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by Andy Corrigan Bow Wow Wow tour manager/production designer/general dogsbody
The first task I had to do for Malcolm when I got the job of tour managing Bow Wow Wow was to pull the band’s first show at the Starlight Roller Disco down the road from the Hammersmith Palais. The electrics were really dodgy, water was pouring down the wall of the mains cupboard and the stage was live. The gig had been a sell out and there was quite a bit of pressure to go ahead with it.....
I stood firm though with my belief that the gig wasn’t worth sacrificing the lives of the band for.
It was always a bit chaotic working with and for Malcolm but he was very good at letting people get on with the job and I learned an awful lot about how the business worked, or didn’t, in a very short space of time.
Malcolm was always good at seeing the big picture and not getting too bogged down with the day to day running of the band, I ended up having to do all that.
There was generally a shortage of cash, although I always got paid; he would take great pleasure in not paying on the tube, not that he went by tube very often there was usually a few quid for cab fare.
He could be very creative financially too. The band had a show at the Rainbow, about 4,000 capacity and we were worried that they weren’t popular enough to fill it.
So we put in a load of fairground rides and stalls, my idea! With a big helter skelter for Annabella to slide down singing at the start of the show; to pay for it Malcolm persuaded EMI that we were shooting a promo video and the costs should come out of that budget. He also got the band to ransack the record company for promo albums and stuff for prizes on the stalls.
Malcolm has been accused of not taking music seriously, particularly with The Sex Pistols but I would disagree. With Bow Wow Wow we spent ages trying to get the right producer for them, even persuaded Prince to do it but it all fell through. He was concerned that the music his bands made was as good as it could be hence Chris Thomas, Pink Floyd, Beatles etc. producing the Pistols album.
His sense of irreverence to the whole pop music industry and its values whilst at the same time loving its messy and anarchic core was a great influence on me and he will be sorely missed as they really don’t make them like him any more.
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