Nick Egan: Front cover of Malcolm McLaren's Duck Rock (1983) [1]
Nick Egan: Duck Rock (2023), a mixed media collage on canvas,
48 × 36 in [2]
I.
I was very pleased to discover that the artist, designer, and film director Nick Egan is alive and well and living in the Hollywood Hills with his wife and family.
I was even happier to discover that he has recently been reimagining some of the record covers he designed back in the 1980s; including Malcolm McLaren's Duck Rock (1983), which has been transformed from a 12" square image into a large mixed media collage on canvas, using digital artwork,
airbrush, oil pastels, acrylic and metallic paints.
Still referencing the art of Keith Haring and Dondi White [3], which formed such a vital part of the original work, it also includes the magically customised boom box (or ghetto blaster, as we used to say) designed by Ron West, that became known as the Duck Rocker - one of the most iconic objects in the cultural history of hip-hop.
Due to the size and shape of Egan's 2023 work, it reminds one of poster art; and in fact Egan has admitted that this was his intention:
'I saw it as a poster
that had been put up on the walls of a New York subway station, with the Duck Rocker retained as the base image, but, as time went on, people would come by and graffiti
over it. Some would try to peel it off the wall, and others would stick
another flyer over it until it became almost unrecognisable from the
original, exactly how it would look if it did appear on a subway wall.'
I suppose it's fair to say that Duck Rock is Egan's greatest achievement as a designer of record covers [4]; although his recreation of Édouard Manet's Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe (1863) for the cover of the Bow Wow Wow album See Jungle! See Jungle! Go Join Your Gang Yeah, City All Over! Go Ape Crazy! (1981), will always just top it for some of us [5].
II.
I first met Nick Egan back in the spring of 1983, at Malcolm's first floor office on Denmark Street, after he'd kindly offered to help find me a six-week work attachment of some description. He was very tall and thin with lots of blonde hair and wore a large punk-style jumper, a pair of striped pirate trousers, and a Buffalo coat from Nostalgia of Mud, so looked good.
He gave me several names and numbers to try, including that of the press officer at Charisma Records, and told me not to worry as he was sure something could definitely be arranged (although unfortunately not at Moulin Rouge, as he and Malcolm were both going to be in New York for a lot of the time in April and May).
Thus it was I ended up at 90 Wardour Street; in the Charisma offices above the Marquee Club, working as Lee Ellen Newman's assistant (and general dog's body). Amongst my more amusing assignments was taking the Duck Rocker to the HMV, where it was to feature in a window display promoting McLaren's album and assembled by Nick [6].
Whether this was the original customised boom box - or one of several that were made - I'm not sure; but it looked fantastic and was surprisingly heavier to carry than one might imagine. Judging by the stares of astonishment it received - and the number of people who stopped me as I walked along Oxford Street requesting a photo - it wasn't only the Zulus in South Africa, the Hip-hoppers in New York, or the Hilltoppers in the Appalachian Mountains, who were enchanted by it.
Unfortunately, I didn't think to have a photo taken with the Duck Rocker. However, here's a picture taken in the Charisma press office, standing in front of a smaller replica (which, I think, was eventually given away as a prize in a Smash Hits competition), accompanied by a photo of Malcolm in NYC with the mighty original [7].
Notes
[1] Malcolm McLaren's groundbreaking studio album Duck Rock, produced by Trevor Horn, was originally released on Charisma Records in 1983. Arguably, it has proved to be as influential - if not more so - than Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols (1977).
A 40th anniversary double vinyl edition was issued on the independent label State51 Conspiracy in 2023. This featured six additional tracks and was produced in collaboration with Young Kim of the Malcolm McLaren Estate: click here for details.
[2] Duck Rock (2023), by Nick Egan, is available to buy from the Wilma Gallery: click here for more details. For those who can't afford the asking price of the original canvas (£22,800), there are some very nice limited edition prints available, starting from just £150: click here.
Other works by Egan can also be viewed on (and purchased from) the Wilma Gallery website: click here.
[3] Keith Haring (1958-1990), was an American Pop artist who emerged from the New York City graffiti subculture of the 1980s. At Nick Egan's invitation, he provided the illustration that formed the pink background image of the Duck Rock sleeve (for which he was paid $1000).
Dondi White (1961-1998), was also an American street artist; he provided the Duck Rock lettering, again having been asked to do so by Nick Egan (unfortunately, I don't know how much he was paid).
[4] The album cover artwork for Duck Rock is now included in the permanent
collection of New York's Museum of Modern Art: click here.
[5] Amusingly, Egan transformed Andy Earl's 1981 photograph, inspired by Manet's canvas, back into a painting entitled We're Only in it For the Manet (2023): click here for details.
By his own admission, Egan always felt a little awkward being credited for the original record sleeve, as it contained none of his graphics; yes, he directed the photo shoot, but the artist responsible for the actual image was Andy Earl. With this new canvas, however, he has made it very much his own.
For those who are interested, I explain why I love Manet's Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe in a post on TTA dated 27 April 2017: click here.
[6] According to my diary, this was Monday 23 May, 1983.
Amusingly, Malcolm had agreed to dance with a buffalo gal in the store window on the
following Saturday, but he pulled out at the very last minute, insisting he must have been
drunk to have ever agreed to such; much to Lee Ellen's irritation, as she had already informed several journalists who went along to witness the event.
[7] The photo was taken by Bob Gruen in April 1983. Many more wonderful photos of McLaren taken by Gruen can be found on the latter's website: click here.
Bonus 1: click here for a fascinating interview with Nick Egan conducted by Mike Goldstein in August 2013, in which he discusses his work with Malcolm on the cover of Duck Rock. As Egan makes clear, he was involved with McLaren as a conceptual partner rather than simply an art director; in other words, he worked on Duck Rock from its inception all the way through its recording and mixing, contributing ideas at every stage.
Egan is currently working on a book project which explores the cultural influence of Malcolm McLaren and features his artwork from the Duck Rock period.
Bonus 2: To watch the feature documentary Creative Vandal (dir. Peter Pahor, 2024), chronicling the career of Nick Egan, click here.
Bonus 3: The essential track on Duck Rock is, of course, 'Buffalo Gals', which was released as a single in November 1982 on Charisma Records. The video pretty much captures what was happening in NYC at the time (filtered through the imagination of Malcolm McLaren who directed it): click here.
For those who might be interested, my post on 'Buffalo Gals' (dated 19 Feb 2019) can be accessed by clicking here.
