Death Of A Disco Dancer – Malcolm McLaren R.I.P.

Malcolm McLaren died 8 April at age 64. The Guardian's obituary put it best, describing him as "a musical provocateur". The infamous Brit encouraged and made music that didn't just provoke a response, it demanded a response. Although best know for his punk shenanigans (the street fashion store he had with Vivienne Westwood, taking on the monarchy with Sex Pistols, briefly managing New York Dolls), McLaren always had an interest in dance music. The first sign was 'Black Arabs', the ironic disco medley of Sex Pistols songs on The Great Rock 'N' Roll Swindle soundtrack - it was 'Pistols On 45'. Always an early adapter, at the start of the '80s he stole Adam Ant's band to bring the Burundi drum rhythm to the new wave sound of Bow Wow Wow, a pirate-meets-cassette explosion of post-punk club music. Then in '83 came McLaren's first real solo musical project Duck Rock, a mesh of African music and hip hop (working with pop producer Trevor Horn and electropop pioneer Thomas Dolby), which featured global hit 'Buffalo Gals'. In '84, he followed with the electronica opera album Fans, which featured another global hit in 'Madame Butterfly'. In '89 McLaren mixed classical music with house for Waltz Darling - collaborating with Bootsy Collins and early UK house advocates Mark Moore and William Orbit - including another global hit 'Deep In Vogue'. He continued to make music but never again reached the apogee of this late '80s dance triptych.

'Black Arabs' - Black Arabs:

'C30 C60 C90 Go (Live)' - Bow Wow Wow:



'Something's Jumpin' In Your Shirt' - Malcolm McLaren & The Bootzilla Orchestra:

Dam The Human League

LA's Dam-Funk can usually be found purveying nouveaux soul and boogie on Stones Throw Records or DJing at his hometown boogie funk night Funkmosphere. But last week he dropped his contribution for the Dr Martens 50th anniversary campaign - which involves ten directors shooting clips for ten participating artists' covers. The grand Dam has chosen to digitise the funk out of/into The Human League's 1981 synthpop standard 'The Things That Dreams Are Made Of' - and it sounds how you'd kinda expect it to, like Dolby's Cube let loose to make a teen movie theme in Paisley Park. [FYI, other acts involved in the Doc covers project include The Duke Spirit covering Sham 69; Buraka Som Sistema covering Neneh Cherry; The Raveonettes covering The Stone Roses.] For Dam's effort he was paired with clip maker Ace Norton who has previously made vids for LCD Soundsystem ('Big Ideas'), Mickey Avalon ('Jane Fonda'), Patrick Wolf ('Hard Times') and Sebastien Tellier ('Divine'). Here's how it turned out: