Sex Pistols manager Malcolm McLaren dies aged 64

Punk mogul had been suffering from cancer

Former Sex Pistols manager Malcolm McLaren has died aged 64.

He had been suffering from cancer and died this morning (April 8) in Switzerland. His body is set to be flown to London to be buried in Highgate cemetery.

McLaren was born in 1946 in London and raised in the Stoke Newington before attending art schools including St Martin’s College Of Art and Goldsmiths College.

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Prior to managing the Sex Pistols from 1975 to 1977, McLaren ran Let It Rock, a clothing store in London, with designer and then-partner Vivienne Westwood (with whom he had a son, Joseph, born in 1967) which he later re-named Too Fast To Live Too Young To Die, and then, most infamously, SEX.

It was here that John Lydon auditioned for the role of Sex Pistols‘ frontman, miming to an Alice Cooper record on the jukebox.

McLaren also managed New York Dolls, having met them in New York and visited the city’s influential punk clubs including CBGB, shortly before launching the Sex Pistols in the UK.

Following his management career McLaren launched his own musical projects, releasing the first of his albums, ‘Duck Rock’, in 1983, and having huge UK hits with the likes of ‘Buffalo Gals’, ‘Double Dutch’ and ‘Madame Butterfly’.

He went on to release albums throughout the last three decades most recently last year’s ‘Shallow – Musical Paintings’. He was also involved in making two films about punk and the Sex Pistols with director Julian Temple, and was one of the first people to champion the new musical style of circuit bending, which is used by many electronic artists.

Photo Gallery – The wisdom of Malcolm McLaren

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