Flowers in the dustbin

I never much liked Malcolm McLaren but I appreciated what he did in bringing The Sex Pistols to the global stage.

Malcolm McLaren, standing between the bobby and Sid Vicious, was always about the dramaMcLaren died Thursday from cancer. McLaren was best known as the manager of the Pistols, a cartoonish cast of characters he tossed together and molded into a pop culture tour de force.

While stunned by McLaren's death, I guess I shouldn't be surprised these days as more and more major influences on my musical life die off. Alex Chilton, Doug Fieger, Willie Mitchell and Jay Reatard all worked their way into heavy rotation on my playlists, and their recent deaths leave rich legacies.

So it goes with McLaren, a king of promotion who knew nothing but "over the top."

I was a teenager was late 1977 when I first heard of The Sex Pistols, through news stories and magazine articles decrying the downfall of youth. Much of that disturbance was directly tied to McLaren selling the band as bad seeds and worse. More poetically, they were "flowers in the dustbin," to quote from Pistol's anthem "God Save the Queen:"

We're the flowers in the dustbin
We're the poison in the human machine
We're the future
Your future

The Pistols promotional poster that has inspired me over the yearsThose were lyrics featured on a bright and edgy poster EMI used to promote
"Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols" in American record stores. I was able to snag a copy of the poster (the Wherehouse Records in Fresno was NOT going to hang such crap on its walls), and after deciphering what "dustbin" meant, proudly hung it on various walls for the next 15 years or so.

Those words aren't the only potent lines in "God Saves" but they're words that resonate to this day, and independently of the Queen's eroding status and influence.

For me, the poster came before buying the album. In fact, it took me awhile to buy "Bollocks." I was a snooty Clash fan at that point, and saw the Pistols as poseurs whose short life was proof of their emptiness. I mean, how could you take seriously a band whose manager had ditched a reasonably capable bass player in Glen Matlock in favor of king stooge Sid Vicious, who not only was inacapable of playing bass but pretty much navigating life. But McLaren said Vicious had "the look."  It was about then that the Pistols legend started to take root.

I distinctly recall getting my first taste of the Pistols sound on a sampler LP store clerks had tossed in the trash, and thinking songs like "Anarchy in the UK" and "God Save the Queen" were an awful, cacophonic mess.

How wrong I was. Soon I found myself coming around and bought the album. The Pistols were never The Clash, but they had earned a spot in my collection, and slowly evolved into what I, and others, now consider a 5-star album. I've even given "Bollocks" as gifts, hoping to share its genius.

Thirty-plus years later "Bollocks" sounds mainstream, polished and clean in a classic rock kinda of way. This may have been producer Chris Thomas' finest hour, and that's saying something.  But beneath that veneer is some of the most potent and driving rock ever recorded, and "Bollocks" remains an album I still put on, often giving songs like "EMI" and "Pretty Vacant" second and third listens. There are still nuances to be discovered.

I've still got that poster in the garage somewhere. It's tattered around the corners, the victim of too many pinholes. Someday, I'll dust it off and rehang it in a room I can call my own. And somewhere Malcolm McLaren will look down and smile his evil smile, knowing his genius is living on in the minds of millions, blooming here and there at the oddest of times, just like flowers in a dustbin.

Comments

[tom]

Thanks for the memories.

I was telling a friend the other day there would be no Simon Cowell without Malcolm McClaren.
RIP Malcolm.

I'm now off to crank Submission.