# God Save the Queen...and the Sex Pistols

An episode of [Ridiculous Crime](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1608230191), 18 Feb 2025, 55 min.

Audio: https://podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/e73c998e-6e60-432f-8610-ae210140c5b1/0b4bcc39-7ba2-453f-aaac-ae510011dd80/92b39252-b2f8-4003-87c8-b287015d102c/audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=3a4c50f5-ff69-4807-aa26-ae510011dd8e

1977 was the year punk broke. It was also the Silver Jubilee year, which was a special celebration to commemorate the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II. Never one to miss publicity, the princes of punk rock, the Sex Pistols, released their new single, God Save the Queen, and chartered a boat tour just to mock the monarch, which resulted in a police beatdown. It was truly anarchy in the UK. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

## Transcript

[0:00] Speaker 1: Ridiculous crime. It's a production of iHeartRadio.
[0:03] Speaker 2: Elizabeth dun Zero.
[0:05] Speaker 3: Get on over here, back down.
[0:07] Speaker 2: How you doing, girl, I'm good. I'm doing pretty good.
[0:11] Speaker 2: I gotta smile on my face, don't.
[0:12] Speaker 3: I I like that? Yes, you do?
[0:13] Speaker 2: I tell me smile good. I got a question for
[0:18] Speaker 2: you while we're at it. Do you know what's ridiculous?
[0:20] Speaker 3: I do?
[0:20] Speaker 2: I do?
[0:23] Speaker 4: I used to make bath bombs and soap.
[0:25] Speaker 2: That's ridiculous.
[0:28] Speaker 3: Let's hear talk about it.
[0:30] Speaker 4: Yeah, so I was a crafty sort bath.
[0:33] Speaker 3: Bomb that kind of stuff.
[0:34] Speaker 2: You've always been that, And I could make like.
[0:36] Speaker 4: For my friends and family bath bombs to order, like
[0:39] Speaker 4: whatever scent.
[0:40] Speaker 2: Or custom bath bombs.
[0:44] Speaker 3: I don't do it anymore because maker. Yeah, no, I'm not.
[0:48] Speaker 3: I'm not a bomb maker anymore.
[0:50] Speaker 4: But anyway, I every night, like Lush makes them, and
[0:53] Speaker 4: you can like smell those Lush stores, like from four
[0:56] Speaker 4: blocks away when you're walking.
[0:57] Speaker 2: Let's pretend I have. Let's pretend and probably I'm sure have.
[1:01] Speaker 2: I just didn't notice it. Like you can get.
[1:03] Speaker 3: Bath bombs all over the place, right, Have you used one?
[1:06] Speaker 2: Yes?
[1:06] Speaker 5: Yeah?
[1:06] Speaker 2: Those are things that go fizzy. Yeah, I've been given
[1:09] Speaker 2: them as people are like you like baths. Here take this,
[1:11] Speaker 2: and I'm like, okay, yeah, I'm not impressed.
[1:14] Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean the thing is, it's kind of like
[1:16] Speaker 4: it's been done.
[1:17] Speaker 2: I just don't I don't mean they, I don't mean
[1:19] Speaker 2: a poop on it. I'm enjoying, like a good bubble bath.
[1:21] Speaker 2: I don't need all the fizzy stuff and like that.
[1:23] Speaker 2: It gets all slick and a six of your skin
[1:25] Speaker 2: and some of the stuff.
[1:26] Speaker 4: Like the lush ones that leaves sometimes like a little stain, but.
[1:29] Speaker 2: Then that's also on your skin.
[1:30] Speaker 3: But that's the thing. You carry this smell with you.
[1:33] Speaker 2: Yeah, it's like an oil.
[1:34] Speaker 3: So you got to figure out, Yeah, Coco, better that
[1:36] Speaker 3: if you have to figure.
[1:37] Speaker 2: Out what sent you want, what slick you want?
[1:39] Speaker 4: Right Well, Papa John's has you covered Zarin, Papa joh
[1:43] Speaker 4: my gosh. Papa John heard people talking about, oh my god,
[1:48] Speaker 4: I love your garlic sauce so much I could bathe
[1:50] Speaker 4: in it on social media and they were like, I
[1:53] Speaker 4: got boo, And so they came up with a special
[1:58] Speaker 4: garlic dipping sauce bath bomb. Yeah, and it's it's just
[2:03] Speaker 4: like garlic sauce and uh, there's just limited edition. It's buttery,
[2:10] Speaker 4: and I think you have to like brag about how
[2:12] Speaker 4: much you love it on social media and they'll send
[2:14] Speaker 4: you one.
[2:15] Speaker 2: You have to go to Bread and Circuses dot com and.
[2:18] Speaker 4: That is exactly where we are this, I mean, this
[2:21] Speaker 4: is like it's yeah, So anyway, if you want to
[2:26] Speaker 4: take a bath smell like garlic, talk to Papa John.
[2:30] Speaker 2: Papa John, does it have that like does it have
[2:34] Speaker 2: that like paper lid so you can like peel it open.
[2:38] Speaker 4: Yeah, it comes in like a green box that says
[2:41] Speaker 4: garlic bath bomb on it, and then it looks as
[2:45] Speaker 4: if I can't tell if it actually does come in there.
[2:47] Speaker 4: Maybe they give you some of the sauce that you
[2:49] Speaker 4: can like snort while you're in the tub.
[2:52] Speaker 3: This is a line of sauce.
[2:53] Speaker 2: Is that something you can take it in a bag
[2:55] Speaker 2: on a through security at an airport? No, that's just
[2:59] Speaker 2: my ba bomb, you know, Like, is that something that's.
[3:03] Speaker 5: Cool?
[3:03] Speaker 3: It's totally cool.
[3:05] Speaker 2: Would that be ridiculous?
[3:06] Speaker 3: Yes, so ridiculous.
[3:08] Speaker 4: But I know a lot of people, you know, clue
[3:10] Speaker 4: us into this garlic dipping sauce bath bomb And this
[3:14] Speaker 4: is the world we live in now, so enjoy and
[3:17] Speaker 4: it's ridiculous.
[3:17] Speaker 1: It is.
[3:18] Speaker 2: I'll certify that one.
[3:19] Speaker 3: Thank you.
[3:19] Speaker 2: What else is ridiculous? Elizabeth?
[3:21] Speaker 3: Please?
[3:22] Speaker 2: Do you know? Do you know? Do you know?
[3:23] Speaker 3: I do not?
[3:25] Speaker 2: Well, I'll tell you. Thank you When punk rock tried
[3:29] Speaker 2: to take down the Queen of England?
[3:32] Speaker 3: Oh yes, please.
[3:53] Speaker 2: This is ridiculous crime A podcast about a third and
[3:58] Speaker 2: outrageous caperice and cons. It's always nine to nine percent
[4:03] Speaker 2: murder free, a one percent ridiculous yes, oh Elizabeth?
[4:10] Speaker 3: Yes?
[4:10] Speaker 2: Do you like my Spike Lee impression from the Michael
[4:13] Speaker 2: Jordan commercials?
[4:14] Speaker 1: Do you know?
[4:14] Speaker 2: What? Do you know? Do you know? Do you know?
[4:15] Speaker 3: That's right?
[4:16] Speaker 2: I was a deep callback. I'm just throwing it out there.
[4:18] Speaker 2: You shouldn't have to. It's like a joke. Shouldnt explain
[4:20] Speaker 2: your jokes. You should explain your deep callbacks. But I
[4:23] Speaker 2: just love it so much, So, Elizabeth, today I want
[4:26] Speaker 2: to take even further back. I want to talk about
[4:28] Speaker 2: punk rock.
[4:28] Speaker 3: Okay.
[4:29] Speaker 2: It's a subject that's near and dear to your heart.
[4:31] Speaker 3: I like it.
[4:31] Speaker 2: You grew up going to punk rock shows, driving around
[4:33] Speaker 2: punk rock musicians. Your brother Trav, he's one of those
[4:36] Speaker 2: punk rock musicians. Elizabeth, what do you take away from
[4:39] Speaker 2: the punk rock experience? Of your your days, Like, was
[4:43] Speaker 2: it formative? Was it something you're like, I recommend it
[4:45] Speaker 2: to anyone? Or was it like I can't believe I survived, Like,
[4:47] Speaker 2: what's your take on it?
[4:48] Speaker 4: I always think of a friend of mine much later in,
[4:52] Speaker 4: you know, in her life, went through a bunch of
[4:55] Speaker 4: stuff in her life, and she she wasn't like ever
[5:00] Speaker 4: punk or anything. And her husband was at one point
[5:03] Speaker 4: and it still is. And so they're driving the car
[5:05] Speaker 4: and she's having like this really hard time and he
[5:07] Speaker 4: put on Bad Brains and she was listening to it,
[5:11] Speaker 4: and she turned to him and was like, now I
[5:13] Speaker 4: get it. I get what this does for you, Like,
[5:16] Speaker 4: you know, just this helps you direct your anger, your frustration,
[5:21] Speaker 4: your joy about stuff.
[5:22] Speaker 2: So yeah, totally, I mean it's I definitely think it's
[5:25] Speaker 2: a focus for anger or for that intense energy or
[5:29] Speaker 2: for defiance anti authority vibe, like mad at the system
[5:33] Speaker 2: right right. Then there's also the sense of that a
[5:35] Speaker 2: community that comes with that.
[5:37] Speaker 4: Yeah, there's an incredible community around it, especially here in
[5:40] Speaker 4: the East Bay.
[5:41] Speaker 3: The East Bay punk scene was pretty tight knit.
[5:43] Speaker 2: Yeah, you guys do have a good one down here.
[5:45] Speaker 3: Sure, thank you.
[5:46] Speaker 2: Well, I mean i'd only visit it, so I can't
[5:48] Speaker 2: coin it.
[5:49] Speaker 3: I wasn't deep deep into it.
[5:50] Speaker 2: My brother was, yeah, well, are you ready to talk
[5:53] Speaker 2: about a ridiculous crime from punk rock history?
[5:56] Speaker 3: Yes?
[5:56] Speaker 2: Please, So first let's set our stage, Elizabeth. We're gonna
[5:59] Speaker 2: be talking about UK punk. And I was looking into this, right,
[6:03] Speaker 2: not the good old us of A but UK punk, right.
[6:05] Speaker 2: And I had to do some research to, you know,
[6:07] Speaker 2: learn some of the you know, the I guess the
[6:10] Speaker 2: great peak moments of early punk rock UK punk rock
[6:13] Speaker 2: history totally, but like, did you know you two started
[6:16] Speaker 2: out as a punk cover band, true story.
[6:19] Speaker 3: They were like a new wave band, no, and.
[6:21] Speaker 2: You want to guess which punk band they covered? It
[6:25] Speaker 2: was the Ramones. I would not have seen it coming,
[6:28] Speaker 2: but Bono really loved the voice Joey Mones, and so
[6:31] Speaker 2: he's like, oh, I want to sing. He sings like
[6:33] Speaker 2: a girl. I sing like a girl. That's his words,
[6:35] Speaker 2: that's mine, right. So Also, by the way, I learned
[6:37] Speaker 2: that the Ramones took their name from a Beatles stage name. Really,
[6:42] Speaker 2: Paul McCartney used to go as Paul Ramone, so they
[6:45] Speaker 2: became the Ramones in honor of Paul Ramone.
[6:48] Speaker 3: I did not know that I didn't know that.
[6:49] Speaker 2: It's wild history. Right. So anyway, before you two were
[6:52] Speaker 2: you two? The band called themselves feedback and the hype.
[6:57] Speaker 2: So uh, this time period of talking about the last seventy.
[7:01] Speaker 3: Is like the worst Buddy Cup.
[7:06] Speaker 2: Hype. So when punk broke in the UK, as you
[7:10] Speaker 2: correctly nailed, seventy seven, that's the year right now, do
[7:13] Speaker 2: you know which UK band is responsible for punk popping
[7:16] Speaker 2: off in the UK?
[7:18] Speaker 3: Which one's responsible?
[7:19] Speaker 2: The one that people would say is, you know, the
[7:22] Speaker 2: the progenitor, the one that's most responsible. Others followed after it,
[7:27] Speaker 2: tell me the sex Pistols.
[7:28] Speaker 3: Okay, yes they are.
[7:30] Speaker 2: They were the one, right, So what do we know
[7:32] Speaker 2: about Johnny Rotten said, Vicious and the.
[7:33] Speaker 3: Lads well an art project.
[7:35] Speaker 2: Yeah, well it's a lot of things I had. Yeah,
[7:37] Speaker 2: So because the sex Pistols are, they're they're perhaps most
[7:41] Speaker 2: responsible for popularizing the look we associate with punk, right,
[7:45] Speaker 2: more so than anything.
[7:46] Speaker 3: But that's all that.
[7:47] Speaker 2: Malcolm Malcolm McLaren. Yeah, I'll get into that second with you.
[7:51] Speaker 2: There's a bunch of them, actually there's a couple. I'll
[7:53] Speaker 2: explain it anyway. But who are these guys? What do
[7:55] Speaker 2: they sound like? What was the whole point, like, if
[7:57] Speaker 2: it wasn't more than an art project. Well, the band
[7:59] Speaker 2: first formed back in nineteen seventy five, and as legendary
[8:03] Speaker 2: as they are, they didn't even last three full years
[8:05] Speaker 2: as a band, right. What they brought to punk rock, though,
[8:08] Speaker 2: is obviously still still relevant. So did they sound good?
[8:11] Speaker 5: Like?
[8:11] Speaker 2: Is that why everyone remembers them? No, they did not
[8:13] Speaker 2: sound good, right, that is not why they remember it.
[8:15] Speaker 2: Even if you judge them on like a sliding scale
[8:17] Speaker 2: of megered against other punk bands. They were not good, Like,
[8:21] Speaker 2: they were not good at playing their instruments. It didn't
[8:23] Speaker 2: really matter. I mean, this is also common in early punk. Yeah,
[8:26] Speaker 2: but the sex Pistols what they had nailed down was
[8:29] Speaker 2: obviously the look, as I've mentioned, but also the attitude.
[8:32] Speaker 2: They were emblematic of that spitting, snarling, anti authoritarian heart
[8:37] Speaker 2: of early punk rock. Now safety Pins exactly exactly. Yeah,
[8:41] Speaker 2: there's a lot of pain and like also like adolescent
[8:44] Speaker 2: rage if you will, It's like, yeah, I'm looking what
[8:46] Speaker 2: I'm doing? Are you mad?
[8:49] Speaker 6: So?
[8:49] Speaker 2: The band only put out one studio album, right, called
[8:51] Speaker 2: never Mind the Bollocks. Here's the sex Pistols nineteen seventy seven.
[8:55] Speaker 2: As you pointed out, the album features Johnny Lyde aka
[8:58] Speaker 2: Johnny Rotten on vocals. They're Steve Jones on guitar, Paul
[9:01] Speaker 2: Cook on drums, and Glenn Mattlock on bass. Obviously, he'd
[9:06] Speaker 2: later be replaced by the iconic and musically far less
[9:09] Speaker 2: talented Sid Vicious.
[9:11] Speaker 4: Yeah.
[9:12] Speaker 2: Now in nineteen seventy two to Steve Jones and drummer
[9:15] Speaker 2: Paul Cook, they start playing together as teens. They always
[9:17] Speaker 2: boast about how they played on stolen musical instruments, very
[9:20] Speaker 2: punk rock. They formed this band called the Swankers than
[9:24] Speaker 2: they call and they change the name to the Strand.
[9:25] Speaker 2: And this is all very early seventies. There's this new
[9:28] Speaker 2: scene that's popping off as like Britain is kind of
[9:30] Speaker 2: switching over from the previous trends that have come back
[9:34] Speaker 2: as retro. It's been like twenty years long, but now
[9:36] Speaker 2: they've come back as retro. So in Chelsea neighborhood of London,
[9:40] Speaker 2: you find stores selling clothes right to these young people.
[9:44] Speaker 2: But they're not quite punks. They're not punk yet, so
[9:46] Speaker 2: you have this throwback teddy boy. Look, yes that's still
[9:49] Speaker 2: in right and Elizabeth you know who and what the
[9:51] Speaker 2: teddy boys are.
[9:52] Speaker 4: Yeah.
[9:53] Speaker 2: Now, I think British kids listening to fifties rock and
[9:56] Speaker 2: roll from the US while wearing Edwardian coats and creeper
[10:00] Speaker 2: style shoes like sick soul shoes.
[10:02] Speaker 3: Do you have a pair of creepers?
[10:03] Speaker 5: Yes?
[10:03] Speaker 2: I do, black ones. I got like two, Yeah, you
[10:07] Speaker 2: got double on me?
[10:07] Speaker 4: Right?
[10:08] Speaker 2: Yeah, they're fun shoes. How can you not have them?
[10:10] Speaker 3: I love them. I think I gotta start wearing again.
[10:12] Speaker 2: Right, I got it for formal of this. None of
[10:15] Speaker 2: them tall tall, totally yeah, you bet cress six feet then.
[10:19] Speaker 3: Right, I get about seven two.
[10:21] Speaker 2: Okay, I'm going to get an afro wig where my
[10:23] Speaker 2: creepers and my priest's shirt with the collar.
[10:25] Speaker 3: That's right. Yeah, this is coming together.
[10:27] Speaker 2: It's gonna be a look. So speaking of a look,
[10:30] Speaker 2: one store in particular was key to the scene. It's
[10:32] Speaker 2: Too Fast to Live, Too Young to Die. The shop
[10:34] Speaker 2: was owned by Vivian Westwood and Malcolm mclarence. As she
[10:37] Speaker 2: pointed out them, Vivian Westwood would obviously go on to
[10:40] Speaker 2: be a fashion designer, very famous a punk rock designer. Now.
[10:43] Speaker 2: They first opened their shop in nineteen seventy one. They
[10:45] Speaker 2: call it Back then let it rock. Then that's when
[10:48] Speaker 2: they're selling teddy boy looks to all these young kids.
[10:51] Speaker 2: Now by seventy two, the look has moved. People are
[10:53] Speaker 2: actually now experimenting with more of a retro rocker looks
[10:56] Speaker 2: and now think black leather biker jackets. And this is
[10:59] Speaker 2: for the British Boys, which is a previous scene of
[11:02] Speaker 2: the nineteen fifties. So this is now tossled, spiky dark hair,
[11:06] Speaker 2: very utilitarian work clothes, motorcycle style aesthetic, and it gets
[11:10] Speaker 2: this Doc Martin's gets this very rebel cool, also kind
[11:13] Speaker 2: of a fighting kind of like a blue collar like
[11:16] Speaker 2: Us against the World vibe. You can see the seeds
[11:18] Speaker 2: of the punk rock starting to show up in these
[11:20] Speaker 2: ton up boys in the early seventies. So this shop
[11:24] Speaker 2: that Vivian Westwood has, she starts making clothes and selling them.
[11:28] Speaker 2: So they now move past this trend and now punk
[11:31] Speaker 2: provocateur Malcolm McLaren they turned too fast to live, too
[11:34] Speaker 2: young to die. They become this prime spot to get
[11:37] Speaker 2: your early punk fits right. Everyone starts vibing there. They
[11:40] Speaker 2: change the name of the shop to sex. Yeah, they
[11:44] Speaker 2: really obviously provocateurs. So there's this one woman who works
[11:47] Speaker 2: at the shop. Her name is Pamela Rook aka Jordan.
[11:51] Speaker 2: She's the key to creating the look we think of
[11:53] Speaker 2: as punk. She's the model at this store who's like drawing.
[11:56] Speaker 2: If you think of like the ziggy stardust eye makeup,
[11:59] Speaker 2: she has that on her face all the time. She's
[12:01] Speaker 2: painting it really white. She's wearing crazy outfits her. One
[12:04] Speaker 2: of her best friends is Susie Sue. Oh wow, right,
[12:06] Speaker 2: So the two of them are doing all the look,
[12:08] Speaker 2: all the clothing, and they're bringing these guys around who
[12:11] Speaker 2: are trying to impress them. So they're like bower birds.
[12:13] Speaker 2: Like what if I put a pin through my nose,
[12:14] Speaker 2: would you talk to me? Then? Yeah? So anyway, this
[12:16] Speaker 2: shop is like this. This goofy kid named John Richie
[12:19] Speaker 2: comes around, soon changes his name to say Vicious. He
[12:23] Speaker 2: enters the scene as a customer and then soon gets
[12:25] Speaker 2: recommended to join a band by Susie Sue. He's in
[12:28] Speaker 2: her band and they're like, hey, you know we're getting
[12:30] Speaker 2: rid of Glenn Mattlock, why don't you go join the
[12:32] Speaker 2: Sex Pistols And he's like, oh yeah. So this store
[12:35] Speaker 2: sex is key to the formation of all of this
[12:37] Speaker 2: punk rock. The look the sound the first band. Yeah,
[12:40] Speaker 2: the story goes that Malcolm McLaren, he was in New
[12:42] Speaker 2: York at the time, like in the early seventies, bouncing
[12:44] Speaker 2: back and forth. He's working with this New York band,
[12:47] Speaker 2: the New York Dolls.
[12:49] Speaker 3: Oh with the Johnny.
[12:50] Speaker 2: Thunders David Johansson. Yeah, exactly, Yeah, totally moves on later
[12:55] Speaker 2: on a crazy different that's a career pivot, right. So
[12:58] Speaker 2: Malcolm mclaarhin he gets back to London from New York.
[13:00] Speaker 2: He starts to see this to UK punk scene. This
[13:03] Speaker 2: turned into a new thing and he's like, oh, Malcolm McLaren,
[13:05] Speaker 2: he sees the future. And obviously, as I said, he's
[13:08] Speaker 2: a provocateur. He's like, this is perfect. I love this.
[13:11] Speaker 2: So he agrees to manage this employee, Glenn Mattlocke's band
[13:15] Speaker 2: and they they go through a series of names. First
[13:17] Speaker 2: it's Krem de La Crem, then his kid Glad Love,
[13:21] Speaker 2: then it's Lebomb, and then they call themselves the Subterraneans,
[13:24] Speaker 2: and then the Damned and then finally another band named
[13:27] Speaker 2: Teenage Novel. None of these sticks so and they go
[13:30] Speaker 2: with you know what, how about the sex Pistols. So
[13:32] Speaker 2: Malcolm McLaren loves this. He's like, yeah, it kind of
[13:34] Speaker 2: reminds me of and I say this in quotes from
[13:37] Speaker 2: the idea of a pistol, a pin up, a young thing,
[13:40] Speaker 2: a better looking assassin. Oh yeah, provocateur. Sorry, I'm going
[13:44] Speaker 2: to keep saying it. So the real heart of this
[13:46] Speaker 2: name was that it makes people upset, you know, that's
[13:49] Speaker 2: really it.
[13:50] Speaker 4: Right.
[13:50] Speaker 2: So the band's first gig is at an art school,
[13:53] Speaker 2: so it's yeah, Saint Martin's Art School. So in November
[13:56] Speaker 2: seventy five they take the stage. They don't have many
[13:58] Speaker 2: songs of their own, so they play covers. They play
[14:00] Speaker 2: a track by the Who called Substitute. They also play
[14:02] Speaker 2: a track by the band from the American TV show
[14:04] Speaker 2: The Monkeys Way. Yes, they play the monkey song I'm
[14:08] Speaker 2: Not Your stepping Stone.
[14:09] Speaker 3: Okay, yeah right.
[14:11] Speaker 2: It turns out I let to look this up. It's
[14:13] Speaker 2: not a monkey song. It was originally a British band,
[14:15] Speaker 2: the Liverpool Five. They did it, and that's why maybe
[14:18] Speaker 2: they played it. Yeah, yeah, exactly, but I'm still thinking
[14:21] Speaker 2: it was like the Sex Pistols play a monkey song.
[14:23] Speaker 2: That's hilarious. But anyway, so Vivian Westwood, the designer Malcolm McLaren.
[14:27] Speaker 2: They got this business boom and the kids are coming in. Now,
[14:29] Speaker 2: they got this band that's going. That's like kind of
[14:32] Speaker 2: like creating a scene in the London punk movement at
[14:35] Speaker 2: this point is born. Now it's its own new thing, right,
[14:38] Speaker 2: But the band still doesn't have its singer or it's
[14:40] Speaker 2: iconic bassist. It's mostly you know, Steve Jones, it's Glenn
[14:44] Speaker 2: Matt Loocke, it's Paul Cook. But they don't have you know,
[14:47] Speaker 2: the necessary components. Sid Vicious has yet to join. Johnny
[14:51] Speaker 2: Rotten as yet to join. So Matt Lock as he
[14:53] Speaker 2: points it out, and I quote everyone had long air
[14:55] Speaker 2: back then, even the Milkman. So what we were used
[14:57] Speaker 2: to do was if someone had short hair, we would
[14:59] Speaker 2: stop the in the street and asked them if they
[15:01] Speaker 2: fancied themselves as a singer. Oh right, that's how you
[15:04] Speaker 2: knew someone was punk. You got short hair coming out
[15:06] Speaker 2: of the sixties. So in August seventy five, someone spots
[15:09] Speaker 2: this nineteen year old kid walking around London. He's got
[15:11] Speaker 2: short hair, So they go up and they ask him, right,
[15:13] Speaker 2: you fancy yourself a singer? The kid's wearing a pink
[15:15] Speaker 2: Floyd t shirt, except for he's cut and burned holes
[15:18] Speaker 2: through the band's eyes and he's handwritten in sharpie the
[15:21] Speaker 2: words I hate above Pink Floyd. Of course that kid
[15:24] Speaker 2: was Johnny Rotten. So Malcolm McLaren and asked him to
[15:27] Speaker 2: try out for the band. He's like, you gotta come in.
[15:29] Speaker 2: He comes into the shop sex. Steve Jones remembers the
[15:31] Speaker 2: first time he saw Johnny Rotten. He said, quote he
[15:33] Speaker 2: came in with green hair. I thought he had a
[15:35] Speaker 2: really interesting face. I liked his look. He had the
[15:37] Speaker 2: I Hate Pink Floyd t shirt on, held together with
[15:40] Speaker 2: safety pens. He was a real arm but smart. So
[15:44] Speaker 2: they love him, right, So Steve Jones like, yeah, this
[15:46] Speaker 2: guy's great. He gives them the name Johnny Rotten. He looked,
[15:48] Speaker 2: takes one look at his busted up mouth and he's like,
[15:50] Speaker 2: Johnny Rotten.
[15:51] Speaker 3: Yes, right.
[15:52] Speaker 2: So their first gig together is in February seventy six.
[15:54] Speaker 2: The show's reviewed in the music magazine Enemy n Emmy
[15:59] Speaker 2: New Music Express. So the music journalis who's covering the show.
[16:02] Speaker 2: He interviews Steve Jones and he tells Enemy that the
[16:04] Speaker 2: sex pistols are a new thing, and he's like, actually,
[16:07] Speaker 2: quote we're not into music, We're into chaos. So even
[16:10] Speaker 2: they know, look we're not doing we hold music instruments,
[16:13] Speaker 2: but don't hold it against us.
[16:14] Speaker 3: It's an incredible art project.
[16:16] Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly.
[16:17] Speaker 5: Now.
[16:17] Speaker 2: Two months later, lead singer rhythm guitarists of the Class
[16:20] Speaker 2: Joe Strummer catches the sex Pistols is one of their
[16:22] Speaker 2: early shows.
[16:23] Speaker 4: It's like just one moment of silence for the amazing
[16:26] Speaker 4: joke sture. Oh right, okay, there I got it.
[16:29] Speaker 2: So April third, seventy six, he sees them put on
[16:31] Speaker 2: a show and that's when he goes punk rock's future
[16:34] Speaker 2: of music. He decides, I'm gonna give myself over to this. Yeah,
[16:37] Speaker 2: same month, the Sex Pistol Show, Vivian Westwood and Malcolm McLaren.
[16:40] Speaker 2: They get into a fight with the fans, right, and
[16:42] Speaker 2: it causes all this attention. This fight sets the template
[16:45] Speaker 2: for what you can expect now from a sex Pistol show. Yeah, violence,
[16:49] Speaker 2: chaos and bad music. So Paul Cook he puts it.
[16:52] Speaker 2: That's when all the publicity got hold of it and
[16:54] Speaker 2: the violence started creeping in. I think everybody was ready
[16:56] Speaker 2: to go, and we were the catalyst. Now, a couple
[16:59] Speaker 2: months later, the sex Pistols debuted their new song called
[17:02] Speaker 2: Anarchy in the UK. It was based on the politics
[17:06] Speaker 2: from the sixty eight Pairs Commune. And so the uprising
[17:09] Speaker 2: this politics gets fed to Johnny Rotten by Vivian Westwood.
[17:12] Speaker 2: She's smart, right, he listens, he turns it into anarchy
[17:15] Speaker 2: in the UK. We should do that without any real
[17:18] Speaker 2: grounding of organizing, just just snarl anyway. So that's the
[17:23] Speaker 2: floodgates of fame now are cracked open. Nineteen seventy seven
[17:26] Speaker 2: is about to be the year of the sex Pistols. Elizabeth,
[17:29] Speaker 2: let's take a break, yes, and after they's messages, I'm
[17:32] Speaker 2: going to tell you how the sex Pistols try to
[17:35] Speaker 2: stick it to the queen an archy. Elizabeth, ar We're back,
[18:00] Speaker 2: rock is breaking. So I'm want to take you back
[18:02] Speaker 2: to December one, nineteen seventy six. Okay, the snarling, rude,
[18:07] Speaker 2: potty mouth sex Pistols are now becoming such a big
[18:10] Speaker 2: story in the UK that people like Normis want to
[18:13] Speaker 2: talk to them, So they get called in to do
[18:15] Speaker 2: a live TV broadcast to speak for themselves. Answer for
[18:19] Speaker 2: your antics. Boys, But everyone's been talking about you, and
[18:22] Speaker 2: now you got this chaos of imitators going around London
[18:25] Speaker 2: with pins in their noses and so you've unleashed chaos
[18:28] Speaker 2: and UK culture. So they go on this show called
[18:30] Speaker 2: The Today Program with his host Bill Grundy. Right, so
[18:34] Speaker 2: it's put on by Thames Television. You remember that from TBS,
[18:37] Speaker 2: the Thames Television. Yeah, at the Tower Bridge I think
[18:41] Speaker 2: or Tower of London anyway, So Bill Grundy, he asked
[18:44] Speaker 2: the sex Pistols to be the replacement guest for a
[18:47] Speaker 2: band that canceled, and that band was Queen. So yeah,
[18:50] Speaker 2: so the sex Pistols they go on the show and
[18:52] Speaker 2: they gave him like, you know, five minutes to talk.
[18:54] Speaker 2: But meanwhile, beforehand they're in the green room, they're offered
[18:57] Speaker 2: some drinks, bad idea. They get drunk because they're punk
[19:01] Speaker 2: and they're like, I was drinking all the drinks. So
[19:02] Speaker 2: they do that. By the time they ate the set,
[19:04] Speaker 2: they're pissed, right. So, and also they brought with him
[19:06] Speaker 2: like a bunch of their girlfriends, So like Susie, Sue's there, Jordan,
[19:09] Speaker 2: the shopkeepers there, they're to like go and say give
[19:12] Speaker 2: the look, but they just pretty much was meant to
[19:14] Speaker 2: be like I don't know, like the band's hangers on
[19:16] Speaker 2: gropes entourage. Yeah, so the band seated and the girls
[19:20] Speaker 2: are standing up behind them, and the guys talking to
[19:22] Speaker 2: the all they brought them on on set. Yeah, and
[19:25] Speaker 2: they're all drunk and they're all just like kind of
[19:26] Speaker 2: milling about and just like.
[19:28] Speaker 4: Eight ten of them, like Maury Povich kind.
[19:31] Speaker 2: Of like, oh, let's talk, use, let's get answers from them, yeah,
[19:36] Speaker 2: and shoving a mic in their face and answer for
[19:38] Speaker 2: this makeup. He did this makeup? Yeah, exactly, So Bill GRINDI, right,
[19:42] Speaker 2: he wants to know about like this band and what
[19:45] Speaker 2: they've offered to the UK culture, right, And he starts
[19:48] Speaker 2: trying to explain who they are to his audience who
[19:50] Speaker 2: may not know. And so he's like, they're punk rockers,
[19:53] Speaker 2: they're here, their heroes are not the nice, clean Rolling Stones.
[19:56] Speaker 2: Now keep in mind this is nineteen seventy six, right,
[20:00] Speaker 2: The Rolling Stones are now considered clean, nice and clean.
[20:04] Speaker 2: I looked it up. One year earlier, Keith Richards was
[20:08] Speaker 2: busted in Arkansas for possession of cocaine and by the
[20:11] Speaker 2: passenger of the car said no, that's my coke. So
[20:13] Speaker 2: Keith Richards only gets busted for carrying a Hunting Knights.
[20:15] Speaker 2: There's no they had to call the British embassy to
[20:18] Speaker 2: get out of Arkansas, So what are we doing here?
[20:21] Speaker 3: Come on?
[20:22] Speaker 2: But anyway, the host Pillgrinder he's like, yeah, unlike the
[20:24] Speaker 2: Rolling Stones, we all decided our nice friendly boys. What's
[20:26] Speaker 2: up with you lot? And so he's he admits that
[20:29] Speaker 2: he's gotten inebriated with the band backstage and he says, see,
[20:32] Speaker 2: they're as drunk as I am. This is the post
[20:35] Speaker 2: of the show.
[20:36] Speaker 3: Wow.
[20:36] Speaker 2: So Grendy goes on to introduce them. They're a group
[20:38] Speaker 2: called the sex Pistols, and I'm surrounded now by all
[20:41] Speaker 2: of them. Just let us see the sex Pistols in action, right,
[20:44] Speaker 2: So it's very much the moriy Povitch thing. At this point,
[20:47] Speaker 2: Johnny Rotten he's like, okay, let me crank it up
[20:49] Speaker 2: to eleven. So early on in the interview, Johnny Rotten
[20:51] Speaker 2: mentions how the band they received an advance from the label,
[20:55] Speaker 2: and he's snarling all this. The guy like yeah, and
[20:57] Speaker 2: he's in. Then he meant, yeah, we spent it all
[21:00] Speaker 2: and he's like forty grand down the pissa, right, And
[21:03] Speaker 2: the guy was like, oh wow, it's a lot of money. Now.
[21:05] Speaker 2: For the next few minutes, this very British host is
[21:07] Speaker 2: trying to act taken aback by what they're doing, but
[21:10] Speaker 2: it's very sarcastic, so I don't quite get like the
[21:12] Speaker 2: whole point of it. He's trying to like maintain an
[21:15] Speaker 2: air above them. Anyway. At one point he calls it
[21:18] Speaker 2: Johnny Rotten. He's like, what did you just mutter there?
[21:20] Speaker 2: And all he said is the word, but Johnny Rotten
[21:23] Speaker 2: is like, oh it says it again right under his breath,
[21:25] Speaker 2: and then the host he's all sarcastic. He's like, oh, good,
[21:28] Speaker 2: heavens you frightened me to death, right, trying to like
[21:30] Speaker 2: undercut the pucks, and at this point they're like, oh yeah.
[21:33] Speaker 2: They just start cussing up a storm, right, and Bill
[21:36] Speaker 2: Grundy starts hitting on Susie Sue. He starts he starts
[21:40] Speaker 2: asking her because she's standing behind like Steve Jones, and
[21:42] Speaker 2: he's like asking her. He's like, yeah, your makeup is
[21:44] Speaker 2: that fully she got a full pain of makeup, He's
[21:45] Speaker 2: asking her. It's all exaggerated eye paint stuff. He starts
[21:49] Speaker 2: drunkenly flirting with the punk rock girl like asking. He
[21:52] Speaker 2: being like, come see her sometime and Steve Jones like
[21:54] Speaker 2: calls him a dirty sod, you dirty old man, you
[21:58] Speaker 2: dirty bastard, you dirty all right, it just goes after her, right,
[22:02] Speaker 2: So now the whole stage is chaos. And then Grundy's like,
[22:05] Speaker 2: oh what a clever boy. The whole exchange is very British, right,
[22:08] Speaker 2: use everybody's trying to like out in like, I don't know,
[22:10] Speaker 2: be more decent or indecent. It's all about decency. I
[22:13] Speaker 2: don't quite get punk rock craze is this point, This
[22:16] Speaker 2: is how it's breaking. This is what people are seeing
[22:18] Speaker 2: is foul mouth people. Anyway, this is nineteen seventy seven,
[22:22] Speaker 2: or actually it's still obviously December seventy six. This is
[22:25] Speaker 2: the spirit that's about to break over the UK. And
[22:28] Speaker 2: then some of the old people have to be watching this,
[22:30] Speaker 2: going we won the war for this, you know. Like
[22:33] Speaker 2: so anyway, the press is gobbling this up all across
[22:36] Speaker 2: the nations. Papers of the day. They mock the punks,
[22:38] Speaker 2: they mock their appearance on this show because everybody watches
[22:40] Speaker 2: the show. It's very popular in London. So after this
[22:43] Speaker 2: bizarre live broadcast Bill Grundy gets suspended for being drunk
[22:47] Speaker 2: and admitting he's drunk and like hitting on the punk
[22:49] Speaker 2: rock girl drunk and the dude never recovers from the scandal.
[22:52] Speaker 2: He basically loses his career after that interview. Yeah, the
[22:55] Speaker 2: sex Fistles pull him down at their level and beat
[22:57] Speaker 2: him with experience. Now, looking back on this Three Minutes
[23:01] Speaker 2: of Fame on British TV, Steve Jones said, quote, Grundy
[23:04] Speaker 2: was the big dividing line in the sex Pistol story.
[23:06] Speaker 2: Before it, we were all about the music, but from
[23:09] Speaker 2: then on it was all about the media. In some
[23:11] Speaker 2: ways is our finest moment, but in others it was
[23:13] Speaker 2: the beginning of the end in terms of the sex
[23:15] Speaker 2: Pistols having any kind of long term future. This sudden
[23:18] Speaker 2: acceleration was the worst thing that could possibly have happened. Now,
[23:21] Speaker 2: you notice I have not mentioned that Sid Vicious is
[23:23] Speaker 2: in this scene. He's still not in the band yet
[23:25] Speaker 2: we're still in the He doesn't join until seventy seven,
[23:28] Speaker 2: So now that's accelerated. They're like, what if we threw
[23:31] Speaker 2: in Sid Vicious? So, spurred on by their newfound fame, right,
[23:34] Speaker 2: the band announces it's UK Anarchy Tour. The clash opens
[23:39] Speaker 2: for them. Now Joe Strummers, he's got his band going.
[23:41] Speaker 2: He's like, oh, but for you a lot. So anyway,
[23:43] Speaker 2: Anarchy in the UK is the band's first big single.
[23:45] Speaker 2: The lyrics are this angry rant against British conformity, mindless existence.
[23:50] Speaker 2: You know, the first lines, I am man antie Christ,
[23:54] Speaker 2: I am man and our cheist. So fun fact, Johnny
[23:59] Speaker 2: Rotten neither an anar kissed or the Antichrist. He's actually
[24:02] Speaker 2: very politically conservative these days, that's true. Anyway, he liked
[24:05] Speaker 2: the attention, so he says these words acting bad. That's
[24:07] Speaker 2: the whole thing for him. Now, despite this early buzz
[24:09] Speaker 2: hair on fire publicity, as they said, there's still the
[24:12] Speaker 2: one missing piece, sid Vicious. So enter my boyge, John Ritchie.
[24:16] Speaker 2: Now February seventy seven. Malcolm McLaren, the band's manager. Right,
[24:20] Speaker 2: he announces that Glenn Mattlock's been fired. He's leaving the band, right.
[24:24] Speaker 2: The reason makes no sense, but he claims that he's
[24:27] Speaker 2: a fan of Paul McCartney. Right here, So Steve Jones
[24:30] Speaker 2: confirms the story I found. He's like, yeah, Matt Locke
[24:32] Speaker 2: got fired. He goes quote he liked the Beatles, so
[24:35] Speaker 2: apparently that's like the least punk rock thing you can
[24:37] Speaker 2: do is like the Beatles, it's got so sixty seven.
[24:40] Speaker 2: So Sid Vicious, we got this subpar bass player and
[24:43] Speaker 2: playing with Susie Sue is her bass player. He's like,
[24:46] Speaker 2: you know a member of the band. Shees I suppose yeah,
[24:49] Speaker 2: So they She's like, yeah, why don't he play in
[24:50] Speaker 2: your band? So they hire him, right because they died.
[24:55] Speaker 2: He had the look. That was his qualification and that
[24:58] Speaker 2: was it. Johnny Ron's everyone agreed he had the look,
[25:01] Speaker 2: so not bass playing skills whatever. In fact, Johnny Rotten
[25:05] Speaker 2: also said, I quote the first rehearsals with Sid were hellish,
[25:09] Speaker 2: like literally, these are people who don't care about the music.
[25:12] Speaker 4: That is too badlucient and your hair's all over the place,
[25:16] Speaker 4: perfect get over here.
[25:17] Speaker 2: So yeah, so Sid Vicious. Also, Johnny rottens he's a
[25:20] Speaker 2: comrade in arms. If ever there's somebody who wants to
[25:23] Speaker 2: just mess up a scene, yeh, it's this cat right,
[25:27] Speaker 2: Oh love to throw fits, Yeah, totally debauch.
[25:29] Speaker 5: Right.
[25:29] Speaker 2: In his first gigs with the band, he gets arrested
[25:31] Speaker 2: because he hits a girl in the face with a
[25:33] Speaker 2: pint glass that he's just hucked across a venue. Nice Yeah,
[25:36] Speaker 2: gets arrested, has to do time behind bars. They get
[25:38] Speaker 2: none of the band's got to wait for their new
[25:40] Speaker 2: bass player to get back out. They do, They play
[25:42] Speaker 2: more shows. Then he's at it again. He takes a
[25:45] Speaker 2: bike chain to a rock critic from Enemy magazine.
[25:48] Speaker 4: Yeah.
[25:48] Speaker 2: So then that leads to this, not just the sex Pistols,
[25:51] Speaker 2: but all punk bands getting banned from this club.
[25:54] Speaker 5: Right.
[25:54] Speaker 2: So then eventually this is what Malcolm McLaren wants. He says,
[25:56] Speaker 2: this is perfect. This guy's oh my god, he's amazing, right,
[26:00] Speaker 2: truly tasteless, shameless, bad.
[26:01] Speaker 3: Boy, this puppet master.
[26:04] Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, you know, yeah exactly, he's so at this point,
[26:08] Speaker 2: Malcolm McLaren, he's like talking about bragging about his said
[26:11] Speaker 2: Vicious pickup, and he says, quote, when Sid joined he
[26:13] Speaker 2: couldn't play guitar, but his craziness fitted into the structure
[26:16] Speaker 2: of the band. He's got his final fitting piece now
[26:18] Speaker 2: he knows ready to roll, right, He's like Sid Vicious
[26:21] Speaker 2: like like Jello for this, Well, Jello, if Jello could
[26:24] Speaker 2: give you a communicable disease, you know, like he's gonna
[26:27] Speaker 2: fit right in there. Yeah. So March is seventy seven,
[26:30] Speaker 2: the band signs with a new label, A Big One
[26:32] Speaker 2: A and M Records. They hold a press conference outside
[26:35] Speaker 2: Buckingham Palace because of the old anarchy in the UK.
[26:38] Speaker 2: Thing it's good branding, Elizabeth Malcolm McLaren knows one thing
[26:41] Speaker 2: good brandes.
[26:43] Speaker 3: Yes.
[26:43] Speaker 2: So after the press conference, the band the AMM executives.
[26:46] Speaker 2: They go back to the an M offices to celebrate.
[26:49] Speaker 2: Sid Vicious gets drunk and then he starts to verbally
[26:52] Speaker 2: attack the employees of the label. He destroys a toilet
[26:55] Speaker 2: and I don't mean like he didn't like clog it,
[26:57] Speaker 2: he like breaks it and shatters it. Right later, the
[27:00] Speaker 2: band's at a club, Johnny Rottens and a friend of his.
[27:04] Speaker 2: They get into it with some people from the label
[27:06] Speaker 2: and eventually I don't know what what was done, but
[27:08] Speaker 2: the label drops the sex pistols before a month of
[27:11] Speaker 2: the contract is done. So now it's like maybe two
[27:14] Speaker 2: weeks so the band, by the way, has already recorded
[27:17] Speaker 2: and pressed their new single, God Saved the Queen twenty
[27:20] Speaker 2: five thousand records they pressed the labels like don't care,
[27:24] Speaker 2: doesn't matter how much it costs destroy them all, to
[27:27] Speaker 2: destroy almost all twenty five I guess you can find
[27:30] Speaker 2: a few of them survived the destruction. Yeah, so at
[27:33] Speaker 2: this point, keep in mind sid Visius has yet to
[27:35] Speaker 2: record with them. He's like, he's just bad playing his
[27:38] Speaker 2: first shows with them. So in March twenty eighth, they're
[27:41] Speaker 2: playing shows. It's at seventy seven, they're rolling along. The
[27:44] Speaker 2: band also has been dropped by their label. Their second
[27:47] Speaker 2: single's been destroyed. They have no path forward other than
[27:49] Speaker 2: publicity for their antics. So what do you think they do?
[27:52] Speaker 4: More of publicity for the antics or antics.
[27:55] Speaker 2: And they get an enabler. Richard Branson steps in. Yeah,
[28:00] Speaker 2: the billionaire bad boy at the time, he's a rich
[28:03] Speaker 2: kid brit who likes things that make his parents nervous. Right, So,
[28:06] Speaker 2: being young and rich, he started a magazine and later
[28:08] Speaker 2: a record shop, and then in seventy two he launches
[28:11] Speaker 2: his own record label from the record shop, called it
[28:13] Speaker 2: Virgin Records. Now the Sex Pistols. He's like, there it is.
[28:17] Speaker 2: He sees what Malcolm McLaren see.
[28:18] Speaker 4: He loves the like, ain't hi stink?
[28:22] Speaker 2: He's exactly that guy. So he also he can see
[28:25] Speaker 2: the youth market and the dollar seven So ransom he
[28:27] Speaker 2: jumps aboard this crazy pirate ship. Right, So he signed
[28:30] Speaker 2: the band to his label in May of seventy seven.
[28:33] Speaker 2: Now it's the band's third label in less than six months.
[28:35] Speaker 2: They're finally ready for the big time. Though punk rock
[28:38] Speaker 2: is now about to break, the moral panic is going
[28:40] Speaker 2: to spread from the UK shores. The Sex Pistols record
[28:43] Speaker 2: God Save the Queen in October of seventy six before
[28:46] Speaker 2: remember I said, but the single hadn't released it because
[28:49] Speaker 2: I got destroyed. So Elizabeth, this is when Sarendippity strikes.
[28:52] Speaker 2: The story I wanted to tell you today is about
[28:54] Speaker 2: when the punks came for the Queen of England. Well,
[28:57] Speaker 2: turns out seventy seven was the Silver Jubilee year in
[29:00] Speaker 2: the United Kingdom. The Silver Jubilee is the twenty fifth
[29:02] Speaker 2: anniversary of Queen Elizabeth. The second Coronation. Yeah, remember the
[29:06] Speaker 2: coronation chair and the stolen.
[29:07] Speaker 4: Stone is stone Coronation Chicken.
[29:10] Speaker 2: Which is chicken exactly, just like how those Scots they
[29:17] Speaker 2: stole the Coronation Share. The punks kind of want to
[29:19] Speaker 2: do the same thing, but for punk instead of for Scotland. Yeah,
[29:22] Speaker 2: they're like, how do we shame the Queen? How do
[29:23] Speaker 2: we shame the Royalty? So they decide they feel their
[29:26] Speaker 2: new anthem, the single will be a perfect way to
[29:29] Speaker 2: mock the royal family during the Silver Jubilee. It is
[29:32] Speaker 2: all right, they we're going to cut the Queen down
[29:33] Speaker 2: to their size. The question is is how could the
[29:36] Speaker 2: sex Pistols capitalize on the Silver Jubilee attention around the
[29:39] Speaker 2: Queen to get some of that sweet sweet attention for themselves?
[29:43] Speaker 2: Right again, Malcolm McLaren's like branding yeah, and Richard Branson's like,
[29:47] Speaker 2: I'll pay for it. So the label, his label starts
[29:50] Speaker 2: cranking out sex Pistols new single. Right. They immediately run
[29:54] Speaker 2: into a problem with that. The folks who work at
[29:55] Speaker 2: the label record pressing plant, they see this whole God
[29:58] Speaker 2: Save the Queen and the cuver They're like no, they
[30:01] Speaker 2: go on strike. They refuse because the cover for God
[30:05] Speaker 2: Save the Queen has a portrait of Queen Elizabeth like
[30:08] Speaker 2: basically from the money, and it's just got on top
[30:10] Speaker 2: of it cut out letters like ransom note of fixed
[30:12] Speaker 2: letters that cover her face and it says like God
[30:15] Speaker 2: Save the Queen and sex Pistols yeah. And the factory
[30:18] Speaker 2: workers are like, this is disrespect of our queen, Like
[30:20] Speaker 2: oh to They form a work stoppage, right, and they
[30:22] Speaker 2: refuse to work on this abomination, So Richard Branson's got
[30:26] Speaker 2: to do a workaround. Eventually, the album gets pressed just
[30:28] Speaker 2: in time for the Silver Jubilee coronation. Right, it's celebrated
[30:32] Speaker 2: for four months. They started in February, it lasted till June.
[30:35] Speaker 2: There's TV celebrations, plan performances, reveries, all sorts of stuff. Right,
[30:40] Speaker 2: the big day, yes, exactly, and then like marching with
[30:43] Speaker 2: the horses and.
[30:44] Speaker 4: The carriage and exactly a balcony.
[30:46] Speaker 2: Oh, let's put a play on to sing some silly songs. Flex.
[30:50] Speaker 2: So the big day is gonna be June ninth. Right.
[30:52] Speaker 2: The single for God's Saved the Queen comes out at
[30:55] Speaker 2: the end of May, on May twenty seven, just in
[30:57] Speaker 2: time for people to learn the words right response. On
[31:00] Speaker 2: May thirty. First, the BBC bans the song from TV.
[31:04] Speaker 2: From the radio stations BBC one, BBC two, all the station.
[31:08] Speaker 4: We had Sea Lands, yes on all their compatriots.
[31:13] Speaker 2: I'm telling you that's too. They start radio, they start
[31:15] Speaker 2: pumping this song. It gets out to the people, so
[31:17] Speaker 2: they hear the God say of the Queen, that fascist regime.
[31:20] Speaker 2: She ain't no human being. And there's no future in
[31:23] Speaker 2: England's dreaming right. Everyone's like, oh, what's that's so true?
[31:27] Speaker 2: Backlash official bans all this. The song debuts at number
[31:30] Speaker 2: two on the Record Charts. They could not stop it. Wow,
[31:34] Speaker 2: it was second only to a song by Rod Stewart.
[31:36] Speaker 2: The title was I don't want to talk about it.
[31:38] Speaker 3: He didn't want to talk about it.
[31:41] Speaker 2: It's such a Rod Stewart line. I don't want to
[31:43] Speaker 2: talk I don't want to talk about even if it's
[31:45] Speaker 2: like the most inert thing, you just get the idea.
[31:47] Speaker 2: He doesn't want to talk about it.
[31:48] Speaker 3: He just wants to kick soccer balls into stadium.
[31:50] Speaker 2: Totally and feel forever young. So colorine. To Malcolm McLaren,
[31:54] Speaker 2: the record label CBS Records, they were distributing both singles,
[31:57] Speaker 2: the Rod Stewart one and the sex Pistols single, and
[32:00] Speaker 2: the execs told him that the sex Pistols were out
[32:03] Speaker 2: selling Rod Stewart two to one, but they don't want
[32:05] Speaker 2: to yeah, and McLaren maintained this, and there is evidence
[32:08] Speaker 2: to support his claim that the British Phonographic Institute manipulated
[32:12] Speaker 2: data so that the sex Pistols God Save the Queen
[32:15] Speaker 2: would not be number one during Coronation Week for her.
[32:17] Speaker 2: You know.
[32:19] Speaker 4: Every brit I know, and I know a fair number
[32:23] Speaker 4: you do, no matter what your age. They're so keyed
[32:28] Speaker 4: in on popular music. Yeah, and I can see people
[32:32] Speaker 4: just wanting to be a part of the history of
[32:34] Speaker 4: it and buying it.
[32:35] Speaker 2: Yes, and they do that also with the Christmas songs,
[32:37] Speaker 2: like which is the number one song at It's always
[32:39] Speaker 2: like a fight to push one song at the top
[32:41] Speaker 2: or whatever. Yeah, anyway, so not to be done by
[32:45] Speaker 2: those collusion and conspiracy. Malcolm McLaren is one more trick
[32:48] Speaker 2: up his provocateur's sleeve. He's gonna get all the UK
[32:51] Speaker 2: talking about the sex pistols one way or another. So
[32:53] Speaker 2: he plans to charter a boat trip nice. Yeah, he
[32:57] Speaker 2: thinks of nice riverboat crews along the Thames might do
[33:00] Speaker 2: some good for everyone, right, and he's like, maybe clear
[33:02] Speaker 2: their heads, let me shake off some of these street drugs. No,
[33:05] Speaker 2: not really at all, Elizabeth. Now you might be thinking,
[33:07] Speaker 2: why would a literal boatload of punks cruising the river
[33:10] Speaker 2: Thames be a good idea.
[33:11] Speaker 3: For a publicity Because it's an antic.
[33:14] Speaker 2: I'll give you a hint. The Houses of Parliament and
[33:17] Speaker 2: the Westminster Pier are located on the River Thames.
[33:20] Speaker 3: That is very true. Yes, that is true.
[33:22] Speaker 2: Not only that, but two days after the sex Pistols
[33:25] Speaker 2: plan their river cruise, the Queen of the UK, Queen Elizabeth,
[33:28] Speaker 2: would mark her silver jubilee with a riverboat cruise of
[33:31] Speaker 2: her own. Yeah. So the sex Pistols like, what if
[33:35] Speaker 2: we upstaged the Queen on our own damn river? Oh wow, Yeah,
[33:39] Speaker 2: let's take a break, Elizabeth. After these ads, we will
[33:41] Speaker 2: load up the river boat and take it out with Johnny,
[33:44] Speaker 2: Sid Susie, Sue, Malcolm McLaren and all the rest of
[33:47] Speaker 2: the last.
[33:47] Speaker 6: I cannot wait, Elizabeth, Aron, We're back.
[34:10] Speaker 2: So the fateful day June seventh, nineteen seventy seven, two
[34:15] Speaker 2: days before the Queen celebrates her big silver jubilee, Yeah,
[34:19] Speaker 2: Malcolm McLaren charters a riverboat for his punk rock cruise.
[34:22] Speaker 2: The boat's name Queen Elizabeth. Oh perfect a kid you
[34:25] Speaker 2: not name for the first one, not the new one.
[34:28] Speaker 2: Now alongside of the river boat is a huge banner
[34:31] Speaker 2: that they like, unfurl red letters, yellow background. The banner
[34:34] Speaker 2: reads Queen Elizabeth the new single by the sex Pistols.
[34:37] Speaker 2: God Save the Queen. And it's like it's addressed directly
[34:40] Speaker 2: to the monarchy. Hey, Queen Elizabeth Lady. Yeah, So on
[34:43] Speaker 2: the boat, Richard Branson, He's got a makeshift stage constructed.
[34:47] Speaker 2: He also invites his gang of press. There's music critics, writers,
[34:50] Speaker 2: newspaper men, photographers, a film crew to document it all.
[34:54] Speaker 2: Susie Sue's there, Cavivian Westwood, like all these cool kids.
[34:58] Speaker 2: According to Tony Parsons, journalist for music outlet Enemy, he
[35:01] Speaker 2: witnesses Johnny Rotten just shoveling amphetamines into his head before
[35:05] Speaker 2: the show. Right, That gets the singer. I'll keyed up
[35:08] Speaker 2: and on edge now, as Parsons put it, and I
[35:11] Speaker 2: love this quote, you get a kind of vampiric beauty
[35:14] Speaker 2: if you take that much speed and unearthly glamour. The
[35:18] Speaker 2: downside is that you can't sleep for seventy two hours.
[35:21] Speaker 2: He was a glutton for the chemicals.
[35:24] Speaker 4: Oh my god, vampiric right wow.
[35:28] Speaker 2: So now that Johnny Rotten has got that good vampiric glow,
[35:30] Speaker 2: going sweating speed through his pores and grinding his teeth
[35:33] Speaker 2: into pebbles, ready to fight anyone, is it showtime? Not yet? Elizabeth,
[35:38] Speaker 2: because the band wants to wait for two things, nightfall
[35:42] Speaker 2: and to be right in front of the Houses of
[35:44] Speaker 2: Parliament aka the seat of government. So for hours the
[35:48] Speaker 2: bandmates in the press, they get drunk and they get
[35:50] Speaker 2: high on this slow riverboat cruise waiting to get into position.
[35:53] Speaker 2: So they're just gobbling speed, getting drunk on strong liquor,
[35:56] Speaker 2: recording quotes for the press. You name it, right, John
[35:59] Speaker 2: Savage from the go he summarizes the scene looking back
[36:02] Speaker 2: from the safety of distance in time, and he says,
[36:04] Speaker 2: and a quote, the atmosphere on the boat was paranoid
[36:07] Speaker 2: and claustrophobic, but also very exciting. So that's his general observation.
[36:12] Speaker 4: Specifically, I keep trying to imagine what that must have.
[36:15] Speaker 2: Oh it crammed.
[36:18] Speaker 4: Like a publicity stunt, with all of these unhidd.
[36:21] Speaker 2: Chaotic energy, unhinged people trying to work their hardest and
[36:24] Speaker 2: make other people look and turn their way. Yeah so
[36:29] Speaker 2: oh yeah, yes, and the just wanton destruction of like, oh,
[36:33] Speaker 2: hurt somebody just to get some attention. Watch the glasses flying.
[36:37] Speaker 2: So John Savage in The Guardian he also said, and
[36:39] Speaker 2: I quote, imagine being stuck on a boat for three
[36:41] Speaker 2: hours with people you don't like taking speed. The weather
[36:45] Speaker 2: issue and police are surrounding you. It must have been
[36:48] Speaker 2: an absolute nightmare. He's right with you. So at this
[36:52] Speaker 2: point the sun goes down and now the real party starts. Elizabeth.
[36:56] Speaker 2: The riverboat passes under the tower Bridge, it continues along
[36:59] Speaker 2: the river. Were headed to the Houses of Parliament. The
[37:02] Speaker 2: band starts to set up. They tune up. It sat
[37:05] Speaker 2: familiar sonic attack of just poor instrumentation. The band, though,
[37:10] Speaker 2: appears ready, so you couldn't tell, but it must be
[37:12] Speaker 2: ready right now. According to Allen Jones, a music journalist
[37:15] Speaker 2: from Melody Maker, the police showed up before the sex
[37:18] Speaker 2: pistols even started playing. When I say the police, I
[37:21] Speaker 2: mean police boat. They're now chaperoning the river boat. They're
[37:25] Speaker 2: alongside right, So Steve Jones puts it quote shortly before
[37:29] Speaker 2: the pistols played, police boats started circling us as we
[37:32] Speaker 2: approached Parliament. I wouldn't have wanted to be anywhere else
[37:34] Speaker 2: at that moment. Yeah, So, Malcolm McLaren, Richard Branson, they're
[37:38] Speaker 2: watching their like this. I don't know this matching pair
[37:41] Speaker 2: of vampiric provocateurs, right, these opportunistic capitalist guys just watching
[37:45] Speaker 2: the scene. They're like with their like strings on their marionettes.
[37:48] Speaker 2: They're like dance right, They're all excited, and then they
[37:51] Speaker 2: spy the Houses of Parliament coming into view. It's all happening.
[37:54] Speaker 2: So one of them gives the band the c start
[37:56] Speaker 2: the show, right, the journalists imagine like you're on this
[38:00] Speaker 2: hellish riverboat and now it gets loud. Now they start playing,
[38:03] Speaker 2: and Johnny Rotten's just sangy. Right, it's just horrendous. Right,
[38:07] Speaker 2: Malcolm McLaren is like smiling, Vivian Westwood is smiling. Kids
[38:11] Speaker 2: start pogo dancing, right, but right, let me tell you
[38:14] Speaker 2: about this, Elizabeth. I like you to close your eyes,
[38:17] Speaker 2: and I'd like you to picture it a lizzard though.
[38:21] Speaker 2: You are vi Van Westwood and you are on a
[38:24] Speaker 2: riverboat on the River Thames. There's a crowd all around you,
[38:28] Speaker 2: and all of you are waiting for the band to finish.
[38:30] Speaker 2: Setting up above the stage your tiny union jack flags.
[38:33] Speaker 2: You are wearing a vinyl a line dress. Your hair
[38:36] Speaker 2: is bright red and tied up with torn ribbons and lace.
[38:39] Speaker 2: At the moment, you're sipping on a high ball with
[38:41] Speaker 2: god knows what your friend and partner, Malcolm McLaren, shouts
[38:44] Speaker 2: something into your ear, but all you can hear is
[38:46] Speaker 2: the feedback wine is the band finishes at sound check,
[38:50] Speaker 2: you shake your head to indicate you can't hear a
[38:52] Speaker 2: thing he's sang, and then the band starts to play.
[38:54] Speaker 2: So the punk rock is wow, the feedback distorted out front.
[38:58] Speaker 2: Johnny Rotten lean over the mic and spits and sings
[39:02] Speaker 2: at the crowd in that whiny snarl of a voice.
[39:05] Speaker 2: Kids pogo dance and bounced near you, into you, spilling
[39:08] Speaker 2: your drink. The energy is manic chaot at Pure Sex Pistols,
[39:12] Speaker 2: you look out the window of the riverboat and you
[39:14] Speaker 2: see the Houses of Parliament on the shore. As Johnny
[39:17] Speaker 2: Rotten starts to sneer and sing the first lines of
[39:20] Speaker 2: anarchy in the UK, it feels perfect, all that anger
[39:24] Speaker 2: and frustration aimed right where it belongs. The Sex Pistols
[39:28] Speaker 2: start their next song with even more raw energy. The
[39:31] Speaker 2: song is pretty vacant, and that's when you see the
[39:33] Speaker 2: police boats alongside the riverboat are moving into position. Johnny
[39:38] Speaker 2: Rotten also sees the police boats.
[39:40] Speaker 7: He screens the lyrics for the next song, No fun
[39:43] Speaker 7: right at the Cops. This whole riverboat protest crews could
[39:46] Speaker 7: not be more iconic, you think to yourself. As you
[39:49] Speaker 7: down the last of your drink, you feel the boat
[39:52] Speaker 7: then ings to the side. It seems the whole.
[39:54] Speaker 2: Riverboat is getting pulled over by the police. The boat
[39:57] Speaker 2: pulls to a dock, ties off, and then all hell
[40:01] Speaker 2: truly breaks lush the band to stop playing. The crowd
[40:04] Speaker 2: is in a panic and starts to flee through the
[40:06] Speaker 2: on rushing police swarming onto the boat. You look and
[40:10] Speaker 2: Malcolm McLaren looks at you. You both nod. You know
[40:13] Speaker 2: what to do. You throw yourselves at the police to
[40:16] Speaker 2: stop them from reaching the sex pistols. Paul Cook, the drummer,
[40:19] Speaker 2: starts throwing drumsticks at the police. Malcolm McLaren says to
[40:22] Speaker 2: fight the cups, but he gets knocked down and beaten
[40:25] Speaker 2: with billy clubs. You are shoved onto a table, Glasses
[40:28] Speaker 2: go flying. It's total pandemonium. Then the lights go out,
[40:32] Speaker 2: the big boat engines fall silent. There's just the crowd
[40:36] Speaker 2: and the police fighting. As you're dragged off the boat
[40:39] Speaker 2: by police, you see Richard Branson talking to the boat
[40:42] Speaker 2: on a flank by Bobby's. He tells Richard Branson he
[40:44] Speaker 2: can terminate the boat rental contract whenever he likes for misbehavior.
[40:48] Speaker 2: The last thing you hear as you're let off the
[40:50] Speaker 2: riverboat is the smug boat owner say, wow, you didn't
[40:53] Speaker 2: read the fine print, did you?
[40:56] Speaker 5: Oh?
[40:56] Speaker 2: Anarchy in the UK? Indeed, Elizabeth. So there you have it,
[40:59] Speaker 2: your moment of punk rock history. And I gotta say,
[41:03] Speaker 2: you never expect punk rock history to involve a leisurely
[41:05] Speaker 2: English boat crewise. But what's the result of all this
[41:09] Speaker 2: planned mayhem?
[41:10] Speaker 3: Right?
[41:10] Speaker 2: What does it work well? For? One? Richard Branson loses
[41:13] Speaker 2: his five hundred pounds deposit just right away? Did not
[41:15] Speaker 2: read the fine print? Now? The journalist Tony Parsons from
[41:18] Speaker 2: Enemy He tells it quote. We were all surprised at
[41:20] Speaker 2: just how rough the police were when they came on board.
[41:23] Speaker 2: So after a token protest, we all went quietly into
[41:26] Speaker 2: the night, apart from McLaren, who came down the gangplank
[41:28] Speaker 2: screaming in their faces. The police took him to one
[41:31] Speaker 2: side and gave him the worst beating I've ever seen
[41:33] Speaker 2: anybody given, Oh, Mark Malcolm, Yeah, so the beating of
[41:37] Speaker 2: their manager is one result. The sex pistols also then
[41:40] Speaker 2: were able to load up their gear and blend into
[41:42] Speaker 2: the crowd, they slip past the police. Yeah, because all
[41:45] Speaker 2: the punks and their posse all look as similar to
[41:47] Speaker 2: the cops. They can't tell them from one said vicious
[41:50] Speaker 2: from Johnny nobody. So it's hard to know a music
[41:52] Speaker 2: journalist from a band member. Basically right. So eleven riverboat passengers, though,
[41:56] Speaker 2: get arrested. Malcolm McLaren obviously is busted. He's arrested in
[41:59] Speaker 2: charge with such a British crime quote using insulting words
[42:03] Speaker 2: likely to provoke a breach of the peace. Yes Na,
[42:06] Speaker 2: this is so rude. So his partner in business, Akau
[42:10] Speaker 2: Vivian Westwood, gets charged with obstructing a policeman. Others catch
[42:14] Speaker 2: charges of assault, obstruction, threatening behavior. Now, two days later,
[42:18] Speaker 2: Queen Elizabeth does indeed take her leisurely riverboat cruise to
[42:21] Speaker 2: celebrate her silver jubilee in mark twenty five years of
[42:24] Speaker 2: her rule. And on that June ninth, no punk music
[42:28] Speaker 2: is blasted at the Monarch. Nothing happens, but somehow it's
[42:31] Speaker 2: like the river it's been sully been tainted. Everyone's still
[42:35] Speaker 2: talking about it and it's just hanging over like a
[42:37] Speaker 2: bad smell. The British press they're nuts, right, So anyway,
[42:41] Speaker 2: the crazy part. At this point, many in the country
[42:43] Speaker 2: get pissed. They get mad at these punks. How dare
[42:46] Speaker 2: they Sully are Queen? Yeah, they come after the sex Pistols.
[42:50] Speaker 2: And I'm not talking like just the Royalist, but the
[42:53] Speaker 2: band finds themselves playing a daily game of stab like
[42:57] Speaker 2: anywhere they go. Older rockers, rockabilly, these ton up boys,
[43:01] Speaker 2: teddy boys, all the older cats decide we're gonna defend
[43:04] Speaker 2: the Queen from these no good punk toys, and they
[43:06] Speaker 2: go after them. Johnny Rodden gets stabbed outside a pub.
[43:10] Speaker 2: Day later, Paul Cook gets beaten up outside.
[43:12] Speaker 4: It may not have been politically motivated. It could just
[43:15] Speaker 4: be that these guys had, you know, we're stabbable.
[43:18] Speaker 2: Three days later, Johnny Rotten gets beaten up again, also
[43:21] Speaker 2: playing a losing game of stable. They weren't getting beaten
[43:24] Speaker 2: up like this before. Usually they were like, you know,
[43:26] Speaker 2: like throwing the blows, throwing the glasses. Now it's coming
[43:29] Speaker 2: back at them all summer. The sex Pistols are targets
[43:32] Speaker 2: of violence, right. It gets so bad in August they
[43:36] Speaker 2: publicize their gigs in the UK using the name Spots
[43:39] Speaker 2: aka sex Pistols on tour secretly, oh wow. Yeah. At
[43:43] Speaker 2: the same time, over the summer, they're recording the final
[43:45] Speaker 2: tracks for their first studio album. October twenty eighth, nineteen
[43:48] Speaker 2: seventy seven, the album is dropped. Never mind the balls,
[43:51] Speaker 2: here's the sex Pistols. Everyone's like, no way, this is nuts.
[43:54] Speaker 2: Debut is number one on the UK charts. Yeah, right
[43:57] Speaker 2: this time nothing nobody can stop them all the way
[43:59] Speaker 2: up all right now. They don't know it, but the
[44:01] Speaker 2: band has just three more months of life. Yeah. On
[44:04] Speaker 2: Christmas Day, the band plays the show at a benefit
[44:06] Speaker 2: for firemen who are on strike Mary Punk Rock. The
[44:09] Speaker 2: benefit is to raise money for the fireman's families for
[44:11] Speaker 2: they to feed their kids. So the last show they'll
[44:13] Speaker 2: ever play in the UK. That's it now. After that,
[44:16] Speaker 2: the year, decades later they reunite. I'm not talking about
[44:19] Speaker 2: it now. Since they're getting stabbed at and they can't
[44:21] Speaker 2: play live shows in the UK, they go. After their
[44:24] Speaker 2: whole Queen Jubilee riverboat publicity debacle, they go, why don't
[44:28] Speaker 2: we go over to America? Maybe they'll like us in
[44:29] Speaker 2: the States. Now, it's supposed to be a nine day
[44:32] Speaker 2: tour in January. Last seven shows this tour. The first
[44:36] Speaker 2: it was supposed to be a much longer tour, but
[44:37] Speaker 2: Steve Jones wasn't allowed into the United States. He could
[44:40] Speaker 2: not get a visa because of his criminal rap sheet
[44:43] Speaker 2: at this point, right, So the delay costs the bands
[44:45] Speaker 2: their Northeast States. So when they finally let Jones come
[44:49] Speaker 2: into the US and they let the sex Pistols play,
[44:52] Speaker 2: they arrive for their gigs in the American South in
[44:55] Speaker 2: January nineteen seventy eight, tough, soe Elizabeth, the South was
[44:59] Speaker 2: not ready for punk rock. In nineteen seventy eight, Oh Memphis,
[45:02] Speaker 2: Baton Rouge, San Antonio, Dallas, Oh my God, and Memphis,
[45:06] Speaker 2: Sid Vicious is arrested after he's wandering around looking like
[45:08] Speaker 2: Sid Vicious and also trying to buy heroin off the street.
[45:13] Speaker 2: Also in Memphis, did Vicious is beaten up by his
[45:16] Speaker 2: own security guards because Warner Brothers paid for them to
[45:19] Speaker 2: be safe and he paid private security, like we need
[45:21] Speaker 2: them to not get stabbed over here. And then he's like, Okay,
[45:24] Speaker 2: well I'm going to fight these guys. So yeah, the
[45:26] Speaker 2: plan backfired. So then in San Antonio, Texas, the now
[45:29] Speaker 2: desperate heroin junkie said Vicious carves the words give me
[45:33] Speaker 2: a fix into the flesh of his chest and plays
[45:36] Speaker 2: the gig shirtless so everybody can see that he needs heroin. Yeah, exactly.
[45:41] Speaker 2: Now you know that's going to go down well. In Texas,
[45:44] Speaker 2: he also hit a crowd member in the head with
[45:45] Speaker 2: his bass for getting I don't know, too handsy with him.
[45:48] Speaker 2: He's damn sure Lucky wasn't killed in Texas. In Dallas,
[45:52] Speaker 2: there's a very famous photo. It's a huge sign outside
[45:54] Speaker 2: of a parking lot for the Long Horn Ballroom that
[45:57] Speaker 2: there's this marquee and at the center this eight foot
[45:59] Speaker 2: tall statue of a steer with two like wagon wheels inside.
[46:02] Speaker 2: The marquet announces tonight sex pistols. January nineteenth, Merle Haggard.
[46:08] Speaker 2: That's how that projuxtaposition Mama tried. Now I've got Dallas show.
[46:12] Speaker 2: Sid Vicious would go on to uh spit blood at
[46:15] Speaker 2: a woman in the crowd. But it wasn't his fault, Elizabeth, Okay,
[46:18] Speaker 2: it was his fault, but he didn't start it. The
[46:20] Speaker 2: young woman climbed up on the stage and to be
[46:22] Speaker 2: extra punk, she just punched sid Vicious square in the
[46:25] Speaker 2: face and then he like spit the blood from his
[46:27] Speaker 2: split lip right back at her face. Yeah, very puncked.
[46:30] Speaker 2: Now keep in mind this dude is still on crazy
[46:32] Speaker 2: Heroin withdraws, and so he's like out there like feeling
[46:36] Speaker 2: like warmed over death right, which me again may explain
[46:38] Speaker 2: why he's fighting security guards in a little irritable anyway.
[46:41] Speaker 2: Can you guess where their last gig was? What American
[46:44] Speaker 2: city they went through?
[46:45] Speaker 3: Through the South? Did they make it out of it?
[46:47] Speaker 2: They made to the west.
[46:48] Speaker 3: They made it to the West.
[46:49] Speaker 2: It was a Winterline ballroom in San Francisco. Yes, January fourteenth,
[46:55] Speaker 2: nineteen seventy eight. Johnny Rotten is so pissed at the
[46:58] Speaker 2: band and Malcolm McLaren sid Vish, He's really pissed and
[47:01] Speaker 2: then all the Americans for treating him like a punk
[47:03] Speaker 2: rock star. Their final show is just barely memorable, but
[47:06] Speaker 2: it's their final show, but well they're done, right. The
[47:08] Speaker 2: band travels after that to La sid Visius goes back
[47:11] Speaker 2: to New York and while he's there, he gets himself
[47:14] Speaker 2: some methodone and and some valuable Yeah, and he's like
[47:17] Speaker 2: trying to like I think he tried to do like
[47:18] Speaker 2: an amateur hour kick of Heroin because he's got methodone
[47:21] Speaker 2: in Vallium anyway, he ends up in the hospital. Johnny
[47:23] Speaker 2: Rotten flies out to visit them in the hospital and
[47:25] Speaker 2: sid Visius is there. The next day, Johnny Rotten tells
[47:27] Speaker 2: the press sex Pistols are done as a band. That's it.
[47:30] Speaker 6: Boom.
[47:30] Speaker 2: So Johnny Rotten phones Richard Brandson's like, could you flow
[47:33] Speaker 2: me home? And then he sends them, gives him money,
[47:35] Speaker 2: and that's it. Sex Pistols over and done. This period
[47:38] Speaker 2: of time is perhaps I think most valuable to Richard
[47:41] Speaker 2: Branson because this is how Richard Branson got his reputation
[47:44] Speaker 2: as a bad boy of the business world. Right, He's
[47:47] Speaker 2: like his early association with the sex Pistols, It's like, oh, man,
[47:50] Speaker 2: so he's already always you tried to point out, keeps
[47:52] Speaker 2: out that edge.
[47:53] Speaker 3: Yeah, money well spent for He's like, oh, I'm.
[47:55] Speaker 2: A punk rock billionaire. But Richard, I've got bad news.
[47:57] Speaker 2: Being a billionaire isn't punk rock.
[47:59] Speaker 4: Ever, In no way is it punk rock. But it
[48:01] Speaker 4: is like to have them kind of flame out like that.
[48:04] Speaker 2: Just oh totally adds.
[48:05] Speaker 3: To the total.
[48:06] Speaker 2: It's very legendary. Yeah, so there you go. The Silver
[48:08] Speaker 2: Jubilee riverboat moment is the crowning moment. Of the UK
[48:11] Speaker 2: punk rock movement. And it's also the moment that they
[48:14] Speaker 2: broke the sex Pistols because they never recovered from that.
[48:16] Speaker 2: They went up against the Queen and they lost. I
[48:18] Speaker 2: you know, if you're gonna come for the Queen, you
[48:20] Speaker 2: best not miss so those you know. Anyway, So I
[48:23] Speaker 2: did see this one quote that I liked. It explained
[48:25] Speaker 2: why the sex Pistols last so much. And it's not
[48:28] Speaker 2: just the attitude and the look. I mean, that's very
[48:30] Speaker 2: much it, but there's something else that unifies them or
[48:32] Speaker 2: a goose gives them a little jug that other bands
[48:35] Speaker 2: don't have. And so I found this outlet, Punks and Pinstripes.
[48:37] Speaker 2: I don't necessarily recommend it as an outlet for punk
[48:39] Speaker 2: rock culture, but I did like this quote and they
[48:42] Speaker 2: said punk is an act of love, not war. There's
[48:45] Speaker 2: a good reason why people are still energized with the
[48:47] Speaker 2: sex Pistols, and most people have never heard of gg Allen.
[48:50] Speaker 2: The sex Pistols gave voice to a nationally repressed anti
[48:53] Speaker 2: authority sentiment. Gg Allen, on the other hand, harmed himself
[48:57] Speaker 2: and others on stage in service of no greater cause.
[48:59] Speaker 2: There's a difference between purposeful punk and creating a spectacle.
[49:03] Speaker 2: And so there you go. That's why their defiant stance
[49:05] Speaker 2: against the queen and authority of so forth is lasting
[49:07] Speaker 2: more so than the antics of Sid Vicious and Johnny
[49:10] Speaker 2: Rotten and Steve Jones. So what's sor ridiculous take away here, Elizabeth?
[49:15] Speaker 4: You know, I think like as we look at the
[49:17] Speaker 4: way that everything is cyclical, the widening gyre and such.
[49:24] Speaker 3: Historically, you look at like where.
[49:27] Speaker 4: England was in seventy seven and through the eighties.
[49:30] Speaker 3: And like Thatcher years and totally.
[49:32] Speaker 4: That you need this kind of outlet and you need
[49:36] Speaker 4: you know, the sex Pistols weren't truly political, you know,
[49:39] Speaker 4: it's like they're the manufactured for this, but you look
[49:41] Speaker 4: at all the other acts.
[49:43] Speaker 2: What followed them, and then take a did ticket seriously.
[49:45] Speaker 4: The clash exactly and uh, you know, and like the
[49:49] Speaker 4: kind of working class ethos of it, all of fighting
[49:52] Speaker 4: punching up.
[49:53] Speaker 2: Totally or like the POGs would make it attached to
[49:55] Speaker 2: a real political movement.
[49:56] Speaker 4: Sure, and but just you know, you look at bands
[49:58] Speaker 4: like Stiff Little Fingers and like x Ray Specsors in
[50:02] Speaker 4: Anger and it may not be like fully political, but
[50:04] Speaker 4: it's you know, it's there so anyway, so you see
[50:07] Speaker 4: like how there's this evolution now where like punk keeps
[50:10] Speaker 4: coming back up at a time when when there's like this.
[50:16] Speaker 3: Difficult energy.
[50:17] Speaker 4: You know, I'll just to be kind. And I noticed
[50:20] Speaker 4: that a lot of my friends are like we're quoting
[50:24] Speaker 4: songs and even not even just like straight punk, but
[50:27] Speaker 4: you go to like Rage against the Machine. You're quoting
[50:30] Speaker 4: these things to kind of get through a crazy time.
[50:33] Speaker 4: And I feel like we're about to get like some
[50:35] Speaker 4: really great bands out of it, you know what I mean,
[50:39] Speaker 4: Like like I just I want that defiance. I'm looking
[50:43] Speaker 4: at your laptop with your rancid Dropkick Murphy's Boston to
[50:47] Speaker 4: Berkeley there, and I'm thinking about, like, you know, political messages,
[50:53] Speaker 4: and those are not even the most political bands by far,
[50:56] Speaker 4: but you know, we it has to be something that's accessible.
[51:00] Speaker 4: And when I say political, about partisan politics, but the
[51:03] Speaker 4: politics of being a human being, being respected and having
[51:09] Speaker 4: everyone get a chance at stuff like you were saying, billionaires,
[51:13] Speaker 4: not punk.
[51:13] Speaker 2: Rhytal, politics of ethics, politics.
[51:15] Speaker 3: Of money, right, And so I think that that's my takeaways.
[51:18] Speaker 4: I think we're going to see I pray we're going
[51:20] Speaker 4: to see really good music come out of these crazy
[51:23] Speaker 4: times totally.
[51:24] Speaker 2: And you know, Minor doesn't thank you for asking. Elizabeth.
[51:26] Speaker 2: Takeaway is, if Johnny Rotten can do it, so can I?
[51:30] Speaker 3: You know exactly.
[51:31] Speaker 2: I've just told myself that numerous times in life. Johnny
[51:34] Speaker 2: Rotten can do it, so can I.
[51:36] Speaker 8: I just keep thinking of is it the Henry Rollins
[51:39] Speaker 8: quote where he's like Joe Strummer prepared us for this totally?
[51:46] Speaker 8: Or I just find myself also singing a lot of
[51:49] Speaker 8: billy bragged.
[51:49] Speaker 2: Oh my god, yeah, Union forever, we gotta do it.
[51:53] Speaker 2: Power in the Land, Power in the Union. Oh okay,
[51:56] Speaker 2: well appreciated. Can you give us a talk back as
[51:59] Speaker 2: I share him in the dude?
[52:04] Speaker 8: Oh god, I want cheat.
[52:12] Speaker 3: Hey, Elizabeth, Hey's Aaron.
[52:14] Speaker 5: I just want you to know that this morning it
[52:17] Speaker 5: was kind of crappy, but I heard the bad to
[52:20] Speaker 5: the bone riff across the store Inner Chrome, and I
[52:25] Speaker 5: just couldn't help but smile. Thinking of a leather clad
[52:30] Speaker 5: vampire punching cheeks sounds terrible, but it made me. Maybe
[52:35] Speaker 5: it made my morning made me laugh so much. Anyways,
[52:39] Speaker 5: Love you guys, see you.
[52:43] Speaker 2: What a great moment.
[52:45] Speaker 8: That's amazing, and it's now made by Day seriously it
[52:49] Speaker 8: was a circle and came all was, look.
[52:50] Speaker 3: If we're just spreading it? Yeah, oh my god, I
[52:53] Speaker 3: gotta tell trap about.
[52:56] Speaker 2: As always. You can find his online Ridiculous Crime on
[52:58] Speaker 2: our social media. It's mostly blue Sky on Instagram. At
[53:00] Speaker 2: this point, we do have our website, ridiculous Crime dot com.
[53:03] Speaker 2: It is award winning. I think we're up for one
[53:06] Speaker 2: of this year's Sound Editing Oscars, so very excited about that.
[53:10] Speaker 2: We obviously love your talkbacks, so go to the iHeart
[53:12] Speaker 2: app record one, download it though first, then record one
[53:15] Speaker 2: and then prossably you will hear yourself here who knows,
[53:18] Speaker 2: or you can email us if you like it Ridiculous
[53:20] Speaker 2: Crime at gmail dot com if you've got a story
[53:21] Speaker 2: you want to share, a recommendation, or just to say
[53:23] Speaker 2: hey kids, well you know, once again, thank you for listening,
[53:27] Speaker 2: and we will catch you next crime. Ridiculous Crime is
[53:37] Speaker 2: hosted by Elizabeth Dutton and Zaren Burnette, produced and edited
[53:41] Speaker 2: by the man who taught Johnny Rotten to sneer, Dave Coustu,
[53:45] Speaker 2: and starring Annalis Trucker as Judith. Research is by our
[53:48] Speaker 2: resident YouTube cover bands cover band Marissa Brown and Alex French.
[53:53] Speaker 2: Our theme song is by Thomas I prefer the buzzcocks
[53:56] Speaker 2: Lee and Travis I prefer the clash Dot. The hosts
[53:59] Speaker 2: ward provided by Butany five hundred. Guest hair and makeup
[54:03] Speaker 2: by Sparkleshot and mister Andre. Executive producers are g g Allen,
[54:08] Speaker 2: superfan Ben Bolan and Richard Hell fan club president Noel Brown.
[54:20] Speaker 3: Cry Say It One More Time Geek Cry.
[54:25] Speaker 1: Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio. Four more podcasts
[54:28] Speaker 1: from my heart Radio. Visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
[54:31] Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

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