ASK MOJO
Who went off-script?
Time to delve into this month’s rock-related queries, weird enigmas and tricky brain-teasers.
In honour of the Jubilee and after seeing Pistol, I watched the Sex Pistols’ infamous TV interview with Bill Grundy from 1976. What are the other good out-of-control rock moments that crossed the line and made it onto normal TV?
David Richards, via e-mail
MOJO says: While the Sex Pistols’ jape was arguably a planned accident waiting to happen, less predictable examples of chaos breaking out on live television are when Shakin’ Stevens attacked Richard Madeley and got him in a headlock on TV show Calendar Goes Pop in 1980, a “refreshed” Iggy Pop bouncing about and blowing raspberries during an appearance on Australian music show Countdown in 1979, and Blondie’s inauguration into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2006, when estranged former members Frank Infante and Nigel Harrison suddenly asked to play the gig, soliciting an icy and withering, “Can’t you see my band is up there?” from Debbie Harry. A special mention should also go to Vanilla Ice’s appearance on MTV programme Lame 25 in 1999: a Gogglebox-type affair where old videos were mocked and then ritually destroyed with a baseball bat, things took an odd turn when Ice, in apparently authentic rage, smashed up the set instead of a VHS of his hit Ice Ice Baby. There was just as little graciousness in evidence when Mike Love marked The Beach Boys’ 1988 induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame by making digs at The Beatles and Mick Jagger; when Josh Homme furiously beasted a fan who’d thrown a shoe on-stage at a Norwegian festival in 2008; and when Oasis sang an a cappella version of Blur’s Parklife with the punchline “Shitelife” at the ’96 Brit Awards – all dignity-free moments the offenders must wince about to this day.