‘Friggin in the Rigging’: the moment punk became a parody of itself
In the aftermath of the Sex Pistols‘ infamous final 1978 gig at San Francisco’s Winter Ballroom following frontman Johnny Rotten’s sardonic “ever get the feeling you’ve been cheated” quip, Rotten shook off the Pistols persona and pursued a new venture with former Clash guitarist Keith Levene and bassist Jah Wobble under real name John Lydon for his Public Image Ltd project.
Eschewing punk’s already emerging stylistic trappings, PiL embraced a heady mix of dub, noise, and the avant-garde for 1978’s First Issue, followed by 1979’s defining Metal Box, an essential document of the UK post-punk wave that pointed to the creative possibilities in ‘year zero’s fallout.
What creative intuitions were being explored by the rest of the Pistols? Original bassist Glen Matlock was already long gone, Steve Jones and Paul Cook had yet to form The Professionals, and despite cementing himself as the enduring UK punk archetype, Sid Vicious could barely play his bass.
Seeking to inject some satirical theatre into the Pistols’ lore, manager and mythmaker Malcolm McLaren indulged in some PT Barnum showmanship to deliver a fictitious mockumentary on the rise and fall of the band, casting himself as ‘The Embezzler’ pulling the Pistols’ strings for financial gain in an indulgent exercise designed to further his inflated role in the group’s success dressed-up as an ironic parody.
Directed by Julien Temple and released in 1980, The Great Rock ‘n’ Roll Swindle is largely a string of unfunny sketches cut around an archive of the group’s live sets and promo clips. Vicious’ cartoon punk rendition of Frank Sinatra’s ‘My Way’ has enough clownish swagger to cut a genuinely fun moment, and you can’t blame Jones and Cook for taking up the offer for a jolly in Rio de Janeiro to hangout with celeb train robber and fugitive Ronnie Biggs. Lydon was unimpressed and stayed well away, remarking: “a pile of rubbish” and “Malcolm’s vision of what he believed as not true in any form”.
Its soundtrack, released the year before, offered some truly excretable cuts that didn’t just drag the Pistol’s brief but the seismic body of work but threatened to push the entire punk movement into parody. Vicious’ ‘Belsen Was a Gas‘, written during his time with former band Flowers of Romance, is a tasteless piece of trash which surmised Vicious’ dense and unintelligent wallow in pointless provocation, but Jones’ ‘Friggin’ in the Riggin’ is tawdry, seaside smut at its most cringe.
Based on the bawdy drinking song ‘Good Ship Venus’ and sung to the tune of ‘Good In and Out the Window’, the tacky ditty of horny pirates ends the movie and thus ends the Pistols’ initial chapter, unbelievable when considering the establishment viewed them as treasonous not two years earlier.
Swearing and innuendo can be funny in themselves, as Viz Comic has demonstrated for decades, but ‘Friggin’ in the Riggin’ sits amid the rich musical innovations happening around them with baffling irrelevance and with a desperate absence of laughs.
Perhaps even Jones knew and was just going through the motions. Speaking to Sounds in 1979, Jones revealed the creative stagnation that had crept in: “In a way I feel a bit fucking old. I remember when we first started we was always slagging boring old farts as they called them, and I don’t wanna be called a boring old fart. You walk down the street now and see little punk rockers about 13 and they don’t even recognise me. They’ve never seen the Pistols. That’s one thing about Public Image, all these little kids go to see him thinking that’s what we must have been like and it ain’t, and that pisses me off.”
