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| (Sid Vicious No one Is Innocent) BY MALCOLM MCLAREN John Simon Ritchie aka John Beverly aka Sid Vicious aka Sex Pistol aka Agent Provocateur. The most formidable and controoversial icon of his generation. A questionable James Dean of Punk fashion. A surrogate Elvis Presley of Punk Rock. Sid was everything everyone else was not. Both good and bad. He impressed us all and embarrassed us all. His life was an effortless performance of style. He never saw a red light, only green. He should have been buried next to Karl Marx in London's Highgate Cemetery. That was my wish, but Anne Beverley, his mother, decided to have him cremated instead. To look back, as I have been asked by Alan Parker, the author, at these episodes in my life and times spent with Sid, I have to wonder why so many people simply look at me in disbelief and ask, 'How did it all happen?' 'Who was Sid?' 'Was he vicious?' And the more adventurous ask, 'Are you really evil?' Well, I say, 'My son thinks so ... Vivienne Westwood thinks so ... other girlfriends think so, Johnny Rotten certainly thinks so and most conservative people the world over think so. The Pope probably thinks so too.' They are all right and they are all wrong. If I take a different view on all of this - one that is pragmatic rather than romantic, a view from the balcony, so to speak, what will I see? Electric guitars and cheap multi-track recorders giving license to a generation of kids with no musical training, obvious talent or permission from anyone to start bands and record music. Everyone is saying, 'I can do this' and 'I want to play that!' For a while, of course, the assumption was that to be like Sid Vicious, the right way of learning was to imitate him. How? By learning his songs!!!!? Reading the sheet music, Hah! Get a music teacher? And then go play the tunes! Because no one wants to hear your rubbish. Do what the industry expects. What they teach you to believe is good. Sid changed all that and more. Sid meant, OK, you have your bass but you don't have to play it well, or even at all. You can play it badly - and I endorsed that attitude. For if you can't write your own songs, it doesn't matter, simply steal other people's and change them the way you want. What matters is this: you are going to change the rules and in doing so, change the culture and, by that, change life. Through Punk Rock, a whole new fresh approach occurred and Sid reflected this in his sound and stance. To watch him was to watch a raw open-wounded creature being loved for doing something different. It fast became a way of life. Sid lowered the bar of entry and allowed everyone into the creative process. The line between the audience and band was blurred. Sid was a fan who invented the Pogo. It made for chaos, it threw the fan at the feet of the band and suddenly the fan was all the attention and, for that moment, the star. Sid created a new business model, as fans are also creators. Today on the worldwide web we talk about the old audience. One-ti;rne fans, passive buyers of music in stores turned into pro-active makers of the music itself. Sid was the doyenne of all our youth. He pushed the mainstream right out of the picture, inspiring us to blow off the door of the recording industry, releasing every song from the jail and letting everyone know about it across the planet. Instantly doing the work that was once the work of critics, DJs and marketing companies. And Simon Fuller, the creator of Pop Idol, where would he be with him? Sid Vicious began the age of participation in which everyone could be the artist. Alan Parker, the author of Satellite, has decided to analyse the short history of England's foremost Punk idol. Friend of all those once active in the 70s, he has completed the most intensive study of Sid's life and the world he inhabited. Everyone I knew and cared for wanted to sleep with Sid and no one more so than my erstwhile girlfriend, Vivienne Westwood. She got close, very close. He was her chosen one, the original and best Sex Pistol. Sid was someone Vivienne tried to connect me with early on when I was desperately searching for a singer to front that emerging new band I had named the 'Sex Pistols'. His power of seduction was obvious. He didn't just wear the clothes. He acted them. My taste was close to Vivienne's in this respect, but as fate would have it, I got connected to the wrong John instead. John Lydon. But I quickly changed the bass player when I got the chance. Sid didn't just play the bass and sing the songs. He caused mayhem! He was his own audience and star. The ultimate D.I.Y. Punk idol. He provided a readymade, doyourself identity. Someone easy to assemble and therefore become. Sid was good-looking and cool enough to be emulated by all the disenfranchised of his generation. He single-handedly reinvented the classic Havana tuxedo as an outlaw costume by styling it with a pair of black drainpipe jeans and what slowly would become the ubiquitous Punk garter that he wore so sweetly around his left thigh! His vocal performance on 'My Way' outpaced and, many say, out sang Sinatra's with its venomous tirade against Johnny Rotten. How could such a creature exist! An asexual pimp, a heteroosexual liar, and a homosexual flake, an authentic pin-up, a true star. He was no shoe-gazer. He tore into your heart when he sang. He made sex purposely corny and ordinary. Easy for those who needed to overcome any inhibitions they may have at puberty. He was a dream idol for pre-teens too. He was provocaative and dangerously sexy, stretching the limits in this way. His vanity was sublime and wonderfully cheeky. He was so typically young and foolish. Making love seemed a too-distant subject. Too difficult to bother to even comprehend. 'Who cares about love?' Sid once said to me. 'Love is for people preparing to die.' He made everyone near me say this. His lawlessness and disregard for normal values made him a serious threat in the band and the music industry made no attempt to hide its feelings. It continued throughout his short career to conspire with those it thought would help get rid of him, including Johnny Rotten. On stage, he was the greatest amateur. He seemed to keep everyone waiting for something to happen! And then, madly, gladly, unknowingly and without inhibition or pretence he would always surprise us. The audience began congregating at the left side of the stage waiting for Sid. And by the end of the Sex Pistols' US tour, John Rotten was left alone. During the preparations for Sid's trial, my conversations with various promoters had me contemplating Sid performing in Las Vegas. I was positive about his acquittal. But Sid's trial was going to cost a fortune and with the Sex Pistols' account drained, I thought this was an excellent new adventure and moneyymaker. Sid could sing for his supper at the Sands in Las Vegas and pay the bills. He would have taken Las Vegas by storm. He was the only Punk candidate to fill Elvis Presley's shoes. Sid's mother Anne was kind enough and helped him wherever she could. She was a small-time drug dealer. She smuggled heroin in her cunt and entered Rikers Island a detention centre in New York where Sid was awaiting trial for the murder of Nancy. She was the dutiful mother. She aided him in his last breath, killing him and killing herself years later. Sid saw the halo of the Sex Pistols burn out before anyone. Almost the moment after he climbed on stage to join them. 'Disappointed Sid' set about destroying them and reinventing them at the same time. At a soundcheck on the Dutch tour, John as usual refused to work with the rest of the band. Sid gladly replaced Rotten on vocals. He sang every song word-perfect and in tune. I'll never forget John's face drowning in his beer, Steve Jones's bemused expression, and Sid so natural. He had out Punked them before John could even blow his nose. History would show how the group would soon descend without Sid into a middle-aged Pantomimic Rock group. Everything I had fought against from the very beginning. Sid always managed to create an environment that you could truthfully run wild in. Sid had to put the boot in somewhere, sometime in San Francisco. He was the Sex Pistols' problem but alas the rest of the band could never agree that he might also be their saviour. Earlier that year, outside Buckingham Palace, we signed to A&M Records. Sid was the surprise newcomer to the band. He made the scene unforgettable with his swagger and nonchalant style. His ability to always look like he had just climbed out of bed was stunning. His performance at the press conference afterwards became legendary in the media when he challenged a stuffy female journalist to have sex to stop the bullshit, taunting her contradictory attitudes and causing her to cry. Today she's running a graduate course in Punk Rock at New York University. This anti-musical genre of Punk Rock should be described as a carefully managed attack on the corporate world. It is an act of irresponsible violence, of making ugliness beautiful. But it is presented today as no more than a post karaoke nightmare. My personal image of Sid is that of a fearless, but anxious, vulnerable youth. An irresponsible and utterly brilliant failure. He was never a benign success and Vivienne was right. Sid did sell more records back in 1978 than Johnny Rotten. Sid is as fashionable today as he was yesterday. He is constantly studied, reinterpreted and reappraised. His iconic status remains secure. He can be seen everywhere from the sneer of Billy Idol to the drug habits and attitude of Pete Doherty. From the pornography of Paris Hilton to the cabaret performance of Lily Allen. From the styles of Heidi Slimane to the poses and posturing in Dazed &' Confused and Fantastic Man. His face has peered out of more T-shirts, posters and documentaries than any other rock star of his era. His uncanny ability to imitate art and yet at the same time make it seem so natural that he claims it as his own is a Warholian dream. Andy would often drift into my Sex store on the Kings Road in Chelsea and look desperately for a T-shirt with Sid's name printed on it. I'd say, 'Andy! I don't do that!' 'Malcolm', he replied, 'Just do it for me, just one!' Later he would paint Sid's portrait for the cover of an art magazine. Sid was the precursor to the Young British Artists of the 90s, better known as the YBA's. Damien Hirst told me he would have joined a Punk band had he not managed to sell his art early on in his career. The artist Gavin Turk became Sid Vicious forever by resurrecting him as Gavin Turk, copying the classic pose and outfit Sid wore in The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle. Sid/Gavin both shooting at us from the inside of a glass tomb. I must finally credit Jamie Reid, Sophie Richmond, Boogie, Roadent, all my team and above all Vivienne for helping inspire the bastard. MALCOLM MCLAREN (2007) This fascinating Foreward was reproduced from Alan Parkers latest book about the life of Sid Vicious. You can read a review of this book HERE or visit Mr Parkers Myspace site here for more on his books. |
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