some fantastic shots of the Sex Pistols and The Clash from the time they played The Castle Cinema in Caerphilly while on their Anarchy tour in December of 1976
these pictures taken by Dave Smitham on December 14th 1976
members of the local church - who were offended by the Sex Pistols' use of swear words during their interview with Bill Grundy earlier in the month and lead singer Johnny Rotten's declaration that he was 'an antichrist' in the first verse of the song Anarchy in the UK - gathered outside of the venue to sing hymns and harass any fans who dared attend the show
but despite this not so warm welcome (or maybe because of it) the Pistols were in top form that night!
The entire band were amazing, and Johnny was a mesmeric frontsman - in a class of his own. He commanded attention. Between songs he leered from the microphone and abused, heckled and threatened his audience. Songs were spat out with a vitriol that exceeded the car park preaching.
- Dave Smitham
according to the article i got all of this from, Johnny seemed to find this whole situation rather silly. he was raised in a strict Irish Catholic family so its likely that the threat of being condemned to hell for bad behavior had simply lost its effect on him by the time he started his career as a musician
It was so small and silly, singing hymns and hoping God would strike us dead. It was ridiculous.
- Johnny Rotten
Den Browne has finally released his decades-in- the-making book, Padlocks, about living with Sid and Nancy. He kindly sent me a pre-order. It will be up on Amazon soon-ish, and I will post when it is. I won't be posting huge snippets, as I'd like him to make some money from it first. The best part for me is that he knew Nancy better than Sid and is a big Nancy advocate. I'll post some things once in a while!