Birthdays | Paul Cook drummer to THE SEX PISTOLS!

Happy birthday to Paul Cook, born in Shepherd's Bush, London on this day in 1956.

Jones and Cook made the rhythm section for our Johnny to yell at us over!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY COOKIE!

Songs Bought When They Came Out NO.469! GOD SAVE THE QUEEN - SEX PISTOLS

 TURN IT RIGHT UP!

WARNING : CONTAINS LANGUAGE THAT MAY OFFEND! WELL WHAT DID YOU EXPECT!?

well it is a nice sunny Saturday here. . . . . . . . . 

Sex Pistols "God Save The Queen" HQ (live 2007)

I bought the virgin edition of the album which had a posted and a single inside! From my old pal John Northcote when he worked for them

Top Hat Crew's "Live Music Archives” | collected sex pistols . . . . . . . . after Paul’s birthday the guys have gone into overdrive!

WARNING - CONTAINS VERY STRONG LANGUAGE THAT MAY CAUSE OFFENCE (HOPE SO!)

sex pistols live 

@ Phoenix Festival 1996

1. bodies; 2. no feelings; 3. god save the queen; 4. liar;5. holidays in the sun; 6. pretty vacant; 7. anarchy in the uk 

go on click on it anyway!

Top Hat Crew's "Live Music Archives"

sex pistols “god save the queen" HQ (live 2007)

go on click on this bit too . . . . . . 

Top Hat Crew's "Live Music Archives"

PLAY IT VERY LOUD!

Birthdays | PAUL COOK! | THE SEX PISTOLS - God Save The Queen !

 

The Sex Pistols

Happy Birthday Paul Cook!

(the best rhythm section in Punk ever Cook and Jones distinctive and as raucous as it got they were bang on!)

SEX PISTOLS - LIVE IN PARIS ’96 - Hear Rock City

Sex Pistols - I Thought This Was the UK 1996 - Hear Rock City

Smoker at Hear Rock says:

 The Sex Pistols live in Paris on their Filthy Lucre Tour.

Has there been another band so notorious

or influential with only one studio 

album to their name?

If this is an FM broadcast it's not the greatest.

But it's very listenable and enjoyable.

Suitably Punky!!

Vinyl Rip.

As he says this is surprisingly listenable and whilst probably not a FM recording it isn’t half bad (some Sex Pistols boots are truly awful, totally unlistenable!) 

LONDON WEEKEND SHOW punks with MICHAEL ASPEL 1976

 

The Damned - Smash it Up (Rare Footage)

This is fun and whilst it is billed as The Damned it is a except from TV programme of the day The London Weekend Show of 1976 hosted by professional Mr Nice, Michael Aspel (here donning full double denim to get down with the kids!) but gosh you really can't hate the guy and all of them featured were entertaining and the final song is worth waiting for . . . . . . I got it from the wonderful TWILIGHTZONE as ever . . . . . . . 

Every . . . . NOW & THEN

self explanatory . . . . . . . . 

Always liked Johnny, still do somehow and expect he is still raising a ruckus and questioning everything somewhere . . . . . . a fellow curmudgeon he is likely to disagree with everything we say and everything we do which lands in him in some odd company for time to time . . . . . . 

On this day in music history: January 14, 1978 - The Sex Pistols play their final live show at the Winterland Ballroom in San Francisco, CA. On their first and only tour of the US in support of their album “Never Mind The Bollocks, Here’s The Sex Pistols”, the tour is chaotic nearly every step of the way. Relationships between the band members deteriorate rapidly with lead singer Johnny Rotten feeling increasingly isolated from Steve Jones, Paul Cook, manager Malcolm McLaren, and disgusted by Sid Vicious’ drug use and erratic behavior. The band play The Stooges’ “No Fun” as the show encore with Rotten uttering the now infamous line “ever get the feeling you’ve been cheated?” at the end. The concert is also simulcast live by legendary San Francisco radio station KSAN, with audio from the concert being bootlegged and widely circulated for years afterward. The audio is briefly issued by Sanctuary/Castle Music. The concert is also filmed, and though not officially released, also has circulated among fans. The Pistols (separately of each other) find their way to Los Angeles before parting ways for the last time. Steve Jones and Paul Cook go to Brazil to do a record with Great Train Robber Ronnie Biggs, and Sid Vicious is taken to New York by a friend, who immediately checks him into a hospital. Broke and stranded in L.A., Rotten has to contact Virgin Records founder Richard Branson in order to fly back home to England. Four days later on January 18, 1978, Johnny Rotten announces in a newspaper interview that the band have split up.

On this day in music history: January 6, 1977 - EMI Records releases The Sex Pistols from their contract with the label. The company issues a statement to the press stating, “EMI feels it is unable to promote the bands’ records in view of the adverse publicity generated over the past two months.” Following the incident on the “Today Show w/ Bill Grundy” in December of 1976, the last straw is two days earlier on January 4, 1977. While waiting to board a flight to The Netherlands, the members of the band swear at Heathrow Airport staff, spit at each other and vomit in the flight lounge. Less than two months later, original bassist Glen Matlock leaves the band due to his deteriorating relationship with lead singer Johnny Rotten. Matlock is replaced by Rotten’s friend Sid Vicious (birth name John Simon Ritchie).

"Nothing . . . . . . a naughty word!"

On this day in music history: December 1, 1976 - The Sex Pistols appear on the Thames television program “Today” with Bill Grundy. Booked on the evening talk show as a last minute replacement for label mates Queen, the band appears on the show to promote their debut single “Anarchy In The UK”. Following their performance, the band sit down for an interview with Grundy that quickly goes awry. When lead singer Johnny Rotten utters the word “shit” under his breath, the host asks him to repeat what he has said, and he complies. Feigning mock shock over Rotten’s slip, Grundy turns around and begins talking to the Pistols friend Siouxsie Sioux, with whom Grundy begins flirting. Irritated by Grundy’s semi drunken and condescending attitude during the interview, guitarist Steve Jones begins spewing expletives at the host during the shows’ last few moments, after Grundy provokes him to “say something outrageous”. The incident sparks a massive furor making the band instantly infamous, and putting them on the front page of every newspaper in the country the next day.

 ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha . . . . . . . . 

SeX PISTOLS

Still have the album from when it came out and the single it came with . . . . . I really rate this album and the Steve Jones & Paul Cook driving rhythm section pile drives the whole album. I think Jones especially was hugely underrated and Glen Matlock on bass too if it comes to that. Sid not so much although a novelty figure of fun in his self destructive character proved telling and tragi-comic merely,  the album stands as a tour de force of a John Lydon vehicle for someone trying to say something different however angrily and I stuck with him through to Metal Box from P.I.L. too. I confess to feeling threatened by much of punk rock; I found The Clash hugely pretentious and fashion conscious poseurs, who like much of Punk couldn't play their instruments and couldn't sing a note, I dug the Jam but thought of them as second gen Mods mainly. Bands like the protopunks UK Subs, X-Ray Spex were shrill and painful, Howard Devoto's Buzzcocks dreadfully out of tune and no talent no marks, The Damned - beer swilling party boys, Sham 69 I enjoyed sort of as comic characters go and Wire were up there too but more interesting than fellow fashionistas the Clash somehow. I liked Souxie and The Banshees and yet bands like Eddie The Hot Rods were a pub rock band only it seemed to me. The Pistols for me were saying something that even sounded radically different. Cook and Jones could really play and Lydon was rethinking what it meant to vocalise hurt, disenchantment, angst and anger of the time

On this day in music history: October 27, 1977 - “Never Mind The Bollocks, Here’s The Sex Pistols”, the debut album by The Sex Pistols is released. Produced by Chris Thomas and Bill Price, it is recorded at Wessex Sound Studios in London from March - June 1977. The Pistols begin recording their only album, after being dropped by A&M Records. New bassist Sid Vicious is added after Glen Matlock departs, but can barely play. Guitarist Steve Jones does double duty, playing bass as well when Matlock isn’t paid in advance to play. Still without a record deal as the sessions progress, manager Malcolm McLaren negotiates with Virgin Records who release “God Save The Queen” (#2 UK), after A&M cancels its release and sign the band. The album creates an immediate sensation in the UK, entering the charts at #1, in spite of several major distributors banning and refusing to handle it. Warner Bros. Records picks up the album for release in the US. The album is also the subject of an obscenity case when a Virgin Record store manager in Nottingham is arrested for displaying the album cover in a shop window, citing that the word “bollocks” is obscene. The case is heard in court on November 24, 1977 and is thrown out when the court finds that the word is not obscene. In time, the album is regarded as one the greatest and most influential punk recordings of all time. It is initially released with eleven songs, omitting the track “Sub-Mission”. The running order is quickly shifted, adding it back into the track listing, and are in UK record stores by early November. As a result of the late addition, the first two pressings of the album do not feature a track listing on the back of the LP sleeve. There is similar confusion in the US when Warner Bros releases album, with “Sub-Mission” not listed on the sleeve back. The label hastily prints a sticker with the song title which is affixed to the back. The album is remastered and reissued in the UK for its thirtieth anniversary in 2007, as a three CD box set + DVD and bonus 7" of “God Save The Queen” b/w “No Feelings”. It is also issued separately as a 180 gram LP with a poster and a bonus 7" of “Sub-Mission” b/w “Pretty Vacant”. Another limited edition double LP set issued on color vinyl (one yellow and one pink). The second LP features a live concert recorded in Stockholm, Sweden in July of 1977, with the Pistols performing “Bollocks” in its entirety. It is also reissued in the US on 180 gram vinyl by Rhino Records in 2008, even replicating the original copies with the “Sub-Mission” sticker on the back. “Never Mind The Bollocks” is inducted into the Grammy Hall Of Fame in 2015. “Never Mind The Bollocks, Here’s The Sex Pistols” spends two weeks at number one on the UK album chart, peaking at number one hundred six on the Billboard Top 200, and is certified Platinum in the US by the RIAA.

thanks to Jeff Harris' blog Behind The Groove

The saddest new from the counter-counter culture

On this day in music history: February 2, 1979 - Former Sex Pistols bassist Sid Vicious dies of a heroin overdose in New York City. Vicious accidentally ODs’ in the apartment of his then current girlfriend Michele Robinson who he meets after successfully completing a detox program at Bellevue Hospital. At the time, Vicious had just been bailed out of Rikers Island prison, being held on murder charges for the death of his former girlfriend Nancy Spungen. Sid, Robinson and few other friends are having a small gathering at his girlfriends’ apartment to celebrate Sid having made bail. Sid’s mother has heroin delivered to her son which he takes at midnight and immediately overdoses. But those present are able to revive him and are convinced he is fine. He’ll go to bed with Robinson around 3 am, and in the morning she discovers that he has died during the night. Vicious is only twenty one years old at the time of his death.

I had so much to say about the circumstances around Sid's death but am not well enough to collect my thoughts. I guess it doesn't matter either Sid is still dead and people colluded in his death but he himself was responsibly too and in an all too familiar a scenario where heroin addicts taking a break, whether enforced or not, so often return to taking the sorts of levels of substance they were last used to (the very definition of addition) and 'go over' but there should have been people around Sid to aid and to assist as opposed to supply . . . . . .

PRETTY VACANT!

This is worth a look and very much an American take on what was going on in Punk Rock and why the Sex Pistols caused such a hullabaloo!
I bough the albums and single of Pretty Vacant when they came out and there is some debate as to what they are worth now but I bought the Virgin version so, not so much. I still maintain that Steve Jones and Paul Cook where amongst the best rhythm driving forces in any band of the time and put the album on again now, turn it up and you will FEEL the power. The anger and vitriol of John Lydon here is palpable and clearly he was the spokesperson of the band although the others clearly understood what they were trying to do. McClaren comes over as articulate for sure but he had a shop selling that stuff to the youngsters and Vivien Westwood may have started off with ripped bin liners but try buying a dress from her now! Also despite the falling out between Glen Matlock and Lydon I have to say how much I admired Glenn too, clearly he could play, something no-one ever accused Sid of being able to do. The Sid Vicious story is a sad one and not unfamiliar to me amongst the addicts and herion users I have worked with and seen leave us to soon . . . . . . 
I should say the punk scene was difficult for me and I was always more swayed towards the preppie visions of David Byrne and the art school rock of Talking Heads. The British punks firghtenened me! There I have said it and was of an age to understand the polemic but not the confrontation. I was of an age where I didn't quite fit with either the Stones, Zeppelin or Phil Collins and that ilk that Lydon et al were fighting against but nor did I enjoy the fashion consciousness of the poseurs that The Clash represented or the Buzzcocks and those who could not sing or play (apparently that was the point mixed up as the working class democracy of anyone can play guitar to virtuoso performance that Jimmy Page and the ilk represented ) . . . . that it was anti establishment was a given and twas ever thus as they say and later the art school posturing of P.I.L. meant more to me. But that the revolutionaries somehow always become the establishment always fascinates me. 

The guys who went to the last book signing at my old employers liked Johnny immensely I gather and found him charming, erudite and articulate and well behaved! 

On this day in music history: January 6, 1977 - EMI Records releases The Sex Pistols from their contract with the label. The company issues a statement to the press stating, “EMI feels it is unable to promote the bands’ records in view of the adverse publicity generated over the past two months.” Following the incident on the “Today Show w/ Bill Grundy” in December of 1976, the last straw is two days earlier on January 4, 1977. While waiting to board a flight to The Netherlands, the members of the band swear at Heathrow Airport staff, spit at each other and vomit in the flight lounge. Less than two months later, original bassist Glen Matlock leaves the band due to his deteriorating relationship with lead singer Johnny Rotten. Matlock is replaced by Rotten’s friend Sid Vicious (birth name John Simon Ritchie).

thanks to the most excellent Jeff Harris' blog 'Behind The Grooves 

Oh and we all remember THIS . . . . . . . teatime TV viewing as I recall! "You dirty ole man. . ."

On this day in music history: December 1, 1976 - The Sex Pistols appear on the Thames television program “Today” with Bill Grundy. Booked on the evening talk show as a last minute replacement for label mates Queen, the band appears on the show to promote their debut single “Anarchy In The UK”. Following their performance, the band sit down for an interview with Grundy that quickly goes awry. When lead singer Johnny Rotten utters the word “shit” under his breath, the host asks him to repeat what he has said, and he complies. Feigning mock shock over Rotten’s slip, Grundy turns around and begins talking to the Pistols friend Siouxsie Sioux, with whom Grundy begins flirting. Irritated by Grundy’s semi drunken and condescending attitude during the interview, guitarist Steve Jones begins spewing expletives at the host during the shows’ last few moments, after Grundy provokes him to “say something outrageous”. The incident sparks a massive furor making the band instantly infamous, and putting them on the front page of every newspaper in the country the next day.

You set the scene . . . . .   ha ha ha ha ha ha . . . . . 

again bought when it came out both this single and 'Never Mind The Bollocks!' which version? Not telling . . . . . . . .

Continuing the sounds purchased when they came out series (singles or albums) there is this . . . . Disillusioned by what was going on in rock with Zep and Phil Collins et al, and even McCartney & Wings with Venus and Mars where I left them, the whimsy being too much and the smugrock being too over produced and self satisfied, mt earlier rock heroes having become middle of the road, there came a new sound on the block bubbling up from the streets. I bought the first album (Never Mind The Bollocks . . ) with a free single of 'God Saves . . .' inside or with it and no it's not the A&M version but the Virgin one . . . . . . it is still a really fine album and with Matlock on bass and Steve Jones and Paul Cook they made arguably one of the finest loud power houses of punk theatre there ever was . . . . . . Pretty Vacant was good too. TURN IT UP! F@*K iT!

On this day in music history: May 27, 1977 - “God Save The Queen” by The Sex Pistols is released. Written by Paul Cook, Steve Jones, John Lydon and Glen Matlock, it is the biggest hit for the seminal English punk rock band fronted by lead singer Johnny Rotten. Written and recorded shortly after The Sex Pistols are unceremoniously dropped by their first label EMI Records, the song takes its title from the national anthem of the United Kingdom. It is the last single by the band to feature bassist Glen Matlock, before he leaves the band in February of 1977 and is replaced by Sid Vicious. Issued as their first single for their new label Virgin Records, after A&M Records signs then quickly drops the band before releasing the song. “Queen” is strategically released to coincide with the Silver Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II’s Coronation, and immediately sparks controversy. To promote the record, The Pistols stage a performance on June 7, 1977, playing aboard a boat not so coincidentally called the Queen Elizabeth on the River Thames near the Palace Of Westminster. The band, manager Malcolm McLaren and several members of the Pistols entourage are arrested after the boat docks. Both the BBC and the IBA ban it from any radio airplay or television exposure, feeling that it is disrespectful and a direct assault on the monarchy. But the ban does not prevent the single from being a huge seller right out of the gate. It peaks at #2 on the UK singles chart despite the ban, though it is widely disputed that the single was indeed the #1 selling record in England at the time. Rod Stewart’s “I Don’t Want To Talk About It/The First Cut Is The Deepest” is listed as the number one single on the official charts. The singles picture sleeve artwork is designed by artist Jamie Reid and features a portrait of the Queen with the song title and band name covering her eyes and mouth. Copies of the original withdrawn A&M pressing of “Queen” are now valued at between £500 to £13,000 / $785 to 20,387 in US dollars, with only a small handful of legitimate copies known to still be in existence. In 2012, Virgin Records reissues “God Save The Queen” for its thirty-fifth anniversary, in tandem with the Diamond Jubilee Of Queen Elizabeth II. Lead singer John Lydon openly voices his displeasure at the re-release, feeling that it undermines the original intent and message of the song. The reissue of “Queen” peaks at #80 on the UK singles chart.