Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

I didn't know Sid played a Rick.

That's Glen Matlock, the original bassist. Sid Came later, and "played" a P-bass...horribly.

Glen Matlock: http://www.sexpistolsofficial.com/index ... item_id=30

Oh, thanks, Paul! My mistake - I should have looked more closely. And maybe worn my specs.

Yeah, Sid was given the job for his charisma, not his musical skill.

Cool picture, though!

The original bassist for the Sex Pistols was a huge McCartney fan,...and that really peed off Johnny Rotten.

Great Picture Kira!

Trivia - from memory Sid "played" a modded 4000 during the scenes in Swindle where the Pistols were auditioning replacements for Johnny Rotten....

Mind you, I saw Swindle 30 years ago, so the old memory may be playing tricks...

paologregorio wrote:Sid Came later, and "played" a P-bass...horribly.

Played is generous, even with parentheses.

I don't care how many posters they sold because of Sid....he RUINED that band. They never recorded another good song after he joined them.

I saw their historical last performance at Winterland arena, San Francisco, in January 1978.
Johnny Rotten broke up the band, like three days after the Winterland show.

Sid Vicous murdered his girlfriend and confessed to it, a couple of months after their breakup. Sid O.D.ed on heroin the evening they released him from jail, on bail, in early 1979. At a party to celebrate his release. A life that had spun out of control ....

But the band made one of the biggest musical statements in history with their short lived career and influenced lots of artists... and their one studio album ranks in the top list of Rolling Stone magazine, etc.

8mileshigher wrote:I saw their historical last performance at Winterland arena, San Francisco, in January 1978.
Johnny Rotten broke up the band, like three days after the Winterland show.

Wow, that's so cool Rich!

That's one of the most historical gigs of the 1970s, for any band..... "Ever get the feeling you've been cheated?"

well....didya?

Very Cool pic

Ooops...see below.

Glen was responsible for writing the bulk of The Pistols' music. When he left and Sid joined, it was just a matter of time before the Pistols crashed and burned.
Glen picked up where he left off after the Pistols and wrote/recorded some great power pop/punk sides with The Rich Kids.
Check out their "Best Of" CD...highly recommended. Their single "Ghosts of Princes In Towers" is a classic!

Rich, I'm jealous!

I did see Sid play at Max's Kansas City in '78. He was wasted and spent a lot of the time on the stage floor! I'm still kicking myself for not bringing a camera!

Check out these clippings from my old scrap book...

collin wrote:

8mileshigher wrote:I saw their historical last performance at Winterland arena, San Francisco, in January 1978.
Johnny Rotten broke up the band, like three days after the Winterland show.

Wow, that's so cool Rich!

That's one of the most historical gigs of the 1970s, for any band..... "Ever get the feeling you've been cheated?"

well....didya?

I have sort of vague memories of the Pistols... I remember my brother had their album and the safety pin thing was big. My recollection is that "punk rock" as a movement was getting publicity .... pictures were coming in from England in the music press and reports on "underground radio stations" about these "in your face" provocations being attributed to the Sex Pistols.

So probably half the people in the audience were there to try and figure out what this "punk rock" hyperbola was all about. The other half were there because they thought is would be cool to be seen, or because they were hoping to meet a guy or girl and claim, for posterity, that they met at a Sex Pistols concert.

My only memory is that the music was just thundering loud and Johnny Rotten was screaming the whole time. We recognized the performance of two of their tunes that were getting some underground radio play then "Anarchy in the UK" and "God Save the Queen". But honestly, I don't remember any of the controversial things Johnny Rotten said on stage ..... probably read about the comments in Rolling Stone or some other media.

It was just the strangest thing, a couple of days later, to be with the friends who went to the concert and the Sex Pistols had just dis-banded and it was like, that was it --- and now they are gone ?? The punk scene was built around its own anarchistic self-destruction. Nobody realized at the time, how historical that band would become or that it was their last concert, on their one and only US tour.

collin wrote: I don't care how many posters they sold because of Sid....he RUINED that band. They never recorded another good song after he joined them.

I think I read somewhere that actually Sid was on very few SP recordings.... they brought back and overdubbed the original bassist (after he had left the band) and they brought in others, on this and that song, because Sid couldn't really play.

The guy who thought he was writing the book on "living your life out of control" actually had his legacy controlled by some recording engineers turning down the pots and erasing his contributions from most of their recordings.

Yup, Sid was there for the publicity, the pub, and the "brown"...but not for his 4 string talent.

The Pistols remain one of the greatest British bands, and NMTB still raw and brilliant for what it stands for. That summer of '77 was memorable in many ways, and the Pistols were always at the front of it all.

I may have seen Matlock and the Rich Kids sometime back then, but my very young teenage mind can't recall exactly where...