Malcolm McLaren and Vivienne Westwood’s son to burn £5m punk memorabilia
March 23, 2016 12:12 PM Subscribe
“A general malaise has now set in amongst the British public. People are feeling numb. And with numbness comes complacency. People don’t feel they have a voice anymore,” [Corré] says. “The most dangerous thing is that they have stopped fighting for what they believe in. They have given up the chase. We need to explode all the shit once more”.
Related article, at bbc.com.
I mean, I get why he wants to do this, but the armchair archivist/historian in me is just so mad about all this stuff potentially being gone forever.
posted by Kitteh at 12:28 PM on March 23, 2016 [7 favorites]
posted by Kitteh at 12:28 PM on March 23, 2016 [7 favorites]
We mean it, man.
posted by crazylegs at 12:30 PM on March 23, 2016 [12 favorites]
posted by crazylegs at 12:30 PM on March 23, 2016 [12 favorites]
Furthermore, if it's really worth five million quid, why not donate it to a worthy cause for auction? That's still punk.
posted by ZenMasterThis at 12:30 PM on March 23, 2016 [8 favorites]
posted by ZenMasterThis at 12:30 PM on March 23, 2016 [8 favorites]
This is kind of beautiful.
I'm also guessing that the £5m figure is rather bollocks, and hoping that reporters showing up for the burning are presented with nothing more than a pile of ashes and a statement that the burning took place yesterday. Let them figure out by themselves whether or not they've been cheated.
posted by benito.strauss at 12:33 PM on March 23, 2016 [4 favorites]
I'm also guessing that the £5m figure is rather bollocks, and hoping that reporters showing up for the burning are presented with nothing more than a pile of ashes and a statement that the burning took place yesterday. Let them figure out by themselves whether or not they've been cheated.
posted by benito.strauss at 12:33 PM on March 23, 2016 [4 favorites]
My guess is that he'll very quietly sell off the more valuable stuff, and the bonfire ashes ('cause he won't have witnesses --- "it might be unsafe" or something like that) will actually consist of the junk.
posted by easily confused at 12:37 PM on March 23, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by easily confused at 12:37 PM on March 23, 2016 [1 favorite]
It's all junk if it's sitting in his private collection.
Related
posted by Max Power at 12:41 PM on March 23, 2016
Related
posted by Max Power at 12:41 PM on March 23, 2016
Yes, let's set a date and time for anarchy and destruction. Everyone mark it in their agendas, and then we'll burn those, too.
posted by Capt. Renault at 12:41 PM on March 23, 2016 [15 favorites]
posted by Capt. Renault at 12:41 PM on March 23, 2016 [15 favorites]
I find it pretty difficult to take multi-millionaire businessmen seriously when they claim to be punk.
posted by aught at 12:44 PM on March 23, 2016 [9 favorites]
posted by aught at 12:44 PM on March 23, 2016 [9 favorites]
People don’t feel they have a voice anymore
I'm pretty sure having the research ship to actually be named the RSS Boaty McBoatface would be a genuine help with this.
posted by Jon Mitchell at 12:45 PM on March 23, 2016 [12 favorites]
I'm pretty sure having the research ship to actually be named the RSS Boaty McBoatface would be a genuine help with this.
posted by Jon Mitchell at 12:45 PM on March 23, 2016 [12 favorites]
i don't understand anyone who claims to be punk being upset by this. it seems entirely inline with the overarching ethos. if a punk collection can be worth 5mil, it seems only right to light it aflame.
posted by nadawi at 12:53 PM on March 23, 2016 [14 favorites]
posted by nadawi at 12:53 PM on March 23, 2016 [14 favorites]
Furthermore, if it's really worth five million quid, why not donate it to a worthy cause for auction? That's still punk
and claiming it all as a loss for tax purposes would be punker still!
posted by Sebmojo at 12:55 PM on March 23, 2016 [5 favorites]
and claiming it all as a loss for tax purposes would be punker still!
posted by Sebmojo at 12:55 PM on March 23, 2016 [5 favorites]
eh what do I care what some little wanker with famous parents does with his grotty old t-shirts and band posters
~*I am the punkest of all*~
posted by prize bull octorok at 12:59 PM on March 23, 2016 [4 favorites]
~*I am the punkest of all*~
posted by prize bull octorok at 12:59 PM on March 23, 2016 [4 favorites]
Maybe this is some kind of meta-meta-meta-post-post-post-infinity ironic statement on punk being dead?
posted by Sangermaine at 12:59 PM on March 23, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by Sangermaine at 12:59 PM on March 23, 2016 [1 favorite]
Has anyone seen Bill Drummond or Jimmy Cauty?
They came by looking for sheep and machine guns, but I don’t know where they went. I’m not sure they had a plan.
posted by bongo_x at 1:08 PM on March 23, 2016 [3 favorites]
They came by looking for sheep and machine guns, but I don’t know where they went. I’m not sure they had a plan.
posted by bongo_x at 1:08 PM on March 23, 2016 [3 favorites]
Perhaps the queen likes the Sex Pistols (I do). I mean, they did write a song for her.
posted by heyho at 1:08 PM on March 23, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by heyho at 1:08 PM on March 23, 2016 [1 favorite]
London's burning with boredom, now.
posted by davebush at 1:19 PM on March 23, 2016 [5 favorites]
posted by davebush at 1:19 PM on March 23, 2016 [5 favorites]
When a rich white guy blows up historical stuff, it's 'punk'. But when ISIS blows up historic stuff, no one's calling it 'punk'.
'We need to explode all the shit once more' sounds pretty ISIS to me. Nice way to illustrate rich white male privilege in 2016.
posted by grounded at 1:22 PM on March 23, 2016 [5 favorites]
'We need to explode all the shit once more' sounds pretty ISIS to me. Nice way to illustrate rich white male privilege in 2016.
posted by grounded at 1:22 PM on March 23, 2016 [5 favorites]
Now, not to be all sympathetic to the child of Malcolm McLaren (which seems like burden enough, IYAM) but I'm not sure that some old records and posters are the equivalent of, eg, Palmyra.
If we want to expropriate the rich and take their artistic possessions for the good of all, that's fine, but if private citizens are allowed to keep their various John Singer Sargents and Rodin bronzes and so on, I think this dude can burn his punk albums.
[Clarity edit - burning a Sex Pistols album is not at all the equivalent to blowing up major ancient architecture, nor does it have anything to do with ISIS, and at this point, we let most rich people keep their art.]
posted by Frowner at 1:26 PM on March 23, 2016 [11 favorites]
If we want to expropriate the rich and take their artistic possessions for the good of all, that's fine, but if private citizens are allowed to keep their various John Singer Sargents and Rodin bronzes and so on, I think this dude can burn his punk albums.
[Clarity edit - burning a Sex Pistols album is not at all the equivalent to blowing up major ancient architecture, nor does it have anything to do with ISIS, and at this point, we let most rich people keep their art.]
posted by Frowner at 1:26 PM on March 23, 2016 [11 favorites]
WAT? (re ISIS)
posted by zippy at 1:26 PM on March 23, 2016 [6 favorites]
posted by zippy at 1:26 PM on March 23, 2016 [6 favorites]
Cash from chaos
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 1:26 PM on March 23, 2016
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 1:26 PM on March 23, 2016
It's just stuff. The world will continue to rotate.
posted by bonobothegreat at 1:34 PM on March 23, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by bonobothegreat at 1:34 PM on March 23, 2016 [1 favorite]
Jimmy Cauty is making scale dioramas of riots/a world apparently inhabited primarily by riot police. Bill Drummond is doing - various high-concept art and music projects, as far as I know. People didn't believe they actually burned the money either but I'm pretty sure they did.
posted by atoxyl at 1:35 PM on March 23, 2016 [2 favorites]
posted by atoxyl at 1:35 PM on March 23, 2016 [2 favorites]
I am not being sarcastic in the slightest when I say I actually think it is extremely punk for the child of two very rich people to burn an alleged £5m-worth of bullshit and then parade his transgression via a (lol) press release.
posted by invitapriore at 1:36 PM on March 23, 2016 [8 favorites]
posted by invitapriore at 1:36 PM on March 23, 2016 [8 favorites]
Some people will do anything for attention.
posted by MexicanYenta at 1:41 PM on March 23, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by MexicanYenta at 1:41 PM on March 23, 2016 [1 favorite]
~*I am the punkest of all*~
You could've been on the cover of Punk & Disorderly.
posted by ZenMasterThis at 1:47 PM on March 23, 2016
You could've been on the cover of Punk & Disorderly.
posted by ZenMasterThis at 1:47 PM on March 23, 2016
i don't understand anyone who claims to be punk being upset by this
it's 2016 - i don't undertstand anyone claiming to be punk, period
posted by pyramid termite at 2:08 PM on March 23, 2016 [11 favorites]
it's 2016 - i don't undertstand anyone claiming to be punk, period
posted by pyramid termite at 2:08 PM on March 23, 2016 [11 favorites]
Besides, it's just punk rock. You don't have to know how to play. You just got to be a punk. We could do that.
posted by delfin at 2:14 PM on March 23, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by delfin at 2:14 PM on March 23, 2016 [1 favorite]
Burning trinkets from the 70s won't stop punk from being co-opted by the mainstream public, as daddy and mommy were already onto it then. I can see some logic on him being pissed that the elites are so comfortable with the lack of challenge to the status quo that they'll even throw a party celebrating punk, but maybe selling off that shit to some asshole banker in the city who fondly recalls his two months squatting in London in his teens and use the proceeds to open a label/media thing to scare the establishment would be a better use of that than a grandiose, empty gesture.
Jimmy Cauty is making scale dioramas of riots/a world apparently inhabited primarily by riot police.
And they are amazing.
posted by lmfsilva at 2:15 PM on March 23, 2016 [3 favorites]
Jimmy Cauty is making scale dioramas of riots/a world apparently inhabited primarily by riot police.
And they are amazing.
posted by lmfsilva at 2:15 PM on March 23, 2016 [3 favorites]
That headline was difficult to parse at first.... I was all like, "isn't Malcolm dead?"
posted by valkane at 2:16 PM on March 23, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by valkane at 2:16 PM on March 23, 2016 [1 favorite]
Jimmy Cauty is making scale dioramas of riots/a world apparently inhabited primarily by riot police.
And they are amazing.
Wow, they really are.
posted by rifflesby at 2:29 PM on March 23, 2016 [9 favorites]
And they are amazing.
Wow, they really are.
posted by rifflesby at 2:29 PM on March 23, 2016 [9 favorites]
This man is simply an idiot. There are loads of challenges to the elites going on every day and plenty of brave activists fighting against precisely the idiot world he has so comfortably dwelled in for decades (namely, fancy shops full of shiny crap produced in the third world). The Sex Pistols were also shit.
posted by colie at 2:48 PM on March 23, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by colie at 2:48 PM on March 23, 2016 [1 favorite]
benito.strauss: I'm also guessing that the £5m figure is rather bollocks
I thought were not supposed to mind the bollocks.
posted by dr_dank at 3:35 PM on March 23, 2016 [10 favorites]
I thought were not supposed to mind the bollocks.
posted by dr_dank at 3:35 PM on March 23, 2016 [10 favorites]
it's 2016 - i don't undertstand anyone claiming to be punk, period
I'm old and scared and don't have anything else to cling to c'mon man
posted by BitterOldPunk at 3:50 PM on March 23, 2016 [21 favorites]
I'm old and scared and don't have anything else to cling to c'mon man
posted by BitterOldPunk at 3:50 PM on March 23, 2016 [21 favorites]
If punk is toothless today, it's not because museums are celebrating it, it's because people like Malcolm McLaren got rich off of it. Now McLaren's wealthy businessman son is going to burn a highly valued collection of memorabilia to make a statement - about what, consumerism? It's not opening anyone's eyes or shocking us out of our complacency, it's just a rich guy burning expensive stuff because he can.
posted by teponaztli at 5:19 PM on March 23, 2016 [2 favorites]
posted by teponaztli at 5:19 PM on March 23, 2016 [2 favorites]
i don't understand anyone who claims to be punk being upset by this.
He'd set himself on fire if he were really punk.
posted by octobersurprise at 5:31 PM on March 23, 2016 [4 favorites]
He'd set himself on fire if he were really punk.
posted by octobersurprise at 5:31 PM on March 23, 2016 [4 favorites]
It would be way more punk to pass it all out to homeless people.
posted by oneirodynia at 6:13 PM on March 23, 2016 [2 favorites]
posted by oneirodynia at 6:13 PM on March 23, 2016 [2 favorites]
If punk is toothless today, it's not because museums are celebrating it
I've recently been getting into digging up and watching some of the vast array of BBC (mostly) rock and roll documentaries that have been produced in the last couple of decades, and they are almost always accidentally hilarious, because they are so often narrated in the same bloodless, academic, trad-BBC way that, say, World War II documentaries might be. When they venture into hagiography (often through recent interviews with the variously doddering, shattered, or delusional survivors), particularly for more obscure bands (I'm thinking the Thin Lizzy doco I watched last week), it gets legitimately ridiculous, and, I guess, a bit sad.
One thing I did enjoy was the trio of 'Brian Pern' mock-rockumentary miniseries (with a whole bunch of actual aging rock people from that era playing themselves), for those exact reasons.
It all makes me feel awfully old, but so it goes. My friends and I were calling ourselves 'aging punks' when we were 25, a quarter of a century ago. Yikes.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 6:28 PM on March 23, 2016 [2 favorites]
I've recently been getting into digging up and watching some of the vast array of BBC (mostly) rock and roll documentaries that have been produced in the last couple of decades, and they are almost always accidentally hilarious, because they are so often narrated in the same bloodless, academic, trad-BBC way that, say, World War II documentaries might be. When they venture into hagiography (often through recent interviews with the variously doddering, shattered, or delusional survivors), particularly for more obscure bands (I'm thinking the Thin Lizzy doco I watched last week), it gets legitimately ridiculous, and, I guess, a bit sad.
One thing I did enjoy was the trio of 'Brian Pern' mock-rockumentary miniseries (with a whole bunch of actual aging rock people from that era playing themselves), for those exact reasons.
It all makes me feel awfully old, but so it goes. My friends and I were calling ourselves 'aging punks' when we were 25, a quarter of a century ago. Yikes.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 6:28 PM on March 23, 2016 [2 favorites]
He's more punk than me.
posted by spikeleemajortomdickandharryconnickjrmints at 8:06 PM on March 23, 2016
posted by spikeleemajortomdickandharryconnickjrmints at 8:06 PM on March 23, 2016
When a rich white guy blows up historical stuff, it's 'punk'. But when ISIS blows up historic stuff, no one's calling it 'punk'.
ISIS blows up ancient artifacts and monuments that are irreplaceable and nominally owned by the public. They aren't collecting pop culture memorabilia over a period of decades with their own money and blowing it up. You are allowed to burn your own record collection without being compared to a fundamentalist terrorist organization.
posted by krinklyfig at 10:10 PM on March 23, 2016 [8 favorites]
ISIS blows up ancient artifacts and monuments that are irreplaceable and nominally owned by the public. They aren't collecting pop culture memorabilia over a period of decades with their own money and blowing it up. You are allowed to burn your own record collection without being compared to a fundamentalist terrorist organization.
posted by krinklyfig at 10:10 PM on March 23, 2016 [8 favorites]
“The Queen giving 2016, the Year of Punk, her official blessing
My gob... is smacked.
What I want to know is, what do Crass think about this?
posted by Mezentian at 1:50 AM on March 24, 2016 [2 favorites]
My gob... is smacked.
What I want to know is, what do Crass think about this?
posted by Mezentian at 1:50 AM on March 24, 2016 [2 favorites]
it's 2016 - i don't undertstand anyone claiming to be punk, period
Luckily, they don't require your understanding.
posted by lumpenprole at 12:05 PM on March 24, 2016 [1 favorite]
Luckily, they don't require your understanding.
posted by lumpenprole at 12:05 PM on March 24, 2016 [1 favorite]
“The Queen giving 2016, the Year of Punk, her official blessing"
As the BBC notes, "the Queen is not actually thought to have given the exhibition, Punk London, her personal backing". So basically, it looks like it's just Malcom McLaren's son doing the same kind of self-promotion that his father was known for.
posted by klausness at 4:33 PM on March 24, 2016
As the BBC notes, "the Queen is not actually thought to have given the exhibition, Punk London, her personal backing". So basically, it looks like it's just Malcom McLaren's son doing the same kind of self-promotion that his father was known for.
posted by klausness at 4:33 PM on March 24, 2016
It just occurred to me that this will actually raise the value of the remaining punk ephemera by destroying a lot of the supply.
On the one hand, offending a lot of pious right-thinkers is punk ("oh the senseless destruction of a valuable record collection! Will no one think of the children!" Etc etc)
On the other hand, raising the value of the remaining punk odds and ends that have been incorporated into capitalism is not what one had in mind in 1977.
Actually, what would be punk would be making fakes, either labeled as such or proper counterfeits - flood the market, destroy rarity, destroy value. Readymades are also pretty quintessentially punk, too.
posted by Frowner at 1:15 PM on March 25, 2016
On the one hand, offending a lot of pious right-thinkers is punk ("oh the senseless destruction of a valuable record collection! Will no one think of the children!" Etc etc)
On the other hand, raising the value of the remaining punk odds and ends that have been incorporated into capitalism is not what one had in mind in 1977.
Actually, what would be punk would be making fakes, either labeled as such or proper counterfeits - flood the market, destroy rarity, destroy value. Readymades are also pretty quintessentially punk, too.
posted by Frowner at 1:15 PM on March 25, 2016
He's not firing blanks into the audience.
Unlike Drummond and Cauty.
posted by ostranenie at 5:16 PM on March 25, 2016
Unlike Drummond and Cauty.
posted by ostranenie at 5:16 PM on March 25, 2016
Punk is over.
I know. This week I've been able to see both Buzzcocks and Stiff Little Fingers, but it is too loud for me.
posted by Mezentian at 3:01 AM on March 26, 2016 [2 favorites]
I know. This week I've been able to see both Buzzcocks and Stiff Little Fingers, but it is too loud for me.
posted by Mezentian at 3:01 AM on March 26, 2016 [2 favorites]
« Older What what | “There’s a lot to be worried about.” Newer »
This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments
posted by stannate at 12:21 PM on March 23, 2016 [24 favorites]