Exclusive: The very ad which scored the Sex Pistols their place in Tin Pan Alley
At the bottom of page 66 of Melody Maker, September 13, 1975.
This is, I think, an exclusive. Much mentioned in the story of punk, I’ve not seen this ad published since it appeared 46 years ago.
Tucked away at the bottom of page 66 of the September 13 1975 issue of British music weekly Melody Maker was a relatively nondescript line advertisement offering the lease on premises in London’s Denmark Street, home to the British music publishing industry:
TIN PAN ALLEY. Must be
useful for some msicians (sic), agent
or such. To take over. Small lock-
up premises. Store gear, group-
meet, rehearse, hire-it-out, etc.
Sacrifice. – 455 7487.
Complete with that typo, this was the sole entry in the property section of the MM’s classifieds pages, which that week included hundreds of ads for musicians, instruments and equipment over seven pages.
The ad was tucked away at the bottom of the page.
The advert would have cost the leaseholder Bill Collins around £3.50 to post. The father of actor Lewis Collins, the Liverpudlian had made a name for himself in the music business, having been instrumental in the success of 60s powerpop quartet Badfinger, signing them to the Beatles’ Apple label when they were The Iveys. Collins even shared songwriting credits with the group, including those for Without You, which became a massive worldwide hit when covered by Harry Nilsson.
By 1973 Collins had been excluded from Badfinger’s affairs by the powerful US entrepreneur Stan Polley, who was soon accused of depriving the group of millions of dollars. In April 1975, a few months before Collins placed the ad, Badfinger mainman Pete Ham hanged himself at home, blaming Polley in the suicide note for the group’s misfortunes.
Another page of ads towards the back of the issue of MM with a news filler about a bomb scare interrupting a performance by a long-forgotten act called Screamer.
It is against this backdrop that Collins decided to divest himself of Sacrifice. The ad was spotted by eagle-eyed Glen Matlock, then Saturday boy at Malcolm McLaren and Vivienne Westwood’s fetish boutique Sex at 430 King’s Road and bass-player in the Sex Pistols, whose line-up had been established only two weeks previously by the recruitment of John Lydon.
Front page, Melody Maker, September 13, 1975.
But the wannabe musicians were struggling to settle on decent rehearsal space. Positioned in a two-storey outbuilding behind a retail outlet then used by a Greek bookseller, Zeno, the premises at the rear of 6 Denmark Street became the Pistols’ central London base where they honed their sound.
“I showed it to Malcolm and he said ‘Call ’em up and offer them £1000 without seeing it’,” recalled Matlock to Jon Savage in his book about Punk and the Pistols, England’s Dreaming. “So I called ’em up and I said, ‘Well I think my mate’s mad but he’s offering you £1000 without seeing the place.’ The bloke on the other end said “Oh, I think we can do business.’
“Malcolm got on the phone and started chatting and the guy turned out to be Bill Collins. It was actually Badfinger’s rehearsal place, but they were selling everything off. It was good having our own place.’
McLaren also paid for designer Ben Kelly to refurbish the tatty interior. Read about the importance of the space McLaren dubbed The QT Rooms (after his first name for the group, Kutie Jones and his Sex Pistols) in The Life & Times of Malcolm McLaren.
The front of 6 Denmark Street in 2016. Photo: Historic England.
Read Historic England’s history of 6 Denmark Street, which was built as a terraced house with workshop in 1690, here.
The sorry tale of Badfinger’s legal and financial travails is here.