Jerry Only of Misfits met Sid Vicious the night he died
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Hear Me Out: It is time to let go of the cult of Sid Vicious
The spiky hair, the leather jacket, the attitude. Even before his death in 1979, Sex Pistols bassist Sid Vicious was hailed as the personification of punk spirit. Even if you’re not familiar with the work of the Sex Pistols, the likelihood is that you recognise Sid Vicious, given that the totems of his influence remain scattered throughout society.
Vicious, born John Simon Ritchie, has been an ever-present in popular culture since the late 1970s. Even today Vicious has a strong following, which has been immortalised through portrayals by a random pretty boy in Danny Boyle’s miniseries Pistol and by Gary Oldman in the famed biographical film Sid and Nancy. Although his terrible cover of Frank Sinatra song ‘My Way’ is wrongly lauded, Vicious’ spirit is alive and well. He is coveted as a complex anti-hero, a misunderstood product of his environment, one which was the meaning of “it’s better to burn out than to fade away”.
A tremendous cult of personality surrounds Sid Vicious, and it is not only misguided but dangerous. This following doesn’t account for the fact that the late musician was a deeply-flawed individual, not in the tragic, Shakespearean sense as many of our dead idols are remembered, but in the way that antagonists are immortalised. This is not to say he was a force of unadulterated evil, but he wasn’t far off.
In his lifetime, Vicious was wrongly championed as something he was not, which only exacerbated his dark side. Infamously, the entire charade finally came to the fore after the mysterious death of his girlfriend Nancy Spungen in 1978 and his miserable demise less than a year later. Reflecting the sentiment that Vicious was promoted as something he wasn’t is a quote from the controversial manager of Sex Pistols, Malcolm McLaren, who once said: “If Johnny Rotten is the voice of punk, then Vicious is the attitude”.
He might have been the attitude, but unfortunately, that is all he was. Ironically, Sid Vicious is hailed as one of the most iconic musicians of all time, despite the fact he could not play an instrument — not in the sense that he was a shoddy bassist, but that he couldn’t play a note at all.
Even Steve Jones, the band’s guitarist, has claimed that Vicious only recorded one Sex Pistols song – ‘Bodies’ – and that even then, “He’s out of tune”. Added to the sense that Vicious is undeserving of the status he is bestowed is that both Jones and the legendary frontman-cum-bassist of Motörhead, Lemmy Kilmister, attempted to teach him. However, Vicious still didn’t have the care or intellectual wherewithal to notice what an opportunity he was afforded.
In addition to the fact that he was, to not mince my words, untalented, Vicious’ dark side was so prominent that it is the sole factor that most of his contemporaries remember him. Don’t you think it’s strange that the stories of him that picture in a favourable light are rare, if not nonexistent?
Vicious was a violent abuser, and given the juncture that society finds itself in today, with us being quick to point out flaws in celebrities and, when appropriate, reprimand or even cancel them for it, it is strange that Vicious still remains so coveted.
Remembering 45 years of the ‘100 Club Punk Special‘ last year, artist John Keane, who was present at the festival where British punk came together, presented an anecdote that painted Vicious in a very sinister light.
The story of Vicious throwing a glass at the frontman of The Damned, Dave Vanian, is a well-known one. The incident stemmed due to his anger that the band hired Vanian instead of him as the frontman, but what resulted from his anger caused life-changing side effects for one crowd member who went partially blind when the glass smashed on a pillar at the back of the stage and flew into her eye.
Keane was in Vicious’ immediate vicinity when it all went down, and what the future Sex Pistols bassist said to him confirms how nefarious he was. Keane remembered: “I turned to a guy standing directly behind me and said, ‘Did you throw something?’. His very menacing response was, ‘You didn’t see me frow nuffin – did ya?’. This, of course, was true, and his general demeanour suggested to me I should not pursue the matter. Later on, police came, and the guy, who someone told me called himself Sid Vicious, was arrested”.
It seems as if the 100 Club, the home of the first wave of British punk, would see Vicious enact two of his most violent marks on the world. When NME reporter Nick Kent attended a Pistols show at the Oxford Street club, Vicious was in such a bad mood that what ensued was so graphic that it requires a trigger warning. When Kent asked Vicious to move out of his way, Vicious allegedly pulled a rusty bike chain from his coat pocket and rapped Kent on the head three times, with blood splattering on the walls behind him.
The psychotic behaviour didn’t stop there, either. After the death of Nancy Spungen, when Vicious had been released from jail after being immediately arrested and charged with second-degree murder, he attended a Skafish show in New York. When he was asked by Patti Smith’s brother, Todd, to leave the band’s drum tech, Tara, alone after pinching her and doing other strange things, Vicious smashed a glass beer bottle across Smith’s face. The attack was so severe that Todd was sent straight to the hospital.
That was the final violent act of Vicious’ life, but many had come before. When the bassist was living with Sex Pistols frontman John Lydon in a squat, it was claimed that not only did he cut himself with old tin cans but that Vicious once allegedly strangled a cat with his belt — the latter of which is as classic of an example of a psychopath as you can get.
Even John Lydon’s father was aware of the behaviour of his son’s bandmate. He later recalled: “If he was sitting here and no one was taking any notice of him, he’d cut his hand or something to attract attention. You’d have to take your mind off everything else and look at him”.
Of course, then we get to the love of his life, Nancy Spungen. Even though they had a tumultuous relationship, Spungen bore the brunt of Vicious’ violence. He was known to have physically abused her numerous times before her death. This only worsened after the Sex Pistols split, leaving a man with no musical talent and outlook, needing to express himself in the only way he knew how – through violence.
It all came to a head when Vicious awoke on October 12th, 1978, to find Spungen dead with a knife wound in her gut. He immediately called the front desk of the hotel and alerted them. While waiting for assistance, Vicious roamed the halls crying uncontrollably, throwing himself at walls, telling a neighbour: “I killed her… I can’t live without her… She must have fallen on the knife”.
Of course, Spungen’s death is tragic, and we will never know the truth, but it is strange that even after this, and all that came before, he is lauded in such a cultish fashion. Despite the questions surrounding his role in Spungen’s death, the evidence is there for all to see. Vicious was not a man who should be revered but quite the opposite. His place in popular culture should be properly revised, and the posters, T-shirts, and DVDs should be thrown onto the bonfire.
