Malcolm Mooney

Malcolm Mooney is a rock music singer, poet and artist, probably best known as the original vocalist for German Krautrock band Can. Mooney began singing in high school, and was a member of an a capella vocal group known as the Six Fifths. He spent some time as a sculptor in New York, then moved to Germany and befriended Irmin Schmidt and Holger Czukay. At one point, they began jamming and decided to form a band. Malcolm came up with the name The Can for the group, later shortened to Can. His presence was the locomotive that drove and defined Can's rhythmic sound as heard on their albums Monster Movie (1969), Soundtracks (1970), Delay 1968 (1981) and Rite Time (1989). He returned to the States to resume his painting career in the early 70s.

Mooney maintains his musical expression with Malcolm Mooney and the 10th Planet, a bicoastal project with two releases. His artistic career is long and diverse, with many solo and group shows, as well as work as an art teacher, graphic designer, stage designer, and art assistant (for an itemized history visit Spoon Records). He is a sculptor and painter who studied under Walter Murch, Murray Reich, Lloyd Lillie and Reed Kay while attending Boston University School of Fine and Applied Arts, 1962-1967, and worked with Ulrich Ruckream as a sculptor's assistant in Köln while a member of musical group Can.

In his 30-plus-year career as a painter, Mooney has had 14 solo exhibitions and has been part of 26 group exhibitions. In early 1970, Mooney rented a studio loft in downtown New York City and began working with a fellow art students to design the stage set for a Harry Belafonte Enterprises production, "Let the Big Drum Roll", which toured the public schools in Washington, DC. Mooney also designed the set for a Can opera in 1969 at the Schauspielhaus in Zurich. The image was a large chrome can in the middle of the stage, and a second stage that extended into the orchestra pit. From 1974-1976 Mooney painted in his new studio in Yonkers, NY, while consulting with Boston University about graduation. In parallel with his music career (recordings made with Can in 1968 were released in 1981), Mooney had enough credits to graduate with a BFA in 1966 but did not receive his degree until 1979.

Mooney's first museum show was in Yonkers in 1981, curated by Coy Ludwig. The New York Times called the work "Little Gems". This show started a journey that lead to his present work, "Pages", and also new paper works scheduled to be presented in an Oakland, CA, exhibit later this year. Malcolm Mooney received his BFA in Painting from Boston University's School of Fine Arts and Applied Arts (1979), and his MFA from California State University (1987). He recently moved his studio from Yonkers, NY, to Roxbury, MA, and is an adjunct professor of art at Wentworth Institute of Technology.