Sid Vicious
Sid Lives JUNGLE
Now on double ‘blood-spattered’ vinyl, a significantly expanded Sid Sings.
Catastrophic, off-the-peg punk archetype and, largely unplugged, Sex Pistols bassist Sid Vicious’s first act upon the band splitting in the wake of their final Frisco Winterland show of January ’78 was to ingest just enough heroin to turn blue. His second was to ingest just enough heroin to fall into a coma on a plane to New York City. So it’s pretty safe to say that at this stage of the game Sid’s ‘career’ wasn’t exactly running smoothly.
Luckily, Malcolm McLaren still saw some cash-cow potential in the invariably swastika-touting, newly bronchial, rarely conscious Sid, and kept him just busy enough - scratching his balls in videos for a brace of Eddie Cochran covers, terrorising prostitutes with Parisian patisserie in baffling Great Rock ’N’ Roll Swindle clips - to keep him alive.
But this wasn’t anywhere sordid enough for Sid, so he appointed his omnipresent smack companion Nancy Spungen as his manager and, following a hastily contrived farewell gig at London’s Electric Ballroom (with Glen Matlock, Steve New and Rat Scabies as Vicious White Cats), decamped to room 100 of NYC’s Chelsea Hotel, where… You probably know as much of the rest as anyone.
In order to fund their shared habit, gigs were soon arranged at Max’s Kansas City where, employing an almost identical set-list to that played in London, Sid hooked up with old pal Steve Dior, a prodigious Johnny Thunders acolyte/guitarist who was fronting a band (The Idols) that boasted the New York Dolls’ rhythm section - Jerry Nolan (drums), Arthur Kane (bass) – to play eight shows over four dates in September ’78.