The Encyclopedia of Dead Rock Stars (387 page)

The Pistols–and the orchestrated chaos that surrounded them–were, of course, monumentally successful in Britain during 1976–77, issuing a shoal of hit records (‘God Save the Queen’
should
have topped the charts in the week of the Silver Jubilee), a banned number-one album and a monopoly on tabloid-newspaper front pages that lasted for two years. And McLaren happily took full credit/responsibility for these achievements, a position that most of the band have vehemently denounced in the years since. However, after the Pistols crashed and burned–something McLaren claimed to have anticipated from day one–he looked to promote other provocative artists. The next move was the re-styling and managing of Adam Ant and his original band, who, on leaving the singer, coaxed McLaren into managing them as Bow Wow Wow. The latter’s patchy career courted considerable controversy when McLaren posed teenage singer Annabella Lwin as the ‘nude’ from Manet’s
Déjeuner sur l’herbe
for the group’s debut album-cover design. (Bow Wow Wow did improve on the Pistols’ US fortunes by break-ing the Hot 100 a couple of times.)

‘I have been called many things - a charlatan, a con-man and, most flatteringly, the culprit responsible for turning British culture into a cheap marketing gimmick.’

Malcolm McLaren

With his acts faltering, McLaren turned to his own recordings, which–while not always on the mark–were seldom less than thought-provoking and original. Having gleaned further ideas from another US trip, McLaren in 1982-83 scored a clutch of UK hits in ‘Buffalo Gals’ (Top Ten–likely the first time Britain’s daytime-radio audience had heard the new art-form of ‘scratching’ on a record), the excellent ‘Soweto’ (Top Forty) and ‘Double Dutch’ (Top Three). The latter–recorded with The Ebonettes–sold over a million copies worldwide and became a minor US Dance hit. Other music projects were to include his single version of ‘Madame Butterfly’ (1984, UK Top Twenty), several recordings with The Bootzilla Orchestra and the unusual 1995 duet ‘Revenge of the Flowers’, with French chanteuse Françoise Hardy. (McLaren had at one stage also been mooted to manage The Red Hot Chilli Peppers–which somehow defies the imagination.)

By the 2000s, Malcolm McLaren concentrated mainly on art and screen production, which included the movie version of Eric Schlosser’s
Fast Food Nation
and the pastiche
Paris: Capital of the 21 Century,
a film that premiered just two months before his death.

Among the tributes that followed, even John Lydon had to admit that Malcolm McLaren’s passing had left a hole in postpunk culture. More accurately, it was a gaping tear through which one could see how such parties
used
to be thrown …

See also
Sid Vicious (
February 1979); Johnny Thunders (
April 1991); Jerry Nolan (
January 1992); Arthur Kane (
July 2004).

Wednesday 14

Peter Steele

(Petrus T Ratajczyk–Brooklyn, New York, 4 January 1962)

Type O Negative

(Various acts)

Peter Steele became widely known for both his stinging good looks and a remarkable bass-baritone voice–tools he used to good effect as front man to popular Goth metal-lists Type O Negative. The genesis of this group was Fallout (originally Northern Lights), a dark rock act formed in the late seventies by the then-teenage bassist and singer Steele with keyboardist Josh Silver. The pair then went their separate ways (Steele to Carnivore, Silver to Original Sin) before hooking up once more as Type O Negative (initially Subzero) in 1989–at which time the singer was working for the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation. Rumour has it that the nihilistic Steele signed his band’s first record deal with a mixture of blood (appropriately) and semen (less so).

It took a while for Type O to identify themselves, the group finally coagulating with the addition of guitarist and childhood pal Kenny Hickey, plus drummer Johnny Kelly who replaced Sal Abruscato on the first major tour in 1994. Top Forty album titles such as
World Coming Down
(1999),
Life is Killing Me
(2003) and
Dead Again
(2007) give some indication as to where Type O Negative’s lyrical subject matter was at (Steele was himself treated many times for clinical depression), but the band were widely respected for their unique sound and musical ‘practical jokes’ that generated within their fanbase a dark humour: Type O were apparently affectionately known as ‘The Drab Four’. (The band were especially popular in Finland, where four of their records went Top Five.)

At a well-built 6’8”, Steele was clearly the focal point of Type O Negative, his presence and strong features making him a target for photographers: among the dubious ‘opportunities’ the singer took in the name of publicity were appearing as a naked centrefold for
Playgirl
magazine, mocking up his own tombstone and having his anus photographed for an album cover. Peter Steele–who had spent some years battling addiction to cocaine and alcohol–died suddenly from heart failure.

Monday 19

Guru

(Keith Edward Elam–Roxbury, Boston, Massachusetts, 17 July 1961)

Gang Starr

Keith Elam’s parents were probably expecting something a little different from their boy when he was packed off to Georgia’s Moreland University to study business, but, within two years of graduation, the formerly quiet and studious young man had reinvented himself as rap protagonist Guru, the new name linked with the rather clunky backronym of ‘Gifted Unlimited Rhymes Universal’.

After a few false starts with other collaborators, Guru’s main man proved to be DJ Premier (Christopher Martin); as Gang Starr, the duo was soon elevated into a pioneering position in the hip-hop/NY-swing crossover scene. Guru’s style was to make him one of the game’s most original exponents, the man’s complex lyric writing often delivered in the low monotone first witnessed on their debut album
No More Mr Nice Guy
(WildPitch/EMI, 1989), which birthed a great single in ‘Positivity’ (1990, US Hot Rap Top Twenty). Thereafter, Gang Starr captured a more mainstream audience, making increasing inroads into the Billboard 200 with follow-up collections
Step in the Arena
(1991, UK Top Forty),
Daily Operation
(1992–which spawned the Hot Rap charttopping ‘Take It Personal’),
Hard to Earn
(1994, US/UK Top Forty) and the gold-selling
Moment of Truth
(1998, US Top Ten; US R & B number one). After a considerable hiatus, Guru and Premier returned with a final Gang Starr album
The Owner%
(2003, US Top Twenty), after which the duo ended as a going concern. Despite a fine body of work, their parting was understood to have been somewhat acrimonious.

Guru continued to record material independently–simultaneously in the case of his four-part
Ja%%mata%%
series (Chrysalis/Virgin, 1993-2007), an ambitious jazz-rap project that involved input from a stellar line-up of other artists including Isaac Hayes, Chaka Khan, Macy Gray, Roy Ayers, Jamiroquai, The Roots and French producer MC Solaar (Claude M’Barali), who had by now become the new ‘main man’ in Guru’s working life. (The apparent fallout with Premier was never fully explained.) These innovative releases proved sufficiently popular for an unrelated album of solo material,
BaldheadSlick & The Click
(2001), to be almost completely bypassed.