In Memory of Jamie Reid

 Jamie Reid (16 January 1947 – 9 August 2023) 

 

"Radical ideas will always get appropriated. The establishment will rob everything they can, 

because they lack the ability to be creative. That's why you always have to keep moving."

 

 

Although never entirely on board with his far-left politics - and rather uncomfortable with his mystical-hippie beliefs (and appearance) - the fact remains that Jamie Reid's artwork for the Sex Pistols (almost) means more to me than the records they were intended to promote. 

 

As Malcolm rightly said, his design for the single 'God Save the Queen' in 1977, based on a Cecil Beaton photograph, was National Gallery standard [1].

 

I think it's also probably fair to say that, along with Winston Smith, whose graphic designs in collaboration with Jello Biafra for the Dead Kennedys were equally essential, Reid defined the punk aesthetic. 

 

And so I was sorry to discover earlier today that the only sure method of leaving the 20th century sadly involves making a terminal exit ... RIP Jamie Reid.      

 

 

Notes

 

[1] This now (ironically) iconic portrait of Her Majesty - as well as several other of Reid's provocative punk designs - can be found on Torpedo the Ark: click here.    

 

 

A Brief Note on the Resurrection of the Damned and Johnny Rotten as an Artist in Decline

The Damned - Rat Scabies, Brian James, Dave Vanian and Captain Sensible - 

proving that whilst punk rockers never die, they do, sadly, grow old ...

Photo credit: John Nguyen / JNVisuals (2022)

 

 

Readers who, like me, still retain a vague interest in how the story of punk unfolds in its twilight years, will have doubtless noticed a couple of stories in the news recently. 

 

Firstly, the original line up of the Damned have reunited to play live, 46 years after they initially took to the stage, offering us not so much an opportunity to smell once more the sweet scent of a new rose, as witness the sad spectacle of human decay.

 

Their show at the Hammersmith Apollo earlier this week - the first of five UK gigs - was described by Neil McCormick in The Telegraph as a 'cacophony of amateurish noise and chaos', so it certainly sounds like it was fun [1]. 

 

But, ultimately, apart from sixty-something die hard fans, to whom does such a event really mean anything? 

 

Secondly, a sheet of handwritten lyrics by Johnny Rotten has sold at auction for more than £50,000; well over the estimated sale price of between £15,000 and £20,000. 

 

The songs featured are 'Submission' - a track written in mocking response to Malcolm's request for a song with a sadomasochistic theme - and 'Holidays in the Sun' - the Sex Pistols' fourth single, which opens with the memorable line 'A cheap holiday in other people's misery' [2].    

 

Lyrically, neither song is at the same level of brilliance as 'Anarchy in the U.K.' or 'God Save the Queen' and arguably Rotten never wrote anything as good again as this verse taken from the latter:

When there's no future, how can there be sin?

We're the flowers in the dustbin ...

We're the poison in the human machine ...

We're the future, your future! [3]

 

However, even Rotten's weakest songs written as the charismatic young singer of the Sex Pistols look like works of genius compared to the dispiriting rubbish he now offers us as the fat old man fronting Public Image Ltd. 

 

I very much doubt people will be paying tens of thousands of pounds for the handwritten lyrics to 'Double Trouble', for example. 

 

Nor can I imagine that Sebastian Horsley would still describe Rotten as "Rimbaud reborn in Finsbury Park" - with all the intelligence and vision of an extraordinary poet [4] - were he able to hear Lydon moaning about his domestic life and indoor plumbing issues: 

 

What - you fucking nagging again? 

About what? What? What? 

The toilet's fucking broken again 

I repaired that, I told you 

Get the plumber in again [5]

 

It pains me to say it, but I'm tempted to agree with Vivienne Westwood that whilst Johnny Rotten was a sensation when performing with the Sex Pistols, once he was thrown out of the band "he didn't have any more ideas" [6]. 

 

And so he turned inward and began to exploit his memories and feelings; this internalisation being one of the defining characteristics of post-punk. Indeed, Lydon himself has confessed that whilst he invested the Sex Pistols with his intelligence, he poured his heart and soul into PiL. 

 

This may have produced some interesting work at first - I'm not denying the brilliance of Metal Box (1979) - but, ultimately, it resulted in a steady decline of his writing skills, just as age and increased girth have, sadly, led to a deterioration of his ability to sing and perform [7]. 

 

Johnny Rotten at the Cruel World Festival (14 May 2022)

Photo by Alex Kluft

 

 

Notes

 

[1] Neil McCormick, 'The Damned are just as amateur now as they were in 1976', The Telegraph (29 Oct 2022): click here. 

      For those who want a reminder of just how great the Damned were back in the day, click here. 'New Rose' was the first single released by a British punk rock group, on 22 October 1976 (one month prior to the Sex Pistols releasing their debut single, 'Anarchy in the U.K.'). 

 

[2] Both these songs can be found on the Sex Pistols' album Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols (Virgin Records, 1977). Click here to listen to 'Submission' and/or here to play 'Holidays in the Sun'.

 

[3] Lyrics from the Sex Pistols' second single 'God Save the Queen', released May 1977 on Virgin Records, written by Johnny Rotten and © Warner Chappell Music, Inc. The track is credited to all four members of the band; Steve Jones, Johnny Rotten, Glen Matlock, and Paul Cook. Click here to play.

 

[4] Sebastian Horsley, Dandy in the Underworld, (Sceptre, 2008), pp. 57-58.

 

[5] Lyrics from 'Double Trouble' written by Lydon, although the track is credited to all four members of PiL; Scott Firth, Lu Edmonds, John Lydon, and Bruce Smith. It can be found on the album What the World Needs Now ... (PiL Official Ltd., 2015): to play, click here.

      Although the album received mostly favourable reviews, it is, in fact, fucking awful. Middle-class music critics working for The Guardian might find the songs exhilarating, foul-mouthed fun, but I don't.

[6] Vivienne Westood interviewed by Alex Flood (13 May 2022) for the NME. Click here to read online.

[7] This is evidenced by a charmless live performance at the Cruel World Festival earlier this year: click here to watch an excruciating version of 'Shoom' (another track from What the World Needs Now ...).

Reflections on Another Jubilee (There's Still No Future in England's Dreaming)

Jamie Reid: sleeve artwork for 'God Save the Queen' 

by the Sex Pistols (Virgin Records, 1977) 

National Portrait Gallery (NPG D48055)

 

 

I.

 

Celebrations to mark the Queen's Platinum Jubilee are set to take place over a special four-day bank holiday weekend from Thursday 2 to Sunday 5 June 2022. 

 

Seeing the Union Jack bunting and hearing all the Gawd bless 'er majesty bullshit reminds me very much of the Silver Jubilee back in the fateful summer of 1977 - the summer of hate as it is sometimes known; i.e., the summer of punk ...

 

II.

Although not old enough to have partied with the Sex Pistols on their notorious jubilee boat trip along the Thames, I was old enough in 1977 to have woken up and realised what side of the bed I was lying on - and it wasn't the side with the red, white and blue sheets.

 

As far as I recall, I was pretty much the only Essex schoolchild who refused to attend (or have anything to do with) the street parties being held on my estate that June. 

 

And my sense of alienation - combined with a long hatred for all the pomp and circumstance surrounding the royal family - meant that I now aligned myself with the Sex Pistols (what this meant in practice was keeping press cuttings about the band, taping 'Pretty Vacant' off the radio [1], and doing my best to perfect a Rotten persona). 

 

The Sex Pistols were the flowers in the dustbin and they were the poison in the human machine, but it was precisely their uncompromising nihilism that made them so attractive; that, and the way they looked [2]. 

 

III. 

 

Finally, while we're on the subject of the Sex Pistols ...

 

Tonight sees the start of Danny Boyle's six-part TV series Pistol - a Disneyfied punk pantomime loosely based on Steve Jones's memoir, in which a kamikaze gang of foul-mouthed yobs is reimagined by a cast of impossibly middle-class actors [3].

 

Were he still with us, I'm sure Malcolm would regard this as a prime example of what he termed karaoke culture [4] - i.e., one lacking in authentic sex, style or subversion.  

 

So, rather than sit through Danny Boyle's load of old bollocks, why not click here to watch a new version of the video for 'God Save the Queen' - one which combines footage shot by Julien Temple at the Marquee in May 1977, with footage of the Thames river boat party (a fun day out which resulted in eleven arrests, including Malcolm's). 

 

 

Notes

[1] I couldn't record 'God Save the Queen', of course, as it was banned from the airwaves. Famously, it was also prevented from getting to number one in the official UK singles chart, although it was the highest selling single during the jubilee week.  

[2] I loved the songs too, but the music was always secondary to the politics, the clothes, and the artwork - which is why I soon came to appreciate that Malcolm was the fabulous architect of chaos and Rotten just another juvenile Bill Grundy. Indeed, he's now something of an admirer of the Queen it appears.

 

[3] For earlier thoughts on Danny Boyle's Pistol click here and here. 

[4] Readers who are interested in this can watch McLaren's TED Talk of October 2009 on authentic creativity versus karaoke culture: click here.