JOHNNY ROTTEN ------------- He began life as John Lydon on January 31, 1956, was born to Irish Catholic parents in North London, and grew up in Finsbury Park. He left school while in his early teens and did as little of anything as possible. He had no money, and his parents had none to give him. He had no plans for himself and refused any advice offered by others. In 1975, young John was lolling around the jukebox in Sex, a barbarous boutique on the King's Road, being his usual uncouth, scurrilous, philistine self, when the shop's owner, hustler Malcolm McLaren, asked him if he wanted to sing in a rock group. John, blond, scrawny, deathly pale, and smelly, said he'd never sung a note in his bleeding life, so piss off, you wanker, all rock stars are faggots who eat dead babies. MacLaren smiled. He was accustomed to the niceties of screening talents like young Johnny. In 1971, MacLaren and wife Vivienne Westwood had opened "Let It Rock", a dodgy little haberdashery serving London's duck-tailed teddyboy revivalists. Next came a place called "Too Fast to Live, Too Young to Die". In 1974, MacLaren was visited by five rouged, hangdog longhairs in scuffed platform shoes, halter tops, and body stockings. They looked like transvestite screamers who'd been hauled through a knothole. They were the New York Dolls, a rock group on the skids. Malcolm wouldn't let them leave the shop without him; he tailed them to Paris and then the States; he begged to be their major domo, proposing a new image build around something he called "the politics of boredom". They took the bait - and threw it back. When the Dolls disbanded in the middle of a performance in Florida, McLaren returned home to his wife's new shop, Sex. (Actually it was still the same dump they'd been running since 1971; only the names and, occasionally, the clientele had changed.) John smiled back, something he seldom did. McLaren got an unprecedented peep at the youth's cheesy crud-caked incisors and renamed him Johnny Rotten. This was it: the ideal lead singer for a group designed to insult. The rest of the band - which McLaren had dubbed the Sex Pistols - consisted of bassist Glen Matlock, drummer Paul Cook, and guitarist Steve Jones. They borrowed their antimusical sound from the head-splitting blare of the Ramones, a New York band noted for their three-chord dronathons, and sought an alliance with the thousands of unemployed and disaffected English youth whose parents were on the dole. Their audience: the punks. Their creed: Oh, bollocks, let it all fall down; we've no bleeding future, rock and roll included; Mick Jagger is a rich twit; Rod Stewart is old and in the way; everything is irrelevant, especially us. EMI Records signed them and released their first single, "Anarchy in the UK", in 1976. It sounded like four alley cats in a blender with the setting on "shred". Somewhere in the, ah, lyrics, Rotten claimed to be the Antichrist. The Sex Pistols were invited onto "Today", London's popular live television talk show, and host Bill Grundy asked Rotten to utter something outrageous. Johnny bared his moldy teeth and obliged with "dirty fucker" and "fucking rotter". By the next morning, the Pistols had been denounced in Parliament, damned on the front pages, and reviled in the streets. "Anarchy" was an overnight hit. Twenty-one concert dates were booked across the U.K. The Pistols were prevented from playing all but three, getting the plug pulled on them at their debut after ten minutes. In January 1977, Steve Jones was accused of vomiting on an old woman in a lounge at Heathrow Airport, and EMI responded by dropping them. There was a stampede by other companies to sign the Pistols, and a thoroughly disgusted Matlock left, to be replaced by a thoroughly disgusting Sid Vicious, aka John Ritchie. A&M took them on, and seven days later called the deal off; the Pistols got œ75,000 to go away. Virgin Records was next up, and issued "God Save the Queen" - in which Rotten commented, "She ain't no human being!" - just in time for the Queen's Silver Jubilee. Warner Bros. signed them for the States, and an LP, "Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols" reached the stores late in 1977, slapped with a sticker that read: THIS ALBUM MAY CONTAIN MATERIAL UNSUITABLE FOR AIRPLAY. The Pistols couldn't get any gigs in their homeland, so they raced through Europe, one half-step ahead of vice squads and other civil authorities, then jumped a plane to America, showing up for a handful of "fortissimo" free-for-alls before chucking it in San Francisco on January 14, 1978. Johnny changed his name back to Lydon and formed a new band, the Carnivorous Buttocks Flies, who then became Public Image Limited (PiL, for short) and landed a deal with Virgin Records. It was a seven-man outfit. They drew up a list of principles to be distributed to the press: 1. PiL is not a group, but a wide-ranging corporation, which deals with other corporations; PiL produces music, images, and graphics. 2. PiL refuses to deal with middlemen,notably managers. 3. PiL is composed of individuals who make music separately,and the music of PiL is a collage of their individual work. 4. PiL does not tour. There is no question of becoming a production line. 5. PiL doesn't put out records, but objects. PiL's first album, "First Issue", sounded like seven alley cats in a blender with the setting on "grind". PiL released three more albums, "Second Edition" (issued as Metal Box in England and packaged in a film canister), "Paris au Printemps", and "Flowers of Romance". In 1981, Public Image, Ltd., did a show at the Ritz in New York City while standing behind a scrim, and irate fans responded with a bottle-throwing melee. PiL was gone by 1983, and Lydon, broke and in debt, accepted $10,000 to appear in a low-budget film, "Order of Death". He played Leo Smith, a wealthy schizophrenic cop killer who induces Officer Fred O'Connor (actor Harvey Keitel) to slit his own throat. Lydon/Smith was able to effect this without singing a single note. The movie, released in the United States as "Corrupt", was universally panned, but the New York Times found Johnny convincing, especially in the scenes in which he eats from a dog bowl: "Mr. Lydon, who has just the right insinuating, runty quality for Leo, makes a strong expression". ------------------ Detta {r taget ur en bok som heter "Rock Stars" och {r skriven av Timothy White. Eftersom n}gra sidor efter det sista jag just har skrivit om Lydon {r utrivna, kanske n}gon viss f|ljande historia om honom ocks} {r utriven. ------------------ SEX PISTOLS (en bit ur "Bonniers Rocklexikon" (1987) ) ----------- Sex Pistols, som med McLarens hj{lp var en vidareutveckling av gruppen "Swankers", debuterade live 6 november 1975 p} St. Martin's College of Art i London och gjorde sig snabbt k{nd som den mest omdiskuterade av de nya engelska punkgrupperna, bl. a. p. g. a. sitt aggressiva och respektl|sa scenupptr{dande och McLarens mediamanipulerande marknadsf|ring. Den 6 januari 1977 br|t EMI (ett hopp h{r; NP-anm.) kontraktet, p. g. a. de m}nga skandaler som f|ljde av Sex Pistols anarkistiska och h{mningsl|sa upptr{dande i konsertsalar och }tf|ljande uppm{rksamhet i massmedierna. Musiken var enkel rock baserad p} 50-talets r&r i slagkraftiga arrangemang och med en viss inspiration fr}n heavyrock, framf|rt med ett vilt effekts|kande scenframtr{dande som inte v{jde f|r att chockera i upproret mot den etablerade engelska musiken. Debut-LPn blev en symbol f|r den engelska punkexplosionen i slutet av 70-talet. Den korta och skandalomsusade karri{ren slutade d} gruppen uppl|stes efter en turne' i USA 1978. Kort d{rp}, den 2 februari 1979, dog Vicious i New York av en |verdos heroin. Vicious var vid den tidpunkten misst{nkt f|r mord p} sin d} 20-}riga v{ninna Nancy Spungen, som avled p} Chelsea Hotel i New York 12 oktober 1978. ]ret d{rp} utgavs hans solo-LP ("Sid Sings"). Lydon bildade Public Image Limited och avsade sig varje f|rbindelse med Sex Pistols-myten, medan Jones och Cook bildade The Professionals i juli 1980. Matlock bildade redan i mars 77 gruppen Rich Kids, och spelade senare bl. a. i London Cowboys. Trots Sex Pistols korta livstid fortsatte MacLaren sin egen Sex Pistols-industri (han ans}g sig {ga r{tten till namnet, tills en domstol i London i februari 1986 avgjorde att r{tten tillh|rde Lydon, Jones, Cook och Vicious mor) med en rad skivutgivningar, bl. a. LPn "The Great Rock'n'Roll Swindle" och filmen med samma namn - n}got som {r betecknande f|r McLarens s{tt att utnyttja fenomenet Sex Pistols. I mitten av 80-talet tycktes gruppen st} inf|r en ren{ssans - s}ledes utgavs 1985 inte mindre {n 10 LP med olika inspelningar. Flera av plattorna {r utgivna via ganska obskyra v{gar. D{rut|ver {r de flesta av gruppens konserter tillg{ngliga p} piratplattor, liksom det ocks} finns piratplattor med t. ex. Sid Vicious. 1983 utgav Nancy Spungens mor, Deborah Spungen, boken "And I don't want to live this life" om Nancys liv. Boken kom 1985 p} svenska under titeln "Inte som andra d|ttrar". 1986 hade Alan Cox spelfilm "Sid & Nancy" premi{r. Filmens titelmelodi skrevs av Joe Strummer fr}n The Clash. Dessutom inneh}ller filmen musik av bl. a. John Cale och The Pogues. Filmens huvudroller spelas av Gary Oldman och Chloe Webb. Sex Pistols spelade i Skandinavien i juli 1977. ---------------------------- Detta {r lite redigerat - men bara det som stod den f|rsta texten i denna fil har tagits bort. ---------------------------- PUBLIC IMAGE Ltd. ----------------- Engelsk grupp (= t{nk noga p} vad som stod om PiL i den engelska texten; NP-anm.) fr}n London bildad i b|rjan av 1979 av John Lydon (alias Johnny Rotten) (vo); Keith Levine (el-g, el-b, synth); Jah Wobble (John Wordle) (el-b) och Jim Walker (trum), som snabbt l{mnade gruppen vilken pr|vade flera trummisar innan Martin Atkins (trum) tilltr{dde i b|rjan av 1980. ]ret innan hade Wobble l{mnat gruppen som d{refter fortsatte med skiftande bes{ttningar, bl. a. med gruppens manager Jeanette Lee som ocks} spelade percussion. PiL {r mycket rytm-orienterad, samtidigt som man arbetat med buller- och klang-ytor som inspirerats av tyska grupper som Can. Centrerad kring Lydon har gruppen fortsatt att vara f|rbunden med punk och har ofta varit provokativ och okontrollerad vid konserter. V}ren 1984 l{mnade Levine gruppen under stor uppst}ndelse d} han h{vdade att han ensam skrivit och spelat in all gruppens musik! S}ledes {r LPn "Commercial Zone" hans utg}va av "This is what you want - this is what you get". Levine var under en period i New York gift med s}ngerskan Lori Montana (fd ART, fd Pulsallama). Senare har Lydon bl. a. arbetat tillsammans med Afrika Bambaataa och The Golden Palominos och Atkins har givit ut plattor under pseudonymen Brian Brian. I b|rjan av 1986 gjorde PiL LPn "The Album" med g{stmedverkan av bl. a. Ginger Baker (trum); Bill Laswekk (el-b) och Ryuichi Sakamoto (keyb). Wobble har sedan han l{mnade gruppen arbetat med en rad musiker i olika sammanhang och har ocks} givit ut en rad plattor - dels i eget namn men ocks} med The Human Condition och Invaders of the Heart. Vidare har han haft ett n{ra samarbete med poeten Joolz. Han f|retr{der en sammansm{ltning av olika stilarter och har arbetat med musiker fr}n vitt skilda milj|er. ------------------- Jag har h{r bara {ndrat lite i texten f|r att |ka f|rst}elsen - men den h}ller sig. Finns det n}gon som dock kan ber{tta vidare om PiLs {ventyr i musikbranschen (f|r jag _vet_ att de har sl{ppt en platta under 90-talet), eller om John Lydon i allm{nhet (kanske n}got om den sj{lvbiografiska bok han nyligen har skrivit?) kan ni skicka bidragen till: Niklas_Pivic@hts.ct.se eller till 2:201/610 Nedskrivet den 11/4 1994. Till{gnat Kurdt Kobain.