Wonderful words by Balearic Mike.

March 27^th, 2023 is the 40^th anniversary of one of the most creative, inventive, and plain bonkers records ever made…

First off, let’s be upfront about this – Duck Rock is as much a Trevor Horn album as it is a Malcolm McLaren album. This was Trevor’s next big project after his work on ABC’s phenomenal Lexicon Of Love, and without his frankly genius level skills, I’m not sure that this record would ever have come together. You could also make an argument that it’s actually the first record by Art Of Noise, since Anne Dudley and J. J. Jeczalik contribute massively – as does Thomas Dolby. In fact, unused material recorded during these sessions would become the Art Of Noise’s  Into Battle With… later in the year.

After an initial meeting between Malcolm, Trevor and Trevor’s wife / manager, Jill, during which McLaren charmed the pants off them both, a second meeting took place where Malcolm played Trevor some South African Township Music, some “weird, voodoo-type” Cuban folk music, Pete Seeger’s 1948 Folkways recording of Buffalo Gals, and, most importantly, a tape of The World Famous Supreme Team’s NYC radio show. With these disparate musical sources, and a working title of ‘Folk Dances of the World’, they set off to New York to begin recording.

In New York, in between visits to the Danceteria nightclub, to find  ‘inspiration’ in the sets of DJ Mark Kamins, Malcolm and Trevor began recording a group of Cuban musicians, some South American merengue, and Andean folk music, and of course, The World Famous Supreme Team. The next stop was Nashville to capture some authentic hillbilly music, before flying to Apartheid-era South Africa, for perhaps the most controversial leg of their musical journey. This was controversial for a couple of reasons. In 1982 travelling to South Africa and working there was a contentious issue. Altough, in the context of how McLaren, Horn, and for that matter, how Paul Simon went about it while recording his Graceland LP, I’m personally fully in favour. There were plenty of white Western musicians who were happy to play to white-only S.A audiences, and deserve all the stick they got, but in the case of McLaren / Horn / Simon, this scenario saw black township musicians being paid handsomely to showcase their skills for a global audience. However, the other controversy involves credit and copyright. Trevor Jackson conducted a brilliant interview with Trevor Horn a few years ago, and in it Horn suggests that McLaren was intending to take all writing and publishing, for all the music on the album, giving none of it to Horn, or any of the musicians involved. Which, when you understand quite how little structure the material had, and how much of the genesis of these songs is down to Horn’s skill and imagination, is totally outrageous. As Les McQueen of Crème Brulee says in The League Of Gentlemen, “It’s a shit business.”

Horn quickly vetoed this move, ending up with a co-writing credit, alongside Anne Dudley, as well as “producer”, but some of the South African artists responsible for writing the music were less fortunate. Malcolm’s original idea was to use folk songs for which the copyright had either expired or was in the public domain – hence the original working title – and then add his own lyrics, additional layers, and claim copyright for this “new material”. Most of the album was indeed structured like that, but all the parts recorded in South Africa were based on songs written by living composers. Malcolm had previous form this respect, having ruthlessly ripped off the Mahotella Queens song Umculo Kawupheli for the Bow Wow Wow hit, See Jungle! (Jungle Boy). However, the Boyoyo Boys took legal action against McLaren over the similarity between his Double Dutch and their song, Puleng (it’s the same record!), succeeding in getting the royalty payments frozen, and eventually settling out of court. 

Regardless of Malcom’s decidedly dodgy business practices, Duck Rock is still an incredible artistic work. After recording in Johannesburg for 19 nights straight – with the musicians locked in the studio, as black folks weren’t allowed on the streets after dark –  Horn and McLaren returned to London to try and pull the album together. They flew over The World Famous Supreme Team, and Trevor cut some of the Zulu vocals and musical parts onto acetates for them to scratch with. The results, cutting and scratching over a beat Horn programmed on an Oberheim drum machine became Hobo Scratch, and the basis for Buffalo Gals, totally reimagined from its original concept.

How Horn managed to arrange everything they had recorded, across 3 continents, together, and make such a cohesive, exciting, future-facing album, is really quite astonishing. As well as Trevor Jackson’s excellent interview, you should also check Horn’s own book to learn just what an incredible feat this was. The record segues beautifully from electronica, to hip-hop, salsa, and hillbilly, linked by interludes from the World Famous Supreme Team. It’s a cultural monument to the moment that it was created in, mixing disparate music styles from all over the globe, and filtering them through the cultural melting pot of downtown New York’s vibrant art and music scene. Further genius moves include asking Keith Haring to contribute to the cover art, and the image of a customised “ghetto blaster” on the front is the icing on the cake. There’s an expanded anniversary edition landing in shops any moment now, with a bonus disc – although it doesn’t include Hobo Scratch, which seems like a crazy omission. What a record!

For more from Balearic Mike you can find him on both Facebook and Instagram – @balearicmike. 

Mike has a Mixcloud page packed with magnificent, magical, music, and you can catch him live on 1BTN, from 12 noon until 2 (UK time) every 1st and 3rd Friday.

You can also check out the super silk screen prints of “Balearic Wife” over at @jo_lambert_print