In October 1977 the Sex Pistols release their first and only studio album Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols. Only a couple months later the band became a victim of their own succes and started to fall apart. After their, what was going to be, last performance on UK soil in December the same year, the Sex Pistols went on their first and last American tour (January 1979).

Meanwhile Sid Vicious' drug abuse continued to swirl, while Johnny Rotten was becoming tired of the scene altogether. He started to realize he was now fully involved in the same entertainment industry that he so detested.

Rotten would later state: “ I felt cheated and I wasn’t going on with it any longer. It was a ridiculous farce. The whole thing was a joke at that point.”

At the end of this last show he made clear to everyone how fed up he was. Before the last song from their set, Rotten asked his fans “Tell us, how does it feel to have bad taste?” After they played that song, “Anarchy in the UK/USA”, they were called back by the audience for an encore to which he replied “You get one number and one number only, because I’m a lazy bastard”.

During that final song, ’No Fun’ (originally by the Stooges), he can be heard singing “This is no fun, no fun / This is no fun at all, no fun”.

Rotten left the stage after sneering his very last words as Sex Pistols singer to the audience “ever get the feeling you’ve been cheated? hahaha..”

And so he decided to leave the band after this final tour date on 1/14/1978 - Winterland (San Francisco, CA).

The band was now decapitated and was left with a gimmick ….

Sid Vicious tried to take over Rottens duties by posing on pictures with runaway train robber Ronnie Biggs and covering Frank Sinatra's "My Way" ….

But when he overdosed and died on February 2, 1979, just little more than one year after the ‘final’ show, the Sex Pistols came to a de facto end.

Sex Pistols reunions, with original bass player Glen Matlock back on bass, followed in1996 and 2007.

Setlist:
God Save The Queen
I Wanna Be Me
I'm A Lazy Sod
New York
EMI
Belsen Was A Gas
Bodies
Holidays In The Sun
Liar
No Feelings
Problems
Pretty Vacant
Anarchy In The UK
No Fun

Line-up:

Johnny Rotten - lead vocals
Sid Vicious - bass, vocals
Steve Jones - guitar, vocals
Paul Cook - drums

American singer, writer and film director Rob Zombie, born as Robert Bartleh Cummings, Haverhill (Massachusetts), January 12, 1965) and founder of the now disbanded metal band White Zombie in 1986, started a solo career in 1996 under the name Rob Zombie. Zombie's career as a director began with the horror film House of 1000 Corpses, which has now gained cult status.

With White Zombie he released 4 studio albums and the remix album ‘’Supersexy Swingin’ Sounds.

As Rob Zombie he released 8 studio albums and the remix album ‘American Made Music To strip By’.

www.robzombie.com

DISCOGS

Musician, guitarist, singer, performance artist, composer, writer and actor Blixa Bargeld, born Christian Emmerich (Berlin, 12 January, 1959) and best know to most of us as the head and voice of Einstürzende Neubauten turns 62 today!

https://neubauten.org

Ten Grand Goldie official video from neubauten.org on Vimeo.

36 years ago, on 11 January 1985, Nina Hagen performed in front of 1,5 million people on the first edition of the world’s biggest festival Rock in Rio (Brazil). The festival lasted 9 days while most of the headliners performed on two different nights. Nina Hagen’s second performance was on the last day of the festival, 20 January 1985.

A special 250,000 m2 site was built especially for this event with a stage of a stunning 5,000 m2, two shopping centers with 50 stores, two medical first aid centers and became know as Cidade do Rock or City of Rock.

Rock in Rio 1985 Line-up (Alphabetically)

• AC/DC
• Al Jarreau
• The B-52's
• George Benson
• The Go-Go's
• Iron Maiden
• James Taylor
• Metallica
• Nina Hagen
• Ozzy Osbourne
• Queen
• Rod Stewart
• Scorpions
• Whitesnake
• Yes

New York, both the backdrop and inspiration to some of Lou Reed's finest work, from the Velvet Underground's debut and right through his solo work,with the exception of the hard listening,and at times upsetting 'Berlin' album.
In 1989 however, Reed stunned both critics and fans with the release of the loose conceptual album simply titled 'New York'.

This was Reeds finest album as a solo artist and nobody seen it coming,having released albums of moderate appeal but poor reviews in the 1980s.
After his clean up and stint in rehab Reed was written off as a has been, hanging onto the shirttails of cult success with the Velvet Underground, which at this point was at its highest.

As the decade closed however Reed found himself on the cusp of both artistic integrity with mainstream success. The fourteen track album,a journey through the grime and good of New York City, cited as an almost spoken novel weighted in at a little under an hour ,with minimal production to add to the raw sound ,this was Lou Reed at his very best.

A band made up of two guitars,bass and drums,the vehicle he thrived on to snarl his vocals over both sides of the record,indeed ex-Velvet Mo Tucker contributed drums on parts of the album.
The sudden change and obvious maturity that fired Reed can be contributed to by two factors,or two losses rather,the death of Andy Warhol in February 1987 during a routine gallbladder surgery.

Warhols was of course the one time artistic guru of Reeds who not only encouraged his dark , twisted songwriting but influenced it and his ex-Velvets bandmate and muse Nico who suffered a heart attack and died in July 1988 in Ibiza.

These two losses in a short space of time made Lou Reed question his own mortality, instead of grieving he in turn threw himself into his songwriting, evident in the song cycle that this is clearly a man who had seen it and done it all and was now launching himself at the top of his game with an almost rebirth.
The album stutters to a start with one of Reed’s greatest songs,'Romeo Had Juliette', here he clearly sets the scene and prologues all that is to come;
"Caught between the twisted stars the plotted lines the faulty map
that brought Columbus to New York".

This vivid imagery used very easily paints pictures in the listeners mind in almost fictional noir movie.
The second single release ,'Dirty Boulevard’ reached the top of the modern rock U.S Billboard charts, a song starkly pointing the divide between the rich and poor of New York,but again widely praised and receiving airplay both through FM and MTV, this was not selling out however, grunge was right around the corner and Reed was already lighting the fires hailing the clever lyrics and guitar driven raw music which was to come.His friend and one time collaborator David Bowie,was already working in the same direction with the cyberpunk of Tin Machine.
The song subjects are both stark and nostalgic and at times the imagery can become overpowering, he keeps it together however through the pumping sound being delivered,'The last great American whale', Reed hits out at both the NRA and the treatment of native Americans,fearlessly without hiding either fact;
"The mayor's kid was a rowdy pig
spit on Indians and lots worse,
The old chief buried a hatchet in his head
life compared to death for him seemed worse".

Halfway through the album you soon discover that Reeds newfound leather skinned,sobriety suits him,a fact pointed to on the third single release ‘A Busload Of Faith', it's not a song of regret but more so of acceptance and the importance of his own life;
"You can't depend on your drinking,
You can't depend on your dope".

At last Reed was living up to the cult image created through his groundbreaking and highly influential releases with the Velvet Underground, this new found energy would continue right up until his death in 2013, leaving behind a more worthwhile legacy for a man who through his work in the 60's inspired more bands than the Beatles.

[Kevin Burke]