Rhino Factoids: A Very Punky Holiday Season
When you think December, you tend to think of the holidays, but if you were living in the UK in December 1976 and had even a passing interest in popular music, then your daily waking thoughts were likely less about what presents you were going to get and more about what the next Sex Pistols controversy was going to be.
It was one hell of a December for the Pistols, starting with the very first day of the month, when the band made their infamous appearance on the UK talk show Today, hosted by Bill Grundy. Surely you know the story: Johnny Rotten made the mistake of muttering “shit” under his breath, which was bad enough, but then Steve Jones started getting riled up when Grundy began to act flirtatious with Siouxsie Sioux, who’d come onstage with the band, and when Grundy made the mistake of suggesting that Jones “say something outrageous,” Jones happily acquiesced, dropping a couple of F-bombs and assuring that the Sex Pistols would make the cover of The Daily Express. (The headline of their story will likely sound familiar: “The Filth and the Fury.”) The producer and director of Today were fired as a result of the incident, Grundy earned a two-week suspension, and the Pistols suddenly found several dates on their upcoming tour canceled, but EMI stood behind the band, saying, “We feel that in many cases the media deliberately provoked this act; in no way does this affect the group’s relationship with EMI.”
Unfortunately, it did affect the group’s relationship with the factory handling the 45s of “Anarchy in the UK,” with the workers refusing to package any further copies of the single. It also led the BBC to ban any future airplay of the single, but that was somewhat less damaging, as they’d already been refusing to play it, anyway. By the time the band finally got around to kicking off their tour on December 6 in Leeds, the 19 dates which had originally been arranged were whittled down somewhat…like, to three. The second date, on December 9 in Manchester, proves to be a historic one, with the Clash, Johnny Thunders and the Heartbreakers, and the Buzzcocks performing as the Pistols’ support acts, and numerous future NME cover stars in the audience, including the members of Joy Division and one Steven Patrick Morrissey. In the end, the Pistols have so many cancellations that they end up returning to play a second show in Manchester on December 19, but the actual third date on what became a three-date tour took place on December 21 in Plymouth. Despite all of these challenges, “Anarchy in the UK” nonetheless managed to make its way into the UK singles chart for the first time on December 22, debuting at #27, an impressive accomplishment given that radio wasn’t permitted to play it and the band could barely get out to perform shows to promote it.
To celebrate Christmas, NME put out an issue which features an article wherein Pat Travers challenges the Pistols to a battle of the bands, with Travers sneering that his bassist could play with only two strings and his drummer could play on a mere three-piece kit and still outplay the Pistols. Harsh, yes, but nothing compared to the famous words by Bernard Brooke Partridge of the Greater London Council, who offered the following declaration, which you may have seen elsewhere…and if you have, then you’ve liked never forgotten it:
“My personal view on punk rock is that it’s nauseating, disgusting, degrading, ghastly, sleazy, prurient, voyeuristic and nauseating. I think that just about covers it, as far as I’m concerned. I think most of these groups would be vastly improved by sudden death. The worst of the punk rock groups currently are the Sex Pistols. They’re unbelievably nauseating, they are the antithesis of humankind. I would ilke to see somebody dig a very, very large, exceedingly deep hole and drop the whole bloody lot down in it. The whole world would be vastly improved by their total and utter nonexistence.”
Happy bloody holidays, eh?
