Malcom McLaren, Former Sex Pistols Manager, Dies

Billboard

Famed rock 'n' roll raconteur Malcom McLaren, best known as the manager of the Sex Pistols, died Thursday (Apr. 8) in New York City at the age of 64.

McLaren's spokesman, Les Molloy, told the U.K.'s Independent that McLaren had been battling cancer "for some time, but recently had been in full health, which then rapidly deteriorated." Molloy said McLaren's body will be buried in London's Highgate Cemetery.

McLaren was born into a working class family in London's Stoke Newington section. After attending art college, he and designer Vivienne Westwood opened a Kings Road clothing store in 1971 called Let It Rock, later renamed Too Fast To Live, Too Young To Die. Having traveled to New York in 1972, McLaren began making stage clothes for the New York Dolls and subsequently managed the group.

National Record Store Day - April 17

10 Connects.com

What started as a simple celebration of the independent, locally owned record store has blossomed into the most of exciting day of the year for vinyl collectors and music fans of every persuasion.

It's Record Store Day, and for this year's installment, music shops coast-to-coast will be offering a treasure trove of exclusive and limited-edition new releases and reissues from over 100 artists, including the Rolling Stones, Wilco, Bruce Springsteen, the Beastie Boys, Soundgarden, R.E.M., Sonic Youth, Ani DiFranco, Dave Matthews and more. Even both Elvises (Costello and Presley) are in on the action.

A Rock and Roll Dinosaur Rolls On

Wall Street Journal

During the eight years when Peter Wolf was putting together his new album "Midnight Souvenirs," he labored over which track should go where on the CD. His friends told him not to bother, nobody worries about that stuff anymore—everyone's shuffling playlists on their iPods anyway.

Mr. Wolf was adamant, and took great care to work out the best song sequence for the record, which comes out April 6. "I come from an era where an album is an album," Mr. Wolf explains on a recent afternoon at a chi-chi French bistro he's been coming to for years on Manhattan's Upper East Side. "Because things have changed, it doesn't mean my approach changed."

Mr. Wolf, now 64 years old and the former lead singer of the J. Geils Band, is a dinosaur. But he's a member of a select breed of dinosaurs, the few who wrote the history of rock and roll since the 1960s—and are still contributing to it. He's not as well known as Bob Dylan, the Rolling Stones or Van Morrison, but he's been a rock star for more than four decades and has crossed paths with all of them many times. He probably couldn't fill a medium-size concert hall, but he's still making music that goes beyond rehashing the greatest hits of yore. He's rock's elder Renaissance Man—not just as a walking encyclopedia but as an ultimate fan who, Zelig-like, lived through pretty much the whole thing.

Ronnie Wood Gets Back to Guitar Roots With Radio Show

Spinner

Ronnie Wood is probably keen to focus on his music after becoming a tabloid staple for all the wrong reasons. From Friday, April 9, he's getting his chance with the launch of a brand new weekly radio show in the UK.

The hour-long 'Ronnie Wood Show' on Absolute Classic Rock will see the Rolling Stones guitarist -- also a former member of the Faces and the Jeff Beck Group -- present a selection of tracks from the canon of rock 'n' roll inspired by his career and anecdotes from his years on the road.

The programme description says Wood "may get distracted or lost in the music but every record he plays comes with a story -- a memory, a tale of mischief or inspiration."