'O' Level: We Love Malcolm (McLaren)

"I don't really sing in the shower, but one song I'm currently singing a lot is 'We Love Malcolm'. It was recorded by O Level in 1978, and the chorus goes (sings) 'We Love Malcolm, If no-one else does'."

Malcolm McLaren (22 January 1946 – 8 April 2010

Whatever else you can say about the man, Malcolm McLaren (NYT obit) was likely the single most crucial link between New York punk and it's London bastard child. Reading Clinton Heylin's Babylon's Burning has reminded me how glacial the pace of communication in the underground, such as it was, was in the seventies. But it was Malcolm who learned his managerial trade with the New York Dolls at their career's end and showed his eye for talent (and thievery) when he became enamored of Richard Hell and Tom Verlaine's band the Neon Boys. What he took from New York and brought to England helped fuck-up the world.



Dan Treacy and Ed Ball (documentary here) led The Television Personalities a late seventies D.I.Y. piss-take on punk and a foreshadow of the shambolic indie scene of 1986 (and beyond). 'O' Level was a 'side project' of the TVP but with Ed Ball's song-writing out front.

The Malcolm McLaren Life Story e.p. link is in the comments

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