Thursday 17th March

Let me just say I was not impressed by punk, even though Malcolm was a big part of that.  I only listened to the Sex Pistols once and now realise that the words on the album cover were misprinted, it should have read “The Sex Pistols – bollocks; Never Mind”.  He was also some sort of Svengali behind BowWowWow and Adam and the Ants, which were much better.

A couple of years later he then presented us with Buffalo Gals and Double Dutch, which were basically field recordings of emerging black music from the Carribean and America and was interesting to say the least.

Now, Malcolm cannot sing or play an instrument, but he released three albums in the eighties which were simply sublime.  He had a knack of putting together different elements to produce something totally new and never before heard.  The first record was “Fans” which was a mix of classic Opera and hip-hop.  I fell in love with Madame Butterfly, my favourite Opera ever, and played Malcolm’s version of it incessantly, much to the annoyance of my partner.  He followed this with a mix of Waltz and dance music, which was still brilliant though not quite as wonderful as “Fans”.  But his real masterpiece was “Paris”, where he combined Miles Davis style jazz, Satie piano music and his own spoken reveries of that wonderful city.  Add to that some great melodies and vocals by Catherine Deneuve and Francoise Hardy and you have sheer genius.  It remains one of my enduring favourite albums ever.

Malcolm was a strange mixture of the very modern and almost a Dickensian manner; he sadly died far too young a few years ago.  But at least we have these three great records to remember him by.