MALCOLM MCLAREN'S BOX OF PUNKS

MALCOLM McLaren's funeral cortege came by yesterday.
The road was lined with more journalists and photographers from Camden Town tube to Camden Lock than civilians and punks.
There were a few Sex Pistols T-shirts, the odd bit of tartan and a few hairsprayed mohicans but the punk spirit is now a minority breed in Camden.
So I bet old Malcolm was chuckling from on high when the journos were fooled by some other poor soul's funeral that just happened to take the same route at the precise time McLaren was due to go by.
The tiny procession of just three cars was unable to slip past quietly and crowds craned their necks to get a good look while reporters filmed and paps snapped the black cars.
Not the kind of reception a bereaved family might expect but I hope the curious situation gave them some moments of lightness.
One journalist later confessed she had been utterly fooled by the first funeral and had completed her entire on-camera report before realising McLaren was yet to pass by.
As we waited it began to feel like nearly every car in London was now shiny and black. We took to peering into every car in case we missed him.
But we should have known better.
Fashionably late, McLaren's horse-drawn carriage eventually took its damn sweet time down the high street.
His coffin was emblazoned with the words "Too Fast To Live, Too Young To Die."
An ashen-faced Dame Vivienne Westwood followed but the most memorable vision was the crushed box of punks on wheels, clawing at the windows, cheering and throwing scraps of paper out of the crumbling green double-decker bus that followed.

Leering, jeering faces peered from every inch of window space and they trailed off leaving a very big but glaringly obvious pink message - "Malcom Was Here".
Malcolm may have been a little disappointed by the lack of an apparent "minute of mayhem" instead of the usual minute's silence.
But I'm sure his portable punks will have brought a smile to his resting face.

VOLCANO MADNESS AND GIGS FOR POLITICS

ANYTHING can happen in the streets of Camden. We’ve had Madness on a double-decker bus, Reverend and the Makers’ Jon McClure playing outside Morrisons and now it’s the turn of Black Rebel Motorcycle Club.

To appease fans waiting outside the Electric Ballroom last week – their gig began late due to volcano-induced equipment delays – frontman Robert Levon Been came out and played a medley before returning inside and carrying on with borrowed equipment.

Resourceful musicians elsewhere have also been finding ways to occupy themselves while stranded.
Dub Pistols had to cancel their Budapest gig, but good news for London fans, they play a special DJ set at InSpiral lounge in Camden Town on Friday (April 23), free before 11pm.
Nas and Damian Marley’s Electric Ballroom gig on Wednesday was also cancelled.
Ronnie Scott’s has been deluged with calls from musicians with too much free time on their hands, hoping to replace vacant spaces where others have cancelled. In place of US trumpeter Wallace Roney, who couldn’t travel to the UK, two-time Grammy winner Dee Dee Bridgewater, stuck here since performing at the Barbican on Friday, was drafted in to perform in his place.

- If you can get hold of tickets for Instigate Debate at Islington’s Union Chapel (April 26) – this is one pre-election event not to miss. Instigate Debate is a counterculture project formed by a collective of musicians including Carl Barat and Jon McClure, plus journalist Mark Donne and John O’Sullivan. The likes of Vivienne Westwood and Peter Tatchell will be debating “Is the Party Over?”, with performances from The Magic Numbers and Rose Elinor. The audience member who writes the best 100-word argument on the topic wins a free gig in their own home from a surprise line-up of exciting musicians.