Friday, March 2, 2007

THE SEX PISTOLS - FROM BAD TO WORSE


"....AH YES.. NOW I GET IT... OH WOW.. IS THAT WHAT THIS SONG IS ALL ABOUT?"

This was written by Sid Vicious -- supposedly. I saw the lyrics scribbed on some notebook paper. The controversey continues if he was this gentle articulate person capable of broadening political thought -- or a cartoon version of the Hulk. Maybe he was a little of both but this song does border on the verge of being brilliant.

This performance was taken in San Francisco at the Winterland Ballroom. Johnny Rotten had the flu when they shot this concert which is hard to believe that he could carry on. He also had to sleep on the bus with Sid in the cold. Malcom, Paul Cook and Steve Jones got to sleep in a hotel and fly around in a jet. This brought on the end of the band as Rotten grew more jealous and furious. Eventually he was rumored to have been fired from the group.....

I was surprised to see this entire concert existed on bootleg video. Prior to its release the word on the street was that this entire show never happend. Rotten supposedly only sang one song and then stormed off. This was not the case at all. In fact, he was supposed to have said, "Did you ever get the feeling you were being CHEATED?" and then stammering off..... but this never occured.... at least in that way.

Hell did break loose however when the band abruptly ended. There was a european leg for this tour too supposedly in Holland that was never fulfilled. This entire thing lost its edge in America. Nobody really followed UK politics to the extent of the Cambridge Rapist. But it made for great drama. I liked the Tshirts by Vivianne Westwood from the SEX shop. It was bastardized Warhol taken to the max. Some of these shirts were never printed in books. When I saw them I was somewhat shocked and I thought I had seen everything. They were pretty vile. They went over the limit for what I thought was shocking.... seriously. The reprints you get in America are very wimpy and watered down. They only tell half of the story.

This song told about what a horrible thing it is to present the war torn streets of europe as a travel destination. It does it in a roundabout way in under three minutes. In a lot of ways I respect what they tried to do here. This song was never topped in its grotesqueness as they fizzled out quick after it was released. The version i liked better was when Rotten was kicked out. They fronted RONNIE BIGGS.. aka. THE GREAT TRAIN ROBBERY. I liked that version better because it was incredibly silly and ridiculous as this 56 year old geezer accepted punk rock and this old German Kraut Nazi yelled SCHNELL through the end of the song.....

Sid was definately a looming figure in that scene but I believe he was far from brilliant. I prefered Sue Catwoman and Linda Ashby instead. I think they were phenomenal to look at and were completely original characters.
Cantu writes for the FASCUBE network, and is the creator of www.1seomichigan.com

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