....SATURDAY JANUARY 15TH 1977
NEW MUSICAL EXPRESS January 15th, 1977
Spitting into the eye of the Hurricane
As the Blank Generation Big Match (EMI vs Sex Pistols) hots up,
PHIL McNEILL reports from Amsterdam
STREET CORNER paper seller: "Read all about it! Sex Pistols split up! Read all about it!"
Passer-by: "Is it true?" Paper seller: "No, I just like to cheer people up. "
(Cartoon in London Evening Standard.)
THOSE FOUR Scumsurfers of the Apocalypse, their Satanic Majesties The Sex Pistols, have come to
terrorise the Netherlands. Two nights ago they played Rotterdam with The Heartbreakers. Now it's Friday
and with The Vibrators over from London to join the bill, they are headlining at Amsterdam's famous
Paradiso Club for the second consecutive night.
Since they left London all hell has broken loose.
The straw that broke the camel's back was an incident at Heathrow Airport.
Spitting, allegedly puking, and generally horrifying fellow passengers, the Pistols hit the headlines again
and EMI responded by terminating the band's contract.
Their manager, Malcolm McLaren, promptly denied that the termination was mutual as claimed, and while
the band checked into some poky downtown hotel, a couple of EMI bigwigs flew over to Amsterdam - the
Hilton natch - to persuade Malcolm to get mutual.
While the nation scanned the news with bated breath for latest developments, NME's PHIL McNEILL touched down at Amsterdam
airport and zeroed in on the eye of the hurricane . . .
THE PARADISO is much bigger than I imagined it to be - at least twice the size the Marquee, for instance, with the
ambience of a much friendlier Roundhouse, a balcony, two quirky bars, pool and pinball, a high (five foot) stage
with lighted stained glass windows behind, and hardly any sign of the public-dope scene for which it's famed. Two black guys
morosely attempt to sell cocaine outside as Guardian rock writer Robin Denselow and I shuffle in
just in time for The Vibrators' opening number.
For most of the audience, "No Fun" is their first taste of live English punk rock, and there could hardly be a
better way to start: tongue - in - cheek nihilism, stampeding guitars and grotesque flash.
They're amused, seem to enjoy it, give it quite a good reception. The Vibrators' set is reviewed in full in On The Town.
Backstage, The Heartbreakers and Sex Pistols wander in as The Vibrators wander out. After a while there's a completely
different population in the concrete box dressing room, and I sidle over and set up the tape machine next to Pistols drummer
Paul Cook: You done the one at the 'Undred Club that time, didn't ya?
Phil McNeil: Yeah, a long long time ago.
Glen Matlock: Was you the bloke that was gonna "split down the middle"?
No. The main thing I've written about you recently was in the Stranglers piece, actually . .
Cook: Luring 'em into saying naughty things. (Hugh Cornwell had called Rotten "a paranoid clown").
People were saying at the time what a bad deal it was far the Pistols, running into all this trouble, and it seemed to me if
anything it was helping you because you were getting all these front pages. I mean your a household name now. But I
must admit it seems to have changed somewhat since then.
Matlock: Backfired'? In some ways, yeah. It's all part of it, though, isn't it, all the mad hassle. The more madder the better.
I don 't know how you stand the pressure of it, though.
Cook: We're used to it already. I just think it's a load of bollocks. I don't know why they all write about it.
Matlock: You don't believe it till you've been the other side of it really.
Cook: Like that thing at the airport. I'm not kidding, straight up, we couldn't believe it when we got over here. Someone phoned up,
said this that and the other, we just couldn't believe it. There was a press bloke waiting I suppose, just waiting at the airport for
something to 'appen. We just acted our natural selves. It just beats me.
Wasn't there anything at all?
Cook: Nothing. Really. The bloke from EMI was with us all the time. He would have said if there was, but he didn't.
I've heard you're gonna refuse to let them (EMI) break the contract.
Cook: Come on, we're not just gonna let 'em say. "Get off the label, do this, do that."
You wouldn't rather just go somewhere else?
Cook: That's the point, innit? We're just letting Malcolm sort it out.
Matlock: A contract's a contract. If you sign a contract, right, and six months later they say you gotta tear it up...
Cook: If they do it with us, what chance have other bands got?
But I would hate the thought that working with a company that was so against you, you'd rather just get out.
Cook: Yeah, but its the people at the top who are against us. The people in the record company, like the A & R guys, who work on the shop floor, they're behind the band and they've got
absolutely no say in it. It's yer John Reads, he's the guy that's in charge of all of EMI, not just the record company.
Matlock: He doesn't normally interfere.
What happened before the Grundy interview? It seemed like you were just sitting there, right here's our opportunity, were gonna get on the box and....
Matlock: Swear!
Create havoc.
Mallock: No, we just went there and sat in a room for a bit and had a beer each, and he asked us a few questions, we just answered him. That was it. We never even spoke to the guy before it.
He was just, like, sitting there, y'know, he looked a bit kinda pissed.
Cook: I think he incited (obscured) but he asked John. John said "Shit" under his breath and he said "WHAT WAS THAT?" He said, "Nothing, no nothing." He said, "come on come on I wanna
hear it", y'know. What does he expect?
There was also a nasty rumour going round that you didn 't play on the record.
Cook: We 'eard that too. We got on to them straight away and got a letter of written apology. We 'eard it on the radio, couldn't believe that one either. It seems totally wrong to go . . .
(obscured).
One of the rumours is that Spedding was on the record.
Cook: Speddding can't play as good as that (laughs).
You did some work with Spedding though, didn't you?
Cook: Three tracks. A long time ago though. We really rushed in, but we come out of it alright. He produced on 'em. It was alright.
But the singles is categorically you lot?
Cook: Sorry.
The single's definitely you lot?
Cook: Oh yeah, yeah. What a question! (Laughs). How can you believe it?
I don't believe. I gotta ask it, haven't I?
Cook: Yeah, okay. We 'eard it on Capital Radio, we just couldn't believe it,
How's the audience here taking to you?
Cook: Oh. alright. They was getting going last night.
They seemed to like The Vibrators.
Cook: All the bands went down really well last night.
What are your favourite bands out of the other bands that are around?
Cook: These boys. The Heartbreakers?
What do you reckon to the Vibrators?
Cook: Ah, you're trying to put me in that trap again what the Stranglers fell for.'
They didn't fall for anything. They'd decided to give that interview before I walked in the room.
Cook: How other bands can just go out and say things about...I think any band thats about at the moment trying to do something new, give
em credit for it whether you like 'em or not. Don't just go out and slag 'em off, whether you like 'em or not. I think it's good that they're just
doing it, that it's something new.
Jones:(from across the room) Who's this?
Cook: He's from the NME.
Jones: What's your name?
Phil McNeil.
Jones: (aggressively): Oh, are you?
Cook: No, they've been good to us lately.
We've been good to you all along.
What's all this about spitting at the audience?
Cook: We don't. You been reading too much Daily Mirror.
Well, in the wake of reports of John spitting at the audience some bands have started doing it.
Cook: We read that in the press too, and suddenly we were playing playing and everyone started coming along and spitting at us. That's what they thought we wanted, y'know. Gobbing at us.
In Manchester or somewhere.
What's your reaction to seeing people with safety pins through their jaws?
Cook: I've seen that too, yeah.
It seems like it's a development of John wearing safety pins through his shirt.
Cook: Let 'em do what they wanna do, that's what I say. Who cares?
And what about the great nazi thing thats going around now. You got a lotta kids coming to your gigs these days wearing nazi emblems and safety pins through their faces
and god knows what else.
Cook: They take it too seriously they really do. If they wanna wear' a nazi armband, let 'em. I don't think kids are that political, really mean what they do. They like the shape of it. It's a good
shape.
What about the Pistols? What's your politics?
Cook: Do what you wanna do. That's what we're doing, and getting turned down for doing it. Do you want to talk to John for a while?
(Rotten Is standing nearby, back to us. Cook tugs his arm). John. John! Here, this is Phil..
Rotten: No way.
Cook: He's from . . .
Rotten: (Obscured, shrugging Cook off).
Cook (Slightly put out) Alright. He don't wanna do it.
THE HEARTBREAKERS' set flashes by. It's been said here already the Dolls, a heavied Ramones, not so fast though the reception's comparatively quiet but the friendly atmosphere
combined with the biasing rock onstage . . . it's a helluva gig.
I interview The Vibrators in the Paradiso office. They're euphoric because the guy from Amsterdam's other main club, the Milky Way, who blew out the gigs he'd booked for The Vibrators
when the Grundy-Pistols thing erupted, came down last night and has booked them in for two days' time.
A charge shivers the room as - "Anarchy In The UK" lams out in the background; Malcolm McLaren arrives and huddles heatedly with The Vibrators' manager. Bread.
A few songs into the Pistols' set we wind down the interview: it will appear here sometime soon. But let's go check the naughty boys . . .
THE JOHNNY Rotten Show is well under way. Long time no see. Not much sign of the vast improvements in playing we've heard
about: the sound's much clearer than?. the early days, but the music is still primitive. Without Rotten they're a good, hefty
drummer, an ordinary bassist and a mediocre guitarist.
"Substitute" and others go by. The crowd are up for the first time, slanding fascinated but diffident. Rotten goes through his ostrich
poses, the chin jutting, the mouth leering, the eyes rolling. They're playing what seems to be "No Future". It boasts the title line
from the National Anthem.
There's a long break, with a lot of aural and visual aggro between the punters and the Rotten/Matlock duo, then they resume the
song, very loud. It's sloppy, and it reaps silence.
A green-haired lady is sitting under a Christmas tree stuck on the wall behind the drums, and as they go into "(We're so pretty,
oh so) Pretty Vacant" it occurs to me , vacantly that it looks like she's wearing some gigantic hat. The Pistols are playing tighter,
but it's still mighty basic. Jones compensates for his limited skill with a fair line in one note breaks.
Johnny Rotten is a perplexing performer. He has an extraordinary ability to enrage the audience.
At the most basic level it's his insults and his bad behaviour, but Rotten has something deeper. It goes deeper, too, than his
contempt for society in songs like "I'm A Lazy Sod". And surely it goes beyond his looks, his flea bitten hunchbacked reptilian
cadaver.
Somehow this guy repels virtually everybody, and somehow his power reaches through the taunts to the sensibilities of
thousands, maybe even millions, of people who have only ever heard his name and seen his picture.
Yet he is mesmerising. He can't be ignored. He's not just some hooligan who swore on TV, he drags the most casual observer
into, usually, a love-hate relationship: probably the most charismatic since Bowie.
Suddenly a couple of kids at the front who have been hitting Rotten with woollen scarves start throwing beer. No! glasses, just
beer - but for this laid-back mob it's the equivalent. While Rotten stands there Cook erupts from his stool and he and the girl
chuck beer back. Matlock kicks his mike stand very nattily off the stage, and the rhythm section storms off. Jones is still riffing,
and Rotten sends the girl to get the others back. They eventually return for the only really furious piece of music they play all
night.
Meanwhile Malcolm McLaren stands impassive upon the mixing desk riser, his three-piece suited solicitor behind him.
The show really begins about about now. It's got nothing at all to do with music, but so what. It's entertainment.
The band have left the stage - all but Rotten, who sneers. "If you want applause you can clap for it.
Feeble applause. The disco starts, and feet start shuffling out.
But a chant is generating. Yes . . . yes ... the Pistols are coming back. "Whatcha Gonna Do 'Bout It", nihilism incarnate.
They end but don't go. "You're boring," drones Rotten. This weird challenge to the audience to respond, I look round at McLaren
and see that he is standing there gesticulating to Rotten, the upswept arms of the "Get Up" movement and the hands clapping
overhead . . . and Rotten is mimicking McLaren. This show ends when Malcolm says so.
The crowd raise a half-hearted chant. Rotten's response: "Right, you fuckers, we're gonna do one more, so move or else forget
about it."
It's a very good version of 'Anarchy in the UK' lots of echo on the voice.
End of act? No way. McLaren is signalling Rotten again, and puppet-like, Rotten copies him. Whether the audience wants one or
not, there's going to be another encore, There is, and this time Rotten stomps off before Malcolm starts signalling.
The point of all these false encores eludes me, unless the Sex Pistols are actually unliberated enough to get an ego-boost out of such conventional trappings of success.
Their music is lumpen, but the spectacle is marvellous. That last sentence could easily be applied, coincidentally, to shows I've seen in the past year by Queen and the Stones and, like those
bands today, the Pistols' main success is in show business.
MALCOLM has agreed to speak to Robin Denselow and me at his hotel. How the hell do we find it?
We wander off in pursuit of the beleaguered mad scientist. It's freezing and I haven't eaten all day. We walk for miles. As we near our destination Steve Jones runs past, bums five guilders off
me virtually in return for showing us where he's staying, much to my bemusement . . . finally we're there.
And behold, McLaren appears. For some reason we can't go in, so we conduct the interview standing on an hotel step by a canal at 3.00 in the morning. Mclaren looks more wasted than I feel,
talking unstoppably like a man possessed staring into space. There could he 2,000 of us listening.
"WE'VE Heard word that rnost of the majors won't touch us with bargepoles."
You haven't had offers from people like Polydor, UA?
"No that's all guff, man - who's spreading those kinda rumours? There's nobody after us. We've had, I suppose you call it votes of confidence from
the shop floors of various record companies, but you begin to realise that those sort of people don't have any control over the situation, just as it's
happened in EMI.
'We've had people like the guy from EMI Publishing, Terry Slater, he rang me up today and he feels totally pissed off that he's been totally overruled.
He's the head of EMI Publishing: he signed us four weeks ago for £10,000 and now he's been told that's all got to be quashed. He's been made to
look stupid.
"The same goes for Nick Mobbs, who threatened to resign. He's now been told that would be very unhealthy for him, so they can produce a
wonderful statement saying on EMI no one has resigned.
"There are different bands with different points of view. The real situation is that people on the board of directors at EMI do not agree with our point.
The people who actually work for EMI, they do. But if they come out and make a statement to that effect they will get the sack, or they'll have to
resign.
Those truths never come out. What appears in the press is that we have been thrown out of EMI together, a wonderful concensus of opinion.
If it comes to the crunch and they force you to terminate, will vou repay the advance?
"How are we going to repay the advance? We've already spent all the money maintaining ourselves here and on the tour. We're out here promoting
their single, it's not just our single.
Is it out here?
"Yeah, that's the reason we're here. We weren't doing any other European territory simply because EMI sent a memo asking them not to release it.
EMI Holland got the record out before that memo reached them. Now they're withdrawing it."
Are they blocking its sale in England?
"Oh yeah, it's being withdrawn in England."
If you do split with them, what happens to any tapes that are in the can?
"Those questions have been raised. They would prefer that we take the lot and go away with it. "It's been very easy for them. Someone signs a
contract for 2 years: that is an agreement between two parties. If you can tear that contract up in two months because they dislike the opinion of the
band by 'they' I mean the EMI board of directors, it makes a farce of the whole situation.
"What about all these other bands that are coming along? They sign a contract and some guy at the top, not the A & -R guy who's responsible: for signing, says 'I don't like what I'm hearing
about this band, I don't want them on the company no any more.' So they go out the window."
Who are the guys who've come over here?
"The managing director of EMI and the head of the Legal Department Leslie Hill and Laurie Hall. They came over to terminate the contract and we haven't terminated it. They want us to have
another meeting; at the moment they haven't met any of my proposals, probably because they have been told they can't meet anything. We had a two-hour meeting tonight.
"It's been very nice. We've come away to Holland and someone's decided behind our back to 'mutually terminate' the contract. Legally we're still on EMI Records.
"Now people on the EMI board are saying, 'Why the hell did we sign them in the first place? They're musically inadequate, it was too much money ..."
"But l spoke to Leslie Hill, the managing director of EMI Records, prior to us signing. It was him that was exhilarated by the band and thrilled at the idea of signing the act. He was fully aware of
their public image, and he will not deny that.
"EMI had all the tapes to all the Pistols' songs. They heard them, they were excited at the prospect of signing this act and commercially gaining through it. We had had offers from other
companies, but I went there because the sympathy with EMI was strong on the shop floor.
"Nick Mobbs, Tony Slater on the publishing side, David Munns on the promotion side, Mark Ryder the label manager, Paul Watts the general manager and Leslie Hill the managing director
wanted to sign this act.
"Now they're saying, 'We have 4,000 employees on EMI and if we took a concensus of opinion I don't think you would raise the amount of votes necessary,'
"I made a proposal, I said, 'OK, find us an equivalent contract.' If I walk into Warner Brothers they're going to say, 'Well man, you didn't make it with EMI, the bad publicity, etcetera.'
"What they did on TV was something that was quite genuine. They were goaded into it, and being working class kids and boys being boys they said what they felt was ... O.K. They don't regret
it.
"The KLM situation at the airport was fabricated up to a point. Yeah, the band might have looked a little bit extraordinary, they may have spat at each other. Big deal. And someone may have
appeared a little drunk. But they weren't flying the plane, they don't need to be that sober.
"There are these bands now that have some sort of petition, like Mud, Tina Charles, all these Other Top Twenty acts, and sent round this petition to all the record companies saying that they
do not support this kind of music:
(NME talked to Mud's manager, Barry Dunning, on Monday. He denied Mud had signed any petition, nor would they ever do so.)
"My lawyer asked: We'd like a meeting with John Read or the rest of the money. They'd rather give us the rest of the money than have a meeting. John Read speaks on behalf of all the
shareholders, he controls the whole of EMI Ltd., which covers far more than just a record company. He wouldn't "meet us. He sent Hill instead; every time you just get to speak to Hill. Hill has his
orders and he can't move from that point."
How much money have you had of the £40,000?
"Half. The first year. But that has been spent on supporting a tour.
"We ended up selling the fucking record at the bloody door in Rotterdam and at the Paradise last night. It's a joke."
What's next, a big legal battle?
"I don't know. I asked Hill if they can reconsider their situation, quite simply and if they can't, why can't Capitol Records, who we're signed to in America? 'Oh well, Capitol Records decided to go
along with Manchester Square.' They don't want any part of it.
"I said, 'What happens if we're on another label and the distribution is through EMI? Are EMI gonna distribute the record?' They can't really answer that. It's very difficult, it really is. I feel pretty
bad about it.
"Hill's now saying, 'Can't you go to Virgin Records, I hear that's an interesting company.' Bollocks man, we went to Virgin Records before we went to EMI and they didn't wanna know.
"If we walk into another record company, what are they going to say? 'If you can't play anywhere and we can't hear your records on the radio and EMI decided to drop you . . .' What the hell are
they going to do?
"It's not just EMI, it's people behind the scenes, guys that go on the radio and say we didn't play on our record, the guy that's scared to put us on Top Of The Pops even though we're in the
breakers because the BBC don't want to be seen to be associated with us.
"What's it all about?"
UNTIL LAST week I had no sympathy whatsoever for the punks - as - martyrs line, but if what McLaren says about them not being able to land a contract elsewhere is true (I still don't really
believe that one), and EMI Records do succeed in breaking their legal contract simply on account of thirty seconds of televised swearing, then I'll, I'II . . .Phew, for a moment there I Almost Cut
My Hair!
The McLaren interview was recorded on an EMI tape.
THE END
Reprinted from the NEW MUSICAL EXPRESS January 15th, 1977 (Punk Rocker archive)
Spitting into the eye of the Hurricane
As the Blank Generation Big Match (EMI vs Sex Pistols) hots up,
PHIL McNEILL reports from Amsterdam
STREET CORNER paper seller: "Read all about it! Sex Pistols split up! Read all about it!"
Passer-by: "Is it true?" Paper seller: "No, I just like to cheer people up. "
(Cartoon in London Evening Standard.)
THOSE FOUR Scumsurfers of the Apocalypse, their Satanic Majesties The Sex Pistols, have come to
terrorise the Netherlands. Two nights ago they played Rotterdam with The Heartbreakers. Now it's Friday
and with The Vibrators over from London to join the bill, they are headlining at Amsterdam's famous
Paradiso Club for the second consecutive night.
Since they left London all hell has broken loose.
The straw that broke the camel's back was an incident at Heathrow Airport.
Spitting, allegedly puking, and generally horrifying fellow passengers, the Pistols hit the headlines again
and EMI responded by terminating the band's contract.
Their manager, Malcolm McLaren, promptly denied that the termination was mutual as claimed, and while
the band checked into some poky downtown hotel, a couple of EMI bigwigs flew over to Amsterdam - the
Hilton natch - to persuade Malcolm to get mutual.
While the nation scanned the news with bated breath for latest developments, NME's PHIL McNEILL touched down at Amsterdam
airport and zeroed in on the eye of the hurricane . . .
THE PARADISO is much bigger than I imagined it to be - at least twice the size the Marquee, for instance, with the
ambience of a much friendlier Roundhouse, a balcony, two quirky bars, pool and pinball, a high (five foot) stage
with lighted stained glass windows behind, and hardly any sign of the public-dope scene for which it's famed. Two black guys
morosely attempt to sell cocaine outside as Guardian rock writer Robin Denselow and I shuffle in
just in time for The Vibrators' opening number.
For most of the audience, "No Fun" is their first taste of live English punk rock, and there could hardly be a
better way to start: tongue - in - cheek nihilism, stampeding guitars and grotesque flash.
They're amused, seem to enjoy it, give it quite a good reception. The Vibrators' set is reviewed in full in On The Town.
Backstage, The Heartbreakers and Sex Pistols wander in as The Vibrators wander out. After a while there's a completely
different population in the concrete box dressing room, and I sidle over and set up the tape machine next to Pistols drummer
Paul Cook: You done the one at the 'Undred Club that time, didn't ya?
Phil McNeil: Yeah, a long long time ago.
Glen Matlock: Was you the bloke that was gonna "split down the middle"?
No. The main thing I've written about you recently was in the Stranglers piece, actually . .
Cook: Luring 'em into saying naughty things. (Hugh Cornwell had called Rotten "a paranoid clown").
People were saying at the time what a bad deal it was far the Pistols, running into all this trouble, and it seemed to me if
anything it was helping you because you were getting all these front pages. I mean your a household name now. But I
must admit it seems to have changed somewhat since then.
Matlock: Backfired'? In some ways, yeah. It's all part of it, though, isn't it, all the mad hassle. The more madder the better.
I don 't know how you stand the pressure of it, though.
Cook: We're used to it already. I just think it's a load of bollocks. I don't know why they all write about it.
Matlock: You don't believe it till you've been the other side of it really.
Cook: Like that thing at the airport. I'm not kidding, straight up, we couldn't believe it when we got over here. Someone phoned up,
said this that and the other, we just couldn't believe it. There was a press bloke waiting I suppose, just waiting at the airport for
something to 'appen. We just acted our natural selves. It just beats me.
Wasn't there anything at all?
Cook: Nothing. Really. The bloke from EMI was with us all the time. He would have said if there was, but he didn't.
I've heard you're gonna refuse to let them (EMI) break the contract.
Cook: Come on, we're not just gonna let 'em say. "Get off the label, do this, do that."
You wouldn't rather just go somewhere else?
Cook: That's the point, innit? We're just letting Malcolm sort it out.
Matlock: A contract's a contract. If you sign a contract, right, and six months later they say you gotta tear it up...
Cook: If they do it with us, what chance have other bands got?
But I would hate the thought that working with a company that was so against you, you'd rather just get out.
Cook: Yeah, but its the people at the top who are against us. The people in the record company, like the A & R guys, who work on the shop floor, they're behind the band and they've got
absolutely no say in it. It's yer John Reads, he's the guy that's in charge of all of EMI, not just the record company.
Matlock: He doesn't normally interfere.
What happened before the Grundy interview? It seemed like you were just sitting there, right here's our opportunity, were gonna get on the box and....
Matlock: Swear!
Create havoc.
Mallock: No, we just went there and sat in a room for a bit and had a beer each, and he asked us a few questions, we just answered him. That was it. We never even spoke to the guy before it.
He was just, like, sitting there, y'know, he looked a bit kinda pissed.
Cook: I think he incited (obscured) but he asked John. John said "Shit" under his breath and he said "WHAT WAS THAT?" He said, "Nothing, no nothing." He said, "come on come on I wanna
hear it", y'know. What does he expect?
There was also a nasty rumour going round that you didn 't play on the record.
Cook: We 'eard that too. We got on to them straight away and got a letter of written apology. We 'eard it on the radio, couldn't believe that one either. It seems totally wrong to go . . .
(obscured).
One of the rumours is that Spedding was on the record.
Cook: Speddding can't play as good as that (laughs).
You did some work with Spedding though, didn't you?
Cook: Three tracks. A long time ago though. We really rushed in, but we come out of it alright. He produced on 'em. It was alright.
But the singles is categorically you lot?
Cook: Sorry.
The single's definitely you lot?
Cook: Oh yeah, yeah. What a question! (Laughs). How can you believe it?
I don't believe. I gotta ask it, haven't I?
Cook: Yeah, okay. We 'eard it on Capital Radio, we just couldn't believe it,
How's the audience here taking to you?
Cook: Oh. alright. They was getting going last night.
They seemed to like The Vibrators.
Cook: All the bands went down really well last night.
What are your favourite bands out of the other bands that are around?
Cook: These boys. The Heartbreakers?
What do you reckon to the Vibrators?
Cook: Ah, you're trying to put me in that trap again what the Stranglers fell for.'
They didn't fall for anything. They'd decided to give that interview before I walked in the room.
Cook: How other bands can just go out and say things about...I think any band thats about at the moment trying to do something new, give
em credit for it whether you like 'em or not. Don't just go out and slag 'em off, whether you like 'em or not. I think it's good that they're just
doing it, that it's something new.
Jones:(from across the room) Who's this?
Cook: He's from the NME.
Jones: What's your name?
Phil McNeil.
Jones: (aggressively): Oh, are you?
Cook: No, they've been good to us lately.
We've been good to you all along.
What's all this about spitting at the audience?
Cook: We don't. You been reading too much Daily Mirror.
Well, in the wake of reports of John spitting at the audience some bands have started doing it.
Cook: We read that in the press too, and suddenly we were playing playing and everyone started coming along and spitting at us. That's what they thought we wanted, y'know. Gobbing at us.
In Manchester or somewhere.
What's your reaction to seeing people with safety pins through their jaws?
Cook: I've seen that too, yeah.
It seems like it's a development of John wearing safety pins through his shirt.
Cook: Let 'em do what they wanna do, that's what I say. Who cares?
And what about the great nazi thing thats going around now. You got a lotta kids coming to your gigs these days wearing nazi emblems and safety pins through their faces
and god knows what else.
Cook: They take it too seriously they really do. If they wanna wear' a nazi armband, let 'em. I don't think kids are that political, really mean what they do. They like the shape of it. It's a good
shape.
What about the Pistols? What's your politics?
Cook: Do what you wanna do. That's what we're doing, and getting turned down for doing it. Do you want to talk to John for a while?
(Rotten Is standing nearby, back to us. Cook tugs his arm). John. John! Here, this is Phil..
Rotten: No way.
Cook: He's from . . .
Rotten: (Obscured, shrugging Cook off).
Cook (Slightly put out) Alright. He don't wanna do it.
THE HEARTBREAKERS' set flashes by. It's been said here already the Dolls, a heavied Ramones, not so fast though the reception's comparatively quiet but the friendly atmosphere
combined with the biasing rock onstage . . . it's a helluva gig.
I interview The Vibrators in the Paradiso office. They're euphoric because the guy from Amsterdam's other main club, the Milky Way, who blew out the gigs he'd booked for The Vibrators
when the Grundy-Pistols thing erupted, came down last night and has booked them in for two days' time.
A charge shivers the room as - "Anarchy In The UK" lams out in the background; Malcolm McLaren arrives and huddles heatedly with The Vibrators' manager. Bread.
A few songs into the Pistols' set we wind down the interview: it will appear here sometime soon. But let's go check the naughty boys . . .
THE JOHNNY Rotten Show is well under way. Long time no see. Not much sign of the vast improvements in playing we've heard
about: the sound's much clearer than?. the early days, but the music is still primitive. Without Rotten they're a good, hefty
drummer, an ordinary bassist and a mediocre guitarist.
"Substitute" and others go by. The crowd are up for the first time, slanding fascinated but diffident. Rotten goes through his ostrich
poses, the chin jutting, the mouth leering, the eyes rolling. They're playing what seems to be "No Future". It boasts the title line
from the National Anthem.
There's a long break, with a lot of aural and visual aggro between the punters and the Rotten/Matlock duo, then they resume the
song, very loud. It's sloppy, and it reaps silence.
A green-haired lady is sitting under a Christmas tree stuck on the wall behind the drums, and as they go into "(We're so pretty,
oh so) Pretty Vacant" it occurs to me , vacantly that it looks like she's wearing some gigantic hat. The Pistols are playing tighter,
but it's still mighty basic. Jones compensates for his limited skill with a fair line in one note breaks.
Johnny Rotten is a perplexing performer. He has an extraordinary ability to enrage the audience.
At the most basic level it's his insults and his bad behaviour, but Rotten has something deeper. It goes deeper, too, than his
contempt for society in songs like "I'm A Lazy Sod". And surely it goes beyond his looks, his flea bitten hunchbacked reptilian
cadaver.
Somehow this guy repels virtually everybody, and somehow his power reaches through the taunts to the sensibilities of
thousands, maybe even millions, of people who have only ever heard his name and seen his picture.
Yet he is mesmerising. He can't be ignored. He's not just some hooligan who swore on TV, he drags the most casual observer
into, usually, a love-hate relationship: probably the most charismatic since Bowie.
Suddenly a couple of kids at the front who have been hitting Rotten with woollen scarves start throwing beer. No! glasses, just
beer - but for this laid-back mob it's the equivalent. While Rotten stands there Cook erupts from his stool and he and the girl
chuck beer back. Matlock kicks his mike stand very nattily off the stage, and the rhythm section storms off. Jones is still riffing,
and Rotten sends the girl to get the others back. They eventually return for the only really furious piece of music they play all
night.
Meanwhile Malcolm McLaren stands impassive upon the mixing desk riser, his three-piece suited solicitor behind him.
The show really begins about about now. It's got nothing at all to do with music, but so what. It's entertainment.
The band have left the stage - all but Rotten, who sneers. "If you want applause you can clap for it.
Feeble applause. The disco starts, and feet start shuffling out.
But a chant is generating. Yes . . . yes ... the Pistols are coming back. "Whatcha Gonna Do 'Bout It", nihilism incarnate.
They end but don't go. "You're boring," drones Rotten. This weird challenge to the audience to respond, I look round at McLaren
and see that he is standing there gesticulating to Rotten, the upswept arms of the "Get Up" movement and the hands clapping
overhead . . . and Rotten is mimicking McLaren. This show ends when Malcolm says so.
The crowd raise a half-hearted chant. Rotten's response: "Right, you fuckers, we're gonna do one more, so move or else forget
about it."
It's a very good version of 'Anarchy in the UK' lots of echo on the voice.
End of act? No way. McLaren is signalling Rotten again, and puppet-like, Rotten copies him. Whether the audience wants one or
not, there's going to be another encore, There is, and this time Rotten stomps off before Malcolm starts signalling.
The point of all these false encores eludes me, unless the Sex Pistols are actually unliberated enough to get an ego-boost out of such conventional trappings of success.
Their music is lumpen, but the spectacle is marvellous. That last sentence could easily be applied, coincidentally, to shows I've seen in the past year by Queen and the Stones and, like those
bands today, the Pistols' main success is in show business.
MALCOLM has agreed to speak to Robin Denselow and me at his hotel. How the hell do we find it?
We wander off in pursuit of the beleaguered mad scientist. It's freezing and I haven't eaten all day. We walk for miles. As we near our destination Steve Jones runs past, bums five guilders off
me virtually in return for showing us where he's staying, much to my bemusement . . . finally we're there.
And behold, McLaren appears. For some reason we can't go in, so we conduct the interview standing on an hotel step by a canal at 3.00 in the morning. Mclaren looks more wasted than I feel,
talking unstoppably like a man possessed staring into space. There could he 2,000 of us listening.
"WE'VE Heard word that rnost of the majors won't touch us with bargepoles."
You haven't had offers from people like Polydor, UA?
"No that's all guff, man - who's spreading those kinda rumours? There's nobody after us. We've had, I suppose you call it votes of confidence from
the shop floors of various record companies, but you begin to realise that those sort of people don't have any control over the situation, just as it's
happened in EMI.
'We've had people like the guy from EMI Publishing, Terry Slater, he rang me up today and he feels totally pissed off that he's been totally overruled.
He's the head of EMI Publishing: he signed us four weeks ago for £10,000 and now he's been told that's all got to be quashed. He's been made to
look stupid.
"The same goes for Nick Mobbs, who threatened to resign. He's now been told that would be very unhealthy for him, so they can produce a
wonderful statement saying on EMI no one has resigned.
"There are different bands with different points of view. The real situation is that people on the board of directors at EMI do not agree with our point.
The people who actually work for EMI, they do. But if they come out and make a statement to that effect they will get the sack, or they'll have to
resign.
Those truths never come out. What appears in the press is that we have been thrown out of EMI together, a wonderful concensus of opinion.
If it comes to the crunch and they force you to terminate, will vou repay the advance?
"How are we going to repay the advance? We've already spent all the money maintaining ourselves here and on the tour. We're out here promoting
their single, it's not just our single.
Is it out here?
"Yeah, that's the reason we're here. We weren't doing any other European territory simply because EMI sent a memo asking them not to release it.
EMI Holland got the record out before that memo reached them. Now they're withdrawing it."
Are they blocking its sale in England?
"Oh yeah, it's being withdrawn in England."
If you do split with them, what happens to any tapes that are in the can?
"Those questions have been raised. They would prefer that we take the lot and go away with it. "It's been very easy for them. Someone signs a
contract for 2 years: that is an agreement between two parties. If you can tear that contract up in two months because they dislike the opinion of the
band by 'they' I mean the EMI board of directors, it makes a farce of the whole situation.
"What about all these other bands that are coming along? They sign a contract and some guy at the top, not the A & -R guy who's responsible: for signing, says 'I don't like what I'm hearing
about this band, I don't want them on the company no any more.' So they go out the window."
Who are the guys who've come over here?
"The managing director of EMI and the head of the Legal Department Leslie Hill and Laurie Hall. They came over to terminate the contract and we haven't terminated it. They want us to have
another meeting; at the moment they haven't met any of my proposals, probably because they have been told they can't meet anything. We had a two-hour meeting tonight.
"It's been very nice. We've come away to Holland and someone's decided behind our back to 'mutually terminate' the contract. Legally we're still on EMI Records.
"Now people on the EMI board are saying, 'Why the hell did we sign them in the first place? They're musically inadequate, it was too much money ..."
"But l spoke to Leslie Hill, the managing director of EMI Records, prior to us signing. It was him that was exhilarated by the band and thrilled at the idea of signing the act. He was fully aware of
their public image, and he will not deny that.
"EMI had all the tapes to all the Pistols' songs. They heard them, they were excited at the prospect of signing this act and commercially gaining through it. We had had offers from other
companies, but I went there because the sympathy with EMI was strong on the shop floor.
"Nick Mobbs, Tony Slater on the publishing side, David Munns on the promotion side, Mark Ryder the label manager, Paul Watts the general manager and Leslie Hill the managing director
wanted to sign this act.
"Now they're saying, 'We have 4,000 employees on EMI and if we took a concensus of opinion I don't think you would raise the amount of votes necessary,'
"I made a proposal, I said, 'OK, find us an equivalent contract.' If I walk into Warner Brothers they're going to say, 'Well man, you didn't make it with EMI, the bad publicity, etcetera.'
"What they did on TV was something that was quite genuine. They were goaded into it, and being working class kids and boys being boys they said what they felt was ... O.K. They don't regret
it.
"The KLM situation at the airport was fabricated up to a point. Yeah, the band might have looked a little bit extraordinary, they may have spat at each other. Big deal. And someone may have
appeared a little drunk. But they weren't flying the plane, they don't need to be that sober.
"There are these bands now that have some sort of petition, like Mud, Tina Charles, all these Other Top Twenty acts, and sent round this petition to all the record companies saying that they
do not support this kind of music:
(NME talked to Mud's manager, Barry Dunning, on Monday. He denied Mud had signed any petition, nor would they ever do so.)
"My lawyer asked: We'd like a meeting with John Read or the rest of the money. They'd rather give us the rest of the money than have a meeting. John Read speaks on behalf of all the
shareholders, he controls the whole of EMI Ltd., which covers far more than just a record company. He wouldn't "meet us. He sent Hill instead; every time you just get to speak to Hill. Hill has his
orders and he can't move from that point."
How much money have you had of the £40,000?
"Half. The first year. But that has been spent on supporting a tour.
"We ended up selling the fucking record at the bloody door in Rotterdam and at the Paradise last night. It's a joke."
What's next, a big legal battle?
"I don't know. I asked Hill if they can reconsider their situation, quite simply and if they can't, why can't Capitol Records, who we're signed to in America? 'Oh well, Capitol Records decided to go
along with Manchester Square.' They don't want any part of it.
"I said, 'What happens if we're on another label and the distribution is through EMI? Are EMI gonna distribute the record?' They can't really answer that. It's very difficult, it really is. I feel pretty
bad about it.
"Hill's now saying, 'Can't you go to Virgin Records, I hear that's an interesting company.' Bollocks man, we went to Virgin Records before we went to EMI and they didn't wanna know.
"If we walk into another record company, what are they going to say? 'If you can't play anywhere and we can't hear your records on the radio and EMI decided to drop you . . .' What the hell are
they going to do?
"It's not just EMI, it's people behind the scenes, guys that go on the radio and say we didn't play on our record, the guy that's scared to put us on Top Of The Pops even though we're in the
breakers because the BBC don't want to be seen to be associated with us.
"What's it all about?"
UNTIL LAST week I had no sympathy whatsoever for the punks - as - martyrs line, but if what McLaren says about them not being able to land a contract elsewhere is true (I still don't really
believe that one), and EMI Records do succeed in breaking their legal contract simply on account of thirty seconds of televised swearing, then I'll, I'II . . .Phew, for a moment there I Almost Cut
My Hair!
The McLaren interview was recorded on an EMI tape.
THE END
Reprinted from the NEW MUSICAL EXPRESS January 15th, 1977 (Punk Rocker archive)
