Malcolm McLaren: 1946 - 2010
I just heard this afternoon about Malcolm McLaren’s death from mesothelioma at the age of 64. The following is a repost from November 2006.~~~~~~
Malcolm McLaren: Clothing designer, impresario, rock ‘n’ roll swindler, and manager of some of the most unique musical acts ever to grace a stage.
He began his career as a rock and roll manager by attempting to resurrect the fading New York Dolls. He brought to this – and his other efforts – the philosophies of the French Situationist movement, which advocated provocative, even absurd, actions as political statement and performance art. Following the Dolls, he of course introduced the Sex Pistols to the world. After the Pistols’ crash landing, he launched the careers of Adam Ant, Bow Wow Wow, and Boy George.
Always moving forward, McLaren began his own musical career in the early 1980s, with the single “Buffalo Gals,” which combined traditional folk music with hip-hop. The single was credited to McLaren and the World Famous Supreme Team, and became a Top Ten hit in the U.K. The remix mini-LP “D’Ya Like Scratchin’” gave McLaren his first American album chart entry in February 1984.
Which leads us to today’s music: A sampling from that EP, which was released in 1983. There’s a long, but interesting story about McLaren titled
“The Unlikely Origins of UK Hip Hop” posted on a message board. In it, the author writes about McLaren’s discovery of hip hop while in New York: “It was extraordinary cos the sound coming out was totally inarticulate; it was a load of rough noises, noises that sounded a little like guitar, but had a sort of concrete chisel sound and the sound I realised was actually coming from the way they were messing around with their hands on the decks, moving records backwards and forwards [
sic ].”
The posting goes on to talk about how the British initially dismissed scratching and other sonic experimentation (particularly from McLaren, a white man, of all things!). Ultimately it was the video for “Buffalo Gals” that changed the minds of the British youth and opened the floodgates for the British B-Boys.
D’ya Like Scratchin’.mp3 She’s Looking Like a Hobo.mp3 Buffalo Gals.mp3 Labels: current events, hip-hop, repost
Second Birthday repost (or, a gratuitous self-love fest)
All right! Today is two years I’ve been at the wheel of
Licorice Pizza. June 4, 2006: My first unceremonious post.
I’d like to think that the past 12 months were more productive than the first 12. I never bothered to uncrash my old iMac, so I quit posting from vinyl. On the other hand, I’ve kind of broadened my horizons, recently tracking down some actual rock and roll from the South Florida area. Two years ago – hell,
one year ago – I never woulda thunk that even existed. Those aren’t among my most popular posts, but if I can enlighten even one person, then I’ve fulfilled what I see as the purpose of MP3 blogs: To expand musical horizons (and all this time you just thought it was about free music, didn’t you?).
On that note, I thought I’d celebrate my two-year anniversary by reposting what has been far and away my most popular post: The “Toot and a Snore in ‘74” post from July 27 last year. When I originally posted this, I thought it was just something a little different and maybe interesting from a historical point of view since it was the last known recording of both John Lennon and Paul McCartney.
So, I posted that recording in July, then I moved on. But in September, all hell broke loose around that post. First, it got
Digg’d, which gave me literally thousands of hits. Following that, I got a small mention at
Rolling Stone.com, and, for the week of Sept. 17, I was Blogger’s
“Blog of Note.” All of that helped to just about triple the average daily traffic for me.
So that final Lennon/McCartney recording, despite how horrible it really is, helped spread the love around for my little blog and I thought it would be appropriate to repost it. In one of the places I saw it linked, I read a comment about what a hassle it was to listen to each two-to-three minute track, then go back and click on the next one. I didn’t respond to that particular person, but the simple solution is to DOWNLOAD AND LISTEN TO THE WHOLE THING AT ONCE! It’s not rocket science, I wanted to tell the person.
To assist the download-challenged, I’ve wrapped the whole thing up in an easy-to-use zip file. If you want more information about the session, or if you want to hear individual tracks, the original post is
here. It is a pretty interesting story, so I do encourage you to check it out. And, once again,
Bootleg Zone has an excellent transcript of the recordings if you care to follow along.
Track ListA Toot and a Snore
Bluesy Jam
Studio Talk
Lucille
Nightmares (aka Midnight)
Stand By Me
Stand By Me II
Stand By Me III
Cupid/Working for the Chain Gang/Take this Hammer
Do you want a Zip? It’s going ‘round....
Labels: classic rock, outtakes, repost
Sit on my face...
Settle down, everyone – it’s the name of a song. I haven’t gone over the edge and started a pr0n blog. Yet.
This is actually kind of a repost. One of the
very first posts I made on this little blog was about a couple of relatively obscure bands: Baby Buddha and the Rotters. The Rotters song I posted was “Sit on My Face, Stevie Nicks.” (Hence the name of the post.) I never got the situation squared away with my turntable, so I am no longer able to post from vinyl, but I did save the song as an MP3 and filed it away for future reference.
I’ve been thinking for a while that I ought to repost this late 70's classic, just for fun. When I found a digital version a couple of weeks ago, I knew it was inevitable. My original version of the song came from a 45 and you can hear the pops and clicks of the well-worn vinyl.
The Rotters used to have a
Web Site with their band history. Evidently someone hacked it, because it’s been “temporarily closed” for a little more than a year. If you need to, you can catch up on some Rotters history at their
MySpace. Watch out, though, because some unrelated
British band is calling themselves The Rotters now.
As far as “Sit on My Face, Stevie Nicks,” singer Phester Swollen had this to say about his most infamous song: “It had been written in about ten minutes as one of the worst songs possible while at the same time taking a stab at the big bucks rock world we hated so much.”
The Rotters got the song to Los Angeles DJ Rodney Bingenheimer, who put it on the air. “For some strange reason Fleetwood Mac took offense,” Swollen said. “Well, there's no accounting for taste.
“We soon found we were banned in Los Angeles. Someone claiming to be Mick Fleetwood himself called KROQ and threatened them with a lawsuit if they played the song.”
Alongwith “Sit on My Face, Stevie Nicks,” I’ve got another politically correct gem from the Rotters’ compilation
Pull It and Yell.
Sit on My Face, Stevie Nicks.mp3 I Wanna Be the Führer.mp3Labels: punk, repost
Next Monday ...
... will be a year I've been behind the wheel of this blog. It's been fun - getting into MP3 blogging has introduced me to tons of new music. If I've done the same for even one person, I can go to bed happy at night.
Off and on over the past few months, I've gotten e-mails asking for reposts of way older stuff. Stuff from back when I was the only person reading this blog. I've been pretty slack in doing those reposts and for that I do apologize.
Here is where I redeem myself. For my anniversary, I've decided to take repost requests. That's right - anything you missed. I'm also going to repost some things you may not know you missed (i.e. stuff I want to repost!). I have to ask that you get your requests to me
no later than Friday, June 1, so I have time to get everything together.
thanks - and thanks for reading!
Eric
p.s. I'll be back later tonight with some music.
Labels: repost
Repost - Pearl Jam Unplugged
A few days ago I had a request from a reader that I repost this Pearl Jam unplugged show. He said he had “someone special” he wanted to hear it. It took me a little while to get to it, so I hope I didn’t screw him up on anything. I really don’t have enough readers to be pissing people off!!
Here’s the repost, though. Originally I split the 15 tracks between two posts, but I decided that if I’m going to put the tracks back up, I may as well do the decent thing and put them all up at once. And to make things easier still, the whole thing is in a zip file.
The recording features both nights of Pearl Jam’s second appearance at the Bridge Benefit Concert on October 1 and 2, 1994. My original post is
right here if you decide you need any additional information.
Pearl Jam Unplugged.zip 
NOTE: I doubt either of these pictures are from 1994, but they’re cool anyway. Deal with it!Labels: Pearl Jam, repost
Reposts
No music today, just a quick note.
I've had a handful of people e-mail me with requests for reposts of various things. My whole vinyl-ripping thing involves two computers. I save the vinyl on my other, older computer because it has the software I use to convert the files. Once I post it, I usually delete it from my laptop so as to not take up space. A couple megs isn't much, but it adds up, along with all the other stuff on here. I feel like a packrat sometimes, alwys saving stuff because I might use/need it later. Next time I'm on that computer, I'll see if those files are still there and try to get them posted again. Also, I changed hosts a few months back, so the files stored there are gone.
As far as reposting things not from vinyl, I'll do what I can. Be patient and I'll try to get to it soon!
thanks, everyone!
See you tomorrow for Saturday Boxing.
Labels: repost
Malcolm McLaren: Clothing designer, impresario, rock ‘n’ roll swindler, and manager of some of the most unique musical acts ever to grace a stage. 
Always moving forward, McLaren began his own musical career in the early 1980s, with the single “Buffalo Gals,” which combined traditional folk music with hip-hop. The single was credited to McLaren and the World Famous Supreme Team, and became a Top Ten hit in the U.K. The remix mini-LP “D’Ya Like Scratchin’” gave McLaren his first American album chart entry in February 1984.
