John Lydon brings the pain to Tom Snyder, 1980

[Amplituden]

That Tom Snyder clip made me a little squirmy.

However watching him sing Poptones was great.

[Satchmo Mask]

I guess this is as good as any opportunity to get it out there...

I love Tom Snyder. That is all.

I've only seen clips of this meeting before this, never the whole, horrible, thing. Gah.

[Spoony]

Oh yeah! I remember that Judge Judy bit.

I thought her and Johnny were making a bit of a connection. I think deep down, she's a Sex Pistol.

[Sarah]

What Mr. Lydon said in the Tomorrow interview wasn't so bad; it was his tone and all the smirking and sneering that were obnoxious.  And not, I think, obnoxious enough to be so upsetting to Mr. Snyder, who I think was an idiot for letting himself get so riled. 

I think there's definitely a bit of flirting on Judge Judy's part beginning at 6:30.

[Forrest]

I will never understand the appeal of Lydon or the Sex Pistols. It's always seemed like an embarrasing, transparent gimmick that can only be truly liked through hours of overthinking.

[Pat K]

I will never understand the appeal of Lydon or the Sex Pistols. It's always seemed like an embarrasing, transparent gimmick that can only be truly liked through hours of overthinking.

Forrest is on the mark.

[John Junk 2.0]

What Mr. Lydon said in the Tomorrow interview wasn't so bad; it was his tone and all the smirking and sneering that were obnoxious.  And not, I think, obnoxious enough to be so upsetting to Mr. Snyder, who I think was an idiot for letting himself get so riled. 

I think there's definitely a bit of flirting on Judge Judy's part beginning at 6:30.

I think SARAH's on the mark.  I don't know anything about Tom Snyder, but he didn't really seem to have researched anything about the actual musical influences of the band or what they actually sounded like.  You'd think if they're not giving him any specifics and a lot of attitude he'd be able to pull out "Well, don't you like reggae?" or something, and then if they just say something snide he can just be like "That's fantastic!" and play along instead of getting pissy about it.  There are certainly contradictions in what PiL were saying, but Snyder wasn't even pointing those out other than to be like "you're not a band but have musical instrooments!!".  maybe he was just mad that John kept smoking his cigarettes.  The interview was sort of like a real life Knowing Me Knowing You sequence. 

Also, on Judge Judy:
"All these people you pay, Mr. Lydon"
"...and none of them get day rooms."

zing!

TL, I'm kinda with you.  As I get older and realize how fickle and shortsighted we are about who we applaud for what reasons in the rock'n'roll universe, I appreciate Lydon more.  He appears over and over in Our Band Could Be Your Life as a sellout prima donna prick, and it's probably pretty accurate, but I think if people on the rise are quick to judge him, they might want to hold back because it might look different once you've been chewed up and spit out of whatever hype mill you're entering today.  He seemed to learn a hard lesson early and to take it to heart and refuses to pretend that the game of what he does is anything other than a game.  I remember once playing an all ages show in L.A. and just mentioning that, hypothetically, if my band brought in a lot of people, it would hypothetically be nice to get paid something, and then hearing it get back to me from these much younger people putting on the show and their friends, that I was "spoiled" from playing shows in New York.  It just reminded me that the things I thought were bullshit when I was a kid just seem reasonable and fair (if not particularly punk) today.  How much of a pain in the ass would it be to be this figurehead of English punk who could never live up to the impossible semi-manufactured ethos of that movement?  It's the sort of thing where once you're not destitute, you can't possibly remain valid under Sex Pistols conditions.  PIL was a logical way to segue out of that system.

Why did I write all that?

[jed]

I love this clip.  Call me naive, but perhaps this is just another example of what a mensch Lydon is - maybe, as he suggests in the Tom Snyder clip, he never really DID consider himself one of "the mighty."  Maybe doing the Megabugs show, agreeing to handle a claim on Judge Judy, doing upmteen embarrassing Sex Pistols reunions just shows that he IS a "fallen" soul like the rest of us - needs some money, has a sense of humor, isn't afraid to be a goof ball or embarrass himself, etc., AND possibly still scoffs at the idea of rock stardom.  I mean, you hear him speak in The Filth and the Fury and you have a hard time reconciling that guy - the same guy who wrote the scribbled "F.U." to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame - and the guy in the baggy plaid suits playing Sex Pistols songs in Las Vegas casino theaters, but maybe the joke's still on us and everyone who wants to make of him something more than he feels he is or needs to be.

O.k. - I wish this was, erm... Chinatown... so I wouldn't have to embarrass myself, but there you go - that's my embarrassingly positive thought for the day, and it's over now - go about your business.

I think you are probably right.  I never heard any of the ideas behind PiL and I liked hearing them say that they at least tried to play "honest" rock shows.  That clip from whatever Dick Clark show that was only proves that they took that idea seriously too.

[JonFromMaplewood]

First 2 PiL albums = teh awesome

Don't really know anything after that. The debut actually kinda reminds me of Led Zeppelin.

First 5 "real" LPs are great:
1.  First Issue
2.  Metal Box/Second Edition
3.  Flowers of Romance - this is almost all just drums and vocals - it's insane - if someone did this at a show at Death by Audio in Brooklyn today, they'd be hailed as a genius (and rightly so).
4.  This is What You Want... This is What You Get
5.  Album - as, strangely, both my father and a large skinhead friend of mine from South London would say, "Tough tunes!!"

Also, if you can get your hands on "Commercial Zone", do it.  That was the album that was supposed to follow "The Flowers of Romance" but did not because of legal battles within the band.  "This is What You Want... This is What You Get" is what got put out instead...and it's a tamer, less experimental version of "Commercial Zone".

P.S. Not many albums scare me, but "The Flowers of Romance" scares me.

[Sarah]

The Tomorrow Show actually was a bit like Knowing Me, Knowing You.  But less funny.  I always liked the old SNL parody.  Mick Jagger takes the piss out of Dan Aykroyd as Snyder.  It made me chuckle.  Don't know if it would now.

[Spoony]

I will never understand the appeal of Lydon or the Sex Pistols. It's always seemed like an embarrasing, transparent gimmick that can only be truly liked through hours of overthinking.

Forrest is on the mark.

Meh. Their problem is that they're difficult to relate to today. Their music is too dated and specific to those years in England. And considering they were originally founded by McLarren to schill clothes for his little punk-rock clothing boutique makes it even harder in retrospect.

But they were a reaction to the political climate of their time. It's the same with all those Punk and Oi bands... it's almost unlistenable now, but they were specific to their surroundings back then and were a reaction to what people were living with.

I choose to heap my coals upon the bands that are shitty xeroxes of those movements an wear everything like a uniform.

Someday Indiana Jones will be chasing down Johnny Rotten's fuzzy pink sweater and shouting to the kid in plaid pants who's stolen them "IT BELONGS IN A MUSEUM!"

[Forrest]

But they were a reaction to the political climate of their time.

We're just going to have to disagree like gentlemen. I'm sorry, but I just think that notion romanticizes the "movement" too much. I have a hard time seeing Lydon really paying attention to policy and railing against it with simple-minded songs about anarchy and the queen and problems with their very major record label. I've always seen the Sex Pistols as more of a concoction than a reaction to anything. When you see Lydon in interviews, you can clearly see that he is in character, at least from where I'm sitting.

[emma]

Someday Indiana Jones will be chasing down Johnny Rotten's fuzzy pink sweater and shouting to the kid in plaid pants who's stolen them "IT BELONGS IN A MUSEUM!"

So all I've got to look forward to is skinny jeans and that ridiculous vest thing everyone's been sporting lately?
I hate it when scenes "die" before I'm even born yet.

[Spoony]

We can agree like gentleman on some parts. They were a concoction. No illusions there. Malcolm was the deluded one. He wanted kids to be his own personal art project, and John wanted it to be something bigger than what it was. It fell apart when neither could reconcile their own skeeviness with each other. They weren't particularly intelligent... but that's punk for you.

This is why they don't hold up as well as The Clash. The Clash had bigger issues on their mind than a narrow agenda and they're petty squabbles. (At least in the beginning.)

[yesno]

I hate it when scenes "die" before I'm even born yet.

No kidding.  I should have been a cavalier: