The son of Sex Pistols creator Malcolm McLaren burned his entire memorabilia collection worth $6-$12 million in protest Saturday, saying punk has no solutions for today’s generation and is “conning the young.”
McLaren’s son, Joe Corre, piled clothes, rare recordings and other paraphernalia on a river barge on the 40th anniversary of the band’s debut single “Anarchy in the UK” and set it on fire. The multi-million dollar bonfire also included firework-stuffed effigies of Prime Minister Theresa May and her predecessors David Cameron and Tony Blair, dressed in Sex Pistols clothes.
At a London press conference on Friday, Corre said: “I’ve been wondering for a long time what to do with it all, and I think this is the right opportunity to say, ‘You know what? Punk is dead. Stop conning a younger generation that it somehow has any currency to deal with the issues that they face.”
Saturday, in front of approximately 100 onlookers on the bank of the River Thames, Corre said, “Punk was never meant to be nostalgic,” adding, “Punk has become another marketing tool to sell you something you don’t need.”
Sex Pistols guitarist Glen Matlock told Sky News that the protest was “dopey” and that Corre was a “nincompoop.”
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