Johnny Rotten expresses how I felt post-screening.
I.
'Come along to the 100 Club,' she said, 'they're screening The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle and Julien's going to introduce it and take questions from the audience - it should be good!'
II.
The 100 Club is a legendary live music venue [1] and one of the sacred sites of punk rock, hosting as it did the first punk festival organised by Malcolm McLaren and promoter Ron Watts over two nights in September 1976 [2].
But of course, that was then and this is now ...
And so, I wasn't too suprised that what would have once been a gathering of boisterous spiky-haired teens had been transformed into an assemblage of mostly grey-haired and bald-headed punk pensioners:
"It wasn't a rock 'n' roll party. It was more like a dying horse that needed putting out of its misery." [3]
Somethings don't change, however; the decor of the Club, for example, remains pretty much the same. It's essentially a dingy basement with greasy walls and peeling ceilings, stinking of piss. I know for some people that's a sign of its authenticity, but I couldn't help longing for the reassuring smell of bleach or wishing I had a pocket full of posies for protection.
III.
Before the screening, the film's director Julien Temple took to the stage. Now aged 70, he nevertheless still looked trim and boyishly handsome - or silver foxy, as my friend put it. He wasn't dull exactly, though pretty much on autopilot as he answered the same dreary questions and trotted out the same old anecdotes about how he became involved with the Sex Pistols, etc.
An obviously clever and cultured individual, who has pretty much met and worked with everyone in the music industry over the last 45 years, Temple nevertheless lacks McLaren's charisma and I couldn't help suspecting that, at some level, he resents the fact that he is still seen as a Glitterbest flunkie [4] and still obliged to discuss his own career in the shadow of the Sex Pistols.
IV.
Probably best we don't mention the actual screening: because the film shown was of such piss poor quality and so savagely cut (I don't know by whom or for what reason) that it was unrecognisable as the movie I have watched obsessively since its release in 1980.
I would think that at least a third of the film was missing, including several important and much loved scenes; no boat trip on the Thames; no Winterland gig with Rotten famously asking an ambiguous but eternally pertinent question: "Ever get the feeling you've been cheated?" [5]
I'm sorry to say, but that's exactly how I felt.
Ultimately, the evening was less a celebration of the Swindle than its public disembowelment and shame on all those responsible - not least of all Temple who allowed his own work to be butchered in this manner [6].
Notes
[1] The 100 Club is located at 100 Oxford Street, London. It has been hosting live music since October 1942, although back then it was called the Feldman Swing Club, changing its name to the one with which most of us are familiar today in 1964.
[2] The event was headlined by the Sex Pistols, but also featured the Clash, the
Damned, and many other up-and-coming young bands, including the
Buzzcocks and a debut performance from Siouxsie and the Banshees (with
Sid Vicious on drums).
[3] Malcolm Mclaren in The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle (dir. Julien Temple, 1980), with reference to the Winterland gig in San Francisco on 14 January, 1978.
[4] See the post of 26 November 2023 marking Temple's 70th birthday, which includes a badge from the Jamie Reid archive at the V&A designed especially for Julien: click here.
[5] Johnny Rotten on stage with the Sex Pistols at the Winterland Ballroom, San Francisco, 14 Jan 1978.
[6] To be fair to the organisers of the event - Rebel Reel Cine Club - they did immediately refund my money upon request and the main man, Chris McGill, seems like a genuinely good egg.
