The Look Of Music, The Sound Of Fashion: Malcolm McLaren In His Own Words

THE LOOK OF MUSIC, THE SOUND OF FASHION: MALCOLM MCLAREN IN HIS OWN WORDS (320kbs-m4a/129mb/56mins)
BBC Radio 6 Music broadcast: 8th February 2023

Another chance to hear Malcolm McLaren, who died in 2010, looking back on his life in fashion and music.

Impresario, entrepreneur, agent provocateur, fashion designer, manager of The Sex Pistols, raconteur and maker of myths. Malcolm McLaren was all this and much more.

In December 2008 he spent several days in a BBC studio looking back on his extraordinary life and work while making a three-hour New Year's Day show for 6 Music. This programme contains the highlights of these unique recordings and includes anecdotes about his childhood, his career and includes Malcom's thoughts on the state of the music business and popular culture.

His anecdotes cover an early infatuation with 1950s rock 'n' roll and his precocious eye for fashion (he remembers calling out "Pierre Cardin" when he saw The Beatles first appearance in collarless suits in a Piccadilly club and, a decade later, giving a drunken John Lennon the handmade silk suit off his own back in a New York club).

He also recalls seeing legends such as Screamin' Jay Hawkins and John Lee Hooker performing live; attempting to manage the New York Dolls; his travels in the USA; the shop he ran in London's Kings Road with his partner Vivienne Westwood; The Sex Pistols and the recordings he made in his own right.

There is also the chance to hear an extract of the final piece of music he ever worked on. This piece was the first step Malcolm took in making a series for Radio 2, which, sadly, he was never able to complete. Apparently he was still brimming with ideas for this series as his life ebbed away in a Swiss clinic where he was undergoing treatment for a rare form of cancer.