Sid Vicious

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Sid Vicious
Background information
Birth name	John Simon Ritchie
Also known as	Sid Vicious
Born	10 May 1957(1957-05-10) London, England
Died	2 February 1979 (Aged 21)
Genre(s)	Punk rock
Occupation(s)	Musician, Songwriter
Years active	1976 - 1979
Label(s)	Virgin
Associated acts	Sex Pistols
Notable instrument(s)
Bass guitar, Vocals, Drums, Guitar

John Simon Ritchie (May 10, 1957 – February 2, 1979), better known as Sid Vicious, was an English punk rock musician, the bass player of the Sex Pistols (replacing Glen Matlock).

Contents 1 Early life 2 Music carreer 2.1 The Flowers of Romance, and The Banshees 2.2 Sex Pistols 2.2.1 Musicianship 3 Spungen's murder 4 Death 5 Discography 5.1 Singles 5.2 Albums 5.3 Various pressings and bootlegs 6 Films that include Sid Vicious 7 References 8 Further reading 9 External links

[edit] Early life

John Simon Ritchie was born in London to John and Anne Ritchie. Shortly after his birth, John Ritchie left the family. John ("Sid") and his mother moved to the island of Ibiza, where his mother became a drug dealer.^{[citation needed]} She later married Christopher Beverly in 1965 before setting up a family home back in Kent.

His stepfather died six months later, and by 1968 Ritchie and his mother were living in a rented flat in Tunbridge Wells where he attended Sandown Court School. In 1971 the pair moved to Hackney in East London. He also spent some time living in Somerset where he was a pupil at Clevedon Community School or Clevedon Secondary Modern as it was then known.

According to the band's photographer, Dennis Morris, Ritchie was "deep down, a shy person." However, he did assault NME journalist Nick Kent with a motorcycle chain in retaliation for Kent's domestic assault on former girlfriend Chrissie Hynde. On another occasion, at a London nightclub popular with rock stars of the day, The Speakeasy, he threatened BBC DJ and Old Grey Whistle Test presenter Bob Harris, which in turn resulted in Harris threatening him with legal action.

Ritchie took his nickname, "Vicious", after his friend John Lydon's hamster, described by Lydon as "the softest, furriest, weediest thing on earth".^[1] At the time, he was squatting with Lydon, John Wardle (Jah Wobble) and John Gray (the four were sometimes referred to as The Four Johns).

[edit] Music carreer

[edit] The Flowers of Romance, and The Banshees

Vicious began his musical career as a member of The Flowers of Romance along with former co-founding member of The Clash, Keith Levene (who later co-founded John Lydon's post-Pistols project Public Image Limited) and Palmolive and Viv Albertine, who would later form The Slits. He appeared with Siouxsie & the Banshees, playing drums at their notorious first gig at the 100 Club Punk Festival in London's Oxford Street.

[edit] Sex Pistols

Before joining the band, Sid had associations with The Bromley Contingent, the fashion avant garde that followed the Sex Pistols, and had become a friend of vocalist Johnny Rotten. Ritchie was asked to join the group after Glen Matlock's departure in February 1977. Manager Malcolm McLaren once claimed "if Rotten is the voice of punk, then Vicious is the attitude". Ritchie played his first gig with the Pistols on April 3, 1977, at the Screen on the Green in London. His debut was filmed by Don Letts and appears in Punk Rock Movie.

In November 1977, Ritchie met American groupie Nancy Spungen, and they immediately began a relationship (Spungen had come to London looking for Jerry Nolan of The Heartbreakers). She was a heroin addict, and Ritchie, who already believed in his own "live fast, die young" image, soon shared the dependence. Although they were deeply in love, their often violent and rocky relationship had a disastrous effect on the Sex Pistols. Both the group and Ritchie visibly deteriorated during their 1978 American tour. The Pistols broke up in San Francisco after their concert at the Winterland Ballroom on January 14, 1978. With Spungen acting as his "manager," Ritchie embarked on a solo career during which he performed with musicians including Mick Jones of The Clash, original Sex Pistols bassist Glen Matlock, Rat Scabies of The Damned and the New York Dolls' Arthur Kane, Jerry Nolan, and Johnny Thunders.

[edit] Musicianship

In his time with the Sex Pistols, Sid was reknowned for his lack of ability to play the bass. When Sex Pistols guitarist Steve Jones was asked why he instead of Vicious recorded the bass parts of Never Mind The Bollocks, Jones responded "Sid was in a hospital with hepatitis so he couldn't really play, not that he could play anyway".^[2]

However in his autobiography No Irish, No Blacks, No Dogs, John Lydon wrote, "he wasn't too bad at all for three-chord songs."^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Spungen's murder

Meanwhile, Ritchie and Spungen had become locked in their own world of drug addiction and self-destruction. Interview footage shows the couple attempting to answer questions from their bed: Spungen is barely coherent while Ritchie lapses in and out of consciousness. He also came very close to death following a heroin overdose and was hospitalized for some time.

On the morning of October 12, 1978, he awoke from a drugged stupor to find Spungen dead on the bathroom floor of their room (room 100) in the Hotel Chelsea in New York City. She had suffered a single stab wound to her abdomen and apparently bled to death. He was arrested and charged with her murder although he said he had no memory of the event. There are several theories that Spungen was murdered by someone else, usually said to be one of the two drug dealers who visited the apartment that night, and involving a possible robbery as certain items (including a substantial bankroll) were claimed to be missing from the room. In his book, Pretty Vacant: A History of Punk, Phil Strongman names Spungen's killer as Rockets Redglare.

Bail of USD $50,000 was put up by Virgin Records at McLaren's request. The plan was for Vicious to record an album with fellow Pistols Steve Jones and Paul Cook in order to raise funds for his defense. This was to be a collection of standards including (according to McLaren) "White Christmas" and "Mack the Knife". It is also possible, according to Paul Cook, that the album was to be a selection of Ritchie's favorite songs and would have included tracks from The Stooges, the Ramones, the New York Dolls and The Heartbreakers.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Death

On February 2, 1979, a small gathering to celebrate his release was held at the home of his girlfriend, Michele Robison, whom he'd started living with the day he got out of Bellevue Hospital that October. During his time at Rikers Island jail, he had gotten off of heroin, and was clean. However, at the dinner gathering, he obtained some heroin from his mother, took a tiny amount, and accidentally overdosed that night. His girlfriend revived him. Much later that night, the couple fell asleep together. Ritchie was discovered dead the next morning. New York Chief Coroner Michael Baden explained at the time, when a person has an accidental heroin overdose, and then falls asleep, their heart slows with every REM phase. Ritchie died at around 10:00AM, after the repeated REM phases, throughout the night. Forensic experts subsequently found the heroin was 99% pure, which, "Nobody gets in this city, unless somebody wants somebody dead" as NYPD Homicide Detective Houseman said to Robison during questioning.

Though it was Peter Kodick who delivered the drugs that night, Phil Strongman contends that Rockets Redglare dealt the fatal dose of heroin; knowing who it was for, he ensured it was 99% pure rather than 22% (which itself was considered strong at the time).^{[citation needed]}

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[edit] Discography

[edit] Singles

• "My Way" (June 30, 1978) - (B-side Chatterbox)
• "Something Else" (February 9, 1979)
• "C'mon Everybody" (June 22, 1979)

[edit] Albums

• Sid Sings (December 15, 1979)

[edit] Various pressings and bootlegs

• My Way/Something Else/C’mon Everybody (1979, 12”, Barclay, Barclay 740 509)
• Live (1980, LP, Creative Industry Inc., JSR 21)
• Vicious Burger (1980, LP, UD-6535, VD 6336)
• Love Kills N.Y.C. (1985, LP, Konexion, KOMA)
• The Sid Vicious Experience – Jack Boots and Dirty Looks (1986, LP, Antler 37)
• The Idols With Sid Vicious (1993, CD, Last Call Records, LC22289)
• Never Mind the Reunion Here’s Sid Vicious (1997, CD)
• Sid Dead Live (1997, CD, Anagram, PUNK 86)
• Sid Vicious Sings (1997, CD)
• Vicious & Friends (1998, CD, Dressed To Kill Records, Dress 602)
• Better (to provoke a reaction than to react to a provocation) (1999, CD, Almafame, YEAAH6)
• Probably His Last Ever Interview (2000, CD, OZIT, OZITCD62)
• Better (2001, CD)
• Vive Le Rock (2003, 2CD)
• Too Fast To Live... (2004, CD)
• Naked & Ashamed (7”, Wonderful Records, WO-73)
• Sid Live At Max’s Kansas City (LP, JSR 21)
• Sid Vicious (LP, Innocent Records, JSR 23)
• Sid Vicious McDonald Bros. Box (3CD, Sound Solutions)

Sid Vicious & Friends

• (Don’t You Gimme) No Lip/(I’m Not Your) Steppin’ Stone (1989, 7”, SCRATCH 7)
• Sid Vicious & Friends (1998, CD, Cleopatra, #251, ASIN: B0000061AS)

Sid Vicious/Eddie Cochran

• Sid Vicious v’s Eddie Cochran – The Battle Of The Rockers (LP, Jock, LP 7)

Sid Vicious/Elvis Presley

• Cult Heroes (1993, CD)

[edit] Films that include Sid Vicious

• Sex Pistols Number One (1976, dir. Derek Jarman)
• Julian Temple'sThe Great Rock N' Roll Swindle features famous Sid Vicious footage, such as his videos for "My Way" and "Something Else", along with various live Sex Pistols footage. There is also a video for "C'mon Everybody", of which only snippets are shown in the film.
• Will Your Son Turn into Sid Vicious? (1978)
• The Punk Rock Movie (1979, dir. Don Letts)
• Dead on Arrival (1981, dir. Lech Kowalski)
• The Filth And The Fury (2000, dir. Julien Temple, VHS/NTSC)
• Mr. Mike's Mondo Video

A fictionalized film about the relationship between Vicious and Spungen, Sid and Nancy, was made by director Alex Cox in 1986, starring Gary Oldman as Vicious.

Adrian Edmondson played Vicious in The Comic Strip Presents: Demonella. He is shown in Hell, accompanied by Oscar Wilde, Genghis Khan, Marie Antoinette, and Adolf Hitler.

[edit] References

[edit] Further reading

• Anne Beverley, The Sid Vicious Family album (1980, Virgin Books)
• Gerald Cole, Sid And Nancy (1986, Methuen)
• Alex Cox & Abbe Wool, Sid And Nancy (1986, Faber and Faber)
• Keith Bateson and Alan Parker, Sid’s Way (1991, Omnibus Press)
• Tom Stockdale, Sid Vicious. They Died Too Young (1995, Parragon)
• Malcolm Butt, Sid Vicious. Rock‘n’Roll Star (1997, Plexus)
• David Dalton, El Sid (1998, St. Martin’s Griffin)
• Sid Vicious, Too Fast To Live...Too Young to Die (1999, Retro Publishing)
• Alan Parker, Vicious. Too Fast To Live... (2004, Creation Books)
• Spungen's mother, Deborah, wrote a book about her daughter and her involvement with Vicious in And I Don't Want to Live This Life.

[edit] External links

• [1]
• Vicious' confession to the NYPD and other documents
• Site with pictures of the murder scene
• Sid Vicious' Photo & Death Certificate
• The Life and Death of Sid Vicious @ Ward's Book of Days
• Living with Legends: Hotel Chelsea Blog
• Sid Vicious @ "Hot Shot Digital Rock Tributes"

v • d • e Sex Pistols
Johnny Rotten | Steve Jones | Paul Cook | Glen Matlock | Sid Vicious
Discography
Studio album: Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols
EPs: Spunk | Some Product: Carri on Sex Pistols | The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle | Flogging a Dead Horse
Live albums: Live at Chemsford Top Security Prison | Anarchy in the UK: Live at the 76 Club | Live at Winterland 1978 | Filthy Lucre Live
Singles: "Anarchy in the U.K." | "God Save the Queen" | "Pretty Vacant" | "Holidays in the Sun" | "No One Is Innocent"
Related articles
Public Image Ltd. | Malcolm McLaren | Jamie Reid | Ronnie Biggs | Edward Tudor-Pole | The Professionals | The Filth and the Fury | Ex Pistols | Punk rock