Malcolm McLaren Dead

[fritzmaitland]

Not the most popular of people, but as much a part of a certain youth subculture as his proteges. Always controversial, sometimes hitting the target, sometimes wide of the mark. Egotistical but often right. I grew too large for the originals but have a few repro t-shirts that he and Viv designed, made popular by the Sex Pistols. Bizarrely heard this on Radio Berkshire this evening who (gasp!) played Pretty Vacant as a tribute. You don't hear that very often.

[jamesdoig]

Without him there wouldn't have been Never Mind the Bollocks, one of the truly great albums.

[Craig Herbertson]

Few people can say they changed the world; he certainly did. Anyone old enough who suffered in the music scene from the malaise of showbiz petrification that existed before he came along would realize that he started something quite incredible - summarized by a book a mate showed me once.

It had a picture of three guitar chords and the title -

'now start a band'.

[David A. Riley]

I'm afraid I must have been too old when Punk started to appreciate it. It was always just a nasty noise to me.

Then again, it's all down to taste. I like Shostakovich and Nick Drake - and my wife hates them both. She says they're depressing. (I like depressing, though)

David

[David A. Riley]

Great to see this project is actually moving along and I'm impressed at the number of stories in the collection. How many pages will it be?

My only niggle about the cover is the amount of blank space between the writing and the head, which I think needs filling. Ideally, I would have thought Mary Danby's name should be enlarged to just a fraction smaller than the book's title, as I don't think it stands out boldly enough. Her name, let's face it, is just as important as the title, if, indeed, not more so.

Look forward to seeing this when it's published. Long overdue.

[jamesdoig]

There's always Mighty Baby, short lived late-60s band with guitarist Martin Stone, later to become a book runner of legendary status and mentioned at length in John Baxter's A Pound of Paper, surely the funniest book about book collecting.



Apart from film criticism, Baxter also wrote sf pulp, including The Hermes Fall, and collaborated with John Brosnan (aka HAK and SIC) on Torched! under the psuedonym James Blackstone.