Released
on February 26th, 1979, the soundtrack to the Sex Pistols movie, The
Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle, turns 45 years old today. While it's hard
to call this a proper album by the group, among the clutter and
confusion, there are some genuinely amusing punk gags and a few nasty
bits of ephemera worth the price of admission.
Before the group
imploded at the end of their chaotic 1978 US mini-tour, Malcolm McLaren
had been working on the idea of a feature film for the band, initially
titled, "Who Killed Bambi?". With Johnny Rotten unceremoniously dumped
after their San Francisco gig in January of 1978, the prospect of
putting together a feature film, let along the film's soundtrack, seemed
rather slim. Yet McLaren was determined to push this project past the
finish line, even if he had to run it on fumes, including resorting to
hiding cameras in bushes to try to film Lydon while on vacation in
Jamaica & scouting reggae bands for Richard Branson. It was
fortunate then that Malcolm managed to come across a forgotten 1976 tape
of the band rehearsing.
The demo contained recordings of the
band performing a number of cover songs, many of which were part of
their live set at the time. These included The Monkees' Stepping Stone,
The Modern Lovers' Roadrunner, Chuck Berry's Johnny B Goode and The
Who's Substitute. An early demo version of Anarchy in the UK was also
uncovered. None of these recordings had ever been released before, so
Malcolm came up with the idea of doing a bit of recycling in order to
have a few building blocks upon which to structure some sort of
soundtrack. Unfortunately, the demos were not of the best recording
quality, being only 4 track roughs, but the vocal and bass parts were
salvageable, or rather had to be as both Johnny and Glen were no longer
in the band. At minimum, he could re-record Steve's guitar and Paul's
drum parts again, to help freshen up the sound and allow him to claim
the album contained actual Sex Pistols songs that were not previously
released.
To fill out the rest of the double LP capacity,
McLaren assembled a pastiche of odds and ends, firstly by having the
remaining band members record some new material with lead vocals either
being provided by them or by guest vocalists. Sid recorded cover
versions of My Way, Something Else and C'mon Everybody, artifacts that
would become his only proper studio appearances before his tragic death.
Paul & Steve each provided lead vocals on a couple of tracks which
were essentially prototypes for their post-Pistols project, The
Professionals. Edward Tudor-Pole provided vocals for several tracks as
well, but the most controversial guest was exiled "Great Train Robber",
Ronnie Biggs, who provided vocals for Belsen Was a Gas and No One Is
Innocent. That inclusion drew a lot of criticism because of Biggs'
violent history and the impression that the appearance celebrated those
heinous crimes.
The rest of the album is patched together with a
handful of novelty songs, such as the disco medley by a fake studio
band, The Black Arabs, and some French street performers were used on a
parody of Anarchy in the UK. Malcolm took the task of crooning the
saccharine, sentimental, You Need Hands. Other than the salvaged demos
from 1976, Johnny Rotten had nothing whatsoever to do with the
production of the album, completely disavowing it and the film upon
their release and asserting they were NOT legitimate Sex Pistols
products, but merely another of Malcolm's cons.
Taken as a
whole, the album is a hodgepodge of occasionally amusing relics and
random moments of ecstatic excess. Sid's rendition of My Way, for
example, has gone on to become his signature statement of nihilistic
self-destruction. The Pistols demos capture the band in a state of raw
good humour, having a laugh before it all became too fucking crazy.
Even the disco song is an amusing poke in the eye to the punks who clung
to pretensions about what the movement was. In the end, the record
does what it says on the tin. It's a total "swindle", but fun enough if
you're in on the joke.
