Two Irish poets pictured whilst on tour in America:
Oscar Wilde (1882) and Johnny Rotten (1978)
When the Sex Pistols set off on their ill-fated American tour in January 1978, manager Malcolm McLaren had determined that the band would avoid playing major venues in New York and Los Angeles in front of audiences likely to be receptive and would, instead, head to the Deep South and perform in front of hostile rednecks in cities including Atlanta, Memphis, San Antonio, Dallas, Baton Rouge, and Tulsa.
For Malcolm wasn't interested in building a new fan base, or simply increasing record sales; he wanted, rather, to cultivate hatred, incite conflict, and cause as much chaos as possible amongst the barbarians who invented rock 'n' roll: "The idea was to get lost in the swamps and the badlands, making it impossible for the myth of the Sex Pistols to be exposed", as he puts it in the Swindle.
Of course, any one familiar with the above film or the history of the band, will probably know this already. But what fans might not know is how this idea - often mistakenly said to be ill-conceived - was inspired by Malcolm's love for Oscar Wilde, who in 1882 went on his own (far more extensive, far more profitable) US tour that also brought him into amusingly close contact with some of the colourful locals, including farmers, miners, and gun-toting cowboys.
For despite his pretensions and poses, there was nothing snobbish about Wilde and he took great delight in meeting such people and not just fellow authors, such as Henry James and Walt Whitman. Indeed, one of Wilde's most interesting trips was to a mining town, high up in the Rocky Mountains, called Leadville, the story of which Malcolm was fond of retelling ...
Back in 1882, Leadville was a genuine Wild West town of some 30,000 inhabitants; most of whom had recently arrived and all of whom were hoping to strike it rich following the discovery of thick veins of silver in them thar hills. Strangely, however, as well as the customary saloon and whorehouse, Leadville had (and still has) its own opera house and it was here that Wilde was booked to speak - dressed, according to contemporary accounts, in a purple smoking jacket, knee breeches and black silk stockings.
His chosen topic for the evening: The Practical Application of the Aesthetic Theory to Exterior and Interior House Decoration with Observations on Dress and Personal Ornament. Unsurprisingly, the talk didn't go down very well. Depending on which account you choose to believe, either the audience eventually fell asleep or Wilde was pushed off stage into the orchestra pit.
Either way, Wilde himself was much amused when, after reading passages from the autobiography of the great Italian artist Benvenuto Cellini, the miners expressed their disappointment that the latter wasn't going to be making an appearance: "I explained that he had been dead for some little time which elicited the enquiry 'Who shot him?'"
Like the Sex Pistols, Wilde liked to meet and mingle with his audience afterwards. When it was discovered that he was a man who not only liked but could handle his liquor - he manfully drank all of those who jeered at him for being a sissy under the table - Wilde became an instant hero in the town and the next day it was agreed to name a new silver vein in his honour.
This apparently involved a ceremony in which Wilde was lowered to the bottom of a mine in a bucket, where he proceeded to eat a meal and smoke a cigar. "I had hoped that in their simple grand way they would have offered me shares in [the lode], but in their artless untutored fashion they did not."
Upon returning to the surface, Wilde and his new pals retired once more to the saloon where he saw what he described as "the only rational method of art criticism" he'd ever come across; over the piano there hung a notice reading: Please do not shoot the pianist. He is doing his best.
"I was struck", says Wilde, "with this recognition of the fact that bad art merits the penalty of death, and I felt that in this remote city, where the aesthetic applications of the revolver were clearly established in the case of music, my apostolic task would be much simplified ..."
Whether there's anything Wildean about the Sex Pistols is debatable. But there's certainly something punk rock about Oscar and his sexy, stylish, subversive aesthetic.
This apparently involved a ceremony in which Wilde was lowered to the bottom of a mine in a bucket, where he proceeded to eat a meal and smoke a cigar. "I had hoped that in their simple grand way they would have offered me shares in [the lode], but in their artless untutored fashion they did not."
Upon returning to the surface, Wilde and his new pals retired once more to the saloon where he saw what he described as "the only rational method of art criticism" he'd ever come across; over the piano there hung a notice reading: Please do not shoot the pianist. He is doing his best.
"I was struck", says Wilde, "with this recognition of the fact that bad art merits the penalty of death, and I felt that in this remote city, where the aesthetic applications of the revolver were clearly established in the case of music, my apostolic task would be much simplified ..."
Whether there's anything Wildean about the Sex Pistols is debatable. But there's certainly something punk rock about Oscar and his sexy, stylish, subversive aesthetic.
Notes
Photo of Oscar Wilde, by Napoleon Sarony (New York City, Jan. 1882).
Photo of Johnny Rotten, lead singer with the Sex Pistols, by Roberta Bayley (San Antonio, Texas, Jan. 1978).
To find out more about Wilde's American adventures, click here.
To watch the Sex Pistols perform their song New York at Randy's Rodeo, in San Antonio, Texas, (8 Jan. 1978), click here.
This gig is notorious for the fact that Sid Vicious hits a member of the audience over the head with his bass guitar.
For a sister post that provides a kind of PS to this one and refers to the case of Sebastian Horsley, click here.
