Interestingly, Boy George - who briefly performed with Bow Wow Wow under the name Lieutenant Lush - considered using this as the name of his group before going with Culture Club.

 

[5] For Foucault and many other intellectuals in the 1970s, the suggestion that children - particularly over the age of twelve - were unable to consent to sexual relations, either with one another or with adults, was itself an unacceptable form of abuse, restricting their right to freedom and decision making via the use of contractual law introduced into the amorous realm. Children, he said, should be fully empowered to find pleasure in any way they liked. 

      I have written on this subject in a post published last year (9 Jan 2021) on TTA: click here. 

 

[6] Paul Gorman, The Life and Times of Malcolm McLaren, (Constable, 2020), p. 437. 

      As Gorman goes on to note, McLaren's primary concern, as ever, was simply to provoke people and create a storm of moral outrage: "McLaren knew that banging on about teenage sex was an effective means of causing a stir." [438]

 

 

Baby You're So Overweight, Baby You're the One (Some Thoughts on Fat Acceptance, etc.)

Lucien Freud: Benefits Supervisor Sleeping (1995) [1]

I. 

 

According to the 15th-century English monk and poet John Lydgate: 'You can please some of the people all of the time; you can please all of the people some of the time; but you can’t please all of the people all of the time.' 

 

And so it is that emails from disgruntled readers are sometimes sent my way, such as the following:

 

Dear Stephen Alexander,

 

Whilst pleased to see in your latest post - Reflections on Venus Emerging Slowly from an Old Bathtub - that you at least considered the possibility of extending the notion of what constitutes beauty, as a fat activist I was disappointed to see you include in your list of so-called vile bodies - a truly deplorable phrase, for which you should apologise - all the usual body types, including obese bodies, that have traditionally been discriminated against and classed as ugly. 

 

The fat acceptance movement - also known as fat pride - campaigns to eliminate the social stigma, stereotypes, and prejudice surrounding obesity and empower the big-bodied to feel good about themselves. Being overweight - whatever that means - is not a crime; being fat is not a sin; and obesity is not a disease (anymore than a diet is a cure). Nor do I feel that obese people should be classified as disabled.    

 

Please make an effort to better educate yourself on this issue, so that maybe one day you'll write something positive about Big Beautiful Women such as myself.

 

 

 

II. 

 

In reply, I wrote:

 

Dear Big Beautiful Woman [2],

 

You're right, of course, one should always look to increase and deepen one's knowledge of various subjects. But it might interest you to learn that one of the earliest posts published on Torpedo the Ark concerned fat as a transpolitical issue [click here]. 

 

Further, as someone who has read quite a lot of radical theory, I'm well aware of how issues concerning not just weight, but race, class, and sexuality, for example, all traverse the (often female) body. And so I have no problem accepting fat activism and, indeed, fat studies as a valid field of interdisciplinary research. I would therefore like to think I'm not particularly sizeist or fat phobic (though accept the possibility of my habouring unconscious bias towards plus-size individuals). 

 

As for the phrase vile bodies, this may be deplorable, as you say, but it is not one I coined and nor, if I'm honest, do I feel inclined to apologise for it [3]. Sometimes we need terms that can make us weep. And arguably, the term that you use to describe yourself - BBW - is just as problematic, as it lends itself to a porno-fetishisation of body size and shape [4].

 

Having said that, I can see how it might be preferable to be thought sexy - even if in a kinky manner - rather than ugly, unhealthy, or disabled and perhaps an affirmation of one's body type is better than self-loathing (though personally, I'm as wary of taking pride in one's size as I am of taking pride in one's sexuality or race, and certainly don't support the building of an identity politics on the basis of what is often simply shame on the recoil).               

 

Notes

 

[1] This famous work by Lucien Freud is a portrait of 280lb Sue Tilley, whom Freud painted several times during the period 1994-96, fascinated as he was by the texture of her flesh. It was bought by Roman Abramovich for $33.6 million (£17.2 million), at Christie's New York, in 2008.

 

[2] I'm using this term - Big Beautiful Woman - to address my correspondent as it was how she referred to herself. Commonly abbreviated to BBW, it was coined by Carole Shaw who, in 1979, launched a fashion and lifestyle magazine for plus-size women. Since then, the term has spread widely and can be found in online dating profiles and on porn sites, for example, replacing other euphemisms for fat, such as full-figured, curvy, or voluptuous. 

      The male equivalent - Big Handsome Man (BHM) - is often used in the gay community, where those attracted to and seeking out such men are known as chubby chasers.    

 

[3] The term vile bodies is of course associated with Evelyn Waugh and his 1930 novel of that title. Obviously, I was using it in a very different context from the latter, who, if I remember correctly, was referring to the bright young things who shamelessly flaunted their flesh at endless parties.

[4] Fat fetishism - or the sexual desire for the obese other primarily because of their weight and size - often involves feeding so that the beloved object intentionally increases their body fat. Some devotees also enjoy squashing (i.e., the feeling of being crushed beneath mounds of warm flesh). Fat fetishism is usually termed fat appreciation (or fat admiration) - FA - by those in the know. 

      Whilst I'm happy for those involved in this kinky subculture to find pleasure wherever (and however) they like, it's worth noting that the politics of the relationships often mirror, reinforce, or perversely exaggerate existing dynamics of power. There is nothing inherently radical, therefore, in FA or any other form of paraphilia.     

Music bonus: Adam and the Ants, Fat Fun - recorded as an unused b-side at Rockfield Studios in 1980 - click here.

      This song, from Adam's early punk days, was originally written in collabration with guitarist Lester Square (later of the Monochrome Set). It has remained one he often performs live with the Ants to this day. The track was included in the Adam and the Ants box set, Antbox (Columbia Records, 2000). 

That City of Dreadful Night: D. H. Lawrence's Letters from Paris

Paris est toujours une bonne idée

 

 

I. 

 

I'm currently reading a big fat book of essays, short stories, and poems by over seventy authors, edited by Andrew Gallix [1], exploring the fascination that writers from the English-speaking world have for the French capital - although, as becomes clear, they are mostly enchanted by a myth of their own invention, rather than by Paris as a place that can be located on a map.       

 

Of course, not all English writers have been enamoured with the City of Lights. D. H. Lawrence, for example, famously wrote in 1919: "Paris is a nasty city, and the French are not sympathetic to me." [2] 

 

Five years later, however, Lawrence had changed his tune: "Paris isn't so bad - to me much nicer than London - so agreeably soulless" [3]. 

 

Indeed, in almost every letter and postcard sent to friends at the beginning of 1924 from Le Grand Hotel de Versailles (on the Boulevard Montparnasse), Lawrence was saying much the same thing: "Paris looking rather lovely in sunshine and frost - rather quiet, but really a beautiful city" [4]. He even cheerfully informed his mother-in-law that the Parisians were very friendly [5]. 

But of course, Lawrence being Lawrence, there were sudden (and frequent) mood changes during his short stay in Paris, as this letter written to Catherine Carswell illustrates:

 

"Today it is dark and raining, and very like London. There really isn't much point in coming here. It's the same thing with a small difference. And not really worth taking the journey. Don't you come just now: it would only disappoint you. Myself, I'm just going to sleep a good bit, and let the days go by [...] Paris has great beauty - but all like a museum. And when one looks out of the Louvre windows, one wonders whether the museum is more inside or outside - whether all Paris, with its rue de la Paix and its Champs Elysée isn't also all just a sort of museum." [6]   

Several days later, and Lawrence is still lying low in Paris (whilst Frieda buys some new clothes), but feeling a little more positive about the city and its residents:

 

"Paris is rather nice - the French aren't at all villain, as far as I see them. I must say I like them. They are simpatico. I feel much better since I am here and away from London." [7]

 

And so, despite informing one correspondent that the city was far from gay, Lawrence mostly enjoyed his short stay: "Paris has been quite entertaining for the two weeks: good food and wine, and everything very cheap." [8]  

 

II.

 

In 1929, Lawrence returned to Paris where he oversaw publication of a new (inexpensive) edition of Lady Chatterley's Lover to try and stop the pirated editions then in circulation. If, five years earlier, he had been mostly positive in his response to the city, now he was as hostile to it as he was to most (if not all) large cities:

 

"I don't a bit like Paris. It is nowadays incredibly crowded, incredibly noisy, the air is dirty and simply stinks of petrol, and all the life has gone out of the people. They seem so tired." [9]   

 

Sadly, of course, it was Lawrence himself that the life had almost entirely gone out of; he was to die eleven months after writing this, aged 44, in Vence (428 miles south of Paris, as the crow flies).           

 

 

 

 

Notes

 

[1] Andrew Gallix (ed.), We'll Never Have Paris, (Repeater Books, 2019). If I ever manage to work my way through the book's 560+ pages, then I'll doubtless post some kind of review of the work here on Torpedo the Ark.  

 

[2] D. H. Lawrence, letter to Lady Cynthia Asquith, 18 November 1919, in The Letters of D. H. Lawrence, Vol. III, ed. James T. Boulton and Andrew Robertson, (Cambridge University Press, 1984), p. 417. It should be noted that Lawrence hadn't at the time of writing this letter actually been to Paris and wasn't to make his first trip there until January 1924.

[3] D. H. Lawrence, letter to Mark Gertler, [2 February 1924], in The Letters of D. H. Lawrence, Vol. IV, ed. Warren Roberts, James T. Boulton and Elzabeth Mansfield, (Cambridge University Press 1987), p. 567. 

[4] D. H. Lawrence, letter to Catherine Carswell, [24 January 1924], in Letters IV, p. 561. 

[5] D. H. Lawrence, letter to Baroness Anna von Richthofen, 24 January 1924, in Letters IV, p. 561. In the original German, Lawrence wrote: "Paris ist doch netter wie London, nicht so dunkel-grau. Die Leute sind ganz freundlich."

[6] D. H. Lawrence, letter to Catherine Carswell, [25 January 1924], in Letters IV, p. 563. 

      This letter has parallels with a short essay written at the same time in which Lawrence asserts that whilst Paris is still monumental and handsome, it has lost its true splendour, and become "like an old, weary peacock that sports a bunch of dirty twigs at its rump, where it used to have a tail". He blames this sorry state of affairs on: (i) modern democracy; (ii) too much bare flesh on display in French works of art;  (iii) an overly rich diet; and (iv) the dead weight of history and its architecture.

      See: 'Paris Letter', in Mornings in Mexico and Other Essays, ed. Virginia Crosswhite Hyde, (Cambridge University Press, 2009), pp. 141-146. The line quoted is on p. 143.

      As for the idea of Paris disappointing: 

      "Disappointment, according to Stuart Walton, is actually a 'constitutive factor' in English speakers' experience of France, and its capital in particular: 'It is at least as important to the British, for example, that Paris should fall short of what they expect of it as it is to the Parisians that les Anglais have never really understood it' (p. 332)." 

      See Andrew Gallix's Introduction to We'll Never Have Paris, p. 29. And see also the TTA post 'On Disappointment' (24 May 2020) in which I discuss (amongst other things) le Syndrome de Paris: click here.  

        

[7] D. H. Lawrence, letter to S. S. Koteliansky, [31 January 1924], in Letters IV, p. 565. 

[8] D. H. Lawrence, letter to Hon. Dorothy Brett, [4 February 1924], in Letters, IV, p. 568. The fact that Paris was, at one time, cheap to live in, was absolutely crucial:

      "Hemingway described Paris in the 1920s as a place 'where there was a way of living well and working, no matter how poor you were', adding that this was 'like having a great treasure given to you'. That treasured lifestyle was swept away by the onset of the Depression in the 1930s. As Will Ashon remarks, artists thrive where there is 'affordable, preferably semi-derelict, real estate. Which is to say, you can't be an artist in Paris, anymore, or in London either' (p. 301)." 

      See Andrew Gallix, Introduction to We'll Never Have Paris, p. 24.   

 

[9] D. H. Lawrence, letter to Lady Ottoline Morrell, 3 April 1929, in The Letters of D. H. Lawrence, Vol. VII, ed. Keith Sagar and James T. Boulton, (Cambridge University Press, 1993), p. 234. 

Those interested in knowing more about Lawrence's 1929 visit to Paris - and how his stay at 66, Boulevard de Montparnasse has now been officially commememorated with a plaque - might like to read Catherine Brown's blog post of 29 May 2019, available on her website: click here.     

 

And those interested in Lawrence's wider relationship with French culture, might like to read the following essay by Ginette Katz-Roy: 'D. H. Lawrence and "That Beastly France"', in The D. H. Lawrence Review, Vol. 23, No. 2/3, (1991), pp. 143-156. This essay is available to download or read online via JSTOR: click here.   

 

 

Musical bonus: the debut single from Adam and the Ants, Young Parisians (Decca, 1978): click here. 

 

 

I'm Still Searching for the Ants Invasion: Notes on Phase IV

 I hope that insect doesn't see me / He's not renowned for his courtesy [1]

 

 

I.

 

There are numerous films in the so-called bug genre, some of which involve swarms of killer bees and many of which involve armies of soldier ants on the march. I will always remember Michael Cain battling the former in the The Swarm (1978) and Charlton Heston taking on the latter in The Naked Jungle (1954).

 

Arguably, Hollywood's fascination with insects and the possibility that they might one day threaten human existence, culminates in The Hellstrom Chronicle (1971), a strange but fascinating movie which combines elements of documentary, science fiction, and horror, and features a variety of insects, including wasps, locusts, termites, and even butterflies. [2]  

But the film I wish to discuss here, however, is another odd work, which, whilst little-known today, has nevertheless achieved cult status ...

 

 

II.

 

Directed by graphic visual designer Saul Bass, Phase IV (1974) is perhaps the most philosophically-informed and arty of all ant movies. One reviewer described it as "designed more than directed, and edited around principles of color and line, rather than around performance or plot" [3]. 

 

Whilst, essentially, it remains a six-legged sci-fi horror, it's certainly a very different kind of film to Them! (1954); for one thing, the ants aren't giant-sized, even if they are supposed to be super-intelligent, and they are revealed as sophisticated creatures capable of great feats of engineering and heroic acts of self-sacrifice.         

 

When I first saw Phase IV as a child, I found it boring and incomprehensible; second only to Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odessey (1968) in that respect. Unfortunately for Paramount Pictures, that was pretty much how everyone else also felt at the time - moviegoers and critics alike - and the film was a box office flop [4].

 

However, 45-odd years later, I now find much to admire about the film; not least its low-key anti-humanism and the luminous screen presence of 20-year-old English beauty Lynne Frederick as Kendra Eldridge, a traumatised survivor of an earlier ant attack whose destiny is to become a kind of human ant queen. [5].

 

The plot is actually fairly straightforward: a mysterious cosmic event causes ants to undergo rapid evolution and develop a collective cross-species intelligence. One of the results of this is that they begin building huge towering nests in the Arizona desert, disconcerting the local human population who decide to vacate the area.

 

A two-man scientific team - Hubbs and Lesko (played by Nigel Davenport and Michael Murphy respectively) - arrives to investigate. But they soon find themselves having to battle against the ants for survival. Things, however, take a fascinating turn when it transpires that, far from wishing to simply exterminate humanity, the ants wish to remake us in their own image and absorb mankind into their alien new world order [6]         

 

Some viewers will, obviously, object strongly to such a prospect. But I, for one, welcome our new insect overlords ... [7]

 

 

Notes

 

[1] Lyrics from the song 'Ants Invasion', by Adam Ant and Marco Pirroni, on the album Kings of the Wild Frontier, (CBS, 1980). Lyrics © BMG Rights Management, Universal Music Publishing Group. Click here to listen on YouTube. 

[2] Regrettably, I've not had the opportunity to watch this film in its entirety. But it comes highly recommended by Mr. Tim Pendry, whose knowledge and critical judgement in this area - as in many others - I respect and trust. It's interesting to note that Ken Middleham, who shot the insect sequences for The Hellstrom Chronicle, also shot the ant close-ups for Phase IV.

[3] Ignatiy Vishnevetsky, 'Saul Bass directed only one feature - and it's about super-intelligent ants, The A.V. Club (31 Oct 2014): click here.

[4] Unfortunate, too, for Saul Bass, as he was never again invited to direct a feature-length film. 

 

[5] Despite only being twenty years of age, Bass was concerned that Frederick looked too mature for the role she was playing. Thus, he obliged her to wear a specially designed (and extremely uncomfortable) corset to flatten her breasts and attempted to persuade the beautiful starlet to restrict her diet to chicken broth and black coffee for the duration of the production.  

[6] Bass originally shot a surreal montage with which to end the movie, indicating what the future ant-dominated world might look like. Sadly, this was cut by the studio executives at Paramount. However, it has recently been rediscovered and is available to watch on YouTube: click here.

 

[7] This much-loved line was spoken by Springfield news anchor Kent Brockman, in the classic season 5 episode of The Simpsons entitled 'Deep Space Homer' (1994), dir. Carlos Baezer and written by David Mirkin: click here. Despite what some mistakenly believe, it was not originally spoken by Joan Collins in the film Empire of the Ants (1977).  

 

 

Bonus: to watch the official trailer for Phase IV, click here. Or to watch an excellent modernized trailer, edited by Dan McBride, click here. 

 

For a sister post anticipating this one - on ants with artificially enhanced cuticles - click here.