Director Danny Kleinman’s film about his 70s group Bazooka Joe and the night the Sex Pistols played their first gig as support act is available to view here and at GQ Online.
For GQ I have written an introduction discussing last Friday’s event Be Reasonable Demand The Impossible, where Kleinman’s film was premiered.
View the film below and read my piece here:
Our event Be Reasonable Demand The Impossible on Friday night was an out-and-out success, attended by hundreds from all walks of life, including students of London’s Central Saint Martins for whom it was primarily organised.
We were honoured that the London Mayor’s Office selected Be Reasonable to unveil Punk London, the year-long calendar of exhibitions, gigs and events in the capital in 2016.
More details will be forthcoming at the end of the month; the GLA’s ‘cultural partner’ Marcus Davey of Camden venue The Roundhouse gave a few hints and showed for the first time the logo designed by graphic artist Neville Brody.
The poster for the Sex Pistols’ first performance (on November 6 1975 in the Common Room of St Martin’s School Of Art in central London’s Charing Cross Road) has been found after 40 years – and it doesn’t even mention them!
On November 6 1975, the Sex Pistols made their live debut in the refectory of Saint Martin’s School Of Art in London’s Charing Cross Road before an audience of around 20 people.
I went to a good school (it was approved, as my first editor would have it in the late 70s. You had to be there).
I was taken on as a scholarship boy, one who showed enough promise for the fees to be paid by the council.
But I was lazy, not as bright as I made out, unhappy, an under-achiever. Aside from winning the cross-country race when I was 14, my life there was almost entirely undistinguished, so preoccupied was I with music, clothes and girls. I had pretensions to vast knowledge in all three areas undercut by lack of experience in the latter regard.
Continue reading Before Wire and The Motors, The Snakes: My part in their punk rock obscurity