I’ve grown whiskers waiting for a DLX RM of the great “Duck Rock” album curated by the master trickster Malcolm McLaren and made with musicians who would soon become Trevor Horn’s ZTT Theam [Anne Dudley, Louis Jordan] as well as luminaries like Thomas Dolby. And over the years these whiskers have turned white, but this year, to mark the 40th anniversary of “Duck Rock,” the state 51 Conspiracy along with McLaren’s estate are finally releasing a package containing what Malcolm himself had curated for what would have been the 25th anniversary of the album in 2008…had it ultimately happened then. Two years later Malcolm was dead [just two months before PPM began publishing] and the notion was lost to the mists of time. Until now.

Given that the original materials as designed by Nick Egan and using Keith Haring artwork were lost to the four winds, original designer Egan painstakingly re-created the elements needed to reproduce the colorful artwork even including their fluorescent elements. Actually, Egan took the effort to goose certain elements that were less than ideal 40 years ago, owing to improved press technology, so it’s not a straight clone of what it was. I can say that the US Promo LP I had was in no way fluorescent, though it did have a unique version of the album with all of the songs banded out for radio play and lacking the World’s Famous Supreme Team segues that emulated their radio shows between each track. One can make the case that I’ve yet to truly experience this album as intended by the artists!

Meanwhile, I’ve developed a policy of buying any McLaren discs I see out in the wilds for the last 20+ years, with the goal of making my own BSOG of the “Duck Rock” adjacent material which tended to sprawl all over the place. Plus any other Malcolm mixes I could round up. The sad fact was that I have not have the LP itself since the Great Vinyl Purge of 1985! I naively imagined that the CD of “Duck Rock” would be an easy score sooner than later, but the fact of the matter was that to date I’ve never seen one. There’s allegedly a US CD from 1990 but that’s just hearsay. Given the horizon stretching Trevor Horn production that saw a wildly eclectic sprawl of music encompassing the disparate styles of Township Jive and Hip Hop [with Afro-Cuban Styles and Square Dancing jammed in there to boot] it was telling that at the start of 1984, Lenny Kaye himself famously said the following in the pages of Trouser Press.

Malcolm McLaren: Duck Rock DLX RM – UL – 2xLP [2023]

Disc 1

1. Obatala
2. Buffalo Gals
3. Double Dutch
4. El San Juanera
5. Merengue
6. Punk It Up
7. Legba
8. Jive My Baby
9. Song For Chango
10. Soweto
11. World’s Famous
12. Duck For The Oyster

Disc 2

1. Collaguas
2. Roly Poly
3. Hey DJ (World Famous Supreme Team) [7″ mix]
4. Zulus On A Timebomb
5. D’Ya Like Scratchin’
6. Franz Buffalo

The album was a champ. Say what you will about cultural appropriation, and McLaren was neck deep on that score, but it took a vision to thread the needle of commonality through the sounds of so many different cultures. And the fact that he pilfered from Appalachian Hillbillies showed he was at least colorblind in his exploitation!

Actually, according to Trevor Horn’s recent autobio, they paid session fees to the musicians who played on the album comparable to what UK union members would have gotten, which in some of the regions in Africa [or even rural Appalachia∆] were comparatively enormous amounts of money. Famously one of the players on the titanic “Soweto” could now afford to get married and honeymoon [with their entire wedding party] at the tourist hotel that McLaren and Horn were also staying at. But yeah, the writing credits for the album also cite McLaren/Horn, or McLaren/Dudley for all of the tracks! So that knife cut two ways.

∆ – I’ve lived in Appalachia for the last 22 years and I still can’t spell it without looking it up… what’s wrong with me?

The second disc has six bonus tracks; three of them previously unreleased. “Zulu’s On A Timebomb” and “D’Ya Like Scratchin'” were the B-sides to “Soweto,” which is still on my want list. I have the latter on the “D’Ya Like Scratchin'” EP but still have yet to hear the former. The NYC DJs The Worlds Famous Supreme Team also made a single apart from McLaren, with Stephen Hague producing that was maybe the third Hip Hop video I ever saw on MTV, after “Buffalo Gals” and RUN-DMCs “The King Of Rock.”

Where things get interesting is with “Collaguas” and “Roly Poly.” Each are heretofore unknown tracks. Apparently, “Franz Buffalo” was a mashup between “Buffalo Gals” and Franz Ferdinand’s “Take Me Out!” Yeah, okay. Whatever. But I would like to get my mitts on those first two tracks. If you want to get your mitts on this 2xLP it’s not cheap. £40.00 [$50.50] plus the cost of shipping from the UK. Let’s say close to $70. The street date for the reissue is May 27, 2023. Just 18 days away.

SuperDeluxeEdition have a good price in their store; £38.00 for the album and they give good service. I don’t know if its in the cards for me right now, but I should at least get that holy “Soweto” single on 12″ as I have “Buffalo Gals” and “Double Dutch” already on the racks in the Record Cell. As much as I enjoy the latter two singles, there’s little that can best the awe-inspiring “Soweto.” Hey D.J…hit that button.

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