Pete Nothing – Rape Ads / Null And Void – Only Seventeen / Can’t Hide / Sometimes I Get So Lonely / Still / Me And My Actor

Null And Void – Four Minute Warning / God’s Only Words / Still Lonely / Blank Pages / An Old Way / Pete Nothing – Fads

Still

Crap / Cold War

Null And Void were a band from around the Yeovil area formed in 1980. Closely alligned to Yeovil’s other band at the time, The Mob, the original members of Null And Void were Mark Hedge, Adie Tompkins and Andrew Barker. Barker had already previously released a record on the All The Madmen record label under the name Andy Stratton, along with The Mob’s then drummer Graham Fallows. Both The Mob and Null And Void members lived together in a shared commune in Seend a village in Wiltshire. Adie Tompkins would eventually perform drumming duties for The Mob for a short time after Graham decided to leave that band. Eventually most of The Mob and Null And Void members decided to leave the sticks and chance squatting in London. Brougham Road in Hackney was the area where the bands shared bus ended up and parked up. Zounds, a close ally to both bands on the newly arrived bus had secured some property in that street a few months previously. 

Both of these releases uploaded today were recorded and engineered by Pete Fender at the Xntrix studio situated in the basement of the Poison Girls house in Leytonstone. The band by the time of recordings had a new drummer in Josef Porta who had been staying in Brougham Road with the other members of Zounds. Josef of course later joined The Mob, and continues to perform today with Blyth Power. Delia supplied some backing vocals and Pete Fender added a couple of poems under the guise of Pete Nothing on the sessions that would be released on the cassette.

After a couple of tours in Belgium with The Mob and Zounds, Null And Void were approached by Not So Brave Records who were based in Belgium. The band recorded the sessions, again with Pete Fender at Xntrix, that would end up as the only 7″ single that was released in the band’s lifetime. The sleeve artwork for the single was completed by Dave Williams who was the brother of Steve Ignorant, vocalist for Crass (a fact that Dave did not like being made public to many folk in those days as the two siblings did not get on that well supposedly, according to a member of Null And Void!)

By the time these recordings were released, the band were performing a fair few gigs in and around London including a set at the Zig Zag squat gig, Westbourne Park organised by Andy Palmer and Penny Rimbaud of Crass along with members of The  Kill Your Pet Puppy Collective and Andy Martin of The Apostles in December 1982.

These releases contain absolutely wonderful material by Null And Void, material which still sounds incredibly strong today.

Andy Stratton’s debut 7″ single released on All The Madmen Records in 1980 can be listened to on this site HERE

Confidence / P.A.s

Bibbly O Tek / Doubt Beat

Great third release by Scritti Politti on a Rough Trade and St Pancras Records split release, quickly following on from ‘Skank Bloc Bologna’ and the ‘Peel Session’ 7″singles from 1978.

The band at this time were submerged in the North London (Mornington Crescent / Camden area) squatting scene, were dabbling with Communist theories and were partial to a nice bit of grade A Dub and Reggae.  The band’s communal lifestyle, added to the mixture of influences, certainly gave them the edge when creating great slabs of music.

Simon Reynolds piece on Scritti Politti first published in The Wire 2001

How do pop groups choose their fans? Like any romance, it’s a subtle, near-imperceptible process of sifting through the general population, a trail of lures and signals. I’m still not sure what it was that seduced me into a long infatuation with Scritti Politti: the sound or the idea of the band. Back in 1979, the two were inseparable, of course. The urgency’s of the post-punk era made the notion of music-for-music’s sake seem decadent, trivial, absurd. And some of the best groups were more influential as concepts than fully-realized propositions. What grabbed my ear first was the name, I think. Just the sound of it: Scritti Politti, brittle and chiming like the guitar-sound on “Bibbly O Tek” (first Scritti song I ever heard, John Peel, late 1979). That, and the sheer intrigue of what it might refer to. Eventually I discovered that it was a slight corruption of the title of a book by neo-Marxist thinker Antonio Gramsci. Which only enhanced the image I’d already gleaned from the music press of this shadowy collective operating at some fabulously uncompromising and far-reaching outer-limit of politics-and-pop. If even Paul Morley, reviewing two of their singles together for NME, found them faintly forbidding… well, count me in! If I’m really honest, though, I think it was a photo that sealed the deal: Green, dragging on a cigarette, thin as a rail inside his baggy jumper. Clearly teetering on the edge of his nerves, with what looked like kohl darkly etched around his fragile, blazing eyes, he seemed the incarnation of intensity–all the glamour of a life harrowed by thought. There was another figure in the photograph (or was it another pic altogether?), a white guy with blonde dreadlocks: back then, this was quite a striking fashion statement (nowadays, it just signifies “nu metal, yuk!”).

1) Freddie McGregor Africa Here I Come 2) Rapper Robert Jim Brown Minister For Ganja 3) Sound Dimension Full Up 4) Stranger Cole Black Sun 5) Wailing Soul Back Out 6) Wailing Soul Back Out With Version 7) Burning Spear Rocking Time 8) Burning Spear Rocking Time 7 inch 9) Burning Spear Rocking Time extended 10) Silvertones Smile 11) Silvertones Smile dub 12) Willie Williams Jah Righteous Plan 13) Sugar Minott All Kinda People 14) Sugar Minott All Kinda Dub 15) J Osbourne Murderer 16) J Osbourne Murderer Version 17) D Drummonds Heavenless

1) Sugar Minott Vanity 2) Sound Dimension Vanity Version 3) Michigan & Smilie Rub A Dub Style LP version 4) Jah Jesco Warning 5) Lone Ranger Tribute To Bob Marley 6) Sound Dimension Version To Bob Marley 7) J Osbourne Water More Than Flour 12 inch 8/ Dennis Alcapone Riddle I This 9) Dillinger Kung Fu Fighting 10) Larry Marshall Throw Me Corn 11) Sound Dimension Throw Me Version 12) Charlie Ace & Scorcher Father and Dreadlocks 13) Rapper Robert Jim Brown Pirate 14) Cables What Kind Of World extended mix 15) Lone Ranger Badder Dan Dem 16) Wailing Soul Row Fisherman Row extended mix

I had just returned from Jamaica, and by a nice coincidence I had a very nice selection of Studio One 7″ and 12″ records selected and mixed up all ready on a link (ready to download) in my personal email inbox by a guy named Adam Morris.

Adam has been ‘namedropped’ on this very site several times by myself as he is not only a great bloke, but he was also the tour manager of Killing Joke way back during the early days of the band up until the bands heyday during 1982 or thereabouts. Adam was also one of the head honchos at the Wau / Mr Modo record label that released some proper nice stuff, either on the same  Wau / Mr Modo imprint, The Orb for example (Adam was also the manager of The Orb up to the time they signed to Virgin Records) or via Peppi’s Youth Sound label out of Stroud Green Road near Finsbury Park, Lidj Incorperated and Sound Iration etc (does anyone remember the Africa Centre Covent Garden Sound Systems this guy Peppi did?).

Adam has, along with a fellow Clash City Rocker, Pete Keeley (also a mate of Adam’s and myself incidently), a seriously large reggae vinyl record collection and I can guarantee that the tunes supplied on these mixes are proper Studio One 7″ and 12″ records bought or blagged at the time of release as opposed to a whole clutch of  relatively piss easy to get late 1980′s / early 90′s 7″or CD re-issues.

A message from Adam Morris:

“Here’s the first of the new mixes I’m doing of my reggae vinyl collection. Its been a long journey already and I feel I have just begun.

I have so far been through four recording phases since I hooked an old PC up to my mixer last Xmas.

Phase one was using Sound Forge, a programme I was familiar with, but I only had on demo version and when the crack codes stopped working I realised it was £150 + for the official thing. Not right now, thanks. I don’t mind spending money on this project, but right now I need equipment, Ableton and CD DJ decks in particular, so if it makes any money, it is going on that.

Off I went to the land of freeware and a programme called Audacity. Its good once you get used to it. But the default setting is for mono recording and I was well into mix two before I realised this fact.

End of Phase two, the mono hours.

I have issued the results of Phase three in these two mixes. The stereo hours part one.

In a previous time, I lived in the Harlesden area of London when London was the reggae capital of the world. As a result, I worked as Lee Perry’s tour manager for a short while, I shopped at Mr Pecking’s Studio One shop and got to know George Pecking well and I was neighbours and mates with Dr Alimantado, to name but a few. So I feel I had good educators. I also feel the history and culture that this wonderful music represents and the need to treat these tunes with respect.

I’ve abandoned the idea of recording one continuous live DJ mix like I used to do in previous eras. For one thing, recording a CD/MP3 and mixing live are totally different performances. One is there permanently for posterity and the other isn’t. And one requires interaction with a crowd and lights and volume and so on which do not exist in my backroom.

Add to that the restrictions of the sound card and the fact you cannot use the EQ’s on a recording as you would live without over recording, plus, ofcourse, if you make a mistake 50 minutes in, you end up re-recording the whole thing again not just the bit you messed up, which is not a good way to work.

Not when you mess up as often as I do!

Trouble with my echo box is the buttons are not very accurate. You get a delay between when you push the button and when the effect arrives. So its tough staying accurate. But, given this restriction, since the days when I heard a roland chorus echo in action (used by Killing Joke and Basement Five rather than a dub band), I’ve wondered what reggae and Coxsone in particular would sound like passed through one, given that Coxsone didn’t have one in Studio One when he made the tunes.

The versions on his singles are sparse and full of space, making them prime material for adding dub echoes to.

I’m glad to say that now I’ve heard them, the tunes sound pretty much like I suspected they would ie ACE !!!

I have evolved a methodology of recording and mixing each track separately, then I am hooking them up into a DJ mix at the end. Still learning how to label the final file so the tracks show up individually, rather than as one continuous track in the CD player. Once I’ve done that I am home free. Perhaps.

Phase 4 started ten days ago.

I’m working on a 3rd Studio One mix, then I’m going to change to another studio, I’ll go back to Coxsone further down the line.

I am now treating it more like a recording session with a band, so I am making multiple recordings. The first take is the track flat, not speeded up or EQ’d. Then I record several different remixes. That way I will eventually end up with all vinyl archived digitally, which will be a good thing to have. And then, when I get the CD DJ decks, I can use WAV’s of the original recordings and speed them up and dub them live if and / or when I start playing out live again. And I will only have to take CDR’s out, not my heavy, vintage, rare vinyl. That can stay safely in my backroom where it won’t get worn any more.

My flat is now a home recording studio for DJ’s. One morning I had an album recording in one room, a CD burning on the other PC and I was in the front playing back my mixes. It was infact the first time I’d heard them all the way through.

I’m satisfied. I want to remix the tracks again of course, infact I probably will when I’ve gone through everything else.

So that’s all my spare time for the rest of my life sorted then. I hope you like what i’ve done, there’s going to be a lot more if you do…”

Thanks to Adam for sharing these tunes with me and allowing me to upload them here on this site.

These selections esp the second one is dedicated to my little man Aaron who has had his first (out of England) holiday very recently where he enjoyed meeting some of his cousins, aunties and uncles in Kingston, Gordon Town (Blue Mountains above Kingston), Black River (St Elizabeth) and Georges Plain (Westmoreland) immensely.

The weather in Jamaica suited him a fair bit also, 25c in that country’s winter time, suited me as well to tell the truth!

Enough Is Never Enough / Some Like It Hot / Your Sin Is Your Salvaton / Whirr / Roles / Breakdown

Assault On Precinct 13 / The Tower Falls / Possession / Living For Tomorrow / Spit Upon Your Grave

The one and only album by Kill Your Pet Puppy favorites and ex Campbell Buildings, Old Street Fire station, St Monicas Hospital, Bayston Road squatters Blood And Roses.

This release was recorded well after Kill Your Pet Puppy had ceased to exist in fanzine form as the band had originally faded away with the departure of Richard Morgan the drummer of the band towards the end of  1983, sadly Jez the bassist got run over and died in a traffic accident involving a bus in Islington shortly after.

The studio engineer (for the debut Blood And Roses 12″) Ralph Jezzard stepped in on bass, a guy named Parrot joined the band on drumming duties sometime in 1984 and the band begun performing live again in 1985 with the new members. The first gig with this line up was a decent performance down the Ambulance Station down the Old Kent Road, a gig which Blyth Power also performed. This concert as well as various other Blood And Roses material (including the debut 12″ record) is available on this site if you care to use the search function and enter Blood And Roses.

Although in my opinion, the material on this LP is not quite as vital as a live performance by the band (or indeed the debut 12″) when first listening to it, the tracks do sound better after repeated plays. I thought the LP on first listening was slightly overproduced and with the addition of synth drums on some tracks it was less like the garage band riffs we were used to and it seemed to edge towards a more pop oriented 1980′s product. There are many moments of greatness on this LP though. ‘Some Like It Hot’, ‘Your Sin Is Your Salvation’, ‘Roles’, ‘Possession’, ‘Tomorrow’ and of course ‘Spit Upon Your Grave’ are all decent fare.

Blood And Roses worked on sessions for a never released second LP but alas I do not have those  tracks on tape. The band finally gave way around the time of these sessions when Lisa became pregnant and (I assume) she decided to take a break from all the recording and touring with the band, and of course take a break from all the baggage that came with the bands day to day existence (baggage which is well known to fans and friends of the band).  

Many Happy Returns to Lisa, the singer and record sleeve artist for Blood And Roses (left in picture with Cory) whose birthday it is today. Hope you have a nice relaxing day. Thanks to Phil Ritchie for the photo.

After purchasing this LP from Ugly Child Records in Walthamstow (in the same building of the much loved and much missed Small Wonder Records) I bumped into Kirk Brandon who I promptly got to sign the inner sleeve of  my copy of this Blood And Roses LP. I can not recall why he was in that area of London now as my memory has slightly faded somewhat. It certainly would not have been for a Spear Of Destiny concert as I am sure I would have attended one in that area if indeed they were performing.

Text below courtesy of Andy Martin, thanks to him as usual for all the effort:

That it has taken me 27 years to have in my collection any music by Blood & Roses is surely perverse. I knew both Bob Short and Lisa Kirby from my days as an unlikely secretary of April Housing Co-op and I met Richard Morgan, the first drummer (who tried – without success – to convince me that Magazine really were a group worthy of my attention). I think I met Jez James, too, but it was also so dark in that terraced house in Yoakley Road, Stoke Newington, that I could never tell who I was talking to. (“Do any of you have any rent for us? You do know you’re 2 months in arrears.” Brief shuffling of feet from Bob accompanied by slightly guilty grin. “Oh, er, sorry Andy, not this week.”) So why has it taken all this time for me to appreciate what they contributed to pop music, especially in a decade as starved of anything decent, interesting or relevant as the 1980s?

First: in the 1980s I was so completely submerged within my own private hell (still not recovered from nearly 2 years in a psychiatric hospital, realising I was queer and loathing it) that only truly psychotic music could break through the mental turmoil in which I suffered – i.e. The Pop Group, Throbbing Gristle, The Lemon Kittens and Five Or Six (to give 4 examples). Punk rock was always utterly irrelevant to me (middle class spoiled brats playing at being rebels only appeal to the homicidal side of my nature) and the few genuinely working class people involved in the scene never seemed to bother being in bands.

Second: the group appeared to be adopted by the Kill Your Pet Puppy collective (as I perceived it – probably erroneously) and at the time I had an extremely turbulent relationship with that crowd – you see, I possessed the social skills of a rhinoceros (and probably still do – that I have hardly any friends will attest to that) yet these colourful characters actually dared to have parties and enjoy themselves in spite of – or perhaps to spite – Britain under Thatcher. I was unable to forgive such blatant decadence! After all, it was our duty to fight the good fight, to engage in the struggle and be forever frothing at the mouth with much wailing and gnashing of teeth while we locked ourselves in darkened rooms to plot the revolution. What an utterly boring bastard I must have been back then, unlike the supremely cool, windswept and interesting chap I am now.

Third: I was in a two-bit little pop group that I think I suspected was always destined to go nowhere very fast indeed and when Blood & Roses came along and showed us how it should be done, well, maybe I was just a little bit jealous.

Fourth: through no fault of the group, the music press (very briefly) developed a fascination with the group and decided to market them as New Goth Thing (oh Jesus, give us a break) and exaggerate the Crowley Connection. In fact Bob Short did possess books by the miserable magi but, unlike so many other people during the previous 2 decades, he actually read and understood them (in so far as anyone can genuinely comprehend a book by Crowley). My heroes were people like Arthur Clarke, Isaac Asimov, Fred Hoyle, Carl Sagan and Patrick Moore so anything even remotely associated with magick, UFOs or the supernatural (I naively made no distinction) I simply dismissed as irrelevant to me.

I heard one cassette of five or six songs, recorded at Starforce Studio (where Twelve Cubic Feet also recorded their one album and where The Apostles recorded their 1st single) most of which I did enjoy – especially Tomorrow – but that was it. Important note for anyone new to this group: you will occasionally see their name linked with outfits such as Southern Death Cult, Sex Gang Children and Brigandage – ignore such associations immediately. There is absolutely no connection between Blood & Roses and all those other wallies. Also, there is nothing ‘Goth’ about Blood & Roses. How could anyone familiar with the group ever have concocted such an absurd relation?

Enough Is Never Enough

The Banshees, Tubeway Army and UK Decay all pretended to enter this territory but ultimately they failed because they were all too consumed with their own image and they cared too much about what the managers and suits actually thought about them. Blood & Roses prove what is possibly if you Do What Thou Wilt in spite of (i.e. with complete indifference to) such irrelevant arse-holes.

Some Like It Hot

Wasn’t this the title of some ancient Yankee film? I’m allergic to Hollywooden garbage so I can’t comment. Take a 1960s pop piece by, I don’t know, Petula Clark – douse it in LSD and hurl it into a dungeon. Now it’ll sound like this and you can enjoy the experience properly.

Your Sin Is Your Salvation

Unlike 90% of bands at this time Blood & Roses often gave the bass guitarist something interesting and inventive to play and this is a fine example. Add to that the tendency of the drummer to avoid the standard backbeat and top it off with occasionally odd harmonic twists and you end up with a gloriously strange anthem like this. Of course at the time I failed to appreciate stuff like this because I was too busy listening to Ornette Coleman, desperate (with complete justification) to avoid anything even remotely associated with punk rock.

Whirr

One of the most inventive and unusual pieces the group ever recorded – virtually avant garde in fact. Complaint: it’s far too brief and merits a further 2 or 3 minutes at least.

Roles

This enters the arena bristling with New York Dolls but (thank Pan) soon becomes far more interesting and vibrant than that motley crew. Turn those vocals up, for crying out loud! Not one of my favourites, perhaps because musically it’s too conservative for my tastes.

Breakdown

So what are all those odd voices in the background then? Probably something notoriously iconic that I ought to recognise but only when the vocals enter is my interest aroused. There’s a curiously rhythm and blues element to this but transplanted into the 21st century. It’s as if a group of aliens tried to play a cover of a B B King piece on instruments designed for an utterly different purpose entirely. The bass guitar is somewhat lost in the murk but the bludgeoning drums compensate.

Assault On Precinct 13

Question: why cover tedious old crap like this when you can write much more intriguing and inventive stuff yourselves? That said, they breathe new life into this music and, to be fair, there can’t be many groups who have recorded covers of not 1 but 2 John Carpenter film themes…and done it well, too. It does lend variety to the proceedings since this is an instrumental in all but name – a heavily disguised wordless vocalise drifts over the top of the churning chaos but this piece still needs an extra something to lift it out of the limitations of the chord progression that must have been old fashioned even when it was first written.

The Tower Falls

One of the more interesting lyrics (but then I’ve not encountered any Blood & Roses lyric that I’d call boring or derivative), this is another contender my usual complaint so here it is: TURN THE BLOODY VOCAL UP! Not one of the more musically inspired pieces, this is still a chugging, grumbling juggernaut of a piece that merits another fag and another tequila.

Possession

More thundering, tom-heavy drums (that’s what we want) with twisted, spiteful vocals drifting gently over the top (carry on, chaps, you’re doing well) and that trademark odd harmonic change – so what’s the problem? Like many of these pieces, it struggles against the wall of reverb that threatens to drown it in chaos.

Living For Today

Musically similar to Possession, this takes over from it and pushes the envelope into pure pop (and there’s no criticism intended there – quite the reverse). This is actually immensely powerful but the sweetness of the tune skillfully disguises the fact. Complaint: it fades out – I detest fade-outs! That caveat aside, this remains one of the stronger cuts on an album that still doesn’t actually contain any track you could call weak.

Tomorrow

I first heard this on a cassette in a dramatically different arrangement and I have to admit I still prefer that earlier version. Even so, this is still (possibly) the best pop song the group ever wrote. With considerably less reverb (except on the vocals), this would be a contender for the ‘a’ side of a single. UNIT may well record a cover of this piece (based on the first account of it) because I’d forgotten to what extent this song is a brilliant slice of triumphal, in-your-face, devil-may-care ebullient joy.

I Spit Upon Your Grave

In 3/4 time complete with piano, this is not an ideal piece with which to complete an album. However, for once, the vocals are loud enough to do justice to the singing. Note: most bands have 1 or sometimes 2 prominent players in the ensemble who are obliged to carry the limitations of the others; with Blood & Roses, there are no passengers – everyone is willing and able to contribute a performance that merits attention and this piece provides an excellent example of this fact.

The trouble is, whenever a pop group (or a writer, artist or film maker for that matter) cannot be easily labeled and categorised by those feeble minded miscreants who are employed to write about such people, the public have shoved in their faces so much ineffable twaddle that everyone (even the group) becomes perplexed and confused. I do remember the day Blood & Roses appeared on the front cover of the NME (and, I think, 1 or 2 other glossy magazines). In retrospect it was an excessively damaging development – the group was given an identity totally inappropriate to what it was actually about and the audience was thus completely misled. Had they been allowed to evolve at a more gradual pace, perhaps their ascent to the glory they deserved would have finally happened. That they were only able to release 2 singles and 1 album (whereas all that dismal and utterly irrelevant punk rubbish from Crass to The Exploited unleashed a torrent of vinyl, most of which was dire) is a damned shame, frankly – a case of quality rather than quantity.

Early incarnations of the group included No Allegiance (a good name for a group – one I nearly adopted except it sounded a little too close to punk) which changed into a symbol, a splendid hybrid of a swastika with a hammer and sickle. That was followed by “       “ which is my own favourite – that would have caused much consternation among music journalists and punters. Their next name was ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ. After that rich heritage I found their ultimately adopted name Blood & Roses a complete disappointment. It refers to an old lesbian vampire film (I think). If there is any justice in the artistic world, the tracks from that Starforce Studio demo along with pieces from the cassette Life After Death (especially Scenario, Mummy, Product Of Love, Paradise and Curse On You) will also be remastered and issued on CD.

If there is one major complaint I have to make about nearly all these recordings it is that the production is peppered with extraneous effects and reverb most of which are quite unnecessary. It is as if the 4 musicians struggle desperately to be heard through all this noise which clutters up so many supremely memorable pop songs. I once saw the group play live (I am unable to remember where) and their work was far more exciting and vibrant than any of it sounds on record. Of course, anyone unlucky enough to have heard any recordings by The Apostles will realise that for me to criticise another group for their production is akin to Pol Pot complaining to the Hong Kong police about their occasionally excessive use of force.

Dear Richard Morgan: it is time for me to repay a debt. On our own tracks Asian Invasion, Thalidomide and The Phoenix recorded by UNIT you will hear the drum pattern you used on Tomorrow recycled, revamped and reconstituted but always recognisable. Imitation is indeed a sincere form of flattery (but I still think Magazine are crap).

There is good news – Bob Short at least is still creatively active, in film as well as in music. A couple of years ago he sent me (as electronic files) some tracks his new group had recorded – unfortunately our computer refused to play them so his new music still remains a mysterious entity at present. What happened to Lisa then? A singer of her ability and calibre ought not to languish in the relative obscurity of a 1980s pop group, however fondly remembered. Anyway, along with Five Or Six, 23 Skidoo, Twelve Cubic Feet, Cold War and Part 1, we can add Blood & Roses to that hallowed elite company of groups who were simply too unusual or too inventive to be appreciated properly at the time they were active.

Andy Martin 2010 

Uploaded to youtube a couple of weeks ago by a fan. From the VA-Break The Silence Tape, no visuals just the tape cover but a great song.

The first person to post a credible history of the Hagars will be my valentine.

Until then believe me when I say the Hagars were the glue that held the nascent London Anarcho scene together – apart from glue of course!

XXX

Fifth time over there for me, first time over there for the infant Penguin.

No new posts (with music downloads attached) for two weeks. Sorry about that.

Tony Puppy adds: but the the site is still open for your continuing pleasure. Keep on reading, listening and commenting as usual.

Sid Vicious And The Idols Max’s Kansas City performance 30th September 1978

Search And Destroy / Chatterbox / Something Else / I Wanna Be Your Dog / Belsen Was A Gas / Stepping Stone / Take A Chance With Me / No Lip / Chinese Rocks / My Way (part of)

A particularly extreme example of the self-immolating celebrity — and one of the first high-profile casualties of the punk era — John Simon Ritchie A.K.A Sid Vicious was given his education in unhealthy lifestyles early in his existence, his mother Anne using (and sometimes selling) heroin throughout his childhood. His father, a Grenadier Guard in the British Army named John Ritchie, left the family shortly after his son’s birth, and his stepfather Christopher Beverly died after only six months, leaving Anne to raise young John Simon primarily on her own. Shortly after the dissolution of her first marriage, Anne relocated herself and her son to the Spanish island of Ibiza, returning to England in 1965 just prior to her second marriage and living in Kent for several years before moving to Hackney in 1971. It was here that John made the acquaintance of John Lydon while both were attending Hackney Technical College in 1974; it was also during this period that he initiated his own hard drug use and began to cultivate the destructive behavior that would earn him such notoriety in later years.

Ultimately, John Ritchie dropped out of school and spent his time hanging around with the so-called Bromley Contingent, a gang of disaffected youths that adopted the music and fashions of the emerging UK punk rock scene and maintained an orbit around the John Lydon (now Johnny Rotten) – fronted band The Sex Pistols. In the summer of 1976 Ritchie became a member of The Flowers of Romance alongside future Public Image Limited guitarist Keith Levene, but the group never actually did anything in public; before the end of the year he had joined Siouxsie and the Banshees as a drummer, although this situation did not endure far beyond the group’s debut performance in September of 1976. Afterwards, while living in a squat with both Lydon and John Wardle (later Jah Wobble), Ritchie chose to call himself Sid Vicious in order to distinguish himself from the overabundance of Johns, and subsequently did his best to live up to the anti-social implications of his new name. By early 1977 he had been drafted into the Pistols to replace departing bass player Glen Matlock, despite the marked limitations of his playing ability (supposedly, Vicious’s bass was turned down during many Pistols shows, and his recorded parts were actually performed by either Matlock or guitarist Steve Jones).

Prior to Vicious’s membership, the Sex Pistols had already earned themselves widespread notoriety for their combative attitudes and use of profanity (a couple of fucks and a shit) during an interview on national television with Bill Grundy; their debut single Anarchy in the U.K., released by EMI in November of 1976, also created a considerable stir around the band despite EMI’s decision to cease manufacturing it after less than two months. Vicious helped to maintain this anarchic reputation by vandalizing the office of A&M’s Managing Director (an act he consummated by puking on the director’s desk) during the party celebrating their signing to the label. The band was forced to find a new home a week later, and thus it was that their next single God Save the Queen was instead released by Virgin in May of 1977. The song instigated an even stronger negative response than Anarchy in the U.K., but the resulting hype also successfully pushed it up to the #2 position in the British charts — although there is some evidence to suggest that it might have actually reached #1.

Issued in October, the Pistols’ debut full-length Never Mind the Bollocks, Here’s the Sex Pistols lived up to the controversy created by the two preceding singles, the album’s title resulting in an obscenity trial that was ultimately dismissed. A month after Bollocks’s release, the fate of the band’s already rapidly-deteriorating bass player was sealed through his meeting with ex-prostitute / heroin addict Nancy Spungen. 

Nancy was born in Philadelphia on 27 February 1958, and was a difficult child almost from birth. She threw ferocious tantrums that scared her parents and cried so much that she was given her first sedative at the age of three months. By the age of 4, she had seen a psychiatrist. When Nancy was 11, she attacked her mother with a hammer and smashed her bedroom to pieces. She first tried heroin at the age of 13 and two years later was an addict. Her behaviour was so out of control that doctors refused to treat her until she was diagnosed as schizophrenic. By the time she was 17, her parents asked her to leave home. The unbalanced groupie from New York who had come to London with the intention of latching onto a punk celebrity, Spungen found the equally unbalanced Vicious an easy target, and soon had him sharing her heroin habit as well as her bodily fluids. This tumultuous relationship created significant problems between Sid and his band mates. Lydon in particular repeatedly pressed his friend to sever his ties with Spungen, but the unhealthy co-dependence that had formed between the two was something that Vicious was unwilling to leave behind.

At the start of 1978 the Sex Pistols embarked on their first American tour, organized by their manipulative manager Malcolm McLaren. The tour fell apart after only two weeks, however, and a few days after a performance at Winterland in San Francisco Rotten announced the dissolution of the band — apparently as a bluff, but no one called him on it and McLaren and half of the band promptly buggered off to Brazil. Vicious had not fared very well in his forced separation with Spungen during the tour, and he immediately flew to New York to reunite with her. A short period was spent back in England before traveling to Paris to contribute to McLaren’s Julien Temple-directed film The Great Rock ‘N’ Roll Swindle (1978) (a largely fictional account of the Sex Pistol’s history); Vicious’ first solo tracks would be recorded for the film’s soundtrack, which included a piss-take on the Frank Sinatra standard My Way and covers of Eddie Cochran’s Something Else and C’mon Everybody.

After raising some money through a final UK performance with the help of a backing band named The Vicious White Kids, Sid and Nancy relocated to New York City on a permanent basis, taking up residence at the Chelsea Hotel on 23rd Street. With $10,000 to spend, the couple went on a drug holiday, scoring heroin on the streets while developing a taste for the barbiturates Tuinal and Dilaudid, a synthetic morphine. They made an effort to kick their habit by signing on at the Spring Street Methadone Clinic, but it was a sour experience for Sid, who suffered frequent beatings from other addicts. He and Nancy then started taking methadone in an attempt to wean them off heroin.

Vicious then attempted to launch a solo career, with Spungen assuming the role of manager and various British and American punk musicians acting as his new band The Idols. A poor-quality collection culled from some of his live performances during this period was eventually released as Sid Sings in 1979. These solo ambitions were abruptly brought to an end in October, when he was arrested for killing Spungen, found dead in their apartment from a single stab wound on the morning of the 12th.

At 2.30am on 12 October, their personal drug dealer with the fantastic name of Rockets Redglare received a frantic call from Nancy to get some ‘D-4s’ (the street name for Dilaudid) and hypodermic needles. Rockets arrived at 3.15am with only some methadone – he had been unable to get any D-4s. Nancy was wearing a shirt over black panties. Sid was sacked out on the bed and the couple was already high on Tuinal, which had slowed them down physically, but did not satisfy their craving for Dilaudid, which they intended to take intravenously. Nancy showed the dealer her open handbag, which was stuffed with 50 and 100 dollar notes. She told him that she would pay double if he could get forty D-4s. He left just after 5am to try his contacts.

Just after this, the guest in room 228 called the front desk to complain about all the noise coming from room 100 below him. The desk clerk sent a bellhop named Kenny to check it out, and he found Sid Vicious wandering the corridors, singing loudly. When Kenny asked Sid to be quiet, Vicious taunted him with abuse, and a fight ensued. Kenny swiftly beat Vicious into submission, bloodying Sid’s face as he fell. The bellhop then returned to the lobby.

At about 7.30am, a woman’s loud moaning awoke Vera Mendelssohn, a 48-year-old sculptor in room 102. It came from next door – room 100, and was a lonely, frightening sound. Nothing more was heard from there until Sid himself telephoned after someone had already called the front desk just after 11.00am. 

11.00am on 12 October 1978 the desk clerk at the Chelsea Hotel in New York City received a telephone call. A man told him, “There’s trouble in Room one hundred.” The clerk sent a bellboy to check it out, but before he returned, the front desk had another call, this time from room 100. “Someone is sick here”, a different male voice said. “Need help.”

The platinum blonde lay face-up on the floor of the toilet, her head under the sink. She wore only a black bra and panties, both items soaked with blood from a one-inch knife wound in her lower abdomen. The hotel bed was also extensively stained with blood. The desk clerk called for an ambulance, which arrived with a police escort. After the paramedics confirmed that the woman was dead, police checked the room and found drugs and drug paraphernalia as well as a bloodstained Jaguar K-11 folding knife with a five-inch blade and a black jaguar carved into the handle. The victim had been resident in Room 100 with her drug-addicted boyfriend.

The drug-addled musician could not remember the incident, but the knife responsible for the wound was still in the room when Spungen’s body was discovered. Police found Vicious wandering the hotel hallways, crying; he was immediately taken into custody and charged with second-degree homicide.  By the time Sid Vicious was arrested, he had taken enough Tuinal to kill a horse.

Virgin Records on instruction from Malcolm McClaren put up the money required for bail shortly after his arrest.

Vicious’ mental state became even more erratic following his arrest. His mother Anne Beverley flew out to New York City on 16 October, the day of his release on bail. Within a week, he tried to commit suicide by overdosing on methadone and slashing his right arm. His mother discovered him and rushed him to Bellevue hospital, saving his life.

Another arrest followed in December due to an assault on Patti Smith’s brother Todd at Max’s Kansas City; after serving two months in jail, Virgin supplied his bail for a second time, and he was released once again pending his trial for Spungen’s murder. That trial would never take place: Vicious was found dead of what is speculated to be a deliberate heroin overdose on February 2nd at the home of his new girlfriend Michelle Robinson. Supposedly his ashes were scattered on Nancy Spungen’s grave by his mother Anne Beverly as per his request, but whether this actually was accomplished remains in dispute as this act was against the express wishes of the Spungen family…

Photographs of the Sid Vicious Memorial March below taken by Janette Beckman in 1980.

Kill Your Pet Puppy Collective memories of the Sid Vicious Memorial March

HERE 

HERE 

HERE 

and  HERE

Nancy Spungen was not murdered by Sex Pistols member Sid Vicious, Malcolm McLaren says.

McLaren said he can’t believe it.

The former Sex Pistols manager said Vicious, the band’s bassist, was incapable of murdering her.

Spungen was found dead on 12 October 1978 in the couple’s New York hotel room having suffered a single stab wound to her abdomen from which she apparently bled to death.

Vicious was arrested and charged with her murder but claimed to have no memory of the event. He died of of a heroin overdose on February 2 1979.

Writing in a blog for The Daily Beast, McLaren said: “I was stunned when I first heard this and I still can’t believe it. Sid was capable of a wide range of self-destructive acts, but I didn’t think that he could kill someone, especially his girlfriend, unless it was a botched double suicide.”

He added that he believed Spungen was killed after getting in a fight with someone who had stolen money from the couple’s room.

He wrote: “He passed out on the bed, having taken fistfuls of the barbiturate Tuinal. All around him, drug dealers, and friends of Nancy came and went from Room 100.

“Money was stolen and Sid’s knife was taken from the wall where it was hung and seemingly used by someone defending themselves in a struggle with Nancy.

“Nancy was no pushover. Probably, she caught this person stealing money from the bedroom drawer.”

He also revealed that Vicious’ mother Anne Beverley smuggled him heroin hidden in her vagina.

McLaren wrote: “Sid’s mother, Anne, was kind enough and helped him wherever she could. A small-time drug dealer, she smuggled heroin in her vagina to Sid at Riker’s Island, a detention center in New York where he was awaiting trial for the murder of Nancy.”