John Lydon: Stories of Johnny by Rob Johnstone

Author:Rob Johnstone
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Chrome Dreams
Published: 2012-07-19T16:00:00+00:00

I really felt the world moving and shaking that autumn in England, in terms of punk,’ Mary confessed, ‘I went to interview The Damned – I was supposed to do The Clash and that fell through – but there was definitely a sense of something big happening.’

Mary’s interview was my first introduction to Johnny Rotten and the Sex Pistols, and it captures Rotten when he was still a fresh-faced, snot-nosed kid – his world spread-eagled before him with stunning possibilities. Johnny seemed like a sweet kid. Mary got him at just the right moment, before everything came crashing down on him.

By the time Mary did the interview in October 1976 and it was published in Punk magazine in March 1977, the interview was already obsolete. That’s how fast things were happening.

In that time, the Pistols were signed to EMI Records, released their first single, ‘Anarchy In The UK,’ and then came the infamous December 1st 1976 appearance on the Bill Grundy television program. The Pistols, along with their entourage, ‘The Bromley Contingent,’ (including Siouxsie Sioux) appeared on the Thames Television Program, Today.

Johnny Rotten said, ‘Shit.’

Steve Jones told Bill Grundy he was, ‘A Fuckin’ Rotter’.

All in all, it was not as offensive as what is regularly seen on The Jerry Springer Show. Still, it was enough of a sin to snare the headlines – the Daily Mirror ran with the now infamous ‘The Filth and the Fury,’ while the Daily Express went with ‘Punk? Call it Filthy Lucre.’

The Pistols were oblivious to the fuss they’d caused, and left the TV show to pick up Johnny Thunders & The Heartbreakers at Heathrow Airport, since the New York band was scheduled to open for the Pistols on their ‘Anarchy In The UK Tour’. The Heartbreakers were there to lend the Sex Pistols some punk credibility, but after the TV show, they didn’t need any.

‘Someone called me in New York,’ Mary explained, ‘And said that she just heard that Johnny Rotten had been on this TV show and had said, “Fuck” or whatever. I had the number for Malcolm McLaren, so I called him in London and I could tell he was kind of shocked. It was Malcolm and Lee Black Childers, the manager of Johnny Thunders & The Heartbreakers. I talked to both of them. And I just thought, “Whoa-oh!” Because, quite in contradiction to the myth of Malcolm as a great manipulator, Malcolm said, “I can’t believe what just happened!” I think they felt like they were on a runaway train.’

The resulting fallout from the Grundy show caused local authorities to cancel most dates on their Anarchy Tour – and as a hostile press slagged off the band – the Sex Pistols succeeded in becoming the world’s first Punk band.

It didn’t matter that The Ramones, The Damned, Patti Smith, Iggy Pop, The Slits, Richard Hell & The Voidoids, etc, were already going concerns. It the old music business dictum of ‘Whoever gets the most press, wins,’ the Sex Pistols captured the English imagination – and then the world’s.

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