Sex Pistols - The Inside Story - Fred & Judy Vermorel

SEX PISTOLS - THE INSIDE STORY -

FRED & JUDY VERMOREL

It's still my contention that the best book ever written on the subject of 'punk' is Jon Savage's England's Dreaming. It's in the way that Savage is so thorough, leaving (practically) no stone left unturned. His writing style is like that of a shark hunting down prey, with the scent of blood in the nostrils driving it forward. Sniffing after every entrail, every speck of blood but when sensing the prey might be too large to easily digest (like the subject of Crass), backing off to allow for further consideration.

For all that, I still wouldn't say Savage's book is definitive, and that to get an even wider and more complete understanding of punk, you really need to read other books on the subject by other writers - Sex Pistols - The Inside Story by Fred and Judy Vermorel being but one of them.

'But what exactly is there to understand about punk?' some might say, and 'Why even bother?' If you have to ask, of course, you'll never know, for as Neil Young once advised in his ode to Johnny Rotten: There's more to the picture - than meets the eye. And if there has ever been a band that this applied to then it's the Sex Pistols.

The backbone of the Vermorel's book is the diary kept by Sophie Richmond, who as well as living with Pistols' art designer Jamie Reid, was the secretary and office manager to Malcolm McLaren and the Pistols up until the end of 1977. Sophie had previously worked with Jamie Reid on the radical anti-commerce newspaper Suburban Press so her politics were already in place. Indeed, in one of her diary entries she alludes to being a non-affiliated Marxist.

Sophie is very conscious of the political nature of the Sex Pistols though also acknowledging that it's a double-edged sword. 'What worries me is fascism,' she writes 'That rebellious stance (of the Pistols) at this point of political time could equally lead rightwards as leftwards'.

Possibly of more interest is her awareness of situationism, shown in one of her diary entries when she attributes to the situationists the quote about all men and women living lives of quiet desperation. Even though she's mistaken in citing the quote to them (it was actually said by Henry Thoreau) at least it's an indication that she's aware of the situationists - which is probably more than could be said about Johnny Rotten.

On the other hand, Jamie Reid and Malcolm McLaren were well versed in them as was Fred Vermorel, so this obviously explains why it's a theme that runs through the whole book. It's funny nowadays, actually, how a significant number of people are of the view that the Pistols were just a 'boy band' and mere puppets of McLaren. It's patently not true. It is, however, true to say that McLaren, Vivienne Westwood, and Reid dressed them up in symbols and slogans. Moreover, it was situationist slogans - or versions of them, at least - and a chapter in the book on the subject of the situationists lists a number of them that in 1968 were sprayed all over the buildings and metros of Paris:

'Live Without Restrictions Or Dead Time. Never Work. Scream, Steal, Ejaculate Your Desires. The More You Consume the Less You Live.' Etc, etc. There is also mention given to the situationist idea of making retreat impossible and 'global proletarian revolution in the name of 'perpetual orgasm''.

No matter how much John Lydon might wish to deny it, the links between the Sex Pistols and situationism are obvious. Right down, even, to the situationists' concept of recuperation whereby radical ideas are defused, neutralized and commodified into mainstream consumer culture.

It's interesting also that the agent of mainstream consumer culture in the case of the Sex Pistols wasn't so much the big, established record companies EMI or A&M but the supposedly more hip (at the time) Virgin Records and in particular Richard Branson. As Julien Temple in the book puts it: Branson was a businessman pretending not to be a businessman. In fact, whilst McLaren was doing his utmost to present himself as the great rock'n'roll swindler, it was Branson who actually out-swindled everyone, going into overdrive in the end come the death of Sid Vicious and the over-the-top exploitation of the whole sad and sorry affair.

And talking of Sid Vicious, Julien Temple in the book makes another good observation in regard to when viewing the film footage of the Pistols in America, it's Sid who's keeping the craziness going and making the Pistols more than just a rock and roll group. According to Temple, Sid knew by that stage that he'd inherited Rotten's place and importance so based on that alone, the subsequent splitting up of the band was inevitable.

The Vermorel's book is full of observations such as this and full of insights from those behind the scenes, making it an important and somewhat special book when it comes to the story of the Sex Pistols. Unexpectedly and very amusingly, one of the highlights is actually Paul Cook's mum and the interview with her. For example, on Paul Cook as a baby she says: 'I couldn't believe it when he was born. I said to the doctor - he said it was a boy, and I said: 'No, it ain't,' and he said: 'Yes, it is.' And there he was, his little white nob!' And then on being asked about Johnny Rotten, she says: 'He sat on my back step in the garden and he looked so depressed. So I said: 'Well, we are all depressed, Johnny,' and he started to laugh.'

Paul Cook's mum is brilliant, and if as Malcolm McLaren once said that 'Anyone can be a Sex Pistol' then she was an undisclosed star member.

John Serpico

The Shit Of God - Diamanda Galas

 THE SHIT OF GOD - DIAMANDA GALAS

'Is it safe?' as Lawrence Olivier's Josef Mengele character keeps asking Dustin Hoffman's character in the film Marathon Man, as he drills a hole into his tooth without the use of anesthetic.

Is it safe? In this instance to read a book by Diamanda Galas with the somewhat alarming title of The Shit Of God. Is it safe?

Well, I always say you should never be intimidated by a book be it by its size, its girth, its complexity or anything, really - particularly its title. The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoevsky? It's only a book. Ulysses by James Joyce? It's only a book. The Shit Of God by Diamanda Galas? It's only a book. And unfortunately in the case of Galas's book, not a very good one.

Writer and filmmaker Clive Barker gets it right in his introduction when he says of Galas: 'Her voice carries her audience on a journey into primal regions, where intellectual analysis and even aesthetic judgements become redundant. All you can do is listen and feel.'

And that's the thing. The work of Diamanda Galas is something to be heard and experienced, preferably in a live setting. Her words aren't meant to be laid down on paper and presented as poetry. It just doesn't work. In doing so they lose all their power and are rendered redundant. Rendered useless.

Galas is a musician, a vocalist/singer extraordinaire, composer, performance artist and a visual artist/painter. She's a legend. The printed word, however, just isn't her medium.

Obviously, The Shit Of God isn't completely without worth as I imagine if you're a fan then you're going to view it as a little birthday present but as Joe Strummer once sang: 'Nembutal numbs it all but I prefer alcohol', whilst I say: Diamanda Gala is possessed of genius but give me Peaches any day.

John Serpico

A Fistful Of Dollars - Frank Chandler

A FISTFUL OF DOLLARS - FRANK CHANDLER

'Get three coffins ready.' And with that we are formally introduced to the Man With No Name. Everyone makes mistakes, however, even a gunslinger who has death as a constant companion because it ends up as actually being four coffins that are required after him shooting down a gang of gunmen in a blur of movement before twirling his two pistols around his index fingers and then sliding them back into their holsters with a slow, gentle movement that's almost like a caress... 

It's impossible to read Frank Chandler's A Fistful Of Dollars without picturing Clint Eastwood as the stranger who rides into town leaving a trail of bodies behind when he departs. And so it should be because Clint Eastwood owns the Man With No Name character even though there have been many subsequent imitations. It's the character that made Clint Eastwood into the iconic actor that he is today, and the character that has become the template for the silent killer/studied cool/avenging angel trope in movies ever since.

Based on the screenplay of the film, Chandler's book stays close to the script and doesn't deviate from the crux of the original at all, but again - that's how it should be. You don't read a book like this for it to go off at tangents. Flesh it out a bit, for sure, but don't go changing it for the sake of being clever. Don't go trying to fix something that's working fine already, or trying to improve something that doesn't need improving. Just present in a different medium what is there already and everyone will be happy.

It's this policy that Chandler abides by and his book is all the better for it. The film of A Fistful Of Dollars is still better than the book but then the book isn't trying to be better. It's an accompaniment. It's a movie tie-in. It's a joy to read. It's a pleasure. A small pleasure maybe, in the scheme of things, but a pleasure all the same.

John Serpico

The Spear - James Herbert

 THE SPEAR - JAMES HERBERT

From the cover, you wouldn't really know what The Spear by James Herbert is about. 'Instrument of terror, symbol of evil...' says the tagline, but again that doesn't really give much away. Even the main protagonist when asked 'Have you ever heard of the Heilige Lance?' has to say 'no' before the person asking the question waves the subject away with a dismissive 'it's an ancient spearhead that a certain arms dealer seemed to have an interest in'.

In fact, for the first half of the book, arms trading and the subterfuge around the whole industry is what it seems to be about, taking in Israel, Mossad, global terrorism, and a private detective agency. It's not until the protagonist - private detective Steadman - and the arms dealer finally get to properly meet that the story takes a sudden turn to the esoteric with the arms dealer asking 'Have you heard of the Thule Gesellschaft, Mr Steadman?'

The Thule Gesellschaft - in English the 'Thule Society' - the German occult group founded shortly after World War I that sponsored the German Workers' Party, that was later reorganized by Hitler into the National Socialist Workers' Party - probably more commonly known as the Nazi Party.

So, rather than arms dealing, the core of the story is about the establishment of the Fourth Reich. This time round, however, taking control of the Western World through stealth. Spreading fear, confusion and mistrust on a universal scale through worldwide terrorist attacks and the gradual breaking-down of the world's economic structure. Boiling everything down to one simple but major conflict: Right against Left.

'It would be the only choice for the people of Britain.' Steadman is informed 'No in-betweens, no fence-sitting. The public would be forced to choose. Civil war would be balanced in favour of the Right, for the majority would be the wealthy, those whose sympathy lay towards nationalistic pride; and the middle classes who had suffered so much between the elite of the country and the working classes, would choose to join them rather than be ruled by the economy-wrecking socialists. The choice would be made very easy for them. New leaders would emerge and their ideals would be uncompromising, just as Hitler's had been in the 1930s.'

And those ideals if not broken why try fixing them as in the eyes of the Far Right there's nothing so perfect and normal than racial purity and racial segregation, along with the dissolution if not extermination of marxists, communists, trade unionists, anarchists, gypsies, homosexuals, the physically and mentally disabled, and anyone else deemed to be 'untermensch' - or in other words, 'subhuman'.

This being a James Herbert book, the supernatural is not too far away and is represented by the Heilige Lance, otherwise known as the Spear of Longinus the Centurion. The Spear of Destiny. The spear that was believed to be the weapon that pierced the side of Christ as he died on the cross. And just for good measure there's also the resurrection of Heinrich Himmler - the Reichsfuhrer himself - the head of Hitler's notorious SS and the architect of the Holocaust.

Whilst The Spear isn't Herbert's best book (and it certainly isn't as good as The Rats) it's still a well-written story told by a master storyteller, with Herbert obviously having done a lot of research into the subject of Himmler and his interest in the occult. And like it or not, the occult side of Nazi Germany is an interesting subject if only for the fact that its place in World War II is always downplayed to the point of hardly ever being mentioned at all.

The unsettling thing about The Spear, however, is that there are elements of it that still echo to this day, particularly around the subject of Fascism and how those who knowingly or even unwitingly advocate for its rule along with the methods utilised to bring it about. 

As the saying goes: Fascism doesn't start with concentration camps - that's where it ends.

John Serpico