Its funny, remember the Velvet Underground for a band that was propelled to the public eye by a Svengali same here, It was one thing to look at it if you're young and weren't there - it was intersting to note that out of all the bands that we collectively loved as teen-agers. The most vivid and fondest recollections are not of Led Zepplin, Kiss, Queen or even the Captain and Tenille.
The fondest recollections are of course the Sex Pistols. I remember not being embarassed by the guys but for them when the idiotic American media got ahold of them. Telly salvas introducing the sex pistols what does one have to do with the other. The broadcsat descended into chaos, the usual swearing and and similar shenanigens. With the interviewers weren't prodding them on - that was the whole point.
The media led us to believe that the band were inciting riots in the streets, having sex onstage, shooting animals etc. Finally, my friends and I saw them on Don Kirschner's Rock Concert "Whats so outrageous?" " I think the guitar player spit at the camera." "That's it for all the hoo-ha, I was expecting bloodshed. What a rip." However it was hard to notice Paul and Steve cause you couldn't take your eyes off Johnny - and later on, Sid.. In a suburban enclave where most everyone listened to Reo Speedwagon, Journey and the beginnings of disco, this had an indescribable effect on those kids like moi who were creative, sensitive or otherwise disenfranchised. Imagine its two in the morning. You're a 17 year old middle class girl in Chicago circa 1977. and youre lying in bed, siblings and parents asleep in their rooms and you have the radio on as low as you can and still here it. You're listening to the "underground" rock station and you hear the DJ rattle on about this new English band and riots and swearing on TV shows and such and then, after a day of hearing Chevy Van Peter Frampton and Barbra Streisand's soundtrack from A Star Is Born you hear this gnarled, insane voice spitting out lyrics. You can't follow the words for the blaring dicordant guitars and FCC ordained bleeping, but you make out something like this:
