Sid Vicious

For the professional wrestler, see Sid Eudy.

Sid Vicious

Simon John Ritchie (May 10, 1957 – February 2, 1979), better known as Sid Vicious, was an English punk rock musician and bass player of the Sex Pistols. He died of a drug overdose at the age of 21.

Life

Early years

Ritchie was born in London to parents John (a former Grenadier Guard) and Anne Ritchie. His father left shortly afterwards. During his early years, John moved with his mother to the Spanish island of Ibiza, where she allegedly made a living selling drugs. The pair later moved back to England, where Anne married Christopher Beverley in 1965 before setting up a family home in Kent, England.

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.

According to Lemmy Kilmister in an interview in Mojo, Ritchie at age fourteen was selling LSD at Hawkwind concerts.

By 1974 he had already begun using drugs intravenously with his mother, particularly amphetamines. By 1975, he had started to self harm and exhibited antisocial tendencies; some accounts of his life relate that he assaulted a pensioner around this time.

Sid Vicious

Described by peers as 'slender and likable', Ritchie took the stage name "Sid Vicious," which reportedly came from an ironic joke involving the name of John Lydon's pet hamster "Sid," which had apparently bitten Sid and subsequently been dubbed "Vicious" by him. It is also reported that the name "Vicious" came from the Lou Reed song of the same name. Although Simon was his real first name, he often referred to himself as "John". At the time, he was squatting with John Lydon, John Wardle (Jah Wobble) and John Gray. (The four were sometimes referred to as The Four Johns).

Sid reportedly made a deliberate effort to match the media myths that grew up around him and his name, although John Lydon (Johnny Rotten) reportedly commented, "Sid couldn't punch his way out of a bag of crisps!"

File:Sid-vicious.jpg

Sid Vicious

The Bromley Contingent, 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). He had loose associations with The Bromley Contingent, the fashion avant garde that followed the Sex Pistols, and appeared with Siouxsie & the Banshees, playing drums at their notorious first gig at the 100 Club Punk Festival in London's Oxford Street.

According to the band's photographer Dennis Morris, Vicious was "deep down, a shy person," but he was renowned for a violent streak. At the 100 Club punk festival, a beer glass thrown at a pillar shattered and hit a young girl, who subsequently lost her sight in one eye. Ritchie is widely believed to have been responsible, but this was never proven. At the same event, he assaulted NME journalist Nick Kent with a motorcycle chain and on another occasion, threatened BBC DJ and Old Grey Whistle Test presenter Bob Harris at a London nightclub.

Sex Pistols

Already known as "the ultimate Sex Pistols fan," and a close friend of vocalist Johnny Rotten, Vicious 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 look. His punk character was considered far more helpful than any knack for playing, as he was not renowned for his playing skills, though he did have some composing ability, as was later shown when he composed the track "Belsen Was A Gas" entirely by himself. Jon Savage's biography of the Sex Pistols, England's Dreaming, recounts that most of the bass parts on the band's later recordings were played by guitarist Steve Jones and at later live performances Vicious' amplifier was sometimes switched off. Vicious is said to have asked Lemmy Kilmister from Motörhead to teach him how to play bass with the words, "I can't play bass." Kilmister's reply was (according to Kilmister himself) "I know." In his autobiography No Irish, No Blacks, No Dogs, Lydon writes, "he wasn't too bad at all for three-chord songs." Sid 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.

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Sid Vicious arrest

Nancy Spungen and the end of the Pistols

In November 1977 Vicious met American groupie Nancy Laura 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 Vicious, who already believed in his own "live fast, die young" image, soon shared the dependence. Although deeply in love, their often violent and rocky relationship had a disastrous effect on the Sex Pistols. Both the group and Vicious 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", he 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.

Deaths of Sid and Nancy

Meanwhile Vicious 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 Vicious lapses in and out of consciousness. He also came very close to death following a heroin overdose and was hospitalized for a time. On the morning of October 12 1978 he allegedly awoke from a drugged stupor to find Spungen crumpled dead on the bathroom floor of their room (room 100) in the Hotel Chelsea in New York. She had received 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 having done so. 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.

After appearing in court over Spungen's death, a television journalist briefly interviewed Vicious (the footage appears in The Filth and the Fury). He was shaking slightly and appeared sober, morose, and withdrawn:

Interviewer: Are you having fun at the moment?

Vicious: Are you kidding? No, I am not having fun at all.

(long pause)

Interviewer: Where would you like to be?

Vicious: Under the ground.

Interviewer: Are you serious?

Vicious: (quietly, and sad) Yeah.

Bail of $30,000 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 Sid's favourite songs and would have included tracks from The Stooges, the Ramones, the New York Dolls and The Heartbreakers . In February 1979, a party to celebrate his release was held at the home of his new girlfriend Michelle Robinson. During his time at Rikers Island prison, Vicious had undergone drug rehabilitation therapy and was supposedly clean. However at the party he obtained some heroin from his mother, and was discovered dead the following morning, having taken a large overdose. Speculation has persisted that Vicious, unable to live without his beloved Nancy, committed suicide. He wrote the following poem about her:

You are my little baby girl,

We share all Our fears.

Such joy to hold you in my arms

and kiss away all your tears.

But now you're gone, there's only the pain

and nothing I can do about it.

And I don't want to live this life any more,

If I can't live for you.

To my beautiful baby girl.

Our love will never die...

Another theory forwarded by police investigator Richard Houseman and writer Alan Parker in the recent Discovery Channel documentary Final 24 suggests that Vicious' mother was responsible for administering the fatal overdose of heroin. As a regular heroin user herself, this theory holds that the administration of a lethal dose was intentional.

After Vicious' death, his mother phoned Deborah Spungen, Nancy's mother, to request that he be buried next to her, but Deborah Spungen declined. There are several myths about what happened to Vicious' remains but one of the most persistent is that late one night, "Sid's mother jumped the graveyard fence where Nancy was buried and scattered his ashes over his beloved for them to be together for all time."

According to The Guardian, "It's more likely that Ma Vicious arrived back at Heathrow with his remains. Malcolm McLaren claims she knocked them over in the arrivals lounge; hence the fanciful myth that Sid's essence still circulates, wafting through the air vents and moving among the travellers." [1]

Sid Sings was released posthumously by Virgin Records. This was a collection of mostly cover versions recorded live at his gigs at Max's Kansas City in September 1978. Tracks included "C'mon Everybody" and "Something Else" by Eddie Cochran along with material by Iggy Pop and Johnny Thunders and a rendition of the Paul Anka / Frank Sinatra standard "My Way". Striking footage of Vicious performing this song in Paris provides the closing sequence for Julien Temple's film The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle. Also included on Sid Sings was a cover of the The Heartbreakers' "Born to Lose", which was recorded at the Sex Pistols last British gig at Ivanhoe's in Huddersfield on Christmas Day 1977, with Vicious on vocals.

Discography

Charted releases

Singles

• June 30, 1979 – My Way # 6 UK
• February 9, 1979 – Something Else # 3 UK
• June 22, 1979 – C'mon Everybody # 7 UK

Album

• December 15, 1979 - Sid Sings # 30 UK

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 788020)
• 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)

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)

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

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)
• Mark Paytress, Sid Vicious. The Art of Dying Young (2004, Sanctuary Publishing)
• 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.
• Dee Dee Ramone, bassist for the punk band The Ramones was a friend of Sid's. Dee Dee, who died of heroin toxicity in 2002, penned a novel entitled Chelsea Horror Hotel in which Dee Dee and his wife move into the Chelsea Hotel and believe they are staying in the same room where Sid killed Nancy. In the book, Dee Dee is revisited by the ghost of Sid as well as other dead punk rock friends Johnny Thunders and Stiv Bators.

Sid Vicious in pop culture

• Professional wrestler Sid Eudy used the name Sid Vicious as one of his wrestling names.
• A co-founder of American hacker group Cult of the Dead Cow used the name Sid Vicious.
• The hit song "Butterfly" by Crazy Town contains a line which refers to Sid and Nancy's relationship.
• The hit Japanese song "Koko de Kiss Shite" by Shiina Ringo refers to Sid Vicious: "I'm the only one who could put handcuffs to a modern Sid Vicious." She also titled one of her songs "Daydreaming with Sid," another reference to him.
• Dir en grey's song "JESSICA" has a line "Sid Vicious and Nancy, where can I meet you." Also, Hydra contains "Sid Vicious" in its lyrics.
• The Japanese band BUCK-TICK has a song called "Sid Vicious ON THE BEACH."
• The Ramones' songs "I Don't Want to Live This Life (Anymore)" and "Love Kills" are about Sid Vicious and Nancy Spungen. The latter is sung by Dee Dee Ramone.
• The song "Chickenshit Conformist" by the Dead Kennedys contains the line "Imagine Sid Vicious at 35".
• The Joe Strummer song Love Kills is also about Sid Vicious and Nancy Spungen.
• Japanese rocker Tomoyasu Hotei references Sid and Nancy in his song "Psychobilly and Pussycat".
• In the anime, Beck, all the band members have a dream where Sid Vicious and other deceased rock stars clean up after a concert. He also appears in the end credits.
• Bon Jovi's song "Captain Crash and the Beauty Queen From Mars" has a line "We're Sid and Nancy".
• British artist Gavin Turk cast himself in a sculpture as Sid.
• The Exploited wrote a song called "Sid Vicious Was Innocent" about Vicious and Spungen's deaths.
• Johnny Thunders song "Sad Vacation" is about Sid Vicious, the lyrics contain lines relating to Sid's songs. The two were friends and planned to form a band together, though it didn't work out because Thunders "couldn't put up with his girlfriend (Spungen)".[2]
• In the manga Nana by Ai Yazawa, there is a character Ren, based on Sid Vicious.
• Chinese rock band Silver Ash made a song called Feeling Dizzy which refers to Sid Vicious as the sad punk.
• In the episode "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun" of the Canadian TV series Degrassi: The Next Generation, Craig Manning dresses as Sid Vicious for an eighties-themed dance, even though Sid's death predates the decade by almost an entire year.
• In the pilot episode of Mission Hill, Andy mentions that Sid Vicious was rumored to have thrown up in his bathtub.
• In Martin Scorsese's film Goodfellas, Sid's cover of My Way plays over the end credits.
• In Season Six of Dawson's Creek, Pacey and Audrey dress up as Sid and Nancy for a Hallowe'en party
• In Buffy the Vampire Slayer, at the end of the episode "Lover's Walk", Spike is singing along to Sid Vicious' version of "My Way". Spike was frequently compared to Sid Vicious, and he was one of the inspirations for Spike's character.
• In Gangster No. 1, there is an episode of retrospection, the main character talking about his history, where Sid appears as a symbol of the year 1977.
• In the computer game Stunts - 4D Sports Car Driving, the top AI driver's name is "Skid Vicious".
• In the song “Junk Story” by Japanese musician hide his name appears in the lyrics.
• Mezco Toys Living Dead Doll line creates a named "Romeo and Juliet" 2-pack set that features a Romeo with a t-shirt stating "Love Kills" and a death date of 2-2-79.

External links

• Vicious' confession to the NYPD and other documents
• Site with pictures of the murder scene
• Sid Vicious' Photo & Death Certificate