“Sidney”

c. 2019 Rod Ice

All rights reserved

(2-19)

Bollocks. In 1977, at the age of 16, I had never heard that British term before.

My world consisted of a few square miles northeast of Pittsburgh. Though a native of Ohio, I had landed in the Keystone State for what would be a three-year stay. Like many teenagers of that era, I busied myself with collecting vinyl records, plucking away at my guitar, and absorbing counterculture habits, wherever they could be found. In the era before Internet connectivity, that was not so easy to accomplish. But through a selection of newspapers, motorcycle magazines and local radio stations, my bond with the world outside of Pennsylvania was maintained.

Nearly everyone in high school listened to WDVE, the commercial Rock giant. Yet I favored two lesser broadcast outlets. WYDD, a beacon of free-form programming, and WYEP, a public station with local roots. Both delivered a varied stream of content far outside of the popular mainstream. This meant I often heard everything from Roy Buchanan to Kiss to John McLaughlin to Devo in a single day of listening. Having grown up on household staples of Folk, Blues, Country & Western and Jazz, I absorbed this scattered mix with much enthusiasm. Then, in 1977, a tonal grenade exploded from my RCA radio.

They were called the Sex Pistols.

When I talked about the group at school, not one member of my class had actually heard their records. Soon however, erroneous stories circulated of the band defecating on stage, playing in various states of partial nudity, and other acts of anti-social horror. My friends clung to more conventional artists for security, like Peter Frampton or Bob Seger. Yet each story of disreputable behavior only increased my appetite for these foreign yobs. I taped their songs off of the radio. Then, very late in the year, a copy of ‘Never Mind the Bollocks’ appeared at a local store. It glowed with infamy as I lifted it from the record rack. Like an eerie talisman of black magic. Johnny Rotten, Steve Jones, Paul Cook… Glen Matlock was already gone… and a striking figure who seemed destined for an unholy kind of immortality from the moment his image appeared.

Sid Vicious. Born John Simon Ritchie, in 1957.

He was almost anorexic. Spiky hair, leather-clad, sporting a padlock hung around his neck and thumping a Fender Precision Bass that looked more like a potential weapon than a musical instrument. An adult brain might have pondered his capricious disregard for amplified art, himself, or the greater pool of concert-going humanity. But I was a kid. His impulsive, ill-considered manner of performing struck me like an epiphany. I had not felt such energy since the first time a Chuck Berry recording hit the hi-fi. A classic Bob Gruen photo captured him wearing a button that resonated in my young soul. It read: “I’m a mess.” Secretly, silently, I knew what he felt. My only wish was to be so free. To able to live without concern for convention. In a postmodern time, without heroes, Sid waved his stringed scepter defiantly. 

And I cheered that misanthropic act.

A year later, I had moved with my family to the Finger Lakes region of New York. By chance, a television apprenticeship became available through a Cornell University program at my high school. In the weeks that followed, I started a local Punk Rock show, armed with nothing more than an armload of albums from my own collection. Part of my wardrobe was a padlock on a chain, around my neck. I willingly channeled Sid’s vibe, on-air.

Some even suggested ‘Rod Vicious’ as a moniker to consider, for television. It did not fit my personality, however. And I reckoned it was a bit too obvious. But the forthcoming Sex Pistols movie provided a clue. Thus, I adopted the name of ‘Swindle’ for the spotlight.

Sid’s path continued a zig-zag course through minefields of fame, addiction, violence, media-hype, and abuse. His re-interpretation of the classic ‘My Way’ incinerated popular idioms. Nancy Spungen’s murder in New York City set his image ablaze. Then, in February of 1979, he was gone. I was on the air at Channel 13 in Ithaca when he died. A friend from Discount Records fashioned her own tribute for my leather jacket. The button read: “Sid Lives.” I wore it for the rest of my time hosting the show.

In death, as in his short span walking the earth, he burned like a firecracker. Bright, hot, rude, raw, undeniably overwhelming, and then vanished in a wisp of smoke.

A recent pause with YouTube revived these memories. In the midst of a sleepless Ohio night, I drank coffee and clicked through channels on my Roku. Then, the Sky Arts production “Sid! Sid Vicious Documentary” appeared on my screen. It opened an unexpected, time-warp adventure. With lingering effects of Canadian beer still throbbing through my head, I sat back in the chair. The video literally had me spellbound. Paralyzed by joy, reverence, and a sense of loss. Not just for this flawed icon, but for myself as I was… younger, more strong of heart and clear of purpose.

Sid was 21 when he surrendered to the filthy tide of a heroin overdose. He never became old, fat, indifferent, married, divorced, jaded, crusty or un-hip. Mortality fixed his image forever. Only those of us who lived onward, into old age and decline, can marvel at his tainted purity. He stands now, turned to stone, like a guidepost. Marking the passage of one era to the next.

We, the living, have not been so immortal. By breathing the infatuating vapors of life, we embrace a perverse, walking death every day. A death of ourselves, of souls, personalities, images, dreams, plans and hope itself. A death unintended by our birth. A death of purpose. A death of youth, of love, of faith, of self. Sid, in his grave, will live forever.

That is the conundrum of Rock & Roll.

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