Friday, December 29, 2006

SID VICIOUS - THE GREAT ROCK AND ROLL SWINDLE


THE GREAT ROCK AND ROLL SWINDLE

The tragic thing about the movie, "The Great Rock And Roll Swindle" is that you can only do it once....... What a catastrophe this project was.... If you never read any books on Malcom McLaren and the punk movement you should pick up, "Londons Dreaming" by Greil Marcus.

Even if you've never read anything on punk music then you can always watch, "The Filth and the Fury". This pretty much explains what the big news was all about.

Malcom McLaren and his lawyers buzzed through the offices of the record companies and held them responsible for signing up his act. There was advance money of course. But where he really cashed in was by keeping all the likenesses of the group and capitalizing off of license fees.

Still - for as influential as the Pistols were they really didn't have any books, movies or videos in America until the mid-80's. This was long after the fire was out. Sid Vicious was already dead, the sounds changed and that piece of history was in the past.

Vicious stands out of that movement because he was a character of himself. He was a symbol for the manufactured Pistols. So making a toy of him becomes somewhat normal.

This scene in the "Great Rock and Roll Swindle", (just re-released finally after 20 years) is in the close of the film. It was shot in France at the Olympia (home of Eddie Barclay a famous French entertainer personality). The woman in the front row is Ann Beverly, ("I Can't Believe Thats My Sid Up There"). She died shortly after this was shot of a heroin overdose. But not before giving Sid, (her own son) a lethal dose of heroin causing him to OD as well.
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Cantu Fascube 2006

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